so careless of preserving the integrity of the Copies of her Translation as to suffer infinite variety of Readings to come in to them without keeping any one perfect Copy which might have been as the Standard and Polycletus his Canon to correct the rest by So that which was the true reading and which the false it was utterly undiscernable but only by comparing them with the Originals which also she pretends to be corrupted 84. Ad 17. § In this Division you charge us with great uncertainty concerning the true meaning of Scripture Which hath been answered already by saying That if you speak of plain places and in such all things necessary are contained we are sufficiently certain of the meaning of them neither need they any Interpreter If of obscure and difficult places we confess we are uncertain of the sense of many of them But then we say there is no necessity we should be certain For if Gods Will had been we should have understood him more certainly he would have spoken more plainly And we say besides that as we are uncertain so are You too which he that doubts of let him read your Commentators upon the Bible and observe their various and dissonant Interpretations and he shall in this point need no further satisfaction 85. Obj. But seeing there are contentions among us we are taught by nature and Scripture and experience so you tell us out of M. Hooker to seek for the ending of them by submiting unto some Judicical sentence whereunto neither part may refuse to stand Answ This is very true Neither should you need to persuade us to seek such a means of ending all our Controversies if we could tell where to find it But this we know that none is fit to pronounce for all the World a judicial definitive obliging Sentence in Controversies of Religion but only such a Man or such a society of Men as is authorized thereto by God And besides we are able to demonstrate that it hath not been the pleasure of God to give to any Man or Society of Men any such authority And therefore though we wish heartily that all Controversies were ended as we do that all sin were abolisht yet we have little hope of the one or the other till the World be ended And in the mean while think it best to content our selves with and to persuade others unto an Unity of Charity and mutual Toleration seeing God hath authorized no man to force all men to Unity of Opinion Neither do we think it fit to argue thus To us it seems convenient there should be one Judge of all Controversies for the whole World therefore God has appointed one But more modest and more reasonable to collect thus God hath appointed no such Judge of Controversies therefore though it seems to us convenient there should be one yet it is not so Or though it were convenient for us to have one yet it hath pleased God for Reasons best known to himself not to allow us this convenience 87. Ad 18. § That the true Interpretation of the Scripture ought to be received from the Church you need not prove for it is very easily granted by them who profess themselves very ready to receive all Truths much more the true sense of Scripture not only from the Church but from any Society of men nay from any man whatsoever 88. That the Churches Interpretation of Scripture is always true that is it which you would have said and that in some sense may be also admitted viz. If you speak of that Church which before you speak of in the 14. § that is of the Church of all Ages since the Apostles Upon the Tradition of which Church you there told us We were to receive the Scripture and to believe it to be the Word of God For there you teach us that our Faith of Scripture depends on a Principle which requires no other proof And that such is Tradition which from Hand to Hand and Age to Age bring us up to the Times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrine to be true Wherefore the Ancient Fathers avouch that we must receive the Sacred Scripture upon the Tradition of this Church The Tradition then of this Church you say must teach us what is Scripture and we are willing to believe it And now if you make it good unto us that the same Tradition down from the Apostles hath delivered from Age to Age and from Hand to Hand any Interpretation of any Scripture we are ready to embrace that also But now if you will argue thus The Church in one sense tells us what is Scripture and we believe therefore if the Church taken in another sense tell us this or that is the meaning of the Scripture we are to believe that also this is too transparent Sophistry to take any but those that are willing to be taken 89. If there be any Traditive Interpretation of Scripture produce it and prove it to be so and we embrace it But the Tradition of all Ages is one thing and the authority of the present Church much more of the Roman Church which is but a Part and a corrupted Part of the Catholick Church is another And therefore though we are ready to receive both Scripture and the sense of Scripture upon the authority of Original Tradition yet we receive neither the one nor the other upon the Authority of your Church 90. First for the Scripture how can we receive them upon the Authority of your Church who hold now those Books to be Canonical which formerly you rejected from the Canon I instance in the Book of Macchabees and the Epistle to the Hebrews The first of these you held not to be Canonical in S. Gregories time or else he was no member of your Church for it is apparent a See Greg. Mor. l. 19. c. 13. He held otherwise The second you rejected from the Canon in S. Hieroms time as it is evident out of b Thus he testifies Com. in Esa c. 6. in these words Vnde Paulus Apost in Epist ad Heb. quam Latina consuetudo non recipit and again in c. 8. in these In Ep. quae ad Hebraeos scribitur â—licet eam â—aâ—ina Consuetudo inter Canonicas Scripturas non recipiat c. many places of his Works 91. If you say which is all you can that Hierom spake this of the particular Roman Church not of the Roman Catholick Church I answer there was none such in his time None that was called so Secondly what he spake of the Roman Church must be true of all other Churches if your Doctrine of the necessity of the Conformity of all other Churches to that Church were then Catholick Doctrine Now then choose whether you will either that the particular Roman Church was not then believed to be the Mistris of all other Churches
Scripture which are not contained in the Creed when once we come to know that they are written in Scripture but rather to lay a necessity upon men of believing all things written in Scripture when once they know them to be there written For he that believes not all known Divine Revelations to be true how does he believe in God Unless you will say that the same man at the same time may not believe God and yet believe in him The greater difficulty is how it will not take away the necessity of believing Scripture to be the Word of God But that it will not neither For though the Creed be granted a sufficient summary of Articles of meer Faith yet no man pretends that it contains the Rules of Obedience but for them all men are referred to Scripture Besides he that pretends to believe in God obligeth himself to believe it necessary to obey that which reason assures him to be the Will of God Now reason will assure him that believes the Creed that it is the Will of God he should believe the Scripture even the very same Reason which moves him to believe the Creed Universal and never failing Tradition having given this Testimony both to Creed and Scripture that they both by the works of God were sealed and testified to be the words of God And thus much be spoken in Answer to your first Argument the length whereof will be the more excusable If I oblige my self to say but little to the rest 15. I come then to your second And in Answer to it deny flatly as a thing destructive of it self that any Error can be damnable unless it be repugnant immediatly or mediatly directly or indirectly of it self or by accident to some Truth for the matter of it fundamental And to your example of Pontius Pilat's being Judge of Christ I say the denial of it in him that knows it to be revealed by God is manifestly destructive of this Fundamental truth that all Divine Revelations are true Neither will you find any Error so much as by accident damnable but the rejecting of it will be necessarily laid upon us by a real belief of all Fundamentals and simply necessary Truths And I desire you would reconcile with this that which you have said § 15. Every Fundamental Error must have a contrary Fundamental Truth because of two Contradictory propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true c. 16. To the Third I Answer That the certainty I have of the Creed That it was from the Apostles and contains the principles of Faith I ground it not upon Scripture and yet not upon the Infallibility of any present much less of your Church but upon the Authority of the Ancient Church and written Tradition which as D. Potter hath proved gave this constant Testimony unto it Besides I tell you it is guilty of the same fault which D. Potter's Assertion is here accused of having perhaps some colour toward the proving it false but none at all to shew it impertinent 17. To the Fourth I Answer plainly thus That you find fault with D. Potter for his Vertues you are offended with him for not usurping the Authority which he hath not in a word for not playing the Pope Certainly if Protestants be faulty in this matter it is for doing it too much and not too little This presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the words of God the special senses of men upon the general words of God and laying them upon mens consciences together under the equal penalty of death and damnation this vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the word of God This Deifying our own Interpretations and Tyrannous inforcing them upon others This restraining of the word of God from that latitude and generality and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and the Apostles left them a This perswasion is no singularity of mine but the Doctrin which I have learnt from Divines of great learning and judgment Let the Reader be pleased to peruse the seaventh book of Acontius de Stratag Satanae And Zanchius his last Oration delivered by him after the composing of the discord between him and Amerbachius and he shall confess as much is and hath been the only fountain of all the Schisms of the Church and that which makes them immortal the common incendiary of Christendom and that which as I said before tears into pieces not the coat but the bowels and members of Christ Ridente Turcâ nec dolente Judaeo Take away these Walls of separation and all will quickly be one Take away this Persecuting Burning Cursing Damning of men for not subscribing to the words of Men as the words of God Require of Christians only to believe Christ and to call no man master but him only Let those leave claiming Infallibility that have no title to it and let them that in their words disclaim it disclaim it likewise in their actions In a word take away Tyranny which is the Devils instrument to support errors and superstitions and impieties in the several parts of the World which could not otherwise long withstand the power of Truth I say take away Tyranny and restore Christians to their just and full liberty of captivating their understanding to Scripture only and as Rivers when they have a free passage run all to the Ocean so it may well be hoped by Gods blessing that Universal Liberty thus moderated may quickly reduce Christendom to Truth and Unity These thoughts of peace I am perswaded may come from the God of peace and to his blessing I commend them and proceed 18. Your fifth and last objection stands upon a false and dangerous supposition That new Heresies may arise For an Heresie being in it self nothing else but a Doctrine Repugnant to some Article of the Christian Faith to say that new Heresies may arise is to say that new Articles of Faith may arise and so some great ones among you stick not to profess in plain terms who yet at the same time are not ashamed to pretend that your whole Doctrin is Catholick and Apostolick So Salmeron Non omnibus omnia dedit Deus ut quaelibet aetas suis gaudeat veritatibus quas prior aetas ignoravit God hath not given all things to All So that every age hath its proper Verities which the former age was ignorant of Disp 57. In Ep. ad Rom. And again in the Margent Habet Unumquodque saeculum peculiares Revelationes Divinas Every age hath its peculiar Divine Revelations Where that he speaks of such Revelations as are or may by the Church be made matters of Faith no man can doubt that reads him an example whereof he gives us a little before in these words Unius Augustini doctrina Assumptionis B. Deiparae cultum in Ecclesiam introduxit The Doctrin of Augustin only hath brought in to the Church the Worship of
leave good Uncle For first the Greek Church as every body knows pretends to perpetual succession of Doctrine and undertakes to derive it from Christ and his Apostles as confidently as we do ours Neither is there any word in all this discourse but might have been urged as fairly and as probably for the Greek Church as for the Roman and therefore seeing your Arguments fight for both alike they must either conclude for both which is a direct impossibility for then Contradictions should be both true or else which is most certain they conclude for neither and are not Demonstrations as you pretend for never any Demonstration could prove both parts of a Contradiction but meer Sophisms and Captions as the progress of our answer shall justifie Secondly It is so far from Protestants to grant the thing you speak of To wit that the controverted Doctrines of the Roman Church came from Apostolick Tradition that they verily believe should the Apostles now live again they would hardly be able to find amongst you the Doctrin which they taught by reason of abundance of trash and rubbish which you have laid upon it And lastly They pretend not that Fathers and Councils may err and they cannot nor that they were men and themselves are not but that you do most unjustly and vainly to father your inventions of Yesterday upon the Fathers and Councils Nephew I know that we Catholicks do reverence Traditions as much as Scripture it self neither do I see why we should be blamed for it for the words which Christ and his Apostles spake must needs be as infallible as those which were written True But still the question depends whether Christ and his Apostles did indeed speak those words which you pretend they did we say with Irenaeus Praeconiaverunt primum scripserunt postea What they preacht first that they wrote afterwards we say with Tertullian Ecclesias Apostoli condiderunt ipsi eis praedicando tam vivâ quod aiunt voce quam per Epistolas postea The Apostles founded the Churches by their Preaching to them first by word of mouth then after by their writings If you can prove the contrary do so and we yield but hitherto you do nothing Nephew And as for the keeping of it I see the Scripture it self is beholden to Tradition Gods providence presupposed for the integrity both of the letter and the sense Of the letter it is confest of the sense manifest For the sense being a distinct thing from the naked letter and rather fetcht out by force of consequence than in express and formal terms contained which is most true whether we speak of Protestant sense or the Catholick it belongeth rather to Tradition than express Text of Scripture That which you desire to conclude is That we must be beholden to Tradition for the sense of Scripture and your reason to conclude this is because the sense is fetcht out by force of consequence This of some places of Scripture is not true especially those which belong to faith and good manners which carry their meaning in their foreheads Of others it is true but nothing to the purpose in hand but rather directly against it For who will not say If I collect the sense of Scripture by Reason then I have it not from Authority that is unless I am mistaken If I fetch it out by force of Consequence then I am not beholden to Tradition for it But the letter of Scripture has been preserved by Tradition and therefore why should we not receive other things upon Tradition as well as Scripture I answer The Jews Tradition preserved the books of the Old Testament and why then doth our Saviour receive these upon their Tradition and yet condemn other things which they suggested as matters of Tradition If you say it was because these Traditions came not from Moses as they were pretended I say also that yours are only pretended and not proved to come from the Apostles Prove your Tradition of these Additions as well as you prove the Tradition of Scripture and assure your selves we then according to the injunction of the Council of Trent shall receive both with equal reverence Nephew As it may appear by the sense of these few words Hoc est corpus meum whether you take the Protestant or the Catholick sense For the same Text cannot have two contrary senses of it self but as they are fetcht out by force of Argument and therefore what sense hath best Tradition to shew for it self that 's the Truth This is neither Protestant nor Catholick sense but if we may speak the truth direct nonsense For what if the same Text cannot have contrary senses is there therefore no means but Tradition to determin which is the true sense What connexion or what relation is there between this Antecedent and this Consequent certainly they are meer strangers to one another and until they met by chance in this argument never saw each other before He that can find a third proposition to joyn them together in a good syllogism I profess unto you Erit mihi magnus Appollo But what if of these two contrary senses the one that is the Literal draw after it a long train of absurdities The other that is the Figurative do not so Have we not reason enough without advising with Tradition about the matter to reject the Literal sense and embrace the Spiritual S. Austin certainly thought we had For he gives us this direction in his Book de Doctrinâ Christianâ and the first and fittest Text that he could choose to exemplifie his Rule what think you is it even the Cousin-German to that which you have made choice of Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man c. Here saith he the Letter seems to command impiety Figura est ergo Therefore it is a Figure commanding to feed devoutly upon the Passion of our Lord and to lay up in our memory that Christ was crucified for us Uncle These particulars peradventure would require a further discussion and now I will take nothing but what is undeniable As this is to wit That what points are in Controversie betwixt us and Protestants we believe to have been delivered by Christ and his Apostles to our forefathers and by them delivered from hand to hand to our Fathers whom we know to have delivered them for such to us and to have received and believed them for such themselves Certainly though Ink and Paper cannot blush yet I dare say you were fain to rub your forehead over and over before you committed this to Writing Say what you list for my part I am so far from believing you that I verily believe you do not believe your selves when you pretend that you believe those points of your Doctrin which are in controversie to have been delivered to your Forefathers by Christ and his Apostles Is it possible that any sober man who has read the New Testament should believe that Christ and his Apostles taught
Pictures That the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to interpret Scripture about Freewil Predestination Universal Grace That all our Works are not Sins Merit of good Works Inherent Justice Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledg Traditions Commandments possible to be kept That their thirty nine Articles are patient nay ambitious of some sence wherein they may seem Catholick That to Alledge the necessity of Wife and Children in these days is but a weak Plea for a Married Minister to compass a Benefice That Calvinism is at length accounted Heresie and little less than Treason That Men in Talk and Writing use willingly the once fearful Names of Priests and Altars That they are now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers which if they do with sincerity it is easie to tell what Doom will pass against Protestants seeing by the confession of Protestants the Fathers are on the Papists side which the Answerer to some so clearly demonstrated that they remained convinced In fine as the Samaritans saw in the Disciples countenances that they meant to go to Hierusalem so you pretend it is even legible in the Fore-heads of these Men that they are even going nay making hast to Rome Which scurrilous Libel void of all Truth Discretion and Honesty what effect it may have wrought what credit it may have gained with credulous Papists who dream what they desire and believe their own dreams or with ill-affected jealous and weak Protestants I cannot tell But one thing I dare boldly say that you your self did never believe it 21. The truth is they that run to extreams in opposition against you they that pull down your Infallibility and set up their own they that declaim against your Tyranny and exercise it themselves over others are the Adversaries that give you the greatest advantage and such as you love to deal with whereas upon Men of temper and moderation such as will oppose nothing because you maintain it but will draw as near to you that they may draw you to them as the Truth will suffer them such as require of Christians to believe only in Christ and will Damn no Man nor Doctrine without express and certain warrant from Gods Word upon such as these you know not how to fasten but if you chance to have conference with any such which yet as much as possibly you can you avoid and decline you are very speedily put to silence and see the indefensible weakness of your cause laid open to all Men. And this I verily believe is the true Reason that you thus rave and rage against them as foreseeing your time of prevailing or even of subsisting would be short if other adversaries gave you no more advantage than they do 22. In which perswasion also I am much confirmed by consideration of the Silliness and Poorness of those suggestions and partly of the apparent vanity and Falshood of them which you offer in justification of this wicked Calumny For what if out of Devotion towards God out of a desire that He should be Worshiped as in Spirit and Truth in the first place so also in the Beauty of Holiness what if out of fear that too much Simplicity and Nakedness in the publick Service of God may beget in the ordinary sort of Men a dull and stupid irreverence and out of hope that the outward State and Glory of it being well disposed and wisely moderated may ingender quicken encrease and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto Gods Sovereign Majesty and Power What if out of a persuasion and desire that Papists may be won over to us the sooner by the removing of this Scandal out of their way and out of an Holy Jealousie that the weaker sort of Protestants might be the easier seduced to them by the Magnificence and Pomp of their Church-service in case it were not removed I say what if out of these considerations the Governors of our Church more of late than formerly have set themselves to adorn and beautifie the places where Gods Honour dwells and to make them as Heavenly as they can with Earthly Ornaments Is this a sign that they are warping towards Popery Is this Devotion in the Church of England an argument that She is coming over to the Church of Rome Sir Edwin Sands I presume every Man will grant had no inclination that way yet He Forty Years since highly commended this part of Devotion in Papists and makes no scruple of proposing it to the imitation of Protestants little thinking that they who would follow his Counsel and endeavour to take away this disparagement of Protestants and this Glorying of Papists should have been censured for it as making way and inclining to Popery His Words to this purpose are excellent Words and because they shew plainly Survey of Religion that what is now practised was approved by Zealous Protestants so long ago I will here set them down 23. This one thing J cannot but highly commend in that sort and Order They spare nothing which either cost can perform in enriching or skill in adorning the Temple of God or to set out his Service with the greatest Pomp and magnificence that can be devised And although for the most part much Baseness and Childishness is predominant in the Masters and contrivers of their Ceremonies yet this outward State and Glory being well disposed doth ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and Devotion which is due unto Sovereign Majesty and Power And although I am not ignorant that many Men well reputed have embraced the thrifty Opinion of that Disciple who thought all to be wasted that was bestowed upon Christ in that sort and that it were much better bestowed upon him on the Poor yet with an eye perhaps that themselves would be his quarter Almoners notwithstanding I must confess it will never sink into my Heart that in proportion of Reason the allowance for furnishing out of the Service of God should be measured by the scant and strict rule of meer necessity a proportion so low that Nature to other most bountiful in matter of necessity hath not failed no not the most ignoble Creatures of the World and that for our selves no measure of heaping but the most we can get no rule of expence but to the utmost Pomp we lift Or that God himself had so inriched the lower parts of the World with such wonderfull varieties of Beauty and Glory thut they might serve only to the Pampering of Mortal Man in his Pride and that in the Service of the High Creator Lord and giver the outward Glory of whose higher Pallace may appear by the very Lamps that we see so far off Burning gloriously in it only the Simpler Baser Cheaper Less Noble Less Beautiful Less Glorious things should be imployed Especially seeing as in Princes Courts so in the Service
And whether she can set us down such interpretations of all obscurities in the Faith as shall need no farther interpretations If she cannot then she hath not that power which you pretend she hath of being an Infallible Teacher of all Divine verities and an infallible interpreter of obscurities in the Faith for she cannot teach us all Divine verities if she cannot write them down neither is that an interpretation which needs again to be interpreted If she can Let her do it and then we shall have a writing not only capable of but actually endowed with both these perfections of being both so compleat as to need no Addition and so evident as to need no Interpretation Lastly whatsoever your Church can do or not do no man can without Blasphemy deny that Christ Jesus if he had pleased could have writ us a rule of Faith so plain and perfect as that it should have wanted neither any part to make up its integrity nor any clearness to make it sufficiently intelligible And if Christ could have done this then the thing might have been done a writing there might have been indowed with both these properties Thus therefore I conclude a writing may be so perfect a Rule as to need neither Addition nor Interpretation But the Scripture you acknowledge a perfect Rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule therefore it needs neither Addition nor Interpretation 8. You will say that though a writing be never so perfect a Rule of Faith yet it must be beholden to Tradition to give it this Testimony that it is a Rule of Faith and the Word of God I answer First there is no absolute necessity of this For God might if he thought good give it the attestation of perpetual Miracles Secondly that it is one thing to be a perfect Rule of Faith another to be proved so unto us And thus though a writing could not be proved to us to be a perfect rule of Faith by its own saying so for nothing is proved true by being said or written in a Book but only by Tradition which is a thing credible of it self yet it may be so in it self and contain all the material Objects all the particular Articles of our Faith without any dependance upon Tradition even this also not excepted that this Writing doth contain the rule of Faith Now when Protestants affirm against Papists that Scripture is a perfect rule of Faith their meaning is not that by Scripture all things absolutely may be proved which are to be believed For it can never be proved by Scripture to a gainsayer that there is a God or that the Book called Scripture is the Word of God For he that will deny these Assertions when they are spoken will believe them never a whit the more because you can shew them written But their meaning is that the Scripture to them which presuppose it Divine and a Rule of Faith as Papists and Protestants do contains all the material Objects of Faith is a compleat and Total and not only an imperfect and a partial Rule 9. But every Book and Chapter and Text of Scripture is Infallible and wants no due perfection and yet excludes not the Addition of other Book of Scripture Therefore the perfection of the whole Scripture excludes not the Addition of unwritten Tradition I answer Every Text of Scripture though it have the perfection belonging to a Text of Scripture yet it hath not the perfection requisite to a perfect Rule of Faith and that only is the perfection which is the subject of our discourse So that this is to abuse your Reader with the ambiguity of the word Perfect In effect as if you should say a Text of Scripture may be a perfect Text though there be others beside it therefore the whole Scripture may be a perfect Rule of Faith though there be other parts of this Rule besides the Scripture and though the Scripture be but a part of it 10. The next Argument to the same purpose is for Sophistry Cosin German to the former When the first Books of Scripture were written they did not exclude unwritter Tradition Therefore now also that all the Books of Scripture are written Traditions are not excluded The sense of which Argument if it have any must be this When only a part of the Scripture was written then a part of the Divine Doctrine was unwritten Therefore now when all the Scripture is written yet some part of the Divine Doctrine is yet unwritten If you say your conclusion is not that it is so but without disparagement to Scripture may be so without disparagement to the truth of Scripture I grant it but without disparagement to the Scriptures being a perfect Rule I deny it And now the Question is not of the Truth but the perfection of it which are very different things though you would fain confound them For Scripture might very well be all true though it contain not all necessary Divine Truth But unless it do so it cannot be a perfect Rule of Faith for that which wants any thing is not perfect For I hope you do not imagine that we conceive any Antipathy between Gods Word Written and unwritten but that both might very well stand together All that we say is this that we have reason to believe that God de Facto hath ordered the matter so that all the Gospel of Christ the whole Covenant between God and Man is now Written Whereas if he had pleased he might so have disposed it that part might have been written and part unwritten but then he would have taken order to whom we should have had recourse for that part of it which was not written which seeing he hath not done as the Progress shall demonstrate it is evident he hath left no part of it unwritten We know no man therefore that says It were any injury to the written Word to be joyned with the unwritten if there were any wherewith it might be joyned but that we deny The fidelity of a Keeper may very well consist with the Authority of the thing committed to his Custody But we know no one Society of Christians that is such a faithful Keeper as you pretend The Scripture it self was not kept so faithfully by you but that you suffered infinite variety of Readings to creep into it all which could not possibly be Divine and yet in several parts of your Church all of them until the last Age were so esteemed The interpretations of obscure places of Scripture which without Question the Apostles taught the Primitive Christians are wholly lost there remains no certainty scarce of any one Those Worlds of Miracles which our Saviour did which were not written for want of writing are vanished out of the memory of men And many profitable things which the Apostles taught and writ not as that which S. Paul glances at in his second Epistle to the Thesalon of the cause of the hindrance of the coming of
