Church of Rome never refus'd their Communion before though she knew them to hold the same opinion and so as plainly appeares counted that materiall in one Age which she had not so esteemed in others and therefore in the degree at least of holding what she held contradicted herself and followed Traditions And as Cyprian imitated them so did the Affrican Bishop him for a Question hapning between them and the Bishops of Rome about Appeales though they absolutely oppos'd him and in vaine I confesse desired him that he would not bring into the Church Typhum hujus Saeculi the swelling pride of this World and though he laboured infinitely in the businesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might bring it to passe yet he and two of his successors were either so unready or so unskil'd in the present Roman Doctrine that Feed my sheeep and thou art Peter were either out of their knowledge or out of their memory and they alleadged not any power jure divino but onely pretended to a Cannon of the Councel of Nice which when the Affricans found not in their coppies for they would not believe the Church of Rome so farre as to trust to hers though now you generally think the Scripture it selfe to have its authority quoad nos onely for her definitions they sent to the East to enquire there and finding their coppies agreeing with theirs they then more resolutely withstood the Pretence which brought at that time nothing to the Popes but repulse and shame And indeed not to object that it is not numbered among any of the ancient Herisies that they differ'd from the particular Roman Church nor is this Rule of being sure at all times to joyne with her ever given by those Fathers who set us waies and Antidotes how to secure our selves against Heresie which could not have been left undone if they had known any such Tradition nor to speak of the Cannon of the Councell of Chalcedon which attributes the power of the Popes to the gift of their Fathers and that againe to Romes being the head City setting all this aside I will aske your selfe if it be not plain that those Fathers who upon the impudent pretence of some Hereticks send men to severall places to enquire after Tradition either send them to all the Apostolicall churches or to save their labour to that to which they were nearest as esteeming them all of equall authority though not jurisdiction for I may say of Rome and them as Tacitus doth of Caelius and the other Commanders Mutato nomine the name onely chang'd Pares jure Roma audendo potentior for what by watching all occasions to greaten herself whereof Cardinal D' Ossat is my witnesse what by abusing the respect all men had ever given her in respect of the chiefe Apostles which founded her of the Empire which was long seated in her and of her ancient Bishops whereof about thirtie together were martyr'd there what by interpreting what was given to her Authority as given to her Power and taking civilities aud complements of which no Court is now so full as the ancient Bishops were made to Popes for alleagiance sworn to them what by forging false decretall Epistles which the Tearmed Authors of them would not forgive them for if they knew it if it were onely for the barbarous language what by these and such other waies she is come at length to that passe that what Auitus a Roman Generall said to the Ansibarians who gave him reasons why he ought not in justice to disturbe their possessions Id Diis placitum ut Arbitrium penes Romanos maneret quid darent quidve adimerent neque alios Judices quam seipsos paterentur It is the will of Heaven that it be left to the Romans what they will please to give or take away and suffer not any Judges but themselves appeares now not so much a History of the Pride of the Roman Empire as a Prophecy of the generall doctrine of the Roman Church Having ever marked Error and Confidence to keep so much company that I seldome find the first but I mistrust the second makes me loath to affirme any thing over-dogmatically out of these objections or say that they cannot be answered Onely because I must not offend against Truth for feare of offending against Modesty I will take leave to say that if I could have answered them my selfe I would not have put you to the trouble of doing it which you might also have sav'd if by letting me know your name you would have enabled me to have found you out and so in a short discourse have tried whether I could have obtain'd that satisfaction from your words which I must now expect from your Pen. But supposing I had none of these objections yet two things besides would have kept me from assenting to what you say The first is that your men when they aske us how we know Scripture to be Scripture and this to be the sence of it tell us withall that unlesse we know it by some more infallible way then our owne Reason they mean their Church it will not serve for a beliefe of those things which are to be believ'd by a divine Faith Now this Argument of yours upon which you build all allowing that it appear'd good reason yet at most it is but reason and liable to the same exceptions unlesse the same thing be a wall when you leane upon it and a bulrush when we doe The second is that all you say for as yet you speak not of the Authority of the Particnlar Church of Rome though you must at length come to it though by that too little is to be gotten if it were granted would but prove those who adhere now to the Church of Rome to be now in the right but I asked for a guide which might without new search serve me the next yeer as well as this For for all that you have prov'd she may leave the way you say she now pretends to walk in and attempt to reform too which I wish were as probable as it is possible or there may arise a schisme between two parts of those Churches which now adhere to the Roman and both may claime Tradition for what hath been may be againe and how shall I know then which side to take since both will seem equally good by that Touchstone which you appoint me to try with And if I be then sent to try by Ancient Writers it is certaine that besides the fallibility of that way for the learned this cannot be done at all by the ignorant and it is probable that both Parties will fall into that absurdity into which the Church of Rome daily runs which is that although the evidence which she claimes by cannot well be exactlie read over in thirty yeares time yet she requires us under paine of Damnation to give our Verdicts for her by twenty yeeres old The Second Part. THe high and Sage Master
the Character will be farr too short It is in you and onely you my Lord to set him out truely and to resemble him to the life and that will be by taking that Evangelicall Counsell Tu autem fac similiter Do like him live like him and pardon me if I add one thing more like him Love My Lord Your Lordships most humble and affectionately devoted Servant TRIPLET OF THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME A discourse written by the Lord Viscount FALKLAND TO him that doubteth whether the Church of Rome hath any errors they answer that she hath none for she never can have any this being so much harder to beleeve then the first had need be proved by some certainer Arguments if they expect that the beleefe of this one should draw on whatsoever they please to propose yet this if offered to be proved by no better wayes then we offer to prove by that she hath erred which are arguments from Scripture and ancient Writers all which they say are fallible for nothing is not so but the Church Which if it be the onely infallible determination and that can never be believed upon its owne authority we can never infallibly know that the Church is infallible for these other waies of proofe may deceive both them and us and so neither side is bound to beleeve them If they say that an argument out of Scripture is sufficient ground of Divine Faith why are they offended with the Protestants for beleeving every part of their Religion upon that ground upon which they build all theirs at once And if following the same Rule with equall desire of finding the Truth by it having neither of those qualities which Isid. Pelus saith are the cause of all Heresie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pride and Prejudication why should God be more offended with the one then with the other though they chance to erre They say the Church is therefore made infallible by God that all men may have some certain Guide yet though it be infallible unlesse it both plainly appeare to be so for it is not certaine to whom it doth not appeare certaine and unlesse it be manifest which is the Church God hath not attained his end and it were to set a ladder to Heaven and seem to have a great care of my going up whereas unlesse there be care taken that I may know this ladder is here to that purpose it were as good for me it never had been set If they say we may know for that generall Tradition instructs us in it I answer that ignorant people cannot know this and so it can be no Rule for them and if learned people mistake in this there can be no condemnation for them For suppose to know whether the Church of Rome may erre as a way which will conclude against her but not for her I seek whether she have erred and conceiving she hath contradicted her self conclude necessarily she hath erred I suppose it not damnable though false because I try the Church by one of the touch-stones which herself appoints me Conformity with the Ancients For to say I am to beleeve the present Church that it differs not from the former though it seem to me to do so is to send me to a witnesse and bid me not beleeve it now to say the Church is provided for a guide of Faith but must be known by such markes as the ignorant cannot seek it by and the learned may chance not find it by can no way satisfie me If they say God will reveale the Truth to whomsoever seeks it these waies sincerely this saying both sides will without meanes of being confuted make use of therefore it would be as good that neither did When they have proved the Church to be Infallible yet to my understanding they have proceeded nothing farther unlesse we can be sure which is it For it signifies onely that God will have a Church alwaies which shall not erre but not that such or such a succession shall be in the right so that if they say the Greek Church is not the Church because by its own confession it is not Infallible I answer That it may be now the Church and may hereafter erre and so not be now infallible and yet the Church never erre because before their fall from Truth others may arise to maintaine it who then will be the Church and so the Church may still be infallible though not in respect of any set persons whom we may know at all times for our Guide Then if they prove the Church of Rome to be the true Church and not the Greek Church because their opinions are consonant either to Scripture or Antiquitie they run into a Circle proving their Tenets to be true First because the Church holds them And then theirs to be the Church because the Church holds the Truth Which last though it appears to me the onely way yet it takes away its being a Guide which we may follow without examination without which all they say besides is nothing Nay suppose that they had evinced that some succession were Infallible and so had proved to a learned man that the Roman Chruch must be this because none else pretends to it yet this can be no sufficient ground to the ignorant who cannot have any infallible foundation for their beleefe that the Church of Greece pretends not to the same and even to the Learned it is but an accidentall Argument because if any other Company had likewise claimed to be Infallible it had overthrown all The chiefest reason why they disallow of Scripture for Judge is because when differences arise about the interpretation there is no way to end them And that it will not stand with the goodnesse of God to damne men for not following his Will if he had assigned no infallible way to find it I confesse this to be wonderfull true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and let them excuse themselves that think otherwise yet this will be no Argument against him that beleeves that to them who follow their reason in the interpretation of the Scriptures God will either give his Grace for assistance to find the Truth or his pardon if they misse it And then this supposed necessitie of an infallible Guide with the supposed damnation for want of it fall together to the ground If they command us to beleeve infallibly the contrary to this they are to prove it false by some infallible way for the conclusion must be of the same nature and not conclude more then the premisses set down Now such a way Scripture and Reason and infused Faith cannot be for they use to object the fallibility of these to those that build their Religion upon them nor the authority of the Church for this is part of the Question and must it self be first proved and that by none of the former waies for the former reasons The Popes Infallibility can be no infallible ground of Faith being it self no
contrarie That the Scripture cannot prove every thing in foro contentioso I beleeve but all necessarie Truths I beleeve it can for onely those which it can are such I denie not but that a contentious person may denie a thing to be proved when his own Conscience contradicts his words but so he may Arguments drawn from any other ground as well as Scripture so that if for that cause you refuse to admit of proofes from thence you might as well for the same refuse to admit of any by any other kinde of Arguments And certainlie if the Scriptures I meane the plaine places of it cannot be a sufficient ground for such and such a point surelie it cannot be a sufficient ground to build a ground upon as the Churches Infallibilitie and therefore though it it seemes you desire so much that this be beleeved that so it be you care not upon what proofe yet a considering Protestant who is not as hot to receive your Religion as you are that he should may presentlie say when he is press'd by you with Scripture to this since this is a way of proofe which your selves admit not of an Argument from hence may bring me from my own Religion but never to yours because it is a beame which that relies much upon that by any other way then the authoritie of the Church no man can be sufficientlie sure of the meaning of Scripture That they say the Church is made infallible that we may have some guide I thinke it very rationall for Nature hath given ever some strong and uncontroulable Principle in all Natures to guide the rest The Common-wealth hath a Governour not questionable our Understanding hath Principles which she cannot judge but by them judgeth of all other verities If there should not be some Principle in the Church it were the onely maimed thing God had created and maimed in its Principall part in the very head Andif there be such a Principle the whole Church is Infallible by that as the whole man seeth by his eyes toucheth by his hands Christ is our unquestionable and infallible Governour and his Will the Principle by which we are guided and the Scripture the place where this Will is contained which if we endeavour to find there we shall be excused though we chance to misse and therefore want not your guide who either is not or as hard to find as the way and againe when he hath defined the certaine meaning of that definition as hard to find as herfelf Neither is a company of men thus beleeving maimed in the head though having no other more uncontroulable Principle If your guide were evident of her self as those Principles are by which we judge all things else then your Similitude would hold a little whereas being neither knowable in her self nor proveable by ought else what you have said onely shewes what an ill match is made when Witt is set against Truth It is sufficient for a Child to believe his Parents for a Clown to believe his Preacher about the Churches Infallibility For Faith is given to mankind to be a meanes of believing and living like a Christian and so he hath this second it is not much matter in what tearmes he be with the first To what you say I answer that I confesse that it is not possible that without particular Revelations or Inspirations the ignorant even of the Orthodox party should receive their Religion upon very strong grounds which makes me wonder that even from them you should exact an assent of a higher nature and a much greater certaintie then can be ministred to them by any arguments which they are capable of yet if they believe what they receive with an intention of obedience to God and supposall that their opinions are his Revelations and use those meanes which they in their Conscience think best to examine whether they be or no though it be when they find themselves unable to search by trusting others whom they count fittest to be trusted I beleeve they are in a very saveable estate though they be farr from having of the truth of their Tenets any Infallible certaintie and the same I think of those which are in error for since you cannot deny but that a Child or a Clown with the same aptnesse to follow Gods will may be taught by his Parents or his Preacher that what God forbids he commands that Christ's Vicar is Antichrist or the Church Babylon and scarce teacheth any truth though it could not teach the least error why should such a one be damned for the misfortune of having had Hereticall Parents or a deceiving Preacher For no more it seemes is required of such then to give his beliefe to those And indeed the same reason extended will excuse him who though learned impartially aimeth at Gods will and misseth it for though you seeme to insinuate by the cause you give of what you say that so men believe and do what they heare God command he careth not upon what grounds yet I who know that God hath no other gaine by our so doing then that in it we sacrifice to him our soules and affections cannot believe but that they shall be accepted who give him that which he most cares for and obey him formally though they disobey him materially God more considering and valuing the Heart then the Head the end then the actions and the fountaine then the streames And truely else he who through stupidity or impotence abstained from any vice or through negligence or prejudice miss'd some error would be as well accepted of by God as he that by a care of his waies and of obedience to him who should rule them did avoide the first and by a studious search the second I cannot part from this Theame without one consideration more and that is that if so Fallible a Director as you speak of may be cause enough of assent to one Truth why may they not be so to another and why shall not the beleefe of our ignorants upon their testimonie that the Scripture is the Word of God be as well founded as that of yours to the Infallibility of the Church upon the same And yet it is daily objected to us that this beleefe of ours is not surely enough founded since not received from their Church although the unlearned among us receive it from their Parents and Preachers and the learned from Tradition as from the first of those your unlearned do and from the second of which your learned pretend they do receive the authority and infallibility of the Church it self Although we be so much more reasonable then you that we require them not to be so sure upon it as they are of what they know by sence but onely to give them so much credit that they may give up their hearts to obedience Neither do I remit him to a generall and constant Tradition as if himself should climbe up every age by learned
