there was no Scripture or written word for about two thousand yeares from Adam to Moyses whom all acknowledge to haue been the first Author of Canonicall Scripture And againe for about two thousand yeares more from Moyses to Christ our Lord holy Scripture was only among the people of Israel and yet there were Gentiles endued in those daies with divine Faith as appeareth in Iob and his friends Wherefore during so many ages the Church alone was the Decider of Controversies and Instructer of the faithfull Neither did the word written by Moyses depriue the Church of her former Infallibility or other qualities requisite for a Judge yea D. Potter acknowledgeth that besides the Law there was a living Iudge in the Iewish Church endued with an absolutely infallible direction in cases of moment as all points belonging to divine Faith are Now the Church of Christ our Lord was before the Scriptures of the New Testament which were not written instantly nor all at one time but successiuely upon severall occasions and some after the decease of most of the Apostles and after they were written they were not presently knowne to all Churches and of some there was doubt in the Church for some Ages after our Saviour Shall we then say that according as the Church by little and little received holy Scripture she was by the like degrees devested of her possessed Infallibility and power to decide CoÌ„troversies in Religion That some time Churches had one Iudge of Controversies and others another That with moneths or yeares as new Canonicall Scripture grew to be published the Church altered her whole Rule of faith or Iudge of Controversies After the Apostles time and after the writing of Scriptures Heresies would be sure to rise requiring in Gods Church for their discovery and condemnation Infallibilitie either to write new Canonicall Scripture as was done in the Apostles time by occasion of emergent heresies or infallibilitie to interpret Scriptures already written or without Scripture by divine unwritten Traditions and assistants of the holy Ghost to determine all Controversies as Tertullian saith The soule is before the letter and speech before Bookes and sense before stile Certainly such addition of Scripture with derogation or subtraction from the former power and infallibilitie of the Church would haue brought to the world division in matters of faith and the Church had rather lost then gained by holy Scripture which ought to be far from our tongues and thoughts it being manifest that for decision of Controversies infallibilitie setled in a living Iudge is incomparably more usefull and fit then if it were conceived as inherent in some inanimate writing Is there such repugnance betwixt Infallibility in the Church and Existence of Scripture that the production of the one must be the destruction of the other Must the Church wax dry by giving to her Children the milke of sacred Writ No No. Her Infallibility was and is derived from an inexhausted fountaine If Protestants will haue the Scripture alone for their Iudge let them first produce some Scripture affirming that by the entring thereof Infallibilitie went out of the Church D. Potter may remember what himselfe teacheth That the Church is still endued with infallibility in points fundamentall and consequently that infallibility in the Church doth well agree with the truth the sanctity yea with the sufficiency of Scripture for all matters necessary to Salvation I would therefore gladly know out of what Text he imagineth that the Church by the comming of Scripture was deprived of infallibility in some points and not in others He affirmeth that the Iewish Synagogue retained infallibility in her selfe notwithstanding the writing of the Old Testament and will he so unworthily and unjustly depriue the Church of Christ of infallibilitie by reason of the New Testament Eâ—pecially if we consider that in the Old Testament Lawes Ceremonies Rites Punishments Iudgements Sacraments Sacrifices c. were more particularly and minutely delivered to the Iewes then in the New Testament is done our Saviour leaving the determination or declaration of particulars to his Spouse the Church which therefore stands in need of infallibility more then the Iewish Synagogue D. Potter 1 against this argument drawne from the power and infallibilitie of the Synagogue objects that we might as well inferre that Christians must haue one soveraigne Prince over all because the Iewes had one chiefe Iudge But the disparitie is very cleare The Synagogue was a type and figure of the Church of Christ 〈◊〉 so their civill government of Christian Common wealths or kingdomes The Church succeeded to the Synagogue but not Christian Princes to Iewish Magistrates And the Church is compared to a house or family to an Army to a body to a kingdome c. all which require one Master onâ— Generall one head one Magistrate one spiritual King as our blessed Saviour with fiet Vnm ovile joyned Vnus Pastor One sheepfold one Pastour But all distinct kingdomes or Common-wealths are not one Army Family c. And finally it is necessary to salvation that all haue recourse to one Church but for temporall weale there is no need that all submit or depend upon one temporall Prince kingdome or Common-wealth and therefore our Saviour hath left to his whole Church as being One one Law one Scripture the same Sacraments c. Whereas kingdomes haue their severall Lawes different governments diversity of Powers Magistracy c. And so this objection returneth upon D. Potter For as in the One Community of the Iewes there was one Power and Iudge to end debates and resolue difficulties so in the Church of Christ which is One there must be some one Authority to decide all Controversies in Religion 24 This discourse is excellently proved by ancient S. Irenaeus in these words What if the Apostles had not left Scriptures ought we not to haue followed the order of Tradition which they delivered to those to whom they committed the Churches to which order many Nations yeeld ossent who belieue in Christ having salvation written in their hearts by the spirit of God without letters or Iuke and diligently keeping ancient Tradition It is easie to receiue the truth from Gods Church seeing the Apostles haue most fully deposited in her as in a rich storehouse all things belonging to truth For what if there should arise any contention of some small question ought wee not to haue recourse to the most ancient Churches and from them to receiue what is certaine and cleare concerning the present question 25 Besides all this the doctrine of Protestants is destructiue of it selfe For either they have certaine and infallible meanes not to erre in interpreting Scripture or they haue not If not then the Scripture to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible faith nor a meet Iudge of Controversies If they hâ—ue certaine infallible meanes and so cannot erre in their interpretations of Scriptures then they are able with infallibility to
retractation of it for both cannot possibly stand together For if you will stand to what you have granted That Scripture is as perfect a rule of Faith as a writing can be you must then grant it both so Compleat that it needs no addition and so evident that it needs no interpretation For both these properties are requisite to a perfect rule and a writing is capable of both these properties 6 That both these Properties are requisite to a perfect rule it is apparent Because that is not perfect in any kind which wants some parts belonging to its integrity As he is not a perfect man that wants any part appertaining to the Integrity of a Man and therefore that which wants any accession to make it a perfect rule of it selfe is not a perfect Rule And then the end of a râ—le is to regulate and direct Now every instrument is more or lesse perfect in its kinde as it is more or lesse fit to attain the end for which it is ordained But nothing obscure or unevident while it is so is fit to regulate and direct them to whom it is so Therefore it is requisite also to a rule so farre as it is a Rule to be evident otherwise indeed it is no rule because it cannot serve for direction I conclude therefore that both these properties are required to a perfect Rule both to be so compleat as to need no Addition and to be so evident as to need no Interpretation 7 Now that a writing is capable of both these perfections it is so plain that I am even ashamed to prove it For he that denies it must say That something may be spoken which cannot be written For if such a compleat and evident rule of faith may be delivered by word of mouth as you pretend it may and is and whatsoever is delivered by word of mouth may also be written then such a compleat and evident rule of faith may also be written If you will have more light added to the Sunne answer me then to these Questions Whether your Church can set down in writing all these which she pretends to be divine unwritten Traditions and adde them to the verities already written And whether she can set us down such interpretations of all obscurities in the Faith as shall need no farther interpretations If shee cannot then she hath not that power which you pretend she hath of being an Infallible teacher of all divine verities and an infallible interpreter of obscurities in the faith for she cannot teach us all divine verities if she cannot write them down neither is that an interpretation which needs again to be interpreted If she can Let her doe it and then we shall have a writing not only capable of but actually endowed with both these perfections of being both so compleat as to need no Addition and so evident as to need no Interpretation Lastly whatsoever your Church can doe or not doe no man can without Blasphemy deny that Christ Iesus if he had pleas'd could have writ us a rule of Faith so plaine and perfect as that it should have wanted neither any part to make up its integrity nor any cleerenesse to make it sufficiently intelligible And if Christ could have done this then the thing might have been done a writing there might have been indowed with both these properties Thus therefore I conclude a writing may be so perfect a Rule as to need neither Addition nor Interpretation But the Scripture you acknowledge a perfect Rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule therefore it needs neither Addition nor Interpretation 8 You will say that though a writing be never so perfect a Rule of Faith yet it must be beholding to Tradition to give it this Testimony that it is a Rule of Faith and the Word of God I answere First there is no absolute necessity of this For God might if he thought good give it the attestation of perpetuall miracles Secondly that it is one thing to be a perfect Rule of Faith another to be proved so unto us And thus though a writing could not be proved to us to be a perfect rule of Faith by its own saying so for nothing is prov'd true by being said or written in a book but only by Tradition which is a thing credible of it selfe yet it may be so in it selfe and containe all the materiall objects all the particular articles of our Faith without any dependance upon Tradition even this also not excepted that this writing doth containe the rule of Faith Now when Protestants affirme against Papists that Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith their meaning is not that by Scripture all things absolutely may be proved which are to be believed For it can never be prov'd by Scripture to a gainsayer that there is a God or that the book called Scripture is the word of God For he that will deny these Assertions when they are spoken will believe them never a whit the more because you can shew them written But their meaning is that the Scripture to them which presuppose it Divine and a Rule of Faith as Papists and Protestants doe containes all the materiall objects of Faith is a compleat and totall and not only an imperfect and a partiall Rule 9 But every Book and Chapter and Text of Scripture is infallible and wants no due perfection and yet excludes not the Addition of other bookes of Scripture Therefore the perfection of the whole Scripture excludes not the Addition of unwritten Tradition I answere Every Text of Scripture though it have the perfection belonging to a Text of Scripture yet it hath not the perfection requisite to a perfect Rule of Faith and that only is the perfection which is the subject of our discourse So that this is to abuse your Reader with the ambiguity of the word Perfect In effect as if you should say A text of Scripture may be a perfect Text though there be others beside it therefore the whole Scripture may be a perfect Rule of Faith though there be other parts of this Rule besides the Scripture and though the Scripture be but a part of it 10 The next Argument to the same purpose is for Sophistry cosen german to the former When the first bookes of Scripture were written they did not exclude unwritten Tradition Therefore now also that all the bookes of Scripture are written Traditions are not excluded The sense of which argument if it have any must be this When only a part of the Scripture was written then a part of the divine doctrine was unwritten Therefore now when all the Scripture is written yet some part of the divine doctrine is yet unwritten If you say your conclusion is not that it is so but without disparagement to Scripture may be so without disparagement to the truth of Scripture I grant it but without disparagement to the Scriptures being a perfect Rule I deny it And now the Question is not
of it because we say the whole Church much more particular Churches and privat men may erre in points not Fundamentall A pretty sophisme depending upon this Principle that whosoever possibly may erre he cannot be certain that he doth not erre And upon this ground what shall hinder me from concluding that seeing you also hold that neither particular Churches nor private men are Infallible even in Fundamentalls that even the Fundamentalls of Christianity remain to you uncertain A Iudge may possibly erre in judgement can he therefore never have assurance that he hath judged right A travailer may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtfull whether I am in the right way from my Hall to my Chamber Or can our London carrier have no certainty in the middle of the day when he is sober and in his wits that he is in the way to London These you see are right worthy consequences and yet they are as like your own as an egge to an egge or milke to milke 161 And for the selfe same reason you say we are not certain that the Church is not Iudge of Controversies But now this selfe same appears to be no reason and therefore for all this we may be certain enough that the Church is no Iudge of Controversies The ground of this sophisme is very like the former viz. that we can be certain of the falshood of no propositions but these only which are damnable errors But I pray good Sir give me your opinion of these The Snow is black the Fire is cold that M. knot is Archbishop of Toledo that the whole is not greater then a part of the whole that twise two make not foure In your opinion good Sir are these damnable Haeresies or because they are not so have we no certainty of the falshood of them I beseech you Sir to consider seriously with what strange captions you have gone about to delude your King and your Country and if you be convinced they are so give glory to God and let the world know it by your deserting that Religion which stands upon such deceitfull foundations 162 Besides you say among publique conclusions defended in Oxford the yeare 1633. to the Questions Whether the Church have authority to determine controversies of Faith And to interpret holy Scripture The answere to both is affirmative But what now if I should tell you that in the year 1632. among publique Conclusions defended in Doway one was That God predeterminates men to all their Actions good bad and indifferent Will you think your selfe obliged to be of this opinion If you will say so If not doe as you would be done by Again me thinkes so subtil a man as you are should easily apprehend a wide difference between Authority to doe a thing and Infallibility in doing it againe between a conditionall infallibility an absolute The former the Doctor together with the Article of the Church of England attributeth to the Church nay to particular Churches and I subscribe to his opinion that is an Authority of determining controversies of faith according to plain and evident Scripture and Vniversall Tradition and Infallibility while they proceed according to this Rule As if there should arise an Heretique that should call in Question Christs Passion and Resurrection the Church had Authority to decide this Controversy and infallible direction how to doe it and to excommunicate this man if he should persist in errour I hope you will not deny but that the Iudges have Authority to determine criminall and Civill Controversies and yet I hope you will not say that they are absolutely Infallible in their determinations Infallible while they proceed according to Law and if they doe so but not infallibly certain that they shall ever doe so But that the Church should be infallibly assisted by Gods spirit to decide rightly all emergent Controversies even such as might be held diversly of divers men Salva compage fidei and that we might be absolutely certain that the Church should never faile to decree the truth whether she used meanes or no whether she proceed according to her Rule or not or lastly that we might be absolutely certain that she would never fail to proceed according to her Rule this the defender of these conclusions said not and therefore said no more to your purpose then you have all this while that is just nothing 163 Ad § 27. To the place of S. Austin alleaged in this paragraph I Answer First that in many things you will not bee tried by S. Augustines judgement nor submit to his authority not concerning Appeals to Rome not concerning Transubstantiation not touching the use and worshiping of Images not concerning the State of Saints soules before the day of judgement not touching the Virgin Maries freedome from actuall and originall sinne not touching the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants not touching the damning Infants to hell that dye without Baptisme not touching the knowledge of Saints departed not touching Purgatory not touching the fallibility of Councells even generall Councells not touching perfection and perspicuity of Scripture in matters necessary to Salvation not touching Auricular Confession not touching the halfe Communion not touching Prayers in an unknown tongue In these things I say you will not stand to S. Austines judgement and therefore can with no reason or equity require us to doe so in this matter 2. To S. Augustine in heat of disputation against the Donatists and ransacking all places for arguments against them we oppose S. Austine out of this heat delivering the doctrine of Christianity calmely and mode rately where he saies In iis quae apertè posita sunt in sacris Scripturis omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent â—idem mores'que vivendi 3 Wee say he speaks not of the Roman but the Catholique Church of farre greater extent and therefore of farre greater credit and authority then the Roman Church 4 He speaks of a point not expressed but yet not contradicted by Scripture whereas the errors we charge you with are contradicted by Scripture 5 He saies not that Christ has recommended the Church to us for an Infallible definer of all emergent controversies but for a credible witnesse of Ancient Tradition Whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practise of the Church understand of all places and ages though he be thought to resist our Saviour what is that to us who cast off no practises of the Church but such as are evidently post-nate to the time of the Apostles and plainly contrary to the practise of former and purer times Lastly it is evident and even to impudence it selfe undeniable that upon this ground of beleiving all things taught by the present Church as taught by Christ Error was held for example the necessity of the Eucharist for infants and that in S. Austines time and that by S. Austine himselfe and therefore without controversy this is no certain ground for truth which may support falshood as well as
may admit the efficiency of Sacraments There is no mention of Ecclesiasticall Apostolicall Divine Traditions one way or other or of holy Scriptures in generall and much lesse of every book in particular nor of the Name Nature Number Effects Matter Forme Minister Intention Necessity of Sacraments and yet the due Administration of Sacraments is with Protestants an essentiall Note of the Church There is nothing for Baptisme of Children nor against Rebaptization There is no mention in favour or against the Sacrifice of the Masse of Power in the Church to institute Rites Holy daies c. and to inflict Excommunication or other Censures of Priesthood Bishops and the whole Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy which are very fundamentall points of S. Peters Primacy which to Calvin seemeth a fundamentall errour nor of the possibility or impossibility to keep Gods commandements of the procession of the holy Ghost from the Father and the Sonne of Purgatory or Prayer for the dead in any sense And yet D. Potter doth not deny but that Aerius was esteemed an Heretique for denying all sort of Commemoration for the dead Nothing of the Churches Visibility or Invisibility Fallibility or Infallibility nor of other points controverted betwixt Protestants themseves and between Protestants and Catholiques which to D. Potter seem so hainous corruptions that they cannot without damnation joyne with us in profession thereof There is no mention of the Cessation of the Old Law which yet is a very main point of faith And many other might be also added 15. But what need we labour to specify particulars There are as many important points of faith not expressed in the Creed as since the worlds begining now and for all future times there have been are and may be innumerable grosse damnable Heresies whose contrary truths are not contained in the Creed For every fundamentall Error must have a contrary fundamentall truth because of two contradictory propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true As for example if it be a damnable error to deny the Bâ— Trinity or the Godhead of our Saviour the belief of them must be a truth necessary to Salvation or rather if we will speak properly the Error is damnable because the opposite Truth is necessary as death is frightfull because life is sweet and according to Philosophy the Privation is measured by the Forme to which it is repugnant If therefore the Creed contain in particular all fundamentall points of faith it must explicitely or by cleer consequence comprehend all truths opposite to innumerable Heresies of all ages past present and to come which no man in his wits will affirme it to doe 16 And here I cannot omit to signify how you applaud the saying of D. Vsher. That in those propositions which without all controversy are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy Obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting salvation neither have we cause to doubt but that as many as walk according to this Rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable heresies thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and upon the Israel of God Now D Potter knowes that the Mystery of the B. Trinity is not universally received in the whole Christian world as appeares in very many Heretiques in Polony Hungary and Transilvania and therefore according to this Rule of D. Vsher approved by D. Potter the deniall of the B. Trinity shall not exclude Salvation 17 Let me note by the way that you might easily have espied a foul contradiction in the said words of D. Vsher by you recited and so much applauded For he supposeth that a man agrees with other Churches in belief which joyned with holy Obedience may bring him to everlasting salvation and yet that he may superinduce damnable heresies For how can he superinduce damnable heresies who is supposed to believe all Truths necessary to salvation Can there be any damnable heresy unlesse it contradict some necessary truth which cannot happen in one who is supposed to believe all necessary Truths Besides if one believing all fundamentall Articles in the Creed may superinduce damnable heresies it followeth that the fundamentall truths contrary to those damnable heresies are not contained in the Creed 18 According to this Modell of D. Potters foundation consisting in the agreement of scarceone point of faith what a strange Church would he make of men concurring in some one of few Articles of belief who yet for the rest should be holding conceits plainly contradictory so patching up a Religion of men who agree only in the Article that Christ is our Saviour but for the rest are like to the parts of a Chimaera having the head of a man the neck of a horse the shoulders of an Oxe the foot of a Lion c. I wrong them not herein For in good Philosophy there is greater repugnancy between assent and dissent affirmation and negation est est non non especially when all these contradictories pretend to rely upon one and the selfe same Motive the infallible Truth of Almighty God then between the integrall parts as head neck c. of a man horse lion c. And thus Protestants are farre more bold to disagree even in matters of faith then Catholique Divines in questions meerely Philosophicall or not determined by the Church And whâ—e thus they stand only upon fundamentall Articles they doe by their own confession destroy the Church which is the house of God For the foundation alone of a house is not a house nor can they in such an imaginary Church any more expect Salvation then the foundation alone of a house is fit to afford a man habitation 19 Moreover it is most evident that Protestants by this Chaos rather then Church doe giue unavoidable occasion of desperation to poore soules Let some one who is desirous to save his soule repaire to D. Potter who maintaines these grounds to know upon whom he may rely in a matter of so great consequence I suppose the Doctors answer will be Vpon the truely Catholique Church She cannot erre damnably What understand you by the Catholique Church Cannot generall Councells which are the Church representatiue erre Yes they may weakly or wilfully misaply or misunderstand or neglect Scripture and so erre damnably To whom then shall I goe for my particular instruction I cannot confer with the united body of the whole Church about my particular difficulties as your selfe affirmes that the Catholique Church cannot be told of private iniuries Must I then consult with every particular person of the Catholique Church So it seemes by what you write in these words The whole militant Church that is all the members of it cannot possibly erre either in the whole faith or any necessary Article of it You say M. Doctour I cannot for my
you plainly if it be a fault I know not whose it should be but theirs For sure it can be no fault in me to follow such Guides whether â—oever they lead me Now I say they haue led me into this perswasion because they haue given me great reason to belieue it and none to the contrary The reason they haue given me to belieue it is because it is apparent and confest they did propose to themselues in composing it some good end or ends As that Christians might haue a forme by which for matter of faith they might professe themselues Catholiques So Putean out of Th. Aquinas That the faithfull might know what the Christian people is to believe explicitely So Vincent Filiucius That being separated into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing And that that might serve as a mark to distinguish true Christians from Infidels So Cardinall Richlieu Now for all these and for any other good intent I say it will be plainly uneffectuall unlesse it contain at least all points of simple beliefe which are in ordinary course necessary to be explicitely known by all men So that if it be fault in me to belieue this it must be my fault to belieue the Apostles wise and good men which I cannot doe if I belieue not this And therefore what Richardus de sancto Victore sayes of God himselfe I make no scruple at all to apply to the Apostles and to say Si error est quod credo à vobis deceptus sum If it be an errour which I belieue it is you and my reverend esteem of you and your actions that hath led me into it For as for your suspition That we are led into this perswasion out of a hope that we may the better maintain by it some opinions of our own It is plainly uncharitable I know no opinion I haue which I would not as willingly forsake as keep if I could see sufficient reason to enduce me to believe that it is the will of God I should forsake it Neither doe I know any opinion I hold against the Church of Rome but I haue more evident grounds then this whereupon to build it For let but these Truths bee granted That the authority of the Scripture is independent on your Church dependent only in respect of us upon universall Tradition That Scripture is the only Rule of faith That all things necessary to salvation are plainly delivered in Scripture Let I say these most certain and divine Truths be laid for foundations and let our superstructions bee consequent and coherent to them and I am confident Peace would be restored and Truth maintained against you though the Apostles Creed were not in the world CHAP. V. That Luther Calvin their Associates all who began or continue the separation from the externall Communion of the Roman Church are guilty of the proper and formall sinne of Schisme THE Searcher of all Hearts is witnesse with how unwilling minds we Catholiques are drawen to fasten the denomination of Schismatiques or Heretiques on them for whose soules if they imployed their best blood they judge that it could not be better spent If we rejoyce that they are contistated at such titles our joy riseth not from their trouble or griefe but as that of the Apostles did from the fountaine of Charity because they are contâ—â—stated to repentance that so after unpartiall examination they finding themselves to be what we say may by Gods holy grace begin to dislike what themselves are For our part we must remember that our obligation is to keep within the meane betwixt uncharitable bitternesse and pernicious flattery not yeelding to worldly respects nor offending Christian Modesty but uttering the substance of truth in so Charitable manner that not so much we as Truth and Charity may seeme to speak according to the wholesome advise of S. Gregory Nazianzen in these divine words We doe not affect peace with preiudice of the true doctrine that so we may get a name of being gentle and mild and yet we seek to conserue peace fighting in a lawfull manner and containing our selves within our compasse and the rule of Spirit And of these things my iudgment is and for my part I prescribe the same law to all that deale with soules and treat of true doctrine that neither they exasperate meâ—s minds by harshnesse nor make them haughty or insolent by submission but that in the cause of faith they behave themselves prudently and advisedly and doe not in either of these things exceed the meane With whom aÌ„greeth S. Leo saying It behoveth us in such causes to be most carefull that without noise of contentions both Charity be conserved and Truth maintained 2. For better Methode we will handle these points in order First we will set downe the nature and essence or as I may call it the Quality of Schisme In the second place the greatnesse and grievousnesse or so to tearme it the Quantity thereof For the Nature or Quality will tell us who may without injury be iudged Schismatiques and by the greatnesse or quantity such as finde themselves guilty thereof will remaine acquainted with the true state of their soule and and whether they may conceive any hope of salvation or no. And because Schisme will be found to be a division from the Church which could not happen unlesse there were alwaies a visible Church we will Thirdly prove or rather take it as a point to be granted by all Christians that in all ages there hath beene such a Visible Congregation of Faithfull People Fourthly we will demonstrate that Luther Calvin and the rest did separate themselves from the Communion of that alwaies visible Church of Christ and therefore were guilty of Schisme And fifthly we will make it evident that the visible true Church of Christ out of which Luther and his followers departed was no other but the Roman Church and consequently that both they and all others who persist in the same division are Schismatiques by reason of their separation from the Church of Rome 3 For the first point touching the Nature or Quality of Schisme As the naturall perfection of man consists in his being the Image of God his Creator by the powers of his soule so his supernaturall perfection is placed in fimilitude with God as his last End and Felicity and by having the said spirituall faculties his Vnderstanding and Will linked to him His Vnderstanding is united to God by Faith his Will by Charity The former relies upon his infallible Truth The latter carrieth us to his infinite Goodnesse Faith hath a deadly opposite Heresie Contrary to the Vnion or Vnity of Charity is Separation and Division Charity is twofold As it respects God his Opposite Vice is Hatred against God as it uniteth us to our Neighbour his contrary is Seperation or division of affections and will from our Neighbour Our Neighbour may be considered either as one private person
of a more powerfull principality there is a necessity that all the Churches that is all the faithfull round about should resort in which the Apostolique Tradition hath been alwaies observed by those who were round about If any man say I have been too bold a Critick in substituting observata instead of conseruata I desire him to know that the conjecture is not mine and therefore as I expect no praise for it so I hope I shall be farre from censure But I would intreat him to consider whether it be not likely that the same greek word signifying observo and conservo the Translater of Irenaeus who could hardly speak Latine might not easily mistake and translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conservata est instead of observata est Or whether it be not likely that those men which ancienly wrote Books and understood them nor might not easily commit such an error Or whether the sense of the place can be salved any other way if it can in Gods name let it if not I hope he is not to be condemned who with such a little alteration hath made that sense which he found non sense 30 But whether you will have it Observata or Conservata the new sumpsimus or the old mumpsimus possibly it may be something to Irenaus but to us or our cause it is no way materiall For if the rest be rightly translated neither will Conservata afford you any argument against us nor Observata helpe us to any evasion For though at the first hearing the glorious attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome the confounding Heretiques with her tradition and saying it is necessary for all Churches to resort to her may sound like Arguments for you yet hee that is attentive I hope will easily discover that it might be good and rationall in Irenaeus having to doe with Heretiques who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholiques declining a tryall by Scripture as not contayning the Truth of Christ perfectly and not fit to decide Controversies without recourse to Tradition I say he will easily perceive that it might be rationall in Iraeneus to urge them with any Tradition of more credit then their own especially a Tradition consonant to Scripture and even contain'd in it and yet that it may be irrationall in you to urge us who doe not decline Scripture but appeale to it as a perfect rule of faith with a Tradition which we pretend is many wayes repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition far more generall then it self which gives Testimony to Scripture and lastly repugnant to it self as giving attestation both to Scripture and to Doctrines plainly contrary to Scripture Secondly that the Authority of the Roman Church was then a far greater Argument of the Truth of her Tradition when it was Vnited with all other Apostolique Churches then now when it is divided from them according to that of Tertullian Had the Churches erred they would have varied but that which is the same in all cannot be errour but Tradition and therefore though Irenaeus his Argument may be very probable yet yours may be worth nothing Thirdly that foureteen hundred yeares may have made a great deale of alteration in the Roman Church as Rivers though neere the fountain they may retaine their native and unmixt syncerity yet in long progresse cannot but take in much mixture that came not from the fountain And therefore the Roman Tradition though then pure may now be corrupt and impure and so this Argument being one of those things which are the worse for wearing might in Irenaeus his time be strong and vigorous and after declining and decaying may long since have fallen to nothing Especially considering that Irenaeus plaies the Historian only and not the Prophet and saies only that the Apostolique Tradition had been alwayes there as in other Apostolique Churches conserved or observed choose you whether but that it should be alwayes so he saies not neither had he any warrant He knew well enough that there was foretold a great falling away of the Churches of Christ to Anti-christ that the Roman Church in particular was forewarned that she also nay the whole Church of the Gentiles might fall if they look not to their standing and therefore to secure her that she should stand for ever he had no reason nor Authority Fourthly that it appeares manifestly out of this book of Irenaeus quoted by you that the doctrine of the Chiliasts was in his judgment Apostolique Tradition as also it was esteemed for ought appeares to the contrary by all the Doctors and Saints and Martyrs of or about his time for all that speak of it or whose judgments in the point are any way recorded are for it and Iustine Martyr professeth that all good and Orthodoxe Christians of his time beleeved it and those that did not he reckons amongst Heretiques Now I demand was this Tradition one of those that was conserved and observed in the Church of Rome or was it not If not had Irenaeus known so much he must have retracted this commendation of that Church If it was then the Tradition of the present Church of Rome contradicts the Ancient and accounts it Hereticall and then sure it can be no certain note of Heresie to depart from them who have departed from themselves and prove themselves subject unto Errour by holding contradictions Fiftly and lastly that out of the Story of the Church it is as manifest as the light at noone that though Irenaeus did esteem the Roman Tradition a great Argument of the doctrine which he there delivers and defends against the Heretiques of his time viz that there was one God yet he was very far from thinking that Church was and ever should be a safe keeper and an infallible witnesse of Tradition in generall Inasmuch as in his own life his action proclaim'd the contrary For when Victor Bishop of Rome obtruded the Roman Tradition touching the time of Easter upon the Asian Bishops under the pain of Excommunication and damnation Irenaeus and all the other Western Bishops though agreeing with him in his observation yet sharply reprehended him for excommunicating the Asian Bishops for their disagreeing plainly shewing that they esteemed that not a necessary doctrine and a sufficient ground of excommunication which the Bishop of Rome and his adherents did so account of For otherwise how could they have reprehended him for excommunicating them had they conceived the cause of his excommunication just and sufficient And besides evidently declaring that they esteemed not separation from the Roman Church a certain mark of Heresie seeing they esteemed not them Heretiques though separated and cut off from the Roman Church Cardinall Perron to avoyd the stroak of this conuincing argument raiseth a cloud of eloquent words which because you borrow them of him in your Second part I will here insert and with short censures dispell and let his Idolaters see that Truth is
neere his time denied the Divinity of the Sonne and the Holy Ghost Is it not the same great Cardinall in his Book of the Eucharist against M. du Plessis l. 2. c. 7 Who is it that pretends that Irenaeus hath said those things which he that should now hold would be esteem'd an Arrian Is it not the same Perron in his Reply to K. Iames in the fift Chap. of his fourth observation And does he not in the same place peach Tertullian also in a manner give him away to the Arrians And pronounce generally of the Fathers before the Councell of Nice That the Arrians would gladly be tryed by them And are not your fellow Iesuits also even the prime men of your Order prevaricators in this point as well as others Doth not your friend M. Fisher or M. Flued in his book of the Nine Questions proposed to him by K. Iames speak dangerously to the same purpose in his discourse of the Resolution of Faith towards the end Giving us to understand That the new Reformed Arrians bring very many testimonies of the ancient Fathers to prove that in this Point they did contradict themselves and were contrary one to another which places whosoever shall read will cleerely see that to common people they are unanswerable yea that common people are not capable of the answers that learned men yeeld unto such obscure passages And hath not your great Antiquary Petavius in his Notes upon Epiphanius in Haer. 69. been very liberall to the Adversaries of the Doctrine of the Trinity and in a manner given them for Patrons and Advocates first Iustin Martyr and then almost all the Fathers before the Councell of Nice whose speeches he saies touching this point cum Orthodoxae fidei regula minime consentiunt Hereunto I might adde that the Dominicans and Iesuits between them in another matter of great importance viz. Gods Prescience of future contingents give the Socinians the premises out of which their conclusion doth unavoidably follow For the Dominiâ—ans maintain on the one Side that God can foresee nothing but what he Decrees The Iesuits on the other Side that he doth not Decree all things And from hence the Socinians conclude as it is obvious for them to doe that he doth not foresee all things Lastly I might adjoyn this that you agree with one consent and settle for a rule unquestionable that no part of Religion can be repugnant to reason whereunto you in particular subscribe unawares in saying From truth no man can by good consequence inferre Falshood which is to say in effect that Reason can never lead any man to error And after you have done so you proclaime to all the world as you in this Pamphlet doe very frequently that if men follow their Reason and discourse they will if they understand themselves be led to Socinianisme And thus you see with what probable matter I might furnish out and justify my accusation if I should charge you with leading men to Socinianisme Yet I doe not conceive that I have ground enough for this odious imputation And much lesse should you have charg'd Protestants with it whom you confesse to abhorre and detest it and who fight against it not with the broken reeds and out of the paper fortresses of an imaginary Infallibility which were only to make sport for their Adversaries but with the sword of the Spirit the Word of God of which we may say most truly what David said of Goliah's sword offered him by Abilech non est sicut iste There is none comparable to it 19 Thus Protestants in generall I hope are sufficiently vindicated from your calumny I proceed now to doe the same service for the Divines of England whom you question first in point of learning and sufficiency and then in point of conscience and honesty as prevaricating in the Religion which they professe and inclining to Popery Their Learning you say consists only in some superficiall talent of preaching languages and elocution and not in any deep knowledge of Philosophy especially of Metaphysicks and much lesse of that most solid profitable subtile O reÌ„ ridiculaÌ„ Cato jocosaÌ„ succinct method of School-Divinity Wherein you have discovered in your self the true Genius and spirit of detraction For taking advantage from that wherein envy it self cannot deny but they are very eminent and which requires great sufficiency of substantiall learning you disparage them as insufficient in all things else As if forsooth because they dispute not eternally VtruÌ„ Chimaera bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas Intentiones Whether a Million of Angels may not sit upon a needles point Becuase they fill not their brains with notions that signify nothing to the utter extermination of all reason and common sence and spend not an Age in weaving and un-weaving subtile cobwebs fitter to catch flyes then Souls therefore they have no deepe knowledge in the Acroamaticall part of learning But I have too much honour'd the poornesse of this detraction to take notice of it 20 The other Part of your accusation strikes deeper and is more coÌ„siderable And that tels us that Protestantisme waxeth weary of it self that the Professors of it they especially of greatest worth learning and authority love temper and moderation and are at this time more unresolved where to fasten then at the infancy of their Church That their Churches begin to look with a new face Their wâ—lls to speak a new language Their Doctrine to be altered in many things for which their Progenitors forsook the then Visible Church of Christ For example the Pope not Antichrist Prayer for the dead Limbus Patrum Pictures That the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to interpret Scripture about Freewill Predestination Vniversall grace That all our works are not sinnes Merit of good works Inherent Iustice Faith alone doth not justify Charity to be preferr'd before knowledge Traditions Commandements possible to be kept That their thirty nine Articles are patient nay ambitious of some sence wherein they may seem Catholique That to alleage the necessity of wife and children in these dayes is but a weak plea for a married minister to compasse a Benefice That Calvinisme is at length accounted Heresy and little lesse then treason That men in talk and writing use willingly the once fearfull names of Priests and Altars That they are now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers which if they doe with syncerity it is easy to tell what doome will passe against Protestants seeing by the confession of Protestants the Fathers are on the Papists side which the Answerer to some so clearly demonstrated that they remain'd convinc'd In fine as the Samaritans saw in the Disciples countenances that they meant to goe to Hierusalem so you pretend it is even legible in the fore-heads of these men that they are even going nay making hast to Rome Which scurrilous libell void of all
