Church still three hundred Years before there was any General Council as well as the Scriptures And why do not Hierome Chrysostome Augustine c. Exhort Meâ—… and Women to read the Councils as much as the Scriptures At least methinks you should allow the Scripture an Equality with Councils But if God have spoken that which is nonsence or unintelligible till Councils or lopes Expound it Scripture is far from having such Equality Then Paul and Peter spake not intelligibly but P. Paul 4 and 5. and the Council of Trent did Then Councils may save them that know not Scripture but Scripture cannot save them that know not the Councils And do all the Papists Men and Women know the Councils In short If a Tyrannical Sect of Priests can get this Monopoly or Peculiar of expounding all Gods Laws and Word so that the Scripture will not save any but by their Expositions it will become more the word of the Pope or Council than of God And when all is done every Priest must be the pope and Council to us that never saw them and must be the immediate Object of our Infallible belief And if the Pope can so communicate to so great a swarm the sweetness of participating in his Universal Dominion and Infallibility no wonder if Self-love bid them serve his Usurpation But by that time every Woman must be sure 1. That the Pope is Christs Vicar General indeed 2. That with a Council he is Infallible 3. And that Gods Revelation must be received only on this Deliverers Authority 4. And the sence of all on his Exposition 5. And know how Men believed the first three hundred Years before such Popes or Councils ever were 6. And can tell certainly which Councils be true and which false and which of them must be believed and which not 7. And is sure that every Priest doth Infallibly Report all this to her 8. And doth give a true Exposition of each Council before another Council do Expound them 9. And be sure that she hath all that those Councils have made necessary and have not had a sufficient proposal of more I say by that time all this certainty be attained the Popish Faith will appear to be harder work than they think that hear Deceivers say Believe as the Church believeth and you shall be saved Judge how far the Pope Exalteth himself above God when it is thus confidently told us That we nor no Men believe with a Divine and Saving Faith any one word of God if we believe it meerly because God hath given it us in the Sealed Scriptures and add not the Expositions of the Papal Church § 12. My next Argument was Those that explicitely profess the belief of all that was contained in the Churches Creeds for six hundred Years after Christ and much more Holy truth and implicitely to believe all that is contained in the Holy Scriptures and to be willing and diligent for the explicite knowledge of all the rest with a resolution to Obey all the will of God which they know do profess the true Christian Religion in all its Essentials But so do the Protestants c. Here again the Formalist wants Form An Enumeration of particulars in a Description is not equal to an Universal with him unless he read All. And then he denyeth the Major 1. Because our General Profession is contradicted in particulars Answ. 1. Bare Accusation without Proof is more easie than honest 2. There is a contradiction direct and understood which proveth that the Truth is not believed and a contradiction by consequence not understood which stands with a belief of the Truth The latter all Men in the World have that have any Moral Error 3. O what self-condemning Men are these How certainly hath a Papist no true Faith if abundance of contrary Errors nullifie Faith His second Reason is You distinguish not between implicitely contained in general Principles and explicitely contained in the Creed and Scriptures Answ. A very Logical Answer To what purpose should I do it His third is the strength Creeds and Scriptures are not enough Traditions and General Councils in matters of Faith must be believed Answ. 1. I would matters of Practice were more at Liberty that Princes were not bound to Murder or exterminate all their Subjects as Hereticks that will not be Hereticks and inhumane and to Rebel perfidiously against those Princes that are Sentenced by his Holiness for not doing it 2. Alas who can be saved on these Mens terms If the belief of all the Creeds and all the Scriptures be not a Faith big enough to save him And yet perhaps you may hear again that Men may be saved without any of all this save believing that there is a Rewarding God and that the Pope and his Subjects are the Infallible Church Universal And it is but proving an insufficient proposal and we are delivered from Traditions Councils Scriptures Creeds and all And never was the proposal of Councils more insufficient than when Councils were most frequent when in the Reign of Constantius Valens Valentinian Theodosius Arcadius and Honorius good Theodosius junior Marcian Leo Zeno Anastasius Iustin Iustinian and long after Anathematizing one General Council and crying up another and setting Council against Council was too much of the Religion of those times 4. Again he denyeth that Protestants not excused by Invincible Ignorance believe any Article with a Saving Faith Answ. Easie Disputing Cannot a Quaker say so too by us and you But how unhappy a thing is Knowledge then and how blessed a thing is Invincible Ignorance which may prevent so many Mens Damnation § 13. I proved the Major by the express Testimony of many Papists ad hominem To which he saith It is to no purpose For our Question is not of what is to be believed expresly only but of what is to be believed both expresly and implicitely of all Christians respectively Answ. Reader Judge with what Ingenuity these Men Dispute And how they make nothing of giving up all their cause and yet Cant on with any of the most senseless words He had largely enough told us before that the belief of General Truths explicitely is the Implicite belief of the contained particulars though unknown to the Believer I am now proving that Protestants explicite Faith leaveth out no Article necessary to be explicitely believed To this end I cite Bellarmine and Costerus and after many others consessing what I say in plainest words even the sufficiency of our enumeration He denyeth none of my proof as to explicite belief And do we need any more Is not all that which he calleth explicite belief the meer denomination of the Explicite from the particulars implyed in it Can any Man want an Implicite belief that wanteth no Explicite belief If I am not bound explicitely to believe that the Pope and his Council is the Universal Church or the Infallible deliverer of Traditions or Expounder of Scripture or my rightful Governours how am I
10. ad 11. 5. Scatus in Prolegom in sect 1. 6. Greg. Armin. in Prol. e. g. q. 1. art 2. Resp. fol. 3. 4. 7. Guil. Parisiens de Legib. c. 16. p. 46. 8. Bellarmine again de verbo Dei li. 10. c. 10. ad arg 5. c. And then I most fully proved it out of the ancient Church-Doctors But to all these he giveth such frivolous Answers that it irketh me to weary the Reader by repeating and answering them And he that will faithfully peruse the Authors words I think will either need no other confutation of him or is uncapable of understanding one when he seeth it The fore-confuted contradiction of sufficient explicite and yet not sufficient implicite is the chief and next a vain supposition that to say that Scripture is sufficient to all Theological points and conclusions is less than to say it is sufficient to necessary Articles of Faith and if any of them speak of the Churches exposition he denyeth the Scripture-sufficiency as a rule and yet their Councils need exposition too § 22. III. My 3d. Argument for our Churches perpetual visibility was If the Roman Church as Christian though not as Papal hath been visible ever since the dayes of the Apostles then the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible ever since the dayes of the Apostles but the Antecedent is their own Therefore they may not deny the Consequent Here he wants Form again because as Christian is in the Antecedent and not in the sequel Answ. He might have seen that it is but an Expository term in a parenthesis and so the same exposition in the consequent is supposed Next he saith that it is a fallacy a secundum quid ad simpliciter Answ. so then the Church as Christian is not the Christian Church but secundum quid but we that know no other profess to be of no other nor to prove the visibility of any other than the Church as Christian. Let them prove more that pretend to any other Next he saith that the Protestants have been visible as Christians is all that can be pretended and yet that also he denyeth for they believe not one Article with an infallible supernatural divine Faith Answ. 1. The question is whether they profess not so to do nay rather whether their objective Faith that is all the Creed and Holy Scriptures be not infallible of supernatural Revelation and Divine he that denyeth this seemeth an Infidel But if all the members of the Church must have an actual subjective Faith that is of supernatural divine infusion Then 1. No hypocrite is a Church-member 2. And no man can know who is a Church-member besides himself 3. And so the Church of Rome is invisible this is clear 2. I must not too oft write the same things if the Reader will peruse a small Tract of mine called The certainty of Christianity without Popery he shall soon see whether the Papists Faith or Ours be the more certain and divine Of which also I have said more in my Treatise called The safe Religion and Mr. Pool in his nullity of the Roman Faith § 23. I here shewed that having proved our visibility as Christian I need not prove a visibility as Papal any more than he that would prove his humane Genealogie having some leprous Ancestors need to prove that all were leprous Here he denyeth Popery to be Leprosie and again falsly tells us that if it were so all the visible Church in the world was leprous which needs no more confutation than is oft given it § 24. He tells me how an 1500 the Pope was in possession and we dispossest him without order c. Answ. An old Cant but 1. I have fully proved that he never was in possession of the Government of the Christian world 2. Nor in the Empire or any other Princes dominion but by humane donation and consent as the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury is in England 3. And that they that gave him that power may on just reason take it away And that the Bishop of another Princes Countrey cannot stand here by his authority when he hath lost the Government of England himself § 25. IV. My 4th Argument added more than my Thesis required viz. If there have been since the dayes of Christ a Christian Church that was not subject to the Roman Pope as the Vicar of Christ and universal Head and Governour of the Church then the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible both in it's Being and in it's freedom from Popery But the Antecedent is true Ergo so is the Consequent To this 1. he wants the word ever in the Antecedent And yet before abated it but he knoweth that since was put for ever since 2. He saith I suppose that the sole denyal of the Popes supremacy constitutes the Church whereof the Protestants are members Answ. In despight of my frequent professions to the contrary who still tell him that our Christianity and Relation to Christ and one another makes us Church-members and our freedom from the Papacy is our renunciation of an Usurper § 26. I proved my Antecedent 1. from the express words of the Council of Calcedon can 28 which he answers as before where he is consuted § 27. 2. My 2d proof was from the silence of the ancient writers Tertullian Cyprian Athan. Nazianzene Nissene Basil Optatus Augustine c. that used not this argument of Popes power over all the world as of Divine Right to confute the Hereticks that they had to do with when two words had expeditiously done all if this had then been Believed Here he saith Their authors have proved that the Fathers did so Answ. Soon said and as soon denyed The books are in our hands as well as yours I will now instance but in Cyprian and the African Churches in his dayes and in Augustine and the same Churches in his dayes 1. Did Cyprian and his Council believe Stephens Universal Monarchy when he opposed his judgment with so much vehemency and set the Scripture against his plea from tradition Let him that will read his Epistles of this too long to be recited believe it if he can And when he twitted his arrogance in Council with nemo nostrum se dicit Episcopum Episcoporum 2. The plea of Aurelius Augustine and the rest of the African Bishops I have formerly recited of which Harding saith that the Africans seduced by Aurelius continued twenty years in Schism from Rome and did Augustine and all the rest then believe the Popes Sovereignty even in the Empire I did plainly show that if the Donatisâ—…s Novatians and all such Sects had believed the Roman Sovereignty and Infallibility they had not so differed from them if they did not believe it the Fathers would have taken the neerest way and wrote their Volumnes to convince them that this Papal Rule was it that must end all their controversies instead of writing voluminously from Scripture and the nature of the
is no spirit but God and the Anima Mundi and say that these are immaterial and never the more believe that Angels or Souls are spirits And no man can reasonably imagine that omnis spiritus est immaterialis doth include omnis anima est spiritus or that W. I's est spiritus immaterialis So one may say that all that are sanctified shall be glorified and yet not believe that Peter Paul yea or Christ were Holy of this sort of knowledg I mentioned that which is a belief of no more but the formal object of Faith that is Gods veracity that God cannot lye and so that all that God saith is true when yet one that confesseth this denieth all the Bible to be his Word and believeth rather Mahomet Amida or Confutius to have been Gods Messengers or the ancient Oracles at Delphos c. to have been his word But the confused Head of W. I. confoundeth several of these different sorts and because he thought that he might handsomly call a meer general knowledg or faith confused therefore he confoundeth the true confused faith with the general which are easily distinguished And first he calls for my proof That a meer general belief is no belief at all of the particulars though a confused faith may I prove it 1. Where there is no intellectual conception of the particulars there is no actual belief of the particulars But where there is only a conception of a general proposition there is no intellectual conception of the particulars Ergo c. the major is undeniable and the minor no less 2. Where the particular Object is not understood or believed there is not the particular Act of knowing or believing that Object for the Object is essential to the Act But where there is only a knowledg and belief of the general Object there the particular Object is not understood or believed Ergo c. 3. That is not an actual belief of the particulars which may consist with the actual belief of the contradictory But a meer belief of the General Proposition may consist i h the contradictory to the belief of particulars Ergo c. But he comes upon me with some instances so worded as may deceive the ignorant 1. Saith he Doth not this Proposition Omne animal vivit contain the substance of these truths Equus vivit Leo vivit Aquila vivit c Answ. No surely unless by substance you mean not the other Proposition but somewhat else what you list for it containeth not the very subject that there is such a thing as Equus Leo Aquila in being and that they are animalia May not a man that never heard or believed that there was such a creature as an Eagle Lyon c. no more than a Unicorn or Phaenix yet know that omne animal vivit 2. He saith Believing all that is in Scripture is the Word of God and true expresly I believe in confuso all that is in Genesis c. Answ. Yes if in confuso be terminus diminuens to actual belief of the particulars By meer believing the first you do not actually believe a word of Genesis or Exodus c. for your Proposition saith not that there is any such Book in the Scripture As I believe all the holy Scripture to be true and