prove that any of the Fathers have denyed this place to extend to infallibility is a very unreasonable thing which you put the Bishop and his party upon because they only deliver what they conceive the meaning of places to be without reflections on any Heresies but such as were most prevalent in their own times And if your Church had in their time challenged Infallibility from such places you might have heard of their Negative which at present you put us unreasonably to prove Your answer to John 14.16 only is that it must be understood in some absolute sense and doth not his Lordship say so too viz. in regard of Consolation and Grace But if you say there can be no other absolute sense but an infallible assistance you would do well to prove it and not barely to suppose it and so likewise what follows as to John 16.13 which his Lordship justly restrains to the Apostles alone you tell us That you contend that in whatsoever sense all truth is to be understood in respect of each Apostle apart it is also to be understood in relation to their Successors assembled in a full Representative of the whole Church That you contend we grant but we say it is without sense or reason And therefore come to examine what you produce for it Your first reason Because the Representative of the Church in General Council and the Bishop of Rome as Pastor of the whole Church have equal power to oblige the Church to believe what they deliver as each Apostle had is utterly denied and must be more then barely supposed as it is here Your second which you call the Fundamental reason of this Exposition is in short That the preservation of the Church requires infallibility in future ages of the Church as well as in the Apostles times which is again utterly denied And the next time you write I pray prove your reasons well and think not your confident producing things you know are denied by us will serve for reasons against us Before you can sufficiently prove that any rite of the Church not mentioned in Scripture had the Holy Ghost for its Authour especially when contrary to a custome expressed in Scripture you must do more then produce a single testimony of St. Augustine for it who was apt to suppose the Holy Ghost might be pleased with such things which the Church though not therein infallible might consent in the practise of Which certainly is far from supposing the Church to have infallible assistance with it in delivering Doctrines of Faith because some things might be used in the Church which the Holy Ghost might be supposed not displeased with which is the utmost can be made of your citation out of St. Austin It seems you were aware of that disparity between the Apostles times and ours as to the pretence of Infallibility because the Apostles were first to deliver this Doctrine to the world and after to consign it by writing to future ages from whence it were easie to inferr there could not be that necessity of a Continual Infallible Assistance in the Church because the Doctrine infallibly delivered by them is preserved in the Church by the Infallible Records of it But to this your answer is considerable What wise man say you would go about to raise a stately building for many ages and satisfie himself with laying a Foundation to last but for a few years Our Saviour the wisest of Architects is not to be thought to have founded this incomparable building of the Church upon sand which must infallibly have happened had he not intended to afford his continual assistance also to the succeeding Pastors of the Church to lead them when assembled in a General Council into all those truths wherein he first setled the Apostles Whether you call this arguing for the Churches infallibility or libelling against our blessed Saviour if he hath not done what you would have him is hard to determine I am sure it is arguing ab absurdo with a witness for if he hath not done just as you fancy he should have done he must venture to be accounted an Ignoramus and Impostor before and here to do that which no wise man would have done viz. build a stately Fabrick the Church upon the Sands So it seems you account the Prophets and the Apostles for if the Apostle may be credited we are built on the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner-stone And this is it you must mean by being built on the sand for herein it is plain the Church is built on these viz. that Infallible doctrine which was delivered by them but here is not one word or the least intimation of an inherent infallibility in the Church which was to be its foundation so as to secure it from all errour And this you say must infallibly happen if there be not the same infallibility in General Councils which was in the Apostles for that I suppose must be the meaning of your last words if they be to the purpose But how groundless your pretence of the Infallibility of General Councils is will appear when we come to that subject but have you so little of common sense and reason with you as to suppose the Church presently notwithstanding the Divine Revelation of the Doctrine of Christianity in Scripture to be built on Sand if General Councils be not infallible Is there not sufficient ground to rely on the Doctrine of Christianity supposing there never had been any General Council in the world What was the Church built on before the Nicene Council only on Sand surely the Wind and Billows of persecutions would then have easily overturned it What if through civil combustions in the Empire there could never have been any Assembly's of the Bishops afterwards must the Church needs have fallen to the ground for want of General Councils But why I pray must the Infallibility of the Apostles be compared only to a foundation that can last but for few years Do you