all Let not the Weapons of your Warfare be Carnal such as are Massacres Treasons Persecutions and in a word all means either violent or fraudulent These and other things which the Scripture commands you do and then we shall willingly give you such Testimony as you deserve but till you do 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 possess the Scripture from you or take it upon the integrity of your Custody but upon Universal 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 far 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 clear as the Sun if it any way made against you you might keep them entire without any thought or care to conform your Doctrine to them or reform it by them which were indeed to reverence the Scriptures but out of a persuasion that you could qualifie them well enough with your glosses and interpretations and make them sufficiently conformable to your present Doctrine at least in their judgment who were prepossessed with this persuasion that your Church was to judge of the sense of Scripture not to be judged by it 3. Whereas you say No cause imaginable could avert your will from giving the function of Supream and sole judge to holy Writ but that the thing is impossible and that by this means controversies are encreased and not ended What indifferent and unprejudiced man may not easily conceive another cause which I do not say does but certainly may prevert your Wills and avert your understandings from submitting your Religion and Church to a Tryal by Scripture I mean the great and apparent and unavoidable danger which by this means you would fall into of losing 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 effectual 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 Tryal of your Religion by Scripture and making them yield up and captivate their judgment unto yours As for the impossibility of Scriptures being the sole Judge of Controversies that is the sole rule for man to judge them by for we mean nothing else you only affirm it without proof as if the thing were evident of it self And therefore I conceiving the contrary to be more evident might well content my self to deny it without refutation Yet I cannot but desire you to tell me If Scripture cannot be the Judge of any Controversie 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 self is the subject of the Question which cannot be determined but by natural 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 judgments to Scripture and that only and would require no more of any man but to do 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 Words we have direct Boyes-play a thing given with one hand and taken away with the other an acknowledgment 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 we deny that it excludes unwritten Tradition As if 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 acknowledgment or retract your 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 its self is not a perfect Rule And then the end of a rule is to regulate and direct Now every instrument is more or less perfect in its kind as it is more or less 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 far 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 Sun 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 add 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 she 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 do 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 do or not do no man can without Blasphemy deny that Christ Jesus if he had pleased could have writ us a rule of Faith so plain and perfect as that it should have wanted neither any part to make up its integrity nor any clearness 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 beholden to Tradition to give it this Testimony that it is a Rule of Faith and the Word of God I answer First there is no absolute necessity of this For God might if he thought good give it the attestation of perpetual 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 proved true by being said or written in a Book but only by Tradition which is a thing credible of it self yet it may be so in it self and contain all the material Objects all the particular Articles of our Faith without any dependance upon Tradition even this also not excepted that this Writing doth contain the rule of Faith Now when Protestants affirm 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 proved 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 do contains all the material Objects of Faith is a compleat and Total and not only an imperfect and a partial 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 Book of Scripture Therefore the perfection of the whole Scripture excludes not the Addition of unwritten Tradition I answer 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 Cosin German to the former When the first Books of Scripture were written they did not exclude unwritter Tradition Therefore now also that all the Books 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 the Truth but the perfection of it which are very different things though you would fain confound them For Scripture might very well be all true though it contain not all necessary Divine Truth But unless it do so it cannot be a perfect Rule of Faith for that which wants any thing is not perfect For I hope you do 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 Gospel of Christ the whole Covenant between God and Man is now Written Whereas if he had pleased 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 Progress shall demonstrate it is evident he hath left no part of it unwritten We know no man therefore that says It were any injury to the written Word to be joyned with the unwritten if there were any wherewith it might be joyned 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 Society of Christians that is such a faithful Keeper as you pretend The Scripture it self 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 several parts of your Church all of them until the last Age were so esteemed The interpretations of obscure places of Scripture which without Question the Apostles taught the Primitive Christians are wholly lost there remains 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 Thesalon of the cause of the hindrance of the coming of
Creed without the former can be possibly guarded from falling into them and continuing obstinate in them Nay so far is this Creed from guarding them from these mischiefs that it is more likely to ensnare them into them by seeming and yet not being a full comprehension of all necessary points of Faith which is apt as experience shews to misguide men into this pernitious error That believing the Creed they believe all necessary points of faith whereas indeed they do not so Now upon these grounds I thus conclude That Creed which hath great commodities and no danger would certainly be better then that which hath great danger and wants many of these great commodities But the former short Creed proposed by me I believe the Roman Church to be Infallible if your doctrin be true is of the former condition and the latter that is the Apostles Creed is of the latter Therefore the former if your doctrin be true would without controversie be better than the latter 83. Whereas you say If the Apostles had exprest no Article but that of the Catholick Church she must have taught us the other Articles in particular by Creeds or other means This is very true but no way repugnant to the truth of this which follows that the Apostles if your doctrin be true had done better service to the Church though they had never made this Creed of theirs which now we have if instead thereof they had commanded in plain terms that for mens perpetual direction in the faith this short Creed should be taught all men I believe the Roman Church shall be for ever Infallible Yet you must not so mistake me as if I meant that they had done better not to have taught the Church the substance of Christian Religion for then the Church not having learnt it of them could not have taught it us This therefore I do not say but supposing they had written these Scriptures as they have written wherein all the Articles of their Creed are plainly delivered and preached that Doctrin which they did preach and done all other things as they have done besides the composing their Symbol I say if your doctrin were true they had done a work infinitely more beneficial to the Church of Christ if they had never composed their Symbol which is but an imperfect comprehension of the necessary points of simple belief and no distinctive mark as a Symbole should be between those that are good Christians and those that are not so but instead thereof had delivered this one Proposition which would have been certainly effectual for all the aforesaid good intents and purposes The Roman Church shall be forever Infallible in all things which she proposes as matters of Faith 84. Whereas you say If we will believe we have all in the Creed when we have not all it is not the Apostles fault but our own I tell 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 soever they lead me Now I say they have led me into this perswasion because they have given me great reason to believe it and none to the contrary The reason they have given me to believe it is because it is apparent and confest they did propose to themselves in composing it some good end or ends As that Christians might have a form by which for matter of Faith they might profess themselves Catholicks So Putean out of Thomas Aquinas That the faithful might know what the Christian people is to believe explicitly 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 Cardinal Richlieu Now for all these and for any other good intent I say it will be plainly uneffectual unless it contain at least all points of simple belief which are in ordinary course necessary to be explicitly known by all men So that if it be a fault in me to believe this it must be my fault to believe the Apostles wise and good men which I cannot do if I believe not this And therefore what Richardus de sancto Victore says of God himself 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 Error which I believe it is you and my reverend esteem of you and your actions that hath led me into it For as for your suspicion 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 have which I would not as willingly forsake as keep if I could see sufficient reason to induce me to believe that it is the will of God I should forsake it Neither do I know any opinion I hold against the Church of Rome but I have more evident grounds than this whereupon to build it For let but these Truths be granted That the authority of the Scripture is independent on your Church and dependent only in respect of us upon universal 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 be 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. The ANSWER to the Fifth CHAPTER Shewing that the separation of Protestants from the Roman Church being upon just and necessary causes is not any way guilty of Schism 1. AD § 1.2 3 4 5 6 7. In the seven first Sections of this Chapter there be many things said and many things supposed by you which are untrue and deserve a censure As 2. First That Schism could not be a Division from the Church or that a Division from the Church could not happen unless there always had been and should be a visible Church Which Assertion is a manifest falsehood For although there never had been any Church Visible or Invisible before this age nor should be ever after yet this could not hinder but that a Schism might now be and be a Division from the present Visible Church As though in France there never had been until now a lawful Monarch nor after him ever should be yet this hinders not but that now there might be a Rebellion and that Rebellion might be an Insurrection against Sovereign Authority 3. That it is a point to be granted by all Christians that in all ages there hath been a visible Congregation of faithful people Which Proposition howsoever you understand it is not absolutely certain But if you mean by Faithful as it is plain you do free from all error in faith then
or ill Opinion do gather otherwise than they ought For to this Church for a more powerful Principality it is necessary that all Churches resort that is all faithful People undique of what place soever In which Roman Church the Tradition from the Apostles hath always been conserved from those who are undique every where Answ Though at the first hearing the Glorious Attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome the confounding Hereticks with her Tradition and saying it is necessary for all Churches to resort to her may sound like Arguments for you yet he that is attentive I hope will easily discover that it might be good and rational in Irenaeus having to do with Hereticks who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholicks declining a tryal by Scripture as not containing 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 rational in Irenaeus to urge them with any Tradition of more credit than their own especially a Tradition consonant to Scripture and even contained in it and yet that it may be irrational in you to urge us who do not decline Scripture but appeal to it as a perfect rule of Faith with a Tradition which we pretend is many ways repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition far more general than 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 United with all other Apostolick Churches than 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 Error but Tradition and therefore though Irenaeus his Argument may be very probable yet yours may be worth nothing Thirdly that fourteen hundred years may have made a great deal of alteration in the Roman Church as Rivers though near the Fountain they may retain their native and unmixt sincerity yet in long Progress 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 plays the Historian only and not the Prophet and says only that the Apostolick Tradition had been always there as in other Apostolick Churches conserved or observed choose you whether but that it should be always so he says not neither had he any warrant He knew well enough that there was foretold a great falling away of the Churches of Christ to Antichrist 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 appears manifestly out of this Book of Irenaeus quoted by you that the Doctrine of the Chiliasts was in his Judgment Apostolick Tradition as also it was esteemed for ought appears 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 Justin Martyr professeth that all good and Orthodox Christians of his time believed it and those that did not he reckons amongst Hereticks 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 Iraeneus 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 Heretical 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 error by holding contradictions Fifthly and lastly that out of the Story of the Church it is as manifest as the light at noon that though Iraeneus did esteem the Roman Tradition a great Argument of the Doctrin which he there delivers and defends against the Hereticks 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 witness of Tradition in general Inasmuch as in his own life his action proclaimed 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 Iraeneus 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 doctrin 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 Hereticks though separated and cut off from the Roman Church 31. Obj. S. Austin saith in Psalm cont partem Donati 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 do not overcome Where he seems to say that the Succession in the Sea of Peter was the Rock which our Saviour means when he said upon this Rock will I build my Church Ans I answer First We have no reason to be confident of the truth hereof because S. Austin himself was not but retracts it as uncertain and leaves to the Reader whether he will think that or another more probable Retr l. 1. c. 26. Secondly what he says of the Succession in the Roman Church in this place he says it elsewhere of all the Successions in all other Apostolick Churches Thirdly that as in this place he urgeth the Donatists with separation from the Roman Church as an argument of their Error So elsewhere he presseth them with their Separation from other Apostolick Churches nay more from these than from that because in Rome the Donatists had a Bishop though not a perpetual Succession of them but in other Apostolick Churches they wanted both These scattered men saith he of the Donatists Epist 165. read in the holy Books the Churches to which the Apostles wrote and have no Bishop in them But what is more perverse and
Pictures That the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to interpret Scripture about Freewil Predestination Universal Grace That all our Works are not Sins Merit of good Works Inherent Justice Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledg Traditions Commandments possible to be kept That their thirty nine Articles are patient nay ambitious of some sence wherein they may seem Catholick That to Alledge the necessity of Wife and Children in these days is but a weak Plea for a Married Minister to compass a Benefice That Calvinism is at length accounted Heresie and little less than Treason That Men in Talk and Writing use willingly the once fearful 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 do with sincerity it is easie to tell what Doom will pass 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 remained convinced In fine as the Samaritans saw in the Disciples countenances that they meant to go 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 Libel void of all Truth Discretion and Honesty what effect it may have wrought what credit it may have gained with credulous Papists who dream what they desire and believe their own dreams or with ill-affected jealous and weak Protestants I cannot tell But one thing I dare boldly say that you your self did never believe it 21. The truth is they that run to extreams in opposition against you they that pull down your Infallibility and set up their own they that declaim against your Tyranny and exercise it themselves over others are the Adversaries that give you the greatest advantage and such as you love to deal with whereas upon Men of temper and moderation such as will oppose nothing because you maintain it but will draw as near to you that they may draw you to them as the Truth will suffer them such as require of Christians to believe only in Christ and will Damn no Man nor Doctrine without express and certain warrant from Gods Word upon such as these you know not how to fasten but if you chance to have conference with any such which yet as much as possibly you can you avoid and decline you are very speedily put to silence and see the indefensible weakness of your cause laid open to all Men. And this I verily believe is the true Reason that you thus rave and rage against them as foreseeing your time of prevailing or even of subsisting would be short if other adversaries gave you no more advantage than they do 22. In which perswasion also I am much confirmed by consideration of the Silliness and Poorness of those suggestions and partly of the apparent vanity and Falshood of them which you offer in justification of this wicked Calumny For what if out of Devotion towards God out of a desire that He should be Worshiped as in Spirit and Truth in the first place so also in the Beauty of Holiness what if out of fear that too much Simplicity and Nakedness in the publick Service of God may beget in the ordinary sort of Men a dull and stupid irreverence and out of hope that the outward State and Glory of it being well disposed and wisely moderated may ingender quicken encrease and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto Gods Sovereign Majesty and Power What if out of a persuasion and desire that Papists may be won over to us the sooner by the removing of this Scandal out of their way and out of an Holy Jealousie that the weaker sort of Protestants might be the easier seduced to them by the Magnificence and Pomp of their Church-service in case it were not removed I say what if out of these considerations the Governors of our Church more of late than formerly have set themselves to adorn and beautifie the places where Gods Honour dwells and to make them as Heavenly as they can with Earthly Ornaments Is this a sign that they are warping towards Popery Is this Devotion in the Church of England an argument that She is coming over to the Church of Rome Sir Edwin Sands I presume every Man will grant had no inclination that way yet He Forty Years since highly commended this part of Devotion in Papists and makes no scruple of proposing it to the imitation of Protestants little thinking that they who would follow his Counsel and endeavour to take away this disparagement of Protestants and this Glorying of Papists should have been censured for it as making way and inclining to Popery His Words to this purpose are excellent Words and because they shew plainly Survey of Religion that what is now practised was approved by Zealous Protestants so long ago I will here set them down 23. This one thing J cannot but highly commend in that sort and Order They spare nothing which either cost can perform in enriching or skill in adorning the Temple of God or to set out his Service with the greatest Pomp and magnificence that can be devised And although for the most part much Baseness and Childishness is predominant in the Masters and contrivers of their Ceremonies yet this outward State and Glory being well disposed doth ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and Devotion which is due unto Sovereign Majesty and Power And although I am not ignorant that many Men well reputed have embraced the thrifty Opinion of that Disciple who thought all to be wasted that was bestowed upon Christ in that sort and that it were much better bestowed upon him on the Poor yet with an eye perhaps that themselves would be his quarter Almoners notwithstanding I must confess it will never sink into my Heart that in proportion of Reason the allowance for furnishing out of the Service of God should be measured by the scant and strict rule of meer necessity a proportion so low that Nature to other most bountiful in matter of necessity hath not failed no not the most ignoble Creatures of the World and that for our selves no measure of heaping but the most we can get no rule of expence but to the utmost Pomp we lift Or that God himself had so inriched the lower parts of the World with such wonderfull varieties of Beauty and Glory thut they might serve only to the Pampering of Mortal Man in his Pride and that in the Service of the High Creator Lord and giver the outward Glory of whose higher Pallace may appear by the very Lamps that we see so far off Burning gloriously in it only the Simpler Baser Cheaper Less Noble Less Beautiful Less Glorious things should be imployed Especially seeing as in Princes Courts so in the Service
be sufficient But then I must tell you that the proposal 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 proposals being so darkned and even extinguished with a cloud of contradiction from Scripture Reason and the Ancient Church 26. Ad 18. § To the Eighth How of disagreeing Protestants both parts may hope for Salvation seeing some of them must needs Err against some Truth testified by God I answer 1. The most disagreeing Protestants that are yet thus far 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 Err 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 believe the Scripture in the true sense and to live according to it This if they perform as I hope many on all Sides do truly and sincerely 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 sincere obedience why should they not expect that God will perform his promise and give them Salvation For as for other things which lie without the Covenant and are therefore less 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 and unavoidable prejudices whereby mens understandings are variously formed and fashioned they do embrace several Opinions whereof some must be erroneous to say that God will Damn them for such Errors who are lovers of him and lovers of truth is to rob man of his comfort and God of his goodness it is to make Man desperate and God a Tyrant But they deny Truths testified by God and therefore shall be Damned Yes if they knew them to be thus testified by him and yet would deny them that were to give God the lie and questionless damnable But if you should deny a truth which God had testified but only to a Man in the Indies as I said before and this testification you had never heard of or at least had no sufficient reason to believe that God had so testified would not you think it a hard case to be Damned for such a denial Yet consider I pray a little more attentively the difference between them and you will presently acknowledge the question between them is not at any time or in any thing Whether God says true or no or whether he says this or no But supposing he says this and says true whether he means this or no As for example between Lutherans Calvinists and Zwinglians it is agreed that Christ spake these Words This is my Body and that whatsoever he meant in saying so is true But what he meant and how he is to be understood that 's the question So that though some of them deny a truth by God intended yet you can with no reason or justice accuse them of denying the truth of Gods Testimony unless you can plainly shew that God hath declared and that plainly and clearly what was his meaning in these Words I say plainly and clearly For he that speaks obscurely and ambiguously and no where declares himself plainly sure he hath no reason to be much offended if he be mistaken When therefore you can shew that in this and all other their Controversies God hath interposed his Testimony on one side or other so that either they do see it and will not or were it not for their own voluntary and avoidable fault might and should see it and do not let all such Errors be as damnable as you please to make them In the mean while if they suffer themselves neither to be betraid into their Errors nor kept in them by any sin of their will if they do their best endeavour to free themselves from all Errors and yet fail of it through humane frailty so well am I persuaded of the goodness of God that if in me alone should meet a confluence of all such Errors of all the Protestants in the World that were thus qualified I should not be so much afraid of them all as I should be to ask pardon for them For whereas that which you affright us with of calling Gods Veracity in Question is but a Panick fear a fault that no man thus qualified is or can be guilty of to ask pardon of simple and purely involuntary errors is tacitely to imply that God is angry with us for them and that to impute to him the strange Tyranny of requiring Brick when he gives no Straw of expecting to gather where he strewed not to reap where he sowed not of being offended with us for not doing what he knows we cannot do This I say upon a supposition that they do their best endeavours to know Gods will and do it which he that denys to be possible knows not what he says for he says in effect that Men cannot do what they can do for to do what a Man can do is to do his best endeavour But because this supposition though certainly possible is very rare and admirable I say secondly that I am verily persuaded that God will not impute Errors to them as sins who use such a measure of industry in finding truth as humane prudence and ordinary discretion their abilities and opportunities their distractions and hindrances and all other things considered shall advise them unto in a matter of such consequence But if herein also we fail then our Errors begin to be malignant and justly imputable as offences against God and that love of his truth which he requires in us You will say then that for those Erring Protestants which are in this case which evidently are far the greater part they sin damnably in Erring and therefore there is little hope of their Salvation To which I answer that the consequence of this Reason is somewhat strong against a Protestant but much weakned by coming out of the Mouth of a Papist For all Sins with you are not damnable But yet out of courtesie to you we will remove this rubb out of your way and for the present suppose them mortal Sins and is there then no hope of Salvation for him that
