can prove the Assumption of your Syllogisme or not If you can give I pray you a specimen of your Acumen and tergiverse no longer If ye cannot then professe ingenuously as the truth is that ye have undertaken a work which ye cannot performe And it is no wonder that here you be at a Non-plus For if the Christian Religion revealed in Scripture hath grounds to prove it self to be the True Religion which none but a down right Infidell can deny then surely the Religion of PROTESTANTS wanteth not grounds to prove it self For the Religion of PROTESTANTS is the Christian Religion revealed in the holy Scriptures as I told you in the explication of the terms in my first Paper And consequently what ever solid grounds were brought either by these Ancient Apologists Iustin Martyr Tertullian Athenagoras Arnobius c. Or are held out in the moderne tractats of Morney Grotius Amyrald yea in your own Vives to prove the truth of the Christian Religion these also prove the truth of the Religion of PROTESTANTS Nay doe not you Romanists acknowledge the most of all our Positives So that the great question which remains is Whether you Papists have any evidence for your superadditions And is it not your concernment to shew this But when I think upon your Tautologizing way it calls to my minde the custome of children who when their memorie failes them in saying their lesson least they should seeme to say nothing they will needs ingeminate the last word Away then for shame with these childish unmanly and insipid repetitions You blot much paper needlesly with foure Synonima propositions But I might advertise you first that your discourse concerning them is wide from the purpose For it supposeth that I am now proving the Religion of PROTESTANTS to be the True Religion which is not at present my work But seeing ye have undertaken to impugne it my bussines is to cleat it from your cavills Secondly I doubt if ye can reconcile what ye have said of the Equipollencie of these foure Propositions with your Tridentine Faith For if it be the same thing for a Religion to be a True Religion and to be conforme to the Scriptures then it cannot be true which your Councill of Trent hath defined that Unwritten Traditions are to be received Pari pietatis affectu with equall devotion as the written Word of GOD. For if this Tridentin Canon be true the truth of Religion cannot stand adequatly in its conformity to the Scriptures but partly in its conformity with the Scriptures and partly in its conformity with unwritten traditions and consequently your fore-mentioned propositions cannot be adequatly Synomma's You may bethink your self whether ye or the Councill be in the Error But thirdly granting these propositions to be Synonima's that is to have an Objective identitie I pray by what Logick will ye prove that one of them cannot be brought to prove the other Is it not lawfull to argue á Definitione ad Definitum betwixt which there is an objective identity Doe not Logicians acknowledge an identity betwixt objective Premisses and the Conclusion And therefore though a True Religion be a Religion cōforme to the Scripturs yet there is no absurditie in proving the truth of Religiō by its cōformity to the Scripturs Even as to use your old example from which ye are fallen off as seems because it made so much against you An action to be honest and conforme to the Law are Synonima's and yet the best way of proving it to be honest is to prove its conformity to the Law By all this it appears that your plain Scots which ye are not ashamed againe to repeat is plaine Non-sense as I demonstrated in my last For the truth of Religion consisting in its conformity with the Scripture may be demonstrated by holding out its conformity with the Scripture An objective evidence of a Religion being nothing else but a ground whereby the truth of Religion may be demonstrated it is unconceivable how a Religion can have objective evidence and yet want a ground whereby to manifest it self to be a True Religion If here you but understood your own self I hope there would be no more controversie as to this betwixt us So that the matter is not obscured by my terms as you say but by your contradictory Non-sense As to your frivolous oft repeated cavill that a false Religion may pretend the like conformity and objective evidence it was confuted so fully in my last that I shall remit you to what was then said Though Anaxagoras and Hypochondriack Persons may mantaine Snow to be black Shall that make others who have their eyes in their head and the use of their Reason turne Sceptickes and question whether it be white or black Towards the close ye passe by many things as your coustome is which I hade said concerning the assistance of your Clergie men In actu primo to give the true sense of Scripture And ye only labour to extricat your self from that Contradiction wherein I shew you to be involved but all in vaine Nay ye involve your self the more by affirming That a proposition may have an universall obiect whereof it self is a part and yet that something may be affirmed of that universall object which cannot be affirmed of that part of the object A rare notion forsooth implying a manifest repugnancie But I am loath to digresse to a Philosophick debate with you Can any thing I pray you be affirmed of every man which cannot be affirmed of you and me As for that proposition of Davids All men are liars which you bring to illustrate your paradoxall notion How could you make use of it in your argueing with me untill first you proved your infallibility For if you may be beleeved I can take no sense of it from you untill you first prove your self infallible which I suppose you pretend not to But it is your ill luck to be still involved in contradictions Yet to speake more particularly of this example and not to take up time in enumerating the severall acceptions of this Syncategorematick particle All it may be evident that David did not take it Universally of all men in reference to all their sayings else he had not only convicted himself of a lie but also charged all the penne men of holy Scriptures as liars in all that they said Which I beleeve no rationall Person will affirme It must therefore be restricted to one of two Either to these who had said that DAVID should be King and if thus it was indeed an over-reaching and false assertion in DAVID For among these the Prophet Samuel was one And no wonder that DAVID did over-reach in this for he acknowledges he spake it in Festinatione in his haste Or secondly to which I rather encline it must be understood thus every meer man of his own nature is prone to lying and fallible as your Esthius and A Lapide upon Rom. 3.4 And many others doe
Ancient Church And to instance if you can One difference in essentialls betwixt the faith of the Ancient Church and our Religion else it must be held for confessed that our Religion which you so much reproach is The truely Ancient Christian Religion and yours but the tares which the envyous one did latly sow in the Lords field and that your pretence to Antiquity is no better then the Gibeonits mouldie bread Ies 9.5.12 Towards the Conelusion you are so discreet as to upbraid me as Altogether ignorant of the nature of supernatural faith Because foresooth I would not acknowledge That the assent of faith which is given to articles of Religion must be founded upon the foreknowledge of the infallible assistance of the propounders thereof I suppose you meane the Clergie of whome you spake in your former Papers But First were you not concemed if you had looked to your reputation before you had taken the boldnesse to reproach me for Ignorance in this matter first to have cleared your self from these Contradictions wherein I have demonstrated you to be involved from your former assertions concerning This infallible assistance of the Clergie Secondly were you so shallow as not to discerne that you intangle your self in a New contradiction by this your present discourse For if everie supernatura assent of faith to a divine truth must be founded upon The foreknowledge of the infallible assistance of the propounder thereof then the first assent to The necessity of the foreknowledge of this assistance in the Propounder must presuppose it as being according to you An Act of supernatural faith And yet it cannot presuppose it because it is the first assent which the person hath concerning that assistance And consequently if it did presuppose a former knowledge of that assistance it should be first and not first Is not this a goodly Religion which you have that you cannot move one step in mantainance thereof without intangling your self still in contradictions But Thirdly either This necessity of the foreknowledge of the infallible assistance of the propounder of divine truths which you make the foundation of all supernatural faith can be proven or not If not then all your faith is founded upon a fancie which cannot be proven If it can be proven why shunne you to doe it I haveing so often required it of you But now I will lay this Dilemma about you If it can be proven either it must be from Scripture or from some Unwriten Word to use your Romanists phrase Not from Scripture for according to you no sense of Scripture can be known unles first the Infallible assistance of the propounder thereof be known and therefore when one doubts of the infallible assistance of the proponer it is impossible according to your principles that this can be proven from Scripture Nor can you prove it by any Unwriten Word For you have asserted in your former Papers that a point of Religion To be true and to be conforme to the Writen Word of GOD are Synenima's and that the one of these cannot be proven before the other Therefore you cannot prove the truth of this point conceming the Clergies assistance meerly by an unwriten Word else it should be known to be true before its conformity to the writen Word were known which is the Contradictorie of your former assertion But besides to know the sense of a Decretal Canon of Councill or Tradition or what ever else you will runne to as distinct from the Scriptures of GOD there is as great necessitie of The foreknowledge of the assistance of the propounder thereof as for the knowing of the true sense of Scripture And therefore before I assent to the true sense of a Decretal Canon of Councill or Tradition by a supernatural Act of faith I must first know that the propounder is guided by an infallible assistance and consequently when one doubts of this infallible assistance of the propounder neither can it be proven by anie Vnwriten word Decretal Canon of Councill or Tradition Expede your self from this Dilemma if you can without destroying your own principles by which you are locked up in Contradictions Nay more I here freely offer will you or any prove to me either From Scripture or Vniversal Tradition That the foreknowledge of such infallible assistance of your Clergie is a necessarie prerequisite before I can give a supernatural assent of faith to an article of Religion and I will turne Romanist Can I make a fairer proffer to you Will you not have so much compassion upon me as to make me your Proselyte But I may divine here and not be a Propher you will as scone remove the Earth out of its place according to Archimedes bold undertakeing as to prove your Hypothesis from either of these forementioned grounds Fourthly when you talke so liberally of this Assistance of the Propounder of articles of faith ought you not to determine whome you meane by This Propounder I hope you extend it not to all the people nay nor to all who have received Orders It was 〈◊〉 pretended that everie one of these was infallible whether therefore is it the Pope or General Council or both that you meane If you cannot agree among your selves who this Infallible Propounder is doe you not reel as to the Foundation of your faith I therefore require you againe to determine to me if you can An Infallible Propounder of articles of faith agreed upon by you Romanists and to produce the evidences for this infallibity from Scripture or Vniversal Tradition or Canon of general Council You would make the world beleeve that you had an infallible Propounder of divine truths and yet you cannot agree who he is Nor have any of the parties into which you are broken in this matter Evidence from your Romish principles for the infallibility of him or them whom they would place in Appâ—llo's chaire Pitch therefore on whome you will as your Iufallible Interpreter and let us see if his Infallibilitie can abyd the Test. Who knowes not how impiouslie your Popes have erred and that both In cathedra and extra cathedram How Pope Liberius subscrived to to the Arrian confession of the Council of Sirmium and to the condemnation of Athanasius How Pope Honorius being consulted by Sergius of Constantinople gave out sentence for the Monethelite Heresie How Pope Iohn the twentysecond denyed the immortalitie of the Soul Yea not to insist further in takeing this Dung-hill your own Platina in the life of Stephanâ—s the sixth records that it is almost the constant custome of the succeeding Popes to infringe Or wholly abrogate the decrees of their Predecessors Are these the infallible propounders of divine truths upon which our faith must be built It were easie also to give an account of the errours and lapses of Councils though I should be loath to derogat in the least from their due esteeme I shall therefore at present but mind you of that luculent testimonie of Austin lib. 2.
conformitie to the will of GOD revealed in the Scriptures and this conformitie hath a sufficient intrinseck objective evidence in it self to any who have a well disposed understanding to collate and compare these two together to observe the exact correspondence betwixt the one and the other This likewise may be illustrated by your own example of Honestie and Knaverie An Honest-man being one whose actions are squared according to the Law what ever a Knave may pretend yet when both are compared to the Law the honest-Mans conversation is found to be that which the Law enjoineth not so the Knaves So that this honestie which is the conformitie of his actions to the Law hath an intrinseck objective evidence to demonstrat it self to any discerning Person who can compare the mans actions with the Law So it is in the present case Yet besides this intrinseck objective evidence which is in true Religion I doe not deny but there are many externall and accessorie Grounds which stronglie perswade its credibilitie Having thus paved my way I come to examine your Syllogisme which runes thus That Religion cannot be a true Religion which hath no peculiar ground or principle to prove that it is a true Religion and conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. But the PROTESTANT Religion hath no peculiar ground or principle to prove that it is a true Religion and conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Ergo it cannot be a true Religion Answere 1. I might here first friendly advise you to take better heed hereafter to the forme of your Syllogismes For both your Premisses are Negative and ye know the Logick rule sayeth ex ntraque premissa negativa nihil sequitur But I shall endeavour to help this by improving your medium in a better forme and I hope also to better purpose against your self and your Romanists thus The true Religion hath a peculiar ground and principle to prove that it is a true Religion and conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. But the Popish religion hath no peculiar ground and principle to prove that it is a true religion and conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Ergo the Popish Religion is not the true Religion Hade ye intended to satisfie the conscience of any Persone you would have held forth these peculiar grounds and characters of a true Religion which is conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of God and ye would at least have endeavoured to demonstrate that thes did exactly quadrat with your Romish Religion and not at all with the Religion of PROTESTANTS But as to this there is nothing but deep silence in your paper Before you make good your retreat from this Argument as thus inverted against your self ye may perhaps find that ye are taken in the ginne which ye designed for others Ans 2 But Secondly I wold try you with another Retersion thus If the true Religion have grounds and principles to prove its conformitie to the true sense of the letter of the Word then no article of Faith and Religion can be founded upon an unwritten Tradition But the first is true Ergo c. The Minor is clear from the Major of your Syllogisme The consequence of my Major is no lesse clear For it is impossible that an article founded meerly upon an unwritten Tradition should prove its conformitie with the letter of the written word of God else it should be written and not written Nor can ye handsomely resile by saying you did thus only argue ad hominem against PROTESTANTS For this your Syllogisme you deduce from your foure premised propositions which ye suppose ought to be agreed to by all Parties Now what thankes you are to expect for this manner of arguing from your late Pamphleters who doe so highly magnifie your unwritten Traditions ye your self may judge Ans 3. But Thirdly leaving Retorsions I Answer directly denying the Assumption viz. that the PROTESTANT Religion hath no peculiar ground or principle to prove that it is a true Religion and conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Nay surely it hath that intrinseck objective evidence in its conformitie with the Scripturs to demonstrate it to be the true Religion of which I was speaking a little before which neither Poperie nor any other false Religion either hath or can have But now it lyes on you as the Opponent to prove your Assumption It seemed strange to me that this Proposition whereon the whole stresse of the Controversie didly was so nakedlie proposed by you without any proofe Onely it would appear because it is a Negative you would lay over upon me to prove the contrarie Are ye so soon wearie of the Opponents office who were so eager to have it Find you the burthen of impugning the Religion of Protestants so heavie that so soone ye shrink under it Are there no Negative Propositions proved in the Schools Doth not Philosophie teach us more Moods and Formes of Negative Syllogismes then of affirmatives Shall there be no way to oppugne an affirmative position but by turning the Respondent to an Opponent Yea let me put you in minde that though your assumption and conclusion be expressed Negativly yet upon the matter we doe rather mantaine the Negative and you the affirmative Which I thus make out If any consider our Religion and yours it will be found that in most of our Positives ye and we are agreed As that there is a GOD three Persons that Christ is both GOD and man c. But the difference is mostly in our Negatives As for instance Ye affirme the necessitie of a visible infallible judge of controversies we deny Ye affirme the necessitie of subjection to the Pope of Rome as head of the Catholick-Church we deny Ye affirme that there is a propper propitiatory sacrifice in the Masse we deny Ye affirme that the Apocrypha books are Canonick Scriptures we deny Ye affirme that Saincts are to be invocated that Crosses Images and your Sacramentall Hosty are to be adored we deny Ye affirme a Purgatorie we deny c. In all these and such as these we mantaine the Negative and ye the Affirmative yea and these are your Superadditions unto Scripture truths And consequently when it is demanded whether that which we or ye mantaine in these particulars be agreeable to the sense of the Scriptures The meaning is whether doth the Scripture hold these things out or not Ye affirme and we deny Therefore according to the saying that Affirmanti incumbit probatio It lyes upon you to find out the exact measures of the true Religion and the peculiar Grounds which doe evidence its conformitie to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD and also to demonstrate that these Grounds cannot agree to the Religion of PROTESTANTS Bellarmin Gretser Valentia and others of
Catholick Church in the Second or Third Centurie and argue thence as from a Principle especially when he hath to doe with an Adversarie who may admit the faith of the Ancient Church as a Test and will decline the Scriptures under pretext of obscarity or ambiguity Yea as I have said before A Divine may in such a case argue from the faith of one true Particular Church Suppose that an Original writ were either lost or blotted and blurred from which there hath been several Transumpts taken and that there were two persons pretending to have Transumpts but each of them questioning the fidelity of the others Transumpt This Question could not be decided by the Original it being supposed either to be lost or blotted utterly and blurred and neither of the two Parties willing yeeld to one another But there being found another Transump which both the Parties acknowledge to have been the First Copie that was taken from the Original Could there be any way so good for decyding the Question next to the compareing of both the Transumpts with the Original if it could be had or were clear as to compare the two controverted Copies with this uncontroverted Transumpt In this case would not he who shunned to bring his Copie to the tryall leave a strong presumption that his Paper were but a forged draught Now though all the authority which the unquestioned Transumpt hath was derived from its conformity with the Original yet in these circumstances it may have the place of a Test to distinguish betwixt true and adulterat Copies The application is obvious The Papists like old Hereticks accuse Scriptures as being blotted and blurred yea as in a manner lost The Originals if you may be beleeved being corrupted albeit indeed Scripture is clear and by the good hand of GOD preserved to this day Yet seeing you sometimes seeme to magnify Antiquity as if you did acknowledge the faith of the Ancient Church to be a faithful Transumpt from that authentick Original of the Scriptures what more condescension can we PROTESTANTS in this case show to you Then seeing you will not be judged by the Scriptures which are out Heavenly Fathers authentick Testament then I say to acquiesce that the cause betwixt us be tryed by that Transumpt which you seeme to acknowledge And when you decline this tryal also doth it not speake you out to be real Prevaricators and Cavillers But because some may wonder whence it is that you doe not onely decline a tryall by Scripture but also by Antiquity I will here open the Mysterie that lurkes under it Though you Romanists seeme somtimes to magnify Fathers Councils and Antiquity yet there are none who set them more at nought then you as if you put me to it I will make good by particular instances And therefore laying them aside it is onely your present Romish Church that is your sure Author-hold And by your present Church your Jesuited Partie meanes only the Pope I doe not stander you Hear your great Champion Gretser who comes in to succour Bellarmin at a dead lift Tom. 1. Defens cap. 10. lib. 3. Bellarmin De ver be Dei colum 1450. Quando Ecclesiam dicimus esse omnium controversiarum fidei juaicem intelligimus Pontisicem Romanum qui pre teâ—pore praesens naviculam militantis Ecclesiae moderatur When we affirme sayeth he the Church to be the judge of all controversies of faith by the Church we understand the Bishop of Rome who for the time being Governs the ship of the Militant Church So that there is no security for your unhappie Religion unlesse ye be made Chancelours in your own Assyze If it be asked how shall any know that the Romish Church is the True Church The answere must be because she that is her head the Pope sayes she is the True Church If it be againe asked how shall it be known that the Pope is the Head of the Church The answere must be because he sayes he is it But how shall it be known that he is Infallible in so saying The answere must be because he sayes this is his prerogative And how shall it be known that the Romish Religion is the onely True Religion The onely plaine answere is because the Pope whose grandour is mantained thereby sayes it is the True Religion And how shall it be known that the Religion of PROTESTANTS is a Wrong Religion Because forsooth the Pope whose triple Crown is shaken by the Religion of Protestants sayes that it is an heretical Religion Alace abcel that poore simple people should be so miserably cheaâ—ed and seduced GOD I trust will erre long open their eyes to see these damnable impostures You had asserted in your last That every supernatural act of faith must be founded on the foreknowledge of the infallible assistance of the Popounders of divine truths To which in my last I had Replyed many thing most of which according to your custome you never once touch I must therefore reminde you of the heads of them As First you were demanded who these Infallible Propounders are Whether you Romanists can agree upon them Whether you can produce grounds for their infallibility from Scripture or Universal Tradition I hope you will not pretend every one of your Shavelings to be infallible Yea I brought luculent evidence that both Popes and General Councils may erre and have erred Secondly I asked whereupon the Faith of these pretended Infallible Propounders was builded and wherein they differed from Enthusiasts Thirdly supposing Pope or Council or both had this Infalliblity yet seeing the people receive their sentence from the mouth of such fallible and fallacious persons as you how can they be assured that either you have not taken up the sense of their Decrees wrong or that for base ends you doe not falsifie them And Fourthly how it can be known who are your Clergie men that are gifted with this assistance seeing the efficacie of Sacraments of which Ordination with you is one dependeth on the secret intention of the Priest But none of these doe you once touch Are not you fitter to be a Trencher Chaplaine to a Biggotted and implicit Proselit then a Disputant I Might here also comit you with the late Patrons of your Traditionarie Way particularly with Master Cressy who in his Exomologesis Cap. 51. Sect. 4. Acknowledges That the pastors of the Church proceed not now as the Apostles did with a peculiar infallible direction of the holy Spirit but with prudential collection not alwayes necessarie and that to the Apostles such an infallible certainty of means was necessarie but not so now to the Church And in his chap. 40. Sect. 3. He acknowledges the unfortunatness of that word infallibility And said that he could find no such word in any Council and that there appeared no necessity to him that any PROTESTANT should ever have heard that word named let be pressed with so much earnestness and that Master Chillingworth hath combated that word
