difficulty or subtilty or profit in it either of which whensoever I can finde I professe I shall be most ready to enlarge upon it and now acknowledge it an obligation from the Author if he will point out to me where I shall have fail'd and in other particulars be more mercifull to the reader and my selfe To the 1. §. Chap. 2. Section 1 True it is and we grant it willingly that every proofe that is solid and good must be a notioribus and that every sure conclusion must also be deduced from no other premises or principles then such as be knowne and at least be as certaine as we desire the conclusion should be Neverthelesse we doe absolutely deny that this assertion of ours touching the Churches infallibility is by us offered to be proved by waies no better then our Adversaries offer to prove that she hath erred as this Inquirer pretends we doe for we affirme that our Churches infallibility is proved by reasons which are reall and true and that on the other side the adversary offers to prove the contrary onely by such as be no more then seeming and pretended Now true reason or authority is a way quite different from pretended and much better then it and therefore the Inquirers charge is false or at least light and ineffectuall Must all controversies in Philosophy be undecidable because both sides pretend reason or no suits of Law be judged because both sides pretend Law Certainly whatsoever both sides doe pretend yet there is but one side that hath it as namely but one side of Philosophers have true reason and but one side of contendents have true Law and so in like manner but one side of contending Christians have true reason for them Scripture or Tradition howsoever both may pretend it and therefore we doe not goe about to prove the Church is infallible by the selfe same wayes that you goe about to prove that she hath erred but by wayes that are quite different from them and the same but in name onely and no farther By which it followes that either you are deceived or we and it is not necessary that both And so much for this great and principall difficulty which troubled the Inquirer so much as he writ to London for the solution of it which thing surely was more then needed for it might have been done at Great Tue without consulting London about it or either of our two Vniversities We doe not maintaine as he falsely supposes that Reason Scripture and Fathers be all fallible universally speaking but in some cases only as namely reason is not fallible in such verities as be evident but in other that be not so it is Againe Scripture is a most certain rule whensoever it is certainly expounded otherwise it is not Lastly the Fathers be assured and undoubted witnesses of the Doctrines which were held in their time though not undoubted definers of them And by this answer all the three main propps of this Authors discourse are overthrown and fall unto the ground C. 2. Answ to the 2. Chap. Section 1 To the second Chapter I need only to put you in mind that when his Lordship saith the wayes of proofe that the Church of Rome can never have any errours are no better then those by which we offer to prove she hath erred and nameth three heads of Arguments from Scripture Reason and Ancient writers and proveth you to affirme all these are infallible because nothing is in your opinion infallible but the Church and from thence concludes that we can never infallibly know that the Church is infallible because all the meanes proposed to induce that knowledge being of necessity somewhat else beside that only infallible must needs be fallible it will be very unsufficient in you to reply that his Lordship hath not said true in the first particular upon no other ground of proofe but only because you affirme that the Churches infallibility is proved by Reasons which are really true and that the contrary is by us offered to be prov'd only by such as be only seeming and pretended for this very thing that you affirme viz. that those your reasons are reall and true is a part of the very question in hand and as much denyed by us as the infallibility of your Church and therefore by your own rule of proceeding à notioribus cannot be proper means to conclude that his Lordship erred to him that will farre more easily be brought to believe that your reasons are not reall then that his Lordship erred in this particular and that will as readily confesse he erres as that those reasons are reall Section 2 It appeared strange to me that you should begin with such a petitio principii untill by reading on I discerned that this one meane Sophisme hath run through most Paragraphs of your following Treatise which is a shrewd infirmity in a confutation to take that for a principle granted and so bestow no proofe upon it which is by you known to be denied by us and yet to conceive that this will be able to satisfy our other importunities Section 3 2dly You must observe that his Lordship had said only this that your Churches infallibility is offered to be proved by no better wayes than those by which we offer to prove she hath erred which is an undertaking of his Lordship and not a bare assertion and sure you cannot say he offers to prove it by reasons onely seeming for you as yet know not particularly what those reasons are any farther then that they are from the same heads by which you offer to prove the contrary Section 4 And Thirdly if the Arguments which he offers be only seeming on his side yet if you marke it they are so seeming to him and as long as they seem to him to conclude that the Church hath erred the very same arguments or those that are no more seeming cannot assure him that she is infallible for by your own confession every solid proofe must be ex notioribus i. e. not only by media which are more true but which are more known to him to whom this proofe is offered and if you marke that is it to which his Lordship's argument drives that the reasons by which you prove the infallibility of your Church are such as you confesse your selves to be fallible Marke not which you confesse to be false but fallible your confessing them fallible is enough to his Lordship's turne though they should have the luck to be true because the infallibility of your Church on which as on a foundation and principle you must build in many after difficulties had need be infallibly asserted and knowne or if it be but fallibly will it selfe be fallible no conclusion ascending higher then the premises have ascended and so though it were true yet not fit to commence a principle of all other truths Section 5 Now that these reasons or premises of yours are fallible and by you acknowledged to
emptynesse of these Papers and more then so to render a reason of it viz the fate which they were under by a necessity of attending this Apologist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which yeilded them occasion of little variety unlesse they would extravagate Yet could he not resist the Reasons which charged it on him as a duty thus confidently to importune the Reader with the view of the whole matter as farre as it hath past between them setting downe that Answer to and this Vindication of his Lordships Arguments by Chapters and then not doe him the least injustice adding in the end of all the Answerers marginall Replyes and that concluding Sheet that even now was mentioned with a Rejoynder to that also By all this endeavouring to lay grounds for all men to judge how little truth there is in that so Epidemicall perswasion that there is no middle betwixt asserting an Infallible Judge and the falling headlong into all the Schismes and Haeresies of this present age My Conscience assuring me that the grounds on which the establish'd Church of England is founded are of so rare an excellent mixture that as none but intelligent truely Christian minds can sufficiently value the composition so there is no other in Europe so likely to preserve Peace and Unity if what prudent Lawes had so long agoe designed they now were able to uphold For want of which and which onely it is that at present the whole Fabricke lyes polluted in confusion and in blood and hopes not for any binding up of wounds for restauration of any thing that lookes like Christian till the faith of the reformed English have the happinesse to be weighed prudently and the military Sword being timely sheathed the Power and Lawes of Peace be returned into those hands which are ordained by GOD the Defenders of it H. H. Of the INFALLIBILITY of the CHURCH of ROME A Discourse written by the Lord Viscount FALKLAND Section 1 TO him that doubts whether the Church of Rome have any errors they answer that She hath none for She never can have any This being so much harder to believe than the first had need be proved by some certaine arguments if they expect that the belief of this one should draw on whatsoever else they please to propose Yet this is offered to be proved by no better wayes than those by which we offer to prove she hath erred Which are arguments from Scripture Reason and Antient Writers all which they say themselves 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 proof they say may deceive both them and us and so neither side is bound to believe them Section 2 If they say that an argument out of Scripture is sufficient ground of Divine faith why are they so offended with the Protestants for believing 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 Isidorus Pelusiota sayes are the causes of all Heresies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pride and prejudication why should God be more offended with the one than the other though they chance to erre Section 3 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 had never been set Section 4 If they say we may know it for that generall and constant 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 for if She hath erred certainly She may but though She hath not erred hitherto it followes not that She cannot erre I seeke whether She have erred and conceiving She hath contradicted her selfe conclude necessarily She hath erred I suppose it not damnable though I erre in my judgement because I trie the Church by one of those touch-stones her self appoints me which is Conformity with the Antient. For to say I am to believe the present Church that it differs not from the former though it seem to me to doe so is to send me to a Witnesse and bid me not believe it Section 5 Now to say the Church is provided for a Guide of faith but must be known by such marks as the ignorant cannot seek it by and the learned may chance not to find it by though seeking it with all diligence and without all prejudice can no way satisfie me Section 6 If they say God will reveal the truth to whosoever seeks it in these wayes sincerely this saying both sides will without meanes of being confuted make use of therefore it would be as good that neither did Section 7 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 alwaies have a Church which shall not erre but not that such or such a Succession shall be alwaies in the right not that the Bishop of such a place and the Clergy that adheres to him shall alwaies continue in the true faith So that if they say the Greek Church is not the Church because by its owne 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 maintain 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 Section 8 Then if they prove the Church of Rome to be the true Church and not the Greeke because their opinions are consonant either to Scripture or Antiquity they run into a circle proving their tenets to be true first because the Church holds them and then theirs to be the true Church because it holds the truth which last though it appeare to me the onely way yet it takes away it's being a Guide which we may follow without examination without which all they say besides is nothing Section
9 Nay suppose they had evinced that some succession were infallible and so had proved to a learned man that the Roman Church 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 beliefe 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 overthrowne all so proved Section 10 Nay it is but an arbitrary Argument and depends upon the pleasure of the adversary for if any society of Christians would pretend to it the Church of Rome could make use of it no longer Section 11 The chiefest reason why they disallow of the 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 how 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 who believes that to all who follow their reason in the interpretation of the Scriptures and search for Tradition God will either give his grace for assistance to find the truth or his pardon if they misse it and then this supposed necessity of an infallible Guide with this supposed damnation for want of it fall together to the ground Section 12 If they command us to believe 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 downe now such a way Scripture and Reason or infused faith cannot be for they use to object the fallibility of them to those that build their Religion upon them nor the Authority of the Church for that is part of the question and must be it selfe first proved and that by none of the former waies for the former reasons Section 13 The Popes infallibility can be no infallible ground of faith being it selfe no necessary part of the faith 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 sideing with them So if the Church be divided I have no way to know which is the true Church but by searching which agrees with Scripture and Antiquity and so judging accordingly But this is not to submit my selfe to her opinions as my guide which they tell us is necessary Which course if they approve not of as a fit one for a Learned man they are in a worse case for the ignorant who can take no course at all nor is the better at all for this Guide the Church whilest two parts dispute which is it and that by arguments he understands not Section 14 If I granted the Pope or a Counsell by him called to be infallible yet I conceive their Decrees can be no sufficient ground by their owne axiomes of Divine faith For first say the most No Councell is valid not approved by the Pope for thus they overthrow that held at Ariminum a Pope chosen by Symony is ipso facto no Pope I can then have no certainer ground for the infallibility of those Decrees and consequently for my beleife of them then I have that the choice of him was neither directly nor indirectly Symoniacall which to be certain of is absolutely impossible Section 15 Secondly suppose him Pope and to have confirmed the Decrees yet that these are the Decrees of a Councell or that he hath confirmed them I can have but an uncontradicted attestation of many men for if another Councell should declare these to have been the Acts of a former Councell I should need againe some certaine way of knowing how this declaration is a Councells which is no ground say they of faith I am sure not so good and generall a one as that Tradition by which we prove that the Scripture is Scripture which yet they will not allow any to be certaine of but from them Section 16 Thirdly for the sence of their Decrees I can have no better expounder to follow then Reason which if though I mistake I shall not be damned for following why shall I for mistaking the sence of Scripture Or why am I a lesse fit interpreter of one then of the other where both seeme equally cleare And where they seem so I meane equally cleare and yet contradictory shall I not as soon believe Scripture which is without doubt of at least as great authority Section 17 But I doubt whether Councells be fit deciders of Questions for such they cannot be if they beget more and men have cause to be in greater doubts afterwards none of the former being diminished then they were at first Section 18 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 forenamed considerations Who is to call them the Pope or Kings Who are to have voices in them Bishops only or Priests also Whether the Pope or Councell be Superiour and the last need the approbation of the first debated among themselves Whether any Countries not being called or not being there as the Abissines to great a part of Christianity and not resolvedly condemned by them for Heretiques 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 necessity to be subscribed to Whether there were any surreption used or force and Whether those disanull the Acts Whether the most voyces are to be held the Act of the Councell or those of all are required as Canus saith All the Councell cannot erre the most may which never yet agreed or Whether two parts will serve as in the Tridentine Synode a considerable doubt because Nicephorus Callistus relateing the resolution of a Councell at Rome against that of Ariminum makes them give three reasons One That the Bishop of Rome was not present The second That most did not agree to it Thirdly 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 ender of the old Section 19 In those things in which before a Generall Councell have defined it is lawfull to hold either way and damnable to doe so after I desire to know how it agreeth with the Charity of the Church to define