errours which were not damnable I answere All that we forfake in you is only the beliefe and practice and profession of your Errors Hereupon you cast us out of your Communion And then with a strange and contradictious and ridiculous hypocrisy complain that we forsake it As if a man should thrust his friend out of doores and then be offended at his departure But for us not to forsake the beliefe of your Errors having discovered them to be Errors was impossible and therefore to doe so could not be damnable believing them to be Errors Not to forsake the practice and profession of them had been damnable hypocrisie supposing that which you vainly runne away with and take for graunted those errors in themselves were not damnable Now to doe so and as matters now stand not to forsake your Communion is apparently contradictious seeing the condition of your Communion is that we must professe to believe all your doctrines not only not to be damnable errors which will not content you but also to be certain and necessary and revealed truths So that to demand why we forsake your Communion upon pretence of Errors which were not damnable is in effect to demand why we forsooke it upon our forsaking it For to pretend that there are Errors in your Church though not damnable is ipso facto to forsake your Communion and to doe that which both in your account and as you think in Gods account puts him as does so out of your Communion So that either you must free your Church from requiring the belief of any errour whatsoever damnable and not damnable or whether you will or no you must free us from Schisme For schisme there cannot be in leaving your communion unlesse we were obliged to continue in it Man cannot be obliged by Man but to what either formally or virtually he is obliged by God for all just power is from God God the eternall truth neither can nor will obliege us to believe any the least and the most innocent falshood to be a divine truth that is to erre nor to professe a known errour which is to lye So that if you require the belief of any errour among the conditions of your Communion our obligation to communicate with you ceaseth and so the imputation of schisme to us vanisheth into nothing but lies heavy upon you for making our seperation from you just and necessary by requiring unnecessary and unlawfull conditions of your Communion Hereafter therefore I intreat you let not your demand be how could we forsake your Communion without Schisme seeing you err'd not damnably But how we could doe so without Schisme seeing you err'd not at all which if either you doe prove or we cannot disprove it we will I at least will for my part returne to your Communion or subscribe my selfe Schismatique In the mean time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 23 Yet notwitstanding all your Errors we doe not renounce your Communion totally and absolutely but only leave Communicating with you in the practise and profession of your Errors The tryall whereof will be to propose some forme of worshipping God taken wholly out of Scripture and herein if we refuse to joyn with you then and not till then may you justly say we have utterly and absolutely abandoned your Communion 24 To the sixteenth Your sixt demand I have already satisfied in my answeres to the Second and the Fourth and in my reply Ad § 2. toward the end And though you say your repeating must be excused yet I dare not be so confident and therefore forbear it 25 To the seaventeenth To the seaventh Whether errour against any one truth sufficiently propounded as testified by God destroy not the Nature and Vnity of Faith or at least is not a grievous offence excluding salvation I answere if you suppose as you seem to doe the proposition so sufficient that the party to whom it is made is convinc'd that it is from God so that the denyall of it involves also with it the denyall of Gods veracity any such errour destroyes both faith and salvation But if the Proposall be only so sufficient not that the party to whom it is made is convinc'd but only that he should and but for his own fault would have been convinc'd of the divine verity of the doctrine proposed The crime then is not so great for the beliefe of Gods veracity may well consist with such an Errour Yet a fault I confesse it is and without Repentance damnable if all circumstances considered the proposall be sufficient But then I must tell you that the proposall of the present Roman Church is only pretended to be sufficient for this purpose but is not so especially all the Rayes of the Divinity which they pretend to shine so conspicuously in her proposalls being so darkned and even extinguished with a cloud of contradiction from Scripture Reason and the Ancient Church 26 To the Eighteenth To the eight How of disagreeing Protestants both parts may hope for salvation seeing some of them must needs erre against some Truth testified by God I answere 1. The most disagreeing Protestants that are yet thus farre agree that these books of Scripture which were never doubted of in the Church are the undoubted word of God and a perfect rule of faith 2. That the sense of them which God intended whatsoever it is is certainly true So that they believe implicitely even those very truths against which they erre and why an implicit faith in Christ and his Word should not suffice as well as an implicit faith in your Church I have desired to be resolved by many of your Side but never could 3. That they are to use their best endeavours to beleive the Scripture in the true sense and to live according to it This if they performe as I hope many on all Sides doe truly and syncerely it is impossible but that they should believe aright in all things necessary to salvation that is in all those things which appertain to the Covenant between God and man in Christ for so much is not only plainly but frequently contained in Scripture And believing aright touching the Covenant if they for their parts perform the condition required of them which is syncere obedience why should they not expect that God will performe his promise and give them salvation For as for other things which lye without the Covenant and are therefore lesse necessary if by reason of the seeming conflict which is oftentimes between Scripture and Reason and Authority on the one side and Scripture Reason and Authority on the other if by reason of the variety of tempers abilities educations unavoidable prejudices whereby mens understandings are variously form'd and fashion'd they doe embrace severall Opinions whereof some must be erroneous to say that God will damne them for such errors who are lovers of him and lovers of truth is to rob man of his comfort and God of his goodnesse it is to make Man
faith necessary to be explicitely believed is not pertinent to free from sinne the voluntary deniall of any other point knowen to be defined by Gods Church And this were sufficient to overthrow all that D. Potter alleadgeth concerning the Creed though yet by way of Supererogation we will prove that there are divers important matters of Faith which are not mentioned at all in the Creed 14 From the aforesaid maine principle that God hath alwaies had and alwaies will have on earth a Church Visible within whose Communion Salvation must be hoped and infallible whose definitions we ought to believe we will prove that Luther Calvin and all other who continue the division in Communion or Faith from that Visible Church which at and before Luther's appearance was spread over the world cannot be excused from Schisme and Heresy although they opposed her faith but in one only point whereas it is manifest they dissent from her in many and weighty matters concerning as well beliefe as practise 15 To these reasons drawne from the vertue of Faith we will adde one other taken from Charitas propria the Vertue of Charity as it obligeth us not to expose our soule to hazard of perdition when we can put ourselves in a way much more secure as we will prove that of the Roman Catholiques to be 16 We are then to prove these points First that the infallible means to determine controversies in matters of faith is the visible Church of Christ. Secondly that the distinction of points fundamentall and not fundamentall maketh nothing to our present Question Thirdly that to say the Creed containes all fundamentall points of faith is neither pertinent nor true Fourthly that both Luther and all they who after him persist in division from the Communion and Faith of the Roman Church cannot be excused from Schisme Fiftly nor from Heresy Sixtly and lastly that in regard of the precept of Charity towards ones selfe Protestants be in state of sinne as long as they remaine divided from the Roman Church And these six points shall be severall Arguments for so many ensuing Chapters 17 Only I will here observe that it seemeth very strange that Protestants should charge us so deeply with Want of Charity for only teaching that both they and we cannot be saved seeing themselves must affirme the like of whosoever opposeth any least point delivered in Scripture which they hold to be the sole Rule of Faith Out of which ground they must be enforced to let all our former Inferences passe for good For is it not a grievous sinne to deny any one truth contained in holy Writ Is there in such deniall any distinction betwixt points fundamentall and not fundamentall sufficient to excuse from heresy Is it not impertinent to alleadge the Creed containing all fundamentall points of faith as if believing it alone we were at liberty to deny all other points of Scripture In a word According to Protestants Oppose not Scripture there is no Errour against faith Oppose it in any least point the error if Scripture be sufficiently proposed which proposition is also required before a man can be obliged to believe even fundamentall points must be damnable What is this but to say with us Of persons contrary in whatsoever point of beliefe one party only can be saved And D. Potter must not take it ill if Catholiques believe they may be saved in that Religion for which they suffer And if by occasion of this doctrine men will still be charging us with Want of Charity and be resolved to take scandall where none is given we must comfort our selves with that grave and true saying of S. Gregory If scandall be taken from declaring a truth it is better to permit scandall then forsake the truth But the solid grounds of our Assertion and the sincerity of our intention in uttering what wee think yield us confidence that all will hold for most reasonable the saying of Pope Gelasius to Anastasius the Emperour Farre â—e it from the Roman Emperour that he should hold it for a wrong to have truth declared to him Let us therefore begin with that Point which is the first that can be controverted betwixt Protestants and us for as much as concernes the present Question and is contained in the Argument of the next ensuing Chapter THE ANSWER TO THE FIRST CHAPTER Shewing that the Adversary grants the Former Question and proposeth a New one And that there is no reason why among men of different opinions and Communions one Side only can be sav'd 1. TO the first § Your first onset is very violent D. Potter is charg'd with malice and indiscretion for being uncharitable to you while he is accusing you of uncharitablenesse Verily a great fault and folly if the accusation be just if unjust a great calumnie Let us see then how you make good your charge The effect of your discourse if I mistake not is this D. Potter chargeth the Roman Church with many and great errours judgeth reconciliation betweene her Doctrine and ours impossible and that for them who are convicted in Conscience of her Errors not to forsake her in them or to be reconcil'd unto her is damnable Therefore if Roman Catholiques be convicted in conscience of the Errours of Protestants they may and must judge a reconciliation with them damnable consequently to judge so is no more uncharitable in theÌ„ then it is in the Doctor to judge as he does All this I grant nor would any Protestant accuse you of want of Charity if you went no further if you judg'd the Religion of Protestants damnable to them only who professe it being convicted in conscience that it is erroneous For if a man judge some act of vertue to be a sinne in him it is a sinne indeed So you have taught us p. 19. So if you be convinc'd or rather to speake properly perswaded in conscience that our Religion is erroneous the profession of it though in it selfe most true to you would be damnable This therefore I subscribe very willingly and withall that if you said no more D. Potter and my selfe should not be to Papists only but even to Protestants as uncharitable as you are For I shall alwaies professe and glory in this uncharitablenesse of judging hypocrisie a damnable sinne Let Hypocrites then and Dissemblers on both sides passe It is not towards them but good Christians not to Protestant Professors but Believers that we require your Charity What think you of those that believe so verily the truth of our Religion that they are resolv'd to die in it and if occasion were to die for it What Charity have you for them What think yee of those that in the dayes of our Fathers laid down their lives for it are you content that they shall be saved or doe you hope they may be so Will you grant that notwithstanding their Errours there is good hope they might die with repentance and if they did so certainly they are
light which makes us leave the works of darknesse and walk as children of the light They exact a certainty of Faith above that of sence or science God desires only that we believe the conclusion as much as the premises deserve that the strength of our Faith be equall or proportionable to the credibility of the motives to it Now though I have and ought to have an absolute certainty of this Thesis All which God reveales for truth is true being a proposition that may be demonstrated or rather so evident to any one that understands it that it needs it not Yet of this Hypothesis That all the Articles of our Faith were reveal'd by God we cannot ordinarily have any rationall and acquired certainty more then morall founded upon these considerations First that the goodnesse of the precepts of Christianity and the greatnesse of the promises of it shewes it of all other Religions most likely to come from the fountain of goodnesse And then that a constant famous and very generall Tradition so credible that no wise man doubts of any other which hath but the fortieth part of the credibility of this such and so credible a Tradition tell us that God himselfe hath set his Hand and Seale to the truth of this Doctrine by doing great and glorious and frequent miracles in confirmation of it Now our faith is an assent to this conclusion that the Doctrine of Christianity is true which being deduc'd from the former Thesis which is Metaphysically certain and from the former Hypothesis whereof we can have but a Morall certainty we cannot possibly by naturall meanes be more certain of it then of the weaker of the premises as a River will not rise higher then the fountaine from which it flowes For the conclusion alwaies followes the worser part if there be any worse and must be Negative Particular Contingent or but Morally certain if any of the Propositions from whence it is deriv'd be so Neither can we be certain of it in the highest degree unlesse we be thus certain of all the principles whereon it is grounded As a man cannot goe or stand strongly if either of his leggs be weak Or as a building cannot be stable if any one of the necessary pillars thereof be infirme and instable Or as If a message be brought me from a man of absolute credit with me but by a messenger that is not so my confidence of the truth of the Relation cannot but be rebated and lessened by my diffidence in the Relatour 9 Yet all this I say not as if I doubted that the spirit of God being implor'd by devout and humble prayer and syncere obedience may and will be degrees advance his servants higher and give them a certainty of adherence beyond their certainty of evidence But what God gives as a reward to believers is one thing and what he requires of all men as their duty is another and what he will accept of out of grace and favour is yet another To those that believe and live according to thir faith he gives by degrees the spirit of obsignation and confirmation which makes them know though how they know not what they did but believe And to be as fully and resolutely assur'd of the Gospell of Christ as those which heard it from Christ himselfe with their eares which saw it with their eyes which looked upon it and whose hands handled the word of life He requires of all that their Faith should be as I have said proportionable to the motives and Reasons enforcing to it he will accept of the weakest and lowest degree of Faith if it be living and effectuall unto true obedience For he it is that will not quench the smoaking flaxe nor break the bruised reed He did not reject the prayer of that distressed man that cryed unto him Lord I believe Lord help my unbelief He commands us to receive them that are weak in faith and thereby declares that he receives them And as nothing availes with him but Faith which worketh by love So any faith if it be but as a grain of mustard seed if it work by love shall certainly avail with him and be accepted of him Some experience makes mee fear that the faith of considering and discoursing men is like to be crack't with too much straining And that being possessed with this false Principle that it is in vain to believe the Gospell of Christ with such a kind or degree of assent as they yeeld to other matters of Tradition And finding that their faith of it is to them undiscernable from the belief they give to the truth of other Stories are in danger either not to believe at all thinking not at all as good as to no purpose or else though indeed they doe believe it yet to think they doe not and to cast themselves into wretched agonies and perplexities as fearing they have not that without which it is impossible to pleas God and obtain eternall happinesse Consideration of this advantage which the Divell probably may make of this Phancy made me willing to insist somewhat largely upon the Refutation of it 10 I returne now thither from whence I have digressed and assure you concerning the grounds afore-laid which were that there is a Rule of Faith whereby controversies may be decided which are necessary to be decided and that this rule is universally infallible That notwithstanding any opinion I hold touching Faith or any thing else I may and doe believe them as firmely as you pretend to doe And therefore you may build on in Gods name for by Gods helpe I shall alwaies imbrace whatsoever structure is naturally and rationally laid upon them whatsoever conclusion may to my understanding be evidently deduced from them You say out of them it undeniably followes That of two disagreeing in matter of Faith the one cannot be saved but by repentance or ignorance I answere by distinction of those termes two dissenting in a matter of Faith For it may bee either in a thing which is indeed a matter of Faith in the strictest sense that is something the Beliefe whereof God requires under paine of damnation And so the conclusion is true though the Consequence of it from your former premisses either is none at all or so obscure that I can hardly discerne it Or it may be as it often falls out concerning a thing which being indeed no matter of Faith is yet overvalued by the Parties at variance and esteemed to be so And in this sense it is neither consequent nor true The untruth of it I haue already declared in my examination of your Preface The inconsequence of it is of it selfe evident for who ever heard of a wilder Collection then this God hath provided meanes sufficient to decide all Controversies in Religion necessary to be decided This meanes is universally infallible Therefore of two that differ in anything which they esteeme a matter of Faith one cannot be saved He that can finde any
and Charity collect thus They only erre damnably who oppose what they know God hath testified But Protestants sure doe not oppose what they knowe God hath testified at least we cannot with Charity say they doe Therefore they either doe not erre damnably or with charity we cannot say they doe so 13 Ad § 17. Protestants you say according to their own grounds must hold that of Persons contrary in whatsoever point of beleife one part only can be saved therefore it is strangely done of them to charge Papists with want of Charity for holding the same The consequence I acknowledge but wonder much what it should be that laies upon Protestants any necessity to doe so You tell us it is their holding Scripture the sole Rule of Faith for this you say obligeth them to pronounce them damn'd that oppose any least point delivered in Scripture This I grant If they oppose it after sufficient declaration so that either they know it to be contain'd in Scripture or have no just probable Reason and which may moue an honest man to doubt whether or no it be there contained For to oppose in the first case in a man that beliues the Scripture to be the word of God is to giue God the lye To oppose in the second is to be obstinate against Reason and therefore a sinne though not so great as the former But then this is nothing to the purpose of the necessity of damning all those that are of contrary beliefe and that for these Reasons First because the contrary beliefe may be touching a point not at all mentioned in Scripture and such points though indeed they be not matters of Faith yet by men in variance are often over-valued and esteem'd to be so So that though it were damnable to oppose any point contain'd in Scripture yet Persons of a contrary beliefe as Victor and Polycrates S. Cyprian and Stephen might both be saved because their contrary beliefe was not touching any point contained in Scripture Secondly because the contrary beliefe may be about the sense of some place of Scripture which is ambiguous and with probabilitie capable of diverse senses and in such cases it is no marvell and sure no sinne if severall men goe severall waies Thirdly because the contrary beliefe may bee concerning points wherein Scripture may with so great probabilitie bee alleaged on both sides which is a sure note of a point not necessary that men of honest and upright hearts true lovers of God and of truth such as desire aboue all things to know Gods will and to doe it may without any fault at all some goe one way and some another some those as good men as either of the former suspend their judgements and expect some Elias to solue doubts and reconcile repugnancies Now in all such Questions one side or other which soever it is holds that which indeed is opposite to the sense of the Scripture which God intended for it is impossible that God should intend Contradictions But then this intended sense is not so fully declared but that they which oppose it may verily belieue that they indeed maintaine it and haue great shew of reason to induce them to belieue so and therefore are not to be damn'd as men opposing that which they either knowe to be a truth delivered in Scripture or haue no probable Reason to belieue the contrary but rather in Charity to be acquitted and absolv'd as men who endeavour to finde the Truth but fayle of it through humane frailty This ground being laid the Answer to your ensuing Interrogatories which you conceiue impossible is very obvious easie 14 To the first Whether it be not in any man a grievous sinne to deny any one Truth containd'd in holy Writ I answer Yes if he knewe it to be so or haue no probable Reason to doubt of it otherwise not 15 To the second Whether there be in such deniall any distinction between Fundamētall not Fundamētall sufficient to excuse from Heresie I answer Yes There is such a Distinction But the Reason is because these points either in themselues or by accident are Fundamentall which are evidently contain'd in Scripture to him that knowes them to be so Those not Fundamentall which are there-hence deducible but probably only not evidently 16 To the third Whether it be not impertinent to alleage the Creed as containing all Fundamentall points of Faith as if believing it alone wee were at Libertie to deny all other Points of Scripture I answer It was never alleag'd to any such purpose but only as a sufficient or rather more then a sufficient Summarie of those points of Faith which were of necessity to be believed actually and explicitely and that onely of such which were meerely and purely Credenda and not Agenda 17 To the fourth drawn as a Corollary from the former Whether this be not to say that of Persons contrary in beliefe one part only can bee saved I answer By no meanes For they may differ about points not contain'd in Scripture They may differ about the sense of some ambiguous Texts of Scripture They may differ about some Doctrines for and against which Scriptures may be alleadged with so great probability as may justly excuse either Part from Haeresie and a selfe condemning obstinacy And therefore though D. Potter doe not take it ill that you believe your selves may be sav'd in your Religion yet notwithstanding all that hath yet been pretended to the contrary hee may justly condemne you and that out of your own principles of uncharitable presumption for affirming as you doe that no man can be saved out of it CHAP. II. What is that meanes whereby the revealed truths of God are conveyed to our Vnderstanding and which must determine Controversies in Faith and Religion OF our estimation respect and reverence to holy Scripture even Protestants themselves doe in fact give testimony while they possesse it from us and take it upon the integrity of our custody No cause imaginable could avert our will from giving the function of supreme and sole Iudge to holy writ if both the thing were not impossible in it selfe and if both reason and experience did not convince our understanding that by this assertion Contentions are increased and not ended We acknowledge holy Scripture to be a most perfect rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule We only deny that it excludes either divine Tradition though it be unwritten or an externall Iudge to keep to propose to interpret in a true Orthodoxe and Catholique sense Every single book every Chapter yea every period of holy Scripture is infallibly true and wants no due perfection But must we therefore inferre that all other Books of Scripture are to be excluded least by addition of them we may seem to derogate from the perfection of the former When the first Bookes of the old and new Testament were written they did not exclude unwritten Traditions nor the Authority of
is to be presupposed before we can see the light thereof and consequently there must be some other meanes precedent to Scripture to beget Faith which can be no other then the Church 13 Others affirme that they know Canonicall Scriptures to be such by the Title of the Bookes But how shall we know such Inscriptions or Titles to be infallibly true From this their Answere our argument is strengthened because divers Apocryphall writings have appeared under the Titles and Names of sacred Authors as the Gospell of Thomas mentioned by S. Augustine the Gospell of Peter which the Nazaraei did use as Theodoret witnesseth with which Seraphion a Catholique Bishop was for some time deceived as may be read in Eusebius who also speaketh of the Apocalyps of Peter The like may be said of the Gospells of Barnabas Bartholomew and other such writings specified by Pope Gelasius Protestants reject likewise some part of Esther and Daniel which bear the same Titles with the rest of those Bookes as also both we and they hold for Apochryphall the third and fourth Bookes which goe under the name of Esdras and yet both of us receive his first and second book Wherefore Titles are not sufficient assurances what bookes be Canonicall which D. Covell acknowledgeth in these words It is not the word of God which doth or possibly can assure us that we doe well to think it is the word of God the first outward motion leading men so to esteem of the Scripture is the Authority of Gods Church which teacheth us to receive Marks Gospell who was not an Apostle and to refuse the Gospell of Thomas who was an Apostle and to retain Lukes Gospell who saw not Christ and to reiect the Gospell of Nicodemus who saw him 14 Another Answer or rather Objection they are wont to bring That the Scripture being a principle needs no proof among Christians So D. Potter But this is either a plain begging of the question or manifestly untrue and is directly against their own doctrine and practise If they mean that Scripture is one of those principles which being the first and the most known in all Sciences cannot be demonstrated by other Principles they suppose that which is in question whether there be not some principle for example the Church whereby we may come to the knowledge of Scripture If they intend that Scripture is a Principle but not the first and most known in Christianity then Scripture may be proved For principles that are not the first not known of themselves may and ought to be proved before we can yeild assent either to them or to other verities depending on them It is repugnant to their own doctrine and practise in as much as they are wont to affirme that one part of Scripture may be known to be Canonicall and may be interpreted by another And since every Scripture is a principle sufficient upon which to ground divine faith they must grant that one Principle may and sometime must be proved by another Yea this their Answer upon due ponderation falls out to prove what we affirme For since all Principles cannot be proved we must that our labour may not be endlesse come at length to rest in some principle which may not require any other proof Such is Tradition which involves an evidence of fact and from hand to hand and age to age bringing us up to the times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himselfe cometh to be confirmed by all those miracles and other arguments whereby they convinced their doctrine to be true Wherefore the ancient Fathers avouch that we must receive the sacred Canon upon the credit of Gods Church S. Athanasius saith that only four Gospels are to be received because the Canons of the Holy and Catholique Church have so determined The third Councell of Carthage having set down the Bookes of holy Scripture gives the reason because We have received from our Fathers that these are to be read in the Church 8. Augustine speaking of the Acts of the Apostles saith To which book I must give credit if I give credit to the Gospell because the Catholique Church doth a like recommend to me both these Bookes And in the same place he hath also these words I would not believe the Gospell unles the authority of the Catholique Church did move me A saying so plain that Zuinglius is forced to cry out Heere I implore your equity to speak freely whether this saying of Augustine seem not overbold or else unadvisedly to have fallen from him 15 But suppose they were assured what Books were Canonicall this will little avail them unles they be likewise certain in what language they remain uncorrupted or what Translations be true Calvin acknowledgeth corruption in the Hebrew Text which if it be taken without points is so ambiguous that scarcely any one Chapter yes period can be securely understood without the help of some Translation If with points These were after S. Hieroms time invented by the perfidious Iewes who either by ignorance might mistake or upon malice force the Text to favour their impieties And that the Hebrew Text still retaines much ambiguity is apparent by the disagreeing Translation of Novelists which also proves the Greek for the New Testament not to be void of doubtfulnes as Calvin confesseth it to be corrupted And although both the Hebrew and Greeke were pure what doth this help if only Scripture be the rule of faith and so very few be able to examine the Text in these languages All then must be reduced to the certainty of Translations into other tongues wherein no private man having any premise or assurance of infallibility Protestants who rely upon Scripture alone will find no certain ground for their faith as accordingly Whitaker affirmeth Those who understand not the Hebrew and Greek doe erre often and unavoidably 16 Now concerning the Translations of Protestants it will be sufficient to set down what the laborious exact and jucicious Author of the Protestants Apology c. dedicated to our late King Iames of famous memory hath to this purpose To omit saith he particulars whose recitall would be infinite and to touch this point but generally only the Translation of the New Testament by Luther is condemned by Andreas O siander Keckermannus and Zuinglius who saith hereof to Luther Thou dost corrupt the word of God thou art seen to be a manifest and common corrupter of the holy Scriptures how much are we ashamed of thee who have hitherto esteemed thee beyond all measure and now prove thee to be such a man And in like manner doth Luther reject the Translation of the Zuinglians terming them in matter of Divinity fooles Asses Anuchrists deceavers and of Asse-like understanding In so much that when Froschoverus the Zwinglian Printer of Zurich sent him a Bible translated by the Divines there Luther would not receive the same but sending it
heare examine and determine all controversies of faith and so they may be and are Iudges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own doctrine they constitute another Iudge of Controversies besides Scripture alone 26 Lastly 〈◊〉 D. Potter whether this Assertion Scripture alone is Iudge of all Controversies in saith be a fundamentall point of faith or no He must be well advised before he say that it is a fundamentall point For he will haue against him as many Protestants as teach that by Scripture alone it is impossible to knowe what Bookes be Scripture which yet to Protestants is the most necessary and chiefe point of all other D. Covell expresly saith Doubtlesse it is a tolerable opinion in the Church of Rome if they goe no further as some of them doe not hee should haue said as none of them doe to affirme that the Scriptures are holy divine in themselves but so esteemed by us for the authority of the Church He will likewise oppose himselfe to those his Brethren who grant that Controversies cannot be ended without some externall living authority as we noted before Besides how can it be in us a fundamentall errour to say the Scripture alone is not Iudge of Controversies seeing notwithstanding this our beliefe wee use for interpreting of Scripture all the meanes which they prescribe as Prayer Conferring of places Consulting the Originals c and to these adde the Instruction and Authority of Gods Church which even by has confession cannot erre damnaâ—ly and may afford us more help then can be expected from the industry learning or wit of any private person and finally D. Potter grants that the Church of Rome doth not maintain any fundamentall errour against faith and consequently he cannot affirme that our doctrine in this present Controversie is damnable If he answer that their Tenet about the Scriptures being the only Iudge of Controversies is not a fundamentall point of faith then as he â—eacheth that the universall Church may erre in points not fundamentall so I hope he will nâ—t deny but particular Churches and private men are much more obnoxious to errour in such points and in particular in this that Scripture alone is Iudge of Controversies And so the very principle upon which their whole faith is grounded remaines to them uncertaine and on the other side for the selfe same reason they are not certaine but that the Church is Iudge of Controversies which if she be then their case is lamentable who in generall deny her this authority in particular controversies oppose her definitions Besides among publique Conclusions defended in Oxford the yeare 1633. to the questions Whether the Church haue authority to determine controversies in faith And To interpret holy Scripture The answer to both is Affirmatiue 27 Since then the visible Church of Christ our Lord is that infallible Meanes whereby the revealed truth of Almighty God are conveyed to our understanding it followeth that to oppose her definitions is to resist God himselfe which blessed S. Augustine plainly affirmeth when speaking of the Controversy about Rebaptization of such as were baptized by Heretiques he saith Tâ—is is neither openly nor evidently read neither by you nor by me yet if there were any wise man of whom our Saviour had given testimony and that he should be consulted in this question we should make no doubt to performe what he should say least we might seem to gainsay not him so much as Christ by whose testimony he was recommended Now Christ beareth witnesse to his Church And a little after Whosoever refuseth to follow the practise of the Church doth resist our Saviour himselfe who by his testimony recommends the Church I conclude therefore with this argument Whosoever resisteth that meanes which infallibly proposeth to us Gods Word or Râ—velation commits a sinne which unrepented excludes salvation But whosoever resisteth Christs visible Church doth resist that meanes which infallibly proposeth Gods word or revelation to us Therefore whosoever resisteth Christs visible Church commits a sinne which unrepented excludes salvation Now what visible Church was extant when Luther began his pretended Reformation whetheâ— it were the Roman or Protestant Church and whether he and other Protestants doe not oppose that visible Church which was spread over the world before and in Luthers time is easy to be determined and importeth every one most seriously to ponder as a thing whereon eternall salvation dependeth And because our Adversaries doe here most insist upon the distinction of points fundamentall and not fundamentall and in particular teach that the Church may erre in points not fundamentall it will be necessary to examine the truth and weight of this evasion which shall be done in the next Chapter ANSVVER TO THE SECOND CHAPTER Concerning the meanes whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our understanding and which must determine Controversies in Faith and Religion AD § 1. He that would usurpe an absolute lordship and tyranny over any people need not put himselfe to the trouble and difficulty of abrogating and disanulling the Lawes made to maintain the common liberty for he may frustrate their intent and compasse his own designe as well if he can get the power and authority to interpret them as he pleases and adde to them what he pleases and to have his interpretations and additions stand for Lawes if he can rule his people by his lawes and his Lawes by his Lawyers So the Church of Rome to establish her tyranny over mens consciences needed not either to abolish or corrupt the holy Scriptures the Pillars and supporters of Christian liberty which in regard of the numerous multitude of copies dispersed through all places translated into almost all languages guarded with all sollicitous care and industry had been an impossible attempt But the more expedite way and therefore more likely to be successefull was to gain the opinion and esteem of the publique and authoriz'd interpreter of them and the Authority of adding to them what doctrine she pleas'd under the title of Traditions or Definitions For by this meanes she might both serve her selfe of all those clauses of Scripture which might be drawen to cast a favourable countenance upon her ambitious pretences which in case the Scripture had been abolished shee could not have done and yet be secure enough of having either her power limited or her corruptions and abuses reformed by them this being once setled in the mindes of men that unwritten doctrines if proposed by her were to be receiv'd with equall reverence to those that were written and that the sense of Scripture was not that which seem'd to mens reason and understanding to be so but that which the Church of Rome should declare to be so seem'd it never so unreasonable and incongruous The matter being once thus ordered and the holy Scriptures being made in effect not your directors and Iudges no farther then you please but your