suppose that these Apostles never did commit their Doctrine infallibly to writing or that these writings of theirs did last but for a few years without one of these it is hard to find out your meaning by those expressions If you deny either of them I shall readily prove them but if you affirm both these as if you are heartily a Christian you must do with what face can you say that Christ in making the Apostles infallible did lay a Foundation but for a few years But thanks be to God although perverse and unreasonable men are alwaies quarrelling with the methods of Divine wisdom and goodness this Foundation of the Lord standeth sure still and as long as the Infallible Doctrine of the Gospel continues the Church will be built on a stedfast and unmoveable Rock which will prove a much surer Foundation than the seven Hills of Infallibility But this is your grand and fundamental
whether an Infallible Assent to the Infallibility of your Church can be grounded on those Motives of Credibility If you affirm it then there can be no imaginable necessity to make the Testimony of your Church infallible in order to Divine Faith for you will not I hope deny but that there are at least equal Motives of Credibility to prove the Divine Authority of the Scriptures as the Infallibility of your Church and if so why may not an Infallible Assent be given to the Scriptures upon those Motives of Credibility as well as to your Churches Infallibility If you deny the Assent built upon the Motives of Credibility to be Infallible how can you make the Assent to your Churches Testimony to be infallible when that Infallibility is attempted to be proved only by the Motives of Credibility And therefore it necessarily follows That notwithstanding your bearing it so high under the pretence of Infallibility you leave mens minds much more wavering in their Assent than before in that as shall afterwards appear these very Motives of Credibility do not at all prove the Infallibility of your Church which undoubtedly prove the Truth and Certainty of Christian Religion Thus while by this device you seek to avoid the Circle you destroy the Foundation of your Discourse That there must be an Infallible Assent to the truth of that Proposition That the Scriptures are the Word of God which you call Divine Faith which how can it be infallible when that Infallibility at the highest by your own confession is but evidently credible and so I suppose the Authority of the Scriptures is without your Churches Infallibility And thus you run into the same Absurdities which you would seem to avoid which is the second thing to manifest the unreasonableness of this way for whatever Absurdity you charge us with for believing the Doctrine of Christ upon the Motives of Credibility unavoidably falls upon your selves for believing the Churches Infallibility on the same grounds for if we leave the Foundation of Faith uncertain you do so too if we build a Divine Faith upon Motives of Credibility so do you if we make every ones reason the Judge in the choice of his Religion so must you be forced to do if you understand the consequence of your own principles 1. It is impossible for you to give a better account of Faith by the Infallibility of your Church than we can do without it for if Divine Faith cannot be built upon the Motives proving the Doctrine of Christ what sense or reason is there that it should be built on those Motives which prove your Churches Infallibility so that if we leave the Foundation of Faith uncertain you much more and that I prove by a Rule of much Authority with you by which you use to pervert the weak judgements of such who in your case do not discern the Sophistry of it Which is when you come to deal with persons whom you hope to Proselyte you urge them with this great Principle That Prudence is to be our Guide in the choice of our Religion and that Prudence directs us to chuse the safest way and that it is much safer to make choice of that way which both sides agree Salvation is to be obtained in than of that which the other side utterly denies men can be saved in How far this Rule will hold in the choice of Religion will be examined afterwads but if we take your word that it is a sure Rule I know nothing will be more certainly advantagious to us in on present case For both sides I hope are agreed that there are sufficient Motives of Credibility as to the belief of the Scriptures but we utterly deny that there are any such Motives as to the Infallibility of your Church it then certainly follows That our way is the more eligible and certain and that we lay a surer Foundation for Faith than you do upon your principles for resolving Faith 2. Either you must deny any such thing as that you call Divine Faith or you must assert that it may have no other Foundation than the Motives of Credibility which yet is that you would seem most to avoid by introducing the Infallibility of your Church that the Foundation of Faith may not be uncertain whereas supposing what you desire you must of necessity do that you would seem most fearful of which is making a Divine Faith to rest upon prudential Motives Which I thus prove It is an undoubted Axiom among the great men of your side That whatever is a Foundation for a Divine Faith must itself be believed with a firm certain and infallible Assent Now according to your principles the Infallibility of the Church is the Foundation for Divine Faith and therefore that must be believed with an Assent Infallible It is apparent then an Assent Infallible is required which is that which in other terms you call Divine Faith now when you make it your business to prove the Churches Infallibility upon your prudential Motives I suppose your design is by those proofs to induce men to believe it and if