say that a whole House is supported by the Foundation and yet never mean to exclude the Foundation from being a part of the House or to say that it is supported by it self Or as you your selves use to say that the Bishop of Rome is head of the whole Church and yet would think us but Captious Sophisters should we infer from hence that either you made him no part of the whole or else made him head of himself Your negative conclusion therefore that these Questions touching Scripture are not decidable by Scripture you needed not have cited any Authorities nor urged any reason to prove it it is evident of it self and I grant it without more ado But your Corollary from it which you would insinuate to your unwary reader that therefore they are to be decided by your or any Visible Church is a meer inconsequence and very like his collection who because Pamphilus was not to have Glycerium for his Wife presently concluded that he must have her as if there had been no more men in the World but Pamphilus and himself For so you as if there were nothing in the World capable of this Office but the Scripture or the present Church having concluded against Scripture you conceive but too hastily that you have concluded for the Church But the truth is neither the one nor the other have any thing to do with this matter For first the Question whether such or such a Book be Canonical Scripture though it may be decided negatively out of Scripture by shewing apparent and irreconcilable contradictions between it and some other Book confessedly Canonical yet affirmatively it cannot but only by the Testimonies of the ancient Churches any Book being to be received as undoubtedly Canonical or to be doubted of as uncertain or rejected as Apocryphal according as it was received or doubted of or rejected by them Then for the Question of various readings which is the true it is inreason evident and confessed by your own Pope that there is no possible determination of it but only by comparison with ancient Copies And lastly for Controversies about different Translations of Scripture the Learned have the same means to satisfie themselves in it as in the Questions which happen about the Translation of any other Author that is skill in the Language of the Original and comparing Translations with it In which way if there be no certainty I would know what certainty you have that your Doway Old and Rhemish New Testament are true Translations And then for the unlearned those on your Side are subject to as much nay the very same uncertainty with those on ours Neither is there any reason imaginable why an ignorant English Protestant may not be as secure of the Translation of our Church that it is free from Error if not absolutely yet in matters of moment as an ignorant English Papist can be of his Rhemish Testament or Doway Bible The best direction I can give them is to compare both together where there is no real difference as in the Translation of controverted places I believe there is very little there to be confident that they are right where they differ therefore to be prudent in the choice of the guides they follow Which way of proceeding if it be subject to some possible Error is it the best that either we or you have and it is not required that we use any better than the best we have 28. You will say Dependance on your Churches infallibility is a better I answer it would be so if we could be infallibly certain that your Church is infallible that is if it were either evident of it self and seen by its own light or could be reduced unto and setled upon some Principle that is so But seeing you your selves do not so much as pretend to enforce us to the belief hereof by any proofs infallible and convincing but only to induce us to it by such as are by your confession only probable and prudential motives certainly it will be to very little purpose to put off your uncertainty for the first turn and to fall upon it at the second to please your selves in building your House upon an imaginary Rock when you your selves see and confess that this very Rock stands it self at the best but upon a frame of Timber I answer secondly that this cannot be a better way because we are infallibly certain that your Church is not infallible and indeed hath not the real prescription of this priviledge but only pleaseth her self with a false imagination and vain presumption of it as I shall hereafter demonstrate by may unanswerable arguments 31. But seeing the belief of the Scripture is a necessary thing and cannot be proved by Scripture how can the Church of England teach as she doth Art 6. That all things necessary are contained in Scripture 32. I have answered this already And here again I say That all but Cavillers will easily understand the meaning of the Article to be That all the Divine Verities which Christ revealed to his Apostles and the Apostles taught the Churches are contained in Scripture That is all the material Objects of our Faith whereof the Scripture is none but only the means of conveying them unto us which we believe not finally and for it self but for the matter contained in it So that if men did believe the Doctrine contained in Scripture it should no way hinder their Salvation not to know whether their were any Scripture or no. Those Barbarous Nations Irenaeus speaks of were in this case and yet no doubt but they might be saved The end that God aims at is the belief of the Gospel the Covenant between God and Man the Scripture he hath provided as a means for this end and this also we are to believe but not as the last Object of our Faith but as the instrument of it When therefore we subscribe to the 6. Art you must understand that by Articles of Faith they mean the final and ultimate Objects of it and not the means and instrumental Objects 33. But Protestants agree not in assigning the Canon of Holy Scripture Luther and Illyricus reject the Epistle of S. James Kemnitius and other Luth. the second of Peter the second and third of John The Epistle to the Heb. the Epistle of James of Jude and the Apocalyps Therefore without the Authority of the Church no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonical 34. So also the Ancient Fathers and not only Fathers but whole Churches differed about the certainty of the Authority of the very same Books and by their difference shewed they knew no necessity of conforming themselves herein to the judgment of your or any Church For had they done so they must have agreed all with that Church and consequently among themselves Now I pray tell me plainly Had they sufficient certainty what Scripture was Canonical or had they not If they had not it seems there is no
knoweth no Man but the Spirit of Man which is in him And who are you to take upon you to make us believe that we do not believe what we know we do But if I may think verily that I believe the Scripture and yet not believe it how know you that you believe the Roman Church I am as verily and as strongly persuaded that I believe the Scripture as you are that you believe the Church And if I may be deceived why may not you Again what more ridiculous and against sense and experience than to affirm That there are not Millions amongst you and us that believe upon no other reason than their Education and the authority of their Parents and Teachers and the Opinion they have of them The tenderness of the subject and aptness to receive impressions supplying the defect and imperfection of the Agent And will you proscribe from Heaven all those believers of your own Creed who do indeed lay the Foundation of their Faith for I cannot call it by any other name no deeper than upon the Authority of their Father or Master or Parish Priest Certainly if these have no true Faith your Church is very full of Infidels Suppose Xaverius by the Holiness of his Life had converted some Indians to Christianity who could for so I will suppose have no knowledge of your Church but from him and therefore must last of all build their Faith of the Church upon their Opinion of Xaverius Do these remain as very Pagans after their Conversion as they were before Are they brought to assent in their Souls and obey in their Lives the Gospel of Christ only to be Tantalized and not saved and not benefited but deluded by it because forsooth it is a man and not the Church that begets Faith in them What if their motive to believe be not in reason sufficient Do they therefore not believe what they do believe because they do it upon sufficient motives They choose the Faith imprudently parhaps but yet they do choose it Unless you will have us believe that that which is done is not done because it is not done upon good reason which is to say that never any man living ever did a foolish action But yet I know not why the Authority of one Holy Man which apparently has no ends upon me joyned with the goodness of the Christian Faith might not be a far greater and more rational motive to me to embrace Christianity than any I can have to continue in Paganism And therefore for shame if not for Love of Truth you must recant this fancy when you write again and suffer true Faith to be many times where your Churches Infallibility has no hand in the begetting of it And be content to tell us hereafter that we believe not enough and not go about to persuade us we believe nothing for fear with telling us what we know to be manifestly false you should gain only this Not to be believed when you speak truth Some pretty Sophisms you may happily bring us to make us believe we believe nothing but Wise men know that Reason against Experience is alwaies Sophistical And therefore as he that could not answer Zeno's subtilties against the existence of Motion could yet confute them by doing that which he pretended could not be done So if you should give me a hundred Arguments to persuade me because I do not believe Transubstantiation I do not believe in God and the Knots of them I could not unty yet I should cut them in pieces with doing that and knowing that I do so which you pretend I cannot do 53. It is superfluous for you to prove out of S. Athanasius and Austine that we must receive the sacred Canon upon the credit of Gods Church Understanding by Church as here you explain your self The Credit of Tradition And that not the Tradition of the Present Church which we pretend may deviate from the Ancient but such a Tradidition which involves an evidence of Fact and from Hand to Hand from Age to Age bringing us up to the times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour Himself commeth to be confirmed by all these Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrine to be true Thus you Now prove the Canon of Scripture which you receive by such Tradition and we will allow it Prove your whole Doctrine or the Infallibility of your Church by such a Tradition and we will yield to you in all things Take the alledged places of S. Athanasius and S. Austin in this sense which is your own and they will not press us any thing at all We will say with Athanasius That only four Gospels are to be received because the Canons of the Holy and Catholick Church understand of all Ages since the perfection of the Canon have so determined 54. We will subscribe to S. Austin and say That we also would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholick Church did move us meaning by the Church the Church of all Ages and that succession of Christians which takes in Christ himself and his Apostles Neither would Zwinglius have needed to cry out upon this saying had he conceived as you now do that by the Catholick Church the Church of all Ages fince Christ was to be understood As for the Council of Carthage it may speak not of such Books only as were certainly Canonical and for the regulating of Faith but also of those which were only profitable and lawful to be read in the Church Which in England is a very slender Argument that the Book is Canonical where every body knows that Apocryphal Books are read as well as Canonical But howsoever if you understand by Fathers not only their immediate Fathers and Predecessors in the Gospel but the succession of them from the Apostles they are right in the Thesis that whatsoever is received from these Fathers as Canonical is to be so esteemed Though in the application of it to this or that particular Book they may happily Err and think that Book received as Canonical which was only received as Profitable to be read and think that Book received alwaies and by all which was rejected by some and doubted of by many 55. But we cannot be certain in what Language the Scriptures remain uncorrupted I HIL Not so certain I grant as of that which we can demonstrate But certain enough morally certain as certain as the nature of the thing will bear So certain we may be and God requires no more We may be as certain as S. Austin was who in his second Book of Baptism against the Donatists c. 3. plainly implies the Scripture might possibly be corrupted He means sure in matters of little moment such as concertain not the Covenant between God and Man But thus he saith The same S. Austin in his 48. Epist clearly intimates a Neque enim sic posuit integritas atque notitia literarum quamlibet illustris Episcopi
23. The next § argues thus For many Ages there was no Scripture in the World and for many more there was none in many places of the World yet men wanted not then and there some certain direction what to believe Therefore there was then an Infallible Judge Just as if I should say York is not my way from Oxford to London therefore Bristol is Or a Dog is not a Horse therefore he is a Man As if God had no other ways of revealing himself to men but only by Scripture and an infallible Church * See Chrysost Hom. 1. in Mat. Isidor Pelus l. 3. ep 106. and also Basil in Ps 28. and then you shall confess that by other means besides these God did communicate himself unto men and made them receive and understand his Laws see also to the same purpose Heb. 1.1 S. Chrysostome and Isidorus Pelusiota conceived he might use other means And S. Paul telleth us that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might be known by his Works and that they had the Law written in their Hearts Either of these ways might make some faithful men without either necessity of Scripture or Church 124. But D. Potter says you say In the Jewish Church there was a living Judge indowed with an absolute infallible direction in cases of moment as all points belonging to Divine Faith are And where was that infallible direction in the Jewish Church when they should have received Christ for their Messias and refused him Or perhaps this was not a case of moment D. Potter indeed might say very well not that the high Priest was infallible for certainly he was not but that his determination was to be of necessity obeyed though for the justice of it there was no necessity that it should be believed Besides it is one thing to say that the living judge in the Jewish Church had an infallible direction another that he was necessitated to follow this direction This is the priviledge which you challenge But it is that not this which the Doctor attributes to the Jews As a man may truly say the Wise men had an infallible direction to Christ without saying or thinking that they were constrained to follow it and could not do otherwise 125. But either the Church retains still her infallibility or it was devested of it upon the receiving of Holy Scripture which is absurd An Argument methinks like this Either you have Horns or you have lost them but you never lost them therefore you have them still If you say you never had Horns so say I for ought appears by your reasons the Church never had infallibility 126. But some Scriptures were received in some places and not in others therefore if Scriptures were the Judge of Controversies some Churches had one Judge and some another And what great inconvenience is there in that that one part of England should have one Judge and another another especially seeing the Books of Scripture which were received by those that received fewest had as much of the Doctrine of Christianity in them as they all had which were received by any all the necessary parts of the Gospel being contained in every one of the four Gospels as I have proved So that they which had all the Books of the New Testament had nothing superfluous For it was not superfluous but profitable that the same thing should be said divers times and be testified by divers witnesses And they that had but one of the four Gospels wanted nothing necessary and therefore it is vainly inferred by you that with Months and Years as new Canonical Scriptures grew to be published the Church altered her rule of Faith and judge of Controversies 127. Heresies you say would arise after the Apostles time and after the writing of Scriptures These cannot be discovered condemned and avoided unless the Church be Infallible Therefore there must be a Church infallible But I pray tell me Why cannot Heresies be sufficiently discovered condemned avoided by them which believe Scripture to be the rule of Faith If Scripture be sufficient to inform us what is the Faith it must of necessity be also sufficient to teach us what is Heresie seeing Heresie is nothing but a manifest deviation from and an opposition to the Faith That which is straight will plainly teach us what is crooked and one contrary cannot but manifest the other If any one should deny that there is a God That this God is omnipotent omniscient good just true merciful a rewarder of them that seek him a punisher of them that obstinately offend him that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the World that it is he by obedience to whom men must look to be saved If any man should deny either his Birth or Passion or Resurrection or Ascension or sitting at the right Hand of God his having all Power given him in Heaven and Earth That it is he whom God hath appointed to be Judge of the Quick and the Dead that all men shall Rise again at the last Day That they which believe and repent shall be saved That they which do not believe or repent shall be damned If a man should hold that either the keeping of the Mosaical Law is necessary to Salvation or that good works are not necessary to Salvation In a word if any man should obstinatly contradict the truth of any thing plainly delivered in Scripture who does not see that every one which believes the Scripture hath a sufficient means to discover and condemn and avoid that Heresie without any need of an infallible guide If you say that the obscure places of Scripture contain matters of Faith I answer that it is a matter of Faith to believe that the sense of them whatsoever it is which was intended by God is true for he that does not do so calls Gods Truth into question But to believe this or that to be the true sense of them or to believe the true sense of them and to avoid the false is not necessary either to Faith or Salvation For if God would have had his meaning in these places certainly known how could it stand with his wisdom to be so wanting to his own will and end as to speak obscurely or how can it consist with his Justice to require of men to know certainly the meaning of those words which he himself hath not revealed Suppose there were an absolute Monarch that in his own absense from one of his Kingdoms had written Laws for the Government of it some very plainly and some very ambiguously and obscurely and his Suctjects should keep those that were plainly written with all exactness and for those that were obscure use their best diligence to find his meaning in them and obey them according to the sense of them which they conceived should this King either with justice or wisdom be offended with these Subjects if by reason of the obscurity of them they mistook the sense of them and
either your Church or Pope in as much as there is no more repugnance between the Scriptures existence and our infallibility than there is between theirs 138. Obj. But if Protestants will have the Scripture alone for their Judge let them first produce some Scripture affirming that by the entrance thereof infallibility went out of the Church Ans This Argument put in form runs thus No Scripture affirms that by the entring thereof infallibility went out of the Church Therefore there is an infallible Church and therefore the Scripture alone is not Judge that is the Rule to judge by But as no Scripture affirms that by the entring of it Infallibility went out of the Church so neither do we neither have we any need to do so But we say that it continued in the Church even together with the Scriptures so long as Christ and his Apostles were living and then departed God in his providence having provided a plain and infallible Rule to supply the defect of living and infallible Guides 141. But the Jewish Church retained Infallibility in her self and therefore it is unjust to deprive the Church of Christ of it Ans That the Jews had sometimes an infallible miraculous direction from God in some cases of moment he doth affirm and had good warrant but that the Synagogue was absolutely Infallible he no where affirms and therefore it is unjustly and unworthily done of you to obtrude it upon him And indeed how can the Infallibility of the Synagogue be conceived but only by setling it in the High Priest and the company adhering and subordinate unto him And whether the High Priest was Infallible when he believed not Christ to be the Messias but condemned and excommunicated them that so professed and caused him to be crucified for saying so I leave it to Christians to judge But then suppose God had been so pleased to do as he did not to appoint the Synagouge an infallible guide Could you by your rules of Logick constrain him to appoint such a one to Christians also or say unto him that in wisdom he could not do otherwise Vain man that will be thus always tying God to your imaginations It is well for us that he leaves us not without directions to him but if he will do this sometime by living Guides sometime by written Rules what is that to you may not he do what he will with his own 144. Ad § 24. Neither is this Discourse if you mean your Conclusion that Your Church is the infallible Judge in Controversies confirmed by Irenaeus at all Iren. l. 3. c. 3. For neither has Irenaeus one syllable to this purpose neither can it be deduced out of what he says with any colour of consequence For first in saying What if the Apostles had not left Scripture ought we not to have followed the Order of Tradition And in saying That to this Order many Nations yield assent who believe in Christ having Salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit of God without Letters or Ink and diligently keeping ancient Tradition Doth he not plainly shew that the Tradition he speaks of is nothing else but the very same that is written nothing but to believe in Christ To which whether Scripture alone to them that believe it be not a sufficient guide I leave it to you to judge And are not his words just as if a man should say If God had not given us the light of the Sun we must have made use of Candles and Torches If we had had no Eyes we must have felt out our way If we had no Leggs we must have used Crutches And doth not this in effect import that while we have the Sun we need no Candles While we have our Eyes we need not feel out our way While we enjoy our Leggs we need not Crutches And by like reason Irenaeus in saying If we had no Scripture we must have followed Tradition and they that have none do well to do so doth he not plainly import that to them that have Scripture and believe it Tradition is unnecessary which could not be if the Scripture did not contain evidently the whole tradion Which whether Irenaeus believed or no these words of his may inform you Non enim per alios c. we have received the disposition of our Salvation from no others but from them by whom the Gospel came unto us Which Gospel truly the Apostles first preached and afterwards by the will of God delivered in writing to us to be the Pillar and Foundation of our Faith Bellarm. de verbo Dei l. 4 c. 11. Upon which place Bellarmine's two observations and his acknowledgment ensuing upon them are very considerable and as I conceive as home to my purpose as I would wish them His first Notandum is That in the Christian Doctrin some things are simply necessary for the Salvation of all men as the knowledge of the Articles of the Apostles Creed and besides the knowledge of the ten Commandments and some of the Sacraments Other things not so necessary but that a man may be saved without the explicit knowledge and belief and profession of them His Second Note is That those things which were simply necessary the Apostles were wont to preach to all men But of other things not all to all but something to all to wit those things which were profitable for all other things only to Prelats and Priests These things premised he acknowledgeth That all those things were written by the Apostles which are necessary for all and which they were wont openly to preach to all But that other things were not all written And therefore when Irenaeus says that the Apostles wrote what they Preach in the World it is true saith he and not against Traditions because they preached not to the People all things but only those things which were necessary or profitable for them 145. So that at the most you can infer from hence but only a suppositive necessity of having an infallible Guide and that grounded upon a false supposition In case we had no Scripture but an absolute necessity hereof and to them who have and believe the Scripture which is your assumption cannot with any colour from hence be concluded but rather the contrary 146. Neither because as he says it was then easie to receive the Truth from Gods Church then in the Age next after the Apostles Then when all the ancient and Apostolick Churches were at an agreement about the Fundamentals of Faith Will it therefore follow that now 1600 years after when the ancient Churches are divided almost into as many Religions as they are Churches every one being the Church to it self and heretical to all other that it is as easie but extremely difficult or rather impossible to find the Church first independently of the true Doctrin and then to find the truth by the Church 148. Neither will the Apostles depositing with the Church all things belonging to truth be any proof
And he more likely to err than any other because he may err and thinks he cannot and because he conceives the Spirit absolutely promised to the succession of Bishops of which many have been notoriously and confessedly wicked men Men of the World whereas this Spirit is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because he seeth him not neither knoweth him 38. Ad § 16. To this Paragraph which pretends to shew that if the Catholick Church be fallible in some points it follows that no true Protestant can with assurance believe the Universal Church in any one point of Doctrin I Answer Though the Church being not Infallible I cannot believe her in every thing she says yet I can and must believe her in every thing she proves either by Scripture Reason or Universal Tradition be it Fundamental or be it not Fundamental This you say we cannot in points not Fundamental because in such we believe she may err But this I know we can because though she may err in some things yet she does not err in what she proves though it be not Fundamental Again you say we cannot do it in Fundamentals because we must know what points be Fundamental before we go to learn of her Not so but I must learn of the Church or of some part of the Church or I cannot know any thing Fundamental or not Fundamental For how can I come to know that there was such a Man as Christ that he taught such Doctrin that he and his Apostles did such miracles in confirmation of it that the Scripture is Gods Word unless I be taught it So then the Church is though not a certain Foundation and proof of my Faith yet a necessary introduction to it 39. But the Churches infallible direction extending only to Fundamentals unless I know them before I go to learn of her I may be rather deluded than instructed by her The reason and connexion of this consequence I fear neither I nor you do well understand And besides I must tell you you are too bold in taking that which no man grants you that the Church is an infallible directer in Fundamentals For if she were so then must we not only learn Fundamentals of her but also learn of her what is fundamental and take all for fundamental which she delivers to be such In the performance whereof if I knew any one Church to be infallible I would quickly be of that Church But good Sir you must needs do us this favor to be so acute as to distinguish between being infallible in fundamentals and being an infallible guide in fundamentals That there shall be always a Church infallible in fundamentals we easily grant for it comes to no more but this that there shall be always a Church But that there shall be always such a Church which is an infallible Guide in fundamentals this we deny For this cannot be without setling a known infallibility in some one known society of Christians as the Greek or the Roman or some other Church by adhering to which Guide men might be guided to believe aright in all Fundamentals A man that were destitute of all means of communicating his thoughts to others might yet in himself and to himself be infallible but he could not be a Guide to others A man or a Church that were invisible so that none could know how to repair to it for direction could not be an infallible guide and yet he might be in himself infallible You see then there is a wide difference between these two and therefore I must beseech you not to confound them nor to take the one for the other 40. But they that know what points are Fundamental otherwise than by the Churches authority learn not of the Church Yes they may learn of the Church that the Scripture is the word of God and from the Scripture that such points are fundamental others are not so and consequently learn even of the Church even of your Church that all is not fundamental nay all is not true which the Church teacheth to be so Neither do I see what hinders but a man may learn of a Church how to confute the Errors of that Church which taught him as well as of my Master in Physick or the Mathematicks I may learn those rules and principles by which I may confute my Masters erroneous conclusions 41. But you ask If the Church be not an infallible teacher why are we commanded to hear to seek to obey the Church I Answer For commands to seek the Church I have not yet met with any and I believe you if you were to shew them would be your self to seek But yet if you could produce some such we might seek the Church to many good purposes without supposing her a Guide infallible And then for hearing and obeying the Church I would fain know whether none may be heard and obeyed but those that are infallible Whether particular Churches Governors Pastors Parents be not to be heard and obeyed Or whether all these be Infallible I wonder you will thrust upon us so often these worn-out Objections without taking notice of their Answers 42. Your Argument from S. Austine's first place is a fallacy A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter If the whole Church practise any of these things matters of order and decency for such only there he speaks of to dispute whether that ought to be done is insolent madness And from hence you infer If the whole Church practise any thing to dispute whether it ought to be done is insolent madness As if there were no difference between any thing and any of these things Or as if I might not esteem it pride and folly to contradict and disturb the Church for matter of order pertaining to the time and place and other circumstances of Gods worship and yet account it neither pride nor folly to go about to reform some errors which the Church hath suffered to come in and to vitiate the very substance of Gods worship It was a practice of the whole Church in Saint Austines time and esteemed an Apostolick Tradition even by Saint Austine himself That the Eucharist should be administred to Infants Tell me Sir I beseech you Had it been insolent madness to dispute against this practice or had it not If it had how insolent and mad are you that have not only disputed against it but utterly abolished it If it had not then as I say you must understand Saint Austines words not simply of all things but as indeed he himself restrained them of these things of matter of Order Decency and Uniformity 44. Obj. But the Doctrines that Infants are to be baptized and those that are baptized by Hereticks are not to be rebaptized are neither of them to be proved by Scripture And yet according to S. Austine they are true Doctrins and we may be certain of them upon the Authority of the Church which we could not be unless the
believing them for every obligation ceases when it becomes impossible Who can doubt but the Primitive Christians to whom the Epistles of the Apostles were written either of themselves understood or were instructed by the Apostles touching the sense of the obscure places of them These Traditive interpretations had they been written and dispersed as the Scriptures were had without question been preserved as the Scriptures are But to shew how excellent a Keeper of the Tradition the Church of Rome hath been or even the Catholick Church for want of writing they are all lost nay were all lost within a few Ages after Christ So that if we consult the Ancient Interpreters we shall hardly find any two of them agree about the sense of any one of them Cardinal Perron in his discourse of Traditions having alledged this place for them Hold the Traditions c. tell us we must not answer that S. Paul speaks here only of such Traditions which though not in this Epist to the Thessalonians yet were afterwards witten and in other Books of Scripture because it is upon occasion of Tradition touching the cause of the hinderance of the coming of Antichrist which was never written that he lays this injunction upon them to hold the Traditions Well let us grant this Argument good and concluding and that the Church of the Thessalonians or the Catholick Church for what S. Paul writ to one Church he writ to all were to hold some unwritten Traditions and among the rest what was the cause of the hinderance of the coming of Antichrist But what if they did not perform their duty in this point but suffered this Tradition to be lost out of the memory of the Church Shall we not conclude that seeing God would not suffer any thing necessary to Salvation to be lost and he has suffered this Tradition to be lost therefore the knowledge or belief of it though it were a profitable thing yet it was not necessary I hope you will not challenge such authority over us as to oblige us to impossibilities to do that which you cannot do your selves It is therefore requisite that you make this command possible to be obeyed before you require obedience unto it Are you able then to instruct us so well as to be fit to say unto us Now ye know what withholdeth Or do you your selves know that ye may instruct us Can ye or dare you say this or this was this hindrance which S. Paul here meant and all men under pain of damnation are to believe it Or if you cannot as I am certain you cannot go then and Vaunt your Church for the only Watchful Faithful Infallible Keeper of the Apostles Traditions when here this very Tradition which here in particular was deposited with the Thessalonians and the Premitive Church you have utterly lost it so that there is no Footstep or print of it remaining which with Divine Faith we may rely upon Blessed therefore be the goodness of God who seeing that what was not written was in such danger to be lost took order that what was necessary should be written S. Chrysostoms counsel therefore of accounting the Churches Traditions worthy of belief we are willing to obey And if you can of any thing make it appear that it is Tradition we will seek no farther But this we say withal that we are persuaded we cannot make this appear in any thing but only the Canon of Scripture and that there is nothing now extant and to be known by us which can put in so good Plea to be the unwritten Word of God as the unquestioned Books of Canonical Scripture to be the written Word of God 47. You conclude this Paragraph with a sentence of S. Austin's who says The Church doth not approve nor dissemble nor do these things which are against Faith or good Life and from hence you conclude that it never hath done so nor never can do so But though the argument hold in Logick à non posse ad non esse yet I never heard that it would hold back again à non esse ad non posse The Church cannot do this therefore it does it not follows with good consequence but the Church does not this therefore it shall never do it nor can never do it this I believe will hardly follow In the Epistle next before to the same Januarius writing of the same matter he hath these words It remains that the thing you inquire of must be of that third kind of things which are different in divers places Let every one therefore do that which he finds done in the Church to which he comes for none of them is against Faith or good manners And why do you not infer from hence that no particular Church can bring up any Custom that is against Faith or good manners Certainly this consequence has as good reason for it as the former If a man say of the Church of England what S. Austin of the Church that she neither approves nor dissembles nor does any thing against Faith or good manners would you collect presently that this man did either make or think the Church of England infallible Furthermore it is observable out of this and the former Epistle that this Church which did not as S. Austin according to you thought approve or dissemble or do any thing against Faith or good Life did yet tolerate and dissemble vain superstitions and humane presumptions and suffer all places to be full of them and to be exacted as nay more severely than the commandments of God himself This S. Austin himself professeth in this very Epistle This saith he I do infinitely grieve at that many most wholesom precepts of the Divine Scripture are little regarded and in the mean time all is so full of so many presumptions that he is more grievously found fault with who during his octaves toucheth the Earth with his naked Foot than he that shall bury his Soul in Drunkenness Of these he says that they were neither contained in Scripture decreed by Councils nor corroborated by the Custom of the Universal Church And though not against Faith yet unprofitable burdens of Christian Liberty which made the condition of the Jews more tolerable than that of Christians And therefore he professes of them Approbare non possum I cannot approve them And ubi facultas tribuitur resecanda existimo I think they are to be cut off wheresoever we have power Yet so deeply were they rooted and spread so far through the indiscreet devotion of the People always more prone to superstion than true Piety and through the connivence of the Governors who should have strangled them at their Birth that himself though he grieved at them and could not allow them yet for fear of offence he durst not speak against them multa hujusmodi propter nonnullarum vel sanctarum vel turbulentarum personarum scandala devitanda liberius improbare non audeo Many of these things for fear of
