prove that any of the Fathers have denyed this place to extend to infallibility is a very unreasonable thing which you put the Bishop and his party upon because they only deliver what they conceive the meaning of places to be without reflections on any Heresies but such as were most prevalent in their own times And if your Church had in their time challenged Infallibility from such places you might have heard of their Negative which at present you put us unreasonably to prove Your answer to John 14.16 only is that it must be understood in some absolute sense and doth not his Lordship say so too viz. in regard of Consolation and Grace But if you say there can be no other absolute sense but an infallible assistance you would do well to prove it and not barely to suppose it and so likewise what follows as to John 16.13 which his Lordship justly restrains to the Apostles alone you tell us That you contend that in whatsoever sense all truth is to be understood in respect of each Apostle apart it is also to be understood in relation to their Successors assembled in a full Representative of the whole Church That you contend we grant but we say it is without sense or reason And therefore come to examine what you produce for it Your first reason Because the Representative of the Church in General Council and the Bishop of Rome as Pastor of the whole Church have equal power to oblige the Church to believe what they deliver as each Apostle had is utterly denied and must be more then barely supposed as it is here Your second which you call the Fundamental reason of this Exposition is in short That the preservation of the Church requires infallibility in future ages of the Church as well as in the Apostles times which is again utterly denied And the next time you write I pray prove your reasons well and think not your confident producing things you know are denied by us will serve for reasons against us Before you can sufficiently prove that any rite of the Church not mentioned in Scripture had the Holy Ghost for its Authour especially when contrary to a custome expressed in Scripture you must do more then produce a single testimony of St. Augustine for it who was apt to suppose the Holy Ghost might be pleased with such things which the Church though not therein infallible might consent in the practise of Which certainly is far from supposing the Church to have infallible assistance with it in delivering Doctrines of Faith because some things might be used in the Church which the Holy Ghost might be supposed not displeased with which is the utmost can be made of your citation out of St. Austin It seems you were aware of that disparity between the Apostles times and ours as to the pretence of Infallibility because the Apostles were first to deliver this Doctrine to the world and after to consign it by writing to future ages from whence it were easie to inferr there could not be that necessity of a Continual Infallible Assistance in the Church because the Doctrine infallibly delivered by them is preserved in the Church by the Infallible Records of it But to this your answer is considerable What wise man say you would go about to raise a stately building for many ages and satisfie himself with laying a Foundation to last but for a few years Our Saviour the wisest of Architects is not to be thought to have founded this incomparable building of the Church upon sand which must infallibly have happened had he not intended to afford his continual assistance also to the succeeding Pastors of the Church to lead them when assembled in a General Council into all those truths wherein he first setled the Apostles Whether you call this arguing for the Churches infallibility or libelling against our blessed Saviour if he hath not done what you would have him is hard to determine I am sure it is arguing ab absurdo with a witness for if he hath not done just as you fancy he should have done he must venture to be accounted an Ignoramus and Impostor before and here to do that which no wise man would have done viz. build a stately Fabrick the Church upon the Sands So it seems you account the Prophets and the Apostles for if the Apostle may be credited we are built on the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner-stone And this is it you must mean by being built on the sand for herein it is plain the Church is built on these viz. that Infallible doctrine which was delivered by them but here is not one word or the least intimation of an inherent infallibility in the Church which was to be its foundation so as to secure it from all errour And this you say must infallibly happen if there be not the same infallibility in General Councils which was in the Apostles for that I suppose must be the meaning of your last words if they be to the purpose But how groundless your pretence of the Infallibility of General Councils is will appear when we come to that subject but have you so little of common sense and reason with you as to suppose the Church presently notwithstanding the Divine Revelation of the Doctrine of Christianity in Scripture to be built on Sand if General Councils be not infallible Is there not sufficient ground to rely on the Doctrine of Christianity supposing there never had been any General Council in the world What was the Church built on before the Nicene Council only on Sand surely the Wind and Billows of persecutions would then have easily overturned it What if through civil combustions in the Empire there could never have been any Assembly's of the Bishops afterwards must the Church needs have fallen to the ground for want of General Councils But why I pray must the Infallibility of the Apostles be compared only to a foundation that can last but for few years Do you suppose that these Apostles never did commit their Doctrine infallibly to writing or that these writings of theirs did last but for a few years without one of these it is hard to find out your meaning by those expressions If you deny either of them I shall readily prove them but if you affirm both these as if you are heartily a Christian you must do with what face can you say that Christ in making the Apostles infallible did lay a Foundation but for a few years But thanks be to God although perverse and unreasonable men are alwaies quarrelling with the methods of Divine wisdom and goodness this Foundation of the Lord standeth sure still and as long as the Infallible Doctrine of the Gospel continues the Church will be built on a stedfast and unmoveable Rock which will prove a much surer Foundation than the seven Hills of Infallibility But this is your grand and fundamental
absolute Command can by any means whatsoever afterwards become necessary 3. Whether the Church hath power by any Proposition or Definition to make any thing become necessary to Salvation and to be believed as such which was not so before These three I suppose you cannot deny but will take in all that is considerable in this Controversie Which I shall with the more care examine because nothing tends more to the peace of the Christian World than a through and clear discussion of it and nothing causeth more the Schisms and Divisions of it than the want of a right and due conception of it 1. What the Grounds are on which any thing doth become necessary to Salvation For our better understanding of which we must consider two things 1. What things are necessary to the Salvation of men as such or considered in their single and private capacities 2. What things are necessary to be owned in order to Salvation by Christian Societies or as the bonds and conditions of Ecclesiastical Communion The want of understanding this distinction of the necessity of things hath caused most of the perplexities and confusion in this Controversie of Fundamentals 1. What those things are which are necessary to the Salvation of particular persons But that we make all as clear as possible in a matter of so great intricacy two things again must be inquired into 1. What the Ground is why any thing becomes necessary to be believed in order to Salvation 2. What the Measure and Extent is of those things which are to be believed by particular persons as necessary to Salvation 1. What the Ground or Foundation is on which things become necessary to be believed by particular persons And that which is the true ground of the necessity why any thing is to be believed is the proper ratio of a Fundamental Article For I suppose it a much clearer notion of Fundamentals to understand them not as Principles from whence Deductions may be drawn of Theological Truths but in regard of that immediate respect which they have to mens Salvation Those things therefore which are necessary to be explicitly believed by particular persons are Fundamentals in order to their Salvation Now all belief in this case supposing Divine Revelation nothing can be imagined to be necessary to be believed but what may be certainly known to be of Divine Revelation But when we consider that besides the general reason of believing what God hath revealed we must either suppose that all things are of equal necessity which are revealed in order to the general end of this Revelation or that some things therein contained are expresly necessary to the end and other things to be believed on the general account of Faith so far as they are known to be of Divine Revelation Now from hence ariseth a twofold necessity of things to be believed the first more general and large the second more particular and absolute The first depends upon the formal reason of Faith the second on the particular end of Divine Revelation That which depends on the formal reason of that Assent we call Faith is that which supposeth Divine Veracity or the impossibility of Gods deceiving us in any thing revealed by Him now this extends to all things whatsoever which are supposed by men to be of Divine Revelation For though men may mistake in the matter yet the reason of Assent holding under that mistake they are bound necessarily to believe whatever is supposed by them to be Divine Revelation Here lyes no difficulty in the ground of Faith but all the care is to be used in the search into the matters which are to be believed on the account of this Revelation But here we are to consider that the only thing which is in general and absolutely necessary to Salvation is the general act of Faith viz. Believing whatever God reveals to be true else God's Veracity would be call'd in question but particular objects cannot be said on this account to be absolutely and universally necessary but only so far as there are sufficient convictions that those particulars are of Divine Revelation And the more general and extensive the means of conviction are the more large and universal is the obligation to Faith As that the Scriptures contain in them the Word of God is a matter of more universal obligation than particular things therein revealed because the belief of the one depends upon the acknowledgement of the other And withall supposing it believed that the matters contained in Scripture are of Divine Revelation yet all things are not equally clear to all capacities that they are therein contained Which is a sufficient ground for us to say It was not God's intention that all things contained in his Word should be believed with the same degree of necessity by all persons And therefore though the general reason of Faith depends on Gods Veracity yet the particular obligation to the belief of particular things as revealed by God depends on the means whereby we may be assured that such things are revealed by him which means admitting of so great Variety as to the circumstances and capacities of particular persons there can be no general Rule set down what things are necessary to be believed by all particular persons For those who have greater means of knowledge a larger capacity and clearer proposal are bound to believe more things explicitly than those who want all these or have a lower degree of them In which case it is an unreasonable thing to say that such a one who dis-believes any thing propounded to him as a matter of Faith doth presently call in question God's Veracity for he may as firmly believe that as any in general and yet may have ground to question whether God's Veracity be at all concerned in that which is propounded to him as a matter of Faith because he sees no reason to believe that this was ever revealed by God And by this a clear answer is given to that Question which you propose Whether all those Truths which are sufficiently proposed to any Christian as defined by the Church for matter of Faith can be dis-believed by such a Christian without mortal and damnable sin which unrepented destroyes Salvation To which the answer is easie upon the grounds here assigned for this question concerning particular persons and particular objects of Faith the resolution of it doth depend upon the sufficiency of the means to convince such a person that whatever is propounded as Defined by the Church for a matter of Faith is certainly and truly so For to instance in any one of those new Articles of Faith Transubstantiation or the Pope's Supremacy c. you tell me These are necessary to be believed or at least cannot be dis-believed without sin which is all one in this case supposing clear conviction for then what cannot be dis-believed without sin must be explicitly believed I desire to know the grounds why they may not you tell me These
in charging him with a threefold falsification of Vincentius Lerinensis The second thing which his Lordship answers is That all determinations of the Church are not made firm to us by one and the same Divine Revelation because some are made by Scripture and others as Stapleton saith without any evident or probable testimony of Holy writ though therein Bellarmine falls quite off and confesses in express terms that nothing can be certain by certainty of Faith unless it be contained immediately in the Word of God or be deduced thence by evident consequence Your only design here is to vindicate your two great Champions from contradicting each other which though it be of little consequence to the main Assertion of his Lordship which you knew well enough and therefore carefully avoid the main Charge of your enemy to part two of your quarrelling friends yet since you intend this for a tryal of your skill we must see how well you play your Prize Stapleton you say means that we must submit to the determinations of the Church and the traditions she approves though they be not expresly contained in Scripture Excellently well guessed at Stapletons meaning when the very words you cite out of him are We ought not to deny our assent in matters of Faith though we have them only by tradition or the decisions of the Church against Hereticks and not confirmed with evident or probable testimony of Scripture What a rare Interpreter are you grown since your acquaintance with Rider and other English Lexicons Who make not denying assent in matters of Faith to be the same with submitting to the Churches Determinations when you know well enough we plead for submission to the Churches Determinations where there may be a liberty as to internal assent and it is as good to make no evident or probable testimony of Scripture the same with not being expresly contained in Scripture as though nothing which was not expresly contained in Scripture could have any probable testimony from thence And from this we may guess what an easie matter it is for you to accommodate all persons who differ if one sayes Yes and the other No you will tell them they do not differ but that one of them by Yes means No and the other by No means Yes Just so here you reconcile Stapleton and Bellarmine for you say Stapleton by no probable testimony means some kind of probable testimony viz. such as though not express may be yet deduced from Scripture and Bellarmine when he speaks of Gods written Word as the ground of certainty means that which is neither Gods Word nor yet written viz. Tradition I never met with one who had a better faculty of reconciling than you seem to have by this attempt But his Lordship had prevented this subterfuge as to Bellarmine and Stapleton as if Stapleton spake of the Word of God written and Bellarmine of the Word of God unwritten as he calls Tradition For Bellarmine saith he there treats of the knowledge which a man hath of the certainty of his own Salvation And I hope A. C. will not tell us there 's any Tradition extant unwritten by which particular men may have assurance of their several Salvations Therefore Bellarmine 's whole Disputation there is quite beside the matter Or else he must speak of the written Word and so lye cross to Stapleton as is mentioned You tell us This Reason is very strange but I dare say yours exceeds it in strangeness which is because Bellarmines design was to shew there was no such unwritten Tradition to be found But doth Bellarmine dispute against any body or no body If he disputes against any body upon your principles those whom he disputes against must be such who assert that men may have certainty of Faith concerning their Salvation from Tradition and you would do well to tell us Who those were that pretended that there was a Tradition or unwritten word delivered down from the Apostles that they should be saved And though Bellarmine was not to affirm this yet those he disputed against upon your Principles must be supposed to do it But certainly you thought none of your Readers did ever intend to look into Bellarmine for the place in Controversie for if they did nothing could be more plain than that Bellarmines reason against Catharinus and others proceeds wholly and only upon the written Word For 1. When he saith that Nothing can be certain with the certainty of Faith but what is either immediately contained in the Word of God or may be deduced thence by evident consequence because Faith can rest on nothing but the authority of Gods Word he adds That of this Principle neither the Catholicks nor the Hereticks doubt But I pray do those whom Bellarmine there calls Hereticks acknowledge the unwritten Word as a foundation for certainty of Faith in the Case Disputed therefore it is plain he speaks exclusively of a written Word 2. When he mentions the Assumption he evidently explains himself of the written Word for saith he There is no such Proposition contained in the Word of God that such and such a particular person is justified for there are none mentioned therein save Mary Magdalen and a certain Paralytick of whom it is said their sins are forgiven them Caeteri homines in sacris literis nè nominantur quidem And will Rider and your other good friends the English Lexicons help you to interpret Sacrae literae by unwritten Traditions Could any one that had either any common sense left in him or else had not a design most grosly to impose on his Readers offer to perswade men that Bellarmine could here understand the Word of God in a sense common to Scripture and Tradition If you can prove that Bellarmine saith otherwise elsewhere you are so far from reconciling Bellarmine and Stapleton that you will not easily reconcile Bellarmine to himself The remainder of this Chapter either refers to something to be handled afterwards as the Infallibility of the Church and Councils or else barely repeats what hath been discussed already concerning your sense of Fundamentals and therefore I dare not presume so far on the Reader 's patience as to give him the same things over and over CHAP. IV. The Protestant Doctrine of Fundamentals vindicated The unreasonableness of demanding a Catalogue of Fundamentals The Creed contains the Fundamentals of Christian Communion The belief of Scripture supposed by it The Dispute concerning the Sense of Christ's Descent into Hell and Mr. Rogers his Book confessed by T. C. impertinent With others of the same nature T. C ' s fraud in citing his Lordships words Of Papists and Protestants Vnity The Moderation of the Church of England compared with that of Rome Her grounds of Faith justified Infant-Baptism how far proved out of Scripture alone THis Chapter begins with a very pertinent Question as you call it we might the easier believe it to be so because it is
