that do not please you they refer themselves to the Fathers for the first six hundred years till your abominations had leavened the world according to what was foretold Rev. 13. 8. II. My second consideration is this You do not only decline the Scriptures judgment but you infinitely disparage and vilifie it I meet with several passages quoted out of your Authors to that purpose Pop. Possibly you may out of some inconsiderable ones but not out of any of note and name in our Church Prot. Yes out of your prime Authors I read that Cardinal Hosius in his Advertisement to King Sigismund hath this expression If they that is the Hereticks say It is written that is the voice of the Devil speaking in his members But that it is below a Cardinal to read the Bible he would have found the words also in Christs mouth I read that Costerus calls the Scripture by way of contempt Paper and Parchment God saith he would noâ— have his Church by which always understand the Papists themselves now depend upon Paper and Parchment as Moses made the carnal Israelites And again That which is written in the heart of the Church doth by many degrees excel the Scriptures First because that was written by the finger of God but this by the Apostles as if the Writings of the Apostles were only a device of man I read that Cardinal Pool writing to Henry the Eighth saith thus What an absurd thing is this that thou dost attribute more authority to the Scripture than to the Church since the Scripture hath no authority but for the decree of the Church He means the Roman Church I see we are highly concerned to please your Church else we are like to have no Scriptures I read that Pighius saith The Apostles did never intend to subject our faith to their writings but rather their writings to our faith And afterward he saith The Scriptures are as one said not more pleasantly than truly a nose of wax which suffers it self to be drawn hither or thither as a man pleaseth I read that your Bullenger saith The Scripture is the Daughter the Church the Mother which gives being and sufficiency to her she begets No wonder then the Church makes bold with the Scripture to add or alter or dispense with it We all know the Mother may correct the Daughter I confess when I read those passages produced by our Writers I suspected they wronged them Are these things true Pop. I acknowledge it and it is a vain thing for me to deny it for the Books and those passages in them are extant under their own hands And I must confess these Authors are as considerable and approved as any we have But you ought to put a favourable sense upon them Prot. I would not strain them nor make them worse than they are Take them as you will they are abominable expressions and to me a great evidence that the Scripture is no friend to your Church And I conclude this to be one accomplishment of what Christ hath said Every one that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved John 3. 20. And if this be the spirit by which your Church is guided I am sure it is not the Spirit of God and of Truth for that teacheth men reverence and love to the Scriptures You seem to do like Herod who being convinced that he was not of the Royal race of the Iews did burn their Genealogies and Records that his false pretences might not be confuted by them And just so do you endeavour to do by the Scriptures III. My third Consideration against your Religion is this That your Cause is such as dares not abide tryal This is the honour and happiness of our Religion We are allowed to examine all that our Ministers say and we have a Rule which we may peruse to try them by viz. the holy Scriptures which you dare not suffer your people to read And this I take to be a secret confession of your guilt and I am told your Alphonsus de Castro saith That from the reading of the Scripture all Heresies come Pop. I think your experience hath justified that expression You see what you get by the reading of the Scriptures even this that you are crumbled into a thousand Sects Prot. Our Saviour was not of your mind for he thought not acquaintance with but ignorance of the Scriptures was the cause of Error Ye erre not knowing the Scriptures Mat. 22. 29. Nor did he only allow but command the Iews to search the Scriptures without any fear of this inconvenience Iohn 5. 39. Had S. Paul been of your mind he would not have commended but reproved the Beraans for searching the Scriptures and examining his Doctrine by them Act. 17. 11. If any of your people should do as the Beraeans did they would be sent to the Inquisition I do not deny but too many make a bad use of the Scripture and wrest it to wicked purposes which is to me no better an argument than this Wine makes many men drunk therefore no Wine must be sold. The Doctrine of Free Grace was abused by thousands as we read therefore S. Paul did ill in preaching of it The light of the Sun hurts sore eyes therefore Solomon was mistaken when he said It is a pleasant thing to behold the Sun But since you speak of this I pray you let me ask you one question Were not most of the Heresies that ever were in the Church brought in by learned men Pop. I cannot deny that for it is notoriously known Prot. Then you shut up the wrong door for it seems it is not the unlearned mans reading but the learned mans perverting the Scripture which is the true cause and fountain of Heresies And besides you must not do evil that good may come out of it nor defraud people of their greatest treasure nor keep them from their duty for fear of some inconveniencies This is to