Creed without the former can be possibly guarded from falling into them and continuing obstinate in them Nay so far is this Creed from guarding them from these mischiefs that it is more likely to ensnare them into them by seeming and yet not being a full comprehension of all necessary points of Faith which is apt as experience shews to misguide men into this pernitious error That believing the Creed they believe all necessary points of faith whereas indeed they do not so Now upon these grounds I thus conclude That Creed which hath great commodities and no danger would certainly be better then that which hath great danger and wants many of these great commodities But the former short Creed proposed by me I believe the Roman Church to be Infallible if your doctrin be true is of the former condition and the latter that is the Apostles Creed is of the latter Therefore the former if your doctrin be true would without controversie be better than the latter 83. Whereas you say If the Apostles had exprest no Article but that of the Catholick Church she must have taught us the other Articles in particular by Creeds or other means This is very true but no way repugnant to the truth of this which follows that the Apostles if your doctrin be true had done better service to the Church though they had never made this Creed of theirs which now we have if instead thereof they had commanded in plain terms that for mens perpetual direction in the faith this short Creed should be taught all men I believe the Roman Church shall be for ever Infallible Yet you must not so mistake me as if I meant that they had done better not to have taught the Church the substance of Christian Religion for then the Church not having learnt it of them could not have taught it us This therefore I do not say but supposing they had written these Scriptures as they have written wherein all the Articles of their Creed are plainly delivered and preached that Doctrin which they did preach and done all other things as they have done besides the composing their Symbol I say if your doctrin were true they had done a work infinitely more beneficial to the Church of Christ if they had never composed their Symbol which is but an imperfect comprehension of the necessary points of simple belief and no distinctive mark as a Symbole should be between those that are good Christians and those that are not so but instead thereof had delivered this one Proposition which would have been certainly effectual for all the aforesaid good intents and purposes The Roman Church shall be forever Infallible in all things which she proposes as matters of Faith 84. Whereas you say If we will believe we have all in the Creed when we have not all it is not the Apostles fault but our own I tell you plainly if it be a fault I know not whose it should be but theirs For sure it can be no fault in me to follow such Guides whether soever they lead me Now I say they have led me into this perswasion because they have given me great reason to believe it and none to the contrary The reason they have given me to believe it is because it is apparent and confest they did propose to themselves in composing it some good end or ends As that Christians might have a form by which for matter of Faith they might profess themselves Catholicks So Putean out of Thomas Aquinas That the faithful might know what the Christian people is to believe explicitly So Vincent Filiucius That being separated into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing And that that might serve as a mark to distinguish true Christians from Infidels So Cardinal Richlieu Now for all these and for any other good intent I say it will be plainly uneffectual unless it contain at least all points of simple belief which are in ordinary course necessary to be explicitly known by all men So that if it be a fault in me to believe this it must be my fault to believe the Apostles wise and good men which I cannot do if I believe not this And therefore what Richardus de sancto Victore says of God himself I make no scruple at all to apply to the Apostles and to say Si error est quod credo à vobis deceptus sum If it be an Error which I believe it is you and my reverend esteem of you and your actions that hath led me into it For as for your suspicion That we are led into this perswasion out of a hope that we may the better maintain by it some opinions of our own It is plainly uncharitable I know no opinion I have which I would not as willingly forsake as keep if I could see sufficient reason to induce me to believe that it is the will of God I should forsake it Neither do I know any opinion I hold against the Church of Rome but I have more evident grounds than this whereupon to build it For let but these Truths be granted That the authority of the Scripture is independent on your Church and dependent only in respect of us upon universal Tradition That Scripture is the only Rule of Faith That all things necessary to salvation are plainly delivered in Scripture Let I say these most certain and divine Truths be laid for foundations and let our superstructions be consequent and coherent to them and I am confident Peace would be restored and Truth maintained against you though the Apostles Creed were not in the world CHAP. V. The ANSWER to the Fifth CHAPTER Shewing that the separation of Protestants from the Roman Church being upon just and necessary causes is not any way guilty of Schism 1. AD § 1.2 3 4 5 6 7. In the seven first Sections of this Chapter there be many things said and many things supposed by you which are untrue and deserve a censure As 2. First That Schism could not be a Division from the Church or that a Division from the Church could not happen unless there always had been and should be a visible Church Which Assertion is a manifest falsehood For 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 Schism might now be and be a Division from the present Visible Church As though in France there never had been until now a lawful Monarch nor after him ever should be yet this hinders not but that now there might be a Rebellion and that Rebellion might be an Insurrection against Sovereign Authority 3. That it is a point to be granted by all Christians that in all ages there hath been a visible Congregation of faithful people Which Proposition howsoever you understand it is not absolutely certain But if you mean by Faithful as it is plain you do free from all error in faith then
Reformation which yet when you measure it without partiality you 'll find to be far short of infinite nor their symbolizing in the general of forsaking your corruptions prove any thing to the contrary or any way advantage your design or make for your purpose For it is not any sign at all much less an evident sign that they had no setled design but only to forsake the Church of Rome for nothing but malice can deny that their intent at least was to reduce Religion to that original purity from which it was fallen The declination from which some conceiving to have begun though secretly in the Apostles times the mystery of iniquity being then in work and after their departure to have shewed it self more openly others again believing that the Church continued pure for some Ages after the Apostles and then declined And consequently some aiming at an exact conformity with the Apostolick times Others thinking they should do God and men good service could they reduce the Church to the condition of the fourth and fifth ages Some taking their direction in this work of Reformation only from Scripture others from the Writings of Fathers and the Decrees of Councils of the first five Ages certainly it is no great marvel that there was as you say disagreement between them in the particulars of their Reformation nay morally speaking it was impossible it should be otherwise Yet 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 And they did best that followed Scripture interpreted by Catholick written Tradition which rule the Reformers of the Church of England proposed to themselves to follow 83. Ad 30.31 32. D. Potter p. 81.82 of his Book speak thus If a Monastery should reform it self and should reduce into practice ancient good discipline when others would not In this case could it be charged with Schism from others or with Apostacy from its rule and order So in a society of men universally infected with some disease they that should free themselves from it could they be therefore said to separate from the society He presumes they could not and from hence concludes That neither can the Reformed Churches be truly accused for making a Schism that is separating from the Church and making themselves no members of it if all they did was as indeed it was to reform themselves 84. Now instead of these two instances which plainly shewed it possible in other societies and consequently in that of the Church to leave the faults of a Society and not leave being of it you disingenuously foist in two other instances clean cross to the Doctors purpose of men under colour of faults abandoning the Society wherein they lived 85. But that no suspicion of tergiversation may be fastned upon me I am content to deal with you a little at your own weapons Put the case then though not just as you would have it yet with as much favour to you as in reason you can expect That a Monastery did observe her substantial vows and all principal statutes but yet did generally practise and also enjoyn the violation of some lesser yet obliging observances and had done so time out of mind And that some inferiour Monks more conscientious than the rest discovering this abuse should first with all earnestness sollicite their Superiors for a general and orderly reformation of these though small and venial corruptions yet corruptions But finding they hoped and laboured in vain to effect this should reform these faults in themselves and refuse to joyn in the practice of them with the rest of their Confraternity and persisting resolutely in such a refusal should by their Superiors be cast out of their Monastery and being not to be re-admitted without a promise of remitting from their stiffness in these things and of condescending to others in the practice of their small faults should choose rather to continue exiles than to re-enter upon such conditions I would know whether you would condemn such men of Apostacy from the Order Without doubt if you should you would find the stream of your Casuists against you and besides involve S. Paul in the same condemnation who plainly tells that we may not do the least evil that we may do the greatest good Put case again you should be part of a Society universally infected with some disease and discovering a certain remedy for this disease should perswade the whole company to make use of it but find the greatest part of them so far in love with their disease that they were reslved to keep it and besides should make a decree that whosoever would leave it should leave their company Suppose now that your self and some few others should notwithstanding their injunction to the contrary free your selves from this disease and thereupon they should absolutely forsake and reject you I would know in this case who deserves to be condemned whether you of uncharitable desertion of your company or they of a tyrannical peevishness And if in these cases you will as I verily believe you will acquit the inferiors and condemn the superiors absolve the minor part and condemn the major then can you with no reason condemn Protestants for choosing rather to be ejected from the communion of the Roman Church than with her to persist as of necessity they were to do if they would continue in her Communion in the profession of Errors though not destructive of salvation yet hindering edification and in the practice or at least approbatiof many suppose not mortal but venial corruptions 86. Besides you censure too partially the corrupt estate of your Church in comparing it to a Monastery which did confessedly observe their substantial Vows and all principal Statutes of their order and moreover was secured by an infallible assistance for the avoiding of all substantial corruptions for of your Church we confess no such matter but say plainly That she not only might fall into substantial corruptions but did so that she did not only generally violate but of all the members of her Communion either in act or approbation require and exact the violation of many substantial Laws of Christ both Ceremonial and Moral which though we hope it was pardonable in them who had not means to know their error yet of its own nature and to them who did or might have known their error was certainly damnable And that it was not the Tything of Mint and Annise and Cummin the neglect whereof we impute unto you but the neglect of judgment justice and the weightier matters of the Law 87. Again you compare Protestants to such a Company as acknowledge that themselves as soon as they were gone out of the Monastery that deferred to reform must not hope to be free from those or the like Errors and Corruptions for which they left their Brethren Which is very strange seeing this very hope and nothing else moved
or ill Opinion do gather otherwise than they ought For to this Church for a more powerful Principality it is necessary that all Churches resort that is all faithful People undique of what place soever In which Roman Church the Tradition from the Apostles hath always been conserved from those who are undique every where Answ Though at the first hearing the Glorious Attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome the confounding Hereticks with her Tradition and saying it is necessary for all Churches to resort to her may sound like Arguments for you yet he that is attentive I hope will easily discover that it might be good and rational in Irenaeus having to do with Hereticks who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholicks declining a tryal by Scripture as not containing the Truth of Christ perfectly and not fit to decide Controversies without recourse to Tradition I say he will easily perceive that it might be rational in Irenaeus to urge them with any Tradition of more credit than their own especially a Tradition consonant to Scripture and even contained in it and yet that it may be irrational in you to urge us who do not decline Scripture but appeal to it as a perfect rule of Faith with a Tradition which we pretend is many ways repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition far more general than it self which gives testimony to Scripture and lastly repugnant to it self as giving attestation both to Scripture and to Doctrines plainly contrary to Scripture Secondly that the Authority of the Roman Church was then a far greater Argument of the Truth of her Tradition when it was United with all other Apostolick Churches than now when it is divided from them according to that of Tertullian Had the Churches Erred they would have varied but that which is the same in all cannot be Error but Tradition and therefore though Irenaeus his Argument may be very probable yet yours may be worth nothing Thirdly that fourteen hundred years may have made a great deal of alteration in the Roman Church as Rivers though near the Fountain they may retain their native and unmixt sincerity yet in long Progress cannot but take in much mixture that came not from the Fountain And therefore the Roman Tradition though then pure may now be corrupt and impure and so this Argument being one of those things which are the worse for wearing might in Irenaeus his time be strong and vigorous and after declining and decaying may long since have fallen to nothing Especially considering that Irenaeus plays the Historian only and not the Prophet and says only that the Apostolick Tradition had been always there as in other Apostolick Churches conserved or observed choose you whether but that it should be always so he says not neither had he any warrant He knew well enough that there was foretold a great falling away of the Churches of Christ to Antichrist that the Roman Church in particular was forewarned that she also nay the whole Church of the Gentiles might fall if they look not to their standing and therefore to secure her that she should stand for ever he had no reason nor Authority Fourthly that it appears manifestly out of this Book of Irenaeus quoted by you that the Doctrine of the Chiliasts was in his Judgment Apostolick Tradition as also it was esteemed for ought appears to the contrary by all the Doctors and Saints and Martyrs of or about his time for all that speak of it or whose judgments in the point are any way recorded are for it and Justin Martyr professeth that all good and Orthodox Christians of his time believed it and those that did not he reckons amongst Hereticks Now I demand was this Tradition one of those that was conserved and observed in the Church of Rome or was it not If not had Iraeneus known so much he must have retracted this commendation of that Church If it was then the Tradition of the present Church of Rome contradicts the Ancient and accounts it Heretical and then sure it can be no certain note of Heresie to depart from them who have departed from themselves and prove themselves subject unto error by holding contradictions Fifthly and lastly that out of the Story of the Church it is as manifest as the light at noon that though Iraeneus did esteem the Roman Tradition a great Argument of the Doctrin which he there delivers and defends against the Hereticks of his time viz. that there was one God yet he was very far from thinking that Church was and ever should be a safe keeper and an infallible witness of Tradition in general Inasmuch as in his own life his action proclaimed the contrary For when Victor Bishop of Rome obtruded the Roman Tradition touching the time of Easter upon the Asian Bishops under the pain of Excommunication and damnation Iraeneus and all the other Western Bishops though agreeing with him in his observation yet sharply reprehended him for Excommunicating the Asian Bishops for their disagreeing plainly shewing that they esteemed that not a necessary doctrin and a sufficient ground of excommunication which the Bishop of Rome and his adherents did so account of For otherwise how could they have reprehended him for excommunicating them had they conceived the cause of his excommunication just and sufficient And besides evidently declaring that they esteemed not separation from the Roman Church a certain mark of Heresie seeing they esteemed not them Hereticks though separated and cut off from the Roman Church 31. Obj. S. Austin saith in Psalm cont partem Donati It grieves us to see you so to lie cut off Number the Priests even from the Sea of Peter and consider in that order of Fathers who succeeded to whom she is the Rock which the proud gates of Hell do not overcome Where he seems to say that the Succession in the Sea of Peter was the Rock which our Saviour means when he said upon this Rock will I build my Church Ans I answer First We have no reason to be confident of the truth hereof because S. Austin himself was not but retracts it as uncertain and leaves to the Reader whether he will think that or another more probable Retr l. 1. c. 26. Secondly what he says of the Succession in the Roman Church in this place he says it elsewhere of all the Successions in all other Apostolick Churches Thirdly that as in this place he urgeth the Donatists with separation from the Roman Church as an argument of their Error So elsewhere he presseth them with their Separation from other Apostolick Churches nay more from these than from that because in Rome the Donatists had a Bishop though not a perpetual Succession of them but in other Apostolick Churches they wanted both These scattered men saith he of the Donatists Epist 165. read in the holy Books the Churches to which the Apostles wrote and have no Bishop in them But what is more perverse and
foolish as to believe your Church exempted from Error upon less evidence rather than subject to the common condition of mankind upon greater evidence Now if I take the Scripture only for my Guide I shall not need to do any thing so unreasonable 64. If I will follow your Church I must believe impossibilities and that with an absolute certainty upon motives which are confessed to be but only Prudential and probable That is with a weak Foundation I must firmly support a heavy a monstrous heavy building Now following the Scripture I shall have no necessity to undergo any such difficulties 65. Following your Church I must be servant of Christ and a Subject of the King but only Ad placitum Papae I must be prepared in mind to renounce my allegiance to the King when the Pope shall declare him an Heretick and command me not to obey him And I must be prepared in mind to esteem Vertue Vice and Vice Vertue if the Pope shall so determine Indeed you say it is impossible he should do the latter but that you know is a great question neither is it fit my obedience to God and the King should depend upon a questionable Foundation And howsoever you must grant that if by an impossible supposition the Popes commands should be contrary to the law of Christ that they of your Religion must resolve to obey rather the commands of the Pope than the law of Christ Whereas if I follow the Scripture I may nay I must obey my Sovereign in lawful things though an Heretick though a Tyrant and though I do not say the Pope but the Apostles themselves nay an Angel from Heaven should teach any thing against the Gospel of Christ I may nay I must denounce Anathema to him 66. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion which being contrary to Flesh and Blood without any assistance from worldly power wit or policy nay against all the power and policy of the World prevailed and enlarged it self in a very short time all the World over Whereas it is too too apparent that your Church hath got and still maintains her authority over mens Consciences by counterfeiting false miracles forging false stories by obtruding on the World suppositious writings by corrupting the monuments of former times and defacing out of them all which any way makes against you by Wars by persecutions by Massacres by Treasons by Rebellions in short by all manner of Carnal means whether violent or fraudulent 67. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion the first Preachers of Professors whereof it is most certain they could have no worldly ends upon the World that they could not project to themselves by it any of the profits or honours or pleasures of this World but rather were to expect the contrary even all the miseries which the World could lay upon them On the other side the Head of your Church the pretended Successor of the Apostles and Guide of Faith it is even palpable that he makes your Religion the instrument of his ambition and by it seeks to entitle himself directly or indirectly to the Monarchy of the World And besides it is evident to any man that has but half an eye that most of those Doctrines which you add to the Scripture do make one way or other for the honour or temporal profit of the Teachers of them 68. Following the Scripture only I shall embrace a Religion of admirable simplicity consisting in a manner wholly in the worship of God in Spirit and Truth Whereas your Church and Doctrine is even loaded with an infinity of weak childish ridiculous unsavoury superstitions and ceremonies and full of that righteousness for which Christ shall Judge the World 69. Following the Scripture I shall believe that which Universal never-failing Tradition assures me that it was by the admirable supernatural Work of God confirmed to be the Word of God whereas never any miracle was wrought never so much as a lame Horse cured in confirmation of your Churches authority and infallibility And if any strange things have been done which may seem to give attestation to some parts of your Doctrine yet this proves nothing but the truth of the Scripture which foretold that Gods providence permitting it and the wickedness of the World deserving it strange signs and wonders should be wrought to confirm false Doctrine that they which love not the Truth may be given over to strange delusions Neither does it seem to me any strange thing that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude them who have forged so many to deceive the World 70. If I follow the Scripture I must not promise my self Salvation without effectual dereliction and mortification of all Vices and the effectual Practice of all Christian Vertues But your Church opens an easier and a broader way to Heaven and though I continue all my life long in a course of sin and without the Practice of any Vertue yet gives me assurance that I may be let into Heaven at a Postern-gate even by any Act of Attrition at the hour of Death if it be joyned with confession or by an Act of Contrition without confession 71. Admirable are the Precepts of piety and humility of innocence and patience of liberality frugality temperance sobriety justice meekness fortitude constancy and gravity contempt of the World love of God and the love of mankind In a Word of all Vertues and against all vice which the Scriptures impose upon us to be obeyed under pain of damnation The sum whereof is in manner comprised in our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount recorded in the 5 6 and 7. of S. Matthew which if they were generally obeyed could not but make the world generally happy and the goodness of them alone were sufficient to make any wise and good man believe that this Religion rather than any other came from God the fountain of all goodness And that they may be generally obeyed our Saviour hath ratified them all in the close of his Sermon with these universal Sanctions Not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven and again whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them not shall be likned unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rain descended and the flood came and the winds blew and it fell and great was the fall thereof Now your Church notwithstanding all this enervates and in a manner dissolves and abrogates many of these precepts teaching men that they are not Laws for all Christians but Counsels of perfection and matters of Supererrogation that a man shall do well if he do observe them but he shall not sin if he observe them not that they are for them who aim at high places in heaven who aspire with the two sons of Zebede to the right hand or to the left hand of Christ But if a man will be content
over all other Churches That the African Churches in S. Austins time should be ignorant that the Pope was Head of the Church and Judge of Appeals jure divino and that there was a necessity of Conformity with the Church in this and all other points of Doctrin Nay that the Popes themselves should be so ignorant of the true ground of this their Authority as to pretend to it not upon Scripture or universal Tradition but upon an imaginary pretended none-such Canon of the Council of Nice That Vincentius Lirinensis seeking for a guide of his Faith and a preservative from Heresie should be ignorant of this so ready one The Infallibility of the Church of Rome All these things and many more are very strange to me if the Infallibility of the Roman Church be indeed and were always by Christians acknowledged the foundation of our Faith And therefore I beseech you pardon me if I choose to build mine upon one that is much firmer and safer and lies open to none of these objections which is Scripture and universal Tradition and if one that is of this Faith may have leave to do so I will subscribe with hand and heart Your very loving and true Friend W. C. A TABLE OF Contents Note that the first Figure refers to the Chapter the other to the divisions of each Chapter A. PRotestants agree in more things than they differ in by believing the Scripture chap. 4. div 49.50 We have as many rational means of Agreement as the Papists c. 3.7 8. Papists pretend to means of agreement and do not agree c. 3.3 4 5 6. Not necessary to find a Church agreeing with Protestants in all points Ans pref 19. c. 5.27 Antiquity vainly pleaded for Romish Doctrins and Practices since many Errors are more ancient than some of their Doctrins c. 5.91 The Apostolick Church an Infallible Guide to which we may resort being present to us by her Writings c. 3.69 80. That the Church has power to make new Articles of Faith asserted by the Romish Doctors c. 4.18 This one Article I believe the Roman Catholick Church to be Infallible if their Doctrin were true would secure against heresie more than the whole Creed c. 4.77 78 79 83. Christs assistance promised to the Church to lead her into more than necessary truths c. 5.61 62. Atheism and irreligion springs easily from some Romish Doctrins and Practices Pref. 7 8. S. Austins saying Evangelio non crederem c. how to be understood c. 2.54 97 98 99. S. Austins Testimony against the Donatists not cogent against Protestants c. 2.163 S. Austins words No necessity to divide unity explained c. 5.10 The Authors vindication from suspition of Heresiâ— Pref. 28. The Authors motives to turn a Papist with answerâ— to them Pref. 42.43 B. The Bible which is the Religion of Protestants to be preferred before the way of Romish Religion shewed at large c. 6. from 56. to 72. Inclusive C. The Calvinists rigid Doctrin of Predetermination unjustly reproached by Papists who communicate with those that hold the same c. 7.30 To give a Catalogue of our Fundamentals not necessary nor possible Ans Pref. 27. c. 3.13 53. Want of such a Catalogue leaves us not uncertain in our Faith c. 3.14 Papists as much bound to give a Catalogue of the Churches proposals which are their Fundamentals and yet do it not c. 3.53 Our general Catalogue of Fundamentals as good as theirs c. 4.12 c. 7.35 Moral certainty a sufficient Foundation of Faith c. 2.154 A Protestant may have certainty though disagreeing Protestants all pretend to like certainty c. 7.13 What Charity Papists allow to us Protestants and we to them c. 1.1 3 4 5. A Charitable judgment should be made of such as err but lead good lives c. 7.33 Protestant Charity to Ignorant Papists no comfort to them that will not see their errors c. 5.76 The Church how furnished with means to determin Controversies c. 1.7 11. Commands in Scripture to hear the Church and obey it suppose it not infallible c. 3.41 We may be a true Church though deriving Ordination and receiving Scripture from a false one c. 6.54 Common truths believed may preserve them good that otherwise err c. 7.33 Conscience in some cases will justifie separation though every pretence of it will not c. 5.108 Concord in damned errors worse than disagreement in controverted points c. 5.72 The Consequences of mens Opinions may be unjustly charged upon them c. 1.12 c. 7.30 What Contradictions Papists believe who hold Transubstantiation c. 4.46 All Controversies in Religion not necessary to be determined c. 1.7 156. c. 3.88 How Controversies about Scripture it self are to be decided c. 2.27 Controversies not necessary to be decided by a Judicial sentence without any appeal c. 2.85 That the Creed contains all necessary points and how to be understood c. 4.23 73 74. Not necessary that our Creed should be larger than that of the Apostles c. 4.67 70 71 72. Whether it be contrary to the Creed to say the Church may fail c. 5.31 D. S Dennis of Alexandria's saying explained about not dividing the Church c. 5.12 To deny a Truth witnessed by God whether always damnable Ans Pref. 9. The Apostles depositing Truth with the Church no argument that she should always keep it sincere and intire c. 2.148 Of Disagreeing Protestants though one side must err yet both may hope for salvation Ans Pref. 22. c. 1.10 13 17. Two may disagree in a matter of faith and yet neither be chargeable with denying a declared Truth of Gods Ans Pref. 10. Differences among Protestants vainly objected against them c. 3.2 3 5. c. 5.72 No reason to reproach them for their differences about necessary Truths and damuable Errors c. 3.52 What is requisite to convince a man that a Doctrin comes from God Ans Pref. 8. Believing the Doctrin of Scripture a man may be saved though he did not believe it to be the word of God c. 2.159 The Donatists error about the Catholick Church what it was and was not c. 3.64 The Donatists case and ours not alike c. 5.103 The Roman Church guilty of the Donatists Error in perswading men as good not to be Christians as not Roman Catholicks c. 3.64 Papists liker to the Donatists than we by their uncharitable denying salvation out of their Church c. 7.21 22 27. E. English Divines vindicated from inclining to Popery and for want of skill in School-Divinity Pref. 19. How Errors may be damnable Ans Pref. 22. In what case Errors damnable may not damn those that hold them c. 5.58 c. 6.14 In what case Errors not damnable may be damnable to those that hold them c. 5.66 No man to be reproached for quitting his Errors c. 5.103 Though we may pardon the Roman Church for her Errors yet we may not sin with it c. 5.70 Errors of the Roman Church that endanger salvation to be forsaken though they are not destructive of it c. 7.6
