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
it may without any fault at all some go one way and some another and some and those as good men as either of the former suspend their judgments and expect some Elias to solve doubts and reconcile repugnances Now in all such Questions one side or other which soever it is holds that which indeed is opposite to the sense of the Scripture which God intended for it is impossible that God should intend Contradictions But then this intended Sense is not so fully declared but that they which oppose it may verily believe that they indeed maintain it and have great shew of reason to induce them to believe so and therefore are not to be damned as men opposing that which they either know to be a truth delivered in Scripture or have no probable Reason to believe the contrary but rather in Charity to be acquitted and absolved as men who endeavour to find the Truth but fail of it through humane frailty This ground being laid the Answer to your ensuing Interrogatories which you conceive impossible is very obvious and easie 14. To the first Whether it be not in any man a grievous sin to deny any any one Truth contained in holy Writ I answer Yes if he knew it to be so or have no probable Reason to doubt of it otherwise not 15. To the second Whether there be in such denial any distinction between Fundamental and not Fundamental sufficient to excuse from Heresie I answer Yes There is such a distinction But the Reason is because these points either in themselves or by accident are Fundamental which are evidently contained in Scripture to him that knows them to be so Those not Fundamental which are there-hence deducible but probably only not evidently 16. To the third Whether it be not impertinent to alledge the Creed as containing all Fundamental points of Faith as if believing it alone we were at Liberty to deny all other Points of Scripture I answer It was never alledged to any such purpose but only as a sufficient or rather more than a sufficient Summary of those points of Faith which were of necessity to be believed actually and explicitely and that only of such which were meerly and purely Credenda and not Agenda 17. To the fourth drawn as a Corollary from the former Whether this be not to say that of Persons contrary in belief one part only can be saved I answer By no means For they may differ about points not contained in Scripture They may differ about the sense of some ambiguous Texts of Scripture They may differ about some Doctrines for and against which Scriptures may be alledged with so great probability as may justly excuse either Part from Heresie and a self-condemning obstinacy And therefore though D. Potter do not take it ill that you believe your selves may be saved in your Religion yet notwithstanding all that hath yet been pretended to the contrary he may justly condemn you and that out of your own principles of uncharitable presumption for affirming as you do that no man can be saved out of it CHAP. II. The ANSWER to the Second CHAPTER Concerning the means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our understanding and which must determine Controversies in Faith and Religion C. M. Of our estimation respect and reverence to holy Scripture even Protestants themselves give Testimony while they possess it from us and take it upon the integrity of our custody c. I HIL Ad § 1. He that would Usurp an absolute Lordship and Tyranny over any People need not put himself to the trouble and difficulty of abrogating and disanulling the Laws made to maintain the Common Liberty for he may frustrate their intent and compass his own design as well if he can get the Power and Authority to interpret them as he pleases and add to them what he pleases and to have his interpretations and additions stand for Laws if he can rule his People by his Laws and his Laws by his Lawyers So the Church of Rome to establish Her Tyranny over mens Consciences needed not either to abolish or corrupt the Holy Scriptures the Pillars and Supporters of Christian Liberty which in regard of the numerous multitude of Copies dispersed through all places Translated into almost all Languages guarded with all sollicitous care and industry had been an impossible attempt But the more expedite way and therefore more likely to be successful was to gain the opinion and esteem of the publick and authorized interpreter of them and the Authority of adding to them what Doctrine she pleased under the Title of Traditions or Definitions For by this means she might both serve her self of all those causes of Scripture which might be drawn to cast a favourable countenance upon Her ambitious pretences which in case the Scripture had been abolished she could not have done and yet be secure enough of having either her Power limitted or her corruptions and abuses reformed by them this being once setled in the minds of men that unwritten Doctrines if proposed by her were to be received with equal reverence to those that were written and that the sense of Scripture was not that which seemed to mens reason and understanding to be so but that which the Church of Rome should declare to be so seemed in never so unreasonable and incongruous The matter being once thus ordered and the holy Scriptures being made in effect not your Directors and Judges no farther than you please but your Servants and Instruments always prest and in readiness to advance your designs and disabled wholly with minds so qualified to prejudice or impeach them it is safe for you to put a Crown on their head and a Reed in their Hands and to bow before them and cry Hail King of the Jews to pretend a great deal of esteem and respect and reverence to them as here you do But to little purpose is verbal reverence without entire submission and sincere obedience and as our Saviour said of some so the Scripture could it speak I believe would say to you Why call ye me Lord Lord and do not that which I command you Cast away the vain and arrogant pretence of Infallibility which makes your Errors incurable Leave Picturing God and Worshiping him by Pictures Teach not for Doctrine the Commandments of men Debar not the Laity of the Testament of Christ's Blood Let your publick Prayers and Psalms and Hymes be in such Language as is for the Edification of the Assistants Take not from the Clergy that Liberty of Marriage which Christ hath left them Do not impose upon men that Humility of Worshiping Angels which S. Paul condemns Teach no more proper Sacrifices of Christ but one Acknowledge them that Die in Christ to be blessed and to rest from their Labours Acknowledge the Sacrament after Consecration to be Bread and Wine as well as Christs Body and Blood Acknowledge the gift of continency without Marriage not to be given to