make your selves wiser than God Pop. But indeed you slander us in this point We do not absolutely forbid reading of the Scriptures The Council of Trent allows it provided you can get the Bishops leave Prot It is true that Council pretends to give some such liberty but they take away with one hand what they gave with the other for in their Index of forbidden Books they have this passage Since experience sheweth that the promiscuous reading of the Bible brings more evil than good therefore if any man shall dare to read or have a Bible without license from the Bishop or Inquisitor he shall not be capable of absolution unless he part with his Bible But in truth this pretended License is but an handsome blind For in that very place there is this Observation added to that Rule That the power of giving such Licenses of reading or keeping the vulgar Bibles is taken away from such Bishops and Inquisitors by
the command and usage of the Roman and universal Inquisition At best it seems I must not obey Christs command of searching the Scriptures unless the Bishop give me leave But I pray you tell me Do your people use to ask and the Bishops to give them leave to read the Bible Pop. I will not dissemble with you They do not And the truth is an approved Writer of ours Ledesima puts the question What if a man should come to the Bishop and desire liberty to read the Bible and that with a good intention to which he replies that the Bishop should answer him in the words of Christ Matt. 20. 20. Ye know not what ye ask and Indeed saith he and he saith it truly the root of this demand is an heretical disposition Prot. Then I perceive in this as well as in other things you are more careful to deceive people with pretences than to inform them But indeed you tell me no more than I had read or heard out of your own Authors It was the speech of your Pope Innocent That the Mountain which the Beasts must not touch is the high and holy Scriptures which the unlearned must not read and your Doctors commonly affirm that people must not be suffered to read the Scriptures because we must not give holy things to Dogs nor cast Pearls before swine My fourth General consideration against your Religion is this That it grosly contradicts the great designs and ends of the Christian Religion which all confess to be such as these the glorifying of God and his Son Jesus Christ and the humbling and abasing of men the beating down of all sin and the promoting of serious holiness Are not those the chief ends of Religion Pop. I do freely acknowledge they are and our Religion doth most answer these ends Prot. That you and I will now try And for the first Your Religion doth highly dishonour God sundry ways What can be a greater dishonour to God than to make the holy Scriptures which you confess to be the Word of God to depend upon the Testimony and Authority of your Pope or Church and to say that the Word of God is but a dead letter and hath no authority over us without their Interpretation and Approbation By which means malefactors for such all men are Rom. 3. 9 10. your Pope not excepted are made Judges of and superiour to that Law whereby they are condemned Tell me would not the French King take it for a great dishonour if any of his Subjects should say That his Edicts and Decrees had no Authority over his People without their approbation Pop. Yes doubtless he would Prot. Just so you deal with God and what can be a fouler dishonour to God than that which your great Stapleton affirmed and Gretser and others justified and your Church to this day have never disowned it That the Divinity of Christ and of God in respect of us depends upon the Authority of the Pope And what more dishonourable to God than what your great Champion Bellarmine saith That if the Pope should erre in forbidding Virtues which God hath commanded and commanding Vices which God hath forbidden And that he may so erre divers of your most famous and approved Authors confess the Church were bound to believe Vices to be good and Vertues bad unless she would sin against Conscience that is in plain terms the Pope is to be obeyed before God Again is it not highly dishonorable to God to give the Worship which is proper to God unto the Creature I confess the Prophet Isaiah hath convinced me of it Isa. 42 8. I am the Lord that is my Name and my glory will I not give to another neither my praise to graven Images Pop. I also am of the same mind but it is a scandal of your Ministers to say we give Gods honour to the Creature I know where about you are you mean it of Images whereas we worship them with a lower kind of Worship Prot. You worship them with such a kind of worship as neither Angels nor Saints durst receive Cornelius did not worship Peter with a Divine Worship as God for he knew he was but Gods Minister yet Peter durst not receive it It was an inferiour Worship which the Devil required of Christ for he acknowledges at the same time God to be his Superiour and the giver of that power he claimeth Luke 4. 