which I have answered their duty indeed but not theirs onely though Principally is to instruct us in the way to Heaven which they doing in the Persons of Embassadors between God and us and having no absolute Letters of Credence to bid us to beleeve that God saies whatsoever they say he saies as much as can be wrested out of Scriptures for any present Church being said of the Scribes and Pharisees who yet proved themselves not infallible our best way is in my mind to examine their Commission and if they can shew that they treat according to that to submit to them as in the same case we must to any of the Layetie or rather to God of whose commands they are but Organs and if not to beware of their Leaven Yet it may be that some man may hold that such an opinion is to be beleeved onelie because such a Church proposeth it and yet not believe her Infallible since he may think her authoritie by reason of her Learning Multitude Sanctitie Unitie and Libertie to be more probable then any contradicting argument and that men are to assent to what is most probable and truelie if he could prove to me his Major I am alreadie so much of the opinion of his Minor that I should joyne with him in his Conclusion So that if I understand any thing where there is no Infallibility there is no Power where no Power no Unity where no Unity no Entity where no Entity no Church How you tie Power to Infallibilitie I guesse but cannot how you tie Unitie to Power For how many things are all men even at Unitie about though one have no Power over another in them onelie cemented together by their clear evidence And how many more do whole Bodies and Sects of men agree about without any such power though they differ in other points as so do you too Do not Protestants agree with you about manie and the chiefest credenda and about almost all the meerely facienda Though not perswaded to this agreement by the Power of any Judge which they do acknowledge Nay if men could be at Unitie about no thing which were not proposed by some Guide or defined by some Judge endued with such a power how came all you to agree that there is some such Guide and Judge required since sure you receive not that upon its own authoritie and if men may find the necessitie of a Guide and Judge without any Guide or Judge and remain in Unitie about that why may they not also about whatsoever is clearly taught by God which reason assures us to be all that is necessarie and if you say that all things necessarie are not clearlie taught because we do not though it proves not that we might not agree upon them then I replie that I may as well say that neither is it cleare that there is a Guide because we dissent from you in it although receiving the authoritie of the Scripture out of which Cardinall Perron confesseth that Saint Austine saith that both the necessitie of your guide the Church and she her self are to be known and reason which as they may be plain in this point for you and yet perswade us not so may they be in all necessarie points and yet we who make theirs our ground not perswade one another As little see I why there can be no Entitie nor Church where there is no Unitie For the first though there be small Unitie among Christians yet certainly Christians and their Religion have some Entitie indeed if what you say were true there were no Entitie in yours For the second I know not why two parties over-valuing their differences may not conceive each other to be none of the Church and so declare even by excommunications and yet remain both Parts of it for if a Husband misse-suspecting his Wife of Adulterie declare her to be no longer his Wife this cannot make her give over being so if the bond be indeed not broken as well as chrysostome and Epiphanius both excommunicated by each other and yet both Saints or as particular men may by your own confession be interiorly in the Church although seeming out of it even to the Church her self and so those be both of the Church between whom there is no Unity For not onely in your own Cariophilus his words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but also though the persons have power yet if the cause have not sufficiencie I take you to agree that an excommunication is but a brutum fulmen as Victors of the Asian Bishops The best therefore and strictest definition and which I think you will not refute which I can give for the Church is especially in that sence as out of it there can be no salvation those who are desirous to know Gods Will or Christs at the strictest for I am not certaine nor I beleeve is it defined among you whether an explicite knowledge of Christ be absolutely necessarie to Salvation though I know no guiltlesse ignorance of him can bring unavoidably upon any man eternall torments and ready when known to beleeve and follow it and sure many of these may eternally disagree even in points which are necessarie abstracting from particular cases and yet their differences not exclude them from the Church and consequentlie a Church may be without Unitie Quod erat demonstrandum Now for the Controversies mentioned besides that there is a meanes to terminate them they be such as bring no breach of the ancient life and action of Christians which all those opinions do which for the most part are reputed to make Hereticks You saw verie well that if no Unitie no Church were a true Proposition yours hath in it differencies enough to destroy its being a Church and therefore are faine to applie what salves you can but all in vaine For your meanes to terminate them doth not make them not to be before they are terminated and consequently by your Rule yours is no Church till then Besides their bringing to breach of the ancient life and action of Christians proves not but one of them may be a Heresie since you say not your selfe that all Heresies are such but onelie for the most part and indeed to prove that you must be able to set down what those opinions are which before a definition may make a Heretick which I beleeve you will not venture to doe in haste though we much desire it at your hands that we may know if none of them be such That some controversies amongst us are not resolved is a thing necessarie amongst humane affaires where things must have a time to be born to encrease to fall and the greater things are the greater is their Period It is true that some time to be taken notice of must passe between an opinions rising and being condemned but that so long they should run on and many of your Councels having since been held is sure not necessarie and shewes
necessary part of Faith and we can be no surer of any thing proved then we are of that which proves it and if he be fallible no part is the more infallible for his siding with them So if the Church be divided I have no way to know the true Church but by searching which agrees with Scripture and Antiquitie and so judging accordingly but this is not to submit my self to her opinions as my Guide which they tell us is necessarie which course if they approve not of as fit for a learned man they are in a worse case for the ignorant who can take no course at all nor is he the better at all for his Guide the Church whilst two parts dispute which is it and that by arguments he understands not If I grant the Pope or a Councell by him called to be infallible yet I conceive their decrees can be no sufficient grounds by their own axioms of divine Faith For first of all no Councell is valid not approved by the Pope for thus they overthrow that held at Ariminum and a Pope chosen by Simony is ipso facto no Pope I can have then no certainer grounds for the infallibility of those decrees and consequently for my beleefe of them then I have that the choice of him is neither directly nor indirectly Simoniacall Secondly suppose him Pope and to have confirmed their decrees yet that these are the decrees of a Councell or that he hath confirmed them I can have but an uncontradicted confession of many men for if another Councell should declare these to have been the Acts of another former Councell I should need againe some certain way of knowing how this declaration is a Councell which is no ground say they of Faith I am sure not so good and generall a one as we have that the Scripture is Scripture which yet they will not allow any to be certaine of but from them Thirdly For the sence of their decrees I can have no better expounder then reason which if though I mistake I shall not be damned for following why shall I for mistaking the sence of the Scripture or why am I a lesse fit Interpreter of the one then of the other and when both seeme equally cleare and yet contradictory shall not I affoon beleeve Scripture which is without doubt of as great authority But I doubt whether Councells are fit deciders of Questions for such they cannot be if they beget more and men are in greater doubts afterwards none of the former being diminished then they were at ffrst Now I conceive there arise so many out of this way that the learned cannot end all nor the ignorant know all As besides the fore-named considerations who is to call them the Pope or Kings who are to have voices in them Bishops onely or Priests also whether the Pope or Councell be superiour and the last need the approbation of the first debated amongst themselves Whether any Countries not being called or not being there as the Abissines so great a part of Christianitie and not resolvedly condemned by them for Hereticks were absent at the Councell of Trent make it not generall Whether if it be one not every where received as when the Bishops sent from some places have exceeded their Commission as in the Councell of Florence it be yet of necessitie to be subscribed unto Whether there were any surreption or force used and whether those disanull the Acts Whether the most voices are to be held the Act of the Councell or those of all required which never yet agreed Or whether two parts will serve as in the Tridentine Synod A considerable doubt because Nicephorus Callistus relalating the resolution of a Councell at Rome against that of Ariminum makes him give three reasons One That the Pope of Rome was not present The Second That most did not agree to it The third That others thither gathered were displeased at their resolutions Which proves that in their opinions if either most not present agree not to it or all present be not pleased with it a Councell hath no power to bind All these doubts I say perswade me that whatsoever brings with it so many new Questions can be no fit end of the old Then if before a generall Councell have defined a Question it be lawfull to hold either way and damnable to do so after I desire to know why it is so Scripture and Tradition seem to me not to say so but if they did so I suppose you will grant they do this Doctrine That the Soules of the blessed shall see God before the day of Judgement and not be kept in secret Receptacles for without this the Doctrine of Prayers to Saints cannot stand and yet for denying this Bellarmine excuseth Pope John the 22 th because the Church he meanes I doubt not a generall Councell had not then condemned it I desire to know why he should not be condemned as well without one as many Hereticks that are held so by their Church yet condemned by none which if he make to be the Rule of Heresie it had been happy to have lived before the Councell of Nice when no opinion had been damnable but some against the Apostles Councell at Hierusalem because there had yet been no other generall Councell at least why should not I be excused by the same reason though I beleeve not a Councell to be infallible since I never heard that any Councell hath decreed that they are so neither if it hath can we be bound by that decree unlesse first made certaine some other way that it selfe is so If you say we must beleeve it because of Tradition I answer Sometimes you will have the not beleeving any thing not declared by a Councell to have power enough to damne that is when against any of us at other times the Church hath not decreed unlesse a Councell have and their error is pardonable and they good Catholicks Next as I have asked before how shall an ignorant man know it For he in likelihood can speak but with a few from whom he cannot know that all of the Church of Romes part do now and in past ages have beleeved it to be Tradition so certaine as to make it a ground of Faith unlesse he have some revelation that those deceived him not neither indeed can those that should inform him of the opinions of former times be certainely informed themselves For truely if the relation of Pappias could cozen so far all the prime Doctors of the Christian Church into a beleefe of the celebration of a thousand yeeres after the resurrection so as that no one of those two first ages oppose it which appeares plainly enough because those that after rise up against this never quoated any thing for themselves before Dionysius Alexandrinus who lived at least two hundred and fifty yeares after Christ nay if those first men did not onely beleeve it as probable but Justine Martir saith he holds it and so