is easier to know the Scripture and its sense than for the ignorant in the Roman Church which is the Church and what are her decrees and the sense of them c. 2.107 108 109. In what Language the Scripture is incorrupted and the assurance of it c. 2.55 56 57. The Scripture is capable of the properties of a perfect Rule c. 2.7 In what sense we say the Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith c. 2.8 The Scripture not properly a judge of Controversies but a Rule to judge by c. 2.11 104 155. The Scriptures incorruption more secured by providence than the Roman Churches vigilancy c. 2.24 When Scripture is made the Rule of Controversies those that concern it self are to be excepted c. 2.8 27 156. The Scripture contains all necessary material objects of Faith of which the Scripture it self is none but the means of conveying them to us c. 2.32.159 The Scripture must determine some Controversies else those about the Church and its Notes are undeterminable c. 2.3 The Scripture unjustly charged with increasing Controversies and Contentions c. 2.4 The Scripture is a sufficient means for discovering Heresies c. 2.127 When Controversies are referred to Scripture it is not referring them to the private spirit understanding it of a perswasion pretending to come from the Spirit of God c. 2.110 Protestants that believe Scripture agree in more things than they differ in and their differences are not material c. 4.49 50. Private men if they interpret Scriptures amiss and to ill purposes endanger only themselves when they do not pretend to prescribe to others c. 2.122 The Protestants Security of the way to happiness c. 2.53 Want of Skill in School-Divinity foolishly objected against English Divines Pref. 19. The Principles of the Church of Englands separating from Rome will not serve to justifie Schismaticks c. 5.71 74 80 81 82 85 86. Socinianism and other Heresies countenanced by Romish Writers who have undermined the Doctrin of the Trinity Pref. 17.18 The promise of the Spirits leading into all truth proves not Infallibility c. 3.71 The promise of the Spirits abiding with them for ever may be personal c. 3.74 And it being a conditional promise cuts off the Roman Churches pretence to infallibility c. 3.75 Want of Succession of Bishops holding always the same Doctrin is not a mark of Heresie c. 6.38 41. In what sense Succession is by the Fathers made a mark of the true Church c. 6.40 Papists cannot prove a perpetual Succession of Professors of their Doctrin c. 6.41 T. Tradition proves the Books of Scripture to be Canonical not the Authority of the present Church c. 2.25 53 90 91 92. c. 3.27 Traditional Interpretations of Scripture how ill preserved by the Roman Church c. 2.10 c. 3.46 No Traditional Interpretations of Scripture though if there were any remaining we are ready to receive them c. 2.88 89 c. 3.46 The Traditions distinct from Scripture which Iraeneus mentions do not favour Popery c. 2.144 145 146. The asserting unwritten Traditions though not inconsistent with the truth of Scripture yet disparages it as a perfect Rule c. 2.10 Though our Translations of the Bible are subject to error yet our salvation is not thereby made uncertain c. 2.68 73. Different Translations of Scripture may as well be objected to the Ancient Church as to Protestants c. 2.58 59. The Vulgar Translation is not pure and uncorrupted c. 2.75 76 77 78 79 80. To believe Transubstantiation how many contradictions one must believe c. 4.46 The Doctrin of the Trinity undermined by Roman Doctors Pref. 17 18. The Church may tolerate many things which she does not allow c. 3.47 Gods Truth not questioned by Protestants though they deny points professed by the Church c. 1.12 Protestants question not Gods Truth though denying some truth revealed by him if they know it not to be so revealed c. 3.16 The Truth of the present Church depends not upon the visibility or perpetuity of the Church in all Ages c. 5.21 c. 7.20 The Apostles depositing Truth with the Church is no argument that she should always keep it intire and sincere c. 2.148 The promise of being led into all truth agrees not equally to the Apostles and to the Church c. 3.34 A Tryal of Religion by Scripture may well be refused by Papists c. 2 3. U. Violence and force to introduce Religion is against the nature of Religion and unjustly charged upon Protestants c. 5.96 What Visible Church was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman Ans Pref. 19. c. 5.27 That there should be always a visible unerring Church of one denomination is not necessary c. 5.27 The Visible Church may not cease though it may cease to be visible c. 5.13 14 41. The Church may not be Visible in the Popish sense and yet may not dissemble but profess her faith c. 5.18 The great uncertainties salvation in the Roman Church depends on c. 2.63 to 73. inclusive Their uncertainty of the right administration of Sacraments c. 2.63 to 68. inclusive The Churches Vnity by what means best preserved c. 3.81 c. 4.13 17 40. Pretence of Infallibility a ridiculous means to Vnity when that is the chief question to be determined c. 3.89 Vnity of Communion how to be obtained c. 4.39 40. Vnity of external Communion not necessary to the being a Member of the Catholick Church c. 5.9 Vniversality of a Doctrin no certain sign that it came from the Apostles c. 3.44 Want of Vniversality of place proves not Protestants to be Hereticks and may as well be objected against the Roman Church c. 6.42 55. We would receive unwritten Traditions derived from the Apostles if we knew what they were c. 3.46 The Vulgar Translation not pure and incorrupted c. 2.75 76 77 78 79 80. W. The whole Doctrin of Christ was taught by the Apostles and an Anathema denounced against any that should bring in new doctrins c. 4.18 The wisdom of Protestants justified in forsaking the errors of the Roman Church c. 6.53 54. The wisdom of Protestants shewed at large against the Papists in making the Bible their Religion c. 6. from 56. to 72. inclusive FINIS ADDITIONAL DISCOURSES OF Mr. Chillingworth NEVER BEFORE PRINTED Imprimatur Ex Aedib Lambeth Jun. 14. 1686. GUIL NEEDHAM RR. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. Ã Sacr. Domesticis LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1687. CONTENTS I. A Conference betwixt Mr. Chillingworth and Mr. Lewgar whether the Roman Church be the Catholick-Church and all out of her Communion Hereticks or Schismaticks p. 1. II. A Discourse against the Infallibility of the Roman Church with an Answer to all those Texts of Scripture that are alledged to prove it p. 26. III. A Conference concerning the Infallibility of the Roman Church proving that the present Church of Rome either errs in her worshiping the Blessed Virgin or that the Ancient Church did err in condemning the Collyridians as Hereticks p. 41. IV. An
heareth Christ and he that despiseth him despiseth Christ They urge out of John 14. ver 15 16. I will ask my Father and he will give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of Truth But here also what warrant have we by you to understand the Church of Rome whereas he that compares v. 26. with this shall easily perceive that our Saviour speaks only of the Apostles in their own persons for there he says going on in the same discourse The Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said to you which cannot agree but to the Apostles themselves in person and not to their Successors who had not yet been taught and therefore not forgotten any thing and therefore could not have them brought to their remembrance But what if it had been promised to them and their Successors had they no Successors but them of the Roman Church this indeed is pretended and cried up but for proofs of it desiderantur Again I would fain know whether there be any certainty that every Pope is a good Christian or whether he may not be in the sence of the Scripture of the World If not how was it that Bellarmine should have cause to think that such a rank of them went successively to the Devil III. A Conference concerning the Infallibility of the Roman Church Proving that the present Church of Rome either errs in her worshipping the Blessed Virgin Mary or that the Ancient Church did err in condemning the Collyridians as Hereticks 1. Demand WHether the Infallibility of the Roman Church be not the foundation of their Faith which are members of that Church Answ The Infallibility of the Church is not the foundation but a part of their Faith who are members of the Church And the Roman Church is held to be the Church by all those who are members of it Reply That which is the last Reason why you believe the Scripture to be the written Word of God and unwritten Traditions his unwritten word and this or that to be the true sense of Scripture that is to you the foundation of your Faith and such unto you is the Infallible Authority of the Roman Church Therefore unto you it is not only a part of your faith but also such a part as is the foundation of all other parts Therefore you are deceived if you think there is any more opposition between being a part of the faith and the foundation of other parts of it than there is between being a part of a house and the foundation of it But whether you will have it the foundation of your faith or only a part of it for the present purpose it is all one 2. Demand Whether the Infallibility of the Roman Church be not absolutely overthrown by proving the present Roman Church is in error or that the Ancient was Answ It is if the Error be in those things wherein she is affirmed to be infallible viz. in points of Faith Reply And this here spoken of whether it be lawful to offer Tapers and Incense to the honour of the Blessed Virgin is I hope a Question concerning a point of Faith 3. Demand Whether offering a Cake to the Virgin Mary be not as lawful as to offer Incense and Tapers and divers other oblations to the same Virgin Answ It is as lawful to offer a Cake to her honour as Wax-Tapers but neither the one nor the other may be offered to her or her honour as the term or object of the Action For to speak properly nothing is offered to her or to her honour but to God in the honour of the Blessed Virgin For Incense it is a foul slander that it is offered any way to the Blessed Virgin for that incensing which is used in the time of Mass is ever understood by all sorts of people to be directed to God only Reply If any thing be offered to her she is the Object of that oblation as if I see water and through water something else the water is the object of my sight though not the last object If I honour the Kings Deputy and by him the King the Deputy is the object of my action though not the final object And to say these things may be offered to her but not as to the object of the action is to say they may be offered to her but not to her For what else is meant by the object of an action but that thing on which the action is imployed and to which it is directed If you say that by the object of the action you mean the final object only wherewith the action is terminated you should then have spoken more properly and distinctly and not have denied her simply to be the object of this action when you mean only she is not such a kind of object no more than you may deny a man to be a living creature meaning only that he is not a horse Secondly I say it is not required of Roman Catholicks when they offer Tapers to the Saints that by an actual intention they direct their action actually to God but it is held sufficient that they know and believe that the Saints are in Subordination and near Relation to God and that they give this honour to the Saints because of this relation And to God himself rather habitually and interpretative than actually expresly and formally As many men honour the Kings Deputy without having any present thought of the King and yet their action may be interpreted an honour to the King being given to his Deputy only because he is his Deputy and for his relation to the King Thirdly I say there is no reason or ground in the world for any man to think that the Collyridians did not chuse the Virgin Mary for the object of their worship rather than any other Woman or any other Creature meerly for her relation to Christ and by consequence there is no ground to imagine but that at least habitually and interpretative they directed their action unto Christ if not actually and formally And Ergo if that be a sufficient defence for the Papists that they make not the Blessed Virgin the final object of their worship but worship her not for her own sake but for her relation unto Christ Epiphanius surely did ill to charge the Collyridians with Heresie having nothing to impute to them but only that he was informed that they offered a Cake to the honour of the Blessed Virgin which honour yet they might and without question did give unto her for her relation unto Christ and so made her not the last object and term of their worship and from hence it is evident that he conceived the very action it self substantially and intrinsically malitious i. e. he believed it a sin that they offered to her at all and so by their action put her in the
external reason why we believe it whereunto the Testimonies of the Jews enemies of Christ add no small moment for the Authority of some part of it That whatsoever stood upon the same ground of Universal Tradition with Scripture might justly challenge belief as well as Scripture but that no Doctrin not written in Scripture could justly pretend to as full Tradition as the Scripture and therefore we had no reason to believe it with that degree of faith wherewith we believe the Scripture That it is unreasonable to think that he that reads the Scripture and uses all means appointed for this purpose with an earnest desire and with no other end but to find the will of God and obey it if he mistake the meaning of some doubtful places and fall unwillingly into some errors unto which no vice or passion betrays him and is willing to hear reason from any man that will undertake to shew him his error I say that it is unreasonable to think that a God of goodness will impute such an error to such a man Against the second it was demonstrated unto me that the place I built on so confidently was no Argument at all for the Infallibility of the Succession of Pastors in the Roman Church but a very strong Argument against it First no Argument for it because it is not certain nor can ever be proved that S. Paul speaks there of any succession Ephes 4.11 12 13. For let that be granted which is desired that in the 13. ver by until we all meet is meant until all the Children of God meet in the Unity of Faith that is unto the Worlds end yet it is not said there that he gave Apostles and Prophets c. which should continue c. until we all meet by connecting the 13. ver to the 11. But he gave then upon his Ascension and miraculously endowed Apostles and Prophets c. for the work of the ministry for the Consummation of the Saints for the Edification of the Body of Christ until we all meet that is if you will unto the Worlds end Neither is there any incongruity but that the Apostles and Prophets c. which lived then may in good sense be said now at this time and ever hereafter to do those things which they are said to do For who can deny but S. Paul the Apostle and Doctor of the Gentiles and S. John the Evangelist and Prophet do at this very time by their writings though not by their persons do the work of the ministry consummate the Saints and Edifie the Body of Christ Secondly it cannot be shewn or proved from hence that there is or was to be any such succession because S. Paul here tells us only that he gave such in the time past not that he promised such in the time to come Thirdly it is evident that God promised no such succession because it is not certain that he hath made good any such promise for who is so impudent as to pretend that there are now and have been in all Ages since Christ some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers Especially such as he here speaks of that is endowed with such gifts as Christ gave upon his Ascension of which he speaks in the 8 ver saying He led Captivity Captive and gave gifts unto men And that those gifts were Men endowed with extraordinary Power and Supernatural gifts it is apparent because these Words and he gave some Apostles some Prophets c. are added by way of explication and illustration of that which was said before and he gave gifts unto Men And if any man except hereunto that though the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists were extraordinary and for the Plantation of the Gospel yet Pastors were ordinary and for continuance I answer it is true some Pastors are ordinary and for continuance but not such as are here spoken of not such as are endowed with the strange and heavenly gifts which Christ gave not only to the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists but to the inferior Pastors and Doctors of his Church at the first Plantation of it And therefore S. Paul in the 1st to the Corinth 12.28 to which place we are referred by the Margent of the Vulgar Translation for the explication of this places this gift of teaching amongst and prefers it before many other miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost Pastors there are still in the Church but not such as Titus and Timothy and Apollos and Barnabas not such as can justly pretend to immediate inspiration and illumination of the Holy Ghost And therefore seeing there neither are nor have been for many Ages in the Church such Apostles and Prophets c. as here are spoken of it is certain he promised none or otherwise we must blasphemously charge him with breach of his promise Secondly I answer that if by dedit he gave be meant promisit he promised for ever then all were promised and all should have continued If by dedit be not meant promisit then he promised none such nor may we expect any such by vertue of or warrant from this Text that is here alledged And thus much for the first Assumpt which was that the place was no Argument for an infallible succession in the Church of Rome Now for the second That it is a strong Argument against it thus I make it good The Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors which our Saviour gave upon his Ascension were given by him that they might Consummate the Saints do the work of the Ministry Edifie the Body of Christ until we all come into the Unity of Faith that we be not like Children wavering and carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine The Apostles and Prophets c. that then were do not now in their own persons and by oral instruction do the work of the Ministry to the intent we may be kept from wavering and being carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine therefore they do this some other way Now there is no other way by which they can do it but by their writings and therefore by their writings they do it therefore by their writings and believing of them we are to be kept from wavering in matters of Faith therefore the Scriptures of the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists are our Guides Therefore not the Church of Rome FINIS AN ANSWER To Some PASSAGES IN Rushworths Dialogues BEGINNING At the Third Dialogue Section 12. p. 181. Ed. Paris 1654. ABOUT TRADITIONS LONDON Printed for James Adamson at the Angel in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1687. AN ANSWER To some passages in Rushworths Dialogues BEGINNING AT The Third Dialogue §. 12. p. 181. Ed. Paris 1654. ABOUT TRADITIONS Uncle DO you think there is such a City as Rome or Constantinople Nephew That I do I would I knew what I ask as well CHILLINGWORTH First I should have answered that in propriety of Speech I could not say that I
Church which at first perhaps were but wink'd at after tolerated then approved and at length after they had spread themselves into a seeming Generality confirmed for good and Catholick and that therefore there was no certainty that they came from the beginning whose beginning was not known I should have remembred him that even by the acknowledgment of the Council of Trent many corruptions and superstitions had by insensible degrees insinuated themselves into the very Mass and Offices of the Church which they thought fit to cast out and therefore seeing that some abuses have come in God knows how and have been cast out again who can ascertain me that some Errors have not got in and while men slept for it is apparent they did sleep gathered such strength gotten such deep root and so incorporated themselves like Ivy in a Wall in the State and polity of the Roman Church that to pull them up had been to pull them down by rasing the Foundation on which it stands to wit the Churches Infallibility Besides as much water passes under the Mill which the Miller sees not so who can warrant me that some old corruptions might not escape from them and pass for Original and Apostolick Traditions I say might not though they had been as studious to reduce all to the primitive State as they were to preserve them in the present State as diligent to cast out all Postnate and introduct opinions as they were to persuade men that there were none such but all as truly Catholick and Apostolick as they were Roman I should have declared unto him that many things reckoned up in the Roll of Traditions are now grown out of fashion and out of use in the Church of Rome and therefore that either they believed them not whatever they pretended or were not so obedient to the Apostles command as they themselves interpret it Keep the Traditions which ye have received whether by word or by our Epistle And seeing there have been so many vicissitudes and changes in the Roman Church Catholick Doctrines growing exolete and being degraded from their Catholicism and perhaps deprest into the number of Heresies Points of Indifference or at least Aliens from the Faith getting first to be Inmates after procuring to be made Denizons and in process of time necessary members of the Body of the Faith Nay Old Heresies sometimes like old Snakes casting their Skin and their Poyson together and becoming wholsom and Catholick Doctrines I must have desired pardon of my Uncle if I were not so undoubtedly certain what was and what was not Catholick Doctrine in the days of my Fathers Nay perhaps I should have gone further and told him That I was not fully assured what was the Catholick Doctrine in some points no not at this present time For instance to lay the Axe unto the Root of the Tree the infallibility of the present Church of Rome in determining controversies of Faith is esteemed indeed by divers that I have met with not only an Article of Faith but a Foundation of all other Articles But how do I know there are not nay why should I think there are not in the World divers good Catholicks of the same mind touching this matter which Mirandula Panormitan Cusanus Florentinus Clemangis Waldensis Occham and divers others were of who were so far from holding this Doctrine the Foundation of Faith that they would not allow it any place in the Fabrick Now Bellarmine has taught us that no Doctrine is Catholick nor the contrary Heretical that is denied to be so by some good Catholicks From hence I collect that in the time of the forenamed Authors this was not Catholick Doctrine nor the contrary Heretical and being then not so how it could since become so I cannot well understand If it be said that it has since been defined by a General Council I say first This is false no Council has been so foolish as to define that a Council is Infallible for unless it were presumed to be Infallible before who or what could assure us of the Truth of this definition Secondly if it were true it were ridiculous for he that would question the Infallibility of all Councils in all their Decrees would as well question the Infallibility of this Council in this Decree This therefore was not is not nor ever can be an Article of Faith unless God himself would be pleased which is not very likely to make some new Revelation of it from Heaven The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Fountain of the Error in this matter is this That the whole Religion of the Roman Church and every point of it is conceived or pretended to have issued Originally out of the Fountain of Apostolick Tradition either in themselves or in the principles from which they are evidently deducible Whereas it is evident that many of their Doctrines may be Originally derived from the Decrees of Councils many from Papal definitions many from the Authority of some great Man To which purpose it is very remarkable what Gregory Nazianzen says of Athanasius * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat XXI in Laudem Athanasii What pleased him was a law to men what did not please him was as a thing prohibited by Law his Decrees were to them like Moses his Tables and he had a greater veneration paid him than seems to be due from men to Saints And as memorable that in the late great Controversie about Predetermination and Free-will disputed before Pope Clement VII by the Jesuits and Dominicans The Popes resolution was if he had determined the matter to define for that opinion which was most agreeable not to Scripture nor to Apostolick Tradition nor to a consent of Fathers but to the Doctrine of S. Austin so that if the Pope had made an Article of Faith of this Controversie it is evident S. Austin had been the Rule of it Sometimes upon erroneous grounds Customs have been brought in God knows how and after have spread themselves through the whole Church Thus Gordonius Huntleius confesses that because Baptism and the Eucharist had been anciently given both together to men of ripe years when they were converted to Christianity Afterwards by Error when Infants were Baptized they gave the Eucharist also to Infants This Custom in short time grew Universal and in S. Austins time passed currantly for an Apostolick Tradition and the Eucharist was thought as necessary for them as Baptism This Custom the Church of Rome hath again cast out and in so doing profest either her no regard to the traditions of the Apostles or that this was none of that number But yet she cannot possibly avoid but that this example is a proof sufficient that many things may get in by Error into the Church and by degrees obtain the esteem and place of Apostolick Traditions which yet are not so The Custom of denying the Laity the Sacramental Cup and the Doctrine that it is lawful to do so who can
all Let not the Weapons of your Warfare be Carnal such as are Massacres Treasons Persecutions and in a word all means either violent or fraudulent These and other things which the Scripture commands you do and then we shall willingly give you such Testimony as you deserve but till you do so to talk of estimation respect and reverence to the Scripture is nothing else but talk 2. For neither is that true which you pretend That we possess the Scripture from you or take it upon the integrity of your Custody but upon Universal Tradition of which you are but a little part Neither If it were true that Protestants acknowledged The integrity of it to have been guarded by your alone Custody were this any argument of your reverence towards them For first you might preserve them entire not for want of Will but of Power to corrupt them as it is a hard thing to Poyson the Sea And then having prevailed so far with men as either not to look at all into them or but only through such spectacles as you should please to make for them and to see nothing in them though as clear as the Sun if it any way made against you you might keep them entire without any thought or care to conform your Doctrine to them or reform it by them which were indeed to reverence the Scriptures but out of a persuasion that you could qualifie them well enough with your glosses and interpretations and make them sufficiently conformable to your present Doctrine at least in their judgment who were prepossessed with this persuasion that your Church was to judge of the sense of Scripture not to be judged by it 3. Whereas you say No cause imaginable could avert your will from giving the function of Supream and sole judge to holy Writ but that the thing is impossible and that by this means controversies are encreased and not ended What indifferent and unprejudiced man may not easily conceive another cause which I do not say does but certainly may prevert your Wills and avert your understandings from submitting your Religion and Church to a Tryal by Scripture I mean the great and apparent and unavoidable danger which by this means you would fall into of losing the Opinion which men have of your Infallibility and consequently your Power and Authority over mens Consciences and all that depends upon it so that though Diana of the Ephesians be cryed up yet it may be feared that with a great many among you though I censure or judge no man the other cause which wrought upon Demetrius and the Craftsmen may have with you also the more effectual though more secret influence and that is that by this craft we have our living by this craft I mean of keeping your Proselytes from an indifferent Tryal of your Religion by Scripture and making them yield up and captivate their judgment unto yours As for the impossibility of Scriptures being the sole Judge of Controversies that is the sole rule for man to judge them by for we mean nothing else you only affirm it without proof as if the thing were evident of it self And therefore I conceiving the contrary to be more evident might well content my self to deny it without refutation Yet I cannot but desire you to tell me If Scripture cannot be the Judge of any Controversie how shall that touching the Church and the Notes of it be determined And if it be the sole Judge of this one why may it not of others Why not of All Those only excepted wherein the Scripture it self is the subject of the Question which cannot be determined but by natural reason the only Principle beside Scripture which is common to Christians 4. Then for the Imputation of increasing contentions and not ending them Scripture is innocent of it as also this Opinion That Controversies are to be decided by Scripture For if men did really and sincerely submit their judgments to Scripture and that only and would require no more of any man but to do so it were impossible but that all Controversies touching things necessary and very profitable should be ended and if others were continued or increased it were no matter 5. In the next Words we have direct Boyes-play a thing given with one hand and taken away with the other an acknowledgment made in one line and retracted in the next We acknowledge say you Scripture to be a perfect rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule only we deny that it excludes unwritten Tradition As if you should have said we acknowledge it to be as perfect a Rule as a writing can be only we deny it to be as perfect a Rule as a writing may be Either therefore you must revoke your acknowledgment or retract your retractation of it for both cannot possibly stand together For if you will stand to what you have granted That Scripture is as perfect a Rule of Faith as a Writing can be you must then grant it both so Compleat that it needs no addition and so evident that it needs no interpretation For both these properties are requisite to a perfect rule and a Writing is capable of both these properties 6. That both these Properties are requisite to a perfect rule it is apparent Because that is not perfect in any kind which wants some parts belonging to its integrity As he is not a perfect man that wants any part appertaining to the Integrity of a Man and therefore that which wants any accession to make it a perfect rule of its self is not a perfect Rule And then the end of a rule is to regulate and direct Now every instrument is more or less perfect in its kind as it is more or less fit to attain the end for which it is ordained But nothing obscure or unevident while it is so is fit to regulate and direct them to whom it is so Therefore it is requisite also to a rule so far as it is a Rule to be evident otherwise indeed it is no rule because it cannot serve for direction I conclude therefore that both these properties are required to a perfect Rule both to be so compleat as to need no Addition and to be so evident as to need no Interpretation 7. Now that a Writing is capable of both these perfections it is so plain that I am even ashamed to prove it For he that denies it must say That something may be spoken which cannot be written For if such a compleat and evident rule of Faith may be delivered by word of mouth as you pretend it may and is and whatsoever is delivered by word of mouth may also be written then such a compleat and evident rule of Faith may also be written If you will have more light added to the Sun answer me then to these Questions Whether your Church can set down in writing all these which she pretends to be Divine unwritten Traditions and add them to the verities already written