6. And yet that was the Worship which Christ saith God hath forbidden to be given to any Creature You are a valiant man that dare venture your immortal soul upon a nice School distinction I pray you do you not worship the Bread in the Sacrament with that worship which you call Latria which is proper to God Pop. We do so and that upon very good reason because it is not Bread but the very Body of Christ into which the Bread is turned Prot. But what if the Bread be not converted in Christs Body Is it not then an high dishonour to God and indeed damnable Idolatry Pop. Yes our Fisher the famous Martyr and Bishop of Rochester saith No man can doubt if there be nothing in the Eucharist but Bread that the whole Church hath been guilty of Idolatry for a long time and therefore must needs be damned but we are well assured that it is no longer Bread and yet I must add this If peradventure it should still remain Bread yet for as much as we believe it to be the Body of our Lord our ignorance I hope would excuse us from Idolatry and God would not impute it to us Prot. Tell me I beseech you Will all kind of ignorance excuse a man Pop. No certainly There is a wilful and affected ignorance which because it is against clear light will not excuse Prot. Tell me farther Did this excuse the Iews from their sin of crucifying Christ and the damnation due to it that they did it ignorantly Act. 3. 17. Pop. No because they shut their eyes against the plain light and clear evidence of that truth that Christ was the Messias Prot. No less do you in the doctrine of the Sacrament for they had no greater evidences against them than Sense and Reason and Scripture all which you reject as I shall prove by Gods help And as your Religion dishonours God so doth it also highly dishonour Jesus Christ whom he hath sent who is expresly called the one Mediatour 1 Tim. 2. 5. But you have conferred that honour upon many others Saints and Angels Pop. True there is but one chief Mediatour but there may be other secondary Mediatours Prot. In like manner to that which the Apostle there saith there is but one God it might be said there are other secondary gods and so we might introduce the Heathen gods into the Church It is the great Prerogative of Jesus Christ that he is the Redeemer of the World yet your Bellarmine was not afraid to communicate this honour to
12. 6. that is years it being a very familiar thing to put dayes for years in Prophetical Writings But if the Church may be obscured for three years why not for thirty yea three hundred Did Christ in his supposed promise of perpetual Visibility in the Church make an exception for these three years I trow not And tell me I pray you should you live till that time when Antichrist shall prevail and your Religion no less than ours be obscure and invisible if any of the followers of Antichrist should dispute against you that yours was not the true Church because not visible Would you grant it Pop. God forbid I should be so wicked to deny my Mother and Church because of her Afflictions Prot. Then I see you your selves do not believe this to he a good argument and that you do not make perpetual visibility a necessary token of the true Church To this I add there is no need we should shew a constant succession of Protestant Churches ever since the Apostles dayes as you pretend is necessary the succession that you pretend in your Church is sufficient for ours and so long as we generally agree that your Church was a true Church till later years though wofully corrupted and our Predecessors continued in it till your wounds stunk and became incurable we need no other succession than yours but when your impiety came to the height then we visibly departed from you and have given such reasons for it as you will never be able to answer In the mean time let me hear what you have further to say Pop. For as much as all your Ministers confess our Church was once a true Church I pray you tell me how and when she did fall you cannot tell either the time when she fell or the manner how by Apostacy or Heresie or Schism if you can name your Authors Prot. This is a most unreasonable demand A friend of mine had the Plague last year and died of it I askt him when he was sick how and when he got it he said he knew not Shall I then conclude he had it not Shall I make Christ a lyar and dispute that there were no tares because they were sown when men slept Mat. 13. 25. and so could not know when or how they came Shall I believe no Heresie to be an Heresie unless I can shew how and when it came into the Church What if the Records of these things by the injury of time are lost and their original left in obscurity shall I therefore say it is now become no Heresie I beseech you answer me freely this question Suppose I could bring plain and strong evidences from the holy Scripture and from antient Tradition or the unanimous testimonies of the Antient Fathers that your Doctrine of Merits for instance is an Heresie your Doctrine of worshipping Images is Idolatry and that you are in divers particulars apostatized from that faith which the Scriptures and Fathers do own in this case Would you not confess that you are guilty of Idolatry Heresie and Apostasie Pop. If it were so and you could really bring as you falsely pretend you can but indeed cannot any such solid proofs I must and will confess it For all our Writers agree that although we must believe many things that are not contained in the Scripture yet we must believe nothing contrary to the Scriptures nor to the consent of the antient Fathers Prot. Very well hence then I gather that the only question between you and me is Whether we can evidently and solidly prove the particulars now mentioned which if we can do as I am satisfied our Ministers have done you are convicted in your own Conscience and will confess your self and your Church guilty of Heresie Idolatry and Apostasie whether I can tell the manner or time or Authors of this doctrine or no. Therefore leaving these frivolous and impertinent questions let me hear what you have to say more against our Religion and whereas your discourse