vnderstand and to whom the greatest Clerks must submit Such is the Church and the Scripture is not such 4. 4. To this Argument you answer Pag 92. N. 104. saying The Scripture is sufficiently perfect and sufficiently intelligible in things necessary to all that haue vnderstanding whether they be learned or vnlearned And my reason herof is convincing and Demonstratiue because nothing is necessary to be believed but what is plainly revealed 5. This Answer is nothing to your purpose vnlesse you add That nothing is necessary to be believed but what is plainly revealed in Scripture and that being added it is a meere begging of the Question taking that for a Proofe which is the thing controverted betweene vs so farr is your Reason from being convincing and demonstratiue You should haue vsed a direct contrary forme of Argument and sayd The Scripture is not cleare in poynts of greatest moment even to the learned as experience teaches and I proved hertofore at larg Therfor God hath not fayled to provide vs of some Judg and rule intelligible to all which is his Visible Church on earth 6. But say you Pag. 93. N. 106. The Evangelists did not write only for the learned but for all men And therfor vnless we will imagine the Holy Ghost and them to haue been willfully wanting to their owne desire and purpose we must conceiue that they intended to speake plaine even to the capacity of the simplest at least touching all things necâ—ssary to be published by them and believed by vs. 7. Answer 1. In this whole Controversy whether the Scripture alone be a Rule of Faith without the Church you goe vpon humane and topicall discourses wheras if all matters of Faith are to be tryed by Scripture alone your Arguments should be taken from it alone For by humane Reason we cannot be assured of Gods voluntary Decree whether or no he will haue vs regulated by Scripture alone 2. To make your discourses haue any shew of proofe you must still begg the Question and suppose that there is no meanes left for vs to learne matters of Faith except the Scripture and therfor you say the Holy Ghost and the Evangelists had bene wilfully wanting to their owne desire and purpose vnless they had written to the capacity of the simplest at least all things necessary to be published by theÌ„ aÌ„d believed by vs which supposes all things necessary must needs be written and that no such poynt could be delivered by the Church though not expressed in Scripture which is manifestly false seing the Evangelists wrote while the Apostles were aliue and could deliver by word of mouth not only some but all necessary or profitable Articles of Faith as Christians were taught for those yeares before which no Scripture of the New Testament was written and therfor I may turne the Argument vpon yourself and say At that tyme there was no necessity that the Gospells should be written to all yea or to any and therfor supposing the writing of them you cannot suppose that they were plaine even to the capacity of the simplest If writing were so necessary for all then enters your owne Argument against yourself How the Holy Ghost and the Evangelists were not wanting to their duty in differring so long to write in so much as S. Johns Gospell was not written many yeares after our Saviours Ascention that is about the yeare 99. which makes it cleare that writing was not so necessary I do not deny but when they wrote they wrote for all but not as if all must of themselves be able to vnderstand them without the helpe of the Church and in this sense we may say they rather wrote for all than to all otherwise all must be obliged to learne to read yea and to be learned and be able to judg of languages translations c. seing from Scripture alone they must learne all Points necessary to salvation Do not you teach that if one should belieue all the Mysteryes of Christian Religion though he should not belieue but even reject Scripture yet he may be saved Therfor much more one may be saved though he himself vnderstand no Scripture in case he haue some other to declare it Yea even the most learned must finally not rely vpon their owne abilityes or evidence of Scripture but vpon the infallible Voice and Interpretation of the Church as we haue proved Not only the Gospells but all Scripture was written for all that is for the good of all one way or other and yet I hope you will not say it is necessary that all must by themselves vnderstand all Scripture Do you thinke in good earnest that none is so vnlearned as not to vnderstand all the foure Gospells And yet you say they did not write only for the learned but for all men You will say at least they must be plaine to all touching all things necessary to be believed Yes if first you take for true and granted that which you know we deny that all things necessary are contayned in Scripture alone or that we can learne them by no other meanes than by Scripture itself And this your Limitation at least insinuates that you cannot affirme the Gospells to be cleare in all Points and yet as I sayd and as you say the Evangelists did not write only for the learned but for all men 8. You say This writing the Gospells was one especiall meanes of the preaching of the Gospell which was commanded to be preached not only to learned men but to all men 9. Answer Preaching and writing are different things and we are not wont to say that men preach by writing or write by preaching yet if you meane only that writing the Scripture is one especiall meanes for divulging or publishing the Gospell I grant it and acknowledg an infinite obligation to God for having vouchsafed to inspire men for writing the Holy Scripture but I deny that writing was a necessary meanes of preaching the Gospell which the Apostles themselves declared in fact who instantly after the receiving of the Holy Ghost set themselves to preach but not to write and they who wrote were but few and those few performed it not as a thing necessary or enjoined but only vpon incident occasions Therfor wher you make this Argument writing was one especiall meanes of the preaching of the Gospell and therfor must be plaine even to the capacity of the simplest you should say the contrary Writing was no necessary meanes of the preaching the Gospell and therfor there is no necessity that it be plaine to all Yourself say Pag 35. N. 7. Plaine sense will teach every man that the necessity of the meanes must alwayes be measured by and can never exceed the necessity of the end As if eating be necessary only that I may liue then certainly if I haue no necessity to liue I haue no neceâ—sity to eate If I haue no need to be at London I haue no need of a horse to carry me
the Eucharist depend vpon the casualtyes of the Consecrators true Priesthood and intention and yet commanding men to belieue it for certaine that he is present and to adore the Sacrament which according to your Doctrine â—â—â—ought they can possibly know may be nothing els but a piece of bread so exposing them to the danger of idolatry and consequently of damnation 65. Answer First Who will not wonder you should object to vs danger of idolatry by reason of some particular case or application of a generall true Ground which can be neither Heresy nor formall idolatry while Protestants are exposed to danger of Heresy and idolatry and consequently of damnation by reason of the very generall Ground by which their Actions should be directed Luther and Lutherans belieue the Reall Presence and divers of their chiefest Writers expressly teach that Christ is to be adored in the Eucharist And Kemnitius proves it by the severall sayings of the Saints Austine Ambrose and Gregory Nazianzen The Reader may be pleased to see Brierley Tract 2. Cap 1. Sect 3. Seing then Zwinglians Calvinists Socinians and all they who deny the Reall Presence hold the opinion of Lutherans to be false and that the Eucharist for substance is but a piece of bread according to your Objection those Lutherans expose themselves not only to the danger of idolatry and consequently of damnation but also to certaine idolatry if the Faith of Sacramentaryes be certainly true as themselves hold it to be On the contrary side If Christ be really and substantially present in the Sacrament they who deny both his Presence and Adoration are Heretiks and expose themselves to the danger of a sin no lesse haynous than idolatry For it is no less if not more injurious to deny that honour to any person which is due to him than it is to yeild greater respect than is due rather this latter is less grievous that that former because to exibite due honour is one of those precepts which Divines call Affirmatiue and do not oblige for all tymes but expressly to deny that honour which is due to one yea and avouch it not to be due is ranked in the class of Negatiue Precepts which oblige for all places tymes and other circumstances Thus we are not obliged to be at all tymes in act of adoring God but we are bound never to deny the supreme honour which Divines call Latria to be due to his Divine Majesty If therfor Lutherans be Hererikes and Idolaters for adoring Christ in the Eucharist if it be only a piece of bread other Protestants shall be Heretikes and as bad or worse than Idolaters if indeed Christ true God and man be really present The difference then and doubtfullness among you concernes Matter of Faith but that which you object to vs concernes only matter of Fact We are most assured of this generall Ground Christ is reâ—â—â— present in the Consecrated Hoast but it is not an Article of Faith that this Hoast in particular is Consecrated or that that which seemes to be bread and wine is indeed such You say We command men to belieue for certaine that Christ is present in the Eucharist but for certaine you speake against your conscience if you would haue the Reader to belieue that we command men to belieue with certainty of Faith that Christ is present in this or that particular Hoast though vnless we haue some grounded positiue reason to the contrary we ought not positively to doubt which would be but an Act of imprudency or perhaps vncharitableness or injustice as it happens in a thousand cases wherin we haue no certainty of Faith or Metaphisicall evidence and yet it would be meere foolishness positively and practically to doubt of them nor could there be in this case any shadow of danger to committ formall or culpable Idolatry Religion is a morall Uertue and requires not for its direction in particular occasions the certainty of Faith but is regulated by the vertue of Prudence which in our case doth most reasonably judg that Christ is really present in that Hoast which we haue good reason to judge is Consecrated and if there be no danger of formall idolatry there can be no danger of damnation But in the meane tyme you should consider that by your fallible Faith you can haue no certainty that Christ either is or is not present in the Eucharist and so you expose yourself to the danger of a grievous sin by not believing and adoring Christ if really he be present Besides seing you hold that any errour against Divine Revelation is damnable in itself no man must read Scripture or seeke to find the sense therof least he chance to misse of the true meaning aÌ„d so expose himself to danger of coÌ„mitting a thing damnable in itself You blame Charity Maintained because you conceaue he would not haue vs subject to any vncertainty in matters belonging to salvation and yet now you object against all Catholiques that they adore our Saviour when they are not absolutely certaine that he is present though indeed if passion did not blind you you would condemne Lutherans only who belieue that bread remaynes and therfor if Christ be not really present as you hold for certaine he is not they adore that which is nothing els but a piece of bread wheras we Catholikes believing that bread doth not remayne cannot possibly direct our intentions and Adoration to bread but to Christ himself and so the most that can be imagined will only be this that we adore Christ thinking he is where he is not our intention being still carried to him aÌ„d not to any Creature which if you will hold for true idolatry you must condemne all good Christians of idolatry who adore God as He is in Heaven Earth and everie where though in the opinion of your fellow Socinians He be really and substantially only in Heaven Even Dr. Taylor in his Liberty of Prophesying Pag 258. Numb 16. speakes home to the purpose of freeing Catholiks from all danger of idolatry in these words idolatry is a forsaking the true God and in giving the Dâ—vine Worship to a Creature or to an idoll that is to an imaginary God who hath no foundation in essence or existence And is that kinde of superstition which by Divines is called superstition of an vndue object Now it is evident that the Object of their Adoration that which is represented to them in their mindes their thoughts and purposes and by which God principally if not solely takes estimate of humane actions in the blessed Sacrament is the only true and eternall God hypostatically ioyned with his holy humanity which humanity they belieue actually present vnder the veile of the SacrameÌ„tall signes And if they thought him not bresent they are so farre from worshipping the bread in this case that themselves professe it to be idolatry to doe soe which is a demonstration that their soule hath nothing in it that is idololatricall If their confidence
destructiue of salvation being but matters of small consideration in their account Secondly That they can not be excused from Schisme who forsooke all Churches for Points not Fundamentall and of so small moment in which they disagree amongst themselves and in diverse of which many of them agree with vs against their pretended Brethren which is to be well observed Thirdly that Chillingwâ— had no reason Pag 11 to say to Charity Maintayned produce any one Protestant that ever did so that is affirme that every errour not Fundamentall is not destructiue of salvation and I will giue you leaue to say It is the only thing in Question seing I haue proved out of many chiefe Protestants that for which he sayth no one can be produced yea and I can yet produce a full confession of Mr. Chillingworth himself that Errours in not Fundamentalls are not destructiue of salvation nor such as may necessitate or warrant any man to disturbe the peace or renounce the Communion of a Church Thus he speakes in his Answer to the Direction N. 39. Though I hold not the Doctrine of all Protestants absolutely true which with reason cannot be required of me while they hold contradictions yet I hold it free from all impiety and from all Errour destructiue of salvation or in itselfe damnable For the Church of England I am perswaded that the constant Doctrine of it is so pure and Orthodox that whosoever believes it and lives according to it vndoubtedly he shall be saved and that there is no errour in it which may necessitate or warrant any man to disturbe the peace or renounce the communion of it Here I obserue first If the doctrine of Protestanss whom he expressly confesses to hold contradictions and consequently some of them to hold errours at least in Points not Fundamentall be free from all errour destructue of salvation or in itselfe damnable it followes that errours against Points not Fundamentall are not destructiue of salvation nor in themselves damnable which is the thing I intended to proue 2. What he saith of the Errours among Protestants that they are not destructiue of salvation he must also say of our pretended errours both because commonly of disagreeing Protestants one part agrees with vs as also because as I sayd diverse of them stand directly with vs against the common course of the rest and finally because the reason of being or not being damnable is common to all Points not Fundamentall which are supposed to contradict some divine revelation sufficiently propounded which to doe if it be destructiue of salvation must be so for all such Points if not in none at all 3. If the constant doctrine of the Church of England be so pure that whosoever believes it and lives according to it vndoubtedly he shall be saved and that there is no errour in it which may necessitate or warrant any man to disturbe the peace or renounce the communion of it you must say seing Luther and his followers did and do disturbe the peace and renounce the communion of the whole Church of God before his tyme which must be supposed to haue erred only in Points not Fundamentall otherwise it had beene no Church they did and do that for which there was no necessity and for which they had no warrant and therfore cannot avoide the just imputation of Schisme For the same reason also that the Church erred only in points not Fundamentall you must grant that whosoever believes as the Church did and lives accordingly vndoubtedly shall be saved For I am sure you belieue the Church of England to haue erred in diverse Points and in particular in her 39. Articles which was her constant doctrine if she had any constant at all In particular your conscience tells you that you belieue not the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity and much less that our Saviour Christ was true God and consubstantiall with his Father to say nothing of other Points of those 39. articles And is it not ridiculous to heare you talke of purity of doctrine of the Church of England which you belieue to be stayned with such Errours But you wrote for Ends If then salvation may be so assured in the Church of England you must grant the same of that Church which Luther and his associates forsooke and that therfore they certainly exclude themselves from salvation by forsaking the communion of them amongst whom salvation was so certaine and remember your words Pag 272. N. 53. it concernes every man who separates from any Churches communion even as much as his salvation is worth to looke most carefully to it that the cause of his separation be just and necessary For vnless it be necessary it can very hardly be sufficient To which proposition if we subsume but it cannot be necessary to separate for avoyding that errour or attaining that Truth which to avoyde or attaine is not necessary to salvation therfore Luther who separated from the Church for Points not necessary cannot pretend any necessary or sufficient cause for such his separation aÌ„d consequeÌ„tly was guilty of the sin of Schisme 4. But yet you will still be making good that in these matters Protestants and yourself in particular haue no constancy but say and vnsay as may best serue their turne You tell vs the doctrine of all Protestants is free from all Errour in it selfe damnable which agrees not with what you say of Protestants Pag 19. If we faile in vsing such a measure of industry in finding truth as humane prudence and ordinary discretion shall advise in a matter of such consequence our Errours begin to be malignant and justly imputable as offenses against God and that loue of his truth which he requires in vt And Pag 306. N. 106. For our continuing in the Communion of Protestants notwithstanding their Errours the justification hereof is not so much that their Errours are not damnable as that they require not the belief and profession of these Errours among the conditions of their Communion And Pag 279. N. 64. The visible Church is free indeed from all Errours absolutely destructive and vnpardonable but not from all errour which in itselfe is damnable not from all which will actually bring damnation vpon them that keepe themselves in them by their owne voluntary and avoidable fault If the visible Church be not free from errour which in itselfe is damnable how could you say that the Protestant Church of England is free from all errour damnable in itselfe But why do I cite particular passages You giue a generall Rule concerning all Errours Pag 158. N. 52. in these words If the cause of it an errour be some voluntary and avoidable fault the Errour is it selfe sinfull and consequently in its owne nature damnable as if by negligence in seeking the Truth by vnwillingnes to find it by pride by obstinacy by desiring that Religion shoudl be true which sutes best with my ends by feare of mens â—ll opinion or any other worldly feare or
be infallible only in Fundamentall Points if she erre not in such Points she performes as much as our Saviour exacts at her hands seing he exacts no more than that which may bring her to salvation and it is not necessary that God assist her for more than salvation Or if he absolutely exact more than is necessary men are bound to doe more than is necessary and so more shall be necessary than is necessary because it is necessary to doe what we are bound to doe 30. You say to Ch. Ma The ground of your errour here is your not distinguishing betweene Actuall certainty and Absolute infallibility But in this you speake either against your owne conscience or against manifest truth For if you say the meaning of Cha. ma. to be that whosoever is actually certaine of one thing must haue an absolute infallibility in all other matters your Conscience cannot but tell you that He could haue no such meaning as if because I am actually certaine what I am doing at this instant I must therfore be infallible and know certainly what every one is doing in the Indyes But if you meane that it is an errour in Ch Ma to say that if one haue actuall certainty of a thing he must be infallible both in that ād all other for which he hath the same or like grounds to make him certaine then you erre against manifest truth it being evident that if I clearly see my selfe to haue an vndoubted Ground to belieue a thing it is impossible that I should erre in any other for which I also evidētly see that I haue the same certaine ground This is our case If I be actually certaine by evidence of Scripture of the truth of one thing I am certaine that I cannot erre in any other Point for which I haue the like evidence of Scripture as he who actually assents to a demonstration knowne to be such can neither erre in it nor in any other knowne to haue the like certainty This being supposed your examples proue against yourselfe as I shewed in an other like occasion 31. I haue already particularly and at large answered your N. 27.28.29 In your N. 30 33.34 you impugne Ch Ma. whose words I wish you had set downe as you found them in Him and not as you collect and offer them to the Reader whom therfore I must intreate to peruse the Author himselfe Ch. Ma. N. 13. saith That to limite the generall promises of our Saviour for his Church to Points Fundamentall as namely that the gates of Hell shall not prevaile against Her and that the Holy Ghost shall lead them into all truth c. is to destroy all Faith For by this manner of interpreting and limiting words whatsoever is delivered in Scripture concerning the infallibility of the Apostles or of Scripture it selfe may be restrained to infallibility in Fundamentall Points And in this Ch. Ma. hath reason For seing you haue no certaine Rule of Faith but Scripture whatsoever you cannot proue by evident Scripture cannot be to you certaine or a Point of Faith Let vs then take these words Matth. 16.18 The gates of Hell shall not prevaile c. Which our B. Saviour pronounced of the Church and those other Jo 16. V. 13.14.16 The spirit shall lead you into all truth and shall abide with you for ever which promise Potter saith Pag 153. was made directly and primarily to the Apostles who had the spirits guidance in a more high and absolute manner than any since them yet it was made to them for the behoofe of the Church and is verifyed in the Church vniversall The first words The gates of Hell shall not prevaile against Her Potter Pag. 153. limites they shall not prevaile so far as to sever it from the foundation that is that She shall not erre in Fundamentall Points Now I beseech you produce some evident Text of Scripture declaring that those words are not to be vnderstood as they sound that the Church shall be secure from all errours against Faith even in Points not Fundamentall which errours are gates that leade to hell seing they are as you often confesse damnable in themselves and so lead to hell and damnation but with this limitation that she shall be secured for Points Fundamentall Produce I say some such evident Text of Scripture and not topicall discourses of your owne In the meane tyme while you are busy about that impossible taske of producing some such Text 32. I will ponder the second place The spirit shall lead you into all truth and shall abide with you for ever which Potter saith is vnderstood of the Apostles and of the vniversall Church but so as being referred to the Apostles it signifyes all truths Fundamentall and not Fundamentall Points which is a harder explanation than that of the former words out of S. Matthew The gates of hell c. because you are engaged to alledge some evident Text of Scripture to proue that the very selfsame as I may saie indivisible Text which is acknowledged to speake both of the Apostles and of the Church must be forced and as it were racked to speake one thing of the Apostles and another of the Church All truth for the Apostles not all but only Fundamentall truth for the Church Bring I say some such evident Text of Scripture But it seemes you did easily perceiue that no such place could be pretended and therfore in stead of Scripture or the Word of God you offer only your owne conceits discourses and seeming congruences which are far beneath that certainty which is required for an act of divine Faith There is not say you N. 30. the same reason for the Churches absolute Infallibility as for the Apostles and Scriptures For if the Church fall into errour it may be reformed by comparing it with the Rule of the Apostles doctrine and Scripture But if the Apostles erred in delivering the Doctrine of Christianity to whom shall we haue recourse for the discovering and correcting their errour 33. Answer I haue often sayd that in matters knowne by revelation only and depending on the free will or decree of Almighty God we are not to proue by humane reason what he hath decreed Protestants grant that both the Apostles and the Church are infallible for Fundamentall Points If then one should make vse of your reason and say There is not the same reason for the Churches infallibility in Fundamentall Points as for the Apostles For if the Church fall into such errours it may be reformed by comparing it with the Rule of the Apostles doctrine and Scripture But if the Apostles haue erred in delivering the doctrine of Christianity to whom shall we haue recourse for the discovering and correcting their errour What would you answer Would you grant that the Church is not infallible in Fundamentall Articles because there is not the same reason for Her infallibility in Fundamentall Points as there is for the Apostles That were to deny the
when one allthings considered believes one parte only he is so farre from believing things which to his vnderstanding seeme contradictions that he is certaine not to belieue contradictions because he sees that he believes one parte only of the contradiction and rejects the other and is also certaine that as I saied contradiction must involue two parts And heere I would demand wherher you belieue indeed that contradictions can be true If you belieue they may be true then Christian Religion may teach Scripture may contayne God may reveale aÌ„d must assent to contradictions seing he cannot but assent to all truth And are not these blasphemyes If you belieue contradictions cannot be true how will you haue it possible for any man to belieue that which he believes not to be true You saied in your first Reason Whatsoever a man believes true that he may and must belieue And certainly I may better say Whatsoever a man believes nor to be true that he neither may nor can belieue and therfore seing all men in their right wits belieue that contradictoryes cannot be true it is impossible that they should belieue them But let vs procede to your 28. Fourth Reason Some men say you may be confuted in their errours and perswaded out of them but no mans errour can be confuted who together with his errour doth not belieue and grant some true principle that contradicts his errour For nothing can be proved to him who grants nothing neither can there be as all men know any rationall discourse but out of grounds agreed on by both parts Therefore it is not impossible but absolutely certaine that the same man at the same time may belieue contradictions 29. Answer First If it were lawfull to vse such an expressioÌ„ it might well be saied that it seemes fatall for you to be at variance with your self For I pray you suppose one to belieue that contradictions may be true How will you perswade him out of his errour By shewing him that he grants some true principle that contradicts his errour But if contradictories may be true and one may at the same time belieue them nothing will force him to leaue his errour though it appeare to contradict some principle which he grants because he may belieue both his supposed errous and that principle to betrue yea he neede not beleeue it to be an errour though it contradict some true principle seing both parts of contradictories may be true Chuse which you please May contradictories be true or be believed or no If they may then this Reason of yours proves nothing as I haue shewed Can they not be true nor be believed then to make good this Reason you denie that for which you alledg it and must say that one cannot at the same tyme belieue contradictions and that if he could do so this Reason were of no force A new kind of Logick to bring a Reason to proue a Conclusion which must be fals if the Reason or Proofe for it be of any force That is â—o proue that contradictions may be believed you vse an Argument which to haue any force must suppose they may not be believed How will you driue one from that which he believes by proposing a principle which even by your doctrine he conceyves may consist with that from which you would driue him So still that which I saied is true That your Arguments if they proue any thing must suppose or proue the direct contrary of that which you intend to proue by them and so not help but overthrow yourself Secondly If your Reason be of any force it can only proue that by ignorance one may hold contradictoryes which was needless to be proved it being a thing which no man denyes And then you must either acknowledg a contradiction or els acknowledg that you intended to proue that one may assent to express and knowen contradictions but that your Reason proved not so much as you did meane to proue by it For if your purpose was only to proue a possibility of assenting to contradictoryes not knowen to be such you contradict yourself in saying N. 47. Men should not assent to contradictions and that it is vnreasonable to doe so seing it is evident in case of probable or invincible ignorance a man may and ought to belieue them and it were vnreasonable to doe that which all the Reasons that he can consider tell him that he is to doe as he does and that it is not in his power to discover his errour by any reasons that can represent themselves to his vnderstanding It cannot be denyed but in that case he proceedes prudently and safely and therefore not vnreasonably but as he should doe and yourself confess that men may innocently as you speak be ignorant of the contradiction Yourself tell vs in your next Reason that we cannot without extream madnesse and vncharitablenesse deny that you belieue the Bible and yet we belieue that some part of your doctrine contradicts the Bible Now seing this last is certaine by evident experience of Protestants who interpret Scripture so as what one affirmes an other denyes to be the meaning thereof you must either grant that men may rationally belieue that kind of contradictions of which we speak or els with extreame madness and vncharitableness say that no Protestant who contradicts an other about the sense of Scripture does as he should doe but is vnreasonable in so doing Chuse then I returne to say whether you will say your meaning was in this fourth Reason to speak of express contradictions and confess that it comes not home to that purpose or els that you spoke not of such express contradictions and confess that in this N. 46. you contradict your N. 47. wherein you say One should not belieue contradictions and that it is vnreasonable to doe so 30. Your Fifth Reason we haue mentioned already That Protestants belieue all that is in the Bible to be true and yet we say that they belieue divers Doctrines against the Bible and consequently that they belieue Contradictions But seing this Reason if it proue any thing proues only that men may assent to Contradictions not knowen to be such it is already answered and confuted and demonstrated to be guilty either of insufficiency or to subsist by a manifest Contradiction to that for which you alledg it as I aÌ„swered to your fourth ReasoÌ„ 31. Your Sixth Reason is equally full of impiety malice and ignorance and is answered in a word That we absolutely are certaine there is implied no Contradiction in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and therfore it cannot serue to proue that men may belieue Contradictions And seing it speaks only of Contradictions not expressed in termes but only involved it is liable to all the same exceptions which I haue declared against your Fourth and Fifth Reason Neither can any expect or even indure that heere I should write a Book of Transubstantiation You know learned Catholike Writers haue answered all
be in errour All that Ch. Ma. sayes is That if you erre in judging you cannot be saved in the Roman Church by reason of her errours you must rectify your conscience by judging the errours not to be fundamentall or damnable and therfor not excluding salvation Is this good dealing in you And why doe you say N. 106. A fifth falshood it is that we daily doe this favour for Protestants you must meane if you speake consequently to judge they haue no errours because we judge they haue none damnable Seing Ch Ma sayd most expresly that you doe the favour to other Protestants whome you cannot deny to be in some errours not to judge it damnable to liue in their communion because you hold their errours not to be fundamentall Once againe I must aske whether this be conscionable dealing 46. You are too resolute in this N. 106. to impugne the saying of Ch Ma That according to the Doctrine of all Divines ther is great difference betwixt a speculatiue perswasion and a practicall dictamen of conscience And I feare you doe not well vnderstand this true Doctrine when you say These are but divers words signifying the same thing neither is such a perswasion wholy speculatiue but tending to practise nor such a dictamen wholy practicall but grounded vpon speculation For you should say the contrary that a perswasion purely speculatiue is so far from tending to practice that oftentimes it is joyned with this judgment I cannot frame my practice according to this speculation and consequently my practice can not be grounded vpon such a speculation as Catholike Divines doe learnedly explicate particularly in the matter and forme of Sacraments But this is not a place to handle this matter at large it being sufficient to haue sayd that a speculation taken alone and abstracting from all other considerations of all sides oftentimes would proue pernicious if it were applyed to practice You falsify Ch Ma as if he did affirme that Protestants did only conceaue in speculation that the Church of Rome erred in some Doctrines and had not also a practicall dictamen that it was damnable for them to continue in the profession of these errours For Ch Ma sayth not that Protestants did only conceaue in speculation c. And had not also a practicall dictamen c. but his words are Although they had in speculation conceaved the vissble Church to erre in some Doctrines of themselves not damnable yet with that speculatiue judgment they might and ought to haue entertained this practicall dictamen that for points not suhstantiall to Faith they neither were bound nor lawfully could breake the bond of Charity by breaking vnity in Gods Church You see Ch Ma declares not what dictamen Protestants had but what they might and ought to haue had which are as different things as to say one is an honest man and might and ought to be such an one Ch Ma sayes not that Dr. Potter teaches in express words that Luther was obliged to forsake the Church for an vnnecessary light but that it followes vpon his assertion that he was bound to forsake her externall communion for poinrs not necessary to salvation 47. In your N. 107. your example that Euclide was not infallible yet was he certaine enough that twice two are foure is not to the purpos because such truths are evident by the light of nature as the mysteries of Christian Faith are not Otherwise how were it possible for you to disagree so irreconciliably as the world sees you doe 48. Ch Ma sayth N. 41. Since in cases of vncertaintyes we are not to leaue our Superiour nor cast of his obedience or publickly oppose his decrees your Reformers might easily haue found a safe way to satisfy their zealous conscience without a publick breach especially if with their vncertainty we call to minde the peaceable possession and prescription which by the confession of your owne brethren the Church and Pope of Rome did for many ages enjoy To this you answer by abbreviating the words of Ch Ma thus Your Church was in peaceable possession you must meane of her Doctrine and the Professors of it and enjoyed prescription for many ages and then you add Doctrine is not a thing that may be possessed and the Professors of it were the Church it selfe and in nature of Possessours if we may speake improperly rather then the thing possessed with whome no man hath Reason to be offended if they thinke fit to quit their owne possession But by what commission or warrant doe you say to Ch Ma you must meane of her Doctrine and the Professors of it as if his words must needs be so restrained Wheras the Church of Rome was in possession of Right not to bee opposed in her Doctrine by private persons she was in possession of the good Name and Estimation of being a true Church for which she is commended by S. Paul The Pope was in possession of power and jurisdiction over all Christians of making lawes Accepting appeales gathering Councells c. And both the Pope and Church were in possession of the Professors of her Doctrine that is Christians were their subjects who could not be seduced by fraude Schisme Heresy or violence without offence to God and man as you will not deny all lawfull Communities to haue Right that their subjects should not withdraw and divide themselves from such a mysticall Body Neither is it pertinent whether in this place we take possession as it is defined Detentio rei corporalis corporis animâ—jurisque adminiculo it being sufficient for our present purpose that it be that which is called quasi possessio the having any thing as we are sayd to haue hands feete life c. You say the Professors of the Doctrine were in nature of Possessors if we may speake improperly rather then the thing possessed with whome no man hath Reason to be offended if they thinke fit to quit their owne possession Answer It is strange that no man hath reason to be offended if men quit the possession or forsake the true Doctrine the grace of God or vertue or honesty because he is supposed to possesse them or for a man to depriue himselfe of some member of his body or even of life it selfe Your last words That the possession which the Gouvernours of our Church had for some ages of the party gouverned was not peaceable but got by fraude and held by violence are most injurious to Truth to Gods Church and to God himselfe as if our Saviours promise of a stable Church should be verified only by fraude and violence seing as I haue often sayd ther was no visible Church vpon earth except the Roman and those who agreed with her against the Doctrines which Luther did broach as Ch Ma shewes here Pag 173. and you doe not deny Pag 274. N. 56. where I obserue by the way that you say I know not who they be that say Luther reformed the whole Church wheras Ch