cannot but be rebated and lessened by my diffidence in the Relator 9. Yet all this I say not as if I doubted that the Spirit of God being implored by devout and humble Prayer and sincere obedience may and will by 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 whathe will accept of out of grace and favour is yet another To those that believe and live according to their 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 assured of the Gospel of Christ as those which heard it from Christ himself with their Ears 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 effectual unto true obedience For he it is that will not quench the smoaking Flax nor break the bruised Reed He did not reject the Prayer of that distressed man that cried 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 avails with him but Faith wich 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 me fear that the Faith of considering and discoursing men is like to be crackt with too much straining And that being possessed with this false Principle that it is in vain to believe the Gospel of Christ with such a kind or degree of assent as they yield 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 do believe it yet to think they do not and to cast themselves into wretched agonies and perplexities as fearing they have not that without which it is impossible to please God and obtain Eternal happiness Consideration of this advantage which the Devil probably may make of this Phansie made me willing to insist somewhat largely upon the Refutation of it 10. I return 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 do believe them as firmly as you pretend to do And therefore you may build on in Gods name for by Gods help I shall always embrace 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 follows That of two disagreeing in matter of Faith the one cannot be saved but by Repentance or Ignorance I answer by distinction of those terms two dissenting in a matter of Faith For it may be either in a thing which is indeed a matter of Faith in the strictest sense that is something the Belief whereof God requires under pain 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 discern it Or it may be as it oftens 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 have already declared in my examination of your Preface The inconsequence of it is of it self evident for who ever heard of a wilder Collection than this God hath provided means sufficient to decide all Controversies in Religion necessary to be decided This means is Universally infallible Therefore of two that differ in any thing which they esteem a matter of Faith one cannot be saved He that can find any connection between these Propositions I believe will be able to find good coherence between the Deaf Plantiff's Accusation in the Greek Epigram and the Deaf Defendants Answer and the Deaf Judges Sentence And to contrive them all into a formal Categorical Syllogism 11. Indeed if the matter in agitation were plainly decided by this infallible means of deciding Controversies and the Parties in variance knew it to be so and yet would stand out in their dissention this were in one of them direct opposition to the Testimony of God and undoubtedly a damnable sin But if you take the liberty to suppose what you please you may very easily conclude what you list For who is so foolish as to grant you these unreasonable Postulates that every emergent Controversie of Faith is plainly decided by the means of dicision which God hath appointed and that of the Parties litigant one is always such a convicted Recusant as you pretend Certainly if you say so having no better warrant than you have or can have for it this is more proper and formal uncharitableness than ever was charged upon you Methinks with much more Reason and much more Charity you might suppose that many of these Controversies which are now disputed among Christians all which profess themselves lovers of Christ and truly desirous to know his Will and do it are either not decidable by that means which God hath provided and so not necessary to be decided Or if they be yet not so plainly and evidently as to oblige all men to hold one way or Lastly if decidable and evidently decided yet you may hope that the erring part by reason of some Vail before his Eyes some excusable ignorance or unavoidable prejudice does not see the Question to be decided against him and so opposes not that which He doth know to be the word of God but only that which You know to be so and which he might know were he void of prejudice Which is a fault I confess but a fault which is incident even to good and honest men very often and not of such a gigantick disposition as you make it to fly directly upon God Almighty and to give him the Lie to his Face 12. Ad 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16. § In all this long discourse you only tell us what you will do but do nothing but reserve them to the Chapters following and there they shall be examined The Sum of all collected by
your self § 16. is this That the Infallible means of determining Controversies is the Visible Church That the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental maketh nothing to the present Question That to say the Creed containeth all Fundamentals is neither pertinent nor true That whosoever persist in Division from the Communion and Faith of the Roman Church are guilty of Schism and Heresie That in regard of the Precept of Charity towards one self Protestants are in state of Sin while they remain divided from the Roman Chruch To all these Assertions I will content my self for the present to oppose this one That not one of them all is true Only I may not omit to tell you that if the first of them were as true as the Pope himself desires it should be yet the Corollary which you deduce from it would be utterly inconsequent That whosoever denys any point proposed by the Church is injurious to Gods Divine Majesty as if he could deceive or be deceived For though your Church were indeed as Infallible a Propounder of Divine Truths as it pretends to be yet if it appeared not to me to be so I might very well believe God most true and your Church most false As though the Gospel of S. Matthew be the Word of God yet if I neither knew it to be so nor believed it I might believe in God and yet think that Gospel a Fable Hereafter therefore I must entreat you to remember that our being guilty of this impiety depends not only upon your being but upon our knowing that you are so Neither must you argue thus The Church of Rome is the Infallible Propounder of Divine Verities therefore he that opposes Her calls Gods Truth in Question But thus rather The Church of Rome is so and Protestants know it to be so therefore in opposing Her they impute to God that either he deceives them or is deceived himself For as I may deny something which you upon your knowledg have affirmed and yet never disparage your honesty if I never knew that you affirmed it So I may be undoubtedly certain of Gods Omniscience and Veracity and yet doubt of something which he hath revealed provided I do not know nor believe that he hath revealed it So that though your Church be the appointed witness of Gods Revelations yet until you know that we know she is so you cannot without foul Calumny impute to us That we charge God blasphemously with deceiving or being deceived You will say perhaps That this is directly consequent from our Doctrine That the Church may Err which is directed by God in all Her proposals True if we knew it to be directed by him otherwise not much less if we believe and know the contrary But then if it were consequent from our Opinion have you so little Charity as to say that men are justly chargeable with all the consequences of their Opinions Such consequences I mean as they do not own but disclaim and if there were a necessity of doing either would much rather forsake their Opinion than embrace these Consequences What Opinion is there that draws after it such a Train of portentous Blasphemies as that of the Dominicans by the judgment of the best Writers of your own Order And will you say now that the Dominicans are justly chargeable with all these Blasphemies If not seeing our case take it at the worst is but the same why should not your judgment of us be the same I appeal to all those Protestants that have gone over to your Side whether when they were most averse from it they did ever deny or doubt of Gods omniscience or veracity whether they did ever believe or were taught that God did deceive them or was deceived himself Nay I provoke to you your self and desire you to deal truly and to tell Us whether you do in your Heart believe that we do indeed not believe the Eternal Veracity of the Eternal Verity And if you judge so strangely of us having no better ground for it than you have or can have we shall not need any farther proof of your uncharitableness towards us this being the extremity of true uncharitableness If not then I hope having no other ground but this which sure is none at all to pronounce us damnable Hereticks you will cease to do so and hereafter as if your ground be true you may do with more truth and Charity Collect thus They only Err damnably who oppose what they know God hath testified But Protestants sure do not oppose what they know God hath testified at least we cannot with Charity say they do Therefore they either do not Err damnably or with Charity we cannot say they do so 13. Ad 17. § Protestants you say according to their own grounds must hold that of Persons contrary in whatsoever point of belief 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 acknowledg but wonder much what it should be that lays upon Protestants any necessity to do so You tell us it is their holding Scripture the sole Rule of Faith for this you say obligeth them to pronounce them damned 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 contained in Scripture or have no just probable Reason and which may move an honest man to doubt whether or no it be there contained For to oppose in the first Case in a man that believes the Scripture to be the Word of God is to give God the Lie To oppose in the second is to be obstinate against Reason and therefore a sin 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 belief and that for these Reasons First because the contrary belief 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 esteemed to be so So that though it were damnable to oppose any point contained in Scripture yet Persons of a contrary belief as Victor and Polycrates S. Cyprian and Stephen might both be saved because their contrary belief was not touching any point contained in Scripture Secondly because the contrary belief may be about the sense of some place of Scripture which is ambiguous and with probability capable of diverse Senses and in such Cases it is no marvel and sure no Sin if several men go several ways Thirdly because the contrary belief may be concerning points wherein Scripture may with so great probability be alledged 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 above all things to know Gods Will and to do
Antichrist are wholly lost and extinguished So unfaithful or negligent hath been this keeper of Divine verities whose eyes like the Keepers of Israel you say have never Slumbred nor Slept Lastly we deny not but a Judge and a Law might well stand together but we deny that there is any such Judge of Gods appointment Had he intended any such Judge he would have named him lest otherwise as now it is our Judge of Controversies should be our greatest Controversie 11. Ad 2 3 4 5 6. § In your second Paragraph you sum up those arguments wherewith you intend to prove that Scripture alone cannot be Judge in Controversies Wherein I profess 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 Judge of Controversies and you in saying here That Scripture alone cannot be Judge imply that it may be called in some sense a Judge though not alone Yet to speak properly as men should speak when they write of Controversies in Religion the Scripture is not a Judge of Controversies but a Rule only and the only Rule for Christians to judge them by Every man is to Judge for himself with the Judgment 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 choice if he be a natural 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 than evidence of Truth hath made you confess in plain terms in the beginning of this chap. 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 Judging we might let pass as impertinent to the conclusion which we maintain and you have already granted yet out of courtesie we will consider them 12. Your first is this a Judge must be a person fit to end Controversies but the Scripture is not a person nor fit to end Controversies no more than the Law would be without the Judges therefore though it may be a Rule it cannot be a Judge 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 go a Journey and had a guide which could not Err 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 Judge it will be no fitter you say to end Controversies than the Law alone to end Suits I answer if the Law were plain and perfect and men honest and desirous to understand aright and obey it he that says 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 and perfect and men we say are obliged 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 13. Your next encounter is with them who acknowledging the Scripture a Rule only and not a Judge 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 than the Scripture in which he speaks But by this reason neither the Pope nor a Council can be a Judge 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 do against Scripture And then what you Object against the Holy Ghost speaking in Scripture to exclude him from this office The same I return upon them and their decrees to debar them from it that they speaking unto us only in their decrees are no more intelligible than 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 himself and so the Scripture cannot But the Holy Ghost that speaks in Scripture can do so if he please and when he is pleased will do so In the mean time it will be fit for you to wait his leisure and to be content that those things of Scripture which are plain should be so and those which are obscure should remain obscure until he please to declare them Besides he can which you cannot warrant me of the Pope or a Coucil 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 Councils touching Controversies though they be not the Judge yet they are the Judges Sentence So I say the Scripture though not the Judge is the Sentence of the Judge When therefore you conclude That to say a Judge 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 speaks in Scripture This I grant is true but I may not grant that a Judge such a one as we dispute of is necessary either to do 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 than to have a judge to interpret the meaning of a Councils decrees and others to interpret their Interpretations and others to interpret theirs and so on for ever And where they are not plain there if we using
diligence to find the truth do yet miss of it and fall into Error there is no danger in it They that Err and they that do not Err may both be saved So that those places which contain things necessary and wherein Error were dangerous need no Infallible interpreter because they are plain and those that are obscure need none because they contain not things necessary neither is Error in them dangerous The Law-maker speaking in the Law I grant it is no more easily understood than the Law it self 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 Judges to determine Civil and Criminal Controversies and to give every man that Justice which the Law allows him But your Argument drawn from hence to shew a necessity of a visible Judge in Controversies of Religion I say is Sophistical and that for many Reasons 14. First Because the variety of Civil cases is infinite and therefore there cannot be possibly Laws enough provided for the determination of them and therefore there must be a Judge to supply out of the Principles of Reason the interpretation of the Law where it is defective 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 Judge to moderate it whereof in Religion there is no use at all 16. Thirdly In Civil and Criminal causes the parties have for the most part so much interest and very often so little honesty that they will not submit to a Law though never so plain if it be 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 plain and extended to all cases there would be little need of Judges Now in matters of Religion when the Question is whether every man be a fit Judge and chooser for himself we suppose men honest and such as understand the difference between a Moment and Eternity And such men we conceive will think it highly concerns them to be of the true Religion but nothing at all that this or that Religion should be the true And then we suppose that all the necessary points of Religion are plain and easie and consequently every man in this cause to be a competent Judge for himself because it concerns himself to judge right as much as Eternal happiness is worth And if through his own default he judge amiss he alone shall suffer for it 17. Fourthly in Civil Controversies we are obliged only to external passive obedience and not to an internal and active We are bound to obey the Sentence of the Judge or not to resist it but not always to believe it just But in matters of Religion such a Judge is required whom we should be obliged to believe to have judged right So that in Civil Controversies every honest understanding man is fit to be a Judge But in Religion none but he that is infallible 18. Fifthly in Civil Causes there is means and power when the Judge has decreed to compel men to obey his Sentence otherwise I believe Laws alone would be to as much purpose for the ending of differences as Laws and Judges both But all the Power in the World is neither fit to convince nor able to compel a mans Conscience to consent to any thing Worldly terror may prevail so far as to make men profess a Religion which they believe not such men I mean who know not that there is a Heaven provided for Martyrs and a Hell for those that dissemble such truths as are necessary to be professed But to force either any man to believe what he believes not or any honest man to dissemble what he does believe if God commands him to profess it or to profess what he does not believe all the Powers in the World are too weak with all the Powers of Hell to assist them 19. Sixthly in Civil Controversies the case cannot be so put but there may be a Judge to end it who is not a party In Controversies of Religion it is in a manner impossible to be avoided but the Judge must be a party For this must be the first whether he be a Judge or no and in that he must be a party Sure I am the Pope in the Controversies of our time is a chief party for it highly concerns him even as much as his Popedom is worth not to yield any one point of his Religion to be Erroneous And he is a man subject to like passions with other men And therefore we may justly decline his Sentence for fear temporal respects should either blind his judgment or make him pronounce against it 20. Seventhly in Civil Controversies it is impossible Titius should hold the land in question and Sempronius too and therefore either the Plantiff must injure the Defendant by disquieting his possession or the Defendant wrong the Plantiff by keeping his right from him But in Controversies of Religion the Case is otherwise I may hold my Opinion and do you no wrong and you yours and do me none Nay we may both of us hold our Opinion and yet do our selves no harm provided the difference be not touching any thing necessary to Salvation and that we love truth so well as to be diligent to inform our Conscience and constant in following it 21. Eightly For the ending of Civil Controversies who does not see it is absolutely necessary that not only Judges should be appointed but that it should be known and unquestioned who they are Thus all the Judges of our Land are known men known to be Judges and no man can doubt or question but these are the Men. Otherwise if it were a disputable thing who were these Judges and they had no certain warrant for their Authority but only some Topical congruities would not any man say such Judges in all likelihood would rather multiply Controversies then end them 22. Ninthly and lastly For the deciding of Civil Controversies men may appoint themselves a judge But in matters of Religion this office may be given to none but whom God hath designed for it who doth not always give us those things which we conceive most expedient for our selves 23. So likewise if our Saviour the King of Heaven had intended that all Controversies in Religion should be by some Visible Judge finally determined who can doubt but in plain terms he would have expressed himself about this matter He would have said plainly The Bishop of Rome I have appointed to decide all emergent Controversies For that our Saviour designed the Bishop of Rome to this Office and yet would not say so nor cause it to be written ad Rei memoriam by any of the Evangelists or Apostles so much as once but leave it to
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 deal ingeniously you will not deny it And without question he that builds his Faith upon our English Translation goes upon a more prudent ground than any of these can with reason be pretended to be What then can you alledge but that with you rather than 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 dispenced 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 national Languages in respect of those that are Licensed to read them This I presume you will confess 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 meer men subject to the same Passions and to the same possibility of erring with our Translators 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 and zealous Catholicks 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 authentical 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 Council of Trent when that decree was made which made the Vulgar Edition then not extant any where in the World authentical and not to be rejected upon any pretence whatsoever At the forming this decree Vega I say was present understood the mind of the Council as well as any man and professes that he was instructed in it by the President of it the Cardinal S. Cruce And yet he hath written that the Council in this decree meant to pronounce this Translation free not simply from all Error but only from such Errors out of which any opinion pernicious to Faith and Manners might be collected This Andradius in his defence of that Council reports of Vega and assents to it himself Driedo in his Book of the Translation of Holy Scripture hath these Words very pregnant and pertinent to the same purpose The See Apostolick hath approved or accepted Hieroms Edition not as so wholly consonant to the Original and so entire and pure and restored in all things that it may not be lawful for any man either by comparing it with the Fountain 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 preferred 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 acknowleges the imperfection of it in these Words Pro Edit vulg c. 21. p. 99. The faults of the Vulgar Edition are not approved by the Decree of the Council of Trent a multitude whereof we did collect from the variety of Copies And again We maintain that the Hebrew and Greek were by no means rejected by the Trent Fathers And that the Latin Edition is indeed approved yet not so as if they did deny that some places might be Translated more plainly some more properly whereof it were easie to produce innumerable examples And this he there professes to have learnt of Laines the then General of the Society who was a great part of that Council present at all the Actions of it and of very great authority in it 77. To this so great authority he adds a reason of his opinion which with all indifferent men will be of a far greater authority If the Council saith he had purposed to approve an Edition in all respects and to make it of equal authority and credit with the Fountains certainly they ought with exact care first to have corrected the Errors of the Interpreter which certainly they did not 78. Lastly Bellarmine himself Bell. de verbo Dei l. 2. c. 11. p. 120. though he will not acknowledge any imperfection in the Vulgar Edition yet he acknowledges that the case may and does oft-times so fall out that it is impossible to discern which is the true reading of the Vulgar Edition but only by recourse unto the Originals and dependence upon them 79. From all which it may evidently be collected that though some of you flatter your selves with a vain imagination of the certain absolute purity and perfection of your Vulgar Edition yet the matter is not so certain and so resolved but that the best Learned men amongst you are often at a stand and very doubtful sometimes whether your Vulgar Translation be true and sometimes whether this or that be your Vulgar Translation and sometimes undoubtedly resolved that your Vulgar Translation is no true Translation nor consonant to the Original as it was at first delivered And what then can be alledged but that out of your own grounds it may be inferred and inforced upon you that not only in your Lay-men but your Clergy-men and Scholars Faith and Truth and Salvation and all depends upon fallible and uncertain grounds And thus by Ten several retortions of this one Argument I have endeavoured to shew you how ill you have complied with your own advice which was to take heed of urging Arguments that might be returned upon you I should now by a direct answer shew that it presseth not us at all but I have in passing done it already in the end of the second retortion of this Argument and thither I refer the Reader 80. Whereas therefore you exhort them that will have assurance of true Scriptures to fly to your Church for it I desire to know if they should follow your advice how they should be assured that your Church can give them any such assurance which hath been confessedly so negligent as to suffer many whole Books of Scripture to be utterly lost Again in those that remain confessedly so negligent as to suffer the Originals of these that remain to be corrupted And lastly
so careless of preserving the integrity of the Copies of her Translation as to suffer infinite variety of Readings to come in to them without keeping any one perfect Copy which might have been as the Standard and Polycletus his Canon to correct the rest by So that which was the true reading and which the false it was utterly undiscernable but only by comparing them with the Originals which also she pretends to be corrupted 84. Ad 17. § In this Division you charge us with great uncertainty concerning the true meaning of Scripture Which hath been answered already by saying That if you speak of plain places and in such all things necessary are contained we are sufficiently certain of the meaning of them neither need they any Interpreter If of obscure and difficult places we confess we are uncertain of the sense of many of them But then we say there is no necessity we should be certain For if Gods Will had been we should have understood him more certainly he would have spoken more plainly And we say besides that as we are uncertain so are You too which he that doubts of let him read your Commentators upon the Bible and observe their various and dissonant Interpretations and he shall in this point need no further satisfaction 85. Obj. But seeing there are contentions among us we are taught by nature and Scripture and experience so you tell us out of M. Hooker to seek for the ending of them by submiting unto some Judicical sentence whereunto neither part may refuse to stand Answ This is very true Neither should you need to persuade us to seek such a means of ending all our Controversies if we could tell where to find it But this we know that none is fit to pronounce for all the World a judicial definitive obliging Sentence in Controversies of Religion but only such a Man or such a society of Men as is authorized thereto by God And besides we are able to demonstrate that it hath not been the pleasure of God to give to any Man or Society of Men any such authority And therefore though we wish heartily that all Controversies were ended as we do that all sin were abolisht yet we have little hope of the one or the other till the World be ended And in the mean while think it best to content our selves with and to persuade others unto an Unity of Charity and mutual Toleration seeing God hath authorized no man to force all men to Unity of Opinion Neither do we think it fit to argue thus To us it seems convenient there should be one Judge 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 seems to us convenient there should be one yet it is not so Or though it were convenient for us to have one yet it hath pleased God for Reasons best known to himself not to allow us this convenience 87. Ad 18. § That the true Interpretation of the Scripture ought to be received from the Church you need not prove for it is very easily granted by them who profess themselves very ready to receive all Truths much more the true sense of Scripture not only from the Church but from any Society of men nay from any man whatsoever 88. That the Churches Interpretation of Scripture is always true that is it which you would have said and that in some sense may be also admitted viz. If you speak of that Church which before you speak of in the 14. § that is of the Church of all Ages since the Apostles Upon the Tradition of which Church you there told us We were to receive the Scripture and to believe it to be the Word of God For there you teach us that our Faith of Scripture depends on a Principle which requires no other proof And that such is Tradition which from Hand to Hand and Age to Age bring us up to the Times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself 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 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 believe 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 and we believe therefore if the Church taken in another sense tell us this or that is the meaning of the Scripture we are to believe that also this is too transparent Sophistry to take any but those that are willing to be taken 89. If there be any Traditive Interpretation of Scripture produce it and prove 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 Catholick Church is another And therefore though we are ready to receive both Scripture and the sense of Scripture upon the authority of Original Tradition yet we receive neither the one nor the other upon the Authority of your Church 90. First for the Scripture how can we receive them upon the Authority of your Church who hold now those Books to be Canonical 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 Canonical in S. Gregories time or else he was no member of your Church for it is apparent a See Greg. Mor. l. 19. c. 13. He held otherwise The second you rejected from the Canon in S. Hieroms time as it is evident out of b Thus he testifies Com. in Esa c. 6. in these words Vnde Paulus Apost in Epist ad Heb. quam Latina consuetudo non recipit and again in c. 8. in these In Ep. quae ad Hebraeos scribitur â—licet eam â—aâ—ina Consuetudo inter Canonicas Scripturas non recipiat c. many places of his Works 91. If you say which is all you can that Hierom spake this of the particular Roman Church not of the Roman Catholick 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 Catholick Doctrine Now then choose whether you will either that the particular Roman Church was not then believed to be the Mistris of all other Churches
