make that proposition hereticall in it self which was not ever hereticall nor increase the necessary Articles of the Christian Faith either in number or substance What I said is undeniable true First in it self That is in its own nature without any reference to the authority of a Councel And necessary Articles of the Christian Faith that is absolutely and simply necessary for all Christians If the proposition were hereticall in it self then they that held it before the Councel were Hereticks as well as they who hold it after the Councel And that is a necessary Article of the Christian Faith without the actuall belief whereof Christians could never be saved This is sufficient to answer his objection But for the Readers satisfaction I adde moreover that the Romanists believe a generall Councel not only to be fallible without the concurrence and confirmation of the Pope whose priviledge and prerogative the most of them doe make the fole ground of the Churches infallibility but also without his concurrenee to have often erred actually But with the concurrence and confirmation of the Pope they make the determination of a generall Councel to be infallible On the other side we know no such infallibility of the Pope but the contrary After Stephen had taken up the body of Formosus his predecessor out of his grave spoiled him of his pontificall Attire cut off his two Fingers and cast his body into Tybur it became an usuall thing with the following Popes either to enfringe or abrogate the acts of their predecessors Neither was this act of Stephen an errour meerly in matter of fact but principally in matter of Faith that the Episcopall character is deleble We know no such confirmation neâ—dfull nor of any more force then the single Vote of a prime Bishop of an Apostolicall Church And therefore we give the same priviledges to a Councell unconfirmed which they acknowledge to be fallible and to a Councell confirmed by the Pope We have no assurance that all generall Councells were and ever shall be so prudently mesnaged and their proceedings allwaies so orderly and upright that we dare make all their sentences a sufficient conviction of all Christians which they are bound to beleeve under pain of damnation If R C. be not of my mind others of his own Church have been and are at this day When I forbear to cite because I presume it will not be denyed In summe I know no such virtuall Church as they fancy Antiquity never knew it I owe obedience at least of acquiescence to the representative Church and I resolve for ever to adhere to the best of my understanding to the united Communion of the whole essentiall Church which I beleeve to be so far infallable as is necessary for atteining that end for which Christ bestowed this priviledge that is salvation Neither let him think that I use this as an artifice or subterfuge to decline the authority of generall Councells I know none we need to fear And I doe freely promise to reject the authority of none that was truly generall which he shall produce in this question As for occidentall Councels they are farre from being generall My other supposed error is that I say That though a Christian cannot assent in his judgement to every decree of a generall Councell yet he ought to be silent and possess his soul in patience That is untill God give another opportunity and another Councell sit wherein he may lawfully with modesty and submission propose his reasons to the contrary This he saith is to binde men to be Hypocrites and Dissemblers in matter of Religion and by their silence to suppress and bury divine Truth and brings them within the compass of Saint Pauls Woe woe be unto me if I evangelise not Excellent Doctrine and may well serve for a part of the Rebells Catechism Because my Superior is not infallible if I cannot assent unto him must I needs oppose him publickly or otherwise be guilty of Hypocrisie and Dissimulation If he shall think fit in discretion to silence all dispute about some dangerous questions am I obliged to tell the world that this is to suppress or bury divine Truth If he shall by his authority suspend a particular Pastor from the exercise of his pastorall Office must he needs preach in defiance of him or else be guilty of St. Pauls Woe Woe be unto me because I preach not the Gospell I desire him to consult with Bellarmine All Catholicks doe agree that if the Pope alone or the Pope with a particular Councell doe determine any controversie in Religion whether he can erre or whether he can not erre he ought to be heard obediently of all Christians May not I observe that duty to a generall Councell which all Roman Catholicks doe pay to the Pope or is there a less degree of obedience than passive obedience Certainly these things were not well weighed Where I say that by the Church of England in this question I understand that Church which was derived by lineall succession from Brittish English Scotish Bishops by mixt ordination as it was legally established in the daies of Edward the sixth and flourished in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth King Iames and King