glory of God in the face of Christ Iesus Galat. 5.22.23 The fruit of the spirit is Faith Ephes 1.16.17.18 I cease not to giue thankes for you making a memory of you in my prayers That God of our Lord Iesus Christ the Father of glory giue you the spirit of wisdom and of reuelation in the knowledg of him the eyes of your hart illuminated that you may know what the hope is of his vocation and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints Ephes 2.8 For by Grace you are saued with Faith and that not of yourselves for it is the gist of God Ephes 6.23 Peace to the Brethren and charity with faith from God the father and our Lord Iesus Christ Philipp 1.29 To you it is giuen for Christ not only that you belieue in him but also that you suffer for him Colos 1.2 Giuing thanks to God the Father who hath made vs worthy vnto the part of the lot of the Saints in the light 2. Pet. 1.21 The holy men of God spake inspired with the Holy Ghost XX More Texts of Scripture might be alledged but it is needles since euē all Sectaryes except Pelagius and such as follow him belieue Grace to be necessary for faith and in particular D. Potter to whom Chilling is in this mayne poynt directly opposit as is euident by these his expresse words Pag. 135. Faith is sayd to be diuine and supernaturall in regard of the author or efficient cause of the act and habit of diuine faith which is the speciall grace of God preparing enabling and assisting the soule to belieue For faith is the gist of God alone 1. Cor. 12.34 2. In regard of the object or things belieued which are aboue Philipp 1.29 the reach and comprehēsion of meere nature and reason Philip. 1.29 Thus D. Potter and adds that of these two respects there is no controuersie he meanes betweene Catholiques and Protestāts For by the euēt it is cleare that there is a controuersy betweene him and the Socinians and in particular with Chilling worth his champion But necessity hath no law Charity Maintayned could not with any shew be answered in the grounds of Protestants who therfor chose rather to destroy their owne grounds and the doctrine of all good Christians then to confesse the truth of our Catholik faith though conuicted by euident reasons Besides Pag. 140. D. Potter sayth Humane authority consent and proofe may produce an humane or acquired faith but the assent of diuine faith is absolutly diuine in which words he distinguisheth acquired faith from diuine and consequently holds that this is not acquired but infused Pag. 141. That Scripture is of diuine authority the belieuer sees by many internall arguments found in the letter it selfe though found by the helpe and direction of the Church without and of grace within Mark how besides the externall proposition of the object by the Church he requires internall grace Pag. 142. There is in the Scripture it selfe light sufficient which the eye of reason cleared by grace and assisted by the many motiues which the Church vseth for enforcing of her instructions may discouer to be diuine descended from the father and fountain of light Pag. 143. he teaches that by the ministery of the church in preaching and expounding the Holy Ghost begets a diuine faith in vs. And in the same place he tearmeth the act of faith supernaturall as also we haue heard him tearme it so pag. 135. and it is a plaine contradiction that it should be supernaturall or aboue nature and yet be produced by the forces of nature which were to make it aboue and not aboue nature XXI By the way it is to be noted that D. Potter deliuers a very vntrue doctrine in saying in this pag. 135. that the efficient cause of the act and habit of diuine faith is the speciall grace of God For the speciall actuall grace of God is not the efficient cause of the habit of our faith which is infused by God alone as our naturall acts of vnderstanding or willing do not produce the Powers of our vnderstanding or will and supernaturall Habits of Faith Hope c. are giuen vs not to facilitate but to enable vs to exercise Acts of Faith Hope c For which cause they are compared to supernaturall Acts as the naturall faculties or Powers of our soule are compared to their naturall Acts which they produce and are not produced by them I omit his vnproper speach that the speciall grace of God is the author of an act of faith SECTION III. The necessity of Grace to Hope as vve ought for saluation XXII IF Grace be necessary for euery worke of Christian Pietie and in particular for faith as we haue proued it will be needles to stand long vpon prouing that it is necessary for hoping which is a work of Pietie proceeding from a Theologicall Vertue to which Faith is referrd and of which mortall men considering the sublimity of eternall Happynes and guiltynes of their owne meanes frailty and sinnes stand in need for raising vp their soules towards so supernaturall an Object and preseruing them from dejection pusilanimity and despaire yet we will not omit to alledge some particular Texts of Scripture in proofe of this Truth Rom 5.2 By whom Christ we haue access through Faith into this Grace wherin we stand and glorie in the hope of the glorie of the sonnes of God Where it is cleare that the Apostle placeth hope amongst the gifts of the children of God which we receaue by Christ Chap. 15. V. 4.5 That by the patience and consolation of the Scriptures we may haue hope and the God of patience giue you to be of one mynd Which words declare that God is the author of those gifts 1. Cor. 13.13 And now there remayne Faith Hope Charity Where it appeares that these three Vertues are specially numbred togeather as belonging to the same rank and order Psalm 18.49 Be myndefull of thy word to thy seruant wherin thou hast giuen me hope Thessa◠5.8 But we that are of the day are sober hauing on the brest plate of faith and charity and a helmet the hope of saluation Where wee see the apostle ioynes Hope with Faith and Charity and V. 9.10 declares that it is given for Christ and is ordaynd and conduces to a supernaturall end saying for God hath not appointed vs vnto wrath but vnto the purchasing of saluation by our Lord Iesus Christ who died for vs. 1. Pet. 3.4.5 Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ who according to his great mercie hath regenerated vs vnto a liuely hope by the resurrection of Iesus Christ from the dead vnto an inheritance incorruptible and incontaminate and that cannot fade conserued in the heauens in you who in the vertue of God are kept by faith vnto saluation SECTION IV. Grace necessary for Charity XXIII IF Grace be necessary for faith and hope much more is it necessary for
or liuing as we ought is the cause of faith and as faith is the cause of Charity to which all being obliged they are by consequence obliged to procure the cause therof which you say is faith Wherfor vpon the whole matter your probable faith remaines only to such as keepe not the Commandements nor liue as they belieue which if they did God would rayse them higher to a certainty For thus you say Pag 37. N. 9. God will accept of the weakest and lowest degree of faith if it be truing and effectuall to true obedience and rhat for sincere obedience God may and will rayse men higher to a Certainty Therfor a primo ad vltimum the weakest Faith if it be effectuall to obedience will bring men to certainty Therfore none de facto want such a certainty except they whose faith is not liuing nor effectuall to obedience And further seing you confess yours not to be certaine it must follow that it is not effectuall to true obedience otherwise it would be improued to a Certainty 73. But this is not all that occurrs to be sayd in this poynt Remember your doctrine Pag 379. N. 70. and elswhere that repentance necessary to saluation requires effectuall dereliction and mortification of all viâ—es and the effectuall practise of all Christian vâ—rtues which whosoever performes exercises very perfect obedience and shall not fayle of being raysed higher to a Certainty of faith Therfor your fallible faith will remaine only in sinners For if one either giue himselfe to sincere obedience and so fall not into great sinne or truly repent by your kind of repentance he must passe to a certainty of Faith and so all in state of saluation both Saints that is who haue not sinned mortally and repentant sinners cannot want the spirit of Obsignation as you call it and certaine Faith Why then do you deceiue the world and delude poore soules with a fallible faith or perswasion and not absolutely proclaime to the world that infallible Faith is necessary since euen according to your grounds it is necessary for all sorts of people 74. Now all your Objections and my Answers being vnpartially considered let any man judge whether your Arguments deserue such epithetons as you giue them of demonstratiue conuincing inuincible cleare and the like and what reason you had to say P. 326. N. 4. These you see are strang and portentuous consequences and yet the deduction of them from your doctrine is cleare and apparent which shewes this doctrine of yours which you would fame haue true that there might be some necessity of your Churches infallibility to be indeed plainly repugnant not only to Truth but euen to all Religion and Piety sit for nothing but to make men negligent of making any progress in faith or Charity And therfor I must intreat and adjure you either to discouer vnto me which I take God to witness I cannot perceaue some fallacy in my reasons against it or neuer herafter to open your mouth in defence of it 75. I answer S. Paule had good reason to say Scientia inflat 1. Cor 8.1 Knowledg puffeth vp it is a poysonous quality making the person swell his Arguments and all that he does or sayes swell and emptyness appeare greatness it is a multiplying glasse that stirrs vp in mens fancyes strang and huge apparitions from nothing But Sir remeber that your ObjectioÌ„s make no more against Vs Catholikes than PictestaÌ„ts who profess ChristiaÌ„ Religion to be infallible and I belieue will not belieue your bare word that these consequences are cleare Christian Historicall Faith is infallibly true Therfor it must be lost by any least doubting though resisted that is by a no-doubt as I haue shewed it must be incompatible with any deliberate sinne it must bring with it Charity so perfect that we can make no progress therin For my part I do in no wise vnderstand such deductions nor how any man of vnderstanding should take them for good as I haue shewed more than sufficiently though yet I must add that though the consequences which you pretend to deduce from our doctrine be strange and portentuous in themselues yet to you they ought not to seeme so or at least ought not to be publikly avouched by you for such For besides that the very same consequences which you deduce from our doctrine follow from your owne assertions as I haue proued answer I beseech you these few Demands 1. Whether it be more convenient that true Diuine Faith should be inconsistent with an involuntary Doubt which you inferr against vs as a great absurdity or that it should be compatible with a voluntary sinfull damnable not only Doubt but positiue assertive Errour as you teach Pag. 368. N. 49. and call the contrary doctrine a vaine and groundless fancy as I observed aboue or that it may stand with an assent that probably it may be false or with a preparation of mynd to forsake it if seeming better reasons offer themselves against it thaÌ„ you conceive your selfe to haue for it which for ought you know may happen as I shewed above 2. Whether it be worse that all should of necessity be perfect in charity by an Infallible Faith or that none can be perfect as it ineuitably followes out of your Tenets put togeather That Faith is only probable and fallible and yet that the measure of our victory over the world and of our charity must be taken from Faith which you say is the cause of charity and the effect cannot be more perfect than the cause Besides your brethren the Calvinists believe that men are justifyed by a sirme and certaine Faith that they are just and that charity and good works are inseparable from such a Faith and then seing according to your owne words if the cause be perfect the effect must be perfect and that the cause of charity is in their opinion perfect that is a sirme and certaine Faith it followes that their charity must of necessity be perfect and that no just man can make any progress therin 3. Whether it be more absurd to hold an impossibility of committing any deliberate sinne or to belieue that all our best actions are deadly sinnes Or whether it be worse to teach that one cannot breake the commandements which you against all truth impute to vs Or that he cannot keepe them euen with the assistance of Gods grace which is the common doctrine of Protestants Thus then it is not our doctrine but the errours of you and your brethren that must in many respects make men negligent of making any progress in Faith or charity And what a Paradoxe is this A weake and fallible Faith makes men diligent in making Progress in charity and a strong infallible Faith is fit for nothing but to make men negligent of making any progress in Faith or Charity as yon are pleased strangly to speake directly against the admonition of S. Peter 1. Pet 5. cui resistite fortes in Fide whom
our Sauiour hath merited any thing for mankind and so we receive no Grace by Christ which was that which the Holy Fathers and Generall Councelles did detest and condemne in wicked Pelagians Wherby it appeares that your Faith is indeed naturall and yet being pretended to be supernaturall comes to be naturall and supernaturall And further I pray you remember what I observed above concerning an imaginary Faith of yours Pag 329 and 330. N. 7. acquired and infused which is in effect naturall and supernaturall I must therfor conclude that not our but your Faith is a free necessitated certain vncertaine evident obscure prudent and folish naturall and supernaturall assent 94. Object 6. Pag 37. N. 9. As nothing availes with God but faith which worketh by loue so any faith if it be but as a graine of must araseed if it worke by love shall certainâ—y availe with him and be accepted of him Therfor a faith absolutely certaine is not necessary to salvation 95. Answer First To worke by love is to keepe Gods Commandements of which one is that we believe as we ought And for you to suppose that we believe as we ought by a faith only probable is a meer begging of the Question which you should prove For although we should suppose that God had commanded no works at all as we distinguish works from Faith yet there would remayne a most strict command vnder payne of damnation to believe whatsoever is sufficiently proposed as a truth revealed by God with an Assent proportionable to the Supreme Authority and above all other Assents that is with an infallible and immoveable Assent And indeed of this Precept of Faith we may truly say This is the first Commandement the performance wherof is the first step to all merit Obedience Salvation And as in the eating of the forbidden Apple though the matter in it self might seeme small yet the transgression was a grievous sinne because that command was imposed by God to testify his Supreme Dominion over man so this Precept of Faith exacting the Obedience of our vnderstanding which is the first Power of our soule doth of it selfe oblige in a most severe manner even abstracting from all further works proceeding from the will by direction of the vnderstanding by Faith For God is Lord of our vnderstanding and exacts obedience of it no less than of our will 96. Secondly what you say of faith if it be but as a grain of mustardseed is both impertinent and against yourself For as I noted already those Texts of Holy Scripture clearly speake of Faith of Miracles as of removing a mountaine into the sea and not of Christian Faith necessary to salvation Neither by a faith like to a graine of mustardseed is vnderstood a weake probable and fallible faith like yours but rather a very great and effectuall belief able to remove mountaynes and trees as appeares Matt 17.20 Luc 17.6 And S. Paule 1. Cor 13. shewes that this faith of Miracles is very perfect saying If I should have all faith so that I could remove mountaines c And our Saviour declares that it is firme and certaine Matth 21. V. 21. If you shall have faith and stagger not not only that of the figtree shall you doe but and if you shall say to this mountaine Take vp and throw thy self into the sea it shall be done And Matt 13. V. 31.32 The Kingdome of Heaven is like to a mustardseed which a man tooke and sowed in his field Which is the least surely of all seeds but when it is growen it is greater then all hearbs and is made a tree so that the foules of the aire come and dwell in the branches therof Where learned interpreters say that A mustard seed especially in Syria growes to be a tree so that the birds of the ayre do dwell in the branches therof This shewes that as faith is compared to a graine of mustardseed because it is little to sight so also it is compared to it for Vigour Vertue Acrimony and Strength and in no wise for Weakness or any similitude with your fallible belief Which yet appeares more cleare by the demand of the Apostles Matth 17. V. 8. Why could we not cast him out And our Saviours answer N. 19. by reason of your incredulity and then brings that similitude of a mustardseed as contraposed to their faith which was but little and so the Arabicus hath propter parvitatem sidei vestrae by reason of the littleness of your faith But it cannot be doubted that the Apostles had some faith as you pretend to have otherwise they would not have attempted to cast out the Divel Therfor the Faith which our Saviour compareth to a mustardseed and opposes to theirs must be great and strong in it selfe though small in appearance or litle in comparison of some higher degree of Faith All which confutes your fallible faith and shews not only that you bring this example of a graine of mustardseed impertinently but also that it makes clearly against yourself even though it were vnderstood of Faith necessary to salvation in as much as it signifyes a great strength of Faith as farr different from your Faith as Certainty is distinguished from meer Probability Besides I pray you consider that Faith of Mirakles is not that Faith which workes by love and so according to your owne words cannot avayle with God and can avayle with Men only to shew how weake impertinent and contradictorious to yourself your Arguments are wherby you would proue that a weake Faith is sufficient for salvation when a strong Faith of the same kind that is of Miracles is insufficient This Answer serves for your other instance of Him that cryed Lord I believe help my incredulity Mar. 9.24 Where it is manifest that He spoke of Faith of Miracles namely of having his son dispossessed of the Divell 97. Now if your probable Faith be not sufficient to worke by Loue and fulfill other commandements which you cannot deny who measure Charity by Faith as the effect is measured by the cause and as you say Pag. 326. Nê° 4. Seing as S. Iohn assures vs our Faith is the victory which overcomes the world if the Faith of all true believers were perfect then their victory over the world and over sinne must of necessity be perfect Much more we must say according to your ground seing Faith is the victory which overcomes the world if your Faith be not sufficient for salvation your victory over the world and sinne cannot be sufficient for that end This according to your principles 98. But in true Divinity I say seing God hath so ordained that Faith should be the roote and beginning of all Obedience and Merit if it self be not a Faith sufficient for salvation how shall it be the beginning of Obedience or keeping all the other Commandements God proceeds with order and gives not Charity where he finds not Faith I proved in the Introduction that the Commandements are not
to our owne conjectures may be alledged contrary wayes as for example you say that the doctrine of indulgences is dangerous because it may take away the feare of Purgatory And why may not I say that the denying of Indulgences besides the Heresy which is of it selfe damnable is dangerous for the sequeles because the want of that devotion and omission of very many works of many vertues as repentance pennance Charity c to which a desire and endeavour to gaine Indulgences would moue vs would very probably hinder the salvation of many which otherwise might haue bene saved as you say of hearing the publike Offices celebrated in a toung not vnderstood by all Concerning which instances I say That if the doctrine of Protestants in this matter be false as most certainly it is then not very probably as you threaten vs but certainly they shall be damned who in this particular oppose their judgment and Practise against the Belief and Practise of the Catholique Church spread over the world before Luther appeared Nay I say morè that though we did suppose which we can never grant the Church to erre is this Poynt yet godly Laymen as you speake who in simplicity of hart and out of Ignorance obey the Church by this their Obedience oblige as I may say Allmighty God never to permit that their goodness and godliness proue to them an occasion of perdition Rather according to your manner of arguing and according to truth the defect of Obedience Religion and of other vertues which they exercise in hearing those Offices would hinder the salvatien of many which otherwise might haue bene saved Besides if the want of devotion which the frequent hearing the Offices vnderslood might happily beget may very probably binder the salvation of many which otherwise might haue bene saved why shall not Protestants be obliged in all their Churches to more frequent Service daily and howerly and be still receyving their Sacrament least for want of devotion which that frequency might happily beget the salvation of many be hindered which otherwise would haue bene saved In the Vniversityes they haue for most dayes in the weeke their publike Service in Latine which divers Lay men who may be present cannot vnderstand and so be deprived of that devotion the want wherof may hinder the salvation of many which otherwise might haue bene saved But seing many Catholique Writers haue handled this Poynt of publike Prayers in Latine both copiously and learnedly it is enough for me to haue answered and retorted your Objections vpon yourself and your Brethren and it is a great foolery to depriue men as you doe of their liberty by imaginary conditionall effects which without end may be turned on all sides 87. Your last Example deserves no other Answer than that it is grounded on a wicked supposition that to belieue the Vicar of Christ to be infallible in his Definitions could be a congruous disposition to belieue Antichrist or that Antichrist could get into that See as you impiously speake There is no malice comparable to the malice and blindness of Heresy But it is tyme for mee to returne from this necessary digression and to go forward in confuting the doctrine of the sole-sufficiency of Scripture And therfor 88. 15. From Protestants themselves I argue in this manner Most Protestants hold that we know Scripture to be the word of God by the private spirit or some quality inherent or internall to Scripture it self and think it so evident that to aske how we can know Scripture to be the word of God Calvin Lib. 1. Inst Cap. 7. sayth is all one as to aske whence we may learne how to discerne light from darkness white from blacke sweet from soure And the Scottish Minister Baron in Apodixi Tract 9 Q 4. Pag. 630. and Q. 6. Pag 663 Sect 2. saith The Scripture doth sufficiently manifest its devineness by its owne internall light majesty and efficacy Amesius de Circulo Pontificio saith We belieue that the Scriptures do shine by their owne light Whitaker De Scriptura Q. 3. Cap 3. ad 3. They who haue the Holy Ghost can know Gods voyce even as a frend is wont to know by the voyce his friend with whom he hath conversed most familiarly a long tyme. Potter sayth Pag 141. That Scripture is of divine authority the believer sees by that glorious beame of divine light which shines in Scripture and by many internall arguments found in the letter it self Which words while Chill interprets to signify only that men are strengthned in their belief by that beame of light which shines in Scripture he leaves no meanes for his client Potter to belieue with certainty the Scripture For he saith expressly in the same place that the Church only presents disposes and prepares which supposed there is saieth he in the Scripture it self light sufficient which though blind and sensuall men see not yet the eye of reason cleared by grace and assisted by the many motives which the church vseth for enforcing of her instructions one may discover to be divine descended from the Father and fountaine of light But how come you M. Chilling worth to know Scripture to be the word of God We take it from your owne words Pag 69. N. 46. where you say to your adversary The conclusiō of your tenth § is that the divinity of a writing cannot be knowen from it self alone but by some extrinsecall authority which you need not prove for no wise man denyes it But then this authority is that of vniversall traditiō not of your church Behold the agreemēt of protestāts in this maine poynt on which their whole religion depēds According to Potter Chill is a blind ād sesuall mā who sees not that glorious beame of divine light which shines in Scripture And Potter Calvin Baron ād other Protestants deny that which in Chilling worths judgment no wise man denyes Out of which premises of protestants it is easy to conclude That seing so many of them imagine a cleare light to shine in Scripture which others affirme no wise man can imagine which is very true for if there be such a light evidently shining in Scripture how is it possible that they can disagree about the Canon of Scripture or how could some books haue once been questioned which now are receyved for canonicall We must affirme that much more a particular text may to one seeme evidētly to signify that which to an other doth no way appeare but perhaps directly the contrary And therfor although we haue heard Calvin saying that it is as easy to discerne which be true scriptures as to distinguish betweē white ād blacke yet it appeares by what he writes L 4 Inst C. 9. N. 13. that for the interpreting of scripture more labour ād industry is required as is also cleare by the many ād hard rules which protestants require for interpretation therof as we haue seene aboue and therfor it is cleare evē frō the doctrines of
Sancto mihi It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and me as the Apostles in the first Councell sayd Visum est Spiritui Sancto nobis It hath seemed good to the holy Ghost and vs. Beside this manner of expression It seemed to me also having had perfect vnderstanding of things from the first or as the Rhemes testament hath out of the vulgat and Greeke having diligently attained to all things and as Cornel a Lap interprets assecuto out of the Greek assectato studiosè investiganti ideoque assecuto all which may according to your divinity signify an humane endeavour and diligence rather then divine inspiration Revelation or infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost And this argument may be strongly vrged by calling to mynd that Calvin in Antid Cocil seekes to proue that the writer of the book of the Machabees cannot be esteemed Canonicall because in his second booke second Chapter he sayth And to our owne selves indeed which haue taken vpon vs this worke to make an abridgment we haue taken in hand no easy labour yea rather a business full of watching and swette For Canonicall writters did write not out of their owne witt and industry but by the revelation of the Holy Ghost Doth not this argument of Calvin if it be good as it is not yet as good as Chillingworths Principle or rather the same in effect proue also against S. Lukes both Preface and Gospell because he affirmes that he hath diligently attained to all things and that he wrote in order taking them from those who had heard and seene them Which words according to Calvins discourse signify that S. Luke composed the Gospell after a humane manner by inquiry by diligence by labour by following a method and order c. Wheras Sacred authors wrote not by their owne witt and labour but by revelation of the holy Ghost Therfor if once it be granted as you both grant and seeke to proue that the Apostles did somtyme deliver not divine Revelations but the dictates of humane reason and prudence where can it happen more probably than in this our present case Or what proof can you bring out of some evident Text of scripture that in fact it is not so Thus in steed of prooving out of S. Lukes Preface to his Gospell that his Gospell containes all Points necessary to salvation you plainly deprive both Preface and Gospell of all credit due to them as to the word of God And therfor you cannot draw Arguments from them for yourself against vs. 106. 4. Since it cannot be denyed but that the Holy Ghost might haue vsed the pen of S. Luke to deliver what best pleased his Divine wisdom and Goodness neither can we by humane reason or topicall and seeming probable discourses gather with certainty how far he decreed from Eternity to vse the writing of that holy Evangelist dare any man presume by the strenthg of witt or arguments to force God himself to decree and performe what he imagines should haue been donne yourself Pag. 102. N. 128. affirme this ground to be false that That course of dealing with men seemes always more fit to Divine providence which seems most fit to humane reason And P. 104. N. 136. you say It is our duty to be humbly thankfull for those sufficient nay abundant meanes of salvation which God hath of his owne Goodness granted vs and not conclude he hath done that which he hath not done because forsooth in our vaine judgements it seems conveniâ—nt he should haue done so And Pag. 84. N. 85. Though iâ— were convenient for vs to haue one Judg of controversyes yet it hath pleased God for reasons best known to himself not to allow vs this convenience These passages of yours I relate in this place as very considerable not only for this present occasion but as a generall antidote against your poysonous manner of proving your opinions not by authority or evideÌ„t texts of scripture but with some conceypts or reasons of your owne which you apprehend as probable But this humane prudence is but foolishness when it is applyed to determine what were the Free Eternall decrees of God whose thoughts are raysed aboue our imaginations more than Heaven aboue earth And to come to our purpose the Holy Ghost might haue decreed to teach the world by S. Luke either all things necessary to every man or necessary to the perfect constitution of the Church or mysticall Body of Christ or no things necessary but only profitable or some necessary and some profitable leaving other points necessary or profitable to be learned from the other Canonicall writers or from the Church and Tradition In all which cases the word All had bene truly verifyed because S. Luke had perfectly written All that the Holy Ghost intended to be written by his meanes concerning the words and works of our Blessed Saviour For seing as I sayd aboue All cannot be taken in the most vniversall sense which of it self it might beare the particular limitation or restriction therof must wholy depend on the hidden will and Decree of God which we cannot know with certainty by any humane probable discourse but only by Revelation and consequently no sound and certaine limitation or explication of the vniversall particle All can be given except that which I haue declared that S. Luke hath delivered All according to the End prescribed by the Motion and Inspiration of the Holy Ghost Otherwise what certaine reason can be given why all the Evangelists do somtyme deliver the self same Points and somtyme not yea some one expresses some particular which all the rest haue omitted Or why of these millions of words or deèds which all of them haue omitted some were not sett downe as well as those which now we reade in theÌ„ And so vpon due consideration the expressing the word All cannot he of any advantage to you because it must haue been vnderstood though it had not bene expessed and being expressed signifyes no more then if it had bene only vnderstood and collected from the nature of Holy Scripture and Priviledg of Canonicall Writers for whom we may and must most certainly avouch that they perfectly sett downe All things according to the direction which they receyved from the Holy Ghost Yourself teach Pag. 35. N. 7. that Christians haue meaâ—es sufficient to determine not all controversyes but all necessary to be determined and why should you judg it an incongruity in vs to say that S. Luke wrote not all the words and works of our Sauiour but all necessary to be written by him whose purpose if it had bene to make a Catechisme or Creed or a Summe of Christian Doctrine would haue required an other forme and method different from the Historicall way which he and other Evangelists hold And that S. Luke proposed to himself a farr different End appeares by Eusebius L. 3. C. 24. affirming that S. Luke wrote for this only reason that he saw some others
set downe Therfor we cannot gather pecisely from the quality of the things in themselves the necessity of their being set downe in writing 137. Thus I hope your Objections and Demands set out with so great pompe and demonstration of some hidden mystery only to amuse some vnwary Reader are answered and confuted and demonstrated to begg the Question and to contayne either manifest falshood or to be wholy impertinent wherin I haue stayed the longer because this Argument taken out of S. Luke is that wheron you most rely as also in regard that what I haue sayd here will serue a fortiori to answer the Reasons which you bring to proue that every one of the foure Evangelists hath set downe all things necessary to be believed though you thinke it most certaine of S. Luke 138. This you endeavour to proue Pag 210. N. 40.41.42.43 though N. 40. you say only that of all foure it is very probable but of S. Luke most apparent and N. 43 It is very probable that every one of the foure Evangelists has in his booke the whole substance all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ But for S. Luke in my judgment it ought to be no manner of Question Now this doubtfulness being acknowledg by you and your conclusion pretend to be no more then probable your reasons can be only probable and some topicall congruityes and then I confute you with your owne words Pag 60. N. 21. for ending of civill controversyes who does not see it is absolutely necessary that not only judges should be appointed but that it should be knowen and vnquestioned who they are Otherwise if it were a disputable thing who were these judges and they had no certaine warrant for their Authority but only some Topicall congruityes would not any man say such judges in all likelyhood would rather multiply Controversyes then end them If this be true how will you haue vs in matters of Eternity and of infinitely higher concernement than civill Controversyes take for a Rule or as Protestants speake a judg every one of the foure Gospells since according to your owne Axiom it is absolutely necessary that it should be knowen and vnquestioned that they are such Otherwise if it be a disputable thing whether they be judges and we haue no certaine warrant for their Authority but only some Topicall congruityes vvill not any man say such judges in all likelyhood vvill rather multiply Controversyes than end them Besides Christian Faith must rely not vpon probable but on some infallible and vndoubted authority vvhich that Rule or judg cannot pretend whose Authority they who are to be tryed by it and who appeale to it directly acknowledg not to be such Morover seing Protestants hold that scripture is not only the Rule but the only Rule of Faith topicall Arguments or congruityes which in other matters might be of some waight can be of no force with them in this our case And therfor your endeavours are in vaine vnless you bring some text yea aÌ„d some evideÌ„t text of scripture to proue this tenet which since you do not as will appeare your argumeÌ„ts aÌ„d hath bin coÌ„fessed by your self I might wel reject all your proofes draweÌ„ only froÌ„ humane reasons as insufficieÌ„t aÌ„d impertineÌ„t without any other particular answer Yet that it may appeare how weake your proofes are I will examine every one in particular aÌ„d I belieue they will be found no better thaÌ„ a perpetuall begging of the questioÌ„ aÌ„d to proue nothing vnless you presuppose that all necessary points must be particularly set downe in holy scripture and that although you seeme to multiply arguments yet indeed you do but repeete the same to witt that no reason can be imagined that any of the Evangelists should omitt any thing necessary and the like conjectures of your owne 139. That this may appeare more clearly let vs propose three Propositions First the doctrine of Catholiques that scripture taken alone contaynes not particularly and evidently all things necessary to salvation then that it is doubtfull whether or no scripture containes all such necessary points thirdly that all things necessary to salvation are particularly and evidently contained in scripture as the Protestants hold This being premised I hope to demonstrate that every one of your arguments must either begg the Question or at least proue nothing 140. Pag 210. N. 40. you say VVhat reason can be imagined that any of them should leaue ouâ— any thing which he knew to be necessary and yet put in many things as apparently all of them haue done which they knew to be only profitable and not necessary VVhat wise and honest man that were now to write the Gospell of Christ would do so great a worke of God after such a negligent fashion 141. Answer First let vs apply to this your Objection the three propositions I mentioned First then Catholiques belieue that all necessary Points of Faith are not expressly and evidently contayned in scripture therfor no reason can be imagined that any of the Evangelists hath left out any thing which he knew to be necessary Yourself will not approue of this consequence but we must say the contraty therfor we can haue no reason to belieue that they were obliged to do so it not being a thing necessary to be done by them or any Canonicall Writer and to retort your owne words what reason can be imagined to oblige them therto Therfor vnless you expressly presuppose our doctrine all things necessary are not evideÌ„tly contained in scrip ture to be false and your contrary assertion true your argument hath no force and what is this but still to be begging the question Do you not know that according to the Rules of Logick the disputant must proue and that it is sufficient for the defendant to stand to his Conclusion till you can remoue him from it by force of argument And yet for the present I need not make vse of this Right but only abstract from the truth or falshood of our most true doctrine in this matter and therfor secondly let vs suppose it to be doubtfull whether all things necessary are contained in the whole bible In this case it must remayne much more doubtfull and so not so much as probable but only by Imagination whether every one of the Evangelists hath set downe all such things For it may be supposed not to be done by every one but by all of them or by all the Canonicall Writers collectiuè as it is the common opinion of ProtestaÌ„ts who therfor must solâ—e your Objections no lesse thaÌ„ we Catholiques 3. Although we suppose your false Doctrine about the sufficiency of scripture alone to be positively true and notonly doubtfull yet you can only infer from thence that all necessary points must be contained in the whole bible as other Protestants teach but you cannot gather that they must be contained in all and much less in every one of the Gospelss Contrarily vnless you