yet believe not Tobit Iudith Bell and the Dragon to be true because I believe them not to be the Holy Scriptures so may others by Genesis Exodus c. as the Hereticks of old denied many Books and as Infidels may believe all that is Gods Word to be true and yet not believe that the Scripture is his Word 3. Saith he Is not an express knowledg of the Genus a confused knowledg of species under it and so the species of the individua Answ. Yes if by confused knowledg you mean no knowledg of them it is no true knowledg of them at all 4. But he saith that my words not knowing whether you be Animal or Cadaver is a contradictory Proposition Answ. Say you so May not I see you asleep and think that you are dead Doth this Proposition Omne animal vivit include that there is such a Wight in being as W. I. or N. N or that he is now alive or that it is really a Man and not a Horse that is so called any more than that Bucephalus was a Man Yet doth he back these absurdities with advising me to a little more heed to what I write Note that page 9 he asserteth that The object of implicite faith delivered in the Schools is nothing save particular truths contained in substance under some general propositions so that they be neither known nor believed distinctly and expresly yet in confuso they are by the knowledg or belief of their general proposition Answ. But there is a confused knowledg of particulars which is actual of the Being of them though not distinct not fit or ripe for words to utter it This is different from the knowledg of meer Generals which is indeed no knowledg of the particulars that any such are contained in those generals at all He next comes to expound his words That faith believeth all that God revealeth explicitely or implicitely that is now some things explicitely and some things implicitely when as I asked him What was the faith in which we must unite who would have expected such an answer That it is a general belief of all things revealed and a particular belief of some things That it is such a belief of all particulars as is no real actual belief of some of them and it is an actual belief of other some But is any man ever the nearer the knowledg of their minds by this 1. Here is no notice what the General is that must be believed He professeth that it is not the formal object only that is The veracity or faithfulness of God the Revealer And what else it is whether that all that the Scripture revealeth is true or that all that the Church declareth to be Gods word is true and whom we must take for that Church c. he hath not told us and so hath given an answer which is no answer 2. Nor hath he told us what the Particulars are that must be believed But we may know what faith it is that the Church must unite in by hearing that it is something we know not what or that it is somewhat in general and somewhat in particular Doth this account satisfie themselves or do they look that it should satisfie us Will this distinguish their Church from Hereticks or Mahometans Do not these believe somewhat in general and somewhat in particular And do not Heathens do the same If this be enough for Christianity or Concord why do they call us Hereticks Are we not all of that Faith which believeth somewhat in General even that all Gods Word is true and somewhat in Particular But it 's well that he saith that the explicite belief of somewhat is necessary though
we may not know what And he tells us That while they have an explicite belief of some Articles they can never be thought to be without faith Answ. Either he meaneth that faith which was in the question which must notifie us from Hereticks and from others without and which the Church must unite in or some other faith If any other doth he not wilfully juggle and fly from answering when he pretends to answer If he means the faith in question then Mahometans and Heathens are of their Faith and Members of their Church yea and all that they call Hereticks and anathematize themselves yea and the Devils that believe and tremble But one would think that pag. 11 he described the necessary implicite Faith when he saith Our ordinary sense is so to believe that point that we have no distinct or express knowledg of it but only a confused understanding because it is contained in confuso under this proposition I believe all that God hath revealed or I believe all that is delivered to be believed in the Holy Scripture Answ. 1. But I must again repeat that here the word confused is used but to confound This is no actual belief of any particular under that proposition When a thing is actually known in it self but only by a General knowledg or not dâ—…stinct this is truly an Impersect knowledg It is to know somewhat of that thing though not its form or individuation If I see something which I know not whether it be a Man or a Tree a Steeple or a Rock I verily know somewhat of that thing it self but not the form of it If I see a Book open at two-yards distance I see the Letters distinctly but not formally for I know not what any one of them is If I see a clod of Earth or a River I see much of the very substance of the earth and water but I discern not the sands or the drops as distinct parts Here something is known though the special or numerical difference much more some accidents be unknown But in knowing W. I's general proposition only I know nothing at all of the particulars as shall yet be further manifested 2. And mark what his general Proposition is which he saith is the object of their Implicite saith viz. I believe all that God hath revealed or all that is delivered to be believed in the Holy Scripture Either he really meaneth that this is the implicite faith by which Christians are notifiâ—…d and which uniteth the Members of the Church and distinguisheth them from those without or he doth not If he do not what doth he but deceive his Râ—…ader If he do then as I said All Christians Hereticks most Mahometans and Heathens believe the first proposition viz. That all is true that God revealeth And Protestants and Papists and most other sorts of Christians agree in the second The Scripture-truth Here then is a justification of our Faith so far But do you think that he meaneth as he seemeth to mean Do they not hold it also necessary that men must take their Church to be the declarer of this Scripture-truth And also that Tradition not written in the Bible be believed Must not both these make up their Implicite Faith If our general Faith and theirs be the same what maketh them accuse us herein as they do But now pag. 11. he proceeds to assault me with such reasoning as this No man knoweth all that God hath revealed to wit with an actual understanding of every particular Ergo say I No man believes all that God hath revealed Now I proceed If no man believe all that God hath revealed then you believe not all that God hath revealed Then further Whoever believeth not all that God hath revealed is no good Christian nor in state of salvation But you believe not all that God hath revealed Ergo you are no good Christian nor in a state of salvation See you not how fair a thred you have spun Or will you say that he that believes not all that God hath revealed is a good Christian If you will you may but no good Christian will believe you Answ. The man seemeth in good sadness in all this Childish Play And must Rome be thus upheld And must poor mens Faith and Consciences be thus laid upon a game at Cheating Words No wonder that this Hector would have nothing said in dispute but syllogism c. Few Lads and Women would unmask his pitiful deceits whether the great disputer saw their vanity himself I know not But men at age that can speak and try sense will see that all this Cant is but the sporting-equivocation of one syllable ALL This ALL is either a term of a meer general proposition e. g. All Gods word is true Here I believe what is predicated of this general word ALL and take this for a true proposition ALL Gods word is true Or it signifieth the very things species or parts as in themselves known and so if the very things species or parts generally expressed by the word ALL be not themselves known as such things species or parts it is no actual knowledg of them at all to know that truth of the said general proposition And doth not every novice in Logick know this The same I say of Beliefs as of Knowledg He is no good Christian who believeth not that all Divine Revelations are true which Hereticks and Heathens believe But neither I nor any Christian known to him or me knoweth or believeth ALL the particular verities which God hath revealed And he believeth not one of them beside that proposition it self which is found among the rest who believeth but that general But yet he will justifie his vanity by more instances pag. 12 he saith When you profess in tâ—…e Creed that God is the Creator of all things visible and invisible I demand Do you believe as you profess If you do then you may believe with an actual belief that he is the Creator of many things visible and invisible whereof you have no actual understanding or which are wholly unknown particularly or distinctly to you or by any other knowledg than as confusedly contained in the word ALL. Ans. 1. What 's all this but to say that I believe this proposition All things of which many are unknown to â—…e are created by God This proposition I know and believe but the things themselves as such I no further believe than I know if I know not that they are I believe not that they are if I know not what they are I believe not what they are that is if I have not an intellectual conception That they are and What they are for believing is indeed but a knowing by the medium of a Testimony or Revelation and the veracity of the Revealer I believe that God maâ—… all that is about the Center of the earth and yet I neither know nor actually believe any one thing species or individual or
part that is there If the question be whether there be there fire water air earth gold silver or men or divels created by God I neither know nor believe that there is or is not A Sadducee or an Atheist may believe That all that is in heaven is good Is this an implicite actual belief that God Angels and Spirits are good when he believeth not that in heaven or any-where else there is any God or any Angel or Spirit A Protestant believeth that he can prove by the Bible that the Pope is a Traytor against Christ by claiming his prerogative Doth he also believe that he is Christs Vicar-General because he believeth that the Bible is true Protestants believe that all Tradition is true which really cometh down to us from Christ and his Apostles by credible evidence Doth it follow that they believe the Papists Traditions to be true when they believe multitudes of them to be novelties or fictions contrary to Scripture and to the Tradition of the greatest part of the Church The Papist woman mentioned by Dr. White believed the Creed but she knew and believed no more of Iesus Christ but that it was some good thing she knew not what or else it would not have been in the Creed But he goeth on You profess to believe that All men shall rise at the last coming of Christ and yet you have no actual knowledg of many thousands Ans. And what then If I know not that those thousands had a being and were men I cannot know or believe that they shall rise notwithstanding I believe that All shall rise and if the question be whether this or that or thousands that you may name shall rise I know not because I know not whether you feign not men that never were If any were so foolish as not to know that there ever were more men in the world than he hath seen he cannot believe that any more shall rise and yet may believe that All shall rise not all in true reality as signifying the whole that hath existed indeed but all as the subject-term in the proposition When I say all shall rise I do not only say that I believe that proposition but I know many individuals contained in the whole and I know that there are more than I personally know and that there have been more than I have heard of and by the word all I mean all these particulars inclusively and so the word being a General expressing A Totum some of whose parts I have known by sight and others by history and I know that other parts have been but some parts I know not at all that they have been accordingly my belief is according to the object partly singular partly particular partly indefinite and partly universal He proceeds Act. 24. 5 14. Credens omnibus quae in Lege Prophetis scripta sunt Yet Paul had not an actual understanding of every particular contained in them Ans. Then he had not an actual belief of those particulars He believed in general that all Gods word was true and he believed all in particular which he knew to be part of that word But when he thought that he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus and persecuted and blasphemed him had he then an actual belief that This Iesus was the Messiah He addeth A Christian that hath forgotten some sin yet at death is sorrowful for all his sins Hath he no actual sorrow for that forgotten sin I answer No if he have no actual understanding of it There were some that Christ foretelleth would think that they did God service by killing his servants Do you think that if these repented of all sin in general and took this for a duty that this were an actual repentance for this sin Nay is a meer general repentance any actual repentance at all if it extend to no particulars If a man say I repent of all my sin but I think I have no sin but my hearing praying being a Christian c. doth he actually repent of any And as to your instance if you do but forget a sin it implieth that you did once remember it and perhaps repented of it then but if you know not or remember not that ever you committed any such thing or that it is any sin you have no actual repentance of that sin O but saith he What horrid Doctrine would this be Ans. What a childish exclamation is this It 's ten to one but if you were well examined your self you would confess that all this quarrel is but de nomine You confess that here is no particular repentance or faith of the thing in question nor are universals as containing the particulars known confusedly in themselves but with the bare name of an actual knowledg of Particulars you would cheat them that have only the knowledg of the universal Proposition That you may see it is no horrid Doctrine consider that 1. If this general repentance have also joined a particular repentance of all such sin as must be so repented of of necessity to Salvation then a virtual repentance of other forgotten particular sins will prove sufficient to pardon and salvation A general repentance which hath an actual hatred of sin as sin and a habit inclining the person unfeignedly to repent of all sin when he knoweth it joined with an actual repentance of all that he knoweth and a faithful endeavour to know all this is not an actual repentance of the unknown particulars but it may be called a virtual repentance of them because there is that cause that virtue that Grace which would produce an actual repentance if the impediment of forgetfulness were removed But even confused actual repentance hath not a total oblivion or ignorance of the particulars but only a confused knowledg and memory of them and is another thing than the knowledg of Universals He adds One that forgiveth all injuries and hath forgotten some doth he not forgive those forgotten Ans. Yes if the word forgiveness signifie the effect or his act as sufficient to that effect For it is in his power to discharge acquit or forgive another by a meer general remission or discharge though he remembred but one or no particular at all But if by forgiving you mean an act of his will whose object is the crime as well as the punishment and evil consequents remitted he so actually forgiveth in his own mental act no more than he knoweth But his general forgiveness sufficeth to all the ends without it and such a sufficient remission goeth commonly by the name of full forgiveness But instead of speaking to the point in hand you play with ambiguous words of another sense and subject Forgiving another is an act of the Will whose effect is extrinsecal and as a man may burn a house or give away or sell a house and all that is in it though he know not what is in it so a man may remit all debts or penalties