23. The next § argues thus For many Ages there was no Scripture in the World and for many more there was none in many places of the World yet men wanted not then and there some certain direction what to believe Therefore there was then an Infallible Judge Just as if I should say York is not my way from Oxford to London therefore Bristol is Or a Dog is not a Horse therefore he is a Man As if God had no other ways of revealing himself to men but only by Scripture and an infallible Church * See Chrysost Hom. 1. in Mat. Isidor Pelus l. 3. ep 106. and also Basil in Ps 28. and then you shall confess that by other means besides these God did communicate himself unto men and made them receive and understand his Laws see also to the same purpose Heb. 1.1 S. Chrysostome and Isidorus Pelusiota conceived he might use other means And S. Paul telleth us that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might be known by his Works and that they had the Law written in their Hearts Either of these ways might make some faithful men without either necessity of Scripture or Church 124. But D. Potter says you say In the Jewish Church there was a living Judge 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 Jewish 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 for 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 Jewish 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 Jews As a man may truly say the Wise men had an infallible direction to Christ without saying or thinking that they were constrained to follow it and could not do otherwise 125. But either the Church retains still her infallibility or it was devested of it upon the receiving of Holy Scripture which is absurd An Argument methinks like this Either you have Horns or you have lost them but you never lost them therefore you have them still If you say you never had Horns so say I for ought appears by your reasons the Church never had infallibility 126. But some Scriptures were received in some places and not in others therefore if Scriptures were the Judge of Controversies some Churches had one Judge and some another And what great inconvenience is there in that that one part of England should have one Judge and another another especially seeing the Books 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 Gospel being contained in every one of the four Gospels as I have proved So that they which had all the Books 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 Gospels wanted nothing necessary and therefore it is vainly inferred by you that with Months and Years as new Canonical Scriptures grew to be published the Church altered her rule of Faith and judge of Controversies 127. Heresies you say would arise after the Apostles time and after the writing of Scriptures These cannot be discovered condemned and avoided unless 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 inform us what is the Faith it must of necessity be also sufficient to teach us what is Heresie seeing Heresie is nothing but a manifest deviation from and an opposition to the Faith That which is straight 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 merciful a rewarder of them that seek him a punisher of them that obstinately offend him that Jesus Christ is the Son 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 Ascension 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 saved That they which do not believe or repent shall be damned If a man should hold that either the keeping of the Mosaical 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 means to discover and condemn and avoid that Heresie without any need of an infallible guide If you say that the obscure places of Scripture contain matters of Faith I answer 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 do 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 wisdom 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 himself hath not revealed Suppose there were an absolute Monarch that in his own absense from one of his Kingdoms had written Laws for the Government of it some very plainly and some very ambiguously and obscurely and his Suctjects should keep those that were plainly written with all exactness 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 wisdom be offended with these Subjects if by reason of the obscurity of them they mistook the sense of them and
nothing unwritten which can go in upon half so fair Cards for the Title of Apostolick Tradition as these things which by the confession of both Sides are not so I mean the Doctrine of the Millinaries and of the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants 156. Yet when we say the Scripture is the only Rule to Judge all Controversies by methinks you should easily conceive that we would be understood of all those that are possible to be Judged by Scripture and of those that arise among such as believe the Scripture For if I had a Controversie with an Atheist whether there were a God or no I would not say that the Scripture were a Rule to judge this by seeing that doubting whether there be a God or no he must needs doubt whether the Scripture be the Word of God or if he does not he grants the Question and is not the man we speak of So likewise if I had a Controversie about the Truth of Christ with a Jew it would be vainly done of me should I press him with the Authority of the New Testament which he believes not until out of some Principles common to us both I had persuaded him that it is the Word of God The New Testament therefore while he remains a Jew would not be a fit Rule to decide this Controversie In as much as that which is doubted of it self is not fit to determine other doubts So likewise if there were any that believed Christian Religion and yet believed not the Bible to be the Word of God though they believed the matter of it to be true which is no impossible supposition for I may believe a Book of S. Austines to contain nothing but the Truth of God and yet not to have been inspired by God himself against such men therefore there were no disputing out of the Bible because nothing in question can be a proof to it self When therefore we say the Scripture is a sufficient means to determine all Controversies we say not this either to Atheists Jews Turks or such Christians if there be any such as believe not Scripture to be the Word of God But among such men only as are already agreed upon this That the Scripture is the Word of God we say all Controversies that arise about Faith are either not at all decidable and consequently not necessary to be believed one way or other or they may be determined by Scripture In a Word That all things necessary to be believed are evidently contained in Scripture and what is not there evidently contained cannot be necessary to be believed And our reason hereof is convincing because nothing can Challenge our belief but what hath descended to us from Christ by Original and Universal Tradition Now nothing but Scripture hath thus descended to us Therefore nothing but Scripture can Challenge our belief Now then to come up closer to you and to answer to your Question not as you put it but as you should have put it I say That this position Scripture alone is the Rule whereby they which believe it to be Gods Word are to judge all Controversies in Faith is no fundamental 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 have 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 have said already that necessary Controversies may be and 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 means for the ending of them And to your Third I say that your pretence of using these means is but hypocrital for you use them with prejudice and with a setled resolution not to believe any thing which these means happily may suggest into you if it any way cross your pre-conceived perswasion of your Churches infallibility You give not your selves liberty of judgment in the use of them nor suffer your selves to be 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 err therefore it is not Infallible as you are resolute to believe this The Church is Infallible therefore it doth not err and therefore it doth not oppose Scripture though it seem to do 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 confer places but it is that you may confirm or colour over with plausible disguises your erroneous doctrine not that you may judge of them and forsake them if there be reason for it You consult the Originals but you regard them not when they make against your Doctrin or Translation 159. Notwithstanding though not for these reasons yet for others I conceive this Doctrin not Fundamental 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 performs the entire condition of the new Covenant which is that we believe the matter of the Gospel and not that it is contained in these or these Books So that the Books 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 Doctrin as requisite to the well-being of it Iraeneus tells us as M. K. acknowledgeth of some barbarous Nations that believed the Doctrin 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 Books 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 belief and practice 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 Books wherein they are contained Not but that it were now very strange and unreasonable if a man should believe the matter of these
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 be 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 Error 78. Fourthly and lastly if we deal most liberally with you and grant that the Apostle here speaks of the Catholick Church calls it the Pillar and ground of Truth and that not only because it should but because it always 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 unless 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 be 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 than 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 Boyls 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 do your Cause no service But the last you suppose will be a Gordian knot and ties us fast enough The words are Eph. 4.11 12 13. He gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. to the consummation of Saints to the work of the Ministry c. Until we all meet into the Unity of Faith c. That we be not hereafter Children wavering and carried up and down 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 means to conserve unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrine unless it be a Church universally Infallible But it is impious to say there is no means to conserve unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrine Therefore there must be a Church universally Infallible Whereunto I answer that your major is so far from being confirmed that it is plainly confuted by the place alledged For that tells us of another means for this purpose to wit the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascension and that their consummating the Saints doing the work of the Ministry and Edifying the body of Christ was the means 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 conceit 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 Unless 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 turn 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 several Oâ—ders of men clearly distinguished and diversified by the Original 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 parallel place 1 Cor. 12. to which we are referred by your Vulgar Translation God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers therefore this subterfuge is stopped against you Obj. But how can they which died in the first Age keep us in Unity and guard us from Error that live now perhaps in the last This seems to be all one as if a Man should say that Alexander or Julius Caesar should quiet a mutiny in the King of Spains 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 error 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 Ascension by their writings which some of them writ but all approved are even now sufficient means to conserve us in Unity of Faith and guard us from Error 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 * Perron Chiefest of you acknowledge contain immediatly all the Principal and Fundamental 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 of the Council of Trent and the Pope that confirmed them are they means to conserve you in Unity and keep you from Error or are they not Peradventure you will say their Decrees are but not their Persons but you will not deny I hope that you owe your unity and freedom from Error to the Persons that made these Decrees neither will you deny that the writings which they have left behind them are sufficient for this purpose And why may not then the Apostles
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 means of ending them is necessary to Salvation that you have often said and supposed 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 fair show And as little care how you commit those faults your self which you condem in others For you here charge them with great impiety who imagine that God the lover of Souls hath left no infallible means 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 Jesuits and Dominicans remain undetermined You return him this cross 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 means to decide all differences I may answer It seems you do not believe your self For in this controversie which is of as high consequence as any can be you seem to be doubtful whether there be any means to determin it On the other side when you ask D. Potter who assured him that there is any means 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 means 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 Jesuits which includes a difference about the sense of many Texts of Scripture and many other matters of moment was not included under this and all other differences I cannot imagine Yet if you can find out any thus much at least we shall gain by it that general speeches are not always to be understood generally but sometimes with exceptions and limitations 89. But if there be any infallible means to decide all differences I beseech you name them You say it is to consult and hear Gods Visible Church with submissive acknowledgment of her Infallibility But suppose the difference be as here it is whether your Church be Infallible what shall decide that If you would say as you should do Scripture and Reason then you foresee that you should be forced to grant that these are fit means to decide this Controversie and therefore may be as fit to decide others Therefore to avoid this you run into a most ridiculous absurdity and tell us that this difference also whether the Church be Infallible as well as others must be agreed by a submissive acknowledgment of the Churches Infallibility As if you should have said My Brethren I perceive this is a great contention amongst you whether the Roman Church be Infallible If you will follow my advice I will shew you a ready means to end it you must first agree that the Roman Church is Infallible and then your contention whether the Roman Church be Infallible will quickly be at an end Verily a most excellent advice and most compendious way of ending all Controversies even without troubling the Church to determine them For why may not you say in all other differences as you have done in this Agree that the Pope is supream head of the Church That the substance of Bread and Wine in the Sacrament is turned into the body and blood of Christ That the Communion is to be given to Lay-men but in one kind That Pictures may be worshipped That Saints are to be invocated and so in the rest and then your differences about the Popes Supremacy Transubstantiation and all the rest will speedily be ended If you say the advice is good in this but not in other cases I must request you not to expect always to be believed upon your word but to shew us some reason why any one thing namely the Churches Infallibility is fit to prove it self and any other thing by name the Popes Supremacy or Transubstantiation is not as fit Or if for shame you will at length confess that the Churches Infallibility is not fit to decide this difference whether the Church be infallible then you must confess it is not fit to decide all Unless you will say it may be fit to decide all and yet not fit to decide this or pretend that this is not comprehended under all Besides if you grant that your Churches infallibility cannot possibly be well grounded upon or decided by it self then having professed before that there is no possible means besides this for us to agree hereupon I hope you will give me leave to conclude that it is impossible upon good ground for us to agree that the Roman Church is Infallible For certainly light it self is not more clear than the evidence of this syllogism If there be no other means to make men agree upon your Churches Infallibility but only this and this be no means then it is simply impossible for men upon good grounds to agree that your Church is Infallible But there is as you have granted no other possible means to make men agree hereupon but only a submissive acknowledgment of her Infallibility And this is apparently no means Therefore it is simply impossible for men upon good grounds to agree that your Church is Infallible 90. Lastly to the place of S. Austin wherein we are advised to follow the way of Catholick Discipline which from Christ himself by the Apostles hath come down even to us and from us shall descend to all posterity I answer That the way which S. Austin speaks of and the way which you commend being divers ways and in many things clean contrary we cannot possibly follow them both and therefore for you to apply the same words to them is a vain equivocation Shew us any way and do not say but prove it to have come from Christ and his Apostles down to us and we are ready to follow it Neither do we expect demonstration hereof but such reasons as may make this more probable than the contrary But if you bring in things into your now Catholick Discipline which Christians in S. Austins time held abominable as the Picturing of God and which you must confess to have come into the Church Seven Hundred Years after Christ if you will bring in things as you have done the half Communion with a non obstante notwithstanding Christ Institution and the practice of the Primitive Church were to the contrary If you will do such things as these and yet would have us believe that your whole Religion came from Christ and his Apostles this we conceive a
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 believing all things written in Scripture when once they know them to be there written For he that believes not all known Divine Revelations to be true how does he believe in God Unless 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 believing 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 meer Faith yet no man pretends that it contains the Rules of Obedience but for them all men are referred to Scripture Besides he that pretends to believe in God obligeth himself to believe it necessary to obey that which reason assures him to be the Will of God Now reason will assure him that believes the Creed that it is the Will of God he should believe the Scripture even the very same Reason which moves him to believe the Creed Universal and never failing Tradition having given this Testimony both to Creed and Scripture that they both by the works of God were sealed and testified to be the words of God And thus much be spoken in Answer to your first Argument the length whereof will be the more excusable If I oblige my self to say but little to the rest 15. I come then to your second And in Answer to it deny flatly as a thing destructive of it self that any Error can be damnable unless it be repugnant immediatly or mediatly directly or indirectly of it self or by accident to some Truth for the matter of it fundamental And to your example of Pontius Pilat's being Judge of Christ I say the denial of it in him that knows it to be revealed by God is manifestly destructive of this Fundamental truth that all Divine Revelations are true Neither will you find any Error so much as by accident damnable but the rejecting of it will be necessarily laid upon us by a real belief of all Fundamentals and simply necessary Truths And I desire you would reconcile with this that which you have said § 15. Every Fundamental Error must have a contrary Fundamental Truth because of two Contradictory propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true c. 16. To the Third I Answer That the certainty I have of the Creed That it was from the Apostles and contains the principles of Faith I ground it not upon Scripture and yet not upon the Infallibility of any present much less 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 17. To the Fourth I Answer plainly thus That you find 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 special senses of men upon the general words of God and laying them upon mens consciences together under the equal penalty of death and damnation this vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the word of God This Deifying our own 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 the Apostles left them a This perswasion is no singularity of mine but the Doctrin which I have learnt from Divines of great learning and judgment Let the Reader be pleased to peruse the seaventh book of Acontius de Stratag Satanae And Zanchius his last Oration delivered by him after the composing of the discord between him and Amerbachius and he shall confess as much is and hath been the only fountain of all the Schisms of the Church and that which makes them immortal the common incendiary of Christendom and that which as I said before tears into pieces not the coat but the bowels and members of Christ Ridente Turcâ nec dolente Judaeo Take away these Walls of separation and all will quickly be one Take away this Persecuting Burning Cursing Damning of men for not subscribing to the words of Men as the words of God Require of Christians only to believe Christ and to call no man master but him only Let those leave claiming Infallibility that have no title to it and let them that in their words disclaim it disclaim it likewise in their actions In a word take away Tyranny which is the Devils instrument to support errors and superstitions and impieties in the several parts of the World which could not otherwise long withstand the power of Truth I say take away Tyranny and restore Christians to their just and full liberty of captivating their understanding to Scripture only and as Rivers when they have a free passage run all to the Ocean so it may well be hoped by Gods blessing that Universal Liberty thus moderated may quickly reduce Christendom to Truth and Unity These thoughts of peace I am perswaded may come from the God of peace and to his blessing I commend them and proceed 18. Your fifth and last objection stands upon a false and dangerous supposition That new Heresies may arise For an Heresie being in it self nothing else but a Doctrine Repugnant to some Article of the Christian Faith to say that new Heresies may arise is to say that new Articles of Faith may arise and so some great ones among you stick not to profess in plain terms who yet at the same time are not ashamed to pretend that your whole Doctrin is Catholick and Apostolick So Salmeron Non omnibus omnia dedit Deus ut quaelibet aetas suis gaudeat veritatibus quas prior aetas ignoravit God hath not given all things to All So that every age hath its proper Verities which the former age was ignorant of Disp 57. In Ep. ad Rom. And again in the Margent Habet Unumquodque saeculum peculiares Revelationes Divinas Every age hath its peculiar Divine Revelations Where that he speaks of such Revelations as are or may by the Church be made matters of Faith no man can doubt that reads him an example whereof he gives us a little before in these words Unius Augustini doctrina Assumptionis B. Deiparae cultum in Ecclesiam introduxit The Doctrin of Augustin only hath brought in to the Church the Worship of
Commandments and the possibility of keeping them the necessity of imploring the Assistance of Gods Grace and Spirit for the keeping of them how far 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 Fundamentals is profitable but not Fundamental He that believes all Fundamentals cannot be damned for any Error in Faith though he believe more or less to be Fundamental than is so That also of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son of Purgatory of the Churches Visibility of the Books of the New Testament which were doubted of by a considerable part of the Primitive Church until I see better reason for the contrary than 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 Books 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 aad 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 and Woman is bound under pain of damnation particularly to know them 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 above mentioned which were never pretended to have place in the Creed There remains one only point of all that Army you Mustred together reducible to none of these Heads and that is that God is and is a Remunerator which you say is questioned by the denial of merit But if there were such a necessary indissoluble coherence between this point and the Doctrine of merit methinks 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 Beside when Protestants deny the Doctrine of Merits you know right well for so they have declared themselves a thousand times that they mean nothing else but with David that their well doing extendeth not is not truly beneficial to God with our Saviour when they have done all which they are commanded they have done their duty only and no courtesie And lastly with S. Paul that all which they can suffer for God and yet suffering is more than doing is not worthy to be 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 himself Nay you must either grant their denial of true Merit just and 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 equal unto and well worthy of Eternal Glory which is prepared for them As for the inconvenience which you so much fear That the denial of Merit makes God a giver only and not a rewarder I tell you good Sir you fear where no fear is and that it is both most true on the one side that you in holding good Works meritorious of Eternal Glory make God a rewarder only and not a giver contrary to plain Scripture affirming that The gift of God is Eternal 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 gives not Heaven but to those which do something for it and so his gift is also a Reward but withal that whatsoever they do is due unto God beforehand 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 means of a Cardinal would you not not only in humility but in sincerity have professed that you had not merited such a reward And yet the Pope is neither your Creator nor Redeemer nor Preserver nor perhaps your very great Benefactor 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 have done him hath been really advantagious to him and lastly not altogether unproportionable to the forementioned reward And therefore if by the same work you will pretend that either you have or hope to have deserved immortal Happiness I beseech you consider well whether this be not to set a higher value upon a Cardinals Cap than a Crown of immortal Glory and with that Cardinal to prefer a part in Paris before a part in Paradise 37. As for your distinction between Heresies that have been and Heresies that are and Heresies that may be I have already proved it vain and that whatsoever may be an Heresie that is so and whatsoever is so that always hath been so ever since the publication of the Gospel of Christ The Doctrine of your Church may like a Snow-ball increase with rouling and again if you please melt away and decrease But as Christ Jesus so his Gospel is yesterday and to day and the same for ever 38. Our Saviour sending his Apostles to preach gave them no other Commission than this Go teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you These were the bounds of their Commission If your Church have any larger or if she have a Commission at large to teach what she pleases and call it the Gospel of Christ let her produce her Letters patents from Heaven for it But if this be all you have then must you give me leave to esteem it both great sacriledg in you to forbid any thing be it never so small or ceremonious which Christ hath commanded as the receiving of the Communion in both kinds and as high a degree of presumption to enjoyn men to believe that there are or can be any other Fundamental Articles of the Gospel of Christ than what Christ himself commanded his Apostles to teach all men or any damnable Heresies but such as are plainly repugnant to these prime Verities 39. Ad § 16 17. The saying of the most Learned Prelate and excellent man the Arch-Bishop of Armach which shall be set down at the end of N.