opposed when they first parted first began the Schism how the points of difference be such as on the Catholike side help devotion and on the contrary diminish the same and such like sensible differences which will clearly shew a main advantage on the Catholike side which is the proportionall motive to his understanding To the Grammarian I will give two Memorandums First that seeing Catholiques were first in possession both of the Scriptures and the interpretations the adverse part is bound to bring such places as can receive no probable Exposition by the Catholikes It is not sufficient that their Expositions seem good or better that is more conformable unto the Text but they must be evincent to which no so sound answer even with some impropriety can be given For who knoweth not that is conversant in Criticks how many obscure and difficult places occurre in most plain Authors and the Scripture of all Books the greater part of the men who wrote them specially the new Testament being not eloquent and writing not in their native tongue for the most part are subject to many Improprieties The other Memorandum is That to prove a Catholike point by Scripture it is sufficient that the place brought do bear the Explication the Catholike beareth and if it be more probable by the very letter it is an evincent place The reason is Because the Question being about a Christian Law the Axioms of the Jurists taketh place that Consuetudo optima interpres Legis So that if it be manifest that Christian practise which was before the controversie be for the one sense and the words be tolerable no force of Grammar can prevail to equalize this advantage The Grammarian therefore who will observe these rules I turn him loose to the Scriptures and Fathers to seek in them what is the faith of Christ and properties of his Church to know her by Of the the Philosopher I exact to go like a Philosopher and to search out the specificall differences of every Sect and when he hath found them if any one but the Catholike hath any rule of Faith and good life which I remit to him to enquire But at least when he hath found the Catholiques to be this claim of Tradition before declared then if this doe not bring him as demonstratively as he knoweth any conclusion in Philosophie and Mathematicks to the notice that this is the only true Church of Christ for my part I shall quit him before God and man The Divine if he hath truly understood the principles of his Faith in the nature of a Divine I mean Trinity Incarnation Redemption Eucharist Beatitude the Creation and Dissolution of the World and hath seen the exact conformitie with the deepest principles of nature with an unspeakable wisedome of the contriver If he does not plainly confesse it was above the nature of man to frame the Catholike Religion and seeth not that onely that is conformable to nature and it selfe I say he hath no ground sufficient to be of it At last the Statesman who is truly informed of the Church how far it is really of Christs Institution and what either pious men have added or peradventure ambitious men encroached If he does not find a government of so high and Exotick strain that neither mans wit would dare to have attempted it neither mans power could possibly have effected it If he findeth not eminent helpes and no disadvantage to the temporall government I shall think there wanteth one Star in the Heaven of the Church to direct these Sages to Bethlehem But if God Almighty hath in all sorts and manners provided his Church that she may enlighten every man in his way which goeth the way of a man then let every man consider which is the fit way for himselfe and what in other matters of that way he accomptech evidence And if there be no interest in his soule to make him loath to beleeve what in another matter of the like nature he would not stick at or heavy to practise what he seeth clearly enough I feare not his choice but if God send him time and meanes to prosecute his search any indifferent while it is long ago known of what religion he is to be of After this followeth no order of Chapters because it is applied to the discourse which was occasion of it Although if what is already be not satisfaction unto the writing and the Author thereof for whose sake and contentment all that hath been discoursed hitherto hath been set down I confesse that I have not ability to give him satisfaction yet least it should be interpreted neglect If I did not make an application of it unto the writing I shall as breifly as I can for avoiding tediousnesse runne over the discourse And true it is speaking of the Church of Rome as this day it is the true Church of God I answer the doubter she neither hath nor can have any error which he need to feare and be shye of The which two limitations I adde for avoiding questions impertinent to our discourse The first for those which are concerning the connection of the Sea of Rome to the universall Church The latter to avoid such questions as touch that point whether the Church may erre in any Phylosophicall or other such like matter which questi on s are not so pertinent to our matter Neither doe I remit the Questioner unto Scripture for his satisfaction although I hold Scripture a very sufficient meanes to satisfie the man who goeth to it with that preparation of understanding and will which is meet and required Howsoever this I may answer for them who prove it out of Scripture that because they dispute against them who admit of Scripture and deny the authority of the Church if they can convince it they doe well though they will not themselves admit generally of a proofe out of Scripture as not able to prove every thing in foro contentioso That they say the Church is made infallible that we may have some guide I think it very rationall For nature hath given ever some strong and uncontroulable principle in all natures to guide the rest The Common-wealth hath a Governour not questionable our understanding hath some principles which she cannot judge but by them judgeth of all other verities If there should not be some such principle in the Church it were the onely maimed thing God had created and maimed in its principall part in the very head And if there be such a principle the whole Church is infallible by that as the whole man seeth by his eyes toucheth by his hands Neither can I deny but that the Author well excepteth or assumeth that there is no lesse necessity the Church should be known to be infallible or which is this Church then that there is one For if I should admit absolutely that it is necessary for every man to know the Church is Infallible precedently to the knowledge of which is the true Church
with that indifference and equalitie which is fit for a Judge and with which I both began and continue it Yet least there might some un-mark't prejudice lye lurking in me and least I might harbour some secret inclination to those Tenets which I had first been raught I have ever lean'd and set my Byas to the other side and have both more discoursed of matters of Religion with those of the Church of Rome then with their Adversaries and read more of their writings though none either so often or so carefully as this which I am now answering both because it was intended for my Instruction and confutation as also because the beauty of the stile and language in which you have apparrelled your conceptions although Non haec Auxilio tibi sunt Decor est quaesitus ab istis yet showes the Author a considerable Person and I may say of the splendour and outside of what you have said for my opinion that it wants soliditie and that the Logick of it is inferiour to the Rhetorick is seen by my writing against it what Tacitus sayes of Vitellius his Armie Phalerae torquesque splendebant non Vitellio principe dignus exercitus for as he would have had that glorious Army been imployed in the defence of a better and braver Prince so I wish your eloquence had guilded the better cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And having learn't moreover from the Pagan Divinitie of Hierocles which in this is conformable to that of most Christians that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all our search is but the stretching forth of our hands and that our finding proceeds from Gods delivering the Truth unto us and that prayer is the best meanes to joyn the latter to the former I have not only with my utmost endeavours done my part but also besought God with my most earnest fervency to doe his and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyning Prayer to search like form to Matter I doubt not but God who hath given me a will to seek his Will also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if I have not the truth already I shall be taught the truth by him and by you as his Instrument or shall be excused if I find it not assuring you that I was never more ready to part with my clothes when they were torn then with my opinions when they were confuted and appeared to me to be so To begin then with your Treatise you can say nothing for Tradition which I will not willingly allow Scripture it self being a Traditum and by that way comming to our knowledge for I am confident that those who would know it by the Spirit run themselves into the same Circle between Scripture and Spirit out of which some of your side have but unsuccessefully laboured to get out between Scripture and Church but that this way which you propound should be convenient to know what was Tradition at first I can by no means agree Which to consider the better I will comprehend all the strength of what you have said in a little room and shut up your Oration into the compasse of some 3. Sillogismes thus you argue What company soever of Christians alone pretend to teach nothing but what they have received from their Fathers as received from theirs as so come down from the Apostles that company alone must hold the truth But that company of Christians which are in communion with the Church of Rome only pretend this Therefore they alone hold the truth and the Church The Major you prove thus If such a company of Christians could teach falshoods then since it is granted that what was at first delivered was true some age must either have erred in understanding their Ancestors or have joyned to deceive their posterity But neither of these are beleevable Therefore neither is it beleevable that such a company of Christians should teach falshoods The Minor you prove thus I mean that they alone pretend it for that they I mean all they pretend it you take for granted If it be incompatible with the Church of Romes doing it that any else should doe it then she does it alone But it is incompatible which is denied and not yet proved Therefore she doth it alone The severall parts of this Argument I mean first to Answer and secondly Whatsoever lyes scatter'd in your discourse any thing to this purpose or any other unanswer'd in the first part and thirdly I will reply to those Answers which you have been pleased to make to part of that Nothing which I writ wishing that this last work might have bin longer I mean that by answering it all and in order you had given me occasion to have dwelt more upon my Reply Now if I doe not shew that all of the Church of Rome do not nor cannot pretend this that for two to pretend it is not incompatible as having been so heretofore that those who alone pretend this may pretend it falsely that some men and in time all may mistake their Ancestors and have a mind in some cases to deceive their posterity and that it is not necessary for a whole age at once to joyn in doing it though it be done if I say I shew not this then let me not bee beleeved and if you can shew me that I have not shewed it I will promise to beleeve you First That the Church of Rome doth not nor cannot pretend that all their doctrine was received by them from their fathers as come down from the Apostles it appeares because when questions have risen about such things whereof there was before no speech yet if a Councell have determined them they are received with the same assent as if they had come from the Apostles and they professe now the same readinesse to receive alwayes any such definition though about a question now unknown and it is likely they have done what they professe they are ready to doe at least they shew that yours is not the ground upon which they build And I pray aske your selfe whether those that teach the common people who are the greatest part of your Church use to be askt about it by them or use to tell them that this they received from their Fathers as descended from the Apostles by a continuall verball Tradition For suppose they told them that this Tradition tels us yet they are not able to distinguish between such as is but Ecclesiasticall and Apostolicall or whether this be known to them onely by deductions or from ancient bookes and no such uncontinued line of teaching and not rather perswade them in generall to beleeve it what by Arguments drawne from Scripture what from reason what from Fathers Councels or Decretals I am not certaine what is their course but I am sure the most ordinary amongst the Ancients whom they pretend to follow was that when they had told the people that such a proposition was true they added neither is it I that say so
one of your Party that if this opinion had indeed had Tradition it could never have been so totally extinguish'd I answer that I affirm not that it had but onely that if the rules of your part be good and valid then it had I am sure it hath better colour to plead upon then any of those other doctrines which you impose upon us Besides although it had yet when Doctors of great authority with the people had won upon many first not to think it Tradition and then not true and lastly their courage encreasing with their multitude for Saint Hierome durst not call it had made it accounted an Heresie it is not strange that none should rise to oppose it for by that time burning was come in fashion which was a ready way to answer all objections and end all controversies especiall Piety being grown more cold and so men lesse apt to suffer for opinions and the times more ignorant and so men lesse able to examine what had beleeved before them But you who affirm that your Church receives nothing but what hath come to her by Verball Tradition down from the Apostles must not onely destroy the Arguments which prove this to have had Tradition which you or any else will be never able to do but must affirm that the contrary hath such which yet their most ancient opposers never pretended too but scoft at the opinion as rediculous and savouring of Judaisme which as wise men and as good Christians as they before them beleeved to be Orthodox Let us next consider that controversie which more afflicted the Church and for a longer time then any other that between the Arrians and their Adversaries and let us see whether even against those there were any such Tradition as you speak of First then I pray mark what Cardinal Perron confesseth that an Arrian will be desirous to have his cause tried by those Authors we now have which lived before the Question arose for there saith he will be found the Son is the instrument of his Father The Father commanded the Son when things were to be made the Father and the Son are aliud aliud which who should at this day say now the language of the Church is better examin'd would be accompted an Arrian Now though there be no reason for you to disbelieve so learned a Prelate in a matter of Fact especially since 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet if you please to reconsider those Authors seriously if you have not mark't it before as Praejudication blinds extreamly you will then confesse it Sure then if Fathers in the first ages taught their Children that so they had receiv'd from theirs as the doctrine of the Apostles how could the chiefe Pillars of Christianity have been ignorant of it or if they knew it how would they ever have written so directly against their knowledge For that answer which Saint Hierome gives as Saint Austine to the Pelagians gians that before Arrius arose the Ecclesiasticall Writers spoke minus caute with lesse circumspection though it brings some salve to the present objection yet it is a weapon against Tradition in generall for if through want of care the best and wisest men vs'd to contradict Tradition as you must grant they did then sure much more likely when they taught by word of mouth when lesse care is alwaies us'd then in Bookes and how then can any age be sure that by this reason of minus caute loquuti sunt their Ancestors have not mistaken their Fathers and mislead their Posterity Look but into Athanasius and see but what he answers to what is brought against him out of Dionysius Alexandrinus truly in my opinion when he strives to make it Catholique Doctrine he doth it with no lesse pulling and halling then Sancta Clara useth to agree the articles of the English Church with the Tenets of the Roman Consider what eighty Bishops and those Orthodoxe decreed against Paulus Samosatenus and if you make it consent with Athanasius his Creed I shall believe that you have discouer'd a way how to reconcile both Parts of a Contradiction This I say not as intending by it to prove the Arrian opinion to be true but that the contrary Party insisted not upon your grounds but drew their beliefe out of Scripture for if there had been such a common and constant Verball Tradition the chiefe Christians would not through want of Caution have contradicted it neither could Constantine if it had been then as known a Part of the Christian Religion as Christ's Resurrection have ever so slightly esteemed the Question when it first arose neither would Alexander the Bishop of Alexandria have remain'd any while in suspence as Zozomen saith he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but this being then a Question newly started and spoken of before but by Accidents and so peradventure minus caute for the same Author saies that they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were therefore faine to try it by Scripture esteeming Written Tradition as sufficient a Rule as Verball as you may see by Constantine's own words at the Councel of Nice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Bookes of the Evangelists and the Apostles and the Oracles of the Ancient Prophets teach us clearly what we are to think of the Divinity Let us therefore out of these Divinity-inspir'd discourses seek the solutions of our Questions which being the Emperours Proposition and passing uncontradicted which the Bishops would not have suffr'd it to do if they had known yours to be so much the best and most certaine way and this so hazardous as you suppose we have reason to believe that they for want of your direction made the Scripture their Rule and sought out for Truth by the same way that we damnable Hereticks do and by that condemn'd the Arrians as not having such a Tradition as you speak of or if they had which is very unlikely counting it so insufficient as that they were not to conclude by that Neither did onely that ancient and not yours Councell but even your own Modern ones shew that they went upon other grounds since to have had every Bishop askt what he receiv'd from his Teachers as receiv'd from theirs as come downe from the Apostles would sure have been the shortest way to find Truth and if they had thought it the best too it would have sav'd the Friers at Trent many a long dispute out of Scripture Fathers and Reason and the Bishops many a weary sessron before any thing could be determined or the Parties brought to agree Besides there is another reason if I may be pardon'd a little insisting upon my digression which perswades me that your own Councels define not upon your grounds that is because suppose a thousand Catholique Bishops meet and define any thing yet wee know it is not among you believ'd de Fide without it be confirmed by the Pope which shewes plainly enough that you think not