found in it Yet what scurrilous and dung-hil eloquence the Iesuit useth in his next Paper vvithout any provocatioÌ„ is obvious to any Reader But next I appeale to all rationall Persons vvho shall peruse these Papers vvhether he gives not just cause for smart Language by his nauseating Repetitions shameful Preteritions and impudent Calumnies for vvhat I knovv vvithout a parrallel In so much that sometimes he vvould inscribe his Papers vvith a splendid Calumny affirming that I had disovvned all vvhich I had said before So he did in his sixth Paper When these his Papers were disseminated among the Popish Proselyts without my Answeres who tooke all the Iesuits bold Assertions for Oracles and were ready thereupon to clamour through the Country would not such dealing have moved the Choler of a Person of ordinary Meeknesse It was the saying of a great Iurist Non irasci ob eas causas I ob quas irasci oporteat stultoruâ—â— est Yea Aristotle affirmes it to be an Act of meeknesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Plutarch was not afraid to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet if either Master Dempster or any for him will hereafter prosecut this Debate in a Rationall and Civill way they may be assured of as Courteous and Civil Entertainment as they shall give But leaving these things I have made bold to superscribe your HONOURS NAMES to these Papers Your known Affection to the True Reformed RELIGION and your zeale for promoting the wel-fare of this Famoâ—â— CITY the Happynesse whereof is more wrapt up in the Interest of Religion then in any Earthly concerne suffer me not once to doubt of your Willingnesse to undertake the Patrociny of the Truths herein asserted The Obligations are so many and so great which ly upon me from this CITY and from the MAGISTRATS and COUNCIL'L thereof especially these twenty and one yeares last bygone wherein I have been through Mercy officiating though weakly in the publick Ministry of the Gospel among you beside the Personall respects which I owe to your selves who at present doe possess the Chair that you may justly challenge a Proprietie in all my performances It is therefore become a Probleme with me whether this poor Present which I humbly tender to you ought not more properly to be termed the Payment of a just Debt then a SYMBOL of GRATITUD But under whatsoever notion you shall be pleased to accept of it I shall surely be the more deeply addebted to you I adde no more only the GOD of all Grace and Truth rebuke a Spirit of Errour Prophanesse and Idolatry which hath Alas fermented too too many in this Place That this City may become a City of Righteousnes a Faithful City wherein Mercy and Truth may meet together Righteousnes and Peace may kisse each other and the Cognizance thereof may be IEHOVAH SH AMM AH The LORD is there I conclude with that Apostolical supplication in behalf of you our Governours The very GOD of Peace sanctifie you wholly I pray GOD your whole Spirit Soul and Boâ—â—â—e preserved blamelesse unto the comming of our LORD IESVS CHRIST So prayeth he who is YOVR HONOVRS In all humble observance Iohn Menzeis To the Impartial READER BEside the historical account of this affair given in the Dedication I have yet some few things whereof to advertise thee Know therefore that necessity and not choyse did put â—e upon this whole undertaking I was provoked by solemne challenges first to a vocal debate then to exchange of Papers and lastly by insolent clamours to the publishing of all I believe no discreet Person will ascribe this appearance in Print to vanity For I acknowledge the debate is inglorious the Papers which I had to examine being so very insignificant I may indeed be blamed for wasting Oyle and Paines to confute such tristes But Mr. Dempster and what dropped from his mouth or pen how frivolous so ever were so admired I had almost said adored by our Romish Apostats that had I not answered him and published both his Papers and mine I should have been judged by many as wanting in duty to the PROTESTANT Interest Who in such an exigence would not rather submit to have his labour censured as unnecessary then to be deemed unfaithful to the Truth T 's true on whose worke had been only to state Controversies and to argue pro and con might have said more in a very few sheets for the satisfaction of an ingenuous lover of truth then is said in all these Papers But I have been constrained to follow the anomalous motion of a tautologizing Iesuits Who could never be induced to speake to any particular Controversie Sundry times I stated Controversies and hinted at impugnations of Romish Doctrines but could prosecute nothing unlesse I would fight with my own shadow for the Adversary had not the confidence to speake to any particular And besides these Papers were not at first designed for the presse but as privat missives to give a check to a petulant Caviller Many things may passe in privat missives which are hardly tolerable in tractats designed at the first contrivance for publick use So true is that saying Aliud est uni scribere aliud omnibus More of my worke stood in discovering the prevarications of the Iesuit then in canvasing his Arguments This readily will not have so savoury a rellish with thee yet I hope it will be judged excusable in me when the circumstantiated case wherein I stood is considered However to compense this losse I intended by way of an Appendix to have added some Arguments against the Popish Religion As First from its direct Contrariety to cleare Scriptures in many weighty points 2. From its Novelty and Dissonancy from the faith of the Ancient Church notwithstanding the vain and deceitful pretences of Romanists to Antiquity 3. From the manifold and grosse Idolatry established thereby 4. From its Contrariety to Catholick Vnity and the Schismatical constitution of the present Romish Church though Romanists have the confidence to glory as if they were the only Catholicks 5. From the Impious reproaches which Romanists and the Present Romish Religion doe throw upon the Holy Scriptures 6. Because the Popish Religion is greatly injurious to the Satisfaction and Merits of our Blessed REDEEMER the LORD IESVS CHRIST 7. Because Poperie overturnes all certainty of divine faith or rather to use the expression of learned Mr. Pool who hath given a blow at the root of the Romish Church because of the Nullitie of divine faith in the Romish Religion 8. Because many of the Principles of Popery have a manifest tendency to practical ungodlynesse and particularly Iesuits who are as it were the soul of the present Court and Church of Rome and the chief Emissaries for promoting the Romish Interest doe mantain principles opposit to sound Christianity and Mordlity Yea there is scarce one Command in the Decalogue whereof grosse and impious â—olations are not justifyed by these Men I whereof a considerable account is
then apologize for me One Objection must needs be removed It may be asked how I doe charge the Iesuit as declyning to have the truth of Religion either examined by Scripture or Antiquity seeing he profers at lest to have one Controversie examined by Scripture Viz. concerning the number of Sacraments But let any rational person though a Romanist if he can but dispossesse his own mind of prejudice cognosce whether my Charge be just How disingenuous the Iesuit was in that seeming profer concerning the number of Sacraments is sufficiently discovered in my Reply to his tenth paper from page 236. to page 241. Now only let these few particulars be considered And 1. When did the Iesuit make this profer Only in his tenth or last paper imeÌ„diatly before his getting out of the nation Why did he it not sooner especially seeing we had been exchanging papers above a year before and he had been frequently appealed to a discusse of particular Controversies Did he not in former papers positively decline to have the truth of Religion examined either by Scripture or Antiquity By Scripture because as he affirmes paper 4. pag. 37. The letter of Scripture is capable of divers yea contrary senses and there is no Religion so false but pretends that the tenets of it are conforme to the letter of Scripture By Antiquity also because sayeth the Iesuit paper 5. page 61 This with as great reason may be assumed by any Christian false Religion Yea doth he not charge me as hatching a new Religion of my own because I appealed to the Fathers of the three first Centuries in his 9. paper page 178. Now what ingenuity or courage is manifested by such a seeming profer at such a time after so many declinaturs ingenuous Romanists may judge But secondly Had there not been weighty Controversies tabled before viz. Concerning the Infallibility of Popes and Councils the Perspicuity and Perfection of the Scriptures Transubstantiation Adoration of Images Communion under one kinde Papal indulgences Apocrypha bookes the Popes Supremacie over the whole Catholick Church and his Jurisdiction over Princes Yea had it not been shewed as the breviry of missives would permit that the Church of Rome doth grosly erre in all these Yet never did he offer to Reply to any of these Let Romanists therefore againe judge whether he who passes over in silence all Arguments both from Scripture and Antiquity to prove the present Romish Religion erronious in all the foresaid particulars and only starts a new Question about the number of Sacraments doeth shew a through willingnesse to have the Truth of Religion tryed either by Scripture or Antiquity Thirdly If there he any Controversie tossed betwixt Rom mists and us where a cavilling Sophister may wrap himself up under Logomachies is not this it which the Iesuit hath pitched upon coÌ„cerning the number of Sacraments Must it not be acknowledged on all hands that as the word Sacrament is taken in a larger or stricter sense a man may affirme that ther be more or fewer Sacraments But of this you may see more at length in the Aâ—swere to the Jesuits tenth paper page 238. and 239. Let it be then considered how willing the Jesuit was of a Scriptural tryal who dates not adventure on the examination of other Controversies and only betaks himself to this wherein the Adversarie may shut himself up in a thicker of Logomachies But fourthly Doth the Jesuit really profer to have that on Controversie concerning the number of Sacraments betwixt Papists and us decyded by Scripture Or doth he bring Arguments from Scripture to prove a precise Septenary of proper Sacraments neither more nor fewer which is the Doctrine of the Present Romish Church Nor at all What then Only that he might seeme to say something he desires me to prove from Scripture that there be only two Sacraments or that there be no more then two which is in very deed to require me to prove the Negative while he himself declynes to prove the Affirmative viz. That there is not only more then two but compleatly seven Though the Iesuits demand be irrational I hope I have satisfied it in its own proper place But what though I had succumbed in proving that there were no more but two proper Sacraments Yet the question betwixt Romanists and us concerning the number of Sacraments were not decyded except it be proven that there be precisely seven neither more nor fewer If there be not a precise septenary one Article of the Romish faith falls to the ground Consequently the Iesuit never submits the Question concerning the number of Sacraments to a Scriptural tryal untill he offer to prove by Scripture a precise sepetenary of proper Sacraments which as yet he hath not done nor I believe will adventure to doe He will find need of the supplement of his unwriten traditions here But neither I suppose will these serve his turne But Fifthly what are all these ensuing papers but a demonstration of the Iesuits tergiversing humor In his first paper he proposed foure postulata like so many Oracles I discovered an egregious fallacy in one of them But to this day he never once endeavoured to vindicat himself He proposed in that paper an informal Syllogisme but could never thereafter adventure on a second which was retorted in better forme against the Popish Religion more wayes then one but these Retortions to this houre remaine unexamined I denyed the Assumption of that long studied Syllogisme but he could never be induced to undertake the probation thereof In that Assumption the Iesuit had said that the PROTESTANT Religion had no grounds to prove its conformity with the letter of Scripture To repell that bold allegeance I appealed him to produce any solid ground of conformity with Scripture which either the True Christian Religion hath or that the Popish Religion can pretend to which the Religion of PROTESTANTS wants But he could never be moved to produce any Sometimes he hinted at the Infallibility of the Propounders of the Articles of Faith but he durst neither adventure to tell whom he meant by these Infallible Propounders or to prove the Infallibility of Romish Propounders or to answere Arguments against their Infallibility At length being outwearied with his tergiversing I produced positive Grounds for proving the conformity of our Religion to the Scriptures and the disconformity of theirs viz. The Perspicuity of the Scriptures in all things necessarie and Conformitie with the faith of the Ancient Church in the first three Centuries Hereupon he positively declyned both Scriptures and Fathers in these first three Centuries as a test to find out the Truth of Religion Therefore finding that still he shunned to come to particulars I pirched upon that much controverted Scripture which Romanists pretend to be as favourable to them as any viz Hoc est Corpus meum This is my Body and proved the sense which PROTESTANTS give thereof to be True and Genuine and the sense which Romanists impose to
be false and absurd And offered to doe the like concerning other controverted Scriptures such as Luke 22.32 I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not Matthew 16.18 Upon this Rocke I will build my Church 1. Tim. 3.15 The pillar and ground of Truth c. This I did in the Answere to his seventh paper from page 126. to page 130. But all these he waves as tedious Digressions in his eight paper page 148. I resolved also to try his behaviour more particularly in reference to Antiquity and therefore in the Answere to the Iesuits eight paper from page 169. to page 173. I produced seven articles of the present Romish Religion which I briefly shew to be repugnant to the faith of the Ancient Romish Church viz. Their Adoration of Images Their Transubstantiation Their Communion under one kinde The Popes Supremacy Their mantaining the Apocryphal bookes to be Canonical Scriptures the Papes usurped Jurisdiction over Princes and their Indulgences for easing Soules under the paines of Purgatory But this is all the Answere which the tergiversing Jesuit makes to these particulars in his paper 9. page 176. What makes it to our purpose your digressions about Images about Transubstantiation about Communion under one kinde about the Popes supremacy about Apocryphal bookes about Indulgences Purgatory c. I gave likewise some account of their corrupting the Morals and Practicals of Christianity by their impious doctrine of Probables in the answere to his eight paper page 162. 163. c. But to this he answered Ne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quidem nothing at all The rest of his rergiversing Preteritions I must leave the Reader to collect by his own observation Did ever I pray an ill cause fall into the hands of a more unhappie Advocat Whether now my charge against the Iesuit as on that declynes to have the truth of Religion tryed either by Scripture or Antiquity be just let him who who ponders these particulars and peruseth all the Papers judge Had I tergiversed as the Iesuit hath done had I been left at such disadvantages as he would they not have made the World ring with it What ever answere shall be returned to me Our Popish Apostats will be ready to entertain it with Plaudire's as if the field were wone But I hope they who are judicious will hereafter lesse regard their clamours having such experience of their triumphing when their Champion had behaved himself in such a piteous fashion Our Romanists are pleased to boast that how soon these papers come abroad they shall have an Answere tripping upon their heels Indeed I have eased them of much labour by publishing all these papers Have they not had a good opportunity these six or seven moneths wherein they knew thir papers were at the Presse to prepare supplies for Mr. Dempsters omissions Have they not many hands and heads to furnish them materials little worke to divert them from scribling Yet they would take heed lest through preposterous hâ—ste they fall into Mr. Dempsters errour to leave the chiefe of their worke behind them My designe ever was rather to contend with them in solidity of reason then in Celerity of dispatch Diu apparandumest bellum ut vincas celerius If Romanists be as speedy in their Reply as they talke will it not discover that they apprehend some danger to their ill Cause from these papers If their speed be not answerable to their boasting will it not be an evidence that they are large as good at boasting as at argueing All the courtesie I crave from the ingenuous Reader is to allow me an equal hearing with the Adversary So as when he is to passe judgement betwixt us he consider an equal number of his papers and mine Here there be ten of either side presented If now Sentence should be past neither of us could complaine that we had not ben heard But if Romanists adde their eleventh paper then ought not any further sentence be suspended untill my Reply be heard The Iesuit having the first word doth not the last de jure appertaine to me Yet if the eleventh paper run in the same trifling and tautologizing strain with the former I plead no Suspension My heart bleeds for our straying Apostats some falling to rank Popish Idolatrie others to the delusions of Quakerism which if learned and judicious persons be not mistaken is but Popery under a disguise However O that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears to weep day and night over these deluded Soules under whatsoever Denomination they goe O that their eyes were opened to see the Sin the Scandal and Danger of their way It might be of some use to speak of the Causes of so great a Defection had not these Papers already swelled to such a bignes I shall therefore only transiently hint at a few And First There is alace an innate Principle of Levity and Instability in peoples hâ—arâ—s so that they are ready to be Tossed to and frolike Children with every wind of Doctrine Eph. 4.14 If the heart be not established by grace The 〈◊〉 siâ—eration of this should humble all and make us jealous our own hearts and watch unto Prayer lest we fall into temptation Secondly Seducers have usually a wonderfull insinuating faculty Rom 16.18 By good words and faire speeches they deceive the hearts of the simple By smooth words accommodated to the complexion of these with whom they deal they steal away their hearts as is said of Absolon Yet they in a manner fascinat and bewiâ—ch them as is the Apostles expression Gal. 3.1 And now these decenfull workers as they are termed 2 Cor. 11.13 have taken an unusuall boldness upon them to intrude into all companies where they have any hope of prevailing These therfore who would eschew their Contagion would shun their fellowship as they would shun Persons smitten with the Plague for the Words of Seducers doe eat as a Gangren 2. Tim. 2.17 The Apostle Iohn would not breath in the same aire with the Heretick Cerinthus but sprang out of the Bath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayeth Euseb lib. 3. hist Eccles cap. 25. How soon he perceived the Heretick to be there Thirdly As Hereticks are high and specious in their pretences so also bold and peremptory in their Asseverations The Romish Emissaries talk bigly of the Church as if none had an interest in the Catholick Church but these of their way The Quakers take us great a latitude to boast of the Light and Spirit God forbid that we should derogat from the necessity or efficacy of the Spirits working or from the due esteem to the Catholick Church nay I hope our hearers know we speak more to the just advantage of both then either Jesuit or Quaker But besides these vain and specious pretences these men are very confident in their Asseverations Though they cannot solidely prove any of their Erronious Positions yet they will affirme the truth of them boldly and be ready to Anathematize