men then do believe it upon those Motives do you not found an Assent Infallible or a Divine Faith upon the Motives of Credibility And by the same reason that you urge against us the necessity of believing the Scriptures to be the Word of God by Divine Faith because it is the ground why we believe the things contained in the Scripture we press on your side the necessity of believing the Infallibility of the Church by a Faith equally Divine because that is to you the only sufficient Foundation of believing the Scriptures or any thing contained in them 3. You make by this way of resolving Faith every man's Reason the only Judge in the choice of his Religion which you are pleased to charge on us as a great Absurdity yet you who have deserved so very ill of Reason are fain to call in her best assistance in a case of the greatest moment viz. On what ground we must believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God You say Because the Church is infallible which delivers them to us but how should we come to know that she is infallible you tell us By the Motives of Credibility very good But must not every ones reason judge whether these Motives be credible or no and whether they belong peculiarly to your Church so as to prove the Infallibility of it as it is distinct from all other societies of Christians in the world You tell us indeed That these Motives make it evidently credible but must we believe it to be so because you say so If so then the ground of believing is not the Credibility of the Motives but of your Testimony and therefore you ought to make it evidently true that whatever you speak is undoubtedly true which whosoever reads your Book will hardly be perswaded to So that of necessity every mans reason must be Judge whether your Church
us still more evidence of your self-contradicting faculty for which we need no more than lay your words together Your words next before were If the Church should fall into errour it would be as much ascribed to God himself as in case of immediate Divine Revelation but here you add Neither is it necessary for us to affirm that the Definition of the Church is God's immediate Revelation as if the Definition were false God's Revelation must be also such It is enough for us to averr that God's Promise would be infringed as truly it would in that Supposition From which we may learn very useful instructions 1. That God's Promise may he infringed and yet God's Revelation not proved to be false But whence came that Promise Was it not a Divine Revelation if it was undoubtedly such Can such a Promise be false and not God's Revelation 2. That though if the Church erre God must be fallible yet for all this all God's Revelations may remain infallible 3. That though the only ground of Infallibility be the immediate Assistance of the Holy Ghost which gives as great an Infallibility as ever was in Prophets and Apostles yet we must not say That such an Infallibility doth suppose an immediate Revelation 4. That though God's Veracity would be destroyed if the Church should define any thing for a point of Catholick Faith which were not revealed from God which are your next words yet we are not to think if her Definition be false God's Revelation must be also such which are your words foregoing Those are excellent Corollaries to conclude so profound a discourse with And if the Bishop as you say had little reason to accuse you for maintaining a party I am sure I have less to admire you for your seeking Truth and what ever animosity you are led by I hope I have made it evident you are led by very little reason CHAP. VI. Of the Infallibility of Tradition Of the unwritten Word and the necessary Ingredients of it The Instances for it particularly examined and disproved The Fathers Rule for examining Traditions No unwritten Word the Foundation of Divine Faith In what sense Faith may be said to be Divine Of Tradition being known by its own light and the Canon of the Scripture The Testimony of the Spirit how far pertinent to this Controversie Of the use of reason in the resolution of Faith T. C ' s. Dialogue answered with another between himself and a Sceptick A twofold resolution of Faith into the Doctrine and into the Books Several Objections answered from the Supposition made of a Child brought up without sight of Scripture Christ no Ignoramus nor Impostor though the Church be not infallible T. C ' s. Blasphemy in saying otherwise The Testimonies of Irenaeus and S. Augustin examined and retorted Of the nature of infallible Certainty as to the Canon of Scripture and whereon it is grounded The Testimonies produced by his Lordship vindicated YOu begin this Chapter with as much confidence as if you had spoken nothing but Oracles in the foregoing Whether the Bishop or you were more hardly put to it let any indifferent Reader judge If he did as you say tread on the brink of a Circle we have made it appear notwithstanding all your evasions that you are left in the middle of it The reason of his falling on the unwritten Word is not his fear of stooping to the Church to shew it him and finally depend on her Authority but to shew the unreasonableness of your proceedings who talk much of an unwritten Word and are not able to prove any such thing If he will not believe any unwritten Word but what is shewn him delivered by the Prophets and Apostles I think he hath a great deal of reason for such incredulity unless you could shew him some assurance of any unwritten Word that did not come from the Apostles Though he desired not to read unwritten Words in their Books which is a wise Question you ask yet he reasonably requested some certain evidence of what you pretend to be so that he might not have so big a Faith as to swallow into his belief that every thing