Charles and now groans under the heavy Yoke of persecution to let us see what an habit of alteration is he excepts against every word of this First against the lineall succession because none of these ancient Bishops taught justification by faith alone This is an argument from the Staffe to the Corner I speak of a succession of holy Orders and he of a succession of Opinions And when the matters come to be searched to the bottom he will be found at a default here also Those ancient Bishops held the same justification by faith that we doe In the next place he excepts against mixt Ordination as partly Papisticall partly Protestanticall He erres the whole Heavens breadth from my meaning Before Austin preached to the Saxons there were in Britain ancient British Bishops and ancient Scotish Bishops who had their severall lines of succession to which Austin added English Bishops and so made a third succession These three were distinct at first but afterwards in tract of time they came to be mixed and united into one succession So as every English Bishop now derives his succession from British Scotish and English Bishops This is the great Bug-bear of mixt Ordination He tells us that King Edward the sixth was a Child He mistakes Kings are never Children nor Minors whilest they have good Tutors and good Councellers was he more a Child than King Iehoash and yet the Church was reformed during his minority This was no Childish Act thanks to Iehoiada a good Uncle and Protector He demands how that Church was legally established in King Edwards daies which was established contrary to the liking of the most and best of the Bishops whereof divers were cast in Prison for not
the same with theirs we are no Schismaticks because we doe not censure them uncharitably If we say they be not the same we are still no Schismaticks because we had then by their own confession just reason to separate from them But to come up closer to his argugument Religion is a virtue which consisteth between two eâ—treams Heresie in the defect and Superstition in the excess Though their Church Religion and holy Orders be the same with ours and free from all hereticall defects yet they may â—e and are subject to superstitious excesses Their Church hath sundâ—y blemishes Their Religion is mixed with errors And gross abuses have crept into their holy Orders From these superstitious errors and abuses we were obliged to separate our selves wherein they had first separated themselves from their Predecessors So if there be Schism in the case it was Schism in them to make the first separation and Virtue and Pietie in us to make the second I said most truly that our positive Articles are those generall truths about which there is no controversie Our negation is only of humane controveâ—ted additions Against this he excepts sundry wayes First Because our principall positive Article is that of justification by speciall Faith which as he saith is most of all in controversie Aquinas makes a great difference between opinari and credere between a scholasticall opinion and a necessary Article of Faith Sometimes the understanding doth fluctuate indifferently between the two parts of the contradiction and this is properly doubting Sometimes it inclineth more to the one part then to the other yet not without some fear or suspicion of the truth of the other part This is properly opinion Sometimes the understanding is determined so as to adhere perfectly to the one part And this determination proceeds either from the intelligible object mediately or immediately and this makes knowledge Or from the will upon consideration of the authority and truth of the revealer and this makes faith Justification by speciall faith was never accounted an Article of the English belief either by the English Church or by any genuine Son of the English Church If he trust not me let him read over our Articles and reading satisfie himself I confess some particular persons in England did sometimes broach such a private Opinion but our most learned and judicious Professors did dislike it altogether at that time as I have heard from some of themselves But shortly after it was in a manner generally rejected as Franciscus a Sancta Clara ingeniously confesseth jam hic novus error vix natus apud nostrates sepultus est and now this new error being scarcely born among our Country-men was buried And more plainly elsewhere quibus omnibus bene pensatis saenè nulla bodie reperietur differentia in confessione Anglica sanctissima definitione Tridentina all which things being duely weighed truly there will be found noe difference at this day in the English confession and the sacred definition of the Tridentine Councell meaning about this Subject of justification But saith he if they be not points of our Faith what doe they in our confessions of Faith I answer they are inserted into our confessions not as supplements of our Creed or new Articles but as explanations of old Articles and refutations of their supposititious Principles Contraries being placed together by one another doe make one another more apparent He