you say Can we imagine that either they ommitted somthing necessary out of ignorance not knowing it to be necessary Or knowing it to be so maliciously concealed it or out of negligence did the work they had vndertaken by halfes If none of these things can without Blasphemy be imputed to them considering they were assisted by the Holy Ghost in this worke then certainly it most evidently followes that every one of them writt the whole Gospell of Christ I meane all the essentiall and necessary parts of it In which words you do nothing but begg the Question still supposing that the Evangelists were obliged to set downe in writing all necessary Points of Faith which though they knew to be necessary to be believed yet they neither did nor could know that they were necessary to be written which two things you ought to distinguish though it seemes you are resolved never to do so And here also you take vpon you to limit the Gospell to the essentiall and necessary parts of it of which your voluntary restriction I haue already sayd enough 172. But Sr. I cannot chuse but aske you vpon the occasion which here you giue how you can say that ignorance or negligence cannot without blasphemy be imputed to the Evangelists seing Pag. 144. N. 31. you affirme that the Apostles even after the sending of the Holy Ghost were and through inadvertence or prejudice continued for a tyme in an errour repugnant to a revealed truth and against our Saviours express warrant and injunction and Pag. 137. N. 2. you teach that the Church of the Apostles tyme did erre against a revealed truth through prejudice or inadvertence or some other cause which last generall reason gives scope to proceed in blasphemy if once we say that the Apostles were not in all things belonging to Faith directed by the Holy Ghost and for such as you to say that if they could erre by inadvertence prejudice or some other causes it was not impossible but at length one of those other causes might grow to be malice But more of this herafter Now I will only touch that which I noted before how little credit or authority your reasons ought to haue with any judicious person since you acknowledg it to be but probable that every one of the Evangelsts hath written all things necessary and yet you would needs haue your proofes therof to be certaine and evident Thus we haue heard you say Pag. 211.42 Take it as you will this conclusion will certainly follow that all that which S. Iohn wrote in his Gospell was sufficient to make them belieue that which being believed with lively Faith would certainly bring them to eternall life Vrceus institui coepit cur Amphora prodit A probability improved to a certainty by the only strength of confidence And Pag. 93. N. 105. you say that vnless we will blaspheme and accuse the Evangelists either or ignorance or malice or negligence certainly it most evidently follows that every one of them writt the whole Gospell of Christ I meane all the essentiall and necessary parts of it 173. Morover although you pretend to a certainty that S. Luke hath written all necessary Points which you hold only probable for the other three Evangelists yet your reason comes to be the same for all which is that the Evangelists were obliged to write all things necessary or els this which in effect is all one with the former what reasōn can be imagined that they should not write all things necessary and yet set downe many things only profitable For vnless you presuppose this reason which is common to all the Evangelists you haue no ground to affirme that the words of S. Luke all that Jesus began to doe and teach must signify determinately all necessary things as I haue often sayd and so vppon the matter you haue the same reason for all the foure Evangelists which is no more then the same begging of the Question 174. But what need we vse many reasons Our eyes can witness that the Evangelists haue not written all necessary Points of Faith For to omitt that they haue not set downe the matter and forme of Sacraments the forme of Government of the Church the power of inflicting censures and many such Points which cannot be evidently proved out of scripture alone without the assistance of tradition we do not find clearly expressed in S. Matthew the Eternall generation of the Son of God wherwith S. Iohn beginnes his Gospell In the beginning was the word c. S. Mark is silent of the Incarnation of our Lord in the wombe of the B. Virgin by vertue of the Holy Ghost His Birth and all other Mysteryes of his sacred life till his age of thirty yeares S Luke as also S Mark omits the giving power to forgiue sins Ioan. 20. V. 22.23 and Matth. 18. V. 18. which is a chief Article of our Creed I beleeue the remission of sinnes S. Iohn wrote nothing of the Annuntiation Nativity Circumcision Epiphany and Ascension of our Saviour Christ and according to Protestants he speakes not of the Eucharist For they deny that Cap. 6. he speakes of that Sacrament And consequently communion vnder both kinds which they hold to be a Divine precept and therfore necessary to salvation is omitted by him as also our Lords prayer All of them haue omitted in their Gospells that which is expressed Act. 2. about the sending of the Holy Ghost and the Decrees of the Councell of the Apostles Act. 15. wherin amongst other things they declare that it was not necessary to obserue the Mosaicall Law which is a most important and necessary point I haue bene longer in answering this objection as contayning many heads and divers Arguments of the same nature which I thought best not to divide Let vs now see what more you can object 175. Object 3. Pag 93. N. 105. If men cannot vnderstand by scripture enough for their salvation why then doth S. Paul say to Timothy the scriptures are able to make him wise vnto salvation 376. Answer First It is not sayd the scriptures alone are able to make one wise to salvation And if you had dealt honestly and not conceald what went before and after it would haue been cleare that S. Paul speakes not of scripture alone and of what scripture he speakes and how scripture may instruct to salvation which points being well considered it will appeare that this Text is so farr from proving what you intend that it makes against you S. Paul V 14. and 15. saith Tu vero permane c. But thou continue in those things which thou hast learned and are committed to thee knowing of whom thou hast learned and because from thy infancy thou hast knowen the holy scriptures which can instruct thee to salvation by the Faith that is in Christ Iesus In which words S. Paul speakes of things which Timothy had learned of him though out of humility ād modesty he concealed his owne name as
which I am bound to belieue the belief of both is necessary the one for it selfe the other for that other which is supposed to be necessary of it self as you say the belief of scripture is only for the belief of the contents Secondly if the reason for which I belieue a thing be not only true but also by the nature therof necessarily obliges me to belieue that thing which it proves in that event whersoever I find that reason I shall remaine obliged to belieue that Object which it proves This is our case For no Christian yea no man indued with reason can deny but that if I belieue an Object as testifyed by God I am obliged to belieue all other Truths so testifyed Now I pray you tell vs the reason for which at this tyme you hold yourself obliged to belieue the contents of scripture You must answer because they are revealed by God testifying the truth of them by many and great miracles Then I aske for what reason do you belieue Scripture to be the word of God If you answer because God hath testifyed it to be such by those Miracles which the Apostles wrought to proue their words and writings to be infallible and inspired by the Holy Ghost then I inferr that as you are bound to belieue the contents of Scripture so you are also obliged to belieue Scripture it self seing you haue the same reason to belieue that God hath testifyed both the Scripture and the contents therof If you belieue Scripture to be the word of God not for the Divine Testimony for which you belieue the contents but for some other Reason then your saying There is not alwayes an equall necessity for the belief of those things for the belief wherof there is an equall Reason was impertinent because for the belief of Scripture there is not the same reason for which you belieue the verityes therin contained and your other saying Pag. 218. N. 49 must be false that no man at this tyme can haue reason to belieue in Christ but he must haue the same to belieue the Scripture if it be true that you belieue not scripture for the same reason for which you belieue Christ and other mysteryes contained in it But let vs know indeed for what reasoÌ„ you belieue Scripture to be the word of God It seemes one may answer for you out of your Answer to your Third Motiue where you teach that the Bible hath bene confirmed with those supernaturall and Divine Miracles which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and the Apostles And Pag. 379. N. 69. you say following the Scripture I shall belieue that which vniversall never-failing Tradition assures me that it was by the admirable supernaturall worke of God confirmed to be the word of God If this be true how are not men obliged to belieue that which hath bene so confirmed Or for what other reason do you belieue the Truths contayned in Scripture as our Saviour His Incarnation Life Death Resurrection and other Mysteryes of Christian Faith but because they were confirmed by the admirable supernaturall workes of God wherby you expressly grant Scripture to haue bene confirmed to be the word of God You must therfor either grant that there is a necessity to belieue Scripture to be the word of God or deny that there is a necessity to belieue the contents therof And then further for our present Question you must either grant that Scripture is a materiall Object of Faith or deny that the verityes therin contayned are such an Object vnless you will confess yourself to be a very strang and vnreasonable man to belieue the matter of the bookes of Scripture and not the Authority of the bookes and therfor since you profess not to be obliged to belieue these may not one haue reason to vse your owne words to feare that you do not thinke yourself obliged to belieue that Nay is it not apparent still I vse your owne words that you at this tyme cannot without hypocrisy pretend an obligation to belieue in Christ but of necessity you must acknowledg an obligation to belieue the Bookes of scripture seing you can haue no reason to thinke you are obliged to belieue in Christ but must haue the same to belieue the scripture and if your belief of the contents of scripture or of obligation to belieue them be vnreasonable it cannot proceed from the particular motion of the Holy Ghost nor be an Act of divine Faith And I beseech you reflect that here there is not only the same reason for the truth of things in themselves but also for our obligation to belieue them namely the divine Testimony which Point if you obserue you cannot but see how impertinent your example was about believing there was such a man as King Henry which you say one is not bound to belieue and that Iesus Christ suffered vnder Pontius Pilate which is a Truth set downe in a writing confirmed by Miracles to be the word of God and consequently to deny the Mysteryes contained in that booke were to reject a thing confessed to be witnessed by God And is not a man obliged to belieue whatsoever he knowes to be witnessed by God I sayd your example is impertinent but I must add that it is also false vnchristian and blasphemous to say as you doe We haue I belieue as great reason to belieue there was such a man as Henry the eight King of England as that Iesus Christ suffered vnder Pontius Pilate Haue you as great reason to belieue the Chronicles of England and the Testimony of men as to belieue the word of God 10. Morover though it import nothing to our present Question whether or no you speake true in saying there is not alwayes an equall necessity for the belief of those things for the belief wherof there is an equall reason yet perhaps you will not easily make it good if there be perfectly and entirely the same reason and of the same kind for both of them For if I conceaue the same reason for both if I belieue the one I may belieue the other nay I haue a necessity to belieue it so far as I cannot belieue the contrary as it is impossible from the same premises belieued to be the same to inferr contrary or contradictory conclusions If perhaps you answer that when one believes a thing for a reason which he sees to be the self same for another he cannot dissent from that other yet he may suspend his vnderstanding from any positiue assent to it which he cannot doe when there is a command to belieue it This answer will not serue your turne but first it is against your self who Pag. 195. N. 11. say to Cha Ma your distinction between Points necessary to be believed and necessary not to be disbelieved is a distinction without a difference there being no point to any man at any tyme in any circumstances necessary not to be dâ—sbelieved but it is to the same man at
to wit the word of God who therfor will not deny his supernaturall concurse necessary to every true act of Divine Faith Otherwise in the ordinary course there would be left no meanes for the Faith and salvation of vnlearned persons from whom God exacts no more than that they proceed prudently according to the measure of their severall capacityes and vse such diligence as men ought to vse in a matter of highest moment All Christians of the primitive Church were not present when the Apostles spoke or wrote yea it is not certaine that every one of those thousands whom S. Peter converted did heare every sentence he spoke but might belieue some by relation of others who stood neere 13. Three things then are necessary and sufficient for exercising an Act of Faith 1. That the ground itself be infallible 2. That it exist in that case for example that God haue indeed revealed such a truth 3. That he who believes proceed prudently Now to determine in particular when one may be judged to proceed prudently depends on divers circumstances of Persons capacity instruction c. What I haue exemplifyed in Scripture may be applyed to Divine Revelation in generall which could not be the Formall Object or Motiue of our Faith if it colud beare witness to any least vntruth and yet we may belieue by an Act of true Faith that which we only prudently belieue that God hath revealed if indeed he hath revealed it And so the first ground which I layd is true that the Foundation vpon which we finally rely must be absolutly certaine whatsoever the particular meanes by which such Foundation or Principle is applyed may chance to be This I say is true speaking of particular persons cases motives and as I may say in actu exercito without touching for the present other Questions 14. This ground being premised I demonstrate That both learned and vnlearned Catholikes haue a firme Foundation vpon which they build their Faith and that Protestants whether they be learned or vnlearned haue no such ground 15. First we haue proved that Scripture doth not contayne all necessary Points of Faith and therfor for those necessarie Points which are not to be found in Scripture they must either be ignorant of them or erre by denying them or els belieue them vpon the Authority of the Church which they expressly and obstinately hold to be fallible and so we may apply against them your owne words Pag 148. N. 36. where you expressly grant that vnless the Church be Infallible in all things we cannot rationally belieue her for her owne sake and vpon her owne word and Authority in any thing For an Authority subject to errour can be no firme or stable Foundation of my belief in any thing and if it were in any thing then this Authority being one and the same in all proposalls I should haue the same reason to believe all that I haue to belieue one and therfor must either do vnreasonably in believing any one thing vpon the sole warrant of this Authority or vnreasonably in not believing all things equally warranted by it Out of which words it followes that you cannot believe any one Point of Faith for the Authority of the Church and that it were vnreasonable in you to doe so and an vnreasonable and imprudent Act cannot be supernaturall or be pleasing to God nor proceed from the speciall motion of the Holy Ghost as every Act of Divine Faith must doe Therfor since Protestants rely vpon Scripture alone which contaynes not all necessary Points of Faith the best learned amongst them must be destitute of somthing necessary to salvation and then what shall we say of the vnlearned who depend on their teachers But it is cleare that Catholikes learned and vnlearned who belieue the infallibility of the church may learne of Her and by tradition or the vnwritten word of God what is not particularly contained in his written word or Scripture 16. But here as in divers other occasions I must vnexpectedly yet necessarily make some stay Charity Maintayned Part 1. Chap 3. N. 15. Pag 94. hath these words If I doubt of any one parcell of Scripture receyved for such I may doubt of all and thence by the same parity I inferr That if we did doubt of the Churches infallibility in some Poynts we could not belieue Her in any one and so not in propounding Canonicall Bookes or any other Points Fundamentall or not Fundamentall At these words you take exception Pag 148. N. 36. and say By this Reason your Proselyts knowing you are not infallible in all things must not nor cannot belieue you in any thing Nay you yourself must not belieue yourself in any thing because you know that you are not infallible in all things Indeed if you had sayd we could not rationally belieue her for herowne sake and vpon her owne word and Authority in any thing I should willingly grant the consequence which you proue in the next words alledged by me aboue For an authority subject to errour can be no firme or stable foundation of my belief in any thing c 17. Answer You haue no reason to cavill at the words of Charity Maintayned which are very cleare and containe no more then what we haue heard yourself expressly teaching That an Authority subject to errour can be no firme Foundation of my belief in any thing And therfor He sayd expressly if we did doubt of the Churches infallibility in some Points we could not belieue her in any one Where you see he speakes of Infallibility which is destroyed by any one least errour and consequently cannot possibly be vnderstood otherwise than of believing the Church for her owne infallibility and Authority and being so vnderstood yourself profess willingly to grant the consequence which is the very same which Charity Maintained did inferr and even out of the very same reason which you did giue Besides he speakes expressly of Scripture and the Church in order to the proposing of Canonicall Scripture or believing other Points of Faith Fundamentall or not Fundamentall which require a Proposer vniversally infallible as yourself grant And so to answer your Objection no body can belieue me nor I can belieue my self for my owne authority in matters which require certainty and Infallibility as all Points of Faith doe vnless I were believed to be infallible in all things for the same reason which we haue heard yourself giue that an Authority subject â—o errour can be no firme FouÌ„dation of my belief in any thing But you say there is no coÌ„sequeÌ„ce in this Argument which you say is like to myne the dâ—vell is not infallible therfor if he sayes there is one God I cannot belieue him No Geometrician is infallible in all things therfor not in the things which he demonstrates N. N. is not infallible in all things therfor he may not belieue that he wrote a Booke entituled Charity Maintayned 18. Answer It is very true that I cannot
his defence of Hooker teachers the same Doctrine and neither you nor any Protestant in the world can haue any ground to thinke that it is possible to convince them of fal shood in this matter and therfor this vncertainty which you impute to vs falls heavy vpon yourself and other Protestants if indeed they administer Sacraments without such an intention as all Catholikes aÌ„d some chief ProtestaÌ„ts belieue to be necessary 33. Now as for the Doctrine itself of Catholikes about the necessity of Intention it is so reasonable and cleare that it is strang any can call it in Question For I beseech you if a madman or a foole ar a drunken man or an infant or one in his sleepe should chance to cast water vpon one and pronounce the Forme should such an one be baptized or if he were baptized already were such an action of such persons a rebaptizatioÌ„ If one with purpose only to learne the manner of baptizing did practise the pronouncing the words and applying the Matter should that be true Baptisme If one by chance reading or disputing or for some other end should pronounce the words of Consecration out of Scripture and that without his knowlege there should chance to be bread aÌ„d wine with in a morall distaÌ„ce should he consecrate the Eucharist Or are men obliged never to pronounce those words in such occasions as I specifyed least they consecrate whether they will or noâ— Are not these foolish absurdityes If you say and it is all that can be imagined you can say that at least he who pronounces the words must exercise a deliberate humane morall free Action which madmen infants c. nor even men in their wits cannot exercise when they are ignorant of the morall presence of the matter that is to be consecrated but that it is not necessary besides the substance of a morall Action to intend also to administer a Sacrament I answer first This answer evacuates the ground of Heretiks who say That intention is not necessary because the words receive force only from the Will and Institution of God and therfor must not depend vpon the morality of that Action which morality depends vpon the intention of him that pronounces the words to wit that he intend to doe it seriously aÌ„d not in jeast or by way only of pronouncing the materiall words without their signification and so the salvation of soules must depend vpon a secret intention of which we cannot be sure as men exercise many indeliberate actions without any virtuall or actuall inteÌ„tion If for the validity of a Sacrament it be sufficient to exercise a deliberate action without any further reference or Intention one could not without a deadly sin wash an infant already baptized and for devotion say I wash the in the name of the Father c as meÌ„ are woÌ„t to say I doe this in Gods name because according to this answer it would be repabtization 2. I answer if one be supposed to intend the performance of the Sacramentall action for the substance no reason can be imagined why he should not inteÌ„d to doe as others do in such an action for example if the child be brought to be Christened and the Minister deliberately apply water and pronounce the Forme ether can be no cause which can moue him at least not to intend that which there are wont to do in the like case and to thinke the contrary may easily or almost possibly happen argues only in you an excessiue desire to impugne by whatsoever arguments our Catholique Doctrine 34. And here I must of necessity make a diversion rather than a digression and answer some Points to which you referr yourself in this Pag 94. N. 109. in these words All which things as I haue formally proved deâ—end vpon so many vnâ—ertaine suppositions that no human judgment can possibly be resolved in them For although what you pretend to haue bene formally proved hath bene in effect answered already yet I thought sit to examine every point in particular that so the Foundation of your assertions in this place being overthrowne all the superstructions which you and other Protestants are wont to make may evidently appeare false and ruinous and so fall to the ground 35. Cha Ma Part. 1. Chap 2. N. 16. having shewed out of Brierly Tract 1. Sect 10. subd 4. joyned with Tract 2. Chap 2. Sect 10. Subd 2. That the Translations of Scripture made by Luther Zwinglius Oecolampadius and the Divines of Basill Castâ—lio Calvin Beza and Geneva Bibles as also the English Translation are mutually condemned by Protestants themselves respectiue as corrupting the Word of God and the Authors as Antichrists and deceivers Wicked and altogeather differing from the mynd of the Holy Ghost sacrilegious Ethnicall making the Text of the Gospell to leap vp and downe vsing violence to the letter of the Gospell adding to the Text changing the Text deserving either to be purged from those manifold errours which are both in the Text and in the margent or els vtterly to be prohibited in the Translation of the Psalmes in addition substraction and alteration differing from the Truth of the Hebrew in two hundred places at the least and such as is doubtfull whether a man with a safe conscience may subscribe therto depraving the sense obscuring the truth deceiving the ignorant in many places detorting the Scripture from the right sense and that the Translators shew themselves to loue darkness more than light falshood more than truth taking away from the Text adding to the Text to the changing or obscuring of the meaning of the Holy Ghost c. This I say Charity Maintayned having shewed adds these words Let Protestants consider duly these Points Salvation cannot be hoped for without the true Faith Faith according to them relyes vpon Scripture alone Scripture must be delivered to most of them by Translations Translations depend on the skill and honesty of men in whom nothing is more certaine then a most certaine possibility to erre and no greater evidency of truth than that it is evident some of theÌ„ embrace falshood by reason of their contrary Translations What then remayneth but that truth Faith Salvation and all must in them rely vpon a fallible and vncertaine ground How many poore soules are lamentably seduced while from preaching Ministers they admire a multitude of Texts of Divine Scripture but are indeed the false translations and corruptions of erring men Let them therfor if they will be assured of true Scriptures fly to the alwayes visible Church against which the gates of Hell can never so farr prevaile as that she shall be permitted to deceyue the Christian world with false Scriptures 87. Against these words Pag 76. N. 63. you speak in this manner This Objection though it may seeme to do you great service for the present yet I feare you will repent the tyme that ever you vrged it against vs as a fault that we make mens salvation depend vpon
attaine Faith by the mere consideration of Gods creatures or by the Law written in our harts or by immediate extraordinary lights but by the Ministery of the Church and therfor Ephes 4.11.12 Pastours and Doctours are sayd to be given to the consummation of the Saints vnto the worke of the Ministerie vnto the edifying of the Body of Christ Which declares that men cannot be made members of the Body of Christ but by the Ministery of Pastours and Doctours And even those Protestants who rely vpon the private Spirit for knowing true Scripture will grant that the Spirit is not given but when the Churches Ministery precedes as an Introduction or as Potter Pag 139. speakes the present Church workes vpon all whithin the Church to prepare induce and perswade the mynd as an outward meanes to imbrace the Faith to reade and belieue the Scriptures 71. It remaymes then that not Scripture but the Church which was before Scripture and from which we receaue it must be the necessary meanes in the ordinary course which God hath appointed to produce Faith and decide Controversyes in Religion and consequently must be infallible according to your owne Doctrine Pag 35. N. 7. that the meanes to decide Controversyes in Faith and Religion must be indued with an vniversall infallibility in whatsoever it propoundeth for a divine truth For if it may be false in any one thing of this nature in any thing which God requires men to belieue we can yield vnto it but a wavering and fearfull assent in any thing 72. 5. I vrge the Argument of Charity Maintayned Part 1. Chap 2. N. 23. Pag 69. If Protestants will haue Scripture alone for their Judge or Rule let them first produce some Text of Scripture affirming that by the entring therof infallibility went out of the Church 73. To this you answer Pag 104. N. 138. In these words As no Scripture affirmeth that by the entring of it infallibility went out of the Church so neither do we neither haue we any need to do so But we say that it continued in the Church even togeather with the Scriptures so long as Christ and his Apostles were living and then departed God in his Providence having provided a plaine and infallilde Rule to supply the defect of Living and infallible Guides Gertainly if your cause were good so great a wit as yours is would devise better Arguments to maintaine it We can shew no Scripture afsirming infallibility to haue gone out of the Church therfore it is infallible Some what like to his discourse that said it could not be proved out of Scripture that the King of Sweden was dead therfore he is still Living Me thinks in all reason you that chaleng privileges and exemption from the condition of men which is to be subject to errour you that by vertue of this privilege vsurpe Authority over mens consciences should produce your Letter-patents from the King of Heaven and shew some express warrant for this Authority you take vpon you otherwese you know the Rule is vbi contrarium non manifestè probatur presumitur pro libertate 74. This Answer is easily confuted First I must returne it vpon yourself with thankes for your voluntary express grant That no Scripture afsirmes that by entring of it infallibility went out of the Church Remember your owne saying that there are only two Principles common to Christians Reason and Scripture Seing then it is evident that meere naturall Reason cannot determine any thing in this matter and that you grant it cannot be proved by Scripture that infallibility went out of the Church by the entring of Scripture what remaines but that you haue no proofe at all for it And since that you directly grant infallibility to haue continued for some tyme in the Church even togeather with the Scriptures and that neither by reason nor Scripture you can proue that it ever departed from Her we must of necessity conclude that she still enjoyes that priviledge most necessary for deciding controversyes belonging to infallible Christian faith You say God hath provided a plaine and infallible Rule to supply the defect of living and infallible Guides But we haue proved the contrary That Scripture is not plaine in all Points belonging to Faith and though it were so yet yourself confess in this place that infallibility in the Church may stand with the sufficiency and plaines of Scripture and therfore you cannot inferr scripture is sufficient therfore the Church is not infallible You teach Pag 101. N. 126. That though all the necessary parts of the Gospell be contained in every one of the foure Gospells yet they which had all the Bookes of the New Testament had nothing superfluous for it was not superfluous but profitable that the same thing should be sayd divers tymes and be teslifyed by divers witnesses Therfore the Testimony of the Church if she were supposed to be infallible might be profitable although Scripture were cleare and sufficient Protestants pretend that we can proue matters belonging to Faith only by Scripture Wherfore you must either proue by some plaine Text of Scripture that infallibility dyed as I may say with the Apostles or never affirme herafter any such groundless voluntary and pernicious Proposition From Scripture we learne that with out repentance are the gifts of God Rom 11.29 And it is an Axiome of naturall Reason Melior est conditio possidentis God once bestowed vpon the Church the gift of infallibility and therfore without some evident positiue proofe you are not to depriue her of it And we are not obliged to produce any other Argument except to plead Possession which you cannot take from vs without some evident proofe to the contrary And you being the Actor and we the Defendents not wee but you must prove and performe what you exact of vs to shew some express warrant c though it be also most true that we haue great plenty of convincing proofes for the infallibility of Gods Church 75. As for your Instance about the King of Sweden I belieue you will loose your jeast whē I shall haue asked whether this were not a good Argument we can know by Scripture alone whether the King of Sweden be aliue or dead but we know by Scripture he was once Living and know not by any Scripture that he is dead Therfore for ought we know he is aliue and so your example returnes vpon yourself that seing you know by Scripture infallibility to haue bene once in the Church and that by no Scripture which with you must be the only proofe in this case you know that it ever departed from Her you must belieue that still she enjoyes it As for vs we challeng no Priviledges but such as were granted by our Saviour to his Church and which we proue by the same Arguments wherby the Apostles and their Successors proue their Authority as shall be shewed herafter and the Rule Ubi contrarium manifestè non probatur praesumitur pro libertate
composito as I may say That is vpon supposition that once they be desined he expressly declares as we haue seene that that belongs to the Fundation of Faith whatsoever the Church vniversally holds either in Doctrine or worship When therfore he sayth Princip Doctrin Controv 4. Lib 8. Chap 15. for God as also nature as he is not wanting in things necessary so is he not lavish in superflnityes He speakes not of points of Faith not Fundamentall which being once defined he professes to belong to the Fundation of Faith but in the next precedent words he expressly declares that when he saith the Church is not infallible he vnderstands only that infallibility was not granted to her Propter aut invtiles curiositates explendas aut subtilitates non necessarias investigandas Either for satisfying idle curiosityes or finding out vnnecessary subtiltyes and proves it because God and nature as they are not wanting in things necessary so are they not lavish in superfluityes And therfore Potter did wrong the learned Stapleton alledging those his words as if he had ever dreamed that the Church is not vniversally infallible in all Points of Faith whether the matters of themselves be great or small 96. And you also wrong Charity Maintayned in saying Pag 144. N. 32. That he wrongs Dr. Potter when Part 1. Pag 91. he writes thus Dr. Potter Sect 5. Pag 150. speakes very dangerously toward this purpose of limiting the infallibility of the Apostles and Scripture to necessary Points only as he restraines the Promises made by Christ to his Church where he endeavoureth to proue that the infallibility of the Church is limited to Points Fundamentall because as nature so God is neither defectiue in necessaryes nor lavish in superfluityes Which Reason doth likewise proue that the infallibility of Scripture and of the Apostles must be restrained to points necessary to salvation that so God be not accused as defective in necessaryes or lavish in superfluityes In which words you say Charity Maintayned wrongs Dr. Potter Because it is not he but Dr. Stapleton in him that speakes the words Charity Maintayned cavills at Answer If Charity Maintayned had absolutely assirmed those to be the very words of Dr. Potter the Doctour might blame himself only who having first cited the immediatly precedent words of Dr. Stapleton in a different or cursiue letter declaring that they were Dr. Stapletons and not his owne the words immediatly following for as nature so God is neither defectiue c. he sets downe in the ordinary letter of his Booke both in his first and second Edition 2. Seing Potter accepts and approves those words he must be answerable for all consequences that are truly deduced from them as if they were his owne 3. The truth is Dr. Stapleton brings those words for a purpose not only different but contrary to that for which Dr. Potter alledges them and therfore not Stapleton but Potter must be lyable to all bad consequences which follow out of them For Potter would proue out of them that infallibility was given to the Church not for all but only for Fundamentall points of Faith which we haue seene to be directly contrary to the Doctrine of Stapleton who out of the sayd words proves only that infallibility was not granted for deciding idle curiosityes or vnprofitable subtiltyes And therfor 4. seing the life and essence of words is their signification this being wholy different in those words as they are spoken by Stapleton and vnderstood misapplyed and misalledged by Potter Charity Maintayned did not wrong him but he did wrong Dr. Stapleton in applying the sound and as I may say carcasse of his words against the true meaning and life of them intended and fully declared by Stapleton as you also do wrong Stapleton in approving Potters allegation of those words and Charity Maintayned as if he had wronged Potter Who can deny this to be a good consequence God is neither defectiue in necessaryes nor lavish in superfluityes Therfor he hath not induced the Church with infallibility for deciding of vnprofitable questions which is Stapletons Argument As contrarily this other is of no force God is not lavish in superfluityes Therfore he hath not conferred infallibility vpon his Church for any other Points of Faith and revealed Truths except such as are of themselves necessary to salvation as if all points which are not Fundamentall were curious or vnprofitable matters Which Potter doth inferr directly against the consequence which Stapleton drawes from those very same words affirming that every thing defined by the Church belongs to the Foundation of Faith Besides since Potter alledgeth those words to proue that the promises of our Saviour made to his Church must be restrained to Points Fundamentall least he might seeme lavish in superfluityes Charity Maintayned had reason to inferr that for the same Reason of not being lavish in superfluityes the Doctour might limite the infallibility of the Apostles to necessary and Fundamentall Points Neither is it sufficient for you to say Pag 143. N. 30. that we read in Scripture All Scripture is divinely inspired and therfore All Scripture whether it deliver Fundamentall or not Fundamentall Points is true For Charity Maintayned in this very place and about this very Text of Scripture which you cite out of him and endeavour to answer by way of prevention had confuted this your instance in these words If it be vrged That All Scripture is divinely inspired that it is the word of God c Dr. Potter hath affoarded you a ready answer to say That Scripture is inspired c Only in those parts or parcells wherin it delivereth Fundamentall points Thus Charity Maintayned But you thought safest to dissemble these words And I pray if those vnlimited words concerning the Church that the gates of hell shall not privaile against her Matth 16.18 and that the holy Ghost shall lead her into all truth c which texts are alledged by Potter must be limited to Fundamentall points why may not those other words all scripture is divinely inspired signify only that all scripture is inspired for what belongs to points fundamentall or necessary to salvation as Cha Ma doth vrge in the same place 97. Now then vpon the whole matter it is manifest that the learned Dr. Stapleton teaches neither more nor lesse concerning the Infallibility of the Church than all other Catholikes doe For besides that which we haue sayd already Relect Controv 4. Quest 2. He expressly declares That she is infallible in the Conclusion or Doctrine and definition though it be not necessary that she be Infallible in the Arguments or proofes or manner of teaching Est saith he in ipsa Doctrina infalliblis etsi in forma ratione docendi non ita and therfore he puts no difference between the certainty of her Definitions though the Reasons or proofes which she vse chance to haue of themselves more or less certainty whether they be taken from Scripture or Tradition or otherwise