of the Truth but the perfection of it which are very different things though you would faine confound them For Scripture might very well be all true though it containe not all necessary Divine Truth But unlesse it doe so it cannot be a perfect Rule of Faith for that which wants any thing is not perfect For I hope you doe not imagine that we conceive any antipathy between Gods word written and unwritten but that both might very well stand together All that we say is this that we have reason to believe that God de Facto hath ordered the matter so that all the Gospell of Christ the whole covenant between God and man is now written Whereas if he had pleas'd he might so have disposed it that part might have been written and part unwritten but then he would have taken order to whom we should have had recourse for that part of it which was not written which seeing he hath not done as the progresse shall demonstrate it is evident he hath left no part of it unwritten We know no man therefore that saies It were any injury to the written Word to be joyn'd with the unwritten if there were any wherewith it might be joyn'd but that we deny The fidelity of a Keeper may very well consist with the authority of the thing committed to his custody But we know no one â—ociety of Christians that is such a faithfull Keeper as you pretend The Scripture it selfe was not kept so faithfully by you but that you suffered infinite variety of Readings to creep into it all which could not possibly be divine and yet in severall parts of your Church all of them untill the last Age were so esteem'd The interpretations of obscure places of Scripture which without Question the Apostles taught the Primitive Christians are wholy lost there remaines no certainty scarce of any one Those Worlds of Miracles which our Saviour did which were not written for want of writing are vanished out of the memory of men And many profitable things which the Apostles taught and writ not as that which S. Paul glances at in his second Epistle to the Thessalon of the cause of the hindrance of the comming of Antichrist are wholly lost and extinguished So unfaithfull or negligent hath been this keeper of Divine verities whose eyes like the keepers of Israell you say have never flumbred nor slept Lastly we deny not but a Iudge and a Law might well stand together but we deny that there is any such Iudge of Gods appointment Had he intended any such Iudge he would have nam'd him least otherwise as now it is our Iudge of controversies should be our greatest controversy 11 Ad § 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. In your second Paragraph you summe up those arguments wherewith you intend to prove that Scripture alone cannot be Iudge in controversies Wherein I professe unto you before hand that you will fight without an Adversary For though Protestants being warranted by some of the Fathers have called Scripture the Iudge of Controversies and you in saying here That Scripture alone cannot be Iudge imply that it may be called in some sense a Iudge though not alone Yet to speak properly as men should speak when they write of Controversies in Religion the Scripture is not a Iudge of Controversies but a Rule only and the only Rule for Christians to judge them by Every man is to judge for himselfe with the Iudgement of Discretion and to choose either his Religion first and then his Church as we say or as you his Church first and then his Religion But by the consent of both sides every man is to judge and choose and the Rule whereby he is to guide his choyce if he be a naturall man is Reason if he be already a Christian Scripture which we say is the Rule to judge controversies by Yet not all simply but all the Controversies of Christians of those that are already agreed upon This first Principle that the Scripture is the word of God But that there is any man or any company of men appointed to be judge for all men that we deny and that I believe you will never prove The very truth is we say no more in this matter then evidence of Truth hath made you confesse in plain termes in the beginning of this chapter viz. That Scripture is a perfect Rule of faith for as much as a writing can be a rule So that all your reasons whereby you labour to dethrone the Scripture from this office of Iudgeing we might let passe as impertinent to the conclusion which we maintaine and you have already granted yet out of curtesy we will consider them 12 Your first is this a Iudge must be a person fit to end controversies but the Scripture is not a person nor fit to end controversies no more then the Law would be without the Iudges therefore though it may be a Rule it cannot be a Iudge Which conclusion I have already granted Only my request is that you will permit Scripture to have the properties of a Rule that is to be fit to direct every one that will make the best use of it to that end for which it was ordained And that is as much as we need desire For as if I were to goe a journey and had a guide which could not erre I needed not to know my way so on the other side if I know my way or have a plain rule to know it by I shall need no guide Grant therefore Scripture to be such a Rule and it will quickly take away all necessity of having an infallible guide But without a living Iudge it will be no fitter you say to end Controversies then the Law alone to end suits I answere if the Law were plain and perfect and men honest and desirous to understand aright and obey it he that saies it were not fit to end controversies must either want understanding himself or think the world wants it Now the Scripture we pretend in things necessary is plain perfect and men we say are oblig'd under pain of Damnation to seek the true sense of it and not to wrest it to their preconceived Phansies Such a law therefore to such men cannot but be very fit to end all controversies necessary to be ended For others that are not so they will end when the world ends and that is time enough 12 Your next encounter is with them who acknowledging the Scripture a Rule only and not a Iudge make the holy Ghost speaking in Scripture the judge of Controversies Which you disprove by saying That the holy Ghost speaking only in Scripture is no more intelligible to us then the Scripture in which he speakes But by this reason neither the Pope nor a Councell can be a Iudge neither For first denying the Scriptures the writings of the Holy Ghost to be judges you will not I hope offer to pretend that their decrees the writings of men are more capable of
this function the same exceptions at least if not more and greater lying against them as doe against Scripture And then what you object against the holy Ghost speaking in Scripture to exclude him from this office The same I returne upon them and their decrees to debarre them from it that they speaking unto us only in their decrees are no more intelligible then the decrees in which they speak And therefore if the Holy Ghost speaking in Scripture may not be a judge for this reason neither may they speaking in their decrees be judges for the same Reason If the Popes decrees you will say be obscure he can explain himselfe and so the Scripture cannot But the holy Ghost that speaks in Scripture can doe so if he please and when he is pleas'd will doe so In the mean time it will be fit for you to wait his leasure and to be content that those things of Scripture which are plain should be so and those which are obscure should remain obscure untill he please to declare them Besides he can which you cannot warrant me of the Pope or a Councell speak at first so plainly that his words shall need no farther explanation and so in things necessary we believe he has done And if you say the Decrees of Councells touching Controversies though they be not the Iudge yet they are the Iudges sentence So I say the Scripture though not the Iudge is the sentence of the Iudge When therefore you conclude That to say a Iudge is necessary for deciding controversies about the meaning of Scripture is as much as to say he is necessary to decide what the holy Ghost speakes in Scripture This I grant is true but I may not grant that a Iudge such a one as we dispute of is necessary either to doe the one or the other For if the Scripture as it is in things necessary be plain why should it be more necessary to have a judge to interpret them in plain places then to have a judge to interpret the meaning of a Councell's decrees and others to interpret their Interpretations and others to interpret theirs and so on for ever And where they are not plaine there if we using diligence to finde the truth doe yet misse of it and fall into errour there is no danger in it They that erre and they that doe not erre may both be saved So that those places which containe things necessary and wherein errour were dangerous need no infallible interpreter because they are plaine and those that are obscure need none because they contain not things necessary neither is errour in them dangerous 13 The Law-maker speaking in the Law I grant it is no more easily understood then the Law it selfe for his speech is nothing else but the Law I grant it very necessary that besides the Law-maker speaking in the Law there should be other Iudges to determine civill and criminall Controversies and to giue every man that Iustice which the Law allowes him But your Argument drawn from hence to shew a necessitie of a visible Iudge in Controversies of Religion I say is Sophisticall and that for many Reasons 14 First Because the variety of Civill cases is infinite and therefore there cannot be possibly Lawes enough provided for the determination of them and therefore there must be a Iudge to supply out of the Principles of Reason the interpretation of the Law where it is defectiue But the Scripture we say is a perfect Rule of Faith and therefore needs no supply of the defects of it 15 Secondly To execute the Letter of the Law according to rigour would be many times unjust and therefore there is need of a Iudge to moderate it whereof in Religion there is no use at all 16 Thirdly In Civill and Criminall causes the parties haue for the most part so much interest and very often so little honesty that they will not submit to a Law though never so plaine if it bee against them or will not see it to be against them though it be so never so plainly whereas if men were honest and the Law were plaine and extended to all cases there would be little need of Iudges Now in matters of Religion when the Question is whether every man bee a fit Iudge and chooser for himselfe we suppose men honest and such as understand the difference between a Moment and Eternity And such men we conceiue will think it highly concernes them to be of the true Religion but nothing at all that this or that Religion should be the true And then wee suppose that all the necessary points of Religion are plaine and easie consequently every man in this cause to be a competent Iudge for himselfe because it concernes himselfe to judge right as much as eternall happinesse is worth And if through his own default he judge amisse he alone shall suffer for it 17 Fourthly In Civill Controversies we are obliged only to externall passiue obedience and not to an internall and actiue Wee are bound to obey the sentence of the Iudge or not to resist it but not alwaies to belieue it just But in matters of Religion such a judge is required whom we should be obliged to belieue to haue judged right So that in Civill Controversies every honest understanding man is fit to be a Iudge But in religion none but he that is infallible 18 Fiftly In Civill Causes there is meanes and power when the Iudge has decreed to compell men to obey his sentence otherwise I belieue Laws alone would be to as much purpose for the ending of differences as Lawes and Iudges both But all the power in the world is neither fit to convince nor able to compell a mans conscience to consent to any thing Worldly terrour may prevaile so far as to make men professe a Religion which they belieue not such men I meane who know not that there is a Heaven provided for Martyrs and a Hell for those that dissemble such truths as are necessary to bee professed But to force either any man to belieue what he belieues not or any honest man to dissemble what he does beleiue if God commands him to professe it or to professe what he does not belieue all the Powers in the World are too weak with all the powers of Hell to assist them 19 Sixtly In Civill Controversies the case cannot be so put but there may be a Iudge to end it who is not a party In Controversies of Religion it is in a manner impossible to bee avoided but the Iudge must be a partie For this must be the first whether hee be a judge or no and in that he must be a partie Sure I am the Pope in the controversies of our time is a chiefe partie for it highly concernes him even as much as his Popedome is worth not to yeeld any one point of his Religion to be erroneous And hee is a man subject to like passions with other men And therefore we
above all the men and Churches of the World whereof I have already given you two very pregnant demonstrations drawn from your presumptions tying God and Salvation to your Sacraments And the efficacy of them to your Priests Qualifications and Intentions 69 Your making the Salvation of Infants depend on Baptisme a Casuall thing and in the power of man to conferre or not conferre would yeild me a Third of the same nature And your suspending the same on the Baptizer's intention a Fourth And lastly your making the Reall presence of Christ in the Eucharist depend upon the casualties of the consecrators true Priesthood and Intention and yet commanding men to believe it for certain that he is present and to adore the Sacrament which according to your Doctrine for ought they can possibly know may be nothing else but a piece of bread so exposing them to the danger of Idolatry and consequently of damnation doth offer me a Fift demonstration of the same conclusion if I thought fit to insist upon them But I have no mind to draw any more out of this Fountaine neither doe I think it charity to cloy the Reader with uniformity when the subject affords variety 70 Sixtly therefore I returne it thus The faith of Papists relyes alone upon their Churches infallibility That there is any Church infallible and that Theirs is it they pretend not to believe but only upon prudentiall motives Dependance upon prudentiall motives they confesse to be obnoxious to a possibility of erring What then remaineth but Truth Faith Salvation and all must in them rely upon a fallible and uncertain ground 71 Seventhly The faith of Papists relies upon the Church alone The Doctrine of the Church is delivered to most of them by their Parish Priest or Ghostly Father or at least by a company of Priests who for the most part sure are men and not Angels in whom nothing is more certain then a most certain possibility to erre What then remaineth but that Truth Faith Salvation and all must in them rely upon a fallible and uncertain ground 72 Eightly thus It is apparent and undeniable that many Thousands there are who believe your Religion upon no better grounds then a man may have for the beliefe almost of any Religion As some believe it because their forefathers did so and they were good People Some because they were Christened and brought up in it Some because many Learned and Religious men are of it Some because it is the Religion of their Country where all other Religions are persecuted and proscribed Some because Protestants cannot shew a perpetuall succession of Professors of all their Doctrine Some because the service of your Church is more stately and pompous magnificent Some because they find comfort in it Some because your Religion is farther spread and hath more professors of it then the Religion of Protestants Some because your Priests compasse Sea and Land to gain Proselytes to it Lastly an infinite number by chance and they know not why but only because they are sure they are in the right This which I say is a most certain experimented truth and if you will deale ingenuously you will not deny it And without question he that builds his faith upon our English Translation goes upon a more prudent ground then any of these can with reason be pretended to be What then can you alleadge but that with you rather then with us Truth and Faith and Salvation and all relies upon fallible and uncertain grounds 73 Ninthly Your Rhemish and Doway Translations are delivered to your Proselytes such I mean that are dispenâ—'d with for the reading of them for the direction of their Faith and lives And the same may be said of your Translations of the Bible into other nationall languages in respect of those that are licenc'd to read them This I presume you will confesse And moreover that these Translations came not by inspiration but were the productions of humane Industry and that not Angels but men were the Authors of them Men I say meere men subject to the same Passions and to the same possibility of erring with our Translatours And then how does it not unavoidably follow that in them which depend upon these translations for their direction Faith and Truth and Salvation and all relies upon fallible and uncertain grounds 74 Tenthly and lastly to lay the axe to the root of the tree the Helena which you so fight for your vulgar Translation though some of you believe or pretend to believe it to be in every part and particle of it the pure and uncorrupted word of God yet others among you and those as good zealous Catholiques as you are not so confident hereof 75 First for all those who have made Translations of the whole Bible or any part of it different many times in sense from the Vulgar as Lyranus Cajetan Pagnine Arias Erasmus Valla Steuchus and others it is apparent and even palpable that they never dreamt of any absolute perfection and authenticall infallibility of the Vulgar Translation For if they had why did they in many places reject it and differ from it 76 Vega was present at the Councell of Trent when that decree was made which made the Vulgar Edition then not extant any where in the world authenticall and not to be rejected upon any pretense whatsoever At the forming this decree Vega I say was present understood the mind of the Councell as well as any man and professes that he was instructed in it by the President of it the Cardinall S. Cruce And yet he hath written that the Councell in this decree meant to pronounce this Translation free not simply from all error but only from such errors out of which any opinion pernitious to faith and manners might be collected This Andradius in his defence of that Councell reports of Vega and assents to it himselfe Driedo in his book of the Translation of Holy Scripture hath these words very pregnant and pertinent to the same purpose The See Apostolike hath approved or accepted Hieroms Edition not as so wholly consonant to the Originall and so entire and pure and restored in all things that it may not be lawfull for any man either by comparing it with the Fountaine to examine it or in some places to doubt whether or no Hierome did understand the true sense of the Scripture but only as an Edition to be prefer'd before all others then extant and no where deviating from the truth in the rules of faith and good life Mariana even where he is a most earnest Advocate for the Vulgar Edition yet acknowledges the imperfection of it in these words The faults of the Vulgar Edition are not approved by the Decree of the Councell of Trent a multitude whereof we did collect from the variety of Copies And againe We maintaine that the Hebrew and Greeke were by no meanes rejected by the Trent Fathers And that the Latine edition is indeed approved yet
and Scripture and experience so you tell us out of M. Hooker to seek for the ending of them by submitting unto some Iudiciall sentence whereunto neither part may refuse to stand This is very true Neither should you need to persuade us to seek such a meanes of ending all our Controversies if we could tell where to finde it But this wee know that none is fit to pronounce for all the world a judiciall definitiue obliging sentence in Controversies of Religion but only such a Man or such a society of Men as is authoriz'd thereto by God And besides we are able to demonstrate that it hath not been the pleasure of God to giue to any Man or Society of Men any such authority And therefore though we wish heartily that all Controversies were ended as we doe that all sinne were abolisht yet we haue little hope of the one or the other till the World be ended And in the mean while think it best to content our selues with and to persuade others unto an Vnity of Charity and mutuall toleration seeing God hath authoriz'd no man to force all men to Vnity of Opinion Neither doe we think it fit to argue thus To us it seemes convenient there should be one Iudge of all Controversies for the whole world therefore God has appointed one But more modest and more reasonable to collect thus God hath appointed no such judge of Controversies therefore though it seemes to us convenient there should be one yet it is not so Or though it were convenient for us to haue one yet it hath pleased God for Reasons best known to himselfe not to allow us this convenience 86 D. Fields words which follow I confesse are somewhat more pressing and if he had been infallible and the words had not slipt unadvisedly from him they were the best Argument in your Book But yet it is evident out of his Book so acknowledg'd by some of your own That he never thought of any one company of Christians invested with such authority from God that all men were bound to receiue their Decrees without examination though they seem contrary to Scripture and Reason which the Church of Rome requires And therefore if he haue in his Preface strained too high in cōmendation of the subject he writes of as Writers very often doe in their Prefaces and Dedicatory Epistles what is that to us Besides by all the Societies of the World it is not impossible nor very improbable hee might meane all that are or haue been in the world and so include even the Primitiue Church and her Communion we shall embrace her Direction we shall follow her Iudgement we shall rest in if wee belieue the Scripture endeavour to finde the true sense of it and liue according to it 87 Ad 18. § That the true Interpretation of the Scripture ought to be receaved from the Church you need not prove for it is very easily granted by them who professe themselves very ready to receiue all Truths much more the true sense of Scripture not only from the Church but from any societie of men nay from any man whatsoever 88 That the Churches Interpretation of Scripture is alwaies true that is it which you would haue said and that in some sense may bee also admitted viz. if your speake of that Church which before you spake of in the 14. § that is of the Church of all Ages since the Apostles Vpon the Tradition of which Church you there told us We were to receiue the Scripture and to belieue it to bee the Word of God For there you teach us that our Faith of Scripture depends on a Principle which requires no other proofe And that such is Tradition which from hand to hand and age to age bringing us up to the Times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himselfe commeth to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrine to be true Wherefore the Ancient Fathers avouch that wee must receiue the sacred Scripture upon the Tradition of this Church The Tradition then of this Church you say must teach us what is Scripture and we are willing to belieue it And now if you make it good unto us that the same Tradition down from the Apostles hath delivered from age to age and from hand to hand any interpretation of any Scripture we are ready to embrace that also But now if you will argue thus The Church in one sense tells us what is Scripture we belieue therefore if the Church taken in another sense tell us this or that is the meaning of the Scripture we are to belieue that also this is too transparent Sophistrie to take any but those that are willing to be taken 89 If there be any Traditiue Interpretation of Scripture produce it and proue it to be so and we embrace it But the Tradition of all ages is one thing and the authority of the present Church much more of the Roman Church which is but a Part and a corrupted Part of the Catholique Church is another And therefore though we are ready to receiue both Scripture and the sense of Scripture upon the authority of Originall Tradition yet we receiue neither the one nor the other upon the Authority of your Church 90 First for the Scripture how can wee receiue them upon the Authority of your Church who hold now those Books to be Canonicall which formerly you rejected from the Canon I instance in the Book of Macchabees and the Epistle to the Hebrews The first of these you held not to be Canonicall in S. Gregories time or else hee was no member of your Church for it is apparent He held otherwise The second you rejected from the Canon in S. Hieroms time as it is evident out of many places of his Works 91 If you say which is all you can say that Hierom spake this of the particular Roman Church not of the Roman Catholique Church I answer there was none such in his time None that was called so Secondly what he spake of the Roman Church must be true of all other Churches if your Doctrine of the necessity of the Conformity of all other Churches to that Church were then Catholique Doctrine Now then choose whether you will either that the particular Roman Church was not then beleived to be the Mistresse of all other Churches notwithstanding Ad hanc Ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est omnes qui sunt undique fideles which Card. Perron and his Translatresse so often translates false Or if you say shee was you will runne into a greater inconvenience and be forced to say that all the Churches of that time rejected from the Canon the Epistle to the Hebrews together with the Roman Church And consequently that the Catholique Church may erre in rejecting from the Canon Scriptures truly Canonicall 92 Secondly How can we receive the Scripture upon the authority of the Roman
Therefore there was then an infallible Iudge Iust as if I should say Yorke is not my way from Oxford to London therefore Bristol is Or a dogge is not a horse therefore he is a man As if God had no other waies of revealing himselfe to men but only by Scripture and an infallible Church S. Chrysostome and Isidorus Pelusiota conceaved he might use other meanes And S. Paul telleth us that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might be known by his workes and that they had the Law written in their hearts Either of these waies might make some faithfull men without either necessity of Scripture or Church 125 But D. Potter saies you say In the Iewish Church there was a living Iudge indowed with an absolute infallible direction in cases of moment as all points belonging to divine Faith are And where was that infallible direction in the Iewish Church when they should have received Christ for their Messias and refused him Or perhaps this was not a case of moment D. Potter indeed might say very well not that the high Priest was infallible â—or certainly he was not but that his determination was to be of necessity obeyed though for the justice of it there was no necessity that it should be believed Besides it is one thing to say that the living judge in the Iewish Church had an infallible direction another that he was necessitated to follow this direction This is the priviledge which you challenge But it is that not this which the Doctor attributes to the Iewes As a man may truely say the wise men had an infallible direction to Christ without saying or thinking that they were constrained to follow it and could not doâ— otherwise 126 But either the Church retaines still her infallibility or it was devested of it upon the receiving of Holy Scripture which is absurd An argument me thinkes like this Either you have hornes or you have lost them but you never lost them therefore you have them still If you say you never had hornes so say I for ought appeares by your reasons the Church never had infallibility 127 But some Scriptures were received in some places and not in others therefore if Scriptures were the Iudge of Controversies some Churches had one Iudge and some another And what great inconvenience is there in that that one part of England should have one Iudge and another another especially seeing the bookes of Scripture which were received by those that received fewest had as much of the doctrine of Christianity in them as they all had which were received by any all the necessary parts of the Gospell being contained in every one of the four Gospells as I have prov'd So that they which had all the bookes of the New Testament had nothing superfluous For it was not superfluous but profitable that the same thing should be said divers times and be testified by divers witnesses And they that had but one of the four Gospells wanted nothing necessary and therefore it is vainly infer'd by you that with months and yeares as new Canonicall Scriptures grew to be published the Church altered her rule of Faith and judge of Controversies 128 Heresies you say would arise after the Apostles time and after the writing of Scriptures These cannot be discovered condemned avoyded unlesse the Church be infallible Therefore there must be a Church infallible But I pray tell me Why cannot Heresies be sufficiently discovered condemned avoided by them which believe Scripture to be the rule of Faith If Scripture be sufficient to Informe us what is the faith it must of necessity be also sufficient to teach us what is Heresy seeing Heresy is nothing but a manifest deviation from and an opposition to the faith That which is streight will plainly teach us what is crooked and one contrary cannot but manifest the other If any one should deny that there is a God That this God is omnipotent omniscient good just true mercifull a rewarder of them that seek him a punisher of them that obstinatly offend him that Iesus Christ is the Sonne of God and the Saviour of the World that it is he by obedience to whom men must look to be saved If any man should deny either his Birth or Passion or Resurrection or Assention or sitting at the right hand of God his having all power given him in Heaven and Earth That it is he whom God hath appointed to be judge of the quick and the dead that all men shall rise again at the last day That they which believe and repent shall be sav'd That they which doe not believe or repent shall be damned If a man should hold that either the keeping of the Mosaicall Law is necessary to Salvation or that good works are not necessary to Salvation In a word if any man should obstinatly contradict the truth of any thing plainly delivered in Scripture who does not see that every one which believes the Scripture hath a sufficient meanes to discover and condemne and avoid that Heresy without any need of an infallible guide If you say that the obscure places of Scripture contain matters of Faith I answere that it is a matter of faith to believe that the sense of them whatsoever it is which was intended by God is true for he that does not doe so calls Gods Truth into question But to believe this or that to be the true sense of them or to believe the true sense of them and to avoid the false is not necessary either to Faith or Salvation For if God would have had his meaning in these places certainly known how could it stand with his wisdome to be so wanting to his own will and end as to speak obscurely or how can it consist with his justice to require of men to know certainly the meaning of those words which he himselfe hath not revealed Suppose there were an absolute Monarch that in his own absence from one of his Kingdomes had written Lawes for the government of it some very plainly and some very ambiguously and obscurely and his Subjects should keep those that were plainly written with all exactnesse and for those that were obscure use their best diligence to find his meaning in them and obey them according to the sense of them which they conceived should this King either with justice or wisdome be offended with these Subjects if by reason of the obscurity of them they mistook the sense of them and faile of performance by reason of their errour 128 But It is more usefull fit you say for the deciding of Controversies to haue besides an infallible rule to goe by a living infallible Iudge to determine them from hence you conclude that certainly there is such a Iudge But why then may not another say that it is yet more usefull for many excellent purposes that all the Patriarchs should bee infallible then that the Pope only should Another that it would bee yet more usefull that all the
Tradition Now nothing but Scripture hath thus descended to us Therefore nothing but Scripture can challenge our beliefe Now then to come up closer to you and to answer to your Question not as you put it but as you should haue put it I say That this position Scripture alone is the rule whereby they which belieue it to be Gods Word are to judge all Controversies in Faith is no fundameÌ„tall point Though not for your Reasons For your first and strongest reason you see is plainly voided and cut off by my stating of the Question as I haue done and supposing in it that the parties at variance are agreed about this That the Scripture is the word of God and consequently that this is none of their Controversies To your second That Controversies cannot be ended without some living Authority We haue said already that necessary Controversies may be are decided And if they be not ended this is not through defect of the Rule but through the default of Men. And for these that cannot thus be ended it is not necessary they should be ended For if God did require the ending of them he would have provided some certain meanes for the ending of them And to your Third I say that your pretence of using these meanes is but hypocriticall for you use them with prejudice and with a setled resolution not to believe any thing which these meanes happily may suggest into you if it any way crosse your pre-conceav'd persuasion of your Churches infallibility You give not your selves liberty of judgement in the use of them nor suffer your selves to bee led by them to the Truth to which they would lead you would you but be as willing to believe this consequence Our Church doth oppose Scripture therefore it doth erre therefore it is not Infallible as you are resolute to believe this The Church is infallible therefore it doth not erre and therefore it doth not oppose Scripture though it seem to doe so never so plainly 157 You pray but it is not that God would bring you to the true Religion but that he would confirm you in your own You conferre places but it is that you may confirm or colour over with plausible disguises your erroneous doctrine not that you may judge of them forsake them if there be reason for it You consult the Originalls but you regard them not when they make against your Doctrine or Translation 158 You adde not only the Authority but the Infallibility not of Gods Church but of the Roman a very corrupt and degenerous part of it whereof D. Potter never confessed that it cannot erre damnably And which being a company made up of particular men can afford you no help but the industry learning and wit of private men and that these helps may not help you out of your errour tell you that you must make use of none of all these to discover any errour in the Church but only to maintaine her impossibility or erring And lastly D. Potter assures himselfe that your Doctrine and practises are damnable enough in themselves Only he hopes and spes est rei incertae nomen he hopes I say that the Truths which you retain especially the necessity of repentance and faith in Christ will bee as an antidote to you against the errours which you maintain and that your superstructions may burne yet they amongst you Qui sequun tur Absalonem in simplicitate cor dis may be saved yet so as by fire Yet his thinking so is no reason for you or me to think so unlesse you suppose him infallible and if you doe why doe you write against him 159 Notwithstanding though not for these reasons yet for others I conceive this Doctrine not Fundamentall Because if a man should believe Christian Religion wholly and entirely and live according to it such a man though he should not know or not believe the Scripture to be a Rule of Faith no nor to be the word of God my opinion is he may be saved and my reason is because he performes the entire condition of the new Covenant which is that we believe the matter of the Gospell and not that it is contained in these or these Bookes So that the Bookes of Scripture are not so much the objects of our faith as the instruments of conveying it to our understanding and not so much of the being of the Christian Doctrine as requisite to the well being of it Irenaeus tels us as M. K. acknowledgeth of some barbarous Nations that believed the Doctrine of Christ and yet believed not the Scripture to be the word of God for they never heard of it and Faith comes by hearing But these barbarous people might be saved therefore men might be saved without believing the Scripture to be the word of God much more without believing it to be a Rule and a perfect Rule of Faith Neither doubt I but if the bookes of Scripture had been proposed to them by the other parts of the Church where they had been before received and had been doubted of or even rejected by those barbarous nations but still by the bare beliefe and practise of Christianity they might be saved God requiring of us under pain of damnation only to believe the verities therein contained and not the divine Authority of the bookes wherein they are contained Not but that it were now very strange and unreasonable if a man should belieue the matter of these bookes and not the Authority of the bookes and therefore if a man should professe the not believing of these I should have reason to fear he did not believe that But there is not alwaies an equall necessity for the belief of those things for the belief whereof there is an equall reason We have I believe as great reason to believe there was such a man as Henry the eight K. of England as that Iesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilaâ—â— yet this is necessary to be believed and that is not so So that if any man should doubt of or disbelieve that it were most unreasonably done of of him yet it were no mortall sinne nor no sinne at all God having no where commanded men under pain of damnation to believe all which reason induceth them to believe Therefore as an Executor that should performe the whole will of the dead should fully satisfy the Law though he did not believe that Parchment to be his written Will which indeed is so So I believe that he who believes all the particular doctrines which integrate Christianity and lives according to them should be saved though he neither believed nor knew that the Gospels were written by the Evangelists or the Epistles by the Apostles 160 This discourse whether it be rationall and concluding or no I submit to better judgement But sure I am that the corollary which you draw from this position that this point is not Fundamentaâ— is very inconsequent that is that we are uncertain of the truth
many Attributes in Scripture are not notes of performance but of duty and teach us not what the thing or Person is of necessity but what it should be Ye are the salt of the Earth said our Saviour to his disciples not that this quality was inseparable from their Persons but because it was their office to be so For if they must have been so of necessity and could not have been otherwise in vain had he put them in fear of that which followes If the salt hath lost his savour wherewith shall it be salted it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast forth and to be trodden under foot So the Church may bee by duty the pillar and ground that is the Teacher of Truth of all truth not only necessary but profitable to salvation and yet she may neglect and violate this duty and be in fact the teacher of some Errour 78 Fourthly and lastly if we deal most liberally with you and grant that the Apostle here speaks of the Catholique Church calls it the Pillar and ground of Truth and that not only because it should but because it alwaies shall and will be so yet after all this you have done nothing your bridge is too short to bring you to the bank where you would be unlesse you can shew that by truth here is certainly meant not only all necessary to salvation but all that is profitable absolutely and simply All. For that the true Church alwaies shall bee the maintainer and teacher of all necessary truth you know we grant and must grant for it is of the essence of the Church to be so and any company of men were no more a Church without it then any thing can be a man and not be reasonable But as a man may be still a man though he want a hand or an eye which yet are profitable parts so the Church may be still a Church though it be defective in some profitable truth And as a man may be a man that has some biles and botches on his body so the Church may be the Church though it have many corruptions both in doctrine and practice 79 And thus you see we are at liberty from the former places having shewed that the sense of them either must or may be such as will doe your Cause no service But the last you suppose will be a Gordian knot and ties us fast enough The words are He gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. to the consummation of Saints to the work of the Ministry c. Vntill we all meet into the Vnity of faith c. That we be not hereafter Children wavering and carried up and downe with every wind of Doctrine Out of which words this is the only argument which you collect or I can collect for you There is no meanes to conserve unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrine unlesse it be a Church universally infallible But it is impious to say there is no meanes to conserue unity of faith against every wind of Doctrine Therefore there must be a Church Vniversally Infallible Whereunto I answere that your major is so farre from being confirned that it is plainly confuted by the place alleadged For that tels us of another meanes for this purpose to wit the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascention and that their consummating the Saints doing the work of the Ministry and Edifying the body of Christ was the meanes to bring those which are there spoken of be they who they will to the unity of Faith and to perfection in Christ that they might not be wavering and carried about with every wind of false Doctrine Now the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors are not the present Church therefore the Church is not the only means for this end nor that which is here spoken of 80 Peradventure by he gave you conceive is to be understood he promised that he would give unto the worlds end But what reason have you for this conceipt Can you shew that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath this signification in other places and that it must have it in this place Or will not this interpretation drive you presently to this blasphemous absurdity that God hath not performed his promise Vnlesse you will say which for shame I think you will not that you have now and in all ages since Christ have had Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists for as for Pastors and Doctors alone they will not serve the turne For if God promised to give all these then you must say he hath given all or else that he hath broke his promise Neither may you pretend that the Pastors and Doctors were the same with the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and therefore having Pastors and Doctors you have all For it is apparent that by these names are denoted severall Orders of men cleerely distinguished and diversified by the Originall Text but much more plainly by your own Translations for so you read it some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Doctors and yet more plainly in the paralell place 1. Cor. 12. to which we are referr'd by your Vulgar Translation God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers therefore this subterfuge is stopped against you Ob. But how can they which died in the first Age keep us in Vnity and guard us from Errour that live now perhaps in the last This seemes to be all one as if a man should say that Alexander or Iulius Caesar should quiet a mutiny in the King of Spaines Army Ans. I hope you will grant that Hippocrates and Galen and Euclid and Aristotle and Salust and Caesar and Livie were dead many ages since and yet that we are now preserved from error by them in a great part of Physick of Geometry of Logick of the Roman story But what if these men had writ by divine Inspiration and writ compleat bodies of the Sciences they professed and writ them plainly and perspicuously You would then have granted I believe that their works had been sufficient to keep us from errour and from dissention in these matters And why then should it be incongruous to say that the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his ascention by their writings which some of them writ but all approved are even now sufficient meanes to conserve us in Vnity of faith and guarde us from errour Especially seeing these writings are by the confession of all parts true and divine and as we pretend and are ready to prove contain a plain and perfect Rule of Faith and as the Chiefest of you acknowledge contain immediatly all the Principall and Fundamentall points of Christianity referring us to the Church and Tradition only for some minute particularities But tell me I pray the Bishops that composed the Decrees