period to this controversie I had condescended to mention to you Grounds of the truth of the Religion of PROTESTANTS which are not really competible to any false Religion however they may be pretended too It is hard to me to tell whether in your enumeration of them or in your ludicrous way of confutation you manifest more Childish weaknesse and folly And first in the enumeration of the grounds of Religion you number up five more indeed then ever I gave you For the first two namly the Intrinsick objective evidence of Religion and The conformity thereof to the word of GOD were never mentioned by me as two distinct grounds yea your self in your third Paper reckoned these as Synonima's and therefore you but play the child in reckoning them as distinct Neither is the fifth ground which you mention concerning The perspicuity of the Scriptures to be adequatly distinguished from these But your cheife prevarication is in that which you mention as the Third ground of the truth of our Religion namly that Religion being a complex of many divine truth cannot be all proven at once but by compating each of these truths with the word of GOD. I could not have expected that a man who was not in a perfect Delirinm could have bewrayed such stupidity for this was never laid down by me as a Ground of our Religion Nay a Child might have discerned by the very terms that this was onely brought as a reason why in such a short Paper I could not be tyed to give you the grounds of our Religion For it were to tye me as matters are now stated to writ a whole bodie of controversies What an impudent cheat then is this you would put upon your Reader to substitute that as a Ground of the truth of our Religion assigned by me which in very deed was brought by me as a reason why I was not tyed at this time to give you any grounds Henceforth therefore when you goe to impugne any thing in my Papers propose it in my own terms else I must say to you in the words of the Poet. Quem recitas meus est O Fidentine libellus Sed malè dum recitas incipit esse tuus You discover no lesse weaknesse in your trifling confutation of these grounds of Religion for all ye say to every one of them which five times you doe repeat is that a false Religion may alleage all these grounds But herein you play the silly Sophister Ab ignoratione elenchi for the question is not whether the PROTESTANT or true Religion hath grounds which a false Religion may not alleage or pretend but whether the PROTESTANT Religion hath grounds which cannot be verified of a false Religion I freely grant that a false Religion may lay claime to the grounds of the true Religion as the mad man of Athens laid claime to all the Ships that came into the Harbout as his own though none of them were his But the Grounds of the true Religion can never be verified of a false Religion It was not enough then for you to say that a false Religion may lay claime to those Grounds nay nor was it to the purpose unlesse you could also have shewed that the Ground of the PROTESTANT Religion namely Conformity with the Scripture might be verified of a false Religion This you ought to have showen if you had intended a real confutation of my grounds But this you will find as impossible for you as to remove the Earth from its Axis If you looke againe to my last Paper you will finde that in stead of these Five grounds of your mustering I gave only these Two grounds from which indeed the truth of the Religion of PROTESTANTS and the falshood of the present Romish Religion may be discovered The first was The perspicuity of the Scripture in all things necessarie to Salvation which I did confirme by luculent Authorities which you have not once dared to examine The other was From our Agreement in essentials with the faith of the purest and most Ancient primitive Church in the first three Centuries And with all from this I deduced a demonstration of the falshood of your now Romish Church and Religion from the discrepancy thereof in essentials from the faith of the Catholick Church in the first three Centuries which I confirmed from your Formula Fidei or Popish Creed contrived by Pope Pius the fourth which differs in its essentials from the faith of the Church in the first three Centuries Had you been willing that imparriall search should be made whether the truth stood on your side or on ours Had you not here matter enough to work upon both from Scripture and Antiquity But dissembling all my arguments from these principles you onely give this snifling Answere that they who have a false Religion may also pretend that their Religion is also contained in Scripture and is conforme to the Religion of the primitive Church To which I Reply first that these forementioned grounds doe not cease to be grounds for proving the True Religion because Hereticks pretend an interest in them Nay on the contrary Hereticks laying claime to them is a strong persumption that they are the induitable grounds of the true Religion as a Rogues pretending conformity with the Law is so farr from proving that the Law is no discriminating Test betwixt Honestie and Roguery that it is rather a vehement presumption of the con-ratie Secondly Had you resolved to goe to the borrome of the busines you should have proved that either these grounds assigned by me are not proper grounds for the discerning the True Religion from a false or that these grounds doeth really agree to a false Religion that is That a false Religion is perspicuously contained in Scripture and doth agree in its essentials with the Religion of the primitive Church in the first three Centuries or that these grounds doe not agree to the Religion of PROTESTANTS But none of these doe you once attempt to performe Nay over againe you are put to prove any of these which if you doe Tu Phillida solus habeto But thirdly I demonstrate on the contratie that these are sure grounds by which the truth of Religion may be discerned Thus if Scripture be not a sufficient ground and Test to distinguish a true Religion from a false then it must be either because it doth not containe All things necessary to Salvation or because it doth not hold out Perspicuously all these things for there is no other impediment imaginable unlesse with the Infidell you should question the Authority of Scriptures But when we say that the Scripture is the indubitable Test for discerning the True Religion from a false it is to be understood among Christians who acknowledge the divine Authoritie of Scriptures Consequently if the Scriptures be Perspicuous in all things necessary to Savlation as our Divines have often demonstrated and I cleared in my last by irrefragable testimonies both of Ancients and of
your own Doctors then it must be a sufficient ground and Test to discerne a True Religion from a false Your cavill concerning the ambiguity of Scriptures is frivolous For if Scripture had not sufficient objective grounds means of interpretation being duely used to clear its own genuine sense in all things necessarie to Salvation then were it not Perspicuous which is against the Hyphothesis laid down against which you have not adventured to move one Objection So that still it holds that if Scripture be perspicuous in all things necessarie to Salvation it must be a sufficient ground and test to discerne a True Reilgion from a false What therefore remains but that either you show the Scriptures not to be clear in all things necessary to Salvation or else that both the Religion of PROTESTANTS and Papists be brought to this Test and examined which of them are really conforme thereunto But next as to the other ground I argue thus Either the faith of the Catholick Church in the first Three Centuries was the True Christian Religion or not If not then there was no true Christian Religion at all Absit blasphemia If it was then what accords with it in its essentials must be the True Christian Religion and on the contrary what differs from it in essentials cannot be the true Christian Religion and therefore here againe I appeal you either to show an essential difference betwixt the ancient True Christian Religion in these ages and ours or that there is an agreement in essentials betwixt the ancient Religion in these ages your Romish Religion as it is expressed in that Formula fidei of Pope Pius the fourth or else to acknowledge that the Religion of PROTESTANTS is the True Religion and that your Romish Religion is but a Farrago of falshoods and Innovations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In your penult section you whisle like a child concerning the Clergies assistance In actu primo to give the true sense of Scripture and you call upon me to prove that our Clergie hath such an assistance As if it were a point of our faith that the knowledge of the Clergies infallible assistance for of that onely you must be understood were a necessary prerequisite before the true sense of Scripture can be known But have I not often told you that this is denyed by us and also often appealed you if you could to prove it else I would hold it for confessed that you could not doe it But to call you to your duety is Surdo canere Yea from this your assertion concerning the knowledge of the Clergies assistance I have showed you to be encircled in an inextricable Contradiction from which you have never attempted to expede your self Onely in your last Paper you flinched from your own principle as if you had onely affirmed that the Actus secundus presupposes Actum primum which none denyes Know therefore againe that a Doctor may give the true sense of Scripture and we may have ground enough To beleeve that it is the true sense which he gives though neither he nor we have an anteceden knowledge of his Infallible assistance in actu primo as a civill Judge may give the true sense of a municipall Law and I may have sufficient ground to beleeve that he hath sensed it aright though neiâ—â—er he nor I have antecedent knowledge that he hath Infallible assistance in act primo Though in all these things you have bewrayed shamefull weakenesse and as a Thersires declyned to examine what was reponed to you in all my Papers yet now like a vaiue glorious Thrasâ— in the conclusion you sing a Triumph but without a Victorie Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici What means this insulting that you cry out of the poor posture out Religion is brought too Have you said ary thing that would have reduced the weakest Tyro in our Schools to a strait Have I slipped one Punctillo in any of your Papers which I have not confuted Hath not all you have writen been sitted Ad furfures Can you say the like of my Papers Yet you are bold to compare the Religion of PROTESTANTS to a Knâ—ve pretending Honestie and not able to prove it but Mutato nomine narratur fabula de iâ— He that would compare your Romish superstition with the Religion of PROTESTANTS might aswell compare Catiline with Cato the Rogue Ziba with Honest Mephibosheth or the strumper Thais with chast Lucretia But I shall propose a true Emblem of the stare of our Religion and yours from the state of the present debate betwixt you and me leaving the application to your own self Suppose that Titius and Sempronius stood at the barre and that Titius acclaimed the monopolie of Honesty to himself And withall accused his Neighbour Sempronius as a verie Knave because as Titius alleaged he could produce no grounds to prove his Harestie On the other hand Sempronius modestly shew how easie it were to recriminat and retote all these accusations upon Titius Yet though he might have desired Titius as the Accuser to prove his indytment or else to suffer Secundum Legem talionis and to be esteemed as an arrand Knave yet he would condescend so far as to give Grounds by which his Honesty might be proven But with this Proviso that both he and his Accuser Titius might be brought to the Test that the World might see who was the Rogue and who the Honest-Man The first Ground to which Sempronius appeales is the Law protesting that both he and his Accuser Titius may be judged by that Rule The other Test to which Sempronius referres himself for tryall Is the practise and example of men of untainted Honestie such as Aristides Fabricius Cato c. Protesting likewise that he be stigmatized as the Rogue whose conversation shall be found discrepant from theirs Tïtius though at first a bold Accuser yet not able to endure so accurate a tryall studies all the subterfuges his poor wit could invent And first he declines the Law alleaging it could not be the Ground of tryall because it is ambiguous and admits of diverse and contrarie senses nor can any give the sense of the Law except he be Iufallible Which gift of Infallibility Titius would have all men to beleeve though he cannot prove it to be peculiar to himself alone so as no sense of the Law may be admitted but that which he homologates And for the example of Aristides Fabricius and Cato c. They are too strict Paterns for Titius yet not dareing openly to condemne them he makes this evasion What Knave sayes he is there that may not pretend conformitie both with these and also with the Law But Sempronius gravely answers that however Knaves might pretend conformity both to the Law and Practises of Good-Men yet they had it not And againe he solemnly protests that the matter might be put to exact tryall whether the Accusers or his conversation were agreeable to the Law and these untainted
Scriptures or not If you have it produce it Sure I am your Councill of Trent hath passed no such Decree and for what I know none else If none then are you a manifest wrangler and you have no certainty of faith for the Thesis which you mantaine But let you wander in the mist as you will I have premised this to clear the grounds on which I walke and so I shall proceed to examine your Objections which are like so many roveing arrowes shot without the prefixing of a marke First then you object That the perspicuity of the Scriptures cannot serve as a distinctive ground of our Religion from a false except first I prove that the sense which we give of Scripture is the genuine sense intended by the holy Ghost But this precarious and meerly assertory Objection may with far more reason be inverted against your self For if the Perspicuity of the Scriptures in all things necessary cannot serve as a distinctive ground of our Religion from a false then must it either be because Scripture is not perspicuous in all things necessary or else because the sense given by PROTESTANTS is not the genuine sense of Scripture and consequently it was itcumbent to you as the Opponent who have undertaken in your fourth Paper To impugne any ground affigned by me I say it was incumbent to you either to have proven that Scripture is not perspicuous in all things necessary or else that the sense given by PROTESTANTS is not the genuine sense of Scripture But neither of these doe you once attempt to prove It is like you did perceive the worke would be too hard for you and therefore according to your tergiversing humor you set your self onely to studie shifts and evasions whereof this Objection is the first to decline your duty But from this your first subterfuge you may easily be beaten by this Dilemma For either Scripture is perspicuous in all things necessary or not If you say not then why doe you not bring arguments to disprove its perspicuity you being the Opponent If you grant that it is perspicuous then why may it not be a ground to distinguish a True Religion from a false Even as a clear luculent Charter or Patent under the great seal may be a ground to justifie the title of an honest Sempronius against the pretences of a cavilling Titius Nor can it be matter of such impossibilitie for PROTESTANTS as you falslie insinuate to find out the true sense of Scripture if Scripture be perspicuous May you not then see what worke is incumbent to you if you desire to have the matter in controversie canvased Namely either to prove That Scripture is not perspicuous in all things necessary or else That the Religion of PROTESTANTS is not agreeable to that true and perspicuous sense of Scripture And seeing you may as easily prove light to be darkenesse as disprove the perspicuity of the Scriptures in all things necessary to Salvation you may try your Acumen upon the consonancy of our Religion with the true and genuine sense of Scripture Pitch therefore upon the chiefe points in controversie betwixt you and us such as your pretended Infallibilitie The headship of your Pope your Transubstantiation and Sacrifice of the Masse and let it be tryed whether they be agreeable to the genuine sense of Scripture I shall be willing to heat and to examine what you have to say for them and withall Godwilling I shall not be wanting to repone to you arguments to prove them to be impious errors and dissonant or the perspicuous and genuine sense of Scripture Then may you best discerne whether we PROTESTANTS can hold forth the true sense of Scripture But your whole designe appears to be to shift a Scripturall tryall And this is generally observed now to be the way of your late Pamphleters and herein you resemble the old Hereticks of whome said Tertullian Lib. De resurrections Carnis cap. 3. Anfer Haereticis quae cum Ethnicis sapiunt ut de Scripturis solis suas quaestionâ—s sistant stare non possunt A noble and luculent testimony both for the Perspicuity and Perfection of the Scripture seeing all heresies may be confuted by Scripture And withall a remarkable character of Hereticks in shuning to be brought to this Test as knowing then that they cannot subsist And justly you as well as old Hereticks may on this account be termed Lucifuga But lest I should seeme onely to make use of Contra-argumentation against you Therefore I adde from what hath been said this briefe and direct Answere to your first tergiversing Objection If say you for this is all the force that I can reduce it to The perspicuity of Scripture serves as a distinctive ground of our Religion from a false then should I first have proven the sense given by PROTESTANTS to be the true sense of Scripture Answere had I sustained in this debate the part of an Opponent this inference might have had some colour of reason But seeing at the time I onely stand in the capacity of a Defendant and Respondent I simply deny that any such thing was incumbent to me at present I thus answere not from any diffidence of the PROTESTANT cause and therefore forbear cavilling But that I may keepe with you the exact rules of disputing The truth of our Religion and its consonancy with the genuine sense of Scripture hath been so often and so luculendy shewed by the Champions of the PROTESTANT cause that for me to adde any thing thereto were but to bring a torch to give light to the Sun All that could be expected of me according to the Rules of disputing is to clear off any cavils which you bring against the consonancy of our Religion with the true sense of Scripture Yet will you come to the examination of particular points in controversie you shall perhaps find that I shall not only doe the part of a Defendant In the mean time is it not a strong presumption that the truth shines brightly on our fide seeing after all your insolent boastings and so many peremptorie appeales from us you can bring no positive argument either against the Scriptures perspicuity or the consonancie of our Religion with the genuine sense of Scripture but only betake your self to your flieing shifts declinaturs this for your first objectioÌ„ Ye object Secondly That before I affirme so boldly that all things necessary are contained in Scripture I should first have drawne up a List and Catalogue of these necessary truths whereas Scripture say you makes no distinction betwixt these necessarie truths and others And now you would be making use of an old example of mine That there is no way to prove a piece of Gold to be upright but by producing it to be examined To which I repon First that by this your objection against the Scriptures being a sufficient Canon as containing all things necessarie to Salvation you contradict your own self For a great part of
the scop of your first Paper and Syllogisme was to hold out That the true Religion hath grounds to prove it self to be conformâ— to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. But this were impossible if all Religion and consequently what ever is necessarie to Salvation were not contained in the writen Word of God And therefor in my answere to your First Paper I concluded from that Syllogisme that you had overturned your Vnwriten traditions So that now you are not in Bonâ fide to object against the Perfection of Scriptures as containing all things necessary to Salvation without contradicting your self But this hath been a fatalitie which hath attended you throughout all this debate Secondly this your demand Of drawing up a Lift and Catalogue of necessaries is an old cavill of your Romanists which our Divines have often canvased and therefore â—s I told you that you would be served when you renewed old Refuâ—ed Cavills Itemit you to see what hath been said to this purpose By Master Chillingwerth in his Defence of Petter part 1. capp 3.4 And by Stilling-sleet In his Vindication of the Bishop of Canterbury against T. C. part 1. cap. 4. And Crakantliorp in his ' Defens Ecclesia Anglicana cap. 47. Thirdly you falslie affirme that the Scripture doth pur no distinction betwixt divine truthes of absolute necessitie to Salvation and others the beleef whereof is not so indispensably necessarie Sayeth not the Scriptore Heb. 11.6 He that cometh unto GOD must beleeve 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Is the like Character of necessitie put upon everie truth Is there I pray as great necssiâ—tie to beleeve that Paul left a Clok at Treat 2. Tim. 4.13 As to beleeve there is a GOD Know you not that of Austin lib. 1. Contra Iulianum cap. 6. Alia sunt in quibus inter se aliquande etiam doctissimi atê™ optimi regulae Catholicae defensores salva fidei compage non consonant alius alio de una re melius aliquid dicit verius hoc autens unde nunc agimus ad ipsa pertinet sidei fundamenta Where the Father acknowledges there are some Foundation truths in Christianitie absolutly necessarie and others not so You may see this larglie proven by Master Baxter in his Key for Catholiks part 1. cap. 16. And Crakanthorp loco citato no to mention others Fourthly I absolutlie denie that it was incumbent to me at this time to draw up a Lift of truths simply necessarie to Salvation and it was a tergiversing Shift in you to demand it that so you might keep off the eximination of that which is mainlie in controversie betwixt us For though I with reformed Divines doe affirme that all things necessarie to Salvation are contained in Scripture Yet neither they nor I affirme that it is necessary to Salvation to have a precise Catalogue of things necessarie containing neither more not lesse Did I pray you Chryfostome draw up a Catalogue of necessaries when he said Hom. 3. In epist 2. Ad Thess That all things necessarie are clear and manifest in the Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Augustin when he said Lib. 2. De doct Christ cap. 9. that In â—is quae aperte posita sunt in these things which are plainly laid down in the Scripturs Inveniuntur amnia are found all which belong to faith or maners Or Tertullian when he said Scripturae plenitudinem adero Cannot this generall be proven that all things necessarie are contained in the Scriptures unlesse a precise Catalogue be drawne Is there no way to prove an Universall conclusion but by an induction and enumeration of all particulars Cannot I conclude that all the dead shall rise at the last day unlesse I can draw up a list of all the race of Mankind Or that all the Reprobat shall be eternally shut up in hell unlesse I can give you a catalogue and definit number of that generation of GODS wrath Can I not conclude that all Jesuits are devoted Slaves to the Pope unlesse I can give a catalogue and a definit number of these locusts Is not the generall which we affirme abundantly proven by these Scriptures in which the sufficiencie of the Scripture to bring men to Salvation is held forth As 2. Tim. 3.15.16.17 John 20.31 Gal. 1.8.9 c. In so much that Tertullian was bold to say Contra Hermogenens cap. 22. Doceat Hermogenes Scriptures esse si non est Scriptum timeat illud vae adjicientibus ant detrahentibus destinatum Yea what if it should be added that the explicite beleef of more truths may be necessarie to the Salvation of one then of another Said nor the Lord Christ Luke 12.48 Unto whome much is given much shall be required Whereupon a great Divine spared not to say That to call for a precise catalogue of necessarie truths is as unreasonable as if one should desire us to make a coat to fit the Moon in all her Changes or a garment to fit all statures or a dyall to serve all Meridians or to designe particularly what provision may serve aâ— Army for a year whereas there may be an Arâ—â—ie of a thousand and an Army of an hundreth thousand whose provision therefore cannot be alike But what ever be of this let it suffice to have given you this generall character of necessarie truths that no truth of Religion is further to be accounted necessary then Scripture puts a character of necessity upon it And here by the way I might let you see what a fool you wer in medling with my example Of trying pieces of gold severally by the Tonchstone For in the present case it can import no more but that before any truth be concluded necessarie it must first be found that the Scriptures hath put a character of necessity upon it and consequently all necessarie truths must be contained in Scripture Quod erat demonstrandum You would therefore not medle with my weapons lest they cut your hands But Fifthly and lastly I adde that you Romanists are as much concerned to draw up a list and catalogue of necessaries as we and I am sure in so doing you shall find greater difficulty especially if with your late Champions you say that all that and onely that is necessarie which your Church hath defined For first can ye agree among your selves to tell me what you mean by the Church Or secondly can you enumerat a precise catalogue of all that the Church hath defined Or how can you ascertaine any of the true sense of these Definitions Or Thirdly can you show me who hath impowered the Church since the dayes of the Apostles to put a Character of necessity to Salvation upon a truth which had it not before And Fourthly did not I from this demonstrate your Religion to be a false Religion because it differs in its essentials and in these things which to you are necessary to