nothing is necessary to you to do which you cannot do without coming into the light It 's a dispute among the Papists Divines what a Christian is or what Christianity is And yet they have an Infallible Judg of all the Scripture and all Controversies And yet they can tell that Protestants are Hereticks And yet they can tell who are members of their Church though it be a dispute among Divines But mark that this is not then with them de fide any point of faith what a Christian is or what must be believed For their Divines dispute not that which they take to be de fide I told him that a man may believe that the Bible is true and Gods word and yet not know a word that is in it or that Christ is the Messias or that there was ever such a person He answereth that This is morally impossible For either such a person believes the Bible rashly and imprudently and then according to all Divines his faith cannot be supernatural and divine or sufficient to constitute him a Christian or he believeth it prudently by prudential motives of credibility Now that can be no other than the authority of the Catholick Church which he cannot be ignorant to profess the faith of Christ there being no other save that though he know not by experience that Christ is mentioned in the Bible he cannot but know that he is professed to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world by those of the Catholick Church who delivered the Bible to him as the word of God and that such a faith is necessary to Salvation Ans. Here are many things worthy our consideration 1. That a man is not a member of the Church that is a Christian unless his faith be supernatural and divine not only in the object but his act And surely no man knoweth what other mans act of faith is supernatural and divine Therefore no man knoweth who is a Christian and so their Church is still invisible 2. No man that believeth the Bible rashly and imprudently is a Christian And no man knoweth whether another believe it not rashly and imprudently yea whether he believe it at all Therefore no man knoweth who is a Christian or member of the Church of Rome 3. No other motive than the authority of the Catholick Church can serve to free a man from this rashness imprudence and nullity of his Christianity 1. But why then had we not this General The Church Catholick is to be believed and the Scripture to be received only by its authority before in the description of implicite or explicite faith 2. Was that man no Christian in the Primitive times who was converted by a single Apostle and took not the faith on the authority of the Catholick Church Did the Eunuch converted by Philip Act. 8. or the Jaylor and Lydia converted by Paul Act. 16. or the 3000 converted by Peter Act. 2. receive faith on the authority of the Catholick Church Or the Indians when converted by Frumentius and Edesus or the Abassian Empire that till lately knew nothing of the Pope and his pretensions Or do we read that the Apostles did use that argument The authority of the Catholick Church to convert their hearers or that they always first told them of the authority of such a Church If by the Church you mean any single Apostle or Teacher hold to that and we shall do well enough with you 3. But Authority is an ambiguous word and may deceive We maintain that a preserving and teaching ministerial authority is usually needful to mens conversion to the faith though not absolutely necessary to be first believed by the hearer But a judging authority viz. Whether there be a God a Christ a Scripture a Heaven c. or not which determineth by a sentence rather than teacheth by opening that evidence which caused belief in the Teacher himself this is not necessary to mans faith 4. And what if a man should hear a Preacher open the other reasons of Christianity without talking of the Catholick Church and its authority and should hereupon believe or should believe by the bare reading of a Bible how prove you that this man is no Christian nor shall be saved when Christ saith He that believeth shall be saved and shall not perish and saith not He that believeth on any other motive than the authority of the Catholick Church and that must be the Romans believeth rashly and impudently and shall perish 4. But it 's well worth the enquiry could we possibly find it out what he meaneth by knowing the Church and its profession and its authority and whether this be an act of necessary faith before any thing else can be believed Or what other points of faith are contained in our belief of this Church and its authority And what is the foundation of this faith It seems that he supposeth that the Church must be known before that the Christian faith be believed And that in knowing the Church we must know the faith of the Church It is one thing to know that they are a company of men called the Christian Church and another thing to know what a Christian Church is and another thing to know that this company of men is that Church Must all these be known before we can believe or but one or two and which 1. If the name were enough a man may know that a company of men are called Christians or Mahumetanes who knoweth not at all what Christianity or Mahumetanism is You say that it must be known that they profess to trust in Christ this they may do and not know who Christ is whether God or man or what he hath done or will do for us If you say that they must know that they profess that Christ is the Saviour so they may do and yet not know what the word Saviour signifieth or what Christ ever did or will do for our Salvation 2. But if he mean here that every one that will believe Gods Word must first know the Church as defined or know it in all its essence then 1. How few will he be able to prove to be Christians And how will he know who they are 2. And still the question recurreth what is it that must be particularly believed to essentiate the Church For if he know not that he cannot know that he knoweth what the Church is 3. And when that is done it seems he must know which is that Church considered in existence as different from all Heresies and other Societies But by this method our difficulties are multiplied 1. How shall I be sure that this Church doth not deceive me in saying that this and not that is Gods Word Is this by an act of knowledg or of divine faith If of knowledg what evidences prove it If of faith then I must believe God before I can believe him that is I must believe that this is his Revelation and true that the Roman-Catholick
Church cannot or doth not err in telling me what is Gods Revelation before I can know or believe any of his Revelation If they mean that this act of faith must go first before I can have any other why may I not know and believe other articles of faith without the divine belief of the Churches authority or infallibility as I may believe this one God hath revealed that the Church is infallible or true in telling me what I must believe If one Article may be believed without that motive and sure it is not believed before it is believed why not others as well as that 3. And which way or by what Revelation did God confer this Infallibility on the Church If by Scripture it is supposed that yet you know not what is in the Scripture or believe it not to be true till you have first believed the Churches Veracity Therefore it cannot be that way If by verbal tradition it is equally supposed that you know not that Tradition to be Gods word and true before you know the Churches Veracity that tells you so So that the Question How I must believe the Churches Veracity herein by what divine revelation before I can believe any other revelation is still unanswered and answerable only by palpable contradiction But were it not for interpreting him contrary to his company I should by his words here judg that it is no Divine faith of the Churches Veracity which he maketh pre-requisite to all other acts of faith but it is Prudential motives of creâ—…bility which must draw him to afford credit to that authority as derived from God which commends to him the Bible as the word of God now that can be no other than the Authority of the Catholick Church Ans. Mark Reader It can be no other than the authority of the Church which must be the prudential motive to credit the authority of the Church as derived from God So the Churches Authority must be first credited that he may credit it or else the Authority not credited must move him to credit it which is all contradiction unless he mean that the Churches Authority credited by a humane faith or by some notifying or conjectural evidences besides divine revelation must move him to believe that it is authorized by God When they have told us whether that first credit given to the Church have any certainty for its object and also what and whence that certainty is we shall know what to say to them Knot against Chillingworth is fain tosay That it is the Churches own Miracles by which it is known to have divine authority before we can believe any word of God And so no man can be sure that Gods word is his word and true till he be first sure that the Church of Rome hath wrought such miracles as prove its veracity as from God which will require in the Catechumene so much acquaintance with Historical Legends which the more he reads them the less he will believe them as will make it a far longer and more uncertain way to become a Christian than better Teachers have of old made use of And 2. it seems when all is done that he taketh this Authority of the Church but for a prudential motive But is it certain or uncertain If uncertain so will all be that 's built upon it If certain again tell us by what ascertaining evidence Reader it is the crooked ways into which byassing-interest hath tempted these men to lead poor souls which are thus perplexing and confounding How plain and sure a way God hath prescribed us I have told you in a small Tractate called The Certainty of Christianity without Popery In short it is possible if a man never hear but one Sermon which mentioneth not the authority of the Church or find a Bible on the high-way and read it that he may see that evidence in it that may perswade him savingly to believe through grace that it truly affirmeth it self to be the word of God But the ordinary method for most rational certainty is To have first Historical ascertaining evidence of the matter of fact viz. that This Book was indeed written and these miracles and other things done as it affirmeth Or first perhaps That this Baptismal Covenant Lords Prayer Creed and Decalogue have been delivered down from the first witnesses of Christ and Miracles wrought to confirm the Gospel which is also written at large in that Book This we have far greater Historical Certainty of than the pretended authority of a judging-Church of Rome even the infallible testimony of all the Churches in the world and as to the essentials Baptism the Creed c. of Hereticks Infidels and Heathens which I have opened at large in a Book called The Reasons of Christian Religion and another called The Unreasonableness of Infidelity and in other writings And the matter of fact with the Book being thus certainly brought down to us as the Statutes of the Land are we then know the Gospel and that Book to be of God by all those evidences which in the foresaid Treatises I have opened at large and more briefly in a Treatise called The Life of Faith the sum of which is the Holy Spirit as Christs Agent Advocate and Witness in his Works of Divine Power Wisdom and Goodness or Love printed first on Christ himself his Life and Doctrine and then on the Apostles their Works and Doctrine and then on all sanctified believers in all ages and especially on our selves besides his antecedent prophesies Pag. 16. He again pretendeth that he need not name the necessary Articles of Faith because I my self say They must be the Essentials and it is supposed I understand my own terms Ans. A candid Disputant The light followeth him while he flyeth from it Doth it follow that if I know my own meaning I therefore know yours and if I know which are the essentials that therefore you know them and are of the same mind Pag. 17. The man would make me believe that I speak not true divinity when I say that Divine and Humane Faith may be conjunct when the testimonies are so conjunct as that we are sure that it is God that speaks by man who is therefore credible because God infallibly guideth and inspireth him He would make you believe that I am singular and erroneous here Ans. And why He saith that would make Christian faith partly humane But 1. when I talk but of two faiths conjunct what if I called the former divine faith only the Christian faith May not a humane yet be conjunct with the Christian 2. But words must be examined If Christian faith be so called from the Object then Christ and not his Apostles are the reason of the name materially we are called Christians for believing in Christ and not for believing in them 2. If Christian faith were taken subjectively it is humane faith for men are the subjects of it 3. If Christian faith be
all men that believe a God believe him to be true and no lyar and so W. I. maketh none but Atheists to be Hereticks To this he answereth W. J. There is a twofold denying of God one formal and direct the other virtual and indirect Atheists are guilty of the first Hereticks of the second This I oblige my self to prove Whosoever obstinately contradicts any truth revealed from God as all Hereticks do some or other of them they sinfully and wilfully affirm that what God hath revealed is not true and consequently that God is a lyar and by that destroy as much as in them lieth the very essence of God R. B. Here is little but novelty and deceit 1. It is deceit to call that a denying of God in a controversie of such moment whatever you might do rhetorically in an Oration which you confess your self is not a denying him For you say that it is not a formal but a virtual denying him and that is truly no actual denying him for forma dat nomen esse Boys will deride you if you deny this If you object Paul's words Tit. 1. They confess him in words but in their works they deny him I answer that they denied him formally by their works For those works signified that their minds did not formally believe God to be God indeed according to his Essentialities 2. It is novelty and deceit to affirm and stoutly undertake to prove that the denying of one of the Propositions from which the Conclusion must arise is virtually a denying of both e. g. Whatever is Gods word is true but the story of Bell and the Dragon and of the Angel in Tobit saying he was the Son of Ananias of the Tribe of Naphthali and that the intrals of a Fish would drive away all Devils that they should never return c. are the word of God May not a man firmly believe the Major that taketh the Minor for a lie And suppose that the Roman Church say that I am obstinate my reasons are 1. Angels be not born of man 2. Christ saith This kind goeth not out but by fasting and prayer c. so that I must take Christ for a lyar if I take not Tobit to be false may not I be obstinate in this and yet not deny that all the Word of God is true If the Manichees tell me that the Gospel of Nicodemus and of Saint Thomas is the word of God and the Papists that the Apostolical Canons and Constitutions and the Itinerary of Peter were written by Clemens is obstinate unbelief of this a denying that God is true Your sufficient proposal is that of your Church A General Council is your highest proposer with the Pope I find that the Council at Constance and Basil and Pisa say one thing and that at Lateran and Florence say the contrary and I obstinately refuse to believe them both may I not yet firmly believe that God is true you are not God And verily I have more reason to suspect you than God The Country-man that never read Councils nor travelled to Rome knoweth nothing of your matters but by his Parish-priest If he know this Priest to be a common whoremonger and lyar may he not suspect him without denying God But if you can prove what you undertake it is the sadder with you that can triumph in sentencing your selves as Hereticks to Hell e. g. Whatever is Gods word is true but it is Gods word that the Lords Supper should be administred in both kinds bread and wine This do in