difference S. Basil here declar'd that as formerly he had it always fixt in mind to fly every voice every sentence which is a stranger to the doctrine of the Lord so now also at this time Ibidem in seqâ—entibus viz. when he was to set down the whole Christian Faith Neither can there be hence any escaping by saying * Truth will out pag. 3. that nothing indeed is to be added to the Scriptures but yet to the faith something is to be reckoned which is not in Scripture For although the Church of Rome does that also putting more into the Canon than was among the Jews acknowledged or by the Primitive Church of Christians yet besides this S. Basil having having said Vbi supra Whatsoever is not in the Scriptures is not of faith and therefore it is a sin he says also by certain consequence That to add to the Scriptures is all one as to add to the Faith And therefore he exhorts even the Novices to study the Scriptures In Regul brev reg 95. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for to his 95th question Whether it be fit for Novices presently to learn the things of the Scripture he answers It is right and it is necessary that those things which appertain to use every one should learn from the Scriptures both for the replenishing of their mind with piety as also that they may not be accustomed to humane traditions By which words he not onely declares that by the Scriptures our minds are abundantly fill'd with piety but that humane traditions by which he means every thing that is not contain'd in Scripture are not to be receiv'd but ought to be and are best of all banish'd from our minds by entertaining of Scripture To the same purpose are his words in his Ethicks Moral Regul 26. Whatsoever we say or do ought to be confirm'd by the testimony of Divinity inspired by Scriptures both for the full persuasion of the good and the confusion or damnation of evil things There 's your rule that 's the ground of all true faith And therefore S. Athanasius speaking concerning the Nicene Council Epist. ad Epicteâ—um Corinthiorum Episc. made no scruple that the question was sufficiently determin'd concerning the proper Divinity of the Son of God because it was determin'd and the faith was expounded according to the Scriptures and affirms that the faith so determin'd was sufficient for the reproof of all impiety meaning in the Article of Christ's Divinity and for the establishment of the Orthodox faith in Christ. De Incarnat Nay he affirms that the Catholick Christians will neither speak nor endure to hear any thing in religion that is a stranger to Scripture it being an evil heart of immodesty to speak those things which are not written Which words I the rather remark Idem Athanas. in Exhort ad Monachos because this Article of the Consubstantiality of Christ with the Father is brought as an instance by the Romanists of the necessity of tradition to make up the insufficiency of Scripture But not in this onely but for the preaching of the truth indefinitely Moral contra Gentiles in 〈◊〉 that is the whole truth of the Gospel he affirms the Scriptures to be sufficient For writing to Macarius a Priest of Alexandria he tells him that the knowledge of true and divine religion and piety does not much need the ministery of man and that he might abundantly draw this forth from the divine books and letters for truly the holy and divinely-inspir'd Scriptures are sufficient for the preaching of the truth Coloniae ex officâ—â— Melcâ—â—â—â—â— Novefiani 1548. ad omnem instructionem veritatis so the Latine Translation for the whole instruction of truth or the instruction of all truth But because Macarius desir'd rather to hear others teach him this doctrine and true religion than himself to draw it from Scripture S. Athanasius tells him that there are many written monuments of the Holy Fathers and our masters which if men will diligently read over he shall learn the interpretation of Scriptures and obtain that notion of truth which he desires Which is perfectly the same advice which the Church of England commands her Sons that they shall teach nothing but what the Fathers and Doctors of the Church draw forth from Scriptures The same principal doctrine in the whole is taught frequently by S. Chrysostom Homil. 58. 〈◊〉 Johan who compares the Scriptures to a Door which is shut to hinder the hereticks from entring in and introduce us to God and to the knowledge of God This surely is sufficient if it does this it does all that we need and if it does not S. Chrysostom was greatly deceiv'd and so are we and so were all the Church of God in all the first ages But he is constant in the same affirmative Homil 9. in 2 Timoth. If there be need to learn or to be ignorant thence we shall learn it Idem in Psal. 95. versus finem if to confute or argue that which is false thence we shall draw it if to be corrected or chastis'd to exhortation if any thing be wanting for our comfort and that we ought to have it nevertheless from thence from the Scriptures we learn it That the man be perfect therefore without it he cannot be perfected In stead of me he saith thou hast the Scriptures if thou desirest to learn any thing hence thou mayest But if he writes these things to Timothy who was fill'd with the holy Spirit how much more must we think these things spoken to us To the same purpose he discourses largely in his eighth Homily on the Epistle to the Hebrews Homil. 9. in Coloss. in 2 Thess. 2. which is here too long to transcribe Let no man look for another master Homil. 49. in Matth. 23. oper imperfecti Thou hast the Oracles of God No man teaches thee like to them Because ever since heresie did infest those Churches there can be no proof of true Christianity nor any other refuge for Christians who would know the truth of faith but that of the Divine Scripture but now by no means is it known by them who would know which is the true Church of Christ but onely by the Scriptures De verbo Dei l. 4. c. 11. Sect. Sextò profert Bellarmine very learnedly sayes that these words were put into this book by the Arians but because he offers at no pretence of reason for any such interpolation and it being without cause to suspect it though the Author of it had been an Arian because the Arians were never noted to differ from the Church in the point of the Scriptures sufficiency I look upon this as a pitiful shift of a man that resolved to say any thing rather than confess his errour And at last he concludes with many words to the same purpose Our Lord therefore knowing what confusion of things would be in the
Religion when he weakly forsook it Protestants are not renouncers of tradition for we allow all Catholic traditions that can prove themselves to be such but we finding little or nothing excepting this that the Bible is the word of God and that the Bible contains all the will of God for our salvation all doctrines of faith and life little or nothing else I say descending to us by an Universal tradition therefore we have reason to adhere to Scripture and renounce as I. S. is pleased to call it all pretence of tradition of any matters of faith not plainly set down in the Bible But now since we renounce no tradition but such as is not and cannot be prov'd to be competent and Catholic I hope with the leave of I. S. we may discourse out of Scriptures and Councils Fathers and reason history and instances For we believe tradition when it is credible and we believe what two or three honest men say upon their knowledge and we make no scruple to believe that there is an English Plantation in the Barbadoes because many tell us so who have no reason to deceive us so that we are in a very good capacity of making use of Scriptures and Councils c. But I must deal freely with Mr. S. though we do believe these things upon credible testimony yet we do not think the testimony infallible and we do believe many men who yet pretend not to infallibility And if nothing were Credible but what is infallible then no man had reason to believe his Priest or his Father We are taught by Aristotle that that is credible Quod pluribus quod sapientibus quod omnibus videtur and yet these are but degrees of probability and yet are sufficient to warrant the transaction of all humane affairs which unless where God is pleased to interpose are not capable of greater assurance Even the miracles wrought by our Blessed Saviour though they were the best arguments in the world to prove the Divinity of his person and his mission yet they were but the best argument we needed and understood but although they were infinitely sufficient to convince all but the malicious yet there were some so malicious who did not allow them to be demonstrations but said that he did cast out Devils by Beelzebub Here we live by faith and not by knowledge and therefore it is an infinite goodness of God to give proofs sufficient for us and fitted to our natures and proportion'd to our understanding but yet such as may neither extinguish faith nor destroy the nature of hope which although it may be so certain and sure as to be a stedfast anchor of the soul yet it may have in it something of Natural uncertainty and yet fill us with all comfort and hope in believing So that we allow tradition to be certain if it be universal and to be credible according to the degrees of its Universality and disinterested simplicity and therefore we have as much right to use the Scriptures and Fathers as I. S. and all his party and all his following talk in the sequel of this second way relying upon a ground which I have discovered to be false must needs fall of it self and signifie nothing But although this point be soon washt off yet I suppose the charge which will recoyle upon himself will not so easily be put by For though it appears that Protestants have right to use Fathers and Councils Scriptures and reason yet I. S. and his little convention of four or five Brothers of the tradition have clearly disintitled themselves to any use of these For if the oral tradition of the present Church be the infallible and only rule of faith then there is no Oracle but this one and the decrees of Councils did bind only in that age they were made as being part of the tradition of that age but the next age needed it not as giving testimony to it self and being it 's own rule And therefore when a question is to be disputed you can go no whither to be tried but to the tradition of the present Church and this is not to be proved by a series and order of records and succession but if you will know what was formerly believed you must only ask what is believed now for now rivers run back to their springs and the Lamb was to blame for troubling the Wolf by drinking in the descending river for the lower is now higher and you are not to prove by what is past that the present is right but by the present you prove what was past and Harry the seventh is before Harry the sixth and Children must teach their Parents and therefore it is to be hop'd in time may be their Elders But by this means Fathers and Councils are made of no use to these Gentlemen who have greatly obliged the world by telling us a short way to Science and though our life be short yet art is shorter especially in our way in Theology Concerning which there needs no labour no study no reading but to know of the present Church what was always believed and taught and what ought to be so Nay what was done or what was said or what was written is to be told by the present Church which without further trouble can infallibly assure us And upon this account the Jesuits have got the better of the Jansenists for though these men weakly and fondly deny such words to be in Jansenius yet the virtual Church can tell better whether they be or no in Jansenius or rather it matters not whether they be or no for it being the present sense of the Pope he may proceed to condemnation But I. S. offers at some reason for this For saith he Fathers being eminent witnesses to immediate posterity or children of the Churches doctrine received and Councils representatives of the Church their strengths as proofs nay their very existence is not known till the notion of the Church be known which is part of their definition and to which they relate This is but part of his argument which I yet must consider apart because every proposition of his argument hath in it something very untrue which when I have remark'd I shall consider the whole of it altogether And here first I consider that it is a strange proposition to say that the existence of the Fathers is not known till the notion or definition of the Church be known For who is there of any knowledge in any thing of this nature that hath not heard of S. Austin S. Jerom S. Ambrose or S. Gregory The Spaniards have a proverb There was never good Oglio without Bacon nor good Sermon without S. Austin and yet I suppose all the people of Spain that hear the name of S. Austin it may be five hundred times every Lent make no question of the Existence of S. Austin or that there was such a man as he and yet I believe not very many of them can tell
partly and shall in the sequel largely make good In the mean time whether it be principle or conclusion let us see what is objected against it or what use is made of it For I. S. says it is an improv'd and a main position But then he tells us the reason of it is because No heretic had arisen in those days denying those points and so the Fathers set not themselves to write expresly for them but occasionally only Let us consider what this is no heretic had arisen in those days denying these points True but many Catholics did and the reason why no heretics did deny those things was because neither Catholic nor heretic ever affirm'd them Well! but however the Roman controvertists are frequent for citing them for divers points Certainly not for making vows to Saints not for the worship of images nor for the half Communion for these they do not frequently cite the Fathers of the first 300. years It may be not but for the ground of our faith the Churches voice or tradition they do to the utter overthrow of the Protestant cause They do indeed sometimes cite something from them for tradition and where ever the word tradition is in Scripture or the Primitive Fathers they think it is an argument for them just as the Covenanters in the late wars thought all Scripture was their plea where ever the word Covenant was nam'd But to how little purpose they pretend to take advantage of any of the primitive Fathers speaking of tradition I shall endeavour to make apparent in an inquiry made on purpose Sect. 3. In the mean time it appears that this conclusion of mine was to very good purpose and in a manner confess'd to be true in most instances and that it was so in all was not intended by me Well! but however it might be in the first three ages yet he observes that I said that in the succeeding ages secular interest did more prevail and the writings of the Fathers were vast and voluminous and many things more that both sides eternally and inconfutably shall bring sayings for themselves respectively And is not all this very true He cannot deny it but what then why then he says I may speak out and say all the Fathers after the first three hundred years are not worth a straw in order to decision or controversie and the Fathers of the first three hundred years spoke not of our points in difference and so there is a fair end of all the Fathers and of my own Dissuasive too for that part which relies on them which looks like the most authoritative piece of it There is no great hurt in this If the Fathers be gone my Dissuasive may go too it cannot easily go in better company and I shall take the less care of it because I have I. S. his word that there is a part of it which relies upon the Fathers But if the Fathers be going it is fit we look after them and see which way they go For if they go together as in many things they do they are of very good use in order to decision of controversie if they go several ways and consequently that Controvertists may eternally and irrefutably bring sayings out of them against one another who can help it No man can follow them all and then it must be tried by some other topic which is best to follow but then that topic by it self would have been sufficient to have ended the Question Secondly If a disputer of this world pretends to rely upon the authority of the Fathers he may by them be confuted or determin'd The Church of Rome pretends to this and therefore if we perceive the Fathers have condemned doctrines which they approve of or approve what they condemn which we say in many articles is the case of that Church then the Dissuasive might be very useful and so might the Fathers too for the condemnation of such doctrines in which the Roman Church are by that touchstone found too blame And where as I. S. says that the first three ages of Christianity medled not with the present controversies it is but partly true for although many things are now adays taught of which they never thought yet some of the errors which we condemn were condemn'd then very few indeed by disputation but not a few by positive sentence and in explications of Scripture and rational discourses and by parity of case and by Catechetical doctrines For rectum est Index sui obliqui they have without thinking of future controversies and new emergent heresies said enough to confute many of them when they shall arise The great use of the Fathers especially of the first three hundred years is to tell us what was first to consign Scripture to us to convey the Creed with simplicity and purity to preach Christs Gospel to declare what is necessary and what not And whether they be fallible or infallible yet if we find them telling and accounting the integrity of the Christian faith and treading out the paths of life because they are persons whose conversation whose manner and time of living whose fame and Martyrdom and the venerable testimony of after-ages have represented to be very credible we have great reason to believe that alone to be the faith which they have describ'd and consequently that whatever comes in afterwards and is obtruded upon the world as it was not their way of going to heaven so it ought not to be ours So that here is great use of the Fathers writings though they be not infallible and therefore I wonder at the prodigious confidence to say no worse of I. S. to dare to say that as appears by the Dissuader the Protestants neither acknowledge them infallible nor useful Nay that this is my fourth Principle He that believes Transubstantiation can believe any thing and he that says this dares say every thing for as that is infinitely impossible to sense and reason so this is infinitely false in his own Conscience and experience And the words which in a few lines of his bold assertion he hath quoted out of my book confute him but too plainly He tells us so saith I. S. the Fathers are a good testimony of the doctrine deliver'd from their Forefathers down to them of what the Church esteemed the way of salvation Do not I also though he is pleas'd to take no notice of it say that although we acknowledge not the Fathers as the Authors and finishers of our faith yet we owne them as helpers of our faith and heirs of the doctrine Apostolical That we make use of their testimonies as being as things now stand to the sober and the moderate the peaceable and the wise the best the most certain visible and tangible most humble and satisfactory to them that know well how to use it Can he that says this not acknowledge the Fathers useful I know not whether I. S. may have any credit as he is one of the
words of Scripture and the Apostles Creed for a sufficient rule of their faith but are threatned with damnation if they do not believe whatever their Church hath determin'd and yet they neither do nor can know it but by the word of their Parish Priest or Confessor it lies in the hand of every Parish Priest to make the People believe any thing and be of any religion and trust to any Article as they shall choose and find to their purpose The Council of Trent requires Traditions to be added and received equal with Scriptures they both not singly but in conjunction making up the full object of faith and so the most learned and indeed generally their whole Church understands one to be incomplete without the other and yet Master White who I suppose tells the same thing to his Neighbours affirms that it is not the Catholick position That all its doctrines are not contain'd in Scripture which proposition being tied with the decree of the Council of Trent gives a very good account of it and makes it excellent sense Thus Traditions must be receiv'd with equal authority to the Scripture saith the Council and wonder not for saith Master White all the Traditions of the Church are in Scripture You may believe so if you please for the contrary is not a Catholick doctrine But if these two things do not agree better then it will be hard to tell what regard will be had to what the Council says the People know not that but as their Priest teaches them And though they are bound under greatest pains to believe the whole Catholick Religion yet that the Priests themselves do not know it or wilfully mis-report it and therefore that the people cannot tell it it is too evident in this instance and in the multitude of disputes which are amongst themselves about many considerable Articles in their Catholick religion Vide Wadding of Immac oncept p. 282. p. 334. alibi Pius Quintus speaking of Thomas Aquinas calls his doctrine the most certain rule of Christian religion And divers particulars of the religion of the Romanists are prov'd out of the revelations of S. Briget which are contradicted by those of S. Katherine of Siena Now they not relying on the way of God fall into the hands of men who teach them according to the interest of their order or private fancy and expound their rules by measures of their own but yet such which they make to be the measures of salvation and damnation They are taught to rely for their faith upon the Church and this when it comes to practise is nothing but their private Priest and he does not always tell them the sense of their Church and is not infallible in declaring the sense of it and is not always as appears in the instance now set down faithful in relating of it but first consens himself by his subtilty and then others by his confidence and therefore in is impossible there can be any certainty to them that proceed this way when God hath so plainly given them a better and requires of them nothing but to live a holy life as a superstructure of Christian Faith describ'd by the Apostles in plain places of Scripture and in the Apostolical Creed in which they can suffer no illusion and where there is no Uncertainty in the matters to be believ'd IV. The next thing I observe is that they all talking of the Church as of a charm and sacred Amulet yet they cannot by all their arts make us certain where or how infallibly to find this Church I have already in this Section prov'd this in the main Inquiry by shewing that the Church is that body which they do not rely upon but now I shall shew that the Church which they would point out can never be certainly known to be the true Church by those indications and signs which they offer to the world as her characteristick notes S. Austin in his excellent Book De Vnitate Ecclesiae Lib. de Vnit. Eccles. cap. cap. 17. Ergo in Scripturis Canonicis eam Ecclesiam requiramus cap. 3. affirms that the Church is no whereto be found but in Praescripto legis in prophetarum praedictis in Psalmorum cantibus in ipsius Pastoris vocibus in Evangelistarum praedicationibus laboribus hoc est in omnibus Sanctorum canonicis authoritatibus in the Scriptures only And he gives but one great note of it and that is adhering to the head Jesus Christ for the Church is Christ's body who by charity are united to one another and to Christ their Head and he that is not a member of Christ cannot obtain salvation And he adds no other mark but that Christ's Church is not this or that viz. not of one denomination but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dispersed over the face of the earth The Church of Rome makes adhesion to the head Bellarm. de Eccles Militant lib. 3. cap. Sect. Nostra autem Sententia not Jesus Christ but the Bishop of Rome to be of the essential constitution of the Church Now this being the great Question between the Church of Rome and the Greek Church and indeed of all other Churches of the world is so far from being a sign to know the Church by that it is apparent they have no ground of their Faith but the great Question of Christendom and that which is condemn'd by all the Christian world but themselves is their foundation And this is so much the more considerable because concerning very many Heads of their Church it was too apparent that they were not so much as members of Christ but the basest of Criminals and Enemies of all godliness And concerning others that were not so notoriously wicked they could not be certain that they were members of Christ or that they were not of their Father the Devil The spirit of truth was promis'd to the Apostles upon condition and Judas fell from it by transgression But the uncertainties are yetgreater Adhering to the Pope cannot be a certain note of the Church because no man can be certain who is true Pope For the Pope if he be a Simoniac is ipso facto no Pope as appears in the Bull of Julius the 2d And yet besides that he himself was called a most notorious Simoniac Sixtus Quintus gave an obligation under his hand upon condition that the Cardinal d'Este would bring over his voices to him and make him Pope that he would never make Hierom Matthew a Cardinal which when he broke the Cardinal sent his Obligation to the King of Spain who intended to accuse him of Simony but it broke the Pope's heart and so he escaped here and was reserved to be heard before a more Unerring Judicatory And when Pius Quartus used all the secret arts to dissolve the Council of Trent and yet not to be seen in it and to that purpose dispatch'd away the Bishops from Rome he forbad the Archbishop of
things we cannot certainly know that the Church of Rome is the true Catholick Church how shall the poor Roman Catholick be at rest in his inquiry Here is in all this nothing but uncertainty of truth or certainty of error And what is needful to be added more I might tire my self and my Reader if I should enumerate all that were very considerable in this inquiry I shall not therefore insist upon their uncertainties in their great and considerable Questions about the number of the Sacraments which to be Seven is with them an Article of Faith and yet since there is not amongst them any authentick definition of a Sacrament and it is not nor cannot be a matter of Faith to tell what is the form of a Sacrament therefore it is impossible it should be a matter of Faith to tell how many they are for in this case they cannot tell the number unless they know for what reason they are to be accounted so The Fathers and School-men differ greatly in the definition of a Sacrament and consequently in the numbring of them S. Cyprian and S. Bernard reckon washing the Disciples feet to be a Sacrament and S. Austin called omnem ritunt cultus Divini a Sacrament and otherwhile he says there are but two and the Schoolmen dispute whether or no a Sacrament can be defin'd And by the Council of Trent Clandestine Marriages are said to be a Sacrament and yet that the Church always detested them which indeed might very well be for the blessed Eucharist is a Sacrament but yet private Masses and Communions the Ancient Church always did detest except in the cases of necessity But then when at Trent they declar'd them to be Nullities it would be very hard to prove them to be Sacraments All the whole affair in their Sacrament of Order is a body of contingent propositions They cannot agree where the Apostles receiv'd their several Orders by what form of words and whether at one time or by parts and in the Institution of the Lord's Supper the same words by which some of them say they were made Priests they generally expound them to signifie a duty of the Laity as well as the Clergy Hoc facite which signifies one thing to the Priest and another to the People and yet there is no mark of difference They cannot agree where or by whom extreme Unction was instituted They cannot tell whether any Wafer be actually transubstantiated because they never can know by Divine Faith whether the supposed Priest be a real Priest or had right intention and yet they certainly do worship it in the midst of all Uncertainties But I will add nothing more but this what Wonder is it if all things in the Church of Rome be Uncertain when they cannot dare not trust their reason or their senses in the wonderful invention of Transubstantiation and when many of their wisest Doctors profess that their pretended infallibility does finally rely upon prudential motives I conclude this therefore with the words of S. Austin Remotis ergo omnibus talibus De Vnit. Eccles cap. 16. c. All things therefore being remov'd let them demonstrate their Church if they can not in the Sermons and Rumors of the Africans Romans not in the Councils of their Bishops not in the Letters of any disputers not in signs and deceitful Miracles because against these things we are warned and prepar'd by the word of the Lord But in the praescript of the Law of the Prophets of the Psalms of the Evangelists and all the Canonical authorities of the Holy Books And that 's my next undertaking to show the firmness of the foundation and the Great Principle of the Religion of the Church of England and Ireland even the Holy Scriptures SECTION II. Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures to Salvation which is the great foundation and ground of the Protestant Religion THis question is between the Church of Rome and the Church of England and therefore it supposes that it is amongst them who believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God The Old and New Testament are agreed upon to be the word of God and that they are so is deliver'd to us by the current descending testimony of all ages of Christianity and they who thus are first lead into this belief find upon trial great after-proofs by arguments both external and internal and such as cause a perfect adhesion to this truth that they are Gods Word an adhesion I say so perfect as excludes all manner of practical doubting Now then amongst us so perswaded the Question is Whether or no the Scriptures be a sufficient rule of our faith and contain in them all things necessary to salvation or Is there any other word of God besides the Scriptures which delivers any points of faith or doctrines of life necessary to salvation This was the state of the Question till yesterday And although the Church of Rome affirm'd Tradition to be a part of the object of faith and that without the addition of doctrine and practises deliver'd by tradition the Scriptures were not a perfect rule but together with tradition they are yet now two or three Gentlemen have got upon the Coach-wheel and have raised a cloud of dust enough to put out the eyes even of their own party Vid. hist. â—oncil Trident. sub Paul 3. A. D. 1546. making them not to see what till now all their Seers told them and Tradition is not onely a suppletory to the deficiencies of Scripture but it is now the onely record of faith But because this is too bold and impossible an attempt and hath lately been sufficiently reprov'd by some learned persons of our Church I shall therefore not trouble my self with such a frontless errour and illusion but speak that truth which by justifying the Scripture's fulness and perfection will overthrow the doctrine of the Roman Church denying it and ex abundanti cast down this new mud-wall thrown into a dirty heap by M. W. and his under-dawber M. S. who with great pleasure behold and wonder at their own work and call it a Marble Building 1. That the Scripture is a full and sufficient rule to Christians in faith and manners a full and perfect Declaration of the will of God is therefore certain because we have no other For if we consider the grounds upon which all Christians believe the Scriptures to be the word of God the same grounds prove that nothing else is These indeed have a Testimony that is credible as any thing that makes faith to men The universal testimony of all Christians In respect of which S. Austin said Evangelio non crederem c. I should not believe the Gospel if the Authority of the Church that is of the universal Church did not move me The Apostles at first own'd these Writings the Churches receiv'd them they transmitted them to their posterity they grounded their faith upon them they proved their propositions by them by them
they confuted hereticks and they made them the measures of right and wrong all that collective body of doctrines of which all Christians consentingly made publick confessions and on which all their hopes of salvation did relye were all contain'd in them and they agreed in no point of faith which is not plainly set down in Scripture And all this is so certain that we all profess our selves ready to believe any other Article which can pretend and prove it self thus prov'd thus descended For we know a doctrine is neither more nor less the word of God for being written or unwritten that 's but accidental and extrinsecal to it for it was first unwritten and then the same thing was written onely when it was written it was better conserv'd and surer transmitted and not easily altered and more fitted to be a rule And indeed onely can be so not but that every word of God is as much a rule as any word of God but we are sure that what is so written and so transmitted is Gods Word whereas concerning other things which were not written we have no certain records no evident proof no sufficient conviction and therefore it is not capable of being own'd as the rule of faith or life because we do not know it to be the Word of God If any doctrine which is offer'd to us by the Church of Rome and which is not in Scripture be prov'd as Scripture is we receive it equally but if it be not it is to be received according to the degree of its probation and if it once comes to be disputed by wise and good men if it came in after the Apostles if it rely but upon a few Testimonies or is to be laboriously argued into a precarious perswasion it cannot be the true ground of faith and salvation can never rely upon it The truth of the assumption in this argument will rely upon an Induction of which all Churches have a sufficient experience there being in no Church any one instance of doctrine of faith or life that can pretend to a clear universal Tradition and Testimony of the first and of all ages and Churches but onely the doctrine contain'd in the undoubted Books of the Old and New Testament And in the matter of good life the case is evident and certain which makes the other also to be like it for there is no original or primary Commandement concerning good life but it is plainly and notoriously found in Scripture Now faith being the foundation of good life upon which it is most rationally and permanently built it is strange that Scripture should be sufficient to teach us all the whole superstructure and yet be defective in the foundation Neither do we doubt but that there were many things spoken by Christ and his Apostles which were never written and yet those few onely that were written are by the Divine Providence and the care of the Catholick Church of the first and all descending ages preserv'd to us and made our Gospel So that as we do not dispute whether the words which Christ spake and the Miracles he did and are not written be as holy and as true as those which are written but onely say they are not our rule and measures because they are unknown So there is no dispute whether they be to be preferr'd or relied upon as the written or unwritten Word of God for both are to be relied upon and both equally always provided that they be equally known to be so But that which we say is That there are many which are called Traditions which are not the unwritten Word of God at least not known so to be and the doctrines of men are pretended and obtruded as the Commandments of God and the Testimonie of a few men is made to support a weight as great as that which relies upon universal Testimony and particular traditions are equall'd to universal the uncertain to the certain and traditions are said to be Apostolical if they be but ancient and if they come from we know not whom they are said to come from the Apostles and if postnate they are call'd primitive and they are argued and laboriously disputed into the title of Apostolical traditions by not onely fallible but fallacious arguments as will appear in the following numbers This is the state of the Question and therefore 1. It proves it self because there can be no proof to the contrary since the elder the tradition is the more likely it can be prov'd as being nearer the fountain and not having had a long current which as a long line is always the weakest so in long descent is most likely to be corrupted and therefore a late tradition is one of the worst arguments in the world it follows that nothing can now because nothing of Faith yet hath been sufficiently prov'd 2. But besides this consideration the Scripture it self is the best testimony of it's own fulness and sufficiencie I have already in the Introduction against I. S. prov'd from Scripture that all necessary things of salvation are there abundantly contain'd that is I have prov'd that Scripture says so Neither ought it to be replyed here that no man's testimony concerning himself is to be accepted For here we suppose that we are agreed that the Scripture says true that it is the word of God and cannot be deceived and if this be allow'd the Scripture then can give testimony concerning it self and so can any Man if you allow him to be infallible and all that he says to be true which is the case of Scripture in the present Controversie And if you will not allow Scripture to give testimony to it self who shall give testimony to it Shall the Church or the Pope suppose which we will But who shall give testimony to them Shall they give credit to Scripture before it be known how they come themselves to be Credible If they be not credible of themselves we are not the neerer for their giving their testimony to the Scriptures But if it be said that the Church is of it self credible upon it's own authority this must be prov'd before it can be adâ—itted and then how shall this be proved And at least the Scripture will be pretended to be of it self credible as the Church And since it is evident that all the dignity power authority office and sanctity it hath or pretends to have can no other way be prov'd but by the Scriptures a conformity to them in all Doctrines Laws and Manners being the only Charter by which she claims it must needs be that Scripture hath the prior right and can better be primely credible than the Church or any thing else that claims from Scripture Nay therefore quoad nos it is to be allowed to be primely credible because there is no Creature besides it that is so Indeed God was pleas'd to find out ways to prove the Scriptures to be his Word his immediate Word by miraculous consignations and
