acquit him One much prevailing argument which they make is this That whosoever leaves them sall into dissention between themselves whereas they in the mean while are allwaies at Unity I answer First In this whereof the Question is now they all assent Secondly When there is fire for them that disagree they need not bragg of their Uniformity who consent Thirdly they have many differences among them as whether the Pope be Infallible whether God predeterminate every action whether Election and Reprobation depend upon fore-sight Which seemes to me as great as any between their Adversaries and in the latter the Jesuites have ancienter and generaller Tradition on their side then the Church of Rome hath in any other Question and as much ground from Reason for the defence of Gods goodnesse as they can think they have for the necessity of an infallible guide Yet these arguments must not make the Dominicans Hereticks and must us If they say the Church hath not resolved it which signifies onely that they are not agreed about it which is that we object I answer It ought to have done so if uniformity to the Ancient Church be required in which all that ever I could heare of before Saint Austine who is ever various I confesse in it delivered the contrary to the Dominicans as not doubtfull and to say it is lawfull for them to disagree wheresoever they do not agree is ridiculous for they cannot do both at once about the same point and if they say they mean by the Churches not having concluded it that a Councell hath not I Answer First That they condemne some without any Councell and why not these Next I say the opinion of the diffused Church is of more force then the conclusion of the representative which hath its authority from the other and therefore if all extant for the first four hundered yeares taught any Cannon it is more Heresie to deny that then any Cannon of a Councell But may not howsoever any other Company of People that would maintaine themselves to be infallible say as much that all other Sects differ from one another and therefore should all agree with them would not those think they ascribe all other mens dissentions and learned mens falling into diverse heresies to their not allowing their Infallibility to their not assenting to their Decrees and not suffering them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to sit as teachers of those things that come in Question and to have all others in the place of Disciples obedient to them which is that which Nilus a Greek Bishop professed that because the Greeks would not allow the Romans was the chief cause of separation between them Next They use much to object how could errors come into the Church without opposition and mention both of them and the opposition to them in History I answer They might come not at once but by degrees as in the growth of a Child or motion of a Clock we see neither in the present but know there was a present when we find it past Next I say there are two sorts of errors To hold a thing necessary that is unlawfull and false or that is but profitable and probable Of the second sort that errors should come in it appears not hard to me especially in those ages where want of Printing made Books and consequently Learning not so common as now it is where the few that did study busied themselves in Schoole speculations onely when the authority of a man of chief note had a more generall influence then now it hath and so as Thucidides saith the Plague did in his time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the disease that first settled in the head EASILY passed through all the body considering how apt men are to desire that all men should think as they do and consequently to lay a necessity upon the receiving that opinion if they conceive that a way to have it received And then if it were beleeved generally profitable as confession who would be apt to oppose their calling it necessary for the same cause for which they called it so Besides If this error were delivered by some Father in the hot opposition of some Heretick it may be none would oppose it least the adversaries might take advantage by their dissention and he that disputed for the Orthodox side might lose by it much of his authority The word necessary it self is also often used for very convenient and then from necessary in that sence to absolutely necessary is no difficult change though it be a great one Then the Fathers use the word Hereticks sometimes in a larger sence and sometimes in a stricter and so differ in the reckoning them up some leaving out those that others put in though they had seen the precedent Catalogue and so the doubtfullnesse of the sence of these words might bring in error Names also as Altar Sacrifice Masse may have been used First in one sence and the name retained though the thing signified received change as it was once of an Emperour of Rome cui proprium fuit nuper reperta I leave out scelera priscis verbis obtegere whose property it was to cover things newly found with ancient tearmes And the same Author tells us that the same state was as it were cheated out of her liberty because there did remaine eadem Magistratuum vocabula the same titles of Magistrates And I beleeve that if the Protestants beyond the Seas would have thought Bishops as good a word as Super-intendents and so in other such things many who understand nothing but names would have missed the scandale they have now taken These waies I think these things may have come without much opposition from being thought profitable to be done and probable to be beleeved to be thought necessary to be both and how things may have been by little and little received under old names which would not have been so at once under new ones it is not hard to conceive The first of these being no such small fault but that part of the Montanists Heresies was thinking uncommanded fasting daies necessary to be observed which without doubt might lawfully have been kept so that no necessitie had been imposed But my maine answer is that if to be in the Church without known precedent opposition be a certaine note of being derived from the begining let them answer how came in the opinion of the Chiliasts not contradicted till two hundred yeares after it came in To conclude If they can prove that the Scripture may be a certainer teacher of truth to them then to us so that they may conclude the Infallibility of the Church out of it and we nothing If they can prove the Churches Infallibility to be a sufficient Guide for him that doubts which is the Church and cannot examine that for want of learning by her chiefe marke which is conformity with the Ancients If they can prove that the consent of Fathers long together is a stronger
amongst those who parted from us for although to day they agree there is no bond or tie why to morrow they may not disagree These two things we brag of and I think the Author will not denie it For he confesseth that we all agree in that the Church is an infallible Mistresse Then it is evident that if in any controversie she interposeth her judegment the controversie is ended He likewise confesseth that who part from us have no such definitive authority amongst them and that Scripture whereon they rely hath no such vertue to take up Controversies clearely Supposing that we agreed much lesse then you yet a little all in earnest that is unforced is more considerable then much constrained and so peradventure much of that much but in appearance Besides that you all agree in those points wherein if any disagree he becomes none of you is no more then is so common to all Religions that even the very Anabaptists may say as much for themselves For either all the Parts of them remaine of assent insomuch that they are all still of the same Religion and so agree as well as your Dominicans and Jesuites or else their differences are such as to make them of severall Religions and then why is want of Unity objected to them any more then it is to Christians in generall among whom are so many divisions and yet not the whole but the faulty party taxed And truely in my opinion some Questions among your selves are as great not onely as any among your adversaries but as any between you and them I but you answer we have a way of being agreed we reply is it a way sure to lead to Truth as well as to Unity or else so might we have by going to most at three throwes and resolving to stand to that Besides if you have and make no more use of it it seemes there is no such need that Questions be ended as for that purpose to introduce a necessitie of an Ender But say you neither are all suits in the Common-wealth ended We reply that yet truely those Judges who should make no more haste to end them then your Judge doth these would deserve to loose his place but this they do as fast as the nature of the thing will permit which being or depending upon matter of Fact cannot be known erough to be judged before examination of witnesses and the like be ended and if they willingly deferre the ending they are confess'd to be in fault by all men but those who hold Perjury to be none But you seem to conceive our grounds faulty as not leading even to a possible Unity whereas to a possible one I am sure they do since what is concluded out of them by many may be by all nay indeed am confident that all who receive the Scripture for the onely rule and believe what is there plain to be onely necessarie would if they truely beleeved what they professe and were not lead aside either by prejudice or private ends or some Popish relicks of holding what they have long been taught or following the authority of some by them much esteemed persons either alive or dead soon agree in as much as is necessarie and in concluding no necessity of agreeing in more there being no doubt but it would soone appear plainly what is plaine Besides if no grounds be sufficient for Unitie which produce not the effect then it seemes the grounds of your grounds those Arguments by which you prove that there is a Judge and a generall Councell is it are insufficient since they are not able to make all Christians about this question Again although a Judge and this Judge be received yet this is still an insufficient ground for Unitie since the Greek Church agree thus farre with you which is as farre as you agree with one another and yet are not so bound by it to any universall Unitie with them but that they esteem you Hereticks and are esteemed so by you and if you say that it is not because the grounds upon which the Infallibilitie of the Church are built lead not sufficientlie to Unitie that we joyne not with you in beleeving them to be infallible not because the determination of generall Councels is not a sufficient meanes of Unitie that the Greek Church admitting their authoritie admits not of your opinions but it is the fault of us and of them hardening our hearts against the truth then we may as well say that some of those who agree in our grounds yet disagree from our doctrine not that the grounds lead not to Unitie but that our Adversaries will not be lead or if as you doe and some others of you sometimes you confesse that they through an innocent error dissent from you and doe this without any imputation in this respect to your grounds I hope it will be lawfull for us to allow the same possibilitie without any disadvantage or prejudice to ours Besides say you though we agree to day yet we may not to morrow which to prove were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 paines whollie lost we confesse For though Tully make it an expression of his contempt to Piso in an Epistle to Atticus Ita nihil est ut plane quid erit nesciat yet I take it to be a true saying of man in generall who knowes little of present things and nothing of future but this is common to us both for if we change not our opinions we shall agree as we doe and if you change yours you shall not which is possible for not onelie that opinion of the Infallibilitie of your judges decrees may it self be altered which holdeth together all the rest but some of you may holding that ground like the Greek either change their opinions concerning the authority of such or such a Councell as beleeving it unduelie called factiouslie carried or not generall as is pretended or not so consenting as is requisite or differ from the rest concerning the sence of the decrees for whereas you say you agree that the Church is an infallible Mistresse and when she interposeth her judgement the controversie is ended I answer that first some of you with whom I have spoken my selfe hold that the Churches authoritie in defining extends no further then to such points whereof Tradition is of one part as in many controverted there is I beleeve no such and that this rule she may transgresse and so erre Secondlie Neither the Dominicans nor their Adversaries are very readie to remain in suspence to await her decision but define all readie concerning her definitions Cum utraque pars tenax contendat suam non aliam posse definiri sententiam either part tenaciouslie urging that the contrarie opinion cannot be defined which if they did to fright the Pope from defining least the condemned partie being even before should after make a Schisme they obtained their end Thirdlie What are you the nearer to Unitie for your Infallible Mistresse the Church when
necessary part of Faith and we can be no surer of any thing proved then we are of that which proves it and if he be fallible no part is the more infallible for his siding with them So if the Church be divided I have no way to know the true Church but by searching which agrees with Scripture and Antiquitie and so judging accordingly but this is not to submit my self to her opinions as my Guide which they tell us is necessarie which course if they approve not of as fit for a learned man they are in a worse case for the ignorant who can take no course at all nor is he the better at all for his Guide the Church whilst two parts dispute which is it and that by arguments he understands not If I grant the Pope or a Councell by him called to be infallible yet I conceive their decrees can be no sufficient grounds by their own axioms of divine Faith For first of all no Councell is valid not approved by the Pope for thus they overthrow that held at Ariminum and a Pope chosen by Simony is ipso facto no Pope I can have then no certainer grounds for the infallibility of those decrees and consequently for my beleefe of them then I have that the choice of him is neither directly nor indirectly Simoniacall Secondly suppose him Pope and to have confirmed their decrees yet that these are the decrees of a Councell or that he hath confirmed them I can have but an uncontradicted confession of many men for if another Councell should declare these to have been the Acts of another former Councell I should need againe some certain way of knowing how this declaration is a Councell which is no ground say they of Faith I am sure not so good and generall a one as we have that the Scripture is Scripture which yet they will not allow any to be certaine of but from them Thirdly For the sence of their decrees I can have no better expounder then reason which if though I mistake I shall not be damned for following why shall I for mistaking the sence of the Scripture or why am I a lesse fit Interpreter of the one then of the other and when both seeme equally cleare and yet contradictory shall not I affoon beleeve Scripture which is without doubt of as great authority But I doubt whether Councells are fit deciders of Questions for such they cannot be if they beget more and men are in greater doubts afterwards none of the former being diminished then they were at ffrst Now I conceive there arise so many out of this way that the learned cannot end all nor the ignorant know all As besides the fore-named considerations who is to call them the Pope or Kings who are to have voices in them Bishops onely or Priests also whether the Pope or Councell be superiour and the last need the approbation of the first debated amongst themselves Whether any Countries not being called or not being there as the Abissines so great a part of Christianitie and not resolvedly condemned by them for Hereticks were absent at the Councell of Trent make it not generall Whether if it be one not every where received as when the Bishops sent from some places have exceeded their Commission as in the Councell of Florence it be yet of necessitie to be subscribed unto Whether there were any surreption or force used and whether those disanull the Acts Whether the most voices are to be held the Act of the Councell or those of all required which never yet agreed Or whether two parts will serve as in the Tridentine Synod A considerable doubt because Nicephorus Callistus relalating the resolution of a Councell at Rome against that of Ariminum makes him give three reasons One That the Pope of Rome was not present The Second That most did not agree to it The third That others thither gathered were displeased at their resolutions Which proves that in their opinions if either most not present agree not to it or all present be not pleased with it a Councell hath no power to bind All these doubts I say perswade me that whatsoever brings with it so many new Questions can be no fit end of the old Then if before a generall Councell have defined a Question it be lawfull to hold either way and damnable to do so after I desire to know why it is so Scripture and Tradition seem to me not to say so but if they did so I suppose you will grant they do this Doctrine That the Soules of the blessed shall see God before the day of Judgement and not be kept in secret Receptacles for without this the Doctrine of Prayers to Saints cannot stand and yet for denying this Bellarmine excuseth Pope John the 22 th because the Church he meanes I doubt not a generall Councell had not then condemned it I desire to know why he should not be condemned as well without one as many Hereticks that are held so by their Church yet condemned by none which if he make to be the Rule of Heresie it had been happy to have lived before the Councell of Nice when no opinion had been damnable but some against the Apostles Councell at Hierusalem because there had yet been no other generall Councell at least why should not I be excused by the same reason though I beleeve not a Councell to be infallible since I never heard that any Councell hath decreed that they are so neither if it hath can we be bound by that decree unlesse first made certaine some other way that it selfe is so If you say we must beleeve it because of Tradition I answer Sometimes you will have the not beleeving any thing not declared by a Councell to have power enough to damne that is when against any of us at other times the Church hath not decreed unlesse a Councell have and their error is pardonable and they good Catholicks Next as I have asked before how shall an ignorant man know it For he in likelihood can speak but with a few from whom he cannot know that all of the Church of Romes part do now and in past ages have beleeved it to be Tradition so certaine as to make it a ground of Faith unlesse he have some revelation that those deceived him not neither indeed can those that should inform him of the opinions of former times be certainely informed themselves For truely if the relation of Pappias could cozen so far all the prime Doctors of the Christian Church into a beleefe of the celebration of a thousand yeeres after the resurrection so as that no one of those two first ages oppose it which appeares plainly enough because those that after rise up against this never quoated any thing for themselves before Dionysius Alexandrinus who lived at least two hundred and fifty yeares after Christ nay if those first men did not onely beleeve it as probable but Justine Martir saith he holds it and so
in any point of Religion yet to be in a readinesse to cry To the fire with him to Hell with him as Polybius saith in a certaine furious faction of an army of severall nations and consequently of severall languages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They all joyned onely in understanding this word throw at him These I say in my opinion were chiefly the causes which made so many so suddenly leave the Church of Rome that indeed to borrow the same Authors Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They needed no perswasion to do it but onely newes that others had done it For as this alone if beleeved makes all the rest to be so too so one thing alone disliked where infallibility is claimed overthrowes all the rest If it were granted that it agreeth not with the goodnesse of God to let men want an infallible Guide and therefore there must be one and that the Church of Rome were it yet if that teach any thing to my understanding contrary to Gods goodnesse I am not to receive her Doctrine for the same cause for which they would have me receive it it being as good an argument this guide teacheth things contrary to Gods goodnesse therefore this is not appointed by God as to say it is agreeable to his goodnesse there should be one therefore there is one and sure it is lawfull to examine particular Doctrines whether they agree with that Principle which is their foundation and for that me thinks to damn him that neither with negligence nor prejudication searches what is Gods will though he misse of it is as contrary as the first can be supposed Next I would know whether he that hath never heard of the Church of Rome shall yet be damned for not beleeving her infallible I have so good an opinion of them as to assure my self they will answer he shall not I will then ask whether he that hath searched what Religions there are and finds hers to be one and her infallibility to be a part of it if his reason will not assent to that shall be damned for being inquisitive after Truth for he hath committed no other fault greater then the other and whether such an ignorance I mean after impartiall search be not of all other the most invincible Nay grant the Church to be infallible yet me thinks he that denies it and imploies his reason to seek if it be true should be in as good case as he that beleeveth it and searcheth not at all the truth of the Proposition he receives For I cannot see why he should be saved because by reason of his parents beleef or the Religion of the Country or some such accident the Truth was offered to his understanding when had the contrary been offered he would have received that And the other damned that beleeves falshood upon as good ground as the other doth truth unlesse the Church be like a Conjurers Circle that will keep a man from the Divell though he came unto it by chance They grant no man is an Heretick that beleeves not his Heresie obstinately and if he be no Heretick he may sure be saved It is not then certain damnation for any man to deny the Infallibility of the Church of Rome but for him onely that denies it obstinately And then I am safe for I am sure I do not Neither can they say I shall be damned for Schisme though not for Heresie for he is as well no Shcismatick though in Schisme that is willing to joyne in Communion with the true Church when it appears to be so to him as he is no Heretick though he holds Hereticall opinions who holds them not obstinately that is as I suppose with a desire to be informed if he be in the wrong Next Why if it be not necessary alwaies to beleeve the Truth so one beleeve in generall what the Church would have beleeved for so they excuse great men that have held contrary opinions to theirs now before they were defined or knew them to be so why I say shall not the same implicite assent serve to whatsoever God would have assented unto though I mistake what that is when indeed to beleeve implicitely what God would have beleeved is to beleeve implicitely likewise what the Church teacheth if this Doctrine be within the number of those which God commands to be beleeved I have the lesse doubt of this opinion that I shall have no harme for not beleeving the Infallibility of the Church of Rome because of my being so farr from leaning to the contrary and so suffering my will to have power over my understanding that if God would leave it to me which Tenet should be true I would rather chuse that that should then the contrary For they may well beleeve me that I take no pleasure in tumbling hard and unpleasant Books and making my self giddy with disputing obscure Questions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If I should beleeve there should alwaies be whom I might alwaies know a society of men whose opinions must be certainely true and who would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 labour to discusse and define all arising doubts so that I might be excusably at ease and have no part left for me but that of obedience which must needs be a lesse difficult and so a more agreeable way then to endure endlesse Volumes of Commenters the harsh Greek of Epiphanius and the harder Latin of Irenaeus and be pained by distinguishing between different sences and various Lections and he would deserve not the lowest place in Bedlem that would preferr these studies before so many so more pleasant that would rather imploy his understanding then submit it and if he could think God imposed upon him onely the resisting temptations would by way of addition require from himself the resolving of doubts yet I say not that all these Books are to be read by those that understand not the languages for them I conceive their seeking into the Scripture may suffice but he who hath by Gods grace skill to look into them cannot better use it then in the searching of his will where they say it is to be found that he may assent to them if there he find reason for it or if not they may have no excuse for not excusing him For whereas they say it is pride makes us doubt of their Infallibilitie I answer That their too much lazinesse and impatience of examining is the cause that many of them do not doubt Next what pride is it never to assent before I find reason since they when they follow their Church as infallible pretend reason for it and will not say they would if they thought they found none and if they say we do find reason but will not eonfesse it then pride hinders not our assent but our declaration of it which if it do in any one he is without question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 con demned by himself and it must be a very partiall Advocate that would strive to
they went by such a Tradition since of that eighty so many persons from so many several Parts are witnesses beyond exception according to your own grounds and that their Infallibility is not thought to depend upon an Impossibility that in the matter of Fact what hath been taught under that Notion they should either deceive or be deceiv'd but upon an infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost which may be wanting to any company whereof the Pope is no part or of whose decrees he is no confirmer Now to return to my proofes that against the Arrians there was no such Tradition as you speak of at least that was the ground upon which they were condemned consider if you please that in that Epistle which Eusebius of Caesarea writ to some Arrians after the Councell of Nice he saith First that they assented to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Consubstantiall because also they knew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some eloquent and illustrious Bishops and Writers had us'd the Terme In which I note thatneither claim'dhe any such Verbal Tradition for this as you speak of and of that sort which he claim'd he names onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some as knowing too many had writ otherwise to give such a Tradition leave to be generall Secondly He saith they consented to Anathematize the Contradictors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to hinder men from using unwritten words by which he saith and that truely that all confusion hath come upon the Church And if it be askt why the same reason made them not keep out the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I answer That I believe or else he is not constant to his own reason that he meant onely those words to be unwritten which were in Scripture neither themselves nor equivalently whereas he took 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be in the Scripture in the latter sence And that by written he meant in the Scripture onely appeares by what followes that no divinely-inspired writing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 using the Arrians Phrase it was neither fitting to say nor teach them Neither can you say that Eusebius being himself a secret Arrian prevaricated herein for Theodoret makes this Epistle an Argument against them which he would not have done if either it had seem'd to him to say any thing contrary to the Catholique doctrine or not to have oppos'd the contrary by a Catholique way at least without giving his leader some Caution concerning it All which reasons move me to think that the generality of Christians had not been alwaies taught the contrary to Arrius's doctrine but some one way others the other most neither as having been onely spoken of upon occasions and therefore me thinks you had better either say with the Protestants that the Truth was concluded as Constantine said it should be by Arguments from Scripture or as some of your own say of other points that before the Councell it lay in Archivis Ecclesiae in the Deskes of the Church then claime such a Tradition for it as appeares it can never be defended that it had Let us consider but two opinions more That Infants are not to receive the Eucharist is now both the doctrine and practise of the Roman Church but six hundred yeeres the Church us'd it Saint Austine accounted it necessary at least in some sence of the word if not absolutely which last is most likely because from the necessity of that which could not be receiv'd but by them who had received Baptisme he and Innocentius a Pope prove the necessity of Baptisme and an Apostolicall Tradition If therefore both these Ages had gone by your Rule how comes this difference between their opinions the Sacrament being the same it was and the Children the same they were This I may consider and see if the same way that this Doctrine hath been altered whether any other might not have received change Next that Saints are invocable you must say is Tradition taught from Father to Sonne as deriv'd from the Apostles if you will be constant to your own principle now though I might disprove this first by the many Fathers that beleeved the Just not to be admitted to the Beatificall vision before the day of judgement for upon this your side now grounds that but to be kept in secretreceptacles and by the long time which pass'd before this doctrine was condemn'd Secondly by the beginning of it which was particular Doctors Hipotheticall prayers with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such conditionall clauses And thirdly by Nicephorus Calistus his Relation who in this is a believable witnesse because he allowes of your opinion that prayers to the Virgin Mary were first brought into the publick Liturgie by one Petrus Gnapheus a Heretick about five hundred yeares after Christ yet I will rather chuse to confute this by the confession of Sancta Clara out of Horantius who to this objection that sub Evangelio which must mean when the Gospel was preacht no such precept is extant not onely denies it not but gives this reason for it least the Pagans should-think themselves brought againe to the worshipping of Men instead of Gods If upon this or any other reason this were not then taught then have not all your Doctrines such a Pedigree as you suppose but allow it were yet howsoever it followes that some at least of the learned of your Church have not been taught that they have or consequently that it is necessary they should have Though it seemes to me little less then Montanisme to believe that any since as it were a Paraclet should perfect the doctrine which then was delivered by the Apostles Neither can you answer that they speake onely of such a Precept and of being extant whereas they might teach it lawfull without giving any Precept and they might have given such a Precept although not extant for I should readily reply that the reason they give why there is none such extant shewes that they mean there was none at all neither Precept nor allowance since the Pagans would have been scandaliz'd at its being accounted lawfull to worship men instead of Gods although it were not commanded and not a whit the lesse whether that in after times were extant or not which they could not foresee The onelie answer which I am able to invent in your behalfe is this that though some of your particular doctrines have not such a Tradition yet there being a Tradition that the Churches definitions are infallible whatsoever she at any time defines is then to be believed upon the strength of such a Tradition and before did latere in causis as Flowers do in Winter Yet to this I may reply by desiring you to enter with me into some few considerations First If this were so and that so much of Christian Religion depends upon the definitions of the Church and our Reception of them upon knowing alwaies which is she and that such is her authority can you perswade your selfe that Christ