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
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
that many points which are not necessary to be believed absolutely are yet necessary to be believed upon a supposition that they are known to be revealed by God that is become then necessary to be believed when they are known to be Divine Revelations But then I must needs say you do very strangly in saying that the question was what points might lawfully be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition that they are Divine Revelations You affirm that none may and so does D. Potter and with him all Protestants and all Christians And how then is this the question Who ever said or thought that of Divine Revelations known to be so some might safely and lawfully be rejected and disbelieved under pretence that they are not Fundamental which of us ever taught that it was not damnable either to deny or so much as doubt of the Truth of any thing whereof we either know or believe that God hath revealed it What Protestant ever taught that it was not damnable either to give God the lie or to call his Veracity into question Yet you say The demand of Charity mistaken was and it was most reasonable that a list of Fundamentals should be given the denial whereof destroys Salvation whereas the denial of other points may stand with Salvation although both kinds be equally proposed as revealed by God 12. Let the reader peruse Charity Mistaken and he shall find that this qualification although both kinds of points be equally proposed as revealed by God is your addition aâ—d no part of the demand And if it had it had been most unreasonable seeing he and you know well enough that though we do not presently without examination fall down and worship all your Churches proposals as Divine Revelations yet we make no such distinction of known Divine Revelations as if some only of them were necessary to be believed and the rest might safely be rejected So that to demand a particular minute Catalogue of all points that may not be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition is indeed to demand a Catalogue of all points that are or may be in as much as none may be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition that it is a Divine Revelation At least it is to desire us Frst to Transcribe into this Catalogue every Text of the whole Bible Secondly to set down distinctly those innumerous Millions of negative and positive consequences which may be evidently deduced from it For these we say God hath revealed And indeed you are not ashamed in plain terms to require this of us For having first told us that the demand was what points were necessary not to be disbelieved after sufficient proposition that they are Divine Truths you come to say Certainly the Creed contains not all these And this you prove by asking how many Truths are there in Holy Scripture not contained in the Creed which we are not bound to know and believe but are bound under pain of damnation not to reject as scon as we come to know that they are found in Holy Scripture So that in requiring a particular Catalogue of all points not to be disbelieved after sufficient Proposal you require us to set you down all points contained in Scripture or evidently deducible from it And yet this you are pleased to call a reasonable nay a most reasonable Demand whereas having ingaged your self to give a Catalogue of your Fundamentals you conceive your engagement very well satisfied by saying all is Fundamental which the Church proposes without going about to give us an endless Inventory of her Proposals And therefore from us instead of a perfect particular of Divine Revelations of all sorts of which with a less hyperbole than S. John useth we might say If they were to be written the World would not hold the Books that must be written methinks you should accept of this general All Divine Revelations are true and to be believed 13. The very truth is the main Question in this business is not what Divine Revelations are necessary to be believed or not rejected when they are sufficiently proposed for all without exception all without question are so But what Revelations are simply and absolutely necessary to be proposed to the belief of Christians so that that Society which does propose and indeed believe them hath for matter of Faith the essence of a true Church that which does not has not Now to this question though not to yours D. Potter's assertion if it be true is apparently very pertinent And though not a full and total satisfaction to it yet very effectual and of great moment towards it For the main question being what points are necessary to Salvation and points necessary to Salvation being of two sorts some of simple belief some of Practice and Obedience he that gives you a sufficient summary of the first sort of necessary points hath brought you half way towards your Journies end And therefore that which he does is no more to be slighted as vain and impertinent than an Architects work is to be thought impertinent towards the making of a