sufficient testimony and confession of enemies and of all men that were fit to bear witness that these Books were written by such men who by miracle were prov'd to be Divini homines Men endued with God's Spirit and trusted with his Message and when it was thus far proved by God it became the immediate sole Ministery of intire Salvation and the whole Repository of the Divine will and when things were come thus far if it inquir'd whether the Scriptures were a sufficient institution to salvation we need no other we can have no better testimony than it self concerning it self And to this purpose I have already brought from it sufficient affirmation of the point in Question in the preceding answer to I. S. his first Way in his fourth Appendix 3. It is possible that the Scriptures should contain in them all things necessary to salvation God could cause such a Book to be written And he did so to the Jews he caused his whole Law to be written he engraved in Stones he commanded the authentick Copy to be kept in the Ark and this was the great security of the conveying it and Tradition was not relied upon it was not trusted with any law of Faith or Manners Now since this was once done and therefore is always possible to be done why it should not be done now there is no pretence of reason but very much for it For 1. Why should the Book of S. Matthew be called the Gospel of Jesus Christ and this is also the very Title of S. Mark 's Book and S. Luke affirms the design of his Book is to declare the certainty of the things then believed and in which his Friend was instucted which we cannot but suppose to be the whole Doctrine of salvation 2. What end could there be in writing these Books but to preserve the memory of Christ's History and Doctrine 3. Especially if we consider that many things which were not absolutely necessary to salvation were set down and therefore to omit any thing that is necessary must needs be an Unreasonable and Unprofitable way of writing 4. There yet never was any Catholick Father that did affirm in terms or in full and equivalent sense that the Scriptures are defective in the recording any thing necessary to salvation but Unanimously they taught the contrary as I shall shew by and by 5. The enemies of Christian Religion oppos'd themselves against the Doctrine contained in the Scriptures and suppos'd by that means to conclude against Christianity and they knew no other repository of it and estimated no other 6. The persecutors of Christianity intending to destroy Christianity hop'd to prevail by causing the Bibles to be burnt which had been a foolish and unlikely design if that had not been the Ark that kept the Records of the whole Christian Law 7. That the revealed will of God the Law of Christ was not written in his life-time but preached only by word of mouth is plain and reasonable because all was not finished and the salvation of man was not perfected till the Resurrection Ascension and Descent of the Holy Ghost nor was it done presently But then it is to be observed that there was a Spirit of infallible Record put into the Apostles sufficient for it's publication and continuance But before the death of the Apostles that is before this Spirit of infallibility was to depart all was written that was intended because no thing else could infallibly convey the Doctrine Now this being the case of every Doctrine as much as of any and the case of the whole rather than of any part of it it must follow that it was highly agreeable to the Divine wisdom and the very end of this Oeconomy that all should be written and for no other reason could the Evangelists and Apostles write so many Books 4. But of the sufficiency of Scripture we may be convinc'd by the very nature of the thing For the Sermons of Salvation being preach'd to all to the learned and unlearned it must be a common Concern and therefore fitted to all capacities and consequently made easie for easie learners Now this design is plainly signified to us in Scripture by the abbreviatures the Symbols and Catalogues of Credenda which are short and plain and easie and to which salvation is promis'd Now if he that believes Jesus Christ to be the Son of God 1 John 5. 10. hath eternal life John 17. 3. that is so far as the value and acceptability of believing does extend this Faith shall prevail unto salvation it follows that this being the affirmation of Scripture and declar'd to be a competent foundation of Faith the Scripture that contains much more even the whole Oeconomy of salvation by Jesus Christ cannot want any necessary thing when the absolute necessities are so narrow Christ the Son of God is the great adaequate object of saving Faith John 17. 3. to know God and whom he hath sent Jesus Christ this is eternal life Now this is the great design of the Gospel and is reveal'd largely in the Scriptures so that there is no adaequate object of Faith but what is there 2. As to the Attributes of God and of Christ that is all that is known of them and to be known is set down in Scripture That God is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him that he is the fountain of wisdom justice holiness power that his providence is over all and mercy unto all And concerning Christ all the attributes and qualifications by which he is capable and fitted to do the work of redemption for us and to become our Lord and the great King of Heaven and Earth able to destroy all his Enemies eternally and to reward his servants with a glorious and indefectible Kingdom all this is declar'd in Scripture So that concerning the full object of Faith manifested in the whole design of the Gospel the Scriptures are full and whatever is to be believed of the attributes belonging to this prime and full object all that also is in Scripture fully declar'd And all the acts of Faith the antecedents the formal and the consequent acts of faith are there expresly commanded viz. to know God to believe in his name and word to believe in his Son and to obey his Son by the consequent acts of Faith all this is set down in Scripture in which not only we are commanded to keep the Commandments but we are told which they are There we are taught to honour and fear to love and obey God and his Holy Son to fear and reverence him to adore and invocate him to crave his aid and to give him thanks not to trust in or call upon any thing that hath no Divine Empire over us or Divine Excellence in it self It is so particular in recounting all the parts of Duty that it descends specially to enumerate the duties of Kings and subjects Bishops and people Parents and children Masters and servants to
last days therefore commands that Christians who in Christianity would receive the firmness of true faith should fly to nothing but to the Scriptures otherwise if they regard other things they will be scandalized and perish not understanding which is the true Church and by this shall fall into the abomination of desolation which stands in the holy places of the Church Idem homil 41. in Matth. The summe is this deliver'd by the same Author Whatsoever is sought for unto salvation it is now fill'd full in the Scriptures Therefore there is in this feast nothing less then what is necessary to the salvation of mankind Sixtus Senensis though he greatly approves this book and brings arguments to prove it to be S. Chrysostom's and alleges from others that it hath been for many ages approv'd by the Commandement of the Church which among the Divine laws reads some of these Homilies as of S. Chrysostom and that it is cited in the ordinary and authentick glosses in the Catena's upon the Gospels in the decrees of the Popes and in the Theological sums of great Divine yet he would have it purg'd from these words here quoted as also from many others But when they cannot show by any probable argument that any hereticks have interpolated these words and that these are so agreeing to other words of S. Chrysostom spoken in his unquestion'd works he shews himself and his party greatly pinch'd and for no other reason rejects the words but because they make against him which is a plain self-conviction and self-condemnation Dissuasive in the Preface Theophilus Alexandrinus is already quoted in these words and they are indeed very severe It is the part of a Devilish spirit to think any thing divine without the authority of the holy Scriptures Here E. W. and A. L. say the Dissuasive left out some words of Theophilus It is true but so did a good friend of theirs before me for they are just so quoted by * Lib. 4. de verbo Dei cap. 11. Sect. Profert nonò Theophilum Bellarmine who in all reason would have put them in if they had made way for any answer to the other words The words are these as they lie intirely Truly I cannot know with what temerity Origen speaking so many things * In censuris super Matth. expositoribus and following his own errour not the authority of Scriptures does dare to publish such things which will be hurtful And a little after addes Sed ignorans quod demoniaci spiritus esset instinctus sophismata humanarum mentium sequi aliquid extra Scripturarum authoritatem putare Divinum Sophisms of his own mind and things that are not in Scriptures are explicative one of another and if he had not meant it meerly diabolical to induce any thing without the authority of Scripture he ought to have added the other part of the rule and have called it Devilish to adde any thing without Scripture or tradition which because he did not we suppose he had no cause to do and then whatsoever is not in Scripture Theophilus calls the sophism of humane minds He spake it indefinitely and universally Paschal 11. vide etiam Paschal 3. It is true it is instanc'd in a particular against Origen but upon that occasion he gives a general rule And therefore it is a weak subterfuge of Bellarmine to say that Theophilus onely speaks concerning certain Apocryphal books which some would esteem Divine but by the way I know not how well Bellarmine will agree with my adversaries for one or two of them say A. L. and E. W. page 4. Theophilus spake against Origen for broaching fopperies of his own and particularly that Christs flesh was consubstantial with the Godhead and if they say true then Bellarmine in his want invented an answer of his own without any ground of truth But all agree in this that these words were spoken in these cases onely Lib. 4. De verb. Dei cap. 11. and it is foolish says Bellarmine to wrest that which is spoken of one thing to another But I desire that it may be observ'd that to the testimony of Tertullian it is answered He speaks but of one particular To that of S. Basil it is answered He spake but against a few particular heresies And to one of the testimonies of S. Athanasius it is answered He spake but of one particular viz. the heresie of Samosatenus and to this of Theophilus Alexandrinus it is just so answered he spake likewise but of this particular viz. that against Origen and to that of S. Hierom * Cited in the next page in 23. Matth. he onely spake of a particular opinion pretended out of some apocryphal book and to another of S. Austin It is spoken but of a particular matter Lib. de bono vidâ—itatis c. 1. the case of widowhood But if Hermogenes and Origen and Samosatenus and the hereticks S. Basil speaks of and they in S. Hierom be all to be confuted by Scripture and by nothing else nay are therefore rejected because they are not in Scripture if all these Fathers confute all these heresies by a negative argument from Scripture then the rule which they establish must be more than particular It is fitted to all as well as to any for all particulars make a general This way they may answer 500 testimonies if 500 Authors should upon so many several occasions speak general words But in the world no answer could be weaker and no elusion more trifling and less plausible could have been invented However these and other concurrent testimonies will put this question beyond such captious answers S. Hierom was so severe in this Article that disputing what Zechary it was who was slain between the Porch and the Altar Whether it was the last but one of the small Prophets S. Hierom. in 23. Matth. Hoc quiae de Scripturis non habet authoritatem eâdem facilitate contemnitur quâ prâ—batur Et 〈◊〉 Epist. ad Titum Sine authoritate Scripturarum garrulitas non habet fidem nisi viderentur perver sam doctrinam etiam Diviâ—is testimoniis roborare Sic citantur verba apud Bellarm. qui sequutus Kemnitium in objectionibus responsiâ—nem de bene esse paravit Non curavit tamen nec metuit ne non recte cuarentur verba or the Father of the Baptist he would admit neither because it was not in the Scriptures in these words This because it hath not authority from Scripture is with the same easiness despis'd as it is approv'd And they that prattle without the authority of Scriptures have no faith or trust that is none would believe them unless they did seem to strengthen their perverse doctrine with Divine testimonies but most pertinent and material to the whole inquiry are these words In c. 1. Aggaei Sed alia quae absque authoritate testimoniis Scripturarum quasi traditione Apostolicâ sponte reperiunt atque contingunt
percu it gladius Dei Those things which they make and find as it were by Apostlical tradition without the authority and testimonies of Scripture the word of God smites By which words it appears that in S. Hierom's time it was usual to pretend traditions Apostolical and yet that all which was then so early called so was not so and therefore all later pretences still as they are later are the worse and that the way to try those pretences was the authority and testimony of Scriptures without which testimony they were to be rejected and God would punish them Adverâ— Helvid And disputing against Helvidius in defence of the perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin But as we deny not those things which are written so we refuse those things which are not written We believe our Lord to be born of a Virgin because we read it We believe not Mary was married after her delivery because we read it not And therefore this very point the Fathers endeavour to prove by Scripture Ambr. tom â— particularly Ep. 9. Epiphan haeres 78. S. Epiphanius S. Ambrose and S. Austin August de haeres 84. S. Basil de human gen Christi Homil. 25. though S. Basil believ'd it not to be a point of faith and when he offer'd to prove it by a tradition concerning the slaying of Zechary upon that account S. Hierom rejects the tradition as trifling as before I have cited him And therefore S. John Damascen going upon the same Principle Lib. 1. de orthod fide cap. 1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says We look for nothing beyond these things which are deliver'd by the Law and the Prophets the Apostles and Evangelists And after all this S. Austin who is not the least amongst the greatest Doctors of the Church is very clear in this particular If any one Lib. 3. cont lit concerning Christ or his Church Petâ—â—â—ani c. 6. or concerning any other thing which belongs to faith or our life I will not say if we but what Paul hath added if an Angel from Heaven shall preach unto you Praeter quam in Scripturis legalibus Evangelicis accepistis beside what ye have receiv'd in the legal and Evangelical Scriptures let him be accursed The words Bellarmine quotes and for an answer to them says that praeter must signifie contra besides that is against and the same is made use of by Hart the Jesuit in his Conference and by the Lovain Doctors But if this answer may serve Non habebis Deos alienos praeter me may signifie contra me and then a man may Absit mihi gloriari praeterquam in Cruce Jesu Christi for all this Commandment say there are two Gods so one be not contrary to the other and the Apostle may glory in any thing else in that sense in which he glories in the Cross of Christ so that thing be not contrary to Christ's Cross. But S. Austin was a better Grammarian than to speak so improperly Praeter Elegant lib. 3. cap. 54. and Praeterquam are all one as I am covetous of nothing praeter laudem vel praeterquam laudis Nulli places praeterquam mihi vel praeter me And indeed Praeterquam eandem aut prope parem vim obtinet quam Nisi said Laurentius Valla but to make praeterquam to signifie contra quam is a violence to be allowed by no Master of the Latin tongue which all the world knows S. Austin was And if we enquire what signication it hath in law In vocabâ—lar utriusque Juris we find it signifies variously indeed but never to any such purpose When we speak of things whose nature is wholly separate then it signifies Inclusively As I give all my vines praeter domum besides my house there the house is suppos'd also to be given But if we speak of things which are subordinate and included in the general then praeter signifies Exclusively as I give unto thee all my Books praeter Augustinum de civitate Dei besides or except S. Austin of the City of God there S. Austins Book is not given And the reason of this is because the last words in this case would operate nothing S. August vocat Scripturas sacâ—as Divinam stateram l. 2. contr unless they were exclusive and if in the first they were exclusive they were not sense But that praeterquam should mean only what is contrary Donat. c. 1â— is a Novelty taken up without reason but not without great need Lib. â— de doctr But however that S. Austin did not mean only to reprove them that introduc'd into faith and manners Christ. c. 9. vide eundem l. 1. c. ult de Consensâ— Evangelistarum Quicquid Servator de suis factis dictis nos legere voluit hoc scribendum illis tanquam suis manibus imperavit such things which were against Scripture but such which were besides it and whatsoever was not in it is plain by an establish'd doctrine of his affirming that all things which appertain to life and doctrine are found in those things which are plainly set down in the Scriptures And if this be true as S. Austin suppos'd it to be then who ever adds to this any thing of faith and manners though it be not contrary yet if it be not here ought to be an anathema because of his own he adds to that rule of faith manners which God who only could do it hath made To this Lib. 4. de verbo Dei non scâ—ipto c. 11. Bellarmin answers that S. Austin speaks only of the Creed and the ten Commandments such things which are simply necessary to all He might have added that he speaks of the Lord's Prayer too and all the other precepts of the Gospel and particularly the eight Beatitudes and the Sacraments And what of the infallibility of the Roman Church Is the belief of that necessary to all But that is neither in the Creed nor the ten Commandments And what of the five Precepts of the Church are they plainly in the Scripture And after all this and much more if all that belongs to faith and good life be in the plain places of Scripture then there is enough to make us wise unto salvation And he is a very wise and learned man that is so For as by faith S. Austin understands the whole Christian Faith so by mores vivendi he understands hope and charity as himself in the very place expresses himself And beyond faith hope and charity and all things that integrate them what a Christian need to know I have not learned But if he would learn more yet there are in places less plain things enough to make us learned unto Curiosity Briefly by S. Austin's doctrine the Scripture hath enough for every one and in all cases of necessary Religion and much more then what is necessary nay there is nothing besides it that can come into our rule a Lib. de bono
ambiguous or obscure in case any Brother be a Doctor endued with the grace of knowledge but be curious with your self and seek with your self but at length it is better for you to be ignorant lest you come to know what ye ought not for you already know what you ought Faith consists in the rule Lib. de veland To know nothing beyond this is to know all things Virg. c. 1. Regula quidem fidei una â—mnino est sola immobilis irreformabilis To the same purpose he affirms that this Rule is unalterable is immoveable and irreformable it is the Rule of faith and it is one unchangeably the same which when he had said he again recites the Apostles Creed Lib. de veland Virg. c. â— he calls it legem fidei this law of faith remaining in other things of discipline and conversation the grace of God may thrust us forward and they may be corrected and renewed But the faith cannot be alter'd there is neither more nor less in that And it is of great remark what account Tertullian gives of the state of all the Catholick Churches and particularly of the Church of Rome in his time That Church is in a happy state into which the Apostles with their bloud pour'd forth all their doctrine De praescript c. 36. let us see what she said what she taught what she published in conjunction with the African Churches she knows one God the creator of the World and Jesus Christ of the Virgin Mary the Son of God the Creator and the resurrection of the flesh she mingles the Law and the Prophets with the Evangelical and Apostolical writings and from thence she drinks that faith she sings with Water she cloaths with the holy Spirit she feeds with the Eucharist she exhorts to Martyrdom and against this Institution receives none This indeed was a happy state and if in this she would abide her happiness had been as unalterable as her faith But from this how much she hath degenerated will too much appear in the order of this discourse In the confession of this Creed the Church of God baptiz'd all her Catechumens to whom in the profession of that faith they consign'd all the promises of the Gospel S. Hilar. l. 10. de Trinit vers finem For the truth of God the faith of Jesus Christ the belief of a Christian is the purest simplest thing in the world In simplicitate fides est in fide justitia est in confessione pietas est Nec Deus nos ad beatam vitam per difficiles quaestiones vocat nec multiplici eloquentis facundiae genere sollicitat in absoluto nobis ac facili est aeternitas Jesum Christum credimus suscitatum à mortuis per Deum ipsum esse Dominum confitemur This is the Breviary of the Christian Creed and this is the way of salvation lib. de Synodis saith S. Hilary But speaking more explicitely to the Churches of France and Germany he calls them happy and glorious qui perfectam atque Apostolicam fidem conscientiâ professione Dei retinentes conscriptas fides hûc usque nescitis because they kept the Apostolical Belief for that is perfect Thus the Church remaining in the purity and innocent simplicity of the Faith there was no way of confuting Hereticks but by the words of Scripture or by appealing to the tradition of this Faith in the Apostolical form and there was no change made till the time of the Nicene Council but then it is said that the first simplicity began to fall away and some new thing to be introduc'd into the Christian Creed True it is that then Christianity was in one complexion with the Empire and the division of Hearts by a different Opinion was likely to have influence upon the publick peace if it were not compos'd by peaceable consent or prevailing authority and therefore the Fathers there assembled together with the Emperour's power did give such a period to their Question as they could but as yet it is not certain that they at their meeting recited any other Creed than the Apostolical for that they did not In Antidoto ad Nicolaum 5. Papam Laurentius Valla a Canon in the Lateran Church affirms that himself hath read in the ancient Books of Isidore who collected the Canons of the ancient Councils Certain it is the Fathers believ'd it to be no other than the Apostolical faith and the few words they added to the old form was nothing new but a few more explicate words of the same sense intended by the Apostles and their Successors as at that time the Church did remember by the successive preachings and written Records which they had and we have not but especially by Scripture But the change was so little or indeed so none as to the matter that they affirmed of it Epiphan in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This was the Creed deliver'd by the Holy Apostles and in the old Latin Missal published at Strasburgh An. Dom. 1557. after the recitation of the Nicene Creed as we usually call it it is added in the Rubrick Finito Symbolo Apostolorum dicat Sacerdos Dominus vobiscum So that it should seem the Nicene Fathers us'd no other Creed than what themselves thought to be the Apostolical And this is the more credible because we find that some other Copies of the Apostles Creed particularly that which was us'd in the Church of Aquileia hath divers words and amplifications of some one Article as to the Article of God the Father Almighty maker of Heaven and Earth is added invisible and impassible which though the words were set down there because of the Sabellian Heresie yet they said nothing new but what to every man of reason was included in the very nature of God and so was the addition of Nice concerning the Divinity of the Son of God included in the very natural Filiation expressed in the Apostles Creed and therefore this Nicene Creed was no more a new Creed than was that of Aquileia which although it was not in every word like the Roman Symbol yet it was no other than the Apostolical And the same is the case even of those Symbols where something was omitted that was sufficiently in the bowels of the other Articles Thus in some Creeds Christ's Death is omitted but his Crucifixion and Burial are set down The same variety also is observable in the Article of Christ's descent into Hell which as it is omitted in that form of the Apostolical Creed which I am now saying was us'd by the Nicene Fathers so was it omitted in the six several Recitations and Expositions of it made by Chrysologus and in the five Expositions made of it by S. Austin in his Book de Fide Symbolo and in his four Books de Symbolo ad Catechumenos and divers others So the Article of the Communion of Saints which is neither in the Nicene nor Constantinopolitan Creed nor
only as a Doctor but as a Prince by Empire and Command as Princeps Ecclesiae The Sorbon can Declare as well as he upon the Catholick Faith if it be only matter of skill and learning but to declare so as to bind every man to believe it to declare so as the Article shall be a point of Faith when before this Declaration it was not so quoad nos this is that which is pretended be declaring And so this very Gloss expounds it adding to the former words The Pope can make an Article of Faith if an Article of Faith be taken not properly but largely that is for a Doctrine which now we must believe whereas before such declaration we are not tied to it These are the words of the Gloss. The sense of which is this There are some Articles of Faith which are such before the declaration of the Church and some which are by the Churches declaration made so some were declar'd by the Scriptures or by the Apostles and some by the Councils or Popes of Rome after which declaration they are both alike equally necessary to be believ'd and this is that which we charge upon them as a dangerous and intolerable point For it says plainly that whereas Christ made some Articles of Faith the Pope can make others for if they were not Articles of Faith before the declaration of the Pope then he makes them to be such and that is truely according to their own words facere Articulum fidei this is making an Article of Faith Neither will it suffice to say that this Proposition so declar'd was before such a declaration really and indeed an Article of Faith in it self but not in respect of us For this is all one in several words For an Article of Faith is a relative term it is a Proposition which we are commanded to believe and to confess and to say This is an Article of Faith and yet that no man is bound to believe it is a contradiction Now then let it be considered No man is bound to believe any Article till it be declar'd as no man is bound to obey a Law till it be promulgated Faith comes by hearing till there be hearing there can be no Faith and therefore no Article of Faith The truth is Eternal but Faith is but temporary and depends upon the declaration Now then suppose any Article I demand did Christ and his Apostles declare it to the Church If not how does the Pope know it who pretends to no new Revelations If the Apostles did not declare it how were they faithful in the house of God Acts 20. 27. and how did S. Paul say truly I have not failed or ceased 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to declare to annunciate to you all the whole Counsel of God But if they did say true and were faithful and did declare it all then was it an Article of Faith before the Pope's Declaration and then it was a sin of ignorance not to believe it and of malice or pusillanimity not to confess it and a worse sin to have contradicted it And who can suppose that the Apostolical Churches and their descendants should be ignorant in any thing that was then a matter of Faith If it was not then it cannot now be declar'd that it was so then for to declare a thing properly is to publish what it was before if it was then there needs no declaration of it now unless by declaring we mean preaching it and then every Parish Priest is bound to do it and can do it as well as the Pope If therefore they mean more as it is certain they do then Declaring an Article of Faith is but the civiller word for Making it Christ's preaching and the Apostles imposing it made it an Article of Faith in it self and to us other declaration excepting only teaching preaching expounding and exhorting we know none and we need none for they only could do it and it is certain they did it fully But I need not argue and take pains to prove that by Declaring they mean more than meer Preaching Themselves own the utmost intention of the Charge The Pope can statuere Articulos fidei that 's more than declare meerly it must be to appoint to decree to determine that such a thing is of necessity to be believ'd unto salvation Art 27. Certum est in manâ— Ecclesiae aut Papae prorsus non esse statuere articulos fide c. and because Luther said the Pope could not do this he was condemn'd by a Bull of Pope Leo. But we may yet further know the meaning of this For their Doctors are plain in affirming that the Pope is the Foundation Turrecrem l. 2. cap. 107. rule and principle of faith So Turrecremata For to him it belongs to be the measure and rule and science of things that are to be believ'd and of all things which are necessary to the direction of the faithful unto life Eternal And again It is easie to understand that it belongs to the Authority of the Pope of Rome Idem ibid. as to the general and principal Master and Doctor of the whole World to determine those things which are of faith and by consequence to publish a Symbol of Faith to interpret the senses of Holy Scriptures to approve and reprove the sayings of every Doctor belonging to Faith Hence comes it to pass that the Doctors say that the Apostolical See is call'd the Mistress and Mother of Faith And what can this mean but to do that which the Apostles could not do that is Extravag de vâ—rb signifi cap quia Quorundum gloss to be Lords over the Faith of Christendom For to declare only an Article of Faith is not all they challenge they can do more As he is Pope he can not only declare an Article of Faith but introduce a new one And this is that which I suppose Augustinus Triumphus to mean Qu. 59 art 1. when he says Symbolum novum condere ad Papam solum spectat and if that be not plain enough he adds Art 2. As he can make a new Creed or Symbol of Faith so he can multiply new Articles one upon another Vide Salmeron orolog in comment in Epist. ad Roman part 3 p. 176. Sect. Tertiò dicitur For the conclusion of this particular I shall give a very considerable Instance which relies not upon the Credit and testimony of their Doctors but is matter of fact and notorious to all the World For it will be to no purpose for them to deny it and say that the Pope can only declare an Article but not make a new one For it is plain that they so declare an old one that they bring a new one in they pretend the old Creed to be with Child of a Cushion and they introduce a suppositious Child of their own The Instance I mean is that Article of the Apostles Creed I believe the holy Catholick Church