Paul and applied by him to our Saviour He hath put all things under his feet mentions no exception yet S. Paul tels us not only that it is true or certain but it is manifest that He is excepted which did put all things under him 84 But your interpretation is better then D. Potters because it is literall I answer His is Literall as well as yours and you are mistaken if you think a restrained sense may not be a literall sense for to Restrained Literall is not opposed but unlimited or absolute and to Literall is not oppos'd Restrained but Figuratiue 85 Whereas you say D. Potters Brethren reiecting his limitation restrain the mentioned Texts to the Apostles implying hereby a contrariety between them and him I answer So does D. Potter restrain all of them which he speaks of in the pages by you quoted to the Apostles in the direct and primary sense of the words Though he tels you there the words in a more restrained sense are true being understood of the Church Vniversall 86 As for your pretence That to finde the meaning of those places you conferre divers Texts you consult Originals you examin Translations and use all the meanes by Protestants appointed I haue told you before that all this is vain and hypocriticall if as your manner your doctrine is you giue not your selfe liberty of judgement in the use of these meanes if you make not your selves Iudges of but only Advocats for the doctrine of your Church refusing to see what these meanes shew you if it any way make against the doctrine of your Church though it be as cleare as the light at noone Remoue prejudice Even the ballance and hold it even make it indifferent to you which way you goe to heaven so you goe the true which Religion be true so you be of it then use the meanes and pray for Gods assistance and as sure as God is true you shall be lead into all necessary Truth 87 Whereas you say you neither doe nor haue any possible meanes to agree as long as you are left to your selues The first is very true That while you differ you doe not agree But for the second That you haue no possible means of agreement as long as you are left to your selues i. e. to your own reasons and judgement this sure is very false neither doe you offer any proofe of it unlesse you intended this that you doe not agree for a proof that you cannot which sure is no good consequence not halfe so good as this which I oppose against it D. Potter and I by the use of these meanes by you mentioned doe agree concerning the sense of these places therefore there is a possible meanes of agreement and therefore you also if you would use the same meanes with the same minds might agree so farre as it is necessary and it is not necessary that you should agree further Or if there bee no possible meanes to agree about the sense of these Texts whilst wee are left to our selves then sure it is impossible that we should agree in your sense of them which was That the Church is universally infallible For if it were possible for us to agree in this sense of them then it were possible for us to agree And why then said you of the selfe same Texts but in the page next before These words seem cleerly enough to proue that the Church is Vniversally infallible A strange forgetfulnesse that the same man almost in the same breath should say of the same words They seem cleerly enough to proue such a conclusion true yet that three indifferent men all presum'd to be lovers of Truth and industrious searchers of it should haue no possible meanes while they follow their own reason to agree in the Truth of this Conclusion 88 Whereas you say that it were great impiety to imagine that God the lover of Soules hath left no certaine infallible meanes to decide both this and all other differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion I desire you to take heed you commit not an impiety in making more impieties then Gods Commandements make Certainly God is no way oblig'd either by his promise or his Loue to giue us all things that we may imagine would be convenient for us as formerly I haue proved at large It is sufficient that he denies us nothing necessary to Salvation Deus non deficit in necessariis nec redundat in superfluis So D. Stapleton But that the ending of all Controversies or having a certain meanes of ending them is necessary to Salvation that you haue often said and suppos'd but never proved though it be the main pillar of your whole discourse So little care you take how slight your Foundations are so your building make a faire shew And as little care how you commit those faults your selfe which you condemne in others For you here charge them with great impiety who imagine that God the lover of Soules hath left no infallible meanes to determine all differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion And yet afterwards being demanded by D. Potter why the Questions between the Iesuits Dominicans remain undetermined You returne him this crosse interrogatory Who hath assured you that the point wherein these learned men differ is a revealed Truth or capable of definition or is not rather by plain Scripture indeterminable or by any Rule of faith So then when you say it were great impiety to imagine that God hath not left infallible meanes to decide all differences I may answer It seemes you doe not believe your selfe For in this controversie which is of as high consequence as any can be you seem to be doubtfull whether there be any meanes to determin it On the other side when you aske D. Potter who assured him that there it any meanes to determine this Controversie I answer for him that you have in calling it a great impiety to imagine that there is not some infallible meanes to decide this and all other differences arising about the Interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion For what trick you can devise to shew that this difference between the Dominicans and Iesuits which includes a difference about the sense of many Texts of Scripture many other matters of moment was not included under this and all other differences I cannot imagine Yet if you can finde out any thus much at least we shall gain by it that generall speeches are not alwaies to be understood generally but sometimes with exceptions and limitations 89 But if there be any infallible meanes to decide all differences I beseech you name them You say it is to consult and heare Gods Visible Church with submissive acknowledgment of her Infallibility But suppose the difference be as here it is whether your Church be infalliâ—le what shall decide that If you would say as you should dot Scripture and
the Creed So that it is cleere that to make an errour damnable it is not necessary that the matter be of it selfe fundamentall 3 Moreover you cannot ground any certainty upon the Creed it selfe unlesse first you presuppose that the authority of the Church is universally infallible and consequently that it is damnable to oppose her declarations whether they concerne matters great or small contayned or not contained in the Creed This is cleere Because we must receiue the Creed it self upon the credit of the Church without which we could not know that there was any such thing as that which we call the Apostles Creed and yet the arguments whereby you endeavour to prove that the Creed containes all fundamentall points are grounded upon supposition that the Creed was made either by the Apostles themselves or by the Church of their times from them which thing we could not certainly know if the succeeding and still continued Church may erre in her Traditions neither can we be assured whether all fundamentall Articles which you say were out of the Scriptures summed and contracted into the Apostles Creed were faithfully summed and contracted and not one pretermitted altered or mistaken unlesse we undoubtedly know that the Apostles composed the Creed and that they intended to contract all fundamentall points of faith into it or at least that the Church of their times for it seemeth you doubt whether indeed it were composed by the Apostles themselves did understand the Apostles aright and that the Church of their times did intend that the Creed should containe all fundamentall points For if the Church may erre in points not fundamentall may she not also erre in the particulers which I have specified Can you shew it to be a fundamentall point of faith that the Apostles intended to comprize all points of faith necessary to Salvation in the Creed Your self say no more then that it is very probable which is farre from reaching to a fundamentall point of faith Your prohability is grounded upon the Iudgment of Antiquity and even of the Roman Doctours as you say in the same place But if the Catholique Church may erre what certainty can you expect from Antiquity or Doctours Scripture is your totall Rule of faith Cite therefore some Text of Scripture to prove that the Apostles or the Church of their times composed the Creed and composed it with a purpose that it should containe all fundamentall points of faith Which being impossible to be done you must for the Creed it self rely upon the infallibility of the Church 4. Moreover the Creed consisteth not so much in the words as in their sense and meaning All such as pretend to the name of Christians recite the Creed and yet many have erred fundamentally as well against the Articles of the Creed as other points of faith It is then very frivolous to say the Creed containes all fundamentall points without specifying both in what sense the Articles of the Creed be true and also in what true sense they be fundamentall For both these taskes you are to performe who teach that all truth is not fundamentall and you doe but delude the ignorant when you say that the Creed taken in a Catholique sense comprehendeth all points fundamentall because with you all Catholique sense is not fundamentall for so it were necessary to salvation that all Christians should know the whole Scripture wherein every least point hath a Catholique sense Or if by Catholique sense you understand that sense which is so universally to be knowne and believed by all that whosoever failes therein cannot be saved you trifle and say no more then this All points of the Creed in a sense necessary to salvation are necessary to salvation Or All points fundamentall are fundamentall After this manner it were an easie thing to make many trve Prognostications by saying it will certainly raine when it raineth You say the Creed was opened and explained in some parts in the Creeds of Nice c. but how shall we understand the other parts not explained in those Creeds 5. For what Article in the Creed is more fundamentall or may seem more cleere then that wherein we believe IESVS CHRIST to be the Mediatour Redeemer and Saviour of mankind and the founder and foundation of a Catholique Church expressed in the Creed And yet about this Article how many different doctrines are there not only of old Heretiques as Arius Nestorius Eutiches c. but also of Protestants partly against Catholiques and partly against one another For the said maine Article of Christ's being the only Saviour of the world c. according to different senses of disagreeing Sects doth involve these and many other such questions That Faith in IESVS CHRIST doth justifie alone That Sacraments have no efficency in Iustification That Baptisme doth not availe Infants for salvation unlesse they have an Act of faith That there is no Sacerdotall Absolution from sinnes That good works proceeding from Gods grace are not meritorious That there can be no Satisfaction for the temporall punishment due to sinne after the guilt or offence is pardoned No Purgatory No prayers for the dead No Sacrifice of the Masse No Invocation No Mediation or intercession of Saints No inherent Iustice No supreme Pastor yea no Bishop by divine Ordinance No Reall presence no Transubstantiation with diverse others And why Because forsooth these Doctrines derogate from the Titles of Mediator Redeemer Advocate Foundation c. Yea and are against the truth of our Saviours humane nature if we believe diverse Protestants writing against Transubstantiation Let then any judicious man consider whether Doctour Potter or others doe really satisfie when they send men to the Creed for a perfect Catalogue to distinguish points fundamentall from those which they say are not fundamentall If he will speak indeed to some purpose let him say This Article is understood in this sense and in this sense it is fundamentall That other is to be understood in such a meaning yet according to that meaning it is not so fundamentall but that men may disagree and denie it without damnation But it were no policie for any Protestant to deale so plainly 6. But to what end should we use many arguments Even your selfe are forced to limit your owne Doctrine and come to say that the Creed is a perfect Catalogue of fundamentall points taken as it was further opened and explained in some parts by occasion of emergent Heresies in the other Catholique Creeds of Nice Constantinople Ephesus Chalcedon and Athanasius But this explication or restriction overthroweth you assertion For as the Apostles Creed was not to us a sufficient Catalogue till it was explained by the first Councell nor then till it was declared by another c. so now also as new Heresies may arise it will need particular explanation against such emergent errors and so it is not yet nor ever will be of it self alone a particular Catalogue sufficient
the main Question in this businesse is not what divine Revelations are necessary to be believed or not rejected when they are sufficiently proposed for all without exception all without question are so But what Revelations are simply and absolutely necessary to be proposed to the beliefe of Christians so that that Society which does propose and indeed believe them hath for matter of Faith the essence of a true Church that which does not has not Now to this question though not to yours D. Potter's assertion if it be true is apparently very pertinent And though not a full and totall satisfaction to it yet very effectuall and of great moment towards it For the main question being what points are necessary to Salvation and points necessary to Salvation being of two sorts some of simple belief some of Practise and obedience he that gives you a sufficient summary of the first sort of necessary points hath brought you halfe way towards your journies end And therefore that which he does is no more to be slighted as vain and impertinent then an Architects work is to be thought impertinent towards the making of a house because he does it not all himselfe Sure I am if his assertion be true as I believe it is a corollary may presently be deduced from it which if it were imbraced cannot in all reason but doe infinite service both to the truth of Christ and the peace of Christendome For seeing falsehood and errour could not long stand against the power of truth were they not supported by tyranny and worldly advantages he that could assert Christians to that liberty which Christ and his Apostles left them must needs doe Truth a most Heroicall service And seeing the over-valuing of the differences among Christians is one of the greatest maintainers of the Schisme of Christendome he that could demonstrate that only these points of Beliefe are simply necessary to salvation wherein Christians generally agree should he not lay a very faire and firme foundation of the peace of Christendome Now the Corollary which I conceive would produce these good effects and which flowes naturally from D. Potters Assertion is this That what Man or Church soever beleeves the Creed and all the evident consequences of it sincerely and heartily cannot possibly if also he beleeve the Scripture be in any Errour of simple beleife which is offensiue to God nor therefore deserve for any such Errour to be deprived of his life or to be cut off from the Churches Communion and the hope of Salvation And the production of this againe would be this which highly concernes the Church of Rome to think of That whatsoever Man or Church does for any errour of simple beleife depriue any man so qualified as aboue either of his temporall life or liuelyhood or liberty or of the Churches Communion and hope of salvation is for the first uniust cruell and tyrannous Schismaticall presumptuous and uncharitable for the second 13 Neither yet is this as you pretend to take away the necessity of beleeving those verities of Scripture which are not contained in the Creed when once we come to know that they are written in Scripture but rather to lay a necessity upon men of beleeving all things written in Scripture when once they know them to be there written For he that beleeves not all knowne Divine Revelations to be true how does he believe in God Vnlesse you will say that the same man at the same time may not believe God and yet believe in him The greater difficulty is how it will not take away the necessity of beleeving Scripture to be the word of God But that it will not neither For though the Creed be granted a sufficient summary of Articles of meere Faith yet no man pretends that it containes the Rules of obedience but for them all men are referred to Scripture Besides he that pretends to believe in God obligeth himselfe to beleeve it necessary to obey that which reason assures him to be the Will of God Now reason will assure him that beleeves the Creed that it is the Will of God he should beleeve the Scripture even the very same Reason which moves him to beleeve the Creed Vniversall and never failing Tradition having given this Testimony both to Creed and Scripture that they both by the works of God were sealed testified to be the words of God And thus much be spoken in Answere to your first Argument the length whereof will be the more excusable If I oblige my self to say but little to the Rest. 14 I come then to your second And in Answer to it denie flatly as a thing destructive of it self that any Errour can be damnable unlesse it be repugnant immediatly or mediatly directly or indirectly of it self or by accident to some Truth for the matter of it fundamentall And to your example of Pontius Pilat's being Iudge of Christ I say the deniall of it in him that knowes it to be revealed by God is manifestly destructive of this fundamentall truth that all Divine Revelations are true Neither will you find any errour so much as by accident damnable but the rejecting of it will be necessarily laid upon us by a reall beleif of all Fundamentals and simply necessary Truths And I desire you would reconcile with this that which you have said § 15. Every Fundamentall Errour must have a contrary Fundamentall Truth because of two Contradictory propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true c. 15 To the Third I Answer That the certainty I have of the Creed That it was from the Apostles and containes the principles of Faith I ground it not upon Scripture and yet not upon the Infallibility of any present much lesse of your Church but upon the Authority of the Ancient Church and written Tradition which as D. Potter hath proved gave this constant Testimony unto it Besides I tell you it is guilty of the same fault which D. Potter's Assertion is here accused of having perhaps some colour toward the proving it false but none at all to shew it impertinent 16 To the Fourth I Answer plainly thus That you finde fault with D. Potter for his Vertues you are offended with him for not usurping the Authority which he hath not in a word for not playing the Pope Certainly if Protestants be faulty in this matter it is for doing it too much and not too little This presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the words of God the speciall senses of men upon the generall words of God and laying them upon mens consciences together under the equall penaltie of death and damnation this Vaine conceit that we can speak of the things of God better then in the word of God This Deifying our owne Interpretations and Tyrannous inforcing them upon others This restraining of the word of God from that latitude and generality and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and Apostles
Creed For this he affirmes only of such speculatiue divine veriries which God hath commanded particularly to be preached to all and believed by all Now let the doctrines objected by you be well considered and let all those that are reducible to the three former heads be discarded and then of all these Instances against D. Potters Assertion there will not remain so much as one 33 First the Questions touching the conditions to bee performed by us to obtaine remission of sinnes the Sacraments the Commandements and the possibility of keeping them the necessity of imploring the Assistance of Gods Grace and Spirit for the keeping of them how farre obedience is due to the Church Prayer for the Dead The cessation of the old Law are all about Agenda and so cut off upon the first consideration 34 Secondly the Question touching Fundamentalls is profitable but not fundamentall He that belieues all Fundamentals cannot bee damned for any errour in faith though he belieue more or lesse to bee fundamental then is so That also of the procession of the holy Ghost from the Father and the Sonne of Purgatory of the Churches Visibility of the Books of the new Testament which were doubted of by a considerable part of the Primitiue Church untill I see better reason for the contrary then the bare authority of men I shall esteem of the same condition 35 Thirdly These Doctrines that Adam and the Angels sinned that there are Angels good and bad that those bookes of Scripture which were never doubted of by any considerable part of the Church are the word of God that S. Peter had no such primacy as you pretend that the Scripture is a perfect rule of faith consequently that no necessary doctrine is unwritten that there is no one Society or succession of Christians absolutely infallible These to my understanding are truths plainly revealed by God and necessary to be believed by them who know they are so But not so necessary that every man woman is bound under pain of damnation particularly to know thē to be divine Revelations and explicitely to believe them And for this reason these with innumerable other points are to be referred to the third sort of doctrines aboue mentioned which were never pretended to haue place in the Creed There remaines one only point of all that Army you mustred together reducible to none of these heads that is that God is and is a Remunerator which you say is questioned by the deniall of merit But if there were such a necessary indissoluble coherence between this point and the doctrine of merit mee thinks with as much reason and more charity you might conclude That we hold merit because we hold this point Then that we deny this point because we deny merit Besides when Protestants deny the doctrine of Merits you know right well for so they haue declared themselues a thousand times that they mean nothing else but with David that their well doing extendeth not is not truly beneficiall to God with our Saviour when they haue done all which they are commanded they haue done their duty only and no curtesie And lastly with S. Paul that all which they can suffer for God and yet suffering is more then doing is not worthy to bee compared to the glory that shall be revealed So that you must either misunderstand their meaning in denying Merit or you must discharge their doctrine of this odious consequence or you must charge it upon David and Paul and Christ himselfe Nay you must either grant their deniall of true Merit just reasonable or you must say that our good actions are really profitable to God that they are not debts already due to him but voluntary and undeserved Favours and that they are equall unto and well worthy of eternall glory which is prepar'd for them As for the inconvenience which you so much feare That the deniall of Merit makes God a Giver only not a Rewarder I tell you good Sir you feare where no feare is and that it is both most true on the one side that you in holding good Works meritorious of eternall glory make God a rewarder only not a giver contrary to plain Scripture affirming that The gift of God is eternall life And that it is most false on the other side that the doctrine of Protestants makes God a giver only and not a rewarder In as much as their doctrine is That God giues not Heaven but to those which doe something for it and so his gift is also a Reward but withall that whatsoever they doe is due unto God before hand and worth nothing to God and worth nothing in respect of Heaven and so mans work is no Merit and Gods reward is still a Gift 36 Put the case the Pope for a reward of your service done him in writing this Book had given you the honour and meanes of a Cardinall would you not not only in humility but in sincerity haue professed that you had not merited such a Reward And yet the Pope is neither your Creatour nor Redeemer nor Preserver nor perhaps your very great Benefactour sure I am not so great as God Almighty and therefore hath no such right and title to your service as God hath in respect of precedent obligations Besides the work you haue done him hath been really advantagious to him and lastly not altogether unproportionable to the fore-mentioned Reward And therefore if by the same work you will pretend that either you haue or hope to haue deserved immortall happinesse I beseech you consider well whether this be not to set a higher value upon a Cardinal's cap then a Crowne of immortall glory and with that Cardinall to prefer a part in Paris before a part in Paradise 37 In the next Paragraph you beat the ayre again and fight manfully with your own shadow The point you should haue spoken to was this That there are some points of simple beliefe necessary to bee explicitely believed which yet are not contained in the Creed Insteed hereof you trouble your selfe in vain to demonstrate That many important points of faith are not contained in it which yet D. Potter had freely granted and you your selfe take particular notice of his granting of it All this paines therefore you have imployed to no purpose saving that to some negligent Reader you may seem to have spoken to the very point because that which you speak to at the first hearing sounds somewhat neere it But such a one I must intreat to remember there be many more points of faith then there be Articles of Simple belief necessary to be explicitly believed And that though all of the former sort are not contained in the Creed yet all of the latter sort may be As for your distinction between Heresies that have been and Heresies that are and Heresies that may be I have already proved it vaine and that whatsoever may be an Heresie that is so and whatsoever is so
be what can it be but curiosity to desire to know it Neither may you think to mend your selfe herein one whit by having recourse to them whom we call Papists for they are as farre to seek as wee in this point which of the Articles of the Creed are for their nature and matter fundamentall and which are not Particularly you will scarce meet with any amongst their Doctors so adventurous as to tell you for a certain whether or no the conception of Christ by the Holy Ghost his being born of a Virgin his Buriall his descent into Hell and the Communion of Saints be points of their own nature and matter fundamentall Such I mean as without the distinct and explicite knowledge of them no man can be saved 63 But you will say at least they give this certain rule that all points defined by Christs visible Church belong to the foundation of faith in such sense as to deny any such cannot stand with Salvation So also Protestants give you this more certain rule That whosoever believes heartily those books of Scripture which all the Christian Churches in the world acknowledge to be Canonicall and submits himselfe indeed to this as to the rule of his belief must of necessity believe all things fundamentall and if he live according to his faith cannot fail of Salvation But besides what certainty have you that that rule of Papists is so certain By the visible Church it is plain they mean only their own and why their own only should be the Visible Church I doe not understand and as little why all points defined by this Church should belong to the foundation of faith These things you had need see well and substantially proved before you rely upon them otherwise you expose your selfe to danger of imbracing damnable errors instead of Fundamentall truth's But you will say D. Potter himselfe acknowledges that we doe not erre in Fundamentalls If he did so yet me thinkes you have no reason to rest upon his acknowledgement with any security whom you condemne of errour in many other matters Perhaps excesse of Charity to your persons may make him censure your errors more favourably then he should doe But the truth is and so I have often told you though the Doctor hope that your errors are not so unpardonably destructive but that some men who ignorantly hold them may be saved yet in themselves he professes and proclaimes them damnable and such as he feares will be certainly destructive to such as you are that is to all those who have eyes to see and will not see them 64 Ad § 20. 21. 22. 23. In the Remainder of this Chapter you promise to answer D. Potters Arguments against that which you said before But presently forgetting your selfe in stead of answering his Arguments you fall a confuting his Answers to your own The arguments objected by you which here you vindicate were two 1. The Scripture is not so much as mentioned in the Creed therefore the Creed containes not all things necessary to be believed 2. Baptisme is not contained in the Creed therefore not all things necessary To both which Arguments my Answer shortly is this that they prove something but it is that which no man here denies For D. Potter as you have also confessed never said not undertook to shew that the Apostles intended to comprize in the Creed all points absolutely which we are bound to believe or after sufficient proposall not to disbelieve which yet here and every where you are obtruding upon him But only that they purposed to comprize in it all such doctrines purely speculative all such matters of simple belief as are in ordinary course necessary to be distinctly and explicitly believed by all men Neither of these objections doe any way infringe or impeach the truth of this Assertion Not the first because according to your own doctrine all men are not bound to know explicitely what books of Scripture are Canonicall Nor the second because Baptisme is not a matter of Faith but practise not so much to be believed as to be given and received And against these Answers whether you have brought any considerable new matter let the indifferent Reader judge As for the other things which D. Potter rather glanceth at then builâ—s upon in answering these objections as the Creed's being collected out of Scripture and supposing the Authority of it which Gregory of Valentia in the place above cited seemes to me to confesse to have been the Iudgement of the Ancient Fathers and the Nicene Creed's intimating the authority of Canonicall Scripture and making mention of Baptisme These things were said ex abundanti and therefore I conceive it superfluous to examine your exceptions against them Prove that D. Potter did affirme that the Creed containes all things necessary to be believed of all sorts and then these objections will be pertinent and deserve an answer Or produce some point of simple belief necessary to be explicitly believed which is not contained either in termes or by consequence in the Creed and then I will either answer your Reasons or confesse I cannot But all this while you doe but trifle and are so farre from hitting the marke that you rove quite beside the But. 65 Ad § 23. 24. 25. Potterâ—emands â—emands How it can be necessary for any Christian to have more in his Creed then the Apostles had and the Church of their times You Answer That he trifles not distinguishing between the Apostles belief and that abridgement of some Articles of faith which we call the Apostles Creed I reply that it is you which trifle affectedly confounding what D. Potter hath plainly distinguished the Apostles belief of the whole Religion of Christ as it comprehends both what we are to doe and what we are to believe with their belief of that part of it which containes not duties of obedience but only the necessary Articles of siâ—ple â—aith Now though the Apostles Beleife be in the former sense a larger thing then that which we call the Apostles Creed yet in the latter sense of the word the Creed I say is a full comprehension of their belief which you your selfe have formerly confessed though somewhat fearfully and inconstantly and here again unwillingnesse to speak the truth makes you speak that which is hardly sense and call it an abridgement of some Articles of Faith For I demand these some Articles which you speak of which are they Those that are out of the Creed or those that are in it Those that are in it it comprehends at large and therefore it is not an abridgement of them Those that are out of it it comprehends not at all and therefore it is not an abridgement of them If you would call it now an abridgement of the Faith this would be sense and signify thus much That all the necessary Articles of the Christian faith are compriz'd in it For this is the proper duty of abridgements to leave out nothing
is from the Church of Rome as it is the Sea of Peter And therefore D. Potter need not to be so hot with us because we say and write that the Church of Rome in that sense as she is the Mother Church of all others and with which all the rest agree is truly called the Catholique Church S. Hierome writing to Pope Damasus saith I am in the Communion of the Chaire of Peter I know that the Church is built upon that Rock Whosoever shall eat the Lambe out of this house he is prophane If any shall not be in the Arke of Noe he shall perish in the time of the deluge Whosoever doth not gather with thee doth scatter that is he that is not of Christ is of Antichrist And elsewhere Which doth he call his faith That of the Roman Church Or that which is contained in the Bookes of Origen If he answer the Roman then we are Catholiques who have translated nothing of the error of Origen And yet farther Know thou that the Roman faith commended by the voice of the Apostle doth not receive these delusions though an Angell should denounce otherwise then it hath once been preached S Ambrose recounting how his Brother Satyrus inquiring for a Church wherein to give thankes for his delivery from shipwrack saith he called unto him the Bishop neither did he esteeme any favour to be true except that of the true faith and he asked of him whether he agreed with the Catholique Bishops that is with the Roman Church And having understood that he was a Schismatique that is separated from the Roman Church he abstained from communicating with him Where we see the priviledge of the Roman Church confirmed both by word and deed by doctrine and practice And the same Saint saith of the Roman Church From thence the Rights of Venerable Communion doe flow to all S. Cyprian saith They are bold to saile to the Chaire of Peter and to the principall Church from whence Priestly Vnity hath sprung Neither doe they consider that they are Romans whose faith was commended by the preaching of the Apostle to whom falshood cannot have accesse Where we see this holy Father joynes together the principall Church and the Chaire of Peter and affirmeth that falsehood not only hath not had but cannot have accesse to that Sea And elsewhere Thou wrotest that I should send a Coppy of the same letters to Cornelius our Collegue that laying aside all solicitude he might now be assured that thou didst Communicate with him that is with the Catholique Church What think you M. Doctor of these words Is it so strange a thing to take for one and the same thing to communicate with the Church and Pope of Rome and to communicate with the Catholique Church S. Ireneus saith Because it were long to number the successions of all Churches we declaring the Tradition and faith preached to men and comming to us by Tradition of the most great most ancient and most known Church founded by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul which Tradition it hath from the Apostles comming to us by succession of Bishops we confound all those who any way either by evill complacence of theÌ„selves or vain glory or by blindnes or ill Opinion doe gather otherwise thâ— they ought For to this Church for a more powerfull Principality it is necessary that all Churches resort that is all faithfull people of what place soever in which Roman Ch. the Tradition which is from the Apostles hath alwayes been conserved from those who are every where S. Augustine saith It grieves us to see you so to lie cut off Number the Priests even from the Sea of Peter and consider in that order of Fathers who succeeded to whom She is the Rock which the proud Gates of Hell doe not overcome And in another place speaking of Caecilianus he saith He might contemne the conspiring multitude of his Enemies because he knew himselfe to be vnited by Communicatory letters both to the Roman Church in which the Principality of the Sea Apostolique did alwayes florish and to other Countries from whence the Gospell came first into Africa Ancient Tertullian saith If thou be neere Italy thou hast Rome whose Authority is neere at hand to us a happy Church into which the Apostles haue powred all Doctrine together with their blood S. Basill in a letter to the Bishop of Rome â—aith In very deed that which was given by our Lord to thy Piety is worthy of that most excellent voice which proclaimed thee Blessed to wit that thou maist discern betwixt that which is counterfeit and that which is lawfull and pure and without any diminution mayest preach the Faith of our Ancestors Maximinianus Bishop of Constantinâ—ple about twelue hundred yeares agoe said All the bounds of the earth who haue sincerely acknowledged our Lord and Catholiques through the whole world professing the true Faith look upon the power of the Bishop of Rome as upon the sunne c. For the Creator of the world amongst all men of the world elected him he speaks of S. Peter to whom he granted the Chaire of Doctour to be principally possessed by a perpetuall right of Priviledge that whosoever is desirous to know any Divine and profound thing may hauâ— recourse to the Oracle and Doctrine of this instruction Iohn Patriarck of Constantinople more then eleven hundred yeares agoe in an Epistle to Pope Hormisda writeth thus Because the beginning of salvation is to conserue the rule of right Faith and in no wise to swarue from the tradition of our fore-Fathers because the words of our Lord cannot faile saying Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church the proofes of deeds haue made good those words because in the Sea Apostolicall the Catholique Religion is alwaies conserved inviolable And again We promise hereafter not to recite in the sacred Mysteries the names of them who are excluded from the Communion of the Catholique Church that is to say who consent not fully with the Sea Apostolique Many other Authorities of the ancient Fathers might be produced to this purpose but these may serue to shew that both the Latin and Greek Fathers held for a Note of being a Catholique or an Heretique to haue been united or divided from the Sea of Rome And I haue purposely alleaged only such Authorities of Fathers as speak of the privileges of the Sea of Rome as of things permanent and depending on our Saviours promise to S Peter from which a generall rule and ground ought to be taken for all Ages because Heaven and Earth shall passe but the word of our Lord shall remain for ever So that I here conclude that seeing it is manifest that Luther and his followers divided themselues from the Sea of Rome they beare the inseparable Mark of Heresie 20 And though my meaning be not to treat the point of