House because he does it not all himself Sure I am if his assertion be true as I believe it is a Corollary may presently be deduced from it which if it were imbraced cannot in all reason but do infinite service both to the truth of Christ and the peace of Christendom For seeing falshood and Error could not long stand against the power of truth were they not supported by Tyranny and worldly advantages he that could assert Christians to that liberty which Christ and his Apostles left them must need do Truth a most Heroical service And seeing the overvaluing of the differences among Christians is one of the greatest maintainers of the Schism of Christendom he that could demonstrate that only these points of Belief are simply necessary to Salvation wherein Christians generally agree should he not lay a very fair and firm Foundation of the peace of Christendom Now the Corollary which I conceive would produce these good effects and which flowes naturally from D. Potters Assertion is this That what Man or Church soever believes the Creed and all the evident consequences of it sincerely and heartily cannot possibly if also he believe the Scripture be in any Error of simple belief which is offenfive to God nor therefore deserve for any such Error to be deprived of his Life or to be cut off from the Churches Communion and the hope of Salvation And the production of this again would be this which highly concerns the Church of Rome to think of That whatsoever Man or Church does for any Error of simple belief deprive any man so quallified as above either of his temporal life or livelyhood or liberty or of the Churches Communion and hope of Salvation is for the first unjust cruel and Tyrannous Schismatical presumptuous and uncharitable for the second 14. Neither yet is this as you pretend to take away the necessity of believing those Verities of
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
if it could be justified But besides that it is confuted by my whole Book and made ridiculous by the Approbations premised unto it it is very easie for me out of your own Mouth and Words to prove it a most injurious calumny For what one Conclusion is there in the whole Fabrick of my Discourse that is not naturally deducible out of this one Principle That all things necessary to Salvation are evidently contained in Scripture Or what one Conclusion almost of importance is there in your Book which is not by this one clearly confutable Grant this and it will presently follow in opposition to your first Conclusion and the argument of your first Ch that amongst men of different opinions touching the obscure and controverted Questions of Religion such as may with probability be disputed on both Sides and such as are the disputes of Protestants Good men and lovers of truth of all Sides may be saved because all necessary things being supposed evident concerning them with men so qualified there will be no difference There being no more certain sign that a Point is not evident than that honest and understanding and indifferent men and such as give themselves liberty of judgment after a mature consideration of the matter differ about it 31. Grant this and it will appear Secondly that the means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our understanding and which are to determine all Controversies in Faith necessary to be determined may be for any thing you have said to the contrary not a Church but the Scripture which contradicts the Doctrine of your Second Chapter 32. Grant this and the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental will appear very good and pertinent For those truths will be Fundamental which are evidently delivered in Scripture and commanded to be Preached to all men Those not Fundamental which are obscure And nothing will hinder but that the Catholick Church may Err in the latter kind of the said points because Truths not necessary to the Salvation cannot be necessary to the being of a Church and because it is not absolutely necessary that God should assist his Church any farther than to bring Her to Salvation neither will there be any necessity at all of any Infallible Guide either to consign unwritten Traditions or to declare the obscurities of the Faith Not for the former end be cause this Principle being granted true nothing unwritten can be necessary to be consigned Nor for the latter because nothing that is obscure can be necessary to be understood or not mistaken And so the discourse of your whole Third Chap will presently vanish 33. Fourthly for the Creed's containing the Fundamentals of simple belief though I see not how it may be deduced from this principle yet the granting of this plainly renders the whole dispute touching the Creed necessary For if all necessary things of all sorts whether of simple belief or practice be confessed to be clearly contained in Scripture what imports it whether those of one sort be contained in the Creed 34. Fifthly let this be granted and the immediate Corollary in opposition to your Fifth Chap. will be and must be That not Protestants for rejecting but the Church of Rome for imposing upon the Faith of Christians Doctrines unwritten and unnecessary and for disturbing the Churches Peace and dividing Unity for such matters is in a high degree presumptuous and Schismatical 35. Grant this sixthly and it will follow unavoidably that Protestants cannot possibly be Hereticks seeing they believe all things evidently contained in Scripture which are supposed to be all that is necessary to be believed and so your Sixth Chapter is clearly confuted 36. Grant this Lastly and it will be undoubtedly consequent in contradiction of your Seventh Chapter that no Man can shew more Charity to himself than by continuing a Protestant seeing Protestants are supposed to believe and therefore may accordingly practice at least by their Religion are not hindered from practising and performing all things