pretended Bishop I meane for the consequence which he makes that if Episcopacie be Juris Divini it is damnable to impugne it and with Molin agrees Dr. Taylor of Episcopacy teaching § 46. That to separate from the Bishop makes a man at least a Schismatike and § 47. That it is also Heresy And in his Liberty of Prophesying Epist Dedic Pag 32.33 having sayd that the Lutheran Churches the Zuinglians and the Calvinists reject Episcopacy he adds which the Primitive Church would haue made no doubt to haue called Heresy More of this and of the Notes of the Church may be seene in Charity Maintayned Part 1. Chap 9. this not being a place to treat at large of these matters It is sufficient for our present purpose to demonstrate that we are no way guilty of walking in a Circle Only it will be necessary to note here two Points 5. First That the Arguments of credibility fall primarily vpon the Church not vpon Scripture which confirmes what I sayd that the Apostles were not Infallible because they wrote but their writings deserue credit because the writers were Infallible Thus in the Old Law Moyses gained authority by working Miracles and by other Arguments of credibility wherby the people accepted him as a Man sent by God to declare his word and will and in such manner as they were sure to belieue God by giving credit to Moyses They believed our Lord and Moyses his servant Exod 14.31 and 19.9 and ther vpon they belieâ—ed the Scripture which he wrote and proposed as the Infallible word of God and by it other particulars even concerning Moyses himself In the New Law the Apostles proved and settled the Authority of their Persons before their writings could be prudently receaved as Diuine or the Word of God The Reason therof is because the Motives or Arguments of credibility immediatly make that credible of which they are effects which immediatly manifest their cause Now the Motives to embrace Religion agree immediatly to the Church or Persons and not to writings and so Marc Vlt it is sayd These signes shall follow those who belieue And therfore though there were no Scriptures if the Church did still remaine these motives would also remaine for example Sanctity of life Miracles conversion of Nations Martirdomes Victory over all enemyes the name Catholique c Which could not agree to Scripture though we did falsely suppose that it did remayne and the Church perish For no Writing is capable of Sanctity of life Succession of Bishops c yea the Scripture can haue no efficacy vnless it be first believed to be the word of God and it must be beholding to the Church for such a Testimony and therfor whatsoever perfections or attributes may seeme to belong immediatly to the Scripture must depend on the Church as the Scripture itself doth in order to our believing it to be the word of God But contrarily the Perfections or priviledges of the Church are independent of Scripture as the Church itself is which was before Scripture And here it is also to be considered that we haue no absolute certainty that the Apostles ever wrought any particular Miracle to proue immediatly that Scripture is the word of God but we are sure they did it mediatè by gaining Authority to their Persons and then to their writings And thus you say in your Answer to the Direction N. 43. That the Bible hath bene confirmed with those Miracles which were wrought by our Saviour and the Apostles But now if we be obliged to believe the Scripture in all things by reason of Arguments which bind vs to belieue it to be the word of God we must also be obliged to belieue the Church in whatsoever she proposes as Divine Verityes since the Arguments and Reasons of credibility do more immediatly proue the true Church than they proue Scripture 6. The second thing to be observed is That when we are obliged to receave some Persons as messengers of God appointed and assisted by him to deliver Divine Truths as the Apostles were we are bound to belieue them in all things which they propound for such Truths For as I haue often sayd if they might erre in some things of this nature we could not belieue theÌ„ in any other thing for their sole Authority as all coÌ„fess of Scripture that being once delivered by meÌ„ of the forsayd Authority as the word of God it must be receyved as vniversally true in all and every least passage though the Apostles did not confirme by seve rall Miracles the matter of every particular Text and yet every one is an object of Faith nor of every particular Truth which they spoke but it was sufficient that people did and were obliged to receaue them as men who by commission from God taught the true way to eternall Happynes and therfore were to be credited in all particulars which they did propose 7. Out of this true Ground I inferr That it cannot be sayed without injury to Gods Church to the Apostles and God himself that when men of our Church worke Miracles and produce other Reasons to proue that they preach the true Faith and Religion to gentils Jewes Turks or Heritikes those Miracles are not sufficient Proofes of all that which our Church propounds as Divine Truth but of some particular Points for example not of Purgatory Prayer to Saints Reall Presence c. but of such Christian verityes as Protestants belieue with vs. This cannot be sayd For it is evident that the same might haue bene objected against the Apostles to wit that God intended to proue by their Miracles only some verityes believed by Jewes or Heretikes and not every one of the particular Mysteryes of Christian Religion Neither can it be sayd that the Preachers of our Catholique Church when they convert Nations doe worke Miracles to bring them to I know not what Faith in generall or in abstracto or an Idea Platonica but to the Catholique Roman Religion which if it were false God in his Goodness could never permitt so many and great Miracles to be wrought and other so evident Arguments of credibility to be produced that people must be obliged to receiue such Preachers as Teachers of the true way to Heaven as he could not permit the Apostles to worke Miracles intending that they should be trusted in some not in all Points For this generall Reason taken from Gods Goodness and providence is the same in all who bring the like Arguments of Credibility as our Church never wants Arguments like to those whereby the Apostles made good their Authority Besides if the sayd Objection were of force men de facto can haue no certainty that Scripture is the word of God for all Points contayned therin because it will be sayd that although Miracles were wrought to proue that the Bible is the word of God they might be vnderstood not to confirme every passage or Text but only some Truths contayned therin And likewise according to
either to be perplexed and doubtfull of Christian Religion or vtterly to forsake it ād become Jewes or Turks Such were Castalio David Georg Ochinus Neuserus Alemannus and others as may be seene exactly set downe in Brierly Tract 2. Cap. 1. Sect. 5. 12. These things considered we must say that if it be once believed against wicked Atheists that there is a God that he hath Providence over his creatures and is to be worshipped in some Religion it is impossible that he can bestow so great Prerogatives vpon the Roman Church and affoard so many forcible and evident Reasons convincing Her to be the true Church and yet that she should not be so indeed For such an errour could not be ascribed to man following the best guidance of evident Reason but to God alone which cannot be affirmed without blasphemy And how is it possible that Gods will should be that we embrace his true Worship and Religion and yet affoard to the contrary errour so great strength of Reason that in all prudence and reason men should embrace not the true but the false Faith and Religion 13. And this may suffice for the present to demonstrate that we are free enough from walking in a circle and that you speake very vntruly when you say Pag 377. N. 59. and in your Answer to the Direction N. 8. and 14. that we can pretend no proofe for the Church but some Texts wherin you contradict even yourself who Pag 66. N. 35. say that our Faith even of the Fundation of all our Faith our Churches Authority is built lastly and wholly vpon prudentiall Motives If wholly vpon prudentiall Motives how do you so often tell vs that we build it only vpon Scripture And that by so doing we run round in a Circle proving Scripture by the Church and the Church by Scripture 14. But now let vs consider a litle whether your pretended Brethren the Protestants can themselves avoyd that which you and they do so vehemently object to vs. First then They who profess to know the private spirit cannot avoyd a Circle while they proue Scripture by that spirit and that spirit by Scripture by which alone according to their Principles they can try whether or no it proceede from God Wherof Ihaue spoken heretofore 15. Secondly they who pretend to know the Scripture by certaine internall criteria or signes found in Scripture itself as light majesty efficacy or as Potter speakes Pag 141. a glorious beame of divine light which shines in Scripture must fall into the same Circle with those men of the private spirit For seing those criteria which they fancy to themselves are nor evident either to sense or naturall reason they must be knowen by some other meanes which can be none except some internall private spirit or Grace within as Potter expressly speakes Pag 141. and Pag 142. saith There is in the Scripture it self light sufficient which the eye of Reason cleared by Grace may discover to be Divine descended from the Father and fountaine of light If then we aske these men why they belieue Scripture to be indued with such light majesty c. seing these things appeare not evidently to any of our senses nor to our vnderstanding as prima principia of naturall Reason which are manifest of themselves their Answer must be that internall Gracē assures vs therof and so this Grace is necessary not only ex parte subjecti or potentiae to assist our soule aboue our naturall forces in order to supernaturall Objects but it is the reason motiue and medium ex parte objecti for which we belieue for other reason these men can giue none and then enters the Argument which I made even now How can they know that this light or spirit is infused by God and proceeds not from some bad spirit except by Scripture and consequently by first knowing Scripture wherby that light must be examined and yet they cannot know scripture except they be first inspired with this light and know it to be a true light and not an illusion which is a manifest Circle placing this light before Scripture and Scripture before this light and finally they are in effect cast vpon the private spirit Catholikes I grant belieue that the particular assistance of the Holy Ghost is necessarie for exercising an Act of Faith but they require it only ex parte potentiae to enable our vnderstanding to assent to an object represented and proposed by Motives sufficient to oblige vs to an infallible Act having for its principall and formall Object the Divine Revelation which Revelation and Motives are adequately and perfectly distinguished from the sayd Assistance as in proportion we belieue by the vertue and strength of the Habit of Faith ex parte potentiae but we do not belieue for it neither is it apprehended or considered or represented to our vnderstanding when we belieue but that which we apprehend moves the Act of our vnderstanding is the reason and motiue for which we beleeue as also the facultie of our vnderstanding is necessary for vs to belieue and yet we do not belieue for but by it And therfore Protestants avoyd a Circle as we evidently do 16. Thirdly As for you who profess to belieue the Scripture for the Church if you be free from an vnprofitable Circle we also who receyue and belieue the Scripture for the Authority of the Church are secured from it for the same reason and therfore you must either acquit vs or condemne yourself though you will never be able to be proved not guilty of vntruth and injustice in objecting to vs alone that very thing of which yourself are guilty 17. But now because in this Controversy about the Church Protestants seeke to make great vse of a distinction between Fundamentall and not Fundamentall Poynts I must in the next Chapter say somthing therof that is wheras Charity Maintayned hath shewed against Dr. Potter the falshood and impertinency of that distinction as it is applyed by Protestants yea and that they contradict themselves therin I will now endeavour to proue that notwithstanding all that you haue written in defense of the Doctour the Arguments of Charity Maintayned remayne in force as also that you in this matter contradict both Protestants and yourself CHAP. VI. ABOVT FVNDAMENTALL AND NOT FVNDAMENTALL POYNTS OF FAITH 1. THis Question concerning Fundamentall and not Fundamentall Poynts of Faith is stated at large by Charity Maintayned Chap 3. N. 2. The summe is Some Points are called Fundamentall or necessary because every one is obliged to know and belieue them expressly and explicitely and Potter Pag 243. speaking of some Points of Faith sayth These are so absolutely necessary to all Christians for attaining the End of our Faith that is the salvation of our soules that a Christian may loose himself not only by a positive erring in them or denying of them but by a pure ignorance or nescience or not knowing of them Other Points are called not
most Fundamentall of all Articles in the Church that Iesus Christ the Son of God and the Son of Mary is the only Saviour of the world Surely one of you must be in such a most important and most Fundamentall errour that you cannot both be saved though you were inculpably ignorant of it as we haue seene out of Potter Pag 243. even concerning this particular Article And now I pray you consider this agreement of Protestants in the foresayd Articles of Repentance and Faith in Christ Iesus the Son of God and Saviour of the world which yet you confess to be simply necessary 24. Object 3. In the same Pag 159. N. 52. You say Suppose a man in some disease were prescribed a medicine consisting of twenty ingredients and he advising with Physitians should find them differing in opinion about it some of them telling hem that all the ingredients were absolutly necessary some that only some of them were necessary the rest only profitable and requisite ad melius esse lastly some that some only were necessary some profitable and the rest superfluous yet not hurtfull yet all with one accord agreeing in this that the whole receypt hid in it all things necessary for the recovery of his health and that if he made vse of it he should infallibly find it successfull what wise man would not thinke they agreed sufficiently for his direction to the recovery of his health I ust so these Protestant Doctours with whose discords you make such Tragedyes agreeing in Thesâ— thus far that the Scripture evidently containes all things necessary to salvation and that whosoever believes it and endeavours to find the true sense of it and to conforme his life vnto it shall certainly performe all things necessary to salvation and vndoubtedly be saved what matters it for the divection of men to salvation though they differ in opinion touching what Points are absolutly necessary and what not 25. Answer You Socinians who adore naturall reason and take pleasure in being esteemed considering men are much delighted in proposing similitudes which make a faire shew and may seduce the ignorant but being examined proue nothing against any except yoursel ves First This similitude can proue nothing vnless you begg the Question and suppose one receypt to haue in it all things necessary for the recovery of the diseased mans health that is Scripture to containe all Points necessary to salvation which you know we deny and say you erre in Thesi If with Scripture you would joyne the Tradition and Definitions of the Church your suppositions were true and your parity good Otherwise your receypt cannot haue all necessary ingredients 26. Secondly Suppose the sick man had great reason to belieue that the ground vpon which the Physitians build their opinion and agreement were not good nor such as he had any obligation at all to credit what sick man if he were also wise could judg their agreement to be sufficient for an vndoubted direction to the recovery of his health Heere then as in other severall occasions I must put you in mynd of your doctrine that we are not bound to belieue as an Object of our Faith Scripture to be the word of God but that we may reject it What then availes it me towards the belief of such or such Points that they are evident in Scripture if I do not belieue Scripture itself 27. Thirdly Suppose the ingredients were very soveraine and sufficient in themselves but that it were not in the sick mans power to procure them were the speculatiue agreement of the Physitians sufficient for his recovery So here It is impossible for most men to know all evideÌ„t texts of scripture which yet according to your grounds must make vp that number of Truths wherin one shall be sure to find all Fundamentall Points and so the agreement of Protestants that all necessary Truths are evidently contayned in Scripture is to little purpose since they cannot distinguish them from Points not necessary and for all men to know all Points evident in Scripture but not necessary is impossible and though it were possible yet being not of obligation for any man even though he be learned to know all such Texts defacto he might without sinne be ignorant of necessary Points which he can be certaine to know only by knowing absolutly all cleare places of Scripture and so be damned for want of believing some Point absolutly necessary necessitate medij which is a plaine contradiction that some Points should be necessary to salvation and yet that we are not bound to attaine the knowledg of them or that the End which is the knowledg of such Points should be necessary and the only meanes to attaine it be either impossible or at least not of obligation to any as certainly no man is obliged to know precisely all and every particular evident Text of Scripture which â—et in your way is the only meanes to know all Fundamentall Points as in your example if a sick man were obliged to procure the recovery of his health he must be obliged to make vse of that receypt which alone could be effectuall in order to that end 28. Fourthly Suppose I could not take such a receypt without danger of drinking poyson togeather with the wholsome ingredients your similitude which goes vpon the contrary supposition doth clearely proue nothing Thus it passes in our case Men left to themselves without the Direction and Traditions of the Church yea with direct opposition to her Definitions and Authority cannot chuse but by occasion of reading Scripture alone fall into many errours against some Divine Revelation delivered either in Scripture or by Tradition that is in the written or vnwritten word of God as we see by experience of old and new Heretikes and particularly by the dissensions of Protestants wherof some must needs contradict some Truth delivered in Gods Word either by detracting from or by adding to the true sense therof Now in divets places you affirme that every errour contrary to any revealed Truth is in its owne nature damnable without Repentance and you add Pag 158. N. 52. that for the most part men are betrayed into errours or kâ—â—t in them by their fault or vice or passion And therfore the true Conclusion will be that men presuming to reade and interpret Scripture by their owne wit without dependance on the Church ought to conceaue that they expose themselves to certaine danger of erring against some Divine Truth or Revelation that is to a thing in itself damnable Neither can they hope for any helpe from Sectaryes whom they see infinitly divided among themselves And if they take such men for their Physitians some of them will affirme some ingredients to be necessary or profitable which others will sweare to be ranke poyson and so every Protestant is left to himself and a particular Catalogne of Fundamentalls is necessary for every one All which is strongly confirmed by calling to mynd that even the most learned
you take away you destroy the vnity of the Church For a Division of that which is essentiall is a plaine destruction Protestants teach the true preaching of the word and due administration of Sacraments to be so essentiall to the Church that without them a Church ceases to be a Church therfore if there be not agreement or Communion in them they cannot be essentially one Church but essentially different and divided one from another This true Principle being setled 4. The first reason which Charity Maintayned Chap 5. Part 1. N. 12. alledges to proue his Assertion is this Seing Schisme consists essentially in leaving the externall Communion of the Visible Church of Christ and that Luther and his Associars did so as he proves by evidence of fact and by the confessions of Protestants Luther saying in Prà efat Oper suorum in the beginning I was alone And Calvin Ep 141. We were forced to make a separation from the whole world besides the sayings of other Protestants it followes that they cannot be excused from Schisme 5. The Answer which may be gathered out of Dr. Potter to this Reason is That they left not the Church but her Corruptions Which evasion Charity Maintayned confutes by willing him to consider that for the present we speake not of Heresy or departing from the Church but of Schisme of leaving her externall Communion which manifestly they did by separating from all Churches and consequently from the Vniversall Church which is the most formall sinne of Schisme And indeed they ought to inferr that the Vniversall Church is not subject to any errour in Doctrine and not tell the world that they forsooke her Communion for her Errours seing her Communion is never to be forsaken and therfore it is not possible that she can giue any cause of such a separation by falling into errour This we learne of S. Austine Cont Parm Lib 2. Chap 11. There is no just necessity to divide Vnity And Ep 48. It is not possible that any may haue just cause to separate their Communion from the Communion of the whole world and call themselves the Church of Christ as if they had separated themselves from the Communion of all Nations vpon just cause And S. Irenaeus Cont Heres Lib 4. C 62. They can not make any so important reformation as the evill of the Schisme is pernicious 6. Secondly Charity Maintayned proves them to be Schismatikes by this Argument Potter teaches that the Catholique Church cannot erre in points of Faith Necessary to salvation and therfore it cannot be damnable to remayne in her Communion although she were falsly supposed to teach some Errours seing they cannot be damnable and consequently cannot yield any necessary cause to leaue her Communion but it is cleare that Luther and the rest left the whole vniversall Church which was extant before them vnder pretense of Errours which cannot be Fundamentall Therfore it is cleare they left Her without any necessary cause Which I confirme by your owne words Pag 220. N. 52. where you say May it please you now at last to take notice that by Fundamentall we meane all and only that which is necessary and then I hope you will grant that we may safely expect salvation in a Church which hath all things Fundamentall to salvation vnless you will say that more is necessary than that which is necessary And Pag 376 N. 57. he that believes all necessary Truth if his life he answerable to his Faith how is it possible he should faile of salvation Therfore say I seing the Church vniversall cannot erre in necessary Points whosoever embraceth her Faith for as much as belongs to Faith cannot faile of salvation vnless you will say that more is necessary then that which is necessary which are your owne words You say also Pag 33. N. 4. If a particular man or Church may hold some particular Errours and yet be a member of the Church vniversall why may not the Church hold some vniversall Errour and yet be shell the Church This parity is none at all yet seing you must make it good I may say much more with all truth and without any dependence vpon your false parity if the Church vniversall may hold some vniversall Errour as you confess she may which yet indeed is impossible and be still the Church why may not a particular man or Church hold some particular errours and yet be a member of the Church vniversall and consequently capable of salvation for as much as concernes his Faith And therfore none can forsake the Church by leaving her Communion and making himself no member of Her for any such errours as are not opposite to a necessary Truth into which kind of errours it is confessed the Church cannot fall To which I may add what yousay Pag 35. N. 7. if some Controversyes may for many Ages he vndetermined and yet in the meane while men be saved why should or how can the Churches being furnisht with effectuall meanes to determine all Controversyes in Religion be necessary to salvation the end itself to which these meanes are ordayned being as experience shewes not necessary O how truly may we say and happy had your progenitors bene if they had done so If for so many Ages before Luthers pretended Reformation but true Schisme men wrought Miracles converted Nations were eminent for Sanctity attained salvation and are esteemed Saints in Heaven by our Adversaryes and this in the belief and profession of those Points which Catholikes now professe how could any Reformation or separation be necessary since the end itself of salvation to which all meanes are ordained was not necessary but was attained without any such Reformation or separation 7. Like to this Argument of Charity Maintayned is another which N. 22. he tooke from these words of Potter Pag 155. It is comfort enough for the Church that the Lord in mercy will secure her from all capitall dangers and conserue her on earth against all enemyes but she may not hope to triumph over all sin and error tell she be in Heaven If it be comfort enough to be secured from all capitall dangers why were not the first pretended reformers content with enough but rent the Church out of a pernicious greedyness of more then enough or a pretended desire to free men from all errour which cannot be hoped for out of Heaven If even the vniversall Church may not hope to triumph over all Errour till she be in Heaven much less can particular Churches and men conceiue any such hope and so you must either grant that Errours not Fundamentall cannot yield sufficient cause to forsake the Churches Communion or you must affirme that all Churches may and ought to be forsaken and that a man cannot lawfully be of any Church yea and that every one is obliged to forsake himself if it were possible for avoyding errours not Fundamentall Besides as it is not lawfull to leaue the Communion of the Church for abuses in life and manners
that the chiefest malice in Heresy consists not in being against such or such a materiall Object or Truth great or little Fundamentall or not Fundamentall but in the opposition it carryeth with the Divine testimony which we suppose to be equally represented in both kinds of Points Fundamentall and not Fundamentall And therfore he must either say that Obedience is to be yielded in both which were most absurd or in neither And that it may be securely yielded in both we must acknowledg a Judge endued with infallibility Neither doth A. C. Set vp private Spirits to controll Generall Councells which Catholiks belieue to be infallible but that absurdity flowes out of the doctrine of Protestants affirming them to be fallible even in Fundamentall Points and consequently private men are neither obliged nor can rely on their Authority in matters of Faith for which Morall Certainty is not strongh enough but may Judge as they find cause out of Scripture or reason and may oppose their Decrees nor can ever obey them against their Conscience And if all Councells be fallible what greater certainty can I receaue from the second than from the first if we meerly respect their Authority For if I be mooved with some new reason or Demonstration I am not mooved for the Authority of the Councell but for that Reason which seemes good to mee And is not this to set vp private men and Spirits to controll Generall Councells 46. Sixthly He saith A Generall Councell cannot easily erre manifestly against Fundamentall Verity From whence I inferr that seing Luther opposed the whole Church and so many Generall Councells held before his tyme he is to be presumed to haue opposed them not for any manifest Fundamentall but at most for Errours not Fundamentall to speake as Protestants do For indeed Councells cannot erre in either kind in which Points not Fundamentall he sayth men are to yield Obedience and therfore He and all those who formerly did and now do follow his example are to be judged guilty of Schisme 47. Seaventhly He saith It may seeme very fit and necessary for the Peace of Christendome that a Generall Councell thus erring should stand in force till evidence of Scripture or a Demonstration make the Errour to appeare as that another Councell of equall Authority reverse it In these words he gives vs Catholikes no small advantage against the Capitall principle of Protestants that Scripture alone containes evidently all necessary Points For if evidence of Scripture or a Demonstration may be so inevident or obscure to a whole lawfull Generall Councell that it may fall into Fundamentall Errours which in the grounds of Protestants are opposite only to some Truth evidently contained in Scripture it is evident that he and other Protestants say nothing when they talke of evidence of Scripture but that indeed every one makes and calls that evident which he desires should be so And how is it possible that a true Generall Councell should be so blind as not to see that which is evident And this indeed is to set vp private Spirits to controll Generall Councells I will not vrge what he meanes by a Demonstration when he distinguisheth it from Evidence of Scripture A Demonstration implyes an vndeniable and as I may say an Evident Evidence and if it be an Evidence distinct from the Evidence of Scripture which according to Protestants containes evidently all necessary Points of Faith it must be evidence of naturall Reason which is common to all men And how can a Generall Councell erre against such a kind of Evidēce But as I sayd Evidēce with Protestāts is a voluntary word which they make vse of to their purpose Besides Scripture is no lesse evidēt in innumerable points not fundamētall than it is in some which are Fundamentall and therfore all who belieue Scripture are obliged to belieue those no less than these vnless men will say that it is not damnable to belieue and professe somthing evidently knowne to be against Scripture and therfore in this there can be no distinction between Fundamētall ād not fundamētall Points ād so a Generall Councell may as easily erre against Fundamentall Articles as against Points not Fundamentall clearly delivered in Scripture in which case it is destructiue of salvation to erre against either of those kinds I haue beene somwhat long in pondering his words because I vnderstand the booke is esteemed by some and I hope it appeares by what I haue now said out of it that we may be saved that a Living judg of controversyes is necessary that Luther and all Protestants are guilty of the sin of Schisme Three as mayne and capitall Points in fauour of vs against Protestants as we can desire and they feare 48. Herafter we will ponder Mr. Chillingworths words for our present purpose who speaking of Generall Councells saith Pag 200. N. 18. I willingly confess the judgment of a Councell though not infallible is yet so farr directiue and obliging that without apparent reason to the contrary it may be sin to reject it at least not to affoard it an outward submission for publike peace-sake As also we will consider Potters words Pag 165. speaking thus We say that such Generall Councells as are lawfully called and proceed orderly are great and awfull representations of the Church Catholique that they are the highest externall Tribunall which the Church hath on Earth that their Authority is immediatly derived and delegated from Christ that no Christian is exempted from their censures and jurisdiction that their decrees bind all persons to externall obedience and may not be questioned but vpon evident reason nor reversed but by an equall authority that if they be carefull and diligent in the vse of all good Meanes for finding out the truth it is very probable that the good spirit will so direct them that they shall not erre at least not Fundamentally 49. But let vs proceed in proving that Protestants hold Points not Fundamentall not to be of any great moment and much less to be destructiue of salvation It is cleare that Protestants differ among them selves in many Points which they pretēd to be only not Fundamētall ād say they do not destroy the ubstāce of Faith nor hinder thē from being Brethren and of the same Church And why because such Points are small matter as Whitaker speakes Cont ◠Quest 4. Cap 3. Things in different and tittles as King James saith in his Monitory Epistle Matters of no great moment as Andrewes Respons ad Apolog Bellarmin Cap 14. No great matters Apology of the Church of England Matters of nothing as Calvin calls them Admonit Vlt Pag 132. Matters not to be much respected if you believe Martyr in locis Classe 4. C. 10. § 65. Formes and phrases of speech as Potter speaks Pag 90. a curious nicity Pag 91. 50. Out of all which we must conclude both out of the words deeds and principles of Protestants First that errours against Points not Fundamentall are not
and great sins Wheras Charity Maintayned did not speake of holyness but of true Faith which is essentiall to the Church and every member therof as justifying Grace and Charity and Holyness in this sense are not since many grievous sinners are true members of the Church We profess I grant in the Creed The Holy Catholique Church yet not so as every member of it must needs be holy by justifying Grace but for many other important reasons which are excellently declared in the Roman Cathecisme ad Parochos vpon that Article of the Creed 88. You aske Where doth Dr. Potter acknowledg any such matter as you pretend Where doth he say that you had for the substance the true preaching of the word or due administration of the Sacraments Or where doth he say that from which you collect this you wanted nothing Fundamentall or necessary to salvation 89. Answer It shall be proved herafter to your small credit that yourselfe Potter and other Protestants acknowledg the Roman Church to be a true Church and not to erre in any Fundamentall and Essentiall Point and it is cleare that she could not be a true Church vnless she had for the substance the true preaching of the word and due administration of the Sacraments which to be essentiall Notes of the Church and without which the Church ceases to be a Church we haue proved out of Protestants and then how can the Roman Church conserve the Essence of a Church if it want what is essentiall to a Church Indeed you are inexcusable to aske in this place this Question seing in that very place which you cite Charity Maintayned expressly alledges Potter seeking to free himselfe and other Protestants from Schisme because they do not cut off from the Body of Christ and hope of Salvation our Church which certainly they must doe vnlesse they belieue that shee wanted nothing Fundamentall or necessary to Salvation 90. In your next Page 264. N. 27. you speake thus to your Adversary In vaine haue you troubled your selfe in proving that we cannot pretend that either the Greekes Waldenses Wickleffists Hussites Muscovites Armenians Georgians Abyssines were then the visible Church For all this discourse proceeds from a false and vaine supposition and beggs another Point in Question between vs which is that some Church of one denomination and one Communion as the Roman the Greeke c must be always exclusively to all other Communions the whole visible Church 91. Answer Charity Maintayned being to proue that the Church of Rome that is all Visible Churches dispersed throughout the whole world agreeing in Faith with the Chayre of Peter as he expressly declares himselfe was that visible Catholique Church out of which Luther departed beside other reasons proves it by a sensible Argument ab enumeratione partium that there was no true Christian Church or Churches before Luther except either those which agreed with the Roman or which held wicked errours condemned by Protestants themselves which therfore they must deny to haue been members of their Church and therfore we must either say that Christ had no true Church on earth or els that it was the Roman and such as agreed with Her and consequently that Luther departed out of the Roman Church taken in that sense that is out of the Catholique Church there being then no other true Church Now what thinke you was this labour in vaine Certainly it was not whether we consider the end which I haue declared or another of no small moment connected with this which is as I touched aboue That wheras Protestants were wont to make ignorant persons belieue that before Luther they had some visible Protestant Church and to that end would be naming the Waldenses Wicklefists Hussits and such others Charity Maintayned demonstrated that those men held damnable Errours against both Catholikes and Protestants and in many Points agreed with vs against Protestants and therfore could not be Protestants though they casually agreed with them in some Points In the meane tyme Protestants haue no reason to giue you thanks for leaving them and in fact acknowledging that Charity Maintayned had evident reason for what he sayd and that the old plea of Protestants had no ground of truth 92. You say Charity Maintayned begs a Point in Question between vs which is that some Church of one denomination must be always exclusively to all other Communions the whole visible Church But with what modesty can you say this Seing Charity Maintayned was so farr from supposing or affirming some particular Church of one denomination to be alwayes exclusively to all other the whole visible Church that as you haue heard he expressly and purposely declared himself to speak of all true Visible Churches and not of the Roman Church as it is taken for the particular Diocesse of Rome and therfore that not any particular Church but all true Churches are the whole Visible Church 93. Object 3. Charity Maintayned Part 1. Pag 151. N. 2. saith Because Schisme will be found to be a division from the Church which could not happen vnless there were always a visible Church we will proue that in all Ages there hath been such a visible congregation of faithfull people Against this you object Pag 254. N. 2. That although there never had been any Church visible or invisible before this Age nor should be ever after yet this could not hinder but that a Schisme might now be and be a division from the present visible Church 94. Answer Charity Maintayned said truly That seing Schisme is a division from the Church it cannot happen for that is his express word but when there is a Church not always vnless there be always a Church never if never there were a Church If then for many Ages there was no Church there could not happen a Schisme in all those Ages The Fathers Doctours and Divines of all Ages speake and treat of Schisme as of a subject and sin which morally and ordinarily and always might happen and which de facto did happen too often as Heresyes did and were inpugned by the writers of every Age which they could not haue done if they had not supposed the Existence of a Church through all Ages and Tymes And much less would they haue done so if they had ever imagined that of sixteene hundred yeares and more there was to be no true Church for the space of a thousand within the compass of which tyme many of those Divines did liue and never dreamed that in Defining and frequent treating of Schisme they spoke of a thing only possible and not incident to their present occasions and so they had not in winter defined a rose which is your example Pag 260. N. 22. to proue that a thing may be defined though it be not existent which they were sure to see the next ensuing summer but rather a conceit little better than a Chimaera or a non ens which had once existed though they could not tell how short a