remembrance of me and that it is bread after the consecration 1 Cor. 11. and that it is better to pray in a known tongue than in an unknown 1 Cor. 14. and that they know not what manner of spirit they are of who would have the resisters of Christs Apostles and of Christ himself consumed with fire and that the Clergy must not Lord it over Gods heritage but as servants to all rule them willingly and not by constraint c. Ergo this is all true And whoever denieth this truth of God indirectly denieth Gods essence and maketh him a lyar But the Church of Rome denieth all these Doth it follow that the Church of Rome are Hereticks blasphemers and lyars And all this is sufficiently revealed for it is plainly written in the Word of God 3. Note Reader that such a contradiction of any truth revealed by God doth make a man an Heretick O then what abundance of Hereticks be in the world What one man can say that he doth not contradict some truth revealed by God by nature or Scripture or both Every mans mind and will is depraved and being so hath some degree of obstinacy in resisting some truth of God and so all men in the world as well as the obstinately erroneous Papists are Hereticks Not only Papists that will believe neither the Scripture Tradition Reason nor all mens senses that there is bread after Consecrations but any one that doth not believe who was the Father of Arphaxad e. g. or any point of Genealogy or of Chronology or differing Numbers in Kings and Chronicles Ezra and Nehemiah Mat. 1. and Luk. 3 c. Or that doth not believe that every word in Iudith Tobit c. are Gods word are all Hereticks and deniers of Gods Essence Nor doth he except any age of persons so that if a School-boy should but obstinately deny to believe his Master about a tradition or a Scripture-name or number he were a Heretick The Council of Basil revealeth the sinless conception of the Virgin Mary and yet the Papists that deny it are not accounted Hereticks And what shew is there of this consequence the Council of Ephesus 2. of Arminum of Lateran of Nice 2 of Florence of Constance Basil Trent may lie Ergo God is a lyar Hereticks should be softer in defining Heresie I next instanced What if a man deny that there is a Heaven Hell Resurrection and also the revelation of these and yet deny not the veracity of God no nor of the Church is this no Heretick He answereth No if not sufficiently propounded to him as revealed from God But that Proposition must be made by the Church and as long as he believeth the infallible veracity of the Church propounding he cannot disbelieve what it propoundeth sufficiently c. R. B. 1. But a man that doth not believe the Infallibility of the Church may believe Gods Veracity and yet be an Heretick 2. A Papist that holdeth your Church infallible may disbelieve what General Councils deliver as de fide for so you do So that this word Sufficient is as unintelligible among your selves as meer non-sense For even General Councils proposals are not accounted sufficient when you are against them and yet every Priest is when your turn requireth it 3. And many a man may take the Churches proposal to be certain and yet think that the Roman Church is but an erroneous faction and scarce a corrupt third
part of the Church I next told him that the Jesuit Turnbull against Rob. Baronius maintaineth that Revelation is no part of the formal object of faith and therefore to deny it is not to deny the formal object 2. And that forma dat nomen and he is no Heretick that is none formally To the latter he giveth no answer and to the first as bad as none viz. that the Heretick denieth also the material object and what 's that to the case in hand and that which he is obliged by sufficient reason to believe to be revealed of God and therefore virtually denieth God to be true Ans. But I again reply 1. Virtual is not actual 2. It is no virtual denial that God is true but only that the proposer is true To be obliged to believe a thing to be Gods word only proveth that I break that obligation if I believe it not to be his word but not at all that I believe God to be a lyar whose word I believe it not to be Again this maketh all Christians to be Hereticks past dispute For all Christians receive not something or other small or great which they were obliged to belieâ—…e to be Gods word Do you err in any thing that is revealed by Scripture or Tradition or not If you say no and so that your understanding hath no sin you deceive your self and the truth is not in you If yea then were you not obliged to believe the contrary to be Gods word if not obliged then your error is no sin so that you make every sinful error to be Heresie and proudly deny that you have any sinful error lest you should be a Heretick I added that their Church is constituted of men that sinfully neglect some point of truth or other sufficiently proposed Ergo is it constituted of Hereticks To this he answers That whatever their neglect be to know what is propounded yet so long as they believe explicitely what is necessary to be so believed necessitate medii and implicitely the rest they can be no Hereitcks for it is not the ignorance though culpable but contradiction to what is known to them to be propounded by those that have power to oblige them as being their lawful superiors which makes an heretick R. B. 1. But still you agree not nor tell us what is explicitely to be believed necessarily 2. By this we are all absolved from heresie for we believe all explicitely that is necssary necessitate medii and all the rest implicitely by a double implicite faith 1. In God and our Redeemer 2. In the inspired Apostles and Prophets we believe all to be true which God hath revealed and which his Apostles have delivered as Gods word 3. Yea and all that we know to be propounded by any obliging superiors for we know not the Pope nor your contradictory Councils to be such My next Qu. 2. was What mean you by sufficient proposal W. I. Such as is sufficient among men in humanis to oblige one to take notice that a King hath exacted such and such Laws c. that is a publick testimony that such things are revealed by the infallible authority of those who are the highest tribunal of Gods Church or by notorious and universal trâ—…dition R. B. 1. Here the Reader may see that he taketh sufficiency respectively to the Promulgator viz. as much as he was obliged to do for a King is not bound to publish his Laws in every parish or county but only to make such a publication of them in the chief places of his kingdom as that men may take notice of them Kings send not Schoolmasters to teach every man how to prove that his Laws are not counterfeit and what they are and what is the meaning of them For the enacting of them being a late matter of fact and easily notified as near unto them and no other knowledg or belief of them being required but such as is necessary to that part of the obedience of them which belongeth to every man in his place this is not necessary And if such a publication of Gods Laws be sufficient millions that never heard a word of the Bible or what Christ is have such a sufficient publication for the Gospel is published in many parts of the world and perhaps in many places of the Kingdoms where they dwell though they never heard it 2. But when men have the publick testimony that such statutes are made and such a Book sent from God this doth not acquaint men what those Statutesor that Book contains sothat by this rule it should be sufficient to know that God made the Bible without knowing what is in it or else he that is but told that there is such a book is bound by that much to know all that is in it 3. But note the Popish difficulty of faith W. I. tells us after the rest that we must know these things revealed by the infallible authority of those who are the highest tribunal of Gods Church c. And is it possible for one that knoweth nothing of Christ or the Scripture or that Christ hath a Church to know yet 1. That he hath a Church 2. And that he hath authorized some men to be the highest Tribunal to judg that Church through all the world And 3. That he hath particularly authorized them to judg which is and is not his revelation 4. And to know who be the men that are this highest Tribunal to all the world viz. for those of Abassia that had not so much History as to tell them that there was such a City as Rome or such a man as the Pope in the world till Oviedo was sent who told it but to few could yet know that this Pope and his Council are their Judges and from them they must receive the Gospel 5. And to know that this Universal Tribunal is infallible before they believe in Christ himself who is supposed to give them their Infallibility Alas must every poor Infidel know all this before he can believe in Christ when we that live among them and read their laws and doctrines cannot easily believe the Infallibility of those Popes who by General Councils are charged not only with Murder Adultery Simony Perjury c. but with Heresie also or Infidelity Nor the Infallibility of those General Councils who are accused by Popes and by other Councils of Error Heresie or Schism 4. But he addeth another way Or by notorious and universal Tradition And 1. If this will serve then I hope we may have true faith that believe no humane infallible Tribunal over all the world much less that the Pope and his Council are such a Tribunal for we have notorious Universal Tradition delivering us all our Religion 2. But yet these are hard terms for every poor Heathen to come to Christ by Alas how shall the millions of people through the world who know nothing that is many days journey from their houses know
what is the notorious Tradition of all the Christian world I that search after it in all the books that I can get can scarce give a good account of the Tradition of much of the greater part of Christians Nay no Universal Tradition at all is notorious to most Christians much less to all the Heathens and Infidels on earth It is not notorious to most in England what is the Tradition of the Abassians Syrians Armenians Greeks no nor of the Italians French Spaniards Germans c. That is notorious to Scholars which is not so to the unlearned and to Antiquaries which is not so to other Scholars Here W. I. answereth two things 1. That to know some Laws of the Commonwealth is of importance to salvation 2. That God should have made a visible Government imprudently whose Governors could not be known but by revelation R. B. 1. And how comes importing to be put instead of necessity to salvation This is but fraud 2. It were worth our diligent enquiry could we prevail with these men to open to us this mystery How it is that the Pope and his Council may be known to be the supreme Governors of the world without revelation I will abate my Antagonists the answering of all the rest if they will but be intreated to answer me this one question It seems that it is by no promise of Christ no word of God no nor by any revelation of the Spirit or Miracles that we must know them to be our Governors I confess I can know without revelation that they claim such authority as any Traytor or Usurper may do but that they have such authority it is past my reach to conjecture which way it is to be proved without revelation But I intreat the Reader to remember this in all our further disputes with them That they confess that it is not by revelation by Scripture Spirit Miracles or Tradition made known that the Pope and his Council are the supreme Governors of the Universal Church And yet we must know this before we can believe in Christ or believe the Scripture to be true And we must know it of necessity to salvation And another difficulty here seemeth insuperable viz. Seeing this is not a matter of Revelation it can be no matter of Divine faith and if so how is all other faith resolved into it and how is the belief of this which is no belief called our implicite belief of all the word of God can no man be saved that cannot unriddle all these contradictions Next I further noted R. B. That if he lay the sufficiency on the respect to all mens various capacities of receiving the notice then they can never know who are Hereticks but if they lay it on a general publication then all or almost all men are Hereticks being unavoidably ignorant of many things so published To this he saith That he Judgeth of no mans conscience Ans. But do not they judg of them that burn them and depose Princes for not exterminating them He saith It is sufficient 1. that such as acknowledg themselves they know such points of faith to be propounded by the Roman Church which I infallibly believe to be the true Church and that notwithstanding reject them as errors give me ground to presume them to be Hereticks Ans. 1. I perceive that it is not the Pope only that is infallible but you also are infallible in believing his Church But alas how many are deceived and deceivers that call themselves infallible 2. But if your belief in the Pope were infallible must all others be hereticks and be burnt that have not attained to your degree of knowledg or self-conceitedness 3. Just now you said the Governours of the Church need no revelation to make them known and now it is an article of your belief That the Roman Church is the true Church so slippery is your foundation 4. But what meaneth that hard word The true Church Is it not enough if it were proved a true Church Either you mean the universal Church or a particular Church if the former why speak you so sneakingly and did not speak out that the Roman Church is all the whole Church that Christ hath on earth Which assertion we abhor and despair of any thing like a proof of it If the latter what is it to us whether Rome be a true Church any more than whether Ephesus Thessalonica or such other be so 5. But to leave your parenthesis what 's all this to the most of the Christian world that do not acknowledg themselves that they know such points of faith to be propounded by the Church of Rome There is not one of five hundred among us that ever read your Councils nor knoweth one of many things propounded by you to be such And are all these now absolved from heresie How long will that be their security if the burning and exterminating Religion should prevail And is it my hard fate to become a Heretick more than all the rest of my neighbours because I have read your Councils when they have not Then I would counsel all that love not to be burned to take heed of medling with such Councils I have oft read how dangerous a thing you judg it for unlicensed men to read Gods word and of many that have been burned for it and its consequents and how you account it the way to Heresie But I have not oft before read how dangerous it is to read your Decrees or to know all that the Church of Rome propoundeth for he that knoweth them all must have a very ready commandable faith such as can believe in despight of Sense Reason Scripture and Tradition to escape the guilt of Heresie But I pray you were you not inexorable executioners when it cometh next to the burning of Dissenters that you will spare all that confess not that they know what is propounded by your Church yea though they take not their parish-priest that tells it them to be infallible especially if they know him to be a common lyar or one that holds that lying for mens good is a venial sin or none W. I. 2. Such as oppose what all visible Churches have most notoriously practised and believed as Divine truths while they were so universally taught and practised I may safely presume to be Hereticks R. B. 1. No Oâ—…dipus can tell whether while here refer to believed or to oppose If to the latter then neither Abassines Armenians Greeks or Protestants are Hereticks for they oppose not such points while they were so universally taught and practised whatever their forefathers did for they have themselves so many partners as derogates from the pretended Universality of the Adversaries But if by all the visible Church you mean all except themselves or if the word while relate to believe then the Church of Rome are characterized by you for certain Hereticks for I defie impudence it self in challenging it to deny that the Universal
