or at least that year was pure again For it cannot be imagin'd the doctrine of that Council was pure but the beleefe of the Faithful in that Age taught by those Pastors which there resided must be pure also Far more consonant then to their grounds is the doctrine of the Puritans denying promiscuously all Antiquity than to pick and cull out at pleasure what serves their turn as doe the Protestants and to like and reject allow and disallow what makes for or against them without giving any evident reason why they put such a difference In vain therefore does the Doctor like a very Saint pretend in behalfe of their Church an unaffected ignorance though they should mistake being conscious to himselfe what pitiful shifts he makes use of in stead of grounds In vain does he hope that this ruliness as he calls it and obedience of theirs will render them approvable to God unless they can render God an approved reason why they will at pleasure hold his sacred Spouse the Church holy in one Age and adulterate in another and shape and fashion Christs seamless coat according to the mode of their ever-changing fancy Lastly most vainly doe they hope this ruliness in holding to the first 300. yeares will lead them into all truth unless they could shew that all the points of Truth between them and us were professedly treated and decided in those times and the decision on their side He ends in a preaching manner with extolling the humble and docible temper of his Church Truly Mr. Doctor it is a wonderful commendation to your Church that she is yet to bee taught Pray when will she be at age to leave going to School when will she be out of her prentice-like tutorage and set up for her selfe to professe truth as a Church should do I thought a Church should have been Columna firmamentum veritatis the Pillar and firm foundation of Truth but yours is like the hinge of a door or a weather-cock docibly turning with every wind of doctrine How doe you think the Puritans or any other Sect should in reason yeeld any Authority to your Church since she professes her selfe yet learning her Faith that is as yet knowes it not If it be such a commendation in your Church to be docible I suppose it is so in others and consequently in the whole Church and then I pâ—ay who must teach her or what greater Professor is there on Earth of the knowledge of Christs Faith to whom the Universal Church may submit her selfe as dociâ—le Perhaps you will say that one particular Church must sisterly and charitably assist and teach another that is though each be ignorant it selfe yet like the blind leading the blind they must all be supposed mutual Mistreâ—ses and consequently all learned But let us examine a little further this docible and humble temper of your youngling Church Is it dâ—ciblenesse or humility think you to forsake a Mistress who had all the qualities which could give â—er Authority and fall to teach your selves new reformed doctrines without any Authority at all Such is the humble dâ—ciblenesse of your Church Is it docibleness to cast off the Authority of 14. General Councils and the consent of Christendome for twelve hundred yeares and rely upon your own judgments to interpret the rest as you list This is the so much brag d on docibleness and humble temper of your Church Parallel to the former or rather far ouâ—vying them though of a contrary strain is that most heroick Act of your docible humility to be willing to hold things concerning your eternal salvation upon the Authority of the four General Councils or the Doctors and Church of the first 300. yeares which Drs. and Councils notwithstanding it is an Article of your Faith that they are fallible And as for the Church of those times that it was fallible your selfe grants for you confesse that the same Church erred in the fourth Age. Now to hold Articles or points of Faith upon that Authority which it is an Article of Faith may deceive me is such a magnanimous piece of docible humility as I dare be bold to say in the Doctors behalfe neither the Apostles nor any Saint in the succeeding Church durst ever own Neither can the present Catholikes whom some who neither understand their own nor Catholike grounds laugh at as blindly humble and obedient to the Church lay claim to such an incomparable degree of humility proper and peculiar to the Protestants onely For we pretend not Faith certain but upon a deemed INFALLIBILITY in the Authority assuring it so as though they may be supposed blameable by you for failing in their grounds that is in believing the Church infallible yet they cannot be condemned for proceeding inconsequently upon those groundâ— for an infallible Authority deserves a firm assent But to stand to the acceptation of matters of Faith which you pretend most certain upon an Authority confessed by your selves uncertain is such a condiscension of humility such a prostrating your proper knowledge as is not onely a blindly-capâ—ivating your Judgment but even an utter renouncing all judgment prudence and common sence not a submitting the reason by a voluntary winking at objections but