I observe hath wholly run upon Generals I beseech you come to some particulars and shew me the falshood of the Doctrines of our Church But it doth not a little confirm me in my Religion that you confess as I shewed before most of our Doctrines to be true and grounded upon Scripture whereas yours are additions of your own devising Now if things be thus you shall not need to trouble your self about many particulars But if you please single out some of our principal Heresies as you call them and let me hear what evidences you can bring against them Pop. Your Heresies are very many but I shall mention one which may be instead of all and that is your rule of Faith and Iudge of Controversies which you make to be the Scripture only Prot I am glad you have fallen upon so material a point the deciding whereof may make other Disputes in great part useless Tell me then what you have to say against this Doctrine Pop. I will urge four Arguments against it 1. Scripture hath no authority over us but from the Church 2. You cannot know what Books are the holy Scriptures or part of it but by the Churches report 3. If neither of these were true yet Scripture is not a sufficient rule for your faith without Tradition 4. If it were sufficient yet it is so obscure that you cannot know the sense of it without the interpretation of the Church You see here is a fourfold cord which you will find is not easily broken Prot. Make these things good and I confess you do your work in a great measure Let me hear your Proofs Pop. For the first then I say that Scripture hath no authority over us but from the Church neither you nor I are bound to believe the Scripture to be the word of God nor can any man know it or prove it to be so but from the testimony of our Church concerning it Prot. I pray tell me if you were to discourse with an Atheist who utterly denies the holy Scriptures and the Church too Could you not prove against him that the Scriptures are the Word of God Pop. God forbid but that I should be able to defend the truth of the Scriptures against any adversary whatsoever Prot. How then I pray you would you prove it Pop. I need not tell you the Arguments which in this case our Doctors use and I stand by them in it they alledge for the truth of the holy Scriptures the testimony of all ages and all sorts of persons the miracles wrought for it acknowledged even by the Enemies of it the martyrdom that so many thousands and many of them wise and learned men did run upon in the defence of them who living so near the time of the writing of them were best able do discern the truth and the wonderful power that goes along with them in convincing converting and comforting or terrifying sinners Prot. Do you believe these are solid Arguments
and that the Atheist ought to yield to them Pop. Yes doubtless for every man is bound to receive the truth especially when it is so proposed and proved to him Prot. It seems then by this when you list you can prove the Scripture to be the Word of God without taking in the Churches Authority I hope you will allow me the same benefit But again let me ask you your Church that you talk of which believes the Scripture to be the Word of God Doth she believe it to be the Word of God upon solid grounds or no Pop. Yes doubtless our Church is not so irrational as to believe without grounds nor do we pretend Revelation but she believes it upon solid Arguments Prot. I wish you would give me a list of their Arguments But whatever they be that are sufficient to convince your Church why should they not be sufficient to convince any private man Popish or Protestant or Atheist And therefore there is no need of the Churches testimony Or will you say the Church hath no other sufficient reason to believe the Scriptures but her own testimony that is she believes because she will believe Pop. God forbid that I should disparage the Church or give Atheists that occasion to scoff at the Stripture Prot. Then I also may be satisfied without the Churches testimony that the Scriptures are the Word of God and I am so by such Arguments as your self mentioned but really I cannot but smile to see what cunning sophisters you are how you play at fast and loose The same Arguments for the Scriptures are strong and undeniable when you talk with an Atheist and are all of a sudden become weak as water when a Protestant brings them Pop. But if you can prove in the General That the Scriptures are the Word of God yet you cannnot without the Churches Authority tell what Books of Scripture or which are Canonical and so you are never the nearer Prot. Here also I must ask you again How doth your Church know which Books are Scripture and Canonical doth she know this by Revelation Pop. No we leave such fancies to your Church Prot. How then doth she know this and why doth she determine it Is it with reason or without it Pop. With reason doubtless being induced to believe and determine it upon clear and undoubted Evidences Prot. I pray you tell me what are those Evidences upon which she goes Pop. I will be true to you our great Bellarmine mentions these three The Church saith he knows and declares a Canonical Book 1. From the testimonies of the Antients 2. From its likeness and agreement with other Books 3. From the common sense and taste of Christian people Prot. Since a private man especially one that besides learning and experience hath the Spirit of God to guide him which is that anointing given to all Believers which teaches them all things 1 Joh. 2. 