that although the Waldenses Wicliffe c. had agreed with Protestants in all points of doctrine yet they could not bragge of Succession from them because their doctrine hath not been free from interruption which necessarily crosseth Succession 24 And as want of Succession of Persons and Doctrine cannot stand with that Vniversality of Time which is inseparable from the Catholique Church so likewise the disagreeing Sectâ— which are dispersed throughout divers Countries and Nations cannot help towards that Vniversality of Place wherewith the true Church must be endued but rather such locall multiplication doth more more lay open their division want of Succession in Doctrine For the excellent Observation of S. Augustine doth punctually agree with all modern Heretiques wherein this holy Father having cited these words out of the Prophet Ezechiell My flocks are dispersed upon the whole face of the Earth he addes this remarkable sentence Not all Heretiques are spread over the face of the Earth and yet there are Heretiques spread over the whole face of the Earth some here some there yet they are wanting in no place they know not one another One Sect for example in Africa another Heresy in the East another in Egypt another in Mesopotamia In divers places they are divers one Mother pride hath begot them all as our own Mother the Catholique Church hath brought forth all faithfull people dispersed throughout the whole world No wonder then if Pride breed Dissention and Charity Vnion And in another place applying to Heretiques those words of the Canticles If thou know not thy selfe goe forth and follow after the steps of the flocks and feed thy kids he saith If thou know not thy selfe goe thou forth I doe not cast thee out but goe thou out that it may be said of thee They went from us but they were not of us Goe thou out in the steps of the flocks not in my steps but in the steps of the flocks nor of one flock but of divers and wandring flocks And feed thy Kids not as Peter to whom is said Feed my sheepe but seed thy Kids in the Tabernacles of the Pastors not in the Tabernacle of the Pastor where there is one flock and one Pastor In which words this holy Father doth set down the Markes of Heresy to wit going out from the Church and Want of Vnity among themselves which proceed from not acknowledging one supreme Visible Pastor and Head under Christ. And so it being Proved that Protestants having neither succession of Persons nor Doctrine nor Vniversality of Time or Place cannot avoid the just note of Heresy 25 Hitherto we have brought arguments to prove that Luther and all Protestants are guilty of Heresy against the Negative Precept of faith which obligeth us under pain of damnation not to imbrace any one errour contrary to any Truth sufficiently propounded as testified or revealed by Almighty God Which were enough to make good that among Persons who disagree many one point of Faith one part only can be saved Yet we will now prove that Whosoever erreth in any one point doth also break the Affirmative Precept of Faith whereby we are obliged positively to believe some revealed truth with an infallible and supernaturall Faith which is necessary to salvation even necessitate finis or meâ—ii as Divines speak that is so necessary that not any after he is come to the use of Reason was or can be saved without it according to the words of the Apostle Without Faith it is impossible to please God 26 In the beginning of this Chapter I shewed that to Christian Catholique faith are required Certainty Obscurtty Prudence and Supernaturality All which Conditions we will proue to bee wanting in the beliefe of Protestants even in those points which are true in themseluâ—s and to which they yeeld assent as hapeneth in all those particulars wherein they agree with us from whence it will follow that they wanting true Divine Faith want meanes absolutely necessary to salvation 27 And first that their beliefe wanteth Certainty I proue because denying the Vniversall infallibility of the Church can haue no certain grouÌ„nd to know what Objects are â—evealed or testified by God Holy Scripture is in it selfe most true and infallible but without the direction declaration of the Church we can neither haue certain means to know what Scripture is Canonicall nor what Translations be faithfull nor what is the true meaning of Scripture Every Protestant as I suppose is perswaded that his own opinions be true and that he hath used such means as are wont to be prescribed for understanding the Scripture as Prayer Conferring of divers Texts c. and yet their disagreements shew thaâ— some of them are deceaved And therefore it is cleer that they haue no one certain ground whereon to rely for understanding of Scripture And seeing they hold all the Articles of Faith even concerning fundamentall points upon the selfe same ground of Scripture interpreted not by the Churches Authority but according to some other Rules which as experience of their contradictions teach doe sometimes faile it is cleer that the ground of their faith is infallible in no point at all And albeit sometime it chance to hit on the truth yet it is likewise apt to lead them to errour As all Arch-heretiques believing some truths withall divers errours upon the same ground and motive have indeed no true divine infallible faith bâ—t only a fallible humane opinion and perswasion For if the ground upon which they rely were certain it could never produce any errour 28 Another cause of uncertainty in the faith of Protestants must rise from their distinction of points fundamentall and not fundamentall For since they acknowledge that every errour in fundamentall points destroyeth the substance of faith and yet cannot determine what points bee fundamentall it followeth that they must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamentall error and so want the substance of faith without which there can be no hope of Salvation 29 And that he who erreth against any one revealed truth as certainly some Protestants must doe because contradictory Propositions cannot both be true doth loose all Divine faith is a very true doctrine delivered by Catholique Divines with so generall a consent that the contrary is wont to be censured as temerarious The Angelicall Doctor S. Thomas proposeth this Question Whether he who denieth one Article of faith may retain faith in other Articles and resolveth that he cannot which he proveth Argumentâ— sed contra because As deadly sin is opposits to Charity so to deny one Article of faith is opposite to faith But Charity doth not remain with any one deadly sin therefore faith doth not remain after the deniall of any one Article of faith Whereof he gives this farther reason Because saith he the nature of every habit doth depend upon the formall Motiue and Obiect thereof which Motiue being taken away the
nature of the habit cannot remain But the formall Obiect of faith is the supreme truth as it is manifested in Scriptures and in the doctrine of the Church which proceeds from the same supreme verity Whosoever therefore doth not rely upon the doctrine of the Church which proceeds from the supreme verity manifested in Scripture as upon an infallible Rule hee hath not the habit of faith but belieues those things which belong to faith by some other me anes then by faith as if one should remember some Conclusion and not know the reason of that demonstration it is cleer that hee hath not certain knowledge but only Opinion Now it is manifest that hee who relies on the doctrine of the Church as upon an infallible Rule will yeeld his assent to all that the Church teacheth For if among those things which she teacheth he hold what he will and doth not hold what he will not hee doth not rely upon the doctrine of the Church as upon an infallible Rule but only upon his own will And so it is cleer that an Heretique who with pertinacity denieth one Article of faith is not ready to follow the doctrine of the Church in all things And therefore it is manifest that whosoever is an Heretique in any one Article of faith concerning other Articles hath not saith but a kind of Opinion or his own will Thus far S. Thomas And afterward A man doth belieue all the Articles of faith for one and the selfe same reason to wit for the Prime Verity proposed to us in the Scripture understood aright according to the Doctrine of the Church and therefore whosoever fals from this reason or motiue is totally deprived of faith From this true doctrine wee are to infer that to retain or want the substance of faith doth not consist in the matter or multitude of the Articles but in the opposition against Gods divine testimony which is involved in every least error against faith And since some Protestants must needs erre and that they haue no certain rule to knowe why rather one then another it manifestly follows that none of them haue any Certainty for the substance of their faith in any one point Moreover D. Potter being forced to confesse that the Roman Church wants not the substance of faith it follows that she doth not erre in any one point against faith because as we haue seen out of S. Thomas every such errour destroies the substance of faith Now if the Roman Church did not erre in any one point of faith it is manifest that Protestants erre in all those points wherein they are contrary to her And this may suffice to prove that the faith of Protestants wants Infallibility 30 And now for the second Condition of faith I say If Protestants haue Certainty they want Obscurity and so haue not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing or not necessiâ—ating our Vnderstanding to an assent For the whole edifice of the faith of Protestants is setled on these two Principles These particular Books are Canonicall Scripture And the sense and meaning of these Canonicall Scriptures is cleer and evident at least in all points necessary to Salvation Now these Principles being once supposed it cleerly followeth that what Protestants belieue as necessary to salvation is evidently known by them to be true by this argument It is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in the word of God is true But it is certain and evident that these Books in particular are the word of God Therefore it is certaine and evident that whatsoever is contained in these Books is true Which Conclusion I take for a Maior in a second Argument and say thus It is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in these Books is true but it is certain and evident that such particular Articles for example the Trinity Incarnation Originall sin c. are contained in these Books Therefore it is certain and evident that these particular Objects are true Neither will it avail you to say that the said Principles are not evident by naturall discourse but onely to the eye of reason cleered by grace as you speak For supernaturall evidence no lesse yea rather more drawes and excludes obscurity then naturall evidence doth neither can the party so enlightned be said voluntarily to captivate his understanding to that light but rather his understanding is by a necessity made captive and forced not to disbelieve what is presented by so cleare a light And therefore your imaginary faith is not the true faith defined by the Apostle but an invention of your own 31 That the faith of Protestants wanteth the third Condition which was Prudence is deduced from all that hitherto hath been said What wisdome was it to forsake a Church confessedly very ancient and besides which there could be demonstrated no other visible Church of Christ upon earth A Church acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation endued with Succession of Bishops with Visibility and Vniversality of Time and Place A Church which if it bee not the true Church her enemies cannot pretend to have any Church Ordination Scriptures Succession c. and are forced for their own sake to maintain her perpetuall Existence and Being To leave I say such a Church and frame a Community without either Vnity or means to procure it a Church which at Luthers first revolt had no larger extent then where his body was A Church without Vniversality of place or Time A Church which can pretend no Visibility or Being except only in that former Church which it opposeth A Church void of Succession of Persons oâ— Doctrine What wisedome was it to follow such men as Luther in an opposition against the visible Church of Christ begun upon meer passion What wisdome is it to receive from Vs a Church Ordination Scriptures Personall Succession and not Succession of Doctrine Is not this to verifie the name of Heresie which signifieth Election or Choice Whereby they cannot avoid that note of Imprudency or as S. Augustine calls it Foolishnesse set down by him against the Manichees and by me recited before I would not saith he belieue the Gospell unlesse the Authority of the Church did moue me Those therefore whom I obeyed saying Belieue the Gospel why should I not obey the same meÌ„ saying to me Doe not belieue Manichaeus Luther Calvin c. Choose what thou pleasest If thou say Belieue the Catholiques they warne me not to belieue thee Wherefore if I belieue them I cannot belieue thee If thou say Doe not belieue the Catholiques thou shalt not doe well in forcing me to the faith of Manichaeus because by the Preaching of Catholiques I believed the Gospell it selfe If thou say you did well to belieue them Catholiques commending the Gospell but you did not well to belieue them discommending Manichaeus dost thou think me so very FOOLISH that without any reason at all I should belieue what
will let it passe and desire you to give me some peece or shadow of reason why I may not doe all this without a perpetuall Succession of Bishops and Pastours that have done so before me You may judge as uncharitably and speak as maliciously of me as your blind zeale to your Superstition shall direct you but certainly I know and with all your Sophistry you cannot make me doubt of what I know that I doe beleeve the Gospell of Christ as it is delivered in the undoubted books of Canonicall Scripture as verily as that it is now day that I see the light that I am now writing and I beleeve it upon this Motive because I conceive it sufficiently abundantly superabundantly proved to be divine Revelation And yet in this I doe not depend upon any Succession of men that have alwayes beleeved it without any mixture of Errour nay I am fully perswaded there hath been no such Succession aud yet doe not find my self any way weakned in my faith by the want of it but so fully assured of the truth of it that not only though your divels at Lowden doe tricks against it but though an Angell from heaven should gainsay it or any part of it I perswade my self that I should not be moved This I say and this I am sure is true and if you will be so hyperscepticall as to perswade me that I am not sure that I doe beleeve all this I desire you to tell me how are you sure that you beleeve the Church of Rome For if a man may perswade himself he doth beleeve what he doth not beleeve then may you think you beleeve the Church of Rome and yet not beleeve it But if no man can erre concerning what he beleeves then you must give me leave to assure my selfe that I doe beleeve and consequently that any man may beleeve the foresaid truths upon the foresaid motives without any dependance upon any Succession that hath beleeved it alwayes And as from your definition of faith so from your definition of Heresy this phancy may be refuted For questionlesse no man can be an Heretique but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary Errour therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretique whether he will or no by want of such a thing that is not in his power to have But that there should have been a perpetuall Succession of Beleevers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in your power therefore our being or not being Heretiques depends not on it Besides what is more certain then that he may make a streight line who hath a Rule to make it by though never man in the world had made any before and why then may not he that beleeves the Scripture to be the word of God and the Rule of faith regulate his faith by it and consequently beleeve aright without much regarding what other men either will doe or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his words beleeved he by his Providence must take order that either by succession of men or by some other meanes naturall or supernaturall it be preserv'd and delivered and sufficiently notified to bee his word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no errour against it certainly there is no more necessity then that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sinne against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgresse it certainly they may also preserve directions for their faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Barre doe find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined of times make against themselves This they doe ignorantly it being in their power to suppresse or perhaps to alter them And why then should any man conceive it strange that an erroneous and corrupted Church should preserve and deliver the Scriptures uncorrupted when indeed for many reasons which I have formerly alleaged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetuall Succession of men orthodoxe in all points certainly there is no necessity at all of any such neither can the want of it prove any man or any Church Hereticall 39 When therefore you have produced some proofe of this which was your Major in your former Syllogisme That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresy you shall then receive a full answer to your Minor We shall then consider whether your indelible Character be any reality or whether it be a creature of your own making a fancy of your own imagination And if it be a thing and not only a word whether our Bishops and Priests have it not as well as yours whether some mens perswasion that there is no such thing can hinder them from having it or prove that they have it not if there be any such thing Any more then a mans perswasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will marke him not to have taken it if hee has or hinder the operation of it And whether Tertullian in the place quoted by you speak of a Priest made a Lay-man by just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some make upon Heretiques that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferr'd on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Pope's right or an usurpation If it were his right whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiasticall And if by Ecclesiasticall only whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to loose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to loose it those that deprived him of it had power to take it from him Or if not whether they had power to suspend him from the use of it untill good caution were put in and good assurance given that if he had it again he would not abuse it as he had formerly done Whether in case they had done unlawfully that took his power from him it may not things being now setled and the present government established be as unlawfull to goe about to restore it Whether it be not a Fallacy to conclude because we believe the Pope hath no power in England now when the King and State and Church hath deprived him upon just grounds of it therefore wee cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schisme a man may not withdraw obediēce from an usurp'd Authority commanding unlawfull things Whether the Roman Church might not give authority to Bishops and Priests to oppose her errors as well as a King gives Authority to a Iudge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Traian gave
certainty I prove because they denying the universall Infallibility of the Church can have no certain ground to know what objects are revealed or testified by God But if there be no other ground of certainty but your Churches infallibility upon what certain ground doe you know that your Church is infallible Upon what certain ground doe you know all those things which must be known before you can know that your Church is infallible As that there is a God that God hath promised his assistance to your Church in all her Decrees that the Scripture wherein this promise is extant is the word of God that those texts of Scripture which you alleage for your infallibility are incorrupted that that which you pretend is the true sense of them When you have produc'd certain grounds for all these things I doubt not but it will appeare that we also may have grounds certain enough to believe our whole Religion which is nothing else but the Bible without dependance on the Churches infallibility Suppose you should meet with a man that for the present believes neither Church nor Scripture nor God but is ready willing to believe them all if you can shew some sufficient grounds to build his faith upon will you tell such a man there are no certain grounds by which he may be converted or there are If you say the first you make all Religion an uncertain thing If the second then either you must ridiculously perswade that your Church is infallible because it is infallible or else that there are other certain grounds besides your Churches infallibility 46 But you proceed and tell us that Holy Scripture is in it selfe most true and infallible but without the direction and declaration of the Church we can neither have certain meanes to know what Scripture is Canonicall nor what Translations be faithfull nor what is the true meaning of Scripture Answ. But all these things must be known before we can know the direction of your Church to be infallible for no other proofe of it can be pretended but only some Texts of Canonicall Scripture truly interpreted Therefore either you are mistaken in thinking there is no other meanes to know these things but your Churches infallible direction or we are excluded from all meanes of knowing her direction to be infallible 47 But Protestants though as you suppose they are perswaded their own oponions are true and that they have used such meanes as are wont to be prescribed for understanding the Scripture as Prayer conferring of Texts c. Yet by their disagreement shew that some of them are deceived Now they hold all the Articles of their faith upon this only ground of Scripture interpreted by these rules and therefore it is cleere that the ground of their faith is infallible in no point at all The first of these suppositions must needs be true but the second is apparently false I mean that every Protestant is perswaded that he hath used those means which are prescribed for understanding of Scripture But that which you collect from these suppositions is cleerely inconsequent and by as good Logick you might conclude that Logick and Geometry stand upon no certain grounds that the rules of the one and the principles of the other doe sometimes faile because the disagreement of Logicians and Geometricians shew that some of them are deceived Might not a Iew conclude as well against all Christians that they have no certain ground whereon to rely in their understanding of Scripture because their disagreements shew that some are deceived because some deduce from it the infallibility of a Church and others no such matter So likewise a Turke might use the same argument against both Iewes and Christians and an Atheist against all Religions and a Sceptick against all reason Might not the one say Mens disagreement in Religion shew that there is no certainty in any and the other that experience of their contradictions teacheth that the rules of reason doe sometimes faile Doe not you see and feele how void of reason and how full of impiety your sophistry is And how transported with zeale against Protestants you urge arguments against them which if they could not be answered would overthrow not only your own but all Religion But God be thanked the answere is easy and obvious For let men but remember not to impute the faults of men but only to men and then it will easily appear that there may be sufficient certainty in reason in Religion in the rules of interpreting Scripture though men through their faults take not care to make use of them and so run into divers errors and dissentions 48 But Protestants cannot determine what points be fundamentall and therefore must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamentall error Ans. By like reason since you acknowledge that every error in points defin'd and declared by your Church destroies the substance of faith and yet cannot determine what points be defined it followeth that you must remain uncertain whether or no you be not in some fundamentall error and so want the substance of faith without which there can be no hope of Salvation Now that you are uncertain what points are defined appeares from your owne words c. 4. § 3. of your second Part where say you No lesse impertinent is your discourse concerning the difficulty to know what is Heresy For we grant that it is not alwaies easy to determine in particular occasions whether this or that Doctrine be such because it may be doubtfull whether it be against any Scripture or divine Tradition or Definition of the Church Neither were it difficult to extort from you this confession by naming diverse Points which some of you say are defin'd others the contrary And others hang in suspense and know not what to determine But this I have done elsewhere as also I have shewed plainly enough that though we cannot perhaps say in particular thus much and no more is fundamentall yet believing all the Bible we are certain enough that we believe all that is fundamentall As he that in a receit takes twenty ingredients whereoften only are necessary though he know not which those ten are yet taking the whole twenty he is sure enough that he has taken all that are necessary 49 Ad § 29. But that he who erreth against any one revealed truth looseth all Divine Faith is a very true doctrine delivered by Catholique Divines you mean your own with so generall a consent that the contrary is wont to be censur'd as temerarious Now certainly some Protestants must doe so because they hold contradictions which cannot all be true Therefore some of them at least have no divine faith Ans. I passe by your weaknesse in urging Protestants with the authority of your Divines which yet in you might very deservedly be censur'd For when D. Potter to shew the many actuall dissentions between the Romish Doctors notwithstanding their braggs of potentiall Vnity referres
men and deducing according to the never failing rules of Logick consequent deductions from them if this be it which you mean by discourse it is very meet reasonable necessary that men as in all their actions so especially in that of greatest importance the choice of their way to happinesse should be left unto it and he that followes this in all his opinions and actions and does not only seeme to doe so followes alwaies God whereas he that followeth a Company of men may oftimes follow a company of beasts And in saying this I say no more then S. Iohn to all Christians in these words Dearly beloved believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God or no and the rule he gives them to make this tryall by is to consider whether they confesse Iesus to be the Christ that is the Guide of their Faith and Lord of their actions no◠whether they acknowledge the Pope to be his Vicar I say no more then S. Paul in exhorting all Christians to try all things and to hold fast that which is good then S. Peter in cōmanding all Christians to be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in them then our Saviour himselfe in forewarning all his followers that if they blindly followed blind guides both leaders and followers should fall into the ditch and again in saying even to the people Yea why of your selves iudge ye not what is right And though by passion or precipitation or preiudice by want of reason or not using that they have men may be and are oftentimes led into error and mischiefe yet that they cannot be misguided by discourse truly so called such as I have described you your selfe have given them security For what is discourse but drawing conclusions out of premises by good consequence Now the principles which we have setled to wit the Scriptures are on all sides agreed to be infallibly true And you have told us in the fourth chap. of this Pamphlet that from truth no man can by good consequence inferre falshood Therefore by discourse no man can possibly be led to error but if he erre in his conclusions he must of necessity either erre in his principles which here cannot have place or commit some error in his discourse that is indeed not discourse but seeme to doe so 13 You say thirdly with sufficient confidence that if the true Church may erre in defining what Scriptures be Canonicall or in delivering the sense thereof then we must follow either the privat Spirit or else naturall wit and iudgement and by them examine what Scriptures containe true or false doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or reiected All which is apparently untrue neither can any proofe of it be pretended For though the present Church may possibly erre in her judgement touching this matter yet have we other directions in it besides the privat spirit and the examination of the contents which latter way may conclude the negative very strongly to wit that such or such a book cannot come from God because it containes irreconcileable contradictions but the affirmative it cannot conclude because the contents of a book may be all true and yet the book not written by divine inspiration other direction therefore I say we have besides either of these three that is the testimony of the Primitive Christians 14 You say Fourthly with convenient boldnesse That this infallible Authority of your Church being denied no man can be assur'd that any parcell of Scripture was written by Divine inspiration Which is an untruth for which no proofe is pretended and besides void of modesty and full of impiety The first because the experience of innumerable Christians is against it who are sufficiently assur'd that the Scripture is divinely inspir'd and yet deny the infallible authority of your Church or any other The second because if◠I cannot have ground to be assur'd of the divine authority of Scripture unlesse I first believe your Church infallible then I can have no ground at all to believe it because there is no ground nor can any be pretended why I should believe your Church infallible unlesse I first beleeve the Scripture divine 15 Fiftly and lastly You say with confidence in abundance that none can deny the infallible authority of your Church but he must abandon all infus'd faith and true religion if he doe but understand him selfe Which is to say agreeable to what you had said before and what out of the abundance of your hearts you speak very often That all Christians besides you are open Fooles or conceal'd Atheists All this you say with notable confidence as the manner of Sophisters is to place their confidence of prevailing in their confident manner of speaking but then for the evidence you promised to maintaine this confidence that is quite vanished and become invisible 16 Had I a mind to recriminate now and to charge Papists as you doe Protestants that they lead men to Socinianisme I could certainly make a much fairer shew of evidence then you have done For I would not tell you you deny the infallibility of the Church of England ergo you lead to Socinianisme which yet is altogether as good an Argument as this Protestants deny the infallibility of the Roman Church ergo they induce Socinianisme Nor would I resume my former Argument and urge you that by holding the Popes infallibility you submit your selfe to that capitall and Mother Heresy by advantage whereof he may lead you at ease to believe vertue vice and vice vertue to believe Antichristianity Christianisme and Christianity Antichristian he may lead you to Socinianisme to Turcisme nay to the Divell himselfe if he have a mind to it But I would shew you that divers waies the Doctors of your Church doe the principall and proper work of the Socinians for the undermining the Doctrine of the Trinity by denying it to be supported by those pillars of the Faith which alone are fit and able to support it I mean Scripture and the Consent of the ancient Doctors 17 For Scripture your men deny very plainly and frequently that this Doctrine can be proved by it See if you please this plainly taught and urged very earnestly by Cardinall Hosius De Author Sac. Scrip. l. 3. p. 53. By Gordonius Huntlaeus Contr. Tom. 1. Controv. 1. De verbo Dei C. 19. by Gretserus and Tanerus in Colloquio Ratesbon And also by Vega Possevin Wiekus and Others 18 And then for the Consent of the Ancients that that also delivers it not by whom are we taught but by Papists only Who is it that makes known to all the world that Eusebius that great searcher and devourer of the Christian libraries was an Arrian Is it not your great Achilles Cardinall Perron in his 3. Book 2. Chap. of his Reply to K. Iames Who is it that informs us that Origen who never was questioned for any error in this matter in or
rather to commend the vertue of an enemy then to flatter the vice and imbecility of a friend And so much for this matter 24 Again what if the names of Priests and Altars so frequent in the ancient Fathers though not in the now Popish sense be now resum'd and more commonly used in England then of late times they were that so the colourable argument of their conformity which is but nominall with the ancient Church and our inconformity which the Governors of the Church would not have so much as nominall may be taken away from them and the Church of England may be put in a state in this regard more justifiable against the Roman then formerly it was being hereby enabled to say to Papists whensoever these names are objected we also use the names of Priests and Altars and yet believe neither the corporall Presence nor any Proper and propitiatory Sacrifice 25 What if Protestants be now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are bound by a Canon to follow the ancient Fathers which whosoever doth with syncerity it is utterly impossible he should be a Papist And it is most falsely said by you that you know that to some Protestants I cleerly demonstrated or ever so much as undertook or went about to demonstrate the contrary What if the Centurists be censur'd somewhat roundly by a Protestant Divine for affrming that the keeping of the Lords day was a thing indifferent for two hundred yeares Is there in all this or any part of it any kind of proofe of this scandalous calumny Certainly if you can make no better arguments then these and have so little judgement as to think these any you have great reason to decline conferences and Signior Con to prohibite you from writing books any more 26 As for the points of Doctrine wherein you pretend that these Divines begin of late to falter and to comply with the Church of Rome upon a due examination of particulars it will presently appear First that part of them alwaies have been and now are held constantly one way by them as the Authority of the Church in determining Controversies of faith though not the infallibility of it That there is Inherent Iustice though so imperfect that it cannot justify That there are Traditions though none necessary That charity is to be preferr'd before knowledge That good Works are not properly meritorious And lastly that faith alone justifies though that faith justifies not which is alone And secondly for the remainder that they every one of them have been anciently without breach of charity disputed among Protestants such for example were the Questions about the Popes being the Antichrist The lawfulnesse of some kind of prayers for the dead the Estate of the Fathers souls before Christs ascention Freewill Predestination Vniversall grace The Possibility of keeping Gods commandements The use of Pictures in the Church Wherein that there hath been anciently diversity of opinion amongst Protestants it is justifyed to my hand by a witnesse with you beyond exception even your great friend M. Brerely whose care exactnesse and fidelity you say in your Preface is so extraordinary great Consult him therefore Tract 3. Sect. 7. of his Apology And in the 9. 10. 11. 14. 24. 26. 27. 37. Subdivisions of that Section you shall see as in a mirror your selfe prov'd an egregious calumniator for charging Protestants with innovation and inclining to Popery under pretence forsooth that their Doctrine beginnes of late to be altered in these points Whereas M. Brerely will informe you they have been anciently and even from the begining of the Reformation controverted amongst them though perhaps the stream and current of their Doctors runne one way and only some brooke or rivulet of them the other 27 And thus my Friends I suppose are cleerely vindicated from your scandalls and calumnies It remaines now that in the last place I bring my selfe fairely off from your foule aspersions that so my person may not be as indeed howsoever it should not be any disadvantage or disparagement to the cause nor any scandall to weake Christians 28 Your injuries then to me no way deserved by me but by differing in opinion from you wherein yet you surely differ from me as much as I from you are especially three For first upon heereâ—ay refusing to give me oportunity of begetting in you a better understanding of me you charge me with a great number of false and impious doctrines which I will not name in particular because I will not assist you so farre in the spreading of my own undeserved defamation but whosoever teaches or holds them let him be Anathema The summe of them all cast up by your selfe in your first chap. is this Nothing ought or can be certainly believed farther then it may be proved by evidence of Naturall reason where I conceive Naturall reason is oppos'd to supernaturall Revelation and whosoever holds so let him be Anathema And moreover to clear my selfe once for all from all imputations of this nature which charge me injuriously with deniall of Supernaturall Verities I professe syncerely that I believe all those Books of Scripture which the Church of England accounts Canonicall to be the Infallible word of God I believe all things evidently contained in them all things evidently or even probably deducible from them I acknowledge all that to be Heresy which by the Act of Parliament primo of Q. ELIZ. is declar'd to be so only to be so And though in such points which may he held diversly of divers men salvâ Fidei compage I would not take any mans liberty from him and humbly beseech all men that they would not take mine from me Yet thus much I can say which I hope will satisfy any man of reason that whatsoever hath been held necessary to salvation either by the Catholique Church of all ages or by the consent of Fathers measur'd by Vincentius Lyrinensis his rule or is held necessary either by the Catholique Church of this age or by the consent of Protestants or even by the Church of England that against the Socinians and all others whatsoever I doe verily believe and embrace 29 Another great and manifest injury you have done me in charging me to have forsaken your Religion because it condus'd not to my temporall ends and suted not with my desires and designes Which certainly is a horrible crime whereof if you could convince me by just and strong presumptions I should then acknowledge my selfe to deserve that opinion which you would faine induce your credents unto that I chang'd not your Religion for any other but for none at all But of this great fault my conscience acquits me and God who only knowes the hearts of all men knowes that I am innocent Neither doubt I but all they who know me and amongst them many Persons of place and quality will say they have reason in this matter to be my compurgators And for you though you are very
Churches of Asia for differing from him about Easter day And yet I beleiue you will confesse that God had not then declared himselfe about Easter nor hath now about Christmasse Anciently some good Catholique Bishops excommunicated and damned others for holding there were Antipodes and in this question I would faine know on which side was the sufficient proposall The contra-Remonstrants differ from the Remonstrants about the point of predetermination as a matter of faith I would knowe in this thing also which way God hath declar'd himselfe whether for Predetermination or against it Stephen Bishop of Rome held it as a matter of faith Apostolique tradition That Heretiques gaue true Baptisme Others there were and they as good Catholiques as hee that held that this was neither matter of Faith nor matter of Truth Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus held the doctrine of the Millenaries as a matter of faith and though Iustin Martyr deny it yet you I hope will affirme that some good Christians held the contrary St Augustine I am sure held the communicating of Infants as much Apostolique tradition as the Baptising of them whether the Bishop and the Church of Rome of his time held so too or held otherwise I desire you to determine But sure I am the Church of Rome at this present holds the contrary The same S. Austin held it no matter of faith that the Bishops of Rome were Iudges of Appeales from all parts of the Church Catholique no not in Major causes and Major Persons whether the Bishop or Church of Rome did then hold the contrary doe you resolve me but now I am resolv'd they doe so In all these differences the point in question is esteem'd and propos'd by one side at least as a matter of faith and by the other rejected as not so and either this is to disagree in matters of faith or you will have no meanes to shew that we doe disagree Now then to shew you how weak and sandy the foundation is on which the whole fabrick both of your Book and Church depends answer mee briefly to this Dilemma Eyther in these oppositions one of the opposite Parts err'd damnably and denyed Gods truth sufficiently propounded or they did not If they did then they which doe deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded may goe to heaven and then you are rash and uncharitable in excluding us though we were guilty of this fault If not then there is no such necessity that of two disagreeing about a matter of faith one should deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded And so the Major and Minor of your Argument are prov'd false Yet though they were as true as Gospell and as evident as Mathematicall Principles the conclusion so impertinent is it to the Premises might still be false For that which naturally issues from these propositions is not Therefore one only can be saved But Therefore one of them does something that is damnable But with what Logick or what Charity you can inferre either as the immediat production of the former premises or as a Corollary from this conclusion Therefore one only can be saved I doe not understand unlesse you will pretend that this consequence is good such a one doth something damnable therefore he shall certainly be damned which whether it be not to overthrow the Article of our Faith which promises remission of sinnes upon repentance and consequently to ruine the Gospell of Christ I leave it to the Pope and the Cardinalls to determine For if against this it be alleadged that no man can repent of the sinne wherein he dies This muche I have already stopped by shewing that if it be a sinne of Ignorance this is no way incongruous 11 To the fourth You proceed in sleighting and disgracing your Adversary Pretending his objections are mean and vulgar and such as have been answered a thousand times But if your cause were good these Arts would be needlesse For though some of his objections have been often shifted by men that make a profession of devising shifts and evasions to save themselves and their Religion from the pressure of truth by men that are resolv'd they will say something though they can say nothing to purpose yet I doubt not to make it appear that neither by others have they beene truly and really satisfied and that the best Answere you give them is to call them Mean and vulgar objections 12 To the Fift But this paines might have been spared For the substance of his discourse is in a Sermon of D. Vshers and confuted four yeares agoe by Paulus Veridicus It seemes then the substance of your Reply is in Paulus Veridicus and so your paines also might well have been spared But had there been no necessity to help and peece out your confuting his Arguments with disgracing his person which yet you cannot doe you would have considered that to them who compare D. Potters Book the Arch-Bishops Sermon this aspersion will presently appear a poore detraction not to be answered but scorn'd To say nothing that in D. Potter being to answere a book by expresse Command from Royall Authority to leave any thing materiall unsaid because it had been said before especially being spoken at large and without any relation to the Discourse which he was to Answere had been a ridiculous vanity and foule prevarication 13 To the sixt In your sixt parag I let all passe saving only this That a perswasion that men of different Religions you must mean or else you speak not to the point Christians of divers Opinions and Communions may be saved is a most pernitious heresy and even a ground of Atheisme What strange extractions Chymistry can make I know not but sure I am he that by reason would inferre this conclusion That there is no God from this ground That God will save men in different Religions must have a higher strain in Logick then you or I have hitherto made shew of In my apprehension the other part of the contradiction That there is a God should much rather follow from it And whether contradictions will flow from the same fountaine let the Learned judge Perhaps you will say you intended not to deliver here a positive and measur'd truth and which you expected to be call'd to account for but only a high and tragicall expression of your just detestation of the wicked doctrine against which you write If you mean so I shall let it passe only I am to advertize the lesse-wary Reader that passionate expressions and vehement asseverations are no arguments unlesse it be of the weaknesse of the cause that is defended by them or the man that defends it And to remember you of what Boethius saies of some such things as these Nubila mens est haec ubi regnant For my part I am not now in Passion neither will I speak one word which I think I cannot justify to the full and I say and will maintaine that to say That Christians of different Opinions