a quite extinguishing and perfect putting out of the very Eye of reason it selfe and is all one as if a man should say For any thing I know such a one may lye in what he tells mee yet neverthelesse I will strongly perswade my selfe that all hee sayes is most certainely true Yet this humility the Doctor calls here a special mark of the Church of Englands Reformation And surely you have reformed well since you have not only reform'd the Unity you before enjoy'd into distractions the Faith you formerly profest into new-fangled misbeleefes but your former reason and judgment into present folly and fancy What is said of your accepting the four Councils c. may also bee apply'd to your private interpretitions of Scripture which found your Faith which Faith you will have to be certain and firm though the persons Interpretation it is built on be fallible and obnoxious to errour The pious words in your own behalfe with which you close up your Chapter spoken in an Elegiack tone are very moanfully moving words out of a pulpit rhetorical enough for women not rational enough to satisfie any prudent man You professe you would preserve the Unity of the Apostolical Faith and primitive practises as entire as Christs body or garments Good Mr. Hammond leave mocking your Readers and tell us why the Primitive times must needs just end then when the Church began to flourish and the Fathers to write against your doctrine And as for Christs body or garments I see no such great respect in you or your Churches doctrine allow'd towards holy Reliques that I should be willing to trust those sacred pledges to your unhallowed hands from whose rude usage his mystical Body his Church Faith its Rule
that professes her self fallible that is uncertain of the truth of her Doctrine cannot without accusing her self of the greatest injustice and tyranny in the World binde others to the belief of the said Doctrine For it carries the prejudice of the highest unreasonableness with it for a man to tell me I will force you â—o believe that which yet I my self know not whether it is to be believed or no. Let not Dr. Hammond then blame our Church for obliging men to subscribe to her Doctrine unless he can evidence first That she hath not that which she hath ever from the beginning of the Church pretended to to wit a security from fallibility by the perpetual assistance of her Spouse and Saviour But rather let him invent if he can any rational excuse for his own Church which professing her self fallible and so wanting all power to oblige to belief would notwithstanding have others believe her accounting the Puritans Anabaptists Presbyterians and Independants Schismaticks if they do not and dares enstyle her self a Church that is a Commonwealth which hath power and means to oblige to Unity in belief whereas her own professed fallibility or uncertainty evidences that she wants all the Nerves which should connect the Members of such a Body These grounds laid it were not amiss to insert here what the Author of that Epistle which was writ from Bruxels in answer to Dr. Hammond saith upon this place By this saith he you may perceive much of his discourse to be not onely superfluous and unnecessary but contrary to himself for he laboreth to perswade That the Protestant may be certain of some truth against which the Roman Catholick Church bindeth to profession of Error which is as much as to say That he who pretends to have no infallible Rule whereby to govern his Doctrine shall be supposed to be infallible and that he who pretends to have an infallible Rule shall be supposed to be fallible at most because fallible Objections are brought against him Now then consider what a meek and humble son of the Church as this Dr. would he thought ought to do when on the one side is the Authority of Antiquity and Possession such Antiquity and Possession without dispute or contradiction from the Adversary as no King can shew for his Crown and much less any other person for any other thing together with the perswasion of Infallibility and all the pledges Christ hath left to his Church for motives of Union On the other side uncertain Reasons of a few men pretending to Learning every day contradicted by incomparable numbers of men wise and learned and those few men confessing those Reasons and themselves uncertain fallible and subject to Error Certainly without a byass of interest or prejudice it is impossible to leave the Church if he be in it or not return if he be out of it For if infallibility be the ground of the Churches power to command belief as she pretends no other no time no separation within memory of History can justifie a continuance out of the Church Thus far that Letter which had it not been strangled in the birth and miscarried in the Printer's hand might have saved me the labor of this larger conâ—ute and being exactly short might justly be styled Dr. Hammonds Iliads in a Nut-shell since the force of it was so united the Reason in it so firmly connected as might have cost the Doctor a full ten years siege ere he could make a breach into it with his Brown-Paper