they went by such a Tradition since of that eighty so many persons from so many several Parts are witnesses beyond exception according to your own grounds and that their Infallibility is not thought to depend upon an Impossibility that in the matter of Fact what hath been taught under that Notion they should either deceive or be deceiv'd but upon an infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost which may be wanting to any company whereof the Pope is no part or of whose decrees he is no confirmer Now to return to my proofes that against the Arrians there was no such Tradition as you speak of at least that was the ground upon which they were condemned consider if you please that in that Epistle which Eusebius of Caesarea writ to some Arrians after the Councell of Nice he saith First that they assented to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Consubstantiall because also they knew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some eloquent and illustrious Bishops and Writers had us'd the Terme In which I note thatneither claim'dhe any such Verbal Tradition for this as you speak of and of that sort which he claim'd he names onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some as knowing too many had writ otherwise to give such a Tradition leave to be generall Secondly He saith they consented to Anathematize the Contradictors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to hinder men from using unwritten words by which he saith and that truely that all confusion hath come upon the Church And if it be askt why the same reason made them not keep out the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I answer That I believe or else he is not constant to his own reason that he meant onely those words to be unwritten which were in Scripture neither themselves nor equivalently whereas he took 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be in the Scripture in the latter sence And that by written he meant in the Scripture onely appeares by what followes that no divinely-inspired writing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 using the Arrians Phrase it was neither fitting to say nor teach them Neither can you say that Eusebius being himself a secret Arrian prevaricated herein for Theodoret makes this Epistle an Argument against them which he would not have done if either it had seem'd to him to say any thing contrary to the Catholique doctrine or not to have oppos'd the contrary by a Catholique way at least without giving his leader some Caution concerning it All which reasons move me to think that the generality of Christians had not been alwaies taught the contrary to Arrius's doctrine but some one way others the other most neither as having been onely spoken of upon occasions and therefore me thinks you had better either say with the Protestants that the Truth was concluded as Constantine said it should be by Arguments from Scripture or as some of your own say of other points that before the Councell it lay in Archivis Ecclesiae in the Deskes of the Church then claime such a Tradition for it as appeares it can never be defended that it had Let us consider but two opinions more That Infants are not to receive the Eucharist is now both the doctrine and practise of the Roman Church but six hundred yeeres the Church us'd it Saint Austine accounted it necessary at least in some sence of the word if not absolutely which last is most likely because from the necessity of that which could not be receiv'd but by them who had received Baptisme he and Innocentius a Pope prove the necessity of Baptisme and an Apostolicall Tradition If therefore both these Ages had gone by your Rule how comes this difference between their opinions the Sacrament being the same it was and the Children the same they were This I may consider and see if the same way that this Doctrine hath been altered whether any other might not have received change Next that Saints are invocable you must say is Tradition taught from Father to Sonne as deriv'd from the Apostles if you will be constant to your own principle now though I might disprove this first by the many Fathers that beleeved the Just not to be admitted to the Beatificall vision before the day of judgement for upon this your side now grounds that but to be kept in secretreceptacles and by the long time which pass'd before this doctrine was condemn'd Secondly by the beginning of it which was particular Doctors Hipotheticall prayers with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such conditionall clauses And thirdly by Nicephorus Calistus his Relation who in this is a believable witnesse because he allowes of your opinion that prayers to the Virgin Mary were first brought into the publick Liturgie by one Petrus Gnapheus a Heretick about five hundred yeares after Christ yet I will rather chuse to confute this by the confession of Sancta Clara out of Horantius who to this objection that sub Evangelio which must mean when the Gospel was preacht no such precept is extant not onely denies it not but gives this reason for it least the Pagans should-think themselves brought againe to the worshipping of Men instead of Gods If upon this or any other reason this were not then taught then have not all your Doctrines such a Pedigree as you suppose but allow it were yet howsoever it followes that some at least of the learned of your Church have not been taught that they have or consequently that it is necessary they should have Though it seemes to me little less then Montanisme to believe that any since as it were a Paraclet should perfect the doctrine which then was delivered by the Apostles Neither can you answer that they speake onely of such a Precept and of being extant whereas they might teach it lawfull without giving any Precept and they might have given such a Precept although not extant for I should readily reply that the reason they give why there is none such extant shewes that they mean there was none at all neither Precept nor allowance since the Pagans would have been scandaliz'd at its being accounted lawfull to worship men instead of Gods although it were not commanded and not a whit the lesse whether that in after times were extant or not which they could not foresee The onelie answer which I am able to invent in your behalfe is this that though some of your particular doctrines have not such a Tradition yet there being a Tradition that the Churches definitions are infallible whatsoever she at any time defines is then to be believed upon the strength of such a Tradition and before did latere in causis as Flowers do in Winter Yet to this I may reply by desiring you to enter with me into some few considerations First If this were so and that so much of Christian Religion depends upon the definitions of the Church and our Reception of them upon knowing alwaies which is she and that such is her authority can you perswade your selfe that Christ
this title that she hath received it from his Apostles without interruption delivered from Father to Son untill this day and admits not any Doctrine for good and legitimate which he doth not receive in this manner What the Judicious of whom I am no member can do I know not but I not onely can but do deny it you meaning by that Congregation the Church of Rome for by seeing that not upon this but other kind of claim certaine Doctrines have arrived to the very brink of being defined I have cause to think that if they received none in upon other grounds these would not be suffered to stand so neer the doore And indeed there being between your selfe such differences that Erasmus tels us that he who is a Heretick among the Dominicans is Orthodox to the Scotists sure one side hath admitted of a Doctrine for Legitimate which hath not been so received and then me thinks this being easily endable which it is by seeing which claimes such a delivery for if both do it then two Parts may which you deny if neither do then your whole Church goes by some other Rule that which doth upon that which you call the Catholique Grounds me thinks should have obtained a definition for her and the other which resists that Principle upon which they ought onely to build should have been suddenly and absolutely condemned This will appeare plainer if we consider the opinions of your Church by the Actions of her Head in a notable and late Example A great controversie being risen between the Dominicans and the Jesuites it was heard before Pope Clement let us see then what course he took to find which Part held the Truth since he was not likely especially in a time wherein by being more opposed then usually he had reasons to be consequently more cautious to chuse a new way by which truth was not wont to be found out by your side upon like occasions Did he send for the wisest and best men from all nay from adjoyning Parts to enquire of them what they had been taught by their Fathers to have been received by them uninterruptedly from the Apostles did he examine with which of them the first and purest ages sided did he consider which opinion would make us have the more excellent conceit of God and work most towards the expelling of Vice None of all these were his course but he appointed both sides to prove which of them followed Saint Austine and according to them he intended to give sentence if the advice of Cardinall Perron had not prevailed to the contrary But many days they spent in examining what he thought who thought so variously concerning it that he scarce knew himself which whereas before him all the Ancients that I could ever meet with were with the Iesuites with an Vnanimous consent and by them if they must be tried by men as fallible as themselves it would have better agreed with their own Principles to have had both Parts judged After the Pope let us hear Bishop and allmost Cardinall Fisher who being one of your own Authors and Martyrs cannot be thought to praevaricate against that Church for whose defence he imployed not onely his Inke but his Blood His words are these There are many things of which was no enquirie in the Primitive Church which yet upon doubts arising are now become perspicuous by the diligence of after-times And that you may see that he speakes of points of Faith He addes No Orthodox man now doubts whether there be a Purgatory of which yet among the Ancients there is no mention or exceeding rarely It is not believed by the Greeks to this day Neither did the Latines conceive this Truth at once but by little and little And for an Epiphonema he closeth it thus Considering that Purg atory was a good while unknown after partly by Revelations partly by Scripture came little by little to be believed by some and so at last the beliefe of it was generally received by the Catholique Churches Who can wonder concerning Indulgencies that in the Priinitive Church there was no use of them Indulgences therefore began after men had trembled a while at the Torments of Purgatory See I pray how will you two agree You say the Church of Rome receives but what she claimes to be come down to her from the Apostles without interruption He saith some of her Doctrines were long unknown and came in by Revelations and Scripture you say new Doctrines cannot come into a Church that holds this Principle He saith Doctrines have come in by little and little So either she held not allwaies this Principle or for all that they might come in To be short all which he hath said seemes to me as if he had purposely intended to frame a Ram to batter down that fortification which you have built about the Roman Church Now though he be of so great an Authority that he needs no backing yet I will desire you to look into Alphonsus de Castro where he speakes of Indulgences and see if he mend the matter He confesseth that the use of them seemes to be late received into the Church yet would not have them contemned because many things are known to after-commers of which those ancient Writers were wholly ignorant Amongst whom there is rarely mention of Transubst antiation more rarely of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son of Purgatory almost none For though he speaks after as if he meant onely that the names of these were unmentioned and not the things yet it is plaine that if he brought them in to any purpose it was to prove that some Doctrines are after of necessity to be believed which once were not and Doctrines consist in the Things not in the Name I could next tell you of Erasmus his saying Res deducta est ad Sophisticas contentiones Articulorum Miriades proruperunt Religion is come down to Sophistry and a Miriad of Articles are broken out But knowing that his words will not find so much respect because he himself finds lesse favour as those of others more allowed among you let us mark these words of Sancta Clara The Church when it is said to define any thing she rests not upon any new Revelations but upon the ancient lying hid in writings and words of the Apostles which he sayes not as his private opinion but the constant beliefe of Doctors By which it appeares plainly that there are at least interpretations of what the Apostles taught drawn forth by Reason not received by Tradition which makes now a part of the present Roman Religion a sufficient Gappe for Errors to enter at when either mistakings or ends may become new opinions and stile them but interpretations of the old Salmeron a Voluminous Jesuite one neither by his order nor his inclination an enemy at all to the Roman Church being press'd by the opinions of the Ancients affirmes Doctores quò Juniores
how they can serve to preserve the rest certainly from all corruption indeed to secure any Truth But I believe many may be miscounted Hereticks for onely opposing some of these what through the over-caution and too much ardor of some Primum mobile and of the greater part lead by a few such what through their being come having been long from pious opinions to be matters of Faith as in great Families Servants who haue waited long in meaner places are rewarded with higher Besides I verily believe that many Doctrines which you account necessary have no such redoubts about them or at least have not alwaies had and indeed you onely affirming it by Tullies Rule who was no small Master of Reason Sat erit verbo negare It will be enough for me barelie to deny it And for Rites and Ceremonies which you suppose guard your Doctrines many used among the Ancients being not now in use amonst you either some Tenets which those did guard and they did hold yee hold not or if you do still at least they are now unguarded But still I speaking most of the easinesse that false and new Doctrines not contradicting the old may be brought into the Church what answer is it to tell me how the Principall of Christian Religion are sure guarded since so they may be and yet such other may be brought in As Christs Promises and chiefe injunctions may be retained and yet praying to Saints and Purgatory and such like be superinduct Let any discreete man consider what further evidence he can desire or peradventure what greater assurance Nature can afford Sir I wish you so well that I cannot but give you warning that this saying of yours doth Sapere Haeresin since it seemes as if you disclaimed any absolute Infallibility and pretend onely to grounds of most possibility which the Protestants doing too use yet to be accused for making nothing certaine and having no firm foundation to build any thing upon But as you claime lesse then by your own Rules you should so you claim still more then either you are able to prove or we likely to grant The Philosophers say it is indisciplinati ingenii to expect in any Science more exactnesse then the Nature of it affords I confesse this to be true but I desire you also to remember that as it is absurd to expect as exact a proof in the Politicks as in Geometry so it is absurd to expect as high a degree of Assent to the first as to the second of my objections being intended against those who will be infalliblly believed to be infallible upon probable grounds for they themselves give them no higher a Title and indeed that it self in my opinion is more then they deserve What shall we expect then in Religion to see a main advantage on the one Party we cast our selves upon Truely such Advantage on your part I cannot see Neither if I did could I in reason joyn with you A maine advantage it is to have more Truth then any other Society of Christians but supposing you had so which is but a supposition for I verily believe if the Question were but who had most Title to so much yee would appear to a dispassionate man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither third nor fourth according to the answer of the Ancient Oracle yet you withall require not onely that I should believe you erre in nothing but that you never can and then I had rather remaine in their communion I say not who themselves erred not but whose conditions of Communion were lesse