be drawn out of uncertain Principles by thirteen or fourteen more uncertain consequences He that can believe it let him All these Reasons I hope will convince you that though we have and have great necessity of Judges in Civil and Criminal causes yet you may not conclude from thence that there is any publick authorized Judge to determine Controversies in Religion nor any necessity there should be any 24. But the Scripture stands in need of some watchful and unerring eye to guard it by means of whose assured vigilancy we may undoubtedly receive it sincere and pure Very true but this is no other than the watchful Eye of Divine providence the goodness whereof will never suffer that the Scriptures should be depraved and corrupted but that in them should be always extant a conspicuous and plain way to Eternal happiness Neither can any thing be more palpably unconsistent with his goodness than to suffer Scripture to be undiscernably corrupted in any matter of moment and yet to exact of men the belief of those verities which without their fault or knowledge or possibility of prevention were defaced out of them So that God requiring of men to believe Scripture in its purity ingages himself to see it preserved in sufficient purity and you need not fear but he will satisfie his ingagement You say we can have no assurance of this but your Churches Vigilancy But if we had no other we were in a hard case for who could then assure us that your Church has been so vigilant as to guard Scripture from any the least alteration There being various Lections in the ancient Copies of your Bibles what security can your new raised Office of Assurance give us that that reading is true which you now receive and that false which you reject Certainly they that anciently received and made use of these divers Copies were not all guarded by the Churches vigilancy from having their Scripture altered from the purity of the Original in many places For of different readings it is not in nature impossible that all should be false but more than one cannot possibly be true Yet the want of such a protection was no hindrance to their Salvation and why then shall the having of it be necessary for ours But then this Vigilancy of your Church what means have we to be ascertain'd of it First the thing is not evident of it self which is evident because many do not believe it Neither can any thing be pretended to give evidence to it but only some places of Scripture of whose incorruption more than any other what is it that can secure me If you say the Churches vigilancy you are in a Circle proving the Scriptures uncorrupted by the Churches vigilancy and the Churches vigilancy by the incorruption of some places of Scripture and again the incorruption of those places by the Churches vigilancy If you name any other means than that means which secures me of the Scriptures incorruption in those places will also serve to assure me of the same in other places For my part abstracting from Divine Providence which will never suffer the way to Heaven to be blocked up or made invisible I know no other means I mean no other natural and rational means to be assured hereof than I have that any other Book is uncorrupted For though I have a greater degree of rational and humane Assurance of that than this in regard of divers considerations which make it more credible That the Scripture hath been preserved from any material alteration yet my assurance of both is of the same kind and condition both Moral assurances and neither Physical or Mathematical 25. To the next argument the Reply is obvious That though we do not believe the Books of Scripture to be Canonical because they say so For other Books that are not Canonical may say they are and those that are so may say nothing of it yet we believe not this upon the Authority of your Church but upon the Credibility of Universal Tradition which is a thing Credible of it self and therefore fit to be rested on whereas the Authority of your Church is not so And therefore your rest thereon is not rational but meerly voluntary I might as well rest upon the judgment of the next man I meet or upon a chance of a Lottery for it For by this means I only know I might Err but by relying on you I know I should Err. But yet to return you one suppose for another suppose I should for this and all other things submit to her direction how could she assure me that I should not be mis-led by doing so She pretends indeed infallibility herein but how can she assure us that she hath it What by Scriptures That you say cannot assure us of its own Infallibility and therefore not of yours What then by Reason That you say may deceive in other things and why not in this How then will she assure us hereof By saying so Of this very affirmation there will remain the same Question still How it can prove it self to be infallibly true Neither can there be an end of the like multiplied Demands till we rest in something evident of it self which demonstrates to the World that this Church is infallible And seeing there is no such Rock for the Infallibility of this Church to be setled on it must of necessity like the Island of Delos flote up and down for ever And yet upon this point according to Papists all other Controversies in Faith depend 26. To the 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 § The sum and substance of the Ten next Paragraphs is this That it appears by the Confessions of some Protestants and the Contentions of others that the Questions about the Canon of Scripture what it is and about the Various reading and Translations of it which is true and which not are not to be determined by Scripture and therefore that all Controversies of Religion are not decidable by Scripture 27. To which I have already answered saying That when Scripture is affirmed to be the rule by which all Controversies of Religion are to be decided Those are to be excepted out of this generality which are concerning the Scripture it self For as that general saying of Scripture He hath put all things under his Feet is most true though yet S. Paul tells us That when it is said he hath put all things under him it is manifest he is excepted who did put all things under him So when we say that all Controversies of Religion are decidable by the Scripture it is manifest to all but Cavillers that we do and must except from this generality those which are touching the Scripture it self Just as a Merchant shewing a Ship of his own may say all my substance is in this Ship and yet never intended to deny that his Ship is part of his substance nor yet to say that his Ship is in it self Or as a man may
Church you say is Infallible I am very doubtful of it How shall I know it The Scripture you say affirms it as in the 59. of Esau My spirit that is in thee c. Well I confess I find there these words but I am still doubtful whether they be spoken of the Church of Christ and if they be whether they mean as you pretend You say the Church says so which is infallible Yea but that is the Question and therefore not to be begged but proved Neither is it so evident as to need no proof otherwise why brought you this Text to prove it Nor is it of such a strange quality above all other Propositions as to be able to prove it self What then remains but that you say Reasons drawn out of the Circumstances of the Text will evince that this is the sense of it Perhaps they will But Reasons cannot convince me unless I judge of them by my Reason and for every man or woman to relie on that in the choice of their Religion and in the interpreting of Scripture you say is a horrible absurdity and therefore must neither make use of your own in this matter nor desire me to make use of it 119. But Universal Tradition you say and so do I too is of it self credible and that has in all Ages taught the Churches Infallibility with full consent If it have I am ready to believe it But that it has I hope you would not have me take upon your word for that were to build my self upon the Church and the Church upon You. Let then the Tradition appear for a secret Tradition is somewhat like a silent Thunder You will perhaps produce for the confirmation of it some sayings of some Fathers who in every Age taught this Doctrine as Gualterius in his Chronology undertakes to do but with so ill success that I heard an able Man of your Religion profess that in the first three Centuries there was not one Authority pertinent but how will you warrant that none of them teach the contrary Again how shall I be assured that the places have indeed this sense in them Seeing there is not one Father for 500 years after Christ that does say in plain terms The Church of Rome is Infallible What shall we believe your Church that this is their meaning But this will be again to go into the Circle which made us giddy before To prove the Church Infallible because Tradition says so Tradition to say so because the Fathers say so The Fathers to say so because the Church says so which is Infallible Yea but reason will shew this to be the meaning of them Yes if we may use our Reason and rely upon it Otherwise as light shews nothing to the Blind or to him that uses not his eyes so reason cannot prove any thing to him that either has not or uses not his reason to judge of them 120. Thus you have excluded your self from all proof of your Churches Infallibility from Scripture or Tradition And if you fly lastly to Reason it self for succour may not it justly say to you as Jephte said to his Brethren Ye have cast me out and banished me and do you now come to me for succour But if there be no certainty in Reason how shall I be assured of the certainty of those which you aledge for this purpose Either I may judge of them or not if not why do you propose them If I may why do you say I may not and make it such a monstrous absurdity That men in the choice of their Religion should make use of their Reason which yet without all question none but unreasonable men can deny to have been the chiefest end why Reason was given them 121. Ad § 22. An Heretick he is saith D. Potter who opposeth any truth which to be a Divine Revelation he is convinced in Conscience by any means whatsoever Be it by a Preacher or Lay-man be it by reading Scripture or hearing them read And from hence you infer that he makes all these safe propounders of Faith A most strange and illogical deduction For may not a private man by evident reason convince another man that such or such a Doctrine is Divine Revelation and yet though he be a true propounder in this point yet propound another thing falsely and without proof and consequently not be a safe propounder in every point Your Preachers in their Sermons do they not propose to men Divine Revelations and do they not sometimes convince men in Conscience by evident proof from Scripture that the things they speak are Divine Revelations And whosoever being thus convinced should oppose this Divine Revelation should he not be an Heretick according to your own grounds for calling Gods own Truth into question And would you think your self well dealt with if I should collect from hence that you make every Preacher a safe that is an infallible Propounder of Faith Be the means of Proposal what it will sufficient or insufficient worthy of credit or not worthy though it were if it were possible the barking of a Dog or the chirping of a Bird or were it the Discourse of the Devil himself yet if I be I will not say convinced but persuaded though falsly that it is a Divine Revelation and shall deny to believe it I shall be a formal though not a material Heretick For he that believes though falsly any thing to be Divine Revelation and yet will not believe it to be true must of necessity believe God to be false which according to your own Doctrine is the formality of an Heretick 122. And how it can be any way advantagious to Civil Government that men without warrant from God should Usurp a Tyranny over other mens Consciences and prescribe unto them without reason and sometimes against reason what they shall believe you must shew us plainer if you desire we should believe For to say Verily I do not see but that it must be so is no good demonstration For whereas you say that a Man may be a passionate and Seditious Creature from whence you would have us infer that he may make use of his interpretation to satisfie his Passion and raise Sedition There were some colour in this consequence if we as you do made private men infallible interpreters for others for then indeed they might lead Disciples after them and use them as Instruments for their vile purposes But when we say they can only interpret for themselves what harm they can do by their passionate or seditious interpretations but only endanger both their Temporal and Eternal happiness I cannot imagine For though we deny the Pope or Church of Rome to be an infallible Judge yet we do not deny but that there are Judges which may proceed with certainty enough against all Seditious Persons such as draw men to disobedience either against Church or State as well as against Rebels and Traytors and Thieves and Murderers 123. Ad §
that the Church shall certainly keep this depositum entire and sincere without adding to it or taking from it for this whole depositum was committed to every particular Church nay to every particular Man which the Apostles converted And yet no man I think will say that there was any certainty that it should be kept whole and inviolate by every man and every Church It is apparent out of Scripture it was committed to Timothy and by him consigned to other faithful men and yet S. Paul thought it not superfluous earnestly to exhort him to the careful keeping of it which exhortation you must grant had been vain and superfluous if the not keeping of it had been impossible And therefore though Irenaeus says The Apostles fully deposited in the Church all truth yet he says not neither can we infer from what he says that the Church should always infallibly keep this depositum entire without the loss of any truth and sincere without the mixture of any falshood 149. Ad § 25. C. M. proceeds and tells us That beside all this the Doctrine of Protestants is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to Err in interpreting or not If not Scripture to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible Faith If they have and so cannot Err in interpreting Scripture then they are able with infallibility to hear and determine all Controversies of Faith and so they may be and are Judges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own Doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides Scripture alone C. H. And may not we with as much reason substitute Church and Papists instead of Scripture and Protestants and say unto you Besides all this the Doctrine of Papists is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to Err in the choice of the Church and interpreting her decrees or they have not If not then the Church to them cannot be a sufficient but meerly a phantastical ground for infallible Faith nor a meet Judge of Controversies For unless I be infallibly sure that the Church is infallible how can I be upon her Authority infallibly sure that any thing she says is infallible If they have certain infallible means and so cannot Err in the choice of their Church and in interpreting her decrees then they are able with Infallibility to hear examine and determine all Controversies of Faith although they pretend to make the Church their Guide And thus against their own Doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides the Church alone Nay every one makes himself a chooser of his own Religion and of his own sense of the Churches decrees which very thing in Protestants they so highly condemn and so in judging others condemn themselves 150. Neither in saying thus have I only cried quittance with you but that you may see how much you are in my debt I will shew unto you that for your Sophism against our way I have given you a Demonstration against yours First I say your Argument against us is a transparent fallacy The first part of it lies thus Protestants have no means to interpret without Error obscure and ambiguous places of Scripture therefore plain places of Scripture cannot be to them a sufficient ground of Faith But though we pretend not to certain means of not Erring in interpreting all Scripture particularly such places as are obscure and ambiguous yet this methinks should be no impediment but that we may have certainmeans of not Erring in and about the sense of those places which are so plain and clear that they need no Interpreters and in such we say our Faith is contained If you ask me how I can be sure that I know the true â—â—aning of these places I ask you again can you be 〈◊〉 that you understand what I or any man else says They that heard our Saviour and the Apostles Preach could they have sufficient assurance that they understood at any time what they would have them do if not to what end did they hear them If they could why may we not be as well assured that we understand sufficiently what we conceive plain in their writings 151. Again I pray tell us whether you do certainly know the sense of these Scriptures with which you pretend you are led to the knowledg of your Church If you do not how know you that there is any Church Infallible and that these are the Notes of it and that this is the Church that hath these Notes If you do then give us leave to have the same means and the same abilities to know other plain places which you have to know these For if all Scripture be obscure how come you to know the sense of these places If some places of it be plain why should we stay here 152. And now to come to the other part of your dilemma in saying If they have certain means and so cannot Err methinks you forget your self very much and seem to make no difference between having certain means to do a thing and the actual doing of it As if you should conclude because all men have certain means of Salvation therefore all men certainly must be saved and cannot do otherwise as if whosoever had a Horse must presently get up and Ride Whosoever had means to find out a way could not neglect those means and so mistake it God be thanked that we have sufficient means to be certain enough of the truth of our Faith But the Priviledge of not being in possibility of Erring that we challenge not because we have as little reason as you to do so and you have none at all If you ask seeing we may possibly Err how can we be assured we do not I ask you again seeing your Eye-sight may deceive you how can you be sure you see the Sun when you do see it Perhaps you may be in a dream and perhaps you and all the men in the World have been so when they thought they were awake and then only awake when they thought they Dreamt But this I am sure of as sure as that God is good that he will require no impossibilities of us not an Infallible nor a certainly unerring belief unless he hath given us certain means to avoid Error and if we use those which we have will never require of us that we use that which we have not 153. Now from this mistaken ground that it is all one to have means of avoiding Error and to be in no danger nor possibility of Error You infer upon us as an absurd conclusion That we make our selves able to determine Controversies of Faith with Infallibility and Judges of Controversies For the latter part of this inference we acknowledge and embrace it We do make our selves Judges of Controversies that is we do make use of our own understanding in the choice of our Religion But this if it be
a crime is common to us with you as I have proved above and the difference is not that we are choosers and you not choosers but that we as we conceive choose wisely but you being wilfully blind choose to follow those that are so too not remembring what our Saviour hath told you when the Blind lead the Blind both shall fall into the Ditch But then again I must tell you you have done ill to confound together Judges and infallible Judges unless you will say either that we have no Judges in our Courts of Civil judicature or that they are all Infallible 154. Thus have we cast off your dilemma and broken both the Horns of it But now my retortion lies heavy upon you and will not be turned off For first you content not your selves with a moral certainty of the things you believe nor with such a degree of assurance of them as is sufficient to produce obedience to the condition of the new Covenant which is all that we require Gods Spirit if he please may Work more and certainty of adherence beyond a certainty of evidence But neither God doth nor man may require of us as our Duty to give a greater assent to the conclusion than the premises deserve to build an infallible Faith upon Motives that are only highly credible and not infallible as it were a great and heavy building upon a Foundation that hath not strength proportionable But though God require not of us such unreasonable things You do and tell men they cannot be saved unless they believe your Proposals with an infallible Faith To which end they must believe also your Propounder your Church to be simply Infallible Now how is it possible for them to give a rational assent to the Churches infallibility unless they have some infallible means to know that she is infallible Neither can they infallibly know the infallibility of this means but by some other and so on for ever unless they can dig so deep as to come at length to the Rock that is to settle all upon something evident of it self which is not so much as pretended But the last resolution of all is into Motives which indeed upon examination will scarce appear probable but are not so much as avouched to be any more than very credible For example if I ask you why you do believe Transubstantiation What can you answer but because it is a Revelation of the prime Verity I demand again how can you assure your self or me of that being ready to embrace it if it may appear to be so And what can you say but that you know it to be so because the Church says so which is Infallible If I ask what mean You by your Church You can tell me nothing but the Company of Christians which adhere to the Pope I demand then lastly Why should I believe this Company to be the Infallible Propounder of Divine Revelation And then you tell me that there are many Motives to induce a Man to this belief But are these Motives lastly infallible No say you but very credible Well let them pass for such because now we have not leisure to examine them Yet methinks seeing the Motives to believe the Churches infallibility are only very credible it should also be but as credible that your Church is Infallible and as credible and no more perhaps somewhat less that her Proposals particularly Transubstantiation are Divine Revelations And methinks You should require only a Moral and Modest assent to them and not a Divine as you call it and Infallible Faith But then of these Motives to the Churches Infallibility I hope you will give us leave to consider and judge whether they be indeed Motives and sufficient or whether they be not Motiues at all or not sufficient or whether these Motives or Inducements to your Church be not impeached and opposed with Compulsives and enforcements from it or lastly whether these Motives which You use be not indeed only Motives to Christianity and not to Popery give me leave for distinction sake to call your Religion so If we may not judge of these things how can my judgment be moved with that which comes not within its cognizance If I may then at least I am to be a Judge of all these Controversies 1. Whether every one of these Motives be indeed a Motive to any Church 2. If to some whether to Yours 3. If to Yours whether sufficient or insufficient 4. Whether other Societies have not as many and as great Motives to draw me to them 5. Whether I have not greater reason to believe you do Err than that you cannot And now Sir I pray let me trouble You with a few more Questions Am I a sufficient Judge of these Controversies or no If of these why shall I stay here why not of others Why not of all Nay doth not the true examining of these few contain and lay upon me the examination of all What other Motives to your Church have you but your Notes of it Bellarmine gives some 14. or 15. And one of these fifteen contains in it the examination of all Controversies and not only so but of all uncontroverted Doctrines For how shall I or can I know the Church of Romes conformity with the Ancient Church unless I know first what the Ancient Church did hold and then what the Church of Rome doth hold and lastly whether they be conformable or if in my judgment they seem not conformable I am then to think the Church of Rome not to be the Church for want of the Note which she pretends is proper and perpetual to it So that for ought I can see Judges we are and must be of all sides every one for himself and God for us all 155. § 26. C. M. I ask whether this Assertion Scripture alone is Judge of all Controversies in Faith be a Fundamental point of Faith or no I HIL I answer This assertion that Scripture alone is Judge of all Controversies in Faith if it be taken properly is neither a Fundamental nor Unfundamental point of Faith nor no point of Faith at all but a plain falshood It is not a Judge of Controversies but a Rule to Judge them by and that not an absolutely perfect Rule but as perfect as a written Rule can be which must always need something else which is either evidently true or evidently credible to give attestation to it and that in this case is Universal Tradition So that Universal Tradition is the Rule to judge all Controversies by But then because nothing besides Scripture comes to us with as full a stream of Tradition as Scripture Scripture alone and no unwritten Doctrine nor no Infallibility of any Church having attestation from Tradition truly Universal for this reason we conceive as the Apostles persons while they were living were the only Judges of Controversies so their Writings now they are dead are the only Rule for us to judge them by There being
nothing unwritten which can go in upon half so fair Cards for the Title of Apostolick Tradition as these things which by the confession of both Sides are not so I mean the Doctrine of the Millinaries and of the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants 156. Yet when we say the Scripture is the only Rule to Judge all Controversies by methinks you should easily conceive that we would be understood of all those that are possible to be Judged by Scripture and of those that arise among such as believe the Scripture For if I had a Controversie with an Atheist whether there were a God or no I would not say that the Scripture were a Rule to judge this by seeing that doubting whether there be a God or no he must needs doubt whether the Scripture be the Word of God or if he does not he grants the Question and is not the man we speak of So likewise if I had a Controversie about the Truth of Christ with a Jew it would be vainly done of me should I press him with the Authority of the New Testament which he believes not until out of some Principles common to us both I had persuaded him that it is the Word of God The New Testament therefore while he remains a Jew would not be a fit Rule to decide this Controversie In as much as that which is doubted of it self is not fit to determine other doubts So likewise if there were any that believed Christian Religion and yet believed not the Bible to be the Word of God though they believed the matter of it to be true which is no impossible supposition for I may believe a Book of S. Austines to contain nothing but the Truth of God and yet not to have been inspired by God himself against such men therefore there were no disputing out of the Bible because nothing in question can be a proof to it self When therefore we say the Scripture is a sufficient means to determine all Controversies we say not this either to Atheists Jews Turks or such Christians if there be any such as believe not Scripture to be the Word of God But among such men only as are already agreed upon this That the Scripture is the Word of God we say all Controversies that arise about Faith are either not at all decidable and consequently not necessary to be believed one way or other or they may be determined by Scripture In a Word That all things necessary to be believed are evidently contained in Scripture and what is not there evidently contained cannot be necessary to be believed And our reason hereof is convincing because nothing can Challenge our belief but what hath descended to us from Christ by Original and Universal Tradition Now nothing but Scripture hath thus descended to us Therefore nothing but Scripture can Challenge our belief Now then to come up closer to you and to answer to your Question not as you put it but as you should have put it I say That this position Scripture alone is the Rule whereby they which believe it to be Gods Word are to judge all Controversies in Faith is no fundamental point Though not for your Reasons For your first and strongest reason you see is plainly voided and cut off by my stating of the Question as I have done and supposing in it that the parties at variance are agreed about this That the Scripture is the Word of God and consequently that this is none of their Controversies To your second That Controversies cannot be ended without some living Authority We have said already that necessary Controversies may be and are decided And if they be not ended this is not through defect of the Rule but through the default of Men. And for these that cannot thus be ended it is not necessary they should be ended For if God did require the ending of them he would have provided some certain means for the ending of them And to your Third I say that your pretence of using these means is but hypocrital for you use them with prejudice and with a setled resolution not to believe any thing which these means happily may suggest into you if it any way cross your pre-conceived perswasion of your Churches infallibility You give not your selves liberty of judgment in the use of them nor suffer your selves to be led by them to the Truth to which they would lead you would you but be as willing to believe this consequence Our Church doth oppose Scripture therefore it doth err therefore it is not Infallible as you are resolute to believe this The Church is Infallible therefore it doth not err and therefore it doth not oppose Scripture though it seem to do so never so plainly 157. You pray but it is not that God would bring you to the true Religion but that he would confirm you in your own You confer places but it is that you may confirm or colour over with plausible disguises your erroneous doctrine not that you may judge of them and forsake them if there be reason for it You consult the Originals but you regard them not when they make against your Doctrin or Translation 159. Notwithstanding though not for these reasons yet for others I conceive this Doctrin not Fundamental Because if a man should believe Christian Religion wholly and entirely and live according to it such a man though he should not know or not believe the Scripture to be a Rule of Faith no nor to be the Word of God my opinion is he may be saved and my reason is because he performs the entire condition of the new Covenant which is that we believe the matter of the Gospel and not that it is contained in these or these Books So that the Books of Scripture are not so much the objects of our Faith as the instruments of conveying it to our understanding and not so much of the being of the Christian Doctrin as requisite to the well-being of it Iraeneus tells us as M. K. acknowledgeth of some barbarous Nations that believed the Doctrin of Christ and yet believed not the Scripture to be the Word of God for they never heard of it and Faith comes by hearing But these barbarous people might be saved therefore men might be saved without believing the Scripture to be the Word of God much more without believing it to be a Rule and a perfect Rule of Faith Neither doubt I but if the Books of Scripture had been proposed to them by the other parts of the Church where they had been before received and had been doubted of or even rejected by those barbarous Nations but still by the bare belief and practice of Christianity they might be saved God requiring of us under pain of damnation only to believe the verities therein contained and not the divine Authority of the Books wherein they are contained Not but that it were now very strange and unreasonable if a man should believe the matter of these