whether an Infallible Assent to the Infallibility of your Church can be grounded on those Motives of Credibility If you affirm it then there can be no imaginable necessity to make the Testimony of your Church infallible in order to Divine Faith for you will not I hope deny but that there are at least equal Motives of Credibility to prove the Divine Authority of the Scriptures as the Infallibility of your Church and if so why may not an Infallible Assent be given to the Scriptures upon those Motives of Credibility as well as to your Churches Infallibility If you deny the Assent built upon the Motives of Credibility to be Infallible how can you make the Assent to your Churches Testimony to be infallible when that Infallibility is attempted to be proved only by the Motives of Credibility And therefore it necessarily follows That notwithstanding your bearing it so high under the pretence of Infallibility you leave mens minds much more wavering in their Assent than before in that as shall afterwards appear these very Motives of Credibility do not at all prove the Infallibility of your Church which undoubtedly prove the Truth and Certainty of Christian Religion Thus while by this device you seek to avoid the Circle you destroy the Foundation of your Discourse That there must be an Infallible Assent to the truth of that Proposition That the Scriptures are the Word of God which you call Divine Faith which how can it be infallible when that Infallibility at the highest by your own confession is but evidently credible and so I suppose the Authority of the Scriptures is without your Churches Infallibility And thus you run into the same Absurdities which you would seem to avoid which is the second thing to manifest the unreasonableness of this way for whatever Absurdity you charge us with for believing the Doctrine of Christ upon the Motives of Credibility unavoidably falls upon your selves for believing the Churches Infallibility on the same grounds for if we leave the Foundation of Faith uncertain you do so too if we build a Divine Faith upon Motives of Credibility so do you if we make every ones reason the Judge in the choice of his Religion so must you be forced to do if you understand the consequence of your own principles 1. It is impossible for you to give a better account of Faith by the Infallibility of your Church than we can do without it for if Divine Faith cannot be built upon the Motives proving the Doctrine of Christ what sense or reason is there that it should be built on those Motives which prove your Churches Infallibility so that if we leave the Foundation of Faith uncertain you much more and that I prove by a Rule of much Authority with you by which you use to pervert the weak judgements of such who in your case do not discern the Sophistry of it Which is when you come to deal with persons whom you hope to Proselyte you urge them with this great Principle That Prudence is to be our Guide in the choice of our Religion and that Prudence directs us to chuse the safest way and that it is much safer to make choice of that way which both sides agree Salvation is to be obtained in than of that which the other side utterly denies men can be saved in How far this Rule will hold in the choice of Religion will be examined afterwads but if we take your word that it is a sure Rule I know nothing will be more certainly advantagious to us in on present case For both sides I hope are agreed that there are sufficient Motives of Credibility as to the belief of the Scriptures but we utterly deny that there are any such Motives as to the Infallibility of your Church it then certainly follows That our way is the more eligible and certain and that we lay a surer Foundation for Faith than you do upon your principles for resolving Faith 2. Either you must deny any such thing as that you call Divine Faith or you must assert that it may have no other Foundation than the Motives of Credibility which yet is that you would seem most to avoid by introducing the Infallibility of your Church that the Foundation of Faith may not be uncertain whereas supposing what you desire you must of necessity do that you would seem most fearful of which is making a Divine Faith to rest upon prudential Motives Which I thus prove It is an undoubted Axiom among the great men of your side That whatever is a Foundation for a Divine Faith must itself be believed with a firm certain and infallible Assent Now according to your principles the Infallibility of the Church is the Foundation for Divine Faith and therefore that must be believed with an Assent Infallible It is apparent then an Assent Infallible is required which is that which in other terms you call Divine Faith now when you make it your business to prove the Churches Infallibility upon your prudential Motives I suppose your design is by those proofs to induce men to believe it and if men then do believe it upon those Motives do you not found an Assent Infallible or a Divine Faith upon the Motives of Credibility And by the same reason that you urge against us the necessity of believing the Scriptures to be the Word of God by Divine Faith because it is the ground why we believe the things contained in the Scripture we press on your side the necessity of believing the Infallibility of the Church by a Faith equally Divine because that is to you the only sufficient Foundation of believing the Scriptures or any thing contained in them 3. You make by this way of resolving Faith every man's Reason the only Judge in the choice of his Religion which you are pleased to charge on us as a great Absurdity yet you who have deserved so very ill of Reason are fain to call in her best assistance in a case of the greatest moment viz. On what ground we must believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God You say Because the Church is infallible which delivers them to us but how should we come to know that she is infallible you tell us By the Motives of Credibility very good But must not every ones reason judge whether these Motives be credible or no and whether they belong peculiarly to your Church so as to prove the Infallibility of it as it is distinct from all other societies of Christians in the world You tell us indeed That these Motives make it evidently credible but must we believe it to be so because you say so If so then the ground of believing is not the Credibility of the Motives but of your Testimony and therefore you ought to make it evidently true that whatever you speak is undoubtedly true which whosoever reads your Book will hardly be perswaded to So that of necessity every mans reason must be Judge whether your Church
it S. Austin takes the likeliest course he could think of which was from the Custome of the Church to judge most probably what was most agreeable to the Apostles minds But still when he comes to urge most home against the Donatists he makes his recourse to the Scriptures And offers to prove the matter in dispute from them and would have all tryed by the ballance of the Lord. And expresly saith It is against the Lords command that those who have had lawful Baptism already should be rebaptized So that we see S. Augustine did not himself think it a sufficient proof of Apostolical Tradition that it was a Custome of the Church unless he did likewise produce certain evidence out of Scripture for the confirmation of it Neither then will your fourth Instance prove what it was brought for Your fifth concerning Infants Baptism you have given us occasion to consider largely already your sixth depends upon that your seventh is only a rite of the Church To your eighth I answer Though the Tradition of the Church be a great confirmation of the Apostolical Practice in observation of the Lords day yet that very Practice and the ground of it are sufficiently deduced from Scripture Among all these Instances therefore we are yet to seek for such a doctrinal Tradition as makes an unwritten Word But methinks an Authour who would seem so much versed in S. Augustine might among all these Instances have found out one more which would have looked more like a doctrinal Tradition than most of these which is the necessity of the Eucharist to baptized Infants The places are so many and so express in him concerning it that it would be a needless task to produce them I shall only therefore referr you to your Espencaeus who hath made some collection of them When you have viewed them I pray bethink your self of some convenient Answer to them which either must be by asserting that S. Augustine might be deceived in judging of Doctrinal and Apostolical Traditions and then to what purpose are your eight Instances out of him Or else that might be accounted an Apostolical Tradition in one age which may not in another and then since according to your judgement the present Church is infallible in every age that was infallibly an Apostolical Tradition in one age which infallibly is not so in another Which leaves us in a greater dispute than ever what these Apostolical Traditions are when the Church in several ages doth so much differ concerning them After you have in your way attempted to prove such unwritten Words or doctrinal Traditions you fall upon a high charge against his Lordship and not without a severe reflection on all Protestants in these words It is so natural to Protestants to build upon false grounds that they cannot enter into a Question without supposing a falshood so his Lordship here feeds his humour and obtrudes many It is well yet his Lordship meets with no worse entertainment than all Protestants do You think all Protestants still build upon false grounds because not super hanc Petram and that they still suppose falshoods because they suppose your Church fallible whether she undertakes to explain written or define unwritten Words But whether his Lordship feeds his humour in obtruding falshoods or you yours in calumniating will appear upon examination You say He makes Bellarmine and all Catholick Doctors maintain that whatever they please to call Tradition must presently be received by all as God's unwritten Word Upon which you go about to vindicate Bellarmine by repeating his distinctions concerning Traditions viz. That some are Divine others Apostolical and others Ecclesiastical and that some belong to Faith others to Manners But all this doth not serve your turn For 1. His Lordship doth not deny that Bellarmine useth these distinctions but reduceth all these several Traditions under the same common title de Verbo Dei non scripto and that his design therein is to impose upon unwary Readers that all the Traditions mentioned by him are God's unwritten Word Upon which his Lordship had good reason to go about to undeceive them and to make it appear so evidently as he hath done that Tradition and God's unwritten Word are not convertible terms both because there may be justly supposed to have been many unwritten Words which were never delivered over to the Church and that there are many things which go for Traditions in your Church which have no shadow of pretence from an unwritten Word 2. There may be yet further cunning in all this for although Bellarmine and you distinguish of Traditions Divine Apostolical and Ecclesiastical yet when you come to put the difference between these I suppose you would not leave it to every particular person to judge which of these Traditions is of these several natures but the Church must be judge of them So that a Tradition is Ecclesiastical when your Church will have it so that is when it is disused among you as the three dippings in Baptism the participation of Eucharists by Infants c. But when any Tradition is still in use by your Church then your Churches Practice being in this case a sufficient Definition as to all those things so used by your Church they must be accounted Apostolical if not Divine 3. Of what kind or nature soever these Traditions are supposed to be whether Divine Apostolical or Ecclesiastical prove any of them to contain any thing necessary for Faith and Salvation and you will then come near an unwritten Word Your Ecclesiastical Traditions you discard your self from being such inform us then what Divine and Apostolical Traditions those are which are founded on such an unwritten Word Whether any of your Ecclesiastical Traditions contradict God's Word or no is not here a place to examine we are now enquiring Whether there be any such thing as an unwritten Word at all which contains any matter necessary for us to believe or practise The only pretence you have here for it is That we believe by Divine Faith that Scripture is God's VVord and that there is no other VVord of God to assure us of this Point but the Tradition delivered to us by the Church and that such Tradition so delivered must be the unwritten VVord of God How far we are to believe Scriptures to be the VVord of God with Divine Faith will be throughly examined in its due time and likewise how far any VVord of God is necessary for the Foundation of this Faith only I cannot here but take notice what it is which makes a Tradition be the unwritten VVord of God and what becomes then of your former distinction concerning Traditions for we see that which makes them the VVord of God is their being delivered by the Church so that let their Authour Nature or Matter be what it will according to this Principle any Tradition being delivered by your Church becomes an unwritten VVord So I come to the second
Proposition 2. That the ground of believing any unwritten word is the Infallibility of your Church defining it to be so For you say As the Church was Infallible in defining what was written so is she also infallible in defining what was not written And so she can neither tradere non traditum nor can she be unfaithful to God in not faithfully keeping the depositum committed to her trust Neither can her Sons ever justly accuse her of the contrary but are bound to believe her Tradition because she being infallible the Tradition she delivers can never be against the Word of their Father The substance of all which is that which I laid down as your Proposition That the ground of believing any Tradition to be Apostolical or any unwritten word is your Churches Infallibility in defining it to be so Which being built on a Principle I have already manifested to be so fallacious and uncertain I might without further trouble quit my hands of it but I shall however shew how inconsistent this is with the Rules of the Ancients for discerning when Traditions are Apostolical and when not The great Rule we meet with among the Ancients for judging Apostolical Traditions is that of Vincentius Lyrinensis In ipsâ item Catholicâ Ecclesiâ magnoperè curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus creditum est hoc est enim verè proprieque Catholicum If this be a certain Rule to judge of Catholick and Apostolical Traditions by viz. That which hath been held every where alwaies and by all then the judgement of your Church cannot be the infallible definer of Apostolical Traditions unless you will suppose that your Church only can tell us what was held every where alwaies and by all And if your Church alone can infallibly determine what Traditions are Apostolical to what purpose should we be put to such a VVild-goose chase to enquire Vniversality Antiquity and Consent in all things which pretend to be Traditions But to any reasonable man as to any thing which pretends to be a matter necessary to be believed or practised which is not expresly revealed in Scripture this Rule of Vincentius seems very just and equitable that before we believe it necessary it be made appear that it was universally believed by Christians to be so and that in all ages And I assure you I am so far convinced of the reasonableness of this proposal that if you will make out any of those things controverted between us such as Invocation of Saints VVorship of Images Transubstantiation Adoration of the Eucharist Purgatory Indulgences the Pope's Supremacy c. by these Rules and make it appear to me that these were held by all Christian Churches at all times or have Antiquity Vniversality and Consent I shall be very inclinable to embrace what your Church would impose upon me But when I know how impossible a task this is I do not at all wonder that you should quit this formerly magnified saying of Vincentius and resolve all into the Infallibility of the present Church But hereby we see how far you are from the judgement of Antiquity as to this very point of the tryal of doctrinal Traditions since you can see no security any where but in your selves and your Churches Infallibility I will therefore reduce the Controversie yet shorter prove but this Infallibility of your Church in defining the written and unwritten VVord by these Rules of Vincentius Vniversality Antiquity and Consent and I will yield you all the rest But what unreasonable men are you if you must be Parties and Judges too or if we must believe an unwritten VVord because your Church is infallible and believe your Church infallible because that is an unwritten VVord And well may you call it so for search the whole Book of Scriptures and all the Records of the Primitive Church and you find nothing at all of it We see plainly then you are resolved to be tryed by none but your selves and so you are Catholicks because you say You are so and your Church infallible because she pretends to be so 3. That our belief of the Scriptures must be resolved into an unwritten VVord which is defined by your Church to be such This is that for whose sake all your other discourse is brought in and is the main thing to the purpose Although you pretend likewise to a power in your Church to declare what Christ said when he held his peace But Are you sure your Church will be infallible in that too For when his Lordship had said That where-ever Christ held his peace and that his words are not registred no man may dare without rashness to say They were these or these You very gravely add That his Lordship must give you leave to tell him you must bind up his whole assertion with this Proviso but according as the Church shall declare Your Church then must declare when Christ held his peace and when he did not when he spake so that others might hear him and when he did not when any thing was taken notice of that he said and when not But when it is apparent Christ both spake and did much more than ever was written how well doth your Church acquit her Office in being Christ's Remembrancer And therefore I believe your Church will be guilty of the same rashness with any private person in S. Augustine's Opinion In offering to determine what Christ said when either he held his peace or his words are not registred As for those things which you mention for Traditions not contrary to God's written Word which yet are not an unwritten Word such as the Ceremonies of Baptism by you mentioned they are therefore not pertinent to our purpose because they are only rites and ceremonies and our discourse is about doctrinal Traditions neither yet if I would spend time in the enquiry could you derive them from Apostolical Tradition notwithstanding what either you or Bellarmine say But the substance of all you have to say pertinent to your purpose is That though every Tradition be not God's unwritten VVord yet it being necessary for us to believe the Scripture to be the VVord of God we must believe it either for some word written or unwritten or we shall have no Divine Faith at all of the Point because all Divine Faith must rely upon some VVord of God This being a great novelty with you that is something like Argumentation it obliges me to take a little more particular notice of it Any one that considers the force of this Argument will find that it lyes wholly upon your notion of Divine Faith for it appearing unreasonable to you that our belief that the Scripture is the Word should be resolved into the written Word it self therefore you find out an unwritten VVord of God for a Divine Faith to fix it self upon which can be nothing but some VVord of God To this therefore I