be so his Lordship was not content to affirme and so is himselfe farre enough from giving you example of begging the question but proves it by this argument because with you nothing is not fallible but the Church This may be dissolved into an hypotheticall syllogisme whereof you must deny one proposition or else the conclusion is forfeited If with you the Church be the only infallible then with you any other reasons by which you prove the infallibility of the Church are not infallible but with you the Church is the only infallible therefore with you any other reasons by which you prove the infallibility of the Church are not infallible Now if you look over your answer againe you shall find that your only exception commeth not home to any part of this syllogisme for you doe not so much as say that any thing is infallible but the Church Or if now you will see your want and make additions to your answer then say distinctly is any other thing beside the Church infallible or no If it be let it be named if it be not the conclusion is granted us And till this addition be thus made i. e. for this present answer of yours 't is I conceive manifest that you have said no syllable to the prime part of his Lordship's first Section Section 6 As for your instances of Phylosophy and Law suites they can prove nothing against his Lordship unlesse you can name some sect of Phylosophy that hath not only truth but infallibility and tell us which it is and prove that by arguments which are confest to be infallible till you have done that your instance is not pertinent and if ever you shall doe it 't will not be concluding against us unlesse you produce the like arguments for the infallibility of your Church against us which must be some other then are yet proposed Section 7 As for Lawsuits that they are determined to one side by the Judge doth not prove that that Judge is infallible which is the only matter of debate and if the contenders are bound to stand to his award it is because the Law and supreme Magistrate have commanded them to doe so and because this is evident and infallible that they have done so by the commission which the Judge hath from them And when the like is produced for your Church I hope all your Subjects will submit to it but then it must be moreover proved that all Christians are such Subjects or else we hope we shall not be involved under that obligation Section 8 As for your long deduction from whence you conclude that either wee are deceived or you and that it is not necessary that both should we grant it and professe our opinions that though both you and we are fallible yet only you are or can be deceived in this particular which we conceive is cleare because only you pretend Infallibility which we not pretending but affirming that we are not so cannot in this be deceived unlesse we be infallible but see not what it concludes against his Lordship whose argument depends not on any such assertion that both parties are deceived but only that your pretended Infallibility is by you proved by no other arguments then those which you confesse are fallible Section 9 What you adde by way of triumph and scoffe I must not answer but by yeilding you free leave thus to please your selfe and if this recreation tend at all to your health to advise you to do so still and whensoever it may be for your divertisement to reckon up the names of London Great Tue and the two Vniversities Section 10 After the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sang you at length bethinke your selfe that his Lordship had affirmed that Scripture Reason and Fathers are by you maintained to be all fallible and to this you answer by a distinction of universally speaking and in some cases onely and acknowledge that you affirme them all to be fallible onely in some cases Now first you ought to have given answer to his Lordship's proofe for what he said which was this that you affirme that onely the Church is infallible from whence it is a conclusion that therefore Reason and Scripture and Fathers are by you affirmed to be fallible whereas you letting the premises alone apply answer to the conclusion which is as much against Logicke as to deny it without denying the premises or shewing the falsenesse of them But then Secondly that which is fallible in some cases onely is by that acknowledged to be fallible and by that is proved unsufficient to prove another thing to be infallible in all things for if it be fallible in any case it may be fallible in this that it pronounces that other to be infallible and till there be some infallible argument produced that it is infallible in that particular pronouncing its Infallibility in other things will availe nothing or if it doe it may availe also for us to prove what we offer to prove from it that your Church hath erred Section 11 There is no possible avoiding of this but by saying and proveing it infallible in inducing your conclusion and false aswell as fallible in inducing ours for if it be true though it be fallible it will serve our turne but it must be both or will not serve yours you being obliged to prove the Infallibility of your Church by something which is it selfe infallible because it must be matter of faith with you which nothing is but what is infallibly induced but it is sufficient for us to beleive you and your Church fallible though we should make it no matter of faith that you are so which because you endeavour not to doe in this place it will be impertinent to examine the truth of what else you adde concerning the cases wherein you affirme Reason and Scripture and Fathers to be infallible any farther then thus that by your owne explication of the distinction and enumeration of cases I shall conclude that Reason doth not prove infallibly that your Church is infallible because the Infallibility of your Church is not an evident verity Scripture doth not prove it so because it is not certainly expounded to that probation Fathers doe not prove it so because it was not a doctrine held in their time and affirmed by them to be so Each of which negations of mine though they were as sufficient proofe as what you have offered to the contrary yet I shall undertake to make good against you if you shall thinke fit to call me to it by setting downe your reasons to the contrary Section 12 And so if on your supposition his Lordship 's three maine props were fallen to the ground which is another boast that had no more relation to the present matter then ground in truth and therefore I beseech you leave out such excesses hereafter yet your supposition being not so much as endeavoured to be proved the props stand as firmly as is desired To the
second §. Chap. 3. The Enquirer is here much mistaken for we are not at all offended with Protestants for their alleadging Scriptures but for their doing of it after a way which is fallible and uncertaine in which case we say Scripture can be no foundation of faith Wherefore though they alleadge Scripture and we also yet doth it not follow thence that the Protestants disprove the infallibility by the selfe same media or meanes by which we endeavour to prove the same It is true they attempt to doe so but that they doe it is denied The Scripture when surely sensed or expounded is a different medium from the same Scripture sensed unsurely or expounded falsely Now he that takes an unsure way which no reason or discretion commends unto him and leaves the sure which Reason does perswade him to be such if that man chance to erre it is easie to understand why God should be more offended with him then with others that doe not so but hold a prudent and contrary course The summe is that holy Scripture after such time as it comes to be knowne certainly for Canonicall and shall be expounded according to the interpretation of the Church foundeth an argument strong and invincible but when otherwise one that is probable onely or ad hominem and this latter we say is your case and out of this give a reason why your resolves are temerarious and presumptuous and in fine such wherewith God may be displeased justly forasmuch as no man ought to goe about this worke unadvisedly or expose his salvation without all need to chance and uncertainty as if he meant to build upon the sand C. 3. Ans To the third Chap. Section 1 I answer that through this whole Chapter the same fallacy returnes againe of satisfying his Lordship's argument by a bare affirming but not proving a thing which is as much denied by his Lordship viz. that your alleadging of Scripture for the infallibility of your Church is by an infallible and certaine way but our alleadging of it for every part of our religion is by a fallible and uncertaine For though you in tearmes affirme onely the latter of these that which is against us yet in charity to you I shall suppose you imply the former or if you will say you doe not I shall then answer that the granting of what you say doth not vindicate your Infallibility but onely accuse us not cleare your selves or if that which you adde by way of explication may passe for a proofe of it viz. that Holy Scripture when it shall be expounded according to the interpretation of the Church foundeth an argument strong and invincible but when otherwise onely probable and ad hominem I answer that this being applyed to the matter in hand to you and us must if it signifie any thing have this importance that the places of Scripture which you bring for the Infallibility of your Church are expounded according to the interpretation of the Church but the places which we bring for the severall parts of our religion are not so expounded And then I answer that by the Church you may and I conceive ought to meane the Vniversall Church truly so called without your ordinary clogge or restriction and then all that we require of you is to make your affirmation good and produce the places of Scripture which that Vniversall Church hath so expounded to the asserting the Infallibility of your Church which till you doe produce 't is petitio principii againe and then we shall shew our selves ingenuous and though we might reply something which ad homines might be answer yet shall we part with all other advantages of defending our selves and in plaine ground yeild you the cause and contend no longer with you Section 2 But if you meane by the interpretation of the Church the interpretation of the Church in the notion wherein we enquire whether it be infallible viz. that society of Christians which have been govern'd by the Pope Though then we might deny that you have any such interpretation of Scripture for your infallibility and justifie the deniall for if you please we will undertake to shew that some eminent persons in the Church of Rome perhaps Popes themselves never interpreted any Scripture to the asserting the Infallibility of your Church and that many other differ among themselves what is that Church which they affirme from Scripture to be infallible and that will amount to the same also yet we shall content our selves with this other answer that the interpretation of that Church unlesse Saint Peter himselfe or some other acknowledg'd to be inspired joyne in it is not Infallible and for you to say it is and not to prove it is a petitio principii againe And for any other notion of the Church which shall be said so to interpret when you shall fasten on it we shall undertake to make good either that it doth not interpret the Scripture to the asserting the Infallibility of the Church or else that the Church in that notion is not infallible Section 3 As for the other part of your assertion which you principally insist upon in this Chapter that our case is contrary to yours i. e. that we found not our religion on Scripture expounded according to the interpretation of the Church we utterly disclaime it and for you to affirme it without proofe is petitio principii againe and to put it to a faire issue we make this offer that what ever proposition we affirme without shewing Scripture for it and that expounded according to the interpretation of the ancient Church we will presently forgo on your first instance and if you would pay us the like offer and your party make it good I doubt not but as turbulent a Sea as the state of Christendome is at this time the whole Church might quickly be at peace or at least the dissentient party not be considerable I remember a passage in Saint Hilary depredicating the Bishops of France as very happy men quòd aliam non cognovissent confessionem◠c. that they knew no other confession then that ancient and most simple which through all Churches from the Apostles age had been received And I am a little confident that that which first made and hath ever since fomented the breaches of that pretious body is the multiplying and imposing of new confessions and articles of beleife from the suggestion of private or lesse publique spirits and that hath made the body like Aristotle's insectills which for want of bloud runne out into a multitude of legs every such new article so multiplyed above the number of those which Scripture in the truly Catholique interpretation of it will authorize not onely as true but necessary to be so acknowledged being an effect of some want of bloud I meane charity in the Authors for though to teach any man any certaine truth be an act of charity yet to make an article i. e. to require every man to
not very unhappy in his searches after truth or no I leave it by the searcher of all hearts to be determined C. 26. Answ to C. 26. Section 1 To your answer to the undiscernablenesse of errours that though they are not seene at the time they may be seene after I reply that I confesse it possible they may be seene after and that some are so very soone after but yet sure not all presently after at least not publiquely and vulgarly seene As they are seene so they may be made knowne to the world some a long time after others and this is sufficient to shew that the Authours of the errours may possibly not be seene discovered at all though the errour in processe of time chance to be so which will be most evidently true if it be farther considered what his Lordship affirmed that errours came in by degrees and not at once Section 2 To your question what it matters that sundry bookes are lost I answer that thus much it matters that from thence it followes infallibly that 't is possible there might be opposition against any doctrine though in the writings we have there be none mentioned and as you disprove not that so his Lordship desires not to have more acknowledged Section 3 Your next answer by retortion against Calvin will be of no force unlesse Calvin undertooke to be infallible Section 4 For the matter about the Chiliasts as you referre to your answer before so doe I to my reply onely from your favour or indulgence to that opinion during the time that it was held but as an opinion without censuring or condemning others but then withdrawing that favour when it arrived to that height I am very glad and joyfull to joine issue with you and charitably to suppose though I affirme it not that till you tooke upon you to condemne and censure others any opinion you held meerely as an opinion might doe you no irreparable hurt but now that you proceed to that insolent unmercifull height what mercy can you expect from your owne principles by which yet we that censure not condemne not are confident to hope for some kindnesse from you though not from other men Section 5 To the 48 Sect. I shall take your example likewise and to the last commend your ingenuity for commending that that deserved it so much and onely demand with what conscience you could thinke him very unhappy in those searches which you confesse to be so happy in proposing for sure if unhappinesse signifie the ill successe of his searches there can be according to your Principles no feare that they should by God be permitted to be unhappy or if it signifie any fault in them you cannot without uncharitablenesse and judging of hearts pronounce him guilty of it The Conclusion The generall result of all that which hath beene debated hitherto betwixt the Enquirer and me is in effect no other but that First the Catholique Churches infallibility is a soveraigne preservative against errour and against all dissention or dis-union in believing unto all those who doe acknowledge it and yeild submission thereunto Secondly that each new verity defin'd by that Church is to them a new path to heaven though on the other side to all such other as refuse to be directed by her it may prove just as the Enquirer is pleased to expresse himselfe a new path to walke in towards the Devill or one steppe more unto damnation And in this he was in the right and spoke truer then he was aware Now it is well knowne that all we Catholiques are guided by that same infallibility and againe that on the contrary all Anti-Catholiques doe resist it and what will follow out of this is no hard matter to collect Moreover this same infallibility a quality so unpleasing to the Enquirer cannot as he surmises make us sure if we be in errour never to mend for we all doe offer freely that if either he or any of his side be sure to disprove soundly and clearly the infallibility we will be as sure to mend and forthwith to relinquish it by which expected act of theirs we shall be reduced unto such good tearmes in which all Anti-Catholiques continually are that is to say to believe at randome reele wildly up and downe unconstantly and fall at variance amongst our selves as they doe and then I hope the Enquirer will be contented with us But the want on their behalfe of such an efficacious proofe as this hath beene the true reason why we have not hitherto thought of any alteration or comming towards them Certainly it is much better to be perswaded though falsly of an infallibility then to be sure to have none as you now are but to be wrangling perpetually falling out and fighting amongst your selves whereas before you were when as our Religion prevailed this inconvenience happened not So that in fine all the goodly fruits you have reaped from your impugning Church and Councels and in bringing in instead thereof a new invention of your owne is but the making of your selves and your Country miserable which daily by deare experience we finde And so much for the Enquirer's unadvised impugnation of the infallibility of the Catholique Church Chap. 27. Answ to the Conclusion Section 1 In your Conclusion which recapitulates the summe of these debates betwixt his Lordship and you your first result is acknowledged perfectly upon supposition that your Church were infallible but then whether it be or no that is the question still and its being taken by you for a Principle when 't is so farre from being supposed one is the cleare ground of the Irreconcileablenesse betwixt You and Us. For upon supposition that we were your Proselites in all manner of doubts besides yet your requiring us to believe you not onely in the right but infallible equally obligeth us to believe all that your Church can possibly ever affirme as what you doe already and then we must have a strong faith indeed to be able to beare such a burthen Whereas if you could but be brought to thinke it possible you might be deceived we could then finde place in you for Scripture and reason to make impression but till then you have that terrible prejudice against them whensoever they are produced against you and whensoever they are urged for you they are to little purpose onely to confirme you in the beliefe of that which you are already infallibly perswaded to be infallible that they are but temptations and shafts of Satan which the stronger they come and the more irresistibly the more is your faith obliged to resist them all and to that this one fortification is sufficient that you know that whosoever doubts of your infallibility is not fit to be heeded in any thing else Reason must cease to be Reason Scripture to be Scripture when it appeares on that Argument Section 2 And that sure is the reason that this Treatise of his Lordships which consists not of more