which his adversary saies is the unwritten Word is so indeed If it be not your desire he should we have the greater hopes of satisfaction from you but if you crave the indifferent Reader 's Patience till he hear reason from you I am afraid his patience will be tyred before you come to it But whatever it is it must be examined Though your discourse concerning this unwritten Word be as the rest are very confused and immethodical yet I conceive the design and substance of it lyes in these particulars as will appear in the examination of them 1. That there is an unwritten Word which must be believed by us containing such doctrinal Traditions as are warranted by the Church for Apostolical 2. That the ground of believing this unwritten Word is from the Infallibility of the Church which defines it to be so 3. That our belief of the Scriptures must be grounded on such an unwritten Word which is warranted by the Church under each of these I shall examine faithfully what belongs to them in your indigested discourse The first of these is taken from your own words where you tell us That our Ensurancer in the main Principle of Faith concerning the Scriptures being the Word of God is Apostolical Tradition and well may it be so for such Tradition declared by the Church is the unwritten Word of God And you after tell us That every Doctrine which any particular person may please to call Tradition is not therefore to be received as God's unwritten Word but such doctrinal Traditions only as are warranted to us by the Church for truly Apostolical which are consequently God's unwritten Word So that these three things are necessary ingredients of this unwritten Word 1. That it must be originally Apostolical and not only so but it must be of Divine Revelation to the Apostles too For otherwise it cannot be God's Word at all and therefore not his unwritten Word I quarrel not at all with you for speaking of an unwritten Word if you could prove it for it is evident to me that God's Word is no more so by being written or printed than if it were not so for the writing adds no Authority to the Word but only is a more certain means of conveying it to us It is therefore God's Word as it proceeds from him and that which is now his written Word was once his unwritten Word but however whatever is God's Word must come from him and since you derive the source of the unwritten Word from the Apostles whatever you call an unwritten Word you must be sure to derive its pedegree down from them So that insisting on that point of time when this was declared and owned for an unwritten Word you must be able to shew that it came from the Apostles otherwise it
answer that when you say It is necessary we must believe the Scriptures to be the VVord of God with Divine Faith this Divine Faith must be taken in one of these three senses either first that Faith may be said to be Divine which hath a Divine Revelation for its Material Object as that Faith may be said to be a Humane Faith which is conversant about natural causes and the effects of them And in this sense it cannot but be a Divine Faith which is conversant about the Scripture because it is a Divine Revelation Or secondly a Faith may be said to be Divine in regard of its Testimony or Formal Object and so that is called a Divine Faith which is built on a Divine Testimony and that a Humane Faith which is built on a Humane Testimony Thus I assert all that Faith which respects particular Objects of Faith supposing the belief of the Scriptures is in this sense Divine because it is built on a properly Divine Testimony but the Question is Whether that Act of Faith which hath the whole Scripture as its Material Object be in that sense Divine or no. Thirdly Faith may be said to be Divine in regard of the Divine Effects it hath upon the soul of man as it is said in Scripture to purifie the heart overcome the world resist Satan and his Temptations receive Christ c. And this is properly a Divine Faith and there is no Question but every Christian ought to have this Divine Faith in his soul without which the other sorts of Divine Faith will never bring men to Heaven But it is apparent that all who heartily profess to believe the Scriptures to be the VVord of God have not this sort of Divine Faith though they have so firm an assent to the Truth and Authority of it that they durst lay down their lives for it The Assent therefore we see may be firm where the effects are not saving The Question now is Whether this may be called a Divine Faith in the second sense that is Whether it must be built on a Testimony infallible For clearing which we must further consider the meaning of this Question How we know Scripture to be Scripture which may import two things How we know that all these Books contain God's VVord in them Or secondly How we know the Doctrine contained in these Books to be Divine If you then ask me Whether it be necessary that I believe with such a Faith as is built on Divine Testimony that these Books called the Scripture contain the principles of the Jewish and Christian Religion in them which we call God's VVord I deny it and shall do so till you shew me some further necessity of it than you have done yet and my reason is because I may have sufficient ground for such an Assent without any Divine Testimony But if you ask me On what ground I believe the Doctrine to be Divine which is contained in those Books I then answer affirmatively On a Divine Testimony because God hath given abundant evidence that this Doctrine was of Divine Revelation Thus you see what little reason you have to triumph in your Argument from Divine Faith inferring the necessity of an unwritten VVord of God But the further explication of these things must be reserved till I come to the positive