SalvatioÌ„ from the faith of the most ancient primitive Church Seeing your Formula fidei contrived by Pope Pius the fourth hath made all the canons of the councill of Trent necessarie which I am sure neither you nor any man shall be able to show to have been the faith of the most Ancient and primitive Church Though this hath been put to you once and againe yet have you not dared to touch upon this string Yea Fifthly from this your imposing new necessary articles of faith whereas Regula fidei as Tertullian well sayed Lib. de velandis Virgin Una omnino est immobilis irrefomabilis many of our Divines have demonstrated your Church to be the most Schismaticall society that bears the name of a Church under Heaven For by this you have cut your selves off both from the ancient Church and from the greatest part of Christendome at this day Among many others who have convicted you of this greivous crime you may try how you can expede your self from that which hath been said to this purpose by Decter Morton in his booke intituled The Grand Imposture of the Church of Rome cap. 15. by Stilling fleet in his Vindicatione of the Bishop of Canterbury part 2. cap. 2. And Voetius in his Desperata causa Papatus lib. 3. From this it were easy to demonstrat that notwithstanding your great pretences to Catholicisme we not ye are the true Catholiks For we acknowledge coÌ„munion with the whole Church both ancient modern which keep the essentials fundameÌ„tals of Christianity But your Chuch by imposing new necessary articles of faith which neither the ancient Church nor yet the greatest part of the present Church did ever acknowledge have cut your selves off from the body I shall close this Section with this Dilemma Either the Scriptures doe containe all that is necessarie to Salvation or not if they doe then you are a perverse wrangling sophister in cavilling against this truth If not then instance one necessary truth not contained in Scriptures And this should have been your worke if you would have done any thing to purpose against this precious truth of the Scriptures being a compleet Canon to have showed some Necessary article of faith not contained therein And if you set to this worke remember that according to your own principles you must prove it by some infallible authority which you will find as hard a worke as to roll Sysiphi Saxum In place of your third objection you enquire What are the means for interpreting Scripture what is the due use of these means Whether a false Religion may not use the meane And whether people without preaching can duely use the means of interpretation and come to the knowledge of all things necessary And from the use of meane of interpretation you would conclude the Scriptures not to be perspicuous Behold now of a disputant you are become a Querist You have need I confesse in your old dayes to turne a Catechumen and if you would become a docile Disciple you might receive convincing instructions and find that you had no just cause to have turned a Runnagade from the Religion of PROTESTANTS unto which you were baptized But so long as your Queries proceed from a cavilling humor you deserve no other answere then the retortion of some puzling Queries as our Lord Christ sometimes confuted the insidious interrogaturs of his adversaries A remarkeable instance whereof you may find Luke 20. from verse 2. to verse 8 And therefore to pull down these Spider webs in which you seeme not a little to confide know First that the use of means of interpretation doth nothing derogat from the asserted Perspicuity of the Scriptures especially seeing the principall means of interpretation are to be fetched from the Scripture it self Suppose a man be in a darke Roome with his eyes shut because he must first open both eyes and windowes before he can see the Sun will you therefore accuse the Sun of obscurity Is not the Perspicuity of Scriptures luculently attested Psal 119. vers 105.2 Pet. 1.19 2. Cor. 4.3.4 Rom. 10.7.8 c. If Scriptures be not perspicuous in things necessary it must be either because GOD would not speake clearlie in them or because he could not It were too hard blasphemie to say he could not Who made mans mouth Exod. 4.11 Hence Laâ—tantius lib. 6. Institut cap. 21. Num Deus linguae mentit artifex lâ—â—uinâ—n potest Nor can you say because he would not seeing this is the verie end of Scripture to reveal unto us the way of Salvation Iohn 20.31 Rom. 15.4.2 Tim. 3.15 Dare you say that our holy and gracious Lord did purposlle deliver the whole Scripture obscurely as Aristâ—tle did his Acromaticks and therefore said of them Edidi non edidi You might have learned a better lesson from Ierom on Psal 96. Where he makes this difference betwixt the writings of Plato and the Apostles Plato said he purposlie affected obscurity that few might understand but the Apostles wrote clearly that they might accommodat themselves to the capacities of all the people of GOD. But Secondly Are not you Romanists as much concerned as we in finding out the means for interpreting Scripture yea and besides to find out also means for interpreting the Decretalls Bulls and Breves of your Popes Are you not acquaint with the perplexed debates of your Authors and particularlie how Stapletons eleventh booke de Principiis fidei Doctrinalibus is wholly spent De mediis interpretandi Scripturam And when all is done you Jesuits can never think your Roman cause sufficiently secured except your Pope be made the onely Infallible Interpreter of Scriptures and therefore Gregorius de Valentia lib. 7. De analysi fidei cap. 1. Proposes this assertion as that which he would prove throughout the whole booke Pontifex ipse Romanus est in quo authoritas illa residet quae in Ecclesia extat ad judicandum de omnibus omnino fidei controversiis And though in his Lib. 8. he mentions diverse rules in determining controversies of faith yet at last he concludes in Cap. 10. That the Pope may use these according to his discretion and that he is not tyed to take advice of Cardinals or other Doctors but according to his pleasure and that he may desyne as Infallibly without them as with them So that till the Scripture have no libertie to speake any thing but what sense your Popes are pleased to put upon it you can never secure either your Pope or Papal Religion from Scriptural Anathema's Were it not easie for me here to give you and the World a Specimen of goodlie expositions of these your infallible interpreters I meane your Popes such as Syricius Innocent the third Boniface the eight c. They who can expound Statuimus by Abrogamus and Pasee â—ues meas of deposing and killing of Princes what Glosses can they not put on scriptures By this it may appeare that this your Querie like all
the rest returnes upon your own Pate But Thirdly had PROTESTANTS devysed new Means of interpretation which had not been made use of by the Church in all times you might have had some pretext for this demand But we doe cordially subscrive to that of the Apostle 2. Peter 1.20 No prophesie of Soripture is of any privat interpretation I shall therefor remit you to Whitaker controver de Scriptur Qu. 5. cap. 9.10.11 12. Chamier Tom. 1. Panstratiâ— Lib. 16. A. cap. 4. ad finem Zauchius Tom. 8. tract de script â—u 2. Gerard the Lutheran In Uberiori exegesi loci de scriptura cap. 25. Where you will find the means of interpretation acknowledged by PROTESTANTS and the way how they are to be used luculently set down and vinditated from the cavilâ— of Stapletâ—n and others Or if your prejudice will not permit you to take them from our Authors you may take them from Austin in his Foure bookes de Doct. Christ Where it is verie remarkeable that though he be verie copious in assigning rules for the right understanding of the Scriptures yet he never once makes mention of that Infallible assistance of the Bishop of Roâ—e which is an undoubted evidence that Austin was not of your now Romish faith By this we understand what an impudent calumny that is of Bellarmin lib. 3. De verbo Dei cap. 1. who when he is stateing this question of the perspicuity of the Scriptures charges reformed Divines as mantaining Scripturam esse tam apertam in se ut sine explicatione sufficiat ad controversias sidei terminandas As if we mantained that there were no need of interpretation of Scripture which none of our Divines doe affirme And therefore to cut off that cavill I purpofly added that caution of Using the means of interpretation albeit on the other hand you would abuse this concession to derogat from the Scriptures perspicuty but with equal ingenuity with your Cardinal Fourthly Whereas you ask Whether the people without preaching can duely use the means of interpretation and come to the knowledge of things necessary to Salvation A ludibrious question as proponed by you implying as would seeme a clear Contradiction in it self For preaching is one of these means of interpretation and therefore it is all one as if you had asked whether people may at once use all the means and yet not use some of them Is it not a manifest Contradiction to use them all and not to use them all at once But to take of all mistakes we say that attendance on publick preaching is one meane to which people are tyed Necessitate praecepti when they may have it which is clearly confirmed by these Scriptures 1. Thess 5.20 Despise not Prophesieing Luke 10.16 He that despyseth you despyseth me Rom. 10.17 Faith cometh by hearing Yet doe we not affirme that the Publick preaching of the Word is a meane so indispenlably necessary that the true meaning of the word can in no case be had by the use of Other means such as reading Private instruction c. When the publict preaching is providentially denyed To this purpose you may see Ruffin lib. 1. Hist Eccles cap. 9. 10. But Fifthly there yet temaines one of your judicious queries namely Whether a false Religion may duely use the means of interpretation I think you would have asked whether people professing a false Religion may use duely the means for it is a verie incongruous speach to say That Religion useth means But passing that incongruicy I answere breifly that people professing a false Religion are bound De jure to use the means duely though De facto they doe not use them duely so long as they adheare to A false Religion For as I said from the beginning of this debate there is such an Objective evidence in Scripture truths that if they be not perceived when sufficiently proposed it is still through some defect on the part of the subject As doth luculentlie appeare from 2. Cor. 3.4 If our Gospel be hid it is to them in whome the God of this world hath blinded their minds And Joh. 7.17 If any man doe the will of GOD he shall know the Doctrine whether it be of GOD. This far have I condescended to satisfie your Extravagant Queriet and I hope have sufficiently vindicated from all your cavills this First ground of the true Religion taken from The Perspicuity and Perfection of the Scriptures But doe not expect hereaftere to meet with the like indulgence as if I would take notice of your ' Digressive questions when you neither observe rules of disputing nor keep close to the maine hing of the controversie I cannot here but put you in minde againe of another ground which I proposed in my last two Papers from which the truth of our Religion may be demonstrated namely The conformity thereof in all its essentials with the faith of the most Ancient Church in the first three Centuries This you still dissemble as if you were deafe on that eare Onely in the close of one of your observations concerning the perspicuitie of the Scripture to confuse these two grounds together that so you might escape in the darke and that your tergiversation and not speaking to this ground distinctly might be the lesse observable you doe impertinently throw in this word That the claims to antiquity is common to other sexts I beleeve you would have said Sects But besides what hath been said in my former Papers to redargue such a trifling Reply now I adde that the falshood of the claime of the other Sects may be evicted by holding out the discrepancy betwixt the faith of the ancient Church and false Religions As I proved the falshood of your Romish Religion from the dissonancy betwixt your now Romish faith or Formula fidei of Pope Pius the fourth and the faith of the ancient Church in these ages which as yet you have not once endeavoured to answere though now it be the third time put to you If you had intended to say any thing to purpose against us PROTESTANTS to this particular you should have instanced Some essentials of the Christian ReligioÌ„ wherin the ancient Church did differ from us But I find that the chief facultio of your Romish Champions lyes in braging and false accusing How often have they accused PROTESTANTS as Innovatours And who are such pretenders to antiquity as they But it is a true character which Scaliger gave long agoe of our and your writers Non sumus nos novatores sed vos estis veteratores And therefore to vindicate the truth which we mantaine from all their reproaches I have offered to dispute the cause of Religion betwixt us and you both from Scripture and Antiquity But you doe shift the tryall from both these grounds as much as a Theif would shift to be examined by a Iurie You are therefore againe required to answere my argument From the diserepancy betwixt your now Romish Creed and the faith of the
De Baptis contra Donatistas cap. 3. where he affirms Concilia plenaria priora à posterioribus emendari that former plenatie and generall Councills are amended by the latter and consequently the former undoubtedly erred The figetree â—â—ves wherewith Bellarmin and other of your authors would palliat these things are so fully examined by Chamier and other our controversists that I shal remit you to them But Fifthly if the peoples faith must be built upon the foreknowledge of the propounders assistance then whereupon is the faith of your Infallible Propounders built Must they not be perfect Enthusiasts What difference I pray you is there betwixt them and Quakers You may see if you will a prettie parallel to this purpose written by Clopenburg in Syntagmate selectarum exercitationum disp 2. The title whereof is Papistarum Enthusiastarum discordia concors Sixthlie suppose it were granted that either Pope or Council or both together were infallible yet seeing Christians dispersed through the world cannot receive the sentence of Pope or Council immediatly from themselves but at the second hand from such fallible persons as you How shall they know that you have sensed the Canon or Decretal aright Or what rule of interpretation have you for finding the true sense of these Canons or Decretals Did I not show you in my Fourth Paper how your own Authors altercate without end concerning the sense of your Canons What advantage then shall your people have by that supposed Infallible assistance of Pope or Council How shall they know that such a one as you who pretend not to Infallibility is not deceived in takeing up the sense of Canon or Decretal or that for base ends you will not deceive them But Seventhly did I not in a former Paper show that your Tridentiâ—e and Florentine principle of suspending the efficacie of Sacraments from the intention of the Preist doth destroy all certainty of Clergie men among you so that none of you can tell who is Pope Bishop or Preist And therefore you cannot have certainty of infallible assistance attending any person as a Clergie man and consequently you Romanists can have no certaintie of faith at all the verie foundation of it being overturned And yet you have the impudence to reproach us as having neither certainty of falth nor knowing what the nature of a supernatural assent is Quis tulerit Gracches de seditione querentes Know therefore Eightly that the assent which we give to divine truths Is truely supernatural I shall not blot Paper at the time with the aiery debats of your Schoolmen concerning the nature of a Supernatural being They who would recreat themselves with a diversion may see enough of these needle headed nyceties In Ripalda de Ente supernaturali in Arriag 1. part Disp. 3. And Carleton Tom. 1. Disp. 12. No to mention others Onely the assent we give is Supernatural both Objectively and Effectively That is both in regarde of its Formal object Viz divine revelation or the testimonie of GOD that cannot lye and in regard of the Efficient cause namely infused grace which doth elevat corroborat and quicken out understanding to the production of this assent Now whether there be no more to be said for the Supernaturality of our assent which is founded on the authority of Divine Scriptural testimony then for yours which is onely founded upon the authority of your Propounders that is a Priest or Jesuit for these are your immediat Propounders or at best a Pope or Councill whose Infallibility you can never prove and concerning whose sense you may fluctuat till you die whether I say there be not more to be said for the Supernaturality of our assent then for yours let these who are rational Judge But Ninthly that I may cut off all ground of cavilling whereas you propound the question thus Whether a man can beleeve a thing to be true precisly because it is revealed and spoken by GOD unlesse he be assured that GOD speakes by the month of him that proponed such a thing I Answere to both the branches of your question distinctly And to the First I say that if by Precistie you meane a seclusion of the Means of interpretation for the question at present is of the sense of Scripture or a seclusion of extrinsick motives of credibility you may know that we PROTESTANTS mantaine no such Seclusion But if you meane the seclusion onely of any Vlterior formal object into which the assent of faith is to be resolved then indeed we mantaine that the authority of divine testimony is the Vltimat formal object into which our assent of faith is to be resolved And this seemes clear from the nature of Divine faith which in this is distinguished from the assent of Humane faith or purely Sciential That Humane faith is built upon the authority of an Humane testimony and a Sciential assent on the Principles of reason but Divine faith upon the authority of Divine testimony Should we therefore in the resolution of Faith proceed to an Ulterior formal object It would either cease to be a Divine faith or else we should onely proceed from one Divine testimony to another And so we must either runne In infinitum from one to another or else rest in some last and then why not rather in the first Scriptural testimony which by the acknowledgement of all is Divine Whereas the divine authoritie of all your other testimonies are justly questioned and will never by you be solidlie proven except in so far as they speake consonantlie to the Scripture To the second branch of your question I Answere thus If your meaning be that the assurance of the Clergies assistance In actu primo to propound nothing but truth be a necessarie prerequisire then I simply deny it and often though in vaine have required you to prove it Nay I have demonstrated you to be involved in Contradictions by asserting it And if yet you will mantaine such a thing I shall but demand of you whereon that assurance of the Clergie or propounders assistance is founded Wherein I beleeve you shall never be able to satisfie your self nor any rational person But if you meane no more but that when we give an Assent of faith to an article of Religion propounded by another we must also Simul semel assent that the testimonie which he hath given thereto is true This is indeed granted But from this it doth not follow that the Previous assurance of the propounders infallibilty is the ground of my assent Even as when a Mathematician demonstrats a proposition of Enclide the sciential assent of the Hearer is not founded upon the authoritie of the Mathematician but upon the evidence of the Premisses from which he deduceth his Conclusion Albeit the Mathematicians propounding the premisses was a meane to draw forth the hearers assent and in assenting to the demonstration he assents to the Mathematicians discourse as true The same was the importance of that other example of a
to save his Soul is obliged in conscience to quit it and to betake himself to a diligent search where the True Religion is to be found prescinding for now where it is to be found and insisting meerlie in this that the Protestant Religion cannot be it This is proven by this one Syllogisme That Religion cannot be the True Religion which hath no special ground or principle whereby it can be proven to be a True Religion or to be a Religion conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. But the Protestant Religion hath no special ground or principle whereby it can be proven to be a True Religion or a Religion conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Ergo the Protestant Religion cannot be a True Religion You denying here the Subsumption were advertised of this one thing that a true principle or ground is not an indifferent nature but is essentially determined to prove and infer onely truth and so not to produce any thing for a principle or ground to prove the truth of the Protestant Religion which may serve with as great reason to prove a false Religion to be true After much fluctuation and many shifting toes and froes at lentgh you have pitched on two things which you say you will mantaine as solid grounds to prove the Protestant Religion to be true and to be distinguished from all false Religions The first is The perspcuity of Scripture in all points necessary to Salvation But it was showne you the great jugling that lyes under this answere For first by Scriptur of which is affirmed that it contains perspicuously all things necessary to Salvation must be understood the true letter and the true sense of the true letter of Scripture Ergo it cannot serve for a ground to prove the Protestant Religion to be a true Religion except it be first proven that the Protestants hath both the true letter and Translation and likewise the true sense of the letter To this in which the maine point consists you give no answere nor brings no proofe but onely remits me to read your Protestant Authors whome you call Champions and who as you say have made all thir things clear as the Sun But wherefore doe you not produce the reasons of these your Champions that they may be examined and impugued Secondly It was asked how you could so boldly affirme that all things necessar to Salvation or rather that all the tenets which the Protestant Religion holds as necessary to Salvation were contained clearly in Scripture except first Drawing op a catalogue of all things that the Protestant Religion holds as points necessary to Salvation and as contradistinguished from all other things not necessary To this you answere now that a Proposition in generall may be beleeved though the beleever cannot make an induction of all particulars contained in it So we beleeve that all the dead shall rise though we cannot give a particular account of their persons But it seems this answere hath escaped your penne when you were thinking on other things For though I beleeve a proposition in generall when that proposition is revealed in generall But where is it revealed that all the tenets that the Protestant Religion holds for points nocessar to Salvation are clearly in Scripture For giving and not granting that this generall proposition All things necessar to Salvation are clearly set down in Scripture were revealed by Scripture it self attesting it yet it doeth not follow that this other generall proposition is revealled All the tenets that the Protestant Religion holds as necessar to Salvation are clearly contained in Scripture or that they may be clearly deduced out of things clearly set down in Scripture Ergo it cannot be an object of divine faith but by deduceing it by Induction of particulars And to this serves your own example of a purse full of an hundred pieces of Gold for though I may beleeve in general that all the gold contained in that purse is upright gold if this were revealed in general by a sufficient authority yet prescinding from all authority affirmeing this I cannot assent that they are all and none excepted upright gold except taking them all one by one and putting them to the tryall because if only one of them were not upright the whole assent would be false Thirdly Though you say all things necessar to Salvation to be clearly set down in Scripture yet you require the due use of certaine middes to attaine to the true knowledge of thir things and being demanded to specifie thir middes and what you meane by the due use of them And for answere to this you bring now onely a long Digression about rules to interpret Scripture slightin the maine print which is to show in this a difference betwixt you and these of a false Religion and whether these of a false Religion may not use as duely these middes as you can doe for attaining to the true sense of Scripture To this you onely answere that De facto they doe not use duely these middes and That the God of this world hath blinded their minds c. But what if they apply this to your self The second ground that you have pitched upon to prove the Protestant Religion to be a true Religion and to be distinguished from all false Religion Is the conformity it hath with the doctrine of the first three Centuries But this cannot be a ground distinct from the conformity which you say your Religion hath with the true sense of the letter of Scripture Because giving and not granting that your doctrine had this conformity you cannot by this prove that it is a true doctrine since by you All these were fallible and might have erred And conformity with doctrine that may be error cannot serve to prove a doctrine to be true And if you reply that though they were fallible and might erre yet they did not erre because the doctrine they gave is conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture Ergo the conformity with them is not a ground distinct from the conformity with the true sense of the letter of Scripture Or else you might prove the conformity with the Acts of Parliament in matters of Religion to be a ground to prove the truth of your Religion and a distinct ground from the conformity which these Acts hath with the true sense of the letter of Scripture Ergo to make good that the conformity of your Religion with the doctrine of the Church in the first three centuries is a distinct ground from the conformity with the true sense of the letter of Scripture you must give some Authoritie to the Fathers who were then whereby they were preserved from error though of themselves they were fallible And this must consist either in some intrinsecal quality inherent in them or in some special extrinsecal assistance founded on Christs promite And here you have likewise to prove that this