consulted and there will be yet found a form of ordination of Readers Studete verba Dei viz. Lectiones sacras distinctè apertè ad intelligentiam aedicationem fidelium absque omni mendacio falsitatis proferre c. in which it is said that they must study to read distinctly and plainly that the people may understand But now it seems that labour is sav'd And when a notorious change was made in this affair we can tell by calling to mind the following story The Moravians did say Mass in the Slavonian tongue for which Pope John the eighth severely reprov'd them and commanded them to do so no more but being better inform'd he wrote a letter to their Prince Sfentoputero in which he affirms that it is not contrary to faith and found doctrine to say Mass and other prayers in the Slavonian tongue and adds this reason because he that Hebrew Greek and Latin hath made the others also for his glory and this also he confirms with the authority of S. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians and some other Scriptures only he commanded for the decorum of the business the Gospel should first be said in Latin and then in the Slavonian tongue But just two hundred years after this the Tables were turned and though formerly these things were permitted yet so were many things in the Primitive Church but upon better examination they have been corrected And therefore P. Gregory the seventh wrote to Vratislaus of Bohemia that he could not permit the celebration of the divine offices in the Slavonian tongue and he commanded the Prince to oppose the people herein with all his forces Here the world was strangely altered and yet S. Pauls Epistle was not condemned of heresie and no Council had decreed that all vulgar languages were prophane and no reason can yet be imagined why the change was made unless it were to separate the Priest from the people by a wall of Latin and to nurse stupendious ignorance in them by not permitting to them learning enough to understand their public prayers in which every man was greatly concerned Neither may this be called a slight matter for besides that Gregory the seventh thought it so considerable that it was a just cause of a war or persecution for he commanded the Prince of Bohemia to oppose the people in it with all his forces besides this I say to pray to God with the understanding is much better than praying with the tongue that alone can be a good prayer this alone can never and then the loss of all those advantages which are in prayers truly understood the excellency of devotion the passion of desires the ascent of the minde to God the adherence to and acts of confidence in him the intellectual conversation with God most agreeable to a rational being the melting affections the pulses of the heart to from God to and from our selves the promoting and exercising of our hopes all these and very many more which can never be intire but in the prayers and devotions of the hearts and can never be in any degree but in the same in which the prayers are acts of love and wisdom of the will and the understanding will be lost to the greatest part of the Catholic Church if the mouth be set open and the soul be gag'd so that it shall be the word of the mouth but not the word of the mind All these things being added to what was said in this article by the Dissuasive will more than make it clear that in this article the consequents of which are very great the Church of Rome hath causelesly troubled Christendom and innovated against the Primitive Church and against her own ancient doctrines and practices and even against the Apostle But they care for none of these things Some of their own Bigots profess the thing in the very worst of all these expressions for so Reynolds and Gifford in their Calvino Turcismus complain that such horrid and stupendious evils have followed the translation of Scriptures into vulgar languages that they are of force enough ad istas translationes penitus supprimendas etiamsi Divina vel Apostolica authoritate niterentur Although they did rely upon the authority Apostolical or Divine yet they ought to be taken away So that it is to no purpose to urge Scripture or any argument in the world against the Roman Church in this article for if God himself command it to be translated yet it is not sufficient and therefore these men must be left to their own way of understanding for beyond the law of God we have no argument I will only remind them that it is a curse which God threatens to his rebellious people I will speak to this people with men of another tongue Isa. 25. 11. and by strange lips and they shall not understand This is the curse which the Church of Rome contends earnestly for in behalf of their people SECTION VI. Of the Worship of Images THat society of Christians will not easily be reformed that think themselves oblig'd to dispute for the worship of Images the prohibition of which was so great a part of the Mosaic Religion and is so infinitely against the nature and spirituality of the Christian a thing which every understanding can see condemned in the Decalogue no man can excuse but witty persons that can be bound by no words which they can interpret to a sense contradictory to the design of the common a thing for the hating of and abstaining from which the Jews were so remark'd by all the world and by which as by a distinctive cognisance they were separated from all other Nations and which with perfect resolution they keep to this very day and for the not observing of which they are intolerably scandaliz'd at those societies of Christians who without any necessity in the thing without any pretence of any Law of God for no good and for no wise end and not without infinite danger at least of idolatry retain a worship and veneration to some stocks and stones Such men as these are too hard for all laws and for all arguments so certain it is that faith is an obedience of the will in a conviction of the understanding that if in the will and interests of men there be a perverseness and a non-compliance and that it is not bent by prudent and wise flexures and obedience to God and the plain words of God in Scripture nothing can ever prevail neither David nor his Sling nor all the worthies of his army In this question I have said enough in the Dissuasive and also in the Ductor dubitantium but to the arguments and fulness of the perswasion they neither have nor can they say any thing that is material but according to their usual method like flies they search up and down and light upon any place which they suppose to be sore or would make their proselytes believe so I shall therefore first
The Second Part OF THE DISSUASIVE FROM POPERY In Vindication of THE FIRST PART And further REPROOF and CONVICTION OF THE ROMAN ERRORS By Jer. Taylor Chaplain in Ordinary to King CHARLES the First and late Lord Bishop of Downe and Conner Curavimus Babylonem non est Sanata LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to the Kings most Excellent Majesty at the Angel in S. Bartholomew's Hospital MDCLXVII DIEV ET MON DROIT SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PEâ—â—â—â— A Table of the SECTIONS The Introduction in Answer to J. S. The first Book contains Eleven Sections SECTION I. OF the Church shewing That the Church of Rome relies upon no certain foundation for their faith Page 1 Sect. II. Of the sufficiency of Scriptures to Salvation 63 Sect. III. Of Traditions 102 Sect. IV. That there is nothing of necessity to be believ'd which the Apostolical Churches did not believe 144 Sect. V. That the Church of Rome pretends to a power of introducing into the Confessions of the Church new Articles of Faith and endeavors to alter and suppress the old Catholick Doctrine 171 Sect. VI. Of the Expurgatory Indices in the Roman Church 192 Sect. VII The uncharitableness of the Church of Rome in her judging of others 205 Sect. VIII The insecurity of the Roman Religion 222 Sect. IX That the Church of Rome does teach for Doctrines the Commandments of Men 236 Sect. X. Of the Seal of Confession 239 Sect. XI Of the imposing Anricular Confession upon Consciences without authority from God 249 The Second Book contains Seven Sections SECTION I. OF Indulgences Page 1 Sect. II. Of Purgatory 13 Sect. III. Of Transubstantiation 56 Sect. IV. Of the half Communion 86 Sect. V. Of Service in an unknown Tongue 98 Sect. VI. Of the worshipping of Images 106 Sect. VII Of Picturing God the Father and the Holy Trinity 145 IMPRIMATUR THO. TOMKINS R. R mo in Christo Patri ac Domino Dno GILBERTO Divinâ Providentià Archi-Episcopo Cantuariensi à Sacris Domesticis Junii 29 0 1667. Ex Aedibus Lambethanis THE INTRODUCTION BEING An Answer to the fourth Appendix to J. S. his Sure Footing intended against the General way of procedure in the Dissuasive from Popery WHen our Blessed Saviour was casting out the evil spirit from the poor Daemoniac in the Gospel he asked his name and he answered My name is legion for we are many Legion is a Roman word and signifies an Army as Roman signifies Catholic that is a great body of men which though in true speaking they are but a part of an Imperial Army yet when they march alone they can do mischief enough and call themselves an Army Royal. A Squadron of this legion hath attempted to break a little Fort or Outwork of mine they came in the dark their names concealed their qualities unknown whether Clergy or Laity not to me discovered only there is one pert man amongst them one that is discovered by his sure footing The others I know not but this man is a man famous in the new science of controversie as he is pleased to call it I mean in the most beauteous and amiable part of it railing and calumny The man I mean is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Confident the man of principles and the son of demonstration Dr. H. H. and though he had so reviled a great Champion in the Armies of the living God that it was reasonable to think he had cast forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the fiery darts of the wicked one yet I find that an evil fountain is not soon drawn dry and he hath indignation enough and reviling left for others amongst whom I have the honour not to be the least sufferer and sharer in the persecution He thought not fit to take any further notice of me but in an Appendix The fourth appendix to sure footing the Viper is but little but it is a Viper still though it hath more tongue than teeth I am the more willing to quit my self of it by way of introduction because he intends it as an Organum Catholicum against the General way of the procedure which I have us'd in the Dissuasive and therefore I suppose the removing this might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make my way smoother in the following discourses I will take no other notice of his evil language his scorn and reproach his undervaluing and slighting the person and book of the Dissuader as he is pleased sometimes to call me but I shall answer to these things as S. Bernard did to the tempation of the Devil endeavouring to hinder his preaching by tempting to vanity I neither began for you nor for you will I make an end but I shall look on those Rhetorical flowers of his own but as a fermentum his spirit was troubled and he breathed forth the froth as of an enraged Sea and when he hath done it may be he will be quiet if not let him know God will observe that which is to come and require that which is past But I will search and see what I can find of matter that is to be considered and give such accounts of them as is necessary and may be useful for the defence of my Book and the justification of my self against all ruder charges And after I have done so I shall proceed to other things which I shall esteem more useful The first thing I shall take notice of is his scornful and slight speaking of Scripture affirming that he is soonest beaten at this weapon that it is Sampsons hair it is the weakest part in the man And yet if it be the weakest it is that which S. Paul calls the weakness and foolishness of preaching more strong and more wise than all the wisdom of man When the Devil tempted our Blessed Saviour he us'd Scripture but Christ did not reprove his way of arguing but in the same way discovered his fraud Scriptum est said the Tempter yea but scriptum est said Christ to other purposes than you intend and so would I. S. have proceeded if he had been at all in love with the way But he thinks he hath a better and the wonder is the less that the Gentleman does not love the Scriptures or at least gives too much suspicion that he does not for he hath not yet proved himself by his writings to be so good a Christian as to love his enemies or his reprovers But however he is pleased to put a scorn on Scripture expressions it were much better if he and his Church too would use them more and express their articles they contend for and impose them on the Christian world in the words and expressions of Scripture which we are sure express the minde of God with more truth and simplicity than is done by their words of art and expressions of the Schools If this had been observed Christendom at this day had had fewer controversies and more truth and more charity we should not
have been puzzled to unriddle the words of transubstantiation and hyperdulia and infallibility and doctrines ex Cathedra and fere de fide and next to heresie and temerarious and ordo ad spiritualia and S. Peters chair and supremacy in spirituals and implicit faith and very many more prophane or unhallowed novelties of speech which have made Christianity quite another thing than it is in it self or then it was represented by the Apostles and Apostolic men at first as the plain way of salvation to all succeeding ages of the Church for ever But be it as it will for he will neither approve of Scripture language nor is he pleased that I use any handsome expressions for that is charged upon me as part of my fault only to countenance all this he is pleased to say that all these are but division upon no grounds and therefore to grounds and first principles I must be brought and by this way he is sure to blow up my errors from the foundation that 's his expression being a Metaphor I suppose taken from the Gunpowder treason in which indeed going upon Popish grounds they intended to blow up something or other that was very considerable from it's very foundations To perform this effect I. S. hath eight several mines all which I hope to discover without Guido Faux his Lanthorn The First Way HIS first Way is That I have not one first or self evident principle to begin with on which I build the Dissuasive but he hath that is he says he hath for he hath reproved that oral tradition on which he and his Church relies is such a principle He thought it may be he had reason then to say so but the Scene is altered and until he hath sufficiently confuted his adversaries who have proved his self evident principle to be an evident and pitiful piece of Sophistry his boasting is very vain However though he hath failed in his undertaking yet I must acquit my self as well as I can I shall therefore tell him that the truth fulness and sufficiency of Scripture in all matters of faith and manners is the principle that I and all Protestants rely upon And although this be not a first and self-evident principle yet it is resolved into these that are 1. Whatsoever God hath said is true 2. Whatsoever God hath done is good 3. Whatsoever God intends to bring to pass he hath appointed means sufficient to that end Now since God hath appointed the Scriptures to instruct us and make us wise unto salvation and to make the man of God perfect certain it is that this means must needs be sufficient to effect that end Now that God did do this to this end to them that believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God is as evident as any first principle And let these Scriptures be weighed together and see what they do amount to John 5. 39. Search the Scriptures for therein ye think to have eternal life The Jews thought so that is they confessed and acknowledged it to be so and if they had been deceived in their thought besides that it is very probable Christ would have reprov'd it so it is very certain he would not have bidden them to have used that means to that end And if Christ himself and the Apostles did convince the Jews out of the Scriptures of the old Testament proving that Jesus was the Christ if Christ himself and the Apostles proved the resurrection and the passion and the supreme Kingdom of Christ out of the Scriptures if the Apostle proved him to be the Messias and that be ought to suffer and to rise again the third day by no other precedent topic and that upon these things Christian religion relied as upon it's intire foundation and on the other side the Jewish Doctors had brought in many things by tradition to which our Blessed Saviour gave no countenance but reproved many of them and made it plain that tradition was not the first and self evident principle to rely upon in religion but a way by which they had corrupted the Commandment of God It will follow from hence that the Scriptures are the way that Christ and his Apostles walked in and that oral tradition was not But then to this add what more concerns the N. T. when S. Luke wrote his Gospel in the preface he tells us That many had taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us Christians and that he having perfect understanding of all things viz. which Christ did and taught from the very first did write this Gospel that Theophilus might know the certainty of those things in which he had been instructed Now here if we believe S. Luke was no want of any thing he was fully instructed in all things and he chose to write that book that by that book Theophilus might know the truth yea the certainty of all things Now if we be Christians and believe S. Luke to be divinely inspired this is not indeed a first but an evident principle that a book of Scripture can make a man certain and instructed in the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ. To the same purpose is that of S. John These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God John 20. 31. and that believing ye might have life through his name The end is salvation by Jesus Christ the means of effecting this was this writing the Gospel by S. John and therefore it is a sure principle for Christians to rely upon the word of God written by men divinely inspired such as Christians believe and confess S. Luke and S. John to be Hear S. Luke again Acts 1. The former treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach untill the day he was taken up No man then can deny but all Christs doctrine and life was fully set down by these Evangelists and Apostles whether it were to any purpose or no let I. S. consider and I shall consider with him in the sequel But first let us hear what S. Paul saith in an Epistle written as it is probable not long before his death but certainly after three of the Gospels and divers of the Epistles were written and consequently related to the Scriptures of the old and new Testament Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of 2 Tim. 5. 14. knowing of whom thou hast learned them And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works Now I demand Does I. S. believe these words to be true Are the Scriptures
able to make us wise unto salvation Are they profitable to all intents and purposes of the spirit that is to teach to reprove to correct to instruct Is the end of all this Oeconomy to make a Christian man yea a Christian Bishop perfect Can he by this dispensation be throughly furnished unto all good works and that by faith in Jesus Christ If so then this is the true principle the Apostolical way the way of God the way of salvation And if Scriptures the books written by the finger of God and the pen of Apostles can do all this then they are something more than Inke varied into divers figures unsensed characters and I know not what other reviling Epithets I. S. is pleased to cast upon them Yea but all this is nothing unless we know that Scriptures are the word of God that they were written by the Apostles and of this the Scriptures cannot be a witness in their own behalf And therefore oral tradition must supply that and consequently is the only first and self-evident principle To this I answer that it matters not by what means it be conveyed to us that the Scriptures are the Word of God Oral tradition is an excellent means but it is not that alone by which it is conveyed For if by oral tradition he means the testimony of the Catholick Church it is the best external ministery of conveyance of this being a matter of fact and of so great concernment To which the testimony of our adversaries Jews and Heathens adds no small moment and the tradition is also conveyed to us by very many writings But when it is thus conveyed and that the Church does believe them to be the Word of God then it is that I inquire whether the Scriptures cannot be a witness to us of it 's own design fulness and perfection Certainly no principle is more evident than this none more sure and none before it Whatever God hath said is true and in Scripture God did speak and speak this and therefore this to us is a first at least an evident principle Yea but if this proposition that the Scriptures are the Word of God is conveyed to us by oral tradition this must needs be the best and only principle for if it be trusted for the whole why not for every particular This Argument concludes thus This is the gate of the House therefore this is all the house Every man enters this way and therefore this is the Hall and the Cellar the Pantry and Dining room the Bedchambers and the Cocklofts But besides the ridiculousness of the argument there is a particular reason why the argument cannot conclude The reason in brief is this because it is much easier for any man to carry a letter than to tell the particular errand It is easier to tell one thing than to tell ten thousand to deliver one thing out of our hand than a multitude out of our mouths one matter of fact than very many propositions as it is easier to convey in writing all Tullies works than to say by heart with truth and exactness any one of his Orations That the Bible was written by inspired men God setting his seal to their doctrine confirming by miracles what they first preached and then wrote in a book this is a matter of fact and is no otherwise to be prov'd unless God should proceed extraordinarily and by miracle but by the testimony of wise men who saw it with their eyes and heard it with their ears and felt it with their hands This was done at first then only consign'd then witnessed and thence delivered And with how great success and with the blessing of how mighty a providence appears it in this because although as S. Luke tells us many did undertake to write Gospels or the declaration of the things so surely believ'd amongst Christians and we find in S. Clement of Alex. Origen S. Irenaeus Athanasius Chrysostom and S. Hierom mention made of many Gospels as that of the Hebrews the Egyptians Nazarenes Ebionites the Gospel of James Philip Bartholomew Thomas and divers more yet but four only were transmitted and consigned to the Church because these four only were written by these whose names they bear and these men had the testimony of God and a spirit of truth and the promise of Christ that the spirit should bring all things to their minds and he did so Now of this we could have no other testimony but of those who were present who stop'd the first issue of the false Gospels and the sound of the other four went forth into all the world according to that of Origen Ecclesia cum quatuor tantum Evangelii libros habet per universum mundum Evangeliis redundat heresies cum multa habeant unum non habent Those which heretics made are all lost or slighted those which the spirit of God did write by the hands of men divinely inspired these abide and shall abide for ever Now then this matter of fact how should we know but by being told it by credible persons who could know and never gave cause of suspicion that they should deceive us Now if I. S. will be pleas'd to call this Oral tradition he may but that which was deliver'd by this Oral tradition was not only preach'd at first but transmitted to us by many writings besides the Scriptures both of friends and enemies But suppose it were not yet this book of Scriptures might be consigned by Oral tradition from the Apostles and Apostolic men and yet tradition become of little or no use after this consignation and delivery For this was all the work which of necessity was to be done by it and indeed this was all that it could do well 1. This was all which was necessary to be done by Oral tradition because the wisdom of the divine spirit having resolved to write all the doctrine of salvation in a book and having done it well and sufficiently in order to his own gracious purposes for who dares so much as suspect the contrary there was now no need that Oral tradition should be kept up with the joynture of infallibility since the first infallibility of the Apostles was so sufficiently witnessed that it convinced the whole world of Christians and therefore was enough to consign the Divinity and perfection of this book for ever For it was in this as in the doctrine it self contain'd in the Scriptures God confirmed it by signs following that is by signs proving that the Apostles spake the minde of God the things which they speak were prov'd and believ'd for ever but then the signs went away and left a permanent and eternal event So it is in the infallible tradition delivered by the Apostles and Apostolic age concerning the Scriptures being the word of God what they said was confirm'd by all that testimony by which they obtained belief in the Church to their persons and doctrines but when they had once deliver'd this there needed no
the definition of the Church Thousands of the people and the very boys see the pictures of S. Austin sold in Fairs and Markets and yet are not so wise as to know the notion or nature of the Church and indeed many wiser people both among them and us will be very much to seek in the definition when your learned men amongst your selves dispute what that nature or definition is But it may be though I. S. put Fathers and Councils into the same proposition yet he means it of Councils only and that it is the existence of Councils which is not to be had without the notion or definition of Church and this is as false as the other for what tradesman in Germany Italy France or Spain is not well enough assur'd that there was such a thing as the Council of Trent and yet to the knowing of this it was not necessary that they should be told how Church is to be defin'd Indeed they can not know what it is to be Church-Councils unless they know as much of Church as they do of Councils But what think we Could not men know there was a Council at Ariminum more numerous than that at Nice unless they had the notion of Church Certainly the Church was no part of the definition of that Council nor did it relate save only as enemies are relatives to each other and if they be yet it is hard to say they are parts of each others definition But it may be I. S. means this saying of good and Catholic Councils yet they also may be known to have been without skill in definitions Definitions do not tell An sit but quid sit the first is to be supposed before any definition is to be inquir'd after Well! but how shall the being or nature of Church be known that 's his second proposition and tells us a pretty thing Nor is the being or nature of Church known till it be certainly known who are faithful or have true faith who not which must be manifested by their having or not having the true Rule of faith Why but does the having the true rule of faith make a man faithful Cannot a man have the true rule of faith and yet forsake it or not make use of it or hide the truth in unrighteousness Does the having the best antidote in the world make a man healthful though he live disorderly and make no use of it But to let that pass among the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which is more remarkable is That the being or Nature of Church is not known till it be certainly known who are faithful or have true faith I had thought that the way in the Church of Rome of pronouncing men faithful or to have true faith had been their being in the Church and that adhering to the Church whose being and truth they must therefore be presupposed to believe had been the only way of pronouncing them faithful which I suppos'd so certain amongst them that though they have no faith at all but to believe as the Church believes had been a sufficient declaration of the faith of ignorant men But it seems the Tables are turned It is not enough to go to the Church but first they must be assured that they are faithful and have true faith before they know any thing of the Church But if the testimony of the present Church be the only rule of faith as I. S. would fain make us believe then it had been truer said a man can not know the being or nature of faith till he be well acquainted with the Church And must the Rule of faith be tried by the Church and must the Church be tried by the rule of faith Is the testimony of the Church the measure and touchstone of faith and yet must we have the faith before we have any knowledge whether there be a Church or no Are they both first and both prove one another and is there here no circle But however I am glad that the evidence of truth hath brought this Gentleman to acknowledge that our way is the better way and that we must first chuse our religion and then our Church and not first chuse our Church and then blindly follow the religion of it whatsoever it be But then also it will follow that I. S. hath destroyed his main hypothesis and the oral tradition of the present Church is not the Rule of faith for that must first be known before we can know whether there be such a thing as the Church or no whose rule that is pretended to be And now follows his conclusion which is nought upon other accounts Wherefore saith he since the properties of the Rule of Faith do all agree to Tradition our Rule and none of them to theirs it follows the Protestant or Renouncer of Tradition knows not what is either right Scripture Father or Council and so ought not to meddle with either of them To this I have already answered and what I. S. may do hereafter when he happens to fall into another fit of demonstration I know not but as yet he hath been very far from doing what he says he hath done that is evidently prov'd what he undertook in this question And I suppose I have in a following Section of this book evidently prov'd that Tradition such I mean as the Church of Rome uses in this inquiry leads into error or may do as often as into truth and therefore though we may and do use tradition as a probable argument in many things and some as certain in one or two things to which in the nature of the thing it is apt to minister yet it is infinitely far from being the rule of faith the whole Christian faith But I wonder why I. S. saith that for want of Tradition we cannot know either right Scripture Fathers or Councils I do not think that by tradition they do know all the books of Scriptures Do they know by Universal or Apostolical Tradition that the Epistle to the Hebrews is Canonical Scripture The Church of Rome had no tradition for it for above four hundred years and they receiv'd it at last from the tradition of the Greek Church and then they not the Roman Church are the great conservers of tradition and they will get nothing by that And what universal tradition can they pretend for those books which are rejected by some Councils as particularly that of Laodicea which is in the Code of the Universal Church and some of the Fathers which yet they now receive certainly in that age which rejected them there was no Catholic tradition for them and those Fathers which as I. S. expresses it were eminent witnesses to their immediate posterity or children of the Churches doctrine received in all likelyhood did teach their posterity what themselves professed and therefore it is possible the Fathers in that Council and some others of the same sentiment might joyn in saying something which might deceive their
Sermon without meaning my book for that came out a pretty while after he does like the two penny Almanack-makers though he calculated it for the meridian of the Court Sermon as he calls it yet without any sensible error it may serve for Ireland It may be I. S. had an oral tradition for this way of proceeding especially having followed so authentic a president for it as the Author of the two Sermons called the Primitive rule before the reformation who goes upon the same infallible and thrifty way saying These two tracts as they are named Sermons are an answer to Dr. Pierce but as they may better be styled two common places so they are a direct answer to Dr. Taylon So that here are two things which are Sermons and no Sermons as you please not Sermons but common places and yet they are not altogether common places but they in some sense are Sermons unless Sermon and common place happen to be all one but how the same thing should be an answer to Dr. P. as he gives them one name and by giving them another name to the same purpose should be a direct answer to me who speak of other matters and by other arguments and to other purposes and in another manner I do not yet understand But I suppose it be meant as in I. S. his way and that it relies upon this first and a self evident principle That the same thing when called by another name is apt to do new and wonderful things It is a piece of Mr. White 's and I. S. his new Metaphysics which we silly men have not the learning to understand But it matters not what they say so they do but stop the mouths of the people that call upon them to say something to every new book that they may without apparent lying telling them the book is answered For to answer to confute means nothing with them but to speak the last word Well! but so it is I. S. hath ranged a great many of my quotations under heads and says so many are confuted by the first Corollary and so many by the second and so on to the ninth and tenth and some of them are raw and unapplyed some set for shew and some not home to the point and some wilfully represented and these come under the second or third head and perhaps of divers of the others To all this I have one short answer that the quotations which he reduces under the first head or the second or the third might for ought appears be rank'd under any other as well as these For he hath prov'd none to belong to any but Magisterially points with his finger and directs them to their several stations of confutation Thus he supposes I am confuted by an argument of his next to that of Mentiris Bellarmine And indeed in this way it were easie to confute Bellarmines three Volumes with the labour of three pages writing But this way was most fit to be taken by him who quotes the Fathers by oral tradition and not ocular inspection however if he had not particularly considered these things he ought not generally to have condemned them before he tried But this was an old trick and noted of some by S. Cyprian Corneliâ— Fr. epist. 42. edit Viderint autem qui vel furori suo Rigalt Paris 1648. vel libidini servientes divinae legis ac sanctitatis immemores jactitare interim gestiunt quae probare non possunt cum innocentiam destruere atque expugnare non valeant satis habent fama mendacii falsorum ore maculas inspergere I have neither will nor leisure to follow him in this extravagancy it will I hope be to better purpose that in the following Sections I shall justifie all my quotations against his and the calumnies of some others and press them and others beyond the objections of the wiser persons of his Church from whence these new men have taken their answers and made use of them to little purposes and therefore I shall now pass over the particulars of the quotations referring them to their places and consider if there be any thing more material in his eighth Way by which he pretends to blow up my grounds and my arguments deriv'd from reason The eighth Way THe eighth Way is to pick out the principles I rely on and to shew their weakness It is well this eighth Way is a great distance off from his first way or else I. S. would have no excuse for forgetting himself so palpably having at first laid to my charge that I went upon no grounds no principles But I perceive principles might be found in the Dissuasive if the man had a mind to it nay maine and fundamental principles and self evident to me And yet such is his ill luck that he picks out such which he himself says I do not call so And even here also he is mistaken too for the first he instances is Scripture and this not only I but all Protestants acknowledge to be the foundation of our whole faith But of this he says we shall discourse afterwards The second principle I rely upon at least he says I seem to do so is We all acknowledge that the whole Church of God kept the faith intire and transmitted faithfully to after ages the whole faith Well what says he to this principle He says this principle as to the positive part is good and assertive of tradition It is so of the Apostolical tradition for they deliver'd the doctrine of Christ to their Successors both by preaching and by writing And what hath I. S. got by this Yes give him but leave to suppose that this delivery of the doctrine of Christ was only by oral tradition for the three first ages for he is pleas'd so to understand the extent of the primitive Church and then he will infer that the third age could deliver it to the fourth and that to the fifth and so to us If they were able there is no question but they were willing for it concern'd them to be so and therefore it was done Though all this be not true for we see by a sad experience that too few in the world are willing to do what it concerns them most to do Yet for the present I grant all this And what then therefore oral tradition is the only rule of faith Soft and fair therefore the third age deliver'd it to the fourth and so on but not all the particulars by oral tradition but by the holy Scriptures as I shall largely prove in the proper place But to I. S. the Bells ring no tune but Whittington A third principle he says is this The present Roman doctrines which are in difference were invisible and unheard of in the first and best antiquity I know not why he calls this one of my principles unless all my propositions be principles as all his arguments are demonstrations It is indeed a conclusion which I have