as sinnes and that I hope belongs to all Christians for we are not under the Law but under grace Ib. C. And why so Answ I had before given you the reason viz because your discourse hath tended to inferre the one and not the other C. 14. Answ to C. 14. A. No man can binde another under paine of Anathema to beleive as he defines unlesse his definition be certaine Answ There was here very little occasion for this note For the businesse of Anathema's I had sufficiently restrained First by limiting them onely to excommunications as an act of Ecclesiasticall discipline upon the refractary and therefore Secondly not for matter of simple beleiving or disbeleiving but Thirdly for matter of disobedience to our lawfull Superiours and that disobedience againe not in refusing to submit our understandings but our wils and our consequent actions and Fourthly all this with stubbornenesse and perversenesse after the using of all milder courses And with these and the like limitations there will be no more difficulty to say an Ecclesiasticall Magistrate may excommunicate a disobedient refractary perverse Gain-sayer without undertaking to be infallible then to say a civill Magistrate may punish a Malefactour without being inerrable And therefore when you talke of binding to believe under paine of Anathema there is some mistake in that or if there were not yet Truth if it were on grounds of Scripture believed to be so would be as sufficient a foundation of so doing as the infallibâ—lity of the Judge For not onely every truth is in it selfe as certaine as that which is infallible every matter of fact that is so is as certainly true as any demonstration in Euclide and he that speakes it speakes as certainly true as if he did demonstrate yet is not in other things infallible for all that but he that beleives it with a full assent hath as little doubt of that truth as if it were before his eyes yet doth it not fide cui non potest subesse falsum on any supposition of its infallibility by which meanes though he pretends not to infallibility yet having no degree of doubt he hath that on which he will confidently build any action and even lay downe his life for such truths if they be of weight which if it be not ground enough to proceed on to an Ecclesiasticall censure against the stubborn and perverse you are very mercifully disposed and I will not provoke you out of it but rather give you my suffrage that no man be thus censured for matter of opinion but upon that light which is clearely deducible from the Scripture or universall tradition and then I shall confesse my sense that to anathematize men for any matter of doctrine of any lower alloy is though not formally yet interpretativè a kinde of pretending to infallibility usurping as much as if men were infallible which they that have the spirit but by measure should have so much humility in themselves and charity toward others as not to be guiltie of Ibid B. The sword preserves not inward unity nor satisfies the minde Answ I had no occasion to say it did I was speaking as your answer called me to it of discipline and unity or such unity as discipline produced which is outward unity as opposed to division and Shisme and yet let me tell you it were not unpossible to extend my speech to inward unity and satisfying of the minde For suppose a particular Church to have sufficient meanes to worke in the hearts of her sonnes this inward unity viz. by setting up the authority of Scripture as it is interpreted by the Fathers and receiving with due respect and obedience all Apostolicall Traditions These if duely revered by all Sonnes and Subjects would be able to keepe all of one minde in all matters of Faith and for lower points some kinde of liberty being allowed would preserve Charity as well and then while that Church were in this happie temper you may farther suppose the sword of violence to come in and disturbe all wresting out of her hands the use and exercise of those meanes and beating downe the authoritie and taking away the reputation of them And then in the case thus set you will surely grant that the rightfull sword if it might be so prosperous as to vanquish the disturber and restore what was thus violently taken away may prove no improbable meanes of preserving even inward unity in this sence and if you marke it we spake it not in any other And yet once more if we had we might have beene justified perhaps in our saying For Heresie being a piece of carnality in the Apostles judgement 't is possible that the outward smart that comes from the exercise of the power of the sword i. e. from temporall punishments may cure that disease and perswade them who instead of pleasure from their heresie reap nothing but paine and sorrow to make better provision for their owne flesh and blood and thinke of hearing that reason to which other honest mens eares are open and then that may produce inward unity also and these mens minds may be sufficiently satisfied with that truth coming thus to them tempore congruo at a fit season of working which at another time had beene rejected You see how little reason you had for that annotation C. 15. Answ to C. 15. A. Chillingworth saith it in termes and him also I desired to answer Answ Can you thinke this faire dealing His Lordship I made appeare from his words said it not And you cannot say he did But I hil say you did say it What is that to his Lordship or to me who undertake onely to vindicate his Lordship and had not that rich harvest of leasure to thinke fit to be retained any more in other mens causes on such joylesse termes as these in which rather then I would adventure to be engaged I should be content to be thought to have no degree of kindnesse to him especially hearing that you had three great volumes prepared against Master Chill But then I pray what is the meaning of him also I desired to answer Can you thinke fit to impose a thing on his Lordship which was said onely by Master Chillingworth and when you were disproved thinke you had still confuted Master Chillingworth also when you had only falsified not confuted his Lordship Sure Sir this is not faire Ib. B. I know very well this was objected by both of them and this I desired to answer whether it were in their bookes or no. Answ Here is more of the same streine But I did conceive by your title that you had confuted his Lordships tract that was published not any unwritten discourses which we have no way of knowing whether they past or no I am sure were not undertaken by me to be vindicated I never resolved to justifie all that you could say either of them said and I might be forced to be uncivill with you if I should enter any
or fallible and then againe Reason and Scripture may finde reception and be agreed on the umpire betwixt us and we shall promise sincerely that whatever that shall sententiâ latâ award to you we will most gladly yeild and never breake with you till you breake from that umpirage Ibid. C. The words are applicable against our belief of Christianity as well as against our belief of our Churches doctrine Answ The words are applied by me onely against your infallibility and if that be as infallible as Christianity it self I beseech you either shew as plaine testimonies from the consent of all Ages that the Church of Rome is infallible as there are for the Canon of the Scripture or as plaine places out of the Scripture for it as we can for the severall parts of Christianity and then I will give you leave so to apply the words In the meane you may spare your labour of applying my words or else prove demonstratively that they are so applicable Ibid. D. A possibility perhaps of more errours but a probability of fewer for if she were fallible yet she would not be fallible as a private man so that with these fewer errours we should have quiet and unity you with more errours should have disturbances and dissentions Answ In this place whereto your Annotation was affixt the discourse was upon a supposition that your Infallibility were an errour which I in that case affirm'd would be the most dangerous because most prolificall complicated errour imaginable and will you say that upon that supposition there would be a probability of fewer errours Will the thinking I cannot fall make me stand the longer is there no advantage to be made of care and caution and feare or is there a disadvantage in them This is brave fiduciary doctrine I must thinke infallibly I shall be saved and that I cannot fall away and the thinking that will make it more probable that I shall be saved and shall not fall I confesse I had thought that humility were a readier way both to truth and Heaven then either of these presumptions What you meane by adding by way of proofe of that saying that if your Church were fallible she would not be fallible as a private man I confesse I cannot guesse If she would not I conceive this would be but little advantage on her side for her fallibility would be a greater snare and scandall and more apt to draw into errour those that conceived her infallible than any private mans fallibility would doe For that which you adde of quiet and unity if it were supposed to be joyn'd with fewer errours I grant it would be an advantage but at a time when that infallibility was supposed to be one errour and that prov'd most apt to produce a multitude surely this ought not to have been supposed any more than that we should have more errours still though 't were not at the same time supposed that we have Ibid. E. It was never put into more hands than two but what those hands might doe I know not and to those on purpose to make triall what exceptions might be made against it that so upon a review I might know better what to alter in it what to adde and what to take away Answ I conceive one man hath two hands and therefore 't is possible you may meane it was never communicated to above one man If you doe 't is certainly false But if you meane two men by two hands you acknowledged what I said for I said no more As for your affirmation that 't was put into those hands only for triall c. This cannot be said of one of them for to him it was delivered by one of your friends as an unanswerable piece but yet if it were as you pretend that you might know better what to alter in it I am then glad I have given you occasion to doe so but must tell you that now you have altered it and delivered it from some infirmities which appear'd to be in it there be yet enough behind to be reformed by any body else and when that is done there will remaine somewhat else perhaps but I am sure no answer to my Lord of Falkland Ibid. F. Sir your noble courtesie is gratefully acknowledged and I desire with all due respects and services to correspond Answ This I conceive to be a civility and I shall never go about to confute that or answer it but by the returne of the like and my prayers also that the Lord give you a right judgement in all things HEre it seemes was once an end of those annotations and it had been for the readers ease and mine that you had continued in that minde But upon better thoughts either that which had beene here noted was thought not quite sufficient or else ex abundanti this superfoetation is bestowed on us The closing sheet which I mentioned in the Preface and promised to annex also Which here in justice to the Apologist I shall give you though I conceive I had beene as kind to him if I had forgotten it Section 1 THis small treatise Apologeticall is no finisht worke but only a first draught or inchoation and was ventured abroad to explore the judgements or censures of one or two intelligent Adversaries that so the Author by his second thoughts might be the better able to understand what was to be altered in it what added and what taken away either as superfluous or offensive and till that act was done and withall an approbation and licence given by those to whom it belonged neither the worke nor any line of it is to be acknowledged or vouched by the Author Section 2 The drift is not to prove the Church which we call Catholique and the Enquirer cals Roman to be infallible but to defend it against the Enquirers arguments for he Sect. 28. undertakes to give reasons why the Church of Rome is fallible So that our drift is to make it good that this same Church may still be infallible notwithstanding any thing that he hath said unto the contrary Section 3 The pillars that support all his discourse be 1. Sect. videl that with us both Reason Scripture and Antiquity be fallible his proofe of this assertion is a supposed maxime of ours namely that nothing is infallible but the Church The assertion is first denyed and afterward the proofe and against these denialls no reply can be made because we know best our owne inward acts and judgements and no man is able to tell us what we thinke but we must tell them Section 4 These three pillars of fallibility being broken and relinquisht as desperate you are pleased to come with new ones in their places Section 5 Reason say you cannot prove the infallibility of your Church because it is not an evident verity Scripture cannot because not certainly expounded to that probation Fathers doe not because it was not a doctrine held in their time Section 6 It seems then
from you or if it should prove lesse splendid yet more tolerable to have beene ravisht from you then prostituted To the second Sect. I answer that you had said that before in annot to the concl A. And the answer there belongs to this Sect. and if you had made good what you say was your drift you should be pronounced conquerour To the third Sect. You have taken a good course to defend infallibility by setting up for it your selfe and affirming that no reply can be made to you in that matter because it depends onely upon your judgement which none can know but whom you tell it But good Sir your Authors do tell us that there is nothing infallible but the Church and when they have done so we may know your outward acts for such are your writings though your inward we pretend not to pry into To Sect. 4. I answer that one argument of his Lordships taken from your affirmed fallibility of Reason Scripture and Antiquity is most prodigiously by you call'd three pillars And how Sampson-like you have broken them downe the Reader must judge if you are so confident I have here exprest my selfe your servant by helping you to a publique tryall To Sect. 5. I acknowledge that from your owne confession I make those three arguments that neither Reason Scripture nor Antiquity can infallibly prove your Church to be infallible And To the Sect. 6. I say that the want of infallibility in those three mentioned Sect. 6. and by you confest is sufficient to prove his Lordships conclusion that they cannot infallibly prove your infallibility and this is the same that was meant by his Lordship though more explicated by me and brought home against you by way of retortion and Argument ad hominem upon your own confession And so your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was sung much too early and you must to your taske again if you will make an end of it To Sect. 7. I answer that if you had shewed the revelation on which reason inferres your infallibility your section had stood good but the totall want of that is your maine impediment To Sect. 8. Be you also pleased to produce your consent of Antiquity certainly expounding Scripture to inferre your infallibility and that shall be yielded you also but I conceive those writers of yours have not done it and whensoever you please I shall be ready to examine their testimonies with you To Sect. 9. I answer That we have allowed a sence wherein the Church universall may be stiled infallible and that to save my selfe the paines of examining your testimonies though some without examining I know to be ill cited I shall grant it in that sence to be so But then to your second proposition be it either I deny that they teach not or I affirme that it holds it matter 's little that the Roman Church is the true Church I answ That if there be emphasis in the particle the in the praedicate so that it signifie the Catholick Church in the former proposition 't is then absolutely false that the Fathers say any such thing And you are prudent to cite none to that ridiculous purpose But if you meane that