they foorsooke themselves or their owne Communion And if you vrge that they themselves joyned to no other Part therfore they separated from the whole I say it followes not in as much as themselves were a part of it and still continued so and therfore could no more separate from the whole than from themselves Thus though there were no part of the people of Rome to whom the plebeians joyned themselves when they made their secession into the Auentine Hill yet they divided themselves from the Patritians only and not from the whole people because themselves were a part of this people and they divided not from themselves The like evasion you haue Pag 295. N. 94. 108. Answer How many shifts to decline a true confession First Protestants had cause to separate 2. they are not excused by reason of the cause or corruptions For then differēt Sects of Protestāts must separate from one another no less than from vs which sequele you deny 3. They did not separate from the Church though they did separate from the externall Communion of all Churches 4. They separated not from the whole Church because they separated not from themselves Of the former evasions we haue spoken already This last is not hard to be confuted 109. First it contradicts yourselfe For Pag 273. N. 55. you say As for the externall Communion of the visible Church we haue without scruple formerly granted that Protestants did forsake it that is renounce the practise of some observances in which the whole visible Church before them did communicate Now if the whole visible Church did communicate in corruptions or was corrupted by leaving those who were corrupted they left all or the whole Church for those corruptions which according to Protestants happening de facto to be in the Liturgy publike worship of God vse of Sacraments and the like in which externall communion cōsists they left the externall communion of the visible Church as we haue heard you grant in your owne words now cited 110. Secondly This evasion is but a begging of the Question while you suppose they who divided themselves from the rest continued a Part of the Church to the vnion and Communion wherof externall Communion is essentiall and therfore that being altered it is impossible that it remaynes the same Church in order to all Parts or that the dividers continue to be a Part of that former Church but they become a whole Schismaticall conventicle of their owne Your errour proceeds from not distinguishing between being a man and being a member of the Church as I declared hertofore Suppose Luther and his followers had denyed some Fundamentall Point of Faith they had even in your opinion ceased to be a Part of the Church but not of the Community of men who before their separation were also members of the Church as Pagans Turkes Jewes c may be Parts of one Commonwealth but not of one Church Therfore it is one thing to remayne a Part of a Community of men and another to be still a Part of Gods Church whatsoever that Church be supposed to be whether Roman or any other For this principle That agreement in externall Communion is necessary to make men members of the same Church is vniversally true Wherby is confuted your example of the Roman Plebeians who if they did separate from the rest not only materially in place or the like but also formally in the Lawes customes and Government they remained not Parts of the former Commonwealth for as much as belonged to them seing they wholy divided themselves erecting a new Community or Commonwealth of their owne though still they be Parts of the whole member of men consisting of Patritians and Plebeians as you call them which is the thing affirmed by vs namely that Luther and his fellowes ceased to be a Part of the former Church and erected a new whole Community of their owne and so your Argument comes to be retorted against yourselfe 111. Thirdly Wheras you suppose that we will not go about to perswade you that Luther and his followers forsooke themselves or their owne Communion I answer I haue small hope to perswade you any truth that may seeme to favour vs Catholiks And for others I need not perswade them to belieue that which is evident of itselfe namely that you will needs remaine in a perpetuall equivocation not distinguishing between being a man and being a member of the Church or between substance and accidents or between the same man considered phisically and morally Which even in your Principles is cleare in one who falls into any errour repugnant to some Fundamentall Article and so instantly ceases to be a member of the Church as he was before and in that respect is morally divided from himselfe as much as est and non est are opposite If of the same reall common subject not destroyed for example of Socrates we could say existit non existit though for different tymes we might truly say that he were physically and really divided from himselfe Now the same subject is really capable of being and not being a member of the Church successively Therfore we may say he is divided from himselfe and from his owne Communion For as S. Ambrose saith most elegantly Lib 7. in Cap 15. Lucae of the prodigall Child Peregrè profectus est in regionem longinquam Quid long inquius est quà m a se recedere nec regionibus sed moribus separari not only in place but in relation to a different and contrary mysticall Body Community or Church studiis discretum esse non terris quasi interfuso luxuriae saecularis aestu we may say in our case charitatis defectu proximorum odio divortia habere Sanctorum to be divided from the Church the only seate of Saints on earth Etenim qui se a Christo separant and Potter confesses that whosoever separates himselfe from the Church is divided from Christ exul est patriae civis est mundi He is separated from the Church and becomes a member only of the world both as the world is taken for wicked men divided from Christ or as it signifyes the number of all men as men of which a Schismatike remaines a part though not a part of the Church as hath beene sayd 112. Besides in the Opinion of those Calvinists who teach that the whole Church could and did perish which is a damnable heresy yet for explicating the nature of things we may for the present suppose it ad hominem they who first separated themselves from the primitiue pure Church and brought in corruptions in Faith Practise Liturgy and vse of Sacraments may truly be sayd to haue beene Heretiks by departing from the pure Faith and Schismatiks by dividing themselves from the externall Communion of the true vncorrupted Church though it be supposed to be destroyed therfore one may depart from his owne Faith and remaine no more a part of that Body of which he was once a
to proue your assertion and yet he L. 3. expresly speaks of a fals report venturos esse Paulum MachariuÌ„ two Embassadours sent into Africa by the pious Catholique Emperour Constans qui interessent Sacrificio vt cum Altaria solemniter aptarentur proferreat illâ— Imaginem of the Emperour quam primò in altari ponerent sic Sacrificium offerretur Do you not know the Doctrine of all Catholiques that Sacrisice is due only to God I beseech the Reader to reade Baronius Ann. 348. N. 33.34 I wonder how you durst at that tyme when you wrote and published your Booke write that setting pictures in Churches and vpon Altars may yield just cause to separate from a Church at that tyme I say when pictures began to appeare in English Protestant Churches even in the vniversityes and still I haue fresh occasions of wondering that ever your Booke could be approved Do not Lutherans to this day set vp Images in their Churches The wickleffists and Hussites and diverse learned Protestants allow of Images yea and some defend even the worshipping of them as may be seene in the Triple Cord Chapt 17. Sect 4. as also learned Protestants confesse that diverse Fathers defended the vse and worship of Images and that Xenaias was condemned for being the first that stirred vp warr against Images which is witnessed by the Protestant Writer Functius And Nicephorus Hist Eccles Lib 16. Cap 27. saith Xenaias iste primus ô audacem animam os impudens vocem illam evomuit Christi eorum qui illi placuere imagines venerandas non esse See of this whole matter Brierley Tract 1. Sect 3. Subdivis 12. Pag 124. And Tract 1. Sect 8. Subdivis 2. Pag 214. And Bellar Tom 2. de Reliq Sanct Lib 2. Cap 6. saith That Xenaias was a Persian and a barbarous fellow yea and a fugitiue 〈◊〉 and though he was not baptized yet faining himselfe a Christian he crept into a Bishoppricke And de notis Eccles Lib 4. Cap 9. demonstrates out of S. Epiphanius Lactantius S. Basil S. Greg Nyssen S. Paulinus S. Athanas and others That pictures were wont to be placed in Churches And S. Austine himselfe Lib 1. de consensu Evangelistar Cap 10. witnesseth that in his tyme in many places Christ was to be seene painted between the Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul And Lib 22. cont Faust Cap 73. he saith the same of the History of Abraham going about to sacrifice his Son Now I beseech you tell me whether vse of Images in Churches be a sufficient cause of a Division from the Church or no If it be then the Donatists might haue reason to depart from the Church seing pictures were set vp both in and before S. Austines tyme and while to vse your owne wordes the whole world of Christians was vnited in one Communion professing the same Faith serving God after the same manner If it were not why do you in this place object to vs the vse of Pictures and say that S. Austine to avoyd the objection of the Donatists that Catholikes set Pictures vpon the Altar answered only by denying that to be true which they objected as if they might haue beene excused from Schisme if indeed Pictures had beene set vpon the Altar And must Protestants depart from the Communion of all those their Brethren who at this day defend the lawfullness and practise the setting vp of Images in Churches In the meane time they who impugne the vse and worsh ip of Images may consider in Xenaias what Progenitors they haue And heere to shew how even by the light of naturall reason the respect or irreverence which is donne to the Image redounds to the Prototypon I cannot omit to set downe the words of Nazarius in panegir Constantini in detestation of the fact of Maxentius in defacing aÌ„d throwing downe the Images of Constantine Ecce enim proh dolor verba vix suppetunt venerandarum Imaginum acerba dejectio divini vultus litura deformis O manus impiae ô truces oculi ita non calligastis In quo lumen mundi obsucrabatis meritas ipsi poenas non imbibistis Nihil profecto gravius nihil miserius Roma doluisti What then shall we say of Iconoclasts or Image-breakers or Image-despisers not of mortall men as Constantine was then but of the Saviour of the world his Blessed Mother and Saints now glorious in Heauen O England reflect and repent 123. But not in this place only you are impudently bold with glorious S. Austine For Pag 259. N. 20. you say All that S. Austine saith is not true And I belieue heat of disputation against the Donatists and a desire to â—â—er-confute them transported him so farr is to vrge against them more than was necessary and perhaps more than was true But it is no wonder if notorious Schismatiks as you are willingly take occasion to defend such famous Schismatikes as the Donatists were and to do it covertly and ex obliquo when you are ashamed to vnmaske yourselfe and proclaime it directly and openly And this your desperate evasion declares sufficiently that S. Austine was clearly with vs in that place which Charity Maintayned Part 1. Pag 164. cited out of him as also in that other place which he cited Pag 165. wherof you say in your same Pag 259. N. 20. I cannot but wonder very much why he S. Austine should thinke it absurd for any man to say There are sheepe which he knowes not but God knowes and no less at you for obtruding this sentence vpon vs as pertinent proofe of the Churches Visibility And Pag 119. N. 163. you say To S. Austine in heat of disputation against the Donatists and ransacking all places for Arguments against them we oppose S. Austine out of this heate delivering the Doctrine of Christianity calmely and moderatly And Pag 168. N. 64. S. Austine when he was out of the heate of disputation confesses c. If any aske why Socinians are so averse from S. Austine I answer because in his workes he doth so often so zealously and so learnedly defend the Uisibility Perpetuity Amplitude Infallibility and Authority of Gods Church and with Arguments so direct against all our moderne Heretikes and Socinians in particular as it is impossible one can be a friend to that holy Doctour of Gods Church and an enemy to the Church of Rome A consideration of great comfort that we defend the same cause and suffer with a Person so holy and learned as Protestants when their owne cause is not touched are wont to preferr him before all other Ancient Fathers 124. Object 13. Charity Maintayned Part 1. Chap 3. N. 20. Pag 107. proves That seing Protestants grant that the Church cannot erre in Points necessary to salvation any wise man will inferr that it behooves all who haue care of their soules not to forsake her in any one Point First because though she were supposed to erre yet the errour could not be Fundamentall nor destructiue of Faith
and salvation Neither can they be accused of any least imprudence in erring if it were possible with the vniversall Church 2. Since she is vnder paine of eternall damnation to be believed in some things wherin consessedly she is indued with infallibility I cannot in wisdome suspect her credit in matters of less moment 3. Since we are obliged not to forsake the Church in Fundamentall Points and that there is no Rule to know precisely what and how many those Fundamentall Points be I cannot without hazard of my soule leaue her in any one Point least perhaps that Proue to be Fundamentall and necessary to salvation 4. That Visible Church even that Church which confessedly cannot erre in Points Fundamentall doth without distinction propound all her desinitions concerning matters of Faith to be believed vnder Anathemas or Curses holding it as a Point necessary to salvation that we belieue she cannot erre wherin if she speake true then to deny any one Point in particular which she defineth or to affirme in generall that she may erre puts a man in state of damnation wheras to belieue her in sch Points as are not necessary to salvation cannot endanger our salvation as likwise to remayne in her communion can bring no great harme because she cannot maintayne any damnable errour or practise but to be divided from her she being Christs Catholique Church is most certainly damnable 5. The true Church being in lawfull and certaine possession of Superiority and Power to command and require obedience from all Christians in some things I cannot without grievous sin withdraw my obedience in any one vnless I know evidently that the thing commanded comes not within the compasse of those things to which her Power extendeth And who can better informe me how far Gods Church can proceed then Gods Church herselfe Or to what Doctour can the children and Schollers with greater reason and security fly for direction than to the Mother and appointed Teacher of all Christians In following her I shall sooner be excused than in cleaving to any particular Sect or Person or applying Scriptures against Her Doctrine or interpretation 6. The fearfull examples of innumerable Persons who forsaking the Church vpon pretence of her errours haue fayled even in Fundamentall Points and suffered shipwrack of their salvation ought to deterr all Christians from opposing her in any Doctrine or practise As to omit other both ancient and moderne heresyes we see that divers chiefe Protestants pretending to reforme the corruptions of the Church are come to affirme that for many Ages shee erred to death and wholy perished which Dr. Potter cannot deny to be a Fundamentall errour against that Article of our Creed I belieue the Catholike Church as he affirmeth it of the Donatists because they confined the vniversall Church within Africa or some other small tract of soile Least therfore I may fall into some Fundamentall errour it is most safe for me to believe all the decrees of the Church which cannot erre Fundamentally especially if we add that according to the Doctrine of Catholique Divines One errour in Faith whether it be for the matter itselfe great or small destroyes Faith and consequently to accuse the Church of any one errour is to affirme that she lost all Faith and erred damnably which very saying is damnable because it leaves Christ no Visible Church on earth 125. These are the reasons of Charity Maintayned in the sayd N. 20. which I wish you had set downe as you found them that the Reader might haue judged how much they ought to weigh with every one who hath a serious care to saue his soule Sure I am they are growne stronger by your Objections as will appeare to any indifferent Reader 126. Your chiefest and as I may call it Fundamentall Answer is That I begg the Question in supposing that any Church of one denomination is infallible in Fundamentall Points and that Protestants when they say the Church is infallible in fundamentall Points vnderstand only That there shall be alwayes a Church to the very being wherof it is repugnant that it should erre in Fundamentalls But I haue shewed hertofore that you wrong even your pretended Brethren the Protestants in fastening on them so ridiculous an interpretation of the Churches infallibility in Fundamentall Points and therfore I must still insist vppon that ground in the sense which Protestants grant and which I haue proved to be true Which truth being supposed yourselfe are forced to favour vs so farr as to say Pag 163. N. 55. We never annexed this Priviledge of not erring in Fundamentalls to any one Church of any one Denomination as the Greeke or the Roman Church which if we had done and set vp some setled certaine Society of Christians distinguishable from all others by adhering to such a Bishop for our guide in Fundamentalls then indeed and then only might you with some colour though with no certainty haue concluded that we could not in wisdome forsake this Church in any Point for feare of forsaking it in a necessary Point And in the next N. 56. you say First we confesse no such thing thas the Church of Rome was then this Church vnerring in Fundamentalls when Luther arose but only a Part of it Secondly that if by adhering to the Church we could haue beene thus far secured this argumēt had some shew of Reason And P 150. N. 39. If the Church were an infallible director in Fundamentall thē must we not only learne Fundamētalls of her but also learne of her what is Fundamentall and take all for Fundamentall which she delivers to be such In the performance wherof if I knew any one Church to he Infallible I would quickly be of that Church Eternally be Gods Infinite Goodness blessed who hath made vs Catholikes members of that infallible Church But in the meane tyme you grant as much as will serue to overthrow all your owne Arguments in granting that if the Church be infallible in Fundamentall Points we haue all reason not to forsake Her And you giue that very Reason which is alledged by Charity Maintayned to wit for feare of forsaking it in a necessary point so that you make good both his Assertion and reason therof and further you are ready to seale your Doctrine with your practise by being quickly of that Church Heere I beseech you remember your owne words Pag 280. N. 95. May not a man of judgment continue in the Communion of a Church confessedly corrupted as well as in a Church supposed to be corrupted And then suppose such a Church should erre in Points not Fundamentall what would you doe The same reason of not erring in Fundamentalls for which you would quickly joyne yourselfe to her would also oblige you nor to forsake her and then you must find some Answer to all those Objections which you make against the Reasons of Charity Maintayned alledged by him to proue that if once I belieue the Church to be infallible in
which we receiue by Tradition Scripture is vnnecessary as you speak of Tradition and so is not to be the only Rule of Faith nor is there any necessity at all that it containe evidently the whole Tradition as you inferr which is most evidently false seing S. John writes that the world could not containe all that might haue been written of our B. Saviour To say nothing that one Tradition and that the chiefest of all other in the account of Protestants is that Scripture is the Word of God which you profess cannot be proved by Scripture itselfe 55. And now we haue a cleare Answer to your Objection out of S. Irenaeus as if he had taught that Scripture containes evidently the whole Tradition You cite not the place But it is Lib 3. Cap 1. where he saith We haue received the disposition of our salvation from no others but from them by whom the Gospell came vnto vs. VVhich Gospell truly the Apostles first preached and afterwards by the will of God delivered in writing to vs to be the Pillar and Foundation of our Faith These words you alledge and in your margent cite Bellarmine de Verbo Dei Lib 4. Cap 11. answering them much to your advantage as you pretend But you dissemble his first Answer which demonstrates that S. Irenaeus doth in no wise favour your pretence Bellarmine in Answer to Kemnitius who made this same Objection out of S. Irenaeus saith Respondeo Irenaeum non dicere nihil aliud Apostolos predicavisse quà m quod scripserunt sed solùm scripsisse Evangelium quod antea praedicaverant quod est verum non contra nos I answer that S. Irenaeus doth not assirme the Apostles to haue preached nothing els beside that which they wrote but only that they wrote the Gospell which they had preached before which is true and not against vs. Now how can you impugne this Answer of Bellarmine otherwise than by begging the question and supposing that the Evangelists cannot be sayd to haue Written the Gospell vnless they wrote all that the Apostlès preached Which you know we deny and the contrary is evident out of S. John as I sayd even now and hertofore proved at large Though it be also most true that they wrote all that was necessary to be written but then you must proue that all that was necessary to be believed or was preached was necessary to be written and not delivered by Gods vnwritten Word or Tradition as it was before any Scripture was extant which you will never be able to proue out of S. Irenaeus or Holy Scripture This Answer to the words of S. Irenaeus is confirmed out of the same Chapter where he saith Marcus Discipulus c Marke the Disciple and interpreter of Peter did also deliver to vs in writing those things which were preached by Peter and Luke the follower of Paul set downe in a Booke the Gospell which was preached by him S. Paul And afterward John the Disciple of our Lord and who leaned vpon his brest did also write the Gospell while he remained at Ephesus in Asia Now it cannot be doubted but that S. Marke had many things from the mouth of S. Peter and S. Luke from S. Paul which they did not set downe in writing and yet you see it is sayd he S. Luke wrote Evangelium the Gospell and for S. John he professes that our Saviour did innumerable things which are not written and yet it is sayd edidi Evangelium he set forth the Gospell and the Apostles delivered interpretations of Scripture to the first Christians which are not set downe in writing as yourselfe confesse If any say S. Irenaeus calls Scripture the Pillar and Foundation of our Faith I answer Those words cannot be referred Scripturis to the Scriptures which is S. Irenaeus his word but to the Gospell as appeares by the Word futurum fundamentum columnam Fidei nostrae futurum seing we cannot say with congruity of Grammar Scripturis futurum ād therfore it must be referred to Evangelium Gospell Evangelium columnam Fidei nostrae futurum which Gospell is of a larger extent than Scripture though no man denyes Scripture to be in a good sense the Pillar and Fundation of truth Of the second answer which Bellar gives I haue spokē largely Chap 2. and shewed how egregiously you abuse him against his direct intention meaning and words 56 Thus you haue an answer to your N. 145. Where you say that at the most we can inferr from S. Irenaeus but only a suppositiue necessity of having an infallble Guide and that grounded vpon a false supposition in case we had no Scripture but an absolute necessity herof and to them who haue and belieue the Scripture which is your assumption cannot with any colour from hence be concluded but rather the contrary The Answer I say to this is given already for as I sayd S. Irenaeus speakes not by way of discourse or conjecture or as it were of prophecy what God would haue done in case the Apostles had left no Scriptures but he speakes of Tradition really existing wherby the want of Scripture might haue beene supplyed and which he expressly saith the Apostles delivered to those to whom they committed the Churches Yea he affirmes that de facto many Nations were converted by yielding assent to it and so de facto there was in that and will be in the like case a necessity of an infallible Tradition and a Living Guide And although that or the like occasion had not happened yet the thing being contingent Yea and in your particular Doctrine the Scripture being not a materiall Object of Faith which all are bound to belieue which in effect is as if it were not at all the Church could not be to seeke whensoever the occasion might happen but must be indued with a permanent Authority and infallibility for all events as it is contingent that for example theft be committed in a Commonwealth yet there is not only a suppositiue but an absolute necessity that the Commonwealth be indued with an absolute constant power to punish theeves c Neither ought you to say absolutly for as much as belongs to our question that it is a false supposition to suppose that Scripture had not beene written For besides that the Church of Christ was in being some yeares before any part of the New Testament was written it is all one that there be no Scripture and that we haue it not or haue no reason to belieue it yea or may reject it as you saie seing therfore many Nations were saved without knowledge of Scripture or any obligation to know it as S. Irenaevs supposes it alone is in order to vse and vs as if it had never beene written and so as I sayd inferrs an absolute and not only a suppositiue necessity of some Living Guide And this it seemes you did perceiue when you sayd that Charity Maintayned did not well to inferr an absolute necessity of a
that the Apostles did not always vnderstand our B. Saviours words till he vouchsafed to declare them And I obserue your owne words May we not be as well assured that we vnderstand sufficiently what we conceiue plaine in their the Apostles writings Where insine your certainty and evidence is resolved into what we conceiue which are your owne words and is a poore ground for an Act of infallible Faith and of Protestants disagreeing among themselves doth not every one conceiue Scripture to be plaine in his favour And yet it is plaine that two contradictoryes cannot be true 64. In your N. 152. you speake to Charity Maintayned in this manner In saying If they haue certaine meanes and so cannot erre me thinkes you forgett yourselfe very much and seeme to make no difference between having certaine meanes to doe a thing and the actuall doing of it As if you should conclude because all men haue certaine meanes of salvation therfore all men certainly must be saved and cannot doe otherwise as if whosoever had a horse must presently get vp and ride whosoever had meanes to fynd out a way could not neglect those meanes and so mistake it If you aske seing we may possibly erre bow can we be assured we do not I aske you againe seing your eye-sight may deceiue you how can you be sure you see the sun when you see it perhaps you may be in a dreame and perhaps you and all the men in the world haue beene so when they thought they were a wake and then only awake when they thought they dreamed 65. Answer I aske whether all points necessary to be be believed are so very evident in Scripture that one cannot erre in the meaning of them but is no lesse assured therof then he is sure he sees the Sun when he sees it Or they are not so evident If they be so evident it followes clearly that the meanes wherby they are immediatly knowne namely the very evidence of them is such as no man can possibly erre concerning them For it is impossible that our vnderstanding can dissent from a truth represented with evidence And so you haue no reason to blame Ch. Ma. seing by the meanes wherby you vnderstand necessary Points of Faith in Scripture it is impossible for you to erre If necessary Points be not so evident but that one may erre concerning them Then you must vse some meanes for vnderstanding them beside the pretended evidence which they haue of themselves which indeed comes to be not evidence but obscurity if it leaue the vnderstanding with a freedome to dissent Let therfore these meanes be such as Protestants are wont to assigne prayer knowledge in languages conferring one place with another c. Which depending vpon humane industry cannot exceed probability as we haue heard Whitaker de Eccles contr 2. Quest 4. confessing and cannot assure vs of the true sense of Scripture which is against your sayings N. 150. That you haue certayne meanes of not erring in and about the sense of those places which are so plaine and cleare that they need no interpretation and in such we say our Faith is contained For if to vnderstand such places you need the meanes and helpe of Prayer Language c it is cleare they are not so cleare that they need no interpretation And so you must be content to acknowledge in these two numbers a contrâ—diction to yourselfe and a causelesse blaming Charity Maintayned in the former of them if yourselfe speake Truth in the latter that is you must either grant that one caÌ„not erre in necessary Points of Faith or els that the Scripture is not evident but needs an interpreter of Scripture for such Points which if it need seing the meanes assigned by Protestants can affoard no more than probability only which is not sufficient to erect an act of divine Faith it followes that we must haue recourse to an infallible Living Guide Thus I haue confuted your objection against Charity Maintayned That He seemes to make no difference between having certaine meanes to doe a thing and the Actuall doing of it For I haue told you that when the meanes to doe a thing is seated in some cause which hath not freedome to the contrary Action there is good reason not to distinguish between the enjoyning such meanes and the doing of the thing or at least not doing the contrary that is in our case not erring against that which is evident in Scripture as whensoever fire hath all requisites to burne a combustible matter it cannot but doe so Now our vnderstanding is of that nature that it cannot dissent from a truth evidently proposed for such and therfore if all texts of Scripture containing necessary Points of Faith be evident as you say they must be and that otherwise they could not be necessary our vnderstanding cannot possibly dissent from them and so not to erre and not to be able to erre proue to be inseparable which holds particularly in your doctrine that certainty cannot consist without evidence aÌ„d consequeÌ„tly our vnderstaÌ„ding cannot disseÌ„t from any thing which is preseÌ„ted to it as certaine because it cannot dissent or deny that which to it is evident 66. Your instances to the contrary proue only that either you did not consider what you object or argue an excessiue confidence that the world would without examination take for true whatsoever you wrote As if say you to Ch Ma you should conclude because all men haue certaine meanes of salvation therfore all men must certainly be saved and cannot doe otherwise as if whosoever had ahorse must presently get vp and ride whosoever had meanes to find out a way could not neglect those meanes and so mistake it But all these toyes are answered already For the meanes to heaven is as our B. Saviour sayes to keepe the commandements by our freewill assisted with Gods Grace and therfore it doth not follow that although we may we must needs be saved because our will may resist Gods Grace as also it is in your will not to get vp and ride though you haue a horse but it is not in the power of our vnderstanding to dissent from evident truth Your similitude of finding a way may be turned against you if it be supposed that one hath the way before his eyes and is certaine that it is the way In which case he cannot mistake his way though by his freewill he may goe out of it as one may with his will not obserue what God commands but cannot possibly perswade himselfe that it is not commanded if it be evidently represented to his vnderstanding that it is commanded as one cannot but be sure that he sees the sun when he sees it which is your owne example to proue that we may be assured that we do not erre But then you do not well to say that our eye sight may deceiue vs or that we may possibly erre it being impossible that our eye and vnderstanding being
well disposed towards an object evident can faile to see and vnderstand actually if such an object be placed within the spheare or compasse of their actuity And therfore if Scripture be evident whosoever can assent to it cannot possibly dissent from it Before I end this number you must be intreated to remember what you teach Pag 329. N. 7. that it is necessary to Faith that the object of it should not be so evidently certaine as to necessitate our vnderstanding to an Assent that so there might be some obedience in it which can hardly haue place where there is no possibility of disobedience as there is not where the vnderstanding does all and the will nothing Now if the vnderstanding be not necessitated by the evidence of Faith or contents of Scripture you must find some other meanes to moue the vnderstanding namely such as Protestants vsually prescribe which cannot exceede probability nor is sufficient for an Act of Faith And so your Arguments and Similitudes grounded vpon the plaine evidence of Scripture cannot be rightly applyed by you seing it is not an evidence sufficient to assure the vnderstanding without some other meanes which being but probable if you will arriue to certainty you must still haue recourse to the Church 67. Your N. 151. going vpon a false supposition that our first Proofes and Arguments for the infallibility of the Church are taken from Scripture need no Answer seing we haue proved the contrary at large It is true that having once found the true Church and by Her authority Canonicall Scriptures we do with good reason proue out of them the authority and infallibility of the same Church with other particulars concerning her which were not knowne by the first generall notion of her being the true Church but this is done without any pretence of such evidence as must force every mans vnderstanding to assent in that manner as the Principles of naturall Sciences do necessitate vs and therfore there alwayes remaines a necessity of a Living Judge 68. In your N. 154. I find nothing but an Aggregatum of diverse Heads of which we haue treated at large as the infallibillty of Christian Faith how farr the Motives or arguments of credibility concurre to an act of Faith The manner we hold in proving the Church and believing those articles which she proposes what vse there is of Reason in finding out the Church that in vaine you distinguish betweene Christianity and Popery as you speake seing there can be but one true Christian Church c And therfore I will goe forward having first toucht in a word that wheras you say to vs you should require only a morall and modest Assent to the proposalls of the Church and not a Divine as you call it and infallible Faith It seemes you confesse that your Faith is not to be called Divine as you professe it not to be infallible and therfore indeed not Divine but a meere humane perswasion even in those Points wherin you chance notto erre 69. To your N. 155.156.157.158.159.160 of which for the substance I haue spoken hertofore I will only say That you are still taking vpon you to declare the Doctrine of Protestants in their name without any commission from them Thus here you talke as if no Protestants held that Scripture may be proved to be the word of God by Scripture it selfe the contrary whereof we haue shewed in particular of Baron and Potter And Ch. Ma. Part 2. Chap 3. Pag 91. cites Dr. Willet in his meditation ypon the 122. Psalme Pag 91. who puts among whirle-points and buboles of new Doctrine as he speakes That the word of God cannot possibly assure vs what is the word of God And whatsoever you take vpon you yet Ch. Ma. had reason to say that seing it is to Protestants a most necessary Point of Faith to know what Bookes be Scripture and that this Point cannot be proved by Scripture it followes that all matters of Faith are not contained in Scripture wherby it appeares that God hath not tyed his testimony or Revelation to his written word alone but that you must of necessity admitt Tradition or His vnwritten Word and so not learne all necessary Points from Scripture And if one Tradition must be believed by Faith you can bring no positiue Rule or reason why there may not be some other Traditions without any prejudice to the perfection of Scripture 70. In your N. 160. you impugne these words of Charity Maintayned Part 1. Pag 73. N. 26. If Dr. Potter answer that their Tenet about the Scriptures being the only judge of Controversyes is not a Fundamentall Point of Faith then as he teacheth that the vniversall Church may erre in Points not Fundamentall so I hope he will not deny but particular Churches and private men are much more obnoxious to errour in such Points and in particular in this that the Scripture alone is judge of Controversyes And so the very Principle vpon which their whole Faith is grounded remaines to them vncertaine and on the other side for the selfe same reason they are not certaine but that the Church is judge of Controversyes Against which discourse you object A pretty Sophisme depending vpon this Principle that whosoever possibly may erre he cannot be certaine that he doth not erre And vpon this ground what will hinder me from concluding that seing you also hold that neither particular Churches nor private men are infallible even in Fundamentalls that even the Fundamentalls of Christianity remaine to you vncertaine A judge may possibly erre in judgment can he therfore never haue assurance that he hath judged right A traveller may possibly mistake his way must I therfore be doubtfull whether I am in the right way from my Hall to my Chamber Or can our London Carryer haue no certainty in the middle of the day when he is sober and in his wits that he is in the way to London These you see are right worthy consequences and yet as like your owne as an egg to an egge or milke to milke 71. Answer I hope it will be found that you triumph before any possibility of victory on your behalfe and that your Objection will be turned against yourselfe Where find you in Charity Maintayned any Argument depending vpon this principle that whosoever possibly may erre he cannot be certaine that he does not erre This is your fiction not any principle of Ch. Ma. His principle is in this Whosoever possibly may erre by relying vpon some Principle Ground or Reason he cannot be certaine that he doth not erre as long as he followes that Principle only without addition of any other helpe or greater light or certainty For if the Principle be of it selfe false fallible or contingent it cannot possibly being left to itselâ—e produce an infallible Assent which is the very Ground for which you teach Christian Faith to be fallible But it doth in no case follow from hence that absolutly whosoever may possibly