is the substance of his Lordships discourse about the use of Reason in which we observe 1. That he doth not make reason a means sufficient to ground an infallible belief that Scripture is the Word of God And therefore you are guilty of notorious oscitancy or willful calumny in telling us That natural reason is introduced by the Bishop for that end By which we may guess at the truth of what you say at the end of your interlocutory discourse between the Bishop and the Heathen that you have not wronged him by either falsly imposing on him or dissembling the force of his arguments wherein you are so guilty that the only extenuation of your crime had been never to have professed the contrary For you give us a hopeful specimen of your fair dealings at your entrance on this subject 2. Though reason cannot give a supernatural ground whereby to resolve Faith as to the Scriptures being Gods Word Infallibly yet reason may abundantly prove to any one who questions it the truth and reasonableness of Christian Religion By which if you please you may take notice of a double resolution of Faith the one is into the truth and reasonableness of the Doctrine of Christianity considered in it self and the other is into the Infallible means of the conveyance of that Doctrine to us which is the Scripture When therefore his Lordship offers to deal with a Heathen he doth not as you either sillily or wilfully would make him say That he would prove Infallibly to him that the Bible is Gods Word but that Christian Religion hath so much the advantage above all others as to make it appear that it stands upon surer grounds of nature reason common equity and justice then any thing in the world which any one who questions it doth adhere unto Which I think is a thing that no one who understands Christian Religion would be afraid to undertake against any Infidel of what sort or nature soever These things being premised your grand piece of Sophistry in the dispute between the Heathen and the Bishop whom you so solemnly introduce at a Conference about Religion doth evidently discover it self Wherein you bring in your learned Heathen as one desiring satisfaction in matter of Religion but being not verst in Christian Principles desires to be satisfied by the evidence of natural reason which when the Bishop hath condescended to your very next thing is that your Heathen understands by his Lordships Book that the sole foundation of our Faith is a Book called the Bible which saith he you tell me must be believed Infallibly with every part and parcel in it to be the undoubted Word of the true God before I can believe any other point of Religion as it ought to be believed As to which your Heathen sees no ground to assent that it is Gods Word But by this way of management of your dispute we may easily discern which way the issue of it is like to go Doth his Lordship any where undertake to prove this in the first place Infallibly to a Heathen That the Bible must be Infallibly believed to be Gods Word No he offers to prove first the excellency and the reasonableness of the Christian Religion considered in its self From whence you might easily conceive how the dispute ought to be managed shewing first that the precepts of Christianity are highly just and reasonable the Promises of it such as may induce any reasonable man to the practice of those Precepts and that the whole Doctrine is such as may appear to any considerative person to have been very wisely contrived That there is nothing vain or impertinent in it but that it is designed for great and excellent purposes the bringing men off from the love of sin to the love of God that it is impossible to imagine any Doctrine to be contrived with more advantage for promoting these ends because it represents to us the highest expressions of the Kindness and Goodness of God to man and that the Promises made by God were confirmed to the world by the death of his only Son That since mens natures are now so degenerate God hath made a tender of Grace and divine assistance whereby to enable men to perform the excellent duties of this Religion That those things which seem most hard to believe in this Doctrine are not such things as might have been spared out of it as though God did intend only to puzzle mens reason with them but they are such mysteries as it is impossible the wit of man can conceive they should have been discovered upon better reasons or for more excellent ends as that a Virgin should conceive by the immediate power of God to bring him into the world who should be the Saviour of it That there should be a resurrection of bodies in order to a compleat felicity of them who obey this Doctrine and so for others of a like nature that supposing it possible such things should be it is impossible to conceive they should be done upon better grounds or for better purposes than they are in Christian Religion This being now a short draught or Idea of Christianity is the first thing which I suppose any learned or inquisitive Heathen or Infidel should be acquainted with if he finds fault with this let him in any thing shew the incongruity or unreasonableness of it If he acknowledge this model of the Doctrine reasonable his next scruple is Whether this be truly the Model of it or no for that end I tell him We have a Book among us which is and ever hath been by Christians taken for granted to comprize in it the Principles of Christian Religion I bid him take it and read it seriously and see if that which I have given him as the Idea of Christian Doctrine do not perfectly agree with that Book I do not bid him presently absolutely and infallibly believe this Book to be God's VVord which is a very preposterous way of proceeding but only compare the Doctrine with the Book as he would do a body of Civil Law with the Institutes of it or the Principles of any Science with the most approved Authors of it If after this search he be satisfied that the representation I gave him of Christian Religion agrees with those Books we call the Bible he yet further adds that he acknowledges the Principles of our Religion to be reasonable but desires to be satisfied of the Truth of them I must further enquire Whether he doth believe any thing else to be in the world besides what he hath seen and heard himself I may justly suppose his Answer affirmative I then demand upon what grounds A. Vpon the certain report of honest men who have seen and heard other things than ever he did But why do you think honest mens reports to be credible in such cases A. Because I see they have no design or interest to deceive me in it Will you then believe the
I will tell you my judgement How your Church comes to be called or accounted the Catholick Church T. C. For this though it seems strange to the Hereticks how a part should be called or accountd the whole yet to all true Catholicks who must wink hard that they may see the better we make no great difficulty of it for we tell them the Pope is Christs Vicar and it is the head which gives the denomination and so Catholick is nothing else but a name to denote persons who are in our Church and if they question this they thereby are out of the Church and so under damnation But for the sturdy Hereticks who deride our thunderbolts we are put to a greater trouble and are fain to gather all the citations of the Fathers against the poor Donatists and apply them to the Hereticks and what ever they say belongs to the Catholick Church we confidently arrogate it to our selves as though our Church now were the same with the Catholick Church then and chiefly we have the advantage of the Protestants by this that whatever corruptions they charge us with they had the good hap to be almost generally received at the time Luther appeared and upon this we thunder them with the succession and visibility of our Church as the Samaritans were much to blame they did not serve the Israelites so after their return from captivity for they had a continual succession in the same place and a greater visibility than the Israelites under their bondage but yet we had the advantage of them by a larger spread a longer prescription and a fairer shew Scept Sir I am hugely taken with these discourses of yours and easily perceive whatever they that believe Christian Religion to be true think that you are men of wit and parts and understand your Interest I mean your Religion I understand now throughly to what intent it is you say that Those who build their Faith on rational grounds go about to destroy Religion I confess you have taken the only way to reclaim me from any thing of Scepticism I suppose you understand my meaning as I do yours In this discourse I pretend not as you did to deliver his Lordships words and so wrong him by falsly imposing them on him in another sense then he intended them but collect from your former managery of this Controversie what your real sense and meaning is and how excellent a way this is instead of reclaiming Atheists to make them so If I have mistaken your meaning I pray speak more clearly and then we shall think you mean honestly but as long as you walk so much in the dark you will give us leave to suspect your design is either upon our purses or our Religion I now return to your Church-tradition You begin your sixth Section with a fair Supposition and carry it on accordingly which is of a Child brought up in your Church who is commanded to believe the Scriptures and all other Articles of Faith on the Authority of your Church whom you suppose to dye without once looking into the Scriptures Your question is Whether he had saving Faith or no if so then the Churches Authority is a sufficient ground for Infallible Faith if not then he had none at all and consequently could not be saved I answer We pry not into Divine secrets on which account we dare not pronounce of the final condition of such who through ignorance cannot be acquainted with Gods written Word we therefore say that an hearty assent to the Doctrine of the Gospel is the Faith which God requires and if this Faith lead men to obedience to Gods will we assert the sufficiency of it for salvation and not otherwise for Faith is not therefore saving because built on an Infallible ground as you fondly seem to imagine but when it attains its end when it brings men to a hearty obedience to the precepts of the Gospel And if some among you may believe that which is in it self true but upon weak and insufficient grounds as the advantages of education which are much rather the foundation of the Faith of such a one as you speak of then any Infallibility supposed by him in the Church yet such and so great is the goodness of God that if a Faith standing on such grounds do attain its end that is make such a one Universally holy we deny not but God may accept of it for Salvation But still we say such a Faith is so far from being Infallible that it is not built on any sufficient or satisfactory ground for the motive of it is that which may be false as well as true for he that assents to any thing on the Authority of any Church before he doth judge whether her Authority be to be relyed on absolutely or no may believe a falshood assoon as truth upon that Authority and the more he makes this his foundation the more he is in danger of being deceived As suppose a Child brought up in Turky and instructed in that Religion he is told that he must without examination believe Mahomets Alcoran to be Divine and he must neither doubt of this nor of any other Article of Faith universally received among Mahumetans may not such a one as invincibly believe the Authority of the Turkish Church if we may call it so as your Child doth the Authority of your Church Where then lies the difference you see plainly it cannot be in the Motive to Faith for the Authority is supposed equally Infallible in both but it lies in the evidence of truth in one Religion above the other and this requires something more then the Authority of the Church viz. judgement and diligent examination And then Faith is built on a sure ground Remember then that we enquire not what abatements God makes for the prejudices of education in believing or not believing any Religion nor how God intends to deal with them who through age or other invincible prejudices are uncapable of judging the evidence of truth in any Religion but what are the certain grounds of Faith which sober and understanding men may and ought to build their belief of true Religion upon But you proceed and suppose your young Christian to live and apply himself to study and becomes a learned man and then upon the Churches recommendation betakes himself to the reading the Scriptures upon which by the light he discovers in it he finds the Faith he had before was but a humane perswasion and not a Divine Faith and consequently that he had no saving Faith of any Article of Christian belief and so was out of the state of Salvation from whence you say will spring gripes and torture of spirit among Christians And why so What because they discern greater reason to believe then ever they did must they find gripes and torture of spirit I had thought the more light men had found i. e. the more reason for believing the more peace and
an errour is the worse the condition is of all such who believe the Churches Testimony Infallible Now this is that we justly charge your Church with that while she pretends to Infallibility she hath actually erred in delivering such Books for Canonical which are not so as hath been abundantly manifested by the worthies of our Church The remainder of this discourse of yours concerning knowing Canonical Books by the light in them is vacated by our present answer and so is the other concerning Apostolical traditions by our former upon that subject As to that Scruple How the light should be Infallible and Divine when the Churches Testimony is humane and fallible it signifies nothing unless the light be only supposed to rise from the Testimony which his Lordship denies 7. The judgement of the Fathers is inquired into concerning the present subject out of whom only Irenaeus and St. Augustin are produced as affirming in many places That the Tradition of the Church is sufficient to found Christian Faith even without Scripture and that for some hundreds of years after the Canon of Scripture was written But must we stand only to the judgement of these two concerning the sense of the Primitive Church in this present Controversie We may easily know the judgement of the Fathers if two such lame Citations as these are are sufficient to discover it But your unhappiness is great in whatever you undertake If you meddle with reason you soon find how little it becomes you if you fly to the Fathers they prove the greatest witnesses against you as will appear in this debate if we first examine the citations you produce and then shew how fully and clearly these very persons whom you have picked out of all the Chorus do deliver themselves against you The first citation is that known one out of Irenaeus concerning those barbarous nations who believed without the Scriptures adhering to the Tradition of the Apostles having salvation written without Paper and Ink. But what it is you would hence inferr I cannot imagine unless it be one of these two things 1. That if we had no Scriptures left us it would be necessary for us to believe on the account of Apostolical Tradition that is that the grounds of our Faith were so clear and evident of themselves that though they had never been written yet if they had been conveyed by an unquestionable Tradition from the Apostles there had lain an obligation on us to believe the Doctrine of Christ. But is this our case hath not God infinitely better provided for us when as your other witness St. Augustine speaks Whatever our Saviour would have us read of his actions or speeches he commanded his Apostles and Disciples as his hands to write Christian Religion is now no Cabala to us God hath consigned his will over to us by Codicills of his own appointing and must we then be now in the like case as if his Will had never been written at all 2. But what if the barbarous Nations did believe without the Books of Scripture what doth that prove but only this that there may be sufficient reason to believe in Christ where the Scriptures are not known Is that contrary to us who say The last resolution of Faith is into the Doctrine of Christ as attested by God now if that attestation be sufficiently conveyed there is an obligation to believe but withall we say that to us who enjoy the Scriptures as delivered down to us the only certain and infallible conveyance of Gods Word to us is by them So that the whole Christian world is obliged to you for your civil comparison of them with those Barbarians who either enjoyed not the Scriptures or in probability were not able to make use of them as being probably ignorant of the use of letters 3. Doth Irenaeus in these words say that even these Barbarians did believe upon the Infallible Testimony of the present Church No he mentions no such thing but that they believed that Tradition of Doctrine which was delivered them from the Apostles I ask you then Suppose at that time some honest but fallible persons should have gone into Scythia or some such barbarous places and delivered the Doctrine of the Gospel and attesting the matters of fact as being eye-witnesses of Christs Miracles Death and Resurrection whether would these Barbarians have been bound to believe or no If not then for all I know Infidelity is a very excusable sin If they were I pray tell me what it was their Faith was resolved into was it an infallible testimony of fallible men And the same case is of such who should preach the same Doctrine from these eye-witnesses in another Generation and so on for although there might be no reason to question their testimony yet I suppose you will not say It is Infallible so that still this makes nothing for your purpose 4. Who better understood Irenaeus his mind than himself let us therefore see what he elsewhere tells us is the foundation and pillar of our Faith who have received the Scriptures Doth not he tell us but three Chapters before this That we have received the method or Doctrine of our Salvation from those persons who preached it which by Gods command they after delivered in the Scriptures which were to be the foundation and pillaâ— of our Faith Could any thing be more fully spoken to our purpose than this is Whereby he shews us now the Scriptures are consigned unto us what that is which our Faith must stand upon not the Infallibility of the Church but that Word of God which is delivered to us This therefore he elsewhere calls the Vnmoveable Canon of our Faith as S. Augustine calls it Divinam stateram the Divine ballance we must weigh the grounds of our Belief in By which we may guess what little relief you are like to have from your second witness St. Augustin Two citations you produce out of him and I question not but to make it appear that neither of those Testimonies do make for you and those very Books afford us sufficient against you The first is out of his Books of Christian Doctrine which lest we should think not pertinent you care not to produce it but we must A man who strengthens himself with Faith Hope and Charity and retains them unshaken needs not the Scriptures but only to instruct others for by these three many live without Books in a desert His meaning is that he who hath a principle of Divine life within him which discovers it self in the exercise of those three Graces needs not so much the external precepts because that inward principle will carry him to actions suitable to it only for convincing or instructing others these Books are continually useful but for themselves those good men who first through the fury of their persecution were driven and after others who in imitation of that piety they shewed there did withdraw into remote