committed and which they fear they may haue In which number their being negligent or not dispassionate or not unprejudicate enough in seeking the truth and the effect thereof their errors if they be sinnes cannot but be compriz'd In a word what should hinder but that that Prayer Delicta sua quis intelligit who can understand his faults Lord cleanse thou me from my secret sinnes may be heard and accepted by God as well from a Protestant that dies in some errours as from a Papist that dies in some other sins of Ignorance which perhaps he might more easily haue discovered to bee sinnes then a Protestant could his errours to be errours As well from a Protestant that held some errour which as he conceived Gods word and his reason which is also in some sort Gods word led him unto as from a Dominican who perhaps took up his opinion upon trust not because he had reason to beleiue it true but because it was the opinion of his Order for the same man if hee had light upon another Order would in all probabilitie haue beene of the other opinion For what else is the cause that generally all the Dominicans are of one opinion and all the Iesuits of the other I say from a Dominican who took up his opinion upon trust and that such an opinion if we beleiue the writers of your Order as if it be granted true it were not a point matter what opinions any man held or what actions any man did for the best would be as bad as the worst the worst as good as the best And yet such is the partialitie of your Hypocrisie that of disagreeing Papists neither shall deny the truth testified by God but both may hope for salvation but of disagreeing Protestants though they differ in the same thing one side must deny Gods Testimony and bee incapable of salvation That a Dominican through culpable negligence living and dying in his errour may repent of it though hee knowes it not or be saued though he doe not But if a Protestant doe the very same thing in the very same point and die in his errour his case is desperate The summe of all that hath been said to this Demand is this 1. That no erring Protestant denies any truth testified by God under this formalitie as testified by him nor which they know or beleiue to be testified by him And therefore it is a horrible calumnie in you to say They call Gods Veracitie in question For Gods undoubted and unquestion'd Veracitie is to them the ground why they hold all they doe hold neither doe they hold any opiniō so stifly but they will forgoe it rather then this one That all which God saies is true 2. God hath not so clearely and plainly declared himselfe in most of these things which are in controversie between Protestants but that an honest man whose heart is right to God and one that is a true louer of God and of his truth may by reason of the conflict of contrary Reasons on both sides very easily and therefore excusably mistake and embrace errour for truth and reject truth for errour 3 If any Protestant or Papist be betrayed into or kept in any Errour by any sinne of his will as it is to be fear'd many millions are such Errour is as the cause of it sinfull and damnable yet not exclusiue of all hope of salvation but pardonable if discover'd upon a particular explicite repentance if not discover'd upon a generall and implicite repentance for all Sinnes knowne and unknowne in which number all sinfull Errours must of necessity be contained 17 To the 9. To the nineteenth Wherein you are so urgent for a partilar Catalogue of Fundamentalls I answer almost in your owne words that we also constantly urge and require to haue a particular Catalogue of your Fundamentals whether they be written Verities or unwritten Traditions or Church Definitions all which you say integrate the materiall Object of your Faith In a word of all such points as are defin'd and sufficiently proposed so that whosoever denies or doubts of any of them is certainly in the state of damnation A Catalogue I say in particular of the Proposals and not only some generall definition or description under which you lurke deceitfully of what and what only is sufficiently proposed wherein yet you doe not very well agree For many of you hold the Popes proposall Ex Cathedra to be sufficient and obligeing Some a Councel without a Pope Some of neither of them severally but only both together Some not this neither in matter of manners which Bellarmine acknowledges tells us it is all one in effect as if they denied it sufficient in matter of faith Some not in matter of faith neither think this proposall infallible without the acceptation of the Church universall Some deny the infallibility of the Present Church and only make the Tradition of all ages the infallible Propounder Yet if you were agreed what and what only is the Infallible Propounder this would not satisfie us nor yet to say that All is fundamentall which is propounded sufficiently by him For though agreeing in this yet you might still disagree whether such or such a Doctrine were propounded or not or if propounded whether sufficiently or only unsufficiently And it is so knowne a thing that in many points you doe so that I assure my selfe you will not deny it Therefore we constantly urge and require a particular and perfect Inventory of all these Divine Revelations which you say are sufficiently propounded that such a one to which all of your Church will subscribe as neither redundant nor deficient which when you giue in with one hand you shall receiue a particular Catalogue of such Points as I call Fundamentall with the other Neither may you think mee unreasonable in this demand seeing upon such a particular Catalogue of your sufficient Proposalls as much depends as upon a particular Catalogue of our Fundamentalls As for example Whether or no a man doe not erre in some point defined and sufficiently proposed and whether or no those that differ among you differ in Fundamentalls which if they doe One Heaven by your owne Rule cannot receiue them All. Perhaps you will here complaine that this is not to satisfie your demand but to avoid it and to put you off as the Areopagites did hard causes ad diem longissimum and bid you come againe a hundred yeares hence To deale truly I did so intend it should be Nether can you say my dealing with you is injurious seeing I require nothing of you but that what you require of others you should shew it possible to be done and just and necessary to be required For for my part I haue great reason to suspect it is neither the one nor the other For whereas the Verities which are delivered in Scripture may be very fitly divided into such as were written because they were necessary to be beleived
not by testimony of the private spirit which faith he being private and secret is unfit to teach and refell others but as he acknowledgeth by the Ecclesiasticall Tradition An argument saith he whereby may be argued and convinced what books be Canonicall and what be not Luther saith This indeed the Church hath that she can discerne the word of God from the word of men as Augustine confesseth that he believed the Gospell being moved by the authority of the Church which did preach this to be the Gospell Fulk teacheth that the Church hath judgement to discerne true writings from counterfeit and the word of God from the writing of men and that this iudgement she hath not of her selfe but of the Holy Ghost And to the end that you my not be ignorant from what Church you must receive Scriptures hear your first Patriarch Luther speaking against them who as he saith brought in Anabaptisme that so they might despight the Pope Verily saith he these men build upon a weak foundation For by this means they ought to deny the whole Scripture and the Office of Preaching For all these we have from the Pope otherwise we must go make a new Scripture 8 But now in deeds they all make good that without the Churches authority no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonicall while they cannot agree in assigning the Canon of holy Scripture Of the Epistle of S. Iames Luther hath these words The Epistle of Iames is contentious swelling dry strawy and unworthy of an Apostolicall Spirit Which censure of Luther Illyricus acknowledgeth and maintaineth Kemnitins teacheth that the second Epistle of Peter the second and third of Iohn the Epistle to the Hebrewes the Epistle of Iames the Epistle of Iude and the Apocalyps of Iohn are Apocryphall as not having sufficient Testimony of their authority and therefore that nothing in controversy can be proved out of these Bookes The same is taught by divers other Lutherans and if some other amongst them be of a contrary opinion since Luther's time I wonder what new infallible ground they can alleage why they leaue their Master and so many of his prime Schollers I knâ—w no better ground then because they may with as much freedome abandon him as hee was bold to alter that Canon of Scripture which he found receaved in Gods Church 9 What Bookes of Scripture the Protestants of England hold for Canonicall is not easie to affirme In their sixt Article they say In the name of the holy Scripture who doe understand those Canonicall Books of the Old and New Testament of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church What meane they by these words That by the Churches consent they are assured what Scriptures be Canonicall This were to make the Church Iudge and not Scriptures alone Doe they only understand the agreement of the Church to be a probable inducement Probability is no sufficient ground for an infallible assent of faith By this rule of whose authority was NEVER any doubt in the Church the whole book of Esther must quit the Canon because some in the Church haue excluded it from the Canon as Melito Asianus Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen And Luther if Protestanis will be content that he be in the Church saith The Iewes place the book of Esther in the Canon which yet if I might be Iudge doth rather deserve to bee put out of the Canon And of Ecclesiastes he saith This book is not full there are in it many abrupt things he wants boots and spurres that is he hath no perfect sentence hee rides upon a long reed like me when I was in the Monastery And much more is to be read in him who saith further that the said book was not written by Salomon but by Syrach in the time of the Machabees and that it is like to the Talmud the Iewes bible out of many bookes heaped into one worke perhaps out of the Library of king Ptolomeus And further he saith that he doth not belieue all to haue been done as there is set downe And he reacheth the booke of Iob to be as it were an argument for a fable or Comedy to set before us an example of Patience And he delivers this generall censure of the Prophets Books The Sermons of no Prophet were written whole and perfect but their Disciples and Auditors snatched now one sentence and then another and so put them all into one book and by this meanes the Bible was conserved If this were so the Books of the Prophets being not written by themselues but promiscuously and casually by their Disciples will soone be called in question Are not these errours of Luther fundamentall and yet if Protestants deny the infallibility of the Church upon what certaine ground can they disproue these Lutherian and Luciferian blasphemies ô godly Reformer of the Roman Church But to returne to our English Canon of Scripture In the New Testament by the aboue mentioned rule of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church divers Books of the New Testament must be discanonized to wit all those of which some Ancients haue doubted and those which divers Lutherans haue of late denied It is worth the observation how the before-mentioned sixt Article doth specify by name all the Books of the Old Testament which they hold for Canonicall but those of the New Testament as they are commonly receaved we doe recieue and account them Canonicall The mystery is easily to be unfolded If they had descended to particulars they must haue contradicted some of their chiefest Brethren As they are commonly recieued c. I aske By whom By the Church of Rome Then by the same reason they must receiue divers Books of the Old Testament which they reject By Lutherans Then with Lutherans they may deny some Books of the New Testament If it bee the greater or lesse number of voices that must cry up or down the Canon of Scripture our Roman Canon will prevaile and among Protestants the Certainty of their Faith must be reduced to an Vncertaine Controversie of Fact whether the number of those who reject or of those others who recieue such and such Scriptures bee greater Their Faith must alter according to yeares and daies When Luther first appeared he and his Disciples were the greater number of that new Church and so this claime Of being commonly received stood for them till Zuinglius and Calvin grew to some equall or greater number then that of the Lutherans and then this rule of Commonly received will canonize their Canon against the Lutherans I would gladly know why in the former part of their Article they say both of the Old and New Testament In the name of the holy Scripture we doe understand those Canonicall Books of the Old and New Testament of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church and in the latter part speaking againe
them the argument which S. Augustine opposed to the Manicheans in these words I would not believe the Gospell unlesse the authority of the Church did move me Them therefore whom I obeyeâ— saying Believe the Gospell why should I not obey saying to me Doe not believe Manichaeus Luther Calvin c. Choose what thou pleasest If thou shalt say believe the Catholiques They warne me not to give any credit to you If therefore I believe them I cannot believe thee If thou say Do not believe the Catholiques thou shalt not doe well in forcing me to the faith of Manichaeus because by the preaching of Catholiques I believed the Gospell it selfe If thou say you did well to believe them Catholiques commending the Gospell but you did not well to believe them discommending Manichaeus Dost thou think me so very foolish that without any reason at all I should believe what thou wilt and not believe what thou wilt not And doe not Protestants perfectly resemble these men to whom S. Augustine spake when they will have men to believe the Roman Church delivering Scripture but not to believe her condemning Luther and the rest Against whom when they first opposed themselves to the Roman Church S. Augustine may seem to have spoken no lesse prophetically then doctrinally when he said Why should I not most diligently inâ—uire what Christ coÌ„manded of them before all others by whose authority I was moved to believe that Christ commanded any good thing Canst thou better declare to me what he said whom I would not have thought to have been or to be if the belief thereof had been recommended by thee to mee This therefore I believed by fame strengthned with celebrity consent Antiquity But every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving authority What madnesse is this Believe them Catholiques that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said Why I beseech thee Surely if they Catholiques were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily perswade my selfe that I were not to believe Christ then that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other then them by whom I believed him If therefore we receive the knowledge of Christ and Scriptures from the Church from her also must we take his doctrine and the interpretation thereof 19 But besides all this the Scriptures cannot be Iudge of Controversies who ought to be such as that to him not only the learned or Veterans but also the unlearned and Novices may have recourse for these being capable of salvation and endued with faith of the same nature with that of the learned there must be some universall Iudge which the ignorant may understand and to whom the greatest Clerks must submit Such is the Church and the Scripture is not such 20 Now the inconveniences which follow by referring all Controversies to Scripture alone are very clear For by this principle all is finally in very deed and truth reduced to the internall private Spirit because there is really no middle way betwixt a publiquâ— externall and a private internall voyce and whosoever refuseth the one must of necessity adhere to the other 21 This Tenet also of Protestants by taking the office of Iudicature from the Church comes to conferre it upon every particular man who being driven from submission to the Church cannot be blamed if he trust himselfe as farre as any other his conscience dictating that wittingly he meanes not to cozen himself as others malitiously may doe Which inference is so manifest that it hath extorted from divers Protestants the open Confession of so vast an absurdity Hear Luther The Governours of Churches and Pastors of Christs sheep have indeed power to teach but the sheep ought to give judgement whether they propound the voice of Christ or of Aliens Lubertus saith As we have demonstrated that all publique Iudges may be deceived in interpreting so we affirme that they may erre in judging All faithfull men are private Iudges and they also have power to judge of doctrines and interpretations Whitaker even of the unlearned saith They ought to have recourse unto the more learned but in the meane time we must be carefull not to attribute to them over-much but so that still we retaine our owne freedome Bilson also affirmeth that The people must be discerners and Iudges of that which is taught This same pernicious doctrine is delivered by Brentius Zanchius Cartwright and others exactly cited by Brerely and nothing is more common in every Protestants mouth then that he admits of Fathers Councells Church c. as farre as they agree with Scripture which upon the matter is himselfe Thus Heresy ever fals upon extreames It pretends to have Scripture alone for judge of Controversies and in the meane time sets up as many Iudges as there are men and women in the Christian world What good Statesmen would they be who should ideate or fancy such a CoÌ„mon wealth as these men haue framed to themselues a Church They verifie what S. Augustine objecteth against certaine Heretiques You see that you goe about to overthrow all authority of Scripture and that every mans minde may be to himselfe a Rule what he is to allow or disallow in every Sâ—â—ipture 22 Moreover what confusion to the Church what danger to the Common wealth this deniall of the authority of the Church may bring I leaue to the consideration of any judicious indifferent man I will only set down some words of D. Potter who speaking of the Proposition of revealed Truths sufficient to proue him that gain-saith them to be an Heretique saith thus This Proposition of revealed truths is not by the infallible determination of Pope or Church Pope Church being excluded let us heare what more secure rule he will prescribe but by whatsoever meanes a man may be convinced in conscience of divine revelation If a Preacher doe clear any point of faith to his Hearers if a private Christian doe make it appeare to his Neighbour that any conclusion or point of faith is delivered by divine revelation of Gods word if a man himselfe without any Teacher by reading the Scriptures or hearing them read be convinced of the truth of any such conclusion this is a sufficient proposition to proue him that gainsaith any such proofe to be an Heretique and obstinate opposer of the faith Behold what goodly safe Propounders of faith arise in place of Gods universall visible Church which must yeeld to a single Preacher a Neighbour a man himselfe if he can read or at least haue eares to heare Scripture read Verily I doe not see but that every well-governed Civill Commonwealth ought to concurre towards the exterminating of this doctrine whereby the Interpretation of Scripture is taken from the Church and conferred upon every man who whatsoever is pretended to the contrary may be a passionate seditious creature 23 Moreover
the totall deniall of Christ will not exclude one from being a member of the true Church S. Hilary maketh it of equall necessity for Salvation that we believe our Saviour to be true God and true Man saying This manner of Confession we are to hold that we remember him to be the Sonne of God and the Sonne of Man because the one without the other can giue no hope of Salvatioâ— And yet D. Potter saith of the aforesaid doctrine of Hooker and Morton The Reader may be pleased to approue or reject it as he shall finde cause And in another place he sheweth so much good liking of this doctrine that he explicateth and proveth the Churches perpetuall Visibility by it And in the second Edition of his book he is carefull to declare and illustrate it more at large then he had done before howsoever this sufficiently sheweth that they haue no certainty what points be fundamentall As for the Arians in particular the Author whom D. Potter cites for a moderate Catholique but â—s indeed a plain Heretique or rather Atheist Lucian like jesting at all Religion placeth Arianisme among fundamentall Errours But contrarily an English Protestant Divine masked under the name of Irenaeus Philalethes in a little Book in Latine intituled Dissertatio de pace concordia Ecclesiae endeavoureth to proue that even the deniall of the blessed Trinity may stand with salvation Divers Protestants haue taught that the Roman Church erreth in fundamentall points But D. Potter and others teach the contrary which could not happen if they could agree what be fundamentall points You brand the Donatists with the note of an Errour in the matter and the nature of it properly hereticall because they taught that the Church remained only with them in the part of Donatâ—â— And yet many Protestants are so farre from holding that Doctrine to be a fundamentall errour that themselves goe further and say that for divers ages before Luther there was no â—rue Visible Church at all It is then too too apparent that you haue no agreement in specifying what be fundamentall points neither haue you any meanes to determine what they be for if you have any such meanes why doe you not agree You tell us the Creed containes all points fundamentallâ— which although it were true yet you see it serves not to bring you to a particular knowledge agreement in such points And no wonder For besides what I haue said already in the begining of this Chapter and am to deliver more at large in the next after so much labour and spent paper to prove that the Creed containes all fundamentall points you conclude It remaines very probable that the Creed is the perfect Summary of those fundamentall truths whereof consists the Vâ—â—ty of faith and of the Catholique Church Very probable Then according to all good Logick the contrary may remain very probable and so all remain as full of uncertainty as before The whole Rule say you the sole Iudge of your faith must be Scripture Scripture doth indeed deliver divine Truths but seldome doth qualify them or declare whether they be or be not absolutely necessary to salvation You fall heavy upon Charity Mistaken because he demands a particular Catalogue of fundamentall points which yet you are obliged in conscience to doe if you be able For without such a Catalogue no man can be assured whether or no he haue faith sufficient to Salvation And therefore take it not in ill part if we againe and againe demand such a Catalogue And that you may see we proceed fairely I will performe on our behalfe what we request of you and doe here deliver a Catalogue wherein are comprized all points by us taught to be necessary to Salvation in these words We are obliged under paine of damnation to believe whatsoever the Catholique visible Church of Christ proposeth as revealed by Almighty God If any be of another minde all Catholiques denounce him to be no Catholique But enough of this And I go forward with the Infallibility of the Church in all points 20 For euen out of your own doctrine that the Church cannot erre in points necessary to salvation any wise man will inferre that it behoves all who haue care of their soules not to forsake her in any one point 1. Because they are assured that although her doctrine proved not to be true in some point yet even according to D. Potter the errour cannot be fundamentall nor destructiue of faith and salvation neither can they be accused of any least imprudence in erring if it were possible with the universall Church Secondly since she is under paine of eternall damnation to be believed and obeyed in some things wherein confessedly she is endued with infallibilitie I cannot in wisedome suspect her credit in matters of lesse moment For who would trust another in matters of highest consequence and be affraid to rely on him in things of lesse moment Thirdly since as I said we are undoubtedly obliged not to forsake her in the chiefest or fundamentall points and that there is no Rule to know precisely what and how many those fundamentall points be I cannot without hazard of my soule leaue her in any one point least perhaps that point or points wherein I forsake her proue indeed to be fundamentall and necessary to salvation Fourthly that visible Church which cannot erre in points fundamentall doth without distinction propound all her Definitions concerning matters of faith to be believed under Anathema's or Curses esteeming all those who resist to be deservedly cast out of her Communion and holding it a point necessary to salvation that we believe she cannot erre wherein if she speak true then to deny any one point in particular which she defineth or to affirm in generall that she may erre puts a man into state of damnation Whereas to belieue her in such points as are not necessary to salvation cannot endanger salvation and likewise to remain in her Communion can bring no great harme because she cannot maintain any damnable errour or practise but to be divided from her she being Christs Catholique Church is most certainly damnable Fifthly the true Church being in lawfull and certain possession of Superiority and Power to command and require Obedience from all Christians in some things I cannot without grievous sinne withdraw my obedience in any one unlesse I evidently know that the thing commanded comes not within the compasse of those things to which her Power extendeth And who can better inform me how far God's Church can proceed then Gods Church her selfe Or to what Doctour can the Children and Schollers with greater reason and more security fly for direction then to the Mother and appointed Teacher of all Christians In following her I shall sooner be excused then incleaving to any particular Sâ—ct or Person teaching or applying Scriptures against her doctrine or interpretation Sixtly the fearfull examples of innumerable persons who forsaking the
knowledge or belief of it though it were a profitable thing yet it was not necessary I hope you will not challenge such authority over us as to oblige us to impossibilities to doe that which you cannot doe your selves It is therefore requisite that you make this command possible to be obeyed before you require obedience unto it Are you able then to instruct us so well as to be fit to say unto us Now ye know what withholdeth Or doe you your selves know that ye may instruct us Can yee or dare you say this or this was this hindrance which S. Paul here meant and all men under pain of damnatioÌ„ are to believe it Or if you cannot as I am certain you cannot goe then vaunt your Church for the only Watchfull Faithfull Infallible keeper of the Apostles Traditions when here this very Tradition which here in particular was deposited with the Thessalonians and the Primitive Church you have utterly lost it so that there is no footstep or print of it remaining which with Divine faith we may rely upon Blessed therefore be the goodnesse of God who seeing that what was not written was in such danger to be lost took order that what was necessary should be written Saint Chrysostomes counsell therefore of accounting the Churches Traditions worthy of belief we are willing to obey And if you can of any thing make it appear that it is Tradition we will seek no farther But this we say withall that we are perswaded you cannot make this appear in any thing but only the Canon of Scripture and that there is nothing now extant and to be known by us which can put in so good plea to be the unwritten word of God as the unquestioned Books of Canonicall Scripture to be the written word of God 47 You conclude this Parag. with a sentence of S. Austin's who saies The Church doth not approve nor dissemble nor doe these things which are against Faith or good life and from hence you conclude that it never hath done so nor ever can doe so But though the argumâ—â—â— hold in Logick à non posse ad non esse yet I never heard that it would hold back again à no nesse ad non posse The Church cannot doe this therefore it does it not followes with good consequence but the Church does not this therefore it shall never doe it nor can never doe it this I believe will hardly follow In the Epistle next before to the same Ianuarius writing of the same matter he hath these words It remaines that the things you enquire of must be of that third kind of things which are different in divers places Let every one therefore doe that which he findes done in the Church to which he comes for none of them is against Faith or good manners And why doe you not inferre from hence that no particular Church can bring up any Custome that is against faith or good manners Certainly this consequence has as good reason for it as the former If a man say of the Church of England what S. Austine of the Church that she neither approves nor dissembles nor does any thing against faith or good manners would you collect presently that this man did either make or think the Church of England infallible Furthermore it is observable out of this and the former Epistle that this Church which did not as S. Austine according to you thought approve or dissemble or doe any thing against faith or good life did yet tolerate and dissemble vain superstitions and humane presumptions and suffer all places to be full of them and to be exacted as nay more severely then the commandements of God himselfe This S. Austine himselfe professeth in this very Epistle This saith he I doe infinitely grieve at that many most wholsome precepts of the divine Scripture are little regarded and in the mean time all is so full of so many presumptions that he is more grievously found fault with who during his octaves toucheth the earth with his naked foot then he that shall bury his soul in drunkennesse Of these he saies that they were neither contained in Scripture decreed by Councells nor corroborated by the Custome of the Vniversall Church And though not against faith yet unprofitable burdens of Christian liberty which made the condition of the Iewes more tolerable then that of Christians And therefore he professes of them Approbare non possum I cannot approve them And ubi facult as tribuitur resecanda existimo I think they are to be cut off wheresoever we have power Yet so deeply were they rooted and spread so farre through the indiscreet devotion of the people alwaies more prone to superstition then true piety and through the connivence of the Governors who should have strangled them at their birth that himselfe though he grieved at them and could not allow them yet for fear of offence he durst not speak against them multa hujusmodi propter nonnuâ—aruÌ„ vel sanctaruÌ„ vel turbulentarum personarum scandala devitanda liberius improbare noâ— audeo Many of these things for fear of scandalizing many holy persons or provoking those that are turbulent I dare not freely dâ—sallow Nay the Catholique Church it selfe did see and dissemble and tolerate them for these are the things of which he presently saies after the Church of God and you will have him speak of the true Catholique Church placed between Chaffe Tares tolerates many things Which was directly against the command of the holy spirit given the Church by S. Paul To stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made her free and not to suffer her selfe to be brought in bondage to these servile burdens Our Saviour tels the Scribes and Pharises that in vain they worshipped God teaching for Doctrines mens Commandements For that laying aside the Commandments of God they held the Traditions of men as the washing of pots and cups and many other such like things Certainly that which S. Austine complaines of as the generall fault of Christians of his time was paralell to this Multa saith he quae in divinis libris saluberrima praecepta sunt minus curantur This I suppose I may very well render in our Saviours words The commandements of God are laid aside and then tam multis presumptionibus sic plena sunt omnia all things or all places are so full of so many presumptions and those exacted with such severity nay with Tyranny that he was more severely censur'd who in the time of his Octaves touched the earth with his naked feet then hee which drâ—wned and buried his soul in drink Certainly if this be not to teach for Doctrines mens Commandements I know not what is And therefore these superstitious Christians might be said to worship God in vain as well as Scribes and Phraises And yet great variety of superstitions of this kind were then already spread over the Church being different in divers places This is plain from these words
instruction acquaint the universall Church with my particular scruples You say the Prelates of Gods Church meeting in a lawfull generall Councel may erre damnably It remaines then that for my necessary instruction I must repaire to every particular member of the universall Church spread over the face of the earth and yet you teach that the promises which our Lord hath made unto his Church for his assistance are intended not to any particular persons or Churches but only to the Church Catholique with which as I said it is impossible for me to confer Alas O most uncomfortable Ghostly Father you driue me to desperation How shall I confer with every Christian soule man and woman by sea and by land close prisoner or at liberty c. Yet upon supposall of this miraculous Pilgrimage for Faith before I haue the faith of Miracles how shall I proceed at our meeting Or how shall I know the man on whom I may securely rely Procure will you say to knew whether he belieue all fundamentall points of faith For if he doe his faith for point of beliefe is sufficient for salvation though he erre in a hundred things of lesse moment But how shall I know whether hee hold all fundamentall points or no For till you tell me this I cannot know whether or no his beliefe be sound in all fundamentall points Can you say the Creed Yes And so can many damnable Heretiques But why doe you aske me this question Because the Creed containes all fundamentall points of faith Are you sure of that not sure I hold it very probable Shall I hazard my soule on probabilities or even wagers This yeelds a new cause of despaire But what doth the Creed contain all points necessary to be believed whether they rest in the understanding or else doe further extend to practise No. It was composed to deliver Credenda not Agenda to us Faith not Practise How then shall I know what points of beliefe which direct my practise be necessary to salvation Sâ—ll you chalk our new paths for Desperation Well are all Articles of the Creed for their nature and matter fundamentall I cannot say so How then shall I know which in particular be and which be not fundamentall Read my Answer to a late Popish Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken c. there you shall finde that fundamentall doctrines are such Catholique Verities as principally and essentially pertain to the Faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved They are those grand and capitall doctrines which make up our Faith in Christ that is that common faith which is alike precious in all being one and the same in the highest Apostle and the meanest believer which the Apostle else-where cals the first principles of the oracles of God the forme of sound words But how shall I apply these generall definitions or descriptions or to say the truth these only varied words and phrases for I understand the word fundamentall as well as the words principall essentiall grand and capitall doctrines c. to the particular Articles of the Creed in such sort as that I may be able precisely exactly particularly to distinguish fundamentall Articles from points of lesse moment You labour to tell us what fundamentall points be but not which they be and yet unlesse you doe this your Doctrine serues only either to make men despaire or else to haue recourse to those whom you call Papists and which giue one certain Rule that all points defined by Christs visible Church belong to the foundation of Faith in such sense as that to deny any one cannot stand with salvation And seeing your selfe acknowledges that these men doe not erre in points fundamentall I cannot but hold it most safe for me to joyn with them for the securing of my soule and the avoiding of desperation into which this your doctrine must cast all them who understand and belieue it For the whole discourse and inferences which here I haue made are either your own direct Assertions or evident consequences cleerly deduced from them 20 But now let us answer some few Objections of D. Potters against that which wee haue said before to avoid our argument That the Scripture is not so much as mentioned in the Creed he saith The Creed is an abstract of such necessary Doctrines as are delivered in Scripture or collected out of it and therefore needs not expresse the authority of that which it supposes 21 This answer makes for us For by giving a reason why it was needlesse that Scripture should be expressed in the Creed you grant as much as we desire namely that the Apostles judged it needlesse to expresse all necessary points of faith in their Creed Neither doth the Creed suppose or depend on Scripture in such sort as that we can by any probable consequence infer from the Articles of the Creed that there is any Canonicall Scripture at all and much lesse that such Books in particular be Canonicall Yea the Creed might haue been the same although holy Scripture had never been written and which is more the Creed even in priority of time was before all the Scripture of the new Testament except the Gospell of S. Mathew And so according to this reason of his the Scripture should not mention Articles contained in the Creed And I note in a word how little connexion D. Potters arguments haue while he tells us that the Creed is an Abstraâ—â— of such necessary doctrines as are delivered in Scripture or collected out of it therefore needs not expresse the authority of that which it supposes it doth not follow The Articles of the Creed are delivered in Scripture therefore the Creed supposeth Scripture For two distinct writings may well deliver the same truths and yet one of them not suppose the other unlesse D. Potter be of opinion that two Doctors cannot at one time speak the same truth 22 And notwithstanding that D. Potter hath now told us it was needlesse that the Creed should expresse Scripture whose Authority it supposes he comes at length to say that the Nicene Fathers in their Creed confessing that the holy Ghost spake by the Prophets doth thereby sufficiently avow the divine Authority of all Canonicall Scripture But I would ask him whether the Nicene Creed be not also an Abstract of Doctrines delivered in Scripture as he said of the Apostles Creed and thence did infer that it was needlesse to expresse Scripture whose authority it supposes Besides we doe not only belieue in generall that Canonicall Scripture is of divine authority but we are also bound under pain of damnation to belieue that such and such particular Booksâ— not mentioned in the Nicene Creed are Canonicall And lastly D. Potter in this Answer grants as much as we desire which is that all points of faith are not contained in the Apostles Creed even as it
Which answer is directly against himselfe and manifestly proues that Baptisme is an Article of faith and yet is not contained in the Apostles Creed neither explicitely nor by any necessary consequence from other Articles expressed therein If to make it an Article of faith be sufficient that it is contained in the Nicene Councell he will finde that Protestants maintain many errours against faith as being repugnant to definitions of Generall Councels as in particular that the very Councell of Nice which saith M. Whitgift is of all wise and learned men reverenced esteemed and imbraced next unto the Scriptures themselues decreed that to those who were chosen to the Ministry unmarried it was not lawfull to take any wife afterward is affirmed by Protestants And your grand Reformer Luther lib. de Conciliis part prima saith that he understand not the Holy Ghost in that Councell For in one Canon it saith that those who haue gelded themselues are not fit to be made Priests in another it forbids them to haue wiues Hath saith he the Holy Ghost nothing to doe in Councells but to binde and load his Ministers with impossible dangerous and unnecessary lawes I forbeare to shew that this very Article I confesse one Baptisme for the Remission of sinnes will be understood by Protestants in a far different sense from Catholiques yea Protestants among themselues doe not agree how Baptisme forgiues sinnes nor what grace it conferres Only concerning the Vnity of Baptisme against rebaptization of such as were once baptized which I noted as a point not contained in the Apostles Creed I cannot omit an excellent place of S. Augustine where speaking of the Donatists he hath these words They are so bold as to rebaptize Catholiques wherein they shew themselues to be the greater Heretiques since it hath pleased the universall Catholique Church not to make Baptisme void even in the very Heretiques themselues In which few words this holy Father delivereth against the Donatists these points which doe also make against Protestants That to make an Heresie or an Heretique known for such it is sufficient to oppose the definition of Gods Church That a proposition may be Hereticall though it be not repugnant to any Texts of Scripture For S. Augustine teacheth that the doctrine of rebaptization is hereticall and yet acknowledgeth it cannot be convinced for such out of Scripture And that neither the Heresie of rebaptization of those who were baptized by Heretiques nor the contrary Catholique truth being expressed in the Apostles Creed it followeth that it doth not contain all points of faith necessary to salvation And so we must conclude that to belieue the Creed is not sufficient for Vnitie of faith and Spirit in the same Church unlesse there be also a totall agreement both in beliefe of other points of faith and in externall profession and Communion also whereof we are to speak in the next Chapter according to the saying of S. Augustine You are with us in Baptisme and in the Creed but in the Spirit of Vnity and bond of peace and lastly in the Catholique Church you are not with us THE ANSVVER TO THE FOVRTH CHAPTER Wherein is shewed that the Creed containes all necessary points of meere belief 1 AD § 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Concerning the Creeds containing the Fundamentalls of Christianity this is D. Potters assertion delivered in the 207. p. of his book The Creed of the Apostles as it is explained in the latter Creeds of the Catholique Church is esteemed a sufficient summary or Catalogue of Fundamentalls by the best learned Romanists and by Antiquity 2 By Fundamentalls he understands not the Fundamentall rules of good life and action though every one of these is to be believed to come from God therefore vertually includes an Article of Faith but the Fundamentall doctrines of Faith such as though they have influence upon our lives as every essentiall doctrine of Christianity hath yet we are commanded to believe them and not to doe them The assent of our understandings is required to them but no obedience from our wills 3 But these speculative Doctrines again he distinguishes out of Aquinas Occham and Canus and others into two kinds of the first are those which are the obiects of Faith in and for themselves which by their own nature and Gods prime intention are essentiall parts of that Gospell such as the teachers in the Church cannot without Mortall sinne omit to teach the learners such as are intrinsecall to the Covenant between God and man and not only plainly revealed by God and so certain truths but also commanded to be preacht to all men and to be believed distinctly by all and so necessary truths Of the second sort are Accidentall Circumstantiall Occasionall objects of faith milliōs whereof there are in holy Scripture such as are to be believed not for themselves but because they are joyned with others that are necessary to be believed and delivered by the same Authority which delivered these Such as we are not bound to know to bee divine Revelations for without any fault we may be ignorant hereof nay believe the contrary such as we are not bound to examine whether or no they be divine Revelations such as Pastors are not bound to teach their Flock nor their Flock bound to know and remember no nor the Pastors themselves to know them or believe them or not to disbelieve them absolutely and alwaies but then only when they doe see and know them to be delivered in Scripture as divine Revelations 4 I say when they doe so and not only when they may doe For to lay an obligation upon us of believing or not disbelieving any Verity sufficient Revelation on Gods part is not sufficient For then seeing all the expresse Verities of Scripture are either to all men or at least to all learned men sufficiently revealed by God it should be a damnable sinne in any learned man actually to disbelieve any one particular Historicall verity contained in Scripture or to believe the contradiction of it though he knew it not to be there contained For though he did not yet he might have known it it being plainly revealed by God and this revelation being extant in such a Book wherein he might have found it recorded if with diligence he had perused it To make therefore any points necessary to be believed it is requisite that either we actually know them to be divine Revelations and these though they be not Articles of faith nor necessary to be believed in and for themselves yet indirectly and by accident and by consequence they are so The necessity of believing them being inforced upon us by a necessity of believing this Essentiall and Fundamentall article of Faith That all Divine Revelations are true which to disbelieve or not to believe is for any Christian not only impious but impossible Or else it is requisite that they be First actually revealed by God Secondly commanded under pain of damnation to