rigorous and exacted not of me to professe they could not erre when I believe they do And if you answer that it would necessarily follow that if they had fewest errors they must have none because some society of Christians must be allwaies free from all this I shall absolutely deny and the more earnestly because I know this is a trappe wherein many have been caught who taking this for granted have examined the Doctrines of the most known Churches of Protestants and finding as they thought and peradventure truely some errors in them some Doctrines no way to be proved but upon Popish grounds and by that justifying those and some imputations imposed upon their Adversaries wherein their Tenets or the consequences from them were mistaken they then by the Doggs Logick have run over without smelling to the Church of Rome as knowing no other Society but these and being praepossest that one of necessity must be free from all error Whereas for my part as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those who bound not themselves to believe absolutely the whole Doctrines of any Sect but pickt out what they thought accorded with reason out of them all were a wise sort of Philosophers so they seem to me reasonable Divines who speak Gods will as they did Truth for it is not to chuse by reason and Scripture or Tradition received by Reason which makes a Hereticke but to chuse an opinion which will make most either for the chusers Lust or Power and Fame and then seeking waies how to entitle God to it For since it would be a Miracle if the Errors of the Roman Church being long gathering could have been all discovered in a Day or if it had been possible for the first Reformers who having their eyes but newly open it is not strange if like the man in the Gospel they saw at first men walking like Trees and had but an imperfect apprehension of Truth especially being in Tullies state Quem fugio habeo Quem sequar non habeo I see whom to fly but not whom to follow not to have left some opinions untaxt which yet were errors nor to have expurged others which yet were none I cannot see why we may not in some points joyn with the one and with others in other and besides find some Truths which ly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 well in the mid-way betweene the Parties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nay in some points differ wholly from both Which Liberty if it were generally allowed and generally practised if particular interests were trod wholly under foot especially by the greatest and if such spirits as those of Cassander and Melancton were more common no considerable things would in a short time be left but all would flow againe in the same Chanell whereas this opinion that allwaies one part erres not is both prejudiciall to Truth and the best Unity which is that of Charity for it perswades them who have fewest errors to believe those to be none and to hate all opposers as Hereticks and of this your Church is most guilty which not onely affirmes that there is such a one but that she is it and prophesies as much of her selfe allwaies for the future as she promiseth for the present and upon this ground like him who having won nineteene games at Tables threw the Dice in the fire for not winning him the twentieth though we should
Writers and find it in every one I take it to be impossible testimonies one may find in many ages but such as will demonstrate and convince a full Tradition I much doubt Neither do I find by experience that who will draw a man by a rope or chaine giveth him the whole rope or chaine into his hands but onely one end of it unto which if he cleave hard he shall be drawn which way the rope is carried Tradition is a long chaine every generation or delivery from Father to Son being a link in it c. Of this opinion I was wholly before First upon my own small observation which also perswaded me that no controverted opinions had so much colour for such a Tradition out of antiquity as some which now are by both parts condemned And after by consideration of what hath been so temperately learned and judiciously writen by our Protestant Perron D'Aille But though I think that nothing is wholly provable by sufficient testimonies of the first ages to have had Primary and generall Tradition except the undoubted books of Scripture or what is so plainly there that it is not controverted between you and us yet I think the Negative is easie to be proved because any one known person dessenting and yet then accounted a learned and pious Catholique shews the Tradition not to have been generall and that the Church of this Age differs from that of those times if it Anathematize now for what then was either approved of or at least thought not so horrid but it might be borne with And again though we agree upon what will not serve to convince a full Tradition yet we disagree about what will serve for allowing there were any controverted opinions delivered with equall Tradition to the Scripture which I deny to have beene but would receive if it so appeared yet sure you beginne at the wrong end in the examination of what those are which ought to be done by considering the testimonies of the first ages and not of the last for in your own similitude of a rope though to helpe me to climbe by if you put but one end into my hands yet you must shew me that the other end is somewhere fastened or else for ought I know instead of getting up by it I may onelie get a fall and this fastening appeares not to me till I be shewed some more certaine connexion between the Opinions of this Age and those of the Apostolicke times then yet you have done or till you have answered those Arguments by which as I perswade my selfe I have made it appeare that it cannot be done As for the two places concerning the Popes and Councels Infallibillity it is not to my purpose to meddle of them because of one side the way I have begun beareth no need of those discourses and on the other I should engage my selfe in Quarrels betweene Catholique and Catholique obscure the matter I have taken in hand and profit nothing in my hearers more then to be judged peradventure to have more learning then wisedome to governe it withall With your favour Sir these places concerne not onely questions between your selves but between you and us for I thought you had all agreed though I knew you had not alwaies done so and though it seemes by your declining to speak about it that you doe not yet that generall Councels confirmed by the Pope are infallible and the Doctrines defined by them are to be beleeved de fide which if you be not then the Glew which it is so bragged you have to keepe you still at Unitie is dissolved and if you be then you should both have answered upon what grounds you are so and have destroyed my Objections against the possibilitie of certaintie knowing when it is that these which used to be called the Church have defined finding therefore Altum Silentium where there was so much cause of speaking makes me beleeve that the cause why you have not answered is onely because you could not and then you have a readie Apologie that Nemo tenetur ad impossibilia which I beleeve the rather because I know that to so cleare a judgement as yours that place of Scripture When two or three are gathered together c. which is so often press'd for the Infallibilitie of Councels must appeare to make as much for the Synod of Dort as for the Councell of Trent and to so great a learning as yours it cannot be unknown how few if any of the Ancients have asserted their Infallibilitie and how many both of the Ancients and your Modernes have denied it I am confirmed in this beleife too because you I know would never have accepted that as a sufficient excuse from me if I had avoided to answer an Argument so because Protestants are not agreed upon the point if you had thought it such as that they ought to have been agreed upon it and truelie this is as great and considerable a question as any among us As for the two places of Fevardentius which alloweth many Fathers to have fallen into errors I thinke it will not trouble him who is accquainted with the course of this present Church wherein divers who be thought great Divines fall into errors for which their Bookes are sometimes hindered from the print sometimes recalled or some leaves commanded to be pasted up the reason is the multiplicity of Catholike Doctrine which doth not oblige a man to the knowledge of every part but to the prompt subjection of the instruction of the Church wherefore many men may hold false doctrine inculpably not knowing it to be such even now after the learned labours of so many that have strived to open and facilitate by Method what is true and what is false much more in the Fathers times when there was great want of so many Compilers as these latter ages have produced First What Fevardentius confesseth proves plainlie that for which I intended it which was the ridiculousnesse of proving their Doctrine to be true by being conformable to that of the Fathers and yet making themselves Judges of those Judges they appeale too and confessing that many of them erred in many points which if they did they might as well doe the same in those about which we differ although they agreed with you and dissented from us Secondlie What both he confesseth and you confesse with him disproves that way of knowing divine Truths which you propose for neither the Doctors of the ancient Church who were sure more likelie to know what was then taken for Tradition then any late Compilers nor of the Modern who had a mind to deliver truth and trac'd and followed your way of finding it could erre in points of faith if Qui docet ut didicit he that teacheth as he hath been taught must still be in the right for publique Tradition no learned man at least can be ignorant not any man say you of what he was taught
according unto the ordinary opinions of the Catholicks it followeth that no man is condemned for not being of the Church who is not for infidelity for which it is a very uncertaine Case who be damned and who be not As the King of Spaine after long calling the Hollanders Rebels at last for his own sake descended to treat with them as free States so those of your Religion when they hope to gaine a Proselite thunder out to him crudelity and without any of these Mollifications which you now use that extra Ecclesiam Romanam nulla est salus there is no salvation out of the Roman Church And Master Knot peremptorily avers that no Catholick of an entire fame ever taught that a Protestant so dying could be saved yet when they are press'd with the consequences they can as it seems vouchsafe to give us better words and find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enough to soften this opinion though such as bring them more disadvantage in other considerations then help in this For first as before it seemed that you are not fully agreed either about the authority of the councels or what constitutes the Church by your avoiding to speak concerning it so now it seemes that neither are you resolved of what constitutes an Heretick and then what remaines there for you to know if what you account infallible and what damnable be yet both uncertaine to you Secondly Since you confesse none to be a Heretique but he to whom the truth is sufficiently proposed and when that is you are not resolved what a more then Sythian Barbarousnesse is it to make a coale of a Christian onely upon suspicion of Heresie especially since the Pagans themselves had Christian Charity enough to perswade them that it was much better that a guilty person should escape then an innocent be punished much more should you rather suffer the tares to grow then venture to pluck up the corne with it and beleeve the best when the truth lies hid in a place so hard to search into as is the heart of man into which as none entered the Sanctum Sanctorum but the High Priest God onelie can have admittance The other point was of putting Hereticks to death which I think he understandeth to be done vindicatively not medicinally I mean imposed as a punishment and not in way to prevent mischiefe and oppresse it in the head I suppose it small satisfaction to a poor man carried to the stake for his Conscience to know by which member of a distinction he is put to death and that this as little excuseth you as it satisfies them I hope to shew before we have ended the consideration of this present Paragraph If the Circumcelians were the first that is ancient enough for the justification of the fact although for Banishment which also he seemeth to reprehend we know the first that could suffer it did suffer it Arrius I mean by the hand of Constantine whom he praiseth for a speech he uttered before he knew the consequence of the danger and seemeth to reprehend for his after and better witts I wish to you what Erasmus wisht to Augustinus Steuckius which is that you were but equall in probando diligens as you are in asseverando fortis For how unlikely is it that we should give you credit without proofe onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the antiquity of a thing which began so long after Christs Apostles were all dead is enough to prove it lawfull Howsoever it would at most but prove it lawfull to put such Hereticks to death as force men to do so in their owne defence for such were they Besides I object not onely against this custome the not being ancient for I conconfesse there might have been before a power to do so too though not used to the uttermost though in likelihood what perswaded you to use it would have perswaded them to the same if they had thought they had it but as being also condemned by Hillary and Athanasius and other Orthodox For though some punishment of a lesse degree were inflicted upon others too by their own side as you trulie instance when their power prevailed yet Constantine saies not onely in an Edict for libertie of opinions which he who was then Pope never appeared to stomack as his successor undoubtedly would now doe the like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let no man trouble another but let every one do as his own soule will but also gives this concluding reason against you for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it is one thing willingly to take upon them this combate for immortality and another to force them to it with punishment and so in whatsoever he did contrary to this in any case wherein this reason held his words condemne his action And whereas you say that when Constantine made so slight of the question between Arrius and Alexander it was because he knew not the consequence of the danger I shall desire to know of you whether you must not confesse that there is now no King of your Religion so ill instructed in it though none of them be never so learned or curious as Constantine was who if any man in his dominion should arise denying Transubstantiation would not presently know the danger of the consequence and resolve him for an Heretick and to the stake instantly and not speak against his opinion onelie as impertinent and de lana caprina and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if this had been as resolved a thing then among Christians to have come from Tradition as Transubstantiation is now amongst Papists he would necessarilie as soon have discovered it too Howsoever I believe his after-witts to have been his worser witts in punishing though not in condemning of Arrius and to me it yet seemes for to be sure not to speak Heretically I will not speak obstinately that to have laboured in stopping of disputes on both parts and tying them to Scripture Phrases and to speak of God onelie in the Word of God had been at least in respect of Unity not a worse way then to have given an example to what after followed I mean the frequent explication with Anathema to boote of inexplicable misteries Neither would then so many questions have so long troubled the Church which for their slightnesse were unworthy ever to exercise the Schooles But for that or any other meer error as it may be for ought any one knowes unlawfull in any to punish at all I by no meanes like not to put to death for the same seemes to me it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sin above measure sinfull though even the act of it proceeded from an opinion of doing God some service and that opinion from a meer error too then I conceive but a materiall no formall sin for the same cause and so neither this materiall Murtherer nor that materiall Heretick be guilty before God who onely can distinguish and to whom it is