necessary to Salvation 37. So that the position of this one Principle is the direct overthrow of your whole Book and therefore I needed not nor indeed have I made use of any other Now this principle which is not only the Corner-stone or chief Pillar but even the base and adequate Foundation of my Answer and which while it stands firm and unmovable cannot but be the supporter of my Book and the certain ruin of yours is so far from being according to your pretence detested by all Protestants that all Protestants whatsoever as you may see in their Harmony of Confessions unanimously profess and maintain it And you your self C. 6. § 30. plainly confess as much in saying The whole Edifice of the Faith of Protestants is setled on these two Principles These particular Books are Canonical Scripture And the sense and meaning of them is plain and evident at least in all points necessary to Salvation 38. And thus your Venom against me is in a manner spent saving only that there remain two little impertinences whereby you would disable me from being a fit advocate for the cause of Protestants The first because I refuse to subscribe the Artic. of the Ch. of England The second because I have set down in writing motives which sometime induced me to forsake Protestantism and hitherto have not answered them 39. By the former of which objections it should seem that either you conceive the 39 Articles the common Doctrine of all Protestants and if they be why have you so often upbraided them with-their many and great differences Or else that it is the peculiar defence of the Church of England and not the common cause of all Protestants which is here undertaken by me which are certainly very gross mistakes And yet why he who makes scruple of subscribing the truth of one or two Propositions may not yet be fit enough to maintain that those who do subscribe them are in a saveable condition I do not understand Now though I hold not the Doctrine of all Protestants absolutely true which with reason cannot be required of me while they hold contradictions yet I hold it free from all impiety and from all Error destructive of Salvation or in it self damnable And this I think in reason may sufficiently qualifie me for a maintainer of this assertion that Protestancy destroys not Salvation For the Church of England I am persuaded that the constant Doctrine of it is so pure and Orthodox that whosoever believes it and lives according to it undoubtedly he shall be saved and that there is no Error in it which may necessitate or warrant any Man to disturb the peace or renounce the Communion of it This in my opinion is all intended by Subscription and thus much if you conceive me not ready to subscribe your Charity I assure you is much mistaken 40. Your other Objection is yet more impertinent and frivolous than the former Unless perhaps it be a just
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
such great harm or danger in not having such a certainty whether some Books be Canonical or no as you require If they had why may not Protestants notwithstanding their differences have sufficient certainty hereof as well as the Ancient Fathers and Churches notwithstanding theirs 35. You proceed And whereas the Protestants of England in the 6. Art have these Words In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those Books of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church you demand what they mean by them Whether that by the Churches consent they are assured what Scriptures be Canonical I Answer for them Yes they are so And whereas you infer from hence This is to make the Church Judge I have told you already That of this Controversie we make the Church the Judge but not the present Church much less the present Roman Church but the consent and Testimony of the Ancient and Primitive Church Which though it be but a highly probable inducement and no demonstrative enforcement yet methinks you should not deny but it may be a sufficient ground of Faith Whose Faith even of the Foundation of all your Faith your Churches Authority is built lastly and wholly upon Prudential Motives 36. But by this Rule the whole Book of Esther must quit the Canon because it was excluded by some in the Church by Melito Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen Then for ought I know he that should think he had reason to exclude it now might be still in the Church as well as Melito Athanasius Nazianzen were And while you thus inveigh against Luther and charge him with Luciferian Heresies for doing that which you in this very place confess that Saints in Heaven before him have done are you not partial and a Judge of evil thoughts 37. Luther's censures of Ecclesiastes Job and the Prophets though you make such Tragedies with them I see none of them but is capable of a tolerable construction and far from having in them any Fundamental Heresie He that condemns him for saying the Book of Ecclesiastes is not full That it hath many abrupt things condemns him for ought I can see for speaking truth And the rest of the censure is but a bold and blunt expression of the same thing The Book of Job may be a true History and yet as many true Stories are and have been an Argument of a Fable to set before us an example of Patience And though the Books of the Prophets were not written by themselves but by their Disciples yet it does not follow that they were written casually Though I hope you will not damn all for Hereticks that say some Books of Scripture were written casually Neither is there any reason they should the sooner be called in question for being written by their Disciples seeing being so written they had attestation from themselves Was the Prophesie of Jeremy the less Canonical for being written by Baruch Or because S. Peter the Master dictated the Gospel and S. Mark the Scholar writ it is it the more likely to be called in Question 38. But leaving Luther you return to our English