the Roman Church is a true Church so you doe not meane that all it saith is true as we grant that so we challenge you to prove that ever the ancient Church thought any such particular Church of one denomination to be infallible When you please to produce your testimonies you shall receive answer to them To Sect. 10. Concerning the motives of Faith You might have spared that paines it being not at all concluded by you here or before that that infallibility is built on the same grounds with Christanity To Sect. 11. If you had never such solid reasons to perswade you that your Church had the truth as I should not need to deny were it not for your denying the cup to the Laity against Scripture and your keeping the Scripture in an unknowne tongue and some other such defects in faciendis but rather charge you that you have more then the truth viz. many errours mixt with the truth this would prove but a very weake probation that your Church is the true Church in the exclusive notion i. e. that no other is the Church but that for having the truth doth not signifie a Monopoly or inclosure of it or that no body else can have it And if by the true Church you meane no more but a true part you know we doe not question it nor affirme that your errors though many have turn'd you in non Ecclesiam into a no Church As for your Concordance with the Fathers which you say you have I answere that in those things wherein you and we consent we shall not be unwilling to grant it to you but yet must remember you that you would not allow that to be a proofe of your being infallible but in those other which we call errors in you we challenge you to produce an universall Concordance You goe on that you proue your Church by no other way then Christianity is perswaded unto Infidels I hope your meaning is that you prove your Church to be a true Church and that shall be granted you without your proofe but that it is the only true one or the infallible one I hope you have not miracles for that if you have you have trifled away a great deale of time in not telling us of them nor revelation from Heaven nor universall tradition to assure you what you affirme so confidently that the Infallibility of your Church is the whole frame of Christianity And therefore what you learnedly adde about the verba signorum or signa realia signes and ostensions c. by which you go about to prove Christianity I must professe to edifie me but little in point of the infallibility of your Church because that is so distant a thing from it To Sect. 12. Your affirmation that the true Catholique Religion is the true Christianity if that be the onely thing you aime at shall be willingly granted you all the question will be whether all your doctrines that of denying the cup to the Laity c. be that Catholique Religion And sure to him that questions that all the characterismes c. all your Propheticall predidictions will give but little satisfaction and no more will the excellency of Faith perfection of heroick actions of professors nor the conveyance from age to age by the Prime Ecclesiasticall succession of Pastors in the Sea of Rome because that of the sub unicâ specie c. which we quarrell at in you might as well be pretended to have testimonies out of the present Articles of our Church as out of these If there be any of these evidences or moreover of Reason Scripture Antiquity on your side for such controverted particulars I beseech you let them be produced or else you may be Christians but yet corrupt in these particulars your being
a true Church will not pronounce you infallible your Church of Rome Primitive may have the truth and your Moderne Rome be filled with errors And therefore you may spare the paines of proving what we have no occasion at this time to deny that God engages his veracity to make good those things for which he gives us such rationall meanes of proofe to induce our assent For what ever else is your infallibility or your other errours for which we charge you are none of these things And if you mark it that which according to your discourse gives us such assurance of the truth of Christianity is the ostensions miracles publick acts of Gods providence not the Infallibility naturally inherent either in your Church or in any particular society of men nor the promise of God that any such society shall be infallible and visible to all that it is that infallible As for that which you covertly cast into the heape of the motives of Faith that 't was continued from age to age in the succession of Pastors in the chiefe seat that is no more a ground of the truth of Christanity then its succession in all other seats as I conceive you have your selfe let fall also The truth is the Preaching the Gospel over all the world and the reception in so great a part of it is an argument of the truth of Christianity among many others because it is the fulfilling of a Prophecy of their sounds going out into all Lands But this is farre from concluding the peculiar priviledge of infallibility of those who are under the Roman subjection By which 't is cleare that what you cite out of Irenaeus and Saint Aug. comes home no better to your point of infallibility then Aristotles Analytick principles which in the same place and elsewhere you cite also And therefore if all you say in that long Section were yeelded concerning the motives to Christianity and your way by bringing to the Church c. yet would you be as farre to seek as ever concerning your pretended infallibility To your 13. Sect. which is neerer indeed to your purpose I answere that being by your meanes brought to Christianity there is no need that I should find out any particular body of professors or Church of one denomination to which those motives to Christianity should so belong as to belong to no othey but that This sure I may better say without proofe then you have affirmed the contrary For doe you thinke it reasonable that Christianity being planted all the world over each man that is converted to it must finde out the Roman Bishop and those that are in subjection to him or not be accounted a Christian If he be borne at Jerusalem or converted there will it not serve his turne to communicate with that Church which hath given him Baptisme Was there any thing in his Creed could send him thither till the holy Catholick Roman Church was by mockery I conceive put in thither As for the line of succession of Ecclesiasticall Magistrates you must know that is to be found in other Christian Churches as well as in Rome and the Scriptures and Apostolicall verities descend downe to us in them also And what if in some passages of Antiquity the Sea of Rome should be found to be the Praetorian or Admirall in your stile i. e. the prime or principall Sea would this prove her infallible the Praetorian may spring a leake as well as any other and in case it should I doe not conceive that all other Ships of that fleet were bound to doe so too or else be counted fugitive because they are unwilling to run that unhappy fate of sinne or errour with her Sure if the Praetorian should casually or wilfully split upon a Rock you would not censure all others for Pyraticall that did not so too The reasons are visible why that Sea of Rome had the Primacy at some time and at other times other Seas put in their plea for it and if they obtained not yet was that an argument that it was never judged a matter of Faith because the Pretenders were not condemned for Haereticks even when it went not with them viz from the Imperiall Seat being placed in that City with which the Ecclesiasticall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might proportionably goe along just as your Praetorian is that ship where the Admirall resides or which peculiarly belongs to him But what is that to infallibility That honour which comes by sympathy with the Civill State is not like to be such a charme or amulet so to elevate above humane condition that it must presently set up for perfection Let your Church have all its due and customary respects but doe not so linke inerrablenesse with Principality unlesse you can bring some ground from Scripture for the union and because in all your Apology Annotations and Appendage you doe not so much as name any such I shall conceive you are too wise to claime by Tu es Petrus or any other so unconcluding an argument Believe me your prescription for some kinde of Principality from the possession of it continued to that Sea so many yeares is a better plea than any other and against that I am not now a disputing but onely adde that greatnesse saecular is no marke of infallibility As for your rule of judging by the Association with Rome which Assembly of Christians is legitimate which not that that is an infallible way of judging is not at all proved by your magnificent simile For first the fleet may be broken asunder by some tempest and so without any fault of any ship be divided from the Praetorian 2. The Praetorian may quarrell with all or any of the rest and by threats or bullets drive them from her and then if the cause be not just if it be for example upon no other crime but that the other ships judge it necessary to cast out some vessels or trumpery which they are resolved to be either uselesse or perhaps dangerous to the vessell and all the Passengers or againe because the rest of the ships are resolved to obey the commission that sent out the whole Fleet when the Praetorian was resolved to disobey it in this and the like cases 't is cleare that the Praetorian is the onely Schismatick Or if it be just yet the ships though confest guilty of that other crime or crimes which made that severity of the Praetorian just will yet not be guilty of a new crime of separation the reason is cleare because she is forced to that driven away and now ever since lies under it unwillingly 't is her infelicity not her crime her punishment not her fault Or if there be a fault in that viz That she doth not humbly confesse the fault and desire to be reconciled yet sure it will not be infinitely true that that is a fault when either she was guilty before of no fault but a pretended one
time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the disease that first setled in the head easily passed through all the body considering how apt all men are to desire that all men should think as they doe and consequently to lay a necessity upon thee reciving that opinion if they conceived that a way to have it received And then if it were beleeved generally profitable as for example Confession who would be apt to oppose their calling it necessary for the same cause for which they called it so Besides if this errour were delivered by some Father in the hot opposition of some Heretique it may be none of his side would oppose it lest they might take advantage by their dissention and he that disputed for the Orthodox side might lose by it much of his authority Section 45 The word necessary it selfe is often used for very convenient and then from necessary in that sense to absolutely necessary is no difficult change though it be a great one The Fathers use Heretiques sometimes in a large sense and sometimes in a stricter and so differ in the reckoning them up Some leaving out those that others put in though they had seene the precedent Catalogue The doubtfulnesse of the sense of those words might bring in errour Names as an Altar Sacrifice Masse may have been used first in one sense and the name retained though the thing signified received change which may have been the art of the Church of Rome as it was once of an Emperour of Rome Cui proprium fuit nuper reperta I leave out Sâ—â—lera priscis verbis obtegere whose property it was to cover things newly found out with ancient tearmes And the same Author tells us that the same State was as it were cheated out of her liberty because there did remaine Eadem Magistratuum vocabula The same titles of Magistrates and I believe that if the Protestants beyond the Seas would have thought Bishops as good a word as Superintendents and so in other such things many who understand nothing but names would have missed the Scandall they have now taken Section 46 These waies I thinke things may have come without much opposition from being thought profitable to be done and probable to be believed to be thought necessary to be both and how many things little by little may have been received under old names which would not have been so at once under new ones the first of these being no such small fault but that part of the Montanists heresie was thinking uncommanded fasting-daies necessary to be observed which without doubt might lawfully have been kept Section 47 But my maine answer is that if for an opinion to be in the Church without known precedent opposition be a certain note of being received from the beginning let them answer how came in the opinion of the Chiliasts not contradicted till two hundred years after it came in Section 48 To conclude if they can prove that the Scripture may be a certainer teacher of truths to them then to us so that they may conclude the infallibility of the Church out of it and we nothing If they can prove the Churches infallibility to be a sufficient Guide for him that doubts Which is the Church and cannot examine that for want of learning by her chiefe marke which is conformity with the Ancient If they can prove that the consent of Fathers long together if they had it is a stronger argument against us then against rhe Dominicans If they can prove that though the first of them affirme that such a thing is Tradition and believed by all Christians and this assertion till a great while after uncontradicted yet they are not bound to receive it and upon lesse grounds we are if indeed any can prove by any infallible way the infallibility of the Church of Rome and the necessity under paine of damnation for all men to believe it which were the more strange because Justin Martyr and Clemens Alexandrinus among the Ancients and Erasmus and Ludovicus Vives among the Modernes beleive some Pagans to be saved I will subscribe to it And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Section 49 If any man shall vouchsafe to think either this or the Author of it of value enough to confute the one and enforme the other I shall desire him to doe it with proceeding to the businesse and not standing upon any small slip of mine of which sort this may be full and with that Civility which is fit to be used by men that are not so passionate as to have the definition of reasonable Creatures in vaine remembring that truth in likelyhood is where her Author God was in the still voice and not in the loud winde And that Epiphanius excuseth himselfe if he have called any Heretiques in his anger Deceivers or Wretches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I request him also to bring me to the Truth if I be out of it not only by his Arguments but also by his Prayers which wayes if he use and I still continue on the part I am of and yet doe neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither am wilfully blind nor deny impudently what I see then I am confident that neither he will have reason to be offended with me in this world nor God in the Next FALKLAND A view of the Exceptions which have been made by a Romanist to the Lord Viscount Falkland's Discourse Of the Infallibility of the Church of ROME SEPTEMB 11. 1645. THis day there came to my hands A Treatise Apologeticall touching the Infallibility of the Church Catholique in answer to another of the like argument lately published And although I have no temptation to spend any more time upon it then a single reading hath cost me nor to think it so dangerous a piece that I should not venture it abroad with the weakest sonnes of my mother without an appendant antidote or defensative against the poison of it especially being not obliged in any other notion then that of the respect I beare to the honour and memory of that noble Lord to vindicate his discourse from the exceptions here offer'd yet being not sure that I can excuse the so excessive thrift of a few houres which yet I could very gladly otherwise employ then in drawing one end of a saw in a controversie of this nature I shall give the Author of the exceptions or Apology in as few words as is possible the reasons why I am not moved by them much lesse perswaded that they are so extraordinarily lucky as to give as is pretended full answer to all that Master Chillingworth's large Book hath superstructed on this foundation And this I shall doe in such a manner that it may appeare that I desire onely to satisfie his reason and not make him payment of his scoffes or triumphs in that spirit of meeknesse which is proper for the restoring of one overtaken in an errour hoping in charity that he is such