27. may examine and apprehend these things as well as the Pope himself and better too considering what kind of creatures divers of your Popes are confest to have been he may therefore know without the Churches Authority what Books are indeed Canonical but I pray you tell me Do not you acknowledge those books to be the Word of God which we do that are in this Bible Pop. I must be true to you we do own every Book you have there but you should receive the Books which you call Apocryphal so that indeed your Bible is not compleat for you believe but a part of the written Word of God which I must tell you is of dangerous consequence Prot. If these Books be a part of Gods Word I confess we are guilty of a great sin in taking away from Gods Word and if they be not you are no less guilty in adding to it so that the only question is Whether these Books be a part of the holy Scripture or no Now that if you please we will try Bellarmines rules Pop. The motion is fair and reasonable Prot. First then for the judgment of the Antient Church let us try that I know you hold the Churches judgment infallible especially in matters of this moment and I suppose you think the Iewish Church was infallible before Christ as the Christian Church now is Pop. We do so and the Infallibility of the Iewish Church and High Priest Deut. 17. is one of our principal Arguments for the Infallibility of our Church Prot. Then only these Books of the old Testament were Canonical which the Jewish Church did own Pop. That must necessarily follow Prot. Then your cause is lost for it is certain the Jews rejected these Apocryphal Books which you receive and they reckoned only 22. Iosephus his words acknowledged for his by Eusebius are most express for us The Iews have only 22 Books to which they deservedly give credit which contains things written from the beginning of the World to the times of Artaxerxes other things were written afterward so the Apocryphal Books are granted to have been but they are not of the same credit with the former because There was no certain succession of Prophets and I am told divers of your learned Authors confess it as Catharinus Costerus Marianus Victor and Bellarmine himself whose words are these All those Books which the Protestants do not receive the Iews also did not receive and this is more considerable because to the Iews were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 2. And neither Christ nor his Apostles did accuse them of breach of trust in this matter Moreover I am told and surely in all reason it must needs be true that the Canonical Books of the Iewish Church were written in the Iewish or Hebrew language whereas these were written in Greek only Are these things so Pop. What is true I will acknowledge It is so The Jewish Church indeed did not receive them nor yet did they reject them as our Canus well answers Prot. Either that Church did believe them to be Canonical or they did not if they did then they lived in a mortal sin against Conscience in not receiving them if they did not they were of our opinion Pop. Well what soever the Jewish Church did I am sure the Antient Christians and Fathers did receive these Books as a part of the Canonical Scriptures Prot. I doubt I shall take you tardy there too I am told that the Council of Laodicea in the year of our Lord 364. drew up a Catalogue of the Books of the Scripture in which as in ours the Apocryphal Books are rejected Pop. It is true they did not receive them nor yet reject them Prot. If they did not receive them that undeniably shews that they did not believe them to be Canonical and yet they diligently scanned the point and the Books had then been extant some hundred of years and they were far more likely to know the truth than we at this distance having then
remission of punishment which is procured by indulgences in that case it is not inconvenient that the rich is in a better condition than the poor for there it is not said come and buy without money I confess that were a dangerous speech and would utterly undoe all the Church of Rome It is sufficient that Isaiah once said it and Christ again come and drink freely People should have been wise and taken them at their word for they are never like to hear it a third time Is this true Pop. They do indeed say so and the practice of our Church manifests to all the world that Indulgences are sold for money and the condition of the rich in that is better than the poor But what great matter is that as to the Pardon of Sin and eternal Life or Death both rich and poor are alike This difference is only as to the pains of Purgatory Prot. Is that nothing to you you speak against your own and all mens sense we see how highly men esteem to be freed from a painful though short disease here how much more to be freed from such pains as you all confess to be unspeakably more sharp and grievous than all the pains that ever were endured in this world It is so considerable a thing that I assure you it is to me matter of wonder if Christ and the Apostles had been of your minde how it came to pass so unluckily that the poor only should receive the Gospel whereas if the men of that Age had not been all Fools the rich would have been most forward to entertain it VII But to proceed My seventh Consideration against your Religion is taken from its great hazard and utter uncertainty According to the doctrine of your Church no man can be sure of his salvation without a revelation but he must go out of the world not knowing whether he goes Indeed there is nothing but hazard and uncertainty in your Religion I suppose you grant that all your