Glossator falsly applies to all the works of the Fathers against the mind of the Fathers themselves quoted by Gratian in the ninth distinction and against the sense of Gelasius himself in that very chapter which he refers to in the fifteenth distinction It may be I. S. had not so much to say for his bold proposition as this it self comes to which if he had ever seen he must needs have seen in the same place very much to the contrary But that not only the Fathers themselves have taught him to speak more modestly of them than he does and that divers leading men of his Church have reprov'd this foolish affirmative of his he may be satisfied if he please to read Aquinas Authoritatibus Canonicae Scripturae utitur sacra doctrina ex necessitate argumentando Primâ parte q. 1. part 8. ad 2. arg authoritatibus autem aliorum Doctorum Ecclesiae quasi arguendo ex propriis sed probabiliter Now I know not what hopes of escaping I. S. can have by his restrictive terms the testimony of Fathers speaking of them properly as such for besides that the words mean nothing and the testimony of Fathers is the testimony of Fathers as such or it is just nothing at all Besides this I say that Aquinas affirms that their whole authority and therefore of Fathers as such is only probable and therefore certainly not infallible But this is so fond a proposition of I. S. that I am asham'd to speak any more of it and if he were not very ignorant of what his Church holds Lib. 1. adv haeres c. 7. he would never have said it Lib. 7. loc Theol c. 3. n. 4. c. But for his better information I desire the Gentleman to read Alphonsus a Castro Melehior Canus and Bellarmine De verb. Dei lib. 3. c. 10. Sect. Dices It is not therefore the constant doctrine of the Romanists that the Fathers are infallible for I never read or heard any man say it but I. S. and neither is it the avowed doctrine of that Church unless he will condemn all them for heretics that deny it some of which I have already nam'd and more will be added upon this occasion Well! but how shall we know that the Fathers testimony is a testimony of Fathers speaking properly as such for this doughty Question we are to inquire after in the pursuit of I. S. his mines and crackers He says in two cases they speak as Fathers 1. When they declare it the doctrine of the present Church of their time 2. When they write against any man as an heretic or his Tenet as heresie It seems then in these the Fathers testimony is infallible Let us try this 1. All or any thing of this may be done by Fathers supposed such but really not so and if it be not infallibly certain which are and which are not the writings of the Fathers we are nothing the neerer though it were agreed that the true Fathers testimony is infallible Or 2. If the book alledged was the book of the Father pretended and not of an obscure or heretical person yet it may be the words are interpolated or the testimony some way or other corrupted and then the testimony is not infallible when there is no absolute certainty of the witnesses themselves or the records and what causes there are of rejecting very many and doubting more and therefore in matters of present interest and Question of Uncertainty and fallibility in too many is known to every learned man and confessed by writers of both sides 2. It is very seldom that any of the Fathers do use that expression of saying This or this is the doctrine of the Church and therefore if they speak as Fathers never but when these two cases happen the writings of the Fathers will be of very little use in I. S.'s way 3. And yet after all this if we shall descend to instances I. S. will not dare to justifie what he says Was Justin Martyr infallible when he said that all Christians who were pure believers did believe the Millenary doctrine Certainly they were the Church for the others he says were such as denied the resurrection But was Gennadius or else S. Austin fathers and they infallible in the book de dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis in which he intends to give an account of the doctrine of the Church I. S. Seems to acknowledge it by affirming a saying out of that book to have been then de fide which because it had been oppos'd by very many of the fathers he had no reason to affirm but upon the witness of Gennadius putting it into his book of Ecclesiastical doctrines and he afterwards calls it the testimony of Gennadius delivering the doctrine of the Catholic Church Pag. 315. It is there said that all men shall die Christ only excepted that death might reign from Adam upon all Hanc rationem maxima Patrum turba tradente suscepimus This account we have receiv'd from the tradition of the greatest company of the Fathers If this be a tradition delivered by the greatest number of the fathers then 1. Tradition is not a sure rule of saith for this tradition is false and expresly against Scripture and 2. It follows that Tradition was not then esteemed a sure rule of faith for although this was a tradition from so great a troop of fathers at he says it was yet there were in his time alii aeque Catholici eruditi viri others as good Catholics and as learned that believ'd as S. Paul believ'd that we shall not all dye but we shall all be chang'd and however it be yet all that troop of fathers he speaks of from whence the tradition came were not infallible for they were actually deceiv'd Now this instance is of great consideration and force against I. S. his first and self evident principle concerning oral tradition For all that number of fathers if the rule of faith had been only oral tradition would horribly have disturbed the pure current of tradition and of necessity must have prevailed in I. S. his way or at least the contrary which is the truth and expresly affirm'd in Scripture could never have had the irrefragable testimony of oral tradition But thanks be to God in this the Church adher'd to the surer word of Prophecy the Scripture prov'd the surer rule of faith But again S. Austin or Gennadius says That after Christs resurrection the souls of all the Saints are with Christ and that going forth from the body they go to Christ expecting the resurrection of their bodies This he delivers as the Ecclesiastical doctrine and do the Patrons of Purgatory believe him in this to be infallible for my part I think S. Austin is in the right but I think I. S. will not grant this to be the avowed and constant doctrine of his Church The second case in which they speak as Fathers is when they write against any man as an
or the authority of plain Scriptures but this will be nothing to I. S. his hypothesis for if a part of the Catholic Fathers did deliver the contrary there was no irrefragable Catholic Oral tradition of the Church when so considerable a part of the Church delivered the contrary as their own doctrine which is not to be imagin'd they would have done if the consent of the Church of that age was against it And if we can suppose this case that one part of the Fathers should say this is the doctrine of the Church when another part of the Fathers are of a contrary judgment either they did not say true and then the Fathers testimony speaking as witnesses of the doctrine of the Church of their age is not infallible or if they did say true yet their testimony was not esteemed sufficient because the other Fathers who must needs know it if it was the Catholic doctrine of the Church then do not take it for truth or sufficient And that Maxime which was received in the Council of Trent that a Major part of voices was sufficient for decreeing in a matter of reformation but that a decree of faith could not be made if a considerable part did contradict relies upon the same reason faith is every mans duty and every mans concern and every mans learning and therefore it is not to be supposed that any thing can be an article of faith in which a number of wise and good men are at difference either as Doctors or as witnesses And of this we have a great testimony from Vincentius Lirinensis Common c. 3. In ipsa item Ecclesia magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus creditum est hoc est enim verè propriéque Catholicum Not that which a part of the Fathers but that which is said every where always and by all that is truly and properly Chatholic and this says he is greatly to be taken care of in the Catholic Church From all these premisses it will follow that the Dissuasive did or might to very good purpose make use of the Fathers and if I did there or shall in the following Sections make it appear that in such an age of the Ancient Church the doctrines which the Church of Rome at this day imposes on the world as articles of faith were not then accounted articles of faith but either were spoken against or not reckoned in their Canon and Confessions it will follow that either they can make new articles of faith or at least cannot pretend these to be articles of faith upon the stock of Oral Catholic tradition for this cannot be at all if the Catholic Fathers were though Unequally divided in their testimony The rest of I. S. his last Way or Mine is but bragging and indeed this whole Appendix of his is but the dregs of his sure-footing and gives but very little occasion of useful and material discourse But he had formerly promised that he would give an account of My relying on Scripture and here was the place reserved for it but when he comes to it it is nothing at all but a reviling of it calling of it a bare letter Unsens't outward characters Ink thus figur'd in a book but whatsoever it is he calls it my main most fundamental and in a manner my only principle though he according to his usual method of saying what comes next had said before that I had no Principle and that I had many Principles All that he adds afterwards is nothing but the same talk over again concerning the Fathers of which I have given an account I hope full enough and I shall add something more when I come to speak concerning the justification of the grounds of the Protestant and Christian religion Only that I may be out of I. S. his debt I shall make it appear that he and his party are the men that go upon no grounds that in the Church of Rome there is no sure-footing no certain acknowledged rule of faith but while they call for an assent above the nature and necessity of the thing they have no warrant beyond the greatest Uncertainty and cause their people to wander that I may borrow I. S. his expression in the very sphere of contingency THE SECOND PART OF The Dissuasive from Popery The first Book SECTION I. Of the Church shewing that The Church of Rome relies upon no certain foundation for their faith THat the Scriptures are infallibly true though it be acknowledged by the Roman Church yet this is not an infallible rule to them for several reasons 1. Because it is imperfect and insufficient as they say to determine all matters of Faith 2. Because it is not sufficient to determine any that shall be questioned not onely because its authority and truth is to be determin'd by something else that must be before it but also because its sense and meaning must be found out by something after it And not he that writes or speaks but he that expounds it gives the Rule so that Scripture no more is to rule us then matter made the world until something else gives it form and life and motion and operative powers it is but iners massa not so much as a clod of earth And they who speak so much of the obscurity of Scripture of the seeming contradictions in it of the variety of readings and the mysteriousness of its manner of delivery can but little trust that obscure dark intricate and at last imperfect book for a perfect clear Rule But I shall not need to drive them out of this Fort which they so willingly of themselves quit If they did acknowledge Scripture for their Rule all Controversies about this would be at an end and we should all be agreed but because they do not they can claim no title here That which they pretend to be the infallible Judge and the measure of our faith and is to give us our Rule is the Church and she is a rock the pillar and ground of truth and therefore here they fix Now how little assurance they have by this Confidence will appear by many considerations 1. It ought to be known and agreed upon what is meant by this word Church or Ecclesia For it is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Church cannot be a Rule or Guide if it be not known what you mean when you speak the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Suidas His body viz. mystical Christ calls his Church Among the Greeks it signifies a Convention or Assembly met together for publick imployment and affairs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Aristophanes understands it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is there not a Convocation or an Assembly called for this Plutus Now by Translation this word is us'd amongst Christians to signifie all them who out of the whole mass of mankind are called and come and are gathered together by the voice and call of God to
the worship of God through Jesus Christ and the participation of eternal good things to follow So that The Church is a Company of men and women professing the saving doctrine of Jesus Christ. This is the Church in sensu forensi and in the sight of men But because glorious things are spoken of the city of God the Professors of Christs Doctrine are but imperfectly and inchoatively the Church of God but they who are indeed holy and obedient to Christs laws of faith and manners that live according to his laws and walk by his example these are truly and perfectly the Church and they have this signature God knoweth who are his These are the Church of God in the eyes and heart of God For the Church of God are the body of Christ but the meer profession of Christianity makes no man a member of Christ Nither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing in Christ Jesus nothing but a new creature nothing but a faith working by love and keeping the Commandements of God Now they that do this are not known to be such by Men but they are onely known to God and therefore it is in a true sense the invisible Church not that there are two Churches or two Societies in separation from each other or that one can be seen by men and the other cannot for then either we must run after the Church whom we ought not to imitate or be blind in pursuit of the other that can never be found and our eyes serve for nothing but to run after false fires No these two Churches are but one Society the one is within the other They walk together to the house of God as friends they take sweet Counsel together and eat the bread of God in common but yet though the men be visible yet that quality and excellency by which they are constituted Christs members and distinguish'd from meer Professors and outsides of Christians this I say is not visible All that really and heartily serve Christ in abdito do also profess to do so they serve him in the secret of the heart and in the secret chamber and in the publick Assemblies unless by an intervening cloud of persecution they be for a while hid and made less conspicuous but the invisible Church ordinary and regularly is part of the visible but yet that onely part that is the true one and the rest but by denomination of law and in common speaking are the Church not in mystical union not in proper relation to Christ they are not the House of God not the Temple of the Holy Ghost not the members of Christ and no man can deny this Hypocrites are not Christs servants and therefore not Christs members and therefore no part of the Church of God but improperly and equivocally as a dead man is a man all which is perfectly summ'd up in those words of S. Austin De doctr Christ. lib. 3. cap 22 saying that the body of Christ is not bipartitum it is not a double body Non enim revera Domini corpus est quod cum illo non erit in aeternum All that are Christs body shall reign with Christ for ever And therefore they who are of their father the Devil are the synagogue of Satan and of such is not the Kingdom of God and all this is no more then what S. Paul said Rom. 9. 6. They are not all Israel who are of Israel Rom. 2. 28 29. and He is not a Jew that is one outwardly but he is a Jew that is one inwardly Now if any part of mankind will agree to call the universality of Professors by the title of the Church they may if they will any word by consent may signifie any thing but if by Church we mean that Society which is really joyn'd to Christ which hath receiv'd the holy Spirit which is heir of the Promises and the good things of God which is the body of which Christ is head then the invisible part of the visible Church that is the true servants of Christ onely are the Church that is to them onely appertains the spirit and the truth the promises and the graces the privileges and advantages of the Gospel to others they appertain as the promise of pardon does that is when they have made themselves capable For since it is plain and certain that Christs promise of giving the spirit to his Apostles was meerly conditional Joh. 14. 15 16. If they did love him If they did keep his Commandments Since it is plainly affirmed by the Apostle that by reason of wicked lives men and women did turn Apostates from the faith since nothing in the world does more quench the spirit of wisdom and of God than an impure life it is not to be suppos'd that the Church as it signifies the Professors onely of Christianity can have an infallible spirit of truth If the Church of Christ have an indefectibility then it must be that which is in the state of grace and the Divine favour They whom God does not love cannot fall from Gods love but the faithful onely and obedient are beloved of God others may believe rightly but so do the Devils who are no parts of the Church but Princes of Ecclesia Malignantium and it will be a strange proposition which affirms any one to be of the Church for no other reason but such as qualifies the Devil to be so too For there is no other difference between the Devils faith and the faith of a man that lives wickedly but that there is hopes the wicked man may by his faith be converted to holiness of life and consequently be a member of Christ and the Church which the Devils never can be To be converted from Gentilism or Judaism to the Christian faith is an excellent thing but it is therefore so excellent because that is Gods usual way by that faith to convert them unto God from their vain conversation unto holiness That was the Conversion which was designed by the preaching of the Gospel of which to believe meerly was but the entrance and introduction Now besides the evidence of the thing it self and the notice of it in Scripture Ephes. 2. 1 2 3 4 5. let me observe that this very thing is in it self a part of the article of faith for if it be asked What is the Catholick Church the Apostles Creed defines it it is Communio Sanctorum I believe the holy Catholick Church that is the Communion of Saints the conjunction of all them who heartily serve God through Jesus Christ the one is indeed exegetical of the other as that which is plainer is explicative of that which is less plain but else they are but the same thing which appears also in this that in some Creeds the latter words are left out and particularly in the Constantinopolitan as being understood to be in effect but another expression of the same Article To the same sense exactly Clemens of
present Inquiry The event and intendment of the premisses is this They who slighting the plain and perfect rule of Scripture rely upon the Church as an infallible guide of faith and judge of questions either by the Church mean the Congregation and Communion of Saints or the outward Church mingled of good and bad and this is intended either to mean a particular Church of one name or by it they understand the Catholick Church Now in what sense soever they depend upon the Church for decision of questions expecting an infallible determination and conduct the Church of Rome will find she relies upon a Reed of Egypt or at least a staff of wooll If by the Church they mean the Communion of Saints only though the persons of men be visible yet because their distinctive cognisance is invisible they can never see their guide and therefore they can never know whether they go right or wrong Lib. 3. de Eccl. milit cap 10. And the sad pressure of this argument Bellarmine saw well enough Sect. Ad hoc necesse est It is necessary saith he it should be infallibly certain to us which Assembly of men is the Church For since the Scriptures traditions and plainly all Doctrines depend on the testimony of the Church unless it be most sure which is the true Church all things will be wholly uncertain But it cannot appear to us which is the true Church if internal faith be required of every member or part of the Church Now how necessary true saving Faith or holiness is which Bellarmine calls internal faith I referr my self to the premisses It is not the Church unless the members of the Church be members of Christ living members for the Church is truly Christ's living body And yet if they by Church mean any thing else they cannot be assur'd of an infallible guide for all that are not the true servants of God have no promise of the abode of the Spirit of truth with them so that the true Church cannot be a publick Judge of questions to men because God only knows her numbers and her members and the Church in the other sense if she be made a Judge she is very likely to be deceiv'd her self and therefore cannot be relied upon by you for the promise of an infallible Spirit the Spirit of truth was never made to any but to the Communion of Saints 3. If by the Church you mean any particular Church which will you chuse since every such Church is esteemed fallible But if you mean the Catholick Church then if you mean her an abstracted separate Being from all particulars you pursue a cloud and fall in love with an Idea and a child of fancy but if by Catholick you mean all particular Churches is the world then though truth does infallibly dwell amongst them yet you can never go to school to them all to learn it in such questions which are curious and unnecessary and by which the salvation of Souls is not promoted and on which it does not rely not only because God never intended his Saints and servants should have an infallible Spirit so to no purpose but also because no man can hear what all the Christians of the world do say no man can go to them nor consult with them all nor ever come to the knowledge of their opinions and particular sentiments And therefore in this inquiry to talk of the Church in any of the present significations is to make use of a word that hath no meaning serving to the end of this great Inquiry The Church of Rome to provide for this necessity have thought of a way to find out such a Church as may salve this Phaenomenon and by Church they mean the Representation of a Church The Church representative is this infallible guide The Clergy they are the Church the teaching and the judging Church And of these we may better know what is truth in all our Questions for their lips are to preserve knowledge and they are to rule and feed the rest and the people must require the law from them and must follow their faith Heb. 13. 7. Indeed this was a good way once even in the days of the Apostles who were faithful stewards of the mysteries of God And the Apostolical men the first Bishops who did preach the Faith and liv'd accordingly these are to be remembred that is their lives to be transscribed their faith and perseverance in faith is to be imitated To this purpose is that of S. Irenaeus to be understood Tantae ostensiones cum sint Lib. 3. cap. 3. in principis non oportet adhuc quaerere apud alios veritatem quam facile est ab Ecclesiâ sumere cum Apostoli quasi in repositorium dives plenissimè in eâ contulerint omnia quae sint veritatis ubi omnis quicunque velit sumat ex eâ potum vitae Haec est enim vitae introitus Omnes autem reliqui fures sunt latrones propter quod oportet devitare quidem illos As long as the Apostles lived as long as those Bishops lived who being their Disciples did evidently and notoriously teach the doctrine of Christ and were of that communion so long they that is the Apostolical Churches were a sure way to follow because it was known and confess'd These Clergy-guides had an infallible Unerring spirit But as the Church hath decayed in Discipline and Charity hath waxen-cold and Faith is become interest and disputation this Counsel of the Apostle and these words of S. Irenaeus come off still the fainter But now here is a new question viz. Whether the Rulers of the Church be the Church that Church which is the pillar and ground of truth whether when they represent the diffusive Church the Promises of an indeficient faith and the perpetual abode of the Holy Spirit and his leading into all truth and teaching all things does in propriety belong to them For if they do not then we are yet to seek for an Infallible Judge a Church on which our Faith may relie with certainty and infallibility In answer to which I find that in Scripture the word Ecclesia or Church is taken in contradistinction from the Clergy but never that it is us'd to signifie them alone Act. 15. 22. Then it pleas'd the Apostles and the Elders with the whole Church to choose men of their own company c. And the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the Church of God Act. 20. 28. And Hilarius Diac. observes that the Apostle to the Church of Coloss sent by them a message to their Bishop In Col. 4. 16. Praepositum illorum per eos ipsos commonet ut sit sollicitus de salute ipsorum quia plebis solius scribitur epistola ideò non ad rectorem ipsorum destinata est sed ad Ecclesiam observing that the Bishop is the Ruler of the Church but his Flock is that which he intended onely to
was Acts 15. 4. that I mean of Jerusalem where the Apostles were presidents and the Presbyters were assistants but the Church was the body of the Council When they were come to Jerusalem they were receiv'd of the Church 22. and of the Apostles and Elders And again Then it pleased the Apostles and Elders with the Church to send chosen men 23. and they did so they sent a Decretal with this style The Apostles and Elders and Brethren send greeting to the Brethren which are of the Gentiles Now no man doubts but the Spirit of Infallibility was in the Apostles and yet they had the consent of the Church in the Decree which Church was the company of the converted Brethren and by this it became a Rule certainly it was the first precedent and therefore ought to be the measure of the rest and this the rather because from hence the succeeding Councils have deriv'd their sacramental sanction of Visum est Spiritui sancto nobis now as it was the first so it was the only precedent in Scripture and it was manag'd by the Apostles and therefore we can have no other warrant of an Authentick Council but this and to think that a few of the Rulers of Churches should be a just representation of the Church for infallible determination of all questions of Faith is no way warranted in Scripture and there is neither here nor any where else any word or commission that the Church ever did or could delegate the Spirit to any representatives or pass Infallibility by a Commission or Letter of Attorney and therefore to call a General Council the Church or to think that all the priviledges and graces given by Christ to his Church is there in a part of the Church is wholly without warrant or authority But this is made manifest by matter of fact and the Church never did intend to delegate any such power but always kept it in her own hand I mean the supreme Judicature both in faith and discipline I shall not go far for instances but observe some in the Roman Church it self which are therefore the more remarkable because in the time of her Reign General Councils were arrived to great heights and the highest pretensions Clement the 7th calls the Council of Ferrara Vide edit Roman Actorum Generalis octavae Synâ—di per Anton. Bladrum 1516. the Eighth General Synod in his Bull of the 22th of April 1527. directed to the Bishop of Fernaesia who it seems had translated it out of Greek into Latin yet this General Council is not accepted in France but was expresly rejected by King Charles the 7th and the instance of the Cardinals who came from P. Eugenius to desire the acceptation of it was denied This Council A. D. 1431. was it seems begun at Basil and though the King did then and his Great Council and Parliament and the Church of France then assembled at Bruges accept it yet it was but in part for of 45 Sessions of that Council France hath receiv'd only the first 32. and those not intirely as they lie but with certain qualifications Aliqua simpliciter ut jacent alia verò cum certis modificationibus formis as is to be seen in the pragmatick Sanction To the same purpose is that which hapned to the last Council of Lateran which was called to be a countermine to the second Council of Pisa and to frustrate the intended Reformation of the Church in head and members This Council excommunicated Lewis the XII th of France repealed the Pragmatical Sanction and condemned the second Council of Pisa. So that here was an end of the Council of Pisa by the Decree of the Lateran and on the other side the Lateran Council had as bad a Fate for besides that it was accounted in Germany and so called by Paulus Langius a Monk of Germany In Chron. Sitizensi A. D. 1513. A pack of Cardinals it is wholly rejected in France and an appeal to the next Council put in against it by the University of Paris And as ill success hath hapned to the Council of Trent which it seems could not oblige the Roman Catholick countries without their own consent But therefore there were many pressing instances messages petitions and artifices to get it to be published in France First to Charles the IX th by Pius Quartus An. Dom. 1563. than by Cardinal Aldobrandino the Pope's Nephew 1572 then by the French Clergy 1576 in an Assembly of the States at Blois Peter Espinac Arch Bishop of Lyons being Speaker for the Clergy after this by the French Clergy at Melun 1579. the Bishop of Bazas making the Oration to the King and after him the same year they pressed it again Nicolas Angelier the Bishop of Brien being Speaker After this by Renald of Beaune Arch-Bishop of Bruges 1582. Vide Thuan. hist. lib. 105. revieu du Concile de Trent lib. 1. and the very next year by the Pope's Nuncio to Henry the 3d. And in An. Dom. 1583. and 88. and 93. it was press'd again and again but all would not do By which it appears that even in the Church of Rome the Authority of General Councils is but precarious and that the last resort is to the respective Churches who did or did not send their delegates to consider and consent Here then is but little ground of confidence in General Councils whom surely the Churches would absolutely trust if they had reason to believe them to be infallible But there are many more things to be considered For there being many sorts of Councils General Provincial Gratian dist 3. caâ— Pâ—rrè National Diocesan the first inquiry will be which of all these or whether all of these will be an infallible guide and of necessity to be obeyed I doubt not but it will be roundly answered that only the General Councils are the last and supreme Judicatory and that alone which is infallible But yet how Uncertain this Rule will be Vbi supra act 3. appears in this that the gloss of the Canon Law * says Non videtur Metropolitanos posse condere Canones in suis Conciliis at least not in great matters imò non licet yet the VII th Synod allows the Decrees Decistones localium Conciliorum the definitions of local Councils But I suppose it is in these as it is in the General they that will accept them may and if they will approve the Decrees of Provincial Councils they become a Law unto themselves and without this acceptation General Councils cannot give Laws to others 2. It will be hard to tell which are General Councils Lib. 1. c. 4. de Concil Eccles Sect. Vocuntur enim and which are not for the Roman Councils under Symmachus all the world knows can but pretend to be local or provincial consisting only of Italians and yet they bear Vniversal in their Style and it is always said as Bellarmine * confesses Symmachus
and understood the meaning of the Council as well as any except the Legats and their secret Juncto wrote books against one another and both sides brought the words of the Council for themselves and yet neither prevailed Sancta Croce the Legat who well enough understood that the Council intended not to determine the truth yet to silence their wranglings in the Council let them dispute abroad but the Council would not end it by clearing the ambiguity And since this became the mode of Christendom to do so upon design it can be no wonder that things are left Uncertain for all the Decrees of Councils It is well therefore that the Church of Rome requires Faith to her Conclusions greater than her Premisses can perswade It is the only way of escaping that is left them as being conscious that none of their Arguments can enforce what they would have believ'd And to the same purpose it is that they teach the Conclusions and definitions of Councils to be infallible though their Arguments and Proceedings be fallible and pitiful and false If they can perswade the world to this they have got the Goal only it ought to be confess'd by them that do submit to the definition that they do so mov'd to it by none of their Reasons but they know not why I do not here enter into the particular examination of the matters determined by many Councils by which it might largely and plainly appear how greatly General Councils have been mistaken This hath been observed already by many very learned men And the Council of Trent is the greatest instance of it in the world as will be made to appear in the procedure of this Book But the Romanists themselves by rejecting divers General Councils have as I have above observ'd given proof enough of this That all things are here Uncertain I have prov'd and that if there be error here there can be no certainty any where else Bellarmine confesses So that I have thus far discharg'd what I undertook But beyond this there are some other particulars fit to be consider'd by which it will yet further appear that in the Church of Rome unless they will rely upon the plain Scriptures they have no sure foundation instance in those several Articles which some of the Roman Doctors say are de fide and others of their own party when they are press'd with them say they are not de fide but the opinions of private Doctors That if a Prince turn Heretick that is be not of the Roman party he presently loses all right to his temporal Dominions That the Pope can change Kingdoms taking from one and giving to another this is esteemed by the Jesuits a matter of Faith It is certa indubitata definita virorum clarissimorum sententia said Creswel the Jesuit in his Philopater F. Garnet said more it is Totius Ecclesiae quidem ab antiquissimis temporibus consensione recepta doctrina It is receiv'd saith Creswel by the whole School of Divines and Canon-Lawyers nay it is Certum de fide It is matter of Faith I know that the English Priests will think themselves injur'd if you impute this Doctrine to them or say It is the Catholick Doctrine and yet that this power in Temporals that he can depose Kings sometimes is in the Pope Contr. Barclai cap. 3. Non opinio sed certitudo apud Catholicos est said Bellarmine It is more than an opinion it is certain amongst the Catholicks Now since this is not believ'd by all that call themselves Catholicks and yet by others of greatest note it is said to be the Catholick Doctrine to be certain to be a point of Faith I desire to know Where this Faith is founded which is the house of Faith where is their warrant their authority and foundation of their Article For if an English Scholar in the Colledge at Rome had in confession to F. Parsons Creswel Garnet Bellarmine or any of their parties confessed that he had spoken against the Pope's power of deposing Kings in any case or of any pretence of killing Kings it is certain they could not have absolved him till he had renounc'd his Heresy and they must have declar'd that if he had died in that perswasion he must have been damned what rest shall this poor man have or hope for He pretends that the Council of Constance had declar'd for his opinion and therefore that his and not theirs is certain and matter of Faith They tell him no and yet for their Article of Faith have neither Father nor Council Scripture nor Reason Tradition nor Ancient Precedent where then is this foundation upon which the article is built It lies low as low as Hell but can never be made to appear and yet amongst them Articles of faith grow up without root and without foundation but a man may be threatned with damnation amongst them for any trifle and affrighted with clappers and men of clouts If they have a clear and certain rule why do their Doctors differ about the points of faith They say some things are articles of faith and yet do not think fit to give a reason of their faith for indeed they cannot But if this be the way of it amongst Roman Doctors they may have many faiths as they have Breviaries in several Churches secundum usum Sarum secundum usum Scholae Romanae and so without ground or reason even the Catholicks become hereticks one to another it is by chance if it happen to be otherwise 2. What makes a point to be de fide If it be said The decision of a General Council Then since no General Council hath said so then this proposition is not de fide that what a General Council says is true is to be believed as matter of faith for if the authority be not de fide then how can the particulars of her determination be de fide for the conclusion must follow the weaker part and if the Authority it self be left in uncertainty the Decrees cannot be infallible 3. As no man living can tell that a Council hath proceeded rightly so no man can tell when an Article of faith is firmly decreed or when a matter is sufficiently propounded or when the Pope hath perfectly defin'd an article of all this the Canon law is the Greatest testimony in the world where there is Council against Council Pope against Pope and among so many decrees of faith and manners it cannot be told what is and what is not certain For when the Popes have sent their rescripts to a Bishop or any other Prelate to order an affair of life or doctrine either he wrote that with an intent to oblige all Christendom or did not If not why is it put into the body of the laws for what is a greater signature or can pass a greater obligation then the Authentick Code of laws But if these were written with an intent to oblige all Christendom how come they to be prejudic'd