Church did notoriously believe and practice the administration of the Lords Supper in both kinds the Cup as well as the Bread and the celebration of publike worship in a known tongue and the reading and hearing of the Scripture in a known tongue by the people and others such like But yet I will not take you at your word nor call you Hereticks meerly on the account asserted by you for I know that your rule is false And if a man had known that the Universal Church had held some opinion of Chronology or Genealogy or Cosmography as about Cainan or the age of Sem or that there were no Artipodes especially in the dismal Ninth Century and if he had thought that they took this point for a Divine Revelation believing the Septuagint or some other mis-translation which was commonly received before Ieromes time this man so thinking that the whole Church then erred in so small a point was no Heretick for so thinking for I would know of your self whether the Popes and all their followers be not Hereticks For the Septuagint was long taken by the Universal Church for the Word of God and so was the Vulgar Latin long after by your Universal Roman Church and consequently that those Texts were Gods Word which yet afterward you altered Many hundred or thousand alterations in the one were made by Sixtus 5 and Clement 8 all which were so many judgments that the Church had erred that before took the other readings for the Word of God unless you can make one thing Gods word to day and the contrary to morrow 5. But by this rule also we are acquit from Heresie if it was not notorious to us that the Universal Church believed and practised contrary to us which sure is notorious to very few at most And indeed we differ from the Roman Church the more because we dare not with them differ from the belief and practice of the far greatest part of the Church of Christ in this and in former ages R. B. Is not the Bible a publick testimony and record and being universally received is an universal tradition and yet abundance of truths in it are not actually known or believed by most of your own Church W. J. It is only a Tradition that whatever is there delivered is the word of God but it is no tradition that such a determinate sense and no other is the word of God in every sentence contained in it when according to the analogy of faith the words are capable of many senses R. B. Worse and worse still 1. Tradition tells us that this Bible is Gods Word This Word of God is significant and intelligible or else it is worse and more defective than the common words of men This intelligible Bible or Word therefore delivereth to us its own sense If not then Councils do not deliver us the sense of Gods Word or their own For God could speak as well as they and their words are no more plain than his Yet a multitude of plain intelligible Texts are not understood by many of your Church whom you call not Hereticks yea your learned Commentators differ and fight about their sense 2. Therefore when you talk of every sentence you do but fly and hide your fraud If your meaning be that no sentences of Scripture are Divine revelations as they are in Gods own words but as expounded by your Church all Christian ears should abhor your blasphemy If you mean only that there are some Texts so difficult as that most Christians cannnot understand them or that are capable of various senses we grant it But what are those to all the rest Is every man a Heretick that erreth about the sense of any one plain Text of Scripture or not And it is perverse that you say of divers senses according to the analogy of faith For a Text may be expounded contrary to the plain words and context which yet is not expounded contrary to the analogy of faith if by that word you mean as is usual contrary to the harmony of Christian necessary Truths yea or contrary to any other truth whatever save that Text it self And now Reader I leave it to thy reason whether this man have given us any regardable notice at all what is Heresie or what they mean by it or have not trifled and said nothing But what Heresie is I will briefly tell you The word signifying Election was used in the beginning sometime for any Sect or Party divided from the common body of the Church And Christians were called a Heresie by the Iews By the Christians the name signified any party of men that professing to differ in some necessary thing from the common body of Christians and the Doctrine of the Apostles did separate from them as unmeet for their Communion and gather themselves into divided Societies So that differing from the Apostolical Doctrine and Churches and making different Sects or Societies therefore which separated from and opposed the Churches was called Heresie by the Apostles and it was the same thing with the grossest sort of Schism And the commonest sense of the word Schism then was lower signifying either the contentious making of divisions within a Church without separating from it or else the breaking of one Church into many without separating from other Churches or the generality of Christians And so long after the word Heresie was sometime used for such Schism only and hence Lucifer Calaritanus and the Novatians and many others were called Hereticks And sometimes used more cautelously in a narrower sense for those only that denied some essential article of faith or practice And sometimes in a yet narrower sense for those only that upon such a denial of some essential point did gather into a separated Society to maintain their error and oppugn the truth And according to these various senses of the word Horesie and Heretick we must conclude that a Heretick may or may not be saved and is or is not within the Universal Church which W. I. doth deceitfully confound Of which I have said more in the End and shewed you by an instance of Philastrius how mischievous it is to abuse the name of Heresie against every different opinion of true Christians and so to make Hereticks of all Believers in the world CHAP. III. What mean you by the Word POPE W. J. By POPE I mean St. Peter or any of his lawful successors in the See of Rome having authority by the institution of Christ to govern all particular Churches next under Christ. R. B. I am never the nearer knowing the Pope by this till I know how St. Peters Successors may be known to me Q. 1. What personal qualification is necessary ad esse W. J. Such as are necessary ad esse of other Bishops which I suppose you know R. B. If so then all those were no Popes that were Hereticks or denied essential points of faith W. J. 'T is true they were no Popes while
deny the Popes Soveraignty and that as by tradition And how lame their tradition is which is carried but by their private affirmation and is but the unproved saying of a Sect. To this he saith W. J. That this belongs to our Controversie and not to the explication of our terms And so I must pass it by R. B. Q. 2. What proof or notice must satisfie as in particulars what is true tradition W. J. Such as with proportion is a sufficient proof or notice of the Laws and Customs of temporal Kingdoms R. B. But you durst not tell us what that is that is proportionable This was answered before I added Is it necessary for every Christian to be able to weigh the credit of contradicting-parties When one half of the world say one thing and the other another thing what opportunity have ordinary Christians to compare them and discern the moral advantages on each side As in the case of the Popes Soveraignty when two or three parts are against it and the rest for it Doth salvation lye on this W. J. As much as they have to know which books are and which are not Canonical Scripture among those that are in controversie R. B. That these books were sent to the Churches from the Apostles 1. Is a matter of fact 2. And an assertion easily remembred 3. And all the Churches are agreed of all that we take as Caâ—…cal 4. And yet men that practically believe but the Creed and Summaries of Religion shall certainly be saved though they erroneously doubted of some of the uncontroverted books as Chronicles Esther Canticles c. much more that receive not the controverted Apocrypha But 1. Your Traditions in question are many particulars hard for to be remembred 2. And that of matter of faith and fact where a word forgotten or altered changeth the thing 3. And most Christians in the world are against it 4. And you would lay the peoples salvation on it yea and make it one of your cheating quibbles to prove your religion safer than ours because some Protestants say a Papist may be saved but you say that Protestants cannot be saved that is because you have less sincerity and charity Is not here difference enough If you hold that all they are damned that believed not that all the Apocryphal books were Canonical peruse Bishop Cousins Catalogue of Councils and Fathers that received them not and see whether you damn not almost all the Church But if you confess that there is no more necessity to salvation for men to be the subjects of your Pope than there is that they try all the Apocrypha whether it be Canonical and know it why then do you found your belief that Christ is the Son of God upon your forebelieving that the Pope is his Vicar or your Church his Church And why do you make such a stir in the world to affright poor people to believe and be subject to your Pope I here asked him Must all the people here take the words of their present Teacher And he durst not answer yea or nay but as much as they do for the determination of Canonical Scriptures Ans. If it be no more it giveth them no certainty but by the belief of one man as a Teacher they are brougâ—…â—…o â—…cern themselves those notifying evidences by which the Teacher himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 books are 〈◊〉 And if they attain no higher than to believe fide Dâ—… the 〈◊〉 Doctrines the doubting or ignorance of some texts or books will not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Scripture that impress of Divine authority which to a prepared heaâ—… oâ—… reader will 〈◊〉 convince him that they are of God though not râ—…e him of every particular Text and Book R. B. Then most of the world must believe against you because most of the teachers are against you Tradition quite â—…eth Pâ—…er W. J. There is no Congregation of Christians united in the same profession of faith external Communion and dependance of Pastors which is contrary in belief â—…o 〈◊〉 any way to be parallel with us in extent and multitude Prove there is and name it All our adversaries together are a patcht body of a thousand different professions and as much adversaries one to another as they are to us the one justifying us in that wherein the other condemn us so that no beed is to be taken to their testimonies non sunt convenientia R B. They agree not with your interest But if the Testimonies and Tradition of two or three parts of the Christian world be not to be heeded I doubt the testimony of your third or fourth part will prove much less regardable Let us try the case for here you are utterly confounded 1 Indeed none that our ordinary language calleth a Congregation that is men that meet locally together are so big as all your party But a Church far better united than you are is far greater than yours Those that have all the Essentials of the one Church of Christ are that one Church of Christ But the Reformed Churches the Greeks Armenians Abassines Syrians Iacobites Georgians Copties c. have all the Essentials of the one Church of Christ Therefore they are that one Church of Christ. The Major is undeniable The Minor is thus proved They that hold the same Head of the Church believing in the same God the Father Son and â—…ly Gâ—…st and are devoted to him in the same Baptismal Covenant and believe all the Articles of faith desire and practice essential to Christianity in the Creed Lords-prayer and Decalogue and receiâ—…e all the â—…re as Gods â—…ord which iâ—…â—…y here received by us as Canonical these have all the â—…ls of the one Church of Christ and much more But such are all the forementioned Christians Ergo c. The Head and the Body are the constitutive parts of the Church The Head is Christ the Body are Christians 1. They are united in the same profession of faith viz. the same Baptism â—…reed and Scriptures 2. They are united in the same external communion if you mean external worship of God in all the Essentials of it and much more They have the same Scriptures read and 〈◊〉 they preach the same Gospel they use the same Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace viz. Baptism and the Lords Supper yea they are commonly for some Confirmation Ordination 〈◊〉 of penitence and absolution of Pâ—…nitents Matrimony c. though they agree not whether the name of Sacraments be fit for them all much less Sacraments of the Coveâ—… Grace they observe the same Lords day for publick worship they pray confess sin give thanks and praises to God and hold the communion of Saints and communication to each other in want This is their external communion 3. They have the same depenâ—… of the people on their Pastors as the Ministers of Christ authorized to 〈◊〉 and guide the Churches and to go before them in the publick worshipping of God But if
Jurisdiction we need and desire none but a Ministerial Power of guiding Souls towards Heaven by God's Word preached and applyed And he that ordaineth a Minister thereby giveth him all the Jurisdiction which is necessary to his Office If a Man be licensed a Physitian must he have also Mission and Iurisdiction given him after before he may practice 3. How could we take Ordination Mission and Jurisdiction from Men on the other side of the World What need we go so far for it when the Gospel is near us which telleth us how God would have Ministers more easily called than so 4. And as for the prescript of our Liturgy Discipline and Hierarchy that is one of the differences between us and you Must you needs have a Liturgy Discipline and Hierarchy of Man's forming so you have But we can live in Christian Communion with so much as Christ and his Apostles by his Spirit have prescribed us Is there no Communion to be had with any Church but that which hath arrived at that heighth of Pride as to make Liturgies Discipline and Hierarchy for all the Chrstian World and to suffer none to speak publickly to God in any words but those which they write down for them to read to God We make no such Laws to any other Church in the World nor do we receive any such Laws from any and yet we have Communion with them fraternal and not subjective Communion There is one Law-giver who is able to save and to destroy who are you that make Laws for another's Servants and judge them Had the Churches no Communion for the first 400 years when no Liturgies were imposed or when the first Law made hereabout was but that no one should use a Form of Prayer till he had shewed it to the Synod No nor when Gregory's and Ambrose's Liturgies were striving for pre-eminence Had the Church at Neocesaria no Communion with that at Caesarea because they had so different Liturgies as their quarrel against Basil intimateth And when every Bishop used what Liturgy he pleased in his own Congregation Was there then no Communion between the Churches We refuse not any meet Liturgy that is found needful to our Concord But truly for Hierarchy and Species or Forms of Churches and the substantials of Discipline we earnestly wish that no Church had any but what God hath himself prescribed to them 5. But how should we joyn with Men many hundred or thousand miles off us in Word and Sacraments otherwise than by useing those of the same species We do not locally hold such Communion with the next Parishes to us nor with many in the World for we cannot be in many places at once much less can we be every Lords day in every Assembly in Ethiopia and Armenia As for Sacrifice we know of none acceptable but the Commemmoration of Christ's Sacrifice once offered for Sin and the offering of our selves and our Thanksgivings praise and other duties to God And why you distinguish the first from Sacraments I know not W. J. Aâ—…d did they profess the same Faith in all points of Faith and those the very same wherein they dissented from the Church of Rome R. B. 1. Ad hominem it might suffice to say to you that explicitely or implicitely they did 2. But I better answer you We profess the same Faith in all points essential to Christianity and in abundance more I have told you before that we agree in all the Old Creeds and in the truth of