intriâ—secal quality or extriusecal assistance did expyre and was extinguished in the end of The third Centurie inclusive so that it did not passe to the Fourth Centurie nor to none afterwards Wherein I expect likewise some Blasphemy out of your mouth to wit that Christ dispenses the protection promised to his Church that manner of way that natural Agents doth dispense their activity within a certaine Sphere Uniformiter Difformiter produceing more in parts near and lesse in the parts more remote But since Christ hath promised to be with His Church to the end of the world and that the portes of hell shall not prevail against her then the dogmes and doctrine of the Church in the fifteenth Centurie when Luther and Calvin leap out were as pure and as free from all error as they were in the first three Centuries and the one may be called as-much in question as the other since both are equally founded upon Christs promise haveing no shorter Sphere and terme then the end of the world I cannot omit by the way to marr and disturb a little the complesance and contentment that you seeme to take in dealing with your own shadow fancying Contradictions upon my part which are all founded upon your misapprehendings mistakeing one thing for another For you suppone that the knowledge of the ability and assistance in him who propones matters to be beleeved because it is prerequired to all Acts of divine faith that therefore it is in it self an Object of divine faith and so you confound the Evident assent and judgement of credibilitie with the Obscure Act of faith and the motive of the one with the motive of the other For though the Act or assent of divine faith cannot be had except this other preceed yet faith existent hath its own proper formal motive distinct from the motive of that other Act and judgement prerequired to it As likewise out of the fear of hel a Sinner may be induced to make an act of Contrition for his sinnes though his act of Contrition existent have no wayes for the motive of it the paines of hel Another contradiction you fancie to your self founded upon another ignorant mistakeing as if I had said that a point of Religion to be true and to be conforme to Scripture were two Synonims Since this was only said Ad Hominem and to oppugne you out of your own principles who holds that nothing can be a point of faith but that which is contained in Scripture or in the writen word of God and so in this you doe as other of your Champions hath done citeing for the assertions of scholasticks and fathers objections that they make against themselves Out of this appears how true it is that was told you that you show your self Altogether ignorant of the nature of divine and supernatural faith since that out of this that faith hath for the formal motive of it onely GODS word and revelation you infer that it may be obtained and exist though there not preceed a knowledge that GOD speaks by the mouth of the Propounder Yea in this you show your self also altogether ignorant of the nature of our intellect and understanding who as it cannot but assent when the object propounded is in it self evident so it cannot assent by faith whether divine or humane except it know the authority of him that speakes or propones and according as the hearer knowes him that speakes to be of lesse or more authority he adheres with more or lesse firmnes to the thing that is spoken because otherwise our intellect might assent to a thing though there were nothing to induce him since here there interveins nothing to induce one to beleeve but onely the authority of the speaker And what makes it to the purpose the instance which you bring against this to wit That sometimes a more skilful Iudge and Doctor may give a wrong sense of a Law and a weaker may give the true sense Since it may be likewise that an Old Wife give the true sense of a text of Scripture and you though both a Minister and a Teacher of Divinity give a false sense And yet it doth not follow but the understanding of the hearer will be inclined more to adhere and assent to your sense though false then to hers though true supponing that there interveene no other thing to move save onely your authority and hers Because that which induces immediatly the understanding to assent is not the objective truths of things in themselves but onely as they appeare according to that saying of Aristotle that oftentimes false things are more likely then true You can never end one of your Papers without some bragging and you end this persuading your self that your Papers containes such pregnant and convincing reasons against Popery that if they were revised by impartial Iudges they would turne backe to you againe with this superscription Desperata causa papatus But this must be beleeved because you say it and you your self must be of a sweet temper who can solace your self with such dreams Mr. JOHN MENZEIS his Reply to the Jesuits seventh Paper An Answere to Master Dempster the Jesuit his seventh Paper wherein he declines to have the truth of Religion tryed either by Scripture or Antiquity IT appears to be a true character which an old acquaintance of yours as I hear giveth of you that if you be put from your Common place you signify nothing And therefore you consume a great part of all your Papers in repeating In terminis your first Paralogisme together with some cunned scurvie preambles thereunto You seeme displeased that I should have termed you an Effronted calumniator c. If these names be so unpleasing to you why tooke you such pleasure to practise the crimes expressed thereby Why did you put a necessity upon me either to brand you with such a black character or to take with your false accusations which no man but he whose fore-head cannot blush would have uttered Did I not instance the particular Calumnies Falshoods and Prevarications whereof you are guilty If you were innocent why did you not vindicat your self But who can lesse endure the name of a Whoore then the veryest strumpet What integrity is in that person who hates Non Crimen sed criminis nomen not the crime but the name of the crime You have the boldnesse againe to demand from me Ten lines to the purpose Must all these my Papers be condemned as impertinent and histrionick digressions so civil are you in your complements because your dull and lethargick head hath not been able to examine The tenth line of them yea not one to purpose Did I not tel you from the beginning that I needed not Ten words let be Ten lines to answere all that you have said but onely these Two words Nego Minorem Now I give other two which likewise might suffice Nego Conclusionent I deny the conclusion in regard of the informalitie of the
whol structure of your Syllogisme which is the marrow of al you have hitherto said You have bestowed many years if my information fail not in studying this your rare Syllogisme Could you not in all that space have put it In modo figura But it seemes you will take as many years to prove either the Major or the Minor thereof But so much hath been said to these things before that now I shall adde no more least I should seeme Cum Batto balbutire In my first three Papers I required you to prove the Assumption of your Syllogisme But this like a Thersites you still declined which I could not but looke upon as an evidence that you succumbed in your probation I did likewise appeal you to produce a ground of the true Christian Religion which doth not agree to the Religion of PROTESTANTS But neither durst you adventure upon any Hereupon I might have turned my back upon you as a smattering fellow wholly incapable to mantaine a Theological debate But to render you the more inexcusable and to convince all to whose hands these Papers may come how desirous I was to have the truth examined I condescended Ex superabundanti though not tyed thereto by rules of disputing to produce in my fourth Paper Two irrefragable grounds by which the truth of Religion may be examined Viz The perspicuity of the Scripture in all things necessary to Salvation And Conformity with the faith of the most Ancient Christian Church Hereupon I have urged with all the earnestnesse I could in my Fourth fifth and sixth Papers that both your Religion and ours might be brought to these Tests and examined thereby namely both by Scripture and Antiquity But you like one who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self condemned knowing in your conscience that it is a wicked cause which you doe mantaine have still declined And the scop of this your seventh Paper is yet to decline the examination of Religion by either of these grounds But Veritas non quaerit angulos It is he who doth evill that hates the light Joh. 3.21 Yet have you the impudencie in this your Seventh Paper to say that after many toes and froes now I have produced two grounds as if either I had delivered some inconsistencies or had been driven to produce these grounds by force of your arguments or that now only in my last Paper these grounds had been first produced All which are manisest untruths Is this your gratitude to him who had so liberally gratified you with the production of these grounds When you were clearly at a Nonplus The two grounds which I produced I did prove in my Fourth Paper to be solid and sufficiently distinctive of the true Religion from a false and from them I did demonstrate the truth of our Religion and the falshood of yours for Rectum est sui obliqui Index but you have not once dared to examine these arguments While therefore you hold on in this your tergiversing way it might be enough for me to say to you with the Poet Carpere vel noli nostra vel ede tua Ought you not either to acquiesce to these Grounds produced by me or to produce others more solid especially you being the Opponent But yet once more I offer against you to disput the truth of our Religion both from Scripture and Antiquity and shall withall examine the scurvie pellucid and tergiversing evasions which you have made use of in this your seventh Paper You repeat here againe your three cavils against The Perspicuity of Scripture in all things necessary to Salvation or rather your three cowardly subterfuges to decline a Scriptural tryal but without any confirmation deserving a review I should the more patiently have borne with these taudologies had you been pleased for clearing the state of the controversie betwixt you and us to have delivered the judgement of your Romish Church concerning the Perspicuity of the Scripturs I told you the judgement of PROTESTANTS and shew you how they are injured by your writers I required you with the like plainness to set down the judgement of your Romish Church and the rather because your Authors are found to be inconsistent with one another in this matter And though I have looked upon your ablest Controversists namelie Bellarmin lib. 3. De verbo Dei cap. 1. Gretser In defensione capitis primi libri tertii Bellarmin De verbo Dei and Stapleton lib. 10. De principijs fidei cap. 3. Yet can I not find one Canon of a Council produced by any of them as to this particular Would they not have done it if they had any Doe you not manifest to the World you play the jugler when you dare not adventure to tell the judgement of the Romish Church even in that against which you doe so eagerly cavil You think you have disgraced all that I have writen by calling it A heap of digressions copied out of controversie bookes I find you indeed still better at calumniating then at arguing If my Paper did containe any impertinent Digressions why doe you not particularize them But I have already unfolded the Mysterie That which you cannot answere must be branded as a Digression to palliat your ignorance I acknowledge I have improven against you somewhat of the writings of Ancients of Schoolmen and of modern Coutroversists both of your side and of ours nor am I hereof ashamed This I hope is not the base Plagiarie trade which I leave to your Iesuits as being better acquainted with stealing other mens Papers Have you not heard how your famous Iesuis Antony Possevin did steal from Doctor Iames a learned PROTESTANT his Cyprianus redivivus and put it in his great Apparatus under his own name for which you may find how sharply he is chastised by Doctor Iames in his excellent treatise concerning The corruption of Scriptures Councils and Fathers by the Prelats Pastors and Pillars of the Church of Rome Part. 2. page 9.10 Goe trace backe all the Papers which I have sent to you and see if you can fix any such trespasse upon me As for you I confesse we have no cuase yet to accuse you of ripping up the bowels of many Authors All the Authority wherewith you have hitherto loaded us is Master Dempsters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You need not fear that any thing which as yet hath come frō you will be standered as Olens lucernam you onely ramble out any fleeing tergiversing Shifts that come first In buccam as a man who minded not to dive into the controversie However once yet as I have said I will trace your footsteps In your first Cavill you alleadge that The Perspicuity of the Scripturs cannot serve as a distinctive character of the Religion of PROTESTANTS from a false except I first prove that the PROTESTANTS have the true letter and translation and true sense of the letter To which you say I answered nothing but remitted you to our PROTESTANT Authors Here we
adde Doctor Strang de interpretatione perfectione Scripturae lib. 1. cap. 8. Where you might have found a full account of the right means of interpreting Scripture and of the right way of useing these means and consequently of the difference betwixt them that used them rightly and others who doe not use them duely Fourthly I resolved a Querie of yours whether without the preaching of the Word the means of interpretation may be used and the true sense of Scripture attained But of all these things in your reply like a perfect Fuge bellum you take no more notice then to asperse them as long Digressions about the rules of interpreting seripture A rare and compendious confutation I confesse But if I did extravague in these discourses was it not in following such a vagrant guide as you Doe you not play the Devil first to temp me to thse D. gressions and then to accuse me for them Yea doe you not show your self a silly fool to wound your self through my sides For if it be an impertinent Digression for me to answere your Queries must you not be an impertinent fool to propound them But perhaps you thought it your wisdome rather to come off with this reflexion of folly then to adventure to graple with these things which would prove too hard for you After you had waved all these particulars lest you should seeme to say nothing at all to that Section you fall upon a word which I spake in answere to another of your judicious Queries Viz. Whether these of a false Religion might duely use al the means of interpretatioÌ„ To which I answered De jure they ought to use them though De facto and in sensu composito they did not use them which I confirmed by some Scripturs To confute this my answere What say you if they of a false Religion say as much of as And who questions but they may say it Our lips are our own say the worst of men And who is Lord over us Psal 12 verse 4. Have we not sufficient experience of the licentious tongues of your Romanists doth it therefore follow that you doe duely use the means of interpretation and not we Si accusare sufficiat quis innocens We doe not desire any man to receive our expositions because we affirme them to be true nor are we so brutish as to suffer your Romish interpretations to be obtruded upoÌ„ us on your bare affirmatioÌ„ If you would come downe out of the clouds and not insist stil on generals you should find it is upon convinceing grounds from the series of the context other Scripturs the Analogie of faith c. That we reject your Romish senses and embrace these which are approved by PROTESTANTS As for Example there is a great Controversie betwixt you and us touching the sense of these words of Christ Hoc est Corpus meum This is my Body You will have them to be understood in A proper and lueral sense and by the Priests pronounceing or rather whispering them in Latine the Body of Christ to be substituted under the Accidents of bread We on the contratie affirme the sense of these words as is usual in Sacramental speaches to be Figurative the Bread being called the Body of Christ because it is a Sacramental figne and exhibitive Symbol of his Body You will find Armies of arguments brought by our Divines particularly By Whitaker Chamier Morton Nethenus c. To justifie our sense and to confute yours I shall at the time give you but a hint of this one According to your received Romisn glosse these words of Christ should be inexplicable false and imply a manifest contradiction therefore you Romish glosse must surely be false The Sequel is clear The Antecedent I prove And first I say these words of Christ should be inexplicable Straine your wit and squeeze your Authors to tell me what Hoc or the pronowne This can signifie Surely it can neither signify bread nor the Accidents of bread else the Proposition were not proper For al know that one Disparat cannot be properly predicated of another Nor can it signify The Body of Christ For according to you Christs Body is not there until al the Words be finished But the pronowne This doth clearly demonstrat something then present when it was spoken What therefore remains but that with other your Authors you betake your self to the desperat refuge of your IndividunÌ„ vagum Eus in confuso Contentum sub speciebus and what is that but something you know not what Was Christs understanding clouded with such confusion that he knew not what he meant when he said This But besides when ever any thing is truely predicated of an Individuum vagum though it be disjunctivly enunciated of many things yet it is determinatly verified of some one thing and therefor suppose the pronown Hoc or This were taken as an Individuuâ—â— vagum yet it must signifie something then present identificated with The Body of Jesus But that is impossible according to you seeing Christs Body is not present untill all the words be uttered More of the Vertigo of your authors touching this particular may be seen in the forementiond writers But I not onely said that this Proposition of Christ according to your Romish glosse would be Inexplicable but also False and Imply a contradiction For it implyes a manifest contradiction that a true affirmative proposition De praesenti should produce its object But this proposition which must be true as being Christs and which all see to be affirmative De praesenti according to your Romish glosse doth produce its object For according to you it substitutes the Body of Christ under the accidents of bread either by Adduction or Reproduction Ergo this proposition according to your Romish glosse implyes a manifest Contradiction The Major is clear because if a true proposition De praesenti should produce its object then in the Iustant of nature wherein the proposition is conceived before its object as the cause before its effect the proposition should be true and not true True ex hypothesi for it is supposed to be a true proposition Not true because not conforme to its object For it affirmes its object to be De praesenti yet in that Instant of nature the object is not for it is the instant of Priority before the object And consequently if this proposition This is my Body doe substitute Christs Body under the accidents of bread His Body should be under these accidents before it be under them For it should be under them in the first Instant of nature wherein this proposition is conceived else the proposition should be false And yet it should not be under them because the proposition as the productive cause of the presence of Christ must be presupposed for One instant of nature before its effect But what speake I of Instants of nature Is it not at least requited to the truth of an Affirmative proposition de
praesenti that the object thereof doe exist in that article of time wherein the Copula of the proposition is pronounced But according to you Christ Body is not under the accidents of bread when the Copula of the proposition is pronounced for according to you Christs Body is not in the Sacrament till all the Words be ended Therefore the proposition according to your Glosse cannot be true And yet it must be true as being the word of him who is truth it self And consequently it must be Ture and Not True Your Schoolmen have perplexed themselves with these Aenigma's but could never extricat themselves out of this labyrinth in so much that what one of them affirmes the other confutes As these hints prove the falshood of your Romish glosse so the truth of the sense given by PROTESTANTS is manifest from the Series of the context For if by the pronowne Hoc or This Christ meaned the bread then the sense of the proposition must be figurative But by the pronowne This he surely understood the bread Ergo c. The Major is clear because disparats cannot be predicated of one another but Figuratively The Minor is easily proven Because what he tooke blessed and did breake of that he said This is my Body as is clear from the Series of the context But undoubtedly he tooke blessed and brake the bread therefore it was the bread which he did demonstrate by the pronowne This. And consequently the sense must be Figurative Neither is this a late invention of PROTESTANTS Said not Austin Contra Adimantum cap. 12. The Lord doubted not to say This is my Body Cum daret signum Corporis sui That is when he gave the signe and figura of his Body And long before him Tertullian Lib. 4. Adversus Martionem cap. 40. Acceptum panem distributum Corpus suum fecit hoc est Corpus meum dicendo ad est figura Corporis mei Could Calvin or Beza have more luculently affirmed the meaning of Christs proposition to be Figurative I know your two Cardinals Bellarmin and Perron have scrued up a multitude of wrested testimonies of Antiquity as if the Ancient Church had favoured your monstrous sigment of Transubstantiation But Spalatensis Lib. 5. De Rep. Eccles cap. 6. à num 22. Ad numerum 164. not to mention other Authors hath copiously examined and fully vindicated all these testimonies and clearly demonstrated that the Church in the first Eight Centuries was in the same judgement as to the Sacrament of the Eucharist with the Reformed Churches By this touch the judicious Reader may discerne whether our exposition of that rext be not built upon solid grounds The like might be shewed if our expositions and yours were compared of other much tossed Scripturs such as Luke 22.32 I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not Matth. 16.18 Upon this rock I will build my Church 1. Tim. 3.15 The pillar and ground of truth Iob. 21.16 Feed my sheep c. And this were the most compendions way to try whether your expositioÌ„ or ours were the more genuine This also was the advice of Augustine of old Lib. 3. Contra Maximin Arianum cap. 14. Nec ego Nicaenum nec tu debes Arâ—minense tanquam prajudisaturus proferre Concilium Nec ego hujus authoritate nec tu illus detineris Seripturarum authoritatibus non quorumcunque proprys sed utrisque communâ—bus testibus res cum re causa cum causa ratic cum ratione concertes It is true throogh prejudice interest or blindnes men may oppose the most luculent truth after all these meanes But then the whole defect is as we have often advertised you Ex parts subjecti on the part of the subject And so much of your three frivolous cavils against the Scripturs perspicuity in al things necessarie to Salvation In your next section as you declined a tryal by Scripture so likewise you shun to have your Religion tryed by Antiquity and you pretend two noble shifts The first is that according to us al these in the first three Centuries were fallible and therefore though our Religion were conforme to theirs it will not follow that it is the True Religion I doubt if ever any had to doe with such a shamelesse tergiversing fellow For First suppose it were true that our Divines did say that all these of the three first Centuries were Fallible yet if you grant their Religion to be the True Religion and I admit their Religion as to all essentials to be a Test whether ours be true or not with what face can you decline it Know you not that Maxim of Law Testem quem quis inducit pre se tenetur recipere contrase Secondly how could you say That we affirme that all these of the first three Centuries were fallible seeing in these centuries were the Apostles whome we acknowledge to have been Infallible in their Doctrine But Thirdly by saying That we mantains that all in these ages even excepting the Apostles and pen-men of holy writ were fallible and subject to errors you discover your self to be either grosly ignorant of the judgement of PROTESTANTS or to be a base scurvie sophister which will appeare by distinguishing two words in your assertion For First the particle All may be taken either Collectively or Distributively And Secondly Errors of Religion are of two sorts Some in points fundamental and essential some in points which are not of such indispensable necessity This being premised I propose this Distinction If you meane that we mantaine that All in these ages Collectively taken that is the whole Catholick Church may erre in Fundamentals and Essentials it is a most absurd falshood for PROTESTANTS mantaine no such thing We acknowledge the promises for the perpetuity of the Church Isa 59. ver 21. Matth. 28 ver 20. c. But if the whole Catholick Church collectively taken did err in Fundamentals in any age then the Church for that time should utterly cease to be upon earth It is True sundrie of your Writers either through Ignorance or through their calumniating Genius have charged this on PROTESTANTS that they mantaine that the Church may utterly fail But this is so impudent a slander that Bellarmin himself is ashamed of it Lib. 3. De Ecclesia Militants cap. 13. Notandum sayeth he Multos ex nostris tempus terere dum probant absolute Ecclesiam non posse desicere nam Calvinus cateri Heretici id concedunt If therefore this be your meaning you charge PROTESTANTS falsly But if you onely meane that All in these ages taken Distributively remember that now we speake not of Apostles or of pen-meÌ„ of holy writ or of these who had an extraordinatie Prophetick spirit might erre in things not Fundamental this is granted Yet this hinders not but that the truth of our Religion may be proven by its conformity with the faith of the Ancient Church For though every one Distributively taken may erre in Integrals yet seeing Al