common Doctrine of Protestants and the supposition If you answer that though there were not the selfe same reason or necessity for the Churches infallibility as for the Apostles which is all that that reason proves and so is a Sophisme a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter as if you should say This Truth is not proved by this particular reason therefore there can be no reason for it yet we cannot doubt but that there is some reason and cause whatsoever it be and therfore you must be content that Scripture declare God Almightyes Will that the Gates of Hell shall not prevaile against the Church in which Promise seing there is no restraint to Fundamentall Points it becomes not you to divide the same sentence into different meanings as they are applyed to the Apostles and as they haue reference to the Church Beside if one would imitate you in determining concerning divine matters according to humane apprehension and discourse he might in your owne Grounds quickly dispatch all and say that seing the errours of the vniversall Church can be only not Fundamentall there is no necessity of having recourse to any for the discovering and correcting them and so you cannot inferr that the Apostles for reforming errours in the Church need be infallible in Points not Fundamentall no more than you say the Church herselfe is Thus Pag 35. N. 7 You say Christians haue and shall haue meanes sufficient to determine not all Controversyes but all necessary to be determined And what Rule will you in your Groundes giue to determine what Points are necessary to be determined except by saying that eo ipso that they are not Fundamentall or not necessary to salvation to be believed they are not necessary to be determined as you say in the same place If some Controversyes may for many Ages be vndetermined and yet in the meane while men may be saved why should or how can the Churches being furnished with effectuall meanes to determine all Controversyes in Religion be necessary to salvation the end itselfe to which these meanes are ordained being as Experience shewes not necessary If then may we say the beliefe of vnfundamentall Points be not necessary to salvation which is the end of our Faith the meanes to beget such a Faith in the Church which you say must be the vniversall infallibility of the Apostles cannot be necessary Which is confirmed by what you say in your Answer to the Direction N. 32. It is not absolutely necessary that God should assist his Church any farther than to bring her to salvation How then can it be necessary in your ground that the Church be assisted for Points not Fundamentall Thus while by your humane discourses you will establish the vniversall infallibility of the Apostles you destroy it as not being necessary for discovering or correcting either Fundamentall errours from which the Church is free or vnfundamentall which are not necessary to be corrected or discovered Morover this very reason of yours proves a necessity of the Churches being vniversally infallible supposing the truth which we proved Chap 2. that Scripture alone containes not evidently and particularly all Points necessary to be believed and that even for those which it containes a Living Judge and Interpreter is necessary For this truth supposed I apply your Argument thus If any fall into errour by a false interpretation of Scripture it may be discovered and corrected by the Church But if the Church may erre to whom shall we haue recourse for correcting her errour And heere incidently I put you in minde of the Argument which you prize so much as to glory that you never could finde any Catholik who was able to answer it that if a particular man or Church may fall into errour and yet remaine a member of the Church vniversall why may not the Church vniversall erre and yet remaine a true Church The Answer I say is easy almost out of your owne words that there is not the same reason for every particular mans or Churches infallibility or security from error as for that of the Catholik Church For if private persons or Churches fall into errour it may be reformed by comparing it with the Decrees and Definitions of the vniversall Church But if the Church may erre to whom shall we haue recourse to correct her error As S. Hierom saieth Lib 1. Comment in Cap 5. Matth Si doctor erraverit à quo alio doctore emendabitur But of this I haue saied enough heretofore Lastly giue me leaue to tell you that in this and other Reasons which we shall examine you do extremely forget yourself and the state of our present Question which is not now whether there be the same reason or necessity for the Churches absolute infallibility as for the Apostles and Scriptures But whether we can proue the vniversall infallibility of the Apostles and not of the Church by the same Text of Scripture which speakes of both in the same manner But let vs heare your other reasons of disparity betweene the Apostles and the Church in Point of infallibility 34. You say in the same N. 30. There is not so much strength required in the Edifice as in the Foundation And if but wise men haue the ordering of the building they will make it much a surer thing that the Foundation shall not faile the building then that the building shall not fall from the Foundation Now the Apostles and Prophets and Canonicall Writers are the Foundation of the Church according to that of S. Paul built vpon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets therfore their stability in reason ought to be greater than the Churches which is built vpon them 35. Answer Your conclusion therfore their stability in reason ought c shewes that you ground yourselfe on reason not on revelation and on a reason which is not so much as probable For you will not deny but that God might haue communicated absolute infallibility both to the Apostles and to the Church yet to the Church dependently of the preaching of the Apostles and then what would you haue sayd to your owne ground In reason more strength is required in the Foundation than in the Edifice seing in that case both the Foundation and Edifice should haue had an immoveable and firme strength and stability Your reason if you will haue it proue any thing against vs must goe vpon this principle that nothing which depends or which is builded vpon another for its certainty can be absolutely certaine which is a ground evidently false The Conclusion in a demonstratiue Argument is abfolutly certaine and yet depends on Premises The Church is infallible in Fundamentalls and yet in that infallibility is builded vpon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets The absolute infallibility of the Apostles was builded vpon our B. Saviours Words and even his infallibility as man was builded vpon the infallibility of his God head and yet I hope you will not say that
the Apostles and our B. Saviour were not absolutely infallible because they were built vpon another higher infallibility And I returne your owne words against you if but wise men or even men in their wits haue the ordering of the building they will make it as sure a thing that the building shall not fall from the Foundation as that the Foundation shall not faile the building if it be in their power to doe both these things with as much certainty and facility as to doe one of them And no wonder seing the stability of the Foundation is but a Meanes to the End that the Edifice which is builded vpon it be stable and every wise man hath greater regard to the End then to the Meanes in respect of which the End may be called the Foundation vpon which depends the Election of the Meanes and in vaine it is that the Foundation cannot faile the building if the building may fall from the Foundation And if for example to build high were a meanes to make the building not fall from the Foundation as digging deepe makes the Foundation not faile the building men would be as carefull to build high as now they make sure to digg low for better setling the Foundation and every one would ayme at a tower of Babel Now the Apostles received of the Holy Ghost infallibility not for themselves alone but for the good of the Church and it is no less easy for God to bestowe absolute infallibility vpon the Church than vpon the Apostles vpon the Edifice than vppon the Foundation and therfore no wonder if the Church partake of the same stability and infallibility with Her Foundation for the substance not for the manner that is as the Apostles were so the Church is free from all errour but so as the Church received Her Doctrine from the Apostles and not the Apostles from the Church You find fault with Charity Maintayned who making right vse of this metaphore argues that as a Foundation alone is not a house so to belieue Fundamentalls or the Foundation alone is not sufficient to constitute a Church or house of God without the beliefe of all Points sufficiently propounded as revealed by God and now yourselfe ground a matter of greatest moment the infallibility of the Church vpon the same metaphore very ill applyed towards any other purpose except to proue the contradictory of that for which you alledge it and to confute yourselfe as even now I haue demonstrated And besides all this seing in your Doctrine we belieue the Scriptures and the Doctrine of the Apostles or that there were any such men as the Apostles for the Authority of the Church or vniversall Tradition the Church to you is the Foundation of your beliefe that the Apostles were infallible and consequently if your deduction be good the infallibility of the Church must be greater than that of the Apostles because the Foundation must be stronger than the Edifice and so your owne argument directly overthrowes that which you would proue by it 36. By what I haue now sayd your other reason in the same place is answered That a dependent infallibility especially if the dependance be voluntary cannot be so certaine as that on which it depends But the infallibility of the Church depends vpon the infallibility of Apostles as the streightnesse of the thing regulated vpon the streightnesse of the Rule and besides this dependance is voluntary for it is in the power of the Church to deviate from this Rule being nothing els but an agregation of men of which every one has freewill and is subject to passions and errour Therfore the Churches infallibility is not so certaine as that of the Apostles 37. Answer How many flawes appeare in these not many words And to omit that of Dependance this Reason is not distinct from the former taken from the metaphor of a Foundation to which must be applied the Reason for which we assent to a thing and which therfore is the foundation on which our assent depends I say First Your conclusion is not contrary to the Assertion of your adversary A foule fault in Logicke which teaches that alwayes the conclusion of the disputant ought to be directly contradictory to that which the Defendant affirmes and not consistent with it Otherwise the Opponent would be discovered to fight with no-body You conclude Therfore the Churches infallibility is not so certaine as that of the Apostles Which is nothing against Charity Maintayned who proved only that the Church is so certaine and infallible in Her Definitions that they cannot be false forbearing to dispute whether one certainty may be greater then another and therfore secondly you mistake or wittingly alter the question passng from intension or degrees of certainty in order to the same Points to extension of infallibility to different kinds of objects as if though it were granted that the Apostles were more infallible than the Church intensiuè or in respect of the same Points in which both she and the Apostles are infallible because she depends on the Apostles it must follow that the Church cannot be extensiuè as infallible as they were that is cannot be infallible in Points both Fundamentall and not Fundamentall which is a very inconsequent consequence it being sufficient that the A postles be more infallible than the Church quoad modum seing she depends on them and they not on her as the Apostles were not so infallible intensiuè as our Saviour and yet you will not inferr that their infallibility also must be so limited extensivè as not to reach to vnfundamentall Points and as the Church for Fundamentall Points is builded and depends vpon the Apostles and so quoad modum not so infallible as they were yet Protestants grant that she is absolutly infallible in fuch Points though for them she depend on the Apostles and your reason is against this infallibility as well as against her infallibility in Points not Fundamentall and therfore proves in neither Thirdly according to this your discourse no naturall truth can be inferred with certainty from the most common and knowne Principles of naturall reason as Nothing can be and not be at the same tyme. Every whole is greater than any one part included therin and the like because whatsoever is inferred from such knowne Axiomes must depend on them and therfore not be certaine nor infallible If then your meaning be that the Church is not absolutely infallible because she depends on the infallibility of the Apostles your Reason is manifestly false If you meane that she may be absolutly infallible though not so infallible as the Apostles quoad modum you speake not to the purpose but grant as much as we desire 38. You say It is in the power of the Church to deviate from this Rule that is from the Doctrine and infallibility of the Apostles being nothing els out an aggregation of men of which every one has freewill and is subject to passions and errour And
his principles must be resolved into Reason just as I sayd hertofore that although he seeme in words to extoll Scripture as a Perfect Rule the only ground of our Faith containing evidently all necessary points and the like yet indeed by his wicked Tenets concerning it he deprives it of all authority and makes it vnable to deliver vs any thing with absolute certainty A just judgment of God to bring provd men to confusion and intrap them in their owne snares and proue their wisdome to be but foolishness even by crossing and contradicting themselves and overthrowing the maine foundations of their pretended friends or clients as this man destroyes the maine ground of Socinians Reason and the only Rule of Protestants Scripture If contradictions may be true you or any other may write Books with much security and without feare of being confuted For when you are brought to the hard exigent of acknowledging contradictions your answer will be that one may assent to contradictions and so one by all his paines taken to confute you shall only proue what you grant and seeke to proue And in particular it will be impossible to confute the Reasons whereby you endeavour to proue this your assertion because whatsoever is alledged can inferr no greater absurdity than that which you grant that contradictoryes may be true And on the other side it will not be in your power to confute any man seing the most you can doe will be to driue him vnto contradictions which he being taught by you will say is no absurdity and so all will be at a stand and become silent disputants And it may be true that euen this your assertion contradictions may be true may be saied both to be true and fals or not true And by what Logick can you or any who holds this Doctrine be confuted Not ostensiuè as Logicians speak because this is primum principium of all other nor deducendo ad absurdum or impossible seing the greatest absurdity that one can be brought to is that which you grant And there fore Christianity maintayned Pag 62. saied truly that your Reasons if you hold them for good must proue the contrary of that which you intended that is your proofes that we may assent to contradictions must suppose that we cannot assent to them which if you do not suppose you will never be able to convince any man in any thing Besides if your Reasons proue any thing they proue that one may assent to formall contradictions which yet you pretend to deny and therefore even in this respect you in fact hold contradictions But let vs heare your Reasons 22. Your first is this Whatsoever a man believes true that he may and must belieue But there haue bene some who haue believen and taught that contradictions might be true against whom Aristoile disputes in the third of his Metaphysicks Therefore it is not impossible that a man may belieue contradictions 23. Answer 1. We haue heard you saying N. 47. Perhaps it may be very difficult for a man in his right wits to belieue a contradiction expressed in termes especially if he belieue it to be a contradiction Now I ask whether those men whom Aristotle impugnes were in their right wits or no If they were Then your Argument if it proue any thing proves that it is possible for men in their right wits to belieue contradictions expressed in termes for Aristotle speaks of such cōtradictions And then how do you say It is difficult for a man in his right wits to belieue a contradiction Seing in our case it is all one to be difficult and impossible since that which the light of reason tells vs is that it is impossible and not only difficult and if you deny it to be impossible you will not be able to proue it difficult neither did they whom Aristotle impugnes make any distinction between being difficult and impossible So that this parte of the Answer to my Dilemma which supposes those men to be in their wits doth indeed put them our of their wits because according to your owne doctrine they could not assent to contradictions if they were in their wits But if those men were out of their wits surely you ought not to take mad men for Maisters in Metaphysicks which is no better than to suborne sleeping witnesses as the Jewes did against our Saviours resurrection and as you doe to proue your chimericall Assertion 2. If you belieue that one may belieue contradictions how will you proue this consequence some haue believed and taught that contradictions might be true Therfore he may and must belieue contradictions If you say It implies contradictions that one should belieue a thing to be true and yet that it is impossible for him to assent to it it will be answered what then Do you not suppose and teach even this which in this answer you take to be absurd that one may assent to contradictions will you haue it possible that one may assent to contradictions when you affirme it and not possible when an other sayes the same 3. If any saied and believed that contradictions might be true they erred against the first and most knowne Principle of nature and so as you inferr Contradictoryes were believed to be true therfore they might be believed to be true I take the contrary truth It is knowne by the light of nature that contradictories cannot be true and infer Therefore it is impossible to belieue them being conceived to be Contradictoryes if men be in theyr wits If you conceyue Aristotle did sufficiently confute those men why do you alledg theyr confessed fals doctrine to proue that which you pretend to be true Certainly this is neither an honest kind of proceeding nor a good way of proving If your opinion be that he did not refell them effectually without doubt it had bene a Work beseeming your wit to haue confuted Aristotle and defended those men whose doctrine vnless you maintaye your Argument taken from theyr conceypts can be of no force at all Neither had it bene needfull for you to haue studied what Title had bene fittest for such a Work For you might haue remembred that Simon Magus is saied to haue written Books which he called Contradictorios Uid Baron Ann. Christi 35. N. 23. A Title most agreable to your genius both because in this place you expressly defend Contradictions and in regard that through your whole Booke you do indeed fall into them more frequently than I could haue imagined Yet as for those men whom Aristotle impugnes it is one thing that they saied they believed Contradictions might be true and an other that indeed they could belieue them if they were in their right wits and vnderstood what were true contradictories In which respect Aristotle Metaphys Lib 4. Cap 3. saieth Nonenim necesse est quaecumque quis dicat ea etiam putare But this is not the first tyme that you confound the first and second operation of the
vnderstanding or primam apprehensionem and judicium Never the less if you be setled in a resolution to defend that men being out of their right wits may belieue Contradictories I say it imports nothing for our present purpose seing I hope you will not say that the fact of such men can concerne Dr. Vsher to whom Cha Ma objected that some words of his did implie a contradiction Lastly be pleased to reflect that Aristotle speakes of express and knowen Contradictions and yourself confess that it is difficult and men ought not to belieue such and therfore this first Reason of yours proves either too much or nothing at all and so proves nothing at all because it proves too much And I wonder how you say in your N. 46. Pag 215. Though there can be no damnable Heresie vnless it contradict some necessary Truth yet there is no Contradiction but the same man may at once belieue this Heresie and this Truth because there is no Contradiction that the same man at the same tyme should belieue Contradictions Let vs suppose this to be as it is a damnable Heresie Christ is not the Saviour of the world the contradictory is Christ is the Saviour of the world which is a formall contradiction and expressed in termes to which it seeemes by these words you may assent and consequently to express contradictions which yet N. 47. you are forced to moderate But when you say There is no contradiction but the same man may at once belieue this Heresie and this Truth and add this reason or proofe because there is no contradiction that the same man at the same time should belieue contradictions you must giue me leaue to speak ād say that you vtter plaine non-sense yourself talk of some non-sense distinction in proving that one may belieue contradictions because there is no contradiction that one belieue contradictions which causall supposes that we could not belieue them if it were a contradiction to belieue them and consequently that we cannot belieue contradictions and yet in this very sentence you say There is no contradiction but the same man at the same time should belieue contradictions 24. Your second reason is delivered in these words They which belieue there is no certainty in reason must belieue that contradictions may be true For otherwise there will be certainty in this Reason This contradicts Truth therefore it is fals But there be now divers in the world who belieue there is no certainty in reason Therefore there be divers in the world who belieue contradictions may be true 25. Answer 1. Certainly if there be any certainty in Reason it is in this that contradictions cannot be true and seing you hold this not only not certainly true but to be false it is cleare that you are one of those who belieue there is no certainty in Reason and consequently you cannot be certaine even of your owne Assertion that contradictions may be true And so while you draw an Argument from those who belieue there is no certainty in Reason you depriue your owne Assertion of all certainty 2. If once you swallow that absurdity of the truth of contradictoryes when you say This Contradicts truth therefor it is fals the answer might be that it might contradict truth and yet not be fals but true because contradictions may be true And I beseech you tell vs whether you belieue that whatsoever contradicts truth is fals If you say it is not fals you speak absurdly For what is falshood but an errour against truth If you say it must be fals you overthrow your owne Doctrine that contradictions may be true because in contradictions one parte must be opposite to a truth and consequently fals 3. That conceypt that there is no certainty in Reason being fals and injurious to mankind you cannot ground on it any truth except this that it is a very fitt Principle for your absurd Conclusion that contradictoryes may be true and that if you belieue it to be true you are in apernicious errour If you hold it to be fals why do you vrge it against vs this Sceptick doctrine 4. Your Argument proves that one may assent not only to contradictories not perceived to be such but to them expressed in plaine termes because otherwise there would be certainty in this Reason These be express contradictoryes Therefore they cannot both be true Thus still your Reasons either proue nothing at all or against your self 26. Your third Reason is They which do captivate their vnderstandings to the belief of those things which to their vnderstanding seeme irreconciliable contradictions may as well belieue reall contradictions For the difficulty of believing arises not from their being repugnant but for their seeming to be so But you do captivate your vnderstandings to the belief of those things which seeme to your vnderstandings irreconciliable contradictions Therefore it is as possible and easy for you to belieue those that indeed are so 27. Answer 1. What is this but to vndermine Christian Religion wherin we submit and captivate our vnderstandings to Mysteryes which to humane reason seeme impossible and for that very cause we are taught to captivate our vnderstanding to the obedience of Christ And now you tell all Christians that by doing so they belieue Contradictions as well as if they believed reall contradictions which Jewes Turks Pagans and all men in their right wits know to be absurd and impossible and you confess to be vnreasonable and very difficult speaking of express contradictions as heere you speak of such since you expressly speak of things which to ones vnderstanding seeme irreconciliable contradictions I desire the Reader to looke vpon Chr Ma Chap. 9. concerning this matter 2. Therefor as in other Reasons so in this seing you speak of contradictions expressed in termes you contradict what yourself afterward N. 47. teach 3. The necessity that all Christians acknowledg of submitting our vnderstanding to Faith arises from this that they seeme to containe contradictions which could be no reason requiring the captivating our Reason if they did not suppose that contradictions cannot bettue and therefore this very reason which you bring to proue that men may belieue contradictions must suppose they cannot belieue them For if they could it would cost them litle to belieue that which to them seemed a contradiction 4. You say It is as possible and as easy for vs to belieue those things that indeed are reall contradictions as to belieue those things which to our vnaerstanding seeme contradictions which words suppose that it is both possible and easy for vs to belieue those things which to vs seeme contradictions and yet N. 47. you say it is very difficult for a man in his right wits to belieue express contradictions Into how many contradictions do you fall while you treate of conradictions 5. Your Argument scarcely deserves any Answer For who is ignorant that contradiction must involue two sides one affirming the other denying and therefore
that can be objected against vs in that Mystery and you should haue brought as well theyr answers as your owne objections if your intention had bene to declare the Truth and not only to be blasphemous But still you declare more and more that you vndermine Christian Religion it being evident to any who is not ignorant of Phylosophy that whosoever denyes the possibility of Transubstantiation will much more deny other Mysteryes of Christiā Religion as in particular the blessed Trinity and Incarnation of the Son of God as shewed concerning the B. Trinity out of Dr. Taylor and by your owne Confession Who can deny that one Body may be in two places or two bodyes in one or accidents remayne without substance or Subject if he belieue that one individuall Essence of God is in three Persons in the B. Trinity and in the Incarnation two complete Natures Divine and humane exist in one Person and a complete substance the Humane Nature of our Saviour Christ not subsist by itself but by the subsistence of the second Person it being no more strang or difficult that an accident should not exist in alio than that a complete substance should not subsistere per se and farre more vnintelligible that one Nature should be in three persons or two natures in one person then that one Body should be in diverse places there being a more strict connection betweene Nature and Hypostasis than betweene a Body and a place But your conclusion of the N. 46. is so patently injurious to Christian Religion that it is intollerable You say to Ch. Ma. If you can not compose the repugnance of points implied in Transubstantiation and that after an intelligible manner then you must giue me leaue to belieue that either you doe not belieue Transubstantiation or els that it is no contradiction that men should subjugate their vnderstanding to the belief of contradictions And who I pray can vndertake to answer all arguments objected against the Blessed Trinity Incarnation and other sublime mysteryes of Christian Religion and compose all seeming repugnance after an intelligible manner otherwise than by finally captivating our vnderstanding to the obedience of saith And if you will not be content without all be declared in an intelligible manner is it not Hypocrisie in you to say pag 376. N 56. of Scripture Propose me any thing out of this Book and require whether I belieue it or no and seeme it never so incomprhenssible to Human Reason I will subscribe it with hand and hart For seing you belieue Christian Religion only with a probable assent for Humane prudentiall Motives how can Mysteryes seeming incomprehensible and repugnant to human Reason be declared not to be repugnant after an intelligible manner ād why should not a confessedly meere probability yeald to a seeming evidence in your grounds who resolue Faith into Reason only confessedly probable And heere againe I desire you to reflect on your saying That it is no Contradiction that men should subjugate their vnderstandings to the belief of Contradictions Is not this to say that if it were a contradiction to subjugate our vnderstanding to contradictions we could not doe it And yet you teach that we may belieue contradictions and consequently you should say though it be a contradiction to subjugate our vnderstandings to contradictions yet we may doe it because we may belieue contradictions and so you must either deny that men can belieue contradictions or els confess that the saied same sentence It is no contradiction that men subjugate their vnderstandings to the belief of Contradictions destroyes itself as I haue shewed And besides when you say It is no Contradiction that c you must signify that to be a contradiction is to be impossible and that if it were contradiction to belieue contradictions it were impossible to belieue them Seing then every one in his right wits judges it a contradiction that the same thing should be and not be at the same tyme he must judg it impossible and if he judge it impossible he cannot judg it de facto to be so and consequently cannot judg contradictoryes to be true because it is impossible that a thing be and not be for the same tyme as all Contradictoryes say they are Into how many precipices do your subtiltyes cast you and force you to say and vnsay the same thing in the same words 32. Your seventh Reason N. 47. is this That Charity Maintayned cannot in Charity think that Dr. Vsher and Dr. Potter did not belieue what they saied and therfore if theyr words implied a contradiction we must grant that it is not impossible at once to believe contradictions 33. Answer If it be an Act of Charity to belieue that the Doctors believed contradictions it will be Charity in you to belieue that they did it not wittingly which you say no man in his right wits should doe and then your reason procedes only in contradictions not expressed and is answered confuted and retorted against yourself in the same manner as your Fourth Fift and Sixt reasons were 34. Your N. 47. containes a modification of your saying That one may assent to Contradictions but a modification or explication which containes a plaine contradiction as I haue shewed in my answer to your fourth reason And therfore I will say no more of this matter except to mention in a word your saying To belieue a contradiction expressed in termes especially if we belieue it to be a contradiction c what an expression or repetition is heere When can one belieue a contradiction to be a contradiction if he belieue it not to be such when it is expressed in termes It is it is not you talk also of non-sense Distinctions because you loue darkness and in disputation nothing vexeth Protestants so much as when Catholiques take of the obscurity of their objections with cleare and solid Distinctions wherby they instantly become silenced ministers Lastly N. 46. you grant that perhaps Dr. Vshers words Marke that his words and 〈◊〉 only hee but these his very words did suppose that a man may belieue all Truths necessary to salvation and yet superinduce a damnable Heresie which being once granted Charity Maintayned had reason to say that Dr. Vsher did vtter a contradiction and proved it by this cleare reason That there can be no damnable Heresy vnless it contradict some necessary Truth which cannot happē in one who is supposed to beleeue all necessary truths Now you grāt expressly Pag 215. N. 46 That there can be no damnable Heresy vnless it contradict some necessary Truth And therfore you must grant that it is contradiction to belieue a damnable Heresie and yet belieue all necessary Truths in regard that if he belieue all necessary Truths he must belieue that Truth which is contradictory to that Heresy which also he believes and so should belieue two contradictories at the same time Which belief of at least implied contradictions being supposed it is easy afterwards
Truly I cannot imagine that any man would haue dreamed that Dr. Potter did not intend by those interrogations to proue that the Creed containes all fundamentall points whether we consider the only question in hand or the clear connexion and thread of his words as I haue shewed and that all his interrogations tended to make good that no Christian can be obliged to belieue more as necessary then the Apostles believed to be necessary of which necessary points you say N 65. the Creed is a full comprehension and consequently that he intended to proue so much by his interrogations though I grant he faild in his proofes and performance of his intention which he perceiving did afterward seeke to corroborate them with other reasons which consideration beside what hath been sayd doth evidently declare that in his interrogations he intended to perswade vs that the Creed containes all necessary points of Faith For let vs suppose with you that his purpos was only to proue that no Christian is bound to belieue more then the Apostles believed and not that no Christian is bound to belieue more then the 〈◊〉 with what connexion or sense could Potter say immediatly after those interrogations All that can be replyed to this discourse is that the whole Faith of those times is not contained in the Apostles Creed which 〈◊〉 all one as if a man should say this is not the Apostles Creed but a part of it For the Apostles and the Church of their times in giving it this name do◠they not plainely tell vs that the Summe and Substance of their Credenda is comprized in it If Potter in his interrogations meant only to proue that no Christian is bound to belieue more thē the Apostles believed how did he imagine that it could be replyed against that discourse ād those interrogations of his that the whole Faith of those times is not contained in the Apostles Creed if I say his discourse according to your interpretation aymed at no such matter Or to what purpos doth the Doctour as soone as he had sayd that nothing could be replye to his discoursed except that the whole Faith of those times is not contained in the Apostles Creed instantly set himselfe to proue that the Creed containes the Summe and substance of the Credenda of the Apostles and Church of their times As if by proving this that reply were confuted and his Interrogations made good which yet had been good if they were vnderstood of the whole extent of the Apostles beliefe though it were supposed that the Creed containes not all fundamentall points of Faith For whether it contained them or no it is most true that no Christian is obliged to belieue more then the Apostles believed of things contained and not contained in the Creed Looke now whether I may not retort the words which you direct against Charity Maintayn Consider I pray a litle better and then I hope you will acknowledge that there was no Petitio principij in Dr. Potter but rather Ignoratio Elencht in you 59. You doe but loose time in proving that S. Paul Act 20. spoke to the Pastours yet that he spoke of what he taught not only them but also the Laity as well as them And you wonder Charity Maintayned should read the Text so negligently as not to obserue it Ch. Ma. never sayd that the Apostle spoke to the Pastors only or that he instructed them only but that the sayd words were directed particularly to the Pastors or Governours of the Church and yourselfe grant the Apostle did all these things of which he speakes to the Pastours among the rest nay aboue the rest ād therfor C Ma did clearly deduce that the Doctour could not collect from those words that the Apostle spoke of things necessary for all sortes of persons to belieue seing Pag 244. He acknowledges that more knowledge is necessary in Bishops and Priests to whome is committed the government of the Church then in vulgar Laicks as Charity Maintayned observes and consequently he could not gather out of those words what points be necessary for all and much lesse that all necessary points are contained in the Creed In a word the Apostle spoke of more then all are obliged to belieue and more then is contained in the Creed and therfor Potter could not prove by those words that if it were necessary for every one to belieue more than is contained in the Creed every one must belieue more or as much as the Pastors are obliged to belieue 60. No wonder if those Reasons of Dr. Potter which you mention N 74. were not particularly answered being so clearly false as they are answered by a meere denyall For that the Ancient Church appointed her infants to be instructed for matters of simple beliefe only in the Creed and admitted her Catechumens vnto baptisme and strāgers to her communion vpon their only profession of the Creed is evidently false For how many notorious heretiks pretēd to belieue the Creed Which therfor alone without other knowledge and circūstances of the persons c. could not be sufficiēt to admit strangers into the communion of the Church and who knows not that Catechumens are instructed in many more points of Faith then are exprest in the Creed Infants if you speake properly cannot be instructed in the Creed or any other part of Christian Faith Their Patrini surely know more points of Faith then the Creed alone But why did you not confute the answer which you confesse Ch Ma gives to Potters Fourth Reason about the letters called formatae which containe more then the Creed as may be seene in Charity Maintayned Par 2. P 171. and it will be found that you had reason to dissēble his discourse which proves that more was required to be belieued then only the Creed as appeares even by Potter himselfe speaking of those letters Pag 224. in these words If in those letters he did professe entirely to adhere to the Catholick Creeds his profession and person was accepted as sound and Orthodox Wher you see the beliefe of more Creeds was required then of the Apostles Creed only 61. Although the rest of the numbers in this Chapter containe no particular difficulty which may not be solved by our former grounds and therfor might well be omitted especially seeing you and the Doctor grant as much as is more then sufficient for our maine purpos that in vaine Protestants alledge their beliefe of the Creed to shew that they agree in all Fundamentall points of Faith and it appeares very cleare of it selfe seing it containes not all essentiall points of Christian practice yet I will cast an eye on your Numbers 75.76.77.78.79.80.81.82.83.84 as they lye in order Divers Points which haue connexion or were circumstances of the Articles set downe in the Creed might haue been exprest besides those which are specified in it and therfor Ch. Ma. may still aske why some such are exprest and others are not and you must finally