proceedeth Have not Protestants a positive faith of their negative Articles as wâ—ll as of their positive Articles Commandements may be either affirmative or negative and the negative Commandements binde more firmely then the affirmative because the affirmative binde alwaies but not to the actuall exercise of obedience at all times semper but not ad semper But negative Commandements binde both semper and ad semper both alwaies and to all times But we finde no negatives in the rule of Faith For the rule of Faith consists of such supernaturall truths as are necessary to be known of every Christian not only necessitate praecepti because God hath commanded us to beleeve them but also necessitate medii because without the knowledge of them in some tollerable degree according to the measure of our capacities we cannot in an ordinary way attain to salvation How can a negative be a means Non entis nulla est efficacia In the Apostles Creed from the beginning to the end we finde not the least negative Particle And if one or two negatives were added in the subsequent ages as that begotten not made in the Nicene Creed they were added not as new Articles but as explanations of the old to meet with some emergent errors or difficulties just as our negatives were Yea though perhaps some of our negatives were revealed truths and consequently were as necessary to be beleeved when they are known as affirmatives yet they doe not therefore become such necessary truths or Articles of Religion as make up the rule of Faith I suppose yet further that though some of our negatives can be deduced from the positive fundamentall Articles of the Creed some evidently some probably as the necessity of the consequence is more or less manifest For it is with consequences as it was with Philo's row of iron Rings the first that touched the Load-stone did hang more firmely the rest which were more remote still more loosly I say in such a case that no man was bound to receive them either as Articles or as Consequences but only he that hath the light to see them nor he further then the evidence doth invite him And howsover they are no new Articles but Corollaries or deductions from the old So grossly is he mistaken on all sides when he saith that Protestants he should say the English Church if he would speak to the purpose have a positive beleefe that the Sacrament is not the body of Christ. Which were to contradict the words of Christ this is my body He knowes better that Protestants doe not deny the thing but their bold determination of the manner by transubstantiation themselveâ— confessing that the manner is incomprehensible by humane reason Neither doe Protestants place it among the Articles of the Faith but the opinions of the Schools He acknowledgeth That if I had a true preparation of minde to beleeve whatsoever the true reall Catholick Church universally beleeveth and practiseth the matter were ended But he addeth that by the Catholick Church I mean an imaginary Church or multitude of whatsoever Christians Catholicks Hereticks Schismaticks wâ—â— agree in fundamentall points but disagree in other points of Faith and wholy in communion of Sacraments and ministery of them I accept this offer and I tie him to his word If he stand to this ground there are no more controversies between him and me for the future but this one what is the true Catholick Church whether the Church of Rome alone with all its Dependents or the Church of the whole
of Faith that there is a purgatory or it is an article of Faith that there is no purgatory Faith is a certain assent grounded upon the truth and authority of the revealer opinion is an uncertain inclining of the mind more to the one part of the contradiction then the other There are an hundred contradictions in Theologicall opinions between the Romanists themselves much grearer then some of these three controversies wherin he instanceth Yet they dare not say that either the affirmatives or negatives are articles of Faith In things not necessary a man may fluctuate safely between two opinions indifferently or incline to the one more then the other without certain adherence or adhere certainly without Faith We know no other necessary Articles of Faith but those which are comprehended in the Apostles creed The last proof of our moderation was our readinesse in the preparation of our minds to beleeve and practise whatsoever the Catholick Church even of this present age doth universally believe and practise This he saith is the greatest mock foole proposition of all the rest Wherefore For two reasons First we say there is no universall Church Then we have not onely renounced our Creed that is the badge of our Christianity whereof this is an expresse Article but our reason also If there be many particular churches wherefore not one universall Church whereof Christ himselfe is head and king His onely ground of this calumny is because we will not acknowledge the Roman Church that is a particular Church to be the universall Church The second reason is because we say if there be a Catholick Church it is indetermined that is no