collectivly taken or the Catholick Church cannot erre in Essentials if the faith of the Catholick Church in these ages can be found out in the undoubted writings of the Fathers in these times then Conformity with their Religion will irrefragably prove Our Religion to be the True Religion as to all Essentials Yea if from the writings of the Aâ—â—ients in these ages we can find what was the faith of any one true Particular Church we may solidly argue thence as to the Truth of Religion in essentials For though a true particular Church may erre yet so long as it is a True Church it retaines the essentials of faith else it were not a true Church This Distinction which I have proposed is not mine onely but of our PROTESTANT Writers in this question concerning The Churches infallibility As you may see in Whitaker De Ecclesia quaest 3. cap. 1. Doctor Field His way to the Church lib. 4. cap 2. And others So that it is no evasion I propound to you but the received Doctrine of the Reformed Churches and hence the rest of this your cavil on which you foolishly dilate may be cut off If we grant say you Any infallibility to the Church in these three Centuries how did that gift expyre in the fourth and after following ages It is easily Answered This infall blility which we grant to the Collective body of the Church as to the Essentials and Fundamentals of faith agrees to her in every age else the Church in some ages should be utterly lost But though we grant that the whole Catholick Church cannot erre in Fundamentals be not so foolish as to apply this to your Romish Church You might as well say that Italians are the collective body of mankind as that you Romanists are the collective body of the Catholick Church Remember Jeroms smart admonitioÌ„ In Aepistola ad Evagrium Orbis major est urbe Only this I adde that though the Catholick Church be exempted from error in Fundamentals in every age yet the Church in all ages is not blest with Equal purity and splendor For in some ages the Integrals may be much more vitiated then in others Yea some particular Churches may erre in Fundamentals and so cease to be True Churches and many of these who were eminent Lights in the Church may be smitten with these Fundamental errors and the sincere Professors of the truth may be reduced to a great Paucitie and through persecution be scattered into corners as in the dayes of Athanasius Quando totus orbis miratus est se factum Arianum Lest therefore you cavil further at the restricting of my argument to these First three Centuries you may remember the first occasion of it which was this as you will find in my Fourth Paper I was speaking of the Ancient Apologists in the first Three Centuries who pleaded the truth of the Christian Religion against Heathens And I appealed both to Their grounds and their Religion in these dayes that it might be tryed whether our Religion were not agreeable to theirs in all Essentials and whether the solid grounds which they brought for the truth of the Christian Religion did not agree to the Religion of PROTESTANTS This I say was the occasion of limiting the argument to these ages though it might have been extended further Yea and as then we told was extended further by Bishop Juel and Crakanthorp even to the Sixth Centurie so also is it by learned Whitaker Contra rarionem quintam Campiani Nay others have extended it to all ages Nor need you carp at the limiting of the argument to the first Three Centuries For the faith of the Catholick Church in these Three ages was the faith of the Catholick Church in all Ages For there is but one Faith and therefore if it be proven that our Religion was the Religion of these ages it doth consequently follow that it was the faith of the Catholick Church in all ages So that this is the most compendious way to try whether a Religion be the faith of the Church in all ages by ascending to the fountain I mean to these first three centuries concerning which there is least doubt made by any Party and which was lesse viriated by superstition or errors in integrals then was the Church in some after times I come now to your second Evasion wherein you pretend That conformity with the Ancient Church is at least no distinct ground from conformity with the Scriptures seeing the truth of the faith of the Ancient Church can onely be proven by its conformity with the Scripturs But the vanity of this subterfuge doth easily appeare For First whether it be a Distinct ground or not yet if it be a Real ground why decline you to be tryed thereby You must surely have an ill conscience and know your wares to be sophisticat that they cannot abide the light Secondly If these grounds be not distinct how doth your Melehior Canus In his booke of commone places distinguish them giveing the first place to the Seripturs of which he treats Lib. 2. only the Sixth to Ancient fathers of whome he discourseth Lib. 7 Or how doth Bellarmin and other your Controversists ordinarly distinguish their argumeÌ„â—s founded on Scripture from the arguments founded upon Antiquity But Thirdly wholly to remove this cavil I grant that the truth of Religion in any former age may be proven from its conformity with the Scriptures and therefore that conformity with the holy Scriptures is the onely Primarie ground of discerning a True Religion from a false whereupon I did put it in the first place Yet we may abstract Pro hîc nune from this way of procedour and argue from the faith of the Church in some ages without proceeding at the time to examine the truth of every point by the Scripture And the rather seeing in Scripture there are general promises of the perpetuity of the Church and consequently of preserving in her all fundamental truths If therefore we can have evidence that this was the faith of the Catholick Church I meane of the whole collective in any age then I may conclude this is the true faith and the True Religion and consequently what is agreeable thereto must also be the True Religion for nothing can be consonant to truth but truth From this it appeares that sisting in the Religion of the Catholick Church in the Second and Third Centurie as a Principle upon the general promise of the Churches perpetuity without a further progresse for the time to examine the truth of every particular it may become in some manner a Distinct ground of argueing from that according to which every point is severally reduced to Scripture-tryal Even as in Subalternas sciences the Conclusions of the Subalternant science are made use of as Principles without making a further progresse The Astronomer takes the Geometricians Conclusion as a Priuciple not seeking a Demonstration thereof So may the Divine in some cases take the faith of the
with too too much successe I Know Master Cressy finding that this his assertion had given offence to sundrie Zelots of you Romish Church published afterwards an explicatioÌ„ of these words But what an unhandsome dis-ingenuous retreat he made is judiciously discovered by Master Tillotson In his booke Entituled The Rule of faith part 2. Sect. 4. Where also he showes that the same principle of infallibility hath been contradicted by Whyte Holden Rushworth the late pleaders for your Traditionarie way You may see more of the Contradictions of your Iesuit-Party who contend for the infallible assistance of your Propounders and the late Patrons of your Traditionarie way held forth by Master Stillingsleet in his Appendix to Tillotsons Rule of faith § 10. And you may try how you can reconcile these your intestine discords about the ground of your faith before you expect others to close with either of you But you not dareing to reply to any of these foure forementioned particulars studie onely though in vaine to extricat your self from Two contradictions wherein I left you enwrapped The First was this If all supernatural faith be founded on the previous assurance of the Propounders infallibility then the first assent to this infallibility most presuppose the previous assurance of this infallibility as being an act of faith and not presuppose it as being the first assent to this infallibility To this you answere not without your usual reproaches of ignorance as if forsooth you were an illuminat and profound Doctor you answere I say That the prerequired knowledge of the Propounders assistance you meane infallible Is not an act of faith but an evident assent founded on the motives of credibility But this miserable subterfuge affords you no help For First either you meane that all the assent which is given to the Infallibility of your Propounders is Evident founded upon the Motives of credibility or beside that pretended Evident assent you hold also that this Infallibility is beleeved by an Assent of divine faith If you meane that it is onely known by that pretended Evident Assent then the Infallibility of your Propounders should not at all be De fide or an article of faith Consequently it should be no Heresie to deny or impâ—gne the Infallibility of your Popes or Councils so the very foundatioÌ„ of your Romish faith should be overturned If therefore you say that beside this Evident assent the Infallibility of your Propounders is also beleeved by an assent of divine faith then either that Assent of faith is resolved into the previous pretended Evident assent or not If it be resolved into it then your Assent of faith should be Divine faith Ex hypothesi for such you suppose it to be and yet not Divine faith as being ultimatly resolved into that pretended Evident Assent and having for its Formal Object these Motives of Credibility which according to you are Evident and so not a proper Formal Object for an assent of Faith but in very deed as shill after appeare they are but fallacious grounds of this pretended Infallibility If therefore againe to evite this Contradiction you say that this assent of Divine faith is not resolved into that Previous evident assent then that previous Evident assent contributs nothing to cleare the maine difficulty wherewith I urged you which was to hold forth the Formal object which moves you to give the first Assent of divine Faith to the Infallibility of your Propounders which I call upon you to doe if you can But I beleeve you will find that no ground of such an Assent of divine faith can be assigned without contradicting either your self or Scripture or evident reasone Let but the Credentials of your Propounders be impartially examined and it will appeare that the Faith that you give to their infallibility deserves not the name of a prudential Humane faith let be of a Divine faith Any judicious man who is versed in your Controversie Writers may see all the starting holes to which you can rune But I wil wait til I see to which of them you doe betake your self lest you should say that I fight with an Adversarie of my own devising Now onely I shall desire you to consider this Demonstration à posteriori Your Propounders have certainly erred De facte and Dogmatically both in Cathedra Extre Cathedram as I shew in my Sixth Paper therefore it is impossible to assigne a solid ground why their Infallibility should be beleeved by a Divine faith unlesse your divine faith be of such a nature that by it you may assent unto falshoods But Secondly I adde this that the whole foundation of your subterfuge is a grosse falshood namely that there are Motives of credibility which doe evidently conclude the infallibility of your Propounders Produce if you can these Motives and frame your arguments from them and I undertake through the grace of GOD Sub periculo causae to discover the falshood and fallacie of them In the meane time lest you runne from the point let me remember you that the Question betwixt us is whether there be such Motives of credibility which doe Evidently prove your Propounders to be Infallible And therefore take heede you digresse not to speake of the Motives which perswade the Credibility of the Christian Religion For the Christian Religion may be Credible though we have no previous assurance that your Propounders are Infallible Could I find an evident demonstration of the Infallibility of any Propounder I should instantly captivat my understanding to such a Persone Demonstrat therefore from your Motives of credibility that your Propounders are Infallible and produce a solid Formal Object of the first Assent of faith thereto and I shall ingenuously acknowledge that you have made your escape from the Contradiction objected to you But if you doe not demonstrat their Infallibility as I am sure you cannot be you as ingenuous on the other hand to acknowledge that you are shut up in a Contradiction as in yron chaines and that thither you are led by the Principles of your Religion From these things the impertinency of your example taken from Attrition and Contrition may appeare First because it is clear from Scripture that Attrition doth usualy goe before Contrition But that an assurance of the Infallibility of your Propounders must goe before every act of Divine Faith can no way be proven either by Scripture Reasone or your Motives of credibility as shall be made evident Solutione argument or 〈◊〉 Next because Attrition and Contrition have distinct and assignable Formal objects as is both confessed by your self and might be luculently also cleared from Scripture But the Formal object of this first pretended Assent of divine faith to the Infallibility of your Propounders is not assignable as hath been shewed already It might here be a divertisement to the Reader to give an account of the Vertigo of your Authors concerning these Motives of credibility They who are curious may find a
did come to my hands the fourth of November and I doe not wonder of your long silence of near three moneths for it is patched up of so various and copious Digressions copied out as it seems of Controversie bookes that you will scarce find one of twenty that will take the paines to read only over And to make it grow you have adjoined a long and tedious discourse about Real presence which appearingly is the substance of all you taught your Scholars this last Year But all this your painful labour for so many moneths is lost since as alwayes I have protested to you that I take no notice of things out of the way Neither will begiune any other thing before we have fully ended the maine point This debate was occasioned of a continual Railing made by you in the Pulpit againes Catholick Religion but with such ingenuity out of that your Chaire of Verity that in place of Catholick Dogmes to be impugned you did often substitute and propone in a ridiculous manner to the people Problematick opinions holden by some Scholastickes and Casuists as manifestly appeared out of the conference we had by mouth Whether this did proceed out of gross Ignorance or Malice or out of both I remit to your self Seeing that you did show so great fervour in skaring your Auditors from Catholick Religion you were desired to confirme them in their own Religion by produceing some solid but special ground and principle whereby might be proven the truth of the PROTESTANT Religion And though in the beginning under the pretext that you had onely the Defenders part you stood stiffe not to be obliged to this Yet because you saw that it could not consist with the reputation of a man in your place to play altogether the Dumme in a matter of Religion of so great concernment as is the putting in question whether the PROTESTANT Religion be a True Religion or not lest this declineing should be imputed either to your ignorance or to the want of positive grounds after that with defuse digressions of all sorts you did runne your self as it were out of breath At long lang length you were forced to have your recouse to the Old jock trot that your PROTESTANT Authors teaches you to wit that your Religion is proven to be true by this Medium or principle because it is grounded upon Scripture and conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture As containing perspicuously all things necessarie for mans Salvation This then being by your own confession the chief and most plausible ground for the truth of your Religion you are desired to lay asid all other things hold you at this precisly until you make it good and proportion at to confirme your own PROTESTANTS in their Religion You say â—â—en that your Religion is proven to be a True Religion because it is grounded upon Scripture and conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture But it cannot be showen that it is conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture excep first it be showen that you have the true sense of the letter of Scripture Ergo to make this good you must first produce some special ground or principle whereby a judicious man may be reasonably induced to think that you have the true sense of the letter of Scripture that is to say the sense intended by the holy Ghost For as it is impossible that a thing be conforme to a true sense except it be supponed that there be a true sense so it is impossible to show or prove a thing to be conforme to the true sense except it be first shown and proven that there is a true sense Al then that is required of you is that you produce some special ground or principle to make it appeare that you have the true sense of the letter of Scripture since all the rest depends upon this onely one thing and that the ground which you produce to prove this be such as cannot equally serve to prove a false Religion acknowledged by your self for a false Religion to have the true sense of the letter of Scripture And this incumbes upon you if you will vindicat your Religion from this foul note that there can be shown no difference betwixt it and a false Religion And consequently that it is impossible that your Religion can be shown or proven to be a True Religion And it is expected that you will performe this with a clear Substantious Laconick and School-way laying altogether aside your diffuse reviling Pulpit way It is fatal to you to close your Paper with braging and praising your self and extolling your own answeres and withall to undervailne all that is brought against you but this as other things doe not reach to the maine point Mr. IOHN MENZIES Answere to the Iesuits eight Paper Some Animadversions upon Master Dempster alias Rind or Logan the Iesuit his eight Paper wherein he so shamlesly tergiverseth that he answeres not to one word of that which was replyed to him HOW now you Thersites Have you so shamlesly deserted the Scene Is your Syllogisme which Seven times you had repeated in Folio now relinquished without proving either Major Minor or justifying the Forme thereof Had you nothing at all to say for your Cavils about Acatalogue of necessaries the Rules of interpretation of Scripture the Infallibility of your Propounders or your Motives of credibility nor yet the ingenuity to acknowledge your self to be overcome by reason Are all your whisperings why the truth of Religion may not be examined By its conformity with the faith of the most Ancient Church silenced and yet dare you not comit your cause to the tryal Is it a sufficient confutation of what was replyed to you to say that the Prolixitie of the Reply would outwearie the patience of the Reader Would such a complement have been taken from Whitaker and Chamier as a sufficient confutation of Bellarmin's Vast volumes What a lazie Drone are you who could hardly digest the paines of reading two poor sheets of Paper Had I not so far condescended to your dulnes as to give you a confutation of all your Seven Papers in two words Could I be more Laconick Did I not put it in your option either to deale with the Large Paper or with these Two Words Could you neither read nor confute Two Words Are not you fitter to be a Neat-Herd then a Disputant Doe you not deserve that very character which Melâ—hior Canus puts upon the author of your Golden Legend Lib. 11. Loc. Com. cap. 6. Where he cals him Hominem ferrei eris plumbei cerdis a man of a brasen face and a leaden heart that is both shamless and witless Doe you not nobly act the part of a Champion for your Romish Cause who in stead of a consutation of a Polemick discourse stricking at the foundation of your Papal Superstition doe substitute a calumnious reflexion upon the first occasion of the debate Who