yeeld to her in all points but one and that the least considerable she would yet throw us into the fire as Hereticks for dissenting from her in that You are bidden to put what yeare or age such an error entered and it is evidently true that then that yeare or age the Church conspired to tell a lie and deceive their Posterity You would never be loved if you were a Poser and used to aske such hard questions for either you must mean by an opinion entering when first any man pofessed it or when first by all in communion with your Church it was assented unto If you mean the first it is impossiible to be answered for if one should ask who taught first that Christ was not begotten by God before he was conceived by the Virgin Mary through his power and the over-shadowing of the Holy Ghost one who knew little of Antiquity would answer Socinus a more learned Person would say Photinus another Paulus Samosatenus another might find before him Artemon and another yet before him Theodorus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with whom curious Logicians and great Readers of Euclid Aristotle Galen and Theophrastus were joyned and yet that he was the first we have no certainty for if a little of Eusebius had been lost Theodorus and Artemon had not been now heard of which may as well have happened to others before them either by want of being taken notice of by an Historian or by the losse of the History and not onely is this so in this but in all other points If you mean the second for so you must by your Inference though the words of the Question will bear both sences it is as impossible for you to receive an answer For how shall I know when all it is granted For suppose no Author to have been lost and me to have read and remembred them all yet as in England when the Calvinists opinion prevailed most as wise and learned men as those who writ though differing in opinion from the Authors yet opposed them not so publiquely but that many might believe the more generall Tenet to be received by all how should I know that the opinions of the Authors of severall Ages did agree with that of all equally wise and learned in the same times for if there be no greater certaintie of the opinions of all of one Kingdome in our owne Age think what Infallibilitie can we have concerning an absolute generall consent a thousand years agoe And of this France may as well be an example as England wherein many called Cassandrians dissent from the publiquely received Doctrines though with so little stirr that our Posterity will not know that there now are such So that all which any man can answer to this Question is that such a one was the first that he knowes of who taught such a Doctrine and such a time the first wherein he knowes not that any contradicted it or that your Church defines it for a necessary opinion and exacted assent to it as a condition of their Communion which answer will be nearer to Truth or Falshood according to the measure of the answerers learning And indeed if you please to remember that when learning rose againe and the Reformation began most Manuferipts of considerable Books had long layn unreguarded by the generallity in Popish Libraries and out of them onely had some few been Printed you must confesse that it was in the power of your Church what answer we should be able to make to that Question which you propose which then it is no wonder if it were not answered for your willingnesse to keep men in darknesse concerning this even in times of most light is to be seen by your expurgatory Indexes For there though you professe to meddle with none but Moderne Authors whereas it is plaine you go as high as Bertram yet both that will serve to deceive our posterity concerning the generall opinions of these times and if your Church in former Ages used any course somewhat Analogicall to this upon those Authors who then were moderne too as likely enough they did or you have cause to hope they did for your more justification then how can I know when any opinion entered that is either first was at all or first by all taught since in all times how little mention soever be made of it there may have been some Doctors of that opinion though either no Authors or allthough Authors yet by this Stratageme may be kept from us Neither indeed can you answer this Question your self for you know not in what Year or Age did either the giving the Eucharist to Infants begin or end at least Saint Austine knew not the first who believed it an Apostolical Tradition Neither was this a bare Custome but implyed an opinion of good which Children received which the change shewes plainely to have altered and certainely either the first opinion was a Superstition or the latter a Sacriledge But howsoever your Consequence followes not for though your Church conspired and deceived their Posterity yet it might not conspire to deceive their Posterity but to instruct it being themselves deceived And therefore when you reckon up the Motives which men have to speak false I wonder to see Hopes and Feares put in and error left out It is Gods course deeplier to root and strengthen those things which he would have most flourish Now Christians know that he made mankind for his Elect the world for mankind and therefore he hath rooted those things which more immediately belong to his Elect as his Church Faith and Holy Spirit in it then the principles either of mans nature or of the world which was made for it himselfe assuring us of it when he told us That one tittle should not perish of the holy Writ though Heaven and Earth should be dissolved and so seeing the latter principle relyeth upon the not failing of God to his Church which should ever watch upon their actions that nothing should creepe into Christian life which presently the Zeale of the faithfull should not startle at I thinke it needlesse to seeke further to qualifie the strength of that part which receiveth it from the quality of so good a workman as the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I must therefore observe that this word Church hath so many significations even among your selves that it seldome comes into the mouth of a Romane Arguer but there comes withall foure Termes into his Sillogisme I could wish therefore that you would still set downe your Definition of it and put that instead of the word Church into what you say least what your late Graecian Defender Cariophilus saies of Hereticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they delight in doubtfull expressions may seem more properly to belong to you Certainlie in some sence the Elect are Gods Church and in that sence the Church belongs not to his Elect but is it
you say First Your saying as though there is nothing to retain a Protestant from being of any error when it shall appeare more probable to him then Truth therefore there were nothing to keep him from those errors whereas you should have considered that the greater probabilities may serve reasonably to hold him without a demonstration and the evidence of the thing without a guide and that if those be not ground enough for a man to fix upon in how ill estate are those of your Church in the Question concerning the Church in which they follow no guide nor have any demonstration but professe they yeeld to her authority but upon prudentiall motives which kind of arguments sure may as well and as fixedly preserve a Protestant in `n Orthodox opinion against a Heretick as the authoritie of the Church no surelier founded can you against us That every man should yeeld to that discourse which seemeeth fairest to him I confesse it is alwaies not onelie safe and fit but also necessarie even for them who receive the Infallibilitie of the Church since those who beleeve that beleeve it because that appeares fairest to them and as you object to us the possibilitie of being perswaded from the truth by some wittie Author why thinke you not the same Author may possiblie too appeare to you to destroy your prudentiall Motives and so consequentlie your whole Faith which is built upon the Church which is built upon them Secondlie I diflike your seeming to beleeve that any grounds which are not demonstrative are too slipperie to rest upon as not onelie being contrarie to reason but to your selfe who told me before that no more was required then a maine advantage on one side and that we had reason to be satisfied with Probabilities to guide our Actions in Religion or since by them we were content to regulate all the other Actions of our life Thirdlie I dislike in your own parties behalfe your saying that a Protestant is in good likelihood to turne Arrian for if you meane onelie that it is possible it concernes you as much as them since this seemes to inferre that the Scriptures doe make more probablie for them which if they did it is not Heresie and to contradict all those whom both parts call Fathers who thinke enough plaine in Scripture not onely to keepe but also to convert men from Arrianisme as it appeares by their employing so solelie those Armes against them that they needed the admonition of a Heretique to counsell them to the use of another Fourthlie I dislike your saying that after being made an Arrian he is not unlikelie to turne Jew especiallie that he is likelie to be perswaded by any exaggeration of the Absurdities in the Trinitie since both Grotius and other Authors seeme to say that the Jewes have their Trinitie too in the same Notion and howsoever the Arrian is so fullie perswaded alreadie that those are absurdities that perswasion being almost the forme of that opinion which constitutes him an Arrian yet the exaggeration of them can never worke upon him And for the Constellation you speak of it were so irrationall and so unprovable a Crotchet that no Oratorie could ever make it seeme to a reasonable man to have any inclination to sence and a foole may be made beleeve any thing how contrarie soever to his grounds unlesse he be of those who are given over to vaine imaginations because they love darknesse better then the light and the fault of no particular mens understanding or will is to lead any man to condemne his grounds for they are to be accused not of whatsoever he concludes who holds or rather in this case hath held them but onelie of what he concludes reasonablie according to them Besides for this cause it appeares strange to me that trusting to Scripture alone and without meaning the Church for my certaine guide should bring a man into danger of parting with his Christianitie since nothing can hold a man longer then he beleeves it and as long as our ground the Scripture is by him beleeved no man can possiblie turne either Atheist or Jew and he who leaves to beleeve your ground the Church cannot by that be any more with-held from either Besides that I thinke it is impossible I am sure it is irrationall that any of you should beleeve in Christ upon the authoritie of Christs Church since beleeving the latter which claimes no authoritie but from Christ praesupposeth the beleife of him and so Christianitie is not the apter to be overthrown through the absence of that upon which it is not built I feare rather least your doctrine known to be grounded it selfe upon Tradition by such a way according to which a Jew would have much advantage of a Christian may incline a man to Judaisme and your sides generall slighting all waies of knowing Gods will but onely by the Church and then neither proving her power stronglier nor teaching how to know her plainer may make men sinke into Atheisme by being perswaded by you in letting goe other strong holds upon Truth and receiving such weake ones from you Not to speake of your loading Christianitie with such impossibilities as the Pillars of it which are not absolute Demonstrations of which it may be scarce any thing is in nature capable but lines and numbers are able to beare and using all your Wits and Industries to perswade men that it is equallie unsafe to refuse any part of your Religion as to receive none and so instead of making these your beleefs admitted for the sake of Christianitie causing Christianitie to be rejected because of them But peradventure some may attribute Power to the Church without infallibilitie whom I would have consider but what himself saith For his Church by the Power it hath must either say I command you to believe or I command you to professe this whether you believe me or no. The second I think no enemy of equivocation will admit and the former it is as much as if it should say I know not whether I say true or no yet you must think I say true We having received a command that all things be done decently and in order and this being to be appointed by them whom either the Law of the Land if that consist of faithfull or the consent or custome of Christians hath appointed for Ecclesiasticall Rulers in this matter in every place the Church thus restrained to the Governours of the Church may have in some cases though not to your purpose power without the least Infallibilitie And for instruction which you aime at no Church can give it yours especially being too large a body ever to meet or joyn in doing it and if you restraine the Church to the Cleargie whereof yet many teach not and they too are too many for any man to be sure what they all agree in teaching and when they differ how shall I know which to follow otherwise then by your Rule
which I have answered their duty indeed but not theirs onely though Principally is to instruct us in the way to Heaven which they doing in the Persons of Embassadors between God and us and having no absolute Letters of Credence to bid us to beleeve that God saies whatsoever they say he saies as much as can be wrested out of Scriptures for any present Church being said of the Scribes and Pharisees who yet proved themselves not infallible our best way is in my mind to examine their Commission and if they can shew that they treat according to that to submit to them as in the same case we must to any of the Layetie or rather to God of whose commands they are but Organs and if not to beware of their Leaven Yet it may be that some man may hold that such an opinion is to be beleeved onelie because such a Church proposeth it and yet not believe her Infallible since he may think her authoritie by reason of her Learning Multitude Sanctitie Unitie and Libertie to be more probable then any contradicting argument and that men are to assent to what is most probable and truelie if he could prove to me his Major I am alreadie so much of the opinion of his Minor that I should joyne with him in his Conclusion So that if I understand any thing where there is no Infallibility there is no Power where no Power no Unity where no Unity no Entity where no Entity no Church How you tie Power to Infallibilitie I guesse but cannot how you tie Unitie to Power For how many things are all men even at Unitie about though one have no Power over another in them onelie cemented together by their clear evidence And how many more do whole Bodies and Sects of men agree about without any such power though they differ in other points as so do you too Do not Protestants agree with you about manie and the chiefest credenda and about almost all the meerely facienda Though not perswaded to this agreement by the Power of any Judge which they do acknowledge Nay if men could be at Unitie about no thing which were not proposed by some Guide or defined by some Judge endued with such a power how came all you to agree that there is some such Guide and Judge required since sure you receive not that upon its own authoritie and if men may find the necessitie of a Guide and Judge without any Guide or Judge and remain in Unitie about that why may they not also about whatsoever is clearly taught by God which reason assures us to be all that is necessarie and if you say that all things necessarie are not clearlie taught because we do not though it proves not that we might not agree upon them then I replie that I may as well say that neither is it cleare that there is a Guide because we dissent from you in it although receiving the authoritie of the Scripture out of which Cardinall Perron confesseth that Saint Austine saith that both the necessitie of your guide the Church and she her self are to be known and reason which as they may be plain in this point for you and yet perswade us not so may they be in all necessarie points and yet we who make theirs our ground not perswade one another As little see I why there can be no Entitie nor Church where there is no Unitie For the first though there be small Unitie among Christians yet certainly Christians and their Religion have some Entitie indeed if what you say were true there were no Entitie in yours For the second I know not why two parties over-valuing their differences may not conceive each other to be none of the Church and so declare even by excommunications and yet remain both Parts of it for if a Husband misse-suspecting his Wife of Adulterie declare her to be no longer his Wife this cannot make her give over being so if the bond be indeed not broken as well as chrysostome and Epiphanius both excommunicated by each other and yet both Saints or as particular men may by your own confession be interiorly in the Church although seeming out of it even to the Church her self and so those be both of the Church between whom there is no Unity For not onely in your own Cariophilus his words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but also though the persons have power yet if the cause have not sufficiencie I take you to agree that an excommunication is but a brutum fulmen as Victors of the Asian Bishops The best therefore and strictest definition and which I think you will not refute which I can give for the Church is especially in that sence as out of it there can be no salvation those who are desirous to know Gods Will or Christs at the strictest for I am not certaine nor I beleeve is it defined among you whether an explicite knowledge of Christ be absolutely necessarie to Salvation though I know no guiltlesse ignorance of him can bring unavoidably upon any man eternall torments and ready when known to beleeve and follow it and sure many of these may eternally disagree even in points which are necessarie abstracting from particular cases and yet their differences not exclude them from the Church and consequentlie a Church may be without Unitie Quod erat demonstrandum Now for the Controversies mentioned besides that there is a meanes to terminate them they be such as bring no breach of the ancient life and action of Christians which all those opinions do which for the most part are reputed to make Hereticks You saw verie well that if no Unitie no Church were a true Proposition yours hath in it differencies enough to destroy its being a Church and therefore are faine to applie what salves you can but all in vaine For your meanes to terminate them doth not make them not to be before they are terminated and consequently by your Rule yours is no Church till then Besides their bringing to breach of the ancient life and action of Christians proves not but one of them may be a Heresie since you say not your selfe that all Heresies are such but onelie for the most part and indeed to prove that you must be able to set down what those opinions are which before a definition may make a Heretick which I beleeve you will not venture to doe in haste though we much desire it at your hands that we may know if none of them be such That some controversies amongst us are not resolved is a thing necessarie amongst humane affaires where things must have a time to be born to encrease to fall and the greater things are the greater is their Period It is true that some time to be taken notice of must passe between an opinions rising and being condemned but that so long they should run on and many of your Councels having since been held is sure not necessarie and shewes
this I answer by saying that if they would not appeale from the Right Tribunall or rather Rule which is the Scripture those many might casier be ended then this one we building our Faith onely upon plaine places and all reasonable men being sufficient of what is plain but if they appeal to a consent of Fathers and Councells where of many are lost many not lost not to be gotten many uncertaine whether Fathers or no Fathers and these which we have and know being too many for almost any industrie to read over and absolutely for any memory to remember which yet is necessarie because anyone clause of any one Father destroies a consent and being besides liable to all the exceptions which can be brought against the Scriptures being the Rule as difficulty want of an infallible Interpreter and such like and being denied to have any infallibility especially when they speak not as witnesses which a consent of them never doth against us by one partie which the Scripture is allowed to have by both then I wonder not if he think such a way so uncertaine and so long that he was willing to chuse any shorter cut rather then travell it Neither do I beleeve this other to be so short or so concluding as he imagines for if he consider the large extent of Christian Religion so that we know little from any indifferent Relator of the opinions of the Abissins so great a part of Christendome if he consider the great industry of his Church in extinguishing those whom they have called Hereticks and also their Books so that we know scarce any thing of them but from themselves who are too partiall to make good Historians if he consider how carefully they stop mens mouthes even those of their own with their Indices expurgatorii it will then appear to him both a long work to seek and a hard one to find whether any thought like Luther in all Ages and that he concludes very rashly who resolves that there was none because he cannot find any since they might have been visible in their times and yet not so to us for men are not the lesse visible when they are so for not being after remembered as a man may be a Gentleman though he know not his pedigree So that as I will not affirm that there were alwaies such because I cannot prove it so neither ought they to make themselves sure there were none without they could prove that which is impossible and therefore no Argument can be drawn from thence and if it could be proved that such a no-waies-erring Church must at all times be I had rather beleeve that there were still such though we know them not which may be true then that theirs is it which in my opinion cannot Thirdly He saies that he could find no one point of controverted Doctrine whereupon all the rest depended but that this one Question of Fact was such as the decision of it determined all the rest To this I answer That the Question of the Infallibilitie of the Pope at least of those who adhere to him which they call the Church is such a one as if determined must determine all the rest and not onely to us but to all men whereas this though granted necessarie and determined to his wish would indeed conclude against us but not for them since the Greek Church would put in as good a Plea upon the Title of Visibility as that of Rome and he would be to begin anew with them when he had ended with us Fourthly He gives his reason If Luther could be evicted to be the Innovator his Religio is then evicted of not being the true ancient an and Apostolicall To this I answer by confessing the consequence but he might be the Renovator and not the Innovator and then no such consequence followes Fifthly He saies we are bound to find an existence of some Professors of the reformed Religion before Luther which requirie is bound upon his supposition of the necessitie of a continuall succession of a visible and no-waies erronious Church Now I will first examine the sence of his tearms By the first I conceive by a place he cites out of Saint Austine that he meanes visible to all Nations but I pray hath his been alwaies so I mean at least for many Centuries to those Nations which Columbus hath not long since discovered By the second tearm Church I suppose he meanes a Company of Christians holding neither more or lesse then Christ taught for in a more large sence no man denies the Church to have been alwaies in some degrees visible and in this sence I not onely deny it necessarie that it should be alwaies visible but that it should alwaies be for I doubt whether there be or for a long while have been any such Next That such a one he meanes appeares because when Catalogues have been brought of some who in all Ages have differed from them in things which we hold his side would not accept of them because they agreed not with us in all things and yet when Campian intends to prove all the Fathers to be his he useth onely this course of instancing in some things wherein they agree with him though sometimes not so much but rather the contrary ought to be inferred as in the instance of Polycarpus for comparing his words with the Historie it will appear that he concluded him a Papist for not being perswaded by the Pope though they differed from them in many other as indeed all the notable Fathers did in more then one point I will therefore say that if this be required to shewing that a Church hath been ever visible it is more then either part can do and therefore I hope they will come upon better consideration to confesse that not necessarie for us to do which is impossible for themselves For let any man look into Antiquitie I will not say without all prejudice but without an absolute Resolution of seeing nothing in it that contradicts his present beleefe and if he find not some opinions of the Church of Rome as unknown unto Antiquity as either he or I as the Popes Indulgences having power to deliver out of Purgatorie confest by Bishop Fisher and Alphonsus de Castro where they treat of Indulgences if he find not others at first unknown after known but not held de fide which are so at Rome as Prayer to Saints their enjoying the Beatificall Vision before the day of Judgement the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and her being free from all actuall sin if he find not some wholly unknown and absolutely condemned which we condemne as the lawfullnesse of Picturing God the Father whereof the first is confest by Barronius in the Margent to an Epistle of a Pope which saies the same and the latter to be found in many places of Saint Austine Lactantius and others nay if he find not that all the Doctors Saints Martyrs of the two first Ages
it was a wise fear of the Foxe's lest he might call a knubb a horn And sure Sir they will in this case be Judges not onely of that which is Spiritual but of what it is that is so and the people receiving instruction from no other will take the most Temporal matter to be Spiritual if they tell them it is so The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy demonstrated by Mr. William Chillingworth SECT 1. IF we abstract from Episcopal Government all accidentals and consider onely what is essential and necessary to it we shall find in it no more but this An appointment of one man of eminent sanctity and sufficiency to have the care of all the Churches within a certain Precinct or Diocesse and furnishing him with authority not absolute or arbitrary but regulated and bounded by Laws and moderated by joyning to him a convenient number of assistants to the intent that all the Churches under him may be provided of good and able Pastors and that both of Pastours and people conformity to Laws and performance of their duties may be required under penalties not left to discretion but by Law appointed SECT 2. To this kind of Government I am not by any particular interest so devoted as to think it ought to be maintained either in opposition to Apostolick Institution or to the much desired reformation of mens lives and restauration of Primitive discipline or to any Law or Precept of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for that were to maintain a means contrary to the end for obedience to our Saviour is the end for which Church-Government is appointed But if it may be demonstrated or made much more probable than the contrary as I verily think it may I. That it is not repugnant to the government setled in and for the Church by the Apostles II. That it is as complyable with the reformation of any evill which we desire to reform either in Church or State or the introduction of any good which we desire to introduce as any other kind of Government And III. That there is no Law no Record of our Saviour against it then I hope it will not be thought an unreasonable motion if we humbly desire those that are in authority especially the High Court of Parliament that in may not be sacrificed to clamour or over-borne by violence and though which God forbid the greater part of the multitude should cry Crucifie Crucifie yet our Governours would be so full of Justice and courage as not to give it up untill they perfectly understand concerning Episcopacy it self Quid mali fecit SECT 3. I shall speak at this time onely of the first of these three points That Episcopacy is not repugnant to the government setled in the Church for perpetuity by the Apostles Whereof I conceive this which follows is as clear a demonstration as any thing of this nature is capable of That this Government was received universally in the Church either in the Apostles time or presently after is so evident and unquestionable that the most learned adversaries of this Government do themselves confesse it SECT 4. Petrus Molinaeus in his Book De munere pastorali purposely written in defence of the Presbyterial-government acknowledgeth That presently after the Apostles times or even in their time as Ecclesiastical story witnesseth it was ordained That in every City one of the presbytery should be called a Bishop who should have per-eminence over his Colleagues to avoid confusion which oft times ariseth out of equality And truely this form of Government all Chuches every where received SECT 5. Theodorus Beza in his Tract De triplici Episcopatus genere confesseth in effect the same thing For having distinguished Episcopacy into three kinds Divine Humane and Satanical and attributing to the second which he calls Humane but we maintain and conceive to be Apostolical not onely a priority of order but a superiority of power and authority over other Presbyters bounded yet by Laws and Canons provided against Tyranny he clearely professeth that of this kind of Episcopacy is to be understood whatsoever we read concerning the authority of Bishops or Presidents as Justin Martyr callsthem in Ignatius and other more ancient Writers SECT 6. Certainly from these two great defenders of the Presbytery we should never have had this free acknowledgement so prejudicial to their own pretence and so advantagious to their adversaries purpose had not the evidence of clear and undeniable truth enforced them to it It will not therefore be necessary to spend any time in confuting that uningenuous assertion of the anonymous Author of the Catalogue of Testimonies for the equality of Bishops and Presbyters who affirms That their disparity began long after the Apostles times But we may safely take for granted that which these two learned Adversaries have confessed and see whether upon this foundation layd by them we may not by unanswerable reason raise this superstructure That seeing Episcopal Government is confessedly so Ancient and so Catholique it cannot with reason be denyed to be Apostolique SECT 7. For so great a change as between Presbyterial Government and Episcopal could not possibly have prevailed all the world over in a little time Had Episcopal Government been an aberration from or a corruption of the Government left in the Churches by the Apostles it had been very strange that it should have been received in any one Church so suddainly or that it should have prevailed in all for many Ages after Variâsse debuer at error Ecclesiarum quod autem apud omnes unum est non est erratum sed traditum Had the Churches err'd they would have varied What therefore is one and the same amongst all came not sure by error but tradition Thus Tertullian argues very probably from the consent of the Churches of his time not long after the Apostles and that in matter of opinion much more subject to unobserv'd alteration But that in the frame and substance of the necessary Government of the Church a thing alwayes in use and practice there should be so suddain a change as presently after the Apostles times and so universal as received in all the Churches this is clearly impossible SECT 8. For what universal cause can be assigned or faigned of this universal Apostasie you will not imagine that the Apostles all or any of them made any decree for this change when they were living or left order for it in any Will or Testament when they were dying This were to grant the question To wit that the Apostles being to leave the Government of the Churches themselves and either seeing by experience or fore-seeing by the Spirit of God the distractions and disorders which would arise from a multitude of equals substituted Episcopal Government instead of their own General Councells to make a Law for a generall change for many ages there was none There was no Christian Emperour no coercive power over the Church to enforce it Or if there had