show love and faithfulness to our equals to our inferiours counsel and help favour and good will bounty and kindness a good word and a good deed The Scripture hath given us Commandments concerning our very thoughts to be thankful and hospitable to be humble and complying what ever good thing was taught by any or all the Philosophers in the world all that and much more is in the Scriptures and that in a much better manner And that it might appear that nothing could be wanting the very degrees and the order of vertues is there provided for And if all this be not the high way to salvation and sufficient to all intents of God and the souls of men let any man come forth and say as Christ said to the young man Restat adhuc unum there is one thing wanting yet and let him shew it But let us consider a little further 5. What is or what can be wanting to the fulness of Scripture Is not all that we know of the life and death of Jesus set down in the writings of the New Testament Is there any one Miracle that ever Christ did the notice of which is conveyed to us by tradition Do we know any thing that Christ did or said but what is in Scripture Some things were reported to have been said by Christ secretly to the Apostles and by the Apostles secretly to some favourite Disciples but some of these things are not believed and none of the other is known so that either we must conclude that the Scripture contains fully all things of Faith and Obedience or else we have no Gospel at all for except what is in Scripture we have not a sufficient record of almost one saying or one miracle S. Paul quotes one saying of Christ which is not in any of the four Gospels but it is in the Scriptures It is better to give then to receive and S. Hierom records another Be never very glad but when you see your Brother live in charity If S. Paul had not written the first and transmitted it in Scripture we had not known it any more than those many other which are lost for not being written and for the quotation of S. Hierom it is true it is a good saying but whether they were Christ's words or no we have but a single testimony Now then how is it possible that the Scriptures should not contain all things necessary to salvation when of all the words of Christ in which certainly all necessary things to salvation must needs be contain'd or else they were never revealed there is not any one saying or miracle or story of Christ in any thing that is material preserv'd in any indubitable record but in Scripture alone 6. That the Scriptures do not contain in them all things necessary to salvation is the fountain of many great and Capital errours I instance in the whole doctrine of the Libertines Familists Quakers and other Enthusiasts which issue from this corrupted fountain For this that the Scriptures do need a Suppletory that they are not perfect and sufficient to salvation of themselves is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Fundamental both of the Roman religion and that of the Libertines and Quakers and those whom in Germany they call Spirituales such as David George Harry Nicholas Swenckfeld Sebastian Franc and others These are the men that call the Scriptures The letter of the Scripture the dead letter insufficient inefficacious This is but the sheath and the scabberd the bark and the shadow a carcase void of the internal light not apt to imprint a perfect knowledge in us of what is necessary to salvation But the Roman Doctors say the same things We know who they are that call the Scriptures the Outward letter Ink thus figur'd in a book J. S. in Sure scoting and in 4. Append. Unsensed characters waxen-natur'd words not yet sensed apt to blunder and confound but to clear little or nothing these are as bad words as the other and some of them the same and all draw a long tail of evil consequents behind them 1. From this Principle as it is promoted by the Fanaticks they derive a wandring unsetled and a dissolute religion For they supplying the insufficiency of Scripture by an inward word which being onely within it is subject to no discipline reducible into no order not submitted to the spirits of the Prophets and hath no rule by which it can be directed examin'd or judged Hence comes the infinite variety and contradictions of religion commenc'd by men of this perswasion A religion that wanders from day to day from fancy to fancy and alterable by every new illusion A religion in which some man shall be esteem'd an infallible Judge to day and next week another but it may happen that any man may have his turn and any mischief may be believ'd and acted if the Devil get into the chair 2. From this very same Principle as it is promoted by the Papists they derive a religion imperious interested and tyrannical For as the Fanaticks supply the insufficiency of Scripture by the word internal so do the Roman Doctors by the authority of the Church but when it comes to practice as the Fanatick give the supreme power of teaching and defining to the chief Elder in the love so do the Papists especially the Jesuits give it to the Pope and the difference is not that the Fanaticks give the supreme judgement to some one and the Papists give it to the whole Church for these also give it but to one man to the Pope whose judgement voice and definition must make up the deficiencies of Scripture But because the Fanaticks as it happens change their Judge every moneth therefore they have an ambulatory religion but that of the Roman way establishes Tyranny because their Judge being one not in person but in succession and having always the same interest and having already resolved upon their way and can when they list go further upon the stock of the same Principles and being established by humane power will unalterably persist in their right and their wrong and will never confess an Error and are impatient of contradiction and therefore they impose irremediably and what they please upon Consciences of which they have made themselves Judges Now for these things there is no remedy but from Scripture which if it be allowed full perfect and sufficient unto all the things of God then whatsoever either of these parties say must be tried by Scripture it must be shewed to be there or be rejected But to avoid the trial there they tell you the Scripture is but a dead letter Unsensed Characters words without sense or unsensed and therefore this must be supplied by the inward word says one by the Pope's word in Cathedrâ says the other and then both the Inward word and the Pope's word shall rule and determine every thing and the Scriptures will signifie nothing but as under pretence of
the word Internal every new thing shall pass for the word of God so it shall do also under the Roman pretence For not he that makes a Law but he that expounds the Law gives the final measures of Good or Evil. It follows from hence that nothing but the Scripture's sufficiencie can be a sufficient limit to the inundation of evils which may enter from these parties relying upon the same false Principle My Last argugument is from Tradition it self For 7. If we enquire upon what grounds the primitive Church did rely for their whole Religion we shall find they knew none else but the Scriptures Vbi Scriptum was their first inquiry Do the Prophets and the Apostles the Evangelists or the Epistles say so Read it there and then teach it else reject it they call upon their Charges in the words of Christ Search the Scriptures they affirm that the Scriptures are full that they are a perfect Rule that they contain all things necessary to salvation and from hence they confuted all Heresies This I shall clearly prove by abundant testimonies Of which though many of them have been already observ'd by very many learned persons yet because I have added others not so noted and have collected with diligence and care and have rescued them from Elusory answers I have therefore chosen to represent them together hoping they may be of more usefulness than trouble because I have here made a trial whether the Church of Rome be in good earnest or no when she pretends to follow Tradition or how it is that she expects a tradition shall be prov'd For this Doctrine of the Scripture's sufficiency I now shall prove by a full tradition therefore if she believes Tradition let her acknowledge this tradition which is so fully prov'd and if this do not amount to a full probation then it is but reasonable to expect from them that they never obtrude upon us any thing for tradition or any tradition for necessary to be believed till they have proved it such by proofs more and more clear than this Essay concerning the sufficiency and perfection of the Divine Scriptures I begin with S. Irenaeus * Rectissimè quidem scientes quia Scripturae quidem perfectae sunt quippe à verbo Dei Spiritu ejus dictae lib. 2. cap. 47. We know that the Scriptures are perfect for they are spoken by the word of God and by his Spirit Therefore * Lib. 4. c. 66. Legite diligentius id quod ab Apostolis est Evangelium nobis datum legite diligentius Prophetas invenietis Vniversam actionem omnem doctrinam Domini nostri praedicatam in ipsis read diligently the Gospel given unto us by the Apostles and read diligently the Prophets and you shall find every action and the whole doctrine and the whole passion of our Lord preached in them And indeed we have receiv'd the Oeconomy of our salvation by no other but by those by whom the Gospel came to us which truly they then preached but afterwards by the will of God delivered to us in the Scriptures which was to be the pillar and ground to our Faith These are the words of this Saint who was one of the most ancient Fathers of the Church a Greek by birth by his dignity and imployment a Bishop in France and so most likely to know the sense and rule of the Eastern and Western Churches Next to S. Irenaeus Strom. lib. 7. P. 757 edit Parâ—s 1629. we have the Doctrine of S. Clemens of Alexandria in these words He hath lost the being a man of God and of being faithful to the Lord who hath kicked against Tradition Ecclesiastical and hath turned to the opinions of humane Heresies What is this Tradition Ecclesiastical and where is it to be found That follows But he who returning out of Error obeys the Scriptures and hath permitted his life to truth he is of a Man in a manner made a God For the Lord is the principle of our Doctrine who by the Prophets and the Gospel and the blessed Apostles at sundry times and in divers manners leads us from the beginning to the end He that is faithful of himself is worthy of faith in the Voice and Scripture of the Lord which is usually exercis'd through the Lord to the benefit of men for this Scripture we use for the finding out of things this we use as the rule of judging But if it be not enough to speak our opinions absolutely but that we must prove what we say we expect no testimony that is given by men but by the voice of the Lord we prove the Question and this is more worthy of belief than any demonstration or rather it is the only demonstration by which knowledge they who have tasted of the Scriptures alone are faithful Afterwards he tells how the Scriptures are a perfect demonstration of the Faith Perfectly demonstrating out of the Scriptures themselves concerning themselves we speak or perswade demonstratively of the Faith Although even they that go after Heresies do dare to use the Scriptures of the Prophets But first they use not all neither them that are perfect nor as the whole body and contexture of the Prophecy does dictate but choosing out those things which are spoken ambiguously they draw them to their own opinion Then he tells how we shall best use and understand the Scriptures Let every one consider what is agreeable to the Almighty Lord God and what becomes him and in that let him confirm every thing from those things which are demonstrated from the Scriptures out of those and the like Scriptures And he adds that It is the guise of Hereticks when they are overcome by shewing that they oppose Scriptures Yet still they chuse to follow that which to them seems evident rather than that which is spoken of the Lord by the Prophets and by the Gospel and what is prov'd and confirm'd by the testimony of the Apostles and at last concludes a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 755. they become impious because they believe not the Scriptures and a little before this he asks the Hereticks Will they deny or will they grant there is any demonstration I suppose they will all grant there is except those who also deny that there are senses But if there be any demonstration it is necessary to descend to Questions and b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the Scriptures themselves to learn demonstratively how the Heresies are fallen and on the contrary how the most perfect knowledge is in the truth and the ancient Church But again they that are ready to spend their time in the best things will not give over seeking for truth c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 untill they have found the demonstration from the Scriptures themselves And after this adds his advice to Christians To wax old in the Scriptures and thence to seek for demonstrations These things he spoke not only by way of
Caution to the Christians but also of Opposition to the Gnosticks who were very busie in pretending ancient traditions This is the discourse of that great Christian Philosopher S. Clement from which besides the direct testimony given to the fulness and sufficiency of Scripture in all matters of Faith or Questions in Religion we find him affirming that the Scriptures are a certain and the only demonstration of these things they are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the rule of judging the controversies of faith that the tradition Ecclesiastical that is the whole doctrine taught by the Church of God and preach'd to all men is in the Scripture and therefore that it is the plenary and perfect repository of tradition that is of the doctrine deliver'd by Christ and his Apostles and they who believe not these are Impious And lest any man should say that suppose Scripture do contain all things necessary to Salvation yet it is necessary that tradition or some infallible Church do expound them and then it is as long as it is broad and comes to the same issue S. Clement tells us how the Scriptures are to be expounded saying that they who rely upon them must expound Scriptures by Scriptures and by the analogy of faith Comparing spiritual things with spiritual one place with another a part with the whole and all by the proportion to the Divine Attributes This was the way of the Church in S. Clement ' s time and this is the way of our Churches But let us see how this affair went in other Churches and times and whether there be a succession and an Universality of this doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture in all the affairs of God The next is Tertullian Contr. Hermog cap. 22. who writing against Hermogenes that affirm'd God made the world not out of nothing but of I know not what praeexistent matter appeals to Scripture in the Question whose fulness Tertullian adores Let the shop of Hermogenes show that this thing is written If it be not written let him fear the Wo pronounc'd against them that adde to or take from Scripture Against this testimony it is objected that here Tertullian speaks but of one question De verb. Dei lib 4. c. 11. Sect. So Bellarmine answers and from him E. W. and A. L. To which the reply is easie Profert undecimo For when Tertullian challenges Hermogenes to show his proposition in Scripture he must mean that the fulness of the Scripture was sufficient not onely for this but for all Questions of religion or else it had been an ill way of arguing to bring a negative argument from Scripture against this alone For why was Hermogenes tied to prove this proposition from Scripture more than any other Either Scripture was the rule for all or not for that For suppose the heretick had said It is true it is not in Scripture but I have it from tradition or it was taught by my forefathers there had been nothing to have replied to this but that It may be he had no tradition for it Now if Hermogenes had no tradition then indeed he was tied to shew it in Scripture but then Tertullian should have said let Hermogenes shew where it is written or that it is a tradition for if the pretending and proving tradition in case there were any such pretense in this Question had been a sufficient answer then Tertullian had no sufficient argument against Hermogenes by calling for authority from Scripture but he should have said If it be not scriptum or traditum written or delivered let Hermogenes fear the wo to the adders or detracters But if we will suppose Tertullian spoke wisely and sufficiently he must mean that the Scripture must be the Rule in all Questions and no doctrine is to be taught that is not taught there But to put this thing past dispute Tertullian himself extends this rule to an universal comprehension And by this instrument declares that hereticks are to be confuted Take from the hereticks that which they have in common with the heathens viz. their Ethnick learning and let them dispute their questions by Scripture alone and they can never stand By which it is plain that the Scripture is sufficient for all faith because it is sufficient to convince all heresies and deviations from the faith For which very reason the hereticks also as he observes attempted to prove their propositions by arguments from Scripture for indeed there was no other way because the Articles of faith are to be prov'd by the writings of faith De Praescript that is the Scripture that was the Rule How contrary this is to the practice and doctrine of Rome at this day we easily find by their Doctors charging all heresies upon the Scriptures as occasion'd by them and forbidding the people to read them for fear of corrupting their weak heads nay it hath been prohibited to certain Bishops to read the Scriptures lest they become hereticks And this folly hath proceeded so far that Erasmus tells us of a Dominican In Epist. who being urg'd in a Scholastical disputation with an argument from Scripture cried out It was a Lutheran way of disputation and protested against the answering it which besides that it is more than a vehement suspicion that these men find the Scriptures not to look like a friend to their propositions it is also a manifest procedure contrary to the wisdom religion and Oeconomy of the primitive Church The next I note Tract 5. in Matth. versus finem is Origen who when he propounded a Question concerning the Angels Guardians of little children viz. When the Angels were appointed to them at their Birth or at their Baptism He addes You see Vide etiam Origen bomil 25. in Matth. homil 7. in Ezek. hom l. â— in Jerem. Quos locos citat Bellarm. ubi supra Sect. Secundò profert he that will discuss both of them warily it is his part to produce Scripture for testimony agreeing to one of them both That was the way of the Doctors then And Scripture is so full and perfect to all intents and purposes that for the confirmation of our discourses Scripture is to be brought saith Origen * Jesum Christum scimus Deum quaeriâ—us verba quae dicta sunt juxta personae exponere dignitatem Quapropter necesse nobis est Scripturas sanctas in testimonium vocare sensus quippe nostri enarrationes sine his testibus non habent fidem We know Jesus Christ is God and we seek to expound the words which are spoken according to the dignity of the person Wherefore it is necessary for us to call the Scriptures into testimony for our meanings and enarrations without these witnesses have no belief To these words Bellarmine answers most childishly saying that Origen speaks of the hardest questions such as for the most part traditions are not about But it is evident that therefore Origen requires testimony of
Scriptures not because of the difficulty of things to be inquir'd but because without such testimony they are not to be believ'd For so are his very words and therefore whether they be easie or hard if they be not in Scripture the Questions will be indeterminable That is the sense of Origen ' s argument In Epist. ad Rom. lib 3. But more plainly yet After these things as his custom is he will affirm or prove from the holy Scriptures what he had said and also gives an example to the Doctors of the Church that those things which they speak to the people they should prove them not as produc'd by their own sentences but defended by divine testimonies for if he so great and such an Apostle believes not that the authority of his saying can be sufficient unless he teaches that those things which he says are written in the Law and the Prophets how much rather ought we who are the least observe this thing that we do not when we teach produce our own but the sentences of the Holy Ghost Add to this what he says in another place Tract 23. in Matth. As our Saviour impos'd silence upon the Sadduces by the word of his Doctrine and faithfully convinc'd that false opinion which they thought to be truth so also shall the followers of Christ do by the examples of Scripture by which according to sound Doctrine every voice of Pharaoh ought to be silent The next in order is S. Cyprian who indeed speaks for tradition not meaning the modus tradendi but the doctrina tradita for it is such a tradition as is in Scripture the doctrine deliver'd first by word of mouth and then consigned in Scripture Epist. ad Pompeium Let nothing be innovated but that is deliver'd Whence is that tradition whether descending from the Lord's and from the Evangelical authority or coming from the Commandments and Epistles of the Apostles For that those things are to be done which are written God witnesses and propounds to Jesus Nave saying The Book of this Law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate in it day and night that thou maist observe to do all things which are written Our Lord also sending his Apostles commands the nations to be baptized and taught that they may observe all things whatsoever he hath commanded If therefore it be either commanded in the Gospel or in the Epistles of the Apostles that they that come from any Heresie should not be baptiz'd but that hands should be imposed upon them unto repentance then let even this holy tradition be observ'd This Doctrine and Counsel of S. Cyprian lib. 4. de Bapt. contra Donatist cap. 3. c. 5. Bellarmine says was one of the Errors of S. Cyprian but S. Austin commends it as the best way And this procedure is also the same that the Church in the descending ages always followed of which there can in the world be no plainer testimony given than in the words of S. Cyril of Jerusalem and it was in the High Questions of the Holy and mysterious Trinity Catech. â— 5. 12. 16. 18. Illuminat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Catech. 4. Illuminat concerning which he advises them to retain that zeal in their minds which by heads and summaries is expounded to you but if God grant shall according to my strength be demonstrated to you by Scripture a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it behooveth us not to deliver no not so much as the least thing of the holy mysteries of Faith without the holy Scriptures Neither give credit to me speaking unless what is spoken be demonstrated by the Holy Scriptures For that is the security of our Faith not which is from our inventions but from the demonstration of the Holy Scriptures To the same purpose in the Dissuasive was produced the Testimony of S. Basil S. Basil. moral but the words which were not there set down at large Reg. 8. c. 12. edit Paris 1547. ex officinâ Carol â—uillard are these What 's proper for the faithful man That with a certain fulness of mind he believes the force of those things to be true which are spoken in the Scripture and that he rejects nothing and that he dares not to decree any thing that is new For whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin but Faith is by hearing Vide etiam Epist. 80. Stemus itaque arbitratui à Deo inspiratae Scripturae Questio erat an dicendum in Deo tres hypostases vnam naturam apud Bellar. de verbo Dei non scripio lib. 4. cap. 11. Sect. Alium locum and hearing by the word of God without doubt since whatsoever is without the Scripture is not of Faith Vide etiam Reg. 72. c. 1. cum tiâ—ulo praefixo capiti it is a Sin These words are so plain as no Paraphrase is needful to illustrate them to which may be added those fiercer words of the same Saint It is a manifest defection from the Faith and a conviction of Pride Homil. de vera fide 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. either to reject any thing of what is written or to introduce any thing that is not since our Lord Jesus Christ hath said My sheep hear my voice and a little before he said the same thing A stranger they will not follow but will fly from him because they know not the voice of strangers By which words S. Basil plainly declares that the whole voice and words of Christ are set down in Scripture and that all things else is the voice of strangers And therefore the Apostle does most vehemently forbid by an example taken from men lest any thing of those which are in Scripture be taken away or which God forbid any thing be added To these words Bellarmine and his followers that write against the Dissuasive answer that S. Basil speaks against adding to the Scripture things contrary to it and things so strange from it as to be invented out of their own head and that he also speaks of certain particular Heresies 〈◊〉 in the Prâ—face 2. Which endeavour to escape from the pressure of these words is therefore very vain because S. Basil was not then disputing against any particular Heresies as teaching any thing against Scripture or of their own head but he was about to describe the whole Christian Faith And that he may do this with faithfulness and simplicity and without reproof he declares he will do it from the holy Scriptures for it is infidelity and pride to do otherwise and therefore what is not in the Scriptures if it be added to the faith it is contrary to it as contrary as unfaithfulness or infidelity and what soever is not deliver'd by the Spirit of God is an invention of man if offer'd as a part of the Christian Faith And therefore Bellarmine and and his followers make here a distinction where there is no
viduiâ—aâ— cap. 1. The Scripture is the consummation or utmost bounded rule of our doctrine that we may not dare to be wiser than we ought And that not only in the Question of widdow-hood but in all questions which belong unto life and manners of living as himself in the same place declares And it is not only for Laics and vulgar persons but for all men and not only for what is merely necessary 2. Tim. 3. but to make us wise to make us perfect Salmeron in hunâ— locum tom 15. p. 607. vide plura apud eandem p. 606. saith the Apostle And how can this man say that the Scriptures makes a man perfect in justice And he that is perfect in justice needs no more revelation which words are well enlarged by S. Cyril The Divine Scripture is sufficient to make them who are educated in it wise and most approv'd Cyril Alex. l. 7. contr Julian and having a most sufficient understanding And to this we need not any forraign teachers But lastly if in the plain words of Scripture be contained all that is simply necessary to all then it is clear by Bellarmine's confession that S. Austin affirm'd that the plain places of Scripture are sufficient to all Laics and all Ideots or private persons and then as it is very ill done to keep them from the knowledge and use of the Scriptures which contain all their duty both of faith and good life so it is very unnecessary to trouble them with any thing else there being in the world no such treasure and repository of faith and manners and that so plain that it was intended for all men and for all such men is sufficient S. August ser. 38. ad fratres in eremâ— Read the holy Scriptures wherein you shall find some things to be holden and some to be avoided This was spoken to the Monks and Brethren in the Desert and to them that were to be guides of others the pastors of the reasonable flock and in that whole Sermon he enumerates the admirable advantages fulness and perfection of the Holy Scriptures out of which themselves are to be taught and by the fulness of which they are to teach others in all things I shall not be troublesome by adding those many clear testimonies from other of the Fathers But I cannot omit that of Anastasius of Antioch It is manifest that these things are not to be inquir'd into Lib. 8. anagogicâ— contempt in Hexameron which the Scripture hath pass'd over in silence For the Holy Spirit hath dispensed and administred to us all things which conduce to our profit De vocaâ— gentium in 2. tem operum S. Ambros l. 2. c. 3. If the Scriptures be silent who will speak said S. Prosper what things we are ignorant of from them we learn said Theodoret a In 2. tâ—m 3. in illud ad docenduâ— and there is nothing which the Scriptures deny to dissolve said Theophylact b Ibidem And the former of these brings in the Christian saying to Eranistes c Dial. 1. Tell not me of your Logisms and Syllogisms I rely upon Scripture only But Rupertus Tuitiensis d Commenâ— in â—ib Regum lib. 3. c. 12. his words are a fit conclusion to this heap of testimonies Whatsoever is of the word of God whatsoever ought to be known and preach'd of the Incarnation of the true Divinity and humanity of the Son of God is so contain'd in the two Testaments that besides these there is nothing ought to be declar'd or believ'd The whole coelestial Oracle is comprehended in these which we ought so firmly to know that besides these it is not lawful to hear either Man or Angel And all these are nothing else but a full subscription to and an excellent commentary upon those words of S. Paul Let no man pretend to be wise above what is written By the concourse of these testimonies of so many Learned Orthodox and Ancient Fathers we are abundantly confirm'd in that rule and principle upon which the whole Protestant and Christian Religion is established From hence we learn all things and by these we prove all things and by these we confute Heresies and prove every Article of our Faith according to this we live and on these we ground our hope and whatsoever is not in these we reject from our Canon And indeed that the Canonical Scriptures should be our only and intire Rule we are sufficiently convinc'd by the title which the Catholick Church gives and always hath given to the holy Scriptures for it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Rule of Christians for their whole Religion The word it self ends this Enquiry for it cannot be a Canon if any thing be put to it or taken from it said a lib. 1. contr Eunom S. Basil b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Chrysost. Hom. 12. In 3. Philip. Idem dixit Theophyl S. Chrysostome and c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Varinus Varinus I hope I have competently prov'd the tradition I undertook and by it that the holy Scriptures contain all things that are necessary to salvation The sum is this If tradition be not regardable then the Scriptures alone are but if it be regarded then here is a full Tradition That the Scriptures are a perfect rule for that the Scriptures are the word of God and contain in them all the word of God in which we are concern'd is deliver'd by a full consent of all these and many other Fathers and no one Father denies it which consent therefore is so great that if it may not prevail the topick of Tradition will be of no use at all to them who would fain adopt it into a part of the Canon But this I shall consider more particularly Onely one thing more I am to adde Concerning the interpretation and finding out the sense and meaning of the Scriptures For though the Scriptures be allowed to be a sufficient repository of all that is necessary to salvation yet we may mistake our way if we have not some infallible Judge of their sense To him therefore that shall ask How we shall interpret and understand the Scriptures I shall give that answer which I have learned from those Fathers whose testimony I have alleged to prove the fulness and sufficiency of Scripture For if they were never so full yet if it be fons signatus and the waters of salvation do not issue forth to refresh the souls of the weary full they may be in themselves but they are not sufficient for us nor for the work of God in the salvation of man But that it may appear that the Scriptures are indeed written by the hand of God and therefore no way deficient from the end of their design God hath made them plain and easie to all people that are willing and obedient So S. Cyril Lib. 9. contr Julian Nihil in Scripturis difficile est iis qui in illis