the Canonical Scriptures 3. But do you Papists agree in all points of Faith no not by a thousand For all is of Faith which God hath intelligibly revealed in the Holy Scriptures to be believed But there is above a thousand intelligible Texts of Scripture about the sence of which your Commentators differ If all Christians agree in all that is de fide then all Christians fully understand every intelligible Word in the Scripture And then every Woman and Rustick is as wise in Divinity as the greatest Doctors yea far are the Doctors from such Wisdom W. J. If so they may as well be said not to have separated fom the external Communion of the Roman Church R. B. Some will tell you that we did not separate from you but you from us but I must say that the Roman Church is considered either materially as Christians and a part of the Church of Christ and so we neither did nor do separate from you or else formally as Pâ—…pal and so we renounce you and all Communion with you as being no Church of Christ but a Sect that treasonably usurpeth his Prerogative The pars imperans specifieth or informeth the society Christ only is the Universal Head of all Christians as such and of all the Churches with which we profess Concord and Communion In this Head Greeks Armenians Ethiopians and Protestants unite But the Pope falsly pretending to be Christ's Vicar-General is taken for the Universal Head by the Papists and in renouncing this Head we renounce no other Church but yours R. B. Not from you as Christians but scandalous Offenders whom we are commanded to avoid we separate not from any but as they separate from Christ. W. J. 1. No sure for if you did you must be Iews Turks or Infidels 2. Was there no more in it Did not the Primitive Persons who begun your breach and party owe subjection to their respective Ecclesiastical Superiors Diocesans and Pastors R. B. No none at all as they were Papal that is the subordinate Ministers of the usurping Universal Bishop W. J. And is it lawful for a Subject to subtract himself from the obedience of a lawful Pastor because he is a scandalous Offender R. B. Yes if his Offence be a ceasing to be a lawful Pastor and taking on him a false Office by usurpation Or if he remained lawful quoad hoc as Christian and adde a treasonable addition we must have no Communion with him at least in that unlawful part W. J. If you say he remaineth not in his former Power you contradict our Saviour commanding obedience to the scandalous Pharisees c. R. B. 1. The Pharisees set not up a new usurped Office of Head-ship constitutive pretendedly to the Universal Visible Church but only abused a lawful Office that God had made 2. Yet Christ requireth obedience to them no farther than as they sate in Moses's Chair and delivered the Law but warned men to renounce them as Corrupters and to take heed of their Doctrine 3. And this much was but till they shewed themselves uncurable and he set up new Officers over his Church and then all men were to forsake the Pharisees Government W. J. You destroy all Ecclesiastical Government and open a way to tread under foot all temporal Authority If you hold these Offences deprive him of all Ecclesiastical Power why not so of Kings and Magistrates and Parents and then you have spun a fair Thread c. R. B. Confusion
must I tell you the Opinions of all the People of foreign Lands Is this necessary to know a Papist Cannot I tell you that Men are Papists that profess subjection to the Pope as the Vice-Christ unless I tell you that they are Molinists or Dominicans Franciscans Benedictines Jesuits Jansenists c. Their Profession of Christianity is notorious if you can prove them no Christians do I suppose that one of twenty thousand of them never studied the Eutychian or Nestorian Controversies any more than those Christians that died before these Names and Men were born and I suppose that when these Names came first up one Pastor of an hundred might side with one of these Sects which the Ages following little minded as to any considerable number and I suppose that some that defended Eutyches and Nestorius knew not what the Heresie was and erred not so grosly as those Iesuits did about Murder Adultery Perjury c. whom Montaltus and the Iesuits Morals describe nor your common Doctors cited by Mr. Clarkson no nor so bad as the Councils of Rome Constance and Basil say your Popes have done nor as others of you say those Councils did no nor as the Council at the Laterane did in decreeing the Exterminations of all that you call Hereticks and the deposition of Princes that will not exterminate them and the disobliging Subjects from their Oathes of Allegiance But if this arguing of yours be good suppose it used with your selves It is not enough that you profess your selves Christians and Papists tell us what other Opinions you are of or else how can we know that you are Christians But we are ashamed of such Methods when the Law of Nations bindeth all Men beyond their Profession to prove that they are no Traytors no Thieves Fornicators Lyars c. then I may yield that Men professing Christianity must prove further that they are no Hereticks or invalidate not their own Profession But yet I will not then grant you that any are obliged to prove this but themselves How can I prove such Negatives of millions in the remote parts of the Earth if they could prove it of themselves Call them to do it if you must have such Negatives proved But see that you call them one by one for my Neighbour's errour proveth not mine If I were put to take you and all the Papists in England for no Christians unless I could prove you to be no Sectaries no Hereticks no Traytors no Drunkards Perjured Fornicators c. How were it possible for me to prove it by any one of you This is one difference it seems between the Justice of the Papal Church-Government and Christ's And perhaps this is the ground of the Racks and Torments of the Inquisition to make Men confess what Opinion they are of The Answer to W. J's third Chapter He begins that which he calls his third Chapter pap 88 89. with again repeating his Question thus Were they all united in the profession of one and the same Faith and Unity of external Communion without those two it 's impossible to be united in Christ. Answ. I am afraid these Repetitions will tire the Reader I have proved them united in one Faith even the Christian Faith and in one External Communion in much more of it than is essential to Christianity viz. in one Baptism the Lord's Supper prayer praise thanksgiuing confession of sins preaching and reading the Word of God observation of the Lord's Day c. without differing in any thing inconsistent with the Unity of the Body of Christ But if by the ambiguous word of Unity of External Communion you should mean either that they must meet all in one place or be all under one Pastor these you before disowned And if you mean that they must all have one Book of Liturgie you know that so had not your Roman Church of above 600 years at least nor yet the Eastern Churches nor any considerable number of them every Bishop making his Lyturgie or Prayers as he saw meet If you mean that they must have no differences in any Word or Ceremony and that all are of several Churches or half of no Church who differ about Meats Drinks Days c. I shall not believe you while I believe the Scripture Rom. 14. and 15. 1 Cor. 8. Iam. 3. c. nor till I renounce Humanity or believe that Men of several Complexions Statures or Languages may not yet be all truly Men They that bring it to that that I am no Christian if I eat not Fish in Lent rather than Flesh may Unchristian me next if I eat not my Bread without Cheese or my Cheese without Bread or if I take not the Pope for my Apothecary or Physitian Lay by the Sword and Racks and Fires and the World will soon laugh down your arrogant Tyranny I demanded his Proof that ever there was a Papist or almost one Church of Papists in the World for 400 years after Christ And he tells me that the Oration of Pope Celestine 's Legates in the Council at Ephesus proveth it and though that Council was celebrated 430 yet in a moral consideration that passeth for 400 c. Answ. What cannot the Iesuits Morals make good By them 430 years is within the 400. And by them a Speech of the Pope's Legates goeth for proof of the Judgment of the Council But what was that Speech it self First Note that the Council was called by Theodosius the Emperour and not by Celestine sending his Literae Augustales to all the Metropolitans commanding them to appear at Ephesus 2. That Cyril and not Celestine was sent to at first for help from the Church at Constantinople 3. That Cyril presided And whereas the Papists feign that he did it as the Pope's Substitute the Councils Letters to the Emperour expresses that the Pope's three Legates were the Men that represented his Person Bin. p. 756. And that they commended to Theodosius the Judgment of the Pope but as the signification of common consent 4. And when all is done these words of Philip a Roman Presbyter is all that this great boast is of Thanking them for so receiving the Pope's Letters Non enim ignara est vestra beatitudo totius fidei caeterorumque omnium Apostolorum caput bâ—…atum Apostolum Petrum extitisse And after that Peter the Foundation and Head had the Keys and liveth and judgeth in his Successors But he denyeth not that the other Apostles also had the Keys and that the Church was built on the Foundation of the Apostles And these high words spoken to keep up the Pope's greatness in the Empire were but to maintain his place in Councils and never spoken to the Churches without the Empire nor such Power over them claimed by him And the Councils Decrees were past before these Legates came by whose consent Cyril was glad to strengthen his Party having been condemned by Ioh. Antioch Nestorius c. And doth not Hesichius say as much of
Virgin Mary and yet you take it for a controversie c. are these as sufficiently proposed as that there is a God or Christ 3. When Petavius citeth the words of most of the Doctors or Fathers that wrote before the Council of Nice and of Eusebius himself that was of the Council and subscribed it as being for Arrianisme or dangerously favouring it did all these Fathers think that the proposal of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was as sufficient as of a God or Christ. § 15. He taketh upon him to clear his Argument by two deluding instances which suppose an equality in the revelation But he that knoweth not 1 that it was long before all the Canonical books were equally known to be Gods word 2. And that yet it is not equally certain what Councils are true and what Traditions 3. And that there is great difference between one Text of Scripture and another in intelligible places else why do their Expositions so disagree yea of Councils too 4. And that the Hereticks have still pleaded Scripture and Tradition and Councils as well as the Orthodox as the Eutychians c. did the Council of Nice all equally professing to believe Scripture Tradition and true Councils but not equally understanding them I say he that knoweth not all this knoweth not the matters of Fact which should be known in this Dispute But how he will excuse the Papists from Heresie by his Reasoning I know not e. g. Christ Instituting his Supper saith equally 1. This is my Body and This is the New Testament 2. And equally saith Take Eat and Drink this The Papists 1. Do not believe that literally this Cup is the New Testament though equally said 2. Nor do they believe that they must Drink of it though equally Commanded Ergo by W. I's Arguing The Papists believe not that the Bread is literally Christs Body or that it must be Eaten because of Christs Truth or Authority that spake it else they would have believed both § 16. He addeth a Supposition like the rest that a Calvinist is assured that the Pope is not the Antichrist by the same Authority which he acknowledgeth to be the sufficient proposer of the Articles of his Faith And yet here may lie one of his usual Equivocations The Authority of the Author and prime Revealer of the Gospel is one and the Authority of the prime Instrumental Revealers is another The first is Gods the second is the Prophets and Apostles Tell us where either of these say that the Pope it not Antichrist But the Authority of a distant Messenger and Teacher is of a third rank A Drunken or Fornicating Priest may be such a Messenger or Teacher and may give an Infidel those Reasons of the Faith which by Gods Blessing may bring him to Believe And it is possible such a Priest and a Synod of such may say that the Pope is not Antichrist and another Synod may say he is § 17. I came next to Answer a question of his own Whether I take the Church of Rome and the Protestants to be one Church I Answered that They have two Heads and We but one As they are meer Christians united in Christ they are one Church with us as Papists united in the Pope they are not And if any so hold the Papacy as not really to hold Christianity those are not of the Christian Church with us otherwise they are though a Corrupt Diseased Erroneous part To this he saith who ever called a King and his Viceroy a Captain and Lieutenant two Heads The Pope is a dependent Officer Answ. 1. But if you distinguish between a Visible Head and an Invisible and say that the Pope only is the Visible Head of the Church as Visible and that Christ is only the Invisible Head by Influx and that it were a Monstrous Body if it had not such a Visible Head as you do 2. And if this Visible Head be an Usurpation never owned by Christ then I have reason to distinguish the Policy which is of Gods making from that which is an Usurpation and of Mens relations accordingly If any King should say I am a Vice-God or Gods Viceroy to Govern all the Earth â—…nd that by Gods Appointment and none can be saved that Obey me not I would distinguish between the World or particular Persons as Gods Subjects and as this Vice-Gods Subjects § 18. But he saith Is it possible for two Persons to be Papists and one to destroy his Christianity and the other not Answ. Yes very possible and common That is one holdeth those Errors which by consequence subvert some Article of the Christian Faith but as to the Words not understood or not understanding the consequences or only speculatively and at the same time holdeth the subverted Articles not discerning the contradiction fastly and practically another doth the contrary Even as a Monothelite or a Nestorian or Eutychian may either be one that only as to the Words or superficially erreth and in sence or practically holds the Truth or one that is contrary This should seem no strange thing to you for even a Man that professeth only Christianity may do it but Nomine tenus not understanding it or superficially and not practically and be no true Christian indeed § 19. When I exprest my hope that even he and I as Christians are of one Church he will not believe it 1. Because I am of a Church by my self neither of theirs nor any other part 2. Because I have no Faith Answ. It seems then that meer Christianity is no Faith and that there are none of the meer Christian Church but I. But who will believe the latter and when will he prove either An Answer to W. J's Seventh CHAPTER § 1. TO his Question Why we separated from them I Answered that as they are Christians we separate not from them As Papists we were never of them but our Fore-fathers thought Repentance of Sin to be no Sin If by Popery they separate from Christianity they are damnable Separatists if they do not we are of the same Church whether they will or not 〈◊〉 To this he saith That We separate from them as much as the Pelagians Donatists Acacians Luciferians Nestorians and Eutychians did from the Church Answ. 1. The Doctrinal Errors and the Separation are of different consideration The Pelagians Erred as some Dominicans say the Iesuites do The Donatists like the Papists appropriated the Church to their own Bishops and Party we do none of this Lucifer Calaritanus was too Zealous against the Arrians not communicating with them upon so short Repentance as others did But they went not so far as Crab saith the Roman Council in Sylvester's dayâ—… did that Received no Repentance before forty Years Nor so far as the honest Elebertine Council in the number of Years of Mens exclusion from the Communion I take Lucifer for Erroneous and Schismatical but not comparable to the Papists who err far more and yet separate from most of the