been any we know no force was equal to the courage of the Christians of those times Their lives were then at command for they had not then learnt to fight for Christ but their obedience to any thing against his Law was not to be commanded for they had perfectly learn't to dye for him Therefore there was no power then to command this change or if there had been any it had been in vain SECT 9. What device then shall we study or to what fountain shall we reduce this strange pretended alteration Can it enter into our hearts to think that all the Presbyters and other Christians then being the Apostles Schollers could be generally ignorant of the Will of Christ touching the necessity of a Presbyterial Government Or dare we adventure to think them so strangely wicked all the World over as against knowledge and conscience to conspire against it Imagine the spirit of Diotrephes had entered into some or a great many of the Presbyters and possessed them with an ambitious desire of a forbiddden superiority was it possible they should attempt and atchieve it once without any opposition or contradiction and besides that the contagion of this ambition should spread it self and prevail without stop or controul nay without any noyse or notice taken of it through all the Churches in the World all the watchmen in the mean time being so fast asleep and all the dogs so dumb that not so much as one should open his mouth against it SECT 10. But let us suppose though it be a horrible untruth that the Presbyters and people then were not so good Christians as the Presbyterians are now that they were generally so negligent to retain the government of Christ's Church commanded by Christ which we now are so zealous to restore yet certainly we must not forget nor deny that they were men as we are And if we look upon them but as meer naturall men yet knowing by experience how hard a thing it is even for policy arm'd with power by many attempts and contrivances and in a long time to gain upon the liberty of any one people undoubtedly we shall never entertain so wild an imagination as that among all the Christian Presbyteries in the World neither conscience of duty nor love of liberty nor aversenesse from pride and usurpation of others over them should prevail so much with any one as to oppose this pretended universal invasion of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the liberty of Christians SECT 11. When I shall see therefore all the Fables in the Metamorphosis acted and prove stories when I shall see all the Democracies and Aristocracies in the World lye down and sleep and awake into Monarchies then will I begin to believe that Presbyterial Government having continued in the Church during the Apostles times should presently after against the Apostles doctrine and the will of Christ be whirl'dabout like a scene in a masque and transformed into Episcopacy In the mean time while these things remain thus incredible and in humane reason impossible I hope I shall have leave to conclude thus Episcopal Government is acknowledged to have been universally received in the Church presently after the Apostles times Between the Apostles times and this presently after there was not time enough for nor possibility of so great an alteration And therefore there was no such alteration as is pretended And therefore Episcopacy being confessed to be so Ancient and Catholique must be granted also to be Apostolique Quod erat demonstrandum FINIS The Preface to the READER THe eminent abilities in the most noble Author of the ensuing learned Discourse and learneder Reply can scarcely be imagined unknown to any whom this language can reach But if any such there be I shall desire them to learne the perfections of that most excellent Person rather from the Dedication then this Preface the designe of which is onely to give the Reader some satisfaction concerning the nature of this Controversie in it selfe and of these Dissertations in particular The Romish Doctrine of their owne Infallibility as it is the most generall Controversie betweene them and all other Churches excluded by them from their Communion So it is of such a comprehensive nature that being proved and clearely demonstrated it would without question draw all other Churches so excluded to a most humble submission and acknowledgement nay to an earnest desire of a suddaine Reconciliation upon any Termes whatsoever For howsoever they please to speak and write of our Hereticall and obstinate persistance in manifest Errors yet I hope they cannot seriously thinke we would be so irrationall as to contradict him whom we our selves think beyond a possibillity of erring and to dispute perpetually with them whom onely to heare were to be satisfied But when they have propounded their Decisions to be beleeved and imbraced by us as Infallibly true and that because they propound them who in their own opinion are Infallible if notwithstanding some of those Decisions seeme to us to be evidently false because clearely contradictory to that which they themselves propound as infallibly true that is the Word of God surely we cannot be blamed if we have desired their Infallibility to be most clearly demonstrated at least to a higher degree of evidence then we have of the contradiction of their Decisions to the infallible Rule Wherefore The great Defenders of the Doctrine of the Church of England have with more then ordinary diligence endeavoured to view the grounds of this Controversie and have written by the advantage either of their learning accurately or of their parts most strongly or of the cause it selfe most convincingly against that darling Infallibility How clearely this Controversie hath been managed with what evidence of truth discussed what successe so much of reason hath had cannot more plainly appeare then in this that the very name of Infallibility before so much exalted begins now to be very burthensome even to the maintainers of it Insomuch as one of their latest and ablest Proselytes Hugh Paulin de Cressy lately Dean of Laghlin c. in Ireland and Prebendary of Windsor in England in his Exomologesis or faithfull Narration of the occasion and motives of his Conversion hath dealt very clearly with the World and told us that this Infallibilitie is an unfortunate Word That Mr. Chillingworth hath cumbated against it with too too great successe so great that he could wish the Word were forgotten or at least layd by That not onely Mr. Chillingworth whom he still worthily admires but we the rest of the poore Protestants have in very deed very much to say for our selves when we are pressed unnecessarily with it And therefore Mr. Cressy's advise to all the Romanists is this that we may never be invited to combat the authority of the Church under that notion Oh the strength of Reason rightly managed O the power of Truth clearly declared that it should force an emnient member of the Church of Rome whose
the Character will be farr too short It is in you and onely you my Lord to set him out truely and to resemble him to the life and that will be by taking that Evangelicall Counsell Tu autem fac similiter Do like him live like him and pardon me if I add one thing more like him Love My Lord Your Lordships most humble and affectionately devoted Servant TRIPLET OF THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME A discourse written by the Lord Viscount FALKLAND TO him that doubteth whether the Church of Rome hath any errors they answer that she hath none for she never can have any this being so much harder to beleeve then the first had need be proved by some certainer Arguments if they expect that the beleefe of this one should draw on whatsoever they please to propose yet this if offered to be proved by no better wayes then we offer to prove by that she hath erred which are arguments from Scripture and ancient Writers all which they say are fallible for nothing is not so but the Church Which if it be the onely infallible determination and that can never be believed upon its owne authority we can never infallibly know that the Church is infallible for these other waies of proofe may deceive both them and us and so neither side is bound to beleeve them If they say that an argument out of Scripture is sufficient ground of Divine Faith why are they offended with the Protestants for beleeving every part of their Religion upon that ground upon which they build all theirs at once And if following the same Rule with equall desire of finding the Truth by it having neither of those qualities which Isid. Pelus saith are the cause of all Heresie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pride and Prejudication why should God be more offended with the one then with the other though they chance to erre They say the Church is therefore made infallible by God that all men may have some certain Guide yet though it be infallible unlesse it both plainly appeare to be so for it is not certaine to whom it doth not appeare certaine and unlesse it be manifest which is the Church God hath not attained his end and it were to set a ladder to Heaven and seem to have a great care of my going up whereas unlesse there be care taken that I may know this ladder is here to that purpose it were as good for me it never had been set If they say we may know for that generall Tradition instructs us in it I answer that ignorant people cannot know this and so it can be no Rule for them and if learned people mistake in this there can be no condemnation for them For suppose to know whether the Church of Rome may erre as a way which will conclude against her but not for her I seek whether she have erred and conceiving she hath contradicted her self conclude necessarily she hath erred I suppose it not damnable though false because I try the Church by one of the touch-stones which herself appoints me Conformity with the Ancients For to say I am to beleeve the present Church that it differs not from the former though it seem to me to do so is to send me to a witnesse and bid me not beleeve it now to say the Church is provided for a guide of Faith but must be known by such markes as the ignorant cannot seek it by and the learned may chance not find it by can no way satisfie me If they say God will reveale the Truth to whomsoever seeks it these waies sincerely this saying both sides will without meanes of being confuted make use of therefore it would be as good that neither did When they have proved the Church to be Infallible yet to my understanding they have proceeded nothing farther unlesse we can be sure which is it For it signifies onely that God will have a Church alwaies which shall not erre but not that such or such a succession shall be in the right so that if they say the Greek Church is not the Church because by its own confession it is not Infallible I answer That it may be now the Church and may hereafter erre and so not be now infallible and yet the Church never erre because before their fall from Truth others may arise to maintaine it who then will be the Church and so the Church may still be infallible though not in respect of any set persons whom we may know at all times for our Guide Then if they prove the Church of Rome to be the true Church and not the Greek Church because their opinions are consonant either to Scripture or Antiquitie they run into a Circle proving their Tenets to be true First because the Church holds them And then theirs to be the Church because the Church holds the Truth Which last though it appears to me the onely way yet it takes away its being a Guide which we may follow without examination without which all they say besides is nothing Nay suppose that they had evinced that some succession were Infallible and so had proved to a learned man that the Roman Chruch must be this because none else pretends to it yet this can be no sufficient ground to the ignorant who cannot have any infallible foundation for their beleefe that the Church of Greece pretends not to the same and even to the Learned it is but an accidentall Argument because if any other Company had likewise claimed to be Infallible it had overthrown all The chiefest reason why they disallow of Scripture for Judge is because when differences arise about the interpretation there is no way to end them And that it will not stand with the goodnesse of God to damne men for not following his Will if he had assigned no infallible way to find it I confesse this to be wonderfull true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and let them excuse themselves that think otherwise yet this will be no Argument against him that beleeves that to them who follow their reason in the interpretation of the Scriptures God will either give his Grace for assistance to find the Truth or his pardon if they misse it And then this supposed necessitie of an infallible Guide with the supposed damnation for want of it fall together to the ground If they command us to beleeve infallibly the contrary to this they are to prove it false by some infallible way for the conclusion must be of the same nature and not conclude more then the premisses set down Now such a way Scripture and Reason and infused Faith cannot be for they use to object the fallibility of these to those that build their Religion upon them nor the authority of the Church for this is part of the Question and must it self be first proved and that by none of the former waies for the former reasons The Popes Infallibility can be no infallible ground of Faith being it self no
do all that are in all parts Orthodox Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Irenaeus sets it down directly for a Tradition and relates the very words that Christ used when he taught this which is plainner then any other Tradition is proved or said to be out of antiquity by them if I say these could be so deceived why might not other of the ancients as well be deceived in other points and then what certaintie shall the learned have when after much labour they think they can make it appeare that the ancients thought any thing Tradition that indeed it was so and that either the folly or the knavery of some pappias deceived them not I confesse it makes me think of some that Tully speakes of who arcem amittunt dum propugnacula defendunt loose the Fort whilst they defend the out-works For whilst they answer this way the Arguments of Tradition for the opinions of the Chiliasts they make unusefull to themselves the force of Tradition to prove any else by For which cause it was rather wisely then honestly done of them who before Fevardentius set him forth left out that part of Irenaeus which we alleadge though we need it not much for many of the Fathers take notice of this beleef of his yet he justifies himself for doing it by saying that if they leave out all errors in the books they publish that is I suppose all opinions contrary to the Church of Rome bona pars scriptorum Patrum Orthodoxorum evanesceret a great part of the writings of the Orthodox Fathers must vanish away But the Tradition that can be found out of Ancients since their witnessing may dceeive us hath much lesse strength when they argue onely thus sure so many would not say this is true if there were no Tradition for them I would have you remember they can deliver their opinions possibly but either before the controversie arise in the Church upon some chance or after If before it is confessed that they writ not often cautiously enough and so they answer all they seem to say for Arrius and Pelagius his Faith before themselves and so consequently their controversie though it may be not their opinion arose If after Then they answer often if any thing be by them at that time spoken against them that the heat of disputation brought it from them and their resolution to oppose hereticks enough I desire it may be lawfull for us to answer so too either one of these former waies or that it was as often they say too some Hyperbole when they presse us with the opinions of Fathers At least I am sure if they may deceive us with saying a thing is Tradition when it is not we may be sooner deceived if we will conclude it for a Tradition when they speak it onely as a Truth and for ought appeares their particular opinion Befides If Salvian comparing the Arrians with evill livers and that after they were condemned by a Councell extenuates by reason of their beleeving themselves in the right with much instance the fault of the Arrians and saith how they shall be punished in the day of Judgement none can know but the Judge If I say They confesse it to be his opinion they must also confesse the Doctrine of the Church to differ from that of Salvians time because he was allowed a member of that for all this saying whereas he of the Church of Rome that should now say so of us would be counted sesqui-haereticus ̄ Heretick and halfe or else they must say which they can onely say and not prove that he was so earnest against ill men that for the aggravation of their crime he lessened that of the Hereticks and said what at another time he would not have said which if they do will it not overthrow wholly the authority of the Fathers Since we can never infallibly know what they thought at all times from what they were moved to say at some one time by some Collatericall considerations Next To this certaine and undoubted damning of all out of the Church of Rome which averteth me from it comes their putting all to death that are so where they have power which is an effect though not a necessary one of the first opinion and that averteth me yet more for I do not beleeve all to be damned that they damne but I conceive all to be killed that they kill I am sure if you look upon Constantines Epistle written to perswade concord upon their first disagreement between Alexander and Arrius you will find that he thought and if the Bishops about him had then thought otherwise he would have been sure better informed that neither side deserved either death or damnation and yet sure you will say this Question was as great as ever rose since for having spoken of the opinions as things so indifferent that the Reader might almost think that they had been fallen out at spurn-point or kittlepins he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that which is necessary is one thing that all agree and keep the same Faith about divine Providence I am sure in the same Author Moses a man praised by him refusing to be made Bishop by Lucius because he was an Arrian and he answering that he did ill to refuse it because he knew not what his Faith was answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The banishing of Bishops shew enough thy Faith So that it is plaine that he thought punishing for opinions to be a mark which might serve to know false opinions by And I beleeve throughout Antiquitie you will find no putting any to death unlesse it be such as begin to kill first as the Circumcellians or such like I am sure Christian Religions chiefest glory being that it encreaseth by being persecuted and having that advantage of the Mahumetan which came in by force me thinks especially since Synesius had told us and Reason told men so before Synesius that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every thing is destroyed by the contrary to what setled and composed it It should be to take ill care of Christianity to hold it up by Turkish meanes at least it must breed doubts that if the Religion had alwaies remained the same it would not be now defended by waies so contrary to those by which at first it was propagated I desire recrimination may not be used for though it be true that Calvin had done it and the Church of England a little which is a little too much for negare manifesta non audeo excusare immodica non possum yet she confessing she may erre is not so chargeable with any fault as those which pretend they cannot and so will be sure never to mend it and besides I will be bound to defend no more then I have undertaken which is to give reason why the Church of Rome is infallible I confess this opinion of damning so many and this custome of burning so many this breeding up those who knew nothing else
wit the first and main principle of it can be no other then to know what was delivered them by their Teachers a thing not surpassing the understanding of any sensible wise man so that put but twenty wise understanding men to agree that the Preacher to their certaine knowledge said such a thing there remaineth no probable nor possible doubt but that it was so Now then suppose that one of those who having been taught by Christs own mouth had received by the confirmation of the Holy Ghost that he could neither forget nor forgoe this received doctrine should have preached over and over again the same doctrine not long nor hard to be carryed away in all the Cities Towns and Boroughs of some great Country so that whilst he stayd there they were throughly understanding and endoctrinated in that way Now let him be gone and after him all dead who had heard him speake and then some question arise concerning this doctrine as we may say in the second age let us see whether error can creep in or no if the Christians keepe unto their hold Their hold is what they were taught by Christs Apostles Let therefore the wisest and best men of those Cities and Towns meet together about the controversie and discusse it out of this principle what was delivered unto them as taught by the Apostles will not there be a quick end of their dispute For every man can say My father heard the Apostle speak he understood him to have said this so he himselfe beleeved so he taught me that this was that which the Apostle taught us And when out of divers Cities and Towns shall come a multitude of witnesses all agreeing in one point how can it be doubted but that this is Christs doctrine and that which his Apostle taught And to disagree how is it possible Since all their fathers heard the same things and things not above their capacity and often told them and well apprehended by them when they were taught and by consequence could not tell their children otherwise then what they had heard and understood in a matter of such moment and of which they apprehended no lesse then that it concerned their own and their childrens salvation happinesse or misery for all eternity And what here is most evidently certaine in the children of those who heard the Apostles may be derived with as much evidence again in the grand-children and so in every age even to our present for if in any age any question beginne and it be reduced unto this principle what did our forefathers teach us neither can there be any pretended ignorance for who can be ignorant of what was taught him when he was a childe and in what he was bred as in the grounds and substance of his hopes for all eternity True it is that if men leave this principle and seek to judge the controversie by learned discourse then may the Church be divided one part following the authority of their Ancestors the other the subtle Arguments and the great opinion they conceive of the learning of their present Teachers so that one side will claimesuccession and to have received it from hand to hand the other the glory of great learning and to have come by great industry to discover the errors of their forefathers But it is evident that if what the Apostles preached be the touchstone of what is true and what they preached to be seen in what those beleeve who have heard them and they who received it from them that heard them It is most evident I say that the one part who seek for Christian truth in learned discourse must needs forgoe the most certain and easie way of attaining unto what they aime at And likewise evident that who keep themselves duly and carefully unto this principle cannot possibly in any continuance of time swerve from the truth which Christ hath left unto his Church So that the whole difficulty is reduced unto this whether the Church for so many ages be perpetually preserved in this principle that what she received from her forefathers is that she must beleive and deliver unto her posterity A thing so grafted in nature which maketh us receive our being our breeding our learning our goods our estates our arts and all things we have from our fathers that it is a wonder of our mutability that without forcible Engines we can be drawn from it CHAP. II. NOw let us turn our discourse and as we have seen that if our Saviour ordred his Apostles in the manner explicated there was no way for his Church to swerve from his truth but by swerving from the most plain the most naturall and most evident and concluding rule of his doctrine and that but one and most easie so let us see whether from the present Church we can draw the like forcible train which may lead us up to Christ and his Apostles Be therefore supposed or imagined what no judicious man can deny to see with his eyes if he hath never so little cast them upon this present religion of Christendome to wit that there is one Congregation or Church which layeth claime to Christ his doctrine as upon this title that she hath received it from his Apostles without in erruption delivered ever from Father to Sonne from Master to Scholler from time to time from hand to hand even unto this day and that she does not admit any other doctrine for good and legitimate which she does not receive in this manner Againe that whosoever pretendeth Christ his truth against her saith that true it is that once she had the true way but that by length of time she is fallen into grosse errours which they will reforme not by any truth they have received from hand to hand from those who by both parts are acknowledged to have received their lesson from Christ and his Apostles but by study and learned Arguments either out of ancient Writers or out of the secrets of nature and reason This being supposed either this principle hath remained unto her since the beginning or she took it up in some one age of the 16 she hath endured if she took it up in some latter age she then thought she had nothing in her what she had not received from her fore fathers in this sort And if she thought so she knew it For as it is impossible now any country should think it was generally taught such a thing if it were not so so also was there the like necessity and impossibility to be otherwise if all men were not runne mad Therefore clear it is she took it not up first then but was in former possession and so clear it is that she could not have it now if she had it not from the very beginning Now if she had it and hath conserved it from the beginning no new opinion could take root in her unlesse it came unto her under this Maxime as received from hand to hand and to say
of Salvation But how would he have the Church speake which speaketh in common but abstracting from such particular cases as may change wholly the nature of the question For example sake hath not the Church reason to say he that denyeth the blessed Trinity is an Heretique It hapneth one who hath conversed among the Tritheites hearing them use the word Trinity for three Gods meaning to speak against them denyeth there is any Trinity shall this man be comprehended in the foresaid condemnation Or was the sentence ill pronounced Neither as I think For bo h was it well done by the Church to condemne denyers of the Trinity because per se loquendo as the Phylosophers speak that is according to the ordinary course and nature of things who denyeth a thing in words denyeth it in heart yet the man forespoken did not so and was not condemned in that sentence In like manner when the Church condemneth all such as are not in actuall union and communion with her she doth well because according to the ordinary course this doth not fall out without either presumption and damnable pride or else culpable eitherignorance or feare and love of private interest before God and his Church But it followeth not thence that by accident no man may sometime be excused The words of our Saviour concerning Baptisme and Eucharist their necessity are very precise yet the Church doubteth not to excuse those who have it in voto But to proceed unto the point The corrent of Catholique Doctors holdeth that no man shall be damned for infidelity but he who wilfully doth mis-beleeve and that to doe so it is required that faith be sufficiently proposed unto him And what is to be sufficiently proposed is not determined amongst them There wanteth not Divines that teach that even ignorantia affectata doth excuse from Herisie On the other side it is most certaine that no man is damned for not professing what he is not damned for not beleeving Wherefore profession being that which engrafteth a man exteriorly in the Church of God according unto the ordinary opinions of Catholiques it followeth that no man is condemned for not being of the Church who is not for infidelity for which it is a very uncertaine case who be damned and who not So that the Catholique position is not so crude as peradventure the Author understood it to be though the words be rough and ought to be so as being of what is according to the course of nature not what chance and accideuts may invent The other point was of puting Heretiques to death which I think he understandeth to be done Vindicatively not Medicinally I meane imposed as a punishment and not in way to prevent mischeife or oppresse it in the head If the Circumcellians were the first that is ancient enough for the justification of the fact although for banishment which also he seemeth to reprehend we know the first that could suffer it did suffer it Arrius I meane by the hand of Constantine whom he praiseth for a speech he uttered before he knew the consequence of the danger and seemeth to reprehend for his after and better wits Saint Augustine justifieth such proceeding against Here tiques Saint Gregory advised the like against Pagans if I remember and the Church laterly hath rather increased then decreased in the practise of it Mores's speech I beleeve is mistaken the force of it being that the banishment of Bishops shewed his faith because the banished were Catholiques which shewed Lucius to be none But what can be said if the Church useth that for the prevention of a greater and more dangerous evill which all politique Estates use for the remedies of lesse and lesse dangerous evils and are commended for it For if Faith be the way of Salvation and hereby the bane of Faith if Salvation be the greatest good then the danger of a Countries being over runne with Heresie is the greatest of dangers greater then the multiplying of Theeves greater then the unsurety of the wayes greater then a Plague or Invasion Why then doth not reason force us to use the meanes to prevent it which the same reason and experience teacheth us to be most efficacious in this and all other contagious and gangrening maladies of the Common-wealth I hope reason it selfe and the zeale of the Author to his own and Countries Salvation will supply my shortnesse in this point For supposing a Church be assured she is in the right and that the doctrine preached by another leadeth to damnation I know not why Caipha's words should not be propheticall in this case and that truly it doth not expedire that unus moriatur pro populo non tota gens pereat He urgeth afterwards against the unity of the Church that it is none such as we brag off And I confesse we brag of it and thinke we have reason too And if it please him to look into the difference of our Country of England and some Land of Barbarians as Brasile or such other where they live without Law or Government I thinke he will find that our bragging is not without ground For wherein is the difference betwixt a civill Government and a barbarous Anarchie Is it either that in a civill Estate there be no quarrels or amongst Barbarians there is no quiet The former would prejudice our Courts and Justice the latter is impossible even in nature What is then the goodnesse of Government but that in a well govern'd Country there is a meanes to end quarrels and in an Anarchy there can be no assured peace This therefore is that we brag of that amongst us if any controversie rise there is a way to end it which is not amongst them who part from us And secondly that there is no assured agreement amongst those who are parted from us for although to day they agree there is no bond nor tye why to morrow they may not disagree These two things we brag of and I think the Author will not deny it For he confesseth we all agree in that the Church is an infallible Mistresse Then it is evident that if in any controversie she interposeth her judgement the controversie is ended He likewise confesseth that who part from us have no such definitive authority amongst them and that Scripture whereon they relie hath not this vertue to take up controversies clearly Againe I doe confesse most English men confesse a Trinity the Incarnation and Passion of our Saviour but if to morrow any one or more of them light upon some book of an Arrian Trinitarian or other Sect so wittily written that he putteth probable solutions for the places of Scriptures sheweth slight wayes how our well-meaning fore-fathers may have slipped into such an error what is there to retaine these men from disagreeing with the rest of their brethern and betake themselves to the Arrians And when the heat is passed light upon some Rabbi who shall cunningly exaggerate the absurdities as he shall terme