part of our way of resolution of Faith I now return Having after your way that is very unsatisfactorily attempted the vindicating your resolution of Faith from the Objections which were offered against it by his Lordship you come now to consider the second way propounded by him for the resolving Faith which is That Scripture should be fully and sufficiently known as by divine and infallible Testimony by the resplendency of that light which it hath in it self only and by the witness it can so give to it self against which he gives such evident reasons that you acknowledge the Relator himself hath sufficiently confuted it and you agree with him in the Confutation Yet herein you grow very angry with him for saying That this Doctrine may agree well enough with your grounds in regard you hold that Tradition may be known for God's VVord by its own light and consequently the like may be said of Scripture This you call aspersing you and obtruding falshoods upon you Whether it be so or no must appear upon examination Two Testimonies are cited from A. C. to this purpose the first is Tradition of the Church is of a Company which by its own light shews it self to be infallibly assisted Your Answer is That the word which must properly relate to the preceding word Company and not to the more remote word Tradition But what of all this Doth any thing the less follow which the Bishop charged A. C. with For it being granted by you That there can be no knowing an Apostolical Tradition but for the Infallibility of the present Church the same light which discovers the Infallibility of that Company doth likewise discover the Truth of Tradition If therefore your Church doth appear infallible by its own light which is your own confession May not the Scripture as well appear infallible by its own light For is there not as great self-evidence at least that the Scripture is infallible as that your Church is infallible And therefore that way you take to shift the Objection makes it return upon you with greater force For I pray tell me how any Company can appear by its own Light to be assisted by the Holy Ghost and not much more the Holy Scripture to be divine Especially seeing you must at last be forced to derive this Infallibility from the Scriptures For you pretend to no other Infallibility than what comes by a promise of the immediate assistance of the Holy Ghost How then can any Company appear by its own Light to be thus infallibly assisted unless it first appear by its own Light that there was such a Promise and how can that unless it antecedently appear by its own Light that the Scripture in which the Promise is written is the VVord of God You tell us A. C ' s. intention is only to affirm That the Church is known by her Motives of Credibility which ever accompany her and may very properly be called her own Light How well you are acquainted with A. C ' s. intention I know not neither is it much matter for granting this to have been his intention may not the Scripture be known by her Motives of Credibility as well as the Church and do not these accompany her as much as the Church and may they not be called her Light as properly as those of the Church It is plain then by all the senses and meanings you can find out in the very same that you say the Church may be known by her own Light the Scripture may much more and therefore you have no reason to quarrel with his Lordship or affirming it The second Testimony
enough to exercise his Faith needed nothing else to try it but your Doctrine of Transubstantiation But you say The term indeed was first authorised by the Council of Lateran as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by that of Nice but for the thing it self signified by this term which is a real conversion of the substance of bread into the body of Christ and of wine into his blood 't is clear enough that it was ever held for a Divine truth If you prove but that I will never quarrel with you about the term call it Transubstantiation or what you will but we do not think it so clear as not to want proofs stronger for the belief of it then all the repugnancies of sense and reason are against it For it is a vain thing for you to attempt to prove so unreasonable a Doctrine as this is by some few lame citations of Fathers unless you can first prove that the Authority of them is so great as to make me believe any thing they say though never so contrary to sense and reason If you could bring some places of the Fathers to prove that we must renounce absolutely the judgement of sense believe things most contradictions to reason yet you must first shew that the evidence they bring is greater then that of sense or reason Or that I am more bound to believe them then I am to believe the greatest evidence of sense or reason When you say In these cases we must submit reason to Faith we acknowledge it when it is no manifest contradiction in things so obvious to sense or reason that the asserting it will destroy the use of our faculties and make us turn absolute Scepticks for then Faith must be destroyed too For may not a man question as well whether his hearing may not deceive him as his sight and by that means he may question all the Tradition of the Church and what becometh of his Faith then and if his sight might deceive him in a proper object of it Why might not the Apostles sight deceive them in the body of Christ being risen from the grave And if a man may be bound to believe that to be false which his sense judges to be true what assurance can be had of any miracles which were wrought to confirm the Christian Doctrine and therefore his Lordship might well say That Transubstantiation is not consistent with the grounds of Christian Religion But of this I have spoken already That