Books and not the Authority of the Books and therefore if a man should profess the not believing of these I should have reason to fear he did not believe that But there is not always an equal necessity for the belief of those things for the belief whereof there is an equal reason We have I believe as great reason to believe there was such a man as Henry the VIII King of England as that Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate yet this is necessary to be believed and that is not so So that if any man should doubt of or disbelieve that it were most unreasonably done of him yet it were no mortal sin nor no sin at all God having no where commanded men under pain of damnation to believe all which reason induceth them to believe Therefore as an Executor that should perform the whole Will of the dead should fully satisfie the Law though he did not believe that Parchment to be his written Will which indeed is so So I believe that he who believes all the particular doctrines which integrate Christianity and lives according to them should be saved though he neither believed nor knew that the Gospels were written by the Evangelists or the Epistles by the Apostles 160. This discourse whether it be rational and concluding or no I submit to better judgment But sure I am that the corollary which you draw from this position that this point is not Fundamental is very inconsequent that is that we are uncertain of the truth of it because we say the whole Church much more particular Churches and private men may err in points not Fundamental A pretty Sophism depending upon this Principle that whosoever possibly may err he cannot be certain that he doth not err And upon this ground what shall hinder me from concluding that seeing you also hold that neither particular Churches nor private men are Infallible even in Fundamentals that even the Fundamentals of Christianity remain to you uncertain A Judge may possibly err in judgment can he therefore never have assurance that he hath judged right A Traveller may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtful whether I am in the right way from my Hall to my Chamber Or can our London Carrier have 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 they are as like your own as an Egg to an Egg or Milk to Milk 163. Ad § 27. C. M. S. Austin plainly affirms that to oppose the Churches definitions is to resist God himself speaking of the Controversie of Rebaptization de Unit. Eccl. cap. 22. where he saith that Christ bears witness to his Church and whosoever refuseth to follow the practice of the Church doth resist our Saviour himself who by his testimony recommends the Church c. I HIL I Answer First that in many things you will not be tried by S. Augustines judgment nor submit to his authority not concerning Appeals to Rome not concerning Transubstantiation not touching the use and worshiping of Images not concerning the State of Saints souls before the day of judgment not touching the Virgin Maries freedom from actual and original sin not touching the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants not touching the damning Infants to Hell that die without Baptism not touching the knowledge of Saints departed not touching Purgatory not touching the fallibility of Councils even general Councils not touching perfection and perspicuity of Scripture in matters necessary to Salvation not touching Auricular Confession not touching the half Communion not touching Prayers in an unknown tongue In these things I say you will not stand to S. Austines judgment and therefore can with no reason or equity require us to do so in this matter 2. To S. Augustine in heat of disputation against the Donatists and ransacking all places for arguments against them we oppose S. Austine out of this heat delivering the doctrine of Christianity calmly and moderately where he says In iis quae apertè posita sunt in sacris Scriptur is omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent fidem moresque vivendi 3. We say he speaks not of the Roman but the Catholick Church of far greater extent and therefore of far greater credit and authority than the Roman Church 4 He speaks of a point not expressed but yet not contradicted by Scripture whereas the errors we charge you with are contradicted by Scripture 5. He says not that Christ has recommended the Church to us for an Infallible definer of all emergent controversies but for a credible witness of Ancient Tradition Whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practice of the Church understand of all places and ages though he be thought to resist our Saviour what is that to us who cast off no practiecs of the Church but such as are evidently post-nate to the time of the Apostles and plainly contrary to the practice of former and purer times Lastly it is evident and even to impudence it self undeniable that upon this ground of believing all things taught by the present Church as taught by Christ Error was held for example the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants and that in S. Austines time and that by S. Austine himself and therefore without controversie this is no certain ground for truth which may support falshood as well as truth 164. To the Argument wherewith you conclude I Answer That though the visible Church shall always without fail propose so much of Gods revelation as is sufficient to bring men to Heaven for otherwise it will not be the visible Church yet it may sometimes add to this revelation things superfluous nay hurtful nay in themselves damnable though not unpardonable and sometimes take from it things very expedient and profitable and therefore it is possible without sin to resist in some things the Visible Church of Christ But you press us farther and demand what Visible Church was extant when Luther began whether it were the Roman or Protestant Church As if it must of necessity either be Protestant or Roman or Roman of necessity if it were not Protestant yet this is the most usual fallacy of all your disputers by some specious Arguments to perswade weak men that the Church of Protestants cannot be the true Church and thence to infer that without doubt it must be the Roman But why may not the Roman be content to be a part of it and the Grecian another And if one must be the whole why not the Greek Church as well as the Roman there being not one Note of your Church which agrees not to her as well as to your own unless it be that she is poor and oppressed by the Turk and you are in glory and splendor CHAP. III. The ANSWER to the Third CHAPTER Wherein it is maintained That the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental is in this present Controversie
is a shrewd sign of a sinking cause 30. Ad § 13. We are told here That the general promises of Infallibility to the Church must not be restrained only to points fundamental Because then the Apostles words and writings may also be so restrained Ans This also may be done but if it be done may easily be confuted It is done to our hand in this very Paragraph by five words taken out of Scripture All Scripture is divinely inspired Shew but as much for the Church Shew where it is written That all the decrees of the Church are divinely inspired and the Controversie will be at an end Besides there is not the same reason for the Churches absolute Infallibility as for the Apostles and Scriptures For if the Church fall into error it may be reformed by comparing it with the rule of the Apostles doctrine and Scripture But if the Apostles have erred in delivering the doctrine of Christianity to whom shall we have recourse for the discovering and correcting their error Again there is not so much strength required in the Edifice as in the Foundation and if but wise men have the ordering of the building they will make it much a surer thing that the foundation shall not fail the building than that the building shall not fall from the foundation And though the building be to be of Brick or Stone and perhaps of Wood yet if it may be possibly they will have a Rock for their foundation whose stability is a much more indubitable thing than the adherence of the structure to it Now the Apostles and Prophets and Canonical Writers are the foundation of the Church according to that of S. Paul built upon the foundation of Apostles and Prophets therefore their stability in reason ought to be greater than the Churches which is built upon them Again a dependent Infallibility especially if the dependence be voluntary cannot be so certain as that on which it depends But the Infallibility of the Church depends upon the Infallibility of the Apostles and the streightness of the thing regulated upon the streightness of the Rule and besides this dependence is voluntary for it is in the power of the Church to deviate from this Rule being nothing else but an aggregation of men of which every one has free will and is subject to passions and error Therefore the Churehes infallibility is not so certain as that of the Apostles 31. Lastly Quid verba audiam cum facta videam If you be so infallible as the Apostles were shew it as the Apostles did They went forth saith S. Mark and Preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming their words with Signs following It is impossible that God should lie and that the eternal Truth should set his hand and seal to the confirmation of a falshood or of such Doctrin as is partly true and partly false The Apostles Doctrin was thus confirmed therefore it was intirely true and in no part either false or uncertain I say in no part of that which they delivered constantly as a certain divine Truth and which had the Attestation of Divine Miracles For that the Apostles themselves even after the sending of the Holy Ghost were and through inadvertence or prejudice continued for a time in an error repugnant to a revealed Truth it is as I have already noted unanswerably evident from the story of the Acts of the Apostles For notwithstanding our Saviours express warrant and injunction to go and preach to all Nations yet until S. Peter was better informed by a vision from Heaven and by the conversion of Cornelius both he and the rest of the Church held it unlawful for them to go or preach the Gospel to any but the Jews 32. And for those things which they profess to deliver as the dictates of human reason and prudence and not as divine Revelations why we should take them to be divine revelations I see no reason nor how we can do so and not contradict the Apostles and God himself Therefore when S. Paul says in the first Epistle to the Corinth 7.12 To the rest speak I not the Lord And again concerning Virgins I have no commandment of the Lord but I deliver my Judgment If we will pretend that the Lord did certainly speak what S. Paul spake and that his judgment was Gods commandment shall we not plainly contradict S. Paul and that spirit by which he wrote which moved him to Write as in other places divine Revelations which he certainly knew to be such so in this place his own judgment touching some things which God had not particularly revealed unto him 34. Obj. But if the Apostles were Infallible in all things proposed by them as divine Truths the like must be affirmed of the Church because Protestants teach the promise of leading into all Truth to be verified in the Church Ans It 's true that to the Apostles the promise was made and to them only yet the words are true also of the Church But they agree to the Apostles in a higher to the Church in a lower sense to the Apostles in more absolute to the Church in a more limited sense To the Apostles absolutely for the Churches direction to the Church Conditionally by adherence to that direction and so far as she doth adhere to it In a word the Apostles were led into all Truths by the Spirit efficaciter The Church is led also into all Truth by the Apostles writings sufficienter So that the Apostles and the Church may be fitly compared to the Star and the Wisemen The Star was directed by the finger of God and could not but go right to the place where Christ was But the Wisemen were led by the Star to Christ led by it I say not efficaciter or irresistibiliter but sufficienter so that if they would they might follow it if they would not they might choose So was it between the Apostles writing Scriptures and the Church They in their writing were infallibly assisted to propose nothing as a divine Truth but what was so The Church is also led into all Truth but it is by the intervening of the Apostles writings But it is as the Wisemen were led by the Star or as a Traveller is directed by a Mercurial Statue or as a Pilot by his Card and Compass led sufficiently but not irresistibly led so that she may follow not so that she must For seeing the Church is a society of men whereof every one according to the Doctrine of the Romish Church hath free-will in believing it follows that the whole aggregate has free-will in believing And if any man say that at least it is morally impossible that of so many whereof all may believe aright not any should do so I answer It is true if they did all give themselves any liberty of judgment But if all as the case is here captivate their understandings to one of them all are as likely to err as that one
they profess it literally always to be obeyed unless some impiety or some absurdity force us to the contrary and they are not yet arrived to that impudence to pretend that either there is impiety or absurdity in receiving the Communion in both kinds This therefore they if not others are plainly taught by our Saviour in this place But by S. Paul all without exception when he says Let a man examine himself and so let him Eat of this Bread and Drink of this Chalice This a Man that is to examine himself is every man that can do it as is confessed on all hands And therefore it is all one as if he had said let every man examine himself and so let him Eat of this Bread and Drink of this Cup. They which acknowledg Saint Pauls Epistes and Saint Johns Gospel to be the Word of God one would think should not deny but that they are taught these two Doctrines plain enough Yet we see they neither do nor will learn them I conclude therefore that the Spirit may very well teach the Church and yet the Church fall into and continue in Error by not regarding what she is taught by the Spirit 72. But all this I have spoken upon a supposition only and shewed unto you that though these promises had been made unto the present Church of every Age I might have said though they had been to the Church of Rome by name yet no certainty of her Universal Infallibility could be built upon them But the plain truth is that these Promises are vainly arrogated by you and were never made to you but to the Apostles only I pray deal ingenuously and tell me who were they of whom our Saviour says These things have I spoken unto you being present with you c. 14.25 But the comforter shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have told you v. 26 Who are they to whom he says I go away and come again unto you and I have told you before it come to pass v. 28.29 You have been with me from the beginning c. 15. v. 27 And again these things I have told you that when the time shall come you may remember that I told you of them and these things I said not to you at the beginning because I was with you c. 16.4 And because I said these things unto you sorrow hath filled your Hearts v. 6 Lastly who are they of whom he saith v. 12. I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now Do not all these circumstances appropriate this whole discourse of our Saviour to his Disciples that were then with him and consequently restrain the Promises of the Spirit of truth which was to lead them into all truth to their Persons only And seeing it is so is it not an impertinent arrogance and presumption for you to lay claim unto them in the behalf of your Church Had Christ been present with your Church Did the Comforter bring these things to the Remembrance of your Church which Christ had before taught and she had forgotten Was Christ then departing from your Church And did he tell of his departure before it came to pass Was your Church with him from the beginning Was your Church filled with sorrow upon the mentioning of Christs departure Or lastly did he or could he have said to your Church which then was not extant I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now as he speaks in the 13. vers immediately before the words by you quoted And then goes on Howbeit when the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all Truth Is it not the same You he speaks to in the 13. vers and that he speaks to in the 14 And is it not apparent to any one that has but half an Eye that in the 13. he speaks only to them that then were with him Besides in the very Text by you alledged there are things promised which your Church cannot with any modesty pretend to For there it is said the Spirit of Truth not only will guide you into all Truth but also will shew you things to come Now your Church for ought I could ever understand does not so much as pretend to the Spirit of Prophesie and knowledge of future events And therefore hath as little cause to pretend to the former promise of being led by the Spirit into all truth And this is the Reason why both You in this place and generally your writers of Controversies when they entreat of this Argument cite this Text perpetually by halfs there being in the latter part of it a clear and convincing Demonstration that you have nothing to do with the former Unless you will say which which is most ridiculous that when our Saviour said He will teach you c. and he will shew you c. He meant one You in the former clause and another You in the latter 73. Obj. But this is to confine Gods Spirit to the Apostles only or to the Disciples that then were present with him which is directly contrary to many places of Scripture Ans I confess that to confine the Spirit of God to those that were then present with Christ is against Scripture But I hope it is easie to conceive a difference between confining the Spirit of God to them and confining the Promises made in this place to them God may do many things which he does not Promise at all much more which he does not promise in such or such a place 74. Obj. But it is promised in the 14. Chap. that this Spirit shall abide with them for ever Now they in their persons were not to abide for ever and therefore the Spirit could not abide with them in their Persons for ever seeing the coexistence of two things supposes of necessity the existence of either Therefore the promise was not made to them only in their Persons but by them to the Church which was to abide for ever Ans Your Conclusion is not to them only but your Reason concludes either nothing at all or that this Promise of abiding with them for ever was not made to their Persons at all or if it were that it was not performed Or if you will not say as I hope you will not that it was not performed nor that it was not made to their Persons at all then must you grant that the Word for ever is here used in a sense restrained and accommodated to the subject here entreated of and that it signifies not Eternally without end of time but perpetually without interruption for the time of their lives So that the force and sense of the Words is that they should never want the Spirits assistance in the performance of their function And that the Spirit would not as Chirst was to do stay with them for a time and afterwards leave them but would abide with them if they kept their
43. is as great and as good a Truth and as necessary for these miserable times as can possibly be uttered For this is most certain and I believe you will easily grant it that to reduce Christians to Unity of Communion there are but two ways that may be conceived probable The one by taking away diversity of opinions touching matters of Religion The other by shewing that the diversity of Opinions which is among the several Sects of Christians ought to be no hindrance to their Unity in Communion 40. Now the former of these is not to be hoped for without a miracle unless that could be done which is impossible to be performed though it be often pretended that is unless it could be made evident to all men that God hath appointed some visible Judge of Controversies to whose judgment all men are to submit themselves What then remains but that the other way must be taken and Christians must be taught to set a higher value upon these high points of Faith and obedience wherein they agree than upon these matters of less moment wherein they differ and understand that agreement in those ought to be more effectual to joyn them in one Communion than their difference in other things of less moment to divide them When I say in one Communion I mean in a common Profession of those articles of Faith wherein all consent A joynt worship of God after such a way as all esteem lawful and a mutual performance of all those works of Charity which Christians owe one to another And to such a Communion what better inducement could be thought of than to demonstrate that what was Universally believed of all Christians if it were joyned with a love of truth and with holy obedience was sufficient to bring men to Heaven For why should men be more rigid than God Why should any Error exclude any man from the Churches Communion which will not deprive him of Eternal Salvation Now that Christians do generally agree in all those points of Doctrine which are necessary to Salvation it is apparent because they agree with one accord in believing all those Books of the Old and New Testament which in the Church were never doubted of to be the undoubted Word of God And it is so certain that in all these Books all necessary Doctrines are evidently contained that of all the four Evangelists this is very probable but of S. Luke most apparent that in every one of their Books they have comprehended the whole substance of the Gospel of Christ For what reason can be imagined that any of them should leave out any thing which he knew to be necessary and yet as apparently all of them have done put in many things which they knew to be only profitable and not necessary What wise and honest man that were now to write the Gospel of Christ would do so great a work of God after such a negligent fashion Suppose Xaverius had been to write the Gospel of Christ for the Indians think you he would have left out any Fundamental Doctrine of it If not I must beseech you to conceive as well of S. Matthew and S. Mark and S. Luke and S. John as you do of Xaverius Besides if every one of them have not in them all necessary Doctrines how have they complied with their own design which was as the Titles of their Books shew to write the Gospel of Christ and not a part of it Or how have they not deceived us in giving them such Titles By the whole Gospel of Christ I understand not the whole History of Christ but all that makes up the Covenant between God and Man Now if this be wholly contained in the Gospel of Saint Mark and Saint John I believe every considering man will be inclinable to believe that then without doubt it is contained with the advantage of many other very profitable things in the larger Gospels of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke And that Saint Marks Gospel wants no necessary Article of this Covenant I presume you will not deny if you believe Irenaeus when he says Matthew to the Hebrews in their Tongue published the Scripture of the Gospel When Peter and Paul did Preach the Gospel and found the Church or a Church at Rome or of Rome and after their departure Mark the Scholar of Peter delivered to us in writing those things which had been Preached by Peter and Luke the follower of Paul compiled in a Book the Gospel which was Preached by him And afterwards John residing in Asia in the City of Ephseus did himself also set forth a Gospel 41. In which words of Irenaeus it is remarkable that they are spoken by him against some Hereticks Lib. 3. c. 2. that pretended as you know who do now adaies that some necessary Doctrines of the Gospel were unwritten and that out of the Scriptures truth he must mean sufficient truth cannot be found by those which know not Tradition Against whom to say that part of the Gospel which was Preached by S Peter was written by S Mark and so other necessary parts of it omitted had been to speak impertinently and rather to confirm than confute their Error It is plain therefore that he must mean as I pretend that all the necessary Doctrine of the Gospel which was Preached by Saint Peter was written by Saint Mark. Now you will not deny I presume that Saint Peter Preached all therefore you must not deny that S. Mark wrote all 42. Our next inquiry let it be touching S. Johns intent in writing his Gospel whether it were to deliver so much truth as being believed and obeyed would certainly bring men to Eternal Life or only part of it and to leave part unwritten A great man there is but much less than the Apostle who saith that writing last he purposed to supply the defects of the other Evangelists that had wrote before him which if it were true would sufficiently justifie what I have undertaken that at least all the four Evangelists have in them all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ Neither will I deny but S. Johns secondary intent might be to supply the defects of the former three Gospels in some things very profitable But he that pretends that any necessary Doctrine is in S. John which is in none of the other Evangelists hath not so well considered them as he should do before he pronounce sentence of so weighty a matter And for his prime intent in writing his Gospel what that was certainly no Father in the World understood it better than himself Therefore let us hear him speak Many other signs saith he also did Jesus in the sight of his Disciples which are not written in this Book But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is Christ the Son of God and that believing you may have Life in his name By these are written may be understood either these things are written or these signs are written
Infallibility upon what other motive do you rely Do not you cite Scripture or Tradition or both on both sides And do you not pretend that both these are the infallible Truths of Almighty God 51. You close up this Section with a fallacy proving forsooth that we destroy by our confession the Church which is the House of God because we stand only upon Fundamental Articles which cannot make up the whole Fabrick of the Faith no more than the Foundation of a House alone can be a House 52. But I hope Sir you will not be difficult in granting that that is a House which hath all the necessary parts belonging to a House now by Fundamental Articles we mean all those which are necessary and then I hope you will grant that we may safely expect Salvation in a Church which hath all things Fundamental to Salvation Unless you will say that more is necessary than that which is necessary 53. Ad § 19. This long discourse is to shew that Protestants give unavoidable occasion of desperation to poor Souls and brings in a Man desirous to save his Soul asking Questions of D. P. and makes answers for him As first if he required whose directions he might rely upon He says the Doctor 's Answer would be upon the truly Catholick Church But I suppose upon better reason because I know his mind that he would advise him to call no man Master upon Earth but according to Christs command to rely upon the direction of God himself If he ask where he should find this direction he would answer him In his Word contained in Scripture If he should inquire what assurance he might have that the Scripture is the Word of God He would answer him that the Doctrine it self is very fit and worthy to be thought to come from God nec vox hominem sonat and that they which wrote and delivered it confirmed it to be the Word of God by doing such works as could not be done but by Power from God himself For assurance of the Truth hereof he would advise him to rely upon that which all Wise Men in all matters of belief rely upon and that is the consent of Ancient records and Universal Tradition No Wise Man doubts but there was such a man as Julius Caesar or Cicero that there are such Cities as Rome or Constantinople though he have no other assurance for the one or the other but only the speech of People This Tradition therefore he would counsel him to rely upon and to believe that the Book which we call Scripture was confirmed abundantly by the Works of God to be the Word of God Believing it the Word of God he must of necessity believe it true and if he believe it true he must believe it contains all necessary directions unto Eternal Happiness because it affirms it self to do so Nay he might tell him that so far is the whole Book from wanting any necessary direction to his Eternal Salvation that one only Author that hath writ but two little Books of it Saint Luke by name in the beginning of his Gospel and in the beginning of his Story shews plainly that he alone hath written at least so much as is necessary And what they wrote they wrote by Gods direction for the direction fo the World not only for the Learned but for all that would do their true endeavour to know the will of God and to do it therefore you cannot but conceive that writing to all and for all they wrote so as that in things necessary they might be understood by all Besides that here he should find that God himself has engaged himself by promise that if he would love him and keep his Commandments and pray earnestly for his Spirit and be willing to be directed by it he should undoubtedly receive it even the Spirit of Truth which shall lead him into all Truth that is certainly into all necessary Truths and suffer him to fall into no pernitious Error The sum of his whole direction to him briefly would be this Believe the Scripture to be the Word of God use your true endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it and then you may rest securely that you are in the true way to Eternal Happiness This is the substance of that Answer which the Doctor would make to any man in this case and this is a way so plain that Fools unless they will cannot Err from it Because not knowing absolutely all truth nay not all profitable truth and not being free from Error but endeavouring to know the truth and obey it and endeavouring to be free from Error is by this way made the only condition of Salvation 56. Neither is this to drive any man to desparation unless it be such a one as hath such a strong affection to this word Church that he will not go to Heaven unless he hath a Church to lead him thither For what though a Council may Err and the whole Church cannot be consulted with yet this is not to send you on the Fools Pilgrimage for Faith and bid you go and confer with every Christian Soul Man and Woman by Sea and 〈◊〉 Land close Prisoner or at Liberty as you dilate the ma◠〈◊〉 But to tell you very briefly that Universal Tradition directs you to the Word of God and the Word of God directs you to Heaven 57. To the next demand How stall I know whether he hold all Fundamental points or no When Protestants answer If he truly believe the undoubted Books of Canonical Scripture he cannot but believe all Fundamentals and that it is very probable that the Creed contains all the Fundamentals of simple belief The Jesuite takes no notice of the former but takes occasion from the latter to ask Shall I hazard my Soul on Probabilities or even Wagers As if whatsoever is but probable though in the highest degree of Probability were as likely to be false as true or because it is but Morally not Mathematically certain that there was such a Woman as Q. Elizabeth such a man as Hen. the 8th that is in the highest degree probable therefore it were an even Wager there were none such By this Reason seeing the truth of your whole Religion depends finally upon Prudential motives which you do but pretend to be very credible it will be an even Wager that your Religion is false And by the same Reason or rather infinitely greater seeing it is impossible for any man according to the grounds of your Religion to know himself much less another to be a true Pope or a true Priest nay to have a Moral certainty of it because these things are obnoxious to innumerable secret and undiscernable nullities it will be an even Wager nay if we proportion things indifferently a hundred to one that every Consecration and Absolution of yours is void and that whensoever you adore the Host you and your Assistants commit Idolatry That there is a
others I hope had Chairs besides S. Peter and therefore he is a Schismatick who against that one single Chair erects another viz. in that place making another Bishop of that Diocess besides him who was lawfully elected to it 100. Obj. But he stiles S. Peter Head of the Apostles and says that from thence he was called Cephas Answ Perhaps he was abused into this opinion by thinking Cephas derived from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a head whereas it is a Syriack word and signifies a Stone Besides S. Peter might be head of the Apostles that is first in order and honour among them and not have supream Authority over them And indeed that S. Peter should have authority over all the Apostles and yet exercise no one Act of Authority over any one of them and that they should shew to him no sign of subjection methinks is as strange as that a King of England for twenty five years should do no Act of Regality nor receive any one acknowledgment of it As strange methinks it is that you so many Ages after should know this so certainly as you pretend to do and that the Apostles after that those words were spoken in their hearing by vertue whereof S. Peter is pretended to have been made their Head should still be so ignorant of it as to question which of them should be the greatest yet more strange that our Saviour should not bring them out of their Error by telling them S. Peter was the man but rather confirm it by saying the Kings of the Gentiles exercise authority over them but it should not be so among them No less a wonder was it that S. Paul should so far forget S. Peter and himself as that first mentioning him often he should do it without any Title of Honour Secondly speaking of the several degrees of men in the Church he should not give S. Peter the highest but place him in equipage with the rest of the Apostles and say God hath appointed not first Peter then the rest of the Apostles but first Apostles secondly Prophets Certainly if the Apostles were all first to me it is very probable that no one of them was before the rest For by First all men understand either that which is before all or that before which is nothing Now in the former sense the Apostles could not be all first for then every one of them must have been before every one of the rest And therefore they must be First in the other sense And therefore No man and therefore not S. Peter must be before any of them Thirdly and Lastly that speaking of himself in particular and perhaps comparing himself with S. Peter in particular rather than any other he should say in plain terms I am in nothing inferior to the very Chiefest Apostles But besides all this though we should grant against all these probabilities and many more that Optatus meant that S. Peter was head of the Apostles not in our but in your sense and that S. Peter indeed was so yet still you are very far from shewing that in the judgment of Optatus the Bishop of Rome was to be at all much less by Divine right successor to S. Peter in this his Headship and Authority For what incongruity is there if we say that he might succeed S. Peter in that part of his care the Government of that particular Church as sure he did even while S. Peter was living and yet that neither he nor any man was to succeed him in his Apostleship nor in his Government of the Church Universal Especially seeing S. Peter and the rest of the Apostles by laying the Foundations of the Church were to be the Foundations of it and accordingly are so called in Scripture And therefore as in a building it is incongruous that Foundations should succeed Foundations So it may be in the Church that any other Apostle should succeed the first 101. Ad § 37. Obj. What you here cite out of S. Austin if it be applied to Luther's Separation is impertinent For it is one thing to separate from the Communion of the whole World another to separate from all the Communions in the World One thing to divide from them who are United among themselves another to divide from them who are divided among themselves Now the Donatists separated from the whole World of Christians United in one Communion professing the same Faith serving God after the same manner which was a very great Argument that they could not have just cause to leave them according to that of Tertullian Variasse debuerat error Ecclesiarum quod autem apud multos unum est non est Erratum sed Traditum But Luther and his followers did not so The World I mean of Christians and Catholicks was divided and subdivided long before he divided from it and by their divisions had much weakened their own Authority and taken away from you this Plea of S. Austin which stands upon no other Foundation but the Unity of the whole Worlds Communion 102. Ad § 38. Obj. If Luther were in the right most certain those Protestants that differed from him were in the wrong Answ But that either he or they were Schismaticks it follows not Or if it does then either the Jesuits are Schismaticks from the Dominicans or they from the Jesuites The Canonists from the Jesuits or the Jesuits from the Canonists The Scotists from the Thomists or they from the Scotists The Franciscans from the Dominicans or the Dominicans from the Franciscans For between all these the World knows that in point of Doctrine there is plain and irreconcileable contradiction and therefore one Part must be in Error at least not Fundamental Thus your Argument returns upon your self and if it be good proves the Roman Church in a manner to be made up of Schismaticks But the answer to it is that it begs this very false and vain supposition That whosoever Errs in any point of Doctrine is a Schismatick 103. Ad § 39. In the next place you number up your Victories and tell us that out of these premises this conclusion follows That Luther and his followers were Schismaticks from the Visible Church the Pope the Diocess wherein they were baptized from the Bishop under whom they lived from the Country to which they belonged from their Religious order wherein they were professed from one another and lastly from a mans self Because the self same Protestant is convicted to day that his yesterdays opinion was an Error To which I answer that Luther and his followers separated from many of these in some opinions and practices But that they did it without cause which only can make them Schismaticks that was the only thing you should have proved and to that you have not urged one reason of any moment All of them for weight and strength were cousin-germans to this pretty device wherewith you will prove them Schismaticks from themselves because the self same Protestant to