man knows which it is Then it is all one as if it were not Non existentis non apparentis eadem est ratio It is a brave thing to calumniate boldly that something may stick We know no virtuall Church indeed that is one person who hath in himself eminently and virtually as much certainty of truth and infallibility of judgement as the universall Church but we acknowledge the representative Church that is a generall councell and the essentiall Church that is the multitude or multitudes of believers either of all ages which make the Symbolicall Church or of this age which make the present Catholick Church but mala mens malus animus He knoweth right well that they themselves are divided into five or six severall opinions what that Catholick Church is into the authority whereof they make the last resolution of their Faith So it is not true of us but of themselves it is true that their Catholick Church is indeterminate that is they know not certainly what it is Sect. 8. My fifth ground was that what the king and Church of England did in the separation of themselves from the Court of Rome is no more then all other Princes and Republicks of the Roman communion have done in effect or pleaded for that is made themselves the last Judges of their owne liberties and grievances For proof whereof I instanced in the Emperors the Kings of France and the liberties of the Sallicane Church the Kings of Spaine in their Kingdomes and Dominions of Sicily Castile Flanders the Kings of Portugall the Republick of Venice and in all these particular cases which were in difference between the Popes and us concerning the calling of Ecclesiasticall Synods making of Ecclesiasticall lawes disposing Benefices reforming the Churches within their owne dominions rejecting the Popes sentences buls Legates Nuncios shutting up their Courts forbidding appeals taking away their tenths first fruits pensions impositions c. To all which neither R. C. nor S. W. answers one word in particular Yet he paies me in generals Vir dolofus versatur in generalibus If his cause would have borne it we had had a more particular answer First he asketh what nonsense will not an ill cause bring a desperate man to Concedo omnia I grant all saving onely the application He must seek for the nonsense and the ill cause and the desperate man nearer home But what is the ground of his exception nothing but a contradiction first I would perswade the world that Papists are most injurious to Princes perjudicing their Crowne and subjecting their dominions to the will of the Pope and when I have scarce done saying so with a contrary blast I drive as far back again confessing all I said to be false and that the same Papists hold the Doctrine of the Protestants in effect If he will accuse other men of contradiction he must not overshoot himself so in his expressions but keep himself to the rules of opposition ad idem secundum idem eodem tempore Papists may be injurious to Princes in one respect and do them right in another They may be disloyall at one time and loyall at another Here is no shadow of contradiction But his greatest fault is to change the subject of the proposition I did not plead either that Papists were injurious to Princes or that the same Papists did hold the very doctrine of the Protestants nor so much as mention Papists in generall either to justifie them or to accuse them But I said that the Pope and the Court of Rome had been injurious to Roman Catholick Princes and that Roman Catholick Princes with their party had done themselves right against Popes and their Court. Here is no contrary blast nor contradiction any more then it is a contradiction to say that the Gnelphes maintained the Popes cause against the Emperour and the Gibilines maintained the Emperours cause against the Pope because both factions were Roman Catholicks both Italians He urgeth that the Popes did not cast out of their Communion those Cotholick divines who opposed them which argueth that it is not the Roman Religion nor any publick tenet in their Church that binds any to these rigorous assertions which the protestants condemne I know it is not their religion Our Religion and theirs is the same I know it is not the generall tenet of their Church But it is the tenet of the Court of Rome and the governing party amongst them It is but a poor comfort to one that is oppressed by their Court to know that there are particular Doctors which hold that he is wronged But to his question Did the Pope never excommunicate those Doctors that opposed him Yes sundry times both Princes and Doctors and whole Nations Sometimes he spared them perhaps he did not take notice of them whilest they were living the Pope and his Court have somewhat else to do then to inquire after the tenets of private Doctors perhaps they lived about the time of the councels of Constance and Basile when it had been easier for the Pope to have cast himselfe out of his throne then them out of the Church or perhaps they lived in places without his reach he knows who it was that said my Lord the Emperour defend me with the sword and I will defend thee with my pen. What