that your Romish Church like an old Whoore doth still wax worse and worse How often have our Divines demonstrated that your Romish Church is much more corrupt and grosse in her Tenets since the Council of Trent then before Doe not we know how often you set at nought Old Doctors when they agree not with the principles of your Present Papal faction Hence your Jesuit Escobar Tom. 1. theol moral in praeloq cap. 2. num 8. frequenter accidit sayeth he ut quae opinio paucis ab hinc annis in â—su non erat mode communi consensu recipiatur è contra Yea though you doe vainly brage of your Unity how few points of controversie are there betwixt you and us wherein you are not sub-divyded amongst your selves You may find this learnedly made out by Doctor Morton in his Appeale for PROTESTANTS out of the confession of Roman Doctors I will give you but one Instance at the present Your Papal indulgences are one of your now received Romish articles and yet some of your Ancient Doctors mantained them to be but Pias fraudes meere impostures So our of your Aquinas testifyeth Gregorie de Valentia lib. de indulg cap. 2. It may be Objected secondly That your Jesuit Escobar hath disputed may safely goe away he is not bound to doe it but may without sinne kill the man who intends to strick him though but lightly or if the Priest be consulted by another that over-reaches in his passion he may flatter him declaring with the same Tolet. Lib. 4. cap. â—3 num 4. That if a man be in a great passion so transported that he considers not what he sayes if in that case he doth blaspheme his blasphemie is not mortal sinne So may the Priest sooth them who commit horrid crimes in their drunkenness with the foresaid Cardiual Tolet. lib. 5. cap. 10. num 3. That if a man be beastly drunk and then commit fornieation that formeation is not sinne Yea he may with the same Cardinal lib. 5. cap. 13. num 2. Declare that if a man desires carnal pollution that he may evite carnal temptations or for his health it were no sinne Time would fail me in reckoning out such Probable nay Damnable Doctrines of your Casuists according to which your Confessors can determine exceeding many cases sutable to the inclination of the party with whome they have to doe either according to their own opinion or according to the opinion of some other Grave Doctor And what ever is delivered according to a probable opinion may be warrantably practised though there be another more probable Quaelibet opinio probabilis tutam reddit conseâ—entiam in operando sayeth your Escobar Tom. 1. Theol. Moral lib. 2. Sect. 1 cap. 2. num 22. Now shall your Casuists be permitted to introduce such unheard of impieties into the World by the pretended authoritie of Out grave Doctor without check or controll Shall their Problematick decisions warrand such shavelings as you to encourage lewd persons to murther their Neighbour blaspheme GOD violat womens chastity and cut off Princes for to that purpose also they have many Problematick decisions and when we oppose these impieties shall we be rated as ridiculous Railers Doth your Church of Rome thinke to wash her hands in innocency as if she were not guilty of these impious decisions because they are not ratified by the decree of a General Council What I pray you bath she decreed against them Your Religion at least is such with which all these impieties are wel consistent There is nothing in your Religion repugnant to them But besides are not these Casuistick tractats writen by your gravest Doctors in the face of the Sun under the Popes nose Is not this pernicious doctrine of Probables publickly avouched and known among you Yea are not these bookes approven by your authorised Licencers who are intrusted to looke Ne fides Ecclesiae detrimenti aliquid patiatur Your Church therefore will never be able to vindicat her self either before GOD or rational Men from being an abettor of these impieties Nay this leaves an undenyable conviction upon the consciences of your own authors in so much that Dominicus a Soto cited by Doctor Taylor in his Dissuaesive cap. 2. sect 1. I am so fat from stealing as often times doe your Jesuits that I ingenuously tell you when I have not a booke by me sayeth Non ilico ut â—â—mo se reum sentit culpae paenitentiae lege paenitere constringitur Haec profecto conclusie more usu Ecclesiae satis videtur constabilita Where he charges your Church with this Prophans doctrinâ— which hardens men in impenitencie But of this enough for the time After your impertinent and calumnious Digression concerning the first occasion of our Debate and your Problematick points for my worke in all these eight Papers hath been to follow a roving Vagrant from one impertinencie to another you claver to as little purpose concerning the sense of holy Scripture Before say you that our Religion be proven from Scripture it must be first proven that we PROTESTANTS have the true sense of Scripture But First Ought you not remember that in this writen debate you doe sustaine the part of the Opponent might it not therefore be better retorred upon you thus Before you prove that the PROTESTANTS have not the True Religion you ought first to prove that they have not the true sense of Scripture And may it not be a convinceing argument Ad Hominem against you that PROTESTANTS have the true sense of Scripture and consequently the True Religion seeing in all these Eight Papers you who appeared as the Romish Champion to disprove the Religion of PROTESTANTS have not been able to produce one Medium to prove the falshood of their Religion or of their sense of holy Scripture But it seems that you would willingly forget that you are the Opponent I wonder nothing that you who turne the weighty points of the Law to Problems should make a Probleme of this matter of fact how evident so ever it be So miserably have you discharged the Opponents office that you may truely be ashamed to owne it But SecoÌ„dly Could I make fairer proffers to you then I have done Have I not offered to disput whether PROTESTANTS have the True Religion and the true sense of Scripture both by Intrinsick Arguments from the Series of the context of Scripture from parallel places and the analogie of faith as also by a more Extrinsick test namely the conformity of Religion with the faith of the most Ancient Christian Church But as a perfect Coward who distrusted your cause you durst adventure on neither of these Nay all your cavils which once you started against both these grounds such as a catalogue of necessaries rules of interpretation of Scripture c. I have so convinceingly confuted that you have not dated once to mention them againe in this your last Paper Yea Thirdly Flave I not gone a further length and
justifie your proceeding in that Conserence which we had be mouth since you should remit all that thing to the judgement of these illustrious persons that were then present and let them judge whether you did feebly and cowaraly act your part and seeme to compeare there onely to game time Likewise in what school did you learne this civil title wherewith you honor me calling me a Neat-herd rather nor a Disputant that I am a man of â— brâ—sen face and a leaden heart that I am both shamelesse and as â—lesse that I am a Lazie drone c But this proceeds because my Popers which you verballie vilisie calling them Pasquills and not w.r. â—ie to be answered yet you sind they gall you and seeing your self not sâ—â—ffâ—â—ent with reputation to answere to supply this desiciency you seek help from the desusion of Bile that it may subministrat to you such uâ—comely and ume sonable words But let us come to the matter it self In my first Paper and in all others since there was nothing urged upâ—r you but onely that since you 〈◊〉 gerinrailing against Catholick Religion you would produce sâ—â—â—e ground to show the truth of your PROTESTANT Religion and whereby it may be distinguished from a false Religion that be this means you might bath confirme PROTESTANTS in their Religion and â—ime others to embrace the same But hitherto in so many Papers all that can be extorted out of you is that your PROTESTANT Religion is proven to be a true Religion be this Medium because it is grounded upon the word of GOD and conforme to the true serse of the letter of Scripture a reason indeed most solid and convincent if it were true But this pretended conformity of PROTESTANT Religion with Scripture was showen this way to you to be a meer imaginar and groundlesse conformity because as it is impossible a thing to be conforme to a true sense except it be supponed to be a true sense so it is impossible that a thing can be proven to be conforme to a true sense except it be first showen and proven that there is a true sense Ergo you cannot prove your Religion to be true because it is conforme to the true serse of the letter of Scripture except first you bring some pregnant reason whereby the understandings of men may be convinced that you have upon your side the true sense of the letter of Scripture Now since all dependes upon this one point you were desired to apply your self wholly to satisfie this onely and to doe in a substantious and school way laying aside for a whyle your diffuse railing Pulpit way But let us now examine the noble answeres that you give in this your last Paper The first answere is not direct but rather a declining of the difficulty under pretext that it makes a Non-sese to say That before a Religion can be showen or proven to be true it must first be proven that there is the true seate of the letter of Scripture upon their part who professes such a Religion because the true sense of the letter of Scripture and the truth of Religion are one and the self same thing and so â—â— would follow that a thing were proven before it were proven which is a grosse Non-sense But this subtility in the which you seeme to take some complesance and put great force serves onely to discover grosse Ignorance For First he this you show your self altogether ignorant of the nature of Formal Praecisions who have uâ—rtue where they interveen to make asâ—â—fficient distinction betwixt the Medium and the Probleâ—me None you show your self Ignorant of the 〈…〉 be no Objective difference betwixt true Religion and the truths contained under the letter of Scripture But thir two are seperabâ—â— Since all the truths contained under the letter of Scripture may be and yet not componit any Religion at all to wit if there be no obligation imposed upon us to beleeve them or if GOD had not decreed it nor made the faith and beleef of these things necessar to obtaine our Salvation Lastly giving not granting that this your speculation had some soliditie yet it cannot serve to better your cause since all this just as it lyes may be wuh as great reason assumed be a falfe Religion for a scouge and refuge of their ignorance when they are pressed to assigne some ground wherely it may appeare that they have the true sense of the letter of Scripture upon their side or bring some disparity betwixt you and them Your second answere to prove that the true sense of the letter of Scripture is upon your side is Because your sense is conforme to the sense of the Fathers that lived in the first three Centuries But first in this you resile from your foundator Calvin who as you know disclaimes the Fathers in many things taxing them of errors and hitherto your other reformers harped alwayes upon this string that all doctrines even of the Fathers should be examined be the sell Scripture as the onely rule admitting no wise the doctrine of the Fathers themselves but in so far as they did agree with Scripture But now since you invert altogether this order you give occasion to suspect that you are hatching Some new Religion of your own leaving their principles Againe this conformtiy cannot serve your purpose except first you show that the Fathers of the first three Centuries did in the bookes that are now extant teach all points that are necessar to Salvation And this must be proven either be some tectin ony drawne either out of Scripture or out of themselves or else we will have nothing for this but onely your bare saying In the closing of your Paper beside your ordinary braging whereby you doe over value all your own things and undervalue all things brought against you you play the Prophet in Ryme Roma diu titubans variis erroribus acts Corruet mandi desinet esse caput Bo sie yat yis your prophesie be not lyk your Patriarche Lutheris prophesie who when he lept out of the churche did brage that with tuo yeiris Preaching he would abolische and eliminat all Poperie out of the world sa yat efteryir tua yeiris yair wold be no moir in the world nather Pop nor Cardinalis nor Monkis nor Nunnes nor Mase nor Belis c. This Paper was not delivered to Master IOHN MENZEIS many dayes after it was dated but to excuse this the following Postscript was subjoined to the Paper with an other hand POSTSCRIPT Tho this Paper came from the author the day efter it was dated it could not be sent sooner to Master IOHN MENZEIS in regard the Person to whom it was adressed was not in Towne Master IOHN MENZEIS his Answere to the Jesuits ninth Paper Some Reflections upon Master Dempster the Iesuit his ninth Paper wherein he scarce touches what hath been Replyed to him and yet foolishly imagines that he hath confuted the conformity of the Religion
true Ergo c. The Sequel of the Major you dare not but admit unlesse you mine Insidell and deny that the true Christian Religion hath solid grounds to prove its conformity with the Scripture And for the probation of the Assumption you cannot but allow me that measure against you which you allow your self against me and therefore I appeale you to produce any solid ground which the True Christian Religion hath which the Religion of PROTESTANTS wanteth Yea or any solid ground which you Râ—â—anists can pretend to for confirmation of your Religion which we want You have never adventured to name any but the pretended Infallibility of your Propounders But this we have so battered to you that now you have stolen fom it not daring to mention it againe in any of these your Two last Papers Nay Fourthly I must remember you of a Dilemma ad Hominem against you Romanists which you might have gathered from my last If we deviat from the sense of holy Scripture then it must be either in our Affirmatives or in our Negatives Not in our Affirmatives you and we agreeing in most of these Therefore either in these we have the true sense else you have it not Nor in our Negatives else your contradictorie Affirmatives should be true But I proved in my Last that in many of these you doe manifestly erre as contradicting the Ancient Romish Church particularly in your Adoration of Twages Transubstansiation Communion under one kind The Poper suprexmatie the Canonicall authority of Apocry ha bookes The jurisdiction of the Pope over secular Printes your papall Indulginces at extended to Purgarotse And I am readie to prove the falshood of the rest of your Super-induced articles when ever you have the confidence to come to a particular tryall But I am utterly discouraged from multiplying more instances against a tergiversing fellow who is neither moved by credit nor conscience to examine what is replyed to him Fifthly seeing you shun to tell a ground by which the truth of Religion is to be tryed lest the Balfardie of your Religion should be proven I will give you a solid ground from a person of great fame in your Romish Gourcâ—â— though a Grecian by extract This is Goorgius Scholarius who pleaded for the interest of the Latine Church in the matter of the ProcessioÌ„ of the holy Ghost from the Father and the Son at the Councell of Florence Now this Scholarius tom 4. Conciliorum in Orat. 3. ad Concil Florent proposes these rules for determining controversies in Religion Et primo quidem sayeth he non decet velle omnia disertis verbis è scriptura desumere cum multos haereticos scimus pratextu hoc usos Sed si quid verbis it a prolatis sit consequens adaeque erit honorandum similiter quod veris confessis fuerit repugnans contrarium nullo modo est admittendum deinde eorum quae obscurius dicta sunt sumendae sunt è scriptura ipsa veluti magistra explicationes per ea quae uspians clarius illa disserit Where this learned Author holds these foure choise Positions for discerning betwixt truth and error in Religion to all which we PROTESTANTS doe cordially agree The First is That all divine truth are not revealed in so many words in Scripture Secondly that some divine truths are plainly set downe Diserris verbis and what by firme consequence is deduced from these ought to be beleeved and received with the same respect as these which are delivered In terminis Thirdly whatsoever is repugnant to these truths which are plainly Diserris verbis set downe or confessed upon all hands ought to be rejected as erroneous Fourthly that these things which are more obscurely treated of in Scripture are to receive their explications from other cleare Scripture as the Mistres of our faith These grounds so laid downe he afterwards accon modaâ—s to his present Hypothesis for decyding the controversie betwixt the Latine and Greek Church concerning the procession of the holy Ghost and may by the same measure be applyed to the controversies betwixt us PROTESTANTS and You Romanists If therefore you will dire to adventure upon the tryal of particular controversies betwixt you and us according to this standard I trust you shall see if prejudice doe not blind you that all the points of the Religion of PROTESTANTS are either revealed in Scripture plainly and In terminis or the by solid consequence are deduceable from these which are revealed In terminis And on the contrary that your Supe irauce Romish article wherein we differ from you are neither In terminis in Scripture nor yet by solid consequence deduceable from these things which are clearly revealed in Scripture but on the contrarie are repugnant thereunto I hope therefore the intelligen Reader wil observe that if you descend not to a particular tryal it is not because a ground was not assigned to you from discerning truth in Religion from error but from diffidence of your desperat cause Onely that you doe not returne to your usual trifling Cavill that Hereticks and those of a false Religion may pretend the same grounds for justifying their Heresies let me tell you that Hereticks may indeed pretend a patrocinie from these grounds which upon examination will overturne their cause And therefore what I say to you I say the same of all other Hereticks Socinians Pelagians Nestorians Aâ—â—baptists Antinomians c. That if they will come to a particular discusse according to these premised rules what ever their pretences be it shall appeare that their Heresies are neither In terminis contained in Scripture nor yet are deduceable by solid reason from these things which are clearly revealed but are repugnant thereunto Sixthly I answere Directly to this your Cavill by this Distinction If you meane that PROTESTANTS or whatsoever society acclaiming the True Religion before they prove the truth of their Religion or the conformity thereof to the true sense of Scripture must first produce one ground proving all the senses which they give in Scripture In cumulo to be true without a particular examination of the several senses and points of Religion mantained by them that I say is a grosse falshood and mistake For a Society may professe the true Religion and mantaine all the essentialls the cof and yet as I told n my last have some errors mingled in with these 〈◊〉 as our Dâ—vines have demonstrated in the Question Nom Ecclesiâ— possit errare Therefore if this be your mâ—â—ning it concernes you to have proven it for I doe and in my Last I imply did deny it But if you onely meane that PROTESTANTS or others acclaiming the truth of Religion must either have the essentials and all truths in their Religion plainly and In terminis revealed in Scripture or else solidly deduceable upon a particular discusse from these things that are so plainly revealed I grant it freely that it ought and must be so And therefore it you will
to these ages as not to goe further After we have gotten the verdict of the First three Centuries I shall not then declyne to trace you successively through all succeeding ages to this day And I am confident upon a through discusse it will appeare that Your present Romish Faith as to all its Essentials was never the faith of the Catholick Church in anie age let be in All. And upon the conttarie neither you nor any of your Adherents shall be able to prove that our Religion differs in Its Essentials from the faith of the Catholick Church in anie age Now in such an enquiry can we fall upon a more convenient Method then to beginne at the fountain I meane at the most pure Ancient and according to Egesippus Elogie Virgin Church in the First three Centuries If our ReligioÌ„ be found conforme thereto in all Its Essentials as I am coÌ„fident it shall then sure it is conforme to the True Catholick Religion in all ages If yours be found dissonant thereto as I doubt not but it will then sure it is dissonant to the Christian Religion in all ages For there is but one faith Eph. 4.5 and one True Religion But Secondly you have the boldnesse to upbraid me with Two contradictions Only before I propose them I must minde you that neither of these pretended Contradictions are in my Ninth Paper to which you now answere So glad it seemes you have been of any thing to fill up the roome wherein you should have answered that Ninth Paper If my Former Papers were guilty of these ContrÌ„adictions were you not very obtuse who did not discover them more timely Yet let the unpartiall Reader judge of these Contradictions The first alledged contradiction is That upon the one hand I should have affirmed Religion to be a complex of many truths which are to be severally tryed as the severall pieces of gold in a purse and that I would descend to the severall particulars yea and that all points necessary to salvation were contained perspicuously in Scripture Yet when you called me to give a list of all these particular points then I disclaimed my former example of a purse and alledged that I was not obliged to descend to particulars I see now I was in no mistake when I said that you walked by that Machiavillian principle Calumniare audacter c. Resume all my Papers and see if ever I refused to descend to a tryall of any particular Controversie betwixt you and us Yea have I not all this time been pressing you to this and you dared not to peep out of your lurking holes Have I not passed through many of the Controversies in particular to which you have not adventured to make any Reply Produce the page or leafe in any of my Papers where ever I disclaimed that forementioned example Of trying the severall peices of gold by the touch stone yea or one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that once I gave you under my hand But I shall ingenuoussy tell the truth of that which you so deceitfully misrepresent and when I have done contradict me if you can I said indeed That Religion is a complen of many truths and to prove them all as matters are now stated bemint us and you Remanists were to write a body of controversies But yet that I should never decline to examine any of those with you And I have further said that all the necessarie points af Christian Religion were contained perspicuously in the Scriptures But when you in stead of comeing to a discusse of parâ—â—cular points only started that old threed bare Cavill Concerning a precise catalogue of necessarie points I shew That it was but a meer tergiversing shift in you and demonstrated by many reasons which you was never able to answere That there was no necessitie lying upon me in order to the decision of the maine controversie at present betwixt us to determine a precise Catalogue of necessarie truths You may call in for your assistance the rest of your Society and try if you can find a reall Contradiction in all this Indeed if I had promised to give you a Catalogue of points necessarie to Salvation and hereafter had refused to give it oâ— if since I declared a readiness to debate with you any point in Controversie betwixt the Reformed Churches and the Church of Rome I had declined to performe my promise you might have accused me of Inconsistencie with my self Or if haveing â—ffiâ—med that all things necessarie to Salvation are clearly contained in Scripture I had denyed any article of faith necessarie to Salvation to be contained clearly in Scripture you might have charged me with a Contradiction But you and your Associats may canvase what I have said againe and againe and try if you can find either a Contradiction or that I have declyned any thing that is necessarie for the decision of the present Controve sie Cannot all the points in Controversie betwixt the Reformed Churches and Pomanists be particularly examined without Desyning a precise catalogue of truths simplie necessarie to Salvation Have I ever said that everie one of your Romish errors is Fundamentall Or that no points of truth are clearly revealed in Scripture but only Fundamentals or such the explicite belief whereof is absolutly necessarie to Salvation Nay I tell you that on maine reason why I did and doe forebear for the time to pitch upon such a Catalogue was because I stand now to justify the Religion of PROTESTANTS against your Cavills But the Reformed Churches in their Harmony of Confessions have not so farre as I have observed determined that Precise Catalogue of necessaries So that in pirching upon such a Catalogue at the time I should leave my worke to follow a tergiversing vagrant Yea some of our Divines particularly acuâ—e Chillingworth in his booke entituled The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation part 1. cap 3 § 13. Affirmes that more may be necessarie to the Salration of some then of others And therefore to call for a precise catalogue of points necessarie to the Salvation of every one were as if one should call for a Dyall to serve all Meridians or for a coat to serve the Moon in all her Changes You may likewise remember that I shew in my Sixth and Seventh Papers that Romanists are no lesse concerned to give a Catalogue of necessaries nor exposed to fewer difficulties in doing it then we and that in this matter your Authors have been often Non-plussed by PROTESTANT Divines For you have made points Necessarie which the Ancient and Catholick Church never held as Necessarie And so have separated your selves from the Catholick Church of IESUS CHRIST But to let you see that I am still ready to performe what ever I undertooke pitch you upon any point controverted betwixt the Reformed churches and You whether belonging to the Essentials or Integrals of Religion that is whether simply necessarie to Salvation or not and you shall find that I