which I am now upon is not how far reason is to be submitted to Divine Authority in case of certainty that there is a Divine Revelation for what I am to believe but how far it is to be renounced when all the evidence which is brought is from the Authority of the Fathers So that the Question in short is Whether there be greater evidence that I am bound to believe the Fathers in a matter contrary to sense and reason or else to adhere to the judgement of them though in opposition to the Fathers Authority And since you do not grant their Authority immediately Divine since you pretend not to places as clear out of them as the judgement of sense and reason is in this case since you dare not say that all the Fathers are as much agreed about it as the senses of all mankind are about the matter in dispute I think with men who have not already renounced all that looks like reason this will be no matter of Controversie at all From whence it follows that supposing the Fathers were as clear for you as they are against you in this subject yet that would not be enough to perswade us to believe so many contradictions as Transubstantiation involves in it meerly because the Fathers delivered it to us I speak not this as though I did at all fear the clearness of any Testimony you can produce out of them but to shew you that you take not a competent way to prove such a Doctrine as Transubstantiation is For nothing but a stronger evidence than that of sense and reason can be judged sufficient to oversway the clear dictates of both This being premised I come to consider the clear evidence you produce out of Antiquity for this Doctrine and since you pretend to so much choice in referring us to Bellarmin and Gualtierus for more I must either much distrust your judgement or suppose these the clearest to be had in them and therefore the examination of these will save the labour of searching for the rest And yet it is the great unhappiness of your cause that there is scarce one of all the Testimonies you make use of but either its Authority is slighted by some of your own writers or sufficient reasons given against it by many of ours Your first is of St. Cyprian or at least an Authour of those first ages of the Church who speaking of the Sacrament of the Eucharist saith This common bread chang'd into flesh and blood giveth life And again The bread which our Lord gave to his Disciples being chang'd not in its outward form or semblance but in its inward nature or substance by the omnipotency of the word is made flesh As to this Testimony there are two things to be considered the authority and the meaning of it For its Authority you seem doubtful your self whether S. Cyprian's or no since Bellarmin and others of your own deny it but at least you say an Authour of those first ages of the Church but you bring no evidence at all for it Bellarmin grants that he is younger then St. Augustine and others say that none mention him for 800 years after St. Cyprians time And the abundance of barbarisms which that book is so full fraught with manifest that it is of a much later extraction then the time it pretends to But the matter seems to be now out of question since the Book is extant in the King of France's Library with an Inscription to Pope Adrian and a MSS. of it is in the Library of All-Souls in Oxford with the same Inscription and the name of Arnaldus Bonavillacensis who was St. Bernards co-temporary and lived in the twelfth Century And those who have taken the pains to compare this Book with what is extant of the same Authour in the Bibliotheca Patrum not only observe the very same barbarisms but the same conceptions and expressions about the Sacrament which the other hath Although therefore I might justly reject this testimony as in all respects incompetent yet I shall not take that advantage of you but supposing him an Authour as ancient as you would have him I say he proves not the thing you bring him for For which two things must be enquired into 1. What kind of presence of Christ he asserts in the Sacrament 2. What change he supposes to be made in the Elements For your Doctrine asserts That there is a conversion of the whole substance of bread and
the Church may declare matters of Faith The testimony of St. Augustine vindicated Page 44. CHAP. III. The Absurdities of the Romanists Doctrine of Fundamentals The Churches Authority must be Divine if whatever she defines be Fundamental His Lordship and not the Testimony of S. Augustine shamefully abused three several wayes Bellarmin not mis-cited the Pelagian Heresie condemned by the General Council at Ephesus The Popes Authority not implyed in that of Councils The gross Absurdities of the distinction of the Church teaching and representative from the Church taught and diffusive in the Question of Fundamentals The Churches Authority and Testimony in matters of Faith distinguished The Testimony of Vincentius Lirinensis explained and shewed to be directly contrary to the Roman Doctrine of Fundamentals Stapleton and Bellarmin not reconciled by the vain endeavours used to that end Page 79. CHAP. IV. The Protestant Doctrine of Fundamentals vindicated The unreasonableness of demanding a Catalogue of Fundamentals The Creed contains the Fundamentals of Christian Communion The belief of Scripture supposed by it The Dispute concerning the Sense of Christs Descent into Hell and Mr. Rogers his Book confessed by T. C. impertinent With others of the same nature T. C. his fraud in citing his Lordships words Of Papists and Protestants Vnity The Moderation of the Church of England compared with that of Rome Her grounds of Faith justified Infant-Baptism how far proved out of Scripture alone Page 98. CHAP. V. The Romanists way of Resolving Faith The ill consequences