sound any respect to the Bishop of Rome any reverence of his place and judgment any counsel that he giveth to any any help that any sought of him as signifying his Government of all the Empire 6. That he feigneth all such interest or power in the Empire to be a Monarchical Government of all the world 7. That he to these ends leadeth men into verbal quarrels about the sense of many passages in history and fathers where he knoweth that the vulgar cannot judge nor any that are not well versed in all those books which most preachers themselves have not sufficient leisure for 8. That contrary to the notorious evidence of histories he maintaineth that no Councils were called without the authority of the Roman Bishop when the Emperors ordinarily called them by sending to each Patriarch to summon those of his circuit to such a place and the Bishops of Alexandria and Constant. had more hand in calling them till 700 or 800 if not much longer than the Pope had 9. If the Reader can trie all our passages here about by the books themselves not taking scraps but the main drift of Church-history and the particular authors I will desire no more of him than to read them himself if not neither to believe the report of W. I. or me as certain to him For how can he know which of us reports an author truly but to keep to such evidences of Reason and Scripture as he is capable of judging of § 2. When I said that the Emperor Theódòsius 2d gave sufficient testimony and those that adhere to Dioscorus how little in those days they believed the Popes infallibility or sovereignty when they excommunicated him and the Emperor and â—…ivil Officers bare Dioscorus He doth over and over tell me how I defend Rebels against a Sovereign and I have laid a Principle emboldening all Rebels to deposâ—… Sovereigns or prove that they have no authority over them Answ. Alas poor Kings and Emperors who are judged such subjects to the Priests that he that pleadeth for your power pleadeth for Rebels against your Sovereign Pope And that are by these even judged so sheepish as that by the name of Rebellion charged on your defenders they look to draw your selves to take them for Rebels who would make you know that you are Princes and not the subjects of forreigners or your subjects but yet the instance which I give sheweth the sense of Theodosius and others be it right or wrong § 3. Had it not been that the Printer by three or four Errata's as Sixtus fifth c. made him some work he had had little to say but what confutes it self § 4. But cap. 4. p. 289 he would be thought to speak to the purpose viz. That out of the Empire the Pope restored Bishops and did he depose any He was wiser than to name any but saith Such were all those Bishops who about the year 400 in Spain and France and an 475 in England and 595 in Germany 499 and other Western and Northern Kingdoms who were taken from under the command of the Roman Emperor or were never under it and were restored by the Bishop of Romes authority c. Answ. Meer deceit he can name none deposed or restored by the Pope but 1. Such as were in the Empire 2. Or such as were in the same national Church with Rome when the Barbarians claimed power both over Rome and the neighbour Countreys as Odoacer and others claimed power to have the choice of a Pope themselves or that none should be Pope but by their consent 3. Or when the King of any revolted or conquered nation subjected himself or his subjects voluntarily to the Pope as they have done since the declining of the Empire Or 4. when they that had been used in the Empire to the canonical way in Councils and under Patriarchs desired when they were conquered to do as they had done and were permitted As the Patriarch of Constant. that layeth no claim as jure divino yet under the Turk claimeth still superiority over all those Churches that were formerly by Councils put under him what Princes soever they be under supposing that those Councils authority is still valid though the Empire be dissolved 5. Or when the Pope was but a meer Intercessor or Arbitrator and no Rector § 5. But p. 410 c. he cometh on again with repetitions and additions to prove that Forreigners were at the four first General Councils Answ. If he prove that all the Churches in the world made up those Councils he put hard to prove that indeed they were universal But I have not yet found that he hath proved it of any one unless in the fore-excepted cases I. His Theophilus Gothiae metropolis I spake of before He now saith Bishop of Gothia in the farthest parts of the North beyond Germany Answ. But where 's his Proof The Country that he talks of was not long after converted to Christianity He knew not that it was the Getae that were then called Gothes saith Ferrarius Polouci teste Math. Michovicus Steph. Paul Diac populus Sarmatiae Europeae boreale latus maris Euxini incolentes prius Getae teste D. Isidor li. 9. De quibus Auson Horum metropolis et urbs GOTHIA archiepis antequam à Turcis occuparetur Auson ep 3. Hinc possem victos inde referre Gothos Regio Gothea nunc Osia inter Tyram et Borysthenem This was then in the Empire § 6. II. His second is Dominus Domnus Bosphori a City of Thracia Cimmeria or India as Cosmographus declares the Bishop of Botra a City of this name is found in Arabia and Sala a Town also of great Phrygia the higher Pannonia and Armenia is so called Answ. This pitiful stuffe may amase the ignorant Domnus Bospori is the last subscriber Bosphorus is said in the subscriptions to be Provinciae Bostrensis in a Roman Province There be divers straites of the sea called Bosphori one between Constant and Calcedon another the sretum Cimmerium vel os Moeotidis called of the Italians stretto de Cassa and the straits between Taurica Chersonesus in Europe and Sarmatia in Asia There is the City Bosphorus an Archiepiscopal seat vulgo Vospero Abest inquit Ferrarius à Thracio 500 mil. pass ab ostio Tanais 375 in austrum This was in the Empire and he himself nameth it first a City of Thracia and yet the Learned Cosmographer proveth that it was out of the Empire are not these meet men to prove all the Earth to be in the Popes jurisdiction § 7. III. His 3d. is Ioh. Persi lis of whom enough already he is said to be of the Province of Persia which therefore was some skirt of Persia then in the Empire and a Town in Syria was called Persa what proof then is here of any one man out of the Empire So much for Nice § 8. IV. He next tells us of three Bishops of Scythia at the first Council at Constant.
the Arrians yea and of Marcian Leo Zeno Anastaslus Iustine almost all the Churches of the Empire continued charging each others with Heresie and Councils charging and condemning Councils Bishops deposing and cursing Bishops and Monks as their Souldiers fighting it out to blood when the obeying or cursing the Council of Calcedon divided the Bishops for many Princes reigns and when one part called the other Nestorians and the other called them Eutychians almost every where and when after that the Monothelites cause was in many Emperors Reign uppermost one while and down another and navicula Petri that alone scaped before was thus drowned by Honorius if Councils belie him not and Popes with the rest When the very same Bishops as at Ephesus and Calcedon went one way in one Council and another way in the next and subscribed to one Edict e. g. of Basiliscus and quickly to the contrary of another and cryed 〈◊〉 we did it through fear How should we then know by Fathers Bishops and Councils what was their concordant Commentary of the Scripture 4. I ask you what exposition of the Universal Church is it that we profess to differ from for our novelties name them if you can Either by the Universal Church you mean properly all Christians or most If All alas when and where shall we find their agreement in any more than we hold with them If most do we not know that the most two parts to one are against the Popes Sovereignty which is Essential to your Church Do not the Greeks once a year excommunicate or curse you To tell us now That above two parts of the Christian world are none of the Church because they differ from the Universal Church and that the third part is that Universal which he that believeth not is no Christian are words that deserve indignation and not belief and without the medium of Swords and Flames and tormenting inquisitions on one side and great Bishopricks and Abbies Wealth Ease and Domination on the other had long ago been scorned out of the Christian world § 10. But he also denyeth that we believe with a saving divine faith any of the said mysteries and that our Profession general and particular affirmeth it Answ. It 's like the Devil the Accuser of the brethren will deny it too of our Hearts we will not enter a dispute of our Professions let our books be witnesses Reader canst thou believe that we profess not to believe any Christian verity with a Divine faith yea but the man meaneth that it is not a Divine faith if it be not from the beleif of the Pope and his Party And how then shall we believe the Popes own authority § 11. II. My ad Argument to prove that we hold all the Essentials of Christianity was Those that profess as much and much more of the Christian Faith and Religion as the Catechumens were ordinarily taught in the ancient Churches and the Competentes at Baptisme did profess do profess the true Christian Religion in all it's Essentials but so do the Protestants c. To this he calls for Form again as if here were no Universal and then denyeth the Major but his words shew that indeed it is the Minor Because the Catechumens professed to believe implicitly all that was taught as matter of Faith by the Catholick Church in that Article I believe the Holy Church which the Protestants do not Answ. An unproved fiction on both parts 1. Shew us in Fathers Councils or any true Church-Records that Catechumens were then used to make any other exposition of those words than we do Did they ever profess that a Pope or a General Council cannot erre de fide did they not call many of those Councils General though violent and erroneous which they cursed The great doubt then was which party was the true Church and Christians then judged not of Faith by the Church-men but of the Church by the Faith else they had not so oft rejected and Hereticated many Popes Patriarches and the farre greater part of the Bishops as they did 2. And Protestants deny no article which ab omnibus ubique et semper as Lerinens speaks was accounted necessary to â—…ation yea it is one reason why they cannot be Papists because most of the Catholick Church are against the Papacy and all were against it or without it for many hundred Years after Christ. Let the Reader peruse Cyril Hieros Catech. August and all others that give us an account of the Churches Catechism and see whether he can find in it I believe that the Bishop of Rome is made by Christ the Governour of all the World and is Infallible in himself or with his Council and that we must believe all that they say is the Word of God because they say it or else we cannot be saved But it is an easie way to become the Lords of all the World if they can perswade all Men to believe that none but their Subjects can be saved 3. And what an useless thing to they make Gods Word that they may set up their own Expositions in its stead We know that the Word supposeth that the Ignorant must have Teachers Without Teaching Children cannot so much as learn to Speak And Oportet discentem credere fide humanâ that is he must suppose his Teacher wiser than himself or else how can he judge him fit to Teach him But what is Teaching but Teaching the Learner to know the same things that the Teacher doth by the same Evidence Is it only to know what the Teacher holdeth without knowing why If so must we know it by Word or Writing If by Word only when and where shall every Man and Woman come to be Catechized by the Universal Church That is by all the Christian World Or is every Priest the Universal Church Or is he Infallible And how come Words spoken to be more intelligible than words written Doth writing make them unintelligible Why then are their Councils and Commentaries written But if Writing will serve why not God's writing as well as theirs If God say Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart Are not these words intelligible till a Pope Expound them When the Pope permitted his Casuists to expound them so as that Loving God once a Moneth or once a Year will serve for Salvation and that Attrition which is Repeating only out of Fear with the Sacrament of Penance will also serve Cannot a Man be saved that Believeth Repenteth and Loveth God upon the bare Commands of God and Scripture without hearing what all the Christian World or Councils say If I make to my self no Graven Image so as to bow down and Worship towards it by virtue of the second Commandment will this damn me because I receive not the Papists obliteration or contradiction of this Commandment as an Exposition If all the Docrees of Councils be as necessary as the Creed and Scripture why were not the Councils read in the
bound or how can I be said to believe Implicitely their unknown Doctrine or Articles of Faith What is my Implicite belief of Scripture-Particles but my General belief that all the Scripture is Gods Word and true And what is Implicite belief of Popish Traditions in particular but the explicite belief that all Popish Traditions in general are true If therefore these Disputers confess the sufficiency of our explicite neccessary belief and yet damn us for the insufficiency of our implicite belief they shamefully contradict themselves and give up their cause § 14. Next I thus Argued If sincere Protestants are Members of the True Church as intrinsecally informed or as Bellarmine speaketh Living Members then professed Protestants are Members of the true Church as extrinsecally denominated or as it is Visible consisting of Professours But the Antecedent is true Ergo so is the Consequent To this when I had given the Reason of the Consequence undenyable and said I prove the Antecedent or Minor he saith You prove say you your Antecedent or Minor which is a Syntax in Logick and deserves a Ferula for no Minor can be an Antecedent Answ. For this Mans sake I will know a Man better than by his Hectoring before I will go to School to a boaster Reader 1. What is that Error in Logick that is called a Syntax I thought Order or Concord had been no Error I confess my self not wise enough to understand this great Logician And his Ferula is too ready which must be used for Syntaxes when it is more used for violation of Syntax 2. Risum teneatis Can no Antecedent be a Minor so did Dr. Peter Heylin tell me before him in his Certamen Epistolare I suppose I shall never hear a third say so What 's the matter that the Boys Laugh at this and say that to deny the Antecedent of an hypothetical Proposition and to deny the minor is all one Is it that Boys have made all our usual Logicks and now these two Logick Doctors have Reformed them Or hath this Man pretended to be a Champion in that Art in which he is below the Novices He had hit it if he had held to his offer to Dispute before a Lady a Girle only in Syllogism by the Pen for this with her might have past for currant and invincible Logick § 15. I proved the Minor thus All that by Faith in Christ are brought to the unfeigned Love of God above all and special Love of his Servants and unfeigned willingness to Obey him are Members of the True Church as intrinsecally informed But such are all sincere Protestants c. This Minor the Man denyeth and saith That Protestants have not these things Answ. 1. Mark how hard this Man is put to it to renounce his Charity He cannot do it without denying what he granteth A sincere Professor of any Religion is one that really is what he professeth to be He denyeth not that Protestants profess to Love God c. And yet he denyeth the Minor that sincere Protestants do love God As if he that sincerely professeth to Love God doth not Love him These are Papist's Syllogisms 2. Note That this Man seemeth to know all Protestants Hearts better than they do themselves and can prove them all Hypocrites that Love not God 3. But by this you see how he reproacheth all