them of the Trinity Incarnation Passion say our Saviour did strange things in vertue of some constellation and delivering these things so oratorically that for a new heat these things shall seem more conformable then his Arrianisme what then shall hinder this to become a Jew and at last to prove himselfe so great a Clerk as to write De Tribus Impostoribus Take away the power of the Church which every man doth who taketh away the Infallibility what can retaine any man why he should not yeeld to that discourse which seemeth fairest seeing nothing is certaine But peradventure some may attribute power unto the Church without Infallibility whom I would have consider but what himselfe saith For his Church by the power it hath must either say I command you to beleeve me or I command you to professe this whether you beleeve me or no. The second I think no enemy of equivocation will admit as the former is as much as if it should say I know not whether I say true or no yet you must think I say true So that if I understand any thing where there is no Infallibility there is no Power where no Power no Unity where no Unity no Entity no Church Now for the controversies mentioned besides that there is a meanes to terminate them they be such as bring no breach of the ancient life and action of Christians which all those Opinions doe which for the most part are reputed to make Heretiques That some controversies amongst us are not resolved is a thing necessary amongst humane affaires where things must have a time to be borne to encrease to fall and the greater things are the greater is their period Wherefore I doe not see why this may hurt the Church more then the Suits which hang in our Courts prejudice the Government of the Land Neither can any other Church assume Infallibility to it selfe because it cannot lay hold of this principle that it receiveth its doctrine by hands and so must first professe the Church of Christ to be fallible or else it cannot part from it The last point of the Authors discourse is to shew how errors might have crept in Wherein I shall have no opposition with him for I doe not thinke the question is how they should creep in but how they should be kept out For the fluxibility of humane nature is so great that it is no wonder if errors should have crept in the wayes being so many but it is a great wonder of God that none should have crept in This neverthelesse I may say if the Author will confesse as I think he will not deny but that it is disputable whether any error in sixteen ages hath crept in this very thing is above nature For if there were not an excellency beyond the nature of corruptible things it would be undeniably evident that not one or two but hundreds of errors had quite changed the shape of the Church in so many yeares tempests divisions want of commerce in the body of the Church But this one maxime that she receiveth her Faith by Tradition and not from Doctors hath ever kept her entire And he that will shew the contrary must shew how it could come to passe that those who lived in such an age could say unto their children this we received from our fore-fathers as taught them by their fore-fathers to have been received from Christ and his Apostles from hand to hand which if it could not be the question is resolved that no error is in the Church of God which holdeth her faith upon that tenure And truly if the Author desire to examine many Religions let him look their main ground wherein they relye and see whether that be good or no. And I thinke amongst Christians he shall find but two Tradition and Scripture And the Catholique onely to relye upon Tradition and all the rest upon Scripture And also shall he see that relying upon Scripture cannot draw to an unity those who relye upon it and that more then one cannot relye upon Tradition which when I have considered I have no further to seeke for if I will be a Christian I must belong to one side By falling on the one side I see my fortune in thousands who have gone before me to wit that I shall be to seek all my life time as I see they are and how greatly they magnifie very weak peices On the other side I see every man who followeth it as far as he follow it is at quiet and therefore cannot chuse but think there to be the stone to rest my head upon against which Jacob his Ladder is reared unto Heaven The Author hath through his whole discourse inserted divers things which seem particularly to the justification of himselfe in the way of his search The which as I think on one side I should be too blame to exaimine for who am I to judge the Servant of another man so because I cannot think but that they were inserted for love of truth and to heare what might be said against them craving pardon if on presumption of that it is his will I any way offend I shall touch the matter wholly abstracting from the personall disposition of any man And to begin a far of it is confessed amongst Catholiques that all sinne must be wilfull and so as far as any mans doubt in Religion is not by will but by force and necessity so far it is not culpable but may be laudable before God and man As was without doubt the anxious search of Saint Augustine for the truth which he relateth in his confessions for who is assured of being out of the truth must have time to seek it and so long this doubt is rationall and laudable That which must justifie this search is in common that which justifieth all actions that a man be sure in the aime he aimeth at and in the meanes he taketh not to be governed by any passion interest or wilfulnesse but that he sincerely aimeth and carefully pursueth in the search of the truth it selfe for the love of it and of those goods which depend of the knowledge of it This is a thing in which a rationall man can have no other judge then himselfe for no man knoweth what is within a man but the Spirit or conscience of man But he himselfe must be a rigorous Judge unto himselfe for it is very hard to know the truth when I say rigorous I mean exact and fearfull mis-deeming As holy Job was who said He was fearfull of all his actions Holy David but amongst all Saint Augustine doth more sweetly complaine of the misery of man not knowing his own dispositions and yet he was then forty yeares of age when passions and heates of youth which make this discussion harder are generally settled Besides this he must have this care that he seek what the nature of the subject can yeeld and not as those Physitians who when they have promised no
the Roman whereof both it seemes claim'd a direct verball Tradition because one pretended to have received theirs from Saint John and the other from Saint Peter whereof there is no word in their workes and that the erring Part did not prevaile We know out of the fifth of Eusebius History that the fore-runners laid claime to Tradition and nam'd the very Pope that had chang'd the doctrine at Rome which claime how impudently soever yet shewes that men might joyne to deceive their Posterity as pretending to a Tradition when there was no such for if you say those were but few I answer both that you are not certaine of their number and since so many may joyn I pray what number is it cannot Thirdly Since you must and doe confesse that some Doctrines which were not once generally witnessed to have been delivered by the Apostles are now Doctrines of Faith as the Epistle to the Hebrewes was rejected by the Roman Church in Saint Hierom's time though to her yee use to say that Iraeneus would have every Church agree and though Saint Hierom whom you would prove to have thought Damafus infallible when it is known that he thought Libertius a Heretick received it for all that because you say that these doctrines had so much Tradition as was exceptione major beyond exception though the Church of Rome thought not so then doth not this rest upon the Logick of those Ages to conclude what Testimony is so which might easily deceive them especially since you confesse also that particular Traditions may be false as you instance in the Chiliasts and yet the same reason which perswaded some to receive them may perswade more and more in severall times and so no age need to joyne as you suppose and so a false Tradition may grow a generall one as it seemes that of the Chiliasts if it be one did so generall that Justin Martyr sayes in his time all Orthodox Christians held it Besides in those things which were beleeved very convenient and which yet it was fear'd that unlesse men thought them necessary they would be backward to practise in respect of the contrariety of them to their dispositions as confession how easie was it for them to be after taught under paine of more danger then at first they were delivered with as Physitians often tell their Patients unlesse they take such a Potion from which they are very averse they must unavoidably die though the not taking of it even in their own opinions would but make them lesse likely to recover Some of great authority moved by a good meaning might thus deceive others these thus deceived might deceive others till being generally spread other good men being loath to oppose them for the same reason for which others desir'd to spread them as we saw Erasmus who beleeved your confession not to have been instituted by the Apostles yet would not reprehend them that said so thinking it an error that would increase Piety they be at last taken to have been commanded by the Apostles without contradiction Indeed all the waies by which I shewd in that paper which you vouchsafed to answer which I desire not to repeat to avoid both your being wearied and my own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that errors might come to be generall all those are waies by which the same errors might come to be thought to have proceeded from Tradition Saint Austin and Tertullian agreeing in the sence of the sentence which we read in the latter Si legem nusquam reperio sequitur ut Traditio consuetudini morem hunc dederit habiturum quandoque apostoli authoritatem ex interpretatione rationis and it is the more strange that Tertullian should allow any custome the authority of comming from the Apostles since in the same place he gives any man leave to beginne a custome so it be good which depends upon his reason as the reception of it does upon theirs that follow him and so make it a custome in these words Annon putas licere omni fideli concipere constituere duntaxat quod Deo congruat quod disciplinae conducat quod saluti proficiat dicente Domino cur non vobis ipsis quod justum est judicatis By which it seemes he was willing more should be beleev'd then was first taught and when that way had brought in any thing for there is the same reason of opinion as of actions and made it common then the former Rule serves to rivet it in under the false Notion of comming from the Apostles or having at least equall authority neither can you except against this as said by him when he was a Montanist since your side useth to brag of this and the like places as making for them To explaine my meaning the fuller give me leave to consider one question which shall be the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin In the first ages it is a thing granted that many Fathers beleeved her not onely not free from Originall sinne but not even from Actuall after this second question came to be more considered and this first to be defin'd but yet those of the Affirmative opinion cannot but grant to those of the Negative that many Fathers sided with them or else they were impudent Quoters who claim three hundred nay even in Saint Thomas his time they confesse that the Negative opinion was the more common doctrine and yet see I pray how things are altered We have now a History of some Treaties of two Kings of Spaine with two Popes by two Embassadours to perswade them to define the Affirmative The History is written by one Wadding an Irish-man his Secretary there I find that the Bishop of Carthage having Order from the Embassadour his Master to desire to presse nay almost to tear a Definition from his Holinesse about it tells him and not falsely that those who hold the Negative are Inter Catholicos soli pauci unius instituti viri unus alter ab illis edocti but a few of one onely Order and one or two of their Disciples His Master bids him urge for the contrary The opinion and subscription of so many Prelates Orders and Universities the universall acclamation of the People the weighty necessity of cutting off scandals nay saith he many Universities suffer none to take Degrees without making a Vow for the Defence of the Immaculate conception and for the Oppugners Constat eos sentire aliter quà m universa docet Ecclesia they differ from the Doctrine of the Universall Church If then an opinion for which nothing is to be said out of Antiquitie and much against it which was even lately the lesse common opinion could grow to be held by so great a multitude in so high a degree in so short a time that the much greater part of the Church should now presse to have it defin'd and that so earnestly that to remove the opposing Fathers out of the way they
make a confession very advantagious to us Hereticks that many things have been defin'd by their Church against many Fathers you may easily see that Opinions may grow very generall nay grow to claim Tradition in one Age that were unknown in another for that they claim and prove only because of the the general reception in all Apostolicall Churches not of any such uninterrupted testimony of Fathers to their Children that so it hath been taught in all Ages You may see then that all your Church goes not upon your grounds since if they did so many of it that stand for the Affirmative must pretend to them and if they doe then sure the Pope must have confessed them to be witnesses beyond exception and would accordingly have defin'd if they doe not then this certain way of yours cannot keep false opinions out of a Church which makes not that their Rule You may also see that opinions first unknown after but particular may come not onely to be generall and to have Tradition claim'd for them but even to be defin'd since if a Generall Councell should now meet about this point it is plain without Gods immediate working to the contrary of which you speak not which would be defined nay I am confident that as it is observed of the Romans that they were twice as long in first conquering Italy as after all the world and as my Lord Bacon tels us of one who was wont to say That he had first with much paines gotten a little estate and after with little a great one so it is a much more short and easie work to bring this to a Definition then it was before to bring it thus far on the way towards one Which if it were brought it being already almost defined and ready to topple into a Doctrine necessary to salvation the contrary being forbidden to be either printed or publikely taught then if you forsake not your Religion you must forsake the Principle and joyn with Turnball who tells us That the Churches supreme definition of matters of Faith is the infallible word of God and together with the ancient Revelation made to the Prophets and Apostles makes up one Object which is to be held by the Catholike Faith By which it is plain he thinks more may be reveal'd and then must be held then was to the Apostles and by consequence could be delivered by them which is contrary to what you now say And indeed the current of Writers of your own side either knew not this opinion and Argument of yours or consideringly balk it else they might save themselves and their Readers the labour of writing and reading such infinite Quotations for though they speak often of Tradition yet they thinke themselves bound to prove it better then by the pretence of your present Church they pretend to receive it from the Ancient Writers not say they that Verball Tradition hath in all Ages been taught to all men to teach it their children and that it never slept and you are the first whom I have met with who build upon this Indeed they know the Greeks have as much claim to such a one in truth to any as they and if they should say with you that it is incompatible for two to have it the Greeks may as well argue upon those grounds that the Romans claim it not because they doe as the Romans can that the Greeks lay no claim to it because their Church does And indeed direct experience shewes that this is not nor hath alwayes been the ground of Christians that it is not even amongst you we see by those multitudes who cry out to have a Doctrine defined which is so far from having any Tradition much lesse your kind of one for it that they labour with little successe to shew that there is none against them and make it plainly appear that upon your grounds they build not but prove out of Metaphoricall places of Scripture some at most but probable reasons and the Revelations of S. Bridget which are contradicted by those of Saint Katharine so ill do your Saints agree in heaven that me thinks we may bee forgiven if we have some differences upon earth That this hath not been alwaies the way we see by the exam-of Origen who having been esteemed by all Christians as almost a Prophet no man in his time discovering that he taught contrary to what their Fathers had taught them was yet condemned many yeers after his decease and his followers counted Hereticks by the name of Originistae which had been impossible if the following Ages had thought Tradition the onely fit Rule to judge by and accompted nothing Tradition but what they received from their Fathers in expresse termes But if the opinions of Doctors counted the Gnomons and Canons of Truth for to that purpose speakes Nazianzene of Athanasius and Saint Austine of Nazianzene and Pope Pius the fifth of Saint Thomas calling his do ctrine the certainest rule of Christian religion a title deny'd to Scripture the definitions of Councels counted the highest Tribunals upon earth assisted by the power of Emperours which might doe much when almost all were under one as may be seen by the multitude which followed Constantine to Christianity and Julian from it and by Constantius as is complain'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the twinckling of an eye transforming an Orthodox world into an Arrian if these waies I say might make a Tenet generall though no Tradition had come down at all concerning it and after it please to claim by a Tenure by which it came not in at first encouraged by some Rule of some Fathers to that purpose as some Frenchmen say of Cardinall Richelieu that since he had that title he claimes to have come from better Ancestours then he aimed at being an ordinary Person and Harry the seventh though he came to the Crown by his Wives right yet would hold it by his own and none after oppose that claime some not doing it because they thinke the opinion true and then care not though it be beleev'd upon false inducements some as being ignorant that ever it was lesse generall which before the late and happy resurrection of learning the best read Persons of their time might often be how deceiving a way is yours to discover what all ages have thought by what now a part of the present teacheth upon what pretence soever which when you have considered and not onelie that what I have said may be but by severall examples whereof I will touch some that so it is and hath been then I hope you will be so farre from expecting that I should be moved by your Arguments that your selfe will wonder that ever you were First then that the Chiliasts are Hereticks or your Church not infallible which counts them so is most certaine and most plaine and if you be in the right and that she teacheth nothing but what she hath received uninterruptedly downe
from the Apostles then they must alwaies have been esteemed so by Christians whereas their doctrine is so farre from having any Tradition against it that if anie opinion whether controverted or uncontroverted except that Scripture which never was doubted may without blushing pretend to have that for it it must be this of theirs My Reasons are these The Fathers of the purest Ages who were the Apostles Disciples but once remov'd did teach this as receiv'd from them who professed to have receiv'd it from the Apostles and who seem'd to them witnesses beyond exception that they had done so they being better Judges what credit they deserv'd then after commers could possibly be All other opinions witnessed by any other Ancients to have Tradition may have been by them mistaken to have been so out of Saint Austin's and Tertullian's rules whereas for this and for this alone are delivered the very words which Christ us'd when he taught it Of the most glorious and least infirme building which ever in my opinion was erected to the honour of the Church of Rome Cardinall Perron was the Architect I mean his book against King James and that relies upon these two pillars that whatsoever all the Fathers he meanes sure that are extant witnesse to be Tradition and the doctrine of the Church that must be receiv'd for the doctrine of those ages and so rested upon If these rules be not concluding then the whole book being built upon them necessarily becomes as unconsiderable for what he intended it as Bevis or Tom Thumb If they be then this doctrine which is now hereticall in your Churches beleife was the opinion of the Ancient Church For if being taught by the Fathers of anie Age none contradicting it be sufficient this all for above two Ages and those the first teach not anie Father opposing it before Dionysius Alexandrinus 250. yeares after Christ at least that we know or Saint Hierome or Saint Austine knew and quoted wherein I note besides that both these Fathers either thought that no signe of the opinion of the Church or cared not though it were And if Fathers speaking as witnesses will serve let Pappias and Irenaeus be heard and believ'd who tels us it came to them from Christ by Verball Tradition and Justine Martir who witnesseth that in his time all Orthodoxe Christians held it and joynes the opposers with them who denied the Resurrection and esteemes them among the Christians like the Sadduces among the Jewes which proves that you have the same reason expallescere audito Ecclesiae nomine to grow pale at the mention of the Ancient Church the nearest to the Apostles as we have to start at that of two hundred years agoe and to be asham'd of your Dionysius Alexandrinus as wee of Luther Thus that great Atlas of your Church hath helpt us to pull it down the samewaies by which he intended to support it and though he have best of any undergone the burden of proving that to be infallible which is false yet he must have confest that either these are not proofes or they prove against himself And this advantage we have that unlesse you prove your own infallibility which you will never be able to do in what point soever you confute us that falls like a Pinacle without carrying all after it whereas if we disprove any one of your Religion we disprove consequently that infallibility which is the foundation of it all so that like them who vse poison'd weapons wheresoever we wound we kill but we are like those creatures which must be killed all over or else their other parts will remaine alive Neither must you think that you have answer'd the Chillasts by tying them to the Carpocratians and the Gnosticks which is but like Mezentius his joyning Mortua corpora vivis dead bodies to the living since the opinions of the two latter assoon as they were taught made the teachers accounted Hereticks and were oppos'd by allmost all whereas that of the first found in above two ages no resistance by any one known and esteemed Person and the teachers of it were not onely parts but principall ones of the Catholique Church and such as ever have been and are reputed Saints though by I know not what subtlety you dispence with your selves for departing from what doctrine was received from them as come down from the Apostles and yet threaten us with damnation if we will not believe more improbable Tenets to be Tradition upon lesse Certificate For as Aristotle saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wine measures to buy with are great and to sell by are small so when you are to put a doctrine to us how small a measure of Tradition would you have us take one place of one Father speaking but as a Doctor seemes enough but when you are to receive any from us how large and mighty a measure will yet give you no satisfaction Neither can I find out what it is by which you conclude that their Tradition was gathered the Hereticall way from private discourse with the Apostles Irenaeus indeed tells us that Presbyteri meminerunt one of which Pappias was but not a word that it was deliver'd in secret or the auditors but few nor that others had not heard other disciples teaching the same doctrine and me thinkes that if you had evinced what you desire as you seem to me not to do unlesse to affirm be to prove it would make more against you sure if from so small a ground as the word of one onely disciple that he in private discourse was taught this by the Apostles a false doctrine could so generally be received by all the first Doctors of the Christian Church and that so long after Dionysius Alexandrinus had used his great Authority to destroy it Saint Hierome was yet halfe afraid to write against it as seeing how many Catholiques he should enrage against himselfe by it as he testifies in his Proem to the eighteenth Book of his Comment upon Ifaiah what suspitions must this raife in the mindes of those of your own party least what they esteemed Tradition had at first no greater a beginning and no firmer foundation but onely better fortune for why might not the same disciple have cozn'd them from whom their beliefe is descended in twenty other things as well as in this and why not twenty as well as he especially since you confesse some of your doctrine not to have had Vniversall Tradition but onely Tradition enough which if those Fathers did not think they had had for this they would never have receiv'd it but have excepted against the Hereticall way of their delivery if they had known that to be a private one and a private one to be such and if they were so deceived in this way might not they and more have been so too in other points and in time all If you say as it hath been said to me by one whose judgment I value as much as any
sending his Apostles and Disciples to Preach the Gospel and after four of them writing his Gospel which shewes if the Books be true to the title that they writ all they preacht at least that was necessarie for else they were not Gospels but Parts of it that they should not rather leave out any thing else how important soever then not have imploied themselves about teaching us that the Churches Definitions are a Rule of our Faith and instructing us in Markes so proper to her that we might never need to doubt whether it be she that defines or no and whether their not having done this evince not in Reason that this your Doctrine is false Secondly I pray consider whether if there were any such continu'd Tradition about the Definitions of the Church whether that must not also have taught or else have been to small purpose when it is that the Church hath defin'd but yet that is a case not fully judged among you For some hold that the Church hath defin'd when a Councel hath although unapproved by the Pope which is denied by others Thirdly Consider whether supposing as was before suppos'd it must not also have taught certaine Notes to know the Church by but yet about those you are not agreed Salmeron putting Miracles among the false Signes of the Church and Bellarmine and many more among the True ones Fourthly Consider whether the Church have an eternall spring of Doctrines within her or but a finite number and onely those which the Apostles preacht and I believe you will pitch upon the latter Not then to ask how they come to know them nor if you answer by Tradition to ask you againe how come men then not to know before a Definition what it is they Preacht for if the Bishops of which a Councell is compounded know it not now how will they know it when they meet I will desire to know why the Church will not at once teach us all she knowes and not keep us in doubts which she may resolve and did the Apostles teach their Doctrines to be lockt up or taught to us And then having considered this you will find I believe that the Church do with Doctrines as Fathers with Estates never give their Children all that they may still have something to keep them in awe with because if she should she could never have after pretended a Power to end any new emergent controversie keeping in secret what she knowes any that ariseth she may still pretend is endable by her Fiftly Consider that it will appear but a shift if you say that there is a Tradition that all the Churches Definitions be true and so excuse the particular Doctrines for otherwise having none and yet avoid giving us any Rules to know the Church by at all times and answering those Questions which must be ended before we can know at any time when she hath defin'd Now I confesse if you had said Tradition teacheth that the particular Church of Rome is so the Admiral ship that we may know any other if it be of God's Fleet because then it must follow her that is be subject to her decrees theirs which joyn with her this would have bin plainly to let me know your mind and we might quickly have examin'd whether there were any Tradition for the Church in this sence to be alwaies obeyed when she Teaches and without you say this you say nothing and will never be able to give any such Note of the Church as the ignorant may without blushing pretend to know it by Because therefore I guesse that when not I but your Adversaries reasons for I am but one of the worst transcribers of them have driven you from your own Fort you must retire to that of your friends or like them which are drowning you will rather catch at a Twigg then sink I will consider this Assertion which I suppose you must lay hold of so far forth as to shew it to be indeed but an Assertion That there hath no such Verbal Tradition nor indeed any come downe seems to me for these reasons Saint Cyprian by opposing the Church of Rome and that with many Bishops about the Rebaptization shewes sufficiently that he and they knew of no such Tradition and then in what Cave must it have lain hid if the chiefe Doctor of that age was ignorant of it and even his Adversaries claim'd it not And that he knew no such appears not onely by his Actions but also by his words for to them who claim'd Tradition for the particular point propos'd though none for the Authority of the Church proposing he answers if it be contain'd in the Gospels Epistles or Acts let it be observed at one blow cutting off not onely that for sure this authority of the Church of Rome is no way taught in the Scriptures but all other unwritten Traditions which Cardinal Perron thought most skilfull in that kind of Fence was not able to ward but Du Plesis objecting it receiv'd no other answer then that the opinion of Cyprian was condemn'd and that Tradition although unwritten maintain'd Which answer though it be as far from befitting the Cardinall as from answering the objection since it is plaine that this opinion was once held by such as were of chiefe estimation among the Orthodox and consequently the contrary was not then the generall and necessary doctrine of Christians and the prevailing of the one since proves not the other false but rather unfortunate or the spreaders faulty yet I confesse I excuse him for as I have learnt from Aristotle that it is ridiculous to expect a Demonstration where the matter will beare but a probability so would it be in me to expect even a probable solution of an Argument the evidence of which will suffer none at all Neither was he I mean Cyprian the first that without blot of Heresie oppos'd the Tradition of the Church of Rome but that courage which he left to others after him when they saw the Christian World joyne in counting him a Saint and a Martyr whom the Bishop of Rome had stiled a false Christ and a false Apostle the same had he received by seeing that the Asian Bishop had also rejected and oppos'd her Tradition and yet Policrates ever had in great honour and the rest never branded with the crime of Heresie nay even the more neighbouring Bishops and who joyn'd with the Pope in the time of celebrating Easter as Iraeneus yet thought the difference not worth excommunication and for want of skill in the Canon Law transgrest so farre as to reprehend for it whereas if to that Church all else had been to conform themselves then Iraeneus ought therefore to have thought the matter of weight enough because she thought it so who were to small purpose made a Judge if she were not as well enabled to distinguish between slight and materiall as between False and Truth though that it seemes she was not for the
Church of Rome never refus'd their Communion before though she knew them to hold the same opinion and so as plainly appeares counted that materiall in one Age which she had not so esteemed in others and therefore in the degree at least of holding what she held contradicted herself and followed Traditions And as Cyprian imitated them so did the Affrican Bishop him for a Question hapning between them and the Bishops of Rome about Appeales though they absolutely oppos'd him and in vaine I confesse desired him that he would not bring into the Church Typhum hujus Saeculi the swelling pride of this World and though he laboured infinitely in the businesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might bring it to passe yet he and two of his successors were either so unready or so unskil'd in the present Roman Doctrine that Feed my sheeep and thou art Peter were either out of their knowledge or out of their memory and they alleadged not any power jure divino but onely pretended to a Cannon of the Councel of Nice which when the Affricans found not in their coppies for they would not believe the Church of Rome so farre as to trust to hers though now you generally think the Scripture it selfe to have its authority quoad nos onely for her definitions they sent to the East to enquire there and finding their coppies agreeing with theirs they then more resolutely withstood the Pretence which brought at that time nothing to the Popes but repulse and shame And indeed not to object that it is not numbered among any of the ancient Herisies that they differ'd from the particular Roman Church nor is this Rule of being sure at all times to joyne with her ever given by those Fathers who set us waies and Antidotes how to secure our selves against Heresie which could not have been left undone if they had known any such Tradition nor to speak of the Cannon of the Councell of Chalcedon which attributes the power of the Popes to the gift of their Fathers and that againe to Romes being the head City setting all this aside I will aske your selfe if it be not plain that those Fathers who upon the impudent pretence of some Hereticks send men to severall places to enquire after Tradition either send them to all the Apostolicall churches or to save their labour to that to which they were nearest as esteeming them all of equall authority though not jurisdiction for I may say of Rome and them as Tacitus doth of Caelius and the other Commanders Mutato nomine the name onely chang'd Pares jure Roma audendo potentior for what by watching all occasions to greaten herself whereof Cardinal D' Ossat is my witnesse what by abusing the respect all men had ever given her in respect of the chiefe Apostles which founded her of the Empire which was long seated in her and of her ancient Bishops whereof about thirtie together were martyr'd there what by interpreting what was given to her Authority as given to her Power and taking civilities aud complements of which no Court is now so full as the ancient Bishops were made to Popes for alleagiance sworn to them what by forging false decretall Epistles which the Tearmed Authors of them would not forgive them for if they knew it if it were onely for the barbarous language what by these and such other waies she is come at length to that passe that what Auitus a Roman Generall said to the Ansibarians who gave him reasons why he ought not in justice to disturbe their possessions Id Diis placitum ut Arbitrium penes Romanos maneret quid darent quidve adimerent neque alios Judices quam seipsos paterentur It is the will of Heaven that it be left to the Romans what they will please to give or take away and suffer not any Judges but themselves appeares now not so much a History of the Pride of the Roman Empire as a Prophecy of the generall doctrine of the Roman Church Having ever marked Error and Confidence to keep so much company that I seldome find the first but I mistrust the second makes me loath to affirme any thing over-dogmatically out of these objections or say that they cannot be answered Onely because I must not offend against Truth for feare of offending against Modesty I will take leave to say that if I could have answered them my selfe I would not have put you to the trouble of doing it which you might also have sav'd if by letting me know your name you would have enabled me to have found you out and so in a short discourse have tried whether I could have obtain'd that satisfaction from your words which I must now expect from your Pen. But supposing I had none of these objections yet two things besides would have kept me from assenting to what you say The first is that your men when they aske us how we know Scripture to be Scripture and this to be the sence of it tell us withall that unlesse we know it by some more infallible way then our owne Reason they mean their Church it will not serve for a beliefe of those things which are to be believ'd by a divine Faith Now this Argument of yours upon which you build all allowing that it appear'd good reason yet at most it is but reason and liable to the same exceptions unlesse the same thing be a wall when you leane upon it and a bulrush when we doe The second is that all you say for as yet you speak not of the Authority of the Particnlar Church of Rome though you must at length come to it though by that too little is to be gotten if it were granted would but prove those who adhere now to the Church of Rome to be now in the right but I asked for a guide which might without new search serve me the next yeer as well as this For for all that you have prov'd she may leave the way you say she now pretends to walk in and attempt to reform too which I wish were as probable as it is possible or there may arise a schisme between two parts of those Churches which now adhere to the Roman and both may claime Tradition for what hath been may be againe and how shall I know then which side to take since both will seem equally good by that Touchstone which you appoint me to try with And if I be then sent to try by Ancient Writers it is certaine that besides the fallibility of that way for the learned this cannot be done at all by the ignorant and it is probable that both Parties will fall into that absurdity into which the Church of Rome daily runs which is that although the evidence which she claimes by cannot well be exactlie read over in thirty yeares time yet she requires us under paine of Damnation to give our Verdicts for her by twenty yeeres old The Second Part. THe high and Sage Master