that but only the concurrent Testimonies of some Schoolmen who must be confessed to be excellent Criticks and well versed in ancient M.SS. unless where they met with a little Greek or some hard Latin words and among whom the mistake of one would pass current for want of examining Copies let the Reader therefore judge whether Judgement be more probable But I think it not worth while to say more about it In your vindication of the Authority of Canus you make use of a very silly piece of Sophistry for say you Though he make Infidels and Novices in the Faith to be convinced by the Authority of the Church yet you say It doth not follow that he makes the said Authority a fallible but a certain and sure way to make them believe it But 1. The Question is Whether Canus doth understand that place of S. Augustine of Infidels and Novices or no 2. Suppose he sayes It is a sure way Doth it therefore follow that it is an infallible way Is nothing certain but what is infallible I hope you are certain that the Church of Rome is the Cacholick Church but Are you infallible that she is so If you advance all certainty to Infallibility or bring down all Infallibility to Certainty every Christian is as infallible as your Church is For I make no question but that every good Christian is certain of the Grounds and Principles of his Religion The same thing you return upon again after to little purpose you multiply words about Canus and Stapleton's Testimonies For say you because S. Augustine speaks of a sure way therefore he must mean an infallible way as though what was not supernaturally infallible was presently unsure I pray tell me Are you sure that two and two make four Yet I hope you will not say You are supernaturally infallible that they do so I hope you are sure there is a Pope at Rome and a goodly Colledge of Cardinals there but Are you infallible in this It is not then certainly the same to deny a thing to be infallible and to make it unsure And you are either very weak or very wilful in saying so In what sense this so much controverted place of S. Augustine is to be understood will be afterwards discussed and whether it be intended wholly for Infidels or no only I shall take notice now how in the last words of this Chapter you would again inferr Infallibility from undoubted certainty For say you the Church in S. Augustine's time esteemed her self undoubtedly certain that the Gospel was the infallible Word of God for otherwise she might be deceived her self and deceive others in commanding them to believe that to be God's Word which was only the word of man But What is it you would inferr from all this For we believe the Church as undoubtedly certain as may be that the Scriptures are God's Word yet we are far enough from believing that her Testimony now is supernaturally infallible CHAP. VII The Protestant Way of resolving Faith Several Principles premised in order to it The distinct Questions set down and their several Resolution given The Truth of matters of fact the Divinity of the Doctrine and of the Books of Scripture distinctly resolved into their proper grounds Moral Certainty a sufficient Foundation for Faith and yet Christian Religion proved to be infallibly True How Apostolical Tradition made by his Lordship a Foundation of Faith Of the certainty we have of the Copies of Scripture and the Authority of them S. Augustine's Testimony concerning Church-Authority largely discussed and vindicated Of the private Spirit and the necessity of Grace His Lordship's Way of resolving Faith vindicated How far Scripture may be said to be known by its own Light The several Testimonies of Bellarmine Brierly and Hooker cleared HAving thus far followed you through all your intricacies and windings and shewed with what diligence and subtilty you would juggle men out of their Faith under a pretence of Infallibility it will be necessary for the vindicating our Doctrine and the clearing this important Controversie with all evidence and perspicuity to lay down those certain grounds which we build our Faith upon And although it be one of the greatest of your Modern Artifices to perswade the world that Protestants have no certain grounds of Faith at all yet I doubt not but to make it evident that the way taken by the most judicious and considerative Protestants is as satisfactory and reasonable as I have already made it appear that yours is unreasonable and ridiculous Which I shall the rather do because through the want of a clear and distinct apprehension of the true way of resolving Faith no Controversie in Religion hath been more obscure and involved than this hath been Therefore for our more distinct method of proceeding I shall first endeavour to prevent misunderstanding by premising several things which are necessary for a through opening the state of the Controversie and then come to the resolution of it The things then I would premise are these following 1. That we enquire not after the reason why we assent to what is divinely revealed but after the reason why we believe any thing to be a Divine Revelation Therefore when men speak of the last resolution of Faith into the Veracity of God revealing they speak that which is undoubtedly true but it reacheth not our present enquiry I freely grant that the ultimate reason why any thing is believed is upon the Testimony of him from whom it comes and the greater the knowledge and fidelity is of him whose Testimony I believe the stronger my Assent is supposing I have sufficient evidence that it is his Testimony But that is our present Question for it being taken for granted among all Christians that God's Testimony is absolutely infallible there can no dispute arise concerning the ground of resolving Faith supposing God's Revelation to be sufficiently known For no one questions but God's Veracity however discovered is a sufficient ground for Faith but all the Question is How we come to know wherein this Veracity of God doth discover it self or what those things are which are immediately revealed by him Therefore to tell us that the resolution of Faith is into Gods Infallible Testimony without shewing on what account this testimony is to be beleeved to be from God is to tell us that which no one doubts of and to escape that which is the main question For in case Isaac should have denyed submission to his Fathers will when he went to be sacrificed till he could be satisfied concerning the lawfulness of that action which his Father went about Do you think it had been satisfactory to him if Abraham had told him that God had power to relax his own Laws and therefore he need not question the lawfulness of the action might not Isaac have presently answered That he did not question that what God commanded was lawful but that he desired was some evidence that he had
a revelation for what he did And the answer to this had been only pertinent and satisfactory So that he might have no reason to question it although he did not believe any thing more then common fidelity in his Fathers testimony For God never when revelations were most common thought it necessary to multiply revelations so far as to make one necessary to attest another but that revelation which was communicated to one was obligatory to all concerned in it though they could have nothing but Moral certainty for it By this it appears that when we now speak of the resolution of Faith though the utmost reason of our assent is that Infallibility which is supposed in Divine Testimony yet the nearest and most proper resolution of it is into the grounds inducing us to believe that such a Testimony is truly Divine and the resolution of this cannot be into any Divine Testimony without a process in infinitum 2. That when we speak of the resolution of Faith by Faith we understand a rational and discursive act of the mind For Faith being an assent upon evidence or reason inducing the mind to assent it must be a rational and discursive act and such a one that one may be able to give an account of to another And this account which men are able to give why they do believe or on what ground they do it is that which we call resolving Faith And by this it appears that whatever resolves Faith into its efficient cause which some improperly call the Testimony of the spirit though it may be true yet comes not home to the question For if by the Testimony of the spirit be meant that operation of the spirit whereby saving Faith is wrought in us then it gives no account from the thing to be believed why we assent to it but only shews how Faith is wrought in us by way of efficiency which is rather resolving the question about the necessity of Grace than the grounds of Faith Our question is not then concerning the necessity of infused habits of Grace but of those rational inducements which do incline the mind to a firm assent For Faith in us however it is wrought being a perswasion of the mind it is not conceivable how there should be any discursive act of the mind without some reason causing the mind to assent to what is propounded to it For without this Faith would be an unaccountable thing and the spirit of revelation would not be the spirit of wisdom and Religion would be exposed to the contempt of all unbelievers if we were able to give no other account of Faith then that it is wrought in us by the Spirit of God When we speak therefore of the resolving Faith we mean what are the rational inducements to believe or what evidence there is in the object propounded to make us firmly assent to it 3. According to the different acts of Faith there must be assigned a different resolution of Faith For every act being rational and discursive must have its proper grounds belonging to it unless we suppose that act elicited without any reason for it which is incongruous with the nature of the humane understanding There are then in the question of resolution of Faith these three questions to be resolved First Why I believe those things to be true which are contained in the Book called the Scripture 2. Why I believe the Doctrine contained in that Book to be Divine 3. Why I believe the Books themselves to be of Divine revelation Now every one of these questions admits of a different way of resolution as will appear by the handling each of them distinctly 1. If I be asked On what grounds I believe the things to be true which are contained in Scripture my answer must be From the greatest evidence of truth which things of that nature are capable of If therefore the persons who are supposed to have writ these things were such who were fully acquainted with what they writ of if they were such persons who cannot be suspected of any design to deceive men by their writings and if I be certain that these which go under the name of their writings are undoubtedly theirs I must have sufficient grounds to believe the truth of them Now that the writers of these things cannot be suspected of ignorance appears by the time and age they writ in when the story of these things was new and such multitudes were willing enough to have contradicted it if any thing had beeen amiss besides some of the writers had been intimately conversant with the person and actions of him whom they writ most of That they could have no intent to deceive appears from the simplicity and candour both of their actions and writings from their contempt of the world and exposing themselves to the greatest hazards to bear witness to them That these are the very same writings appears by all the evidence can be desired For we have as great if not much greater reason to believe them to be the Authors of the Books under their Names than any other writers of any Books whatsoever both because the matters are of greater moment and therefore men might be supposed more inquisitive about them and that they have been unanimously received for 〈◊〉 from the very time of their being first written except some very few which upon strict examination were admitted too and we find these very Books cited by the learned Christians under these Names in that time when it had been no difficulty to have found out several of the Original Copy's themselves When therefore they were universally received by Christians never doubted of by Jews or Heathen Philosophers we have as great evidence for this first act of Faith as it is capable of And he is unreasonable who desires more 2. If I be asked why I believe the Doctrine contained in these Books to be Divine I must give in two things for answer 1. That in the Age when the Doctrine was delivered there was sufficient reason to believe it Divine 2. That if there was sufficient reason then we have sufficient reason now 1. That in the Age when the Doctrine was delivered there was sufficient reason to believe it Divine Supposing then that we already believe upon the former answer that all the matters of fact be true I answer that if Christ did such unparalleâ—d miracles and rose from the dead they who heard his Doctrine had reason to believe it to be of God and this I suppose the greatest Infidel would not deny if himself had been one of the witnesses of his actions and resurection 2. That if they had reason then we have so now because tradition to us doth only supply the want of our senses as to what Christ did and spake i. e. That tradition is a kind of derivative and perpetuated sensation to us it being of the same use to us now which our eyes and ears had been if we had been
the Question and suppose that already to be which you are proving the existence of Now that Infallibility in us doth suppose the existence of God appears most evidently because mans understanding being of it self fallible it cannot be supposed in any thing infallible without the supernatural Assistance of a being Infallible which can be nothing else but God But if you think you have infallible proofs produce them and convince the world of Atheists by them We acknowledge we have as great evidence and certainty as humane nature is capable of of a Being of such a Nature as God is from the consideration of his works but all this still is moral Certainty for the grounds are neither Mathematically demonstrative nor supernaturally infallible What folly and madness then is it for your party to cry out so much against moral Certainty in Religion when the Foundation of all Religion is capable of no more And may not this justly increase our suspicion that under moral Certainty you strike at the Foundation of all Religion 2. Suppose God gives the most infallible evidence of any Religion it is not possible but that some who are bound to believe that Religion can have any more than moral Certainty of it And for all that I know the greatest Physical Certainty is as liable to question as moral there being as great a possibility of Deception in that as a suspicion of doubt in this and oft-times greater What advantage then had those who stood by and saw the miracles of Moses and Christ above those who did not but had the report of them conveyed to them in an unquestionable manner Besides it is apparent God's great aim in any Religion is most at the good of those who can have only a moral Certainty of the great evidences of the Truth of that Religion because it being God's intention that the Religion delivered by Him should be not meerly for the benefit of those very few persons who could be present at such things but for the advantage of those incomparably greater numbers who by reason of distance of place and age could not be present it would argue a strange want of provision for mens Faith unless moral Certainty were sufficient Only you indeed will suppose that which God himself never thought necessary viz. an infallible Testimony of the present Church but to what good purposes you have introduced this hath largely appeared already 3. Moral Certainty yields us sufficient Assurance that Christian Religion is infallibly true And that I prove because moral Certainty may evidently shew us the Credibility of the Christian Religion which you deny not nor any else and that from the Credibility of it the infallible Truth of it may be proved will appear by these two things 1. That where there is evident Credibility in the matter propounded there doth arise upon men an obligation to believe And that is proved both by your own confession as to the Churches Infallibility being believed on the Motives of Credibility and from Gods intention in giving such Motives which was to perswade them to believe as appears by multitudes of places of Scripture and withall though the meer Credibility of the Motives might at first suppose some doubts concerning the Infallibility of the Doctrine yet it is not consistent with any doubt as to the Infallibility of the obligation to believe because there can be no other reason assigned of these Motives of Credibility than the inducing on men an obligation to Faith 2. That where there is such an obligation to believe we have the greatest assurance that the matter to be believed is infallibly True Which depends upon this manifest proof That God cannot oblige men to believe a lye it being repugnant to all our conceptions of the Veracity and Goodness of God to imagine that God should require from men on the pain of eternal damnation for not believing to believe something as infallibly True which is really false Thus you see what a clear and pregnant demonstration we have of the infallible Truth of Christian Religion from moral Certainty How injurious then have those of your party been who have charged this opinion of believing upon moral Certainty with betraying Religion and denying Christian Religion to be infallibly True Thus much for this grand Objection I now come to the last Question considerable in the Resolution 3. On what account do I believe these particular Books of Scripture to be Gods Word Which may admit of a double sense 1. On what account I do believe the Doctrine contained in these Books to be Gods Word 2. On what account I do believe the Books containing this Doctrine to be Gods Word As to the first I have answered already viz. Upon the same rational evidence which God gave that the Testimony of those who delivered was a Divine and infallible Testimony To the second I answer in these two Propositions 1. That the last Resolution of Faith is not into the Infallibility of the Instrument of conveyance but into the Infallibility of that Doctrine which is thereby conveyed to us For the writing of this Doctrine is only the condition by which this Revelation is made manifest to us it being evident from the nature of the thing that the writing of a Divine Revelation is not necessary for the ground and reason of Faith as to that Revelation because men may believe a Divine Revelation without it as is not only evident in the case of the Patriarchs but of all those who in the time of Christ and the Apostles did believe the truth of the Doctrin of Christ before it was written If therefore the writing be only the condition of the manifestation of the Object in a certain way to us the ground and reason of Faith is not to be resolved into that which is only the mode of our knowledge of the Object to be believed but into that which is properly the ground and reason why we believe that Doctrine or Revelation to be Divine which is contained in those Books And this is still the case of all illiterate persons who cannot resolve their Faith properly into the Scripture but into the Doctrine delivered them out of Scripture Hence we may discern the difference between the Formal Object and the Rule of Faith the Formal Object is that evidence which is given of the Infallibility of the Testimony of those who delivered the Doctrine the infallible Rule of Faith to us is the Scripture viz. that which limits and bounds the material Objects of Faith which we are bound to believe and this doth therefore discover to us what those things are which on the account of the Formal Object we are obliged to believe 2. Those who believe the Doctrine of Scripture to be Divine have no reason to question the infallible conveyance of that Doctrine to us in those Books we call the Scripture Therefore whatever things we are to believe in order to salvation we have as great evidence as we
themselves to be Divine because the Talmud Alcoran and Philosophers have some things in them which the Scripture hath But Can you prove that the Scripture hath nothing else in it but what may be found in any or all of these Books Will you undertake to shew any where such representations of the Being and Attributes of God so suitable to the conceptions which naturally flow from the Idea of a Supreme and Infinite Being and yet those Attributes discovered in such contrivances for mans Good which the wit of man could never have reached to above all in the reconciliation of the world to himself by the death of his Son Will you find out so exact a Rule of Piety consisting of such excellent Precepts such incouraging Promises as are in Scripture in any other writings whatsoever Can you discover any where such an unexpressible energy and force in a writing of so great simplicity and plainness as the Scripture is Is there any thing unbecoming that Authority which it awes the consciences of men with Is there any thing mean trivial fabulous and impertinent in it Are not all things written with that infinite decorum and suitableness as do highly express the Majesty of him from whom it comes but in the most sweet affable and condescending manner Are there any such arguments in the writings of Seneca Plutarch Aristotle for the Being of God and Immortality of souls as there are in Scripture Are there any moral instructions built on such good grounds carried on to so high a degree written with that life and vigour in any of the Heathen Philosophers as are in the Scriptures How infinitely do the highest of them fall short of the Scripture in those very things which they seem most to have in common with it As were it here a fit place might be at large discovered But besides and beyond all these Are there not other things which evidence the Divine Revelation of the Doctrine contained in Scripture which none of the writings you mention can in the least pretend to viz. the accurate accomplishment of Prophecies and the abundance of Miracles wrought for the confirmation of the Divine Testimony of those who delivered this Doctrine to the world And these very things now to us are internal to the Scripture the motives of Faith being delivered to us in the same Books that the Doctrine of Faith is In which sense the Scriptures may well be said to be proved Divine by themselves and that they appear infallible by the Light which is in them notwithstanding you most pitifully pretend to the contrary And if your Church will again pardon you for such opprobrious language of Scripture as not only to compare the writings of Seneca Plutarch and Aristotle with it which yet are commendable in their kind for moral Virtue and natural Knowledge but those wretched and notorious impostures of the Alcoran and the fabulous relations of the Talmud if I say your Church will pardon such expressions as these because they tend to inhance her Infallibility well fare that Pope who said Heu quam minimo regitur mundus As for your following instance of a Candle lighted in a room which shews that it is a light but not who lighted it so the sentences in Scripture are lights and shew themselves to be such but they cannot shew themselves to be such infallible lights which are produced by none but God himself I answer That I commend your discretion in making choice of a Candle rather than of the light of the Sun to set forth the Scripture by For a Candle yields but a dim uncertain light may be put into a dark lanthorn and snuffed at pleasure so would your Church fain pretend of the Scripture that its light is very weak and uncertain that your Church must open the sides of the Lanthorn that it may give light and make use of some Apostolical Snuffers of the Popes keeping to make it shine the clearer though they often endanger the almost extinguishing of it at least as to the generation of those who should enjoy the benefit of it But because that poor light of a Candle cannot shew who lighted it Will not the light of the Sun manifest it self to be no greater than that of a Candle Cannot any one inferr from the vast extent of that light from the vanishing of it upon the Suns setting and its dispersing it self at his rising that this light can proceed only from that great luminous body which is in the Heavens And may we not proportionably inferr from the clearness greatness majesty coherency of those truths revealed in Scripture that they must certainly come from none but God especially being joyned with those impregnable evidences which himself by the persons who delivered them that they were imployed by himself for that end But because this is a matter of great consequence give me leave to propound these questions to you and after you have considered them seriously return me a rational answer to them 1. Doth it imply any repugnancy at all in the nature of the thing or to the nature of God that he should reveal his mind to the world 2. If it doth not as I suppose you will grant that Whether is it possible that God should make it evident to the world that such a Revelation is from himself 3. If this be not impossible Is it not necessary that it should be so supposing that God should require the belief of a Doctrine so revealed on pain of eternal damnation for not believing it 4. Whether God may not give as great evidence of a Revelation that he makes of his mind to the world as he doth of his Being from the Wisdom Goodness and Power which may be seen in the works of Creation 5. Whether any other way be conceivable that it should be evident that a Doctrine comes from God but that it contains things highly suitable to the Divine nature things above the finding out of humane reason things only tending to advance Holiness and Goodness in the world and this doctrine to be delivered by persons who wrought unparalleld miracles 6. Whether all these be not in the most evident manner imaginable contained in the Doctrine of Christianity and in the Books of Scripture which I leave any man that hath common sense to judge of 7. Whether then it be not the highest disparagement of this Divine doctrine to make it stand in need of an Infallible testimony of any company who shall take the boldness to call themselves the Catholick Church in order to the believing of it and whether there can be any greater dishonour done it then to say it hath no more light to discover it self Divine than the Writings of Philosophers not to add of Jews and Mahumetans These things I leave you and the reader to consider of and proceed What follows concerning the Fathers and others proving the Scriptures to be the Word of God by themselves after they have believed them infallibly