hath influence on mens opinions but then still what ever their case be for believing the verity of your Church they can no way from thence be obliged to believe your infallibility Section 8 You confesse there may farther reply be made to you that these principles of yours are also question'd but take no notice upon what grounds of reason or Scripture they are question'd and so thinke you can deale with so unarm'd an adversary as you please by telling him they may be certaine and evident though they be question'd and perhaps I shall confesse to you that if they were onely question'd and no reason that were not by you easily answered brought to justifie such questioning it were sufficient which you say that questioning doth not disprove certainty and yet if every man's conscience be the Judge as you acknowledge then unlesse you can make it evident that that man's questioning is against conscience you will have no way to keepe it from being certaine and evident to him but when there be arguments produc'd to backe that questioning which you have no way to answer but by saying they may be certaine and evident for all that he that disputes with you will be excus'd to thinke he hath more reason to say and that you say must be judge that it may be otherwise To the 6. 7. Sections Chap. 7. No doubt there can be but God will reveale his truth to all such as seeke it with sincerity of heart and though both sides as the Enquirer objecteth may make use of this for an exterior allegation yet not as of interior helpe and preparation and therefore this sincerity is not a disposition unprofitable though it be a proofe inefficacious and thus much we grant willingly neither doe we challenge it as an argument of truth We grant him also that before such time as we can believe the Church we are to acquire sufficient principles for informing us which is she and also before we can believe upon her determinations we must have principles of knowing she is infallible and all this we make profession we doe de facto know Neither doe we take this Church to be a Proteus that is to say sometimes of one shape sometimes of another but a conspicuous body constantly adorned with the robes of truth and annexed to a Succession of Pastours legitimate from one age to another C. 7. Ans to Chap. 7. Section 1 Your answer to the sixth Section is by giving a distinction to tell us now both sides make use of the pretence of seeking truth sincerely and concludes that sincerity is not a disposition unprofitable though it be a proofe inefficacious which because you are willing to grant I will containe my selfe from springing any game or recreation for the Reader at this time of which he that were playsomely disposed would finde aboundant matter in the review of your distinction here applied and give you present payment for your favour by acknowledging that that which you grant is all that is begg'd from you viz. that God's promise of revealing of truth to those who seeke it sincerely is not at all an argument that they that pretend to the benefit of that promise must have reall title to it or consequently that they that have no other arguments to prove their Churches Infallibility but that they seeke truth sincerely and yet after that sincere search are of that opinion are to be heeded in their pretensions This justifies his Lordships sixth paragraph as fully as if you had subscribed it without your distinction Section 2 His Lordships seventh Paragraph consists of two things First a resuming of a part of his former argument which had beene onely mentioned but not inforc'd before that supposing the Church were proved to be infallible yet were not that sufficient to give any man certaine knowledge which were it Secondly a solid proofe of this affirmation by plaine reason because the granting the Infallibility of the Church did onely conclude that God would alwaies have a Church that should not erre but not that this was appropriated to any particular Church to such a Succession to the Bishop and Clergy of such a place c. Thirdly by a lively instance of the Greeke Church which though it were now in the right might hereafter erre and so the Greeke Church be now fallible and yet at the time that that erred another Church might arise the Champion of truth and so still the Church be infallible Section 3 To these two parts of the Paragraph your dispatch is short and annext to the nothing that was replied to the former Section to the first a liberall Grant of that which no man thankes you for that it is as necessary to know which that infallible Church is as that the Church is so but then saying and professing that you doe de facto know which is the Church and that she is infallible which beside that it is your old beloved petitio principii to say you know it offer no proof for it but your profession and a Latine word when the very thing that his Lordship was just a proving was that you neither did nor could know it comes not at all home to his Lordship's matter of shewing that the acknowledgement of the Infallibility of the Church doth not evict which is she For if 't were acknowledged that you did know it yet might it be by some other meanes and not by proving or confessing the Church to be infallible Section 4 As for his Lordship's proofe and instance added to his proposition 't was so despicable a thing that 't was not worth taking notice of but instead of any such thing you give us a declaration of your owne opinion that the Infallible Church was not a Proteus but a conspicuous body constantly adorned with truth c. which is againe the meanest begging of that which was just then denied and disprov'd and must so stand till you can annex reasons to your opinion and answers to his Lordships reasons To the 8. Section Chap. 8. We never goe about to prove our Church to be the true therefore because it holdeth with the truth or teacheth true doctrine as this Enquirer seemeth to suppose we doe but rather contrariwise because it is the true Church of Christ therefore we inferre it teacheth true doctrine but that it is the true Church we prove first of all and originally by reall revelations called in the Scripture Verba Signorum that is by signes ostensions or motives of credibility which motives for a great and sufficient part of them are the same by which we prove to Infidels the truth of Christianity it selfe For these same motives though when they are considered but in generall and as it were afarre off doe perswade Christianity but in generall without designing out in particular this or that Individuall Christianity yet neverthelesse the selfe-same being understood distinctly doe designe out a distinct and individuall Christianity and are applicable
to none else as for example the same species which shew me a man in generall afarre off the selfe-same afterwards when he comes nearer being distinctly perceived doe shew me that man is this individuall as Plato for example and no other For reall species doe not represent unto us Entia rationis or Individua vaga but determinate Individuals namely as often as those species are distinctly and compleatly understood As for the Circles into which both this Enquirer and Chillingworth would cast us and make us dance within them whether we will or no they are but Chymaericall conceptions of fidling and trifling dispositions which love to have toyes wherewith to entertaine themselves and in this point of resolution as we have declared it already have no semblance of reality C. 8. Ans to the 8. Chap. Section 1 His Lordship supposing in charity that you had attempted to prove the Roman Church to be the true Church by its agreement with Scripture and Antiquity which is in effect by holding the truth You plainely tell him he is mistaken in you It seemes you defie such meane waies of proving yours to be the Church as accordance with Scripture or Truth you must have it by some more noble way of demonstration and if you would stand to this peice of gallantry and never urge Scripture or Fathers to prove your opinions but content your selfe with your being the true Church to prove all after it As I confesse I should not charge on you that Circle which his Lordship doth in this particular supposing as he thought favourably to you that you had proved the truth of the Church by the truth and consonancy to Scriptures and Fathers of your doctrines so I should have two quarrels more against you in stead of that one composed First that you would disclaime Scriptures and fly to miracles for such are your reall revelations as you interpret them by the verba signorum in the Psalme the signes being there interpreted by the wonders that follow that you would fly to Gods extraordinary providence when I presume you conceive his ordinary would have served your turne for sure if at another time a man should have asked you is not your accordance with the Scriptures and Fathers a prime proofe that you are the true Church I doubt not but you would be so well natured as to confesse it and why now should the Devils infirmity the feare of a Circle make you so cowardly as not to dare to owne so popular an argument especially when your fire comes downe slowly or your bath Col the voice from Heaven which is the onely proper notion that I know of a reall revelation is not very audible to us that are afarre off nor if we were to be put upon the racke doe we know or can confesse at this day that we or any of our Fathers ever heard that 't was so ever revealed that the Roman Church is the true or the infallible Church And besides when you know we Protestants are a little hard of beliefe and dare not credit your owne report that you have such ostensions and revelations and signes when you neither produce witnesse nor tell us when or what they were but give us farther ground of jealousie by an odde phrase let fall by you that those reall revelations of yours are motives no more then of credibility when as true miracles acknowledged to be such are grounds of Faith and he is an Infidell that believes them not and to be but a motive of credibility is but a petty thing that every topicall argument will take place of probable being more then credible in the ordinary notion of the words Section 2 The second quarrell that your words have brought upon you is your telling us without proofe that it is so but onely by giving a similitude to shew it may be so and so in your phrase to be a motive of no more then credibility which in him that concludes it is so is petitio principii againe that the same motives you use to prove the truth of Christianity against Infidels will prove yours to be the true Church which being confidently said we are so vile in your eies as not to be vouchsafed so much as the mention what they are unlesse by your former words we conclude you meane miracles much lesse any evidence concerning them And yet by the way the miracles by which we prove the truth of Christianity to Infidels must be those which we meet with in Scripture and not those other in your Legends and upon a strict survey and recollecting of all them and so comming as neare to them as can be I must professe I cannot see your Churches being the true Church in those miracles neare so clearly and distinctly as I can see the man afarre off to be one of my acquaintance when he comes neare me which you undertooke I should and made me try and therefore I hope will recompence me for the losse of my labour by giving me your reasons next time for your assertion that I may try againe whether your proofes are more lucky then your experiments Section 3 But then I cannot see why you should be scurrilous upon both his Lordship and Master Chillingworth for thinking you were in danger of the Circle in which sure Baron had deprehended your Friend Turnbull and in which you had beene engaged infallibly if you had but gone about to prove your Church the true Church by the truth or consonancy to Scriptures and Fathers of your opinions which way of proving me thinkes 't is possible you may stand in need of before you come to the end of your answer In the meane as the calling downe Hercules upon the Stage was wont to be a Character of a Tragicke Poet i. e. of a fabulous wonderfull undertaker Cum fabulae exitum explicare non potuerit so to fetch us in miracles and ostensions to prove that divine truth that you confesse must not be proved by the Scripture will passe for a peice of Poetry I feare instead of a motive of credibility and those that are chearfully disposed will be apt to tell you that you were faine to conjure hard and doe or pretend miracles or else you had beene enclosed in that Circle To the 9. and 10. Sections Chap. 9. To these I answer in a word that neither the Greeke nor any other Church can pretend the Primacy or Principall succession of Pastours that is to say from the President of the Apostle Saint Peter none I say besides Rome can pretend this and without this one noâ—e can be authenticall or sufficient to prove a Church or a succession of Pastours Ecclesiasticall and so the Enquirers starting-hole in the Greeke Church into which he alwaies makes his retreat is prevented and shut up against him By this also is the 10. Section answered for whatsoever Churches claime unto succession shall be alleadged it can no way evacuate that of Rome as hath before beene shewed
Ch. 9. Answ to Chap. 9. Section 1 Your answer to the 9. and 10. Sections signifies a great deale viz that you were so put to it by the conviction of his Lordships argument that to dis-intangle your selfe you have ventured to vent a peice of very severe divinity which my charity to you makes me hope you will not justifie and if you will yet your no argument produced gives me nothing to answer nor otherwise to reply then by denying as mercifully and obligingly to the world as you doe cruelly affirme viz that without succession sufficient from Saint Peter there is no succession sufficient to prove a Church or a succession of Pastours Ecclesiasticall and this is so strange a newes to our eares who were confident that what ever you deeme of the other two parts of three of the Christian world at this present you had allowed liberty to Apostles to ordaine Churches as well as and without succession from Saint Peter and indeed that that which in the second and eighth line of your Chapter you call the Greeke Church might have beene acknowledged to be a Church in the seventh that had you not said it in the most evident tearmes None beside Rome can pretend this and without this one none can be sufficient to prove a Church c. had there been any way imaginable but this to answer his Lordship's argument I should never have thought this had beene your meaning till I see you againe owne this severe doctrine I shall not take paines to confute it and when I see that I must say that his Lordship presumed you had not been so bloudily minded when he proposed to you the argument in those two Sections Section 2 And yet after all this I doubt not but with a little change his Lordships argument will still hold against you even after you have ventured on such strange practices to secure your self from it Thus suppose you had evinced that the succession from S. Peter were infallible and so proved the Roman Church to be so because none else pretended to succeed S. Peter yet this can be no sufficient ground of belief to the ignorant who cannot have any infallible foundation of belief that the Greek Church doth not pretend from S. Peter whether by S. Mark at Alexandria who might be ordained by S. Peter whose right hand they say he was in the penning of the Gospell or by Evodius at Antioch where S. Peter was Bishop seven yeares as your owne Baronius or by any other or to the ignorant it matters not by no other known way and even to the learned it is but an accidentall argument because if any other company had likewise claimed Succession from Saint Peter as they of Antioch do it had overthrown all that probation nay it is but an arbitrary argument which the adversary can confute by but denying for if any society of Christians so called would pretend to be from Saint Peter some other way then by succeeding him at Rome or submitting to his government your Church could make use of it no longer Section 3 As for that which you adde in a word of answer to the 10 Sect. that what ever Churches claime unto succession shall be alleadged it can no way evacuate that of Rome if it be applied to his Lordship's argument it is absolutely false for if Rome's claime to Infallibility together and to succession to Saint Peter be to be proved by this because none else pretends to it which is the argument which his Lordship here confutes then sure any other Churches claime or pretending to it will evacuate that claime or title that by that argument is pretended and contrary to this there is yet nothing shewed To the 11. Section Chap. 10. What mercy God will use in pardoning the errorurs of those men who doe seeke sincerely and yet misse makes nothing at all against the ordinary provision and necessity of a guide because those misses or mistakings be cases extraordinary Besides I would know why any pardon should need for such innocent errours which be defects involuntary and so can be no crimes wherefore me thinks the discourse of our Enquirer in this Section is not coherent C. 10. Answ To the Chap. 10. Section 1 His Lordship's argument Sect. 11. is very strong against the collecting a necessity of an Infallible guide for the interpreting of Scripture from the topick of God's goodnesse by proposing another way of reconciling God's providence with his goodnesse in this matter which if it may be done concludes that other unnecessary viz. by mentioning a doctrine of more Evangelicall oeconomy in which errours may be reconcileable with mercy when God doth give grace to the diligent seeker to finde out truth or by this dilemma that without such an infallible guide upon the use of Reason in the interpretation of Scripture and search for tradition God will either give grace to finde what is so sought or pardon if he misse and so though it stand not with Gods goodnesse to damne him for every errour to whom he hath assigned no infallible way to finde out all truth yet to him that is confident that God will not damne any man upon such tearmes as the servant laid to his charge when he told him he was an austere man c. to him that teaches not such legall bloudy doctrine against God this argument of the Romanists will not be pressing at all this expedient of the Gospell-grace or Gospell-mercy being as fit for the turne of infirme soules as an infallible guide would be as indeed the state of imperfection wherein we are placed is as fit for our turnes when the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Gospell is revealed and proportioned to it as Adam's Paradise of Supernaturall all-sufficient strength and innocence would be Section 2 To all which all that you returne is only this that all this is nothing against the ordinary provision and necessity of a guide because those misses or mistakings are cases extraordinary To which I answer First that if it were supposed that against the ordinary provision of a guide the argument were not of force yet sure it might against the necessity of it and then that is all that is pretended to by his Lordship and that which alone is destructive to you and therefore 't is strange you should couple them together as so sociall things which are so distant and separable for sure though Evangelicall grace and mercy doe not exclude an ordinary provision of an infallible way but leave it in medio that God may if he will make that ordinary provision yet notwithstanding this it followes not that such a provision is required or nenessary There is a wide distance betwixt possible if God please and necessary to the vindicating of God's goodnesse now against the latter onely it is that his Lordship argues and is not at all concern'd in th' other and therefore I shall not need to examine whether the first be