little or nothing because that is as much as they have learnt themselves especially in ignorant places and times their Ghostly Fathers teach them most but that much more concerning life then opinions so that though they were not ignorant of all they were taught yet they are absolute strangers to the greatest part of what your Church teaches And if now no more of their Religion be delivered by Verball Tradition what was then when many points which are now often taught though not constantly and in all places but upon occasions were not thought of in many yeeres Suppose that about the Question of what makes a Priest a convocation of men had met I mean of such who knew not what was taught in Bookes before Luthers time and what I say would be true in somewhat a lesse degree of this more instructed Age what account could they have given what they had been taught when they were Children Truely they could have said we know it to be the custome for our Bishops to make Priests and some of us have heard he onely is to make them what is done and taught in other places we know not Very far would they have been from all agreeing that they were taught when they were Children as part of the ground of their hopes for all Eternity by their Fathers as receiv'd from their so as come down from the Apostles that he is no Priest to whom in expresse tearmes Commission is not given to offer for the living and the dead which now being objected to the Clergy of England perswades me that your Church teacheih more then generally men are taught when Children or indeed at any time by any Verball Tradition For not onely the Ordinary sort but even your most learned men knew not what is Tradition if that be still your Rule of Faith for they disagree among themselves whether some things be of Faith or no as for Example Whether the Pope can erre in the Cannonization of a Saint for if all Questions were that way to be ended and such Traditions were evident as if they were such as you speak of they must be all your side must be soone resolv'd both in this and all other such Questions And if you say that indeed all Particular Doctrines are not taught by such a Tradition but that by so much as all are taught they know their Judge and Director concerning them and so are taught them implicitely I answer that the Vulgar although they are generally told that the Church is infallible yet I doubt whether they be either taught that this Doctrine hath had any such generall and uninterrupted a delivery or have heard much concerning those meanes by which she her-selfe is to be known or those Circumstances by which we are to know when she expresseth her opinion That the Pope is the Head of the Church they know but whether Tradition teach him to be so of Divine or humane Right from God of Councels or tacite consent and what Power is included in that Headship a Mahumetan is as much instructed as most of them and even his head-ship is ordinarily prov'd to them but out of some place of Scripture out of which they hear his Infallibility concluded too without being told the different degree in which those two Doctrines are to be held Secondly For the learned neither are they taught so well some of these things but that they differ concerning them and your self fly wholly speaking of them leaving them to agree among themselves and as Cardinall Perron saies in one place he will do us Protestants when we differ suffering the dead to bury the dead If then neither are you all agreed by what to know your Church nor when she hath defin'd so that even what is of faith is undermined among you I find cause to beleeve that Tradition is no excellent Director of you even in your grounds no not to teach you to know that which should teach you all the rest And if you were yet at the same wicket and by the same degrees by which I have shewd that other errors both may and have not onely entered into your Church but ascended also to high places there this doctrine concerning your Director might have done the same True it is that very little is generally and constantlie taught in all ages to the people and that which is seldome is told them to have been so receiv'd from hand to hand by the verball Tradition you speak of and if they be at any time taught so and remember it yet they know not whether the next Curate teach the same at least if under the same notion and degree of Necessitie Indeed it would not be so intricate a worke as now adaies it is to be a Christian if your way had been onely followed but it is not this Tradition but the writings of past Ages which transmit to posteritie the opinions of the Doctors of past times many of them being erroneous and more unnecessarie out of these works the learned learne and teach againe in their workes what the greater part the unlearned scarce ever heare of out of these they settle the degrees your Doctrines are to be held in some as probable some true some almost necessarie some altogether and teach concerning others that some are false some dangerous some damnable whereas the vulgar have seldome their meat so curiouslie joynted to them but are told in generall for the most part unlesse some publick opposition or other occasion perswade them at some time to descend to teach them more particularlie that this is so good and this is not so And indeed the degree in which the last Age held such an opnion is both most hard to know not onely because the ignorant are seldom taught it by word of mouth and the learned have seldome occasion without some opposition to explaine themselves so farre in their writings but because also as many and as considerable Persons not writing as doe write we cannot know by the Authors what the whole Age thought true except the acceptation of that Doctrine were a condition of the Communoin and most necessarie to be known because most of our controversies with your Church are as much if not more about the necessitie of her opinions as about the truth of them For we seeing plainlie that in the purest ages many of the chiefest Doctors have contradicted some of her Tenets without suspicion of Heresie are not able to conceive how a doctrine should from being indifferent in one age become necessarie in another and the contrarie from onely false Heriticall As time makes Botches Pox And plodding on will make a Calfe an Oxe especially if that way had allwaies been walkt in which you now speak of No judicious man can deny to see with his eyes if he have cast them never so little upon the present state of Christendome that there is one Congregation of men which layeth claime to Christ his Doctrine as upon
this title that she hath received it from his Apostles without interruption delivered from Father to Son untill this day and admits not any Doctrine for good and legitimate which he doth not receive in this manner What the Judicious of whom I am no member can do I know not but I not onely can but do deny it you meaning by that Congregation the Church of Rome for by seeing that not upon this but other kind of claim certaine Doctrines have arrived to the very brink of being defined I have cause to think that if they received none in upon other grounds these would not be suffered to stand so neer the doore And indeed there being between your selfe such differences that Erasmus tels us that he who is a Heretick among the Dominicans is Orthodox to the Scotists sure one side hath admitted of a Doctrine for Legitimate which hath not been so received and then me thinks this being easily endable which it is by seeing which claimes such a delivery for if both do it then two Parts may which you deny if neither do then your whole Church goes by some other Rule that which doth upon that which you call the Catholique Grounds me thinks should have obtained a definition for her and the other which resists that Principle upon which they ought onely to build should have been suddenly and absolutely condemned This will appeare plainer if we consider the opinions of your Church by the Actions of her Head in a notable and late Example A great controversie being risen between the Dominicans and the Jesuites it was heard before Pope Clement let us see then what course he took to find which Part held the Truth since he was not likely especially in a time wherein by being more opposed then usually he had reasons to be consequently more cautious to chuse a new way by which truth was not wont to be found out by your side upon like occasions Did he send for the wisest and best men from all nay from adjoyning Parts to enquire of them what they had been taught by their Fathers to have been received by them uninterruptedly from the Apostles did he examine with which of them the first and purest ages sided did he consider which opinion would make us have the more excellent conceit of God and work most towards the expelling of Vice None of all these were his course but he appointed both sides to prove which of them followed Saint Austine and according to them he intended to give sentence if the advice of Cardinall Perron had not prevailed to the contrary But many days they spent in examining what he thought who thought so variously concerning it that he scarce knew himself which whereas before him all the Ancients that I could ever meet with were with the Iesuites with an Vnanimous consent and by them if they must be tried by men as fallible as themselves it would have better agreed with their own Principles to have had both Parts judged After the Pope let us hear Bishop and allmost Cardinall Fisher who being one of your own Authors and Martyrs cannot be thought to praevaricate against that Church for whose defence he imployed not onely his Inke but his Blood His words are these There are many things of which was no enquirie in the Primitive Church which yet upon doubts arising are now become perspicuous by the diligence of after-times And that you may see that he speakes of points of Faith He addes No Orthodox man now doubts whether there be a Purgatory of which yet among the Ancients there is no mention or exceeding rarely It is not believed by the Greeks to this day Neither did the Latines conceive this Truth at once but by little and little And for an Epiphonema he closeth it thus Considering that Purg atory was a good while unknown after partly by Revelations partly by Scripture came little by little to be believed by some and so at last the beliefe of it was generally received by the Catholique Churches Who can wonder concerning Indulgencies that in the Priinitive Church there was no use of them Indulgences therefore began after men had trembled a while at the Torments of Purgatory See I pray how will you two agree You say the Church of Rome receives but what she claimes to be come down to her from the Apostles without interruption He saith some of her Doctrines were long unknown and came in by Revelations and Scripture you say new Doctrines cannot come into a Church that holds this Principle He saith Doctrines have come in by little and little So either she held not allwaies this Principle or for all that they might come in To be short all which he hath said seemes to me as if he had purposely intended to frame a Ram to batter down that fortification which you have built about the Roman Church Now though he be of so great an Authority that he needs no backing yet I will desire you to look into Alphonsus de Castro where he speakes of Indulgences and see if he mend the matter He confesseth that the use of them seemes to be late received into the Church yet would not have them contemned because many things are known to after-commers of which those ancient Writers were wholly ignorant Amongst whom there is rarely mention of Transubst antiation more rarely of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son of Purgatory almost none For though he speaks after as if he meant onely that the names of these were unmentioned and not the things yet it is plaine that if he brought them in to any purpose it was to prove that some Doctrines are after of necessity to be believed which once were not and Doctrines consist in the Things not in the Name I could next tell you of Erasmus his saying Res deducta est ad Sophisticas contentiones Articulorum Miriades proruperunt Religion is come down to Sophistry and a Miriad of Articles are broken out But knowing that his words will not find so much respect because he himself finds lesse favour as those of others more allowed among you let us mark these words of Sancta Clara The Church when it is said to define any thing she rests not upon any new Revelations but upon the ancient lying hid in writings and words of the Apostles which he sayes not as his private opinion but the constant beliefe of Doctors By which it appeares plainly that there are at least interpretations of what the Apostles taught drawn forth by Reason not received by Tradition which makes now a part of the present Roman Religion a sufficient Gappe for Errors to enter at when either mistakings or ends may become new opinions and stile them but interpretations of the old Salmeron a Voluminous Jesuite one neither by his order nor his inclination an enemy at all to the Roman Church being press'd by the opinions of the Ancients affirmes Doctores quò Juniores
eò perspicaciores esse That the more modern Doctors are the more prespicatious that per incrementa Temporum nota facta sunt Divina mysteria quae tamen antea multos latuerunt In processe of time Divine Mysteries have been made known which before lay hid from many That it is infirm arguing from Authority and answers to the multitude of them who in times past had opposed him with these words of Exodus That the opinion of many is not to be followed leading us out of the way with some other very Anabaptisticall answers and very contrary to your Tenets for sure it were a strange Tradition which had so many Orthodox Opposers and nothing inferiour to that saying of Zuinglius so much exaggerated Quid mihi cum Patribus potius quam cum Matribus The same Author in same place saies that Saint Hierome durst not affirm the Assumption but Saint Austine durst and by that meanes the Church perswaded by his reason believes it Such a notable Tradition have all her opinions for even this affirmation which he confesseth brought in this beliefe is it self not now believed to be Saint Austines for I take it he must mean his tract of the Assumption counted not his by your own Divinity-Criticks the Lovaine Doctors which have set it forth at Cullen And because I am willing to spend no more time in the proofe of so apparent a Truth I will not urge Posa who to perswade the defining of an opinion which hath a great current of the Ancients against it so farr it is from having any Tradition for it reckons many other opinions condemned by your Church and defended by the Ancients unlesse you will believe his impudent Assertion that they are all corrupted and will passe to the Conclusion of this which shall have for a Corollary the Confession of a Spanish Arch-Bishop who is to be thought to speak with more authority then his own because being imployed to bring that to passe which was desired by so great a Part of your Church he can scarce be supposed not to have had the advice and consent of many of them in what he sayes He then tell us First every Age either brings forth or opens her Truth Things are done in their times and severall Doctrines are unlockt in severall Ages Secondly To shew that though his opinion had no such Tradition as you say your Church claimes for all her Doctrines yet it may and ought to be defined he desires to know who ever taught the Assumption of the Virgin before Saint Austines and Hieromes time and by whom was that opinion deduct from the Apostles Nay he absolutely affirmes that before Nazianzene no man ever taught any thing of her delivery without paine yet many thought the contrary Thirdly and lastly For your absolute confutation he confesseth that we believe and hold in this Age many things for Mysteries of Faith which in former Ages did waver under small or no Probability and many Things are now defined for Articles of Faith which have endured a hard repulse among the most and the weightiest of the Ancient Doctors and no light contradiction among the Ancient Fathers and having reckoned up five Particulars The Validity of Hereticks Baptisme The Beatificall Vision before the day of Judgment The Spirituallity of Angels The Soules being immediately created and not ex traduce And The Virgines being free from all actuall Sinne He shuts it thus Many of these kinds of Opinions there are which sometimes declined to one Part sometimes to the other and had contrary Favourers according to severall times untill a diligent and long disquisition being praemitted the Truth was manifested either by Pope or Provinciall or generall Councels nay and saies that the disquisition is made by conferring of Places of Scripture and Reason which is the way which you mislike These things considered whosoever shall after say that your Church claimes all her Doctrines to have come by a Verball and constant Tradition to her from the Apostles I will not say that he is very impudent but I cannot think that a small matter-will put him out of countenance for your part I esteeme you so much that I am confident you have not so little Nose as not to find the contrary nor so little Forehead as not to confesse it having received the Affidavit of such a cloud of Witnesses Whosoever pretend Christ his Truth against her saith that true it is she had once had the true way but by length of times she is fallen into grosse Errors which they will reform not by any Truth which they have received from hand to hand from those who by both Parts are acknowledged to have received their lesson from Christ and his Apostles but by Arguments either out of Ancient Writers or the secrets of Reason This is no farther true then as it concernes the Protestants for the Greek Church will not suffer your proposition to be generall but forbid the Banes They pretend not to have made any Reformation but to have kept ever since the Apostles what from them was received Barlaam saies they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep safe and whole the Tradition of the Catholique Church nay he proves his to be the sound Part because by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nothing was ever more esteemed then her Tradition And he objects it to your Church that she doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 difanull the Tradition of the Catholique Church and setting them at naught bring in strange and undenizon'd opinions And that Greeke who is joyned to Nilus and Barlaam in Salmatius his Edition disputing against a Cardinall chargeth you that you do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sow Tares among the Tradition of the Apostles and Fathers if when they make this claime they either say so and think not so or think so and erre then this proves that though the Roman Church did make that claime which you say she doth yet she too might either claime it against her Conscience or against Truth For this claime of the last cannot be denyed but by him who will imitate that Hamshire Clown of whom you give me warning and believe no more then he sees himself especially since your own Authors when they dispute for Traditions prove their authority from this profession of the Greekes but I cannot blame you to forget them if we would suffer you since they cannot be remembred but by your Religions disadvantage For I verily believe that if they had but one Addition which they want I mean Riches not onely most of them who leave the Protestants would sooner go to them then to you unlesse they would take their Religion as we take Boates for being the Next but money among you who though they dislike your pretended Infallibility that the Popes usurpations upon the rights of other Bishops his not ancient claime of power to deliver Soules out of Purgatory c And yet are frighted from joyning
with the Protestants by want of Succession Vocation and such like Bull-beggers would goe over to them as I have heard Spalato meant to doe if they were not kept by an unwillingnesse to change the spirituall tyrannie of the Pope for the temporall of the Turke But although there were no such Churches or they made no such claime yet having shew'd out of your own Authors that some opinions have not been constantly delivered by Tradition but have entered into the Church upon the grounds which might at least possiblie deceive them of Scripture Reason and Revelation and others knockt apace to be let in I hope we may be excused for making a reveiw of all and examining what doctrines have been brought in if not by Scripture which we think reasonable at least by comparing what this age teacheth and requires with what the first Ages did to which we are encourag'd by your selves who make agreement with Antiquitie the chief mark of the Church unlesse you meane your selves to be onelie Judges even of those things by which you bid us to judge you For our examinations by reason I cannot tell why you mislike it since those who trust their own reason least trust it yet to chuse for them one whom they may trust against which all Arguments drawn from her fallibilitie without question lie Your Religion is built upon your Church her authoritie upon reasons which we think slight and fallacious and your selves think but prudentiall and probable ought we not then nay must we not examine them by Reason or receive them upon your word And allowing them probable reason yet I have still cause to examine further whether your superstructions be not more unreasonable then your foundations are reasonable for then I cannot receive a more unprobable doctrine then that is probable which it is prov'd by Yet in respect of things appearing divers at divers times I doe not like my own way so well as to esteem it absolutelie infallible but though I keep it because I account it the best yet I will promise to leave it when you can shew me a better which will be hard to doe because you cannot prove it to be better but by reason against which proofe and consequentlie against whatsoever it proves your own Objections remaine For to be perswaded by reason that to such an authoritie I ought to submit it is still to follow reason and not to quit her And by what else is it that you examine what the Apostles taught when you examine that by ancient Tradition and ancient Tradition by a present Testimonie Yet when I speake thus of finding the Truth by Reason I intend not to exclude the Grace of God which I doubt not for as much as is necessarie to Salvation is readie to concurre to our Instruction as the Sunne is to our sight if we by a wilfull winking chuse not to make not it but our selves guilty of our blindnesse Indeed if we love darknesse better then light and instead of esteeming it shut it out it were but just in God if we so continue long hardened not to suffer it to see after when we would since so obstinatelie we would not when we might like to that which happened to those Englishmen of whom Froissard speakes who having long bound up an eye and made a foolish vow never to see with that till they could see their Mistresses when they returned and unbound them they saw nothing but that they could not see Yet when I speake of Gods grace I mean not that it infuseth a knowledge without reason but workes by it as by its Minister and dispels those Mists of Passions which doe wrap up Truth from our Understandings For if you speake of its instructing any other way though I confesse it is possible as God may give us a sixth sence yet it is not ordinarie and ought not to be brought to dispute because so we leave visible Arguments to flie to invisible and your Adversarie when he hath found your play will be soon at the same locke and I beleeve in this sence infus'd Faith is but the same thing otherwise apparell'd which you have so often laught at in the Puritans under the title of private Spirit This being supposed either this Principle hath remain'd unto her ever since her beginning or she took it up in some one Age of the sixteen if she took it up she then thought she bad nothing in her but what she had receiv'd from her fore-fathers and if she thought so she knew it This Principle is not yet taken up by her and suppose it were yet since some other opinions are confess'd to have been receiv'd by her not from a constant Tradition but Scripture and Revelations and not at once but by little and little this very Principle of receiving nothing but from Tradition might it selfe have been receiv'd not from Tradition nor need it have been in any one Age of the sixteen but some might have taught it in one Age more in another and all at last and this so farre from being an impossibilitie that it were no wonder Let us adde that the multitude of this Church is so dispersed through so many Countries and Languages that it is impossible they should agree together upon a false Determination to affirme with one consent a Falsity for Truth no Interest being able to be common to them all to produce such an effect Although so many Countries could not so well agree upon it at once yet some might so perswade others that in time and by degrees the disease may be grown epidemicall And trulie considering in everie Countrie how few there are who thinke of Religion at all or of them againe who walke in it by the directions of their owne eyes even of them who take upon them to shew that way to others but for the most part which they did much more in more ignorant times when Scriptura sacra cum vetustis authoribus frigebat are lead by some few whom they reverence for their Piety and learning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose words are accounted lawes and they againe by a Thomas or a Scot or at best by Austine or Hierome and thinke it Tradition enough to have it from them for else why thinke they to beare us downe with the Authoritie of one or two Fathers if they thinke that not ground enough to goe upon themselves it seemes little stranger to me that whole Countries should let in not ancient opinions then that a few should since a few in all places have ever govern'd all the rest of this I will bring two very known examples out of the Ecclesiasticall Historie The first is of Valens the Emperour who being himselfe an Arrian and making peace with a Nation which was not so and supposing that they would never have firme concord with him to whom in Faith he was so opposite was advised to perswade their Bishop to change his beleife for which end having
but the second wholly overthrowes His justice besides the direct contrariety of their Doctrine to Scripture they saying in effect that the Kingdome of Heaven is to take us by violence whereas that teaches us that we are to take it so But yet give me leave to say thus much for them that though it be true that ill life followes very consequently from that Principle and those who hold it must be ill Logicians if they be good men yet it is plaine that very many of them live as good lives as any who believe the contrary Besides this in my opinion concernes as neerely your Dominicans as our Calvinists since they use Free-will as Tully saith Epicurus did the Gods verbis asserunt re negant assert it in words but deny it in deed yet I think you will not say that they are the more licentious for by direct consequence denying Liberty If therefore an opinion which is so neerely tyed to action produce no more effects how much fewer would those other so much more unconcerning Tenets bring forth I need not instance in Prayer to Saints worshipping Images Prayer for the Dead c. which it is evident could not be changed without an apparent change in Christian Churches Without change which though it must be then apparent yet need it not be so to us I confesse they could not come in but with little opposition they might The doubtfull estate of the dead after this life before the day of Judgment-audit being much better that they should have our Prayers though they want them not then misse of them if they want them may not unlikely and peradventure not unreasonably have brought in that Custome without either giving scandale or being received by Tradition Though if it had you would have gotten little by it for unlesse such a Purgatory out of which Indulgences may deliver will follow out of it the Pope will not care for the other as being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing to profit And though he did establish a Purgatory yet it might be one after the Resurrection for such a one more then one Father speakes off But it need establish none no not any third place which is lesse for the Prayers might be first intended for the encrease of the happinesse of the Blessed and relaxation of the torment of the Cursed which latter effect that the Prayers for the dead have is said by Prudentius and confess'd to have been said both by him and others by your own Heroe Cardinall Perron Of the worship of Images I shall speake hereafter Praying to Saints may have come in upon consequences drawne out of mistaken places of Scriptures or others which inducing the opinion that they enjoy'd the beatificall vision before the day of judgement some might conclude that then they saw all in it and at first pray to them but conditionallie till their number increased and with it the degree in which they held the opinion till now to deny it is accounted Heresie though I know no Father which justifies our invocating of them although they speake of their interceding for us before Nazianzene whose example alone being of so great authoritie might spread it much though I pray remember who as saies Nicephorus Calistus it was that brought it first into the publick Liturgie It is not possible that any materiall point of Christian Faith can be changed as it were by obreption whilst men are on sleep but it must needs raise a great scandall and tumult For suppose the Apostles had taught the world it were Idolatry to pray to Saints or use reverence to their Pictures how can we imagine this honour brought in but by a vehement conflict and tumult in a people which did so greatly abhorre Idolatry as the Apostles and Disciples did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I spoke cheiflie not of changing a point of Faith but of creating one not of contradicting a doctrine delivered from the Apostles but of introducing one of which they were wholly silent either as theirs at first as yee must say Pappias did or onely as True till being rooted and spread it be beleeved Apostolicall upon Tertullian's Argument that else how could so many Churches errare in unam fidem erre into the same beleife which because lesse time had then been allowed error to disperse it selfe in was then though no concluding proofe yet a better then it was the next Age and so still grew the worse for the wearing till now it is worth just nothing But as Himerius saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I say t is most easie to answer that which is not imputed for I am so farre from saying that the Apostles taught these two things to be Idolatrie since on my Conscience they spake not of them directlie at all that I my selfe will not say they are For Prayer to Saints set aside your Idolatrie-like Expressions seeming to beg that of them which you professe you meane onely to have them beg for you I suppose the Question to be but this whether they heare us or no which Martyrs might possiblie doe and yet no other how holy and canoniz'd soever because many Fathers held that none else see God yet If they doe I beleeve you may as well or better because you are more sure of their being in favour with God desire them to intercede for you as you may desire the Prayers of any living Friend but if they doe not then I will not say in Chrysostomes phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what Thunder-bolts doth it not deserve but how unreasonable is it to cast men out of the Church and send them out of the world for not assenting to an opinion which you cannot prove For reverence to the Pictures of Saints if you meane onely some outward civill respect to testifie the great honour and love which you beare the Prototypes It is I beleeve no more Idolatrie then keeping off our hats in the Presence-Chamber to the Cloth of Estate Yet this I am so farre from esteeming necessarie that I thinke they had better never come in then have occasion'd so much un-christian turmoile about so indifferent a thing The first and purest Ages did well enough without these Pictures we heare onely of a Parabolicall one of Christ in a Chalice after they came to be made after to be set in Churches afterto be prayed before nay at last they are come to so great an excesse that not onely against Scripture but all Antiquitie they are now come to picture God the Father himselfe Upon a Popes Letter to an Emperour wherein he defends the picturing of Saints and Christ and speakes improbablie of the Antiquitie of their Pictures and addes the reason why they pictured not God the Father Baronius saies in the Margent Yet it hath after happened that they pictured him as he hath appeared a way which the Church of that time could easily have found out had they thought it lawfull as it is plaine