Faith and consequently your salvation depends upon the infallible Authority of your Church Pop. That is most certain Prot. Are you then infallibly certain that your Church is infallible or do you only probably believe it Pop. I am but a private Priest and therefore cannot pretend to Infallibility but I am fully satisfied in it that the Church is infallible in it self Prot. Then I see you pretend to no more certainty than I have for I know and you grant that the Scripture is infallible in it self and I know its infallibility as certainly as you know the infallibility of your Church But I pray you tell me what is your opinion I know your are divided but where do you place the infallibility or where do you lay the foundation of your Faith Pop. To deal freely with you I place it in the Pope who when he determines things out of his Chair is infallible for S. Peter who was supream Head of the Church left the Pope his Successour Prot. Then it seems your Faith doth wholly depend on these things that Saint Peter was Bishop of Rome and died there and that he left the Pope his successour in his supream and infallible Authority Pop. It doth so Prot. How then are you infallibly assured of the truth of these things which are all matters of Fact Pop. Because they are affirmed by so many of the Ancient Fathers and Writers Prot. Were those Fathers or Writers infallible persons Pop. No. Prot. Then might they and so may you be mistaken in that point and so indeed you have nothing but a meer conjecture for the foundation of your Faith But again are you infallibly sure that Saint Peters intention was to leave his Infallibility to the Pope For I do not read that S. Peter left it in his last wil. I tell you true it is strange to me that St. Peter should write two Catholick Epistles and as I observed before not leave one word concerning this matter For my part I shall alwayes rather question the Popes Authority than S. Peters fidelity or discretion in omitting so Fundamental a Point when he put in many of far less concernment But further I demand How are you assured that St. Peter intended to leave his power and did actually leave it to his Successors Pop. By the unanimous consent of the Ancient Fathers Prot. I wonder at your confidence that you dare affirm a thing which our Authors have so clearly proved to be false But suppose it were so that the Fathers had said it tell me are the Fathers infallible at least are they so in their reports of matter of Fact Pop. No we confess that it is only the Pope or Council that are infallible not the Fathers to be true to you even the Pope himself is not infallible in his Reports of matters of Fact Prot. Then you have nothing but a meer conjecture or historical Report delivered by men liable to mistake for the great foundation of your Faith Yet once more have you any greater or better certainty for your Faith than the Pope himself Pop. God forbid I should be so impudâ—nt or wicked to say so for my Faith depends upon his certainty Prot. Very well How I beseech you is the Pope assured what is it that makes him infallibly certain of his own Infallibility Is he assured of 〈◊〉 Revelatâ—on Pop. No as I have told you oft we pretend to no such things Prot. How then Pop. By the Spirit of God which guides him into all truth Prot. How is he assured that the Spirit of God guides him Pop. By the promises God hath made to him I need not repeat them they are known already Thou are Peter c. Simon Simon I have prayed that thy Faith fail not c. Prot. I have already shewn how absurdly these Texts are alledged But I beseech you how is the Pope infallibly assured that this is the true meaning of those Texts You confess it is not by inspiration Pop. He knows that by considering and comparing Scripture with Scripture and by consulting the Fathers and Prayer Diligence and Obedience c. Prot. All these things are very good but any other man may use these means as well as the Pope and hath as full promises from God as any the Pope pretends to as Ioh. 7. 17. If any man will do his will he shal know of the doctrine whether it be of God and the Spirit of Truth is promised to all that ask it Luke 11. 13. So if this be all you have to say God deliver my soul from such a desperate Religion wherein all the certainty of its Faith depends upon his infallibility that is not certain of his own infallibility But I need say no more of this It is to me an undeniable argument that there is no certainty at all in this foundation because as you confess so many hundreds of your ablest Schollars do utterly reject it But once more in my opinion you run
denying of the reading of Scriptures to the people and others And will you yet brag of the Antiquity of your Religion 3. These Doctrines wherein we differ from you have been not only proved from Scripture but from the plain testimony of Antient Fathers as I think none can doubt that laying aside prejudices shall read what our Iewel and Morton and Field and others have written How then can you have the confidence to charge us with Novelty Pop. Your Church is new in this respect that although some others before you might own some of your Doctrines there was no Church that owned all your Doctrines both positive and negative Prot. That is not necessary I hope every alteration of Doctrines of less moment doth not make the Church new if it doth it is most certain that your Church is new also for nothing can be more plain than that the Catholick Church nay even your own Church of Rome did not antiently in former ages hold all these Doctrines which now she