did mean so But then if there be any obscure places that cannot be so enlightned what is to be done with them S. Austin says Lib. de Vnit. Ecclesiae c. 16. that in such places let every one abound in his own sense and expound as well as he can quae obscurè vel ambiguè vel figuratè dicta sunt quae quisque sicut voluerit interpretetur secundum sensum suum But yet still he calls us to the rule of plain places Talia autem rectè intelligi exponique non possunt nisi priùs ea quae apertissimè dicta sunt firma fide teneantur The plain places of Scripture are the way of expounding the more obscure and there is no other viz. so apt and certain And after all this I deny not but there are many other external helps God hath set Bishops and Priests Preachers and Guides of our Souls over us and they are appointed to teach others as far as they can and it is to be suppos'd they can do it best but then the way for them to find out the meaning of obscure places is that which I have now describ'd out of the Fathers and by the use of that means they will be best enabled to teach others If any man can find a better way than the Fathers have taught us he will very much oblige the world by declaring it and giving a solid experiment that he can do what he undertakes But because no man and no company of men hath yet expounded all hard places with certaintie and without error it is an intolerable vanitie to pretend to a power of doing that which no charitie hath ever obliged them to do for the good of the Church and the glory of God and the rest of inquiring Souls I end this tedious discourse with the words of S. Austin De Vnit. Eccles. cap. 3. Nolo humanis documentis sed Divinis oraculis Ecclesiam demonstrari If you enquire where or which is the Church from humane teachings you can never find her she is only demonstrated in the Divine Oracles 1 Pet. 4. 1. Therefore if any man speak let him speak as the Oracles of God SECTION III. Of Traditions TRadition is any way of delivering a thing or word to another and so every doctrine of Christianity is by Tradition 1 Thes. 2. 15. I have deliver'd unto you saith S. Paul that Christ died for our sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sic S. Pasilius lib. 3. contr Eunomium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the Grammarians and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. Jude the faith deliver'd is the same which S. Paul explicates by saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the traditions that is the doctrines ye were taught And S. * Lib. 3. c. 4. Irenaeus calls it a tradition Apostolical that Christ took the Cup and said it was his bloud and to believe in one God and in Christ who was born of a Virgin was the old tradition that is the thing deliver'd not at first written which the Barbarians kept diligently But Tradition signified either Preaching or Writing as it hapned When it signified Preaching it was only the first way of communicating the Religion of Jesus Christ and untill the Scriptures were written and consign'd by the full testimony of the Apostles and Apostolical Churches respectively they in the Questions of Religion usually appeal'd to the tradition or the constant retention of such a doctrine in those Churches where the Apostles first preach'd and by the succession of Bishops in those Churches who without variety or change had still remembred and kept the same doctrine which at first was deliver'd by the Apostles So Irenaeus If the Apostles had not left the Scriptures to us Ibid. must not we viz. in this case have followed the order of tradition which they deliver'd to them to whom they intrusted the Church to which ordination many Nations of Barbarians do assent And that which was true then is also true now for if the Apostles had never written at all we must have followed tradition unless God had provided for us some better thing But it is observable that Irenaeus says That this way is only in the destitution of Scripture But since God hath supplied not only the principal Churches with the Scriptures but even all the Nations which the Greeks and Romans call'd Barbarous now to run to Tradition is to make use of a staff or a wooden Leg when we have a good Leg of our own The traditions at the first publication of Scriptures were clear evident recent remembred talk'd of by all Christians in all their meetings publick and private and the mistaking of them by those who carefully endeavour'd to remember them was not easie and if there had been a mistake there was an Apostle living or one of their immediate Disciples to set all things right And therefore untill the Apostles were all dead Hegâ—sip apud Eccles. liâ— 38. c. 32. Grec 26. Latin there was no dispute considerable amongst Christians but what was instantly determin'd or suppress'd and the Heresies that were did creep and sting clancularly but made no great show But when the Apostles were all dead then that Apostasie foretold began to appear and Heresies of which the Church was warned began to arise But it is greatly to be remark'd There was then no Heresie that pretended any foundation from Scripture Acts 20. 29. 30. but from tradition many 1 Tim. 4. 1. c. for it was accounted so glorious a thing to have been taught by an Apostle 2 Tim 3. â— c. 4. 3. that even good men were willing to believe any thing which their Scholars pretended to have heard their Masters preach 2 Thes. 2. 3. and too many were forward to say 2 Pet. 2. â— c. they heard them teach what they never taught 1 Joh. 2. 18. 19. and the pretence was very easie to be made by the Contemporaries or Immediate descendants after the Apostles Jude 4. v. c. and now that they were dead it was so difficult to confute them that the Hereticks found it an easie game to play to say They heard it deliver'd by an Apostle Many did so and some were at first believed and yet were afterwards discovered some were cried down at first and some expir'd of themselves and some were violently thrust away But how many of those which did descend and pass on to custome were of a true and Apostolical original and how many were not so it will be impossible to find now only because we are sure there was some false dealing in this matter and we know there might be much more than we have discover'd we have no reason to rely upon any tradition for any part of our faith any more than we could do upon Scripture if one
and explicitely did teach much more is every Gospel But when all the four Gospels and the Apostolical Acts and Epistles and the Visions of S. John were all tied into a Volume by the counsel of God by the dictate of the Holy Spirit and by the choice of the Apostles it cannot be probable that this should not be all the Gospel of Jesus Christ all his Will and Testament Contre le Roy Jaq. p. 715. And therefore in vain does the Cardinal Perron strive to escape from this by acknowledging that the Gospel is the foundation of Christianity as Grammar is the foundation of Eloquence as the Institutions of Justinian is of the study of the law as the principles and institutions of a science are of the whole profession of it It is not in his sense the foundation of Christian doctrine but it contains it all not onely in general but in special not onely virtual but actual not mediate but immediate for a few lines would have serv'd for a foundation General virtual and mediate If the Scripture had said The Church of Rome shall always be the Catholick Church and the foundation of faith she shall be infallible and to her all Christians ought to have recourse for determination of their Questions this had been a sufficient virtual and mediate foundation But when four Gospels containing Christs Sermons and his Miracles his Precepts and his Promises the Mysteries of the Kingdom and the way of Salvation the things hidden from the beginning of the world and the glories reserv'd to the great day of light and manifestation of Jesus to say that yet all these Gospels and all the Epistles of S. Paul S. Peter S. James and S. John and the Acts and Sermons of the Apostles in the first establishing the Church are all but a foundation virtual and that they point out the Church indeed by saying she is the pillar and ground of truth but leave you to her for the foundation actual special and immediate is an affirmation against the notoreity of fact Add to this that S. Irenaeus spake these words concerning the Scriptures Lib. 3. cap. 2. in confutation of them who leaving the Scriptures did run to Traditions pretendedly Apostolical And though it be true that the traditions they relyed upon were secret Apocryphal forg'd and suppos'd yet because even at that time there were such false wares obtruded and even then the Hereticks could not want pretences sufficient to deceive and hopes to prevail How is it to be imagined that in the descent of sixteen ages the cheat might not be too prevalent when if the traditions be question'd it will be impossible to prove them and if they be false it will except it be by Scripture be impossible to confute them And after all if yet there be any doctrines of faith or manners which are not contain'd in Scripture and yet were preach'd by the Apostles let that be prov'd let the traditions be produc'd and the records sufficient primely credible and authentick and we shall receive them So vain a way of arguing it is to say The Traditions against which S. Irenaeus speaks were false but ours are true Theirs were secret but ours were open and notorious For there are none such And Bellarmine himself acknowledges that the necessary things are deliver'd in Scriptures and those which were reserv'd for tradition were deliver'd apart that is secretly by the Apostles Now if they were so on all sides what rule shall we have to distinguish the Valentinian Traditions from the Roman Vbi supra c. 11. de verb. Dei non Script l. 4. and why shall we believe these more than those since all must be equally taken upon private testimony at first And although it will be said That the Roman Traditions were receiv'd by after-ages and the other were not yet this shews nothing else but that some had the fate to prevail and others had not For it is certain that some were a long time believ'd even for some whole ages under the name of Apostolical Tradition as the Millenary opinion and the Asiatick manner of keeping Easter which yet came to be dis-believ'd in their time and also it is certain that many which really were Apostolical Traditions perished from the memory of men and had not so long lives as many that were not So that all this is by chance and can make no difference in the just authority And therefore it is vainly said of Cardinal Perron That the case is not the same because theirs are wrong and ours are right For this ought not to have been said till it were prov'd and if it were prov'd the whole Question were at an end for we should all receive them which were manifested to be doctrines Apostolical But in this there need no further dispute from the authority of Irenaeus his words concerning the fulness of Scripture as to the whole doctrine of Christ being so clear and manifest as appears in the testimonies brought from him in the foregoing Section Optatus compares the Scriptures to the Testator's Will l. 5. contr Parmer biblioth Patrum per Binium â—om 4. Paris 1589. pag. 510. If there be a controversie amongst the descendants of the house run to the Scriptures see the Original will The Gospels are Christ's Testament and the Epistles are the Codicils annex'd and but by these we shall never know the will of the Testator But because the Books of Scripture were not all written at once nor at once communicated nor at once receiv'd therefore the Churches of God at first were forc'd to trust their memories and to try the doctrines by appealing to the memories of others that is to the consenting report and faith deliver'd and preach'd to other Churches especially the chiefest where the memory of the Apostles was recent and permanent The mysteriousness of Christ's Priesthood the perfection of his sacrifice and the unity of it Christ's advocation and Intercession for us in Heaven might very well be accounted traditions before Saint Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews was admitted for Canonical but now they are written truths and if they had not been written it is likely we should have lost them But this way could not long be necessary and could not not long be safe Not necessary because it was supplied by a better and to be tied to what was only necessary in the first state of things is just as if a man should always be tied to suck milk because at first in his infancy it was fit he should Not safe because it grew worse and worse every day And therefore in a little while even the Traditions themselves were so far from being the touch-stone of true doctrine that themselves were brought to the stone of trial And the Tradition would not be admitted unless it were in Scripture By which it appears that Tradition could not be a part of the rule of faith distinct from the Scriptures but it self was a part of it that
is whatsoever was deliver'd and preach'd was recorded which they so firmly believed that they rejected the Tradition unless it were so recorded and 2. It hence also follows that Tradition was and was esteemed the worse way of conveying propositions and stories because the Church requir'd that the Traditions should be prov'd by Scriptures that is the less certain by the more Epist. ad Pompeium contra epist. Stephani That this was so S. Cyprian is a sufficient witness For when Pope Stephen had said Let no thing be chang'd only that which is deliver'd meaning the old Tradition that was to be kept S. Cyprian enquires from whence that Tradition comes Does it come from the Gospels or the Epistles or the Acts of the Apostles So that after the writing and reception of Scriptures Tradition meant the same thing which was in Scripture or if it did not the Fathers would not admit it Damasc. de orthod fide c. 1. All things which are deliver'd to us by the Law and the Prophets the Apostles and Evangelists we receive and know and reverence But we enquire not further Apud Euseb. lib. 5. cap. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing beyond them If the Traditions be agreeable to Scripture said S. Irenaeus that is if that which is pretended to be taught at first be recorded by them who did teach it then all is well And this affair is fully testified by the words of Eusebius Lib. 5. cap. 8. which are greatly conclusive of this Inquiry We have saith he promis'd that we would propose the voices of the old Ecclesiastical Presbyters and Writers by which they declared the traditions by the authority witnessed and consign'd of the approv'd Scriptures Amongst whom was Irenaeus says the Latin version But I shall descend to a consideration of the particulars which pretend to come to us by tradition and without it cannot as it is said be prov'd by Scripture 1. It is said that the Scripture it self is wholly deriv'd to us by tradition and therefore besides Scripture Tradition is necessary in the Church And indeed no man that understands this Question denies it This tradition that these books were written by the Apostles and were deliver'd by the Apostles to the Churches as the word of God relies principally upon Tradition Universal that is it was witnessed to be true by all the Christian world at their first being so consign'd Now then this is no part of the word of God but the notification or manner of conveying the word of God the instrument of it's delivery So that the tradition concerning the Scripture's being extrinsecal to Scripture is also extrinsecal to the Question This Tradition cannot be an objection against the sufficiency of Scripture to salvation but must go before this question For no man inquires Whether the Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation unless he believe that there are Scriptures that these are they and that they are the word of God All this comes to us by Tradition that is by universal undeniable testimony After the Scriptures are thus receiv'd there is risen another Question viz. Whether or no these Scriptures so deliver'd to us do contain all the word of God or Whether or no besides the Tradition that goes before Scripture which is an instrumental Tradition onely of Scripture there be not also something else that is necessary to salvation consign'd by Tradition as well as the Scripture and of things as necessary or useful as what is contain'd in Scripture and that is equally the Word of God as Scripture is The Tradition of Scripture we receive but of nothing else but what is in Scripture And if it be ask'd It is therefore weakly said by E. W. pag 5. If he says that he impugns all tradition in General all doctrine not expressly contain'd in Scripture forced he is to throw away Scripture it self c. Why we receive one and not the rest we answer because we have but one Tradition of things necessary that is there is an Universal Tradition of Scripture and what concerns it but none of other things which are not in Scripture And there is no necessity we should have any all things necessary and profitable to the salvation of all men being plainly contain'd in Scriptures and this sufficiency also being part of that Tradition as I am now proving But because other things also are pretended to be E. W. ibid. He is forc'd not onely to throw away Scripture it self and the Nicene definitions not only to disclaim a Trinity of persons in one Divine essence Baptizing of children c. but every tenet of Protestant religion as Protestantism E. g. The belief of two Sacraments onely c. or are necessary and yet are said not to be in Scripture it is necessary that this should be examin'd 1. First all the Nicene definitions Trinity of persons in one Divine essence This I should not have thought worthy of considering in the words here expressed but that a friend The same also he says concerning the Nicene and the other three Councils and S. Athanasius Creed p. 8. it seems of my own whom I know not but yet an adversary as he who should know him best that is himself assures me is pleas'd to use these words in the objection To this I answer first that this Gentleman would be much to seek if he were put to it to prove the Trinity of persons in one Divine essence to be an express Nicene definition and therefore if he means that as an instance of the Nicene definitions he will find himself mistaken Indeed at Nice the Consubstantiality of the Father and the Son was determin'd but nothing of the Divinity of the holy Ghost That was the result of after-Councils But whatever it was which was there determin'd I am sure it was not determin'd by tradition but by Scripture So S. Athanasius tells us of the faith which was confess'd by the Nicene Fathers Epist. ad Epictet Corinth Episc. it was the faith confess'd according to the holy Scriptures and speaking to Serapion of the holy Trinity Lib. 3. ad Serap de Spir. S. Id. de Incarnat he says Learn this out of the holy Scriptures For the documents you find in them are sufficient And writing against Samosatenus he proves the Incarnation of the Son of God out of the Gospel of S. John saying It becomes us to stick close to the word of God Theodoret. l. 1. c. 7. And therefore when Constantine the Emperour exhorted the Nicene Fathers to concord in the question then to be disputed they being Divine matters he would they should be ended by the authority of the Divine Scriptures For saith he the books of the Evangelists and Apostles Et apud Gelas. Cyzicen in actis Concil Nicen. l. 2. c. 7. as also the Oracles of the old Prophets do evidently teach us what we are to think of the Deity Therefore all seditious contention being laid
Covenant in which they can receive the gift of eternal life which I take to be the proper reasons why the Church baptizes Infants all these are wholly deriv'd to us from Scripture-grounds But then as to that Reason upon which the Church of Rome baptizes Infants even because it is necessary and because without it children shall not see God it is certain there is no Universal or prime Tradition for that S. Austin was the hard Father of that doctrine And if we take the whole doctrine and practice together without distinction that it was the custom so to do in some Churches and at sometimes is without all question but that there is a tradition from the Apostles so to do relies but upon two witnesses Origen and S. Austin and the latter having receiv'd it from the former it relies wholly upon his single testimony which is but a pitiful argument to prove a tradition Apostolical * Secundum Ecelesiae observantiam a◠in Levit. c. 12. 13. Hom. 8. quem locum citat Perron haec autem verba non aiunt ab Apostolis hanc manasse observantiam Lib. de baptis cap. 18. He is the first that spoke it but Tertullian that was before him seems to speak against it which he would not have done if it had been a tradition Apostolical And that it was not so is but too certain if there be any truth in the words of Ludovicus Vives In S. August de civit Dei l. 1. c. 27. saying that anciently none were baptiz'd but persons of ripe age which words I suppose are to be understood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and for the most part But although the tradition be uncertain weak little and contingent yet the Church of God when ever she did it and she might do it at any time did do it upon Scripture-grounds And it was but weakly said by Cardinal Perron Replique à la response du Roy Jaques p. 701. that There is no place of Scripture by which we can evidently and necessarily convince the Anabaptists For 1. If that were true yet it is more certain that by Tradition they will never be perswaded not only because there is no sufficient and full tradition but because they reject the Topick 2. Although the Anabaptists endeavour to elude the arguments of Scripture yet it follows not that Scripture is not clear and certain in the Article for it is an easie thing to say something to every thing but if that be enough against the argument then no Heretick can be convinc'd by Scripture and there is in Scripure no pregnant testimony for any point of faith for in all questions all Hereticks prattle something And therefore it is not a wise procedure to say The adversaries do answer the testimonies of Scripture and by Scripture cannot be convinc'd and therefore chuse some other way of probation For when that is done will they be convinc'd and cannot the Cardinal satisfie himself by Scripture though the Heretick will not confess himself confuted The Papists say They answer the Protestants Arguments from Scripture but though they say so to eternal ages yet in the world nothing is plainer than that they only say so and that for all that confident and enforc'd saying the Scriptures are still apparently against them 3. If the Anabaptists speak probably and reasonably in their answers then it will rather follow that the point is not necessary than that it must be prov'd necessary by some other Topick 4. All people that believe Baptism of Infants necessary think that they sufficiently prove it from Scripture and Bellarmine though he also urges this point as an argument for Traditions yet upon wiser thoughts he proves it and not Unsuccessfully by three arguments from Scripture 3. Like to this is the pretence of the validity of the Baptism of Hereticks It is Cardinal Perron's own instance and the first of the four he alledges for the necessity of Tradition This he holds for a doctrine Orthodox and Apostolick and yet says he there is no word of it in Scripture Concerning this I think the issue will be short If there be nothing of it in Scripture it is certain there was no Apostolical tradition for it For S. Cyprian and all his Collegues were of an opinion contrary to that of the Roman Church in this Article Epist. ad Pompeium and when they oppos'd against S. Cyprian a Tradition he knew of no such thing and bad them prove their tradition from Scripture 2. S. Austin who was something warm in this point yet confesses the Apostles commanded nothing in it but then he does almost begus to believe it came from them Consuetudo illa quae opponebatur Cypriano ab eorum traditione exordium sumpsisse credenda est si cut sunt multa quae universa tenet Ecclesia ob hoc ab Apostolis benè praecepta traduntur quanquam scripta non reperiantur which in plain meaning is this We find a Custome in the Church and we know not whence it comes and it is so in this as in many other things and therefore let us think the best and believe it came by tradition from the Apostles But it seems himself was not sure that so little a foundation could carry so big a weight he therefore plainly hath recourse to Scripture in this Question Contra Donatist l. 4. c. 14. c. 17. 24. Whether is more pernitious not to be baptiz'd or to be re-baptiz'd is hard to judge nevertheless having recourse to the standard of our Lord where the monuments of this are not estimated by humane sense but by Divine authority I find concerning each of them the Sentence of our Lord to wit in the Scriptures But 3. The Question it self is not a thing necessary for S. Cyprian and the Bishops of Cappadocia and Galatia and almost two parts of the known world whose sentiment was differing from others yet liv'd and dyed in the Communion of those Churches who believ'd the contrary doctrin and so it might have been still if things were estimated but according to their intrinsick value Lib. 1. de Baptist cap. 18. And since as S. Austin says they might safely differ in judgment before the determination of this Question in a Council it follows evidently that there was no clear tradition against them or if there were that was not esteem'd a good Catholick or convincing argument For as it is not imaginable so great and wise a part of the Catholick Church should be ignorant of any famous Apostolical tradition especially when they were call'd upon to attend to it and were urg'd and press'd by it so it is also very certain there was none such in S. Cyprian's time because the sixth general Council approv'd of the Canon made in the Council of Carthage Can. 2. because in praedictorum praesulum locis solum secundùm traditam eis consuetudinem servatus est 4. It had been best if the Question had never been mov'd and
the next best had been to have suppress'd and forgotten it instantly for as it came in by zeal and partiality in the hands of the Cappadocian Bishops so it was fed by pride and faction in the hands of the Donatists and it could have no determination but the mere nature of the thing it self all the Apostles and Ministers of Religion were commanded to baptize in water in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and this was an admission to Christianity not to any sect of it and if this had been consider'd wisely so it had been done by a Christian Minister in matter and form there could be no more in it And therefore the whole thing was to no purpose so far was it from being an Article of Faith 4. The next pretence is that the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son is an Article of our Faith and yet no where told in Scripture and consequently tradition must help to make up the object of our Faith To this some very excellent persons have oppos'd this Consideration that the Greeks and Latins differ but in modo loquendi and therefore both speaking the same thing in differing words show that the Controversie it self is trifling or mistaken But though I wish them agreed yet when I consider that in all the endeavours for Union at the Council of Florence they never understood one another to purposes of peace I am apt to believe that those who would reconcile them shew their piety more than the truth of the thing and that the Greeks and Latins differ'd intirely in this point But then that on the Latin side there should be a tradition Apostolical can upon no other account be pretended but that they could not prove it by Scripture or shew any Ecclesiastical law or authority for it Now if we consider that the Greeks pretend their doctrine not only from Scripture but also from immemorial tradition that is that they have not innovated the doctrine which their Fathers taught them and on the other side that the Latins have contrary to the Canon of the Council of Ephesus superadded the clause of Filióque to the Constantinopolitan-Creed and that by authority of a little Convention of Bishops at Gentilly neer to Paris without the consent of the Catholick Church and that by the Confession of Cardinal Perron Contr. le Râ—y Jaques p. 709. not only the Scripture favours the Greeks but Reason also because it is unimaginable that the same particular effect should proceed from two principles in the same kind and although the three Persons created the world yet that production was from the Divine essence which is but one principle but the opinion of the Latius is that the Holy Ghost proceeds from two Persons as Persons and therefore from two principles it will be very hard to suppose that because all this is against them therefore it is certain that they had this from Apostolical tradition The more natural consequence is that their proposition is either mistaken or uncertain or not an article of Faith which is rather to be hop'd lest we condemn all the Greek Churches as Infidels or perverse Hereticks or else that it can be deriv'd from Scripture which last is indeed the most probable and pursuant to the doctrine of those wiser Latins who examin'd things by reason and not by prejudice But Cardinal Perron's argument is no better than this Titius was accus'd to have deserted his station in the Battel and carried false Orders to the Legion of Spurinna He answers I must either have received Orders from the General or else you must suppose me to be a Coward or a Traytor for I had no warrant for what I did from the Book of Military Discipline Well what if you be suppos'd to be a Coward or Traytor what hurt is in that supposition But must I conclude that you had Order from the General for fear I should think you did it on your own head or that you are a Traytor That 's the case Either this proposition is deriv'd to us by Apostolical tradition or we have nothing else to say for our selves well Nempe hoc Ithacus velit The Greeks allow the argument and will say thus You had nothing to say for your selves unless we grant that to you which is the Question and which you can never prove viz. that there is for this Article an Apostolical tradition but because both sides pretend that let us try this thing by Scripture And indeed that 's the only way And Cardinal Perron's argument may by any Greek be inverted and turned upon himself For he saying It is not in Scripture therefore it is a tradition of the Church it is as good an argument It is not deliver'd to us by universal Tradition therefore either it is not at all or it is deriv'd to us from Scripture and upon the account of this for my part I do believe it 5. The last instance of Cardinal Perron is the observation of the Lord's Day but this is matter of discipline and external rite and because it cannot pretend to be an article of faith or essentially necessary doctrine the consideration is differnt from the rest And it is soon at an end but that the Cardinal would fain make some thing of nothing by telling that the Jews complain of the Christians for changing Circumcision into Baptism and the Saturday-sabbath into the Dominical or Lord's-day He might as well have added They cry out against the Christians for changing Moses into Christ the Law into the Gospel the Covenant of works into the Covenant of faith Ceremonies into substances and rituals into spiritualities And we need no further inquiry into this Question but to consider Perron ibid. 710. what the Cardinal says that God did the Sabbath a special honour by writing this ceremonial alone into the summary of the moral law Now I demand Whether there be not clear and plain Scripture for the abolishing of the law of Ceremonies If there be then the law of the Sabbath is abolished It is part of the hand-writing of ordinances which Christ nail'd to his Cross. Now when the Sabbath ceases to be obligatory the Church is at liberty but that there should be a time sanctified or set apart for the proper service of God I hope is also very clear from Scripture and that the circumstances of religion are in the power of the presidents of religion and then it will follow from Scripture that the Apostles or their Successors or whoever did appoint the Sunday-festival had not onely great reason but full authority to appoint that day and that this was done early and continued constantly for the same reason and by an equal authority is no question But as to the Sabbath S. Paul gave express order that no man should be judged by any part of the ceremonial law and particularly name 's the Sabbath-days Colos. 2. 16. saying They all were a shadow of things
to come but Christ is the substance And yet after all this The keeping of the Lord's-day was no law in Christendom till the Laodicean-Council but the Jewish Sabbath was kept as strictly as the Chrisian Lord's-day and yet both of them with liberty but with an intuition to the avoiding offence and the interests of religion and the Lord's-day came not in stead of the Sabbath and it did not succeed in the place of the Sabbath but was meerly a Christian festival and holy day But at last That the keeping of the Lord's-day be a Tradition Apostolical I desire it were heartily believed by every Christian for though it would make nothing against the sufficiency of Scriptures in all Questions of faith and rules of manners yet it might be an engagement on all men to keep it with the greater religion 6. At the end of this it is fit I take notice of another particular offer'd by the By not in justification of Tradition but in defiance of them that oppose it If the Protestants oppose all Tradition in General E. W. p. 5. they must quit every Tenet of Protestant religion as Protestantism for Example sake The belief of two Sacraments onely c. The charge is fierce and the stroak is little It was unadvisedly said That every Protestant Doctrine quâ talis must be quitted if Scripture be the rule for this very Proposition That Scripture is the rule of our faith is a main Protestant doctrine and therefore certainly must not be quitted if Scripture be the rule that is if the doctrine be true it must not be forsaken And although in the whole progress of this book Protestant religion will be greatly justified by Scripture yet for the present I desire the Gentleman to consider a little better about giving the Chalice to all Communicants whether their denying it to the Laity be by authority of Scripture and I desire him to consider what place of the Old or New Testament he hath for worshipping and making the images of God the Father and the Holy Ghost or for having their publick Devotions in an unknown tongue But of these hereafter As to the instance of two Sacraments onley I desire the Gentleman to understand our doctrine a little better It is none of the Doctrine of the Church of England that there are two Sacraments onely But that of those Rituals commanded in Scripture which the Ecclesiastical use calls Sacraments by a word of art Two onely are generally necessary to Salvation And although we are able to prove this by a Tradition much more Universal than by which the Roman Doctors can prove seven yet we rely upon Scripture for our Doctrine and though it may be I shall not dispute it with this Gentleman that sends his chartel unless he had given better proof of his learning and his temper yet I suppose if he reads this book over he shall find something first or last to instruct him or at least to entertain him in that particular also But for the present lest such an unconcerning trifle be forgotten I desire him to consider that he hath little reason to concern himself in the just number of seven Sacraments for that there are brought in amongst them some new devices I cannot call them Sacraments but something like what they have already forg'd which being but external rites yet out-do most of their Sacraments About the year 1630. there were introduc'd into Ireland by the Franciscans and Carmelite Friers three pretty propositions 1. Whosoever shall die in the habit of S. Francis shall never be prevented with an unhappy death 2. Whosoever shall take the Scapular of the Carmelites and die in the same shall never be damned 3. Whosoever shall fast the first Saturday after they have heard of the death of Luissa a Spanish Nun of the Order of S. Clare shall have no part in the second death Now these external rites promise more grace than is conferr'd by their Sacraments for it promises a certainty of glory and an intermediat certainty of being in the state of Grace which to them is not and cannot be done according to their doctrine by all the other Sacraments and Sacramentals of their Church Now these things are deriv'd to them by pretended revelations of S. Francis and S. Simon Stoc. And though I know not what the Priests and Friers in England will think or say of this matter yet I assure them in Ireland they are of great account and with much fancy religion and veneration us'd at this day And not long since visiting some of my Churches I found an old Nun in the Neighbourhood a poor Clare as I think but missing her Cord about her which I had formerly observ'd her to wear I ask'd the cause and was freely answered that a Gentlewoman who had lately died had purchas'd it of her to put about her in her grave And of how great veneration the Saturday-fast is here every one knows but the cause I knew not till I had learn'd the story of S. Luissa and that Flemming their Archbishop of Dublin had given countenance to it by his example and credulity But now it may be perceiv'd that the question of seven Sacraments is out-done by the intervention of some new ones which although they want the name do greater effects and therefore have a better title But I proceed to more material considerations Cardinal Perron hath chosen no other instances of matters necessary as he supposes them but there are many ritual matters customs and ceremonies which were at least it is said so practis'd by the Apostolical Churches and some it may be are descended down to us but because the Churches practise many things which the Apostles did not and the Apostles did and ordain'd many things which the Church does not observe it will not appertain to the Question to say There are or are not in these things Traditions Apostolical The Colledge of Widows is dissolv'd the Canon of abstaining from things strangled Vide Ductor dub tantium Rule of Conscience lib. 3. Reg. 11. n. 5. 6. obliges not the Church and S. Paul's rule of not electing a Bishop that is a Novice or young Christian is not always observ'd at Rome nay S. Paul himself consecrated Timothy when he was but twenty five years of age and the * Regirald Praâ—is sori pae â—i l. â— c. 12. Sect. 3. n. 133. Wednesday and Friday Fast is pretended to have been a precept from the very times of the Apostles and yet it is observed but in very few places and of the fifty Canons called Apostolical very few are observed in the Church at this day and of 84 collected by Clement as was suppos'd de Sacr. hâ—m conti l. 5. c. 105. Peres de tradiâ— part 3. c. de author Canon Apost Michael Medina says scarce six or eight are observed by the Latin Church For in them many things are contain'd saith Peresius which by the corruption of times are