thus of it how could he have called it A brief comprehension of the faith and a summe of all things to be believed and as it were a signe or cognizance whereby Christians are to be differenced and distinguished from the impious and misbelievers who professe either no faith or not the right If Huntly had been of this mind how could he have said of it with any congruity That the rule of faith is expressely contained in it and all the prime foundations of faith And that the Apostles were not so forgetfull as to omit any prime principall foundation of faith in that Creed which they delivered to be believed by all Christians The words of Filiucius are pregnant to the same purpose There cannot bee a fitter Rule from whence Christians may learn what they are explicitly to belieue then that which is contained in the Creed Which words cannot be justified if all points necessary to be believed explicitely be not comprised in it To this end saith Putean was the Creed compos'd by the Apostles that Christians might haue a forme whereby they might professe themselues Catholiques But certainly the Apostles did this in vain If a man might professe this and yet for matter of faith be not a Catholique 26 The words of Cardinal Richelieu exact this sense and refuse your glosse as much as any of the former The Apostles Creed is the Summary and Abridgment of that faith which is necessary for a Christian These holy persons being by the Commandement of Iesus Christ to disperse themselves over the world and in all parts by preaching the Gospell to plant the faith esteemed it very necessary to reduce into a short summe all that which Christians ought to know to the end that being dispersed into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing in a short for me that it might be the easier remembred For this effect they called this Abridgment a Symbole which signifies a mark or signe which might serue to distinguish true Christians which imbraced it from Infidels which rejected it Now I would fain know how the composition of the Creed could serue for this end and secure the Preachers of it that they should preach the same thing if there were other necessary Articles not compriz'd in it Or how could it be a signe to distinguish true Christians from others if a man might belieue it all and for want of believing something else not be a true Christian 27 The words of the Author of the consideration of foure heads propounded King Iames require the same sense and utterly renounce your qualification The Symbole is a briefe yet entire Methodicall summe of Christian Doctrine including all points of faith either to bee preached by the Apostles or to be believed by their Disciples Delivered both for a direction unto them what they were to preach and others to belieue as also to discern and put a difference betwixt all faithfull Christians and misbelieving Infidels 28 Lastly Gregory of Valence affirmes our Assertion even in termes The Articles of faith contained in the Creed are as it were the first principles of the Christian faith in which is contained the summe of Evangelicall doctrine which all men are bound explicitely to belieue 29 To these Testimonies of your own Doctors I should haue added the concurrent suffrages of the ancient Fathers but the full and free acknowledgment of the same Valentia in the place aboue quoted will make this labour unnecessary So iudge saith hee the holy Fathers affirming that his Symbole of faith was composed by the Apostles that all might haue a short summe of those things which are to be belieued and are dispersedly contain'd in Scripture 30 Neither is there any discord between this Assertion of your Doctors and their holding themselues oblig'd to belieue all the points which the Councell of Trent defines For Protestants Papists may both hold that all points of beliefe necessary to be known belieued are summ'd up in the Creed and yet both the one the other think themselues bound to belieue whatsoever other points they either know or belieue to be revealed by God For the Articles which are necessary to be known that they are revealed by God may bee very few and yet those which are necessary to be believed when they are revealed and known to be so may be very many 31 But Summaries and Abstracts are not intended to specifie all the particulars of the science or subiect to which they belong Yes if they bee intended for perfect Summaries they must not omit any necessary doctrine of that Science whereof they are Summaries though the Illustration and Reasons of it they may omit If this were not so a man might set down forty or fifty of the Principall definitions and divisions and rules of Logick and call it a Summary or Abstract of Logick But sure this were no more a Summary then that were the picture of a man in little that wanted any of the parts of a man or that a totall summe wherein all the particulars were not cast up Now the Apostles Creed you here intimate that it was intended for a Summary otherwise why talk you here of Summaries and tell us that they need not contain all the particulars of their science And of what I pray may it be a Summary but of the Fundamentals of Christian faith Now you haue already told us That it is most full and compleat to that purpose for which it was intended Lay all this together and I belieue the product will be That the Apostles Creed is a perfect Summary of the Fundamentalls of the Christian faith and what the duty of a perfect Summary is I haue already told you 32 Whereas therefore to disproue this Assertion in divers particles of this Chapter but especially the fourteenth you muster up whole armies of doctrines which you pretend are necessary and not contain'd in the Creed I answer very briefly thus That the doctrines you mention are either concerning matters of practise and not simple beliefe or else they are such doctrines wherein God has not so plainly revealed himselfe but that honest and good men true Lovers of God and of Truth those that desire aboue all things to know his will and doe it may erre and yet commit no sinne at all or only a sinne of infirmity and not destructiue of salvation or lastly they are such Doctrines which God hath plainly revealed and so are necessary to be belieued when they are known to be divine but not necessary to be known believed not necessary to be known for divine that they may be believed Now all these sorts of doctrines are impertinent to the present Question For D. Potter never affirmed either that the necessary duties of a Christian or that all Truths piously credible but not necessary to be believed or that all Truths necessary to bee believed upon the supposall of divine Revelation were specified in the
not deny I presume that S. Peter preached all therefore you must not deny that S. Marke wrote all 42 Our next inquiry let it be touching S. Iohns intent in writing his Gospell whether it were to deliver so much truth as being believed and obeyed would certainly bring men to eternall life or only part of it and to leave part unwritten A great man there is but much lesse then the Apostle who saith that writing last he purposed to supply the defects of the other Evangelists that had wrote before him which if it were true would sufficiently justify what I have undertaken that at least all the four Evangelists have in them all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ. Neither will I deny but S. Iohns secondary intent might be to supply the defects of the former three Gospels in some things very profitable But he that pretends that any necessary doctrine is in S. Iohn which is in none of the other Evangelists hath not so well considered them as he should doe before he pronounce sentence of so weighty a matter And for his prime intent in writing his Gospell what that was certainly no Father in the world understood it better then himselfe Therefore let us hear him speak Many other signes saith he also did Iesus in the sight of his Disciples which are not written in this Book But these are written that you may believe that Iesus is Christ the sonne of God and that believing you may have life in his name By these are written may be understood either these things are written or these signes are written Take it which way you will this conclusion will certainly follow That either all that which S. Iohn wrote in his Gospell or lesse then all and therefore all much more was sufficient to make them believe that which being believed with lively faith would certainly bring them to eternall life 43 This which hath been spoken I hope is enough to justify my undertaking to the full that it is very probable that every one of the foure Evangelists has in his book the whole substance all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ. But for S. Luke that he hath written such a perfect Gospell in my judgement it ought to be with them that believe him no manner of question Consider first the introduction to his Gospell where he declares what he intends to write in these words For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us even as they delivered unto us which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of things from the first to write to thee in order most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed Adde to this place the entrāce to his History of the Acts of the Apostles The former treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Iesus began both to doe and teach untill the day in which he was taken up Weigh well these two places and then answer me freely and ingenuously to these demands 1. Whether S. Luke does not undertake the very same thing which he saies many had taken in hand 2. Whether this were not to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst Christians 3. Whether the whole Gospell of Christ and every necessary doctrine of it were not surely believed among Christians 4. Whether they which were Eye-witnesses and ministers of the word from the begining delivered not the whole Gospell of Christ 5. Whether he does not undertake to write in order these things whereof he had perfect understanding from the first 6. Whether he had not perfect understanding of the whole Gospell of Christ 7. Whether he doth not undertake to write to Theophilus of all those things wherein he had been instructed 8. And whether he had not been instructed in all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ 9. Whether in the other Text All things which Iesus began to doe and teach must not at least imply all the Principall and necessary things 10. Whether this be not the very interpretation of your Rhemish Doctors in their Annotation upon this place 11. Whether all these Articles of the Christian faith without the belief whereof no man can be saved be not the Principall and most necessary things which Iesus taught 12. And lastly whether many things which S. Luke has wrote in his Gospell be not lesse principall and lesse necessary then all and every one of these When you have well considered these proposalls I believe you will be very apt to think if S. Luke be of credit with you That all things necessary to salvation are certainly contained in his writings alone And from hence you will not choose but conclude that seeing all the Christians in the world agree in the belief of what S. Luke hath written and not only so but in all other Books of Canonicall Scripture which were never doubted of in and by the Church the Learned Arch-Bishop had very just and certain ground to say That in these Propositiōs which without Controversy are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting Salvation and that we have no cause to doubt but that as many as walk according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable Heresy thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and upon the Israel of God 44 Against this you object two things The one that by this Rule seeing the Doctrine of the Trinity is not received universally among Christians the deniall of it shall not exclude Salvation The other that the Bishop contradicts himselfe in supposing a man may belieue all necessary Truths and yet superinduce some damnable Heresies 45 To the first I answere what I conceive he would whose words I here justify that he hath declared plainly in this very place that he meant not an absolute but a limited Vniversality and speaks not of propositions universally believed by all Professions of Christianity that are but only by all those severall Professions of Christiany that have any large spread in any part of the world By which words he excludes from the universality here spoken of the denyers of the Doctrine of the Trinity as being but a handfull of men in respect of all nay in respect of any of these professions which maintain it And therefore it was a great fault in you either willingly to conceal these words which evacuate your objection or else negligently to oversee them Especially seeing your friend to whom you are so much beholding Paulus Veridicus in his scurrilous and sophisticall Pamphlet against B. Vshers Sermon
hath so kindly offered to lead you by the hand to the observation of them in these words To consider of your Coinopista or communitèr Credenda Articles as you call them universally believed of all these severall Professions of Cristianity which have any large spread in the World These Articles for example may be the Vnity of the Godhead the Trinity of persons the immortality of the Soule c. Where you see that your friend whom you so much magnify hath plainly confessed that notwithstanding the Bishops words the denyall of the doctrine of the Trinity may exclude Salvation and therefore in approving and applauding his Answer to the Bishops Sermon you have unawares allowed this Answer of mine to your own greatest objection 46 Now for the foule contradiction which you say the Doctor might easily haue espied in the Bishops saying he desires your pardon for his oversight for Paulus Veridicus his sake who though he set him selfe to finde faults with the Bishops Sermon yet it seemes this hee could not finde or else questionlesse wee should haue heard of it from him And therefore if D. Potter being the Bishops friend haue not been more sharp-sighted then his enemies this he hopes to indifferent judges will seem no unpardonable offence Yet this I say not as if there were any contradiction at all much lesse any foul contradiction in the Bishops words but as Antipherons picture which he thought he saw in the ayre before him was not in the ayre but in his disturb'd phansie◠so all the contradiction which here you descant upon is not indeed in the Bishops saying but in your imagination For wherein I pray lies this foule contradiction In supposing say you a man may believe all Truths necessary to salvation and yet superinduce a damnable Heresie I answer It is not certain that his words doe suppose this neither if they doe does he contradict himselfe I say it is not certain that his words import any such matter For ordinarily men use to speake and write so as here he does when they intend not to limit or restrain but only to repeat and presse illustrate what they haue said before And I wonder why with your Eagles eyes you did not espy another foule contradiction in his words as well as this and say that he supposes a man may walk according to the rule of holy obedience and yet vitiate his holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation Certainly a lewd conversation is altogether as contradictious to holy obedience as a damnable heresie to necessary truth What then was the reason that you espied not this foule contradiction in his words as well as that Was it because according to the spirit and Genius of your Church your zeal is greater to that which you conceive true doctrine then holy obedience and think simple errour a more capitall crime then sins committed against knowledge and conscience Or was it because your Reason told you that herein he meant onely to repeat and not to limit what he said before And why then had you not so much candour to conceave that he might haue the same meaning in the former part of the disiunction and intend no more but this Whosoever walks according to this rule of believing all necessary Truths and holy obedience neither poisoning his faith of those Truths which he holds with the mixture of any damnable Heresie nor vitiating it with a wicked life Peace shall be upon him In which words what man of any ingenuity will not presently perceive that the words within the parenthesis are only a repetition of and no exception from those that are without S. Athanasius in his Creed tells us The Catholique Faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Vnity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance and why now doe you not tell him that he contradicts himselfe and supposes that we may worship a Trinity of Persons and one God in substance and yet confound the Persons or divide the substance which yet is impossible because Three remaining Three cannot be confounded and One remaining One cannot be divided If a man should say unto you he that keeps all the Commandements of God committing no sinne either against the loue of God or the loue of his neighbour is a perfect man Or thus he that will liue in constant health had need be exact in his diet neither eating too much nor too little Or thus hee that will come to London must goe on straight forward in such a way and neither turn to the right hand or to the left I verily belieue you would not finde any contradiction in his words but confesse them as coherent and consonant as any in your Book And certainly if you would look upon this saying of the Bishop with any indifference you would easily perceive it to be of the very same kinde capable of the very same construction And therefore one of the grounds of your accusation is uncertain Neither can you assure us that the Bishop supposes any such matter as you pretend Neither if he did suppose this as perhaps he did were this to contradict himselfe For though there can be no damnable Heresie unlesse it contradict some necessary Truth yet there is no contradiction but the same man may at once belieue this Heresie and this Truth because there is no contradiction that the same man at the same time should believe contradictions For first whatsoever a man believes true that he may and must believe But there haue been some who have believed and taught that contradictions might be true against whom Aristotle disputes in the third of his Metaphysicks Therefore it is not impossible that a man may belieue Contradictions Secondly they which believe there is no certainty in Reason must belieue that contradictions may be true For otherwise there will be certainty in this Reason This contradicts Truth therefore it is false But there be now divers in the world who believe there is no certainty in reason and whether you be of their minde or no I desire to be inform'd Therefore there be divers in the world who believe contradictions may be true Thirdly They which doe captivate their understandings to the beliefe of those things which to their understanding seem irreconcileable contradictions may as well belieue reall contradictions For the difficulty of believing arises not from their being repugnant but from their seeming to be so But you doe captivate your understandings to the beliefe of those things which seem to your understandings irreconcileable contradictions Therefore it is as possible and easie for you to believe those that indeed are so Fourthly some men may be confuted in their errours and perswaded out of them but no mans errour can be confuted who together with his errour doth not believe and grant some true principle that contradicts his Errour for nothing can bee proved to him who grants nothing neither can there be as all men
a venture but desire to have certaine direction to it This supposition therefore being the hinge whereon your whole discourse turnes is the Minerva of your owne Brayne and therefore were it but for this have we not great reason to accuse you of strange immodesty in saying as you doe That The whole discourse inferences which here you have made are either D. Potters own direct assertions or evident consequences cleerely deduced froÌ„ them Especially seeing your proceeding in it is so consonant to this ill beginning that it is in a manner wholly made up not of D. Potters assertions but your owne fictions obtruded on him 54 Ad § 19. To the next Question Cannot Generall Councels erre You pretend he answers § 19. They may erre damnably Let the Reader see the place and he shall finde damnably is your addition To the third demand Must I consult about my difficulties with every particular person of the Catholique Church You answer for him that which is most false that it seemes so by his words The whole militant Church that is all the members of it cannot possibly erre either in the whole faith or any necessary Article of it Which is very certaine for should it doe so it should be the Church no longer But what sense is there that you should collect out of these words that every member of the militant Church must be consulted with By like reason if he had said that all men in the world cannot erre If he had said that God in his own person or his Angels could not erre in these matters you might haue gathered from hence that he laid a necessity upon men in doubt to consult with Angels or with God in his own person or with all men in the world Is it not evident to all sober men that to make any man or men fit to be consulted with besides the understanding of the matter it is absolutely requisite that they may bee spoken with And is it not apparently impossible that any man should speak with all the members of the Militant Church Or if hee had spoken with them all know that he had done so Nay does not D. Potter say as much in plain termes Nay more doe not you take notice that hee does so in the very next words before these where you say he affirmes that the Catholique Church cannot be told of private injuries unlesse you will perswade us there is a difference between the Catholique Church and the whole Militant Church For whereas you make him deny this of the Catholique Church united and affirm it of the Militant Church dispersed into particulars The truth is he speaks neither of united nor dispersed but affirmes simply as appeares to your shame by your own quotations that the Catholique Church cannot bee told of private iniuries and then that the whole Militant Church cannot erre But then besides that the united Church cannot be consulted and the dispersed may what a wild imagination is it and what a strange injustice was it in you to father it upon him I beseech you Sir to consider seriously how far blinde zeal to your superstition hath transported you beyond all bounds of honesty and discretion made you carelesse of speaking either truth or sense so you speak against D. Potter 55 Again you make him say The Prelates of Gods Church meeting in a lawfull Councell may erre damnably and from this collect It remaines then for your necessary instruction you must repaire to every particular member of the Vniversall Church spread over the face of the earth And this is also Pergulapictoris veri nihil omnia ficta The Antecedent false not for the matter of it but that D. Potter saies it And the consequence as far from it as Gades from Gange and as coherent as a rope of sand A generall Councell may erre therefore you must travell all the world over and consult with every particular Christian As if there were nothing else to be consulted with nay as if according to the doctrine of Protestants for so you must say there were nothing to be consulted with but only a Generall Councell or all the world Haue you never heard that Protestants say That men for their direction must consult with Scripture Nay doth not D. Potter say it often in this very Book which you are confuting Nay more in this very page out of which you take this peece of your Cento A Generall Councell may erre damnably are there not these plain words In searches of Truth the Scripture With what conscience then or modesty can you impose upon him this unreasonable consequence yet pretend that your whole discourse is either his own direct assertion or evident consequences cleerely deduc'd from them You adde that yet he teaches as if he contradicted himselfe that the promises of God made to the Church for his assistance are not intended to particular persons but only to the Catholique Church which sure agrees very well with any thing said by D. Potter If it be repugnant to what you said for him falsely what is that to him 56 Neither yet is this to drive any man to desperation unlesse it be such a one as hath such a strong affection to this word Church that he will not goe to heaven unlesse he hath a Church to lead him thither For what though a Councell may erre and the whole Church cannot be consulted with yet this is not to send you on the Fooles Pilgrimage for faith and bid you goe and conferre with every Christian soul man and woman by Sea and by Land close prisoner or at liberty as you dilate the matter But to tell you very briefly that Vniversall Tradition directs you to the word of God and the word of God directs you to Heaven And therefore here is no cause of desperatioÌ„ no cause for you to be so vain and tragicall as here you would seeeme Yet upon supposall you say of this miraculous pilgrimage for faith before I have the faith of Miracles how shall I proceed at our meeting Or how shall I know the man on whom I may securely rely And hereunto you frame this answere for the Doctor Procure to know whether he believe all Fundamentall points of faith Whereas in all the Doctors book there is no such answer to any such question or any like it Neither doe you as your custome is note any page where it may be found which makes mee suspect that sure you have some priuate licence to use Heretiques as you call them at your pleasure and make them answer any thing to anything 57 Wherein I am yet more confirmed by the answer you put in his mouth to your next demand How shall I know whether he hold all Fundamentall points or no For whereas hereunto D. Potter hauing given one Answer fully satisfactory to it which is If he truly believe the undoubted bookes of Canonicall Scriptâ—re he cannot but believe all Fundamentalls and another which is but somethings
all in all and that for ought I see you never think of But if these rigid Protestants haue iust cause to cut off your Church from the hope of salvation How can the milder sort allow hope of salvation to the Members of this Church Ans. Distinguish the quality of the Persons censur'd and this seeming repugance of their censures will vanish into nothing For your Church may be considered either in regard of those in whom either negligence or pride or worldly feare or hopes or some other voluntary sinne is the cause of their ignorance which I feare is the case of the generality of men amongst you or in regard of those who owe their Errours from Truth to want of capacity or default of instruction either in respect of those that might know the truth and will not or of those who would know the truth but all things considered cannot In respect of those that haue eyes to see and will not see or those that would gladly see but want eyes or light Consider the former sort of men which your more rigid censurers seem especially to reflect upon and the heaviest sentence will not be too heavy Consider the latter and the mildest will not be too milde So that here is no difference but in words only neither are you flattered by the one nor uncharitably censur'd by the other 39 Your next blow is directed against the milder sort of Protestants who you say involve themselves in the sinne of Schisme by communicating with those as you call them exterminating Spirits whom you conceiue your selfe to have proved Schismatiques And now load them further with the crime of Heresie For say you if you held your selves obliged under pain of damnation to forsake the Communion of the Roman Church by reason of her Errours which yet you confesse were not fundamentall shall it not be much more damnable to liue in confraternity with these who defend an Errour of the fayling of the Church which in the Donatists you confesse to haue been properly Hereticall 40 Answ You mistake in thinking that Protestants hold themselves obliged not to communicate with you onely or principally by reason of your Errours and Corruption For the true reason according to my third observation is not so much because you maintaine Errours and Corruptions as because you impose them and will allow your Communion to none but to those that will hold them with you and haue so ordered your Communion that either we must communicate with you in these things or nothing And for this very reason though it were granted that these Protestants held this doctrine which you impute to them And though this Errour were as damnable and as much against the Creed as you pretend Yet after all this this disparity between you and them might make it more lawfull for us to communicate with them then you because what they hold they hold to themselues and refuse not as you doe to communicate with them that hold the contrary 41 Thus we may answer your Argument though both your former Suppositions were granted But then for a second answer I am to tell you that there is no necessity of granting either of them For neither doe these Protestants hold the fayling of the Church from its being but only from its visibility which if you conceive all one then must you conceive that the starres fayle every day and the Sunne every night Neither is it certain that the doctrine of the Churches fayling is repugnant to the Creed For as the truth of the Article of the Remission of sinnes depends not upon the actuall remission of any mans sinnes but upon Gods readinesse and resolution to forgive the sins of all that believe and repent so that although unbeleef or impenitence should be universall and the Faithfull should absolutely fayle from the children of men and the sonne of man should finde no faith on the earth yet should the Article still continue true that God would forgive the sinnes of all that repent In like manner it is not certain that the truth of the Article of the Catholique Church depends upon the actuall existence of a Catholique Church but rather upon the right that the Church of Christ or rather to speak properly the Gospell of Christ hath to be universally believed And therefore the Article may bee true though there were no Church in the world In regard this notwithstanding it remaines still true that there ought to be a Church this Church ought to be Catholique For as of these two Propositions There is a Church in America and There should bee a Church in America The truth of the latter depends not upon the truth of the former so neither does it in these two There is a Church diffused all the world over and There should be a Church diffused all the world over 42 Thirdly if you understand by Errours not fundamentall such as are not damnable it is not true as I haue often told you that we confesse your errours not fundamentall 43 Lastly for your desire that I should here apply an authority of S. Cyprian alleaged in your next number I would haue done so very willingly but indeed I know not how to doe it for in my apprehensiō it hath no more to doe with your present businesse of proving it unlawfull to communicate with these men who hold the Church was not alwaies visible then In nova fert animus Besides I am here again to remember you that S. Cyprians words were they never so pertinent yet are by neither of the parts litigant esteemed any rule of faith And therefore the urging of them and such like authorities serves onely to make Books great and Controversies endlesse 44 Ad § 17. The next Section in three long leaues delivers us this short sense That those Protestants which say they have not left the Churches externall Communion but only her corruptions pretend to doe that which is impossible Because these corruptions were inherent in the Churches externall Communion and therefore he that forsakes them cannot but forsake this 45 Ans. But who are they that pretend they forsooke the Churches corruptions and not her externall communion Some there be that say they have not left the Church that is not ceased to be members of the Church but only left her corruptions some that they have not left the communion but the corruptions of it meaning the internall communion of it and conjunction with it by faith and obedience which disagree from the former only in the manner of speaking for he that is in the Church is in this kinde of communion with it and he that is not in this internall communion is not in the Church Some perhaps that they left not your externall communion in all things meaning that they left it not voluntarily being not fugitivi but fugati as being willing to joyne with you in any act of piety but were by you necessitated and constrained to doe so because you
would not suffer them to doe well with you unlesse they would doe ill with you Now to doe ill that you may doe well is against the will of God which to every good man is a high degree of necessity But for such Protestants as pretend that de facto they forsook your corruptions only and not your externall communion that is such as pretend to communicate with you in your confessions and Liturgies and participation of Sacraments I cannot but doubt very much that neither you nor I have ever met with any of this condition And if perhaps you were led into error by thinking that to leave the Church and to leave the externall communion of it was all one in sense signification I hope by this time you are disabus'd and beginne to understand that as a man may leave any fashion or custome of a Colledge and yet remain still a member of the Colledge so a man may possibly leave some opinion or practise of a Church formerly common to himselfe others and continue still a member of that Church Provided that what he forsakes be not one of those things wherein the essence of the Church consists Whereas peradventure this practise may be so involved with the externall communion of this Church that it may be simply impossible for him to leave this practise and not to leave the Churches externall communion 46 You will reply perhaps That the difficulty lies as well against those who pretend to forsake the Churches corruptions not the Church as against those who say they forsook the Churches corruptions and not her externall communion And that the reason is still the same because these supposed corruptions were inherent in the whole Church and therefore by like reason with the former could not be forsaken but if the whole Church were forsaken 47 Ans. A pretty Sophisme and very fit to perswade men that it is impossible for them to forsake any error they hold or any vice they are subject to either peculiar to themselves or in common with others Because forsooth they cannot forsake themselves and Vices and Errors are things inherent in themselves The deceit lies in not distinguishing between a Locall and a Morall forsaking of any thing For as it were an absurdity fit for the maintainers of Transubstantiation to defend that a man may Locally and properly depart from the Accidents of a subject and not from the subject it selfe So is it also against reason to deny that a man may by an usuall phrase of speech forsake any custome or quality good or bad either proper to himself or common to himselfe with any company and yet never truly or properly forsake either his company or himselfe Thus if all the Iesuits in the Society were given to write Sophistically yet you might leave this ill custome and yet not leave your Society If all the Citizens of a City were addicted to any vanity they might either all or some of them forsake it and yet not forsake the city If all the parts of a mans body were dirty or filthy nothing hinders but that all or some of them might clense themselves and yet continue parts of the body And what reason then in the world is there if the whole Visible Church were overcome with tares and weeds of superstitions and corruptions but that some members of it might reforme themselves and yet continue still true members of the body of the Church and not be made no members but the better by their Reformation Certainly it is so obvious sensible a Truth that this thing is possible that no man in his wits will be perswaded out of it with all the Quirks and Metaphysicks in the World Neither is this to say that a man may keep company with Christopher Potter and not keep company with the Provost of Q. Colledge Nor that a man can avoid the company of a sinner and at the same time be really present with the man who is the sinner which we leave to those Protestants of your invention who are so foolish as to pretend that a man may really separate himselfe from the Churches externall communion as she is corrupted and yet continue in that Churches externall Communion which in this externall Communion is corrupted But we that say only the whole Church being corrupted some parts of it might and did reforme themselves and yet might and did continue parts of the Church though separated from the externall communion of the other parts which would not reforme need not trouble our selves to reconcile any such repugnance For the case put by you of keeping D. Potters company and leaving the company of the Provost of Queens Colledge of leaving a sinners company and not the mans are nothing at all like ours But if you would speak to the point you must shew that D. Potter cannot leave being Provost of Q. Colledge without ceasing to be himselfe or that a sinner cannot leave his sinne without ceasing to be a man or that he that is part of any society cannot renounce any Vice of that society but he must relinquish the society If you would shew any of these things then indeed I dare promise you should find us apt enough to believe that the particular parts of the visible Church could not reforme themselves but they must of necessity become no parts of it But untill we see this done you must pardon us if we choose to believe sense rather then Sophistry 48 In this Paragraph you bring in the sentence of S. Cyprian whereto you refer'd us in the former but why in a cōtroversy of faith doe you cite any thing which is confessed on all hands not to be a rule of faith Besides in my apprehension this sentence of S. Cyprian is in this place and to this purpose meerely impertinent S. Cyprians words are The Church he speaks of the particular Church or Diocesse of Rome being one cannot be within and without If she be with Novatianus she was not with Cornelius But if she were with Cornelius who succeeded Fabianus by lawfull Ordination Novatianus is not in the Church And now having related the words I am only to remember the Reader that your businesse was to prove it impossible For a man to forsake the Churches corruptions and not the Church and then to request him to tell me whether as I said In nova fert animus had not been as much to the purpose 49 Toward the conclusion of this Section you number up your Victories and tell us That out of your discourse it remaineth cleere that this our chiefest Answer changeth the very state of the Question confoundeth internall Acts of the under standing with externoll deeds doth not distinguish between Schisme and Heresy and leaves this demonstrated against us that they Protestants divided themselves from the communion of the Visible Catholique Church because they conceived that she needed Reformation To which Triumphs if any reply be needfull then briefly thus We doe not