of Infallibility What follows concerning the Jesuits pretence of Infallibility to themselves proved by his Lordship from the words of the Apologist to whom Casaubon replies in his Epistle to Fronto Ducaeus which are these Let day and night life and death be joyned together and then there will be some hope that Heresie may fall upon the person of a Jesuite is very well worth the observing were it only for that rare and incomparable answer which you make to them In which it is hard to guess whether your ingenuity or your wit surpass the other Rabbi Casaubon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must help him out An Apologist saith Casaubon averres 't is impossible for a Jesuite to err Who is this Anonymus Apologist A Jesuite or a Minister for an Apologist and a Jesuite are no more convertible terms than a Jesuite and a Minister How shall we know then whether this nameless Apologist was a Jesuite or a Minister personating a Jesuite The Gospel will tell us Ex fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos O rare Drollery doth this pass for wit at Rome or must we think you speak these words in good earnest If so your Ignorance is more then ordinary in these matters For to pass by your unworthy reflection on that excellent person Isaac Casaubon whose memory is as farr above your detraction as his learning beyond your reach and to let go your scurrilous Greek Proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some will tell you was Greek for a Jesuite are you really so Ignorant that you did not know whether the Apologist whose words are cited were a Jesuite or a Minister What not he who professedly undertakes the Vindication of the Jesuites not he who was so seriously recommended by Fronto Ducaeus a Jesuite himself not he who industriously vindicates Ribadeneira Scribanius Emanuel Sa Bellarmin and others in their doctrine which doth most reflect on the Power and Authority of Princes not he who extolls Father Garnet who was executed in England for the Gunpowder-treason yet for all this not he known to be a Jesuite Are you yet to seek Apply but your own rule of the Gospel to what is said already and by those fruits you cannot but know him to be a Jesuite But now notwithstanding the sufficient answers which have been so often given to the places produced for the proof of the Churches Infallibility out of Scripture You thought it no needless trouble in A. C. to mention them and much less in your self to vindicate them from the Bishops Interpretation The places are Luk. 10.16 He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me Matth. 28.20 I am with you alwaies to the end of the world Joh. 14.16 The Comforter the Holy Ghost shall abide with you for ever That which you would inferr from these places is That an Infallible assistance is promised to the Church in all ages not in its diffusive sense but representative viz. in the Pastors and Doctors assembled in Council The substance of his Lordships answer to these places is in these words These promises were made of continual presence and assistance that I grant and they were made to the Apostles and their Successors that I grant too but in a different degree For it was of continual and Infallible assistance to the Apostles but to their Successors of continual and fitting assistance but not Infallible To this you return no answer in general but endeavour to evince the contrary from the particular places by disproving his Interpretations of them To the first therefore Luk. 10.16 He that heareth you heareth me c. His Lordship answers That this was absolutely true in the Apostles who kept themselves to that which was revealed by Christ but it was to be but conditionally true in their Successors i. e. so long and so farr as you speak my words and not your own For where the command is for Preaching the Restraint is added Go saith Christ and teach all Nations but you may not Preach all things that you please but all things which I have commanded you The publication is yours the Doctrine is mine and where the Doctrine is not mine there your publication is beyond or short of your commission To this you reply That this is rather to pervert our Saviours words than to Interpret them is manifest And the reason you give is Because a Sectary who denies the Apostles Infallibility as well as the Churches might apply this restraint to the Apostles themselves as well as he now applies it to their Successors But they are strange kind of Sectaries indeed who deny the Apostles Infallibility and my memory doth not serve me with any such who asserted Christs Infallibility and denyed the Apostles but if there be any such Sectaries let us know them that we may then say There are some in the world who believe great absurdities as well as you However let us for the present take this for a supposition that any men might do so whether then they might not say the Apostles were only Infallible when they spake Christs words and not their own i. e. delivered his Doctrine and not any other No doubt they might and said very well in it too And if these be the Sectaries you mean I am one of them my self For I believe the Apostles were no further Infallible then as they delivered Christs Doctrine to the world and I suppose there are many such Sectaries besides my self But all the difference then between the Apostles and their Successors was this that those who heard the Apostles Doctrine had ground to believe them Infallible in what they delivered for Christs Doctrine but we have no ground to believe so of any Church since the Apostles times that it is Infallible in delivering the Doctrine of Christ to others The promise then of Infallible assistance as made to the Apostles doth imply that Gods Spirit would be so with them that they should deliver nothing for the revealed will of God or the Doctrine of Christ but what was really and truly so And if you can from this or any other place prove such an Infallible assistance to the Church of all ages you do something but not otherwise But for this particular place He that heareth you heareth me I have something more yet to say which may manifest how wholly impertinent it is to your purpose 1. It seems to me very questionable whether any such thing as Infallibility be at all implyed in this place and then certainly from hence you cannot inferr a successive Infallibility in the Church And the reasons why I question it are 1. The Apostles themselves had not that continual Infallible assistance of the Spirit of God till after Christs Ascension when the promise of Christs sending his Spirit upon them was remarkably accomplished Will you say then they had Infallible assistance by the Spirit before the promise of that Infallible assistance was made to them If then the Apostles
Scriptures do convey to them We own therefore the Apostles as Gods immediate Embassadours whose miracles did attest their commission from Heaven to all they came to and no persons could pretend ignorance that this is Gods hand and Seal but all other Pastors of the Church we look on only as Agents settled to hold correspondency between God and Vs but no extraordinary Embassadours who must be looked on as immediately transacting by the Infallible Commission of Heaven When therefore the Pastor or Pastors of your Church shall bring new Credentials from Heaven attested with the same Broad-seal of Heaven which the Apostles had viz. Miracles we shall then receive them in the same capacity as Apostles viz. acting by an Infallible Commission but not till then By which I have given a sufficient Answer to what follows concerning the credit which is given to Christ's Legats as to himself for hereby it appears they are to have no greater authority than their Commission gives them Produce therefore an Infallible Commission for your Pastors Infallibility either apart or conjunctly and we shall receive it but not else Whether A.C. in the words following doth in terms attribute Divine and Infallible authority to the Church supposing it infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost is very little material for Whether he owns it or no it is sufficient that it necessarily follows from his Doctrine of Infallibility For How can the Church be infallible by virtue of those Promises wherein Divine Infallibility you say is promised and by virtue of which the Apostles had Divine Infallibility and yet the Church not to be divinely Infallible The remainder of this Chapter which concerns the sense of the Fathers in this Controversie will particularly be considered in the next which is purposely designed for it CHAP. IX The Sense of the Fathers in this Controversie The Judgement of Antiquity enquired into especially of the three first Centuries and the reasons for it The several Testimonies of Justin Martyr Athenagoras Tatianus Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and all the Fathers who writ in vindication of Christian Religion manifested to concurr fully with our way of resolving Faith C's Answers to Vincentius Lyrinensis à Gandavo and the Fathers produced by his Lordship pitifully weak The particulars of his 9th Chapter examined S. Augustine's Testimony vindicated C's nauseous Repetitions sent as Vagrants to their several homes His Lordships Considerations found too heavy for C's Answers In what sense the Scripture may be called a Praecognitum What way the Jews resolved their Faith This Controversie and the first Part concluded HAving thus largely considered whatever you could pretend to for the advantage of your own cause or the prejudice of ours from Reason and Scripture nothing can be supposed to remain considerable but the judgement of the Primitive Church in this present Controversie And next to Scripture and Reason I attribute so much to the sense of the Christian Church in the ages next succeeding the Apostles that it is no mean confirmation to me of the truth of the Protestant Way of resolving Faith and of the falsity of yours that I see the one so exactly concurring and the other so apparently contrary to the unanimous Consent of Antiquity For though you love to make a great noise with Antiquity among persons meanly conversant in it yet those who do seriously and impartially enquire into the sense of the Primitive Church and not guess at it by the shreds of Citations to your hands in your own writers which is generally your way will scarce in any thing more palpably discern your jugling and impostures then in your pretence to Antiquity I shall not here enquire into the corruptions crept into your Church under that disguise but as occasion is ministred to me in the following discourse shall endeavour to pluck it off but shall keep close to the matter in question Three things then I design in this Chapter 1. To shew the concurrence of Antiquity with us in the resolution of Faith 2. Examine what you produce from thence either to assert your own way or enervate ours 3. Consider what remains of this Controversie in your Book 1. For the manifesting the concurrence of Antiquity with us I shall confine my present discourse to the most pure and genuine Antiquity keeping within the compass of the three first Centuries or at least of those who have purposely writ in vindication of the Christian Faith Not that I do in the least distrust the consent of the succeeding Writers of the Primitive Church but upon these Reasons 1. Because it would be too large a task at present to undertake since no necessity from what you object but only my desire to clear the Truth and rectifie the mistakes of such who are led blindfold under the pretence of Antiquity hath led me to this discourse 2. Because in reason they could not but understand best the waies and methods used by the Apostles for the perswading men to the Christian Faith and if they had mentioned any such thing as an Infallibility alwaies to continue in the Charch those Pastors certainly who received the care of the Church from the Apostles hands could not but have heard of it And were strangely to blame if they did not discover and make use of it Whatever therefore of truly Apostolical Tradition is to be relyed on in such cases must be conveyed to us from those persons who were the Apostles immediate Successors and if it can be made manifest that they heard not of any such thing in that when occasion was offered they are so far from mentioning it that they take such different waies of satisfying men which do manifestly suppose that they did not believe it I know some of the greatest Patrons of the Church of Rome and such who know best how to manage things with best advantage for the interest of that Church have made little account of the three first ages and confined themselves within the compass of the four first Councils upon this pretence because the Books and Writers are so rare before and that those persons who lived then had no occasion to write of the matters in Controversie between them and us But if the ground why those other things which are not determined in Scripture are to be believed by us and practised as necessary be that they were Apostolical Traditions Who can be more competent Judges what was so and what not then those who lived nearest the Apostolical times and those certainly if they writ of any thing could not write of any thing of more concernment to the Christian world than the knowledge of such things would be or at least we cannot imagine but that we should find express intimations of them where so many so wise and learned persons do industriously give an account of themselves and their solemn actions to their Heathen persecutors But however silent they may be in other things which they neither heard nor thought of as in the
of all his goods And when he speaks of the Doctrine it self of Christianity he saies It is suitable to whatever was rational among the Platonists or other Philosophers but far more agreeable to it self and containing much more excellent things than ever they could attain to the knowledge of In his second Apology for the Christians to the Emperour Antoninus Pius he insists much on the excellency of the Doâ—trine of Christianity from the Precepts of it chastity love of enemies liberality submission to authority worship of God c. Afterwards he proves the truth and certainty of all we believe concerning Christ from the exact accomplishment of the Prophecies made concerning him in the Old Testament which discourse he ends with this saying So many and so great things being seen are sufficient to perswade men to believe the truth of them who are lovers of truth and not seekers of applause and under the command of passions Thus we see in all his discourses where he had the most occasion administred to him to discover the most certain grounds of Christian Faith he resolves all into the rational evidence of the truth excellency and divinity of the Doctrine which was contained in the Scriptures For in his second Oration to the Greeks after he had spoken highly in commendation of the Scripture calling it The best expeller of all turbulent passions and the surest extinguisher of those preternatural heats in the souls of men which saith he makes men not Poets nor Philosophers nor Orators but it makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dying men immortal and mortals become gods and transferrs them from the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to such places whose confines are far above Olympus therefore O ye Greeks come and be instructed be ye as I am for I was as you are And these were the things which prevailed with me the divine power and efficacy of the Doctrine What was it then I pray that Justin Martyr of a Philosopher becoming a Christian resolved his Faith into If we may believe himself it was into the evidence of the Doctrine of Christianity and not into the Infallibility of any Church The Testimony of this person I have the more largely insisted on both because he was so great a Philosopher as well as Christian and lived so near the Apostolical times Next him we produce Athenagoras as a Philosopher too as well as Christian who flourished under Antoninus and Commodus to whom he made his Apology in behalf of the Christians in which he first undertakes to manifest the reasonableness of the Doctrine which they owned the Foundation of it being the same with that which the best Philosophers acknowledged the existence and unity of the Deity But saith he if we had nothing but such reasons as he had produced our perswasion could only be humane but the words of the Prophets are they which establish our minds who being carried beyond themselves by the impulse of the Divine Spirit spake that which they were moved to when the Spirit used them as Instruments through which he spake Is not here a plain resolution of Faith into that Divine Authority by which the Prophets spake and that not as testified by any Infallible Church but as it was discernable by those persons he spake to for he appeals to the Emperours themselves concerning it which had been a fond and absurd thing for him to do if the knowledge of that Divine Inspiration did depend meerly on the testimony of Christians as such and were not to be discovered by some common Principles to them and others Much to the same purpose Tatianus speaks in that eloquent Oration of his against the Greeks who was Justin Martyrs Scholar and we shall see how agreeably he speaks to him in the account he gives how he became a Christian. After saith he he had abundantly discovered the vanity of the Theology and Superstitions of the Greeks he fell to the reading some strange Books much elder and more Divine than the Writings of the Greek Philosophers And to these saith he I yielded up my Faith for the great simplicity and plainness of the style and the freedom from affectation which was in the writers and that evidence and perspicuity which was in all they writ and because they foretold things to come made excellent promises and manifestly declared the Monarchy of the World What Protestant could speak higher of the Scripture and of those internal arguments which are the grounds of Faith than Tatianus in these words doth Yet we see these were the arguments which made him relinquish the Greek learning of which he was a Professor at Rome and betake himself to the profession of Christianity though he was sure to undergo not only contempt from the world but to be in continual hazard of his life by it That innate simplicity of the writings of the Scripture joyned with the perspicuity of it if at least those words be rightly translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by sermo nusquam obscurus and it doth not rather relate to the account of the worlds creation which I conjecture it may do but however the certainty of the predictions the excellency of the promises and the reasonableness of the Doctrine were the things which by the reading of the Books he was perswaded to believe them by But all this while we hear no news of any Churches Infallibility in order to Faith We come therefore to Irenaeus who was omnium doctrinarum curioâ—â—ssimus explorator as Tertullian speaks of him a great searcher into all kind of learning and therefore surely not to seek as to the true account of his Faith Whose judgement herein although we have had occasion to enquire into before yet we have testimonies enough beside to manifest his consent with them And although Irenaeus of all the ancient Fathers be looked on as the most favourable to Tradition and is most cited to that purpose in these disputes yet I doubt not but to make it appear that where he speaks most concerning Tradition he makes the resolution of Faith to be wholly and entirely into the Scripture and they who apprehend otherwise do either take the citations out of him upon trust or else only search him for the words of those citations and never take the pains to enquire into the scope and design of his discourse For clearing which we must consider what the subject was which he writ of what the plea's of the adverse party were what way Irenaeus takes to confute them and to establish the Faith of Christians as to the matter which was in Controversie The matter in dispute was this Valentinus and his Scholars not being contented with the simplicity of the Doctrine of the Gospel and in probability the better to suit their opinions to the Heathen Mythology had invented a strange Pedigree of Gods the better as they pretended to give an account of the production of things and the various dispensations