first sight think the shore leaves them terraeque urbesque recedunt but straightwaies they finde their error that it is they who leave the shore To Strangers c. that is to unskillfull Judges A true diamond and a counterfeit doe seem both alike to an unexperienced person Strangers did beleeve easily the Athenian fables of Bulls and Minotaures in Creete But the Crecians knew better that they were but fictitious devises The seeming strength lyeth not in the objections themselves but in the incapacity of the Judges But to his reason the more things are remote from the matter and devested of all circumstances of time and place and persons the more demonstrable they are that is the reason why Mathematicians doe boast that their Principles are so evident that they doe not perswade but compell men to beleeve Yet in the matter of fact and in the application of these evident rules where every particular circumstance doth require a new consideration how easily doe they erre in so much as let twenty Geometricians measure over the same plot of ground hardly two of them shall agree exactly So it seemeth that an error in point of doctrine may be more easily and more evidently convinced than an error in matter of fact He saith the separation is visible True but whether the separation be criminous whether party made the first separation whether there was just cause of separation whether side gave the cause whether the Keies did erre in separating whether there was not a former separation of the one party from the pure primitive Church which produced the second separation whether they who separated themselves or others without just cause doe erre invincibly or not whether they be ready to submit themselves to the sentence of the Catholick Church is not so easy to be discerned How many separations have sprung about elections or jurisdiction or precedency all which Rites are most intricate and yet the knowledge of the Schisme depends altogether upon them This Surveier himself confesseth That a Church may be really hereticall or schismaticall and yet morally a true Church because she is invincibly ignorant of her Heresy or Schisme in which case it is no Schisme but a necessary duty to separate from her In this very case proposed by himself I desire to know how it is so easie by the only view of the separation to judge or conclude of the Schisme But the true ground why Schisme is more probably objected to the Church of England than Heresie is a false but prejudicate opinion That the Bishop of Rome is the right Patriarch of Britain That we deserted him and that the differences between us are about Patriarchall Rites all which with sundry other such like mistaken grounds are evidently cleared to be otherwise in the vindication This is all that concernes my first Chapter The rest is voluntary The next thing observable in his Survey is that Protestants confesse that they have separated themselves not only from the Roman Church but also from all other Christian Churches in the communion of the Sacraments and publick worship of God And that no cause but necessity of salvation can justifie such a separation from the crime of Schisme And it must needs seem hard to prove that it was necessary for the salvation of Protestants to make such a separation from all Churches in the World As if there had been no Christian Church in whose communion in Sacraments they could finde salvation whence it will follow that at that time there was no true Church of God upon earth For proof of the first point That Protestants have separated from all Christian Churches he produceth Calvin Chillingworth and a treatise of his own It were to be wished that Professors of Theology would not cite their testimonies upon trust where the Authours themselves may easily be had only impossibility is stronger than necessity as the spartan Boy once answered the old Senator after the Laconicall manner and that they would cite their Authors fully and faithfully not by halves without adding to or new molding their authorities according to their own fancies or interest It may seem ludicrous but it was a sad truth of a noble English Gentleman sent Ambassador into forrein parts and with him an honorable Espy under the notion of a Companion by whom he was accused at his return to have spoken such and such things at such and such times The Gentleman pleaded ingenuously for himself that it might be he had spoken some of those things or it might be all those things but never any one of them in that order nor in that sense I have said he several Suits of apparel of purple cloth of green Velvet of white and black Sattin If one should put my two purple Sleeves to my green velvet Dublet and make my Hose the one of white Sattin the other of black and then swear that it was my apparrell they who did not know me might judge me a strange man To disorder authority to contract or enlarge them to misapply them besides the scope contrary to the sense of the Author is not more discommendable than common I have seen large volumes containing some hundreds of controversies as was pretended