Canon of Scripture And tell us that in the New Testament by the above mentioned rule of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church divers Books must be discanonized Not so For I may believe even those questioned Books to have been written by the Apostles and to be Canonical but I cannot in Reason believe this of them so undoubtedly as of those Books which were never questioned At least I have no warrant to damn any man that shall doubt of them or deny them now having the example of Saints in Heaven either to justifie or excuse such their doubting or denial 39. You observe in the next place that our sixth Article specifying by name all the Books of the Old Testament shuffles over these of the New with this generality All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we do receive and account them Canonical And in this you fancy to your self a mystery of iniquity But if this be all the shuffling that the Church of England is guilty of I believe the Church as well as the King may give for her Motto Honi soit qui mal y pense For all the Bibles which since the Composing of the Articles have been used and allowed by the Church of England do testifie and even proclaim to the World that by Commonly received they meant received by the Church of Rome and other Churches before the Reformation I pray take the pains to look in them and there you shall find the Books which the Church of England counts Apocryphal marked out and severed from the rest with this Title in the beginning The Books called Apocrypha and with this close or Seal in the End The End of the Apocrypha And having told you by name and in particular what Books only She Esteems Apocryphal I hope you will not put Her to the trouble of telling you that the rest are in Her judgment Canonical 40. But if by Commonly received She meant by the Church of Rome Then by the same reason must She receive divers Books of the Old Testament which She rejects 41. Certainly a very good Consequence The Church of England receives the Books of the New Testament which the Church of Rome receives Therefore she must receive the Books of the Old Testament which she receives As if you should say If you will do as we in one thing you must in all things If you will pray to God with us you must pray to Saints with us If you hold with us when we have reason on our side you must de so when we have no reason 43. But with what Coherence can we say in the former part of the Article That by Scripture we mean those Books that were never doubted of and in the latter say We receive all the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received whereas of them many were doubted I answer When they say of whose Authority there was never any doubt in the Church They mean not those only of whose Authority there was simply no doubt at all by any man in the Church But such as were not at any time doubted of by the whole Church or by all Churches but had attestation though not Universal yet at least sufficient to make considering men receive them for Canonical In which number they may well reckon those Epistles which were sometimes doubted of by some yet whose number and Authority was not so great as to prevail against the contrary suffrages 44. But if to be commonly received pass for a good Rule to know the Canon of the New Testament by why not of the Old You conclude many times very well but still when you do so it is out of principles which no man grants For who ever told you that to be commonly received is a good Rule to know the Canon of the New Testament
Transubstantiation as is explained one where or other by your School-men Now I beseech you Sir to try your skill and if you can compose their repugnance and make peace between them Certainly none but you shall be Catholick Moderator But if you cannot do it and that after an intelligible manner then you must give me leave to believe that either you do not believe Transubstantiation or else that it is no contradiction that men should subjugate their understandings to the belief of contradictions 48. Ad § 18. This Paragraph consists of two immodest untruths obtruded upon us without shew or shadow of reason and an evident sophism grounded upon an affected mistake of the sense of the word Fundamental 49. The first untruth is that some Protestants make a Church of men scarcely agreeing in one point of faith of men concurring in some one or few Articles of belief and in the rest holding conceits plainly contradictory agreeing only in this one Article that Christ is our Saviour c. Ans This is a shameless Calumny because even these men to the constituting of the very essence of a Church in the lowest degree require not only Faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the World but also submission to his Doctrin in mind and will Now I beseech you Sir tell me ingenuously whether the Doctrin of Christ may be called without blasphemy scarcely one point of Faith Or whether it consists only of some-one or few Articles of belief Or whether there be nothing in it but only this Article That Christ is our Saviour Is it not manifest to all the world that Christians of all Professions do agree with one consent in the belief of all those Books of Scripture which were not doubted of in the ancient Church without danger of damnation Nay is it not apparent that no man at this time can without hypocrisie pretend to believe in Christ but of necessity he must do so Seeing he can have no reason to believe in Christ but he must have the same to believe the Scripture I pray then read over the Scripture once more or if that be too much labour the New Testament only and then say whether there be nothing there but scarcely one point of Faith But some one or two Articles of belief Nothing but this Article only that Christ is our Saviour Say whether there be not there an infinite number of Divine Verities Divine precepts Divine promises and those so plainly and