Tradition Heere yourselfe expressly distinguish those who tooke their direction only from Scripture from others who tooke it from the Writings of the Fathers and the Decrees of Councells c. The truth is you vndertooke to defend Potter and Protestants only to haue the occasion of venting Socinianisme and covertly overthrowing Protestantisme and vpon grounds which indeed overthrow all Religion You say Let me tell you the difference between them especially in comparison of your Church and Religion is not the difference between good and bad but between good and better Answer in matters of Faith of two disagreeing the one must be in an errour against Divine Testimony and the other in the right I hope you will not say that the difference betweene an Assent of Faith and an errour against Faith is not between good and bad but between good and better as if errour against Faith were good but not so good as Faith Now those different capitall Principles of which you spoke cānot chuse but produce different and opposite conclusions and Doctrines of which one must be an errour 24. In your N. 83.84.85.86.87.89.90.91.92.93.94.95.96 you spend many words with much vnnecessary fervour against the answers which Ch. Ma. gives to two similitudes which D. Potter brings to excuse Protestants from the guilt of Schisme which similitudes you alledge in a cursiffe letter but add words of importance which the Doctour hath not His words faithfully alledged by Ch Ma. P. 194. N. 30 taken out of the Doctours P 81. 82. are these If a monastery should reforme it selfe and should reduce into practice ancient good discipline when others would not in this case could it in reason be charged with Schisme from others or with Apostasie from its rule and order Or as in a Society of men vniversally injected with soxie disease they that should free themselves from the common disease could not be therfor sayd to separate from the Society so neither can the Reformed Churches be truly accused for making a Schisme from the Church seing all they did was to reforme themselves You say this argument is pressing and vnanswerable But Examples and similitudes are commonly sayed rather to illustrate then demonstrate and are often more captious then solid and convincing You haue no reason to accuse Ch Ma for perverting them for he first set downe the very words of Potter and then sets downe the case with application to our present purpose never affirming that the Doctour sets it downe in the manner and in those words but contrarily shewing that it should be so set downe which appeares by his express words N. 31. Before you make your finall resolution heare a word of advice And N. 32. Let me set before you these considerations All which words in both these places declare manifestly that Ch Ma did not pretend to set downe verbatim the Doctours case but to signify what he ought to haue considered and set downe and what de facto past in the division of Luther from the Church And lastly he shewes that the case being set downe as it ought to haue been made against the Doctour in favour of his adversary That all this is true will appeare by reading the discourse of Ch Ma N. 31.32.33.34 25. And it was easy for Ch. Ma. to retort the similitudes out of these grounds which he had proved That there is a most strict divine command not to forsake the communion of Gods Church Dr. Potter Pag 76. sayes Whosoever professeth himselfe to forsake the communion of any one member of the Body of Christ must confesse himselfe consequently to forsake the whole and therfor her the Roman Churches communion we forsake not no more then the Body of Christ And that externall communion is essentiall to make men members of the same Church which he Ch. Ma. shewes Pag 155. N. 5 and I haue proved heretofore For out of these two grounds it followes That it is de Jure Divino not to forsake the communion of the Church which according to Dr. Potter were to forsake the body of Christ and that to forsake the externall communion which is essentiall to the Church is to forsake the communion of the Church Now the similitudes of the Doctor to be of any force must suppose that ther is no divine command to remaine in that Monastery or company of those infected persons or else that to leaue their externall communion were not to leaue them and so in one word the parity must be absolutely denyed seing it is supposed that ther is no divine precept for remayning in that Monastery or Hospitall of sick people or else that to remaine in their company were not essentiall to be a member of such communities and therfor you say very irreligiously N. 84. That as it is possible to forsake other Societies that is their externall communion so also it may be Lawfull to forsake the communion of the Church for her pretended faults and corruptions But let vs see what you can object and I must here againe entreate the Reader to read Ch Ma. and not take his answers not only at a second but at an adversaries hand For here you practice an art first to divide the Reasons of Ch. Ma. and then to set vpon every single one a parte wheras there is such a connexion between his reasons that one receaves light and strength from another It seemes you haue a minde to cavill when you would seeme to make a difference between one Monasterie compared with other Monasteries of the same order and one or some few persons compared with the one Monasterie in which they liue Wheras you cannot but judge that there is the selfsame proportion and that the reason which may excuse or accuse in the one may doe the like in the other or rather indeed it is but one and the selfe same case for as much as belongs to our present purpose 26. You N. 85. in stead of āswering the case as C. Ma. puts it professe to alter it and to put it not just as Ch. Ma. would haue it Well even taking the case as you put it I say that if there were as ther is in our case a divine command not to part from such a community those observances which you suppose to be obliging would cease to oblige if they could not be kept without forsaking such a community yea though they did still oblige it were not Lawfull to leaue that community as I declared heretofore in case of minoris mali and perplexity But indeed Ch. Ma. speakes not of observances the omitting wherof did import sinne but in express termes of a case wherin a Monastery did confessedly obserue their substantiall vowes and all principiall Statutes or constitutions of the order though withsome neglect of lesser Monasticall Observances Neither is the streame of Casuists against Ch. Ma. in this nor S. Paul whome you cite while he sayes that we may not doe the least evill that we may doe the greatest good Seing in
ventis vocatur Ecclesia Quomodo vocatur Vndique in Trinitate vocatur Non vocatur nisi per baptismum in nomine Patris Filij Spiritus Sancti Will you now limit vndique to places round about or adjacent and not grant that it signifies the whole world The learned Fevardentius in his Annotations vpon this place of S. Irenaeus not only affirmes that by eos qui sunt vndique fideles all Churches of the whole world are vnderstood but proves it with much clearness and erudition observing among other things that it is saied Ad hanc Ecclesiam not ad vrbis amplitudinem populorum frequentiam non ad imperij culmen non ad Caesarum majestem sed ad hanc Ecclesiam Thus your first objection being proved to be grounded meerely vpon a confidence that vndique must be taken in this place as you would haue it and withall perceiving that even this will not come home to your purpose without an other voluntary alteration for it is no less difficult a sense to say The Apostolike Tradition hath alwayes bene conserved there froÌ„ those who are euery where than to say The Apostolike Tradition hath alwayes bene conserved there from those who are round about you fall vpon a conjecture that in all probability in stead of conservata it should be observata although no copie either printed or manuscript reads it in that manner and suppose it were observata the difficulty would still remaine what observata might signifie whether observed that is kept and maintayned and then it were all one with conserved or observed that is marked found perceived or the like as you would haue it not considering that by this conceypt you wholy alter the Argument of S. Irenaeus and substitute an other For whereas that holy Bishop and Martyr grounds his proofe against Heretiques vpon the Authority and succession of the Roman Church you make him vrge these Heretiques only by the Testimony of people round about that Citie because they never observed any alteration of doctrine in that Church which therefore according to this your fiction must be judged by the neighbouring people and not they directed by her which kind of reasoning had bene a meere begging the Question and no effectuall confutation of those Heretiques who would instantly answer that both Rome and the adjacent people had altered the Apostlike Tradition by holding doctrines contrary to theirs nor could they haue bene confured otherwise than by supposing that the Roman Church was by the Promise of our Saviour Christ secured from all errour against Faith and to vse your owne lately recited words to say that the people about Rome would haue observed it if there had bene any alteration in the Church of Rome had bene but to giue for a reason that which was more questionable then the thing in question as being still to vse your owne words not evident in it self according to the principles of Protestants who de facto hold that many errours crept into the Church without being observed and plainly denied by S. Irenaeus his adversaries and not proved by him especially if we consider that as yourself speak The Church of Rome had a Powerfull principality over all the adjacent Churches it had bene more probable that she might haue led them into errour which they would haue embraced as an Apostolicall Tradition than that they would or could haue corrected her if indeed she had bene conceyved to be subject to errour no less than the adjacent Churches Now as for the difficulty of those words In which the Tradition which is from the Apostles hath alwayes been conserved from those who were every where yourself must answer it seing you hold your conjecture of observata to be but probable and that all hitherto haue read it and do still reade it conservata and that even though you reade it observata it will be a hard sense to say In which Church the Tradition which is from the Apostles hath alwaies bene observed from those who are every where and if in stead of from you say by hath bene observed by those who are every where though in that acception you must take Ab in a different sense when it is sayd ab Apostolis from and when it is saied ab his qui sunt vndique by we may also say hath bene conserved by those who are every where and the sense will be that in the Roman Church there hath alwaies bene the Tradition from the Apostles which hath also bene conserved in all Churches and in which they must agree with Her propter potentiorem Principalitatem and because she hath an evident and certaine succession as being founded vpon a Rock and in this sense we may also say that the Tradition receyved from all Churches hath bene conserved in the Roman Church as the center of Ecclesiasticall vnity to vse the words of the most learned Perron in his Reply Lib. 1. cap 26. 31. In your N. 30. after other discourses which containe no difficulty which may not be answered by what hath bene saied in divers occasions you come to your old cramben of the Chiliasts or Millenaries of which you say Justine martyr in Dial. cum Tryphon Professeth that all good and Orthodoxe Christians of his time belieued it and those that did not he reckons amongst Heretiques Sr. we haue no â—eason to belieue your word without some proofe And that you may not â—â—use my proofe against you as proceding from one who being a partie may be suspected of partiality I oppose to you a learned ProtestaÌ„t Doctor Ham in his Uiew of c Pag 87.88.89 who convinced by evidence of truth not only confesses and proves the weakeness of that place in S. Iustine to conclude any thing against Catholique Tradition but also demonstrates that your allegation is an egregious falsification while you say Iustine martyr professeth that all good and Orthodox Christians of his time believed it and those that did not he reckons amongst Heretiques For S. Justine expresly affirmes that many doe not acknowledg this doctrine of the 1000. yeares and those many Christians that are of pure and pious opinyon or judgment and that those whom he calls nominall Christians Atheists impious hereticall leaders are they who denyed the resurrection not those that acknowledg the resurrection and denyed the Millennium And the Doctour concludes in these very words By Iustine it cannot be concluded that the 1000. yeares was a matter of Catholike belief in his time but only favourd by him and many others and consequently though that were after condemned in the Church would it not be from this testimony inferred that a Catholick Doctrine much lesse a Tradition were condemned And he gives vs a Rule whereby we may answer all that can be objected out of S. Irenaeus or any other ancient Author saying Pag 91. I confess I acknowledg my opinion that there were in that age men otherwise minded as out of Iustin it appeared I could cite an other highly
of the Gospell Do you not profess through your whole Book that voluntary error against any revealed truth is a damnable sinne And what sinne can it be except the sinne of Heresy But of this particular els where Never was there Writer so repugnant to himself as you are Now for your N. 41. If the true Church cannot be without Succession of Bishops whatsoever Church wants them cannot be a true Church as if speach were necessary to the being of a man as it is not want of it would be a sure argument that he is not a man and so your argument that though speach be a certaine signe of a living man yet want of it is no sure Argument that he is dead is retorted against yourselfe 37. You would drawe me in your N. 42. to enter vpon an vnreasonable discourse wherein you do not so much impugne the Catholique Church as all Christianity and you are still like yourself in despising S. Austine and saying that the places alledged out of him by Ch Ma N. 24. deserue not the name of a proofe and yet S. Austine Lib de Pastorib Cap 8. saieth in express tearmes the thing for which he was alledged namely that not all Heretiques are spred over the face of the â—arth but that Faithfull people are dispersed through the whole world And the arguments which you bring to the contrary are answered by these words of S. Austine in the same place Not all Heretiques are spred over the face of the Earth and yet there are Heretiques spred over the whole face of the earth some heere some there yet they are waÌ„ting in no place they know not one an other One Sect for example in Africa ' an other Heresy in the East an other in Aegipt an other in Mesopotamia In divers places they are divers One Mother Pride hath begot them all as one Mother the Catholique Church hath brought forth all faithfull people dispersed throughout the whole world No wonder then if Pride breed Dissention and Charity vnion To this true distinction of S. Austine we maie add that sometyme when the Fathers speak of the multitude of some particular Sects they meane of some particular place or Country but not comparing those Heretiques with the whole vniversall Church diffused through the whole world You tell vs S. Austine saies Ep. 48. ad Uinc the Professors of error surpassed the Number of the Professors of Truth in proportion as the sands of the Sea doe the starres of the Heaven But I find in that Epistle these words of S. Austine Fortasse non frustra dictum sit de Semine Abrahae sicut stellae Coeli sicut arena quae est ad oram maris vt in stellis Coeli pauciores firmiores clarioresque intelligantur in arena autem maritimi Litoris magna multitudo infirmorum atque carnalium In which words it seemes that S Austine speakes not of Professors of error as you say but of perfect and imperfect Catholiques which is nothing to our purpose 38. Your N. 43.44 containe nothing which hath not bene answered or els is of no consideration You find fault with Ch. Ma that being to proue Protestants to be guilty of Heresie he strikes into an other accusation of them that the Faith even of the Truth they hold is not indeed true Faith But put case it were not does it follow that the having of this Faith makes them Heretiques Aristotle believed there were Intelligences which moved the spheares he believed this with an humane perswasion aÌ„d will you make Aristotle an heretique because he believed so Answer Ch Ma having proved Protestants to be guilty of heresie and consequently not capable of salvation because Heresie is a deadly sinne if everie Heresie haue also this effect that it destroyes all true supernaturall Faith even of all those points wherein they doe not erre and that true supernaturall Faith is necessary to salvation how could Ch. Ma. without prevarication forbeare to infer that seing Protestants are proved to be guilty of Heresie they must be subject to the inseparable effect thereof which is to be deprived of all supernaturall Faith and so be incapable of Salvation vpon a double Title that is both for a positiue error against Faith and for want of supernaturall infallible Faith caused by that error Whatsoever you are pleased to say yet I belieue every one beside your self will conceyue that Ch Ma did not digress if indeed it be true that every Heresie destroyes all Faith as he proved it does but never dreamed that every Heresie makes the true belief though only humane of all other Articles to be Heresie or that Aristotle was an Heretique because he believed only with an humane perswasion that there were Intelligences which moved the spheares but if hee or any other believed all the mysteryes of Christian Faith only with an humane perswasion as he believed those Intelligences no good Christian can belieue that such a perswasion were sufficient for salvation and so your Argument turnes against yourself Neither haue you any reason to say that Ch Ma hath disjoyned his discourse vpon this Point For it was necessary that first the grounds should be laied and the nature of Faith declared before he could by degrees proue Protestants to be Heretiques and thereby to be deprived of all supernaturall Faith necessary to salvation 39. Your N. 45.46 haue bene answered in divers occasions You overlash exorbitantly when N. 47. you say to Ch Ma Do you not see and feele how void of reason and how full of imprety your sophistry is And why Let the Reader judge of the cause Ch Ma saieth Every Protestant as I suppose is perswaded that his owne opinions are true and that he hath vsed such meanes as are wont to be prescribed for vnderstanding of Scripture as praier conferring of divers Texts c This supposition not affirmation being premised that Protestants haue vsed such meanes as themselves prescribe for interpreting and yet that they disagree in many importantmatters of Faith it cleerely followes that the meanes which they prescribe are not certaine nor effectuall seing they being put in practise attaine not that End for the procuring whereof they were prescribed From whence will follow this principally intended conclusion that the only effectuall meanes to compass that end must be to acknowledg an infallible Living Guide And I pray what impiety or sophistry is there in this You say The first of those suppositions that every Protestant is perswaded that his opinions are true must needs be true but the second is apparently false I meane that every Protestant is perswaded that he hath vsed those meanes which are prescribed for vnderstanding of Scripture But that which you collect from these suppositions is cleerely inconsequent and by as good Logick you might conclude that Logick and Geometry stands vpon no certaine grounds because the disagreements of Logicians and Geometricians shew that some of them are deceived 40. Answer If every Protestant be
not perswaded that he hath vsed those means which are prescribed for vnderstanding of Scripture you will not be able to defend that the first part of the supposition must needs be true to wit that every Protestant is perswaded that his opinions are true For if he be not perswaded that he hath vsed such meanes he cannot pretend to be sure that his opinions are true and then it is cleare that he who professes not to be sure that Protastant Religion is true is no Protestant nor of any Religion if he doubt of all or be not certaine of any And that which Ch Ma collects from those suppositions to be cleerely consequent appeares even by your instances to the contrarie which are retorted thus If you suppose men to follow the Rules and Principles of Logick and Geometry and yet disagree and consequently some of them to be deceyved you must conclude that Logick and Geometry stand vpon no certaine grounds Now our supposition for the present is that Protestants make vse of those meanes which they prescribe for vnderstanding Scripture and yet disagree among themselves and consequently some of them must be deceived Therefore we must conclude that those meanes are not certaine nor that they haue any certaine ground whereon to relie for vnderstanding Scripture which is the Conclusion of Ch Ma In the same manner I answer and retort your other instances That if Christians were supposed to vse aright all the meanes they haue for finding the truth in matters of Faith ād men be supposed to procede according to the true Rules of Reason and men did disagree we might well inferr that neither Christian Religion nor Reason stand vpon certaine grounds and the same retortion may be applied to your other instances But Sr. though you say it is fals that every Protestant is perswaded that he hath vsed those meanes which are prescribed for vnderstanding Scripture yet it might seeme a hard censure in you who pretend so much charity the property whereof you say is to judge the best to judg that of so very many disagreeing Protestants some haue not vsed the meanes which they prescribe to themselves for vnderstanding Scripture and if they haue it being cleare by their disagreeing that some are in an errour it followes that the meanes are in themselves defectiue vncertaine and insufficient 41. And in this occasion I must not omitt to declare the Reason why Almighty God doth not concurre with Heretiques to the converting of Nations to Christian Religion because indeed they might afterward vpon examination discover that the grounds of those by whom they were converted cannot support a certainty in Faith as they expected and so they would judge themselves rather to haue bene deluded or to vse your owne word tantalized than converted and might be tempted to revolt from Christ till they could find some Rock to which God himself hath promised eternall stability Besides seing Protestant Religion cannot be wholy true as consisting of contrary Sects if God did ordinarily cooperate with them in order to so supernaturall a work he might seeme to giue them the credit of true Teachers and to countenance and confirme a falshood which is impossible for him to doe And even from hence we may gather à posteriori that Protestant Religion is not true seing God doth not take them for his instruments to convert Nations or work Miracles 42. All that you say N. 48. hath bene answered heretofore at large To your N. 49. whether he who erres against any one revealed truth looseth all Divine Faith as Ch Ma saied N. 29. Catholique Divines generally reach I answer First That in reason Protestants ought to make greater account of the Authority of Catholique Divines besides whom there were no Orthodox Doctors before Luther and so to depriue them of estimation and authority cannot be donne without prejuduce to the vniversall and Catholique Church and all Christianity than any Catholique or any prudent man can make of learned Protestants who in their opposition to Catholiques are contrary to all Christian Churches before Luther and write to maintayne such their opposition whereas Catholique Divines who wrote before Luther could not haue any purpose to impugne Protestants yea the disagreement of Protestants among themselves and agreement with vs against their pretended Brethren must needs very much diminish their authority and if they remaine with any estimation or authority it makes for vs with whom the chiefest among them agree in many and great points of Faith You say D. Potter alledged not the meere Authority of Pappus and Flacius to proue this disagreement of Catholiques among thēselves but proved it with the formall words of Bellarmine faithfully collected by Pappus But I pray you that this collection was faithfull or to the purpose how doth Dr. Potter proue otherwise than by taking it vpon the credit and Authority of Pappus seing the Doctor doth not alledg so much as any one instance in particular As for the pretended disagreements among Catholiques they can be only in matters disputable or not defined by the Church frō which definition if any should swarue he were no Catholique and for other matters we are content that Pappus muster not only 237. but as many more points as he pleases For by such a multiplication he will onlie make an Addition to his owne manifest Impertinences as your alledging the Example of Brereley is a meere impertinence it being cleare that he alledges the disagreeing of Protestants among themselves not only in by-matters or in the manner or reason of their Assertions but even in the conclusions themselves and not only as disagreeing among thēselves but as directly agreeing with vs against other Protestants in the very conclusions whereof I desire the Reader for his owne good and full satisfaction to peruse Brereley in his Advertisment to him that shall answer his treatise and his preface to the Christian Reader Catholick or Protestant 43. Secondly Though you are pleased to call it weakness in Ch Ma to vrge Protestants with the authority of Catholique Divines yet you can haue no pretence to slight men of their fame and learning when they are considered not as disagreeing from Protestants nor in a Question controverted betwene them and vs but are seconded by the chiefest and learnedst of them Protestants For what doth it import Protestants that Heresie or infidelity destroies all Divine Faith vnless they will tacitely confess or feare that they are guilty of those crimes Let vs heare the verdit of some principall Protestants Luther in Capit 7. Matth. saieth Heretiques are not Christians And Faith must be round that is in all Articles believing howsoever little matters And in tria Symbola Christian Faith must be entire and perfect every waie For albeit it may be weak and faint yet it must needs be entire and true And Epist. ad Albertum He doth not satisfie if in other things he confess Christ and his word For who denieth Christ in one Article or word
your saying is not only confused but false in the opinyon of Catholique Divines and much more in your opinyon 45. You say Thomas Aquinas vainly supposeth against reason and experience that by the commission of any deadly sinne the Habit of Charity is quite extirpated But against this provd Pelagian conceypt of yours I haue proved in the Introduction that Charity being a supernaturall Habit infused only by the Holy Ghost and not acquired by any naturall Acts cannot be knowne by humane experience to be present or absent and being a loue of God aboue all things cannot possibly consist with any least deadly sinne I desire the Reader to see of this matter S. Thomas 2. 2. Q. 24. a 12. Corp where he cites S. Aug saying Quòd homo Deo sibi praesente illuminatur absente autem continuò tenebratur à quo non locorum intervallo sed voluntatis aversione disceditur 46. Concerning the second Reason of S. Thomas you say to C Ma Though you cry it vp for an Achilles and think like the Gorgons head it will turne vs all into stone and insult vpon Dr. Potter as if he durst not come neare it yet in very truth having considered it well I find it a serious graue prolix and profound nothing I could answer it in a word by telling you that it beggs without all proofe or colour of proofe the main Question between vs that the infallibility of your Church is either the formall motiue or rule or a necessary condition of Faith which you know we flatly deny and all that is built vpon it has nothing but winde for foundation 47. Answer What Reader will not conceiue out of your words that Ch. Ma. had vsed some such vaine brag as you express by Achilles Gorgons head insulting c Whereas he without any evenleast commendation saies positively that S. Thomas proves his conclusion first by a parity with Charity which is destroyed by every deadly sinne and then by a farther reason which there he setts downe at large in the words of that holy Saint 2. 2. Q. 5. A. 3. and is comprised in this Summe Ad 2. A man doth belieue all the articles of faith for one and the selfsame reason to wit for the prime verity proposed to vs in the Scripture vnderstood aright according to the Doctrine of the Church and therfore whosoever falls from this reason or motiue is totally deprived of Faith Your pride is intollerable in despising the Reason of S. Thomas as a serious graue prolix nothing and your saying is ridiculous that he beggs the main Question between vs about the infallibility of the Church For how could he begg that Question which when he wrote was granted and taught by all Divines But you do not vnderstand the force of his Argument which consists in this that if one assent to one Object for some motiue or Reason and assent not to another for which there is the same motiue or reason it appeares that he Assents to this other not for that motiue common to both but for some other particular Reason Now though S. Thomas specifie the authority of the Church because de facto she is the proposer of diviue Truths yet his argument is the same though it be applied to Scripture And therfore the same holy Doctor 1. Part. Q. 1. A. 8. Ad 2. without mentioning the Church saieth Innititur sides nostra revelationi Apostolis Prophetis factae qui Canonicos Libros scripserunt and we haue heard yourself saying Pag 23. He that doth not belieue all the vndoubted parts of the vndoubted Books of Scripture can hardly belieue any neither haue were ason to belieue he doth so Yea D. Lawd P. 344. saieth expresly We belieue all the Articles of Christian Faith for the same formall reason in all namely because they are revealed from and by God and sufficiently applied in his word an by his Churches Ministration 48. To this āswer which I haue confuted you add to vse your words a larg confutation of this vaine fancy out of Estius vpon 3. sē 23. dist § 13. But Estius is so farre from saying the Doctrine of S. Thomas to be a vain fancy that he saieth The Question is on both sides by the Doctours probably disputed Which is sufficient for our main Question that according to this Doctor the Protestants cannot pretend to be a true Church which must certainly and not only probably haue Divine supernaturall Faith which is absolutely necessary to saluation necessitate medij Besides his last express words shew that the Faith which remaines in an Heretique is not sufficient for salvation and therefore Protestants and all Heretiques even for want of necessary Faith cannot be saved His words are Neque tamen propterea fatendum erit Haereticos aut Judaeos Fidem habere sed Fidei partem aliquam Fides enim significat aliquod integrum omnibus suis partibus completum vt sit idem Fides simpliciter Fides Catholica Quae nimirum absolutè hominem fidelem Catholicum constituat Vnde Hereticus simpliciter infidelis esse Mark Fidem amisisse juxta Apostolum 1. Tim. 1. Fidei naufragium fecisse dicitur licet quaedam eâ teneat firmitate assensus promtitudine voluntatis qua ab alijs omnia quae fidei sunt tenentur Neither is the argument of S. Thomas sufficiently confuted by Estius in saying It is impertinent to Faith by what meanes we belieue the prime Uerity For although now the ordinary meanes be the Testimony and preaching of the Church yet it is certain that by other meanes faith hath bene given heretofore and is given still This discourse I say doth not confute the Argument of S. Thomas being vnderstood as I declared formally that whosoever disbelieves any article sufficiently propounded as a divine Truth the same man cannot belieue an other sufficiently propounded to him by the same meanes whatsoever that meanes be 49. To the other argument of S. Thomas taken from a parity of faith with the Habit of Charity which is lost by every deadly sinne Estius doth not answer and I am sure he would haue bene farr from saying as you doe that by the commission of any deadly sinne the habit of Charity is not quite extirpated And this Argument is stronger than perhaps appeares at the first sight For Faith hath no less connection and relation to the object of Faith than Charity to the object of Charity And therfore as Charity doth so loue God aboue all things that it cannot stand with any sinne whereby God is grievously offended so we must say of the habit of Faith that it is not compatible with any error whereby his Prime Uerity is culpably rejected and as it is essentiall to Charity as long as it exists to overcome all temptations against the Loue of God so Faith must of its owne nature beate downe and reject all errour against the Divine Testimony or Revelation that both for will and vnderstanding we may say
Protestants vpon one of these two accounts or titles are in state of damnation and is not this to contradict the title of your Book The Protestant Religion a safe way to salvation But I could not but wonder how you could induce yourself to say so absolutely To proue Protestants in state of sinne while they remaine separate from the Roman Church there is not one word or syllable in that N. 12. seing if they forsake those opinions eo ipso they come to agree therein with the Roman Church and if they persist in their errours and for that cause be forsaken by their Brethren these forsakers in that respect come to agree with the Roman Church and divide themselves from those other Protestants Besides if once it be granted that Protestants are obliged to forsake one an other no man to whom the salvation of his soule is deare will not spedily returne to that Church from which all of them departed whatsoever you may speculate or fancy to the contrary As for your instance that Catholiques differ about the Doctrine of Perdetermination or absolute Election it is not to the purpose seing all Catholiques profess to hold them no otherwise than as they may consist with freewill which those Protestants of whom Ch. Ma. speakes deny and therefore his Inferences are of force against Protestants not against Catholiques There is no doubt but that the consequences of mens opinions may and will be imputed to them when they might see them if it were not for some fault of their owne as even yourself grant in this place 4. To your N. 5. so it should be but is omitted It is vanity in you to say It was needless to proue that due order is to be obserued in any thing much more in Charity seing all Divines treating of Charity propose this Question and in particular S. Thomas 2.2 Q. 26. Art 1. asks expresly Vtrum in charitate sit ordo and for proofe thereof he alledges the same Text Cant 1. which Ch Ma alledges Ordinavit in me Charitatem and yet you with your wonted confidence say It if stood in need of proofe I feare this place of the Canticles would be no enforcing demonstration of it But Cornelius à Lapide from this place proves literally and learnedly that in Charity there is an order to be kept 5. 2. You say to Ch Ma The reason alleaged by you why we ought to loue one object more then an other because one thing participates the Divine Goodness more then an other is phantasticall and repugnant to what you say presently after For by this Rule no man should loue himself more then all the world Vnless he were first vainely perswaded that he doth more participate the Divine Goodness then all the world But the true reason why one thing ought to be loved more then an other is because one thing is better then another or because it is better to vs or because God Commands vs to doe so or because God himself does so and we are to conforme our affections to the will of God 6. Answer It can be nothing but excess of pride in you to call the reason of Ch Ma phantasticall it being nothing different from that which S. Thomas in the place alledged assignes and all his Commentators follow and which is strang you yourself giue the same as we shall see instantly Your errour arises from ignorance of a double Order in Charity Physicall and morall The first is taken from the perfection of the object in itself the second is considered in order to the obligation which God hath imposed vpon vs to loue things in that manner and order as he hath appointed and therfore although we cannot loue ourselves more than all the world by the Physicall order of which we spoke as if we did conceiue ourselves to be of our owne nature more perfect than all Creatures yet we are obliged by the morall order or obligation which God hath imposed to prefer the spirituall good of our owne soule before the whole world and so your objection appeares very vaine and must be answered by yourself who giue for a reason because one thing is better than an other and I beseech you is it not all one to say One thing is better than an other and one thing participates of God more than an other And then as I sayd you must answer your owne Objection that by this rule no man should loue himself more than all the world vnles he were first vainely perswaded that he doth more participate the Divine Goodness then all the world In your other reason because one thing is better to vs then an other you forget that we speake of Charity not of Hope which respects a thing as good to vs and therefore in this reason you pass from one vertue to an other and giue a reason nothing to our present purpose In your last reason because God himself does so and we are to conforme our affections to the will of God you either speak non-sense or els you say the same which Ch Ma saied and which you were pleased to call a phantasticall reason For God loves things as they are in themselves or as one thing is better then an other which was your other reason though indeed not distinct from this which yet you pretend to be different or as one thing doth more participate of the Divine Goodness or perfection which though you call phantasticall yet it is the same with your owne first reason and with this last and therefore to conforme our affections to the will of God is no other reason than that which you call phantasticall To these absurdities your pride brings you 7. 3. You say It is not true that all Objects which we belieue doe equally participate the Divine Testimony or Revelation But you ought to be ashamed to conceale the immediatly following words of Ch Ma which declare the matter most evidently For sayth he For Divine Testimony or Revelation we belieue a like all things propounded for such For it is as impossible for God to speak an vntruth in a small as in a great matter Is not this true Is not the contrary plaine blasphemy 8. In your N. 6. you say 1. It is not true that we are to wish or desire to God a nature infinite independent immense for it is impossible I should desire to any person that which he hath already if I know he hath it 9. Answer Ch Ma speakes in the phrase of the holy Scripture and spirituall men who to shew the ardent loue they beare to God and deepe complacence they take in the Perfections and Attributes which they know he enjoyes declare their affection by wishing them to him as hee in the Panegyrick could say to his Emperour etiam praesens desideraris Desire in our soule is like to hunger and thrist in our body and yet we reade Eccl. 24.29 Qui edunt me adhuc esurient qui bibunt me adhuc sitient S.