between Protestants and Papists And among them all not above five or six that I could owne as if they desired that the whole woven Coat of Christ should be torn more insunder than it is or that they might have the honor to conquer so many fictious Monsters of their own making I have seen authorities mangled and miâ—applied just like the Ambassadors clothes so as the right Authors would hardly have been able to know them So much prejudice and partiality and an habit of alteration is able to doe like a tongue infected with Choler which makes the sweetest meates to taste bitter or like coloured glass which makes every object we see through it to appear of the same colour Wherefore I doe intreat R. C. to save himself and me and the Reader so much labor and trouble for the future by forbearing to charge the private errors or opinions of particular persons it skilleth not much whether upon the Church of England the most of which were meer strangers to our affaires and many of them died before controversies were rightly stated or truly understood for none of which the Church of England is any way obliged to be responsable And likewise by forbearing to make so many empty references to what he beleeves or pretends to have proved in some of his other books See the Author of the Protestant Religion See the distinction of fundamentals and not fundamentals See the sufficient proposer of faith See the Protestants plain confession See the Flowers of the English Church See the Epistle to King James See the prudential Ballance See the collation of Scripture To what end can this serve but either to divert us from the question we have in hand or to amuse the Reader and put him into a
separate from other Churches but from their own errours In a large garden suppose there should be many quarters some weeded some unweeded there is indeed a separation of the Plants from the Weeds in the same quarters but no separation of one quarter from another Or if a man shall purge out of himself corrupted humours he doth not thereby separate himself from other persons whose bodies are unpurged It is true that such weeding and purging doth produce a distinction between the quarters weeded and the quarters unweeded and between Bodies purged and Bodies unpurged But either they stand in no such need of weeding or purging or it is their own fault who doe not weed or purge when they have occasion If they will needs misconstrue our lawfull reformation to be an unlawfull and uncharitable separation how can we help it We have separated from no Eastern Southern Northern or Western Church Our Article tells them the same either let them produce some Act of ours which makes or implies such a separation or let them hold their peace for ever But all this noise proceeds from hence that R. C. conceives that we will no more join with those Eastern Churches or any of them in their Creeds in their Liturgies or publick forms of serving God nor communicate with them in their Sacraments then we doe with the Church of Rome If we communicate not with the Roman Church in some things it is not our faults It is not their serving of God nor their Sacraments that we dislike but their disservice of God and corrupting of the holy Sacraments But for these Grecian Russian Armenian and Abissine Churches I finde grosse superstitions objected to some of them but not proved I finde some inusitate expressions about some mysteries which are scarcely intelligible or explicable as the procession of the holy Ghost and the Union of the two natures in Christ which are not frequently used among us but I beleive their sense to be the same with ours The Grecians doe acknowledge the holy Ghost to be the Spirit of the Son And all the other Churches are ready to accurse the errours both of Nestorius and Eâ—tyches But that which satisfies me is this that they exact of no man nor obtrude upon him any other Creed or new Articles of Faith then the Apostolicall Nicene and Athanasian Creeds with the explications of the generall Councels of Ephesiu Constantinople and Chalcedon all which we readily admit and use daily in our Liturgy If the Church of Rome would rest where they doe we might well have disputable questions between us but no breach of unity in point of Faith Likewise in point of discipline all these Churches ascribe no more to the Pope then a primacy of Order no supremacy of Power or universal Jurisdiction They make a generall Councel with or without the Popes suffrage to be the highest Ecclesiasticall tribunall Let the Romanists rest where they doe rest and all our controversies concerning Ecclesiasticall discipline will fall to the ground Thirdly they have their Liturgy in a language understood they administer the Sacrament in both kinds to all Christians They doe not themselves adore much lesse compell others to adore the species of Bread and Wine Howsoever they have a kind of elevation They have no new matter and form no tradition of the paten and chalice in Presbyterian ordination but only imposition of hands They know no new Sacrifice but the commemoration representation and application