as you inflict when you have for though you will say that none should punish but the Church yet every divided companie of Christians thinking themselves to be that that is to be the orthodox will use your own custome to your harme and you will be short like the Eagle in Esope 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with your own feathers and so Truth weresoever she be if all follow this way will by force by many parties be opposed and but by one propagated and defended so that not onely in consideration of Christianity but even of Policy I mislike this course as being alwaies wicked and often hurtfull and more often uneffectuall And for my part I desire so much that good be done for evill that though you be most fit of any to be so used who use us so where your power extends and whose cruelty will extend with your acquisition if you make any and you hold your selves that impendens periculum is cause enough for a warr yet I heartily wish all lawes against you repealed and trust that disarmed Truth would serve to expell Falshood whereas now they being in force against you give you the honour of a persecution and not being executed give you not the feare of one It is truely said Militia Christiana est Haereses expellere but it needs this limitation sed armis Christianis that Christian warfare employ onely Christian armes which are good arguments and good life else if they use such a course as is more properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and go to force that part of man which is liable to no power but that of perswasion which if it do not beget a true and pious assent in likelyhood it will a damnable dissimulation and which if Christ had meant for a prop for his Doctrine he would as soon have at first made it a part of the foundation and have charged his Apostles not to shake the dust off their feet but to draw their swords out of the scabbard at those who rejected what they taught then it often though sometimes by reason of the different dispositions which reigne at severall times among men and may happen otherwise misseth of the intended end and works not often so much as upon mens tongues and never upon their Heads and Hearts A great example of which happened not long since Calvin with all his works since the time they were written having scarce made so many Protestants in France as I have credibly heard it reported that the Massacre made in a Night which act though I impute not to all those of your Religion for many of them I know did and do mislike it yet it both had its fountaine from the Popes Legate and consequently in all likelyhood from the Pope who gave God publick thanks for it as one of his successors confess'd to Cardinall D' Ossat Page 432 and it may be justified as well as any judiciall proceeding upon that reason which you give why Heresie may be stopped with the sword least they who are wrought upon by it may work upon others To conclude I should be better contented with this course if the opinions were infallibly errors and infallibly damnable and this were alwaies an effectuall way and no other could be found more mercifull to stop their spreading but since you have no infallible way of knowing the Church to be infallible in her definitions and consequently that the contrary opinions are false since you know not infallibly which is she for you pretend but prudentiall Motives since your knowledge having defined is likewise fallible as depending upon many uncertaine circumstances since not onely the matter of Heresie is thus uncertaine but the form too for you confesse you doubt whether Ignorantia affectata be it or no and since though the form were certaine yet in whom it is by no meanes plaine but rather impossible to be known as who is obstinate and consequently to whom it is damnable since this course often gives growth and strength to that from which it would take even Being and Subsistance I cannot but think you have cause to change your proceedings least not onely you expell not but least you encrease Heresie and againe least you oppose it not but mistake the Truth for it and applaud your self for cutting off a Gangren'd member when you destroy a sound one and instead of ending a Heretick make a Martyr and againe least allowing this to be the Truth yet you put to death innocent persons instead of guilty especially since if the opinions were damnable in whomsoever they were yet some better way might be found as close imprisonment or the like to keep them from harming with them rather then as you do by putting them to death when else they might live to be converted to damne them certainly least they may possibly damne some others Againe for Protestants who joyne with me in beleeving that there is no way to know the true Church but by true Doctrine nor to know that but by the Scripture for Universall Tradition seemes to us to deliver nothing but what is so plainly contained there that it is agreed upon in them I beleeve it must be intollerable Pride and rashnesse and the same in Papists concerning those places out of which they would prove the Churches infallibility To conclude this seemes to me the sence of this place of Scripture therefore this infallibility it is and no man can denie it who either gainsaies not his Conscience or hath it not mislead by some sinfull passion or affection and therefore the deniers must be damned and therefore least they damne others we will send them through one fire to another And this though it be an equall fault in both Protestants and Papists to say and do yet it is more Illogicall in the former as contradicting at first sight all their Principles and destroying the whole Platforme upon which the Reformation was built He urgeth afterwards against the Unity of the Church that it is none such as we brag of And I confesse we brag of it and think we have Reason And if it please him to look into the difference of our Country of England and some land of Barbarians as Brasile or such other where they live without Law or Government I think he will find our bragging is not without ground For wherein is the difference betwixt a Civill Government and a Barbarous Anarchie Is it either that in a Civill Estate there be no Quarrells or amongst Barbarians there is no Quiet The former would prejudice our Courts and Justice the latter is impossible even in Nature What is then the goodnesse of a government but in a well Governed Country there is a means to end Quarels and in Anarchie there can be no assured peace This therefore is it we brag of that amongst us if any controversie arise there is a way to end it which is not amongst them who parted from us And Secondly That there is no assured agreement
you neither agree of any certaine and proper markes to know her by nor when it is that she interposeth her judgement some take it to be the particular Church of Rome others of which number you are all which communicate with her supposing the first to be true yet not being de fide it will serve but ill by your rules to build our faith upon and even when she delivers her opinion is not certainlie agreed whether the people of Rome be to have Votes or onelie the Clergie or of them onelie the Pope with the Cardinals or the Pope onelie without them if the Pope whether onelie in his Chaire and what circumstances are required to his decreeing in Cathedra would beget more questions If all that communicate with her as you say it is as things now stand First I would know whether they be sure to be at all times the Church to that you refuse to determine and so inclusivelie denie Secondlie It is not possible that such a multitude should ever give any sentence explicitelie nor can we ever know that it hath even tacitelic done so if they be to decree onelie by representation then how large a companie represents them with all their power of whom that companie is to consist how many of them are to agree to make it a binding sentence c. are things yet undefined and like to be and if any goe about to determine them their power being it selfe still a question could not end these Therefore whereas you say that we have no definitive sentence besides that truly to have one and not to know when we have one is much alike I answer that whensoever the Scripture shall seeme to us to have defined we are according to our doctrine readie to yeeld and so the controversie is ended and sure the Scripture may be said to be a definitive sentence as well as the written Councell of Trent and till then though we differ about interpretations of not plaine places we have as much Unitie as you who are not resolved upon the sence of manie decrees of that and other Councels and if a desire and diligence to finde the true meaning of them and an aptnesse to assent when it is found be thought to secure among you those who mistake the true sence of these Councels why should not the same disposition in us towards the Scripture be thought every whit as sufficient not onely to keepe us in unitie but to secure us from danger To conclude though unitie be a thing much spoken of by you yet I finde it chieflie onely in your discourse your differences are many and great onelie you say you agree in what is necessarie and make the measure of things necessarie what you agree in so the summe is you agree in what you doe agree which it is impossible you should not though you had carried away the bayes from Bibrias his Tombe eager against us and yet divided among your selves like the state of an Armie in Tacitus Manente Legionum auxiliorumque ubi adversus Paganos certandum foret consensu and if your Church brag of such an Unity I perceive a small matter will make her brag Againe I do confesse most English men confesse a Trinity the Incarnation and Passion of our Saviour but if to morrow any one or more of them light upon some Book of an Arrian Trinitarian or other Sect so wittily written that he putteth probable solutions for the places of Scriptures shewes slight waies how our well meaning fore-fathers may have slipped into such an Error what is there to retaine those men from disagreeing with the rest of their Bretheren and betake themselves to the Arrians And when the heat is past light upon some Rabbi who shall cunningly exaggerate the absurdities as he shall tearm them of the Trinitie Incarnation Say our Saviour did strange things in vertue of some Constellation and delivering these things so Oratorically that for a new heat some of these things shall seem more conformable then his Arrianisine what then shall hinder this man to become a Jew and at last to prove himself so great a Clerk as to write de tribus Impostoribus Take away the power of the Church which every man doth who taketh away the Infallibility what can retaine any man why he should not yeeld to that discourse which seemeth fairest seeing nothing is certaine And if you should meet with a book which should give probable solutions to the places of Scripture and reasons which you now think prove the authority of the Church and bring other though suppose but slight yet such as may seem strong Arguments to prove it not infallible and shew waies of the same kind how your ancestors may have slipt in that and by that into other errors what is there to retaine you with the rest of your Bretheren and betaking your selfe to us If you say this is impossible to be done so think the Protestants that the Arrians can give them no probable answer to their places of Scripture and such as will seem so to some is no imputation to their grounds since so may and do our Answers and Objections to some of you who thereupon leave you and yet you count not your grounds disparaged For my part I professe my self not onely to be an Anti-Trinitarian but a Turk whensoever more reason appeares to me for that then for the Contrary and so sure would you be too for the pretended infallibility of your Church could no longer hold you if you thought you saw reason to beleeve it fallible as you must do if all weighed more reason appeared of her adversaries side either your proofes of her authority not to be probable or else your Doctrinestaught by her more contrary to reason then her authority though probably founded yet not upon demonstrations is sufficient to caution and answer for It is true so long as you stick to this hold upon the Roman Church you are sure to receive no error but which she offers you and indeed you need not for those are enough but that destroied which is apter to be destroied then most of the Protestants as weaklier supported by reason then no error that a Protestant may fall into but so may you too and the other is but such a Priviledge as I may have by sticking to the English Church as well as you to the Roman And though this following your guide may be able as long as she keep her self to keep you from some Ditches into which you might otherwise fall yet it may lead you unto others and indeed there is no error but by this way you are liable too yea even of those which she now condemnes since though she changed her opinion which is neither impossible nor unlawfull yet you are by your blind obedience to believe that she had not and to submit your understanding in this Question to some distinction though without a difference These things then I dislike in what
you say First Your saying as though there is nothing to retain a Protestant from being of any error when it shall appeare more probable to him then Truth therefore there were nothing to keep him from those errors whereas you should have considered that the greater probabilities may serve reasonably to hold him without a demonstration and the evidence of the thing without a guide and that if those be not ground enough for a man to fix upon in how ill estate are those of your Church in the Question concerning the Church in which they follow no guide nor have any demonstration but professe they yeeld to her authority but upon prudentiall motives which kind of arguments sure may as well and as fixedly preserve a Protestant in `n Orthodox opinion against a Heretick as the authoritie of the Church no surelier founded can you against us That every man should yeeld to that discourse which seemeeth fairest to him I confesse it is alwaies not onelie safe and fit but also necessarie even for them who receive the Infallibilitie of the Church since those who beleeve that beleeve it because that appeares fairest to them and as you object to us the possibilitie of being perswaded from the truth by some wittie Author why thinke you not the same Author may possiblie too appeare to you to destroy your prudentiall Motives and so consequentlie your whole Faith which is built upon the Church which is built upon them Secondlie I diflike your seeming to beleeve that any grounds which are not demonstrative are too slipperie to rest upon as not onelie being contrarie to reason but to your selfe who told me before that no more was required then a maine advantage on one side and that we had reason to be satisfied with Probabilities to guide our Actions in Religion or since by them we were content to regulate all the other Actions of our life Thirdlie I dislike in your own parties behalfe your saying that a Protestant is in good likelihood to turne Arrian for if you meane onelie that it is possible it concernes you as much as them since this seemes to inferre that the Scriptures doe make more probablie for them which if they did it is not Heresie and to contradict all those whom both parts call Fathers who thinke enough plaine in Scripture not onely to keepe but also to convert men from Arrianisme as it appeares by their employing so solelie those Armes against them that they needed the admonition of a Heretique to counsell them to the use of another Fourthlie I dislike your saying that after being made an Arrian he is not unlikelie to turne Jew especiallie that he is likelie to be perswaded by any exaggeration of the Absurdities in the Trinitie since both Grotius and other Authors seeme to say that the Jewes have their Trinitie too in the same Notion and howsoever the Arrian is so fullie perswaded alreadie that those are absurdities that perswasion being almost the forme of that opinion which constitutes him an Arrian yet the exaggeration of them can never worke upon him And for the Constellation you speak of it were so irrationall and so unprovable a Crotchet that no Oratorie could ever make it seeme to a reasonable man to have any inclination to sence and a foole may be made beleeve any thing how contrarie soever to his grounds unlesse he be of those who are given over to vaine imaginations because they love darknesse better then the light and the fault of no particular mens understanding or will is to lead any man to condemne his grounds for they are to be accused not of whatsoever he concludes who holds or rather in this case hath held them but onelie of what he concludes reasonablie according to them Besides for this cause it appeares strange to me that trusting to Scripture alone and without meaning the Church for my certaine guide should bring a man into danger of parting with his Christianitie since nothing can hold a man longer then he beleeves it and as long as our ground the Scripture is by him beleeved no man can possiblie turne either Atheist or Jew and he who leaves to beleeve your ground the Church cannot by that be any more with-held from either Besides that I thinke it is impossible I am sure it is irrationall that any of you should beleeve in Christ upon the authoritie of Christs Church since beleeving the latter which claimes no authoritie but from Christ praesupposeth the beleife of him and so Christianitie is not the apter to be overthrown through the absence of that upon which it is not built I feare rather least your doctrine known to be grounded it selfe upon Tradition by such a way according to which a Jew would have much advantage of a Christian may incline a man to Judaisme and your sides generall slighting all waies of knowing Gods will but onely by the Church and then neither proving her power stronglier nor teaching how to know her plainer may make men sinke into Atheisme by being perswaded by you in letting goe other strong holds upon Truth and receiving such weake ones from you Not to speake of your loading Christianitie with such impossibilities as the Pillars of it which are not absolute Demonstrations of which it may be scarce any thing is in nature capable but lines and numbers are able to beare and using all your Wits and Industries to perswade men that it is equallie unsafe to refuse any part of your Religion as to receive none and so instead of making these your beleefs admitted for the sake of Christianitie causing Christianitie to be rejected because of them But peradventure some may attribute Power to the Church without infallibilitie whom I would have consider but what himself saith For his Church by the Power it hath must either say I command you to believe or I command you to professe this whether you believe me or no. The second I think no enemy of equivocation will admit and the former it is as much as if it should say I know not whether I say true or no yet you must think I say true We having received a command that all things be done decently and in order and this being to be appointed by them whom either the Law of the Land if that consist of faithfull or the consent or custome of Christians hath appointed for Ecclesiasticall Rulers in this matter in every place the Church thus restrained to the Governours of the Church may have in some cases though not to your purpose power without the least Infallibilitie And for instruction which you aime at no Church can give it yours especially being too large a body ever to meet or joyn in doing it and if you restraine the Church to the Cleargie whereof yet many teach not and they too are too many for any man to be sure what they all agree in teaching and when they differ how shall I know which to follow otherwise then by your Rule