man How much beyond the Valentinians and Basilidians would Clemens have accounted so great a madness who so plainly asserts the Scriptures to be proved by themselves and that not casually or in the heat of argument But lest we should not throughly apprehend his meaning repeats it again in the same page 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfectly demonstrating the Scriptures by themselves And are not all these Testimonies of such persons so near the Apostolical times sufficient to acquaint us what the grounds of the Resolution of Faith were in the Christian Church when all of them do so unanimously fix on the Scripture and not so much as mention the Infallible Testimonies of any Church much less the Roman Much more might be cited out of this excellent Authour to the same purpose particularly where he refutes the Valentinians who deserted the Scriptures and pleaded Tradition but the Testimonies already produced are so plain that it will be to no purpose to produce any more It were easie to continue an account of the same grounds of Faith through the succeeding Writers of the Christian Church who have designedly writ on that subject in vindication of Christian Religion which they unanimously prove to be Divine chiefly by these Arguments from the undoubted Miracles which were wrought by Christ and his Apostles from the exact fulfilling of Prophecies and the admirable propagation of the Christian Doctrine all which are particularly insisted on by Origen against Celsus by Tertullian in his Apologetick adversus Scapulam and elsewhere by Minucius Felix Arnobius and Lactantius not to mention Eusebius in his Books of preparation and Cyril's Answer to Julian and others But having elsewhere more fully and largely considered that subject I rather chuse to referr the Reader to what hath been there handled already than to tire his patience with either repeating the same or adding more Testimonies to the same purpose Only that which is most pertinent to our present purpose I shall here add Whether is it credible that those persons who fully understood the Doctrine of Christianity who were themselves rational and inquisitive men and writ for the satisfaction not only of subtle adversaries but of doubting and staggering Christians should so unanimously agree in insisting on the evidence of matter of fact for the truth of the thing delivered in Scripture and the fore-mentioned Arguments for the Divinity of the Doctrine therein delivered had it not been the judgement of the Church they lived in that the resolution of Faith was into those grounds on which they insisted And is it again credible that any of them should believe the Testimony of the Church to be necessary as infallible in order to a Divine Faith and that without it the Scriptures could not be believed as Divine and yet in all their disputes with the Gentiles concerning the Doctrine of Christianity and with several Hereticks as the Marcionists c. concerning the Books of Scripture upon no occasion should mention this grand Palladium of Faith viz. the Infallibility of the present Church And lastly Is it credible that when in our modern Controversies men do evidently maintain faction and interest more than the common Principles of Christianity that he must be blinder than one that can see no distinction of colours that doth not discern on what account this Infallibility is now pretended Is it I say credible that a Doctrine pretended so necessary for our believing Scriptures with Divine Faith should be so concealed when it ought for the honour and interest of Christianity to have been most divulged Which now only in these last and worst times is challenged by an usurping party in the Church as left by Christ himself when no other evidence can be given of it but what was common to all ages of the Church as belonging to such a party under the pretence of the Catholick Church which doth so apparently use it only to uphold her pretended Authority and so makes it serve to the worst ends and the most unworthy designs Having thus far considered what the judgement of those Fathers was concerning the resolution of Faith who lived nearest the Apostolical times I should now come to consider what you can produce out of Antiquity for your Churches Infallibility or more generally for any infallible Testimony supposed in the Catholick Church whatever that be in order to a Foundation for Divine Faith But you very prudently avoid the Testimonies of Antiquity in so necessary a subject as this is for those Testimonies mentioned in the foregoing Chapter in explication of Matth. 28.20 takeing them as you have in so loose and careless a manner produced them make nothing at all for the Churches Infallible Testimonie but only assert that which is not denied that there shall alwaies be a Christian Church in the world Our only remaining task then as to this is to examine in what way you seek to enervate the Testimonies produced by his Lordship out of Antiquity which you do in the latter part of Chap. 8. His Lordship had truly said That this method and manner of proving the Scripture to be the Word of God which he useth is the same which the ancient Church ever held namely Tradition or Ecclesiastical Authority first and then all other arguments but especially internal from the Scripture it self For which he cites first The Church in S. Augustine 's time He was no enemy to Church-Tradition saith his Lorship yet when he would prove that the Authour of the Scripture and so of the whole knowledge of Divinity as it is supernatural is God in Christ he takes this as the all-sufficient way and gives four proofs all internal to the Scripture 1. The Miracles 2. That there is nothing carnal in the Doctrine 3. That there hath been such performance of it 4. That by such a Doctrine of Humility the whole world almost hath been converted And whereas ad muniendam fidem for the defending of the Faith and keeping it entire there are two things requisite Scripture and Church-Tradition Vincent Lyrinens places authority of Scriptures first and then Tradition And since it is apparent that Tradition is first in order of time it must necessarily follow that Scripture is first in order of nature that is the chief upon which Faith rests and resolves it self To this after you have needlesly explained his Lordships opinion in this Controversie you begin to answer thus He cites first Vincentius Lyrinensis l. 1. c. 1. who makes our Faith to be confirmed both by Scripture and Tradition of the Catholick Church But Are not you like to be trusted in citing Fathers who doubly falsifie a Testimony of your adversaries when you may be so easily disproved For 1. You tell us he cites that first which he produceth last 2. You cite that as produced by him for the Foundation of Faith which he expresly cites for the preservation of the Doctrine of Faith so he tells you ad muniendam fidem
breaches so farr from closing that supposing the same grounds to continue a reconciliation seems to humane reason impossible An evidence of which is that those persons who either out of a generous desire of seeing the wounds of the Christian world healed or out of some private interest or design have made it their business to propound terms of reconciliation between the divided parties have been equally rejected by those parties they have professed themselves the members of For whether any of the Roman Communion have ingenuously confessed the great corruptions crept into that Church and desired a reformation of them or any of the Protestant Communion have endeavoured to excuse palliate or plead for the corruptions of the Roman Church we find how little incouragement they have had for such undertakings from that Church whose Communion they have professed to retain The distance then being so great as it is it is a very necessary enquiry what the cause of it is and where the main fault lies and it being acknowledged that there is a possibility that corruptions may get into a Christian Church and it being impossible to prove that Christianity obligeth men to communicate with a Church in all those corruptions its Communion may be tainted with it seems evident to reason that the cause of the breach must lye there where the corruptions are owned and imposed as conditions of Communion For can any one imagine it should be a fault in any to keep off from Communion where they are so far from being obliged to it that they have an obligation to the contrary from the prinples of their common Christianity and where men are bound not to communicate it is impossible to prove their not communicating to be Schism For there can be no Schism but where there is an obligation to communion Schism being nothing else but a willful violation of the bonds of Christian Communion and therefore when ever you would prove the Protestants guilty of Schism you must do it by proving they were bound to communicate with your Church in those things which they are Protestants for disowning of Or that there is so absolute and unlimited an obligation to continue in the Society of your Church that no conditions can be so hard but we are bound rather to submit to them than not joyn in Communion with you But we who look on the nature of a Christian Society in general the Foundations of its constitution the ends and designs of it cannot think our selves obliged to Communion in those things which undermine those Foundations and contradict those ends This being a matter of so vast consequence in order to the settling mens minds in the present disputes of the Christian world before I come to particulars I shall lay down those general principles which may manifest how free Protestants are from all imputation of Schism Schism then importing a violation of that Communion which we are obliged to the most natural way for understanding what Schism is is to enquire what the Foundations are of Christian Communion and how far the bonds of it do extend Now the Foundations of Christian Communion in general depend upon the acknowledgement of the truth of Christian Religion For that Religion which Christ came to deliver to the world being supposed true is the reason why any look on themselves as obliged to profess it which obligation extending to all persons who have the same grounds to believe the truth of it thence ariseth the ground of Society in this profession which is a common obligation on several persons joyning together in some acts of common concernment to them The truth then of Christian Religion being acknowledged by several persons they find in this Religion some actions which are to be performed by several persons in Society with each other From whence ariseth that more immediate obligation to Christian Society in all those who profess themselves Christians and the whole number of these who own the truth of Christian Religion and are thereby obliged to joyn in Society with each other is that which we call the Catholick Church But although there be such a relation to each other in all Christians as to make them one common Society yet for the performance of particular acts of communion there must be lesser Societies wherein persons may joyn together in the actions belonging to them But still the obligation to communion in these lesser is the same with that which constitutes the great body of Christians which is the owning Christianity as the only true Religion and way to eternal Happiness And therefore those lesser Societies cannot in justice make the necessary conditions of communion narrower than those which belong to the Catholick Church i. e. those things which declare men Christians ought to capacitate them for communion with Christians But here we are to consider that as to be a Christian supposeth mens owning the Christian Religion to be true so the conveyance of that Religion being to us now in those Books we call the Scriptures there must be an acknowledgement of them as the indispensable rule of Faith and manners which is That these Books are the great Charter of the Christian Society according to which it must be governed These things being premised as the foundation in general of Christian Society we shall the better understand how far the obligation to communion in it doth extend For which it must be considered that the grounds of continuance in Communion must be suitable and proportionable to the first reason of entering into it No man being obliged by vertue of his being in a Society to agree in any thing which tends to the apparent ruine of that Society but he is obliged to the contrary from the general grounds of his first admission into it His primary obligation being to preserve the honour and interest of it and to joyn in acts of it so far as they tend to it Now the main end of the Christian Society being the promotion of Gods honour and the salvation of mens souls the primary obligation of men entering into it is the advancement of these ends to joyn in all acts of it so far as they tend to these ends but if any thing come to be required directly repugnant to these ends those men of whom such things are required are bound not to communicate in those lesser Societies where such things are imposed but to preserve their communion with the Catholick Society of Christians But these general discourses seeming more obscure it will be necessary for the better subserviency of them to our design to deduce them into particulars Setting then aside the Catholick Society of Christians we come to enquire how far men are bound to communicate with any lesser Society how extensive so ever it may pretend its communion to be 1. There is no Society of Christians of any one Communion but may impose some things to be believed or practised which may be repugnant to the
Church of Rome First the Church was called Catholick from the Vniversal spread of its Doctrine and the agreement of all particular Churches in it So Irenaeus derives the Vnity of the Church spread abroad over the world from the Vnity of that Faith which was Universally received and from thence saith That the Church is but as one house and having one soul and heart and speaks as with one mouth Nothing can be more plain then that Irenaeus makes the consent in Doctrine to be the ground of Vnity in the Catholick Church And that he did not suppose this consent to arise from the Church of Rome appears from what he saith before That this Faith was received in the Church so universally spread from the Apostles and their Disciples Which must be understood of that universal diffusion of it by the first Preachers of it in the world the continuance of which Doctrine was the ground of the Vnity in the Catholick Church To the same purpose Tertullian gives an account of the Churches Vnity by the adhering to that Doctrine which was first preached by the Apostles who having first delivered it in Judea and planted Churches there went abroad and declared the same to other Nations and setled Churches in Cities from whence other Churches have the same Doctrine propagated to them which are therefore call'd Apostolical Churches as the off-spring of those which were founded by them Therefore so many and so great Churches are all that one prime Apostolical Church from whence all others come And thus they are all prime and Apostolical in regard of their Vnity as long as there is that communication of that title of Brotherhood and common mark of peace and hospitality Wherein we see that which made Churches in Tertullians sense Apostolical is the embracing and continuing in that Doctrine which was first delivered by the Apostles and thus Churches though remote from the Apostolical times may have the denomination of Apostolical from their consent in Doctrine with those which were founded by them But here is not the least intimation of any centre of Ecclesiastical communion infusing unity into the Catholick Church for this unity ariseth from that Doctrine which was declared in and propagated by all the Apostolical Churches So likewise Theodoret speaks That there is one Church throughout the world and therefore we pray for the Holy One Catholick and Apostolick Church extended from one end of the earth to the other Which saith he is divided by Cities and Towns and Villages so that there are infinite and innumerable Churches in the Islands and Continent but all these are reduced to one being united in the agreement of the same true doctrine So Constantine in his Epistle to the Bishops who were absent from the Council of Nice saith That our Saviour would have one Catholick Church whose members though dispersed in many several places yet are nourished by the same Spirit which is the Will of God In all which and many other places which might be produced to the same purpose we see a quite different account given of the unity of the Catholick Church from that which you mention as the cause of it we find the Church call'd Catholick in regard of its large extent in the world as is apparent besides these testimonies from the Controversies between St. Austin and the Donatists and the unity of that Catholick Church not placed in the least respect to the Church of Rome but in the consent in the Apostolical Doctrine in all those Churches which concurred as members to make up this Catholick Church So that the formal reason of any particular Churches having the denomination of Catholick must come not from any communion with the Church of Rome but from the owning the Catholick and Apostolick Faith and joyning in communion with those Churches which did own and acknowledge it And therefore we find that the symbol of communion in the ancient communicatory letters never lay in the acknowledgement of Christs Vicar on earth or communion with the Church of Rome but in such things which were common to all Apostolical Churches And therefore the Church of Rome could not be then accounted the center of Ecclesiastical communion as you speak after Cardinal Perron from whom you have Verbatim transcribed all your former discourse This being therefore the utmost which that great witt of your Church was able to plead in behalf of its being the Catholick Church it deserves to be further considered We come therefore to that kind of unity in the Catholick Church which depends on the Government of it and this is that which is pretended as the ground of the Roman Churches being the Catholick Church because though as Cardinal Perron says she be in her own Being particular yet she may be call'd Catholick causally as the center and beginning of Ecclesiastical communion infusing unity which is the form of universality into the Catholick Church This therefore must be more narrowly searched into to see if this were a known and received truth in the ancient Church Which is so far from it that we find no such causal influence from the Church of Rome then owned or asserted but that the Catholick Church was a whole consisting of homogeneal parts without any such subordination or dependence as the contrary supposition implies This is by none more fully asserted than by such who have with the greatest zeal and industry stood up for the unity of the Catholick Church The first of whom is St. Cyprian in whose time and writings there are very remarkable cases occurring to clear upon what terms the unity of the Catholick Church did then stand The first I begin with is the case which arose in the Church about the Schism of Novatianus which will give us the fuller discovery of the grounds of unity in the Catholick Church because the first rise of this Schism was in Rome it self For Novatus coming to Rome in a discontent from Africa falls in with Novatianus which two names the Greek writers of the Church commonly confound who being likewise under discontent at the election of Cornelius to be Bishop of Rome was ready to joyn with the other in fomenting a Schism For which they made this their pretext That Cornelius had admitted such to communion who had lapsed in the persecution of Decius which tended to the overthrow of the Churches purity upon this Novatianus gets himself ordained by three Bishops Bishop of Rome in opposition to Cornelius the fame of which Schism being spread abroad there was great making of parties on both sides Cyprian and the Churches of Africa after full inquiry into it declare for Cornelius so did Dionysius of Alexandria and the Churches there but Fabius of Antioch with the Churches of Pontus and Cilicia suspend and rather encline to Novatianus for some time till they were after more fully satisfied by Dionysius of Alexandria Now here is a case wherein the grounds of unity in the