of the resolution of Faith by the Churches Infallibility The grand Absurdities of it manifested by its great unreasonableness in many particulars The certain Foundations of Faith unsettled by it as is largely proved The Circle unavoidable by their new attempts The impossibility of proving the Church Infallible by the way that Moses Christ and his Apostles were proved to be so Of the Motives of Credibility and how far they belong to the Church The difference between Science and Faith considered and the new art of mens believing with their wills The Churches Testimony must be according to their principles the formal object of Faith Of their esteem of Fathers Scripture and Councils The rare distinctions concerning the Churches Infallibility discussed How the Church can be Infallible by the assistance of the Holy Ghost yet not divinely Infallible but in a manner and after a sort T.C. applauded for his excellent faculty in contradicting himself Page 109. CHAP. VI. Of the Infallibility of Tradition Of the unwritten Word and the necessary Ingredients of it The Instances for it particularly examined and disproved The Fathers Rule for examining Traditions No unwritten Word the Foundation of Divine Faith In what sense Faith may be said to be Divine Of Tradition being known by its own light and the Canon of the Scripture The â—estimony of the Spirit how far pertinent to this Controversie Of the use of Reason in the resolution of Faith C's Dialogue answered with another between himself and a Sceptick A twofold resolution of Faith into the Doctrine and into the Books Several Objections answered from the Supposition made of a Child brought up without sight of Scripture Christ no Ignoramus nor Impostor though the Church be not Infallible C's Blasphemy in saying otherwise The Testimonies of Irenaeus and S. Augustin examined and retorted Of the nature of Infallible Certainty as to the Canon of Scripture and whereon it is grounded The Testimonies produced by his Lordship vindicated p. 161. CHAP. VII The Protestant Way of resolving Faith Several Principles premised in order to it The distinct Questions set down and their several Resolutions given The Truth of matters of fact the Divinity of the Doctrine and of the Books of Scripture distinctly resolved into their proper grounds Moral Certainty a sufficient Foundation for Faith and yet Christian Religion proved to be infallibly true How Apostolical Tradition made by his Lordship a Foundation of Faith Of the Certainty we have of the Copies of Scripture and the Authority of them S. Augustine's Testimony concerning Church-Authority largely discussed and vindicated Of the private Spirit and the necessity of Grace His Lordship's Way of resolving Faith vindicated How far Scripture may be said to be known by its own Light The several Testimonies of Bellarmine Brierly and Hooker cleared p. 202. CHAP. VIII The Churches Infallibility not proved from Scripture Some general Considerations from the design of proving the Churches Infallibility from Scripture No Infallibility in the High-Priest and his Clergy under the Law if there had been no necessity there should be under the Gospel Of S. Basil's Testimony concerning Traditions Scripture less liable to corruptions than Traditions The great uncertainty of judging Traditions when Apostolical when not The Churches perpetuity being promised in Scripture proves not its Infallibility His Lordship doth not falsifie C's words but T. C. doth his meaning Producing the Jesuits words no traducing their Order C's miserable Apology for them The particular Texts produced for the Churches Infallibility examined No such Infallibility necessary in the Apostles Successours as in Themselves The Similitude of Scripture and Tradition to an Ambassadour and his Credentials rightly stated p. 235. CHAP. IX The Sense of the Fathers in this Controversie The Judgement of Antiquity enquired into especially of the three first Centuries and the reasons for it The several Testimonies of Justin Martyr Athenagoras Tatianus Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and all the Fathers who writ in vindication of Christian Religion manifested to concurr fully with our way of resolving Faith C's Answers to Vincentius Lyrinensis à Gandavo and the Fathers produced by his Lordship pitifully weak The particulars of his 9th Chapter examined S. Augustine's Testimony vindicated C's nauseous Repetitions sent as Vagrants to their several homes His Lordships Considerations found too heavy for C's Answers In what sense the Scripture may be called a Praecognitum What way the Jews resolved their Faith This Controversie and the first part concluded p. 261 PART II. Of Schism CHAP. I. Of the Universal Church THe Question of Schism explained The nature of it enquired into Several general Principles laid down for clearing the present Controversie Three grounds of the charge of Schism on Protestant Churches by our Authour The first of the Roman Churches being the Catholick Church entred upon How far the Roman Church may be said to be a true Church The distinction of a Church morally and metaphysically true justified The grounds of the Unity of the Catholick Church as to Doctrine and Government Cardinal Perron's distinction of the formal causal and participative Catholick Church examined The true sense of the Catholick Church in Antiquity manifested from S. Cyprian and several cases happening in his time as the Schism of Novatianus at Rome the case of Felicissimus and Fortunatus Several other Instances out of Antiquity to the same purpose by all which it is manifest that the Unity of the Catholick Church had no dependence on the Church of Rome