Saint Austine did not unlesse Nefas est be an Approbation This alone may serve to shew that beleifes may come in even contrarie to that of former time and yet we not know when they entered unlesse you will oppose a superficiall reason that a thing cannot be to a plaine example that it is and force me to answer with Barlaam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you tell me it is impossible for him to die whose Corse I look upon We remember in a manner as yet how change came into Germanie France Scotland and our own Country let these be a signe to us what we may think can be the creeping in of false doctrine This is but a continuance of the same Paralogisme For at this time in these places a setled Religion being contradicted the case is very different from an Opinions prevailing in the mindes of men when they were yet white Paper and not filled with any doctrine to the contrarie either because though once the contrarie had been taught yet it had slept a good while or because nothing had before been spoken concerning it We know that nothing makes Noise but Opposition and Resistance and if that be not much it will not last long and the memorie of it as little Besides most of these points making for the power and wealth of the Clergie you must not expect that there should have been as great an out-crie and hubbub when they were introduced at first as when expelled after long prevailing it being a worke both more short easie and secret to plant an Acorne then to cut down or remove an Oake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 although those men which governe the rest were not in this case so much interessed There is no point of doctrine contrary to the Catholicke Church rooted in any Christian Nation that the Ecclesiasticall History doth not mention the times and combats by which it entered and tore the Church in peices The combats wherein it tore the Church peradventure it doth but of the times wherein many entered they are altogether silent All take notice of Arrius his words when by reason of Alexander's hot opposition there grew divisions but of what the Orthodox-counted Authors which we have before the Councell of Nice said though aske Perron and he will tell you how like Arrianisme they look no Ecclesiasticall Historie makes any mention because they made no bounce like the other and so in likeliehood tooke no more notice of other opinions which made none neither And what is said of this point may be said of Eutychianisme see the same place of Perron for we know how Dioscorus called upon the Fathers of the Pelagians and others whose opinions were certainlie in the Church before them who are now counted the Authors of them Nay even of opinions rooted as you call it are not the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the the Father onely the communicating Infants the admitting none to the Beatificall Vision but Martyrs and other such rooted in the Greeke Church or can yon tell when they entered at least was it not long before any combat concerning them But suppose this weretrue it is but accidentally so for some of those writings which deliver this to us might as well have been lost as many others which were so that no man can conclud that of whatsoever no beginning can be shewed in Ecclesiasticall story that hath not been introduced especially since I speak not so much of opinions opposing the Ancient Tradition as of Superfaetations not onely of pointes indeed Materiall but of such as in continuance of time have grown to be thought so for how can I tell many of them having been lost but some of those would have given me notice of it if I now had them Let it therefore remaine for evidently constant that into the Christian Church can come no Errors but it must be seen and noted and raise scandale and opposition Here Sir not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you resolve upon a Truth of a conclusion before you have proved the Premisses but even that is such a one as followes not out of them although they were granted For how followes it that because all heretofore have been noted therefore all at all times must be so nay that though at the comming in they found scandale and opposition we necessarily many centuries after must know they did so For the knowledge which we have of these things is but Reliquiae Danaum what was overseen by the zeale and negligence and how much we want of what we might have known had the rest scap'd no man can tell who pretends not to Revelation and to the ability of knowing what was in Books whereof he never saw any and never heard of most But though it followes not such a thing hath been done therefore it must ever be yet it followes in spite of the most severe exception such a thing hath been done therefore it may be As for example since Valentinian the Emperour bringing in so contrary to Christian Religion as you will confesse Polygamy to be and establishing it with a law which allowed it and yet those who tels us both of his actions and his Edict speaking no tittle of any opposition which was made to it but he ever accounted a very good and pious Emperour and his Son by his second wife his first still living and undivorced from him being esteemed Legitimate and succeeding him in a part of his Empire think you whether his authority could not have drawn the Principall men and inclusively the rest to subscribe almost any opinion who could keep them from opposing such an Act or such a Law And if though this be now counted unlawfull yet we find not that either any Bishop advised him against it or excommunicated him for it or indeed any man disliked it If any false opinion backt by great Power have been not onely like this introduced but spread and setled how unlikely is it that we should now know what scandals it raised supposing it raised any As in our Naturall Body the Principall parts are defended by bones flesh skins and other defences that no outward Agent can come to offend there before having annoyed some of these so in the Catholique Faith there are in speculations those which we call Theologicall Conclusions and other pious opinions and in practice many rights and ceremonies which stoppe the Passage unto the maine Principall Parts of Christian beliefe and Actions Either these Theologicall conclusions and pious opinions are derived from the same Tradition or they are not if they be then sure they are equally matters of Faith and so need some other course to defend them and you must find Quis custodiet ipsos custodes If they be not but were onely Deductions either of the first Ages Logick which was not alwaies excellent or of that of more Modern times then may they so easily be false themselves that I know not
a Directresse at least as a Company of men which yours sure was not to those Nations which were lately discovered by Columbus But if you except and say she need onely be visible to all Christians though this exception need a proofe yet even this Condition your Church hath not allwaies had for I believe to those Christians whom Xaverius found in the East-Indies your Church had been as little visible as to those Pagans whom Columbus discovered in the West Besides beyond the Abissins how farre Christian Religion may be propagated and yet your Church unknown who can tell Besides even to most of them for any credible Testimony that appeares she may not be very visible But above all that reason being answered upon which you conclude that there is some Director and that ground being taken away upon which you build that yours is that me thinks it will be unnecessary to dispute long upon the Conditions required to that which hath no entity at all For Authority her very claime of Antiquity and Succession to have been that Church which received her beginning from Christ and his Apostles and never being all united under the universall government of ver fore-went it giveth à great reverence to her among those who believe her and amongst those who with indifferency seek to inform themselves a great Prejudice above others And if it be true it carrieth an infinite Authority with it of Bishops Doctors Martyrs Saints Miracles Learning Wisedome Venerable Antiquity and such like There is no Question but any Church true or false which claimes to have ever kept the Apostles Doctrines uncorrupted and is infallibly believed to have done so must among those Christians who thus beleeve have even equall Authority with the Apostles But me thinks that this claime before proofe should to others be any prejudice for her especially to those who have great Arguments against her is unreasonable and if after consideration it appears otherwise she hath then onely helpt to weaken her Testimony and hath destroyed her Infallible Authority in any thing else There remaineth Power which no man can doubt but he hath given it most ample who considereth his words so often repeated to his Apostles But abstracting from that who doth not see that the Church hath the nature and proportion of ones Country to everyone As in a mans Country he hath Father and Mother Brothers Sisters Kinsfolkes and Allies Neighbours and Country-men anciently called Cives and Concives and of these are made his Country So in the Church finds he in way to spirituall Instruction and Education all these digrees nearer and further off till he come unto that furthermost of Christ his Vicar and as he in his Country finds Bearing Breeding Settling in Estates and Fortunes and lastly Protection and Security So likewise in the way of Christianity doth he find this much more fully in the Church So that if it be true that a man oweth more to his Master then to his Father Bene esse is better then esse certainly a man also as farr as Church and Country can be separated must owe more to the Church then to his very Country Wherefore the Power which the Church hath to Command and instruct is greater then the Power of the Temporall Community of which he is part I wish you would have set down these words of Christ so often repeated to his Apostles in which Power to the Church I mean such a one as yours pretends is undoubtedly given For my Part Truely I remember none For I suppose not that the Power given to the Apostles can reasonably be claimed by any Society of men now no not though you should extend the Definition as largely as Erasmus who saies Ecclesiam voco totius Populi Christiani concensum I call the Church the Consent of the whole Christian People unlesse that be meant too in all Ages and so the Aposiles would come in They were so signed and sealed to as I may say from Heaven by having most conversed with Christ and been most beloved by him and chosen especially to teach the World his Will that it is impossible any men could be indeed Christians and not receive their Doctrine as that of Christ without any other Proofe but there is no other Church that hath such a Priviledge The Power of proposing she hath and so have you and without Question if you can convince any Christian that what you said Christ said first he is bound both to believe and obey it and againe let all Churches joyne in proposall yet till he be so convinced unlesse his own fault hinder it it binds him not neither is it sufficiently proposed allowing it true which it is not alwaies necessary that it should be although so attested For as a Naturall Foole is not bound to obey any Doctrine or Precept taught or imposed by God himself because his understanding cannot discover it to be so so in my opinion whose understanding soever is not convinc'd of the same how plain soever to others the thing be he is for as much as concernes this point in the state of a Naturall Foole and no more to be condemned Neither see I what you prove out of the Proportion between the Church and every mans Country for if any Church be intended by God to be so our Director that her propositions are to be received because they are hers then indeed we owe her much more obedience then to our Country which if it should require of us to believe an opinion true because that hath defined it I believe no man would obey and he who should press us to it would be accounted so mad that we should send him not to a Doctor of Divinity but to a Doctor of Physick to be confuted And that any Church is so intended appeares not at all by this proposition since the same is even amongst the Church of the Turkes which is Ecclesia malignantium for there they find their Metaphoricall Fathers Mothers Brothers Sisters Kinsfolks Allies Neighbours which all Hereticks do too among themselves all these degrees neerer and further of till at last they come to that furthermost of being united under the Universall Government of Mahomets Vicar the Mufty But to them you would say that this proves not Truth but at most Concord and that is Factio inter Malos which is Amicitia inter Bonos therefore the same we answer you since Pyrats and Theeves have as strict bonds among themselves as the honestest persons and often gerater conspiracies and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to destroy these then they make to defend themselves And whereas you say that we owe more gratitude and obedience to the Church then to our Country I have told you that this may be true without owing obedience to all she teaches But yet even this in some sence is True To the generall Tradition of Christians of the first Ages who lived with the Apostles and could not in any
likelyhood but know their writings I owe the knowledge of the Scripture and to that the knowledge of Gods will and to that Heaven if I conforme carefully to it both my Life and my Beliefe and to the Church in this sence I owe both as much gratitude as you please and believe whatsoever this as generally witnesseth to have received from the Apostles But this concerning any present Church doth as little concerne your present purpose For let us mean by the Church that company of men which hath kept Tradition wholly uncorrupted and suppose there is such a one yet to know that she hath done so I must examine her Doctrine and compare it either with Scripture or the first Antiquity and so rather receive her for it then it for her Besides that the whole Church teaches nothing and if she did yet by the same waies from any single learned Orthodox man I may receive the same instruction to whose commands neverthelesse except when he delivers Gods I owe no obedience Thustoo when the Orthodox company commands as they are Orthodox that is something of the will of God then they are to be obeyed and so am I and so againe when the chosen governours for that purpose command indifferent Things but if they exceed their Commission in commanding no man is longer bound to obey no more then if a Mayor of a Town should command the People to make his Hay they were bound to obedience since commanding more then his Magistracy authorizeth him he in that case is no Magisttate This Church can satisfie both learned and unlearned For in matters of Faith above the reach of learning whose spring is from what Christ and his Apostles taught what learned man can refuse in his inmost soule to bow to that which is testified by so great a multitude to have come from Christ and what unlearned man can require more for his faith then to be taught by a Mistresse of so many prerogaives and advantages above all others The learned cannot reasonablie be satisfied with this especiallie so farre forth as to beleeve it infalliblie true First because they see great multitudes have and doe testifie contrarie things Secondlie because they must have observed with Salmeron that a multitude of some opinion may proceed from some one Doctor especiallie if he be Illustrious and some againe taken with a pious and an humble feare chuse rather against their mind to approve what hath come from others then to bring forth any new thing out of their own understanding least they may seem to bring some thing unwonted into the Church This they must needs see may bring an undelivered opinion to be generall and then the generallitie may bring it to be thought to come from Tradition according to Tertullians rule Quod apud multas ecclesias unum invenitur non est erratum sed Traditum and that of Saint Austine that of whatsoever no beginning is known and yet is generall is to be beleeved to have its originall from the Apostles By this way supposing that all your Church did witnesse all their doctrines to have had such a lineall succession which they know to be false they see that opinions falslie and illogicallie deduct from true Traditions may be equallie beleeved to be such themselves Vincentius Lirinensis allowing the following Church to give light to the former which they might mistake in doing at least the certaintie of her Illustrations cannot have their force from Tradition By this way they see that in time such doctrines may come to have such a generall attestation which had their first spring from Scripture mis-interpreted either by publicke mistakes or by Councels mislead either by feare error or partialitie and what proceeded either from consent or definition may seem to have been deduct from Tradition In this they will be confirmed by seeing plainlie that more is now required to be beleeved by the Church of Rome then in all times hath been that now among you contrarie parties urge for or expect a generall Councell to end questions concerning which neither side claimes any continued verball Tradition and that the greatest part are ready to receive such a definition in as high a degree as any Tradition whatsoever They will be also confirmed by your denying Infallibilitie to a Councell how generall soever unapproved by the Pope by seeing that if as you say no man can be ignorant what he was taught when he was a childe as the ground and substance of his hopes for all eternitie and if in this all your Religion were comprised or else to what purpose say you this then no man bred in the Orthodox Church could erre or ever have erred in matter of Faith without knowing that he had departed from the very Basis of Christianitie and for Instructions in these points not onely all Authors as Commenters upon Scripture and the like were wholly uselesse but it were also a vaine thing to goe for instruction even to Christs Vicar and S. Hierome might have resolved his own question about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every whit as well as Damasus or Saint Peter himselfe And for the same reason it were wholly impossible that at the same time the Popes and most notable and most pious and most learned Papists living should have justified and applauded Erasmus for the same workes the one by his printed Diplomas and the rest by their Letters for which at the same instant the greatest part of the Monkes counted and proclaimed him a more pestilent Heretick then Luther if they had all weighed heresie in the same ballance and more impossible if in yours which the learned will yet lesse approve of when they see how soon the worse opinion and lesser authoritie may prevaile as how that of the Monkes hath done against that of the Popes and Bishops and that so much that Erasmus is now generallie disavowed as no Catholicke and given to us whom wee accept as a great present that Bellarmine will allow him to be but halfe a Christian and Cardinall Perron which I am sorry for gives a censure upon him which would better have become the pen of a Latomus a Bedda a Stunica or an Egmundane then of so learned and judicious a Prelate Now for the Ignorant I am sure you will never be able to prove infalliblie to them that your Church hath any prerogatives above others the ordinarie way cannot be taken with them because they not understanding the languages in which the Fathers and Councels are written cannot be press'd by what they cannot construe and your way as little because they are not more though totallie ignorant of the Authors of past Ages then they are of the state opinions and claimes of the present time so that I know not how you can attempt them if they have but a moderate understanding to their no knowledge The body of our Position shoots forth the branches of divers Questions or rather the Solutions of
scope of Christian Doctrine being great and the Apostles preaching in so great varieties of Countries it might happen some point in one Country might be lesse understood or peradventure not preacht which in another was often preacht and well both understood and retained we may easily free our selves from these brambles For the Spirit of Tradition residing in this that the testimony be exceptione majus and beyond all danger of deceit It is not necessary to the efficaciousnesse of Tradition that the whole universall Church should be witnesse to such a truth but so great a part as could be a warrant against mistaking so that if all the Churches of Asia Greece or Affrick or AEgypt should constantly affirm such a Tradition to have been delivered them from the Apostles it were enough to make a Doctrine exceptione majorem Whence it ensueth that if in a meeting of the universall Church it were found that such a part hath such a Tradition concerning some matter whereof the rest had either no understanding or no certainty such a Doctrine would passe into a necessary bond of Faith in the whole Church Your sword is so sharp and your shield so weak that I can hardly believe they came out of the same forge but when I observe how much you have a better right hand then a left and that not onely you have raised an objection which you cannot lay but your answer to it multiplies more I cannot but compare you to him in Lucian who travelling with a Magician that had no servant and instead of one was daily wont to say to a Pestle Pestle be thou a man and it would be so and when his occasions were served would bid it return to be a Pestle and was obeyed thought one time to imitate the Magitian he being abroad and made indeed the Pestle a man and draw water but could not make it return to the former state but it continued still to draw wherefore angry and afraid he took up an axe and clove the Pestle-man in two whereupon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in stead of one water-drawer there lept up two For first I pray consider what could you have found more certaine to destroy all which you had before laboured to settle about the Infallibilitie of your Tradition then this distincton of Exceptione Major since if not a generall one but one which seemed such were required how easie was it for false opinions to get in under that colour testified but by a few reputed honest men and so received by and transmitted from others of great and generall authoritie Secondlie how could you have found a better way to answer your owne Objection against the Chiliasts Tradition for want of being sufficientlie publique since if that had not seemed to them to have had this condition I mean if they had thought they should for this cause have excepted against it it had been impossible these Saints should have received it and concerning the publicitie of it and the number and authoritie of the deliverers they must of necessitie have been the best Judges who then lived and who were the more considerable Doctors of the most considerable Ages so that you must either confesse that a Tradition bindes not unlesse indeed generall or confesse that this doth supposing this not to have been generall which you cannot prove A likely example of this may be drawn from the Canonicall Bookes I deny it to be now necessarie to Salvation to admit of any Bookes for Canonicall which it was lawfull for Christians in past ages to doubt of and which had no generall Tradition and againe this answer helpes against your selfe for it is plaine by Saint Hieromes Testimonie that the Roman Church received not the Epistle to the Hebrewes which the Easterne Churches received whose Testimonie according to your grounds she then should have beleeved to be beyond exception and it is plaine by Perrons Testimonie that the Easterne Churches received not the Macchabees when he saies the Church of Rome did Now it is plaine that the Receivers pretended to Tradition because nothing else could make a booke thought Canonicall whereas other opinions might be brought in by a false Interpretation of Scriptures and after being spread might be thought to come from Tradition So that according to your grounds and these testimonies not onely the Westerne Church ought to have beleeved the Easterne about the Epistle to the Hebrewes and the Easterne the Westerne about the Macchabees but also they ought to have required this assent from each other which they not doing as they would have done if they had thought their testimonie so valid as you doe it followes that you doe differ from the Churches of the fifth and sixth age about what is exceptione majus you thinking that to be so which they thought not and againe from all the extant Doctors of the two first ages you thinking that not so which they thought was as also those two times agreed about it as little with each other as you with them both The third question may be how Christian Religion consisting of so many points is possible to be kept uncorrupted by Tradition which depending upon Memory and our memory being so fraile it seemeth cannot without manifest miracle conserve so great a diversity of points unchanged for so many ages But if we consider that Faith is a Science a thing whose parts are so connexed that if one be false all must needs be false we shall easily see that contrarily the multitude of divers points is a conservation the one to the right the other wherein we doubt As in Judges when a battell was to be fought between the children of Israel and the Midianites the Midianites destroyed each other and left nothing to doe for Israel but onely to pursue them so truly your Objections worke so strongly upon your own Party that I have nothing left me to presse and much to applaud For for this very reason I beleeve that all necessarie points were given in writing and onely the witnessing that these were the Apostles writings was left to Tradition which was both much lesse subject to error as being but one point and that a matter of fact and could no other way be done because no writing could have witnessed for it selfe so sufficientlie that we should have had reason to have beleeved it upon no other certificates and to this your answer seemes to me no way satisfactorie since first I deny Faith to be a Science it being nothing but an assent to Gods Revelations neither are those so connexed as you liberallic affirme and sparinglie prove Nay suppose they were yet though errors would be the lesse likely to enter yet when any one by any meanes were got in ' then this connexion would be a ready way to helpe it to let in all its fellowes Besides those opinions which may be superinduct as Traditions which such a connexion could not hinder if they were not
when a Childe as the substance of his hopes for all eternitie and so cannot in reason have his books either forbidden or pasted up for delivering any thing contrary to it Secondly Who are these Censors who forbid and paste up books certainly not the Universall Church nor yet the Representative the latter is not alwaies in being nor when it is at leasure to consider and judge all authors and of the first these Authors are a part if then they be fallible as they must be if they be not the Church why may not they erre and the Martyr-books speake truth which yet will easily by this meanes be kept from Posteritie if those in the Dictatory Office dissent from it as they will be sure to do if the opinion contradict never so little the power or greatnesse of the Pope upon whose favour these Oecumenicall Correctors must depend or they not longremaine in their places and yet you expect that your adversary should produce succession of their opinions in all ages though nothing be let passe but what a few please and though when in time all of you are agreed as you will soon be or appear to be if one side appear to be gag'd then this consent though thus brought about becomes the consent of the Church and a very notable Motive And since you say that what all are bound to is onely a prompt subjection to the Church why leave you it so in doubt what is the Church as if men were tyed to be subject but must not know to what you say indeed that the adherers to the Church of Rome are now the Church but what they may be you will not plainely declare So that if a Schisme among them should happen we are all as farr to seek as if you had been wholly silent for since the infallibility lies not in the particular Church of Rome and consequently the adhering to her is not ever a sufficient note of the Church as you will not say nor is it among your selves de fide since the Universall Church whatsoever she be can never define any thing and of the authority of the definitions of the Representative and of what constitutes both her and her decrees you refuse to speak what remaines there to which this prompt subjection is to be the onely everlasting Note of the true Church but onely the Truth whensoever she appeares Thus as the Priests of Apollo therefore peradventure called Loxias used to spread lies and secure his reputation the first by the antiquity and the second by the darknesse of his Oracles so doth your Religion gaine upon many men and secure her seflf rom many objections by the manyfold acceptions and consequently difficulty of this tearme Church For whatsoever is said in Scripture concerning her being free from all spot or prevailing against the gates of Hell or their danger who resist her the first meant as I believe and the place denies not by any circumstance of the Church Triumphant the second of the Church of the Elect and the third of the Professors of Christianity in generall or at most of those who are in all necessary points Orthodox among them That they without sufficient proofe resolve to be spoken of the Church in their sence they have fancied That is some ever known body of Christians which must be still guide to the rest and then claime to be that because no other all else being more ingenious claimes it besides themselves whereas if considering that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Oraculous truth of my great Lord Bacon's observation that unlesse men in the beginning of their disputes agree about the meaning of their tearmes they must end about words where they ought to have begun they had marked what other sence these words were capable of for if it will here beare another then this cannot hence be concluded but by leave they would then soon have seen the weaknesse of their building by the slightnesse of their foundation Againe they prevaile much by working upon mens assents by the meanes of their modesties and presse it to be an intollerable pride to oppose their opinions to the consent of the Catholick Church whereas if it be weighed how small a part of it they mean by that word and yet of them how many follow blindly the decrees of one and how soon those prevaile against that few not backed by any power who do not it will then appeare that not onely other Churches but even a John or a Thomas have as much reason to be lead by their own understandings as by the opinions and decrees of and Vrban or a Gregory upon which that consent is so often founded And as they make their advantage of this word in their offensive warres so do they in their defensive for when they are press'd unto the absurdity of their Tenets then though indeed they be generall yet they pretend that they are the opinions but of private though many men and not of the Church and againe when any Fathers who yet sometimes they say are wholly theirs are shewed to contradict some of their Doctrines so plainely that none of those subterfuges which in one of their expurgatory Indexes they consesse they often use will serve to palliate it then they strive to scape by answering that the Church had not then defined it whereas if it be examined how farre they consent about what is the Church and what are her Definitions whereof they are not yet agreed for some say she hath defined what others say she hath not this onely will be certainlie found that it never can be certainlie found what are her opinions of any point or when she hath declared her selfe As besides manie other Arguments some press'd by my selfe and others by other Pens more fit to treat of so weightie a matter appeares by your refusing to leave your Latibula and declare plainlie your opinion concerning it which if you saw defensible and you were all agreed about it you would quicklie have done and not incurred the reprehension of that Axiome which teacheth that Dolosus versatur in generalibus which makes me thinke that if this were generallie enough mark'd you would no longer be able to dazle any mans eyes with the splendid title of Somes to the Catholique Church as Alexander hoped to doe those of the Barbarians with stiling himselfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sonne of Jupiter although indeed he was so much the more moderate then the second as never to denie that any other could be Sonne to the same Father whereas you will not allow that any may have interest in your Mother besides your selves To conclude this Paragraph give me leave to aske one question and that is how your saying that Truth is more easie to finde now then in the Fathers times will agree either with the way which you say is the onely Catholique one to finde Truth by for sure such a Tradition was alwaies equallie easie to finde and if the first