will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to do what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should do so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himself nor any Body else would esteem the person Bishop upon the Kings designation Whether many Popes though they were not Consecrated Bishops by any temporal Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopal function in this or that place And whether the Emperors had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants do indeed pretend that their Reformation is Universal Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you do not forget your self and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of Divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of Government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of Divine institution be Schismatical and Heretical for thinking so Whether your form of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essential to the constitution of a true Church Whether the forms of the Church of England differ essentially from your forms Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other mans Lastly whether any one kind of these external Forms and Orders and Government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may not be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives whatsoever it be All these Questions will be necessary to be discussed for the clearing of the truth of the Minor proposition of your former Syllogism and your proofs of it and I will promise to debate them fairly with you if first you will bring some better proof of the Major That want of Succession is a certain note of Heresie which for the present remains both unproved and unprobable 40. Obj. You say The Fathers assign Succession as one mark of the true Church Answ I confess they did urge Tradition as an Argument of the Truth of their Doctrine and of the falshood of the contrary and thus far they agree with you But now see the difference They urged it not against all Hereticks that ever should be but against them who rejected a great part of the Scripture for no other reason but because it was repugnant to their Doctrine and corrupted other parts with their additions and detractions and perverted the remainder with divers absurd interpretations So Tertullian not a leaf before the words by you cited Nay they urged it against them who when they were confuted out of Scripture fell to accuse the Scriptures themselves as if they were not right and came not from good authority as if they were various one from another and as if truth could not be found out of them by those who know not Tradition for that it was not delivered in writing they did mean wholly but by word of mouth And that thereupon Paul also said we speak wisdom amongst the perfect So Irenaeus in the very next Chapter before that which you alledge Against these men being thus necessitated to do so they did urge Tradition but what or whose Tradition was it Certainly no other but the joynt Tradition of all the Apostolick Churches with one Mouth and one Voice teaching the same Doctrine Or if for brevity sake they produce the Tradition of any one Church yet is it apparent that that one was then in conjunction with all the rest Irenaeus Tertullian Origen testifie as much in the words cited and S. Austin in the place before alledged by me This Tradition they did urge against these men and in a time in comparison of ours almost contiguous to the Apostles So near that one them Irenaeus was Scholar to one who was Scholar to S. John the Apostle Tertullian and Origen were not an Age removed from him and the last of them all little more than an Age from them Yet after all this they urged it not as a demonstration but only as a very probable argument far greater than any their Adversaries could oppose against it So Tertullian in the place above quoted § 5. How is it likely that so many and so great Churches should Err in one Faith it should be should have Erred into one Faith And this was the condition of this Argument as the Fathers urged it Now if you having to deal with us who question no Book of Scripture which was not Anciently questioned by some whom you your selves esteem good Catholicks nay who refuse not to be tried by your own Canons your own Translations who in interpreting Scriptures are content to allow of all those rules which you propose only except that we will not allow you to be our Judges if you will come fifteen hundred years after the Apostles a fair time for the purest Church to gather much dross and corruptions and for the mystery af iniquity to bring its work to some perfection which in the Apostles time began to work If I say you will come thus long after and urge us with the single Tradition of one of these Churches being now Catholick to it self alone and Heretical to all the rest nay not only with her Ancient Original Traditions but also with her post-nate and introduced Definitions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and Ancient Tradition and all this to decline an indifferent Trial by Scripture under pretence wherein also you agree with the calumny of the Old Hereticks that all necessary truth cannot be found in them without recourse to Tradition If I say notwithstanding all these differences you will still be urging us with this argument as the very same and of the same force with that wherewith the fore-mentioned Fathers urged the Old Hereticks certainly this must needs proceed from a confidence you have not only that we have no School-Divinity nor Metaphysicks but no Logick or common sense that we are but Pictures of men and have the definition of rational creatures given us in vain 41. But now suppose I should be liberal to you and grant what you cannot prove that the Fathers make Succession a certain and perpetual mark of the true Church I beseech you what will come of it What that want of Succession is a certain sign of an Heretical company Truly
Council of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelburg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherein they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect rule of their Faith and Actions that is The Bible The Bible I say The Bible only is the Religion of Protestants Whatsoever else they believe besides it and the plain irrefragable indubitable consequences of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves nor require the belief of it of others without most high and most Schismatical presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe and hope impartial search of the true way to Eternal Happiness do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my Foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councils against Councils some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one Age against a Consent of Fathers of another Age the Church of one Age against the Church of another Age. Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended but there are few or none to be found No Tradition but only of Scripture can derive it self from the Fountain but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in in such an Age after Christ or that in such an Age it was not in In a word there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to build upon This therefore and this only I have reason to believe This I will profess according to this I will live and for this if there be occasion I will not only willingly but even gladly lose my life though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me Propose me any thing out of this Book and require whether I believe it or no and seem it never so incomprehensible to humane reason I will subscribe it with Hand and Heart as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this God hath said so therefore it is true In other things I will take no mans liberty of judgment from him neither shall any man take mine from me I will think no man the worse man nor the worse Christian I will love no man the less for differing in opinion from me And what measure I mete to others I expect from them again I am fully assured that God does not and therefore that men ought not to require any more of any man than this To believe the Scripture to be Gods word to endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it 57. This is the Religion which I have chosen after a long deliberation and I am verily persuaded that I have chosen wisely much more wisely than if I had guided my self according to your Churches authority For the Scripture being all true I am secured by believing nothing else that I shall believe no falshood as matter of Faith And if I mistake the sense of Scripture and so fall into Error yet am I secure from any danger thereby if but your grounds be true because endeavouring to find the true sense of Scripture I cannot but hold my Error without pertinacy and be ready to forsake it when a more true and a more probable sense shall appear unto me And then all necessary truth being as I have proved plainly set down in Scripture I am certain by believing Scripture to believe all necessary Truth And he that does so if his life be answerable to his Faith how is it possible he should fail of Salvation 58. Besides whatsoever may be pretended to gain to your Church the credit of a Guide all that and much more may be said for the Scripture Hath your Church been Ancient The Scripture is more Ancient Is your Church a means to keep men at Unity So is the Scripture to keep those that believe it and will obey it in Unity of belief in matters necessary or very profitable and in Unity of Charity in points unnecessary Is your Church Universal for time or place Certainly the Scripture is more Universal For all the Christians in the World those I mean that in truth deserve this name do now and always have believed the Scripture to be the Word of God whereas only you say that you only are the Church of God and all Christians besides you deny it 59. Thirdly following the Scripture I follow that whereby you prove your Churches infallibility whereof were it not for Scripture what pretence could you have or what notion could we have and by so doing tacitely confess that your selves are surer of the Truth of the Scripture than of your Churches authority For we must be surer of the proof than of the thing proved otherwise it is no proof 60. Fourthly following the Scripture I follow that which must be true if your Church be true for your Church gives attestation to it Whereas if I follow your Church I must follow that which though Scripture be true may be false nay which if Scripture be true must be false because the Scripture testifies against it 61. Fifthly to follow the Scripture I have Gods express warrant and command and no colour of any prohibition But to believe your Church infallible I have no command at all much less an express command Nay I have reason to fear that I am prohibited to do so in these Words call no man Master on Earth They fell by infidelity Thou standest by Faith Be not high minded but fear The Spirit of truth The World cannot receive 62. Following your Church I must hold many things not only above reason but against it if any thing be against it whereas following the Scripture I shall believe many mysteries but no impossibilities many things above reason but nothing against it many things which had they not been revealed reason could never have discovered but nothing which by true reason may be confuted many things which reason cannot comprehend how they can be but nothing which reason can comprehend that it cannot be Nay I shall believe nothing which reason will not convince that I ought to believe it For reason will convince any man unless he be of a perverse mind that the Scripture is the Word of God And then no reason can be greater than this God says so therefore it is true 63. Following your Church I must hold many things which to any mans judgment that will give himself the liberty of judgment will seem much more plainly contradicted by Scripture than the infallibility of your Church appears to be confirmed by it and consequently must be so
Argument drawn from Communicating of Infants as without which they could not be saved against the Churches Infallibility p. 68. V. An Argument against Infallibility drawn from the Doctrin of the Millenaries p. 80. VI. A Letter relating to the same subject p. 89. VII An Argument against the Roman Churches Infallibility taken from the Contradictions in their Doctrin of Transubstantiation p. 91. VIII An account of what moved the Author to turn a Papist with his Confutation of the Arguments that perswaded him thereto p. 94. IX A Discourse concerning Tradition p. 103. The Reader is desired to take notice of a great mistake of the Printer and to Correct it That he has made this the running Title over most of the Additional Pieces viz. A Conference betwixt Mr. Chillingworth and Mr. Lewgar which should only have been set over the first there are also some literal mistakes as pag. 65. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 twice for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such like not to be imputed to the Author A CONFERENCE BETWIXT Mr. CHILLINGWORTH AND Mr. LEWGAR Thesis THE Church of Rome taken diffusively for all Christians communicating with the Bishop of Rome was the Judge of Controversies at that time when the Church of England made an alteration in her Tenents Argu. She was the Judge of Controversies at that time which had an Authority of deciding them But the Church of Rome at that time had the Authority of deciding them Ergo. Answ A limited Authority to decide Controversies according to the Rule of Scripture and Universal Tradition and to oblige her own Members so long as she evidently contradicted not that Rule to obedience I grant she had but an unlimited an infallible Authority or such as could not but proceed according to that Rule and such as should bind all the Churches in the World to Obedience as the Greek Church I say she had not Quest When your Church hath decided a Controversie I desire to know whether any particular Church or person hath Authority to reexamine her decision whether she hath observed her Rule or no and free himself from the obedience of it by his or her particular judgment Answ If you understand by your Church the Church Catholick probably I should answer no but if you understand by your Church that only which is in Subordination to the See of Rome or if you understand a Council of this Church I answer yea Arg. That was the Catholick Church which did abide in the Root of Apostolick Unity But the Church of Rome at that time was the only Church that did abide in the Root of Apostolick Unity Ergo. Quest What mean you by Apostolick Unity Answ I mean the Unity of that Fellowship wherein the Apostles Lived and Died. Quest Wherein was this Unity Answ Herein it consisted that they all professed one Faith obeyed one Supream Tribunal and communicated together in the same Prayers and Sacraments Solut. Then the Church of Rome continued not in this Apostolick Unity for it continued not in the same Faith wherein the Apostles Lived and Died for though it retained so much in my judgment as was essential to the being of a Church yet it degenerated from the Church of the Apostles times in many things which were very profitable as in Latin Service and Communion in one kind Argu. Some Church did continue in the same Faith wherein the Apostles lived and died But there was no Church at that time which did continue in the Apostles Faith besides the Roman Church Ergo. Answ That some Church did continue in the Apostles Faith in all things necessary I grant it that any did continue in the Integrity of it and in a perfect conformity with it in all things expedient and profitable I deny it Quest Is it not necessary to a Churches continuing in the Apostles Faith that she continue in a perfect conformity with it in all things expedient and profitable Answ A perfect conformity in all things is necessary to a perfect continuance in the Apostles Faith but to an imperfect continuance an imperfect conformity is sufficient and such I grant the Roman Church had Quest Is not a perfect continuance in the Apostles Faith necessary to a Churches continuance in Apostolick Unity Asw It is necessary to a perfect continuance in Apostolick Unity Argu. There was some one company of Christians at the time of Luthers rising which was the Catholick Church But there was no other company at that time besides the Roman Ergo the Roman at that time was the Catholick Church Answ There was no one company of Christians which in opposition to and Exclusion of all other companies of Christians was the Catholick Church Argu. If the Catholick Church be some one company of Christians in opposition to and exclusion of all other companies then if there was some one company she was one in opposition to and exclusion of all other companies But the Catholick Church is one company of Christians in opposition to and exclusion of c. Ergo There was then some one company which was the Catholick Church in opposition to and exclusion of all other companies The Minor proved by the Testimonies of the Fathers both Greek and Latin testifying that they understood the Church to be one in the sense alledged 1. If this Unity which cannot be separated at all or divided is also among Hereticks what contend we farther Why call we them Hereticks S. Cypr. Epist 75. 2. But if there be but one Flock how can he be accounted of the Flock which is not within the number of it Id Ibid. 3. When Parmenian commends one Church he condemns all the rest for besides one which is the true Catholick other Churches are esteemed to be among Hereticks but are not S. Optat. lib. 1. 4. The Church therefore is but one this cannot be among all Hereticks and Schismaticks Ibid. 5. You say you offer for the Church which is one this very thing is part of a lie to call it one which you have divided into two Id Ibid. 6. The Church is one which cannot be amongst us and amongst you it remains then that it be in one only place Id Ibid. 7. Although there be many Heresies of Christians and that all would be called Catholicks yet there is always one Church c. S. August de util credend c. 7. 8. The question between us is where the Church is whether with us or with them for she is but one Id de unitat c. 2. 9. The proofs of the Catholick prevailed whereby they evicted the Body of Christ to be with them and by consequence not to be with the Donatists for it is manifest that she is one alone Id. Collat. Carthag lib. 3. 10. In illud cantic 6.7 There are 60 Queens and 80 Concubines and Damosels without number but my Dove is one c. He said not my Queens are 60 and my Concubines c. but he said my Dove is but one because all the Sects of
this is most false and cannot without impudence be pretended as I am ready to justifie to any indifferent Hearer 2. I demand who shall be judge whether the Fathers mean as is pretended If it be said reason will tell me so I say 1. this is false 2. This is again to do that which is objected to Protestants for such a horrid crime that is to build all finally upon reason If it be said they are so interpreted by the Catholick Church I demand whether by the Catholick Church be meant that onely that is in subordination to the Bishop of Rome or any other with that or besides that If any other it is false and impudent to pretend that they so understand the Fathers or Scriptures If that only then this is to say that that Church is infallible because it may be deduced from Scripture that it is so and to prove that it may be deduced from Scripture because the Fathers say so and to prove the Fathers do say and mean so because the Church of Rome says they do so And then what a stir and trouble was here to no purpose why was it not rather said plainly at the beginning The Church of Rome is certainly infallible because she her self says so and she must say true because she is infallible and that is as much to say as unless you grant me the Question I neither can nor will dispute with you If it is said indeed the Fathers do not draw this doctrin from Scripture but yet they affirm it with a full consent as a matter of Tradition I reply 1. That this pretence also is false and that upon tryal it will not appear to have any colour of probability to any who remembers that it is the present Roman Church and not the Catholick Church whose infallibility is here disputed 2. I demand who shall be judge whether the Fathers do indeed affirm this or no If reason then again we are fallen upon that dangerous Rock that all must be resolved into private reason If the Church I ask again what Church is meant If the Church of the Grecians or Abyssines or Protestants or any other but the Roman it is evident they deny it If the Church of Rome then we are again very near the head of the Circle For I ask how shall I be assured this Church will not err and deceive me in interpreting the Fathers and the Answer must be either none or this that the Church is infallible Obj. If it be said that the Infallibility of the Roman Church would yield the Church so many commodities and that the want of an infallible Church to guide men in the way to Heaven would bring so many mischiefs upon the world that it cannot be thought but that God out of his love to men hath appointed this Church as an infallible guide to all other Churches seeing it is so necessary there should be some such guide and so evident there is no other Ans I answer that this argument would serve the Church of Greece or England or Geneva to prove it self infallible and the guide of all other Churches would they but take upon them to be so For every one might say for it self It is necessary there should be some Guide it is evident there is no other Ergo I am appointed by God to be that Guide The same argument any man might use to make himself Monarch of any popular State for first he might represent unto them the commodities of a Monarchy and the mischiefs of a Democracy then he might say That God surely out of his Love to them hath appointed some remedy for their inconveniences And lastly that he hath ordained no other to redress them but himself and then conclude that he alone must of necessity be the man appointed to rule over them I answer Secondly that here also we must resolve all into Reason and the private Spirit or that we are still in the Circle For I demand how do you know that these pretended commodities are to be compassed and these pretended mischiefs are to be avoided only by the Infallibility of the Church of Rome or some other Church and not by any other means which God hath provided If you say reason tells you so I say 1. This is to make reason your last and lowest foundation 2. I assure you Reason tells me no such matter and yet I know that I am as willing to hear it as you are If you say the Church tells you so and she is infallible this I say is to prove the Church infallible because she is so Thirdly I demand How it is possible you should know that these pretended commodities might not be gained and these mischiefs which you fear avoided without any assistance of the Church of Rome's infallibility if all men in the world did believe the Scripture and live according to it and would require no more of others but to do so If you say that notwithstanding this there would be no unity in Doctrin I answer 1. It is impossible you should know this considering that there are many places in Scripture which do more than problably import that the want of piety in living is the cause of want of unity in believing 2. That there would be unity of Opinion in all things necessary and that in things not necessary unity of Opinion is not necessary But lastly that notwithstanding differences in these things of lesser importance there might and would be unity of Communion unity of charity and affection which is one of the greatest blessings which the world is capable of absolute unity of opinion being a matter rather to be desired than hoped for Obj. Against this it has been objected that the Scripture cannot be the guide because many men have used their best endeavors to follow it and yet have fallen some into Arianism others into Pelagianism others into other damnable Heresies and how can I secure any man but he may do the like Ans To this I answer by distinguishing the persons which are pretended to have made use of this Guide and yet to have fallen into Heresie that they were either such as did love the truth sincerely and above all things as did seek it diligently and with all their power to this intent that they might conform their belief and life unto it such as following S. Pauls direction did first try all things deliberately and then chose what in their conscience they thought was best or they were such as for want of the love of the truth God suffered to fall into strong delusions to fall to a false Religion because they brought not forth the fruits of the true to make shipwreck of their faith because they had cast away a good conscience to have their Eyes blinded and their light taken away because they made not the right use of it but were idle and unprofitable and set their hearts upon vanity and had only a form of Religion but denied the
expect from Heaven a Golden Hierusalem according to the Jewish tales which they call Duterossis which also many of our own have followed Especially Tertullian in his Book de spe fidelium and Lactantius in his seventh Book of Institutions and the frequent expositions of Victorinus Pictavionensis and of late Severus in his Dialogue which he calls Gallus and to name the Greeks and to joyn together the first and last Irenaeus and Apollinarius Where we see he acknowledges Irenaeus to be of this opinion but that he was the first that held it I believe that that is more a Christian untruth than Irenaeus his opinion a Judaical Fable For he himself acknowledges in the place above cited that Irenaeus followed Papias and it is certain and confessed that Justin Martyr believed it long before him and Irenaeus himself derives it from Presbyteri qui Johannem discipulum Domini viderunt from Priests which saw John the Disciple of the Lord. Lastly by Pamelius Sixtus Senensis and Faverdentius in the places above quoted Seeing therefore it is certain even to the confession of the Adversaries that Papias Justin Martyr Meleto and Irenaeus the most considerable and eminent men of their Age did believe and teach this Doctrine and seeing it has been proved as evidently as a thing of this nature can be that none of their contemporaries opposed or condemned it It remains according to Cardinal Perrons first rule that this is to be esteemed the Doctrine of the Church of that Age. My second Reason I form thus Whatsoever Doctrine is taught by the Fathers of any Age not as Doctors but as witnesses of the Tradition of the Church that is not as their own opinion but as the Doctrine of the Church of their times that is undoubtedly to be so esteemed especially if none contradicted them in it But the Fathers above cited teach this Doctrine not as their own private opinion but as the Christian Tradition and as the Doctrine of the Church neither did any contradict them in it Ergo it is undoubtedly to be so esteemed The Major of this Syllogism is Cardinal Perrons second Rule and way of finding out the Doctrine of the Ancient Church in any Age and if it be not a sure Rule farewel the use of all Antiquity And for the Minor there will be little doubt of it to him that considers that Papias professes himself to have received this Doctrine by unwritten Tradition though not from the Apostles themselves immediately yet from their Scholars as appears by Eusebius in the forecited third Book 33. Chapter That Irenaeus grounding it upon evident Scripture professes that he learnt it whether mediately or immediately I cannot tell from a Presbyteri qui Johannem Discipulum Domini viderunt Priests or Elders who saw John the Lords Disciple and heard of him what our Lord taught of those times of the thousand years and also as he says after from Papias the Auditor of John the Chamber-fellow of Polycarpus an Ancient man who recorded it in writing a Faverdentius his Note upon this place is very Notable Hinc apparet saith he from hence it appears that Irenaeus neither first invented this opinion nor held it as proper to himself but got this blot and blemish from certain Fathers Papias I suppose and some other inglorious fellows the familiar Friends of Irenaeus are here intended I hope then if the Fathers which lived with the Apostles had their blots and blemishes it is no such horrid Crime for Calvin and the Century writers to impute the same to their great Grandchildren Aetas parentum pejor avis progeniem fert vitiosiorem But yet these inglorious Disciples of the Apostles though perhaps not so learned as Faverdentius were yet certainly so honest as not to invent lies and deliver them as Apostolick Tradition or if they were not what confidence can we place in any other unwritten Tradition Lastly that Justin Martyr grounds it upon plain Prophecies of the Old Testament and express words of the New he professeth That he and all other Christians of a right belief in all things believe it joyns them who believe it not with them who deny the Resurrection or else says that none denied this but the same who denied the Resurrection and that indeed they were called Christians but in deed and Truth were none Whosoever I say considers these things will easily grant that they held it not as their own opinion but as the Doctrine of the Church and the Faith of Christians Hereupon I conclude whatsoever they held not as their private opinion but as the Faith of the Church that was the Faith of the Church of their time But this Doctrine they held not as their private opinion but as the Faith of the Church Ergo it was and is to be esteemed the Faith of the Church Trypho Do ye confess that before ye expect the coming of Christ this place Hierusalem shall be again restored and that your People shall be congregated and rejoyce together with Christ and the Patriarchs and the Prophets c. Justin Martyr I have confessed to you before that both I and many others do believe as you well know that this shall be but that many again who are not of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not acknowledge this I have also signified unto you For I have declared unto you that some called Christians but being indeed Atheists and impious Hereticks do generally teach blasphemous and Atheistical and foolish things but that you might know that I speak not this to you only I will make a Book as near as I can of these our disputations where I will profess in writing that which I say before you for I resolve to follow not men and the Doctrines of men but God and the Doctrine of God For although you chance to meet with some that are called Christians which do not confess this but dare to Blaspheme the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob which also say there is no Resurrection of the Dead but that as soon as they die their Souls are received into Heaven do not ye yet think them Christians as neither if a man consider rightly will he account the Sadducees and other Sectaries and Hereticks as the Genistae and the Meristae and Galileans and Pharisees and Hellenians and Baptists and other such to be Jews but only that they are called Jews and the Children of Abraham and such as with their lips confess God as God himself cries out but have their Hearts far from him But I and all Christians that in all things believe aright both know that there shall be a Resurrection of the Flesh and a thousand years in Hierusalem restored and adorned and inlarged according as the Prophets Ezekiel and Esay and others do testifie for thus saith Isaiah of the time of this thousand years For there shall be a new Heaven and a new Earth and they shall not remember the former c.