lesse prove that he had so is there not added by you any other or indeed any tittle of answer to what is brought by his Lordship out of Irenaeus Section 15 His Lordship saith also in this Paragraph that they that were after against the Millenaries never quoted any for themselves before Dionysius Alexandrinus who lived 250 yeares after Christ this indeed sounds somewhat toward concluding that that was the doctrine of the first age not opposed by any prime Doctor and might be worth your pains in answering too but you endeavour not that neither but would make it improbable that if it were so generall a doctrine Dionysius should dare to oppose it This is very ill arguing against a matter of fact to aske how could or durst he there is nothing done so many yeares since but some probability may by a witty man be brought against it I confesse I acknowledge my opinion that there were in that age men otherwise minded as out of Justin it appeared and his Lordship saith nothing to the contrary out of any other evidences no more then we made it cleare he did out of Justin all that he saith is that Papias had gotten the Prime Doctours into the beleife of it and that no one of those two first ages opposed it that is wrote or interposed in any considerable manner against it Section 16 And if I were apt to change my opinion in this matter on easy tearmes I should goe neare to doe it upon the view of your proofe of the contrary so exceeding feeble and weake is it For supposing all the eminent men for those ages had beene for it upon the strength of some places of Scripture and Papias his report from Saint John it would not yet be very difficult for a learned man Dionysius Alexandrinus when no act of Councell had interposed or bound up that doctrine in the degree that he thought that those places of Scripture were misunderstood and that Papias had abused them in the same degree I say to declare his opinion and the grounds of it and never force or straine his owne conscience or incurre the blame of heresy by so doing Section 17 For what thinke you of another opinion that Irenaeus tooke up just upon the same tearmes of Christs being betwixt 40 and 50 yeares old for which he vouched Scripture as he did for tother and the authority of omnes seniores larger then Presbytery in tother testantur qui in Asia apud Johannem discipulum Domini convenerunt id ipsum tradidisse eis Johannem c. All the Elders witnesse it that were in Asia with John that he delivered it to them qui alios Apostolos viderunt haec eadem ab ipsis audierunt testantur de ejusmodi relatione they that saw the other Apostles heard the same of them and beare witnesse of such a relation This is as high an expression of Apostolicall Tradition if we will beleive Irenaeus as universally testified to be so as any could be thought to be And yet sure you would not thinke it a sinne against Conscience or obnoxious to the censure of Heresy for any man of meaner parts and authority then Dionysius Alexandrinus to have opposed this phansy and profest his opinion to the contrary you must know that there was not that perfect yoke of tyranny gone out upon all mens necks as now your infallible Church doth glory of that no man must oppose any the meanest assertion or opinion of the Doctours of the Church though not at all defied but presently he must be an Hereticke at least divinity was not turn'd into such an art that it must receive no grouth or sensible change but all goe on in the same tracke beleive nor understand no more in Scripture then the present Church understands and so in effect have all their skill in tongues and fathers and even their judicative faculty as so many unprofitable burthens upon them that must not be made use of to the discovery of an errour to the helping of the world to more light reforming any thing that is amisse in it Section 18 This which is one of the greatest moderne crimes in Christianity was not so ancient as those purer daies wherein life was as censurable as now false opinions I meane such as though supposed false are yet perfectly extrinsecall to the anology of faith wherein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impiety and piety divided the Church into erroneous and true members and teaching of opinions not before embraced so it were not with pride or judging of others could be well enough endured And so according to the old rule of distingue tempora doe but consider how distant those times are from these amongst you on one side and your opposite extreame that runne from you so farre till they meet you againe at the Antipodes on the other and you will give Dionysius Alexandrinus leave to dare oppose that doctrine of the Chiliasts though it had more generally then it did prevailed amongst them Section 19 Another argument you have against the generall reception of that doctrine that 't is probable Saint Dionysius the Areopagite opposed it I wonder one that asserts an infallible Church should deale so mightily in probabilities just as if a profound Geometer should use but Topicall arguments Now to see how you prove this probability 'T is proved by the workes now extant bearing his name What workes those are and how improbable to be his I could give you a large account by some hints which I remember Photius in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 helpt me to but I shall satisfie my selfe onely with answering your argument out of Philoponus briefely thus That in the places by you cited he mentions onely an Epistle of Dionysius to Polycarpus in which you know or may know there is no word of the Chiliasts and then that will be a very aliene testimony and very unable to countenance the bulke of those bookes under Dionysius his name which may all be spurious and in them the testimonies against the Chiliasts though that letter should be canonicall and now see I pray what your probability is come to Section 20 For your discourse about the Quartodecimani I will not divine how it came in here but am sure it hath no right to be taken notice of by me his Lordship having not said one word of them nor of any friend of theirs whose interests lye common with them and therefore shall I returne no word to that part of your discourse till you shew how I am obliged to it Section 21 What his Lordship saith out of Salvian you confesse to be true but see not what it makes against Tradition If you be not modest in concealing your knowlekge in this matter but really ignorant I shall then tell you His Lordship proves by this that the Church that suffers Salvian to be a member of it while he refuses to passe sentence of condemnation upon
petitio principii againe Section 5 As for your Conclusion of this dispute wherein you set the comparison betwixt two Arguments and say yours is much the better I shall not need debate that with you because they are not the two Arguments betwixt which his Lordship makes the comparison The first I confesse you have rightly set downe This Guide to my understanding teaches things contrary to Gods goodnesse therefore it is not the Guide and this will be as good an argument as this other 'T is to my understanding contrary to the goodnesse of God that the Roman Church should not be an infallible Guide or that there should be no infallible Guide where there is none but the Roman Church therefore the Roman Church is so In this comparison the consequences are equally true and built upon the same ground that that which is against Gods goodnesse cannot be and the Antecedents equally affirmed according to severall understandings and then whether the other Argument which you bring be comparable to either it matters not Section 6 But when at last you give us a note that the argument from God's goodnesse doth not conclude that your Church is infallible but onely that it may be so I confesse you make me repent of all this unprofitable attendance I have paid you in following your argument thus farre when your selfe have given me directions to a shorter cut of answering viz by granting that it may be infallible that is that nothing in nature resists but that if God's pleasure were so it might be infallible but say we we have no evidence from God that it is his pleasure it should and therefore we conclude it may be deceived or may be fallible betwixt which two though there may be some difference as there is betwixt falli and fallibilem esse yet unlesse some evidence can be brought against one which cannot against the other they will be both equally true as farre as respects our knowledge or debate of them Section 7 And when you adde that 't is from other reasons that you conclude she is infallible and not from this of Gods goodnesse I answer that 't is cleare that his Lordship was now disputing onely against that reason taken from Gods goodnesse which it seemes you confesse was no reason and for your other reasons they are either confuted in other paragraphs of his Lordships Treatise or when you produce them shall be To the 31. Sect. Chap. 19. This Section is spent in the enquiring whether a man shall be damned for making a diligent and impartiall enquiry after the true religion of which he finds the infallibility of the Church to be a part supposing that his reason when all is done will not assent This is his Quaere and the same may be made concerning any other verity or point of doctrine as namely of the holy Scripture whether or no it be the word of God and what shall become of that man whose reason after an impartiall search made will not assent or againe about the truth of Christian Religion unto which after such a search made his reason will not condescend I answer first that it is a mockery to aske whether or no any Man shall be damned for making a good enquiry without successe and in effect it is the same as to enquire whether a Man shall be damned for doing a deed that 's commendable and good For this Question supposes that either the Enquirer or we were very simple Creatures and did not understand our selves or else that the Gentleman-demander was not in earnest but propounded it only for his recreation though at a time ill chosen and unseasonable and also in a matter about which there ought to be no jeasting I answer secondly that in a place where instruction and information may be had the case he puts is morally impossible to happen out for we deny that where the search is diligent impartiall and without prejudice and where againe information sufficient is to be had that there the reason shall not be able to assent and that wheresoever it cannot that same happens either through weaknesse or inhability of judgment and capacity or else by reason of some disordinate passion of the will by which the understanding is misled and darkened as in those who are refractary it for the most part falls out Which passion and prejudices arise sometimes from custome and education sometimes from vitious inclinations sometimes from a crookednesse and perversity of nature which doth refuse instruction Wherefore as it is no sufficient excuse for an Infidel to say I have searched diligently whether or no Christ be the true Messias or whether the Scripture be the word of God or no and after all endeavours used my reason will not assent so in like manner it is as little sufficient to alleage that after enquiry made about the true Church and her Infallibility your reason would not assent for in these cases we cannot grant any ignorance invincible or free that errour which possesses them from guilt Now what shall become of others who want instruction sufficient and have no crookednesse or backwardnesse in their will and die in ignorance is another point and different from this of ours and is to be resolved in the Question about the efficacy of Implicite faith to which I referre my Reader Chap. 19. Answ to Ch. 19. Section 1 In this Paragraph his Lordship askes a Question Whether supposing that he that never heard of the Church of Rome shall not be damned for not believing it infallible it can be thought that he that hath made diligent search and used honestly all meanes afforded him and yet doth not believe the Church infallible shall be damned for that not-believing this is the Question and to weigh it downe on one side that that latter shall not be damning when tother is not this reason is put in that in this matter all that that Man hath done in the second case more than in the former is onely the having diligently enquired which is presumed to be no damning sinne Section 2 In stead of the Question thus put you set another somewhat distant but I will suppose tending to the same effect whether a Man shall be damned for making a good enquiry without successe which you say is a mockery and so as I conceive ridiculous to affirme it and so Sir after all your descanting on his Lordship for asking this question it is apparent by our explication of it that upon the denying of that which you say 't is ridiculous not to deny it inevitably followes that that Man shal not be damned for denying the infallibility of your Church Section 3 And though you take paines to perswade that this case is morally impossible yet you must give us leave from your stating of the case wherein you say it is so viz when information sufficient is to be had to conclude your proofe a petitio principii againe for when wee deny your Church to
please to give over this course of denying conclusions and not considering premises I will soone obey your advise and resolve to leave off contending Ibid. B. Our Authours have proved all that we in defending doe affirme and if the Enquirer had impugned their proofes we then would have tryed to defend wherefore that which we affirme and declare doth not rest upon a bare affirmation although I prove them not in this place as being here a meere Defendant and not an Arguer Answ This annotation being upon the same occasion and in substance the same with the former is already answered Onely I shall adde that if you affirme ought which your Authours in other Bookes bring proofe for this will not excuse you from a necessity of answering his Lordships arguments against that conclusion of your Authors or if it doe you must not passe for a Defendant His part it is to ward the Adversaries blowes and if he make a thrust himselfe he then turnes Offendent or Arguer and when he doth so he must take care his weapon have some edge I meane his affirmations some proofes annext or else they will wound no body As for the Enquirer i. e. his Lordship it was not his present taske to descend to an enumeration and impugning of all your Authours arguments though yet those which he could thinke of as your chiefe he hath insisted on and were he alive he would from your dealing here have little encouragement to seek out for others his intention was to frame arguments against your conclusion and if you had denied or answered them you needed not to have troubled your self to affirme any thing or if out of designe or ex abundanti you will you must be content to be call'd upon to prove it For call your selfe what you please you must be an Arguer when you so affirme Ibid. C. Yes sure by consequence it is Answ I am forced to aske your pardon if I know not certainly to what part of my discourse this Annotation belongs whether to the end of one period or the beginning of the other Yet it falls out luckily that which soever it is it is againe the denying the conclusion which you are very subject to for the end of the former period is the mention of a conclusion deduced from grounds immediately before specified And the beginning of the second period is a negation of mine with proofe immediately following it and before I come to the proofe For though c. you presently interpose your Yes sure by consequence it is but will not consider me so much as after my example to give the least proofe for what you say or take notice of that proof of mine C. 7. Answ to C. 7. A. I make no distinction here but suppose it made and also manifest Answ I only said you had given a distinction not made it and that supposed it made also and I then conteined my selfe from taking any exceptions to it onely I told you the applying of it to that place would have afforded some game if I had been so sportingly disposed And to that I pray consider how pertinent your Annotation hath proved I will not be provoked to adde more Ibid. B. Your part was to have confuted what I say and not so often and to no purpose repeat this Petitio Principii Answ If it be a sufficient confutation of any Sophister to finde out and tell him of his sophisme which ipso facto is worth nothing when 't is discovered as the title of Aristotles Booke of Elenchs supposes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being defined by Varinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a discovery of that which was hid and 