those Protestants that turn Papists as having all been but before but graceless ungodly Hypocrites And what wonder then if they turn 4. But it may be his word formally is a cheat A Protestant is a Christian renouncing Popery It is his Christianity which containeth his Love to God His renouncing Popery is but his freedom from their sin And perhaps the Man hath a mind to call this the Form of Protestants But I hope his Talk shall not deprive us of the Love of God or of our Neighbour In the mean time any Man that can truly say that he is not an ungodly Hypocrite without the Love of God and Man hath Argument enough to Answer any Papist in himself 5. Again Reader mark how much these Men magnifie themselves and how much they vilifie the Word and Works of God Let a Man see all Gods wonderful Goodness in his Works and in his Mercies to himself and all Mankind let him read and believe all the wonderful Love of the Father and Grace of the Son that is described in all the Scriptures Let him believe the Promises there Recorded of Everlasting Glory and All this is insufficient to cause him savingly to Love God or Man But let him but add the belief that the Pope is the Governour of all the Earth and that he and his Council must be believed in all their Traditions and Expositions and then the work will be done and he may Love God unseignedly and be Loved by him The Holy Ghost will not work by the Scripture unless we take the Pope for the Expositor Yea more if a Man never heard of Scripture or if he believe not in Christ for want of the Popes sufficient proposal he may Love God and be saved so he do but believe that the Pope with his Council is a sufficient proposer And is there any account in Reason to be given of this strange Phaenomenon why a Man can Love God if he believe in the Pope of Rome and yet cannot Love him by all his Works and Mercies with the belief of all the Scriptures Or is it as very a Miracle as Transubstantiation and Sanctification by Holy-Water or the Opus operatum and one of those Miracles that prove the Church of Rome to be all the Church on Earth § 16. But he repeateth again the thred-bare Reason Had they this they would never have disobeyed and disbelieved all the Churches in the World Answ. That is the Pope and his Priests who are against the far greatest part of the Christian World and Yearly Anathematized by the Greeks who when they had lost the Primacy of the Eastern part of one Empire have tryed to make up the loss by laying Claim to all the Earth O! of what consequence is Obedience to an Ambitious Pope or Priest in comparison of Obedience to all the written Laws of God § 17. I proved the Minor two ways 1. If this the Love of God c. be in our profession then the sincere are such indeed But this is in our profession Ergo Of this he denyeth the Minor It is not in our profession What not that we Love God and are willing to understand and obey his Word Is he not driven up to the Wall even to another denyal of all Mens Eyes and Ears Do not I profess it while I write these words And have not I professed it in sixty Volumns and more And do not Protestant Libraries contain such professions and their Pulpits ring of them every Lords Day What is a Profession but Words and Writings And are not these Audible and Visible to the World And yet the denying not of the
sincerity but the very Being of them is the Papists confutation of us § 18. Secondly I proved it from our knowledge and sense of our own Acts. When I know and feelmy Love shall I believe a Pope that never saw me that tells me I do not know or feel it To this his easie Answer serveth He saith I do not feel that I truly Love God or his Servants if I be a Formal Protestant my Heart deceives me Answ. No wonder if all these Priests are Infallible that know all our Hearts so much better than we But who shall be Judge The true searcher of Hearts If the Fruits must be the Evidence I should rather fear that such Murderers of hundred thousands as killed the Waldenses Albigenses French English Dutch c. were like to be without Love than all those meek and Godly Protestants that I have known for no Murderer hath Eternal Life But forma is sometime taken for figura and for outward appearance only And such formal Protestants as have but the cloathing of Christianity have not indeed the Love of God § 19. He addeth What would you say to an Arrian a Turk or Jew that would urge the like knowledge or feeling Answ. The same that I would do to a bloody Papist And'I would tell him that if a Bediam think that he is a Prince or a Fool that he is Wise or a Beggar that he is a Lord or an illiterate Man that he is Learned it doth not follow that no Man can know that he is a Prince or a Lord or Wise or Learned I would tell him that there can be no effect without the adequate cause nor is there a cause where there is no effect And lie that perceiveth not God's amiableness in the necessary demonstrations of it cannot Love that Goodness he perceiveth not nor can any desire or seek the Heaven which he believeth not And I would tell him that he that believeth not in a Redeemer or a Sanctifier cannot Love him nor can he Love Believers and Godly Men as such who knoweth not that they as such are Lovely And that if really he Love God and Holyness and the hopes of Heaven before this World it will work in his seeking them above the World If you had Argued rationally against our Love of God and Holyness from any proved defect in the necessary cause which is in you we had been Obliged thankfully to hear and try your words But let Reason judge e. g. whether that man be like to love this world best and be loth to leave it who looketh to go at death into the flames of Purgatory or he that looketh to go to the glorious presence of his Redeemer And whether he be like to Love God best that look eth to be tormented by him in those flames or he that looketh to passe into heavenly perfect Love Christ telleth us that forgiving much causeth Love If a man were to torment you so long would it make you love him or at least is it a good proof that Protestants Love not God because they believe not that he will torment them in flames but presently comfort them § 20. II. My ad Argument to prove the perpetual visibility of our Church was this The Church whose Faith is contained in the Holy Scripture as its rule in all points necessary to Salvation hath been visible ever since the dayes of Christ on Earth But the Church whose Faith is contained in the Holy Scriptures as it's rule in all points necessary to Salvation is it of which the Protestants are members Therefore the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible c. Here he wanteth Form again because the praedicate of the Minor is the Subject of the conclussion and then he distinguisheth of the Maior of containing Involutely in General principles he granteth it but if expresly he denyeth it Answ. 1. The marvellous Logician it seems is but for one mood or figure but by what authority or Reason 2. He denyeth that the Churches Faith in all points necessary to Salvation is expresly contained in the Scripture I proved the contrary ad hominem before out of Bellarmine and Costerus plain words and shall by and by further prove it Mark again the Papists value of the Holy Scriptures he that explicitly believeth all that it expresly delivereth and no more say these men cannot be saved and yet if they believe none of it but a rewarding Deity say most or some more of the Creed say others men may be saved if they do but believe that all is Gods word and truth which the Pope and his Priests or Council say is such Next he distinguisheth of all things necessary to Salvation to be by all distinctly known and expresly believed and so he granteth the Scripture-sufficiency Very good Now all that is so necessary to a distinct knowledge and express belief is there But of all things to be Believed implicitly and distinctly known he denyeth it These distinctions supposed saith he I deny your Consequence Answ. Here is all new still 1. He calleth my Conclusion my Consequence and reciteth it 2. What he meaneth by things to be distinctly known by all and yet Believed but implicitely is past my understanding having to do with that man that hath all this while described implicite Belief by the express Belief of some meer General truth And must men know all that distinctly which they Believe not distinctly but in their general the man sure was confounded or confoundeth me The General to be Believed is the Pope and Councils authority in propounding and expounding Gods word This is their saving Faith the Belief of all that they propose is implicitely contained in this but must all this be distinctly known by all and yet not distinctly Believed The first would damn all that know not every one of their Councils decrees de fide the ad will shew that they Believe nothing at all for he that knoweth distinctly what the Pope saith and yet Believeth it not distinctly cannot Believe the general of his veracity But perhaps he spake distributively of two sorts of Faith viz. both the Implicite and the Explicite and so meant to deny the Scripture-sufficiency only to the first if so I shewed the flat contradiction of it before Where there is all that is necessary to be Believed expresly eo nomine there is all that is necessary to be Believed implicitely because to be Believed implicitly with this man is but to be the unknown consequent or inclose of that which is Believed expresly § 21. For the proof of my Major the Scripture-sufficiency as to all things commonly necessary to Salvation after Bellarmine and Costerus I have cited the plain words at large of 1. Ragus in Council Basil. Bin. p. 299. 2. Gerson de exam doct p. 2. cont 2. 3. Durandus in Praefat. Hierom. in hym 4. Aquinas 22. 9. 1. à 10. ad 1. de Verit. disp de fide q.
sottish stuff as this 1. When will he make me know how his sufficient proposal may be discerned 2. And how the Hereticaters can know the sufficiency of the proposals to others Even many Kingdoms of men that they never saw seeing variety of Capacities Opportunities Educations Temptations c. maketh that insufficient to one that is sufficient to another 3. When will he prove that the plainest Scripture is no sufficient proposal till the credit of the Papall Clergy make it so and yet that the obscure volumnes of militant Councils that curse one another are sufficient proposals 4. Or that the word of a Jesuite is a sufficient notice to us what is in the Councils or what is their sence 5. Or who shall expound dark Councils to us when there are no Councils in our age in Being 6. How shall we know that a culpable neglect of a sufficient proposal through prejudice or temptation may never stand with Faith If so is there any man living that is not an Infidel or Heretick I challenge any man living to dare to make good that he never erred or doth erre in any point revealed in Scripture or Councils against sufficient proposal taking sufficiency as it is commonly in the controversie of sufficient Grace What if a man through culpable negligence know not how many years it was from Adam to the flood or know not who was the Father of Arphaxad c. when these are sufficiently proposed Doth this prove that he believeth not Gods Veracity As if there were no other sin that could frustrate any one sufficient proposal 7. But it is the fate of rash condemners to condemn themselves most notoriously If the plain words of Scripture in the institution of the Cup in the Eucharist against praying in an unknown tongue c. If the sensible evidence of Bread and Wine to all sound Senses that are neer be not a sufficient proposal what is Surely not such self-contradicting disputes as this of W. I. and others like him nor the Cant of the Church and all the world by a partial Sect but if Scripture the Tradition and Judgment of the most of Christians Reason and Sense can make up a sufficient proposal out of their own mouths are these men condemned as Hereticks to be avoided by all good Christians But I have more Charity for some of them then herein they exercise to themselves or others And in particular I will be so far from partiality as to profess that though Pope Honorius was an anathematized Heretick in the judgment of the 6th and other General Councils and of his Successors Popes I am not one of those that take him really for such in W. I's sence as held a Doctrine that did unchristen him Nay I take his Epistles to Sergius read in the 6th General Council to be two of the honestest peaceable Epistles that I have read from a Pope except some of Leo's and few more and I think that his counsel for to avoid contention to forbear both the name of two operations and of one operation and leave it to Grammarians and hold to plain Scripture-words was honest counsel And the hereticating of him and the rest by that Council increaseth not my veneration but my great dislike of Hereticating Councils and the factions of the Bishops it was not long after under the Emperour Philipicus when another General Council so great as it 's said it consisted of Innumerable Bishops at Constantinople revoked undid and destroyed all this that was done against Honorius and the Monothelites at the said 6th Council so ordinarily did General Councils condemn each other But what I say in excuse of Honorius I must say also in excuse of Sergius Constant. For he said but the same that Honorius did viz. that he would have had the controversie and the names of Two or One Operation laid by and yet Binnius can call Sergius a lying Heretick while he with others excuseth Honorius for the same And on this occasion I will conclude with a note out of the two Epistles of Cyrus to Sergius read in the same 6th General Council which hath this title Deo honorabili meâ—… Domino benigno Principi Pastorum Patri Patrum Universali Patriarchae Sergio à Cyro humilâ—… vestro I would know whether the Pope can shew that ever any one of his Predecessors had higher titles given him than these And if these prove not an universal Sovereignty of the Patriarch of Constantinople whether the like or less will prove it for Rome if you say that it was but an Heretick that gave it him I answer 1. That 's nothing to the matter in hand 2. He was but such a harmless Heretick as Honorius 3. The Council reprehended not the title Many such instances might be given of as high titles given to Jerusalem Alexandria Antioch Constantinople as Rome pretendeth for the proof of its Universal-church-monarchy And if it prove no such power in others it proveth it not in the Pope FINIS ☞ Sect. 1. Sect. 2 Sect. 3. Sect. 4. Sect. 5. Sect. 6. Sect. 7. Sect. 8. Sect. 9. Sect. 10. Sect. 11. Sect. 12. Sect. 13. Sect. 14. Sect. 15. Sect. 16. Sect. 17. Sect. 18. Sect. 19. Sect. 20. Sect. 21. Sect. 22. ☞ Sect. 23. Sect. 〈◊〉 Sect. 25. Sect. 26. Sect. 27. Sect. 28. Sect. 2. * See them answered by Ioh. Rossens Bishop Buckeâ—…idge Sect. 3. Sect. 4. Sect. 5. Sect. 6. Sect. 7. So all that take not every Priest for a lawful superior to contradict him though about a word must be burned damned Sect. 8. Sect. 9. Sect. 10. ☞ ☞ Sect. 11. Sect. 12. Sect. 13. Sect. 14. Sect. 1. * Yet he maintaineth himself that Hereticks are no Christians but equivocally Baronius Binnius Bellarmine Genebrard your greatest flatterers confess it and much more Who that ever read the Councils and Church-history doubted of it see then the impudency of men pretending to lay their cause on tradition and history I said that the charge of Simony made many of them uncapable to which he giveth no answer for their most flattering Historians assert it and lament it Sect. 2. Sect. 3. ☞ Sect. 4. Sect. 5. Sect. 6. Sect. 7. Sect. 8. Sect. 1 Sect. 2. ☞ Sect. 4. Sect. 5. Sect. 6. Sect. 7. Sect. 8. * Or rather the Emperour For some Bishops put in several names and the Emperour chose Nectarius an unbaptized man and so no Christian in the Churches judgment Sect. 9. Sect. 10. Sect. 11. Sect. 12. Sect. 13. Sect. 14. Sect. 1â—… Sect. 2. Sect. 3. This seâ—…ms to confess that your people have no â—…ivine faith for our belief of a Priest saying This book is canonical is but humane Sect. 4. ☞ Sect. 5. Sect. 6. Sect. 1. Sect. 2. Sect. 4. Sect. 5. Sect. 6. Sect. 7. Sect. 8. Sect. 9. Sect. 1. Sect. 2. Sect. 3. Sect. 4. Sect. 5. Sect. 6. Sect. 7. Sect. 8. Sect. 9. Sect. 10. Sect. 11. Sect. 12. Sect. 13. Sect. 14. Sect. 1. Sect. 2. Sect. 3. Vid.