Church If your Church indeed were what she is not the Catholick Church we might be what we are not Hereticks but think it not enough to prove us Hereticks that you call us so unless you will likewise take it for granted that the Pope is Antichrist and your Church the Whore of Babylon because they are as often and as confidently call'd so And if your Church be truly so as she is shrewdly suspected to be Do you think she and all her followers would not as confidently call such as dissented from her Hereticks and the using those expressions of her virulent execrations against her as you do now supposing her not to be so What therefore would belong to your Church supposing her as bad as any Protestants imagine her to be cannot certainly help to perswade us that she is not so bad as she is When you say still That Protestants did really depart from the Roman Church and in so doing remained separate from the whole Church you very fairly beg the thing in dispute and think us uncivil for denying it You know not what that passage means That the Protestants did not voluntarily depart taking their whole body and cause together since there is no obscurity in the expression but a defect elsewhere I can only say That his Lordship was not bound to find you an Vnderstanding as oft as you want it But it were an easie matter to help you for it is plain that he speaks those words to distinguish the common cause of Protestants from the heats and irregularities of some particular persons whom he did not intend to justifie such as he saith Were either peevish or ignorantly zealous And if you distinguish the sense of your Church from the judgements of particular persons I hope it may be as lawful for us to distinguish the body and cause of Protestants from the inconsiderate actings of any particular men All that which follows about the name of Protestants which his Lordship saith Took its rise not from protesting simply against the Roman Church but against the Edict at Worms which was for the restoring all things to their former state without any reformation is so plain and evident that nothing but a mind to cavil and to give us the same things over and over could have made you stay longer upon it For what else means your talk of Innovation in matters of Religion which we say was caused by you and protesting against the Roman Church and consequently against all particular Visible Churches in the world and that which none but Hereticks and Schismaticks used to do Do you think these passages are so hard that we cannot know what they mean unless we have them so often over But they are not so hard to be understood as to be believed and that the rather because we see you had rather say them often than prove them once If the Popes professed Reformation necessary as to many abuses I hope they are not all Schismaticks who call for the redress of abuses in your Church But if all the Reformation we are to expect of them be that which you say was effectually ordained by the Council of Trent if there had not been an Edict at Worms there were the Decrees of that Council which would have made a Protestation necessary Although we think your Church needs Reformation in Manners and Discipline as much as any in the world yet those are not the abuses mainly insisted on by the Protestants as the grounds of their Separation and therefore his Lordship ought to be understood of a Reformation as to the errours and corruptions of the Roman Church and doubtless that Edict of Worms which was for the restoring all things to their former state did cut off all hopes of any such Reformation as was necessary for the Protestants to return to the Roman Communion And whatever you say till you have proved the contrary better than as yet it is done it will appear that they are the Protestants who stand for the ancient and undefiled Doctrine of the Catholick Church against the novel and corrupt Tenets of the Roman Church And such kind of Protestation no true Christian who measures his being Catholick by better grounds than communion with the Church of Rome will ever have cause to be ashamed of But A. C. saith his Lordship goes on and will needs have it that the Protestants were the cause of the Schism For saith he though the Church of Rome did thrust them from her by excommunication yet they had first divided themselves by obstinate holding and teaching Opinions contrary to the Roman Faith and practice of the Church which to do S. Bernard thinks is pride S. Austin madness At this his Lordship takes many and just exceptions 1. That holding and teaching was not the prime cause neither but the corruptions and superstitions of Rome which forced many men to hold and teach the contrary So the prime cause was theirs still Now to this your Answer is very considerable That the Bishop of Rome being S. Peter 's successor in the Government of the Church and Infallible at least with a General Council it is impossible that Protestants or other Sectaries should ever find such errours or corruptions difinitively taught by him or received by the Church as should either warrant them to preach against her Doctrine or lawfully to forsake her communion We say Your Church hath erred you say It is impossible she should we offer you evident proofs of her errours you say She is Infallible we say It is impossible that Church should be Infallible which we can make appear hath been deceived you tell us again It is impossible she should be deceived for let Hereticks say what they will she is Infallible And if this be not a satisfactory way of answering let the world judge But having already pulled down that Babel of Infallibility this Answer falls to the ground with it and to use your phrase The truth is all that you have in effect to say for your Church is that she is Infallible and the Catholick Church and by this means you think to cast the Schism upon us and these things are great enough indeed if you could but make any shew of proof for them but not being able to do that you do in effect as much as if a man in a high feaver should go about to demonstrate it was impossible for him to be sick which the more he takes pains to do the more evident his distemper is to all who hear him And it is shrewdly to be suspected if your errours had not been great and palpable you would have contented your selves with some thing short of Infallibility But as the case is with your Church I must confess it is your greatest wisdom to talk most of Infallibility for if you can but meet with any weak enough to swallow that all other things go down without dispute but if men are left at liberty to
Councils for the affairs of the Church were to be kept there too for which there is an express passage in the Codex of Theodosius whereby care is taken That the same course should be used in Ecclesiastical which was in civil matters so that such things which concerned them should he heard in the Synods of the Diocese Where the word Diocese is not used in the sense the African Fathers used it in for that which belonged to one Bishop as it is now used but as it is generally used in the Codex of Theodosius and Justinian and the Novells and Greek Canons for that which comprehends in it many Provinces as a Province takes in several Dioceses of particular Bishops These things being premised we may the better understand the scope of the Canon of the Council of Nice in which three things are to our purpose considerable 1. That it supposeth particular bounds and limits set to the Jurisdiction of those who are mentioned in it 2. That what Churches did enjoy priviledges before this Council had them confirmed by this Canon as not to be altered 3. That the Churches enjoying these priviledges were not subordinate to each other 1. That particular bounds and limits were supposed to the power of those Churches therein mentioned For although we grant that this Canon doth not fix or determine What the bounds were of the Roman Bishops power yet that it doth suppose that it had its bounds is apparent from the example being drawn from thence for the limits of other Churches For What an unlikely thing is it that the Church of Rome should be made the pattern for assigning the limits of other Metropolitan Churches if that had not its known limits at that time And Can any thing be more absurd or unreasonable than the Answer which Bellarmin gives to this place That the Bishop of Alexandria ought to govern those Provinces because the Roman Bishop hath so accustomed i. e. saith he To let the Alexandrian Bishop govern them Here is an id est with a witness What will not these men break through that can so confidently obtrude such monstrous interpretations upon the credulous world Is it possible to conceive when the Canon makes use of the parallel of the Roman Bishop and makes that the ground why the Bishop of Alexandria should enjoy full power over those Provinces because the Bishop of Rome did so that the meaning should be That he gave the Bishop of Alexandria power to govern those Provinces They who can believe such things may easily find arguments for the Pope's unlimited Supremacy every where I make no scruple to grant what Bellarmin contends for from the Epistle of Nicolaus 1 That the Council did not herein assign limits to the Church of Rome but made that a pattern whereby to order the Government of other Churches And from thence it is sufficiently clear to any reasonable man that the limits of her Government were though not assigned yet supposed by the Council For otherwise How absurd were it to say Let the Bishop of Alexandria govern Aegypt Libya and Pentapolis because the Bishop of the Church of Rome hath no limits at all but governs the whole Church Doth not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 import some parallel custom in the Church of Rome and name therefore what that is supposing he hath no limits set to his Jurisdiction Yes it may be you will reply He had limits as a Metropolitan but not as Head of the Church Grant me then that he had limits as Metropolitan and then prove you that ever he had any unlimited power acknowledged as Head of the Church Would they ever have made such an instance in him without any discrimination of his several capacities if they had known any other power that he had but only as a Metropolitan Nay might not the Bishops of Antioch and Alexandria be rather supposed to have the greater power because their Provinces were much larger here than his And although Bellarmin useth that as his great argument Why Ruffinus his exposition cannot hold Because the Bishop of Rome would have a lesser Diocese assigned him than either the Bishops of Antioch or Alexandria yet when we consider What hath been said already of the agreement of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Government a sufficient account may thence be given of it For as the Praefectus Augustalis had all the Provinces of Aegypt for his Diocese so had the Bishop of Alexandria and as the Lieutenant of Antioch had that which was properly called the Orient containing fifteen Provinces under him so had the Bishop of Antioch and by the same proportion the power of the Bishop of Rome did correspond to the Diocese of the Roman Lieutenant which was over those ten Provinces which were subject to his Jurisdiction as it was distinct from the Diocese of Italy which was under that Lieutenant whose residence was at Milan Here we see then a parity of reason in all of them and therefore I cannot but think that the true account of the Suburbicary Churches in Ruffinus his exposition of this Canon is that which we have now set down viz. those Churches which lay within the ten Provinces subject to the Roman Lieutenant But of them more afterwards That which I now insist on is that the Bishop of Rome had then a limited Jurisdiction as other Metropolitans and Primats had Nay if we should grant that the title produced by Paschasinus in the Council of Chalcedon to this Canon were not such a forgery as that of Zosimus yet the most that it could prove was only this That the Roman Church had alwaies the primacy within her Diocese i. e. all Metropolitical power but not that it had an unlimited primacy in the whole Church which was a thing none of those Fathers who lived in the time of the four Councils did ever acknowledge but alwaies opposed any thing tending to it as appears by those very proceedings of Paschasinus at the Council of Chalcedon and by the Canons of that Council and of the Council of Constantinople And it is a rare Answer to say That those Canons are not allowed by the Roman Church for by that very Answer it appears that they did oppose the Pope's Supremacy or else doubtless they would have been allowed there But that the Pope's Metropolitical Power was confined within the Roman Diocese so as not to extend to the Italick we have this pregnant evidence that it appears by the occasion of the Nicene Canon that the main Power contested for was that of Ordination and it is evident by Theodoret and Synesius his Epistles that the Bishop of Alexandria did retain it as his due by virtue of this Canon to ordain the Bishops of Pentapolis as well as Aegypt But now the Bishop of Rome did not ordain the Bishop of Milan who was in the Italick Diocese for S. Ambrose was ordained Bishop by a Synod of Italy at the appointment of the Emperour Valentinian
have proved and not meerly said But What an unreasonable man are you who would put his Lordship to prove Negatives if you challenge a right which the Pope hath over us it is your business to prove it his Lordship gave a sufficient reason for what he said in saying that Britain was one of the Dioceses of the Empire and therefore had a Primate of her own This you deny not but say this only proves That the Inferiour Clergy could not appeal to Rome What again but this subterfuge hath been prevented already But to pass by what without any shadow of proof you say of the Patriarch of Constantinople 's being subject to the Pope and Pope Urban 's calling Anselm the Patriarch of the other world which we are far from making the least ground to make Canterbury a Patriarchal See which as far as concerns the rights of Primacy was so long before the Synod of Bar in Apulia we come to that which is more material viz. your attempt to prove That Britain was anciently subject to the See of Rome for which you instance in Wilfrid Arch-Bishop of York appealing to Rome about A. D. 673. who was restored to his Bishoprick by virtue of the sentence passed in his behalf at Rome and so being a second time expelled appealed as formerly and was again restored To which I shall return you a clear and full Answer in the words of another Arch-Bishop the late learned L. Primate of Ireland The most famous saith he I had almost said the only appellant from England to Rome that we read of before the Conquest was Wilfride Archbishop of York who notwithstanding that he gained sentence upon sentence at Rome in his Favour and notwithstanding that the Pope did send express Nuncio's into England on purpose to see his sentence executed yet he could not obtain his restitution or the benefit of his sentence for six years during the Raigns of King Egbert and Alfrede his son Yea King Alfrede told the Nuncio's expresly That he honoured them as his Parents for their grave lives and honourable aspects but he could not give any assent to their Legation because it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Council of the English should be restored upon the Popes letter If they had believed the Pope to be their competent Judge either as Universal Monarch or so much as Patriarch of Brittain or any more then an honourable Arbitratour which all the Patriarchs were even without the bounds of their proper jurisdictions How comes it to pass that two Kings successively and the great Councils of the Kingdom and the other Archbishop Theodore with all the prime Ecclesiasticks and the flower of the English Clergy did so long and so resolutely oppose so many sentences and messages from Rome and condemn him twice whom the Pope had absolved Consider that Wilfride was an Archbishop not an Inferiour Clerk and if an appeal from England to Rome had been proper or lawful in any case it had been so in this case But it was otherwise determined by those who were most concerned Malmsbury supposeth either by Inspiration or upon his own head that the King and the Archbishop Theodore were smitten with remorse before their deaths for the injury done to Wilfride and the slighting the Popes sentence letter and Legats But the contrary is most apparently true For first it was not King Alfrede alone but the great Council of the Kingdome also not Theodore alone but the main body of the Clergy that opposed the Popes letter and the restitution of Wilfride in that manner as it was decreed at Rome Secondly after Alfrede and Theodore were both dead we find the Popes sentence and Wilfrides restitution still opposed by the surviving Bishops in the Raign of Alfredes son To clear the matter past contradiction let us consider the ground of this long and bitter contention Wilfride the Archbishop was become a great Pluralist and had ingrossed into his hands too many Ecclesiastical Dignities The King and the Church of England thought fit to deprive him of some of them and to confer them upon others Wilfride appealed from their sentence to Rome The Pope gave sentence after sentence in favour of Wilfride But for all his sentences he was not he could not be restored untill he had quitted two of his Monasteries which were in Question Hongestilldean and Ripon which of all others he loved most dearly and where he was afterwards interred This was not a Conquest but a plain waving of his sentences from Rome and yielding of the Question for those had been the chief causes of the Controversie So the King and the Church after Alfredes death still made good his conclusion That it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Council of the English should be restored upon the Popes Bull. And as he did not so neither did they give any assent to the Popes Legation This I hope may suffice as a most sufficient Answer to your Objection from Wilfrides Appeal But you would seem to urge yet further for the ancient subjection of Britain to the Church of Rome in these words Again is it not manifest out of him Bede that even the Primitive original Institution of our English Bishops is from Rome And for this you cite a letter of Pope Gregory 1. to Augustine the Monk whom you call our English Apostle in which Gregory grants to him the use of the Pall the proper badge or sign of Archiepiscopal Dignity and that he condescended that he should ordain twelve Bishops under his jurisdiction c. Behold here say you the original Charter as I may say of the Primacy of Canterbury in this Letter and Mandate of the Pope it is founded nor can it with any colour of reason be drawn from other origin And by vertue of this Grant have all the succeeding Bishops of that See enjoyn'd the Dignity and Authority of Primats of this Nation From whence you very civilly charge his Lordship either with gross Ignorance if he knew it not or with great Ingratitude if he knew it To which I Answer that his Lordship knowing this no doubt very well that Gregory sent Austin into England c. could not from thence think himself bound to submit to the Roman Bishop and it had been more pertinent to your purpose not to charge him with Ingratitude but with Disobedience For that was it which you ought to prove hence that the Archbishop of Canterbury ought still to be subject to the Bishop of Rome because Gregory 1. made Augustine the first Archbishop of Canterbury A wonderful strong Argument no doubt which out of charity to you we must further examine for you tell us The Original Charter of the Primacy of Canterbury is contained in that Grant To satisfie you as to this two things are to be considered the Primacy it self and the exercise of it by a particular person in some