nullity in any decree that a Pope shall make or any Decree of a Council which he shall confirm Particularly it will be at least an even Wager that all the decrees of the Council of Trent are void because it is at most but very probable that the Pope which confirmed them was true Pope 62. Obj. But unless this Question be answered what points of the â—â—â—ed are and what are not Fundamentals the Proteâ—â—eâ—t Doctrine serves only either to make men despare or else to have recourse to those called Papists Answ It seems a little thing will make you despair if you be so sullen as to do so because men will not trouble themselves to satisfie your curious questions And I pray be not offended with me for so esteeming it because as before I told you if you will believe all the points of the Creed you cannot choose but believe all the points of it that are Fundamental though you be ignorant which are so and which are not so Now I believe your desire to know which are Fundamentals proceeds only from a desire to be assured that you do believe them which seeing you may be assured of without knowing which they be what can it be but curiosity to desire to know it Neither may you think to mend your self herein one whit by having recourse to them whom we call Papists for they are as far to seek as we in this point which of the Articles of the Creed are for their nature and matter Fundamental 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 Burial his descent into Hell and the Communion of Saints be points of their own nature and matter Fundamental Such I mean as without the distinct and explicite knowledge of them no man can be saved 63. Obj. We give this certain Rule that all points defined by Christs Visible Church belong to the Foundation of Faith in this sense that to deny any such cannot stand with Salvation Answ 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 Canonical and submits himself indeed to this as to the rule of his belief must of necessity believe all things Fundamental 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 do 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 self to danger of imbracing damnable Errors instead of Fundamental Truths 67. Ad § 23 24 25. D. P. demands How it can be necessary for any Christian to have more in his Creed than the Apostles bad And this he enforces with many Arguments thus May the Church of after Ages make the narrow way to heaven narrower than our Saviour left it Shall it be a fault to straiten and encomber the Kings high way with publick nuisances and is it lawful by adding new Articles to the Faith to retrench any thing from the Latitude of the King of Heavens high way to Eternal happiness The Yoak of Christ which he said was easie may it be justly made heavier by the Governors of the Church in after Ages The Apostles profess they revealed to the Church the whole Counsel of God keeping back nothing needful for our Salvation What Tyranny then to impose any new unnecessary matters on the Faith of Christians especially as the late Popes have done under the high commanding form Qui non crediderit damnabitur He that believeth not shall be damned If this may be done why then did our Saviour reprehend the Pharisees so sharply for binding heavy burdens and laying them on mens shoulders And why did he teach them that in vain they worshiped God teaching for Doctrines mens Traditions And why did the Apostles call it tempting of God to lay those things upon the Necks of Christians that were not necessary 68. All which interrogations seem to me to contain so many plain and convincing Arguments of the premised Assertion and if you can devise no fair and satisfying answer to them then be so ingenuous as to grant the Conclusion That no more can be necessary for Christians to believe now than was in the Apostles time A conclusion of great importance for the deciding of many Controversies and the disburdening of the Faith of Christ from many incumbrances 70. The Doctor to make good this conclusion argues further thus S. Paul declared to the Ephesians the whole Counsel of God touching their Salvation Therefore that which S. Paul did not declare can be no part of the Counsel of God and therefore not necessary And again S. Paul kept back nothing from the Ephesians that was profitable Therefore he taught them all things necessary to Salvation 71. Neither is it material that these words were particularly directed by S. Paul to the Pastours of the Church For to say nothing that the point here issuable is not Whom he taught whether Priests or Laymen But how much he taught and whether all things necessary it appears plainly out of the Text and I wonder you should read it so negligently as not to observe it that though he speaks now to the Pastors yet he speaks of what he taught not only them but also the Laity as well as them I have kept back nothing says S. Paul that was profitable but have shewed and have taught you publickly and from House to House Testifying I pray observe both to the Jews and also to the Greeks Repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ And a little after I know that ye all among whom I have gone Preaching the Kingdom of God shall see my Face no more Wherefore I take you to record this day that I am Innocent from the Blood of all men for I have kept nothing back but have shewed you all the Counsel of God And again Remember that by the space of three Years I ceased not to warn every one Night and Day with Tears Certainly though he did all these things to the Pastors among the rest nay above the rest yet without Controversie they whom he taught publickly and from House to House The Jews and Greeks to whom he Testified i. e. Preached Faith and Repentance Those all amongst whom he went preaching the Kingdom of God Those Every one whom for three Years together he warned were not Bishops and Pastors only 72. Neither is this to say that the Apostles taught Christians nothing but their Creed nothing of the
every one of these infallible as well as the Roman For though he make a Panegyrick of the Roman Church in particular and of the rest only in general yet as I have said for point of direction he makes them all equal and therefore makes them choose you whether either all fallible or all infallible Now you will and must acknowledge that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Churches of Ephesus or Corinth or if he did that as experience shews he Erred in doing so and what can hinder but then we may say also that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Roman Church or if he did that he Erred in doing so 38. Ad § 20 21 22 23. The sum of your discourse in these Sections if it be pertinent to the Question must be this Want of Succession of Bishops and Pastors holding always the same Doctrine and of the forms of ordaining Bishops and Priests which are in use in the Roman Church is a certain mark of Heresie But Protestants want all these things Therefore they are Hereticks To which I answer That nothing but wnat of truth and holding Error can make or prove any man or Church Heretical For if he be a true Aristotelian or Platonist or Pyrrhonian or Epicurean who holds the Doctrine of Aristotle or Plato or Pirrho or Epicurus although he cannot assign any that held it before him for many Ages together why should I not be made a true and Orthodox Christian by believing all the Doctrine of Christ though I cannot derive my descent from a perpetual Succession that believed it before me By this reason you should say as well that no man can be a good Bishop or Pastor or King or Magistrate or Father that succeeds a bad one For if I may conform my will and actions to the Commandments of God why may I not embrace his Doctrine with my understanding although my predecessor do not so You have above in this Chapter defined Faith a free Infallible obscure supernatural assent to Divine Truths because they are revealed by God and sufficiently propounded This definition is very phantastical but for the present I will let it pass and desire you to give me some piece of shadow or reason why I may not do all this without a perpetual Succession of Bishops and Pastors that have done so before me You may judge as uncharitably and speak as maliciously of me as your blind zeal 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 do believe the Gospel of Christ as it is delivered in the undoubted Books of Canonical Scripture as verily as that it is now day that I see the light that I am now writing and I believe it upon this Motive because I conceive it sufficiently abundantly superabundantly proved to be Divine Revelation And yet in this I do not depend upon any Succession of men that have always believed it without any mixture of Error nay I am fully persuaded there hath been no such Succession and yet do 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 Devils at Lowden do tricks against it but though an Angel from Heaven should gainsay it or any part of it I persuade my self that I should not be moved This I say and this I am sure is true and if you will be so Hypersceptical as to persuade me that I am not sure that I believe all this I desire you to tell me how are you sure that you believe the Church of Rome For if a man may persuade himself he doth believe what he doth not believe then may you think you believe the Church of Rome and yet not believe it But if no man can Err concerning what he believes then you must give me leave to assure my self that I do believe and consequently that any man may believe the aforesaid truths upon the aforesaid motives without any dependence upon any Succession that hath believed it always And as from your definition of Faith so from your definition of Heresie this fancy may be refuted For questionless no man can be an Heretick but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary Error therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretick 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 perpetual Succession of Believers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in your power therefore our being or not being Hereticks depends not on it Besides what is more certain than 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 believes the Scripture to be the Word of God and the Rule of Faith regulate his Faith by it and consequently believe aright without much regarding what other men either will do or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his Words believed he by his Providence must take order that either by Succession of men or by some other means natural or supernatural it be preserved and delivered and sufficiently notified to be his Word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no Error against it certainly there is no more necessity than that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sin against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgress it certainly they may also preserve directions for their Faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Barr do find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined oftimes make against themselves This they do ignorantly it being in their power to suppress 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 formally alleged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetual Succession of men Orthodox 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 Heretical 39. When therefore you have produced some proof of this which was your Major in your former Syllogism That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresie 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
pretend is the true sense of them When you have produced certain grounds for all these things I doubt not but it will appear that we also may have grounds certain enough to believe our whole Religion which is nothing else but the Bible without dependence 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 and 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. Obj. The Holy Scripture is in it self most true and infallible but without the direction and declaration of the Church we can neither have certain means to know what Scripture is Canonical nor what Translations be faithful nor what is the true meaning of Scripture Ans But all these things must be known before we can know the direction of your Church to be infallible for no other proof of it can be pretended but only some Texts of Canonical Scripture truly interpreted Therefore either you are mistaken in thinking there is no other means to know these things but your Churches infallible direction or we are excluded from all means of knowing her direction to be infallible 47. Obj. But Protestants though they are perswaded their own opinions are true and that they have used such means 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 clear that the ground of their faith is infallible in no point at all Ans 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 clearly 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 do sometimes fail because the disagreement of Logicians and Geometricians shew that some of them are deceived Might not a Jew conclude as well against all Christians that they have no certain ground whereon to relie 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 Turk might use the same argument against both Jews and Christians and an Atheist against all Religions and a Sceptick against all reason Might not the one say Mens disagreement in Religion shews that there is no certainty in any and the other that experience of their contradictions teacheth that the rules of reason do sometimes fail Do not you see and feel how void of reason and how full of impiety your sophistry is And how transported with zeal 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 answer is easie 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. Obj. But Protestants cannot determine what points be fundamental and therefore must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamental error Ans By like reason since you acknowledge that every error in points defined and declared by your Church destroys 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 fundamental error and so want the substance of Faith without which there can be no hope of Salvation But though we cannot perhaps say in particular thus much and no more is fundamental yet believing all the Bible we are certain enough that we believe all that is fundamental As he that in a receipt takes twenty ingredients whereof ten 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. Obj. It is generally delivered by Catholick Divines that he who erreth against any one revealed truth tâ—seth all Divine Faith Now certainly some Protestants must do so because they hold contradictions which cannot all be true Therefore some of them at least have no divine faith Ans I pass by your weakness in urging Protestants with the authority of your Divines Yet if the Authority of your Divines were even Canonical certainly nothing could be concluded from it in this matter there being not one of them who delivers for true doctrin this position of yours thus nakedly set down That any error against any one revealed truth destroys all divine faith For they all require not your self excepted that this truth must not only be revealed but revealed publickly and all things considered sufficiently propounded to the erring party to be one of those which God under pain of damnation commands all men to believe But if the Reader will be at the pains he may see this vain fancy confuted out of one of the most rational and profound Doctors of your own Church I mean Estius upon the third Book of the Sententes the 23. Distinct and the 13. Section beginning thus It is disputed whether in him who believes some of the Articles of our Faith and disbelieves others or perhaps some one there be faith properly so called in respect of that which he does believe 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 imagined that a Protestant may not entertain them both as well as a Papist Your bodies and souls your understandings and wills are I think of the same
over all other Churches That the African Churches in S. Austins time should be ignorant that the Pope was Head of the Church and Judge of Appeals jure divino and that there was a necessity of Conformity with the Church in this and all other points of Doctrin Nay that the Popes themselves should be so ignorant of the true ground of this their Authority as to pretend to it not upon Scripture or universal Tradition but upon an imaginary pretended none-such Canon of the Council of Nice That Vincentius Lirinensis seeking for a guide of his Faith and a preservative from Heresie should be ignorant of this so ready one The Infallibility of the Church of Rome All these things and many more are very strange to me if the Infallibility of the Roman Church be indeed and were always by Christians acknowledged the foundation of our Faith And therefore I beseech you pardon me if I choose to build mine upon one that is much firmer and safer and lies open to none of these objections which is Scripture and universal Tradition and if one that is of this Faith may have leave to do so I will subscribe with hand and heart Your very loving and true Friend W. C. A TABLE OF Contents Note that the first Figure refers to the Chapter the other to the divisions of each Chapter A. PRotestants agree in more things than they differ in by believing the Scripture chap. 4. div 49.50 We have as many rational means of Agreement as the Papists c. 3.7 8. Papists pretend to means of agreement and do not agree c. 3.3 4 5 6. Not necessary to find a Church agreeing with Protestants in all points Ans pref 19. c. 5.27 Antiquity vainly pleaded for Romish Doctrins and Practices since many Errors are more ancient than some of their Doctrins c. 5.91 The Apostolick Church an Infallible Guide to which we may resort being present to us by her Writings c. 3.69 80. That the Church has power to make new Articles of Faith asserted by the Romish Doctors c. 4.18 This one Article I believe the Roman Catholick Church to be Infallible if their Doctrin were true would secure against heresie more than the whole Creed c. 4.77 78 79 83. Christs assistance promised to the Church to lead her into more than necessary truths c. 5.61 62. Atheism and irreligion springs easily from some Romish Doctrins and Practices Pref. 7 8. S. Austins saying Evangelio non crederem c. how to be understood c. 2.54 97 98 99. S. Austins Testimony against the Donatists not cogent against Protestants c. 2.163 S. Austins words No necessity to divide unity explained c. 5.10 The Authors vindication from suspition of Heresiâ— Pref. 28. The Authors motives to turn a Papist with answerâ— to them Pref. 42.43 B. The Bible which is the Religion of Protestants to be preferred before the way of Romish Religion shewed at large c. 6. from 56. to 72. Inclusive C. The Calvinists rigid Doctrin of Predetermination unjustly reproached by Papists who communicate with those that hold the same c. 7.30 To give a Catalogue of our Fundamentals not necessary nor possible Ans Pref. 27. c. 3.13 53. Want of such a Catalogue leaves us not uncertain in our Faith c. 3.14 Papists as much bound to give a Catalogue of the Churches proposals which are their Fundamentals and yet do it not c. 3.53 Our general Catalogue of Fundamentals as good as theirs c. 4.12 c. 7.35 Moral certainty a sufficient Foundation of Faith c. 2.154 A Protestant may have certainty though disagreeing Protestants all pretend to like certainty c. 7.13 What Charity Papists allow to us Protestants and we to them c. 1.1 3 4 5. A Charitable judgment should be made of such as err but lead good lives c. 7.33 Protestant Charity to Ignorant Papists no comfort to them that will not see their errors c. 5.76 The Church how furnished with means to determin Controversies c. 1.7 11. Commands in Scripture to hear the Church and obey it suppose it not infallible c. 3.41 We may be a true Church though deriving Ordination and receiving Scripture from a false one c. 6.54 Common truths believed may preserve them good that otherwise err c. 7.33 Conscience in some cases will justifie separation though every pretence of it will not c. 5.108 Concord in damned errors worse than disagreement in controverted points c. 5.72 The Consequences of mens Opinions may be unjustly charged upon them c. 1.12 c. 7.30 What Contradictions Papists believe who hold Transubstantiation c. 4.46 All Controversies in Religion not necessary to be determined c. 1.7 156. c. 3.88 How Controversies about Scripture it self are to be decided c. 2.27 Controversies not necessary to be decided by a Judicial sentence without any appeal c. 2.85 That the Creed contains all necessary points and how to be understood c. 4.23 73 74. Not necessary that our Creed should be larger than that of the Apostles c. 4.67 70 71 72. Whether it be contrary to the Creed to say the Church may fail c. 5.31 D. S Dennis of Alexandria's saying explained about not dividing the Church c. 5.12 To deny a Truth witnessed by God whether always damnable Ans Pref. 9. The Apostles depositing Truth with the Church no argument that she should always keep it sincere and intire c. 2.148 Of Disagreeing Protestants though one side must err yet both may hope for salvation Ans Pref. 22. c. 1.10 13 17. Two may disagree in a matter of faith and yet neither be chargeable with denying a declared Truth of Gods Ans Pref. 10. Differences among Protestants vainly objected against them c. 3.2 3 5. c. 5.72 No reason to reproach them for their differences about necessary Truths and damuable Errors c. 3.52 What is requisite to convince a man that a Doctrin comes from God Ans Pref. 8. Believing the Doctrin of Scripture a man may be saved though he did not believe it to be the word of God c. 2.159 The Donatists error about the Catholick Church what it was and was not c. 3.64 The Donatists case and ours not alike c. 5.103 The Roman Church guilty of the Donatists Error in perswading men as good not to be Christians as not Roman Catholicks c. 3.64 Papists liker to the Donatists than we by their uncharitable denying salvation out of their Church c. 7.21 22 27. E. English Divines vindicated from inclining to Popery and for want of skill in School-Divinity Pref. 19. How Errors may be damnable Ans Pref. 22. In what case Errors damnable may not damn those that hold them c. 5.58 c. 6.14 In what case Errors not damnable may be damnable to those that hold them c. 5.66 No man to be reproached for quitting his Errors c. 5.103 Though we may pardon the Roman Church for her Errors yet we may not sin with it c. 5.70 Errors of the Roman Church that endanger salvation to be forsaken though they are not destructive of it c. 7.6
is easier to know the Scripture and its sense than for the ignorant in the Roman Church which is the Church and what are her decrees and the sense of them c. 2.107 108 109. In what Language the Scripture is incorrupted and the assurance of it c. 2.55 56 57. The Scripture is capable of the properties of a perfect Rule c. 2.7 In what sense we say the Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith c. 2.8 The Scripture not properly a judge of Controversies but a Rule to judge by c. 2.11 104 155. The Scriptures incorruption more secured by providence than the Roman Churches vigilancy c. 2.24 When Scripture is made the Rule of Controversies those that concern it self are to be excepted c. 2.8 27 156. The Scripture contains all necessary material objects of Faith of which the Scripture it self is none but the means of conveying them to us c. 2.32.159 The Scripture must determine some Controversies else those about the Church and its Notes are undeterminable c. 2.3 The Scripture unjustly charged with increasing Controversies and Contentions c. 2.4 The Scripture is a sufficient means for discovering Heresies c. 2.127 When Controversies are referred to Scripture it is not referring them to the private spirit understanding it of a perswasion pretending to come from the Spirit of God c. 2.110 Protestants that believe Scripture agree in more things than they differ in and their differences are not material c. 4.49 50. Private men if they interpret Scriptures amiss and to ill purposes endanger only themselves when they do not pretend to prescribe to others c. 2.122 The Protestants Security of the way to happiness c. 2.53 Want of Skill in School-Divinity foolishly objected against English Divines Pref. 19. The Principles of the Church of Englands separating from Rome will not serve to justifie Schismaticks c. 5.71 74 80 81 82 85 86. Socinianism and other Heresies countenanced by Romish Writers who have undermined the Doctrin of the Trinity Pref. 17.18 The promise of the Spirits leading into all truth proves not Infallibility c. 3.71 The promise of the Spirits abiding with them for ever may be personal c. 3.74 And it being a conditional promise cuts off the Roman Churches pretence to infallibility c. 3.75 Want of Succession of Bishops holding always the same Doctrin is not a mark of Heresie c. 6.38 41. In what sense Succession is by the Fathers made a mark of the true Church c. 6.40 Papists cannot prove a perpetual Succession of Professors of their Doctrin c. 6.41 T. Tradition proves the Books of Scripture to be Canonical not the Authority of the present Church c. 2.25 53 90 91 92. c. 3.27 Traditional Interpretations of Scripture how ill preserved by the Roman Church c. 2.10 c. 3.46 No Traditional Interpretations of Scripture though if there were any remaining we are ready to receive them c. 2.88 89 c. 3.46 The Traditions distinct from Scripture which Iraeneus mentions do not favour Popery c. 2.144 145 146. The asserting unwritten Traditions though not inconsistent with the truth of Scripture yet disparages it as a perfect Rule c. 2.10 Though our Translations of the Bible are subject to error yet our salvation is not thereby made uncertain c. 2.68 73. Different Translations of Scripture may as well be objected to the Ancient Church as to Protestants c. 2.58 59. The Vulgar Translation is not pure and uncorrupted c. 2.75 76 77 78 79 80. To believe Transubstantiation how many contradictions one must believe c. 4.46 The Doctrin of the Trinity undermined by Roman Doctors Pref. 17 18. The Church may tolerate many things which she does not allow c. 3.47 Gods Truth not questioned by Protestants though they deny points professed by the Church c. 1.12 Protestants question not Gods Truth though denying some truth revealed by him if they know it not to be so revealed c. 3.16 The Truth of the present Church depends not upon the visibility or perpetuity of the Church in all Ages c. 5.21 c. 7.20 The Apostles depositing Truth with the Church is no argument that she should always keep it intire and sincere c. 2.148 The promise of being led into all truth agrees not equally to the Apostles and to the Church c. 3.34 A Tryal of Religion by Scripture may well be refused by Papists c. 2 3. U. Violence and force to introduce Religion is against the nature of Religion and unjustly charged upon Protestants c. 5.96 What Visible Church was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman Ans Pref. 19. c. 5.27 That there should be always a visible unerring Church of one denomination is not necessary c. 5.27 The Visible Church may not cease though it may cease to be visible c. 5.13 14 41. The Church may not be Visible in the Popish sense and yet may not dissemble but profess her faith c. 5.18 The great uncertainties salvation in the Roman Church depends on c. 2.63 to 73. inclusive Their uncertainty of the right administration of Sacraments c. 2.63 to 68. inclusive The Churches Vnity by what means best preserved c. 3.81 c. 4.13 17 40. Pretence of Infallibility a ridiculous means to Vnity when that is the chief question to be determined c. 3.89 Vnity of Communion how to be obtained c. 4.39 40. Vnity of external Communion not necessary to the being a Member of the Catholick Church c. 5.9 Vniversality of a Doctrin no certain sign that it came from the Apostles c. 3.44 Want of Vniversality of place proves not Protestants to be Hereticks and may as well be objected against the Roman Church c. 6.42 55. We would receive unwritten Traditions derived from the Apostles if we knew what they were c. 3.46 The Vulgar Translation not pure and incorrupted c. 2.75 76 77 78 79 80. W. The whole Doctrin of Christ was taught by the Apostles and an Anathema denounced against any that should bring in new doctrins c. 4.18 The wisdom of Protestants justified in forsaking the errors of the Roman Church c. 6.53 54. The wisdom of Protestants shewed at large against the Papists in making the Bible their Religion c. 6. from 56. to 72. inclusive FINIS ADDITIONAL DISCOURSES OF Mr. Chillingworth NEVER BEFORE PRINTED Imprimatur Ex Aedib Lambeth Jun. 14. 1686. GUIL NEEDHAM RR. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. Ã Sacr. Domesticis LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1687. CONTENTS I. A Conference betwixt Mr. Chillingworth and Mr. Lewgar whether the Roman Church be the Catholick-Church and all out of her Communion Hereticks or Schismaticks p. 1. II. A Discourse against the Infallibility of the Roman Church with an Answer to all those Texts of Scripture that are alledged to prove it p. 26. III. A Conference concerning the Infallibility of the Roman Church proving that the present Church of Rome either errs in her worshiping the Blessed Virgin or that the Ancient Church did err in condemning the Collyridians as Hereticks p. 41. IV. An