poynt so prime a principle in Christian Diuinity so intrinsecall and essentiall to Christianity so fully effectually and frequently declared and vrged in Holy Scripture that the greatest enemyes of Gods grace Pelagius and his fellowes vvere forced to acknowledg it in vvords though dissemblingly XV. The same necessity of Grace is taught by the Protestant Church of England once so stiled in the 10. Article of the 39. in these vvords The condition of man after the fall of Adâ—m is such that he cannoâ— turne and prepare himselfe by his owne naturall strength and good works to Faith and calling vpon God wherfore we haue no power to dâ—e good works pleasant and acceptable to God without the Grace of Ged by Christ preuenting vs that we may haue a good will and working with vs when we haue that good will If anie say these Articles are now of small account and little less then disarticled I answer they haue this specious title Articles agreed vpon by the Archbishops and Bishops of both Prouinces and the whole Cleargie in the Conuocation holden at London in the yeare 1562. For auoiding diuersities of opinions and for the establishing of consent touching true Religion If now they carry so small authority their Title should haue bin directly contrary to what it is Articles agreed vpon for the establishing diuersityes of opinions and for the auoiding of consent touching true Religion As these Atticles are now despised so what soeuer shall euer be proposed or sett downe by any other will neuer be to any purpose for the establishing of consent in matters of Faith and Religion till England returne to the roote from which it hath diuided it selfe and seriously reflect into what precipices it is fallen by forsaking Rome and rejecting an jnfallible liuing judge of controversyes for who can giue any man of iudgment a satisfactory reason vvhy so many pretended Bishops vvere not of as good credit as others or wy others are not as much to be belieued as those Bishops I beseech euery one to whom the saluation of his soule is deare to ponder in good earnest this consideration and then to obey S. â—hons saying Apoc. 2.5 Be myndfull from whence thou art fallen and doe pennance SECTION II. The Necessity of Grace to Belieue XVI FAith being as the Apostle sayth Hebr. c. 11.1 the substance of things to be hoped for and foundation of our spirituall life if it proceede from our naturall forces or reason the vvhole edifice of our saluation must be ascribed to our selues vvhich vvere a most proude and luciferian conceypt and yet I reade in M. Chillingworth Pag. 375. n. 55. these words Neither do we follow any priuate meÌ„ but only the Scripture the word of God as our rule and REASON which is also the gist of God giuen to direct vs in all our actions in the vse of this rule And through his vvhole booke speaking of that Faith vvhich God requires of all men as their duty he teaches that it is only such as is proportionable to humane probable Inducements or a Conclusion by rationall discourse euidently deduced from such probable Premises Pa. 36. n. 9. He speakes of jnfusion as of a particular fauour aboue the ordinary measure of Faith And n. 8. God desires only that we belieue the conclusion as much as the Premises deserue And Pag. 212. n. 154. Neither God doth nor man may require of vs as our duty to giue a greater assent to the Conclusion then the Premises deserue to build an infallible Faith vpon Motiues that are only highly credible and not infallible And Pa. 381. n. 74. He speaking of our Catholique Faith vvhich he denyes not to be for substantiall fundamentall poynts true faith for he holds that true faith of some poynts may stand with damnable errours in other sayth I desire to know what sense there is in pretending that your persuasion is not in regard of the object only and cause of it but in nature or essence of it supernaturall vvhich demand vvere very impertinent if he did belieue that diuine supernaturall Grace vvere necessary for euery act of true Christian faith For if it be not supernaturall in essence how can the speciall motion and grace of God be necessarily required to it in all occasions though no particular temptatation or difficulty offer it selfe And he speakes very inconsequently in asking how vve know that our faith is not in regard of the object only and cause of it but in nature and essence of it supernaturall since it is cleare that if the cause be necessarily and vniuersally supernaturall the effect also must be such and therfore he is convinced to belieue indeed that neither the cause nor essence of faith is supernaturall I grant that Pa. 409. lin 3. ante finem he vvould perswade vs that he hath no cause to differ from Dr. Potter concerning the supernaturality of Faith which sayth he I know and belieue as well as you to be the gift of God and that flesh and bloud reueald it not vnto vs but our Father which is in Heauen But euen in this we can gather only that he admits the necessity of some grace consisting in externall Reuelation or Proposition of the objects or mysteryes of Christian faith vvhich Pelagius did admit but not the necessity of internall Grace or motion of the Holy Ghost for enabling our vnderstanding to belieue supernaturall Objects vvith an infallible diuine Faith yea it is euident that he requires no such internall grace seing he expresly requires no stronger assent by faith then evidently followes from probable Arguments of credibility that is only a probable beliefe or perswasion vvheras if beside the proposition of the object he did require a supernaturall motion of grace eleuating our vnderstaÌ„ding aboue its naturall forces and measure of humane discourse it vvere very inconsequent to limit the assent of faith to the probability of jnducements or ArgumeÌ„ts of Credibility And yet he restraines our assent to such probability expresly because in rationall and naturall discourse the conclusion cannot exceede the premisses and therfor must be only probable vvhen the Premisses are such XVII For which cause when he speakes of particular Grace given to some aboue the ordinary course he confesses that it gives them a certainty of adherence beyond their certainty of evidence as he expresly delivers pag. 37. n. 9. Which certainty in good consequence he could not denie to every Act of divine faith if he did believe that every such Act doth of it selfe necessarily require particular internall Grace of God aboue the forces of nature and beside the externall proposition of the objects or Mysteries of Christian belief Neither can it be denyed but that an Object of it selfe supernaturall may be belieued by the naturall forces of our Understanding with some probable naturall assent for Arguments euidently proposed as Miracles comparing of Historyes and the lïke reasons for which men belieue other matters of tradition since therfor he teacheth that
Christian Faith is only a probable assent he must affirme that it doth not necessarily require the peculiar supernaturall assistance of the Holy Ghost But why do J vse any proofe since we haue his owne express words in the same Pag. 37. n 9. Some experience makes me feare that considering and discoursing men being possessed vvith this false principle that it is in vaine to belieue the Gospell of Christ vvith such a kind or degree of assent as they yeeld to other matters of tradition And finding that their faith of it is to them vndiscernable from the beliefe they giue to the truth of other storyes are in danger not to belieue at all or else to cast themselues into wretched agonyes and perplexityes as fearing they haue not that without which it is impossible to please God and obtaine eternall happiness Do not these words declare that faith sufficient to please God and obtain eternall happiness is of the same kind and degree of assent as men yeeld to other matters of Tradïtion and truth of other storyes for the beliefe of which no man did euer say that a speciall motion or grace of the Holy Ghost was always necessary And it is to be obserued that he speakes of considering and discoursing mē as still reducing Faith to Reason wheras contralily experience teacheth that oftentymes simple persons belieue with humility and deuotion when the wisest mè of the world turne fooles in matters belonging to God or if they embrace the Faith of Christ they doe it not always with such strength of beliefe as many vnlearned people doe which shewes that Faith relies on some more high and diuine foundation then the only forces of naturall Reason XVIII To this we may add what he teacheth Pag. 62. n. 24. That our assurance that the Scripture hath bene preserued from any materiall alteration and that any other booke is incorrupted is of the same kind and condition both morall assurances And Pag. 141. No 27. For the incorruption of Scripture I know no other rationall assurance we can have of it then such as we haue of the incorruption of otherr ancient bookes such I meane for the kind though it be far greater for the degree of it And if the spirit of God giue any mā any othe assurāce here of this is not rationall and discoursiue but supernaturall and infused Marke how still he requires as necessary only a rationall discourse for the incorruption and preseruation of Scripture from any materiall alteration and yet Protestants acknowledging Scripture to be the only rule of Faith and beliefe of all Christian Mysteryes can be no more certaine of such mysteryes then they are assured of Scripture it selfe and still speakes of supernaturall infusea assurance as of an extraordinary thing And yet further Pag. 116 N o 159. he sayth We haue I belieue as great reason to belieue there was such a man as Henry the eight King of England as that Iesus Christ suffered vnder Pontius Pilate I suppose he will not say that a speciall grace of the Holy Ghost is necessary to belieue that there was such a man as Henry the eight Therfor he will and must say the same of the Article of our Faith that Iesus Christ suffered vnder Pontius Pilate since he saith there is as much reason for the one as the other Which yet is made more apparent by what he sayth Pag. 327. N o 5. in these words Men may talke their pleasure of an absolute and most infallible certainty but did they generally belieue that obedience to Christ were the only way to present and eternall felicity but as much as Caesars Commentaryes or the History of Salust I belieue the liues of most men both Papists and Protestants would be better then they are By which words it is cleare that either most Papists and Protestants want true Faith necessary to saluation or that Faith sufficiēt to saluation need be no greater concerning the Mysteryes of Christiā Faith then the belief we yeld to profane Hystoryes and certainly this requires no speciall Grace or motion of the Holy Ghost To conclude since he professes that Christiā Faith is of the same kind with rationall discourse and belief of other matters of Tradition and humane Historyes it clearly followes that it is in its essence naturall and in kinde different from supernaturall and therfor cannot vniuersally require the particular motion and assistance of diuine Grace XIX But les vs confute this proud Heresie by Holy Scripture S. Ihon. C. 6. V. 29. saith This is the worke of God that you beleeue in him whom he hath sent V. 44. No man cā come vnto me except the Father that sent me draw him and afterward he expourds what it is to come vnto him namely to belieue V. 64.65 There be certaine of you that beleeue not Therfor did I say that no man can come vnto me vnles it be giuen him of my Father V. 45. Euery one that hath heard of the Father and hath learned commeth to me Mat. 11.25.26 Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast reuealed them to little ones Yea Father for so hath it well pleased thee And C. 16. V. 17. Blessed art thou Simon Barjona because flesh and bloud hath not revealed it to thee but my Father which is in Heauē Which Text must be vnderstood of internall Grace and not only of the externall Reuelation or Proposition of the Object which was made to the wise and prudēt as well as to little ones and to many other beside S. Peter who yet were not therfor blessed as S. Peter was declared to be Isai 54.12 All thy children taught of our Lord. Act. 13.48 There belieued as many as were preordinated to life euerlasting And Act. 16.14.15 A certain woman called Lidia a seller of purple of the citty of the Thyatirians one that worshipped God did heare whose hart our Lord opened to atted to those thinghs which were sayd of Paul And when she was babtized c. Rom. 5.2 By whom Christ also we haue access through faith into the grace wherin we stand and glorie in the hope of the glorie of the sonnes of God If by faith we haue access to the hope of glory which is supernaturall Faith it selfe must also be supernaturall and require the speciall motion of the Holy Ghost Rom. 8.26 The spirit helpeth our infirmity For what we should pray as we ought we know not but the spirit himselfe requesteth for vs with groanings vnspeakeable Rom. 12.3 To euery one as God hath diuided the measure of faith 1. Cor. 12.3 No man can say our Lord Iesus but in the Holy Ghost V. 9. To anoter faith in the same spirit 2. Cor. 3. Not that we be sufficiēt to thinke any thing of our selues as of our selues but our sufficiency is of God 2. Cor. 4.6 Because God that hath cōmanded light to shine of darknes he hath shined in our harts to the illumination of the knowledge of the
in those Objects in which they may chance inculpably to disagree You define the Religion of Protestants to be the Bible and that all who belieue all plaine Texts therof are true Protestants and do agree in matters of Faith and therfore must agree among themselves in such Points Now I aske whether you will define matters of Faith to be those wherin Protestants agree If you say yes then I take your owne words and say this is ridiculous and as if we should say Protestants agree in those things wherin they agree If you answer No but that matters of Faith are those which are clearly contained in Scripture whether or no Protestants or any other belieue them then you both answer and confute your owne Objection and turne it against yourselfe You say it is ridiculous to say we agree in matters of Faith and are all agreed that only those things wherin we agree are matters of Faith And yet you say Protestants if they were wise would do so too which is to say Protestants if they were wise would do that which you say is ridiculous Nay according to this your wholsome advise if they will be wise they must not regard what indeed is matter of Faith as being revealed by God but only that they procure to agree among themselves and then say that they agree in matters of Faith which is to say they agree in those things wherin they do agree which is the thing you object against vs. Neverthelesse I know not well by what Logike you will inferr that we speake as if one would say we agree in those things wherin we agree vnless perhaps by some such wild Syllogisme as this All matters of Faith are those wherin we agree but we agree in all matters of Faith Therfore we agree in all those things wherin we agree as if you say every mā is a reasonable creature but every reasonable creature is a man Therfore every mā is a mā If you would to the purpose you might say whatsoever we agree in is a matter of Faith but we agree in the belief of the Trinity c. Therfore the beliefe of the Trinity c. is a matter of Faith But howsoever this be we vtterly deny that definition of Faith and leaue it to Protestants that they may be wise according to the wisdom of your advise and definition 3. To the rest of this N. 5. as also to your N. 6. I answer that you would gladly divert vs to particular disputes But it is sufficient to say in generall That whatsoever is knowne to be proposed by the Church as revealed by God is a Point of Faith in respect of him to whom it is so proposed Neither it is pertinent to this present Worke to dispute in what subject infallibility resides Let me now tell you that which may suffice for the present that those three meanes of agreement which you mention the Pope A Councell with him The vniversall Church haue never yet nor ever shall nor ever can be found to disagree And it is no fayre dealing in you to omitt what Ch ma hath concerning this matter Part 2. Chapt 5. N. 15. and 16. where he answers the objection ād discovers the falsifications of Potter in citing Catholique Authors about this point But to proue that the vniversall Church cannot be infallible or a meanes of agreement you say N. 6. And indeed what way of ending Controversyes can this be when either part may pretend that they are part of the Church and they receiue not the decree therfore the whole Church hath not received it Answer I know no man hath greater obligation to answer your Objection than yourselfe who teach that by vniversall Tradition we know Scripture to be the word of God For if one should say what way of determining what Scripture is the Word of God can this be when if any deny it they may pretend that they are part of the Church and they receiue not such or such Scriptures therfore the whole Church or vniversall Tradition hath not received them If you answer that the number or Authority of a few is not considerable in comparison or opposition to all the rest nor ought to prevaile against the contrary suffrages as you speake Pag 68. N. 43. I answer First that if the Church be fallible it is not the number but the waight of reason which ought to prevaile And secondly you cannot but see how easy it is for vs to say the same That it imports not if some who are not of consideration in respect of all the rest disagree from them But the truth is your Objection is of no force vnless you helpe it out with your wonted refuge of begging the Question and supposing the Church not to be infallible For if she be infallible whosoever oppose Her decrees and Definitions by doing so become Heretikes and cease to be members of the Church nor can pretēd that they are part of the Church and they receiue not the decree Therfore the whole Church hath not received it As I sayd aboue that Schismatiques cannot pretend to be members of the Church after their separation And this your subtility is directly against Dr. Potter Pag 57. saying Whosoever either wilfully opposes any Catholique Verity maintayned by this Church or the Catholique visible Church as doe Heretikes or perversly drvides himselfe from the Catholique Communion is doe Schismatikes the condition of both is damnable The Scriptures and Fathers cited here by the Mistaker proue this and no more and therfore prone nothing against Protestants who never denyed it Now why do you not aske your client Potter How any man can oppose the whole Church or depart from Her Communion seing they who oppose and depart may pretend that they are part of the Church and do not oppose or depart from themselves and therfore Protestants who the Doctour saith never denyed it must deny it if they will belieue you or you must deny yourselfe if you will belieue them Your N. 7.8 are meere words without any proofe and deserue no other Answer 4. Your whole N. 9. is plainly impertinent Charity Maintayned Part 1. Chap 3. N. 1. declared how Protestants are wont to abuse the distinction of Points Fundamentall and not Fundamentall to many purposes of theirs and among the rest to this That if you object their bitter and cotinued discords in matters of Faith without any meanes of agreement they instantly tell you they differ in points not Fundamentall In which words it is cleare that Ch. Ma. intends only to shew what vse Protestants make of the sayd distinction and that he speakes truth you neither do nor can deny the thing being notorious But you decline the matter and say I desire you to tell me whether they do so or doe not so that is whether they differ in points only not Fundamentall or do nor differ in them If they doe so I hope you will not find fault with the Answer But your hope
in this is persumption For although it were granted which yet is very false that they differ only in Points not Fundamentall yet I haue reason to find fault with the answer because they giue it to shew that notwitstanding their disagreement in Points not Fundamentall yet they are Brethren and may all be in state of salvation which to affirme is both very false and very pernicious seing that errour in any Point revealed by God and sufficiently proposed for such is damnable and excludes salvation even according to your owne doctrine and therfore this Answer doth not free them from what Charity maintayned objected that they abuse this distinction and to this you should haue answered without declining it by impertinent diversions and demands The other part of your Dilemma is this If you say they do not so that is differ not only in not Fundamentalls but in Points Fundamentall also then they are not members of the same Church one with another no more than with you And therfore why should you object to any of them their differences from each other any more then to yourselves their more and greater differences from you Thus you still flying a direct answerto Ch. Ma. and yet granting perforce all that he desires If say you Protestants differ in Points Fundamentall then they are not members of the same Church one with another And then say I they perniciously abuse people with this distinction to perswade them the direct contrary of that which even yourselfe here inferr to perswade men I say that they are members of the same Church and capable of salvation and Brethren though according to your supposition in this part of your Dilemma they differ in Points Fundamentall And this is that to which you should haue answered whether they do not abuse this distinction and either haue acquitted them or done Ch. Ma. Right by an open confession of his saying truly They abuse this distinction You say If Protestants differ in Fundamentalls they are not members of the same Church one with another no more than with vs Catholikes If this beso the more vnreasonable inconsequent and vnjust are they in pretending to be Brethren one to another and yet enemyes to vs wherby you do still more and more make good that they abuse this distinction in pretending to be Brethren one to another and not to vs especially if we call to mynd that many of their chiefest learned men in diverse most important matters agree with vs against other Protestants and yet they must be Brethren and we enemyes even in those very Points in which they agree with vs against other Protestants which is very prodigious 5. Your last words either passe my vnderstanding or else are no better than ridiculous You say to vs Why should you object to any of them their differences from each other any more than to yourselves their more and greater differences from you For my part I can draw no better Argument from these words than this we object to Protestants who pretend to be Brethren of the same Church substance of Faith and hope of salvation that they differ in Fundamentall Points of Faith for as I sayd you speake expressly of such Points in this second Part of your Dilemma therfore we may as well object to ourselves their more and greater differences frō vs frō vs I say who daily proclaime to the world that neither they nor any other Heretikes are our Brethren or of the same Faith Church and hope of salvation How can we object to ourselves a thing wherin we proceede with most evident consequence and Truth If indeed we did pretend to be their Brethren then we might and ought to object against ourselves the great differences between them and vs as now with reason we make such an objection against them But our case being directly contrary to theirs we are obliged to proceed in a contrary way and to professe that there can be no communication of light with darkeness of falshood with truth of Heresy with Catholique doctrine 6. You say in your N. 10. What els do we vnderstand by an vnfundamentall errour but such a one with which a man may possibly be saved I aske whether he may be saved with Repentance or without it If only with Repentance you make no difference between Fundamentall and vnfundamentall Points because with repentance any errour may be forgiven be it never so Fundamentall If you meane a man may be saved with such an errour even without repentance you contradict yourselfe who perpetually affirme that errours not Fundamentall are damnable in themselves and cannot be pardoned without repentance And I haue proved it to be impossible that any culpable errour can be forgiven without relinquishing it 7. To yuur N. 11.12 13.14 I haue answered in severall occasions Only for your N. 11. it must be remembred that I haue proved Communion in Liturgie Sacraments c to be essentiall to the Visible Church which makes your similitude of renouncing the vices of a friend and yet not renouncing a friend to be impertinent because vices are not essentiall to a friend as externall Communion is essentiall to the Church which therfore must needs be forsaken when one departs from that which is essentiall to her 8. Your N. 15.16.17 containe no other difficulty except that which yourselfe create out of nothing while you faine this roving argument and then impute it to Cha Ma Whosoever disbelieues any thing knowen by himselfe to be revealed by God imputes falshood to God and therfore errs Fundamentally But some Protestants disbelieue things which other belieue to be testifyed by God therfore they impute falshood to God and erre Fundamentally But why do you seeke to deceiue the ignorant with such Sophismes as these Doth not Charity Maintayned speake expressly of the case wherin there is Question between two contradicting one another cōcerning some Point which God hath revealed And therfore one of the litigants must really erre against Divine Revelation on and be a formall Heretike if ignorance chance not to excuse him which though perhaps some will conceiue may happen in one or two or a few yet to belieue that whole congregations and Churches should be excused by invincible ignorance notwithstanding all meanes of knowledg that God failes not to affoard can be neither discreete Charity nor charitable discretion but a dangerous and pernicious occasion and incitement to sloath and neglect of seeking the true religion vpon confidence of finding a lawfull excuse by ignorance You say Pag 21. If any Protestant or Papist be betrayed into or kept in any Errour by any sin of his will as it is to be feared many millions are such Errour is as the cause of it sinfull and damnable And Pag 19. and 20. you deny not but that the far greater part of Protestants faile in vsing sufficient diligence to find the truth and that their errours are damnable therfore Ch Ma might well say not only that per