't is manifest by comparing 1 Cor. 14.24 with v. 25. Eph. 5.13 then have I obeyed you in confuting what you say though I take not your advice for the way of it And indeed if it should be in any Duellers power to prescribe to his Adversary when he is in his danger that he shall not wound him this way but some other or if it were regular for you to forbid me to tell you of a Petitio principii when you are clearly guilty of it and when to evidence that against you is not onely the shortest but most logicall most expedite and most clear way of redargution your Adversary might be weary of playing out the prize though he were sure to conquer in it I shewed you that an Answerer might so carry the matter as to be guilty of Petitio principii and 't was but passion in you to check or tell me 't was to no purpose that I said you were so C. 8. Answ to C. 8. A. We have done it and doe it continually when occasion requires Answ I beseech you read over those lines of mine to which your Annotation is affixt and speak your conscience whether you think 't was fitly noted If you can be so partiall to your own creature I will not contend with you but onely tell you that as I conceive it impertinent so I see apparently that 't is contrary to that other speech of yours which within three lines I there recited from you For if you doe it continually i. e. prove the Roman Church to be the true by its agreement with Scripture c. as here your Annotation saith you doe how could you say his Lordship was mistaken in supposing you did so I wish you had first read out to the end of the period and then I suppose you would have fitted your Annotation to it the better Ibid. B. I doe not disclaime Scripture though I doe not hold it to be the first or formost proof either of the Church or of Christian Religion and would know how you your selfe would convert an Infidell or Atheist by Scripture beginning with that proof Answ You must againe remember what my last Answer mentions that in that place when his Lordship had supposed you to prove the Roman Church to be the true Church by its agreement with Scriptures and antiquity which is in effect by holding the truth you plainly tell him he is mistaken in you On this ground I must conclude and thinke it proved by that confession that you doe disclaime Scripture as farre as I said you did i. e. not to all purposes but to that of which the discourse was viz to prove your Church to be the true Church And 't is not enough to say that you doe not hold it to be the first or formost proofe c. For if it be used by you as any proofe at all that will also be a very probable meanes besides that it makes it evident that his Lordship was not mistaken in supposing it so to bring you into the circle which you were so carefull to avoid You see I am cleare from your Animadversion and so have no occasion to enter into that new controversie whether the Scripture be the formost proof either of the Church or of the Christian Religion though sure it may be
one without being the other it may be the formost proofe of evidencing which is the true Church to them that are supposed Believers and none else will be fit for that enquiry yet not be the first meanes to prove Christian Religion to Unbelievers And yet I shall not be over-coy nor make much scruple to tell you my opinion of this also that I would not begin with an Infidel with that proofe to either purpose as supposing he did believe it or that it would of its owne accord attract his beliefe infallibly but for Christianity it selfe I should first labour to win somewhat upon his affections by converse and by shewing him the excellency of the Christian precepts and the power of them in my life bring him to thinke my discourse worth heeding then when I had gotten that advantage I would relate the rem gestam of Christianity where all the acts and miracles and passages of Christs life would come in then if he doubted of the truth of it tell him the authority by which it comes downe to us in a continued undistributed undenied tradition from those that were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oculate Witnesses of Christ and the whole matter and to as good an advantage as I could compound the severall motives of Faith together which if you please you may view at leisure in Grotius de verit Chr. Rel. and when by these meanes I had converted him I should then by Scripture and antiquity which would now be of some authority with him and not by miracles attempt to manifest to him which were the true Church To which end it may be worth your remembring that your Apostle of the Indies Xaverius thought fit for their use to compile a double Gospel one of Christ another of S. Peter by the authority of one of them to teach them Christianity of the other the supremacy and infallibility of S. Peters chaire But I shall not give my self liberty to enlarge on this Ib. C. I deliver the method and how it may be I also affirme or declare that it is I was not in this place to prove but to defend against the Enquirers arguments and no other and therefore those two quarrels needed not Answ The designe of most of your Notes is to save your selfe from the necessity of proving any thing that you affirme whereas it might be but an act of a little supererogating charity if you would sometimes prove your assertions even when by strict law you were not bound to it But Sir I will not require your almes but onely your justice and though that will not oblige you to prove when you onely defend i. e. when you onely deny the premises of his Lordships arguments c. or when you are strictly an Answerer yet when instead of that you confront any affirmation of yours to his Lordships conclusion as here you doe and in all places when we charge petitio principii upon you I must then be pardoned to put you in mind of your duty which is that of Arguers then and not of Respondents either to prove what you so say or not to think you have convinced any man They that cannot answer one argument produced against them may yet think fit to make use of some argument for them hoping that may prove as convincing on their sides as that against them and so by divertisement put off the heat of the impression and this you have been proved to be often guilty of and 't will satisfie no man to say that you neither are nor because Defendant can be guilty of so doing Ibid. D. Sure he hath not for Turnbull hath vindicated himselfe Answ If every reply were a Vindication then you may have affirmed truth and then these few marginall notes of yours such as they are would be your Vindication also and then I suppose you will give your free consent that they be printed But the task would be too long to disprove what you have now said for it would require the examination of all those writings betwixt the two Combatants and when that were done you would think perhaps that Turnbull were vindicated and I that he were not I shall onely tell you that you had beene so concluded in a circle infallibly if you had asserted that method which his Lordship there disproves which is enough to vindicate his Lordship against those that doe assert that method as sure some Romanists doe and against them he there argues and not against you or any in that place which renounce that method Ibid. E. If our Church be the true Church it must be proved firstly as Christianity is first proved that is to say by motives of credibility and supernaturall ostensions or acts not of naturall and ordinary but supernaturall and extraordinary providence and he that will not prove Christianity by this way will not prove it at all After this done Scriptures and Fathers doe come but not before and this way is not new but the way of the Antients Answ I have here no necessity of re-examining of the means of proving Christianity to an Infidell it will suffice to remember that those meanes which are necessary to that may be unnecessary to prove which is the true Church because now to him that is converted as he that will judge betwixt true and hereticall is supposed to be other meanes may suffiently supply the place such are Scripture and Antiquity which to an Heathen are of no authority but to a Christian or suppositâ fide are and being so as I conceive you will not think fit to deny may well be made the umpire betwixt us who are I hope allowed to be Christians still by the consent of parties or if we are not our pretensions to miracles wil hardly gain any credit with them that have that prejudice against us Mean while I must remember you that motives of credibility as you call them are but weake premises to induce a conclusion of such weight as the choice of religion is I will tell you what I should have said instead of it Motives of excessive probability of the same or greater force then those on which I ground and build the most considerable actions of my life and which as formerly I told you if I will dis-believe I have as good reason to mistrust the wholesomenesse of every dish of meat I taste on which 't is physically possible may poison me but yet none but Hypocondriackes think it will or phansie it so strongly as to abstâ—ine the security of any title of estate I purchase or possesse the truth of any matter of fact in the most acknowledged history or tradition among men that I daily talk of All which though they produce not nor are apta nata to doe so a science or infallible certainty cui non potest subesse falsum yet doe they or are very sufficient to doe so a Faith or fiduciall assent cui non subest dubium of which I doubt no more
universum yet it came to a debate whether the having Bishops was necessary or no On which soever it is it is enough to prove dissentions C. 26. Answ to C. 26. A. At least they might have been discerned as well as other errours were and the Authors of them also Answ This note being reduced to intelligible sence will I conceive be that the now Romish errours might have been discerned c. To which I answer that though they might yet First 't is possible that they might not Secondly very possible that being favoured if not brought in by those in authority among them they would not be branded or recorded for errours and then all that we their posterity can see may be onely that the tares are sowne but not punctually at what point of the night or who the man was that sowed them Ibid. B. No more for these then for other errours Answ His Lordship had occasion onely to speake of these but will say the like of all others whose originall is not discernible Ibid. C. In all ages errours were censured and condemned Answ All kinde of errours were not thought to be of such weight as that such heavy censures and condemnations which you lay on us should be fastened on them And therefore in case ours be not errours or but in materia non gravi in disputable parts as if you please to descend to particulars we will undertake to prove them those severe censures of yours being more contrary to charity may prove more dangerous to you then we shall otherwise affirme your opinions to be Ibid. D. I judge one of these two by the event and the other by the semblance of his making a search in manner as he ought Answ This is a darke speech which I doe not clearly understand if the meaning be that you judge the ill successe of his Lordships searches by the event and the fault of them by the semblance c. I must then tell you that the first is a very ill grounded judgement for no event hath proved the ilnesse of that successe unlesse like those in the Gospel you count them the greatest Sinners on whom the Tower of Siloah fell or like him of late that being willing to passe his opinion on a learned mans choice of a side in the differences in the Low Countries said onely this Illud notum est partes quas secutus non est praevaluisse si quis infelicitati hoc tribuat ego prudentiam non probo minus felicem and Busbequius tels us somewhat like of the Turkes judgments of good and bad enterprizes but rather on your owne principles I have already proved that they must be good in the successe which were so happy in proposing But then what you meane by the semblance of his making a search in manner as he ought by which you judge the fault in his searches I must confesse I doe not at all understand and therefore must be faine to confesse my selfe overcome and mastered though not by the reason yet by the obscurity of your writing and if that be a victory I wish you much good of it To the Conclusion A. I here contend no more but that our Church may be infallible notwithstanding any thing the Enquirer hath objected That she is so hath in due place been proved by others Answ If you had performed the former I meane satisfied all his Lordships arguments I should not require at this time the latter from you i. e. proving your Church to be Infallible I must then onely aske you in earnest whether you doe believe that no one of his Lordships arguments against your Infallibility for any one will serve our turne remaines unanswered by your Apology and then whether all that I have said to vindicate his Lordship be effectually answered in your marginall Notes and whether you can justifie all them against his last Reply If you are of this opinion in each I am to crave your pardon for this so gainlesse trouble but referre the matter to God and impartiall men to judge between us Ibid. B. If you would doe it we then would thinke it more than possible Answ The meaning of this annotation if it be sence must be this that if we Protestants could or would finde place in you for Scripture and Reason to make impression you Papists would then thinke it more then possible you might be deceived Which if it be the meaning I must then onely reply by prayer that God would so soften your hearts that they might be capable of that impression But if the words be indeed no sence but yet mistaken for some other words which would be sence then the likeliest thing that I can imagine is that you would have said somewhat to this purpose If you Protestants could by Scripture or Reason disprove our Doctrines we then would thinke it more than possible for us to be deceived Which though it were no huge Concession yet I should be glad to have it from you for then in effect your grounding of Faith on your Infallibility would be laid aside and then there would be no more truth in any individuall Doctrine of your Church than Scripture or Reason would inferre abstracted from the Authority of your Church which is all that at this time we demand from you And in that we are a little importunate seeing we have you now in a seeming good humour First because there is so much danger in insisting on that priviledge of Infallibility even in any particular wherein men are in the right because he that really doth stand yet may and therefore ought to take heed lest he fall but most eminently when a man chances to be in the wrong He that mistakes first in a piece of Divinity and after in a perswasion that he cannot mistake sealeth up that errour obstructs all entrance all approach all possibility of Reformation is fortified impregnable against all assaults either of reason or even the spirit of truth and by that one errour hath a kind of propriety in all other that can by the same hand be represented to him Secondly because we cannot but observe the prudence of your fellow-Champions Master Knot c. now of late who have chosen to vary the method from insisting on the severall points of difference betwixt us and them proving themselves to be the onely true Church from the particular truths profest by them and by no others to this other more commodious way of putting off all together by whole-sale of concluding the truth of all their assertions from the unerrablenesse of the Asserter manifesting that they are in the right because 't is impossible they should be in the wrong using all skill to perswade this one point and then confident on good grounds that no other can be resisted These two things put together will advertise you how seasonable an admonition it is to you that you will bestow a little paines on your Brethren to perswade them they are mortall