heareth Christ and he that despiseth him despiseth Christ They urge out of John 14. ver 15 16. I will ask my Father and he will give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of Truth But here also what warrant have we by you to understand the Church of Rome whereas he that compares v. 26. with this shall easily perceive that our Saviour speaks only of the Apostles in their own persons for there he says going on in the same discourse The Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said to you which cannot agree but to the Apostles themselves in person and not to their Successors who had not yet been taught and therefore not forgotten any thing and therefore could not have them brought to their remembrance But what if it had been promised to them and their Successors had they no Successors but them of the Roman Church this indeed is pretended and cried up but for proofs of it desiderantur Again I would fain know whether there be any certainty that every Pope is a good Christian or whether he may not be in the sence of the Scripture of the World If not how was it that Bellarmine should have cause to think that such a rank of them went successively to the Devil III. A Conference concerning the Infallibility of the Roman Church Proving that the present Church of Rome either errs in her worshipping the Blessed Virgin Mary or that the Ancient Church did err in condemning the Collyridians as Hereticks 1. Demand WHether the Infallibility of the Roman Church be not the foundation of their Faith which are members of that Church Answ The Infallibility of the Church is not the foundation but a part of their Faith who are members of the Church And the Roman Church is held to be the Church by all those who are members of it Reply That which is the last Reason why you believe the Scripture to be the written Word of God and unwritten Traditions his unwritten word and this or that to be the true sense of Scripture that is to you the foundation of your Faith and such unto you is the Infallible Authority of the Roman Church Therefore unto you it is not only a part of your faith but also such a part as is the foundation of all other parts Therefore you are deceived if you think there is any more opposition between being a part of the faith and the foundation of other parts of it than there is between being a part of a house and the foundation of it But whether you will have it the foundation of your faith or only a part of it for the present purpose it is all one 2. Demand Whether the Infallibility of the Roman Church be not absolutely overthrown by proving the present Roman Church is in error or that the Ancient was Answ It is if the Error be in those things wherein she is affirmed to be infallible viz. in points of Faith Reply And this here spoken of whether it be lawful to offer Tapers and Incense to the honour of the Blessed Virgin is I hope a Question concerning a point of Faith 3. Demand Whether offering a Cake to the Virgin Mary be not as lawful as to offer Incense and Tapers and divers other oblations to the same Virgin Answ It is as lawful to offer a Cake to her honour as Wax-Tapers but neither the one nor the other may be offered to her or her honour as the term or object of the Action For to speak properly nothing is offered to her or to her honour but to God in the honour of the Blessed Virgin For Incense it is a foul slander that it is offered any way to the Blessed Virgin for that incensing which is used in the time of Mass is ever understood by all sorts of people to be directed to God only Reply If any thing be offered to her she is the Object of that oblation as if I see water and through water something else the water is the object of my sight though not the last object If I honour the Kings Deputy and by him the King the Deputy is the object of my action though not the final object And to say these things may be offered to her but not as to the object of the action is to say they may be offered to her but not to her For what else is meant by the object of an action but that thing on which the action is imployed and to which it is directed If you say that by the object of the action you mean the final object only wherewith the action is terminated you should then have spoken more properly and distinctly and not have denied her simply to be the object of this action when you mean only she is not such a kind of object no more than you may deny a man to be a living creature meaning only that he is not a horse Secondly I say it is not required of Roman Catholicks when they offer Tapers to the Saints that by an actual intention they direct their action actually to God but it is held sufficient that they know and believe that the Saints are in Subordination and near Relation to God and that they give this honour to the Saints because of this relation And to God himself rather habitually and interpretative than actually expresly and formally As many men honour the Kings Deputy without having any present thought of the King and yet their action may be interpreted an honour to the King being given to his Deputy only because he is his Deputy and for his relation to the King Thirdly I say there is no reason or ground in the world for any man to think that the Collyridians did not chuse the Virgin Mary for the object of their worship rather than any other Woman or any other Creature meerly for her relation to Christ and by consequence there is no ground to imagine but that at least habitually and interpretative they directed their action unto Christ if not actually and formally And Ergo if that be a sufficient defence for the Papists that they make not the Blessed Virgin the final object of their worship but worship her not for her own sake but for her relation unto Christ Epiphanius surely did ill to charge the Collyridians with Heresie having nothing to impute to them but only that he was informed that they offered a Cake to the honour of the Blessed Virgin which honour yet they might and without question did give unto her for her relation unto Christ and so made her not the last object and term of their worship and from hence it is evident that he conceived the very action it self substantially and intrinsically malitious i. e. he believed it a sin that they offered to her at all and so by their action put her in the
external reason why we believe it whereunto the Testimonies of the Jews enemies of Christ add no small moment for the Authority of some part of it That whatsoever stood upon the same ground of Universal Tradition with Scripture might justly challenge belief as well as Scripture but that no Doctrin not written in Scripture could justly pretend to as full Tradition as the Scripture and therefore we had no reason to believe it with that degree of faith wherewith we believe the Scripture That it is unreasonable to think that he that reads the Scripture and uses all means appointed for this purpose with an earnest desire and with no other end but to find the will of God and obey it if he mistake the meaning of some doubtful places and fall unwillingly into some errors unto which no vice or passion betrays him and is willing to hear reason from any man that will undertake to shew him his error I say that it is unreasonable to think that a God of goodness will impute such an error to such a man Against the second it was demonstrated unto me that the place I built on so confidently was no Argument at all for the Infallibility of the Succession of Pastors in the Roman Church but a very strong Argument against it First no Argument for it because it is not certain nor can ever be proved that S. Paul speaks there of any succession Ephes 4.11 12 13. For let that be granted which is desired that in the 13. ver by until we all meet is meant until all the Children of God meet in the Unity of Faith that is unto the Worlds end yet it is not said there that he gave Apostles and Prophets c. which should continue c. until we all meet by connecting the 13. ver to the 11. But he gave then upon his Ascension and miraculously endowed Apostles and Prophets c. for the work of the ministry for the Consummation of the Saints for the Edification of the Body of Christ until we all meet that is if you will unto the Worlds end Neither is there any incongruity but that the Apostles and Prophets c. which lived then may in good sense be said now at this time and ever hereafter to do those things which they are said to do For who can deny but S. Paul the Apostle and Doctor of the Gentiles and S. John the Evangelist and Prophet do at this very time by their writings though not by their persons do the work of the ministry consummate the Saints and Edifie the Body of Christ Secondly it cannot be shewn or proved from hence that there is or was to be any such succession because S. Paul here tells us only that he gave such in the time past not that he promised such in the time to come Thirdly it is evident that God promised no such succession because it is not certain that he hath made good any such promise for who is so impudent as to pretend that there are now and have been in all Ages since Christ some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers Especially such as he here speaks of that is endowed with such gifts as Christ gave upon his Ascension of which he speaks in the 8 ver saying He led Captivity Captive and gave gifts unto men And that those gifts were Men endowed with extraordinary Power and Supernatural gifts it is apparent because these Words and he gave some Apostles some Prophets c. are added by way of explication and illustration of that which was said before and he gave gifts unto Men And if any man except hereunto that though the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists were extraordinary and for the Plantation of the Gospel yet Pastors were ordinary and for continuance I answer it is true some Pastors are ordinary and for continuance but not such as are here spoken of not such as are endowed with the strange and heavenly gifts which Christ gave not only to the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists but to the inferior Pastors and Doctors of his Church at the first Plantation of it And therefore S. Paul in the 1st to the Corinth 12.28 to which place we are referred by the Margent of the Vulgar Translation for the explication of this places this gift of teaching amongst and prefers it before many other miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost Pastors there are still in the Church but not such as Titus and Timothy and Apollos and Barnabas not such as can justly pretend to immediate inspiration and illumination of the Holy Ghost And therefore seeing there neither are nor have been for many Ages in the Church such Apostles and Prophets c. as here are spoken of it is certain he promised none or otherwise we must blasphemously charge him with breach of his promise Secondly I answer that if by dedit he gave be meant promisit he promised for ever then all were promised and all should have continued If by dedit be not meant promisit then he promised none such nor may we expect any such by vertue of or warrant from this Text that is here alledged And thus much for the first Assumpt which was that the place was no Argument for an infallible succession in the Church of Rome Now for the second That it is a strong Argument against it thus I make it good The Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors which our Saviour gave upon his Ascension were given by him that they might Consummate the Saints do the work of the Ministry Edifie the Body of Christ until we all come into the Unity of Faith that we be not like Children wavering and carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine The Apostles and Prophets c. that then were do not now in their own persons and by oral instruction do the work of the Ministry to the intent we may be kept from wavering and being carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine therefore they do this some other way Now there is no other way by which they can do it but by their writings and therefore by their writings they do it therefore by their writings and believing of them we are to be kept from wavering in matters of Faith therefore the Scriptures of the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists are our Guides Therefore not the Church of Rome FINIS AN ANSWER To Some PASSAGES IN Rushworths Dialogues BEGINNING At the Third Dialogue Section 12. p. 181. Ed. Paris 1654. ABOUT TRADITIONS LONDON Printed for James Adamson at the Angel in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1687. AN ANSWER To some passages in Rushworths Dialogues BEGINNING AT The Third Dialogue §. 12. p. 181. Ed. Paris 1654. ABOUT TRADITIONS Uncle DO you think there is such a City as Rome or Constantinople Nephew That I do I would I knew what I ask as well CHILLINGWORTH First I should have answered that in propriety of Speech I could not say that I
that ever they should have brought in the Worship of Images and Picturing of God as now it is that they should legitimate Fornication Why may we not think they may in time take away the whole Communion from the Laity as well as they have taken away half of it Why may we not think that any Text and any sense may not be accorded as well as the whole 14. Ch. of the Ep. of S. Paul to the Corinth is reconciled to the Latine service How is it possible any thing should be plainer forbidden than the Worship of Angels in the Ep. to the Colossians than the teaching for Doctrines Mens commands in the Gospel of S. Mark And therefore seeing we see these things done which hardly any man would have believed that had not seen them why should we not fear that this unlimited Power may not be used hereafter with as little moderation Seeing devices have been invented how Men may worship Images without Idolatry and Kill Innocent Men under pretence of Heresie without Murther who knows not that some tricks may not be hereafter devised by which lying with other Mens Wives shall be no Adultery taking away other Mens Goods no Theft I conclude therefore that if Solomon himself were here and were to determine the difference which is more likely to be Mother of all Heresie the denial of the Churches or the affirming of the Popes Infallibility that he would certainly say this is the Mother give her the Child 12. You say again confidently that if this Infallibility be once impeached every Man is given over to his own Wit and Discourse which if you mean Discourse not guiding it selfe by Scripture but only by principles of Nature or perhaps by prejudices and popular errors and drawing consequences not by rule but chance is by no means true if you mean by Discourse right reason grounded on Divine revelation and common notions written by God in the hearts of all 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 and reasonable and necessary that Men as in all their actions so especially in that of greatest importance the choice of their way to happiness should be left unto it and he that follows this in all his opinions and actions and does not only seem to do so follows 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 than S. John 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 tryal by is to consider whether they confess Jesus to be the Christ that is the Guide of their Faith and Lord of their actions not whether they acknowledg the Pope to be his Vicar I say no more than S. Paul in exhorting all Christians to try all things and to hold fast that which is good than S. Peter in commanding all Christians to be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in them than our Saviour himself 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 and why of your selves Judge ye not what is right And though by passion or precipitation or prejudice by want of Reason or not using that they have Men may be and are oftentimes led into Error and mischief yet that they cannot be misguided by discourse truly so called such as I have described you your self 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 infer falshood Therefore by discourse no Man can possibly be led to Error but if he Err in his conclusions he must of necessity either Err in his principles which here cannot have place or commit some Error in his discourse that is indeed not discourse but seem to do so 13. You say thirdly with sufficient confidence that if the true Church may Err in defining what Scriptures be Canonical or in delivering the sense thereof then we must follow either the private Spirit or else natural wit and Judgment and by them examine what Scriptures contain true or false Doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected All which is apparently untrue neither can any proof of it be pretended For though the present Church may possibly Err in her judgment touching this matter yet have we other Directions in it besides the private 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 contains irreconcilable 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 and that is the Testimony of the Primitive Christians 14. You say Fourthly with convenient boldness That this infallible Authority of your Church being denied no man can be assured that any parcel of Scripture was written by Divine inspiration Which is an untruth for which no proof 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 assured that the Scripture is Divinely inspired and yet deny the infallible Authority of your Church or any other The second because if I cannot have ground to be assured of the Divine Authority of Scripture unless 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 unless I first believe the Scripture Divine 16. Had I a mind to recriminate now and to charge Papists as you do Protestants that they lead Men to Socinianism I could certainly make a much fairer shew of evidence than you have done For I would not tell you you deny the Infallibility of the Church of England Ergo you lead to Socinianism which yet is altogether as good an Argument as this Protestants deny the Infallibility of the Roman Church Ergo they induce Socinianism Nor would I resume my former Argument and urge you that by holding the Popes Infallibility you submit your self to that Capital and Mother Heresie by advantage whereof he may lead you at ease to believe vertue vice and vice vertue to believe Antichristianity Christianism and Christianity Antichristian he may lead you to Socinianism to Turcism nay to the
Divel himself if he have a mind to it But I would shew you that divers ways the Doctors of your Church do the principal and proper work of the Socinians for them 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 carnestly by Cardinal 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 Cardinal Perron in his 3. Book 2. Chap. of his Reply to K. James Who is it that informs us that Origen who never was questioned for any Error in this matter in or near his time denyed the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost Is it not the same great Cardinal 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 esteemed an Arrian Is it not the same Perron in his Reply to K. James in the Fifth Chap. of his Fourth Observation And does he not in the same place peach Tertullian also and in a manner give him away to the Arrians And pronounce generally of the Fathers before the Council of Nice That the Arrians would gladly be tryed by them And are not your fellow Jesuits 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. James 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 clearly see that to common People they are unanswerable yea that common People are not capable of the Answers that Learned Men yield unto such obscure passages And hath not your great Antiquary Petavius in his Notes upon Epiphanius in Haer. 69. been very liberal to the Adversaries of the Doctrine of the Trinity and in a manner given them for Patrons and Advocates first Justin Martyr and then almost all the Fathers before the Council of Nice whose Speeches he says touching this point cum Orthodoxae fidei regula minime consentiunt Are no way agreeable to the rule of Orthodox Faith Hereunto I might add that the Dominicans and Jesuits 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 Dominicans maintain on the one Side that God can foresee nothing but what he Decrees The Jesuits on the other Side that he doth not Decree all things And from hence the Socinians conclude as it is obvious for them to do 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 infer falshood which is to say in effect that Reason can never lead any Man to Error And after you have done so you proclaim to all the World as you in this Pamphlet do very frequently that if Men follow their Reason and Discourse they will if they understand themselves be led to Socinianism And thus you see with what probable matter I might furnish out and justifie my accusation if I should charge you with leading Men to Socinianism Yet I do not conceive that I have ground enough for this odious imputation And much less should you have charged Protestants with it whom you confess to abhor 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 general I hope are sufficiently vindicated from your Calumny I proceed now to do 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 profess and inclining to Popery Their Learning you say consists only in some superficial Talent of Preaching Languages and Elocution and not in any deep knowledg of Philosophy especially of Metaphysicks and much less of that most solid profitable subtile O rem ridiculam Cato jocosam 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 substantial Learning you disparage them as insufficient in all things else As if Forsooth because they dispute not eternally Utrum Chimaera bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas Intentiones Whether a Million of Angels may not sit upon a Needles point Because they fill not their Brains with notions that fignifie 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 Flies than Souls therefore they have no deep knowledge in the Acroamatical part of Learning But I have too much honoured the poorness of this detraction to take notice of it 20. The other Part of your accusation strikes deeper and is more considerable And that tells us that Protestantism 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 than at the Infancy of their Church That their Churches begin to look with a New Face Their Walls 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
of God also this outward State and Glory being well disposed doth as I have said ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and Devotion which is due to so Sovereign Majesty and Power Which those whom the use thereof cannot persuade unto would easily by the want of it be brought to confess for which cause I crave leave to be excused by them herein if in Zeal to the common Lord of all I choose rather to commend the vertue of an Enemy than to flatter the vice and imbecility of a Friend And so much for this matter 24. Again what if the Names of the Priests and Altars so frequent in the Ancient Fathers though not in the now Popish sense be now resumed and more commonly used in England than of late times they were that so the colourable argument of their conformity which is but nominal with the Ancient Church and our inconformity which the Governors of the Church would not have so much as nominal 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 than 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 Corporal 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 sincerity it is utterly impossible he should be a Papist And it is most falsly said by you that you know that to some Protestants I clcarly demonstrated or ever so much as undertook or wentabout to demonstrate the contrary What if the Centurists be censured somewhat roundly by a Protestant Divine for affirming that the keeping of the Lords day was a thing indifferent for two Hundren Years Is there in all this or any part of it any kind of proof of this scandalous Calumny 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 always 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 Justice though so imperfect that it cannot justifie That there are Traditions though none necessary That Charity is to be preferred before knowledg 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 Lawfulness of some kind of Prayers for the Dead the Estate of the Fathers Souls before Christs Ascension Freewil Predestination Universal Grace the Possibility of keeping Gods Commandments The use of Pictures in the Church Wherein that there hath been anciently diversity of opinion anongst Protestants it is justified to my hand by a witness with you beyond exception even your great Friend M. Brerely whose care exactness 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 self proved an egregious calumniator for charging Protestants with innovation and inclining to Popery under pretence forsooth that their Doctrine begins of late to be altered in these points Whereas M Brerely will inform you they have been anciently and even from the begininng of the Reformation controverted amongst them though perhaps the Stream and Current of their Doctors run one way and only some Brook or Rivulet of them the other 27. It remains now in the last place that I bring my self fairly off from your foul Aspersions that so my Person may not be any disparagement to the Cause nor any scandal to weak Christians 28. First upon Hearsay 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 far in the spreading of my own undeserved defamation but whosoever teaches or holds them let him be Anathema The Summ of them all is this Nothing ought or can be certainly believed farther than it may be proved by evidence of Natural Reason where I conceive Natural reason it opposed to supernatural Revelation and whosoever holds so let him be Anathema And moreover to clear my self once for all from all imputations of this nature which charge me injuriously with denial of Supernatural Verities I profess sincerely that I believe all those Books of Scripture which the Church of England accounts Canonical 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 Heresie which by the Act of Parliament primo of Q. ELIZ. is declared to be so and only to be so And though in such points which may be 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 satisfie any man of reason that whatsoever hath been held necessary to Salvation either by the Catholick Church of all ages or by the consent of Fathers measured by Vincentius Lyrinensis his rule or is held necessary either by the Catholick 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 do verily believe and embrace 29. But what are all Personal matters to the business in hand If it could be proved that Cardinal Bellarmine was indeed a Jew or that Cardinal Perron was an Atheist yet I presume you would not accept of this for an Answer to all their writings in defence of your Religion Let then my actions and intentions and opinions be what they will yet I hope truth is nevertheless Truth nor reason ever the less Reason because I speak it And therefore the Christian Reader knowing that his Salvation or Damnation depends upon his impartial and sincere judgment of these things will guard himself I hope from these Impostures and regard not the Person but the cause and the reasons of it not who speaks but what is spoken Which is all the favour I desire of him as knowing that I am desirous not to persuade him unless it be truth whereunto I persuade him 30. The last Accusation is That I answer out of Principles which Protestants themselves will profess to detest whch indeed were to the purpose