Bullets But now it is high time to reflect upon the Doctors manner of arguing who tells us here That he needs give no more answer to our objection of a Schismatical departure then this That they who acknowledge not the Church of Rome to be Infallible may be allowed to make a supposition which is founded in the possibility of her inserting Errors in her Confessions c. And so goes on with three or four Suppositions all built upon that first general Supposition That the Roman Catholick Church hath erred or is not infallible I commend the Doctor for his wit The whole question is reduced to this one point Whether the Church erred or no as is most manifest For if she evidently errâ—d he and his Ancestors may possibly be excused for not believing her and rejecting her Government by Schism which she told you was sacred but if she was infallible no plea nor evasion can possibly serve your turn neither is it your or their supposing it which can make her fallible and so be a fit ground to build your excuse on Now comes this Gentleman who in the first page of his Book is entitled Doctor of Divinity to handle this Question and onely desires in courtesie that the main matter in controversie out of which it was easie to infer what he pleased should first be supposed or granted and that upon that ground he would evince his cause Just like that young smatâ—eâ—er in Logick who undertook to prove his fellow a Goose but first he would needs have him suppose that whatsoever had two Legs was one of those tame Fowl which his wary fellow notwithstanding his importunity refusing to grant he was left quite blank and his wise Argument at an end Such is the on-seâ— such must be the event of the Doctors Logick You and your first Reformers are Schismaticks says the Catholick in rejecting the Government of the Church and her chief Pastor which she told you was both lawful and sacred Your Church erred saith the Doctor and so we could not be obliged to believe her I but answers the Catholick you must first prove evidently that she is fallible and subject to Error O replies the Doctor we suppose that to be most certainly true and without all dispute Risum teneatis amici Yet Mr. Hammond hath involved another Error in the same passage more unpardonable if possible then the former so fruitful is his Logick of inconsequent absurdities For what man ever arrived to that heigth of mistake as to endeavor to manifest his innocency by the voluntary confession of a crime which implies the objected fault and much more to boot or to alledge for his plea against the accusation of his adversary that which more deeply condemns and is objected to him as a far more hainous crime by the same adversary Yet such is this Doctors acuteness He is accused by us of Schism and lays for the ground of his excuse That he acknowledges not our Churches infallibility which is charged upon him not onely to be both Schism and Heresie but as the very sink of all Infidelity For what man of Reason but stands in an hovering disposition of minde to embrace any Religion or rather Irreligion nay even Turcism it self as your best Champion the Lord Faulkland professes he would when a stronger blast of a more probable Reason shall turn the sail of his Wind-Mill Judgment knowing and acknowledging as he must and does That neither
alter old ones then you must either grant our Church in the fifteenth age to have been no Church which you dare not affirm for fear of spoiling your own mission or else grant that you were more bound to hold the Ceremonies recommended by her than those which descended from the Primitive times Since our Church could better see what was expedient for her present circumstances than the Primitive could foresee so long before hand what was likely to be convenient for future ages SECT 4. Of Doctor Hammonds charitablenesse in admitting all to his Communion and our pretended Uncharitablenesse for refusing to goe to their Assemblies IN the fifth place the Doctor professes like a good charitable man as hee is that they exclude no Christian from their Communion that will either filially or fraternally embrace it with them No truly to give your Religion its due it is a wonderful civil and courteous profession and admits all the old condemned Heresies into Communion provided they but professe Christ whatever points else they deny it matters not Nay it is sufficient if they call themselves Christians though all the world else calls them Hereticks yet your kind hearted Church cannot but friendly entertain them You keep open house for all commers The doctrine of Oportet haereses esse There must bee heresies is changed by your boon behaviour into It is impossible there should be heresies For whereas the world heretofore understood those to be Hereticks who held the letter of the Scripture and some points of Christianity but deny'd others which were the tenets of the Universal Church at that time you have now quite chang'd the former notion and think none to bee excluded from Communion that is none to be Hereticks that bear the name of a Christian so as though they deny