of the Sacrifice of the Crosse. Just as we believe Let the Romanists but imitate their moderation and we shall strait come to joyn in Communion in Sacraments and Sacramentals also Yet these are the three essentials of Christian Religion Faith Sacraments and Discipline So little ground had R. C. to tell us that we had separated our selves from all Christian Churches in the World But Calvin saith we have been forced to make a separation from all the world Admit he did say so What will he conclude from hence that the Church of England did the same This consequence will never be made good without a transubstantiation of Mr. Calvin into the English Church He himself knoweth better that we honor Calvin for his excellent parts but we doe not pinn our Religion either in Doctrine or Discipline or Liturgy to Calvins sleeve Whether Calvin said so or not for my part I cannot think otherwise but that he did so in point of Discipline untill some body will be favorably pleased to shew me one formed nationall or provinciall Church throughout the world before Geneva that wanted Bâ—shops or one lay Elder that exercised Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction in Christendome I confess the Fratres Bohemi had not the name of Bishops but they wanted not the order of Bishops under the name of Seniores or Elders who had both Episcopall Ordination after their Presbyterian Episcopal Jurisdiction and Episcopall Succession from the Bishops of the Waldenses who had continued in the Church under other names time immemotiall and gave them charge at their Reformation long before Luthers time to preserve that Order All which themselves have published to the World in private I confâ—ss likewise that they had their lay Elders under the name of Presbyteri from whence Mr. Calvin borrowed his But theirs in Bohemia pretended not to be Ecclesiasticall Commissioners nor did nor durst ever presume to meddle with the power of the keies or exercise any Jurisdiction in the Church They were only inferior Officers neither more nor less than our Church-Wardens and Sydemen in England This was far enough from ruling Elders Howsoever what doth this concern the Church of England which never made nor maintained nor approved any such separation No more did Calvin himselfe out of judgment but out of necessity to complie with the present estate of Geneva after the expulsion of their Bishop As might be made appeare if it were needfull by his publick profession of their readines to receive such Bishops as the primitive Bishops were or otherwise that they were to be reputed nullo non anathemate digni By his subscription to the Augustane confession which is for Epicopacy cui pridem volens ac libens subscripsi By his confession to the King of Polonia The ancient Church instituted Patriarchater and assigned primacie to single Provinces that Bishops might be better knit together in the bond of unity By his description of the charge of a Bishop that should joyn himself to the reformed Church to doe his indeavour that all the Churches within his Bishoprick be purged from Errors and Idolatry to goe before the Curates or Pastors of his Diocess by his example and to induce them to admit the Reformation And lastly by his letters to Arch-bishop Cranmer the Bishop of London and a Bishop of Polonia I have searched the hundred one and fortieth Epistle and for fear of failing the hundred and one and fortieth page also in my edition but I
may truely believe and yet not know so assuredly that he doth believe and that he shall persevere in his beliefe as to be able to inferre the conclusion Speciall Faith is a rare jewel not to be acquired but by long experience by being deeply radicated in holynesse and by the extraordinary grace of God So far he errs from truth when he saith That justification by speciall Faith is prora puppis the Life and Soul and dâ—fâ—nition of a Protestant But supposing it were true what a strange arguing were this All Protestants believe justification by speciall Faith but the Church of Rome condemneth speciall Faith Therefore the Protestant and the Roman Church are not both true Churches As if it were impossible for one true Church to condemn the opinions of another But we shall meet with this subject of speciall Faith again And for his power to offer Sacrifice Protestants have as much power as Romanists The holy Eucharist is a commemoration a representation an application of the all-sufficient propitiatory Sacrifice of the Crosse. If his Sacrifice of the Masse have any other propitiatory power or virtue in it then to commemorate represent applie the merit of the Sacrifice of the Crosse let him speak plainly what it is Bellarmine knew no more of this Sacrifice then we Sacrificium crucis c. The Sacrifice of the Crosse remitteth all sinnes past present and to come seeing it acquired a most sufficient price for the sinnes of the whole World And therefore that Sacrifice being finished and Sinnes being remitted there remains not any oblation for sinne like to that that is for acquiring a price or value for the remission of sinnes To what use then