Predetermination or against it Stephen Bishop of Rome held it as a matter of Faith and Apostolick tradition That Hereticks gave true Baptism Others there were and they as good Catholicks as he that held that this was neither matter of Faith nor matter of Truth Justin Martyr and Irenaeus held the Doctrine of the Millenaries as a matter of Faith and though Justin Martyr deny it yet you I hope will affirm that some good Christians held the contrary S. Augustine I am sure held the communicating of Infants as much Apostolick 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 Judges of Appeals from all parts of the Church Catholick no not in Major Causes and Major Persons whether the Bishop or Church of Rome did then hold the contrary do you resolve me but now I am resolved they do so In all these differences the point in question is esteemed and proposed 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 means to shew that we do 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 me briefly to this Dilemma Either in these oppositions one of the opposite Parts erred damnably and denied Gods truth sufficiently propounded or they did not If they did than they which do deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded may go 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 proved false Yet though they were as true as Gospel and as evident as Mathematical 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 infer either as the immediate production of the former premises or as a Corollary from this conclusion Therefore one only can be saved I do not understand unless 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 sins upon repentance and consequently to ruin the Gospel of Christ I leave it to the Pope and the Cardinals to determine For if against this it be alledged that no man can repent of the sin wherein he Dies This muce I have already stopped by shewing that if it be a sin of Ignorance this is no way incongruous 13. Ad 6. § In your sixth Parag. I let all pass saving only this That a persuasion that men of different Religions you must mean Christians of different Opinions or Communions may be saved is a most pernicious Heresie and even a ground of Atheism What strange extractions Chymistry can make I know not but sure I am he that by reason would infer this Conclusion That there is no God from this ground That God will save men in different Religions must have a higher strain of Logick than 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 I say and will maintain that to say That Christians of different Opinions and Communions such I mean who hold all those things that are simply necessary to Salvation may not obtain Pardon for the Errors wherein they Die ignorantly by a general Repentance is so far from being a ground of Atheism that to say the contrary is to cross in Diameter a main Article of our Creed and to overthrow the Gospel of Christ 14. Ad 7. § To what you say of some Protestants that hold it necessary to be able to prove a perpetual Visible Church distinct from Yours I answer Some perhaps undertake to do so as a matter of courtesie but I believe you will be much to seek for any one that holds it necessary For though you say that Christ hath promised there shall be a Perpetual Visible Church yet you your selves do not pretend that he hath promised there shall be Histories and Records always extant of the Professors of it in all Ages nor that he hath any where enjoyned us to read those Histories that we may be able to shew them 17. To your ensuing demands though some of them be very captious and ensnaring yet I will give you as clear and plain and Ingenuous Answers as possibly I can 18. Ad 11. § To the First then about the Perpetuity of the visible Church my Answer is That I believe our Saviour ever since his Ascension hath had in some place or other a Visible true Church on Earth I mean a Company of Men that professed at least so much truth as was absolutely necessary for their Salvation And I believe that there will be somewhere or other such a Church to the Worlds end But the contrary Doctrine I do at no hand believe to be a damnable Heresie 19. Ad 12. § To the Second what Visible Church there was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman I answer that before Luther there were many Visible Churches in many things disagreeing from the Roman But not that the whole Catholick Church disagreed from Her because She her self was a Part of the Whole though much corrupted And to undertake to name a Catholick Church disagreeing from Her is to make her no Part of it which we do not nor need not pretend And for men agreeing with Protestants in all points we will then produce them when you shall either prove it necessary to be done which you know we absolutely deny or when you shall produce a perpetual succession of Professors which in all points have agreed with you and disagreed from you in nothing But this my promise to deal plainly with you I conceive and so intended it to be very like his who undertook to drink up the Sea upon condition that he to whom the promise was made should first stop the Rivers from runing in For this unreasonable request which you make to us is to your selves so impossible that in the very next Age after the Apostles you will never be able to name a Man whom you can prove to have agreed with you in all things nay if you speak of such whose Works are extant and unquestioned whom we cannot prove
Sacramentalibus doct 3. fol. 5. and he shall be fully satisfied that I have done you no injury For many of you hold the Popes Proposal Ex Cathedra to be sufficient and obliging Some a Council without a Pope Some of neither of them severally but only both together Some not this neither in matter of manners which Bellarmine acknowledges and tells us it is all one in effect as if they denyed it sufficient in matter of Faith Some not in matter of Faith neither think this Proposal Infallible without the acceptation of the Church Universal 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 Fundamental 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 insufficiently And it is so known a thing that in many points you do so that I assure my self 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 and that such a one to which all of your Church will subscribe as neither redundant nor deficient which when you give in with one hand you shall receive a particular Catalogue of such Points as I call Fundamental with the other Neither may you think me unreasonable in this demand seeing upon such a particular Catalogue of your sufficient Proposals as much depends as upon a particular Catalogue of our Fundamentals As for example Whether or no a man do not Err in some point defined and sufficiently proposed and whether or no those that differ among you differ in Fundamentals which if they do One Heaven by your own Rule cannot receive them All. Perhaps you will here complain 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 again a Hundred Years hence To deal truly I did so intend it should be Neither 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 have 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 believed Of which rank are those only which constitute and make up the Covenant between God and Man in Christ and then such as are necessary to be believed not in themselves but only by accident because they were written Of which rank are many matters of History of Prophecy of Mystery of Policy of Oeconomy and such like which are evidently not intrinsecal to the Covenant Now to sever exactly and punctally these Verities one from the other what is necessary in it self and antecedently to the writing from what is but only profitable in it self and necessary only because written is a business of extream great difficulty and extream little necessity For first he that will go about to distinguish especially in the story of our Saviour what was written because it was profitable from what was written because necessary shall find an intricate peice of business of it and almost impossible that he should be certain he hath done it when he hath done it And then it is apparently unnecessary to go about it seeing he that believes all certainly believes all that is necessary And he that doth not believe all I mean all the undoubted parts of the undoubted Books of Scripture can hardly believe any neither have we reason to believe he doth so So that that Protestants give you not a Catalogue of Fundamentals it is not from Tergiversation as you suspect who for want of Charity to them always suspect the worst but from Wisdom and Necessity For they may very easily Err in doing it because though all which is necessary be plain in Scripture yet all which is plain is not therefore written because it was necessary For what greater necessity was there that I should know S. Paul left his Cloak at Troas than those Worlds of Miracles which our Saviour did which were never written And when they had done it it had been to no purpose There being as matters now stand as great necessity of believing those truths of Scripture which are not Fundamental as those that are You see then what reason we have to decline this hard labour which you a rigid Task-master have here put upon us Yet instead of giving you a Catalogue of Fundamentals with which I dare say you are resolved before it come never to be satisfied I will say that to you which if you please may do you as much service and this it is That it is sufficient for any Mans Salvation that he believe the Scripture That he endeavour to believe it in the true sense of it as far as concerns his Duty And that he conform his Life unto it either by Obedience or Repentance He that does so and all Protestants according to the Doctamen of their Religion should do so may be secure that he cannot Err Fundamentally And they that do so cannot differ in Fundamentals So that notwithstanding their differences and your presumption the same Heaven may receive them All. 28. Ad 20. § Your Tenth and last request is to know distinctly what is the Doctrine of the Protestant English Church in these points and what my private Opinion Which shall be satisfied when the Church of England hath expressed her self in them or when you have told us what is the Doctrine of your Church in the Question of Predetermination or the Immaculate Conception 29. Ad 21. and 22. § These answers I hope in the judgment of indifferent men are satisfactory to your Questions though not to you For I have either answered them or given you a reason why I have not Neither for ought I can see have I flitted from things considered in their own nature to accidental or rare Circumstances But told you my Opinion plainly what I thought of your Errors in themselves and what as they were qualified or malignified with good or bad Circumstances CHAP. I. The ANSWER to the First CHAPTER Shewing that the Adversary grants the Old 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 saved 1. AD 1. § Protestants are here accused of uncharitableness while they accuse you of it and you make good this charge in this manner Protestants charge the Roman Church with many and great Errors judge reconciliation of their
believing them for every obligation ceases when it becomes impossible Who can doubt but the Primitive Christians to whom the Epistles of the Apostles were written either of themselves understood or were instructed by the Apostles touching the sense of the obscure places of them These Traditive interpretations had they been written and dispersed as the Scriptures were had without question been preserved as the Scriptures are But to shew how excellent a Keeper of the Tradition the Church of Rome hath been or even the Catholick Church for want of writing they are all lost nay were all lost within a few Ages after Christ So that if we consult the Ancient Interpreters we shall hardly find any two of them agree about the sense of any one of them Cardinal Perron in his discourse of Traditions having alledged this place for them Hold the Traditions c. tell us we must not answer that S. Paul speaks here only of such Traditions which though not in this Epist to the Thessalonians yet were afterwards witten and in other Books of Scripture because it is upon occasion of Tradition touching the cause of the hinderance of the coming of Antichrist which was never written that he lays this injunction upon them to hold the Traditions Well let us grant this Argument good and concluding and that the Church of the Thessalonians or the Catholick Church for what S. Paul writ to one Church he writ to all were to hold some unwritten Traditions and among the rest what was the cause of the hinderance of the coming of Antichrist But what if they did not perform their duty in this point but suffered this Tradition to be lost out of the memory of the Church Shall we not conclude that seeing God would not suffer any thing necessary to Salvation to be lost and he has suffered this Tradition to be lost therefore 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 do that which you cannot do 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 do you your selves know that ye may instruct us Can ye or dare you say this or this was this hindrance which S. Paul here meant and all men under pain of damnation are to believe it Or if you cannot as I am certain you cannot go then and Vaunt your Church for the only Watchful Faithful Infallible Keeper of the Apostles Traditions when here this very Tradition which here in particular was deposited with the Thessalonians and the Premitive 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 goodness 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 S. Chrysostoms counsel 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 withal that we are persuaded we 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 Canonical Scripture to be the written Word of God 47. You conclude this Paragraph with a sentence of S. Austin's who says The Church doth not approve nor dissemble nor do these things which are against Faith or good Life and from hence you conclude that it never hath done so nor never can do so But though the argument hold in Logick à non posse ad non esse yet I never heard that it would hold back again à non esse ad non posse The Church cannot do this therefore it does it not follows with good consequence but the Church does not this therefore it shall never do it nor can never do it this I believe will hardly follow In the Epistle next before to the same Januarius writing of the same matter he hath these words It remains that the thing you inquire of must be of that third kind of things which are different in divers places Let every one therefore do that which he finds done in the Church to which he comes for none of them is against Faith or good manners And why do you not infer from hence that no particular Church can bring up any Custom 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. Austin 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. Austin according to you thought approve or dissemble or do 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 than the commandments of God himself This S. Austin himself professeth in this very Epistle This saith he I do infinitely grieve at that many most wholesom 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 than he that shall bury his Soul in Drunkenness Of these he says that they were neither contained in Scripture decreed by Councils nor corroborated by the Custom of the Universal Church And though not against Faith yet unprofitable burdens of Christian Liberty which made the condition of the Jews more tolerable than that of Christians And therefore he professes of them Approbare non possum I cannot approve them And ubi facultas tribuitur resecanda existimo I think they are to be cut off wheresoever we have power Yet so deeply were they rooted and spread so far through the indiscreet devotion of the People always more prone to superstion than true Piety and through the connivence of the Governors who should have strangled them at their Birth that himself though he grieved at them and could not allow them yet for fear of offence he durst not speak against them multa hujusmodi propter nonnullarum vel sanctarum vel turbulentarum personarum scandala devitanda liberius improbare non audeo Many of these things for fear of
request too unreasonable for modest men to make or for wise Men to grant CHAP. IV. The ANSWER to the Fourth CHAPTER Wherein is shewed that the Creed contains all necessary points of meer Belief AD § 1 2 3 4 5 6. Concerning the Creeds containing the Fundamentals of Christiany 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 Catholick Church is esteemed a sufficient summary or Catalogue of Fundamentals by the best learned Romanists and by Antiquity 2. By Fundamentals he understands not the Fundamental rules of good Life and Action though every one of these is to be believed to come from God and therefore virtually includes an Article of Faith but the Fundamental Doctrines of Faith such as though they have influence upon our lives as every essential Doctrine of Christianinity hath yet we are commanded to believe them and not to do 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 Objects of Faith in and for themselves which by their own nature and Gods prime intention are essential parts of that Gospel such as the Teachers in the Church cannot without Mortal sin omit to teach the Learners such as are intrinsecal 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 Accidental Circumstantial Occasional objects of Faith Millions 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 be 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 always but then only when they do see and know them to be delivered in Scripture as Divine Revelations 4. I say when they do so and not only when they may do 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 express Verities of Scripture are either to all men or at least to all learned men sufficiently revealed by God it should be a damnable sin in any learned men actually to disbelieve any one particular Historical 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 dilligence 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 Essential and Fundamental 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 be particularly known I mean known to be Divine Revelations and distinctly to be believed And of this latter sort of speculative Divine Verities D. Potter affirmed that the Apostles Creed was a sufficient summary yet he affirmed it not as his own opinion but as the Doctrine of the Ancient Fathers and your own Doctors And besides he affirmed it not as absolutely certain but very probable 5. In brief all that he says is this It is very probable that according to the judgment of the Roman Doctors and the Ancient Fathers the Apostles Creed is to be esteemed a sufficient summary of all those Doctrines which being meerly Credenda and not Agenda all men are ordinarily under pain of Damnation bound particularly to believe 6. Now this assertion you say is neither pertinent to the question in hand nor in it self true Your Reasons to prove it impertinent put into form and divested of impertinencies are these 1. Because the question was not what points were necessary to be explicitely believed but what points were necessary not to be disbelieeved after sufficient proposal And therefore to give a Catalogue of points necessary to be explicitely believed is impertinent 7. Secondly because Errors may be damnable though the contrary truths be not of themselves Fundamental as that Pontius Pilate was our Saviours Judge is not in it self a Fundamental truth yet to believe the contrary were a damnable Error And therefore to give a Catalogue of Truths in themselves Fundamental is no pertinent satisfaction to this demand what Errors are damnable 8. Thirdly because if the Church be not Universally infallible we cannot ground any certainty upon the Creed which we must receive upon the Credit of the Church and if the Church be Universally Infallible it is damnable to oppose her declaration in any thing though not contained in the Creed 9. Fourthly Because not to believe the Articles of the Creed in the true sense is damnable therefore it is frivolous to say the Creed contains all Fundamentals without specifying in what sense the Articles of it are Fundamental 10. Fifthly because the Apostles Creed as D. Potter himself confesses was not a sufficient Catalogue till it was explained by the first Council nor then until it was declared in the second c. by occasion of emergent Heresies Therefore now also as new Heresies may arise it will need particular explanation and so is not yet nor ever will be a compleat Catalogue of Fundamentals 11. Now to the first of these objections I say First that your distinction between points necessary to be believed and necessary not to be disbelieved is more subtil than sound a distinction without a difference There being no point necessary to be believed which is not necessary not to be disbelieved Nor no point to any man at any time in any circumstances necessary not to be disbelieved but it is to the same man at the same time in the same circumstances necessary to be believed Yet that which I believe you would have said I acknowledge true
Take it which way you will this conclusion will certainly follow That either all that which S. John wrote in his Gospel or less than all and therefore all much more was sufficient to make them believe that which being believed with lively Faith would certainly bring them to Eternal Life 43. This which hath been spoken I hope is enough to justifie my undertaking to the full that it is very probable that every one of the four Evangelists has in his Book the whole substance all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ But for Saint Luke that he hath written such a perfect Gospel in my judgment it ought to be with them that believe him no manner of question Consider first the introduction to his Gospel 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 heen instructed Add to this place the entrance to his History of the Acts of the Apostles The former Treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until 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 says 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 Gospel 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 beginning delivered not the whole Gospel 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 Gospel 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 Gospel of Christ 9. Whether in the other Text All things which Jesus began to do and teach must not at least imply all the principal 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 principal and most necessary things which Jesus taught 12. And lastly whether many things which S. Luke has wrote in his Gospel be not less principal and less necessary than all and every one of these When you have well considered these proposals 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 Canonical 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 Propositions which without Controversie 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 Heresie 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 Doctrin of the Trinity is not received universally among Christians the denial of it shall not exclude Salvation The other that the Bishop contradicts himself in supposing a man may believe all necessary Truths and yet superinduce some damnable Heresies 45. To the first I answer 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 Universality and speaks not of propositions universally believed by all Professions of Christianity that are but only by all those several Professions of Christianity 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 Doctrin of the Trinity as being but a handful 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 46. Now for the foul Contradiction wherein I pray does it lie 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 do suppose this neither if they do does he contradict himself I say it is not certain that his words import any such matter For ordinarily men use to speak and write so as here he does when they intend not to limit or restrain but only to repeat and press and illustrate what they have said before S. Athanasius in his Creed tells us The Catholick Faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance and why now do you not tell him that he contradicts himself 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 Commandments of God committing no sin either against the love of God or the love of his neighbour is a perfect man Or thus he that will live in constant health had need be exact in his diet neither eating too much nor too little Or thus he that will come to London must go on straight forward in such a way und neither turn to the right hand or to the left I verily believe you would not find any contradiction in his words but confess 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