undoubtedly delivered that if any sees them not it cannot be because he cannot but because he will not So plainly that whosoever submits sincerely to the Doctrin of Christ in mind and will cannot possibly but submit to these in act and performance And in the rest which it hath pleased God for reasons best known to himself to deliver obscurely or ambiguously yet thus far at least they agree that the sense of them intended by God is certainly true and that they are without passion or prejudice to endeavor to find it out The difference only is which is that true sense which God intended Neither would this long continue if the walls of separation whereby the Divel hopes to make their Divisions eternal were pulled down and Error were not supported against Truth by human advantages But for the present God forbid the matter should be so ill as you make it For whereas you looking upon their points of difference and agreement through I know not what strange glasses have made the first innumerable and the other scarce a number the Truth is clean contrary that those divine Verities Speculative and Practical wherein they universally agree which you will have to be but a few or but one or scarcely one amount to many millions 〈◊〉 if an exact account were taken of them And on the other side the Points in variance are in comparison but few and those not of such a quality but the Error in them may well consist with the belief and obedience of the entire Covenant ratified by Christ between God and man Yet I would not be so mistaken as if I thought the Errors even of some Protestants unconsiderable things and matters of no moment For the truth is I am very fearful that some of their opininions either as they are or as they are apt to be mistaken though not of themselves so damnable but that good and holy men may be saved with them yet are too frequent occasions of our remissness and slackness in running the race of Christian Perfection of our deferring Repentance and conversion to God of our frequent relapses into sin and not seldom of security in sinning and consequently though not certain causes yet too frequent occasions of many mens damnation and such I conceive all these Doctrines which either directly or obliquely put men in hope of Eternal happiness by any other means saving only the narrow way of sincere and Universal obedience grounded upon a true and lively Faith These Errors therefore I do not elevate or extenuate and on condition the ruptures made by them might be composed do heartily wish that the cement were made of my dearest Blood and only not to be an Anathema from Christ Only this I say that neither are their points of agreement so few nor their differences so many as you make them nor so great as to exclude the opposite Parties from being members of one Church Militant and Joynt Heirs of the Glory of the Church Triumphant 50. Your other palpable untruth is that Protestants are far more bold to disagree even in matters of Faith than Catholick Divines you mean your own in Questions meerly Philosophical or not determined by the Church For neither do they differ at all in matters of Faith if you take the word in the highest sense and mean by matters of Faith such Doctrines as are absolutely necessary to Salvation to be believed or not to be disbelieved And then in those wherein they do differ with what colâ—â—r or shadow of Argument can you make good that they are more bold to disagree than you are in Questions meerly Philosophical or not determined by the Church For is there not as great repugnancy between your assent and dissent your affirmation and negation your Est Est Non Non as there is between theirs You follow your Reason in those things which are not determined by your Church and they theirs in things not plainly determined in Scripture And wherein then consists their greater their far greater boldness And what if they in their contradictory opininions pretend both to rely upon the truth of God doth this make their contradictions ever a whit the more repugnant I had always thought that all contradictions had been equally contradictions and equally repugnant because the least of them are as far asunder as Est and Non Est can make them and the greatest are no farther But then you in your differences by name about Predetermination the Immaculate Conception the Popes
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
pretend is the true sense of them When you have produced certain grounds for all these things I doubt not but it will appear that we also may have grounds certain enough to believe our whole Religion which is nothing else but the Bible without dependence on the Churches infallibility Suppose you should meet with a man that for the present believes neither Church nor Scripture nor God but is ready and willing to believe them all if you can shew some sufficient grounds to build his faith upon will you tell such a man there are no certain grounds by which he may be converted or there are If you say the first you make all Religion an uncertain thing If the second then either you must ridiculously perswade that your Church is infallible because it is infallible or else that there are other certain grounds besides your Churches infallibility 46. Obj. The Holy Scripture is in it self most true and infallible but without the direction and declaration of the Church we can neither have certain means to know what Scripture is Canonical nor what Translations be faithful nor what is the true meaning of Scripture Ans But all these things must be known before we can know the direction of your Church to be infallible for no other proof of it can be pretended but only some Texts of Canonical Scripture truly interpreted Therefore either you are mistaken in thinking there is no other means to know these things but your Churches infallible direction or we are excluded from all means of knowing her direction to be infallible 47. Obj. But