serves the Sacrifice of the Masse Hear him out Adhuc sunt c. There are yet and will be unto the end of the World those to whom this price of deliverance is to be applyed If this be all as clearly it is to apply that price of deliverance which Christ paid for us then what noise have they raised in the World to no purpose Then our Sacrifice is as good as theirs Of our not communicating with them in Sacraments he hath received an account formerly And of our Ministers wanting power to offer Sacrifice he shall receive a just account in due place I said that a man might render himself guilty of hereticall pravity four waies first by disbelieving any fundamentall Article of Faith or necessary part of saving Truth For though fundamentals only be simply necessary to be known of all Christians yet there are many other truths revealed by God which being known are as necessary to be believed as the fundamentals themselves And to discredit any one of these lesser truths after it is known that God hath revealed it is as much as to deny the truth of God or to deny all the fundamenmentals put together Against this he urgeth that Heresie is incurred by disbelieving any point of Faith whatsoever if it be sufficiently proposed Right if it be so proposed that a man knows it to be a revealed truth or might know it if he did not obstinately shut his eies against evident light But the Church of Rome is no such sufficient or infallible proposer that every man is bound to receive its determinations as Oracles But R C. leaves these words out of my discourse or necessary part of saving truth that is necessary to some persons in some places at sometimes to whom they are sufficiently revealed Is this fair dealing Secondly I said that Heresie was incurred by believing superstitious errours or additions which doe virtually and by evident consequence overthrow a fundamentall truth This is denied by R. C. because Faith is an assent to divine Revelations upon the authority of the revealer and therefore is neither gotten nor lost nor Heresie incurred by consequence Doth he not know that whosoever believeth a revealed truth doth of necessity believe all the evident consequences of it As he that believes that Christ is God doth of necessity believe that he is eternall And if he maintain that erat quando non erat There was a time when he was not he doth implicitly deny his Deâ—ty and incur the crime of Heresie Hath he forgotten what their own Doctors doe teach that a conclusion of Faith may be grounded upon one proposition inevident that is revealed and another proposition evident that is not revealed but evident in it self The hypostaticall union of the two natures divine and humane in Christ is a fundamentall truth that the blessed Virgin is the mother of God that Christ had both a divine and humane will are evident consequences of this truth not expresly revealed Yet for denying the former Nestorius for denying the later the Manothelites were condemned as hereticks Thirdly Heresie may be incurred by obstinate persisting in lesser errours after a man is convicted in his conscience that they are errours either out of animosity because he scornes to yeeld or out of covetous ambitous or other sinister ends And lastly Heresie is incurred by a froward and peevish opposition to the Decrees of a generall Councel to the disturbing of the peace and tranquility of the Church Against these two last waies of incurring Heresie R. C. saith nothing directly but upon the by he taxeth me of two errours First that I say No Councel can make that a point of Faith which was not ever such We agree in this That no Councel can make that a fundamentall which was not a fundamentall nor make that a revealed truth which was not a revealed truth I acknoledge further that a generall Councel may make that revealed truth necessary to be believed by a Christian as a point of Faith which formerly was not necessary to be believed that is whensoever the reasons and grounds produced by the Councel or the authority of the Councel which is and alwaies ought to be very great with all sober discreet Christians doe convince a man in his conscience of the truth of the Councels definition In doubtful questions if there be no miscarriage no packing of Votes no fraud used in the Councel like that in the Councel of Ariminum for receiving Christ and rejecting homo-ousios and if the determination be not contrary to the tradition of the Church who would not rather suspect his own judgement then a general Councels I confesse yet further that when a generall Councel hath determined any controversie no man may oppose its determination but every one is bound to acquiesce and possesse his Soul in patience though he be not convicted in his conscience of the truth of their sentence And if any man out of pevishnesse or stubbornnesse shall oppose their definition to the disturbance of the peace and tranquility of the Church he deserves to be punished as an Heretick Then wherein lies the difference First in R. C. his misreciting my words according to his ordinary custome I said only this that a Councel could not