your councill of Trent and your Pope Pius the fourth in his formula fidei have declared to be necessary to Salvation If she did then you may be pleased to produce evidences hereof wherein you may perhaps finde more difficulty then you are awarre of If she did not then is your present Romish Church a new upstart and Schismatical Church of a distinct faith from the Catholick Church in all ages You may notice how Doctor Field in the Appendix to his fifth booke part 2. cap. 2. goes about to prove that the Church of Rome is not now the same that it was before Luthers appearance Things being now defined as Articles of faith necessarie to Salvation which were not so before I sincerely professe the Noveltie of your Romish Faith and the Schismaticall constitution of your Church are not the least grounds of my disatisfaction with your Religion You may desire your Masters to calculate to you the Antiquity of the Romish Canons establshing the points following as Articles of faith viz First The equality of unwriten traditions with the holy scriptures of GOD. 2. That concupiscence in the regenerat is not properly sinne 3. The desinit number of seven properly so called Sacraments neither more nor fewer 4. The Popes supreamacie above general Councils 5. Your Indulgences and Purgatorie 6. The abstraction of the Cup from the people 7. Your Transubstantiation 8. The infallibility of the Church of Rome 9. The adoration of Images 10. The Popes jurisdiction over secular Princes Not to mention more at the time I believe you will find some of these latter then Luthers appearance Others but a little before and all of them not only short of Primitive and Aprstolick antiquity but notone of them within the Verge of the Three first Centuries You may if you will take a briefe hint of the novel dates of most of these Romish Canons from Drelincourt in his PROTESTANTS Triumph Discourse 2. from page 39. to page 52. As also of sundry of your ritualls such as the Procession of the Sacrament the feast of the Sacrament your Jubilees the Canonizing of Saints nay of your present Romish Missal and how lately it was received both in the Gallican and Spanish Churches c. Is it safe to venture the eternall Salvation of Soules upon a Religion so Novel both in its Articles of Faith and Rituals You have one Trifle more which I cannot let slip Because I have required you to prove the Assumptiō of that goodly Syllogism which ye proposed in your first Paper wherein you said That the PROTESTANT Religion had no grounds to prove its conformity with the sense of Scripture and to this day you have been able to bring nothing in Confirmation of it Now therefore when Arguments fail you you would try if you could bring your self off or creat Odium to your Adversary with a popular but reallie impertinent Example You say That I have behaved my self as if one should come as sent from the Council to require the Provest of Aberdene to apprehend a person suspect of Disloyaltie but when the Provest did demand his commission he should answere that he was not bound to show his Commission but his Commission was sufficiently proven by this that there could not be produced reasons to show that he had no Commission Is this the Scholastick method which you call for in stead of Arguments to substitute popular declamatorie Scenick examples which by a person of any Acuteness may be transformed into a thousand various shapes But seeing you will have the matter managed by Examples I must Examplisie time-about Suppose therefore First that a man were reallie Commissionated by the Secret Council to require the Magistrats of such a City to apprehend a disloyal person and for this effect did produce his Commission but the Magistrates did cavil at the sense of the Commission how luculent soever in it self alleaging that they could doe nothing upon that Commission untill the sense of it were cleared and that the sense of it could not be cleared without an infallible Expounder Would not the Secret Council have just cause to be moved with indignation against these Magistrates who had so ludified their Order And is not this the very case betwixt us and you Doe not PROTESTANTS still produce the Tables wherein the Ground of our Faith is contained Viz the Holy Scriptures Doe not we tell you if all our Religion be not found luculently there we shall disclaime it Is not this your verie Cavil that the Sense of Scripture is so obscure that without an Infallible Bropounder it cannot be understood Have you not cause then to feare the indignation of the Almighty who doe thus reproach the Scriptures of GOD and goe about to subvert the faith of his people suspending it till they get Propounders of whose Infallibility they must have an Antecedent and previous assurance whereas there are none such now on Earth The Fallibity of your Popes and Councils we did before demonstrat and you like a mute Advocat had not a word to mutter for them But Secondly in the case which you propose of a man pretending a Commission and having none and requiring the Magistrats to prove that he had none therefore the Rogue is justly blameable because he refuseth to prove the Affirmative which was incumbent to him and requires the Magistrats to prove the Negative But betwixt you and us the case is quite contrary For though you framed the Assumption of your first Syllogisme in Negative Termes yet upon the matter you refused to prove the Affirmative and required us to prove the Negative For what is it for us to prove the Truth of our Religion in points controverted betwixt you and us but to prove that there i◠no Purgatorie no Transubstantiation no Proper sacrifice in the Masse that your Pope hath no supreamacie over the Catholick Church that there Are not seven Sacraments that Saincts are not to be invocated nor Images adored c. All which are meet Negatives and so are the most of the points controverted betwixt us and you Now suppose that there were no Revelation from Heaven for Purgatorie Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Masse the Popes supreamacie c. Will not you confess in that Case that it were not duety to believe any of them and that then it were a sufficient Argument against them there is no Divine revelation produceable for these things therefore they are not to be believed and if any would obtrude the belief of them upon others that he were bound to produce a Divine revelation for them Now we PROTESTANTS mantaine De facto this to be the Case I would therefore demand of any rational man if there be a possibility to confute us but by produceing a Ground or Divine revelation for these things Are not you then guilty of the same Absurditie with the Knave in your own Example who refuse to prove the Affirmative and require us to prove the Negative But yet further
there any word either in the Hebrew or Greek exactly correspondent to the strict notion of a Sacrament which is not extended to other things which neither you nor we hold for Sacraments as Chamter bath demonstrated Lib. 1. de Sacramentis in genere capp 3.4 And besides Ancient Fathers have used the word Sacrament in so large a sense that they have designed many things by this name which on all sides are acknowledged to be no proper Sacraments As Austine gives the name of a Sacrament lib. 2. de peccatorum merit is remissione cap. 26. to the meat given to Catechumens and lib. 4. de Symâ—olo cap. 1. to Exercismes lib. 19. contra Faustum cap. 14. to the signe of the cross yea lib de bono conjugali cap. 18. to Polygamie none of which you Romanists will acknowledge as Sacraments So that according as the word Sacrament is taken in a larger or stricter sense PROTESTANTS doe not deny but there may be said to be more or fewer Sacraments Yea if the word be taken largely Doctor Featly in his Stricturae in Lindo-Mastigem pag. 90. will grant that it may be said that there be not only seven but seventeen Sacraments And Doctor Whitaker praelect de Sacramentis quaest 6. cap. 1. will admit that seven times seven may be found in Ancient Fathers and Doctor Morton in his Appeale lib 2 cap. 26. Sect. 5. ascends to seventy seven And Crakanthorp in defensione Ecclesiae Anglicanae contra Spalat cap. 30. § 1. spares not to affirme that you may aswell number seventie times seven as seven And Hierom as cited by Gerard de Sacramentis cap. 1. § 6 sayes Sacramenta Dei sunt praedicare benedicere confirmare communionem reddere visitare infirmos orare And Tertullian lib. 4. contra Marcion cap. 2. calls all Christianitie a Sacrament Religionis Christianae Sacramentum How little weight some of our great ' Divines have laid on this Controversie you may see in learned Whitaker loco citato where he spares not to say that barely to extend the name of a Sacrament to other things which are not so properly called Sacraments Error est non admodum periculosus is not an error of dangerous consequence provyding there be not Ordinances brought into the Church which are not of divine institution And learned Master Baxter in his Treatise of Confirmation pag. 88. 89. propos 10. grants that there are more then seven Sacraments in the largest sense that there be five in a large sense but only two Baptisme and the Lords Supper in the strictest sense Is this the Characteristick for distinguishing a True Religion from a False where a Caviller may wrap himself up in such Logomachies Have not some of your Divines affirmed that a Sacrament cannot be defyned as Occam Major and Richardus cited by your own Bellarmine lib. 1. de Sacramentis in genere cap. 10 But one thing is remarkable that among all the various acceptions of the word Sacrament in Ancient writers there was never one of them who determined the number of proper Sacraments to be seven neither more nor lesse as you Romanists doe to day How unhappie then were you to pitch on this particular Controversie seeing the precise septenarie number of Sacraments can never be proven either from Scripture or Antiquity You may consider what a low ebbe in this matter you are at when your Bellarmine lib. de effect sacram cap. 24. is put to that shift Non debere adversarios petere à nobis ut ostendamus in Scripturis vel Patribus nomen septeuarii numeri Sacramentorum Scripturae enim Patres non scripserunt Gatechismum That is Our Adversaries he means PROTESTANTS should not demaund of us to shew either from Scripture or Fathers the name of the number of seven Sacraments For the Fathers wrote not Cathechisms Yet we shall hear the same Cardinal a little after rendring this as the reason why Ambrose and Cyril of Jerusalem did not reckon our seven Sacraments because they did write to Catechumens Is this the pregnancie of your Jesuits Acumen to use contradictorie Mediums to prove the same Conclusion Sometime thus the Fathers wrote not Cathechisms therefore they did not expresse the desinit number of seven Sacraments And at another time inferre the same Conclusion because they did write Catechisms May not such Sophisters inferr Quidlibet ex quolibet But sure it is Cyril of Jerusalem did write Catechisms why then did not he at least mention your Septenarie of Sacraments I suppose your Council of Florence and Trent were not writing Cathechisms when they targht a Septenarie of them But our Divines deale liberally with you in this matter They stand nor upon words They demand not the name of the number of seven They only ask a real demonstration of a precise septenarie though not in so many words Hence Doctor Mortone in the place last quoted We exact not sayeth he the name of the number of seven but only as two and three make five so would we have demonstrated that any of the Fathers in any place of their writings of the Sacraments of the New-Testament did give any certaine intimation of the number of seven Can PROTESTANTS be more condescending in their demands Yet this could never be performed by any of you A cleare evidence that all your Popish Party cannot Proselyte me to you in this point For they cannot shew that either Scripture or Fathers did approve the pretent Romish faith concerning a precise Septenarâ—e of properly so called Sacraments of the New-Testament Thirdly had you been a persone of ingenuity would you not first have cleared these articles of your Religion which I have impugned in my former Papers before you had started a new Question But by your deepe silence as to these it is easie to guesle what satisfaction is to be expected from you as to this Nay Fourthly is it not a meer Negative whereof you demand the Probation from me That there be only two Sacraments For you say It is not the probation of two but that there are no more then two which you desire so that it is a meer Negative you would have me proving Now would not all the reason of the World say that ye who mantaine the Affirmative viz that there be more then two properly so called Gospel Sacraments and that there be precisely seven Ought to prove this your Assertion and that we are sufficiently warranted to mantaine the Negative untill you prove the Affirmative for Ab authoritate negativa in rebus fidei optima est consequentia You must also know our Positives are the articles of our faith and by the Negatives which we mantaine in opposition to you we declare that your errors are no part of our faith so that when you lay the whole stresse upon your proving this Negative that there are no more then two Sacraments you doe not require us to prove an Article of our faith nor should we succumb in proving an article of
our faith though we did not prove it Our Negative is only a declaration that your five super added Sacraments are no part of our faith But if you prove them not to be Sacraments you succumb in proving an article of your Romish faith How scurvily then deale you who require us to prove the Negative which is no article of our faith and yet shunne to prove the contradictorie affirmative which without question is an article of your Romish faith How little candor you have shewed in this matter by these particulars may be discerned Yet to give a touch of the Question in particulare that the State thereof may be clear betwixt us know that we doe not affirme that the word Sacrament is to be found in Scripture neither doe we deny but in a large sense as some have taken it pro signo rei sacrae for an holy signe or the signe of an holy thing which is the first definition given by Bellarmine lib. 1. de Sacramentis in genere cap. 11. out of Austine and Bernard it may be attributed to many things beside Baptisme and the Lords Supper as to Christs washing of the Disciples feet to the holy kisse used in Scripture times c. Shortly therefore leaving both the Etymologie of the word Sacrament about which Criticks have travelled and the various definitions of a Sacrament given by Divines of both sides When we affirme that there be two Sacraments only in the new Testament we understand by a Sacrament of the new Testament a substantial visible signe instituted by GOD since the incarnation of the Son of GOD recorded in the Gospel to seal up the promises of salvation which is to endure in the Church to the end of the World Where we doe require these things to the nature of a proper Sacrament of the new Testament First that it be a substantial visible signe instituted by GOD since the incarnation and recorded in the Gospel That it be a signe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not only held forth by the Apostle Rom. 4.11 and by the Ancient Fathers of the Church but also is acknowledged by your Bellarmin lib. 1. de sacram in genere cap. 9. That it be instituted of GOD is not only proven from Scripture by our Divines but also is acknowledged in the Definition of your Roman Catechism part 2. cap. 1. qu. 6. That it be instituted since the Incarnation I suppose you cannot deny to distinguish it from the Sacraments of the Old Testament of which we are not now debating I adde likewise that it must not only be a sensible Signe but also Visible to distinguish it from the preached Word which is a sensible and audible Signe but not Visible and this Austine holds forth in that famous sentence of his Tract 80. in Johannem Accedit verbum ad elementum fit sacramentum ipsum quasi visibile verbum Where he clearly distinguishes the Element which becomes a Sacrament from the audible Word Hence Chamier lib. 1 de sacram in genere cap. 14. § 6. brings in Damascen calling Sacraments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Visible Symbols of intelligâ—le mysteries Hence also was that definition of a Sacrament by your Master of sentences Lombard lib. 4. sent dist 1. tit B. Invisibilis gratiae visibilis forma A visible signe of invisible grace Bellarmins cavills against the visibilitie of sacramentall Elements are learnedly confuted by Chamier in the place last cited lib. 1. de sacram in gen cap. 14. It is further required to the nature of a proper Sacrament that it be a substantial signe for it must be such a signe as may coÌ„gruonsly be termed an Element as it is frequently designed not only by Ancients but also by your Roman Catechism particularly part 2. cap. 1. quast 8. and likwise have an Analogie with the thing signified else sayeth Austine epist 23. Sacramenta omnino non essent They should not be sacraments at all I know Bellarmine lib. 1. de sacram in genere cap. 14. quartels with Chemnitius that he required that the institution of a Sacrament be found in Scripture It is enough sayes Bellarmine that the divine institution thereof be proven But these Arguments whereby our Divines prove Scripture to containe all articles of faith conclude irrefragably that they containe the divine institution of all properly so called Sacraments Yet if you or any will prove to me the divine institution of any Ordinance I shall never declyne to accept of a divine institution whether writen or not when it is solidly proven but surely you must out-strip Bellarmine Valentia and the test of your Champions before you prove the divine institution of unwriten sacraments Secondly it is required to the nature of a proper Sacrament that it be a seale of the promises of salvation or of the righteousnesse of faith as the Apostle phraseth it Rom. 4.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where though the Apostle be treating of Circumcision yet he gives a general Description of a Sacrament which doth compet to Circumcision and to all other Sacraments I know that Bellarmine and other your Authors quarrel at this clause of the Description but the Objections against this you may find abundantly discussed in Whitaker de sacramentis quaest 1. cap. 4. Gerard de sacram cap. 3. sect 2. § 17.18.19 and in Chamter lib. 2. de sacram in genere cap. 9. It is Thirdly required that a sacrament of the new Testament be to endure in the Church to the end of the World which Bellarmine himself acknowledges lib. 1. de sacram in genere cap. 14. and on both sides it is confessed that proper Guspel Sacraments must endure so long as there is a Visible Church on Earth And this doth exclude from the nature of a proper Sacrament those Visible signes which were used under the Gospel but were not perpetually to endure in the Church This being shortly premised coÌ„cerning the nature of a SacrameÌ„t we doe affirme that in this sense there be only two proper Sacraments in the New Testament viz. Baptism and the Lords Supper Or as others expresse it that there is no other Ordinance under the Gospell which may be so termed a Sacrament as Baptisme and the Lords-Supper Neither are we the first who judge so Doth not Austine lib. 2. de symbolo ad Catechumenos cap. 6. call them expresly Gemina Ecclesiae Sacramenta The two twin Sacraments of the Church Was it ever heard that Gemina signified Seven or more then Two And againe the same Austine Epist 118. Sayes that the Sacraments of the Gospell are numero paucissima significatione facillima then instancing only in the sacraments of Baptisme and the LORDS-Supper But if there were seven Sacraments yea or more then two they could not be numero paucissima the fewest for number what ever exceeds two is not the least number I know the usuall subterfuge of your Authors that Augustin in the last cited place addeth these words Et si quid aliud in
Septenarie could be concluded Nay this very point concerning the number of Sacraments in which it seemes you thought to have triumphed furnishes me with a considerable Argument against your Religion from which you may try how you can exped your self I frame it thus A precise Septenarie of SACRAMENTS neither more nor fewer is an Essentiall of the Present Romish Religion But a precise Septenary of SACRAMENTS neither more nor fewer was not an Essential of the Ancient Christian Religion Ergo the Ancient Christian Religion and the Present Romish Religion differ in Essentials and consequently are not the same Religion The Major is clear from your Council of Trent sess 7. Can. 1. And from Pope Pius the fourth his Creed or Formula fidei As for the Assumption I appeale you if you can with the help of all your Associats to produce me one testimonie from any one Ancient Father from which a precise septenarie of Sacraments can be concluded For expresse testimonies all know that you have none Is it probable if the Ancient Church had been of your present Romish faith concerning the number of Sacraments that not one Testimonie for a precise Septenarie either direct or indirect should be found in any one Father I know the way of your Authors hath been to patch up testimonies out of several Authors whereof one may give the denomination of a Sacrament to one of your pretended Sacraments and another to another But not one Father have they produced that gives the Denomination of a Sacrament to All of them And as some Fathers give the name of a Sacrament to some of these so also they have honoured many other things with the same title which by the confession of your own Authors are no proper Sacraments concerning which you may be sufficiently informed by your own Suarez In his Preface to his Tom. 3. in 3. part And therefore from these generall Apellations nothing can be câ—ttâ—inly concluded as to the definit number of Properly so called Sacraments else we might conclude more then twice seven Sacraments from the writings of the Ancients Your own Bonaventure in 4. sent dist 1. teaches that it was many time observed that the word Sacrament was exceeding variously taken Communiter proprie propriâ—ssime That is sometimes Commonlie sometimes Properly and sometimes most Properly When therefore the Denomination of a Sacrament is given by a Father to any thing beside Baptisme and the LORDS Supper before it can be concluded that they looked on that as a proper Sacrament it remaines to be proven that they tooke the word Sacrament in that discourse not Communiter but proprie or propriissime not in a large or common sense but strictly and properly Yea and further it concerns you to prove that they beleeved that there were precisely seven of these properly so termed Sacraments neither more nor fewer When you set seriously to this work you may readily finde it so hard a taske that it put you to repent that you should have pitched on this particular controversie concerning the number of Sacraments But because you desire it to be proven by scripture that there be two Sacraments only I shall present you with this one Argument If there be only two substantial visible signes instituted by GOD since the Incarnation recorded in the Gospel to seal the promises of salvation and to endure in the Church to the end of the World then are there only two Sarcraments of the new Testament But the first is true therefore also the last The consequence of the Major is clear For this only we meane by a proper Sacrament when we affirme that there be only two Though more should be proven in another sense it would be but a Sophisme ab ignoratione elenchi for the Conclusion would not be the contradictory of our Assertion The Assumption is easily proven from Scripture for it containes two branches first that there are two of that kinde of visible signet And secondly that there be only two and no more First then for the positive part that there be two you your self doe acknowledge and if it were needful it were easie to shew that all the parts of the foresaid Description doe agree to Baptisme and the Lords Supper For first they are substantial visible signes instituted by GOD since the Incarnation and their institution is recorded in the Gospel You have the Divine institution of baptizing with water Matthew 28.19 And of the Lords Supper 1. Cor. 11.23.24.25 Secondly that they are seals of the promises of salvation is no lesse clear and first of Baptisme Acts 2.38.39 and also of the Lords Supper in somuch that the Cup is called the New Testament which you must acknowledge to be no proper speach but it is only so called because it is Sigillum faederis hence also in the Institution mention is made of the Remission of sinnes and of the giving of the Body of CHRIST and shedding of his Blood for us holding forth that foregiveness of sinnes and all other blessings purchased by the Death of CHRIST and promised in the New Covenant are by this Ordinance sealed to the people of GOD. The third and last condition is no lesse manifest that these Ordinances are to continue to the end of World from Matth. 28.20 and 1. Cor. 11.26 All the Question then betwixt you and me must be concerning the other Branch of the Assumption viz. that there be only two of these signes or two and no more and this seemes no lesse certaine then the other For first to use your way of argueing in Negative cases if there be any more substantial visible signes instituted by GOD since the Incarnation recorded in the Gospel to Seal the Promises of Salvation to endure in the Church to the end of the World then they may be produced but more cannot be produced as shall be proven solutione objectionum Produce them therefore if you can and shew that the premised conditions of a Sacrament doe compet to them This way of argâ—ing in this case is the suâ—er because the Scripture as I have held out before and proved against you is a perfect Canon of Faith and Manners therefore if no more such signes can be held out from the Scriptures it followes there are none May I not here make use of Hieroms Quia non legimus non credimus This may suffice for a Scriptural demonstration that there be only two properly so called Sacraments For if the Scriptures teach upon the one hand that the Scriptures are a compleat Canon of Faith and upon the other hold out no more but two of these Ordinances to which the name of a Sacrament in the strict and proper Notion thereof is applicable then surely it followes that according to the Scriptures there be only two proper Sacraments Excellently said Cyrill of Hierus in Catech 4. or who ever be the Author thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is Of the divine and holy Sacraments of faith nothing ought to be