ages had erred in it we must of necessitie following your advice have followed their error too or with the saying of so many of your side that if I should reckon them up I should make a Catalogue of Authors equall to those of Photius or Gesner or Possevine who all joyne that Truth was most likelie to be most certainlie known that time which was in Campians words Christo propior ab hac lite remotior neerer to Christ and consequentlie to Tradition and to which for that cause all thinke fit to appeale against us or with that custome of your Church which suffers none to take Orders before they have vowed to interpret Scriptures according to the Fathers which if men now adaies be more likelie to find the Truth then at that time they were as they must be if truth in this age be more easie to be found whether through greater abundance of Compilers or what else soever then this Vow is as much as if they had vowed to leave the best way of Interpretation and teaching to follow the worst As for the two points he saith avert him from Catholique doctrine I am mistaken if he be not mistaken in both The first is that the Catholiques doe damne all who are not in the Union of their Church He thinkes the sentence hard yet I thinke he will not deny me this that if any Church does not say so it cannot be the true Church For call the Church what you will the Congregation of the Elect the Congregation of the Faithfull the Congregation of Saints or Just call it I say or define it what you will doth it not clearly follow that whosoever is out of the Church cannot be saved for he shall not be the Elect Just Faithfull c. without which there is no salvation How then can any Church maintain these two Propositious I am the true Church and yet one may be saved without being in me This is by your favour a meere Paralogisme for though those who define the Church by qualities which both Parts agree to be the conditionall Keyes to the Kingdome of Heaven must needs affirme that none out of the Church can be saved yet what is this to them who meane by the Church the Companie of the Orthodox in all points and by them your selves out of which allowing that there be such a one which I doubt of and that to be yours I shall beleeve that some may be saved till I see some more cause to thinke all error in Religion alwaies damnable which it is plaine by what after you say that you thinke not your selfe and the Church taken in this sence which is your sence may maintaine both Propositions or to shew you how much what you say would make against your selfe thus I argue The true Church must hold that none can be saved out of her but your Church denies not but that some out of her may be saved therefore yours is not the Church My Major is included in your own saying that those two Propositions are not maintainable together My Minor though false yet is also your confession where you say that the Churches Proposition is not so cruell as it seemes though the words be rough and therefore so ought you to make my conclusion too Besides those who exclude all from Salvation who are out of the Church in the other sence meaning by it the Elect as they are not like them in the wrong so they are not occasion of much harme like them who stiling the Church a companie of men of such a beleife and under such a government affirme an impossibilitie of being saved out of it for they giving no visible signe of who is in the Church for who can know the Elect but the Electer cause no want of Charitie nor frequencie of Warre and persecutions by it as the others doe who having made first a visible partition least those who are out of it may draw others out too they send them out of the world by way of prevention But per adventure he is scandalized that the Catholick Church requireth actuall Communion externall with her which he thinketh may in some case be wanting without detriment of Salvation But how would he have the Church speake which speak eth in common but abstracting from such particular eases as may change wholly the Nature of the Question I am scandalized not because you require to Salvation joining with you in Communion but because also you require joyning with you in opinions and if it were onely this yet am not I any whit satisfied with what you say for it for with the true Church that is the Commpany of true believers in points any way materiall or rather the truest I conceive it not damnation sometimes not to communicate For if they have any never so slight errors and which appeares so to me which yet they will force me to subscribe to if I Communicate with them my assent would be damnable or if they require the same subscription to some truths which yet after my reall indeavours in inquiry appear errors to me I doubt not but my refusall is no way damnable Neither can I absolve your Church concerning this her saying for your reason because she speakes in generall wholly abstracting from particulars which change the nature of the Question for why doth she so why doth she not expresse her exceptions or at least tell us that the rule is not so generall but that it will beare some and not make men who know not that she intends to restraine at all what she so absolutely pronounceth and who will find no cause to take your bare word for her intentions many times at least to hate them as Gods enemies whom he loves as his friends and beleeve them to fry in Hell who shine in Heaven Howsoever if she use to expresse herself in rougher words then her meaning is how apt may she be to be mistaken in severall of her resolutions and consequently how easie is it for some age to have misunderstood the past and deceive the following Neither do I like your example because that is not to differ from the Church but to mistake her meaning though even he who should denie that there were three Gods if he thought that by the Trinitie your Church so meant must consequently think her not infallible and so by your grounds be consequently a Heretick The current of Catholick Doctors that no man shall be damned for infidelity but he who doth wilfully misbeleeve and that to do so it is required that Faith be sufficiently proposed unto him and what is to be sufficiently proposed is not determined amongst them There wanteth not Divines who teach that even ignorantia affectata doth excuse from Heresie On the other side it is most certaine that no man is damned for not professing what he is not damned for not believing Wherefore profession being that which engrafteth a man exteriorly in the Church
fit to be left Howsoever the long doubt of some and opposall of other Orthodox to this course and that arising not from their Policie or Compassion but their Conscience not as thinking it unprofitable or unfit but unlawfull shews that there was then no Tradition that the Apostles taught it to be lawfull so to use Hereticks upon which onelie all the Infallibilitie which you claime for any beliefe or custome of your Church is founded Saint Austine justifieth such proceedings against Hereticks Truely for putting them to death unlesse when they first assaulted which makes a wide difference for then it was not done as to Hereticks but as to Assassines from whom Nature teaches us to defend our selves and consequentlie to re-offend them whensoever Religion barres it not experience shewing us the danger of meerly defending to be neer to that too of not doing it at all I know not that ever he did nor do I beleeve it That some degree of punishment should be inflicted upon them I confesse he at last consented but chiefly to force them to come and see what the Church did whose actions the Hereticks impudently belied as if they set pictures upon the altar and did what you both doe and defend and they did not i. e. denied it Howsoever we have Saint Austine against Saint Austine and not onely his authority but his reasons more valid by much then that when he saith that such oppressions would make them think themselves vi victos non veritate convictos overcome by force not convicted by Truth and consequently dislikes it ne fictos Catholicos habeamus quos apertos Hereticos novimus least they become from open Hereticks but fained Catholicks Reasons which though these be not all we have in my opinion it was as impossible for him reasonably to answer when he was living as it would be now for him to do it when he was dead Besides as he useth these strong arguments against it so he is himself a strong example against it for the Church had lost this her so notable Champion if they then had been as severe to the Manichees as you are to us Saint Gregory vseth the like against Pagans if I remember and the Church laterly hath rather encreased then decreased in the practice of it I believe your memory deceives you in this which you have cause to hope it doth for else the Church of Rome differs from that of Saint Gregories times it being now with her a judged case that Infidels may not be compelled to the Faith as I am told is shewed by Vaelentia Saint Thomas Hartado and others the Church having no power over those who are out of it and therefore they please to say that like them who among the Romans were onely Cives ad onera liable to the taxes of Citizens without Interest in their Priviledges Baptisme hath made us of the Church enough to be liable to her Punishments though not to be benefitted by her Communion Though indeed the same cause why you would have Hereticks put to death for feare of harming others with their opinions me thinks should extend to their punishment too unlesse you believe us to be as bad as Malefactors and not them or that their opinions are so irrationall as not likely to spread and ours so reasonable that against them the sword is the best shield and therefore as Brennus did his you put that into the scales for want of weight it being of giving Reasons as the Poet saith it is of giving Requitalls Irasci quam donari vilius constat Another reason which perswades me that you are mistaken in what you say of Gregory as this mistake facilitates my beliefe that you are so about Austines too is that Bede tells that some Romanists having converted the King of Kent that King did not yet force any to become Christians for saith he he had learned of these his Masters that the service of Christ WHICH REASON EXTENDS FARTHER THEN TO PAGANS must be voluntary and not forced Now if these received what they taught from Gregory as you often tell us then either he did not as you often say or thought that unlawfull which himself did And howsoever this Custome hath encreased since is very unconsiderable for unlesse it have its authority explicitely or implicitely from the Apostles it can give none since and unlesse it be proved to be well done at first no continuance can give this or any other action more justification then at first it had Moses speech I believe is mistaken the force of it being that the banishment of Bishops shewed his faith because the banished were Catholickes which shewed Lucius to be none If Moses had meant as you would have him he should not have said onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not indefinitelie the banishing of Bishops but the banishing of Orthodox Bishops the leaving therefore of that out wherein according to you the whole sence of his Argument lay seemes to me plainlie enough to shew that he meant what they and you denie especiallie he adding as you may see in Zozomon their being punish'd by labour as well as punishment and then saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which things are whollie abhorring from Christ and all right Beleevers concerning God and in Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Gods servant ought not to fight for so he counted to punish But what can be said if the Church useth that for the prevention of a greater and more dangerous evill which all politique Estates use for the remedies of lesse and lesse dangerous evils and are commended for it For if Faith he the way to Salvation and Heresie be the bane of Faith if Salvation the greatest good then the danger of a Countries being over-runne with Heresie is the greatest of dangers greater then the multiplicity of Theeves greater then the unsurety of the wayes greater then a Plague or Invasion why then doth not reason force us to use meanes to prevent it which the same reason-and experience teacheth us to be most efficacious in this and all other contagious and gangrening maladies of the Common-wealth I hope reason it selfe and the Zeale of the Author to his own and Countries salvation will supply my shortnesse in this point for supposing a Church be assured she is in the right and that the doctrine preach'd as then leadeth to damnation I know not why Caiphas his words should not be propheticall in this case and that truly it doth expedire that Unus moriatur pro populo non tota gens pereat I wish heartilie you were as good a Caterer as a Cooke I meane that you brought as good reasons as you dresse artificiallie what you bring For I finde there is in your words a verie notable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 able to steale a man into your opinion before he hath askt himselfe why but if he stay to doe so then all your excellent
as you inflict when you have for though you will say that none should punish but the Church yet every divided companie of Christians thinking themselves to be that that is to be the orthodox will use your own custome to your harme and you will be short like the Eagle in Esope 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with your own feathers and so Truth weresoever she be if all follow this way will by force by many parties be opposed and but by one propagated and defended so that not onely in consideration of Christianity but even of Policy I mislike this course as being alwaies wicked and often hurtfull and more often uneffectuall And for my part I desire so much that good be done for evill that though you be most fit of any to be so used who use us so where your power extends and whose cruelty will extend with your acquisition if you make any and you hold your selves that impendens periculum is cause enough for a warr yet I heartily wish all lawes against you repealed and trust that disarmed Truth would serve to expell Falshood whereas now they being in force against you give you the honour of a persecution and not being executed give you not the feare of one It is truely said Militia Christiana est Haereses expellere but it needs this limitation sed armis Christianis that Christian warfare employ onely Christian armes which are good arguments and good life else if they use such a course as is more properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and go to force that part of man which is liable to no power but that of perswasion which if it do not beget a true and pious assent in likelyhood it will a damnable dissimulation and which if Christ had meant for a prop for his Doctrine he would as soon have at first made it a part of the foundation and have charged his Apostles not to shake the dust off their feet but to draw their swords out of the scabbard at those who rejected what they taught then it often though sometimes by reason of the different dispositions which reigne at severall times among men and may happen otherwise misseth of the intended end and works not often so much as upon mens tongues and never upon their Heads and Hearts A great example of which happened not long since Calvin with all his works since the time they were written having scarce made so many Protestants in France as I have credibly heard it reported that the Massacre made in a Night which act though I impute not to all those of your Religion for many of them I know did and do mislike it yet it both had its fountaine from the Popes Legate and consequently in all likelyhood from the Pope who gave God publick thanks for it as one of his successors confess'd to Cardinall D' Ossat Page 432 and it may be justified as well as any judiciall proceeding upon that reason which you give why Heresie may be stopped with the sword least they who are wrought upon by it may work upon others To conclude I should be better contented with this course if the opinions were infallibly errors and infallibly damnable and this were alwaies an effectuall way and no other could be found more mercifull to stop their spreading but since you have no infallible way of knowing the Church to be infallible in her definitions and consequently that the contrary opinions are false since you know not infallibly which is she for you pretend but prudentiall Motives since your knowledge having defined is likewise fallible as depending upon many uncertaine circumstances since not onely the matter of Heresie is thus uncertaine but the form too for you confesse you doubt whether Ignorantia affectata be it or no and since though the form were certaine yet in whom it is by no meanes plaine but rather impossible to be known as who is obstinate and consequently to whom it is damnable since this course often gives growth and strength to that from which it would take even Being and Subsistance I cannot but think you have cause to change your proceedings least not onely you expell not but least you encrease Heresie and againe least you oppose it not but mistake the Truth for it and applaud your self for cutting off a Gangren'd member when you destroy a sound one and instead of ending a Heretick make a Martyr and againe least allowing this to be the Truth yet you put to death innocent persons instead of guilty especially since if the opinions were damnable in whomsoever they were yet some better way might be found as close imprisonment or the like to keep them from harming with them rather then as you do by putting them to death when else they might live to be converted to damne them certainly least they may possibly damne some others Againe for Protestants who joyne with me in beleeving that there is no way to know the true Church but by true Doctrine nor to know that but by the Scripture for Universall Tradition seemes to us to deliver nothing but what is so plainly contained there that it is agreed upon in them I beleeve it must be intollerable Pride and rashnesse and the same in Papists concerning those places out of which they would prove the Churches infallibility To conclude this seemes to me the sence of this place of Scripture therefore this infallibility it is and no man can denie it who either gainsaies not his Conscience or hath it not mislead by some sinfull passion or affection and therefore the deniers must be damned and therefore least they damne others we will send them through one fire to another And this though it be an equall fault in both Protestants and Papists to say and do yet it is more Illogicall in the former as contradicting at first sight all their Principles and destroying the whole Platforme upon which the Reformation was built He urgeth afterwards against the Unity of the Church that it is none such as we brag of And I confesse we brag of it and think we have Reason And if it please him to look into the difference of our Country of England and some land of Barbarians as Brasile or such other where they live without Law or Government I think he will find our bragging is not without ground For wherein is the difference betwixt a Civill Government and a Barbarous Anarchie Is it either that in a Civill Estate there be no Quarrells or amongst Barbarians there is no Quiet The former would prejudice our Courts and Justice the latter is impossible even in Nature What is then the goodnesse of a government but in a well Governed Country there is a means to end Quarels and in Anarchie there can be no assured peace This therefore is it we brag of that amongst us if any controversie arise there is a way to end it which is not amongst them who parted from us And Secondly That there is no assured agreement
you neither agree of any certaine and proper markes to know her by nor when it is that she interposeth her judgement some take it to be the particular Church of Rome others of which number you are all which communicate with her supposing the first to be true yet not being de fide it will serve but ill by your rules to build our faith upon and even when she delivers her opinion is not certainlie agreed whether the people of Rome be to have Votes or onelie the Clergie or of them onelie the Pope with the Cardinals or the Pope onelie without them if the Pope whether onelie in his Chaire and what circumstances are required to his decreeing in Cathedra would beget more questions If all that communicate with her as you say it is as things now stand First I would know whether they be sure to be at all times the Church to that you refuse to determine and so inclusivelie denie Secondlie It is not possible that such a multitude should ever give any sentence explicitelie nor can we ever know that it hath even tacitelic done so if they be to decree onelie by representation then how large a companie represents them with all their power of whom that companie is to consist how many of them are to agree to make it a binding sentence c. are things yet undefined and like to be and if any goe about to determine them their power being it selfe still a question could not end these Therefore whereas you say that we have no definitive sentence besides that truly to have one and not to know when we have one is much alike I answer that whensoever the Scripture shall seeme to us to have defined we are according to our doctrine readie to yeeld and so the controversie is ended and sure the Scripture may be said to be a definitive sentence as well as the written Councell of Trent and till then though we differ about interpretations of not plaine places we have as much Unitie as you who are not resolved upon the sence of manie decrees of that and other Councels and if a desire and diligence to finde the true meaning of them and an aptnesse to assent when it is found be thought to secure among you those who mistake the true sence of these Councels why should not the same disposition in us towards the Scripture be thought every whit as sufficient not onely to keepe us in unitie but to secure us from danger To conclude though unitie be a thing much spoken of by you yet I finde it chieflie onely in your discourse your differences are many and great onelie you say you agree in what is necessarie and make the measure of things necessarie what you agree in so the summe is you agree in what you doe agree which it is impossible you should not though you had carried away the bayes from Bibrias his Tombe eager against us and yet divided among your selves like the state of an Armie in Tacitus Manente Legionum auxiliorumque ubi adversus Paganos certandum foret consensu and if your Church brag of such an Unity I perceive a small matter will make her brag Againe I do confesse most English men confesse a Trinity the Incarnation and Passion of our Saviour but if to morrow any one or more of them light upon some Book of an Arrian Trinitarian or other Sect so wittily written that he putteth probable solutions for the places of Scriptures shewes slight waies how our well meaning fore-fathers may have slipped into such an Error what is there to retaine those men from disagreeing with the rest of their Bretheren and betake themselves to the Arrians And when the heat is past light upon some Rabbi who shall cunningly exaggerate the absurdities as he shall tearm them of the Trinitie Incarnation Say our Saviour did strange things in vertue of some Constellation and delivering these things so Oratorically that for a new heat some of these things shall seem more conformable then his Arrianisine what then shall hinder this man to become a Jew and at last to prove himself so great a Clerk as to write de tribus Impostoribus Take away the power of the Church which every man doth who taketh away the Infallibility what can retaine any man why he should not yeeld to that discourse which seemeth fairest seeing nothing is certaine And if you should meet with a book which should give probable solutions to the places of Scripture and reasons which you now think prove the authority of the Church and bring other though suppose but slight yet such as may seem strong Arguments to prove it not infallible and shew waies of the same kind how your ancestors may have slipt in that and by that into other errors what is there to retaine you with the rest of your Bretheren and betaking your selfe to us If you say this is impossible to be done so think the Protestants that the Arrians can give them no probable answer to their places of Scripture and such as will seem so to some is no imputation to their grounds since so may and do our Answers and Objections to some of you who thereupon leave you and yet you count not your grounds disparaged For my part I professe my self not onely to be an Anti-Trinitarian but a Turk whensoever more reason appeares to me for that then for the Contrary and so sure would you be too for the pretended infallibility of your Church could no longer hold you if you thought you saw reason to beleeve it fallible as you must do if all weighed more reason appeared of her adversaries side either your proofes of her authority not to be probable or else your Doctrinestaught by her more contrary to reason then her authority though probably founded yet not upon demonstrations is sufficient to caution and answer for It is true so long as you stick to this hold upon the Roman Church you are sure to receive no error but which she offers you and indeed you need not for those are enough but that destroied which is apter to be destroied then most of the Protestants as weaklier supported by reason then no error that a Protestant may fall into but so may you too and the other is but such a Priviledge as I may have by sticking to the English Church as well as you to the Roman And though this following your guide may be able as long as she keep her self to keep you from some Ditches into which you might otherwise fall yet it may lead you unto others and indeed there is no error but by this way you are liable too yea even of those which she now condemnes since though she changed her opinion which is neither impossible nor unlawfull yet you are by your blind obedience to believe that she had not and to submit your understanding in this Question to some distinction though without a difference These things then I dislike in what
that you esteem not Unitie so necessarie as you pretend some opinions I am sure you can soon enough quash as that not long since risen in Spaine concerning Fornication being but a Veniall Sin And whereas you say the greater things are the greater their period though this be ture in some things yet not in this for sure the greater a difference is the greater necessitie is there that it be soon decided and so if your decision have power to effect it as you pretend among you it hath it must fall as soon as it is born like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Creatures that live but a day Wherefore I do not see why this may hurt the Church more then the suits which hang in our Courts prejudice the government of the Land If any of these opinions be of that importance as that though uncondemn'd the Holders are Hereticks as some may be and my definition being concluded of such among you some of these may be some of them then sure they hurt the Church much and more then the Suites hurt the Government which their hanging hurts not at all though it hurts sometimes unavoidablie the Parties But if where there is no Unitie there were no Common-wealth as you say where there is no Uuitie there can be no Church then the Government were much prejudic'd by the Suits as your Church by this rule is made no Church by the differences And indeed if men were not agreed about the power of the Governours as you are not about some of your questions it must be a maime to the government of any Common-wealth as consequentlie these are to the goverment of your Church The last point of the Authors discourse is to shew how errors might have crept in wherein I shall have no opposition with him for I doe not thinke the question is how they should creep in but how they should be kept out Here Sir I cannot but beleeve that you intended to refresh your selfe with some Mirth as with Musicke between the Acts for though both our ends be that errors should not creep in yet the question was whether it were possible that they might creepe in and to my affirmative part it conduced to shew those waies by which either they have entred or easilie might doe so this shewing how they may steale in teacheth how to keep them out as it is an aide to the saving of a Town to discover the breaches which cannot be guarded without they be first known For the Fluxibility of humane Nature is so great that it is no wonder if errors should have crept in the wayes being so many but it is a great wonder of God that none should have crept in This neverthelesse I may say if the Author will confesse as I thinke he will not deny but that it is disputable whether any error in sixteen Ages hath crept in this very thing is above Nature For if there were not an excellency beyond the nature of corruptible things it would be undeniably evident that not one or two but thousands of errors had quite changed the shape of the Church in so many yeares tempests dis-unions want of Commerce in the body of the Church The greater wonder it were if your Church had no error the greater it is to me that upon one at most but probable Reason you should require all men to beleeve she hath none Neither doth it appeare to me disputable whether she have or no but evident that she hath not by Demonstrations yet by Probabilities of that multitude and weight upon which you say and say trulie that in all other cases we relie and venture that we most esteem whereas indeed you as you are of the imposing Partie ought to bring at least such proofes that you are fallen into none and as you are of the Infallibilitie-pretending-partie your proofes are likewise to rise from probable to Infallible Neither doe I conceive it to be probablie argued it is disputable whether this bodie of men have ever let in any error therefore it can never let in any since it is at least as disputable whether the Grecians have let in any yet you will not allow that upon this we should adjudge to her Infallibilitie Nay if it were demonstrative that your Church had yet never erred yet it would but unwillinglie follow that she never could since all things necessarie are so plaine without the confession of which you seeme to tax God and it is naturallie so plaine what is plaine that I cannot but thinke it a miracle that some one bodie of Christians among so many should be free from any such dogmaticallie-defended error especiallic if Truth were so indifferentlie sought after as it ought to be and Passion were not often called to counsell and Reason shut out of doores But this one Maxime that she receiveth her Faith by Tradition and not from Doctors hath ever kept her entire And he that will shew the contrary must shew how it should come to passe that those who lived in such an Age would say unto our Children this we received from our fore-fathers as taught them by our fore-fathers to have been received from Christ and his Apostles from hand to hand which if it could not be the question is resolved that no error is in the Church of God which holdeth her faith upon that Tenure Not to repeat usque ad nauseam what I have heretofore answered as that others differing from you hold upon the same Tenure that your selves have not alwaies held nor hold not upon it c. I will onelie tell you what Cardinall Perron tels me of the Jewes out of Isidore and that is that they seeing in the book of Wisedome so cleare proofes of Christ plotted together to put it out of the Canon which serves not so much his turne if it were so as it makes against yours and shews how that might come to passe which you judge impossible the Posteritie of the Jewes having been deceived by this Complot although pretending at least and for ought appeares beleeving that the Tradition of their Church is still uncorrupted And truely if the Author desires to examine divers Religions let him look their maine ground wherein they relie and see whether that be good or no And I think amongst Christians he shall find but two Tradition and Scripture First I allow not of your division for not to say now that you relie not onely upon Tradition these Protestants whose part in this I take depend not onelie upon Scripture but upon Universall Tradition too from which they receive that and would more if more seemed as clearly to them so to be delivered Secondly I think it reasonable not onely to examine what their Principles are but whether they do constantly follow them for a man may write awrie that hath a streight Ruler if he observe it not carefully And the Catholiques onely to relie upon Tradition