Protestants though they are perswaded their own opinions are true and that they have used such means as are wont to be prescribed for understanding the Scripture as Prayer conferring of Texts c. Yet by their disagreement shew that some of them are deceived Now they hold all the Articles of their faith upon this only ground of Scripture interpreted by these rules and therefore it is clear that the ground of their faith is infallible in no point at all Ans The first of these suppositions must needs be true but the second is apparently false I mean that every Protestant is perswaded that he hath used those means which are prescribed for understanding of Scripture But that which you collect from these suppositions is clearly inconsequent and by as good Logick you might conclude that Logick and Geometry stand upon no certain grounds that the rules of the one and the principles of the other do sometimes fail because the disagreement of Logicians and Geometricians shew that some of them are deceived Might not a Jew conclude as well against all Christians that they have no certain ground whereon to relie in their understanding of Scripture because their disagreements shew that some are deceived because some deduce from it the infallibility of a Church and others no such matter So likewise a Turk might use the same argument against both Jews and Christians and an Atheist against all Religions and a Sceptick against all reason Might not the one say Mens disagreement in Religion shews that there is no certainty in any and the other that experience of their contradictions teacheth that the rules of reason do sometimes fail Do not you see and feel how void of reason and how full of impiety your sophistry is And how transported with zeal against Protestants you urge arguments against them which if they could not be answered would overthrow not only your own but all Religion But God be thanked the answer is easie and obvious For let men but remember not to impute the faults of men but only to men and then it will easily appear that there may be sufficient certainty in reason in Religion in the rules of interpreting Scripture though men through their faults take not care to make use of them and so run into divers errors and dissentions 48. Obj. But Protestants cannot determine what points be fundamental and therefore must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamental error Ans By like reason since you acknowledge that every error in points defined and declared by your Church destroys the substance of Faith and yet cannot determine what points be defined it followeth that you must remain uncertain whether or no you be not in some fundamental error and so want the substance of Faith without which there can be no hope of Salvation But though we cannot perhaps say in particular thus much and no more is fundamental yet believing all the Bible we are certain enough that we believe all that is fundamental As he that in a receipt takes twenty ingredients whereof ten only are necessary though he know not which those ten are yet taking the whole twenty he is sure enough that he has taken all that are necessary 49. Ad § 29. Obj. It is generally delivered by Catholick Divines that he who erreth against any one revealed truth tâ—seth all Divine Faith Now certainly some Protestants must do so because they hold contradictions which cannot all be true Therefore some of them at least have no divine faith Ans I pass by your weakness in urging Protestants with the authority of your Divines Yet if the Authority of your Divines were even Canonical certainly nothing could be concluded from it in this matter there being not one of them who delivers for true doctrin this position of yours thus nakedly set down That any error against any one revealed truth destroys all divine faith For they all require not your self excepted that this truth must not only be revealed but revealed publickly and all things considered sufficiently propounded to the erring party to be one of those which God under pain of damnation commands all men to believe But if the Reader will be at the pains he may see this vain fancy confuted out of one of the most rational and profound Doctors of your own Church I mean Estius upon the third Book of the Sententes the 23. Distinct and the 13. Section beginning thus It is disputed whether in him who believes some of the Articles of our Faith and disbelieves others or perhaps some one there be faith properly so called in respect of that which he does believe 50. But if Protestants have certainty they want obscurity and so have not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing This argument you prosecute in the next Paragraph but I can find nothing in it to convince or perswade me that Protestants cannot have as much certainty as is required to faith of an object not so evident as to beget science If obscurity will not consist with certainty in the highest degree then you are to blame for requiring to faith contradicting conditions If certainty and obscurity will stand together what reason can be imagined that a Protestant may not entertain them both as well as a Papist Your bodies and souls your understandings and wills are I think of the same
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