believe would prove his intent had not the corruptions of the Roman Church possessed and infected even the publick Service of God among them in which their Communion was required and did not the Church of Rome require the Belief of all her Errors as the condition of her Communion But howsoever be his reasons conclusive or not conclusive certainly this was the profest opinion of him and divers others as by name Cassander and Baldwin who though they thought as ill of the Doctrine of the most prevailing part of the Church of Rome as Protestants do yet thought it their duty not to separate from her Communion And if there were any considerable number of considerable men thus minded as I know not why any man should think there was not then it is made not only a most difficult but even an impossible thing to know what was the Catholick Judgment of our Fathers in the points of controversie seeing they might be joyned in Communion and yet very far divided in opinion They might all live in obedience to the Pope and yet some think him head of the Church by Divine right others as a great part of the French Church at this day by Ecclesiastical constitution others by neither but by Practice and Usurpation wherein yet because he had Prescription of many Ages for him he might not justly be disturbed All might go to Confession and yet some only think it necessary others only profitable All might go to Mass and the other Services of the Church and some only like and approve the Language of it others only tolerate it and wish it altered if it might be without greater inconvenience All might receive the Sacrament and yet some believe it to be the Body and Blood of Christ others only a Sacrament of it Some that the Mass was a true and proper Sacrifice others only a Commemorative Sacrifice or the Commemoration of a Sacrifice Some that it was lawful for the Clergy to deny the Laiety the Sacramental Cup others that it was lawful for them to receive in one kind only seeing they could not in both Some might adore Christ as present there according to his Humanity others as present according to his Divine Nature only Some might pray for the Dead as believing them in Purgatory others upon no certain ground but only that they should rather have their Prayers and Charity which wanted them not than that they which did want them should not have them Some might pray to Saints upon a belief that they heard their Prayers and knew their Hearts others might pray to them meaning nothing but to pray by them that God for their sakes would grant their Prayers others thirdly might not pray to them at all as thinking it unnecessary others as fearing it unlawful yet because they were not fully resolved only forbearing it themselves and not condemning it in others Uncle I pray you then remember also what it is that Protestants do commonly taunt and check Catholicks with is it not that they believe Traditions It is a meer Calumny that Protestants condemn all kind of Traditions who subscribe very willingly to that of Vincentius Lerinensis That Christian Religion is res tradita non inventa a matter of Tradition not of mans invention is what the Church received from the Apostles and by consequence what the Apostles delivered to the Church and the Apostles from Christ and Christ from God Chemnitius in his Examen of the Council of Trent hath liberally granted seven sorts of Traditions and Protestants find no fault with him for it Prove therefore any Tradition to be Apostolick which is not written Shew that there is some known Word of God which we are commanded to believe that is not contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament and we shall quickly shew that we believe Gods Word because it is Gods and not because it is written If there were any thing not written which had come down to us with as full and Universal a Tradition as the unquestioned Books of Canonical Scripture That thing should I believe as well as the Scripture but I have long fought for some such thing and yet I am to seek Nay I am confident no one point in Controversie between Papists and Protestants can go in upon half so fair Cards for to gain the esteem of an Apostolick Tradition as those things which are now decried on all hands I mean the opinion of the Chiliasts and the Communicating Infants The latter by the confession of Cardinal Perron Maldonate and Binius was the Custom of the Church for 600 years at least It is expresly and in terms vouched by S. Austin for the Doctrine of the Church and an Apostolick Tradition it was never instituted by General Council but in the use of the Church as long before the First general Council as S. Cyprian before the Council There is no known Author of the beginning of it all which are the Catholick marks of an Apostolick Tradition and yet this you say is not so or if it be why have you abolisht it The former Lineally derives its pedigree from our Saviour to St. John from S. John to Papias from Papias to Just in Martyr Irenaeus Melito Sardensis Tertullian and others of the two first Ages who as they generally agree in the Affirmation of this Doctrine and are not contradicted by any of their Predecessors so some of them at least speak to the point not as Doctors but Witnesses and deliver it for the Doctrine of the Church and Apostolick Tradition and condemn the contrary as Heresie And therefore if there be any unwritten Traditions these certainly must be admitted first or if these which have so fair pretence to it must yet be rejected I hope then we shall have the like liberty to put back Purgatory and Indulgences and Transubstantiation and the Latin Service and the Communion in one kind c. none of which is of Age enough to be Page to either of the forenamed Doctrines especially the opinion of the Millenaries Uncle What think you means this word Tradition No other thing certainly but that we confute all our Adversaries by the Testimony of the former Church saying unto them this was the belief of our Fathers Thus were we taught by them and they by theirs without stop or stay till you come to Christ We confute our Adversaries by saying thus Truly a very easie confutation But saying and proving are two Mens Offices and therefore though you be excellent in the former I fear when it comes to the Tryal you will be found defective in the Latter Uncle And this no other but the Roman Church did or could ever pretend to which being in truth undeniable and they cannot choose but grant the thing Their last refuge is to laugh and say that both Fathers and Councils did Err because they were men as if Protestants themselves were more Is it not so as I tell you No indeed it is not by your
Christians That it was fit and lawful to deny the Laity the Sacramental Cup That it was expedient and for the edification of the Church that the Scripture should be read and the publick worship of God perpetually celebrated in a language which they understand not and to which for want of understanding unless S. Paul deceive us they cannot say Amen Or is it reasonable you should desire us to believe you when your own Men your own Champions your own Councils confess the contrary Does not the Council of Constance acknowledg plainly That the custom which they ratified was contrary to Christs institution and the custom of the Primitive Church and how then was it taught by Christ and his Apostles Do not Cajetan and Lyranus confess ingenuously that it follows evidently from S. Paul that it is more for edification that the Liturgy of the Church should be in such a Language as the Assistants understand The like Confession we have from others concerning Purgatory and Indulgences Others acknowledges the Apostles never taught Invocation of Saints Rhenanus says as much touching Auricular Confession It is evident from Peter Lombard that the Doctrin of Transubstantiation was not a point of Faith in his time From Pius Mirandula that the Infallibility of the Church was no Article much less a foundation of Faith in his time Bellarmine acknowledges that the Saints enjoying the Vision of God before the day of judgment was no Article of Faith in the time of Pope John the XXII But as the Proverb is when Thieves fall out true men recover their goods so how small and heartless the reverence of the Church of Rome is to ancient Tradition cannot be more plainly discovered than by the Quarrels which her Champions have amongst themselves especially about the Immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin The Patrons of the Negative opinion Cajetan Bannes Bandellus and Canus alledg for it First an whole army of Scriptures Councils and Fathers agreeing unanimously in this Doctrin That only Christ was free from sin Then an innumerous multitude of Fathers expresly affirming the very point in question not contradicted by any of their Contemporaries or Predecessors or indeed of their Successors for many ages All the Holy Fathers agree in this that the Virgin Mary was conceived in Original sin So * In part primum q. 1. Art 8. Dub. 5. Bannes Cajetan brings for it fifteen Fathers in his judgment irrefragable others produce two hundred Bandellus almost three hundred Thus †Disp 51. in Ep. ad Rom. Salmeron That all the Holy Fathers who have fallen upon the mention of this matter with one mouth affirm that the Blessed Virgin was conceived in Original sin So ‖ Lib. VII loc cap. 1. cap. 3. n. 9. Canus And after That the contrary Doctrin has neither Scripture nor Tradition for it For saith he no Traditions can be derived unto us but by the Bishops and Holy Fathers the Successors of the Apostles and it is certain that those ancient writers received it not from their predecessors Now against this stream of ancient Writers when the contrary new Doctrin came in and how it prevailed it will be worth the considering The First that set it abroach was Richardus de Sancto Victore as his country-man * Omnium expresse primus Christiferam virginem originalis noxae expertem tenuit De gestis Scotorum III. 12. Johannes Major testifies of him He was expresly the first that held the Virgin Mary free from Original sin or he was the first that expresly held so So after upon this false ground which had already taken deep root in the heart of Christians That it was impossible to give too much honour to her that was the Mother of the Saviour of the World like an ill weed it grew and spread apace So that in the Council of †Sess XXXVI Basil which Binius tells us was reprobated but in part to wit in the point of the Authority of Councils and in the deposition of Eugenius the Pope it was defined and declared to be Holy Doctrin and consonant to the worship of the Church to the Catholick Faith to right Reason and the Holy Scripture and to be approved held and embraced by all Catholicks and that it should be lawful for no man for the time to come to preach or teach the contrary The custom also of keeping the Feast of her Holy Conception which before was but particular to the Roman and some other Churches and it seems somewhat neglected was then renewed and made Universal and commanded to be celebrated sub nomine Conception is under the name of the Conception Binius in a Marginal note tells us indeed That they celebrate not this Feast in the Church of Rome by virtue of this Renovation cum esset Conciliabalum being this was the act not of a Council but of a Conventicle yet he himself in his Index stiles it the Oecomenical Council of Basil and tells that it was reprobated only in two points of which this is none Now whom shall we believe Binius in his Margin or Binius in his Index Yet in after-times Pope Sixtus IV. and Pius V. thought not this Decree so binding but that they might and did again put life into the condemned opinion giving liberty by their constitutions to all men to hold and maintain either part either that the Blessed Virgin was conceived with Original sin or was not Which Constitution of Sixtus IV. The * Sess V. Council of Trent renewed and confirmed But the wheel again turning and the Negative opinion prevailing The Affirmative was banisht first by a Decree of Paul V. from all publick Sermons Lectures Conclusions and all publick Acts whatsoever and since by another Decree of Gregory XV. from all private Writings and private Conferences But yet all this contents not the University of Paris They as Salmeron tells us admit none to the Degree of Doctor of Divinity unless they have first bound themselves by solemn Oath to maintain the Immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Now I beseech you Mr. R. consider your courses with some indifference First You take Authority upon you against the universal constant unopposed Tradition of the Church for many ages to set up as a rival a new upstart yesterdays invention and to give all men liberty to hold which they please So Pope Sixtus IV. The Council of Trent and Pius V. that is you make it lawful to hold the ancient Faith or not to hold it nay to hold the contrary This is high presumption But you stay not here For Secondly The ancient Doctrin you cloyster and hook up within the narrow close and dark rooms of the thoughts and brains of the defenders of it forbidding them upon pain of damnation so much as to whisper it in their private discourses and writings and in the mean time the New Doctrin you set at full liberty and give leave nay countenance and encouragement to all men to
from the Act and Object in general if the Habit be special from the Act and Object in special Then for the motive to a thing that it cannot be of the Essence of the thing to which it moves who can doubt that knows that a motive is an efficient cause and that the efficient is always extrinsecal to the effect For the fourth that Gods Revelation is alike for all Objects It is ambiguous and if the sense of it be that his Revelation is an equal Motive to induce us to believe all objects revealed by him it is true but impertinent If the sense of it be that all objects revealed by God are alike that is alike plainly and undoubtedly revealed by him it is pertinent but most untrue Witness the great diversity of Texts of Scripture whereof some are so plain and evident that no man of ordinary sense can mistake the sense of them Some are so obscure and ambiguous that to say this or this is the certain sense of them were high presumption For the 5. Protestants disagree in things equally revealed by God! In themselves perhaps but not equally to them whose understandings by reason of their different Educations are fashioned and shaped for the entertainment of various Opinions and consequently some of them more inclined to believe such a sense of Scripture others to believe another which to say that God will not take into his consideration in judging mens Opinions is to disparage his goodness But to what purpose is it that these things are equally revealed to both as the light is equally revealed to all blind men if they be not fully revealed to either The sense of this Scripture Why are they then baptized for the dead and this He shall be saved yet so as by fire and a thousand others is equally revealed to you and to another interpreter that is certainly to neither He now conceives one sense of them and you another and would it not be an excellent inference if I should conclude now as you do That you forsake the formal motive of Faith which is Gods Revelation and consequently lose all faith and unity therein So likewise the Jesuits and Dominicans the Franciscans and Dominicans disagree about things equally revealed by Almighty God and seeing they do so I beseech you let me understand why this reason will not exclude them as well as Protestants from all faith and unity therein Thus you have failed of your undertaking in your first part of your Title and that is a very ill omen especially in points of so streight mutual dependance that we shall have but slender performance in your second assumpt Which is That the Church is Infallible in all her Definitions whether concerning points Fundamental or not Fundamental 26. Ad § 9.10 11. I grant that the Church cannot without damnable sin either deny any thing to be true which she knows to be Gods truth or propose any thing as his truth which she knows not to be so But that she may not do this by ignorance or mistake and so without damnable sin that you should have proved but have not But say you this excuse cannot serve for if the Church be assisted only for points fundamental she cannot but know that she may err in points not fundamental Ans It does not follow unless you suppose that the Church knows that she is assisted no farther But if being assisted only so far she yet did conceive by error her assistance absolute and unlimited or if knowing her assistance restrained to fundamentals she yet conceived by error that she should be guarded from proposing any thing but what was fundamental then the consequence is apparently false But at least she cannot be certain that she cannot err and therefore cannot be excused from headlong and pernicious temerity in proposing points not fundamental to be believed by Christians as matters of Faith Ans Neither is this destruction worth any thing unless it be understood of such fundamental points as she is not warranted to propose by evident Text of Scripture Indeed if she propose such as matters of Faith certainly true she may well be questioned Quo Warranto She builds without a foundation and says thus saith the Lord when the Lord doth not say so which cannot be excused from rashness and high presumption such a presumption as an Embassador should commit who should say in his Masters name that for which he hath no commission Of the same nature I say but of a higher strain as much as the King of Heaven is greater than any earthly King But though she may err in some points not fundamental yet may she have certainty enough in proposing others as for example these That Abraham begat Isaac that S. Paul had a Cloak that Timothy was sick because these though not fundamental i. e. no essential parts of Christianity yet are evidently and undeniably set down in Scripture and consequently may be without all rashness proposed by the Church as certain divine Revelations Neither is your Argument concluding when you say If in such things she may be deceived she must be always uncertain of all such things For my sense may sometimes possibly deceive me yet I am certain enough that I see what I see and feel what I feel Our Judges are not infallible in their judgments yet are they certain enough that they judge aright and that they proceed according to the evidence that is given when they condemn a Thief or a Murderer to the Gallows A Travelleris not always certain of his way but often mistaken and does it therefore follow that he can have no assurance that Charing-Cross is his right way from the Temple to White-Hall The ground of your error here is your not distinguishing between actual certainty and absolute infallibillty Geometricians are not infallible in their own Science yet they are very certain of those things which they see demonstrated And Carpenters are not infallible yet certain of the straightness of those things which agree with their Rule and Square So though the Church be not infallibly certain that in all her definitions whereof some are about disputable and ambiguous matters she shall proceed according to her Rule yet being certain of the infallibility of her Rule and that in this or that thing she doth manifestly proceed according to it she may be certain of the Truth of some particular Decrees and yet not certain that she shall never decree but what is true 27. Ad § 12. Obj. But if the Church may err in points not fundamental she may err in proposing Scripture and so we cannot be assured whether she have not been deceived already Ans The Church may err in her proposition or custody of the Canon of Scripture if you understand by the Church any present Church of one denomination for example the Roman the Greek or so Yet have we sufficient certainty of Scripture not from the bare testimony of any present Church but from Universal
Tradition of which the testimony of any present Church is but a little part So that here you fall into the Fallacy à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter For in effect this is the sense of your Argument Unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty of Scripture from the authority of the Church Therefore unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty hereof at all As if a man should say If the Vintage of France miscarry we can have no Wine from France Therefore if that Vintage miscarry we can have no Wine at all And for the incorruption of Scripture I know no other rational assurance we can have of it than such as we have of the incorruption of other ancient Books that is the consent of ancient Copies such I mean for the kind though it be far greater for the degree of it And if the Spirit of God give any man any other assurance hereof this is not rational and discursive but supernatural and infused An assurance it may be to himself but no argument to another As for the Infallibility of the Church it is so far from being a proof of the Scriptures incorruption that no proof can be pretended for it but incorrupted places of Scripture which yet are as subject to corruption as any other and more likely to have been corrupted if it had been possible than any other and made to speak as they do for the advantage of those men whose ambition it hath been a long time to bring all under their authority Now then if any man should prove the Scriptures uncorrupted because the Church says so which is infallible I would demand again touching this very thing that there is an infallible Church seeing it is not of it self evident how shall I be assured of it And what can he answer but that the Scripture says so in these and these places Hereupon I would ask him how shall I be assured that the Scriptures are incorrupted in those places seeing it is possible and not altogether improbable that these men which desire to be thought infallible when they had the government of all things in their own hands may have altered them for their purpose If to this he answer again that the Church is infallible and therefore cannot do so I hope it would be apparent that he runs round in a circle and proves the Scriptures incorruption by the Churches infallibility and the Churches infallibility by the Scriptures incorruption and that is in effect the Churches infallibility by the Churches infallibility and the Scriptures incorruption by the Scriptures incorruption 28. Now for your observation that some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received for such But never any book or syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal I demand touching the first sort whether they were commended to the Church by the Apostles as Canonical or not If not seeing the whole Faith was preached by the Apostles to the Church and seeing after the Apostles the Church pretends to no new Revelations how can it be an Article of Faith to believe them Canonical And how can you pretend that your Church which makes this an Article of Faith is so assisted as not to propose any thing as a divine Truth which is not revealed by God If they were how then is the Church an infallible keeper of the Canon of Scripture which hath suffered some Books of Canonical Scripture to be lost and others to lose for a long time their being Canonical at least the necessity of being so esteemed and afterwards as it were by the law of Postliminium hath restored their Authority and Canonicalness unto them If this was delivered by the Apostles to the Church the point was sufficiently discussed and therefore your Churches omission to teach it for some ages as an article of faith nay degrading it from the number of articles of faith and putting it among disputable problems was surely not very laudable If it were not revealed by God to the Apostles and by the Apostles to the Church then can it be no Revelation and therefore her presumption in proposing it as such is inexcusable 29. And then for the other part of it that never any book or syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal Certainly it is a bold asseveration but extreamly false For I demand The Book of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom the Epistle of S. James and to the Hebrews were they by the Apostles approved for Canonical or no If not with what face dare you approve them and yet pretend that all your doctrin is Apostolical Especially seeing it is evident that this point is not deducible by rational discourse from any other defined by them If they were approved by them this I hope was a sufficient definition and therefore you were best rub your forehead hard and say that these Books were never questioned But if you do so then I shall be bold to ask you what Books you meant in saying before Some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received Then for the Book of Macchabes I hope you will say it was defined for Canonical before S. Gregories time and yet he lib. 19. Moral c. 13. citing a testimony out of it prefaceth to it after this matter Concerning which matter we do not amiss if we produce a testimony out of Books although not Canonical yet set forth for the edification of the Church For Eleazar in the Book of Machabees c. Which if it be not to reject it from being Canonical is without question at least to question it Moreover because you are so punctual as to talk of words and syllables I would know whether before Sixtus Quintus his time your Church had a defined Canon of Scripture or not If not then was your Church surely a most vigilant keeper of Scripture that for 1500. years had not defined what was Scripture and what was not If it had then I demand was it that set forth by Sixtus or that set forth by Clement or a third different from both If it were that set forth by Sixtus then is it now condemned by Clement if that of Clement it was condemned I say but sure you will say contradicted and questioned by Sixtus If different from both then was it questioned and condemned by both and still lies under the condemnation But then lastly suppose it had been true That both some Book not known to be Canonical had been received and that never any after receiving had been questioned How had this been a sign that the Church is infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost In what mood or figure would this conclusion follow out of these Premises Certainly your flying to such poor signs as these are is to me a great sign that you labour with penury of better arguments and that thus to catch at shadows and bulrushes
each to other without having these parts in several places then the distinction is vain But it is impossible that any thing should have several parts one out of another without having these parts in several places Therefore the distinction is vain The Major of this Syllogism he took for granted The Minor he proved thus Whatsoever body is in the proper place of another body must of necessity be in that very body by possessing the demensions of it therefore whatsoever hath several parts one out of the other must of necessity have them one out of the place of the other and consequently in several places For illustration of this Argument he said If my head and belly and thighs and legs be all in the very same place of necessity my head must be in my belly and my belly in my thighs and my thighs in my legs and all of them in my feet and my feet in all of them and therefore if my head be out of my belly it must be out of the place where my belly is and if it be not out of the place where my belly is it is not out of my belly but in it Again to shew that according to the Doctrin of Transubstantiation our Saviours body in the Eucharist hath not the several parts of it out of one another he disputed thus Wheresoever there is a body having several parts one out of the other there must be some middle parts severing the extreme parts But here according to this Doctrin the extreme parts are not severed but altogether in the same point Therefore here our Saviours Body cannot have parts one out of other Mr. Dan. To all this for want of a better Answer gave only this Let all Scholars peruse these After upon better consideration he wrote by the side of the last Syllogism this Quoad entitatem verum est non quoad locum that is according to entity it is true but not according to place And to Let all Scholars peruse these he caused this to be added And weigh whether there is any new matter worth a new Answer Chillingworth Replyed That to say the extreme parts of a body are severed by the middle parts according to their entity but not according to place is ridiculous His reasons are first Because severing of things is nothing else but putting or keeping them in several places as every silly woman knows and therefore to say they are severed but not according to place is as if you should say They are heated but not according to heat they are cooled but not according to cold Indeed is it to say they are severed but not severed VIII An account of what moved the Author to turn a Papist with his own Confutation of the Arguments that perswaded him thereto I Reconciled my self to the Church of Rome because I thought my self to have sufficient reason to believe that there was and must be always in the World some Church that could not err and consequently seeing all other Churches disclaimed this priviledge of not being subject to error the Church of Rome must be that Church which cannot err I was put into doubt of this way which I had chosen by D. Stapleton and others who limit the Churches freedom from Error to things necessary only and such as without which the Church can be a Church no longer but grantted it subject to error in things that were not necessary Hereupon considering that most of the differences between Protestants and Roman Catholicks were not touching things necessary but only profitable or lawful I concluded that I had not sufficient ground to believe the Roman Church either could not or did not err in any thing and therefore no ground to be a Roman Catholick Against this again I was perswaded that it was not sufficient to believe the Church to be an infallible believer of all doctrins necessary but it must also be granted an infallible teacher of what is necessary that is that we must believe not only that the Church teacheth all things necessary but that all is necessary to be believed which the Church teacheth to be so in effect that the Church is our Guide in the way to Heaven Now to believe that the Church was an infallible Guide and to be believed in all things which she requires us to believe I was induced First because there was nothing that could reasonably contest with the Church about this Office but the Scripture and that the Scripture was this Guide I was willing to believe but that I saw not how it could be made good without depending upon the Churches authority 1. That Scripture is the Word of God 2. That the Scripture is a perfect rule of our duty 3. That the Scripture is so plain in those things that concern our duty that whosoever desires and endeavors to find the will of God there shall either find it or at least not dangerously mistake it Secondly I was drawn to this belief because I conceived that it was evident out of the Epistle to the Ephesians that there must be unto the worlds end a Succession of Pastors by adhering to whom men might be kept from wavering in matters of faith and from being carried up and down with every wind of false doctrin That no Succession of Pastors could guard their adherents from danger of error if themselves were subject unto error either in teaching that to be necessary which is not so or denying that to be necessary which is so and therefore That there was and must be some Succession of Pastors which was an infallible guide in the way to Heaven and which should not possibly teach any thing to be necessary which was not so nor any thing not necessary which was so upon this ground I concluded that seeing there must be such a Succession of Pastors as was an infallible guide and there was no other but that of the Church of Rome even by the confession of all other Societies of Pastors in the world that therefore that Succession of Pastors is that infallible Guide of Faith which all men must follow Upon these grounds I thought it necessary for my salvation to believe the Roman Church in all that she thought to be and proposed as necessary Against these Arguments it hath been demonstrated unto me and First against the first That the reason why we are to believe the Scripture to be the word of God neither is nor can be the Authority of the present Church of Rome which cannot make good her Authority any other way but by pretence of Scripture and therefore stands not unto Scripture no not in respect of us in the relation of a Foundation to a building but of a building to a Foundation doth not support Scripture but is supported by it But the general consent of Christians of all Nations and Ages a far greater company than that of the Church of Rome and delivering universally the Scripture for the word of God is the ordinary