the rest are Rebels and Traytors And Is not this just the same Answer which you give here That the Pope is still appointed to keep peace and unity in the Church because all that question his Authority be Hereticks and Schismaticks But as in the former case the surest way to prevent those Consequences were to produce that power and authority which the King had given him and that should be the first thing which should be made evident from authentick records and the clear testimony of the gravest Senatours so if you could produce the Letters Pattents whereby Christ made the Pope the great Lord Chancellour of his Church to determine all Controversies of Faith and shew this attested by the concurrent voice of the Primitive Church who best knew what order Christ took for the Government of his Church this were a way to prevent such persons turning such Hereticks and Schismaticks as you say they are by not submitting themselves to the Popes Authority But for you to pretend that the Popes Authority is necessary to the Churches Vnity and when the Heresies and Schisms of the Church are objected to say That those are all out of the Church is just as if a Shepherd should say That he would keep the whole Flock of sheep within such a Fold and when the better half are shewed him to be out of it he should return this Answer That those were without and not within his Fold and therefore they were none of the Flock that he meant So that his meaning was those that would abide in he could keep in but for those that would not he had nothing to say to them So it is with you the Pope he ends Controversies and keeps the Church at Vnity How so They who do agree are of his Flock and of the Church and those that do not are out of it A Quaker or Anabaptist will keep the Church in Vnity after the same way only the Pope hath the greater number of his side for they will tell you If they were hearkned to the Church should never be in pieces for all those who embrace their Doctrines are of the Church and those who do not are Hereticks and Schismaticks So we see upon your principles What an easie matter it is to be an Infallible Judge and to end all Controversies in the Church that only this must be taken for granted that all who will not own such an infallible Judge are out of the Church and so the Church is at Vnity still how many soever there are who doubt or deny the Popes Authority Thus we easily understand what that excellent harmony is which you cry so much up in your Church that you most gravely say That had not the Pope received from God the power he challenges he could never have been able to preserve that peace and unity in matters of Religion that is found in the Roman Church Of what nature that Unity is we have seen already And surely you have much cause to boast of the Popes faculty of deciding Controversies ever since the late Decree of Pope Innocent in the case of the five Propositions For How readily the Jansenists have submitted since and what Unity there hath been among the dissenting parties in France all the world can bear you witness And whatever you pretend were it not for Policy and Interest the Infallible Chair would soon fall to the ground for it hath so little footing in Scripture or Antiquity that there had need be a watchful eye and strong hand to keep it up But now we are to examine the main proof which is brought for the necessity of this Living and Infallible Judge which lyes in these words of A.C. Every earthly Kingdom when matters cannot be composed by a Parliament which cannot be called upon all occasions hath besides the Law-Books some living Magistrates and Judges and above all one visible King the highest Judge who hath Authority sufficient to end all Controversies and settle Vnity in all Temporal Affairs And Shall we think that Christ the wisest King hath provided in his Kingdom the Church only the Law-Books of holy Scripture and no living visible Judges and above all one chief so assisted by his Spirit as may suffice to end all Controversies for Vnity and Certainty of Faith which can never be if every man may interpret Holy Scripture the Law-Books as he list This his Lordship saith is a very plausible argument with the many but the Foundation of it is but a similitude and if the similitude hold not in the main argument is nothing And so his Lordship at large proves that it is here For whatever further concerns this Controversie concerning the Popes Authority is brought under the examination of this argument which you mangle into several Chapters thereby confounding the Reader that he may not see the coherence or dependence of one thing upon another But having cut off the superfluities of this Chapter already I may with more conveniency reduce all that belongs to this matter within the compass of it And that he may the better apprehend his Lordships scope and design I shall first summ up his Lordships Answers together and then more particularly go about the vindication of them 1. Then his Lordship at large proves that the Militant Church is not properly a Monarchy and therefore the foundation of the similitude is destroyed 2. That supposing it a Kingdom yet the Church Militant is spread in many earthly Kingdoms and cannot well be ordered like one particular Kingdom 3. That the Church of England under one Supreme Governour our Gracious Soveraign hath besides the Law-Book of the Scripture visible Magistrates and Judges Arch-Bishops and Bishops to govern the Church in Truth and Peace 4. That as in particular Kingdoms there are some affairs of greatest Consequence as concerning the Statute Laws which cannot be determined but in Parliament so in the Church the making such Canons which must bind all Christians must belong to a free and lawful General Council Thus I have laid together the substance of his Lordships Answer that the dependence and connexion of things may be better perceived by the intelligent Reader We come now therefore to the first Answer As to which his Lordship saith It is not certain that the whole Church Militant is a Kingdom for they are no mean ones which think our Saviour Christ left the Church-Militant in the hands of the Apostles and their Successours in an Aristocratical or rather a mixt Government and that the Church is not Monarchical otherwise than the Triumphant and Militant make one body under Christ the Head And in this sense indeed and in this only the Church is a most absolute Kingdom And the very expressing of this sense is a full Answer to all the places of Scripture and other arguments brought by Bellarmine to prove that the Church is a Monarchy But the Church being as large as the world Christ thought fittest to govern it Aristocratically
by divers rather than by one Vice-Roy And I believe saith he this is true For so it was governed for the first three hundred years and somewhat better the Bishops of those times carrying the whole business of admitting any new consecrated Bishops or others to or rejecting them from their Communion And this his Lordship saith He hath carefully examined for the first six hundred years even to and within the time of S. Gregory the Great Now to this you answer 1. That though A. C. urgeth the argument in a similitude of a Kingdom only yet it is of force in any other kind of settled Government as in a Common-wealth But by this A. C. seems a great deal the wiser man for he knew what he did when he instanced in in a Kingdom for he foresaw that this only would tend to his purpose concerning the Popes Supremacy but though there be the same necessity of some Supreme Power in a Common-wealth yet that would do him no good at all for all that could be inferred thence would be the necessity of a General Council And by this you may see How little your similitude will hold any other way than A.C. put it Therefore 2. You answer That the Government of the Church is not a pure but a mixt Monarchy i. e. the Supream Government of the Church is clearly Monarchical you confess yet Bishops within their respective Dioceses and Jurisdictions are spiritual Princes also that is chief Pastors and Governours of such a part of the Church in their own right How far this latter is consonant to your principles I have already examined but the former is that we dispute now concerning the Supreme Government of the Church Whether that be Monarchical or no and this is that which his Lordship denies and for all that I see we may continue to do so too for any argument you bring to the contrary Although you produce your Achilles in the next paragraph viz. that since the Government of one in chief is by all Philosophers acknowledged for the most perfect What wonder is it that Christ our Saviour thought it fitter to govern the Church by one Vice-Roy than Aristocratically or by many as he would have it But Are you sure Christ asked the Philosophers opinions in establishing a Government in the Church The Philosophers judged truly that of all Forms of Civil Government Monarchy was the best i. e. most conducing to the ends of Civil Government for the excellency of such things must be measured by their respect to the ends Now if we apply this to the Church we must not measure it by such ends as we fancy to our selves or such as are only the ends of meer Civil Societies but all must be considered with a respect to the chief design of him who first instituted a Church And from thence we must draw our Inferences as to what may tend most to the Peace and Vnity of it Now it appearing to be the great design of Christ that mankind should be brought to eternal Happiness we cannot argue from hence as to the necessity of any manner of Government unless one of them hath in it self a greater tendency to this than another hath For in Civil Governments the whole design of the Society is the Civil Peace of it but it is otherwise in the Church the main end of it is to order things with the greatest conveniency for a future life Now this being the main end of this Society and no manner of Government having in it self a greater tendency to this than other It was in the power of the Legislator to appoint what Government he pleased himself But when we consider that he intended this Church of his should be spread all over the world and this to be his immediate errand he sent his Apostles upon to preach to every creature and to plant Churches in the most remote and distant places from each other we can have the least ground to fancy he should appoint an Vniversal Monarchy in his Church of any Government whatsoever For if we will take that boldness you put us upon to enquire What form is fittest for a Society dispersed into all parts of the world and that are not bound upon their being Christians to live nearer Rome than Mexico or Japan Could any one imagine it would be to appoint one Vice-Roy to superintend his Church at such a place as Rome is Suppose all the East and West-Indies consisted of Christian Churches What advantage in order to the Government of those Churches could the Popes Authority be What Heresies and Schisms might be among them before his Holiness could be acquainted with them These are therefore very slender and narrow Conceptions concerning Christs Institution of a Government over his Catholick Church as though he should only have regard to these few adjacent parts of Europe without any respect to the good of the whole Church But since we see Christ designed such a Church which might be in most remote and distant places from each other and yet at such a distance might equally promote the main ends wherefore they became Churches it is very unreasonable to think he should appoint one Vice-Roy to be Head over them all For which let us suppose that Europe might be as the Eastern Churches have been over-run with the Turkish Power and only some few suffering Christians left here and the Pope much in the same condition with the Patriarch of Constantinople But on the other side that Christianity should largely spread it self in China and the East Indies and the Christian Church flourish in America Could any Philosopher think that fixing a Monarchy at Rome or elsewhere were the best way to Govern the Catholick Church which consists of all these Christian Societies For that is certainly the best Government which is suited to all conditions of that Society which it is intended for now it is apparent the Christian Church was intended to be so Catholick that no one Vice-Roy can be supposed able to look to the Government of it If Christ had intended meerly such a Church which should have consisted of such persons which lay here near about Rome and no others the supposition of such a Monarchy in the Church would not have been altogether so incongruous though liable to very many inconveniencies but when he intended his Religion for the universal good of the world and that in all parts of it without obliging them to live near each other it is one of the most unreasonable suppositions in the world that he should set up a Monarchical Government over his Catholich Church in such a place as Rome is But now if we suppose only an Aristocratical Government in the Church under Christ as the alone Supreme Head nothing can be more suitable to the nature of the Church or the large extent of it than that is For where-ever a Church is there may be Bishops to govern it and other Officers of the Church
the Catholick Church with them and there was the greater hopes of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Since neither part did agree with the Bishop of old Rome or the Church which joynes with him but both oppose the evil customs and abuses which come by him which bears the same date with the Patriarchs first Answer to the Tubing Divines May 15. 1576. And the Patriarch in his letter heartily wishes an union and conjunction between them From hence we may easily gather how true both those things were viz. That the intent of their writing was to be admitted into the communion of the Greek Church and that the Patriarch did not in the least approve their Doctrine but confirmed the Tenets of the Roman Catholick Church But we must look further into the writings themselves to see how far they agreed and wherein they differed It appears then that the Patriarch did profess his consent with them in these things besides the Articles of the Creed and the satisfaction of Christ and other more general points viz. That the Sacrament was to be received in both kinds that the use of marriage was not to be absolutely forbidden the Clergy though their custom is that they must be married before they take Orders besides the grand Articles of the Popes Supremacy and the Roman Churches Infallibility Doth he that joyns with them in these things not in the least approve their Doctrine but confirm the Tenets of the Roman Catholick Church But withall it must be confessed that besides that common Article of the Procession of the Spirit wherein he disputes most earnestly there are five others in which they dissented from each other about Free will justification by Faith the number of Sacraments Invocation of Saints and Monastick life and about these the remaining disputes were In some of which it is easie to discern how far the right state of the question was from being apprehended which the Lutheran Divines perceiving sent him a larger and fuller explication of their mind in a body of Divinity in Greek but the Patriarchs troubles coming on Cantacuzenus deposing him too and other businesses taking him off upon his restauration he breaks off the Conference between them But although he differed from them in these things yet he was far enough from rebuking them for departing from the Roman Church although he was desirous they should have joyned with them in the approbation of such things as were in use among themselves And in those things in which he seems to plead for some practises in use in the Roman Church yet there are many considerable circumstances about them wherein they differ from the Church of Rome as hath been manifested by many others As in the Article of Invocation of Saints the Patriarch saith They do not properly Invocate Saints but God for neither Peter nor Paul do hear us upon which ground it is impossible to maintain the Romish Doctrine of Invocation of Saints And in most of the other the main difference lies in the want of a true State of the Questions between them But is this any such great matter of admiration that the Patriarch upon the first sight of their confession should declare his dissent from them in these things It is well enough known how much Barbarism had crept into the Greek Church after their being subdued by the Turks the means of Instruction being taken from them and it being very rare at that time to have any Sermons at all in so much that one of your Calogeri being more learned then the rest and preaching there in Lent was thereby under great suspicion and at last was by the Patriarch himself sent out of the way It is therefore more to be wondered they should preserve so much of the Doctrine of Faith entire as they have done then that any corrupt practises should prevail amongst them The most then which you can make of the judgement of the Patriarch Hieremias is that in some things he was opposite to the Protestants as in others to the Church of Rome But what would you have said if any Patriarch of Constantinople had declared his consent so fully with the Church of Rome as the Patriarch Cyril did afterwards with the Protestants who on that account suffered so much by the practises of the Jesuits of whom he complains in his Epistle to Vtenbogard And although a Faction was raised against him by Parthenius who succeeded him yet another Parthenius succeeding him stood up in vindication of him Since therefore such different opinions have been among them about the present Controversies of the Christian world and there being no declared Confession of their Faith which is owned by the whole Greek Church as to these things there can be no confident pronouncing what their judgement is as to all our differences till they have further declared themselves PART III. Of Particular Controversies CHAP. I. Of the Infallibility of General Councils How far this tends to the ending Controversies Two distinct Questions concerning the Infallibility and Authority of General Councils The first entered upon with the state of the Question That there can be no certainty of faith that General Councils are infallible nor that the particular decrees of any of them are so which are largely proved Pighius his Arguments against the Divine Institution of General Councils The places of Scripture considered which are brought for the Churches infallibility and that these cannot prove that General Councils are so Matth. 18.20 Acts 15.28 particularly answered The sense of the Fathers in their high expressions of the decrees of Councils No consent of the Church as to their infallibility The place of St. Austin about the amendment of former General Councils by latter at large vindicated No other places in S. Austin prove them infallible but many to the contrary General Councils cannot be infallible in the conclusion if not in the use of the means No such infallibility without as immediate a revelation as the Prophets and Apostles had taking Infallibility not for an absolute unerring power but such as comes by a promise of Divine Assistance preserving from errour No obligation to internal assent but from immediate Divine Authority Of the consistency of Faith and reason in things propounded to be believed The suitableness of the contrary Doctrine to the Romanists principles IF high pretences and large promises were the only things which we ought to value any Church for there were none comparable to the Church of Rome For there can be nothing imagined amiss in the Christian world but if we believe the bills her Factours set up she hath an Infallible cure for it If any enquire into the grounds of Religion they tell us that her testimony only can give them Infallible Certainty if any are afraid of mistaking in opinions they have the only Infallible Judge of Controversies to go to if any complain of the rents and divisions of the Christian world they have Infallible Councils either to