and all the rest upon Scripture and he shall see that relying upon Scripture cannot draw to an Unitie those who relie upon it and more then one cannot relie upon Tradition If all that relie upon Tradition be Catholicks you must admit the Eastern Churches into your Communion although you now account them both Scismaticks and Hereticks If all Catholicks do relie upon Tradition as their onelie grounds and Tradition be so sure and infallible and unmistakable a deliverer as you would perswade us how come so manie differences between you some ever counting those things matter of Faith which others do not which differences shew if they all relie on these Questions upon the ground you say they do that more then one may relie upon Tradition and neither can Tradition any more then Scripture draw to an Unitie those who relie upon it if either neither part do or either do not then Tradition is not the Common Tenure of Catholicks not onelie in different opinions but even in such as are most de fide and as both parts think nothing but a definition and some scarce that to make the Holders of the contrary to them Hereticks since if it were neither could one part of Catholicks relie upon any other then the Catholick ground neither is it to be doubted but that side which builds their opinion upon an Hereticall foundation against another beleeved upon a Catholick ground would long agone have been among you exploded and the Pope have been not onelie with so much paines perswaded but even of himselfe readie to have past his censure upon them if not for their superstructions yet for their foundation If I will be a Christian I must be of one side If you mean I must be of one side that is take one of these grounds I answer That I take both one from the other Scripture from Tradition though not from the present Tradition of a Part but from the Universall one of the first Christians opposed by none but by them who were instantlie counted by the generallitie heterodox and as soon opposed as known If you mean that I must be of one side in points I whollie denie any such necessitie By falling on the one side I see my fortune in thousands who have gone before me to wit that I shall be to seek all my life time as I see they are and how greatlie they magnifie verie weak pieces On the other side I see everie man who followeth as farr as he followeth it is at quiet I see not but the greatest part of those who take the ground which you mislike are yet setled and confident enough in their opinion and if they continued alwaies seeking Truth for the love of it I know not why they should be the lesse likely to find Heaven Neither think I that you will say nay it is plaine by your own words that you will not say that Saint Austine had been damned if he had died in his search nor consequently any other in his case And whereas you say that all who follow the other are at quiet as farr as they follow it I answer So are all who fixedly beleeve themselves to follow an infallible although indeed a false Guide as the Mahumetans being led by their Mufty Which proves Quiet no sufficient caution for Truth nor Securitie for Safetie and that supposing yours the more easie and satisfying way it followes not that it is the more reasonable And for what you say of a mans duty to judge himself rigorously whether he seek as he ought I subscribe to that opinion and approve of your Councell Besides this he must have this care that he seek what the Nature of the subject can yeeld and not as these Physitians who when they have promised no lesse then immortality can at last onely reach to some conservation of health or youth in some small degree So I could wish the Author well to assure himself First that there is possible an infallibilitie before he be to earnest to be contented with nothing lesse For what if humane nature should not be capable of so great a good would he therefore think fitting to live without any Religion because he could not get such a one as himself desired though with more then a mans wish What you now say I confesse is very rationall as indeed all you say is as much as your cause will suffer and I require you not therefore to prove your opinions to be infallible by infallible arguments as necessarie to be done in it self but as necessarie to be done by them of whose opinions their Churches infallibilitie is not onelie a part but a ground and that the chief if not the onelie one and of which an infallible certaintie is the first and main condition of their Communion and our want of it one of their maine Objections against us He that will make a judgement in an Art he is not Master in if he be deceived it is to be imputed to himself The Phrase commandeth us to believe every man in his Art he who knoweth and understandeth himselfe beleeveth not Therefore when wee see Masters in an Art we are not skild in oppose us we may beleeve we are in the wrong which will breed this Resolution in the Author of the discourse that if himself be not skild in all those waies in which he pursues his search he must find himself obleiged to seek Masters who be both well skilled and the matter being subject to faction also very honest and upright men or else he doth not quitt himself before God Truelie I am farr from being Master either in this or any other Art but if for this cause I ought to doubt and because much learneder persons oppose me I ought to beleeve my self in the wrong then so ought those of your part to do who are as Ignorant as I we having many much more learned then they who oppose them and take our part though therefore I think not of my self what Tully in a Complement would perswade one of his Friends that Nemo est qui sapientius mihi possit suadere meipso yet I dare not chuse as you would have me some Master to search for me and beleeve him blind-fold though if I would I see no cause why to chuse any from among you who have so many able Teachers at home for you confessing that the matters are subject to Faction and it being certaine that not onelie who are honest is impossible to be known but that eagernesse and desire to have what they think Truth prevaile makes even the honest men sometimes deviate from the line of exact honestie and lie for God which he not onelie needs not but forbids as is to be seen too frequentlie in the Quotations of both sides I conceive it the best way to follow my own Reason since I know I have no will to cozen my self as they may have to cozen me Especially since
of our faith and I confesse truly that our Religion is false if a continuall descent of it cannot be demonstrated by these monuments down from Christs time this appeareth unto me a direct submission of themselves to produce these apparent testimonies of the publique profession of their faith as the Catholiques demand but this I could never read nor know of any that performed for Doctor White himselfe for want of proofe of this is faine to say in another place in his Way to the Church pag. 510. The Doctors of our faith hath had a continuall succession though not visible to the world so that he flies from his undertaking of a conspicuous demonstration of the monuments of his faith to an invisible subterfuge or a beleife without apparance for he saith in the same book in another place pag. 84. All the eternall government of the Church may faile so as a locall and personall succession of Pastors may be interrupted and pag. 403. We doe not contest for an externall succession it sufficeth that they succeed in the doctrine of the Apostles and Faithfull which in all ages did imbrace the same Faith so as here he removeth absolutely all externall proofe of succession which before he consented to be guided by I cannot say I have verbally cited these Authors because I have translated these places though the Originall be in English yet I am sure their sence is no way injured and I have chosen to alledge Doctor Whites authority because he is an Orthodox Professor of the Protestant Church the reflection of the state of this question where I found the Protestants defend themselves onely by flying out of sight by confessing a long invisibility in their Church in apparance of Pastors and Doctors the same interpretation left me much loosened from the fastnesse of my professed Religion but had not yet transported me to the Catholique Church for I had an opinion that our Divines might yet fill up this vacancy with some more substantiall then I could meet with so I came back into England with a purpose of seeking nothing so intentively as this satisfaction and to this purpose I did covertly under another mans name send this my scruple to one whose learning and sufficiency I had much affiance in in these termes whether there was no visible succession to be provedin the Protestant Church since the Apostles time down to Luther and what was to be answered to that Objection besides the Confession of invisibility for so many ages to this I could get no other answer but that the point had been largely and learnedly handled by Doctor White and many other of our Church upon this I resolved to informe my selfe in some other points which seemed to me unwarrantable and suspitious in the Ceremonies of the Romane Church since I had such aninducement as so little satisfaction in a point that seemed to me so essentiall andin all these scruples I found mine own mistake in the beleife of the Tenents of the Romane Church gave me the onely occasion of scandall not the practise of their doctrines and to confirme me in the satisfaction of all them I found the practise and authority of most of the ancient Fathers and in the Protestant refutations of these doctrines the recasations of their authorities as men that might erre so that the question seemed then to me whether I would rather hazard the erring with them then with the latter Reformers which consequently might erre also in dissenting from them I will not undertake to dispute the severall Tenents controverted nor doubt that your Lordship will suspect that I omitted any satisfaction in any of them since my resolution of reconciling my selfe to the Romane Church is not liable to any suspition of too forward or precipitate resignation of my selfe my judgement perchance may be censured of seducement my affection cannot be of corruption Upon these reasons I did soone after my returne last into England reconcile my selfe to the Romane Catholique Church in the beleife and convincement of it to be the true ancient and Apostolicall by her externall markes and her internall objects of faith and doctrine and in her I resolve to live and dye as the best way to Salvation When I was in England I did not study dissimulation so dexterously as if my fortune had read it to me nor doe I now Legacie for I doe not beleeve it so dangerous but it may recover for I know the Kings wisedome is rightly informed that the Catholique Faith doth not tend to the alienation of the Subject it rather super-infuseth a Reverence and Obedience to Monarchie and strengthens the bands of our obedience to our Naturall Prince and his Grace and vertion of them from the naturall usuall exercise of themselves upon those that have the honour to have beene bred with approbation of fidelity in his service nor can I feare that your Lordship should apprehend any change in my duty even your displeasure which I may apprehend upon the mis-interpreted occasion shall never give me any of the least recession from my duty in which profession I humbly aske your blessing as Your Lordships obedient Sonne Paris 21. Novemb. 1635. The Lord of Faulklands Answer to a Letter of Mr. Mountague justifying his change of Religion being dispersed in many Copies I was desired to give my opinions of the Reasons and my Reason if I misliked them having read and considered it I was brought to be perswaded First because having been sometimes in some degrees movedwith the same Inducements I thought that what satisfied me might possibly have the same effect upon him Secondly because I being a Lay man a young man and an Ignorant man I thought a little Reason might in liklyhood work more from my Pen then more from theirs whose Profession Age and Studies might make him suspect that it is they are too hard for him and not their Cause for his Thirdly Because I was very desirous to do him service not onelie as a man and a Christian but as one whom all that know him inwardly esteeme of great parts and I am desirous somewhat to make up my great want of them by my respect to those that have them and as an impartiall secker of Truth which I trust he is and I professe my self to be and so much for the cause of this paper I come now to that which it opposeth FIrst then whereas he defends his search I suppose he is rather for that to receive praise then to make Apologies all men having cause to suspect that gold which were given with this condition that the Receiver should not trie it by any Touchstone Secondly He saith that there being two sorts of Questions the one of Right or Doctrine the other of Fact or Story As whether the Protestants Faith had a visible appearance before Luther he resolved to begin his enquiry with the matter of Fact as being sooner to be found because but one and easier to be comprehended To
which the simple are capable of understanding I mean as much as is plaine and more is not necessarie since other Questions may as well be suffered without harme as those between the Jesuites and the Dominicans about Praedetermination and between the Dominicans and allmost all the rest about the Immaculate Conception and those who are not neither are they capable out of Scripture to discerne the true Church much lesse by any of those Noteswhich require much understanding and learning as Conformity with the Ancients and such like Ninethly The same answer I give to this serves also to the following words of Saint Austine for whereas Mr. Mountague concludeth that he could not meane the Scriptures as a competent Rule to mankind which consisteth most of simple Persons because there hath been continuall alterations about the sence of important places I answer That I may as well conclude by the same Logick that neither is the Church a competent Guide because in all Ages there have also been disputes not onely about her authority but even which was she and to whatsoever reason he imputes this to the same may we the other as to Negligence Pride Praejudication and the like and if he please to search I verily beleeve he will find that the Scriptures are both easier to be known then the Church and that it is as easie to know what these teach as when that hath defined since they hold no decrees of hers binding de Fide without a confirmation of the Popes who cannot never be known infalliblly to be a Pope because a secret Simony makes him none no not to be a Christian because want of due intention in the Baptizer makes him none whereof the latter is alwaies possible and the first in some ages likely and in hard Questions a readinesse to yeeld when they shall be explained me thinks should serve as well as a readinesse to assent to the decrees of the Church when those shall be pronounced Tenthly He saith that the Scripture must be kept safe in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of it which being no other then the Church of all ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved that free from Corruption then it self in a continuall visibilitie I answer That neither to giving authority to Scriptures nor to the keeping of them is required a continuall visibility of a no-waies erring body of Christians the Writers of them give them their authority among Christians nor can the Church move any other and that they were the Writers we receive from the generall Tradition and Testimony of the first Christians not from any following Church who could know nothing of it but from them for for those parts which were then doubted of by such as were not condemned for it by the rest why may not we remain in the same suspence of them that they did and for their being kept and conveighed this was not done onely by their Church but by others as by the Greeks and there is no reason to say that to the keeping and transmitting of records safely it is required to understand them perfectly since the old Testament was kept and transmitted by the Jewes who yet were so capable of erring that out of it they looked for a Temporall King when it spoke of a Spirituall and me thinks the Testimony is greater of a Church which contradicts the Scripture then of one which doth not since no mans witnessing is so soon to be taken as when against himself and so their Testimonie is more receiveable which is given to the Scriptures by which themselves are condemned Besides the generall reverence which ever hath been given to these Books and the continuall use of them together with severall parties having alwaies their eyes upon each other each desirous to have somewhat to accuse in their adversaries give us a greater certaintie that these are the same writings then we have that any other ancient book is any other ancient Author and we need not to have any erring Company preserved to make us surer of it Yet the Church of Rome as infallible a Depositarie as she is hath suffered some variety to creep into the Coppies in some lesse materiall things nay and some whole Books as they themselves say to be lost and if they say how then can that be rule whereof part is lost I reply That wee are excused if we walk by all the Rule that we have and that this maketh as much against Traditions being the Rule since the Church hath not looked better to Gods unwritten Word then to his written and if she pretend she hath let her tell us the cause why Antichrists comming was deferred which was a Tradition of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians and which without impudence she cannot pretend to have lost And if againe they say God hath preserved all necessary Tradition I reply so hath he all necessarie Scripture for by not being preserved it became to us not necessarie since we cannot be bound to beleeve and follow that we cannot find But besides I beleeve that which was ever necessary is contained in what remaines for Pappias saith of Saint Mark that he writ all that Saint Peter preacht as Irenaeus doth that Luke writ all that Saint Paul preacht nay Vincentius Lirinensis though he would have the Scripture expounded by ancient Tradition yet confesseth that all is there which is necessary and yet then there was no more Scripture then we now have as indeed by such a Tradition as he speakes of no more can be proved then is plainly there and almost all Christians consent in and truely I wonder that they should brag so much of that Author since both in this and other things he makes much against them as especially in not sending men to the present Roman Church for a Guide a much readier way if he had known it then such a long and doubtfull Rule as he prescribes which indeed it is impossible that almost any Question should be ended by Eleventhly He brings Saint Austines authority to prove that the true Church must be alwaies visible but if he understood Church in Mr Mountagues sence I think he was deceived neither is this impudent for me to say since I have cause to think it but his particular opinion by his saying which Cardinall Perron quoted that before the Donatists the Question of the Church had never been exactly disputed of and by this being one of his maine grounds against them and yet claiming no Tradition but onely places of Scripture most of them allegoricall and if it were no more I may better dissent from it then he from all the first Fathers for Dionysius Areopagita was not then hatcht in the point of the Chiliasts though some of them Pappias and Irenaeus claimed a direct Tradition and Christs owne words Secondly As useth this kind of libertie so he professeth it in his nineteenth Epistle where he saith that to Canonicall Scriptures he had
learnt to give the reverence as not to doubt of what they said because they said it from all others he expected proofe from Scripture or Reason Thirdly The Church of Rome condemnes severall opinions of his and therefore she ought not to find fault with them who imitate her example Twelfthly He addes two reasons more The consent of the Fathers of all ages And the confession of Protestants To the Frst I answer That I know not of any such and am the more unapt to beleeve it because Mr. Mountague vouchsafes not to insist upon it nor to quote any which I guesse he would have done but that he misdoubted their strength Secondly Suppose that all the Fathers which speake of this did say so yet if they say it but as private Doctors and claime no Tradition I know not why they should weigh more then so many of the now learned who having more helpes from Arts and no fewer from Nature are not worse searchers into what is Truth though lesse capable of being Witnesses to what was Tradition Thirdly They themselves often professe they expect not to be read as Judges but as to be judged by their and our Rule the Canonicall Scriptures Fourthly Let him please to read about the Immaculate Conception Rosa Salmeron and Wadding and he will find me as submissive to Antiquity even whilst I reject it as those of their own Party for they to prefer new opinions before old are faine to prefer new Doctors before old and to confesse the latter more perspicatious and to differ from those of former times with as little scruple as he would from Calvin whom Maldonat on purpose to oppose confesseth he chuseth a new Interpretation before that of all the Ancients which no witnesse but my eyes could have made me beleeve nay and produce other points wherein their Church hath decreed against the Fathers to perswade her to do so againe althoug Campian with an eloquent brag would perswade us that they are all as much for him as Gregory the thirteenth who was then Pope To the Second I answer That Infallibility is not by us denied to the Church of Rome with an intention of allowing it to particular Protestants how wise and learned soever Thirteenthly He saies next that he after resolved to inform himself in other points which seemed to him unwarrantable and superstitious and found onely his own mistakes gave him occasion of Scandall To this I answer That I cannot well answer any thing unlesse he had specified the points but I can say that there are many as picturing God the Father which is generally thought lawfull and as generally practised their offerings to the Virgin Mary which onely differs from the Heresie of the Colltridians in that a Candle is not a Cake their praying to Saints and beleeving de fide that they heare us though no way made certaine that they do so and many more which without any mistake of his might have given him occasion to be still scandalized For whereas he saith that those points were grounded upon the authority of the ancient Fathers which was refused as insufficient by Protestants I answer That none of these I name have any ground in the Ancientest nay the first is by them disallowed and if any other superstition of theirs have from them any ground yet they who depart from so many of the Ancients in severall opinions cannot by any reason be excused for retaining any error because therein they consent nor have the Protestants cause to receive it from them as a sufficient Apologie neither hath he to follow the Fathers rather then Protestants in a cause in which not the Persons but the Reasons were to have been considered For when Saint Hierome was by this way both brought into and held in a strange error though he speakes something like Mr. Mountague Patiaris me errare cum talibus Suffer me to erre with such men yet he could not obtaine Saint Austines leave who would not suffer him but answered their Reasons and neglected their Authorities Fourteenthly He speakes of his Religion super-infusing Loyalty and if he had onely said it destroied or weakned it not I who wish that no doubt of his alleagiance may once enter his mind to whom we all owe it but professe my self his humble Servant and no waies his enemy though his adversarie would then made no answer but since he speakes as if Popery were the way to obedience I cannot but say that though no Tenet of their whole Church which I know make at all against it yet there are prevailing opinions on that side which are not fit to make good subjects when their King and they are of different perswasions For besides that Cardinall D' Ossat an Author which Mr. Mountague I know hath read because whosoeuer hath but considered State matters must be as well skilled in him as any Priest in his Breviary tell us that it is the Spaniards Maxime That Faith is not to be kept amongst Hereticks and more that the Pope intimated as much in a discourse intended to perswade the King of France to forsake the Queen of England he saith moreover speaking in another place speaking about the Marquizat of Saluces that they hold at Rome that the Pope to avoid a probable danger of the encreasing of Heresie may take a Territory from the true Owner and dispose of it to another and many also defend that he hath power to depose an Hereticall Prince and of Heresie he makes himself the Judge So that though I had rather my tongue should cleave to the roofe of my mouth then that I should deny that a Papist may be a good Subject even to a King whom he accounts an Heretick since I veriy beleeve that I my self know very many very good yet Popely is like to an ill aire wherein though many keep their healthes yet many are infected so that at most they are good Subjects but during the Popes pleasure and the rest are in more danger then if they were out of it To conclude I beleeve that what I have said may at least serve if he will descend to consider it to move Mr. Mountague to a further search and for Memorandums in it which if it do he will be soone able to give as much better Reasons for my conclusion that such a Visible Church neither need nor can be shewed as his understanding is degrees above mine I hope also by comparing the body of their beleefe and the ground of their authority the little that can be drawn out of the fourth of the Ephesians with the Miriads of contradiction in Transubstantiation he will come to see that their Pillars are too weak to hold up any building be it never so light and their building is too heavie to be held up by any Pillars be they never so strong and trust he will return to us whom he will find that he hath causelessely left if he be which I doubt not so ingenuous as not to hold an opinion because he hath turned to it nor to stay onely because he went FINIS * See the Collection of Petitions for Episcopacy printed for Will. Shears * To whom two others also from Geneva may be added Daniel Chamierus in Panstratia tom 2. lib. 10. cap. 6. §. 24. and Nicol. Vedelius Exercitat 3. in epist. Ignatii ad Philadelph cap. 14. Exercit. 8. in epist. ad Mariam cap. 3. which is fully also demonstated in D. Hammonds dissertations against Blondel which never were answerd never will by the testimonies of those who wrote in the very next Age after the Apo stles Tacitus Object Answ. Synesius Ovid. Metamorph Xenophon Hist. 3. Euseb. Orat. de Laud. Const. * De Coroná Wadd Pag. 271. Wadding p. 124. Page 97. Page 90. Page 400. Page 57. Page 127. Page 275. Wadding p. 334. Vincent Lir. Wadd Pag. 282 Camp Ethicks Lib. Con. R. Jac. Pag. 633. Theodoret. Lib. 15. C. 28 Pag. 271. Tom. 13. Pag. 193. Pag. 208. and 687. Tacitus Object Resp. Object Resp. 〈◊〉 Socrat. lib. 5. Object Resp. Wadd Pag. 30. His Opusc. Dr. D. Object Resp. Praefat. in Hillar Pag. 496. Pag. 497. Epist. Pag. 1164. Pag. 296. 1 Edict Tom. 13. Pag. 467 In Elucidar Deiparae Pag. 1113. Wadd Pag. 125. Pag. 270 Pag. 202. Pag. 203. Pag. 204. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Theodoret lib 4. Object Resp. Cap. 6 Lib. 3 de Romano Pontifice Object Resp. Object Resp. Lib. Con. Reg. Iac. Pag. 892. Object Resp. Tertul. De fide Symb. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Arist. Ethick Con. Reg. Iac. Pag. 708. Object Resp. Arrian Eras. Ep. Rhetor. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Salust Object Resp. Tom. 13. Pag. 468. Object Resp Object Resp. Object Resp. Philos. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Resp. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Tom. 9. An. 726. de fide Simbol 2 Lib. C. 2. Vers. 11. 12 13 6 Cap. St. Johan
according unto the ordinary opinions of the Catholicks it followeth that no man is condemned for not being of the Church who is not for infidelity for which it is a very uncertaine Case who be damned and who be not As the King of Spaine after long calling the Hollanders Rebels at last for his own sake descended to treat with them as free States so those of your Religion when they hope to gaine a Proselite thunder out to him crudelity and without any of these Mollifications which you now use that extra Ecclesiam Romanam nulla est salus there is no salvation out of the Roman Church And Master Knot peremptorily avers that no Catholick of an entire fame ever taught that a Protestant so dying could be saved yet when they are press'd with the consequences they can as it seems vouchsafe to give us better words and find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enough to soften this opinion though such as bring them more disadvantage in other considerations then help in this For first as before it seemed that you are not fully agreed either about the authority of the councels or what constitutes the Church by your avoiding to speak concerning it so now it seemes that neither are you resolved of what constitutes an Heretick and then what remaines there for you to know if what you account infallible and what damnable be yet both uncertaine to you Secondly Since you confesse none to be a Heretique but he to whom the truth is sufficiently proposed and when that is you are not resolved what a more then Sythian Barbarousnesse is it to make a coale of a Christian onely upon suspicion of Heresie especially since the Pagans themselves had Christian Charity enough to perswade them that it was much better that a guilty person should escape then an innocent be punished much more should you rather suffer the tares to grow then venture to pluck up the corne with it and beleeve the best when the truth lies hid in a place so hard to search into as is the heart of man into which as none entered the Sanctum Sanctorum but the High Priest God onelie can have admittance The other point was of putting Hereticks to death which I think he understandeth to be done vindicatively not medicinally I mean imposed as a punishment and not in way to prevent mischiefe and oppresse it in the head I suppose it small satisfaction to a poor man carried to the stake for his Conscience to know by which member of a distinction he is put to death and that this as little excuseth you as it satisfies them I hope to shew before we have ended the consideration of this present Paragraph If the Circumcelians were the first that is ancient enough for the justification of the fact although for Banishment which also he seemeth to reprehend we know the first that could suffer it did suffer it Arrius I mean by the hand of Constantine whom he praiseth for a speech he uttered before he knew the consequence of the danger and seemeth to reprehend for his after and better witts I wish to you what Erasmus wisht to Augustinus Steuckius which is that you were but equall in probando diligens as you are in asseverando fortis For how unlikely is it that we should give you credit without proofe onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the antiquity of a thing which began so long after Christs Apostles were all dead is enough to prove it lawfull Howsoever it would at most but prove it lawfull to put such Hereticks to death as force men to do so in their owne defence for such were they Besides I object not onely against this custome the not being ancient for I conconfesse there might have been before a power to do so too though not used to the uttermost though in likelihood what perswaded you to use it would have perswaded them to the same if they had thought they had it but as being also condemned by Hillary and Athanasius and other Orthodox For though some punishment of a lesse degree were inflicted upon others too by their own side as you trulie instance when their power prevailed yet Constantine saies not onely in an Edict for libertie of opinions which he who was then Pope never appeared to stomack as his successor undoubtedly would now doe the like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let no man trouble another but let every one do as his own soule will but also gives this concluding reason against you for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it is one thing willingly to take upon them this combate for immortality and another to force them to it with punishment and so in whatsoever he did contrary to this in any case wherein this reason held his words condemne his action And whereas you say that when Constantine made so slight of the question between Arrius and Alexander it was because he knew not the consequence of the danger I shall desire to know of you whether you must not confesse that there is now no King of your Religion so ill instructed in it though none of them be never so learned or curious as Constantine was who if any man in his dominion should arise denying Transubstantiation would not presently know the danger of the consequence and resolve him for an Heretick and to the stake instantly and not speak against his opinion onelie as impertinent and de lana caprina and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if this had been as resolved a thing then among Christians to have come from Tradition as Transubstantiation is now amongst Papists he would necessarilie as soon have discovered it too Howsoever I believe his after-witts to have been his worser witts in punishing though not in condemning of Arrius and to me it yet seemes for to be sure not to speak Heretically I will not speak obstinately that to have laboured in stopping of disputes on both parts and tying them to Scripture Phrases and to speak of God onelie in the Word of God had been at least in respect of Unity not a worse way then to have given an example to what after followed I mean the frequent explication with Anathema to boote of inexplicable misteries Neither would then so many questions have so long troubled the Church which for their slightnesse were unworthy ever to exercise the Schooles But for that or any other meer error as it may be for ought any one knowes unlawfull in any to punish at all I by no meanes like not to put to death for the same seemes to me it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sin above measure sinfull though even the act of it proceeded from an opinion of doing God some service and that opinion from a meer error too then I conceive but a materiall no formall sin for the same cause and so neither this materiall Murtherer nor that materiall Heretick be guilty before God who onely can distinguish and to whom it is