wills some are scarce worth the remembring and are of an obsolete and worn-out authority Now if these men say true then they prove a tradition or else nothing will prove it but a consent absolutely Universal which is not to be had For on the other side They that speak against the immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin particularly Cardinal Cajetan bring as he says the irrefragable testimony of fifteen Fathers against it others bring no less then two hundred and Bandellus brings in almost three hundred and that will go a great way to prove a Tradition But that this also is not sufficient see what the other side say to this They say that Scotus and Holcot and Vbertinusde Casalis and the old Definition of the University of Paris and S. Ambrose and S. Augustine are brought in falsely or violently and if they were not yet they say it is an illiteral disputation and not far from Sophistry to proceed in this way of arguing For it happens sometimes that a multitude of Opiners proceeds onely from one famous Doctor and that when the Donatists did glory in the multitude of Authors S. Austin answer'd that it was a sign the cause wanted truth when it endeavour'd to relie alone upon the authority of many and that it was not fit to relate the sentiment of S. Bernard Bonaventure Thomas and other Devotes of the Blessed Virgin as if they were most likely to know her priviledges and therefore would not have denied this of Immaculate Conception if it had been her due For she hath many devout servants the world knows not of and Elisha though he had the spirit of Elias doubled upon him yet said Dominus celavit à me non indicavit mihi and when Elias complain'd he was left alone God said he had 7000 more And the Apostles did not know all things and S. Peter walk'd not according to the truth of the Gospel and S. Cyprian err'd in the point of rebaptizing hereticks For God hath not given all things unto all persons that every age may have proper truths of its own which the former age knew not Thus Salmeron discourses and this is the way of many others more eminent who make use of authority and antiquity when it serves their turn and when it does not it is of no use and of no value But if these things be thus then how shall Tradition be prov'd if the little remnant of the Dominican party which are against the Immaculate Conception should chance to be brought off from their opinion as if all the rest of the other Orders and many of this be already it is no hard thing to conjecture that the rest may and that the whole Church as they will then call it be of one mind shall it then be reasonable to conclude that then this doctrine was and is an Apostolical Tradition when as yet we know and dare say it is not That 's the case and that 's the new doctrine but how impossible it is to be true and how little reason there is in it is now too apparent I see that Vowing to Saints is now at Rome accounted an Apostolical doctrine but with what confidence can any Jesuite tell me that it is so when by the Confession of their chief parties it came in later than the fountains of Apostolical Doctrines De cultu S S. lib. 3. c. 9. Sect. Praetereà When the Scriptures were written the use of vowing to Saints was not begun saith Bellarmine and Cardinal * Contre le Roy Jaques Perron confesses that in the Authors more neer to the Apostolical age no footsteps of this custom can be found Where then is the Tradition Apostolical or can the affirmation of the present Church make it so To make a new thing is easie but no man can make an old thing The consequence of these things is this All the doctrines of faith and good life are contain'd and express'd in the plain places of Scripture and besides it there are and there can be no Articles of faith and therefore they who introduce other articles and upon other principles introduce a faith unknown to the Apostles and the Fathers of the Primitive Church And that the Church of Rome does this I shall manifest in the following discourses SECTION IV. There is nothing of necessity to be believ'd which the Apostolical Churches did not believe IN the first Part of the Dissuasive it was said that the two Testaments are the Fountains of Faith and whatsoever viz. as belonging to the faith came in after these foris est is to be cast out it belongs not to Christ and now I suppose what was then said is fully verified And the Church of Rome obtruding many propositions upon the belief of the Church which are not in Scripture and of which they can never shew any Universal or Apostolical Tradition urging those upon pain of Damnation imposing an absolute necessity of believing such points which were either denyed by the Primitive Church or were counted but indifferent and matters of opinion hath disordered the Christian Religion and made it to day a new thing and unlike the great and glorious Founder of it who is the same yesterday and to day and for ever The charge here then is double they have made new Necessities and they have made new Articles I chuse to speak first of their tyrannical Manner of imposing their Articles viz. every thing under pain of damnation The other of the new Matter is the subject of the following Sections First then I alledge that the primitive Church being taught by Scripture and the examples Apostolical affirm'd but few things to be necessary to salvation They believed the whole Scriptures every thing they had learn'd there they equally believ'd but because every thing was not of equal necessity to be believ'd they did not equally learn and teach all that was in Scripture But the Apostles say some othes say that immediately after them the Church did agree upon a Creed a Symbol of Articles which were in the whole the foundation of Faith the ground of the Christian hope and that upon which charity or good life was to be built There were in Scripture many Creeds the Gentiles Creed Matth. 16. 16. Martha's Creed the Eunuch's Creed S. Peter's Creed 1 Joh. 4. 2. 15. S. Paul's Creed To believe that God is and that he is the rewarder of them that seek him diligently To believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God Joh. 20. 31. 11. 27. that Jesus is come in the flesh Hebr. 11. 6. 69. that he rose again from the dead these Confessions were the occasions of admirable effects by the first the Gentiles come to God by the following Matth. 16. 17. blessedness is declar'd salvation is promis'd to him that believes and to him that confesses this God will come and dwell in him and he shall dwell in God and this belief
is the end of writing the Gospel as having life through Christ is the end of this belief Rom. 10 8. and all this is more fully explicated by S. Paul's Creed Mâ—tth 10. 32. This is the word of faith which we preach that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Marc. 8. 38. and shalt believe in thine heart Luc. 9. 26. 12. 8. that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be saved 2 Tim. 2. 12. This is the word of faith Apocal. 3. 5. which if we confess with our mouths and entertain and believe in our heart that is do live according to it we shall certainly be sav'd If we acknowledge Christ to be our Lord that is our Law-giver and our Saviour to rescue us from our sins and their just consequents we have all faith and nothing else can be the foundation but such Articles which are the confession of those two truths Christ Jesus our Lord Christ Jesus our Saviour that by Faith we be brought unto Obedience and Love by this love we be brought to Christ and by Christ unto God this is the whole complexion of the Christian faith the Oeconomy of our salvation There are many other doctrines of Christianity of admirable use and fitted to great purposes of knowledge and Government Rom. 10. 8. but the word of faith as S. Paul calls it that which the Apostles preach'd viz. to all and as of particular remark and universal efficacy and absolute sufficiency to salvation is that which is describ'd by himself in those few words now quoted Other foundation than this no man can lay that is Jesus Christ. Every thing else is but a superstructure and though it may if it be good be of advantage yet if it be amiss so the foundation be kept it will only be matter of loss and detriment but consistent with salvation And therefore S. Paul judged that he would know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified And this is the summe total of all This is the Gospel so S. Paul most fully I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you which also ye have received and wherein ye stand by which also ye are saved if ye keep in memory what I have preached unto you unless ye have believed in vain And what is this Gospel this word preach'd and received that by which we stand and that by which we are sav'd It is nothing but this I deliver'd unto you first of all that which I receiv'd how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures This was the traditum the depositum this was the Evangelium Christ died he died for our sins and he rose again for us and this being the great Tradition by which they tried the Spirits yet was it laid up in Scriptures 1 Cor. 3. 11. That Christ died was according to the Scriptures that he rose again was according to the Scriptures and that S. Paul twice * 1 Cor. 15. 3. 4. 1 Cor. 2. 2. and that so immediately remarks this is not without mystery but it can imply to us nothing but this that our whole faith is laid up in the Scriptures and this faith is perfected as to the essentiality of it in the Death and Resurrection of Christ as being the whole Oeconomy of our pardon and Justification And it is yet further remarkable that when S. Paul as he often does renews and repeats this Christian Creed 1 Cor. 4. 6. he calls upon us Rom. 12. 3. not to be wise above what is written and to be wise unto sobriety Which he afterwards expounding says vers 5. He that prophesies let him do it according to the proportion of Faith that is if he will enlarge himself he may and prophesie greatly but still to keep himself to the analogy of Faith not to go beyond that not to be wiser than that measure of sobriety And if we observe the three Sermons of S. Peter the Sermon of S. Philip and S. Silas Acts 2. 24. 3. 12. the Sermons of S. Paul often preached in the Synagogues they were all but this that Jesus Christ is the Son of God that he is the Lord of all Acts 8. 12. 37 38. that he is the Christ of God that God anointed him Acts 9. 20. 17. 2. 16. 31. 1â— 2. 18. 2. 31. that he was crucified and raised again from the dead and that repentance and remission of sins was to be preach'd in his name But as the Spirit of God did purpose for ever with strictness to retain the simplicity of Faith so also he was pleas'd so far to descant upon the plain ground as to make the mystery of godliness to be clearly understood by all men And therefore that we might see it necessary to believe in Jesus it was necessary we should understand he was a person to be relied upon that he was infinitely credible powerful and wise just and holy and that we might perceive it necessary and profitable to obey him it was fit we understood Why that is What good would follow him that is obedient and what evil to the refractory This was all and this indeed was the necessary appendage of the simple and pure word of Faith and this the Apostles drew into a Symbol and particular minute of Articles Now although the first was sufficient yet they knowing it was fit we should understand this simplicity with the investiture of some circumstances and yet knowing that it was not fit the simplicity of Faith should be troubled with new matter were pleased to draw the whole into a Scheme sufficient and intelligible but nothing perplex'd nothing impertinent and this the Church hath call'd the Apostles Creed which contains all that which is necessary to be inquir'd after and believ'd by an Universal and prime necessity True it is other things may become necessary by accident and collateral obligations and if we come to know what God in the abundance of his wisdom and goodness hath spoken to mankind we are bound to believe it but the case is different Many things may be necessary to be believ'd that we may acknowledge God's veracity and so also many things are necessary to be done in obedience to the empire and dictates of the conscience which oftentimes hath authority when she hath no reason and is a peremptory Judge when she is no wise Counsellour But though these things are true yet nothing is a necessary Article of Faith but that which ministers necessarily to the great designs of the Gospel that is a life conformable to God a God-like life and an imitation of of the Holy Jesus To believe and to have faith in the Evangelical sense are things very different Every man is bound to have Faith in all the proper objects of it But only some men are
The Question is made What is meant by it They that have a mind to it understand it easily enough it was a declaration of the coming of the Messias into the world the great proof that Jesus of Nazareth was the Shiloh or he that was to come For whereas the Jews were the Inclosure and peculiar people of God at the comming of the Messias it should be so no more but the Gentiles being called and the sound of the Gospel going into all the world it was no more the Church of the Jews but Ecclesia totius mundi the Church of the Universe the Universal or Catholick Church of Jews and Gentiles of all people and all Languages Now this great and glorious mystery we confess in this Article that is we confess that God hath given to his Son the Heathen for an Inheritance and the utmost parts of the world for a possession that God is no respecter of persons Acts 10. 35. but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him This is the plain sense of the Article and renders the Article also highly considerable and represents it as Fundamental and it is agreeable with the very Oeconomy of the Gospel and determines one of the greatest questions that ever were in the world the dispute between the Jews and Gentiles and is not only easie and intelligible but greatly for Edification Now then let us see how the Church of Rome by her Head and Members expound or declare this Article I believe the Holy Catholick Church so it is in the Apostles Creed I believe one Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church so the Nicene Creed Here is no difference and no Commentary but the same thing with the addition of one word to the same sense onely it includes also the first Founders of this Catholick Church as if it had been said I believe that the Church of Christ is disseminated over the world and not limited to the Jewish pale and that this Church was founded by the Apostles upon the rock Christ Jesus But the Church of Rome hath handled this Article after another manner she hath explain'd it so clearly that no wise man can believe it she hath declar'd the Article so as to make it a new one and made an addition to it that destroys the principal Sanctam Catholicam Apostolicam Romanam Ecclesiam omnium Ecclesiarum Matrem Magistram agnosco I acknowledge the holy Catholick and Apostolick Roman Church the Mother and Mistress of all Churches And at the end of this declaration of the Creed it is added as at the end of the Athanasian This is the true Catholick faith without which no man can be saved And this is the Creed of Pope Pius the fourth enjoyn'd to be sworn by all Ecclesiasticks secular or Religious Now let it be considered Whether this Declaration be not a new Article and not onely so but a destruction to the old 1. The Apostolical Creed professes to believe the Catholick or Universal Church The Pope limits it and calls it the Catholick Roman Church that by all he means some and the Vniversal means but particular But besides this 2. It is certain this must be a piece of a new Creed since it is plain the Apostles did no more intend the Roman Church should be comprehended under the Catholick Church than as every other Church which was then or should be after And why Roman should be put in and not the Ephesine the Caesarean or the Hierosolymitan it is not to be imagined 3. This must needs be a new Article because the full sense and mystery of the old Article was perfect and complete before the Roman Church was in being I believe the holy Catholick Church was an Article of faith before there was any Roman Church at all 4. The interposing the Roman into the Creed as equal and of the extent with the Catholick is not onely a false but a malicious addition For they having perpetually in their mouths That out of the Catholick Church there is no Salvation and now against the truth simplicity interest and design of the Apostolical Creed having made the Roman and Catholick to be all one they have also establish'd this doctrine as virtual part of the Creed that out of the Communion of the Church of Rome there is no Salvation to be hoped for and so by this means damn all the Christians of the world who are not of their Communion and that is the far biggest part of the Catholick Church 5. How intolerable a thing it is to put the word Roman to expound Catholick in the Creed when it is confess'd among * Driedo de dogmat Eccl. lib. 4. c. 3. p. 3. themselves that it is not of faith that the Apostolick Church cannot be separated from the Roman and * Lib. 4. de Pontif. Rom. c. 4. Sect. At secundum Bellarmine proves this because there is neither Scripture nor Tradition that affirms it and then if ever they be separated and the Apostolick be remov'd to Constantinople then the Creed must be chang'd again and it must run thus I believe the holy Catholick and Apostolick Constantinopolitan Church 6. There is in this declaration of the Apostolical Creed a manifest untruth decreed enjoyn'd profess'd and commanded to be sworn to and that is that the Roman Church is the Mother of all Churches when it is confessed that S. Peter sate Bishop at Antioch seven years before his pretended coming to Rome and that Hierusalem is the Mother of all Churches For the Law went forth out of Sion and the Word of the Lord from Hierusalem Apud Baron AD. 382. n 15. and therefore the Oecumenical Council of Constantinople in the Consecration of S. Cyril said Vide etiam S. Basil tom 2. ep 30. Greg. Theol. We shew unto you Cyril the Bishop of Jerusalem which is the Mother of all other Churches The like is said of the Church of Cesarea with an exception onely of Jerusalem quae prope mater omnium Ecclesiarum fuit ab initio nune quoque est nominatur quam Christiana respublica velut centrum suum circulus undique observat How this saying of S. Gregory the Divine can consist with the new Roman Creed I leave it to the Roman Doctors to consider In the mean time it is impossible that it should be true that the Roman Church is the Mother of all Churches not onely because it is not imaginable she could beget her own Grand-mother but for another pretty reason which Bellarmine hath invented Though the Ancients every where call the Roman Church the Mother of all Churches Lib. 1. de Rom. and that all Bishops had their Consecration and Dignity from her Pontif. c. 23. Sect. Secunda ratio yet this seems not to be true but in that sense because Peter was Bishop of Rome he ordain'd all the Apostles and all other Bishops by himself or by others Otherwise since
all the Apostles constituted very many Bishops in divers places if the Apostles were not made Bishops by Peter certainly the greatest part of Bishops will not deduce their original from Peter This is Bellarmine's argument by which he hath perfectly overthrown that clause of Pius quartus his Creed that the Roman Church is the Mother of all Churches He confesses she is not unless S. Peter did consecrate all the Apostles he might have added No nor then neither unless Peter had made the Apostles to be Bishops after himself was Bishop of Rome for what is that to the Roman Church if he did this before he was the Roman Bishop But then that Peter made all the Apostles Bishops is so ridiculous a dream that in the world nothing is more unwarrantable For besides that S. Paul was consecrated by none but Christ himself it is certain that he ordain'd Timothy and Titus and that the succession in those Churches ran from the same Original in the same Line and there is no Record in Scripture that ever S. Peter ordain'd any not any one of the Apostles who receiv'd their authority from Christ and the Holy Spirit in the same times altogether which thing is also affirm'd by a Institut moral part 2 l. 4. c. 11. Sect. Altera opinio Azorius and b De tripl virt Theolog. disp 10. Sect. 1. n. 5. 7. Suarez who also quotes for it the Authority of S. c Quaest. Vet. N. Test. q. 97. Austin and the Gloss. So that from first to last it appears that the Roman Church is not the Mother-Church and yet every Priest is sworn to live and die in the belief of it that she is However it is plain that this assumentum and shred of the Roman Creed is such a declaration of the old Article of believing the Catholick Church that it is not onely a direct new Article of faith but destroys the old By thus handling the Creed of the Catholick Church we shall best understand what they mean when they affirm that the Pope can interpret Scripture authoritativè and he can make Scripture Ad quem pertinet sacram Scripturam authoritativè interpretari Ejus enim est interpretari cujus est condere He that can make Scripture can make new Articles of faith surely Much to the same Purpose are the words of Pope Innocent the fourth Innocent 4. in cap. super eo de Bigamis He cannot onely interpret the Gospel but adde to it Indeed if he have power to expound it authoritativè that is as good as making it for by that means he can adde to it or take from the sense of it But that the Pope can do this that is can interpret the Scriptures authoritativè sententialitèr obligatoriè so as it is not lawful to hold the contrary is affirm'd by Augustinus Triumphus a Qu. 67. a. 2. Turrecremata b Lib. 2. c. 107. and Hervey c De potestate Papae And Cardinal Hosius d De expresso Dei verbo in Epilogo goes beyond this saying That although the words of the Scripture be not open yet being uttered in the sense of the Church they are the express words of God but uttered in any other sense are not the express word of God but rather of the Devil To these I only adde what we are taught by another Cardinal who perswading the Bohemians to accept the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in one kind tells them and it is that I said before If the Church Card. Cusan Epâ—st 2. ad Bâ—hâ—mâ—s de usu Communionis p. 833. viz. of Rome for that is with them the Catholick Church or if the Pope that is the Virtual Church do expound any Evangelical sense contrary to what the current sense and practice of the Catholick Primitive Church did not that but this present interpretation must be taken for the way of Salvation For God changes his judgement as the Church does Epist. 3. p. 838. So that it is no wonder that the Pope can make new Articles or new Scriptures or new Gospel it seems the Church of Rome can make contrary Gospel that if in the primitive Church to receive in both kindes was via salutis because it was understood then to be a precept Evangelical afterwards the way of Salvation shall be changed and the precept Evangelical must be understood To take it in one kind But this is denyed by Balduinus In 1. Decret de summa Trinitate fide Cathol n. 44. 15. dist Canones who to the Question Whether can the Pope find out new Articles of Faith say's I answer Yes But not contrary It seems the Doctors differ upon that point but that which the Cardinal of Cusa the Legat of P. Nicolas the fifth taught the Bohemians was how they should answer their objection for they said if Christ commanded one thing and the Council or the Pope or the Prelates commanded contrary they would not obey the Church but Christ. But how greatly they were mistaken the Cardinal Legat told them Epist 2. ad Bohemos p. 834. edit Basil. A. D. 1565. Possible non est Scripturam quamcunque sive ipsa praeceptum sive consilium contineat in eos qui apud Ecclesiam existunt plus auctoritatis ligandi haebere aut solvendi fideles quà m ipsa Ecclesia voluerit aut verbo aut opere expresserit and in the third Epistle he tells them The authority of the Church is to be preferr'd before the Scriptures In piorum Clypeo qu 29. artit 5. The same also is taught by Elysius Nepolitanus It matters not what the primitive Church did no nor much what the Apostolical did Pighius Hierarch l. 1. c. 2. For the Apostles indeed wrote some certain things not that they should rule our Faith and our Religion but that they should be under it that is they submit the Scriptures to the Faith nay even to the Practice of the Church For the Pope can change the Gospel said Henry the Master of the Roman Palace Ad legatos â—ohemicos sub Felice Papa A. D. 1447. vide Polan in Dan. 11. 371. and according to place and time give it another sense insomuch that if any man should not believe Christ to be the true God and man if the Pope thought so too he should not be damn'd said the Cardinal of S. Angelo And Silvester Prierias * Sylvest Prierias cont Lutherum Conclu 56. expressly affirmed that the authority of the Church of Rome and the Pope's is greater than the authority of the Scriptures These things being so notorious I wonder with what confidence Bellarmine can say That the Catholicks meaning his own parties do not subject the Scripture but preferre it before Councils and that there is no controversie in this when the contrary is so plain in the pre-alledged testimonies but because his conscience check'd him in the particular he thinks to escape with a distinction
which at least seem contrary to Scripture or are not at all in Scripture and such for which it is impossible to shew any Apostolical or Primitive tradition do easily and openly betray their own weakness and necessity in this affair My first Instance is of their known Arts of abusing the people by pretended Apparitions and false Miracles for the establishing of strange Opinions Non obscurum est quot opiniones invectae sunt in orbem per homines ad suum quaestum callidos confictorum miraculorum praesidio said Erasmus These Doctrines must needs be things that come over the Walls and in at the Windows they come not the right way For besides that In 1 Cor. 2. as S. Chrysostome says It was at first profitable Tom. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that miracles should be done and now it is profitable that they be not done for then our Faith was finished by Miracles but now by the Divine Scriptures Miracles are like watering of plants to be done when they are newly set and before they have taken root Hence the Apostle saith Tongues are for a sign to them that believe not and not for them that believe So S. Gregory a Homil. 29. in Evangel Our Ancestors followed after signs by which it came to pass that they should not be necessary to their posterity And b S. Aug. de verâ relig c. 25. he that yet looks for Miracles that he may believe is himself a Miracle Nay to pretend Miracles now adays is the worst sign in the world And here S. Austin in great zeal gives warning of such things as these c Id de civit Dei l. 22. c. 8. Let not a man say This is true because Donatus Pontius or another hath done wonderful things or because men praying at the memories of Martyrs are heard or because such or such things there happen or because that Brother of ours or that Sister of ours waking saw such a Vision or sleeping dreamt such a Dream let those fictions of lying men or wonders of deceitful spirits be remov'd For either those things which are spoken are not true or if any miracles of Hereticks be done we ought to take heed the more Because when our Lord said Some deceivers should arise which should do signs and deceive if it were possible the very Elect he August tract 13. in Evang commending this saying vehemently added Behold I have told you of it before This same is also taught by the Author of the imperfect work on S. Matthew Johan Homil. 49. imputed to Saint Chrysostom who calls the power of working Miracles after the first vocation of the Gospel seductionis adjutoria the helps of seduction as at first they were us'd by Christ and Christ's servants as instruments of vocation and affirms These helps of deceit were to be deliver'd to the Devil It was the same in the Gospel as it was in the Law of Moses after God had by signs and wonders in the hand of Moses fix'd and establish'd his Law which only was to be their Rule and Caution was given Deuter. 1. 13. that against that Rule no man should be believ'd though he wrought miracles Quest. in Deuter. Upon which words Theodoret says We are instructed that we must not mind signs when he that works them teaches any thing contrary to piety And therefore these things can be to no purpose unless it be to deceive except this only that where miracles are pretended there is a warning also given that there is danger of deception and there is the Seat of Anti-christ who is foretold should come in all signs lying wonders Hic 11. 1â— vide Stellam ibid. Generatio nequam signum quaerit said Christ. But it is remarkable by the Doctrines for which in the Church of Rome Miracles are pretended that they are a Cover fitted for their Dish new miracles to destroy the old truths and to introduce new opinions For to prove any Article of our Creed or the necessity of a Divine Commandment or the Divinity of the Eternal Son of God there is now no need of miracles and for this way of proving these and such Articles as these they trouble not themselves but for Transubstantiation Adoration of the consecrated Bread and Wine for Purgatory Invocation and worship of Saints of their Reliques of the Cross Monastical Vows Fraternities of Friars and Monks the Pope's Supremacy and double Monarchy in the Church of Rome they never give over to make and boast Prodigious Miracles But with what success we may learn from some of the more sober and wise amongst them In Sacramento apparet Caro In quartam sent qu. 53. interdum humanâ procuratione interdum operatione diabolica said Alexander of Ales this indeed was an old trick and S. Irenaeus reports Iren l. 1. c. 9. that it was done by Marcus that great Haersiarch that by this prayer he caus'd the Eucharistical Wine to appear as if it were turned into Bloud In Canon Missae lect 49. and Biel affirms that Miracles are done to men who run to Images sometimes by operation of Devils to deceive those inordinate worshippers God permitting it and their infidelity exacting it And when in the Question of the immaculate Conception there are miracles produc'd on both sides as the learned Bishop of the Canaries tells us it must needs be Melchior canâ—s loâ— Com. mun l. 11. c. 6. that on one side the Devil was the Architect if not on both And such stories are so frequently related by the Romish Legends by S. Gregory Bishop of Rome by Beda by Vincentius Belvacensis Antoninus by the Speculum Exemplorum and are accounted Religious stories and are so publickly preach'd and told by the Friars in their Sermons and so believ'd by the people and the Common sort of Roman Catholicks and indifferently amongst many of the better sort that their minds are greatly possess'd with such a superstitious credulity and are fed with such hypochondriacal and fond opinions that it is observable how they by those usages are become fond News-mongers and reporters of every ridiculous story Hi piè nonnihil admentientes supponunt reliquias fabricant miracula confinguntque quae Exempla vocant vel plausibiles vel terribiles fabulas De vanit Scier cap. 97. So Cornelius Agrippa complains of the Writers of such ridiculous stories in that Church that as one of their own Writers said they equal if not exceed Amadis and Clarianus Who please to see more of this may be satisfied with reading Canus in the Chapter above quoted or if he please he may observe it in Bellarmine himself who out of those very legends and stories which are disallowed by Canus and out of divers others as Garetius Tilmanus Bredenbachius Thomas of Walden and I know not who besides recount seven miracles to prove the proper natural presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament amongst which it is not the least