Infallibility upon what other motive do you rely Do not you cite Scripture or Tradition or both on both sides And do you not pretend that both these are the infallible Truths of Almighty God 51. You close up this Section with a fallacy proving forsooth that we destroy by our confession the Church which is the House of God because we stand only upon Fundamental Articles which cannot make up the whole Fabrick of the Faith no more than the Foundation of a House alone can be a House 52. But I hope Sir you will not be difficult in granting that that is a House which hath all the necessary parts belonging to a House now by Fundamental Articles we mean all those which are necessary and then I hope you will grant that we may safely expect Salvation in a Church which hath all things Fundamental to Salvation Unless you will say that more is necessary than that which is necessary 53. Ad § 19. This long discourse is to shew that Protestants give unavoidable occasion of desperation to poor Souls and brings in a Man desirous to save his Soul asking Questions of D. P. and makes answers for him As first if he required whose directions he might rely upon He says the Doctor 's Answer would be upon the truly Catholick Church But I suppose upon better reason because I know his mind that he would advise him to call no man Master upon Earth but according to Christs command to rely upon the direction of God himself If he ask where he should find this direction he would answer him In his Word contained in Scripture If he should inquire what assurance he might have that the Scripture is the Word of God He would answer him that the Doctrine it self is very fit and worthy to be thought to come from God nec vox hominem sonat and that they which wrote and delivered it confirmed it to be the Word of God by doing such works as could not be done but by Power from God himself For assurance of the Truth hereof he would advise him to rely upon that which all Wise Men in all matters of belief rely upon and that is the consent of Ancient records and Universal Tradition No Wise Man doubts but there was such a man as Julius Caesar or Cicero that there are such Cities as Rome or Constantinople though he have no other assurance for the one or the other but only the speech of People This Tradition therefore he would counsel him to rely upon and to believe that the Book which we call Scripture was confirmed abundantly by the Works of God to be the Word of God Believing it the Word of God he must of necessity believe it true and if he believe it true he must believe it contains all necessary directions unto Eternal Happiness because it affirms it self to do so Nay he might tell him that so far is the whole Book from wanting any necessary direction to his Eternal Salvation that one only Author that hath writ but two little Books of it Saint Luke by name in the beginning of his Gospel and in the beginning of his Story shews plainly that he alone hath written at least so much as is necessary And what they wrote they wrote by Gods direction for the direction fo the World not only for the Learned but for all that would do their true endeavour to know the will of God and to do it therefore you cannot but conceive that writing to all and for all they wrote so as that in things necessary they might be understood by all Besides that here he should find that God himself has engaged himself by promise that if he would love him and keep his Commandments and pray earnestly for his Spirit and be willing to be directed by it he should undoubtedly receive it even the Spirit of Truth which shall lead him into all Truth that is certainly into all necessary Truths and suffer him to fall into no pernitious Error The sum of his whole direction to him briefly would be this Believe the Scripture to be the Word of God use your true endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it and then you may rest securely that you are in the true way to Eternal Happiness This is the substance of that Answer which the Doctor would make to any man in this case and this is a way so plain that Fools unless they will cannot Err from it Because not knowing absolutely all truth nay not all profitable truth and not being free from Error but endeavouring to know the truth and obey it and endeavouring to be free from Error is by this way made the only condition of Salvation 56. Neither is this to drive any man to desparation unless it be such a one as hath such a strong affection to this word Church that he will not go to Heaven unless he hath a Church to lead him thither For what though a Council may Err and the whole Church cannot be consulted with yet this is not to send you on the Fools Pilgrimage for Faith and bid you go and confer with every Christian Soul Man and Woman by Sea and 〈◊〉 Land close Prisoner or at Liberty as you dilate the ma◠〈◊〉 But to tell you very briefly that Universal Tradition directs you to the Word of God and the Word of God directs you to Heaven 57. To the next demand How stall I know whether he hold all Fundamental points or no When Protestants answer If he truly believe the undoubted Books of Canonical Scripture he cannot but believe all Fundamentals and that it is very probable that the Creed contains all the Fundamentals of simple belief The Jesuite takes no notice of the former but takes occasion from the latter to ask Shall I hazard my Soul on Probabilities or even Wagers As if whatsoever is but probable though in the highest degree of Probability were as likely to be false as true or because it is but Morally not Mathematically certain that there was such a Woman as Q. Elizabeth such a man as Hen. the 8th that is in the highest degree probable therefore it were an even Wager there were none such By this Reason seeing the truth of your whole Religion depends finally upon Prudential motives which you do but pretend to be very credible it will be an even Wager that your Religion is false And by the same Reason or rather infinitely greater seeing it is impossible for any man according to the grounds of your Religion to know himself much less another to be a true Pope or a true Priest nay to have a Moral certainty of it because these things are obnoxious to innumerable secret and undiscernable nullities it will be an even Wager nay if we proportion things indifferently a hundred to one that every Consecration and Absolution of yours is void and that whensoever you adore the Host you and your Assistants commit Idolatry That there is a
day is convicted in Conscience that his yesterdays opinion was an Error It seems then that they that hold Errors must hold them fast and take especial care of being convicted in Conscience that they are in Error for fear of being Schismaticks Protestants must continue Protestants and Puritans Puritans and Papists Papists nay Jews and Turks and Pagans must remain Jews and Turks and Pagans and go on constantly to the Devil or else forsooth they must be Schismaticks and that from themselves And this perhaps is the cause that makes Papists so obstinate not only in their common superstition but also in adhering to the proper fancies of their several Sects so that it is a miracle to hear of any Jesuit that hath forsaken the opinion of the Jesuits or any Dominican that hath changed his or the Jesuits But sure the forsaking of error cannot be a sin unless to be in error be a vertue And therefore to do as you do to damn men for false opinions and to call them Schismaticks for leaving them to make pertinacy in error that is an unwillingness to be convicted or a resolution not to be convicted the form of Heresies and to find fault with men for being convicted in conscience that they are in error is the most incoherent and contradictious injustice that ever was heard of But Sir if this be a strange matter to you that which I shall tell you will be much stranger I know a man that of a moderate Protestant turned a Papist and the day that he did so as all things that are done are perfected some day or other was convicted in conscience that his yesterdays opinion was an error and yet thinks he was no Schismatick for doing so and desires to be informed by you whether or no he was mistaken The same man afterwards upon better consideration became a doubting Papist and of a doubting Papist a confirmed Protestant And yet this man thinks himself no more to blame for all these changes than a Traveller who using all diligence to find the right way to some remote City where he never had been as the party I speak of had never been in Heaven did yet mistake it and after find his error and amend it Nay he stands upon his justification so far as to maintain that his alterations not only to you but also from you by Gods mercy were the most satisfactory actions to himself that ever he did and the greatest victories that ever he obtained over himself and his affections to those things which in this world are most precious as wherein for Gods sake and as he was verily perswaded out of love to the Truth he went upon a certain expectation of those inconveniences which to ingenuous natures are of all most terrible So that though there were much weakness in some of these alterations yet certainly there was no wickedness Neither does he yield his weakness altogether without apology seeing his deductions were rational and out of Principles commonly received by Protestants as well as Papists and which by his education had got possession of his understanding 107. Ad § 41. Obj. Though the first Reformers had conceived their own opinions to be true yet they might and ought to have doubted whether they were certain since they affirm that Infallibility was not promised to particular persons or Churches Ans This is to say that they ought to have doubted of the certainty of Scripture which in formal and express terms contains many of these opinions And your reason is vain for though they had not an absolute infallibility promised unto them yet may they be of some things infallibly certain As Euclide sure was not infallible yet he was certain enough that twice two were four and that every whole was greater than a part of that whole And so though Calvin and Melancton were not infallible in all things yet they might and did know well enough that your Latin-Service was condemned by S. Paul and that the Communion in both kinds was taught by our Saviour Obj. But your Church was in peaceable possession you must mean of her Doctrin and the Professors of it and enjoyed prescription for many Ages Ans The possession which the Governors of your Church held for some ages of the party governed was not peaceable but got by fraud and held by violence 108. Obj. You say that a pretence of Conscience will not serve to justifie separation from being Schismatical Ans This is very true but little to the purpose seeing it is not an erroneous perswasion much less an hypocritical pretence but a true and well grounded conviction of Conscience which we alledge to justifie Protestants from being Schismatical 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 than the unjust commands of his Tyrannous Superiors 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 Apology We must obey God rather than men It is therefore most apparent that this answer must be meerly impertinent seeing it will serve against the Martyrs and Apostles and Prophets and even against your selves as well as against Protestants To as little purpose is your rule out of Lyrinensis against them that followed Luther seeing they pretend and are ready to justifie 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 Superior or cast off his obedience nor publickly 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 lawful that either you acknowledge not the King your Superior or do against conscience in opposing his and the kingdoms decree requiring the taking of this Oath This good use I say may very fairly be made of it and is by men of your own Religion 109 Ad § 42. Obj. It is not fit you say for any private man to oppose his judgment to the publick Ans Not his own judgment and bare authority 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 esteemed to oppose his own judgment to the publick but the judgment of God to the judgment of men Neither will Mr. Hookers words you cite do you any service For though he says Pref. to Eccles polit see 6. pag. 28. that men are bound to do whatsoever the sentence of judicial and final decision shall determine as it is plain men are bound to yield such an
devise to dissuade 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 Eternal Happiness provided for all those that obey Christ Jesus and much more a firm 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 talk 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 eternal felicity but as firmly and undoubtedly as that there is such a City as Constantinople nay but as much as Caesars Commentaries or the History of Salust I believe the lives of most men both Papists and Protestants would be better than 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 only Reason because any less degree could not be able to overbear our will c. imports that if a less degree of Faith were able to do this then a less degree of Faith may be true and Divine and saving Faith But experience shews and reason confirms 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 follows 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 have 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 be saved without it Wherein you boldly intrude into the judgment seat of God and damn men for breaking Laws not of Gods but your own making But withal you clearly contradict your self not only where you affirm That your Faith depends finally upon the Tradition of Age to Age of Father to Son which cannot be a fit ground but only for a Moral 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 pass for means sufficient of a sufficient Certainty and that they should not be excluded from Salvation for want of such a Certainty But indeed the pressure of the present difficulty compelled you to speak here what I believe you will not justifie and with a pretty tergiversation to shew D. Potter your means of moral certainty whereas the Objection was that you had no means or possibility of infallible certainty for which you are plainly at as great a loss and as far to seek as any of your Adversaries And therefore it concerns you highly not to damn others for want of it lest you involve your selves in the same condemnation according to those terrible Words of S. Paul Inexcusabilis es c. In this therefore you plainly contradict your self And lastly most plainly in saying as you do here you contradict and retract your pretence of Charity to Protestants in the beginning of your Book For there you make profession that you have no assurance but that Protestants dying Protestants may possibly die 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 self and ordinarily speaking be void even of supernatural evidence Which words must have a very favourable construction 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 always thought that known and unknown obscure and evident had been affections not of our Assent but the Object of it not of our belief but the thing believed For well may we assent to a thing unknown obscure or unevident but that our assent it self should be 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 believe should not be so evidently certain as to necessitate our understandings to an Assent that so their might be some merit in Faith as you love to speak who will not receive no not from God himself 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 than yours yet is not pretended to have the absolute evidence of sense or demonstration therefore I might let this Doctrine pass without exception for any prejudice that can redound to us by it But yet I must not forbear 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 be Faith without it and this you must confess unless 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 unless you will question S. John for saying that which we have seen with our Eyes and which our hands have handled c. declare we unto you nay our Saviour himself for saying Thomas because thou seest thou believest Blessed are they which have not seen and yet have believed Yet if you will say that in respect of the things which they saw the Apostles assent was not pure and proper and meer Faith but somewhat more an assent containing Faith but superadding to it I will not contend with you for it will be a contention about words But then again I must crave leave to tell you that the requiring this condition is in my judgment a plain
Council of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelburg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherein 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 belief of it of others without most high and most Schismatical presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe and hope impartial search of the true way to Eternal Happiness do profess 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 Councils against Councils 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 self from the Fountain but may be plainly proved 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 profess according to this I will live and for this if there be occasion I will not only willingly but even gladly lose 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 seem it never so incomprehensible to humane reason I will subscribe it with Hand and Heart as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this God hath said so therefore it is true In other things I will take no mans liberty of judgment 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 less for differing in opinion from me And what measure I mete 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 than 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 persuaded that I have chosen wisely much more wisely than if I had guided my self according to your Churches authority For the Scripture being all true I am secured 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 find 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 me And then all necessary truth being as I have proved 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 fail of Salvation 58. Besides whatsoever may be pretended to gain to your Church the credit of a Guide all that and much more may be said for the Scripture Hath your Church been Ancient The Scripture is more Ancient Is your Church a means to keep men at Unity So is the Scripture to keep those that believe it and will obey it in Unity of belief in matters necessary or very profitable and in Unity of Charity in points unnecessary Is your Church Universal for time or place Certainly the Scripture is more Universal For all the Christians in the World those I mean that in truth deserve this name do now and always have believed the Scripture to be the Word of God whereas only you say that you only are the Church of God and 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 confess that your selves are surer of the Truth of the Scripture than of your Churches authority For we must be surer of the proof than of the thing proved otherwise it is no proof 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. Fifthly to follow the Scripture I have Gods express warrant and command and no colour of any prohibition But to believe your Church infallible I have no command at all much less an express command Nay I have reason to fear that I am prohibited to do so in these Words call no man Master on Earth They fell by infidelity Thou standest by Faith Be not high minded but fear 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 revealed reason could never have discovered 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 convince that I ought to believe it For reason will convince any man unless he be of a perverse mind that the Scripture is the Word of God And then no reason can be greater than this God says so therefore it is true 63. Following your Church I must hold many things which to any mans judgment that will give himself the liberty of judgment will seem much more plainly contradicted by Scripture than the infallibility of your Church appears to be confirmed by it and consequently must be so
And after A certain man amongst us whose name was John one of the Twelve Apostles of Christ in that Revelation which was exhibited unto him hath foretold That they which believe our Christ shall live in Hierusalem a thousand years and that after the Universal and everlasting Resurrection and Judgment shall be I have presumed in the beginning of Justin Martyrs answer to substitute not instead of also because I am confident that either by chance or the fraud of some ill-willers to the Millinaries opinion the place has been corrupted and turned into not into also For if we retain the usual reading But that many who are also of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not acknowledge this I have also signified unto you then must we conclude that Justin Martyr himself did believe the opinion of them which denied the thousand years to be the pure and holy opinion of Christians and if so why did he not himself believe it nay how could he but believe it to be true professing it as he does if the place be right to be the pure and holy opinion of Christians for how a false Doctrine can be the pure and holy opinion of Christians what Christian can conceive or if it may be so how can the contrary avoid the being untrue unholy and not the opinion of Christians Again if we read the place thus That many who are also of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not acknowledge this I have also signified certainly there wll be neither sense nor reason neither coherence nor consequence in the words following For I have told you of many called Christians but being indeed Atheists and Hereticks that they altogether teach blasphemous and impious and foolish things for how is this a confirmation or reason of or any way pertinent unto what went before if there he speak of none but such as were purae piaeque Christianorum sententiae of the pure and holy opinion of Christians And therefore to disguise this inconsequence the Translator has thought fit to make use of a false Translation and instead of for I have told you to make it besides I have told you of many c. Again if Justin Martyr had thought this the pure and holy opinion of Christians or them good and holy Christians that held it why does he rank them with them that denyed the Resurrection Why does he say afterward Although you chance to meet with some that are called Christians which do not confess this do not ye think them Christians Lastly what sense is there in saying as he does I and all Christians that are of a right belief in all things believe the Doctrine of the thousand years and that the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament teach it and yet say That many of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not believe it Upon these reasons I suppose it is evident that the place has been corrupted and it is to be corrected according as I have corrected it by substituting in the place of not instead of also Neither need any man think strange that this misfortune of the change of a Syllable should befal this place who considers that in this place Justin Martyr tells us that he had said the same things before whereas nothing to this purpose appears now in him And that in Victorinus comment on the Revelation wherein by S. Hieroms acknowledgment this Doctrine was strongly maintained there now appears nothing at all for it but rather against it And now from the place thus restored these Observations offer themselves unto us 1. That Justin Martyr speaks not as a Doctor but as a witness of the Doctrine of the Church of his time I saith he and all Christians that are of a right belief in all things hold this And therefore from hence according to Cardinal Perrons Rule we are to conclude not probably but demonstratively that this was the Doctrine of the Church of that time 2. That they held it as a necessary matter so far as to hold them no Christians that held the Contrary though you chance to meet with some called Christians that do not confess this but dare to Blaspheme the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob c. Yet do not ye think them Christians Now if Bellarmines Rule be true that Councils then determine any thing as matters of Faith when they pronounce them Hereticks that hold the Contrary then sure Justin Martyr held this Doctrine as a matter of Faith seeing he pronounceth them no Christians that contradict it 3. That the Doctrine is grounded upon the Scripture of the Old and New Testament and the Revelation of S. John and that by a Doctor and Martyr of the Church and such a one as was converted to Christianity within 30 years after the Death of S. John when in all probability there were many alive that had heard him expound his own words and teach this Doctrine and if probabilities will not be admitted this is certain out of the most authentical records of the Church that Papias the Disciple of the Apostles Disciples taught it the Church professing that he had received it from them that learned it from the Apostles and if after all this the Church of those Times might Err in a Doctrine so clearly derived and authentically delivered how without extream impudence can any Church in after times pretend to Infallibility The Millinaries Doctrine was over-born by imputing to them that which they held not by abrogating the Authority of S. John's Revelation as some did or by derogating from it as others ascribing it not to S. John the Apostle but to some other John they know not who which Dionysius the first known adversary of this doctrine and his followers against the Tradition of Irenaeus Justin Martyr and all the Fathers their Antecessors by calling it a Judaical opinion and yet allowing it as probable by corrupting the Authors for it as Justin Victorinus Severus VI. A Letter relating to the same Subject SIR I Pray remember that if a consent of Fathers either constitute or declare a Truth to be necessary or shew the opinion of the Church of their Time then that opinion of the Jesuits concerning Predestination upon prescience which had no opposer before S. Austin must be so and the contrary Heretical of the Dominicans and the present Church differs from the Ancient in not esteeming of it as they did Secondly I pray remember that if the Fathers be infallible when they speak as witnesses of Tradition to shew the opinion of the Church of their Time then the opinion of the Chiliasts which now is a Heresie in the Church of Rome was once Tradition in the Opinion of the Church Thirdly Since S. Austin had an opinion that of whatsoever no beginning was known that came from the Apostles many Fathers might say things to be Tradition upon that ground only but of this Opinion of the Chiliasts one of the ancientest Fathers Irenaeus