Paule and that the communion in both kindes was taught by our Saviour The twelfth and last is this that your Church was in peaceable possession you must mean of her doctrine and the Professors of it and enjoyed prescription for many ages For besides that doctrine is not a thing that may be possessed And the professors of it were the Church it selfe and in nature of possessors If we may speak improperly rather then the thing possessed with whom no man hath reason to be offended if they think fit to quit their own possession I say that the possession which the governors of your Church held for some ages of the party governed was not peaceable but got by fraude and held by violence 108 These are the Falshoods which in this answer offer themselves to any attentive Reader and that which remaines is meere impertinence As first that a pretence of conscience will not serve to iustifie separation from being Schismaticall Which is true but little to the purpose seeing it was not an erroneous perswasion much lesse an Hypocriticall pretence but a true and well grounded conviction of conscience which D. Potter alleaged to justifie Protestants from being Schismaticall And therefore though seditious men in Church and State may pretend conscience for a cloak of their rebellion yet this I hope hinders not but that an honest man ought to obey his rightly informed conscience rather then the unjust commands of his tyrannous Superiours Otherwise with what colour can you defend either your own refusing the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Or the ancient Martyrs and Apostles and Prophets who oftentimes disobeyed the commands of men in authority and for their disobedience made no other but this Apologie Wee must obey God rather then men It is therefore most apparent that this answer must be meerly impertinent seeing it will serve against the Martyrs and Apostles and Prophets even against your selues as well as against Protestants To as little purpose is your rule out of Lyrinensis against them that followed Lâ—ther seeing they pretend and are ready to justify that they forsook not with the Doctors the faith but only the corruption of the Church As vain altogether is that which follows That in cases of uncertainty we are not to leave our Superiour or cast off his obedience nor publiquely oppose his decrees From whence it will follow very evidently that seeing it is not a matter of faith but a disputed question among you whether the Oath of Allegiance be lawfull that either you acknowledge not the King your Superiour or doe against conscience in opposing his and the kingdomes decree requiring the taking of this Oath This good use I say may very fairely bee made of it and is by men of your own religion But then it is so far from being a confutation that it is rather a confirmation of D. Potters assertion For hee that useth these words doth he not plainly import and such was the case of Protestants that we are to leaue our Superiours to cast off obedience to them and publiquely to oppose their Decrees when we are certain as Protestants were that what they command God doth countermand Lastly S. Cyprians example is against Protestants impertinently and even ridiculously alleaged For what if S. Cyprian holding his opinion true but not necessary condemned no man much lesse any Church for holding the contrary Yet me thinks this should lay no obligation upon Luther to doe so likewise seeing he held his own opinions not onely true but also necessary the doctrine of the Roman Church not only false but damnable And therefore seeing the condition and state of the parties censured by S. Cyprian and Luther was so different no marvell though their censures also were different according to the supposed merit of the parties delinquent For as for your obtruding again upon us that we believe the points of difference not Fundamentall or nenessary you have been often told that it is a calumny We hold your errors as damnable in themselves as you doe ours only by accident through invincible ignorance we hope they are not unpardonable and you also professe to think the same of ours 109 Ad § 42. The former part of this discourse grounded on D. Potters words p. 105. I haue already in passing examined confuted I adde in this place 1. That though the Doctor say It is not fit for any private man to oppose his iudgement to the publique That is his own judgement and bare authority yet he denies not but occasions may happen wherein it may be very warrantable to oppose his reason or the authority of Scripture against it And is not then to be esteem'd to oppose his own judgement to the publique but the judgment of God to the judgement of men Which his following words seem to import He may offer his opinion to be considered of so he do it with evidence or great probability of Scripture or reason Secondly I am to tell you that you haue no ground from him to enterline his words with that interrogatory His own conceits and yet grounded upon evidence of Scripture For these things are in his words opposed and not confounded and the latter not intended for a repetition as you mistake it but for an Antithesis of the former He may offer saith he his opinion to be considered of so he doe it with evidence of Scripture But if hee will factiously advance his own conceits that is say I clean contrary to your glosse Such as have not evident nor very probable ground in Scripture for these conceits are properly his own he may iustly bee branded c. Now that this of the two is the better glosse it is proved by your own interrogation For that imputes absurdity to D. Potter for calling them a mans own conceits which were grounded upon evidence of Scripture And therefore you have shewed little candour or equity in fastning upon them this absurd construction They not only bearing but even requiring another more faire and more sensible Every man ought to be presum'd to speak sense rather then non-sense coherently rather then contradictiously if his words be fairely capable of a better construction For M. Hooker if writing against Puritans he had said something unawares that might give advantage to Papists it were not inexcusable seeing it is a matter of such extreme difficulty to hold such a temper in opposing one extreme opinion as not to seem to favour the other Yet if his words be rightly consider'd there is nothing in them that will doe you any service For though he saies that men are bound to doe whatsoever the sentence of finall decision shall determine as it is plain men are bound to yeeld such an obedience to all Courts of civill judicature yet he saies not they are bound to think that determination lawfull and that sentence just Nay it is plain hee saies that they must doe according to the Iudges sentence though in their private opinion
way or other but also to disbelieve that is to believe the contrary of that which Faith proposeth as the examples of innumerable Arch-heretiques can beare witnesse This obscurity of faith we learne from holy Scripture according to those words of the Apostle Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for the argument of things not appearing And We see by a glasse in a dark manner but then face to face And accordingly S. Peter saith Which you doe well attending unto as to a Candle shining in a dark place 3 Faith being then obscure whereby it differeth from naturall Sciences and yet being most certain and infallible wherein it surpasseth humane Opinion it must relie upon some motive and ground which may be able to give it certainty and yet not release it from obscurity For if this motive ground or formall Object of Faith were any thing evidently presented to our understanding and if also we did evidently know that it had a necessary connection with the Articles which we believe our assent to such Articles could not be obscure but evident which as we said is against the nature of our Faith If likewise the motive or ground of our faith were obscurely propounded to us but were not in it selfe infallible it would leave our assent in obscurity but could not endue it with certainty We must therefore for the ground of our Faith find out a motive obscure to us but most certain in it selfe that the act of faith may remaine both obscure and certain Such a motive as this can be no other but the divine authority of almighty God revealing or speaking those truths which our faith believes For it is manifest that God's infallible testimony may transfuse Certainty to our faith and yet not draw it out of obscurity because no humane discourse or demonstration can evince that God revealeth any supernaturall Truth since God had beene no lesse perfect then he is although he had never revealed any of those objects which we now believe 4 Neverthelesse because Almighty God out of his infinite wisdome and sweetnesse doth concurre with his Creatures in such sort as may be fit the temper exigence of their natures and because Man is a Creature endued with reason God doth not exact of his Will or Vnderstanding any other then as the Apostle saith rationabile obsâ—â—uium an Obedience sweetned with good reason which could not so appeare if our Vnderstanding were summoned to believe with certainty things no way represented as infallible and certain And therâ—fore Almighty God obliging us under paine of eternall damnation to believe with greatest certainty divers verities not knowne by the light of naturall reason cannot saylâ— to furnish our Vnderstanding with such inducements motives and arguments as may sufficiently perswade any mind which is not partiall or passionate that the objects which we believe proceed from an Authority so Wise that it cannot be deceived so Good that it cannot deceive according to the words of David Thy Testimonies are made credible exceedingly These inducements are by Divines called argumeÌ„ta credibilitatis arguments of credibility which though they cannot make us evidently see what we believe yet they evidently convince that in true wisdome prudence the objects of â—aith deserve credit ought to be accepted as things revealed by God For without such reasons inducemeÌ„ts our judgment of faith could not be conceived prudent holy Scripture telling us that he who soone believes is light of heart By these arguments and inducements our Vnderstanding is both satisfied with evidence of credibility and the objects of faith retaine their obscurity because it is a different thing to bee evidently credible and evidently true as those who were present at the Miracles wroughâ— by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles did not evidently see their doctrine to be true for then it had not been Faith but Science and all had been necessitated to believe which we see fell out otherwise but they were evidently convinced that the things confirmed by such Miracles were most credible and worthy to be imbraced as truths revealed by God 5. These evident Arguments of Credibility are in great abundance found in the Visible Church of Christ perpetually existing on earth For that there hath been a company of men professing such and such doctrines we have from our next Predecessours and these from theirs upward till we come to the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour which gradation is knowne by evidence of sense by reading bookes or hearing what one man delivers to another And it is evident that there was neither cause nor possibility that men so distant in place so different in temper so repugnant in private ends did or could agree to tell one and the selfe same thing if it had been but a fiction invented by themselves as ancient Tertullian well saith How is it likely that so many and so great Churches should erre in one faith Among many events there is not one issue the error of the Churches must needs have varied But that which among many is found to be One is not mistaken but delivered Dare then any body say that they erred who delivered it With this never interrupted existence of the Church are joyned the many and great miracles wrought by men of that Congregation or Church the sanctity of the persons the renowned victories over so many persecutions both of all sorts of men and of the infernall spirits and lastly the perpetuall existence of so holy a Church being brought up to the Apostles themselves she comes to partake of the same assurance of truth which They by so many powerfull wayes did communicate to their Doctrine and to the Church of their times together with the divine Certainty which they received from our Blessed Saviour himselfe revealing to Man-kind what he heard from his Fatheâ— and so we conclude with Tertullian We receive it from the Churches the Churches from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from his Father And if we once interrupt this line of succession most certainly made knowne by meanes of holy Tradition we cannot conjoyn the present Church and doctrine with the Church and doctrine of the Apostles but must invent some new meanes and arguments sufficient of themselves to find out and prove a true Church and faith independently of the preaching and writing of the Apostles neither of which can be knowne but by Tradition as is truely observed by Tertullian saying I will prescribe that there is no meanes to prove what the Apostles preached but by the same Church which they founded 6 Thus then we are to proceed By evidence of manifest and incorrupt Tradition I know that there hath alwaies been a never-interrupted Succession of men from the Apostles time believing professing and practising such and such doctrines By evident arguments of credibility as Miracles Sancâ—â—ty Vnity c. and by all those wayes whereby the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour
what gay probabilities you could devise to disswade him from this Resolution And if you can devise none what reason then or sense is there but that a probable hope of infinite and eternall happinesse provided for all those that obey Christ Iesus and much more a firme faith though not so certain in some sort as sense or science may be able to sway our will to obedience and encounter with all those temptations which Flesh and Blood can suggest to avert us from it Men may therefore talke their pleasure of an absolute and most infallible certainty but did they generally believe that obedience to Christ were the only way to present and eternall felicity but as firmly and undoubtedly as that there is such a Citty as Constantinople nay but as much as Caesars Commentaries or the History of Salust I believe the liues of most men both Papists and Protestants would be better then they are Thus therefore out of your own words I argue against you He that requires to true faith an absolute and infallible certainty for this onely Reason because any lesse degree could not be able to overbeare our will c. imports that if a lesse degree of faith were able to doe this then a lesse degree of faith may be true and divine and saving Faith But experience shews and reason confirmes that a firm faith though not so certain as sense or science may be able to encounter and overcome our will and affections And therefore it followes from your own reason that faith which is not a most certain and infallible knowledge may be true and divine and saving faith 6 All these Reasons I haue imployed to shew that such a most certain and infallible faith as here you talk of is not so necessary but that without such a high degree of it it is possible to please God And therefore the Doctrines delivered by you § 25. are most presumptuous and uncharitable viz That such a most certain and infallible faith is necessary to salvation necessitate Finis or Medii so necessary that after a man is come to the use of reason no man ever was or can bee saved without it Wherein you boldly intrude into the judgement seat of God damne men for breaking Lawes not of God's but your own making But withall you cleerly contradict your selfe not only where you affirm That your faith depends finally upon the Tradition of Age to Age of Father to Sonne which cannot be a fit ground but onely for a Morall Assurance nor only where you pretend that not alone Hearing and Seeing but also Histories Letters Relations of many which certainly are things not certain and infallible are yet foundations good enough to support your faith Which Doctrine if it were good and allowable Protestants might then hope that their Histories and Letters and Relations might also passe for means sufficient of a sufficient Certainty and that they should not bee excluded from Salvation for want of such a Certainty But indeed the pressure of the present difficulty compell'd you to speak here what I believe you wil not justify and with a pretty tergiversation to shew D. Potter your means of morall certainty whereas the Objection was that you had no means or possibility of infallible certainty for which you are plainly at as great a losse and as far to seek as any of your Adversaries And therefore it concernes you highly not to damne others for want of it least you involue your selues in the same condemnation according to those terrible words of S. Paul Inexcusabilis es c. In this therefore you plainly contradict your selfe And lastly most plainly in saying as you doe here you contradict and retract your pretence of Charity to Protestants in the beginning of your Book For there you make profession that you haue no assurance but that Protestants dying Protestants may possibly dye with contrition and be saved And here you are very peremptory that they cannot but want a means absolutely necessary to salvation and wanting that cannot but be damned 7 The third Condition you require to faith is that our assent to divine Truths should not only be unknown and unevident by any humane discourse but that absolutely also it should be obscure in it selfe and ordinarily speaking be void even of supernaturall evidence Which words must have a very favourable constructiō or else they will not be sense For who can make any thing of these words taken properly that faith must be an unknown unevident assent or an assent absolutely obscure I had alwaies thought that known and unknown obscure and evident had been affections not of our Assent but the Object of it not of our beliefe but the thing believed For well may wee assent to a thing unknown obscure or unevident but that our assent it selfe should bee called therefore unknown or obscure seems to me as great an impropriety as if I should say your sight were green or blew because you see something that is so In other places therefore I answer your words but here I must answer your meaning which I conceive to be That it is necessary to faith that the Objects of it the points which we belieue should not be so evidently certain as to necessitate our understandings to an Assent that so there might be some merit in faith as you love to speak who will not receive no not from God himselfe but a penny-worth for a penny but as we some obedience in it which can hardly have place where there is no possibility of disobedience as there is not where the understanding does all and the will nothing Now seeing the Religion of Protestants though it be much more credible then yours yet is not pretended to haue the absolute evidence of sense or demonstration therefore I might let this doctrine passe without exception for any prejudice that can redound to us by it But yet I must not forbeare to tell you that your discourse proves indeed this condition requisite to the merit but yet not to the essence of faith without it faith were not an act of obedience but yet faith may bee faith without it and this you must confesse unlesse you will say either the Apostles believed not the whole Gospel which they preached or that they were not eye-witnesses of a great part of it unlesse you will question S. Iohn for saying that which we haue seen with our eyes and which our hands haue handled c. declare we unto you nay our Saviour himselfe for saying Thomas because thou seest thou be lievest Blessed are they which haue not seen and yet haue believed Yet if you will say that in respect of the things which they saw the Apostles assent was not pure proper and meer faith but somewhat more an assent containing faith but superadding to it I will not contend with you for it will bee a contention about words But then again I must crave leave to tell you that the requiring this
is still to believe them and as he did hold so he is still to hold them Thus he subioyning more to the same purpose in the next and again in the 26. Chapter and in his third book De Bapt. contr Donat. cap. ult and upon Psal. 64. But now this reason seems to perswade the contrary Because the formall obiect of faith seemes to be the first verity as it is manifested by the Churches Doctrine as the Divine and infallible Rule wherefore whosoever adheres not to this Rule although he assent to some matters of faith yet he embraces them not with faith but with some other kinde of assent as if a man assent to a conclusion not knowing the reason by which it is demonstrated he hath not true knowledge but an opinion only of the same conclusion Now that an Heretique adheres not to the râ—le aforesaid it is manifest Because if he did adhere to it as divine and infallible he would receive all without exception which the Church teacheth and so would not be an Heretique After this manner discourseth S. Thom. 2. 2. q. 5. art 3. From whom yet Dur and dissents upon this distinction thinking there may be in an Heretique true faith in respect of the Articles in which he doth not erre Others as Scotus and Bonaventure define not the matter plainly but seeme to choose a middle way To the authority of S. Austine and these Schoolemeâ— this may be adjoyned That it is usuall with good Christians to say that Heretiques have not the entire faith Whereby it seemes to be intimated that some part of it they doe retaine Whereof this may be another reason That if the truths which a Iew or a Heretique holds he should not hold them by faith but after some other manner to wit by his own proper will and judgement it will follow that all that excellent knowledge of God and divine things which is found in them is to be attributed not to the grace of God but the strength of Free will which is against S. Austine both elsewhere and especially in the end of his book De potentia As for the reason alleaged to the contrary We answer It is impertinent to faith by what meanes we believe the prime Verity that is by what meanes God useth to conferre upon men the gift of Faith For although now the ordinary meanes be the Testimony and teaching of the Church yet it is certain that by other meanes faith hath been given heretofore and is given still For many of the Ancients as Adam Abraham Melchisedeck Iob received faith by speciall revelation the Apostles by the Miracles and Preaching of Christ others again by the Preaching and miracles of the Apostles and Lastly others by other meanes when as yet they had heard nothing of the infallibility of the Church to little Children by Baptisme without any other help faith is infus'd And therefore it is possible that a man not adhering to the Churches doctrine as a Rule infallible yet may receive some things for the word of God which doe indeed truly belong to the faith either because they are now or heretofore have been confirm'd by miracles Or because he manifestly sees that the ancient Church taught so or upon some other inducement And yet neverthelesse we must not say that Heretiques and Iewes doe hold the Faith but only some part of the Faith For the Faith signifies an entire thing and compleat in all parts whereupon an Heretique is said to be simply an Infidell to have lost the Faith and according to the Apostle 1. Tim. 1. to have made shipwrack of it although he holds some things with the same strength of assent and readinesse of will wherewith by others are held all those points which appertaine to the Faith And thus farre Estius Whose discourse I presume may passe for a sufficient refutation of your argumeÌ„t out of Aquinas And therefore your Corollaries drawn from it That every error against faith involves opposition against Gods testimony That Protestants have no Faith no certainty and that you have all Faith must together with it fall to the ground 50 But if Protestants have certainty they want obscurity and so have not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing This argument you prosecute in the next Paragraph But I can find nothing in it to convince or perswade me that Protestants cannot have as much certainty as is required to faith of an object not so evident as to beget science If obscurity will not consist with certainty in the highest degree then you are to blame for requiring to faith contradicting conditions If certainty and obscurity will stand together what reason can be imagin'd that a Protestant may not entertain them both as well as a Papist Your bodies souls your understandings and wills are I think of the same condition with ours And why then may not we be certain of an obscure thing as well as you And as you made this long discourse against Protestants why may not wee putting Church instead of Scripture send it back again to you And say If Papists have certainty they want obscurity and so have not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing or not necessitating our understanding to an assent For the whole edifice of the faith of Papists is setled on these two principles These particular propositions are the propositions of the Church And the sense and meaning of them is clear and evident at least in all points necessary to salvation Now these principles being one suppos'd it clearly followeth that what Papists beleeve as necessary to salvation is evidently known by them to be true by this argument It is certain and evident that whatsoever is the word of God or Divine Revelation is true But it is certain and evident that these propositions of the Church in particular are the word of God and Divine Revelations therefore it is certain and evident that all propositions of the Church are true Which Conclusion I take for a Major in a second argument and say thus It is certain and evident that all propositions of the Church are true But it is certain and evident that such particulars for example The lawfulnesse of the halfe Communion The lawfulnesse and expedience of Latine Service the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Indulgences c. are the Propositions of the Church therefore it is certain and evident that these particular objects are true Neither will it avail you to say that the said principles are not evident by naturall discourse but only by the eye of reason clear'd by grace For supernaturall evidence no lesse yea rather more drowns and excludes obscurity then naturall evidence doth Neither can the Partie so enlightned be said voluntarily to captivate his understanding to that light but rather his understanding is by necessity made captive and forc'd not to disbeleeve what is presented by so clear a light And therefore your imaginary faith is not the
Protestants which are dissembled by you and not put into the ballance Know then Sir that when I say The Religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferr'd before yours as on the one side I doe not understand by your Religion the doctrine of Bellarmine or Baronius or any other privat man amongst you nor the Doctrine of the Sorbon or of the Iesuits or of the Dominicans or of any other particular Company among you but that wherein you all agree or professe to agree the Doctrine of the Councell of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I doe not understand the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechisme of Heidelberg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherin they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect rule of their Faith and Actions that is The BIBLE The BIBLE I say The BIBLE only is the Religion of Protestants Whatsoever else they believe besides it and the plain irrefragable indubitable consequences of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves nor require the beliefe of it of others without most high and most Schismaticall presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe hope impartiall search of the true way to eternall happinesse doe professe plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councells against Councells some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one age against a Consent of Fathers of another age the Church of one age against the Church of another age Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended but there are few or none to be found No Tradition but only of Scripture can derive it selfe from the fountain but may be plainly prov'd either to have been brought in in such an age after Christ or that in such an age it was not in In a word there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to build upon This therefore and this only I have reason to believe This I will professe according to this I will live and for this if there be occasion I will not only willingly but even gladly loose my life though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me Propose me any thing out of this book and require whether I believe it or no and seeme it never so incomprehensible to humane reason I will subscribe it with hand and heart as knowing no demonstration can be stronger then this God hath said so therefore it is true In other things I will take no mans liberty of judgement from him neither shall any man take mine from me I will think no man the worse man nor the worse Christian I will love no man the lesse for differing in opinion from me And what measure I meat to others I expect from them again I am fully assured that God does not and therefore that men ought not to require any more of any man then this To believe the Scripture to be Gods word to endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it 57 This is the Religion which I have chosen after a long deliberation and I am verily perswaded that I have chosen wisely much more wisely thē if I had guided my selfe according to your Churches authority For the Scripture being all true I am secur'd by believing nothing else that I shall believe no falshood as matter of Faith And if I mistake the sense of Scripture and so fall into error yet am I secure from any danger thereby if but your grounds be true because endeavouring to finde the true sense of Scripture I cannot but hold my error without pertinacy and be ready to forsake it when a more true and a more probable sense shall appear unto mee And then all necessary truth being as I have prov'd plainly set down in Scripture I am certain by believing Scripture to believe all necessary Truth And he that does so if his life be answerable to his faith how is it possible he should faile of Salvation 58 Besides whatsoever may be pretended to gain to your Church the credit of a Guide all that much more may be said for the Scripture Hath your Church been ancient The Scripture is more ancient Is your Church a meanes to keep men at vnity So is the Scripture to keep those that believe it and wil obey it in unity of belief in matters necessary or very profitable and in unity of Charity in points unnecessary Is your Church universall for time or place Certainly the Scripture is more universall For all the Christians in the world those I mean that in truth deserve this name doe now and alwaies have believed the Scripture to be the word of God whereas only you say that you only are the Church of God all Christians besides you deny it 59 Thirdly following the Scripture I follow that whereby you prove your Churches infallibility whereof were it not for Scripture what pretence could you have or what notion could we have and by so doing tacitely confesse that your selves are surer of the truth of the Scripture then of your Churches authority For we must be surer of the proofe then of the thing proved otherwise it is no proofe 60 Fourthly following the Scripture I follow that which must be true if your Church be true for your Church gives attestation to it Whereas if I follow your Church I must follow that which though Scripture be true may be false nay which if Scripture be true must be false because the Scripture testifies against it 61 Fiftly to follow the Scripture I have Gods expresse warrant and command and no colour of any prohibition But to believe your Church infallible I have no cōmand at all much lesse an expresse cōmand Nay I have reason to fear that I am prohibited to doe so in these words call no man Master on earth They fell by infidelity Thou standest by faith Bee not high minded but feare The spirit of truth The world cannot receive 62 Following your Church I must hold many things not only above reason but against it if any thing be against it whereas following the Scripture I shall believe many mysteries but no impossibilities many things above reason but nothing against it many things which had they not been reveal'd reason could never have discover'd but nothing which by true reason may be confuted many things which reason cannot comprehend how they can be but nothing which reason can comprehend that it cannot be Nay I shall believe nothing which reason will not
servants and instruments alwaies prest and in readinesse to advance your designes and disabled wholly with mindes so qualified to prejudice or impeach them it is safe for you to put a crown on their head and a reed in their hands and to bow before them cry Haile King of the Iewes to pretend a great deale of esteem and respect reverence to them as here you doe But to little purpose is verball reverence without entire submission and syncere obedience and as our Saviour said of some so the Scripture could it speak I believe would say to you Why call ye mee Lord Lord and doe not that which I command you Cast away the vaine and arrogant pretence of Infallibility which makes your errors incurable Leave picturing God and worshipping him by pictures Teach not for Doctrine the Commandments of men Debarre not the Laity of the Testament of Christs blood Let your publique Prayers and Psalmes and Hymmes be in such language as is for the edification of the Assistants Take not from the Clergy that liberty of Marriage which Christ hath left them Doe not impose upon men that Humility of worshipping Angels which S. Paul condemnes Teach no more proper sacrifices of Christ but one Acknowledge them that dye in Christ to be blessed and to rest from their labours Acknowledge the Sacrament after consecration to be Bread and Wine as well as Christs body and blood Acknowledge the gift of continency without Marriage not to be given to all Let not the weapons of your warfare be carnall such as are Massacres Treasons Persecutions and in a word all meanes either violent or fraudulent These and other things which the Scripture commands you doe and then we shall willingly give you such Testimony as you deserve but till you doe so to talk of estimation respect and reverence to the Scripture is nothing else but talk 2 For neither is that true which you pretend That we possesse the Scripture from you or take it upon the integrity of your Custody but upon Vniversall Tradition of which you are but a little part Neither if it were true that Protestants acknowledged The integrity of it to have been guarded by your alone Custody were this any argument of your reverence towards them For first you might preserve them entire not for want of Will but of Power to corrupt them as it is a hard thing to poyson the Sea And then having prevailed so farre with men as either not to look at all into them or but only through such spectacles as you should please to make for them and to see nothing in them though as cleere as the sunne if it any way made against you you might keep them entire without any thought or care to conforme your doctrine to them or reforme it by them which were indeed to reverence the Scriptures but out of a perswasion that you could qualify them well enough with your glosses and interpretations and make them sufficiently conformable to your present Doctrine at least in their judgement who were preposses'd with this perswasion that your Church was to judge of the sense of Scripture not to be judged by it 3. For whereas you say No cause imaginable could avert your will from giving the function of supreme and sole Iudge to holy writ but that the thing is impossible and that by this meanes controversies are encreased and not ended you mean perhaps That you can or will imagine no other cause but these But sure there is little Reason you should measure other mens imaginations by your own who perhaps may be so clouded and vail'd with prejudice that you cannot or will not see that which is most manifest For what indifferent and unprejudicate man may not easily conceive another cause which I doe not say does but certainly may pervert your wills and avert your understandings from submitting your religion and Church to a tryall by Scripture I mean the great and apparent and unavoidable danger which by this meanes you would fall into of loosing the Opinion which men have of your Infallibility and consequently your power and authority over mens consciences and all that depends upon it so that though Diana of the Ephesians be cryed up yet it may be feared that with a great many among you though I censure or judge no man the other cause which wrought upon Demetrius and the Craftsmen may have with you also the more effectuall though more secret influence and that is that by this craft we have our living by this craft I mean of keeping your Proselytes from an indifferent tryall of your Religion by Scripture and making them yeeld up and captivate their judgement unto yours Yet had you only said de facto that no other cause did avert your own will from this but only these which you pretend out of Charity I should have believed you But seeing you speak not of your selfe but of all of your side whose hearts you cannot know and professe not only That there is no other cause but that No other is imaginable I could not let this passe without a censure As for the impossibility of Scriptures being the sole judge of Controversies that is the sole rule for man to Iudge them by for we mean nothing else you only affirme it without proofe as if the thing were evident of it selfe And therefore I conceiving the contrary to be more evident might well-content my selfe to deny it without refutation Yet I cannot but desire you to tell me If Scripture cannot be the Iudge of any Controversy how shall that touching the Church and the notes of it be determined And if it be the sole judge of this one why may it not of others Why not of All Those only excepted wherein the Scripture it selfe is the subject of the Question which cannot be determined but by naturall reason the only principle beside Scripture which is common to Christians 4 Then for the Imputation of increasing contentions and not ending them Scripture is innocent of it as also this opinion That controversies are to be decided by Scripture For if men did really and sincerely submit their judgements to Scripture and that only and would require no more of any man but to doe so it were impossible but that all controversies touching things necessary and very profitable should be ended and if others were continued or increased it were no matter 5 In the next wordes we have direct Boyes-play a thing given with one hand and taken away with the other an acknowledgement made in one line and retracted in the next We acknowledge say you Scripture to be a perfect rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule only wee deny that it excludes unwritten tradition A siâ— you should have said we acknowledge it to be as perfect a rule as a writing can be only we deny it to be as perfect a rule as a writing may be Either therefore you must revoke your acknowledgement or retract your
of faith was needlesse since we grant it in manner aforesaid But Doctor Potter cannot in his conscience believe that Catholique Divines or the Councell of Trent and the holy Fathers did intend that all points in particular which we are obliged to believe are contained explicitely in the Creed he knowing well enough that all Catholiques hold themselves obliged to believe all those points which the said Councell defines to be believed under an Anathema and that all Christians believe the commandements Sacraments c. which are not expressed in the Creed 11. Neither must this seeme strange For who is ignorant that Summaries Epitomes and the like briefe Abstracts are not intended to specifie all particulars of that Science or Subject to which they belong For as the Creed is said to containe all points of Faith so the Decalogue comprehends all Articles as I may terme them which concerne Charity and good life and yet this cannot be so understood as if we were disobliged froÌ„ performance of any duty or the eschewing of any vice unlesse it be expressed in the ten Commandements For to omit the precepts of receaving Sacraments which belong to practise or manners and yet are not contained in the Decalogue there are many sinnes even against the law of nature and light of reason which are not contained in the tenne Commandements except only by similitude analogy reduction or some such way For example we find not expressed in the Decalogue either divers sinnes as Gluttony Drunkennesse Pride Sloth Covetousnesse in desiring either things superfluous or with too much greedinesse or diuers of our chiefe obligations as Obedience to Princes and all Superiours not only Ecclesiasticall but also Civill whose lawes Luther Melancthon Calvin and some other Protestants doe dangerously affirme not to oblige â—n conscience and yet these men thinke they know the ten Commandements as likewise divers Protestants defend Vsury to be lawfull and the many Treatises of Civilians Canonists and Casuists are witnesses that divers sinnes against the light of reason and Law of nature are not distinctly expressed in the ten Commandements although when by other diligences they are found to be unlawfull they may be reduced to some of the Commandements and yet not so evidently and particularly but that divers doe it in divers manners 12. My third Observation is That our present question being whether or no the Creed containe so fully all fundamentall points of faith that whosoever doe not agree in all and every one of those fundamentall Articles cannot have the same substance of faith nor hope of Salvation if I can produce one or more points not contained in the Creed in vvhich if two doe not agree both of them cannot expect to be saved I shall have performed as much as I intend and D. Potter must seeke our some other Catalogue for points fundamentall then the Creed Neither is it materiall to the said purpose whether such fundamentall points rest only in knowledge and speculation or beliefe or else be farther referred to work and practise For the habit or vertue of Faith which inclineth and enableth us to believe both speculative and practicall verities is of one and the selfe same nature and essence For example by the same Faith whereby I speculatively believe there is a God I likewise believe that he is to be adored served and loved which belong to practise The reason is because the Formall Object or motive for which I yeild assent to those different sorts of materiall objects is the saiâ—â— in both to wit the revelation or word of God Where by the way I note that if the Vnity or Distinction and nature of faith were to be taken from the diversity of things revealed by one faith I should believe speculative verities and by another such as tend to practise which I doubt whether D. Potter himselfe will admit 13 Hence it followeth that whosoever denieth any one main practicall revealed truth is no lesse an Heretique then if he should deny a Point resting in belief alone So that when D. Potter to avoid our argument that all fundamentall points are not contained in the Creed because in it there is no mention of the Sacraments which yet are points of so main importance that Protestants make the due administration of them to be necessary and essentiall to constitute a Church answereth that the Sacraments are to be reckoned rather among the Agenda of the Church then the Credenda they are rather divine rites and ceremonies then Doctrines he either grants what we affirme or in effect saies Of two kinds of revealed truths which are necessary to be believed the Creed containes one sort only ergo it containes all kind of revealed truths necessary to be believed Our question is not de nomine but re not what be called points of faith or of practise but what points indeed be necessarily to be believed whether they be termed Agenda or Credenda especially the chiefest part of Christian perfection consisting more in Action then in barren Speculation in good works then bare belief in doing then knowing And there are no lesse contentions concerning practicall then speculative truths as Sacraments obtaining remission of sinne Invocation of Saints Prayers for dead Adoration of Christ in the Sacrament and many other all which doe so much the more import as on them beside righâ— belief doth also depend our practise and the ordering of our life Though D. Potter could therefore give us as he will never be able to doe a minute and exact Catalogue of all truths to be believed that would not make me able enough to know whether or no I have faith sufficient for salvation till he also did bring in a particular List of all believed truths which tend to practise declaring which of them be fundamentall which not that so every man might know whether he be not in some Damnable Errour for some Article of faith which farther might give influence into Damnable works 14 These Observations being premised I come to prove that the Creed doth not contain all points of Faith necessary to be known and believed And to omit that in generall it doth noâ— tell us what points be fundamentall or not fundamentall which in the way of Protestants is most necessary to be known in particular there is no mention of the greatest evills from which mans calamity proceeded I mean the sinne of the Angels of Adam and of Originall sinne in us nor of the greatest good from which we expect all good to wit the necessity of Grace for all works tending to piety Nay there is no mention of Angels good or bad The meaning of that most generall head Oporter accedentem c. It behoves him that comes to God to believe that he is and is a remunerator is questioned by the deniall of Merit which makes God a Giver but not a Rewarder It is not expressed whether the Article of Remission of sinnes be understood by faith alone or else