that the cause why none of these three can prove our Churches infallibility is not any want of infallibility in them as the Enquirer contended it was but some other different such namely as you here assigne and so the Enquirers argument is at an end even at the very beginning of it and my taske is done yet in my respects to you I will goe on farther Section 7 To your first I answer that though reason cannot it selfe alone prove our Churches infallibility yet as you acutely note Sest 3. reason can assure us by shewing us some words of prophecie or revelation from God with sufficient evidence that it is a revelation and thus reason can prove a verity be it never so inevident After this manner it is that we say reason proves our Church against which proof the inevidence of it as we see can be no impediment Section 8 To your second I answer by denying that scripture hath not beene so certainly expounded to that purpose for we say it hath been shewed by our authors at large as for example by Bellarmine Valentia Petavius Veron and others Section 9 To your 3. I answer first that 1. Irenaeus 2. Augustinus 3. Lactantius and 4 Facundus Hermanensis doe absolutely teach the Church to be infallible Secondly I deny that the Fathers teach not the Romane Church to be the true Church and contrary to your tenet I affirme that they hold that Church to be the true Christian Church as the forenamed authors have declared out of them as also Card. Perone and Coâ—ffeteau have exâ—ellently shewed Also I my selfe have endeavoured it elsewhere out of the severall Testimonies of Antiquity not to be in this place repeated Section 10 The businesse touching the motives of Faith which I with Irenaeus called Ostensions their place use and efficacity needs only explanation and ought to be admitted by every Christian and therefore begging your patience I will tarry longer upon it Section 11 We doe not goe about to prove our Church to be the true therefore because she holdeth with the truth but because we conceive we have good solid reasons to perswade us that she hath the truth These reasons have been often rendred by our Authors to whom if the Inquirer had replyed we also had endeavoured to defend them Concordance with the Scriptures and fathers we doe marshall amongst them not in the first place indeed in order of Doctrine but yet in the first in order of dignity Neither doe we aime to prove our Church by the gallantry of Demonstration or any other way then Christianity sooner or later is to be perswaded unto Infidels for we are now dealing not about a parcell but the whole frame of Christianity from the top to the foundation and the laying of the first stone which first stone we hold to be those actes of God which Psal 104.27 are called verba signotum and fitly may be tearmed signa realia that is to say sings and ostensions which be the acts of Gods omnipotence and soveraigne Government and by a morall certainty and rationall way are shewed for humane institution and instruction This sort of signes is by order of nature to have the precedence before all artificiall signes or vocall expressions of the divine will and therefore as Raymund Sebund observeth liber factorum is to be perused before liber dictorum By these signes as by the apparentiae or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Astronomy we are to get the first notions of these celestiall revolutions or resolutions of faith and though these be sure yet are they not demonstrative because no way intrinsecall neither to the revelations which they assure nor to the objects revealed which are assured by the revelations as being no causes nor effects of either nor signes inherent of those objects Section 12 Seeing then the true Catholique Religion is but the true Christianity they both of them are to be learned by the same Apparences or Ostensions more or lesse expresly understood Now while we draw nearer unto these signes and learne them more and more expresly amongst other things we may discover as good characterismes and signatures of revealed truth the Concordance of our Faith with holy Writ and venerable Antiquity which two signes without the preceding could have little force to perswade beliefe For say I were to convert an Indian I would not seeke to doe it by telling him first of all of these two Concordances mentioned which 't is like would move him but a little for though I could shew him the Bible was antient and Godly and the Fathers wise yet this would not be enough to perswade him and therefore I should hold it fit First to represent unto him some other motives as namely Propheticall predictions authorized by event miracles and miraculous operations and effects creditably recorded from age to age both in the Evangelists and other sequent Histories of whose faith a man rationally cannot doubt at least in the summe of them or the chiefe bulke I speake not here of fabulous Narrations or suspected Histories but Authours of credit and esteeme Secondly the excellency of our Faith it selfe and manner of propagation of it Thirdly the perfection of life and heroicke actions of such as doe professe it and all this after a manner not interrupted but continued from age to age and conveyed downe to us by the prime Ecclesiasticall succession not of persons onely but of Pastours in the chiefe seate and other inferiour prized so highly by Irenaeus and held a most sure note of truth and a way to confound all that doe gainsay it Lastly a consonance with Reason Scripture and Antiquity These and such like be our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these our Ostensions these be the received notices and signatures of revealed truth by these God invites us and induces us to believe and by these engages his owne veracity to warrant the act of our assent it being repugnant to the high perfection of his truth to lay upon man a rationall obligation and then desert him and to permit that the publique acts of his providence should be a snare not a direction not an introduction to truth but a seduction from it Though therefore these motives make our faith but credible in an eminent and a high degree yet the veracity of God is at hand to supply seale and confirme all and with the authority thereof to make the assurance absolute This method of resolving and reducing faith was signified by Irenaeus when as he said Post tot Ostensiones factas non oportet adhuc quaerere apud alios veritatem quam facile est ab Ecclesia sumere This way designed by Saint Augustin this is conformable to the Analytique principles delivered by Aristotle in his Organon this the beaten path of all Divines and no new invention or exotique stuffe This method we are ready to maintaine as strong and solid not permitting the believer to sit downe with a slender Socinian certainty
liable to deceit not enclosing him in any maze circle or semicircle not enforcing him into endlesse and wearisome regresses neither producing evidence nor destroying liberty but by these motives fortified with the divine veracity leading him assuredly to the Church and by the Church to the entire and determinate Canon of holy Scripture and so at length by both these joyned together to the full discovery and distinct knowledge of the doctrines of our faith after the manner following Section 13 These motives or ostensions being once considered we are forthwith to observe to what body of Christian professours they belong and in what line of succession of Ecclesiasticall Magistrates they descend unto us and in the passages of antiquity diligently to note which ship it is which in the Christian fleet was counted the Praetorian or Admirall with which all the rest were to joyne company and by the separation from which we are to judge which vessels be fugitive or pyraticall and which not which assembly of Christians legitimate and approved and by this association to be distinguished from the broken and dispersed troopes of Anti-Catholiques and by the same the army of the living God in the Church militant discerned from the stragling companies of divided and disagreeing Sectaries how numerous soever they may seeme when summed up all into one inconsistent body or confused rout This way and method we hold which if it doe not satisfie any let them set us downe a better and not leave us without any but let them take heed that while with the Enquirer we receive and admit the fallibility of the Church of Rome or of any other determinate Church and of one denomination we fall not with Master Chillingworth to the fallibility of the Christian faith and so presently to Infidelity It is easie to impugne the Organon of faith or Doctrinall principles but not easie to compose it easie to pull downe but not to build The Enquirers judgement uttered to me was that Baron when he writ against us was lusty and strong but when he spake any thing for himselfe he was weake and languishing and I believe this is the Enquirers owne case and that he was able to say more against an infallibility then for it In the one he hath shewed his strength in the other not Section 14 Now a word or two about lawes and I have done In which point I observe it as an uncontroverted doctrine that unjust lawes properply speaking are not lawes first because Lex is the dictamen rectae rationis practicae in eo qui potestatem habet but an unjust law is neither dictamen rectae rationis practicae nor potestatem habentis for no man is prescribed to doe wrong by reason nor hath God the chiefe Legislatour given power to make them Durandus concurres in terminis in Opusculo de legibus saying Injusta leges magis sunt violentiae quam leges nam secundum quod dicit Augustinus l. de libero arbitrio Lex esse non videtur quae justa non fuerit Et tales non obligant quantum ad Deum So Durandus To him Suarius subscribeth l. 3. de legib c. 19. n. 11. Lex injusta non est lex praesertim quando ex parte materiae est injusta quia rem iniquam praecipit tum enim ad acceptandum eam non obligat verum etiam neque si sit acceptata And presently after giving a reason hereof he addeth Quia excedit potestatem legislatoris Secondly so much veneration is due to lawes though never so unjust that they are neverthelesse in conscience to be obeyed unlesse they should be publiquely and knownely found contrary to a greater authority then that was by which they were enacted that is to say to the law of God or Nature Therefore they are not to be judged or censured by any private man Thirdly being discovered to be unjust they derogate nothing at all from the authority of the rest no more then the unjust lawes of some Emperours did from the body of the law Imperiall For though all of them were made by the same Authors yet not by the same authority because for the making of one sort there was good authority derived from God but for the making of the other there was none at all but such as could not make it Fourthly in case of such lawes no man is to take armes or make resistance but contrariwise to suffer with humble patience remitting the righting of his cause onely to God per quem Reges regnant legum conditores justa decernunt And thus Sir I rest your humble servant Section 15 The holy Scripture hath a threefold influence into faith 1. Dispositive as one of the motives or inducements 2. Negative as a property sine qua non 3. Positive as a foundation or principle The 1. as an ancient and godly booke The 2. as a rule without concordance to which faith could not be acknowledged for every doctrine must be consonant to its rule whether that rule be true or false certaine or uncertaine The 3. as a setled principle and a booke knowne to be Canonicall TO all this I shall answer as briefly as I can First to the 1 Sect. That for the matter of fact which concernes this treatise I have already averred those truths that will not permit any reasonable man to believe that this was so indeed a first draught c. for it was confest by him Chap. 1. to be a second draught Secondly it was not sent out onely to explore c. for it was saith he delivered but to two adversaries and to one of them as I said before it was delivered as unanswerable Thirdly if there were any such designe of exploring and mending c. I must conceive that that work is now done for when it was sent home to me againe with these notes many places which I had charged were altered or taken away and for additions sure such were the marginall notes and this appendage Fourthly For the license I can say nothing but that I conceive it might as easily be gotten as to what you have already made publique if you had a minde to it nor indeed force you to acknowledge or vouch any line of this booke but onely tell you that those words in your first Chapter of complaint That there was no notice given of license for it be published and have the advantage to be dispersed abroad in many copies and that for want of the Printers helpe it shall lie concealed and in much restraint yea and be in danger to perish seemed to me to signifie your willingnesse then to make it publique and if you have since retracted that designe I hope so weake an answer as some of your friends boast this to be did not discourage you I shall rather thinke it was modesty or else designe that you chose rather to have disclaimed then commended your owne and thought it would appear more glorious for you to have it extorted
any thing and so bestow upon the Devil one path more for us to walke in to him Section 20 If the infallibility of a Generall Councell be a point of faith 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 of this doctrine That the soules of the blessed shall see God before the day of judgment and not be kept in secret Receptacles For else the doctrine of prayer to Saints cannot stand and yet for denying this doth Bellarmine excuse Pope John 22. of which beliefe they know he was not alone because the Church he means I doubt not a Generall Councell had not then condemned it I desire to know why should not he be condemned as well without one as many Heretiques that are held so by their Church yet condemned by no Generall Councell which if he makes 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 Generall Councell Section 21 At least why shall not I be excused by the same reason though I believe not a Councell to be infallible since I never heard that any Councell hath decreed that they are so Neither if it have can we be bound by that Decree unlesse made certaine some other way that it selfe is so Section 22 If you say we must believe it because of Tradition I answer sometimes you will have the not believing any thing though not declared by a Councell to have power enough to damne that is when it makes against us at other times the Church hath not decreed unlesse a Councell have and their errour is pardonable and they good Catholiques Section 23 Next as I have asked before how shal an ignorant man know it for he in likelyhood can speak but with a few from whom he cannot know that all of the Church of Rome's part doe now and in past Ages have believed it to be Tradition so certainly as to make it a ground of Faith unlesse he have some revelation that those deceive him not Neither indeed can those that should enforme him of the opinions of former times be certainly enformed themselves for truly if as they would perswade us the relation of Papias could cosen so farre all the Prime Doctors of the Christian Church into the belief of the doctrine of the Millenaries so as that no one of those two first Ages opposed it which appears plain enough because those that after rose up against this opinion never quoted any for themselves before Dionys Alexandrinus who lived at least 250 yeares after Christ Nay if those first men did not onely believe it as probable but Justin Martyr saies he holds it and so do all that are in all parts Orthodox Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Irenaeus sets it down directly for a Tradition and relates the very words that Christ used when he taught this which is plainer than any other Tradition is proved or said to be out of Antiquity by them If I say these could be so deceived why might not other of the Antients as well be by others deceived in other points And then what certainty shall the Learned have when after much labour they thinke they can make it appeare that the Antients thought any thing Tradition that indeed it was so And that either the folly or the knavery of some Papias deceived them not I confesse it makes me think of some that Tully speaks of who arcem amittunt dum propugnacula defendunt lose the fort whilst they defend the out-works for whilst they answer this way the arguments of Tradition for the opinion of the Chiliasts they make unusefull to them the force of tradition to prove any thing else by For which cause it was rather wisely than honestly done of them who before Fevardentius set him forth left out that part of Irenaeus which we alledge though we need it not much for many of the Fathers take notice of this belief of his Yet he justifies himself for doing it by a worse blow to them than this it self which is saying that if they leave out all Errours in the Books they publish that is I suppose all opinions contrary to the Church of Rome bona pars Scriptorum Patrum Orthodoxorum evanesceret a good part of the writings of the Orthodox Fathers must vanish away Section 24 But the Tradition that can be found out of Ancients since their witnessing may deceive us hath much lesse strength when they argue onely thus Sure so many would not say this is true and joyne in opinions if there were no tradition for them I would have you remember they can deliver their opinion possibly but either before the controversie arise in the Church upon some chance or after If before it is confest that they write not cautiously enough and so they answer all they seem to say for Arius and Pelagius his faith before themselves and so consequently their controversie though it may be not their opinion arose If after then they answer often if any thing be by them at that time spoken against them that the heat of disputation brought it from them and their resolutions to oppose Heretiques enough I desire it may be lawfull for us to answer so too either one of these former wayes or that it is as often they say too some Hyperbole when you presse us in any thing with the opinions of Fathers At least I am sure if they may deceive us with saying a thing is a Tradition that is not we may be sooner deceived if we wil say and conclude it for a Tradition when they speake it onely as a Truth and for ought appeares their particular Opinion Section 25 For besides if when Salvian comparing the Arians with evill Livers and that after they were condemned by a Councell extenuates by reason of their beleiving themselves in the right with much instance the fault of the Arians and sayes How they shall be punisht for it in the day of Judgement none can know but the Judge If I say they confesse it to be his opinion they must also confesse the doctrine of their Church to be different from that of Salvian's times because he was allowed a Member of that for all this saying whereas he of the Church of Rome that should say so of us would be accounted Sesqui haereticus a Heretique and a half Or else they must say which they can only say and not prove that he was so earnest against ill men that for the aggravation of their crime he lessened that of the Heretiques and said what at another time he would not have said which if they doe will it not overthrow wholly the authority of the Fathers Since we can never infallibly know what they thought at all times frō what they were moved to say