pretend to derive from Apostolick Tradition Especially when the * Sess XIII Council of Constance the Patron of it confesses that Christs institution was under both kinds and that the faithful in the Primitive Church received it in both Licet Christ us c. Although Christ after his Supper instituted and administred this venerable Sacrament under both kinds Although in the Primitive Church this Sacrament were received by the faithful under both kinds Non obstante c. Yet all this notwithstanding this Custom for the avoiding of Scandals to which the Primitive Church was as obnoxious as the present is was upon just reason brought in that Laicks should receive only under one kind Brought in therefore it was and so is one of those Doctrines which Lerinensis calls inducta non tradita inventa non accepta c. therefore all the Doctrine of the Roman Church does not descend from Apostolick Tradition But if this Custom came not from the Apostles from what Original may we think that it descended Certaintainly from no other than from the belief of the substantial presence of whole Christ under either kind For this opinion being once setled in the Peoples minds that they had as much by one kind as by both both Priest and People quickly began to think it superfluous to do the same thing twice at the same time and thereupon being as I suppose the Custom required that the Bread should be received first having received that they were contented that the Priest should save the pains and the Parish the charge of unnecessary reiteration This is my Conjecture which I submit to better judgments but whether it be true or false one thing from hence is certain That immemorial Customs may by degrees prevail upon the Church such as have no known beginning nor Author of which yet this may be evidently known that their beginning whensoever it was was many years nay many Ages after the Apostles * S. Paul commands that nothing be done in the Church but for edification 1 Cor. 14.26 He says and if that be not enough he proves in the same place that it is not for edification that either Publick Prayers Thanksgiving and Hymns to God or Doctrine to the People should be in any Language which the Assistants generally understand not 27 28. and thereupon forbids any such practice though it were in a Language miraculously infused into the speaker by the Holy Ghost unless he himself or some other present could and would interpret He tells us that to do otherwise is to speak into the Air 9.11 That it is to play the Barbarians to one another That to such Blessings and Thanksgivings the ignorant for want of understanding cannot say Amen He clearly intimates that to think otherwise is to be Children in understanding Lastly in the end of the Chapter he tells all that were Prophets and Spiritual among the Corinthians That the things written by him are the Commandments of God Hereupon Lyranus upon the place acknowledgeth that in the Primitive Church Blessings and all other Services were done in the Vulgar Tongue Cardinal Cajeton likewise upon the place tells us that out of this Doctrine of S. Paul it is consequent That it were better for the Edification of the Church that the publick Prayers which are said in the Peoples hearing should be delivered in a Language common both to the Clergy and the People And I am confident that the Learnedst Antiquary in the Roman Church cannot nay that Baronius himself were he alive again could not produce so much as one example of any one Church one City one Parish in all the Christian World for five hundred years after Christ where the Sermons to the People were in one Language and the Service in another Now it is confest on all hands to be against sense and reason that Sermons should be made to the People in any Language not understood by them and therefore it follows of necessity that their Service likewise was in those Tongues which the People of the place understood But what talk we of 500. years after Christ when even the Lateran Council held in the year 1215. makes this Decree Quoniam in plerisque Because in many parts within the same City and Diocess People are mixed of divers Languages having under one Faith divers rites and fashions we strictly command that the Bishops of the said Cities or Dioceses provide fit and able men who according to the diversities of their Rites and Languages may celebrate Divine Services and administer the Sacraments of the Church instructing them both in word and example Now after all this if any man will still maintain that the Divine Service in unknown Tongues is a matter of Apostolick Tradition I must needs think the World is grown very impudent There are divers Doctrines in the Roman Church which have not yet arrived to the honour to be Donatae civitate to be received into the number of Articles of Faith which yet press very hard for it and through the importunity and multitude of their Attorneys that plead for them in process of time may very probably be admitted Of this rank are the Blessed Virgins Immaculate conception The Popes Infallibility in determining Controversies His superiority to Councils His indirect Power over Princes in Temporalties c. Now as these are not yet matters of Faith and Apostolick Traditions yet in after Ages in the days of our great Grandchildren may very probably become so so why should we not fear and suspect that many things now pass currantly as points of Faith which Ecclesia ab Apostolis Apostoli à Christo Christus à Deo recepit which perhaps in the days of our great Grandfathers had no such reputation Cardinal Perron teaches us two Rules whereby to know the Doctrine of the Church in any Age. The first is when the most eminent Fathers of any Age agree in the affirmation of any Doctrine and none of their Contemporaries oppose or condemn them that is to be accounted the Doctrine of the Church The second when one or more of these Eminent Fathers speak of any Doctrine not as Doctors but as witnesses and say not I think so or hold so but the Church holds and believes this to be Truth This is to be accounted the Doctrine of the Church Now if neither of these Rules be good and certain then are we destitute of all means to know what was the publick Doctrine of the Church in the days of our Fathers But on the other side if either of them be true we run into a worse inconvenience for then surely the Doctrine of the Millinaries must be acknowledged to have been the Doctrine of the Church in the very next Age after the Apostles For both the most eminent Fathers of that time and even all whose Monuments are extant or mention made of them viz. Justin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian Melito Sardensis agree in the affirmation of this point and none of their
Christians That it was fit and lawful to deny the Laity the Sacramental Cup That it was expedient and for the edification of the Church that the Scripture should be read and the publick worship of God perpetually celebrated in a language which they understand not and to which for want of understanding unless S. Paul deceive us they cannot say Amen Or is it reasonable you should desire us to believe you when your own Men your own Champions your own Councils confess the contrary Does not the Council of Constance acknowledg plainly That the custom which they ratified was contrary to Christs institution and the custom of the Primitive Church and how then was it taught by Christ and his Apostles Do not Cajetan and Lyranus confess ingenuously that it follows evidently from S. Paul that it is more for edification that the Liturgy of the Church should be in such a Language as the Assistants understand The like Confession we have from others concerning Purgatory and Indulgences Others acknowledges the Apostles never taught Invocation of Saints Rhenanus says as much touching Auricular Confession It is evident from Peter Lombard that the Doctrin of Transubstantiation was not a point of Faith in his time From Pius Mirandula that the Infallibility of the Church was no Article much less a foundation of Faith in his time Bellarmine acknowledges that the Saints enjoying the Vision of God before the day of judgment was no Article of Faith in the time of Pope John the XXII But as the Proverb is when Thieves fall out true men recover their goods so how small and heartless the reverence of the Church of Rome is to ancient Tradition cannot be more plainly discovered than by the Quarrels which her Champions have amongst themselves especially about the Immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin The Patrons of the Negative opinion Cajetan Bannes Bandellus and Canus alledg for it First an whole army of Scriptures Councils and Fathers agreeing unanimously in this Doctrin That only Christ was free from sin Then an innumerous multitude of Fathers expresly affirming the very point in question not contradicted by any of their Contemporaries or Predecessors or indeed of their Successors for many ages All the Holy Fathers agree in this that the Virgin Mary was conceived in Original sin So * In part primum q. 1. Art 8. Dub. 5. Bannes Cajetan brings for it fifteen Fathers in his judgment irrefragable others produce two hundred Bandellus almost three hundred Thus †Disp 51. in Ep. ad Rom. Salmeron That all the Holy Fathers who have fallen upon the mention of this matter with one mouth affirm that the Blessed Virgin was conceived in Original sin So ‖ Lib. VII loc cap. 1. cap. 3. n. 9. Canus And after That the contrary Doctrin has neither Scripture nor Tradition for it For saith he no Traditions can be derived unto us but by the Bishops and Holy Fathers the Successors of the Apostles and it is certain that those ancient writers received it not from their predecessors Now against this stream of ancient Writers when the contrary new Doctrin came in and how it prevailed it will be worth the considering The First that set it abroach was Richardus de Sancto Victore as his country-man * Omnium expresse primus Christiferam virginem originalis noxae expertem tenuit De gestis Scotorum III. 12. Johannes Major testifies of him He was expresly the first that held the Virgin Mary free from Original sin or he was the first that expresly held so So after upon this false ground which had already taken deep root in the heart of Christians That it was impossible to give too much honour to her that was the Mother of the Saviour of the World like an ill weed it grew and spread apace So that in the Council of †Sess XXXVI Basil which Binius tells us was reprobated but in part to wit in the point of the Authority of Councils and in the deposition of Eugenius the Pope it was defined and declared to be Holy Doctrin and consonant to the worship of the Church to the Catholick Faith to right Reason and the Holy Scripture and to be approved held and embraced by all Catholicks and that it should be lawful for no man for the time to come to preach or teach the contrary The custom also of keeping the Feast of her Holy Conception which before was but particular to the Roman and some other Churches and it seems somewhat neglected was then renewed and made Universal and commanded to be celebrated sub nomine Conception is under the name of the Conception Binius in a Marginal note tells us indeed That they celebrate not this Feast in the Church of Rome by virtue of this Renovation cum esset Conciliabalum being this was the act not of a Council but of a Conventicle yet he himself in his Index stiles it the Oecomenical Council of Basil and tells that it was reprobated only in two points of which this is none Now whom shall we believe Binius in his Margin or Binius in his Index Yet in after-times Pope Sixtus IV. and Pius V. thought not this Decree so binding but that they might and did again put life into the condemned opinion giving liberty by their constitutions to all men to hold and maintain either part either that the Blessed Virgin was conceived with Original sin or was not Which Constitution of Sixtus IV. The * Sess V. Council of Trent renewed and confirmed But the wheel again turning and the Negative opinion prevailing The Affirmative was banisht first by a Decree of Paul V. from all publick Sermons Lectures Conclusions and all publick Acts whatsoever and since by another Decree of Gregory XV. from all private Writings and private Conferences But yet all this contents not the University of Paris They as Salmeron tells us admit none to the Degree of Doctor of Divinity unless they have first bound themselves by solemn Oath to maintain the Immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Now I beseech you Mr. R. consider your courses with some indifference First You take Authority upon you against the universal constant unopposed Tradition of the Church for many ages to set up as a rival a new upstart yesterdays invention and to give all men liberty to hold which they please So Pope Sixtus IV. The Council of Trent and Pius V. that is you make it lawful to hold the ancient Faith or not to hold it nay to hold the contrary This is high presumption But you stay not here For Secondly The ancient Doctrin you cloyster and hook up within the narrow close and dark rooms of the thoughts and brains of the defenders of it forbidding them upon pain of damnation so much as to whisper it in their private discourses and writings and in the mean time the New Doctrin you set at full liberty and give leave nay countenance and encouragement to all men to
unless this may pass for one as perhaps it may where reasons are scarce No proposition which contradicts the common judgment of the Fathers can be probable * I should rather subsume but this does so Therefore not probable But it is de fide that our opinion is probable for the Council of Trent hath made it so by giving liberty to all to hold it Therefore without doubt we must hold that it is not whatsoever it seems against the common judgment of the Fathers This argument saith he doth most illustriously convince the followers of the contrary opinion that they ought not to dare affirm hereafter that their opinion flowes from the common judgment and writings of the ancient Doctors His second answer is That whereas Bandillus and Cajetan c. produce general sayings of Irenaeus Origen Athanasius Theophilus Alexandrinus Greg. Nyssen Basil Greg. Naz. Cyprian Hierom Fulgentius and in a manner of all the ancient Fathers exempting Christ alone from and consequently concluding the Virgin Mary under Original sin which Argument must needs conclude if the Virgin Mary be not Christ His answer I say is These Testimonies have little or no strength for did they conclude we must then let us in Gods name say that the Virgin Mary committed also many venial sins For the Scriptures Fathers and Councils set forth in propositions as Universal That there is no man but Christ who is not often defiled at least with smaller sins and who may not justly say that Petition of our Lords Prayer Demitte nobis debita nostra An answer I confess as fit as a Napkin to stop the mouths of his domestick adversaries though no way fit to satisfie their reason But this man little thought there were Protestants in the world as well as Dominicans who will not much be troubled by thieves falling out to recover more of their goods than they expected and to see a prevaricating Jesuit instead of stopping one breach in their ruinous cause to make two For whereas this man argues from the destruction of the Consequent to the destruction of the Antecedent thus If these testimonies were good and concluding then the Virgin Mary should have been guilty not only of Original but also of actual sin But the Consequent is false and blasphemous Therefore the Antecedent is not true They on the others side argue and sure with much more reason and much more conformity to the Ancient Tradition From the Assertion of the Antecedent to the Assertion of the Consequent thus If these testimonies be good and concluding then the Blessed Virgin was guilty both of Original sin and Actual but the Testimonies are good and concluding therefore she was guilty even of actual sins and therefore much more of Original His Third Answer is That their Church hath or may define many other things against which if their works be not depraved there lies a greater consent of Fathers than against the Immaculate Conception and therefore why not this The Instances he gives are four 1. That the Blessed Virgin committed no actual sin 2. That the Angels were not created before the visible world 3. That Angels are Incorporeal 4. That the Souls of Saints departed are made happy by the Vision of God before the day of Judgment Against the first Opinion he alledges direct places out of Origen which he says admit no exposition though Pamelius upon Tertullian and Sixtus Senensis labour in vain to put a good sense on them Out of Euthymias and Theophylact Out of S. Chrysostom divers pregnant testimonies and S. Thomas his confession touching one of them out of the Author of the Questions of the New and Old Testament in S. Austin cap. 75. Out of S. Hilary upon Psa 118. which words yet says he Tolet has drawn to a good construction yet so much difficulty still remains in them Out of Tertullian de carne Christi cap. 7. which he tells us will not be salved by Pamelius his gloss Out of Athanafius out of Irenaeus III. 18. out of S. Austin lib. 2. de Symbolo ad Catech. cap. 5. Whose words yet because they admit says Poza some exposition I thought fit to suppress though some think they are very hard to be avoided Out of Greg. Nyss out of S. Cyprian in his Sermon on the Passion Whose words says he though they may by some means be eluded yet will always be very difficult if we examin the Antecedents and Consequents out of Anselm Rich. de S. Victor S. Ambrose S. Andrew of Hierusalem and S. Bede and then tells us there are many other Testimonies much resembling these and besides many Fathers and Texts of Scripture which exempt Christ only from actual sin and lastly many suspicious sayings against her Immunity in them who use to say that at the Angels Annunciation she was cleansed and purged and expiated from all faults committed by her freewill which saith he though Canisius and others explicate in a pious sense yet at least they shew that either those alledged against the Imaculate conception are as favourable to be expounded Or we must say that a verity may be defined by the See Apostolick against the judgment of some Fathers From these things says he is drawn an unanswerable reason That for the defining the purity of the conception nothing now is wanting For seeing notwithstanding more and more convincing testimonies of Fathers who either did or did seem to ascribe actual sin to the Blessed Virgin notwithstanding the Universal sayings of Scripture and Councils bringing all except Christ under sin Lastly notwithstanding the silence of the Scriptures and Councils touching her Immunity from actual sin seeing notwithstanding all this the Council of Trent hath either decreed Seff VI. c. 23. de Justifical or hath confirmed it being before decreed by the consent of the faithful that the Blessed Virgin never was guilty of any voluntary no not the least sin It follows certainly that the Apostolick See hath as good nay better ground to enrol amongst her Articles the Virgins Immaculate conception The reason is clear for neither are there so many nor so evident sentences of Fathers which impute any fault or blemish to the Conception of the Mother of God as there are in appearance to charge her with actual offences Neither are there fewer Universal propositions in Scripture by which it may be proved that only Jesus was free from actual sin and therefore that the Virgin Mary fell into it Neither can there at this time be desired a greater consent of the faithful nor a more ardent desire than there now is that this verity should be defined and that the contrary Opinion should be Anathematized for Erroneous and Heretical The words of the Council of Trent on which this reason is grounded are these If any man say That a man all his life long may avoid all even venial sins unless by special priviledge from God as the Church holds of the Blessed Virgin let him be Anathema But if the consent of the Church hath prevailed against more clear Testimonies of ancient Fathers even for that which is favoured with no express authority of Scriptures or Councils And if the Council of Trent upon this consent of the faithful hath either defined this Immunity of the Virgin from all actual sin or declared it to be defined Who then can deny but that the Church hath immediate power to define among the Articles of Faith the pious Opinion of the Immaculate Conception His second Example by which he declares the power of their Church to define Articles against a multitude of Fathers and consequently not only without but against Tradition is the opinion that Angels were not created before the Corporeal world was created which saith he is or may be defined though there were more Testimonies of Fathers against it than against the Immaculate Conception So he says in the Argument of his Fifth Chapter and in the end of the same Chapter The Council of Lateran hath defined this against the express judgment of twenty Fathers of which Nazianzen Basil Chrysostome Cyrill Hierom Ambrose and Hillary are part His third Example to the same purpose is the opinion that Angels are Incorporeal against which saith he in the Argument of his sixth Chapter there are more Testimonies of the Fathers than against the Immaculate Conception and yet it is or at least may be defined by the Church and in the end of the Chapter I have for this Opinion cited twenty three Fathers which as most men think is now condemned in the * Firm de summâ Trinitate Lateran Council or at least as †De Angelis lib. 6. Suarez proves is to be rejected as manifestly temerarious His fourth and last Example to the same purpose is The Opinion that the Souls of Saints departed enjoy the Vision of God before the Resurrection Against which he tells us in the first place was the Judgment of Pope John XXI though not as a Pope but as a private Doctor Then he musters up against it a great multitude of Greek and Latin Fathers touching which he says All these Testimonies when * 1. 2. D. 29. cap. 1. Vasquez has related at length he †cap. 3. answers that they might be so explained as to say nothing against the true and Catholick Doctrin Yet if they could not be so explained their Authority ought not to hinder us from embracing that which the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The same argument I make says Peâ—â— The Fathers and ancient Doctors which are objected against the pious opinion of the Conception of the Virgin may be commodiously explicated or at least so handled that they shall not hurt Notwithstanding though they cannot be explicated some of them that their Testimonies ought not to hinder but that the Sea Apostolick may define the Blessed Virgins preservation from Original sin In fine for the close of this Argument he adds Nolo per plura I will not run through more Examples These that I have reckoned are sufficient and admonishes learned men to bring together other like proofs whereby they may promote the desired Determination FINIS
man to Error in greater matters As for example The Belief of the Popes Infallibility is I hope not unpardonably damnable to every one that holds it yet if it be a falshood as most certainly it is it puts a man into a very congruous disposition to believe Antichrist if he should chance to get into that See 8. To the third § In his distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental he may seem you say to have touched the point but does not so indeed Because though he saies there are some points so Fundamental as that all are obliged to believe them explicitely yet he tells you not whether a man may disbelieve any other points of Faith which are sufficiently presented to his understanding as Truths revealed by Almighty God Touching this matter of Sufficient Proposal if you mean by sufficiently presented to his understanding as revealed by God that which all things considered is so proposed to him that he might and should and would believe it to be true and revealed by God were it not for some voluntary and avoidable fault of his that interposeth it self between his understanding and the truth presented to it if you speak of truths thus proposed and rejected let it be as damnable as you please to deny or disbelieve them But it amazes me to hear you say that Dr. Potter declines this Question seeing the Light it self is not more clear then Dr. Potters Declaration of himself p. 245 246. c. of his Book beginning his discourse thus It seems Fundamental to the Faith and for the Salvation of every member of the Church that he acknowledge and believe all such points of Faith as whereof he may be convinced that they belong to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ To this conviction he requires three things Clear Revelation Sufficient Proposition and Capacity and understanding in the hearer For want of clear Revelation he frees the Church before Christ and the Disciples of Christ from any damnable Error though they believed not those things which he that should now deny were no Christian To sufficient Proposition he requires two things 1. That the points be perspicuously laid open in themselves 2. So forcibly as may serve to remove reasonable doubts to the contrary and to satisfie a teachable mind concerning it against the Principles in which he hath been bred to the contrary This Proposition he says is not limited to the Pope or Church but extended to all means whatsoever by which a man may be convinced in Conscience that the matter proposed is Divine Revelation which he professes to be done sufficiently not only when his Conscience doth expresly bear witness to the truth but when it would do so if it were not choaked and blinded by some unruly and unmortified lust in the will The difference being not great between him that is wilfully blind and him that knowingly gainsaieth the Truth The 3 thing he requires is Capacity and Ability to apprehend the Proposal and the Reasons of it the want whereof excuseth Fools and Madmen c. But where there is no such impediment and the will of God is sufficiently propounded there saith he he that opposeth is convinced of Error and he who is thus convinced is an Heretick and Heresie is a work of the Flesh which excludeth from Salvation he means without Repentance And hence it followeth that it is Fundamental to a Christians Faith and necessary for his Salvation that he believe all revealed truths of God whereof he may be convinced that they are from God Again it is almost as strange to me why you should say this was the only thing in question Whether a Man may deny or disbelieve any point of Faith sufficiently presented to his understanding as a truth revealed by God For to say that any thing is a thing in question methinks at the first hearing of the words imports that it is by some affirmed and denied by others Now you affirm I grant but what Protestant ever denied that it was a sin to give God the lie Which is the first and most obvious sense of these Words Or which of them ever doubted that to disbelieve is then a fault when the matter is so proposed to a Man that he might and should and were it not for his own fault would believe it Certainly he that questions either of these justly deserves to have his wits called in question Produce any one Protestant that ever did so and I will give you leave to say it is the only thing in question But then I must tell you that your ensuing Argument viz To deny a truth witnessed by God is damnable But of two that disagree one must of necessity deny some such truth Therefore one only can be saved is built upon a ground clean different from this postulate For though it be always a fault to deny what either I do know or should know to be testified by God yet that which by a cleanly conveyance you put in the place hereof To deny a Truth witnessed by God simply without the circumstance of being known or sufficienly proposed is so far from being certainly Damnable that it may be many times done without any the least fault at all As if God should testifie something to a man in the Indies I that had no assurance of this testification should not be obliged to believe it For in such cases the Rule of the Law has place Idem est non esse non apparere not to be at all and not to appear to me is to me all one If I had not come and spoken unto you saith our Saviour you had had no sin 10. As little necessity is there for that which follows That of two disagreeing in a matter of Faith one must deny some such truth Whether by such you understand Testified at all by God or testified and sufficiently propounded For it is very possible the matter in controversie may be such a thing wherein God hath not at all declared himself or not so fully and clearly as to oblige all Men to hold one way and yet be so overvalued by the parties in variance as to be esteemed a matter of Faith and one of those things of which our Saviour says He that believeth not shall be Damned Who sees not that it is possible two Churches may excommunicate and Damn each other for keeping Christmas Ten days sooner or later as well as Victor excommunicated the Churches of Asia for differing from him about Easter-Day And yet I believe you will confess that God had not then declared himself about Easter nor hath now about Christmas Anciently some good Catholick Bishops excommunicated and Damned others for holding there were Antipodes and in this questiom I would fain know on which side was the sufficient proposal The contra-Remonstrants differ from the Remonstrants about the points of Predetermination as a matter of Faith I would know in this thing also which way God hath declared himself whether for