owns as your own greatest Authors confess this is sufficient that the Church of God in most former ages hath owned all our Substantial Doctrines But what have you further to say Pop. It is sufficient against you that your Church is Schismatical and you are all guilty of Schism in departing from the true Catholick Church which is but one and that is the Roman Prot. I desire to know of you Whether in no case a man may separate from the Church whereof he was a member without Schism Pop. Yes certainly if there be sufficient cause for it for the Apostles did separate from the Church of the Jews after Christs death and the Orthodox separated from the Arrian Churches and all Communion with them yet none ever charged them with Schism Prot. Since you mention that instance I pray you tell me Why they separated from the Arrians Pop. Because they held this Heresie That Christ was a Creature and not the true God Prot. Very well hence then I conclude That if your Church do hold any Heresie and require all her members to own it too it is no Schism for us to separate from you Pop. That must needs be granted but this is but a slander of yours for our Church holds no such Heresies Prot. Your Church doth not hold one but many dangerous Errours and Heresies as I do not doubt to manifest e're you and I part And if you please we will leave the present Argumeut to this issue if I do not prove your Church guilty of Heresie and the imposition of it too I am content you should charge us with Schism if I do you shall mention it no more Pop. You speak reason let it rest there Prot. Besides methinks you deal barbarously with us you drive us out from you by your tyranny and then you blame us for departing as if Sarah had call'd Hagar a Schismatick for going out of Abraham's family from which she forced her Tell me I pray you if the case be so that I must depart from the Roman Church or from God What must I do Pop. The case is plain you must rather depart from that Church Prot. This is the case If I do not depart from your Church she will force me to live in many mortal sins I must believe a hundred lies I must worship the Cross and Relicks and Images which God commands me under pain of his highest displeasure not to worship I must worship the Sacrament with divine worship which I am assured is no other for substance than bread for your Church is not content to hold these opinions but she enjoyns these practices to all her members And if things be thus I think you will not have the confidence any more to charge us with Schism for obeying the command of God to come out of Babylon since you force all your members to partake with you in your sins Rev. 18. 4. Besides all this let me ask you upon what account you charge us with Schism Pop. For departing from the Catholick Church and from your Mother Church of Rome and from the Pope whose Subjects once you were Prot. If then I can prove that we are not departed from the Catholick Church nor from our Mother Church nor from any of that subjection we owe to the Pope I hope you will acquit us from Schism Pop. That I cannot deny Prot. Then this danger is over For 1. We never did depart from the Catholick Church which is not your particular Roman Church as you most ridiculously call it but the whole multitude of Believers and Christians in the world Nay the truth is you are the Schismaticks in renouncing all Communion with all the Christian Churches in the world except your own which are equal to yours in number and many of them far superiour in true piety Next we do not own you for our Mother Ierusalem which is above not Babylon that is beneath is the Mother of us all If we grant now you are a true Church yet you are but a sister Church Pop. You forget that you received the Gospel from our hands Prot. Suppose we did really so Doth that give you authority over us If it did not Rome but Ierusalem should be the Mother Church from whom you also received the Gospel This you deny which shews that you do not believe your own Argument to be good And for the Popes Universal and Infallible Authority which he pretends over all Christians I have diligently read your Arguments for it and I freely profess to you I find your pretences both from Scripture and Fathers so weak and frivolous that I durst commend it to any understanding and disinterested person as a most likely means to convince him of the vanity and falseness of that Doctrine that he would peruse any of your best Authors and the very sight of the weakness and impertinency of your Arguments would abundantly satisfie him of the badness of your cause Pop. You have no Ministers because you have no uninterrupted succession from the Apostles as we have and therefore you have on Church and therefore no Salvation Prot. I observe you take the same course that the Adversaries of the Gospel ever did who when they could not reprove the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles they quarrelled with them for want of a Calling as you may see Iohn 1. 25. Mat. 21. 23. Act. 4. 7. But the good Christians of that time took another course and examined not so much the Call of the persons as the truth of the Doctrine Act. 8. 17. It seems to me a secret confession of your guilt and the Error of your Doctrine that you are so careful to turn off mens eyes from that to a far meaner point But tell me Do you believe that such an uninterrupted Succession of Ministers from the Apostles is absolutely necessary to the being of a Church Pop. Yes verily or else this Argument signifies nothing Prot. How then can you convince me