that you esteem not Unitie so necessarie as you pretend some opinions I am sure you can soon enough quash as that not long since risen in Spaine concerning Fornication being but a Veniall Sin And whereas you say the greater things are the greater their period though this be ture in some things yet not in this for sure the greater a difference is the greater necessitie is there that it be soon decided and so if your decision have power to effect it as you pretend among you it hath it must fall as soon as it is born like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Creatures that live but a day Wherefore I do not see why this may hurt the Church more then the suits which hang in our Courts prejudice the government of the Land If any of these opinions be of that importance as that though uncondemn'd the Holders are Hereticks as some may be and my definition being concluded of such among you some of these may be some of them then sure they hurt the Church much and more then the Suites hurt the Government which their hanging hurts not at all though it hurts sometimes unavoidablie the Parties But if where there is no Unitie there were no Common-wealth as you say where there is no Uuitie there can be no Church then the Government were much prejudic'd by the Suits as your Church by this rule is made no Church by the differences And indeed if men were not agreed about the power of the Governours as you are not about some of your questions it must be a maime to the government of any Common-wealth as consequentlie these are to the goverment of your Church The last point of the Authors discourse is to shew how errors might have crept in wherein I shall have no opposition with him for I doe not thinke the question is how they should creep in but how they should be kept out Here Sir I cannot but beleeve that you intended to refresh your selfe with some Mirth as with Musicke between the Acts for though both our ends be that errors should not creep in yet the question was whether it were possible that they might creepe in and to my affirmative part it conduced to shew those waies by which either they have entred or easilie might doe so this shewing how they may steale in teacheth how to keep them out as it is an aide to the saving of a Town to discover the breaches which cannot be guarded without they be first known For the Fluxibility of humane Nature is so great that it is no wonder if errors should have crept in the wayes being so many but it is a great wonder of God that none should have crept in This neverthelesse I may say if the Author will confesse as I thinke he will not deny but that it is disputable whether any error in sixteen Ages hath crept in this very thing is above Nature For if there were not an excellency beyond the nature of corruptible things it would be undeniably evident that not one or two but thousands of errors had quite changed the shape of the Church in so many yeares tempests dis-unions want of Commerce in the body of the Church The greater wonder it were if your Church had no error the greater it is to me that upon one at most but probable Reason you should require all men to beleeve she hath none Neither doth it appeare to me disputable whether she have or no but evident that she hath not by Demonstrations yet by Probabilities of that multitude and weight upon which you say and say trulie that in all other cases we relie and venture that we most esteem whereas indeed you as you are of the imposing Partie ought to bring at least such proofes that you are fallen into none and as you are of the Infallibilitie-pretending-partie your proofes are likewise to rise from probable to Infallible Neither doe I conceive it to be probablie argued it is disputable whether this bodie of men have ever let in any error therefore it can never let in any since it is at least as disputable whether the Grecians have let in any yet you will not allow that upon this we should adjudge to her Infallibilitie Nay if it were demonstrative that your Church had yet never erred yet it would but unwillinglie follow that she never could since all things necessarie are so plaine without the confession of which you seeme to tax God and it is naturallie so plaine what is plaine that I cannot but thinke it a miracle that some one bodie of Christians among so many should be free from any such dogmaticallie-defended error especiallic if Truth were so indifferentlie sought after as it ought to be and Passion were not often called to counsell and Reason shut out of doores But this one Maxime that she receiveth her Faith by Tradition and not from Doctors hath ever kept her entire And he that will shew the contrary must shew how it should come to passe that those who lived in such an Age would say unto our Children this we received from our fore-fathers as taught them by our fore-fathers to have been received from Christ and his Apostles from hand to hand which if it could not be the question is resolved that no error is in the Church of God which holdeth her faith upon that Tenure Not to repeat usque ad nauseam what I have heretofore answered as that others differing from you hold upon the same Tenure that your selves have not alwaies held nor hold not upon it c. I will onelie tell you what Cardinall Perron tels me of the Jewes out of Isidore and that is that they seeing in the book of Wisedome so cleare proofes of Christ plotted together to put it out of the Canon which serves not so much his turne if it were so as it makes against yours and shews how that might come to passe which you judge impossible the Posteritie of the Jewes having been deceived by this Complot although pretending at least and for ought appeares beleeving that the Tradition of their Church is still uncorrupted And truely if the Author desires to examine divers Religions let him look their maine ground wherein they relie and see whether that be good or no And I think amongst Christians he shall find but two Tradition and Scripture First I allow not of your division for not to say now that you relie not onely upon Tradition these Protestants whose part in this I take depend not onelie upon Scripture but upon Universall Tradition too from which they receive that and would more if more seemed as clearly to them so to be delivered Secondly I think it reasonable not onely to examine what their Principles are but whether they do constantly follow them for a man may write awrie that hath a streight Ruler if he observe it not carefully And the Catholiques onely to relie upon Tradition
comprehensible by all capacities and the controversies of doctrine so intricate and so many as they required much time and learning for their disquisition onely I found my selfe unprovided for both those requisitions for this undertaking and for the decision of the other I needed not much presumption to beleeve my selfe a competent Judge when it consisteth onely in the perusall of authentique Testimonies Secondly I considered that there was no one point of controverted doctrine whereon all the rest depended but that this one Question of Fact was such as the dicision of it determined all the rest for if Luther could be proved to be the Innovatour of the Protestants faith it was necessary evicted of not being the true ancient Apostolicall Religion Therefore I began with this enquiry which Protestants are bound to make to answer to this Objection to find out an existence of some Professors of the reformed Doctrines before Luthers time for finding the Catholicks were not obligedto prove the Negative it was my part to prove to my selfe the Affirmative that our Religion was no innovation by some pre-existence before that but in the perusall of all the Stories or Records Eccesiasticall or Civill as I could choose I could finde no ancienter a dissention from the Roman Church then Waldo Wickliffe or Husse whose cause had relation to the now-professed Protestancy so as I found an intervall of about eight hundred yeares from the time that all the Protestants confesse a Unity with the Church of Rome down to those persons without any apparent profession of different Faith To answer my selfe in this point I read many of our Protestant Authors who treated of it and I found most of them reply to this sence in which I cite here one of the most authentique Doctor Whitaker in his Controversie 2. 3. pag. 479. where they aske of us where our Church was heretofore for so many Ages We answer that it was in secret solitude that is to say it was concealed and lay hid from the sight of men and further the same Doctor Chap. 4. pag. 502. our Church alwayes was but you say it was not visible doth that prove that it was not No for it lay hid in a solitary concealment to this direct sence were all the answers that ever I could meet to this Objection I repeat no more these places being so positive to our point This confession of Invisibilitie in our Church for so many ages did much perplex me it seemed to me even to offend Naturall reason such a derogation from Gods power or providence as the sufferance of so great an Ecclipse of the light of this true Church and such a Church as this is described to be seeming to me repugnant to the maine reason why God hath a Church on Earth which is to be conserver of the Doctrine Christs precepts and to conveigh it from age to age untill the end of the world Therefore I applyed my study to peruse such arguments as the Catholicks brought for the proofe of a continuall visibility of the true Church down from the Apostles time in all Ages and apparance of Doctors teaching and administring the Sacrament in proofe of this I found they brought many provisoes of the Scripture but this text most literall of the fourth of the Ephesians Christ hath placed in his Church Pastors and Doctors to the consummation of the saints till we meet in the Unity of the Faith and next the discourse upon which they inferre this necessary visible succession of the Church seemed to me to be a most rationall and convincing one which is to this effect Naturall Reason not being able to proportion to a man a cause that might certainly bring him to a state of supernaturall happinesse and that such a cause being necessary to mankinde which otherwise would totally faile of the end it was created for there remained no other way but that it must be proposed unto us by one whose authority we could not of and that in so plaine a manner as the simplest may be capable of it as well as the learned This work was performed by our Saviour from whose mouth all our Faith is originally derived but this suceeding age not being able to receive it immediate from thence it was necessary it should be conveyed unto them that lived in it by those that did receive it from Christs own Mouth and so from Age to Age untill the end of the world and in what Age soever this thred of doctrine should be broken it must needs be acknowledged for the reason above mentioned that the light which should convey mankind through the darknesse of this world was extinguished and mankind is left without a Guide to infallible ruine which cannot stand with Gods providence and goodnesse which Saint Austine affirmes for his opinion directly in his book de Util. Cred. Cap. 16. saying If divine providence doe preside over humane affaires it is not to be doubted but that there is some authoritie constituted by the same God upon which going as upon certaine steps we are carried to God nor can it be said he meant the Scriptures onely by these steps sinoe experience shewes us the continuall alteration about the right sence of severall of the most important places of it that what is contained there cannot be a competent rule to mankind which consisteth more of simple then leanned men and besides the Scriptures must have been supposed to have been kept in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of it which being no other thing then the Church in all Ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved the Scriptures free from all corruption then that it hath maintained it selfe in a continuall visibility which Saint Augustine concludeth to be a marke of the true Church in these words in his book Cont. Cecill 104. The true Church hath this certaine signe that it cannot be hid therefore it must be known to all Nations but that part of the Protestants is unknown to many therefore cannot be the true no inference can be stronger then from hence that the concealement of a Church disproves the truth of it Lastly not to insist upon the allegation of the sence of all the Fathers of the Church in every severall Age which seemed to me most cleare that which in this cause weighed much with me was the confession and testimony of the approved Doctors themselves of the Protestant Church as Hooker in his Book of Eccles. Pol. pag. 126. God alwaies had and must have some visible Church upon Earth and Doctor Field the first of Eccles. cap. 10. It cannot be but those that are the true Church must be known by the profession of truth and further the same Doctor sayes How should the Church be in the world and nobody professe openly the saving truth of God and Doctor White in his defence of the Way chap. 4. pag. 790. The providence of God hath left Monuments and Stories for the confirmation