all points of Christs doctrine yet professe Christs name and the outward letter of the Scripture let them come and welcome Anabaptists Brownists Presbyterians Quakers Carpocratians perhaps Arians nay even Simon Magus himselfe all these sew'd together only with the aiery sound of the word Christian will serve for broken-ware pieces to patch up Doctor Hammonds motley Church For since they hold to his grounds that is to professe Christs name and the letter of the Scripture he cannot in any reason admit some and refuse the rest Again the Doctor is willing to admit any that will filially or fraternally embrace communion with them that is all that will be either under them or at least not above them but is loath to admit communion with any that will paternally communicate with them that is be over and govern them No take heed of that as much courtesie as you please but not a dram of humility obedience nor subjection to Superiours These peace-preserving virtues would quite break the neck of Schism and Faction If there bee any such over-powering Authority though never so long setled in possession over the Countrey and acknowledged and beleeved by all Christians in never so many ages to bee of divine institution yet presently the spirit of Schism in the first place endeavours to break asunder the bonds of this paternal communion to pluck it down to the ground and cast it out of the Island You are willing you say to admit all to your Assemblies that acknowledge the foundation laid by Christ and his Apostles You love mightily to talk plausible words in the aire and in general as if you made account your Readers should bee all fooles to search no further than the empty sound of your universal sayings not applying them to the thing in question Good Mr. Doctor tell me what it is to acknowledge the foundation laid by Christ and his Apostles Is it to acknowledge Scripture All heresies in the world fly onely to it and make it their armour-house to oppugn Christ and his Church Arians and Socinians most of all and yet they can deny Christs Godhead So as by this means indeed you will have store of communicants Is it the true sence of the Scripture then truth being one and falshood manifold if their interpretation be different from yours both cannot bee true and consequently both acknowledge not the foundation left by Christ for falsifying his word cannot be that foundation Again if this bee the foundation left by Christ you must have some certain and known Rule to come by the true sence of the Scriptures else you cannot be certainly assured who acknowledge this foundation and so admit rashly to your Communion you know not whom Is it perhaps the true sence of Scripture but restrain'd to fundamentals still the same difficulty remaines unlesse you have some certain Rule to distinguish and sort out the Essentials from points of less importance to talk much of fundamentals and never tell us which are they is but a shuffling trick of a mountebank and very unbecomming a grave Divine Or is this Foundation perhaps the solid sence of Christs law written and planted in the tables of mens hearts by the Apostles and thence by a welllink't chain of Universal Tradition derived to our times If so you must admit onely Catholikes and exclude all the rest since onely they hold this foundation Or rather indeed since you deny this way of bringing down Faith to bee sufficient which Catholikes hold as a certain and infallible Rule it followes that if you will goe conseqently to your own grounds you must not admit them neither since this is not the by-you acknowledged foundation laid by Christ and his Apostles It remaines then that you are willing to admit all those that shall say they have the Foundation laid by Christ and his Apostles and then you cannot doubt but to have the brotherly fellowship of all hereticks and schismaticks in the world that have been are or shall bee since all pretend strongly in general termes to acknowledge that Foundation Nor is hee lesse devoutly charitable in the following words that they earnestly desire to bee admitted to the like freedome of external Communion with all the members of all other Christian Churches as oft as occasion makes us capable of that blessing of the one heart and the one lip This it is to bee so inured to a drowsy sounding vein of preaching Quodlibets till a man hath humm'd and drumm'd away all reason out of his head Speak sence man and let your pretended Charity come clad in Truth or else I must justly suspect it to bee nothing but Pharisaical hypocrisie I hate contradictions though told me in never so pious a tone Was it ever heard that any Catholike deny'd you Communion if you were capable of that blessing of one heart the same interiour beleefe and one lip the same exteriour profession To what purpose then are those seemingly pious words produc'd Leave off paying us with this hollow language empty of sence render your selves capable of that blessing in your actions renounce and repent your disobedience to your so-long-acknowledg'd Superiours Repeal your schismatical ordinances against