trouble you took the next Boat and went to the Church of Rome because that bespake you first You impute to me as I hear that the way I take is destructive only and that I build nothing which first is not a fault for Christian Religion is not now to be built but only I desire to have the rubbish and impertinent Lumber taken off which you have laid upon it which hides the glorious simplicity of it from them which otherwise would embrace it Remember I pray Averroes his saying Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis and consider the swarms of Atheists in Italy and then tell me whether your unreasonable and contradictious Doctrines your forged Miracles and counterfeit Legends have not in all probability produced this effect Secondly if it be a fault it is certainly your own for your discourse intended for the proof of a positive conclusion That we must be Papists proves in deed and in truth nothing but even in shew and appearance no more but this Negative that we must not be Protestants but what we must be if we must not be Protestants God knows you in this Discourse I am sure do not shew it Mr. Lewgars Reply § 1. The minor of Mr. Chillingworths Argument against my ground is very weak being framed upon a false supposition that a Protestant could name no other Church professing a diverse Faith c. from the Greek Church which was the Catholick Church for if he could not indeed name any other the title would remain to the Greek Church But he hath the Roman to name and so my ground cannot conclude either for the Greek or Abyssine or any other besides the Roman but for that it does except he can name some other § 2. His second answer is weak likewise for my Minor is always true at least they thought it to be so whose Authorities I produce in confirmation of it as will appear to any one that considers them well how their force lies in Thesi not in Hypothesi not that the Church was not then divided into more Societies than one but that she could never be § 3. As for his Instance to the contrary wherein he believes I will not say the Churches excommunicated by Victor ceased to be a true member of the Catholick If I say so I say no more than the Ancient Fathers said before me Iraeneus when he desired Victor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to cut off so many and great Churches and Ruffinus reprehendit eam quod non benè fecisset abscindere ab unitate corporis c. § 4. But howsoever the case of Excommunication may be the division of external Communion which I intended and the Fathers spake of in the alledged Authorities was that which was made by voluntary separation § 5. Whereby the Church before one Society is divided into several distinct Societies both claiming to be the Church of which Societies so divided but one can be the Catholick and this is proved by the Authorities alledged which Authorities must not be answered by disproving them as he does for that is to change his Adversary and confute the Fathers sayings instead of mine but by shewing their true sense or judgment to be otherwise than I alledged it § 6. To his demand upon the places alledged I Answer that I do not build my whole faith of this conclusion upon the Authority of those Fathers for I produce them not for the Authority of the thing but of the Exposition The thing it self is an Article of the Creed Unam Catholicam grounded in express Scripture Columba mea unica but because there is difference in understanding this Prophesie I produce these Authorities to shew the Judgment of the Ancient Church how they understood it and the proper answer to this is either to shew that these words were not there or at least not this meaning and so to shew their meaning out of other places more pregnant § 7. And I promise that whensoever an equal consent of Fathers can be shewed for any thing as I can shew for this I will believe it as firmly as I do this § 8. But this is not the Answerers part to propound doubts and difficulties but to satisfie the proof objected § 9. And if this course be any more taken I will save my self all farther labour in a business so likely to be endless § 10. His second Answer to the places is wholly impertinent for therein would he disprove them from watching a necessity of resting in the judgment of the Roman Church whereas I produced them only to shew that among several Societies of Christians only one can be the Catholick and against this his second Answer saith nothing § 11. In his third Answer he makes some shew of reply to the Authorities themselves but he commits a double Error One that he imposes upon me a wrong conclusion to be proved as will appear by comparing my conclusion in my Paper with the conclusion he would appoint me § 12. Another that he imposes upon the Authorities a wrong Interpretation no way grounded in the words themselves nor in the places whence they were taken nor in any other places of the same Fathers but meerly forged out of his own Brain For first the places do not only say that the Societies of Hereticks and Schismaticks are no part of the Church but that the Church cannot be divided into more Societies than one and they account Societies divided which are either of a diverse Faith or a diverse Communion Neither do they define Hereticks or Schismaticks in that manner as he does § 13. For an Heretick in their Language is he that opposes partinaciously the Common Faith of the Church and a Schismatick he that separates from the Catholick Communion never making any mention at all of the cause § 14. And if his definition of a Schismatick may stand then certainly there was no Schismatick ever in the World nor none are at this day for none did none does separate without some pretence of Error or unlawfulness in the Conditions of the Churches Communion § 15. And so I expect both a fuller and directer answer to my Argument without excursions or diversions into any other matter till the judgment of Antiquity be cleared in this point Mr. Chillingworths Answer Ad § 1. The Minor of my Argument you say is very weak being grounded upon a false Supposition That a Protestant could name no other Church professing a diverse Faith from the Greek which was the Catholick Church And your reason is because he might name the Roman But in earnest Mr. Lewgar do you think that a Protestant remaining a Protestant can esteem the Roman Church to be the Catholick Church or do you think to put tricks upon us with taking your proposition one while in sensu composito another while in sensu diviso For if your meaning was that a Protestant not remaining but ceasing to be a