our censure of their doctrines are not so fierce and in our fears of their final condition not so decretory and rash then this doctrine of theirs against us is both the more uncharitable and the more unreasonable 1. That the Church of Rome is infinitely confident they are in the right I easily believe because they say they are and they have causes but too many to create or to occasion that confidence in them for they never will consider concerning any of their Articles their unlearned men not at all their learned men only to confirm their own and to confute their adversaries whose arguments though never so convincing they are bound to look upon as temptations and to use them accordingly which thing in case they can be in an error may prove so like the sin against the Holy Ghost as Milk is to Milk if at least all conviction of error and demonstrations of truth be the effect and grace of the Spirit of God which ought very warily to be consider'd But this confidence is no argument of truth for they telling their people that they are bound to believe all that they teach with an assent not equal to their proof of it but much greater even the greatest that can be they tie them to believe it without reason or proof for to believe more strongly than the argument inferrs is to believe something without the argument or at least to have some portions of Faith which relies upon no argument which if it be not effected by a supreme and more infallible principle can never be reasonable but this they supply with telling them that they cannot erre and this very proposition it self needing another supply for why shall they believe this more than any thing else with an assent greater than can be effected by their argument they supply this also with affrighting Homilies and noises of damnation So that it is no wonder that the Roman people are so confident since it is not upon the strength of their argument or cause for they are taught to be confident beyond that but it is upon the strength of passion credulity interest and fear education and pretended authority all which As we hope God will consider in passing his unerring sentence upon the poor mis-led people of the Roman Communion So we also considering their infirmity and our own dare not enter into the secret of God's judgement concerning all or any of their persons but pray for them and offer to instruct them we reprove their false doctrines and use means to recall them from darkness into some more light than there they see but we pass no further and we hope that this charity and modesty will not we are sure it ought not be turned to our reproach for this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that toleration of our erring Brethren Rom. 2. 4. and long sufferance which we have learn'd from God and it ought to procure Repentance in them and yet if it does not we do but our duty always remembring the words of the Great Apostle which he spake to the Church of Rome Thou art inexcusable v. 1. O man whosoever thou art that judgest another for in what thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self and we fear and every man is bound to do so too lest the same measure of judgment we make to the errors of our Brother be heap d up against our own in case we fall into any And the Church of Rome should do well to consider this for she is not the less likely to erre but much more for thinking she cannot erre her very thinking and saying this thing being her most Capital error as I shall afterwards endeavour to make apparent I remember that Paganinus Gaudentius a Roman Gentleman tells that Theódore Beza being old and coming into the Camp of Henry the 4th of France was ask'd by some Whether he were sure that he followed the true Religion He modestly answer'd That he did daily pray to God to direct him with his holy Spirit and to give him a light from Heaven to guide him Upon which answer because they expounded it to be in Beza uncertainty and irresolution he says that may who heard him took that hint and became Roman Catholicks It is strange it should be so that one man's modesty should make another man bold and that the looking upon a sound eye should make another sore But so it is that in the Church of Rome very ill use is made of our charity and modesty However I shall give a true account of the whole affair as it stands and then leave it to be consider'd SECTION VIII The Insecurity of the Roman Religion 1. AS to the security which is pretended in the Church of Rome it is confidence rather than safety as I have already said but if we look upon the propositions themselves we find that there is more danger in them than we wish there were I have already in the preface to the First Part instanc'd in some particulars in which the Church of Rome hath suffer'd infirmity and fallen into error and the errors are such which the Fathers of the Church for we meddle not with any such judgment call damnable As for example to add any thing to Scriptures or to introduce into the Faith any thing that is not written or to call any thing Divine that is not in the authority of the Holy Scriptures which Tertullian says whosoever does may fear the woe pronounc'd in Scripture against adders and detracters and S. Basil says is a manifest note of infidelity and a most certain sign of pride and others add it is an evil heart of immodesty and most vehemently forbidden by the Apostles Against the testimonies then brought some little cavils were made and many evil words of railing publish'd which I have not only washt off in the second Section of this Second part but have to my thinking clearly prov'd them guilty of doing ill in this question and receding from the rule of the primitive Church and have added many other testimonies concerning the main Inquiry to which the weak answers offer'd can no way be applied and to which the more learned answers of Bellarmine and Perron are found insufficient as it there is made to appear So that I know nothing remains to them to be considered but Whether or no the primitive and holy Fathers were too zealous in condemning this doctrine and practice of the Roman Church too severely We are sure the thing which the Fathers so condemn is done without warrant and contrary to all authentick precedents of the purest and holiest Ages of the Church and greatly derogatory to the dignity and fulness of Scripture and infinitely dangerous to the Church for the intromitting the doctrines of men into the Canon of Faith and a great diminution to the reputation of that providence by which it is certain the Church was to be secur'd in the Records of Salvation which could not be done by
any thing so well as by writing what was to be kept inviolate especially in the propositions of Faith relying oftentimes upon a word and a phrase and a manner of expression which in the infinite variety of reporters might too easily suffer change Thus far we can safely argue concerning the error of the Church of Rome and to this not we but the Fathers add a severe Censure And when some of these censures were set down by way of caution and warning not of judgment and final sentence it seems a wonder to me how these Gentlemen of the Roman Communion Letter and Truth will out c. that wrote against the Book should recite all these terrible sayings out of the Fathers against their superaddition of Articles to the Faith contain'd in Scriptures and be so little concerned as to read them with a purpose only to find fault with the quotations and never be smitten with a terror of the judgment which the Fathers pronounce against them that do so Just as if a man being ready to perish in a storm should look up and down the ship to see if the little paintings were exact or as if a man in a terrible clap of thunder should consider whether he ever heard so unmusical a sound and never regard his own danger 2. The same is the case in their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worshipping of consecrated Bread in which if they be not deceiv'd all the reason and all the senses of all the men in the world are deceiv'd and if they be deceiv'd then it is certain they give Divine worship to what they naturally eat and drink and how great a provocation of God that is they cannot but know by the whole analogy of the Old and New Testament and even by natural reason it self and all the dictates of Religion which God hath written in our hearts On the other side if we consider that if the Divine worship they intend to Christ were pass'd immediately to him sitting in Heaven and not thorow that blessed thing upon the Altar but directly and primarily to him whose passion there is represented and the benefits of whose death are there offer'd and exhibited there could be no diminution of any right due to Christ. Nay to them who consider that in the first institution and tradition of it to the Apostles Christ's body was still whole and unkroken and separate from the Bread and could not then be transubstantiate and pass from it self into what it was not before and yet remain still it self what it was before and that neither Christ did command the Apostles to worship neither did they worship any thing but God the Father at that time it must needs seem to be a prodigious venture of their souls to change that action into a needless and ungrounded superstition especially since after Christ's ascension his body is not only in Heaven which must contain it until his coming to judgment but is so chang'd so immaterial or spiritual that it is not capable of being broken by hands or teeth In not adoring that which we see to be Bread we can be as safe as the Apostles were who that we find did not worship it but in giving Divine honours to it we can be no more safe in case their proposition be amiss than he that worships the Sun because he verily believes he is the God of Heaven A good meaning in this case will not justifie his action not only because he hath enough to instruct him better and to bring him to better understanding but especially because he may mean as well if he worships Christ in Heaven Ad sua templa oculis animo ad sua numina spectans yea and better when he does actually worship Christ at that time directing the worship to him in Heaven and would terminate his worship on the Host if he were sure it were Christ or were commanded so to do Add to this that to worship Christ is an affirmative praecept and so it be done in wisdom and holiness and love in all just ways of address to him in praying to him reciting his prayers giving him thanks trusting in him hoping in him and loving him with the best love of obedience not to bow the knee hîc nunc when we fear to displease him by so doing cannot be a sin because for that hîc nunc there is no commandement at all And after all if we will suppose that the doctrine of Transubstantiation were true yet because the Priest that consecrates may indeed secretly have receiv'd invalid Orders or have evil Intention or there may be some undiscernable nullity in the whole Oeconomy and ministration so that no man of the Roman Communion can say that by Divine faith he believes that this Host is at this time transubstantiated but onely hath conjectures and ordinary suppositions that it is so and that he does not certainly know the contrary He that certainly gives Divine Honour to that which is not certain to be the Body of Christ runs into a danger too great to promise to himself he shall be safe Some there are who go further yet and consider that the Church of Rome say onely that the bread is chang'd into the body of Christ but not into his soul for then the same bread would be at the same time both material and immaterial and that if it were that to give honours absolutely Divine to the humanity of Christ abstracted from consideration of his Divinity into which certainly the bread is not transubstantiated is too neer the doctrine of the Socinians who suppose the humanity to be absolutely Deified and Divine Honours to be due to Christ as a man whom God hath exalted above every name But if they say that they worship the body in concretion with the Divinity it is certain that may be done at all times by looking up to heaven in all our religious addresses And therefore that is the safe way and that 's the way of the Church of England The other way viz. of the Church of Rome at the best is full of dangers and qui amat periculum peribit in illo was the wise mans caution 3. The like to this is the Practice of the Church of Rome in worshipping Angels which as it is no where commanded in the New Testament so it is expressly forbidden by an Angel himself twice Revel 22. to S. John adding an unalterable reason for I am thy fellow-servant worship God or as some Ancient Copies read it worship Jesus meaning that although in the Old Testament the Patriarchs and Prophets did bow before the Angels that appear'd to them as God's Embassadors and in the Person of God and to which they were greatly inclined because their law was given by Angels yet when God had exalted the Son of Man to be the Lord of Men and Angels we are all fellow-servants and they are not to receive religious worship as before nor we to pay it them And by
the Churches declaration to compel us to admit of it Now then for the quotations themselves I hope I shall give a fair account 1. The words quoted Lect. 40. in Can. Missae are the words of Biel when he had first affirmed that Christs body is contained truly under the bread and that it is taken by the faithful all which we believe and teach in the Church of England he adds Tamen quomodo ibi sit Christi corpus an per conversionem alicujus in ipsum that is the way of Transubstantiation an sine conversione incipiat esse Corpus Christi cum pane manentibus substantia accidentibus panis non invenitur expressum in Canone Biblii and that 's the way of Consubstantiation so that here is expressely taught what I affirm'd was taught that the Scriptures did not express the doctrine of Transubstantiation and he adds that concerning this there were Anciently divers opinions Thus far the quotation is right But of this man there is no notice taken But what of Scotus He saith no such thing well suppose that yet I hope this Gentleman will excuse me for Bellarmines sake who says the same thing of Scotus as I do and he might have found it in the Margent against the quotation of Scotus if he had pleas'd Lib. 3. de Euchar c. 23. His words are these Secondly he saith viz. Sect. Secundò dicit Scotus that there is not extant any place of Scripture so express without the declaration of the Church that it can compel us to admit of Transubstantiation And this is not altogether improbable For though the Scriptures which we brought above seem so clear to us that it may compel a man that is not wilful yet whether it be so or no it may worthily be doubted since most learned and acute men such as Scotus eminently was believe the contrary Well! But the Gentleman can find no such thing in Ocham I hope he did not look far for OCham is not the man I mean however the printer might have mistaken but it is easily pardonable because from O. Cam. meaning Odo Cameracensis it was easie for the printer or transcriber to write Ocam as being of more public name But the Bishop of Cambray is the man that followed Scotus in this opinion Vbi suprae and is acknowledged by Bellarmine to have said the same that Scotus did he being one of his docti acutissimi viri there mentioned Contra. Captiv Now if Roffensis have the same thing too Babyl c. 1. this Author of the letter will have cause enough to be a little ashamed And for this I shall bring his words speaking of the whole institution of the Blessed Sacrament by our Blessed Saviour he says Neque ullum hic verbum positum est quo probetur in nostra Missa veram fieri carnis sanguinis Christi praesentiam I suppose I need to say no more to verifie these citations but yet I have another very good witness to prove that I have said true and that is Salmeron who says that Scotus out of Innocentius reckons three opinions not of heretics Tom. 9. tract 16. p. 108. p. â—10 but of such men who all agreed in that which is the main but he adds Some men and writers believe that this article cannot be proved against a heretic by Scripture alone or reasons alone Lib. 1. de Euchar c. 34. And so Cajetan is affirm'd by Suarez and Alanus to have said and Melchior Canus perpetuam Mariae virginitatem conversionem panis vini in corpus sanguinem Christi non ita expressa in libris Canonicis invenies Page 37. vide Letter p. 18. sed adeo tamen certa in fide sunt ut contrariorum dogmatum authores Ecclesia haereticos judicarit So that the Scripture is given up for no sure friend in this Q. the article wholy relies upon the authority of the Church viz. of Rome who makes faith and makes heresies as she please But to the same purpose is that also which Chedzy said in his disputation at Oxford In what manner Christ is there whether with the bread Transelemented or Transubstantiation the Scripture in open words tells not But I am not likely so to escape Pag. 38. for E. W. See also the letter to a friend p. 19. talkes of a famous or rather infamous quotation out of Peter Lombard and adds foul and uncivil words which I pass by but the thing is this that I said Petrus Lombardus could not tell whether there was a substantial change or no. I did say so and I brought the very words of Lombard to prove it and these very words E. W. himself acknowledges Si autem quaeritur qualis fit ista conversio an formalis an substantialis vel alterius generis definire non sufficio I am not able to define or determine whether that change be formal or substantial So far E. W. quotes him but leaves out one thing very material viz. whether besides formal or substantial it be of another kinde Now E. W. not being able to deny that Lombard said this takes a great deal of useless pains not one word of all that he says being to the purpose or able to make it probable that Peter Lombard did not say so or that he did not think so But the thing is this Biel reckon'd three opinions which in Lombards time were in the Church the first of Consubstantiation which was the way which long since then Luther followed The second that the substance of bread is made the flesh of Christ but ceases not to be what it was But this is not the doctrine of Transubstantiation for that makes a third opinion which is that the substance of bread ceases to be and nothing remains but the accident Quartam opinionem addit Magister that is Peter Lombard adds a fourth opinion that the substance of bread is not converted but is annihilated this is made by Scotus to be the second opinion Now of these four opinions all which were then permitted and disputed Vbi supra Peter Lombard seems to follow the second but if this was his opinion it was no more for he could not determine whether that were the truth or no. But whether he does or no truly I think it is very hard for any man to tell for this question was but in the forge not polished not made bright with long handling And this was all that I affirm'd out of the Master of Sentences I told of no opinion of his at all but that in his time they did not know whether it viz. the doctrine of Transubstantiation were true or no that is the generality of the Roman Catholics did not know and he himself could not define it And this appears unanswerably by Peter Lombards bringing their several sentiments in this article and they that differ in their judgements about an article and yet esteem the others Catholic may think what
what I say Melch. 〈◊〉 loc Theol. lib. 7. cap. 3. n. 8. Tertia Conclusio Plurium sanctorum authoritas reliquis licet paucioribus reclamantibus firma argumenta Theologo sufficere praestare non valet If the Major part of Fathers consenting be not a sufficient argument as Canus here expresly says then no argument from the authority of Fathers can prove it Catholic unless it be Universal Not that it is requir'd that each single point be proved by each single Father as I. S. most weakly would infer for that indeed is morally impossible but that when the Fathers of the later ages of whom we speak are divided in sentence and interest neither from the lesser number nor yet from the greater can you conclude any Catholic consent Ecclesia Universalis nunquam errat quia nunquam tota errat it is not to be imputed to the Universal Church unless all of it agree and by this Abulensis asserts the indefectibility of the Church of God Abulens praef in Matth. q. 3. it never erres because all of it does never erre And therefore here is wholly a mistake for to prove a point de fide from the authority of the Fathers we require an Universal consent Not that it is expected that every mans hand that writes should be at it or every mans vote that can speak should be to it for this were unreasonable but an Universal consent is so required that is that there be no dissent by any Fathers equally Catholic and reputed Reliquis licet paucioribus reclamantibus if others though the fewer number do dissent then the Major part is not testimony sufficient And therefore when Vincentius Lirinensis and Thomas of Walden affirmed that the consent of the Major part of Fathers from the Apostles downwards is Catholic Canus expounds their meaning to be in case that the few Dissentients have been condemned by the Church then the Major part must carry it Thus when some of the Fathers said that Melchisedeck was the Holy Ghost here the Major part carried it because the opinion of the Minor part was condemned by the Church But let me add one caution to this that it may pass the better Unless the Church of that age in which a Minor part of Fathers contradicts a greater do give testimony in behalf of the Major part which thing I think never was done and is not indeed easie to be supposed though the following ages reject the Minor part it is no argument that the doctrine of the Major part was the Catholic doctrine of that age It might by degrees become Universal that was not so at first and therefore unless the whole present age do agree that is unless of all that are esteemed Orthodox there be a present consent this broken consent is not an infallible testimony of the Catholicism of the doctrine And this is plain in the case of S. Cyprian and the African Fathers I. S. p. 3. 4. denying the baptism of heretics to be valid Supposing a greater number of Doctors did at that time believe the contrary yet their testimony is no competent proof that the Church of that age was of their judgement No although the succeeding ages did condemn the opinion of the Africans for the question now is not whether S. Cyprians doctrine be true or no but whether it was the Catholic doctrine of the Church of that age It is answered it was not because many Catholic Doctors of that age were against it and for the same reason neither was their doctrine the Catholic because as wise and as learned men opposed them in it and it is a frivolous pretence to say that the contrary viz. to S. Cyprians doctrine was found and defin'd to be the faith and the sense of the Church for suppose it was but then it became so by a new and later definition not by the oral tradition of that present age and therefore this will do I. S. no good but help to overthrow his fond hypothesis This or that might be a true doctrine but not the doctrine of the then Catholic Church in which the Catholics were so openly and with some earnestness divided And therefore it was truly said in the Dissuasive That the clear saying of one or two of those Fathers truly alledged by us to the contrary will certainly prove that what many of them suppose it do affirm and which but two or three as good Catholics do deny was not then a matter of faith or a doctrine of the Church If it had these dissentients publicly owning and preaching that doctrine would have been no Catholics but Heretics Against this I. S. hath a pretty sophism or if you please let it pass for one of his demonstrations Ibid. If one or two denying a point which many others affirm argues that it is not of faith then a fortiori if one or two affirm it to be of faith it argues it is of faith though many others deny it This consequent is so far from arising from the antecedent that in the world nothing destroys it more For because the denial of one or two argues a doctrine is not Catholic though affirm'd by many therefore it is impossible that the affirmation of one or two when there be many dissentients should sufficiently prove a doctrine to be Catholic The antecedent supposes that true which therefore concludes the consequent to be false for therefore the affirming a thing to be Catholic by two or three or twenty does not prove it to be so unless all consent because the denying it to be Catholic which the antecedent supposes by two or three is a good testimony that it is not Catholic I. S. his argument is like this If the absence of a few makes the company not full then the presence of a few when more are absent a fortiori makes the company to be full But because I must say nothing but what must be reduc'd to grounds I have to shew the stupendious folly of this argument a self evident Principle and that is Bonum and so Verum is ex integra causa malum ex qualibet particulari and a cup is broken if but one piece of the lip be broken but it is not whole unless it be whole all over And much more is this true in a question concerning the Universality of consent or of tradition For I. S. does praevaricate in the Question which is whether the testimony be Universal if the particulars be not agreed and he instead of that thrusts in another word which is no part of the Question for so he changes it by saying the dissent of a few does not make but that the article is a point of faith for though it cannot be supposed a point of faith when any number of the Catholic Fathers do profess to believe a proposition contrary to it yet possibly it will by some of his side be said to be a point of faith upon other accounts as upon the Churches definition
capacitie of being Catholick or Universal for that which hath no distinct Being can have no distinct Promises no distinct capacities but the promises are made to all Churches and to every Church onely there is this in it if any Church of one denomination shall be cut off other branches shall stand by faith and still be in the vine The Church of God cannot be without Christ their head and the head will not suffer his body to perish Thus I understand the meaning of the Churches being the pillar and ground of truth Just as we may say Humane understanding and the experience of mankind is the pillar and ground of true Philosophy but there is no such abstracted Being as Humane understanding distinct from the understanding of all individual men Every Universal is but an intentional or notional Being so is the word Catholick relating to the Church if it be understood as something separated from all particular Churches and I do not find that it is any other ways us'd in Scripture than in the distributive sense So S. Paul The care of all the Churches is upon me that is he was the Apostle of the Catholick Church of the Gentiles And so I teach in all the Churches of the Saints And in this sense it is that I say the Apostles have in the Creed comprehended all the Christian world all the the congregations of Christ's servants in the word Catholick But then 2. It is to be considered that this Epithet of the Church to be the pillar and ground of truth is to be understood to signifie in opposition to all Religions that were not Christian. The implied Antithesis is not of the whole to its parts but of kind to kind it is not so called to distinguish it from conventions of those who disagree in the house of God but from those that are out of the house meaning that whatever pretences of Religion the Gentile Temples or the Jewish Synagogues could make truth could not be found among them but only in those who are assembled in the name of Christ who profess his faith and are of the Christian Religion for they alone can truly pretend to be the conservers of truth to them only now are committed the Oracles of God and if these should fail Truth would be at a loss and not be found in any other Assemblies In this sense S. Paul spake usefully and intelligibly for if the several conventions of separated and disagreeing Christians should call themselves as they do and always did the Church the question would be which were the Church of God and by this rule you were never the nearer to know where truh is to be found for if you say In the Church of God several pretend to it who yet do not teach the truth and then you must find out what is truth before you find the Church But when the Churches of Christians are distinguish'd from the Assemblies of Jews and Turks and Heathens she is visible and distinguishable and notorious and therefore they that love the truth of God the saving truth that makes us wise unto salvation must become Christians and in the Assemblies of Christians they must look for it as in the proper repository and there they shall find it 3. But then it is also considerable What truth that is of which the Church of the living God is the pillar and ground It is only of the saving truths of the Gospel that whereby they are made members of Christ the house of God the temples of the Holy Spirit For the Spirit of God being the Churches teacher he will teach us to avoid evil and to do good to be wise and simple to be careful and profitable to know God and whom he hath sent Jesus Christ to increase in the knowledge and love of them to be peaceable and charitable but not to entertain our selves and our weak Brethren with doubtful disputations but to keep close to the foundation and to superstruct upon that a holy life that is God teaches his Church the way of salvation that which is necessary and that which is useful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which will make us wise unto salvation But in this School we are not taught curious questions Unedifying notions to unty knots which interest and vanity which pride and covetousness have introduc'd these are taught by the Devil to divide the Church and by busying them in that which profits not to make them neglect the wisdom of God and the holiness of the Spirit And we see this truth by the experience of above 1500 years The Churches have troubled themselves with infinite variety of questions divided their precious unity destroyed charity and instead of contending against the Devil and all his crafty methods they have contended against one another and excommunicated one another and anathematiz'd and damn'd one another and no man is the better after all but most men are very much the worse and the Churches are in the world still divided about questions that commenc'd twelve or thirteen ages since and they are like to be so for ever till Elias come which shows plainly that God hath not interested himself in the revelations of such things and that he hath given us no means of ending them but Charity and a return to the simple ways of Faith And this is yet the more considerable because men are so far from finding out a way to end the questions they have made that the very ways of ending them which they propounded to themselves are now become the greatest questions and consequently themselves and all their other unnecessary questions are indeterminable their very remedies have increased the disease And yet we may observe that God's ways are not like ours and that his ways are the ways of truth and Everlasting he hath by his wise providence preserv'd the plain places of Scripture and the Apostles Creed in all Churches to be the rule and measure of that faith by which the Churches are sav'd and which is only that means of the unity of Spirit which is the band of peace in matters of belief And what have the Churches done since To what necessary truths are they after all their clampers advanc'd since the Apostles left to them that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that sound form of words and doctrine What one great thing is there beyond this in which they all agree or in which they can be brought to agree He that wisely observes the ways of God and the ways of man will easily perceive that God's goodness prevails over all the malice and all the follies of mankind and that nothing is to be relied upon as a rule of truth and the wayes of peace but what Christ hath plainly taught and the Apostles from him for he alone is the Author and Finisher of our Faith he began it and he perfected it and unless God had mightily preserved it we had spoil'd it Now to bring all this home to the
rescinded abrogated by contrary laws and desuetude by change of times and changes of opinion And in all that great body of laws registred in the decretum and the Decretals Clementins and Extravagants there is no signe or distinctive cognisance of one from another and yet some of them are regarded and very many are not When Pope Stephen decreed that those who were converted from heresie should not be re-baptiz'd Euseb. lib. 7. hist. 4. c. 3 4. lib. de unico baptis c. 14. and to that purpose wrote against S. Cyprian in the Question and declar'd it to be unlawful and threatned excommunication to them that did it as S. Austin tells S. Cyprian regarded it not but he and a Council of fourscore Bishops decreed it ought to be done and did so to their dying day Bellarmine admits all this to be true but says that Pope Stephen did not declare this tanquam de fide but that after this definition it was free to every one to think as they list nay Bellar. lib. 4. de Pont. Rom. c. 7. Sect. Et per hoc that though it was plain that S. Cyprian refus'd to obey the Pope's sentence yet non est omninò certum that he did sin mortally By all this he hath made it apparent that it cannot easily be known when a Pope does define a thing to be de fide or when it is a sin to disobey him or when it is necessary he should be obeyed Now then since in the Canon law there are so very many decrees and yet no mark of difference of right or wrong necessary or not necessary how shall we be able to know certainly in what state or condition the soul of every of the Pope's subjects is especially since without any cognisance or certain mark all the world are commanded under pain of damnation to obey the Pope In the Extravagant de Majoritate Obedientiâ are these words Dicimus definimus pronunciamus absolutè necessarium ad salutem omni humanae creaturae subesse Romano Pontifici Now when can it be thought that a Pope defines any article in Cathedra if these words Dicimus definimus pronunciamus necessarium ad salutem be not sufficient to declare his intention Now if this be true that the Pope said this he said true or false If false how sad is the condition of the Romanists who are affrighted with the terrible threatnings of damnation for nothing And if it be true what became of the souls of S. Cyprian and the African Bishops Epist. S. Cyprian ad Pompeium who did not submit to the Bishop of Rome but call'd him proud ignorant and of a dark and wicked mind Seriò praecepit said Bellarmine he seriously commanded it but did not determine it as necessary and how in a Question of faith and so great Concern this distinction can be of any avail can never be known and can never be prov'd since they declare the Pope sufficiently to be of that faith against S. Cyprian and the Africans and that in pursuance of this his faith he proceeded so far and so violently But now the matter is grown infinitely worse For 1. the Popes of Rome have made innumerable decrees in the Decretum In l. Benè à Zenoâ—e c. de quadrien praescript Decretals Bulls Taxes Constitutions Clementines and Extravagants 2. They as Albericus de Rosate a Great Canonist affirms sometimes exalt their constitutions and sometimes abase them according to the times And yet 3. All of them are verified and impos'd under the same Sanction by the Council of Trent Sess. 25. c. 20. all I say which were ever made in favour of Ecclesiastical Persons and the Liberties of the Church which are indeed the greater part of all after Gratians decree witness the Decretals of Gregory the 9 th Boniface the 8 th the Collectio diversarum Constitutionum literarum Romanorum Pontificum and the Decretal Epistles of the Roman Bishops in three Volumes besides the Ecloga Bullarum motuum propriorum All this is not onely an intolerable burden to the Christian Churches but a snare to consciences and no man can tell by all this that is before him whether he deserve love or hatred whether he be in the state of mortal sin of damnation or salvation But this is no new thing More than this was decreed in the Ancient Canon law it self Decret dist 19. c. Sic omnes C. Eniâ—vero Sic omnes Sanctiones Apostolicae sedis accipiendae sunt tanquam ipsius Divinâ voce Petri firmatae And again Ab omnibus quicquid statuit quicquid ordinat perpetuò quidem infragibiliter observandum est All men must at all times with all submission observe all things whatsoever are decreed or ordain'd by the Roman Church Nay licèt vix ferendum although what that holy See imposes be as yet scarce tolerable yet let us bear it and with holy devotion suffer it says the Canon Ibid. In memoriam And that all this might indeed be an intolerable yoke the Canon Nulli fas est addes the Pope's curse and final threatnings Sit ergo ruinae suae dolore prostratus quisquis Apostolicis voluerit contraire decretis and every one that obeys not the Apostolical decrees is majoris excommunicationis dejectione abjiciendus The Canon is directed particularly against the Clergy And the gloss upon this Canon affirms that he who denies the Pope's power of making Canons viz. to oblige the Church is a heretick Now considering that the decree of Gratian is Concordantia discordantiarum a heap or bundle of Contrary opinions doctrines and rules and they agree no otherwise then a Hyaena and a Dog catch'd in the same snare or put into a bag and that the Decretals and Extravagants are in very great parts of them nothing but boxes of tyranny and errour usurpation and superstition onely that upon those boxes they write Ecclesia Catholica and that all these are commanded to be believ'd and observ'd respectively and all gainsayers to be cursed and excommunicated and that the twentieth part of them is not known to the Christian world and some are rejected and some never accepted and some slighted into desuetude and some thrown off as being a load too heavie and yet that there is no rule to discern these things it must follow that matters of faith determin'd and recorded in the Canon law and the laws of manners there established and the matter of salvation and damnation consequent to the observation or not observation of them must needs be infinitely uncertain and no man can from their grounds know what shall become of him There are so very many points of faith in the Church of Rome and so many Decrees of Councils which when they please make an Article of faith and so many are presumptuously by private Doctors affirm'd to be de fide which are not that considering that the common people are not taught to rely upon the plain