this I answer by saying that if they would not appeale from the Right Tribunall or rather Rule which is the Scripture those many might casier be ended then this one we building our Faith onely upon plaine places and all reasonable men being sufficient of what is plain but if they appeal to a consent of Fathers and Councells where of many are lost many not lost not to be gotten many uncertaine whether Fathers or no Fathers and these which we have and know being too many for almost any industrie to read over and absolutely for any memory to remember which yet is necessarie because anyone clause of any one Father destroies a consent and being besides liable to all the exceptions which can be brought against the Scriptures being the Rule as difficulty want of an infallible Interpreter and such like and being denied to have any infallibility especially when they speak not as witnesses which a consent of them never doth against us by one partie which the Scripture is allowed to have by both then I wonder not if he think such a way so uncertaine and so long that he was willing to chuse any shorter cut rather then travell it Neither do I beleeve this other to be so short or so concluding as he imagines for if he consider the large extent of Christian Religion so that we know little from any indifferent Relator of the opinions of the Abissins so great a part of Christendome if he consider the great industry of his Church in extinguishing those whom they have called Hereticks and also their Books so that we know scarce any thing of them but from themselves who are too partiall to make good Historians if he consider how carefully they stop mens mouthes even those of their own with their Indices expurgatorii it will then appear to him both a long work to seek and a hard one to find whether any thought like Luther in all Ages and that he concludes very rashly who resolves that there was none because he cannot find any since they might have been visible in their times and yet not so to us for men are not the lesse visible when they are so for not being after remembered as a man may be a Gentleman though he know not his pedigree So that as I will not affirm that there were alwaies such because I cannot prove it so neither ought they to make themselves sure there were none without they could prove that which is impossible and therefore no Argument can be drawn from thence and if it could be proved that such a no-waies-erring Church must at all times be I had rather beleeve that there were still such though we know them not which may be true then that theirs is it which in my opinion cannot Thirdly He saies that he could find no one point of controverted Doctrine whereupon all the rest depended but that this one Question of Fact was such as the decision of it determined all the rest To this I answer That the Question of the Infallibilitie of the Pope at least of those who adhere to him which they call the Church is such a one as if determined must determine all the rest and not onely to us but to all men whereas this though granted necessarie and determined to his wish would indeed conclude against us but not for them since the Greek Church would put in as good a Plea upon the Title of Visibility as that of Rome and he would be to begin anew with them when he had ended with us Fourthly He gives his reason If Luther could be evicted to be the Innovator his Religio is then evicted of not being the true ancient an and Apostolicall To this I answer by confessing the consequence but he might be the Renovator and not the Innovator and then no such consequence followes Fifthly He saies we are bound to find an existence of some Professors of the reformed Religion before Luther which requirie is bound upon his supposition of the necessitie of a continuall succession of a visible and no-waies erronious Church Now I will first examine the sence of his tearms By the first I conceive by a place he cites out of Saint Austine that he meanes visible to all Nations but I pray hath his been alwaies so I mean at least for many Centuries to those Nations which Columbus hath not long since discovered By the second tearm Church I suppose he meanes a Company of Christians holding neither more or lesse then Christ taught for in a more large sence no man denies the Church to have been alwaies in some degrees visible and in this sence I not onely deny it necessarie that it should be alwaies visible but that it should alwaies be for I doubt whether there be or for a long while have been any such Next That such a one he meanes appeares because when Catalogues have been brought of some who in all Ages have differed from them in things which we hold his side would not accept of them because they agreed not with us in all things and yet when Campian intends to prove all the Fathers to be his he useth onely this course of instancing in some things wherein they agree with him though sometimes not so much but rather the contrary ought to be inferred as in the instance of Polycarpus for comparing his words with the Historie it will appear that he concluded him a Papist for not being perswaded by the Pope though they differed from them in many other as indeed all the notable Fathers did in more then one point I will therefore say that if this be required to shewing that a Church hath been ever visible it is more then either part can do and therefore I hope they will come upon better consideration to confesse that not necessarie for us to do which is impossible for themselves For let any man look into Antiquitie I will not say without all prejudice but without an absolute Resolution of seeing nothing in it that contradicts his present beleefe and if he find not some opinions of the Church of Rome as unknown unto Antiquity as either he or I as the Popes Indulgences having power to deliver out of Purgatorie confest by Bishop Fisher and Alphonsus de Castro where they treat of Indulgences if he find not others at first unknown after known but not held de fide which are so at Rome as Prayer to Saints their enjoying the Beatificall Vision before the day of Judgement the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and her being free from all actuall sin if he find not some wholly unknown and absolutely condemned which we condemne as the lawfullnesse of Picturing God the Father whereof the first is confest by Barronius in the Margent to an Epistle of a Pope which saies the same and the latter to be found in many places of Saint Austine Lactantius and others nay if he find not that all the Doctors Saints Martyrs of the two first Ages
which the simple are capable of understanding I mean as much as is plaine and more is not necessarie since other Questions may as well be suffered without harme as those between the Jesuites and the Dominicans about Praedetermination and between the Dominicans and allmost all the rest about the Immaculate Conception and those who are not neither are they capable out of Scripture to discerne the true Church much lesse by any of those Noteswhich require much understanding and learning as Conformity with the Ancients and such like Ninethly The same answer I give to this serves also to the following words of Saint Austine for whereas Mr. Mountague concludeth that he could not meane the Scriptures as a competent Rule to mankind which consisteth most of simple Persons because there hath been continuall alterations about the sence of important places I answer That I may as well conclude by the same Logick that neither is the Church a competent Guide because in all Ages there have also been disputes not onely about her authority but even which was she and to whatsoever reason he imputes this to the same may we the other as to Negligence Pride Praejudication and the like and if he please to search I verily beleeve he will find that the Scriptures are both easier to be known then the Church and that it is as easie to know what these teach as when that hath defined since they hold no decrees of hers binding de Fide without a confirmation of the Popes who cannot never be known infalliblly to be a Pope because a secret Simony makes him none no not to be a Christian because want of due intention in the Baptizer makes him none whereof the latter is alwaies possible and the first in some ages likely and in hard Questions a readinesse to yeeld when they shall be explained me thinks should serve as well as a readinesse to assent to the decrees of the Church when those shall be pronounced Tenthly He saith that the Scripture must be kept safe in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of it which being no other then the Church of all ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved that free from Corruption then it self in a continuall visibilitie I answer That neither to giving authority to Scriptures nor to the keeping of them is required a continuall visibility of a no-waies erring body of Christians the Writers of them give them their authority among Christians nor can the Church move any other and that they were the Writers we receive from the generall Tradition and Testimony of the first Christians not from any following Church who could know nothing of it but from them for for those parts which were then doubted of by such as were not condemned for it by the rest why may not we remain in the same suspence of them that they did and for their being kept and conveighed this was not done onely by their Church but by others as by the Greeks and there is no reason to say that to the keeping and transmitting of records safely it is required to understand them perfectly since the old Testament was kept and transmitted by the Jewes who yet were so capable of erring that out of it they looked for a Temporall King when it spoke of a Spirituall and me thinks the Testimony is greater of a Church which contradicts the Scripture then of one which doth not since no mans witnessing is so soon to be taken as when against himself and so their Testimonie is more receiveable which is given to the Scriptures by which themselves are condemned Besides the generall reverence which ever hath been given to these Books and the continuall use of them together with severall parties having alwaies their eyes upon each other each desirous to have somewhat to accuse in their adversaries give us a greater certaintie that these are the same writings then we have that any other ancient book is any other ancient Author and we need not to have any erring Company preserved to make us surer of it Yet the Church of Rome as infallible a Depositarie as she is hath suffered some variety to creep into the Coppies in some lesse materiall things nay and some whole Books as they themselves say to be lost and if they say how then can that be rule whereof part is lost I reply That wee are excused if we walk by all the Rule that we have and that this maketh as much against Traditions being the Rule since the Church hath not looked better to Gods unwritten Word then to his written and if she pretend she hath let her tell us the cause why Antichrists comming was deferred which was a Tradition of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians and which without impudence she cannot pretend to have lost And if againe they say God hath preserved all necessary Tradition I reply so hath he all necessarie Scripture for by not being preserved it became to us not necessarie since we cannot be bound to beleeve and follow that we cannot find But besides I beleeve that which was ever necessary is contained in what remaines for Pappias saith of Saint Mark that he writ all that Saint Peter preacht as Irenaeus doth that Luke writ all that Saint Paul preacht nay Vincentius Lirinensis though he would have the Scripture expounded by ancient Tradition yet confesseth that all is there which is necessary and yet then there was no more Scripture then we now have as indeed by such a Tradition as he speakes of no more can be proved then is plainly there and almost all Christians consent in and truely I wonder that they should brag so much of that Author since both in this and other things he makes much against them as especially in not sending men to the present Roman Church for a Guide a much readier way if he had known it then such a long and doubtfull Rule as he prescribes which indeed it is impossible that almost any Question should be ended by Eleventhly He brings Saint Austines authority to prove that the true Church must be alwaies visible but if he understood Church in Mr Mountagues sence I think he was deceived neither is this impudent for me to say since I have cause to think it but his particular opinion by his saying which Cardinall Perron quoted that before the Donatists the Question of the Church had never been exactly disputed of and by this being one of his maine grounds against them and yet claiming no Tradition but onely places of Scripture most of them allegoricall and if it were no more I may better dissent from it then he from all the first Fathers for Dionysius Areopagita was not then hatcht in the point of the Chiliasts though some of them Pappias and Irenaeus claimed a direct Tradition and Christs owne words Secondly As useth this kind of libertie so he professeth it in his nineteenth Epistle where he saith that to Canonicall Scriptures he had
make out of it Arguments to perswade them to revolt from you It is no wonder if your Church be like the Congregation in the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most part know not why they are come together And truely if thus it were not if all had liberty to seek Truth and if all who sought it were indifferent in their seeking and their judgments were absolutely unbridled by their affections and unswaied by prejudice I cannot perswade my self that so many could meet in thinking it fit to receive for so they seem to me such impossible Doctrines upon such improbable grounds or to require a more then probable assent to but probable Doctrines allowing them to be such and should not see what is grounded upon them if not impossible is at least much more improbable then the Motives are probable which kind of Assent cannot be expected by God who as he requires onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable service so also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable Faith Here followeth the Third Part of this Discourse which is a Reply to such Answers as you have been pleased to make to a little of that little which I at first opposed SPeaking of the Church Rome as this day it is the true Church of God I answer the doubter she neither hath nor can have any error which he need to feare and be shie of The which two limitations I adde for avoiding Questions impertinent unto our businesse The first for those which concerneth the connexion of the Sca of Rome to the Universall The latter to avoide such Questions as touch that point whether the Church may erre in any Philosophicall or other such matter which Questions are not so pertinent to our Matter Meaning by the true Church a companie of men which hold all and no more that Christ taught for other interpretation I beleeve you will not give it then there is no question but that not onely it hath no dangerous error but none at all but that yours is such remaines unproved and I beleeve manet aeternumque manebit For upon examination I doubt not it will appeare that as I have read of a Cohort of Persians which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Immortall Cohort which all died in one battell so your infallibe Church will be found to abound in errors and to belie equallie hertitle being troubled her selfe with what she undertakes to secure others from like the Apothecary in Lucian who undertaking to cure all men of the Cough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could himselfe scarce prescribe his Medicine for coughing the while Besides of what sort soever the error be yet since the Condition of her Communion is to professe a beleife that she hath none such a one as to them who indeed beleeve so would not be dangerous yet to me who cannot professe this but against my Conscience how slight a one soever may be an occasion of damnation Againe as to me your answer appeares false so to those of your own side it will appeare hereticall to me it would give no satisfaction though you had proved what you but affirme because I desire to know an eternall not a temporarie Guide whereas if in your Church there should happen any Schisme your answer then would give me no meanes to resolve my selfe which part were the guide that is the true Church without a new and peradventure by the way an endlesse search To them it will give scandall because first you presuppose that we must know the Church by the Doctrine and the Doctrine by the Church and secondlie you imply a possibilitie that the Church of Rome is now but by accident and may come not to be the true Church and so all their confidence built upon her as the Directresse of all Churches and the eternall Admirall of Gods Fleet will appeare to have a very fallible foundation Besides in the cause of your Limitation I find more reason to commend your Discretion then your Ingenuitie for for the first if you had said that the Universall Church of Christ must alwaies be connected to the particular one of Rome which were to allow her Infallibilitie you knew Antiquitie to have said much against you and besides that this being not yet de fide among your selves nor evident in it selfe could not serve for a foundation to the whole bodie of our faith if you had absolutelie denied it you knew that you should incurre the displeasure of the most prevailing part of your own men and that then the maine and to the Ignorant the onely visible signe would bee taken away For the second if you had affirmed that the Church could erre in nothing how slight soever you would both have contradicted many of your own side as Stapleton by name and have asserted more then there were any coloun of proofe for and would have wanted this distinction to retire to if you were confuted in any particular if you had restrained her Infallibilitie to things necessarie or weightie or the like then the question would again have risen which are those for many errors which we lay to her charge concerne not things indeed necessarie though she adde to the error that other of thinking that whatsoever she holds becomes necessarie by her holding it and then for all you have said the doctrine of Purgatorie might be false and yet she the Church and that infallible as farre as by your Doctrine her Infallibilitie had need to be extended Neither doe I remit the questioner to Scripture for his satisfaction although I hold Scripture a very sufficient meanes to satisfie the man who goeth to it with that preparation of understanding and will which is meet and required Howsoever this I may answer for them who prove it out of Scripture that because they dispute against them who admit of Scripture and deny the authority of the Church if they can convince it they doe well though they will not themselves admit generally of a proofe out of Scripture as not able to prove every thing in foro contentioso If you hold Scripture to be so sufficient a mean I wonder Sir why you thinke not fit to remit me to it unlesse you thinke that you have severall sufficient waies to prove so evidenta Truth by or thinke me not to come with meet preparation Indeed if that be as among you it is counted to come resolved not to judge of what the Roman Church holds by what the Scriptures say but to beleeve that they say whatsoever she holds then I confesse I come not with the Conditions required but if it be to come desirous to finde the Truth and to follow and professe it when I have found it in spite of all temporall respects which might either fright or allure me from so doing then I suppose that Charitie which hopeth all things will encline you to beleeve that I come as I ought to come untill some evident reason perswade you to the