in Antiquity to the Bishop of Rome The ground of the Contest about this Title between the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople Of the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon about the Popes Supremacy Of the Grammatical and Metaphorical sense of this Title Many arguments to prove it impossible that S. Gregory should understand it in the Grammatical sense The great absurdities consequent upon it S. Gregory's Reasons proved to hold against that sense of it which is admitted in the Church of Rome Of Irenaeus his opposition to Victor Victor's excommunicating the Asian Bishops argues no authority he had over them What the more powerful principality in Irenaeus is Ruffinus his Interpretation of the 6. Nicene Canon vindicated The Suburbicary Churches cannot be understood of all the Churches in the Roman Empire The Pope no Infallible Successour of S. Peter nor so acknowledged to be by Epiphanius S. Peter had no Supremacy of Power over the Apostles p. 422. CHAP. VII The Popes Authority not proved from Scripture or Reason The insufficiency of the proofs from Scripture acknowledged by Romanists themselves The impertinency of Luke 22.32 to that purpose No proofs offered for it but the suspected testimonies of Popes in their own cause That no Infallibility can thence come to the Pope as S. Peters Successour confessed and proved by Vigorius and Mr. White The weakness of the evasion of the Popes erring as a private Doctor but not as Pope acknowledged by them Joh. 21.15 proves nothing towards the Popes Supremacy How far the Popes Authority is owned by the Romanists over Kings C's beggings of the Question and tedious repetitions past over The Argument from the necessity of a living Judge considered The Government of the Church not Monarchical but Aristocratical The inconveniencies of Monarchical Government in the Church manifested from reason No evidence that Christ intended to institute such Government in his Church but much against it The Communicatory letters in the primitive Church argued an Aristocracy Gersons testimony from his Book de Auferibilitate Papae explained and vindicated S. Hieroms testimony full against a Monarchy in the Church The inconsistency of the Popes Monarchy with that of temporal Princes The Supremacy of Princes in Ecclesiastical matters asserted by the Scripture and Antiquity as well as the Church of England p. 451. CHAP. VIII Of the Council of Trent The Illegality of it manifested first from the insufficiency of the Rule it proceeded by different from that of the first General Councils and from the Popes Presidency in it The matter of Right concerning it discussed In what cases Superiours may be excepted against as Barties The Pope justly excepted against as a Party and therefore ought not to be Judge The Necessity of a Reformation in the Court of Rome acknowledged by Roman Catholicks The matter of fact enquired into as to the Popes Presidency in General Councils Hosius did not preside in the Nicene Council as the Popes Legat. The Pope had nothing to do in the second General Council Two Councils held at Constantinople within two years these strangely confounded The mistake made evident S. Cyril not President in the third General Council as the Popes Legat. No sufficient evidence of the Popes Presidency in following Councils The justness of the Exception against the place manifested and against the freedom of the Council from the Oath taken by the Bishops to the Pope The form of that Oath in the time of the Council of Trent Protestants not condemned by General Councils The Greeks and others unjustly excluded as Schismaticks The Exception from the small number of Bishops cleared and vindicated A General Council in Antiquiâ—y not so called from the Popes General Summons In what sense a General Council represents the whole Church The vast difference between the proceedings in the Council of Nice and that at Trent The Exception from the number of Italian Bishops justified How far the Greek Church and the Patriarch Hieremias may be said to condemn Protestants with an account of the proceedings between them p. 475. PART III. Of Particular Controversies CHAP. I. Of the Infallibility of General Councils HOw far this tends to the ending Controversies Two distinct Questions concerning the Infallibility and Authority of General Councils The first entred upon with the state of the Question That there can be no certainty of faith that General Councils are Infallible nor that the particular decrees of any of them are so which are largely proved Pighius his Arguments against the Divine Institution of General Councils The places of Scripture considered which are brought for the Churches Infallibility and that these cannot prove that General Councils are so Matth. 18.20 Act. 15.28 particularly answered The sense of the Fathers in their high expressions of the Decrees of Councils No consent of the Church as to their Infallibility The place of St. Austin about the amendment of former General Councils by latter at large vindicated No other place in St. Austin prove them Infallible but many to the contrary General Councils cannot be Infallible in the conclusion if not in the use of the means No such Infallibility without as immediate a Revelation as the Prophets and Apostles had taking Infallibility not for an absolute unerring Power but such as comes by a promise of Divine Assistance preserving from errour No obligation to internal assent but from immediate Divine Authority Of the consistency of Faith and Reason in things propounded to be believed The suitableness of the contrary Doctrine to the Romanists principles p. 505. CHAP. II. Of the Use and Authority of General Councils The denying the Infallibility of General Councils takes not away their Vse and Authority Of the submission due to them by all particular persons How far external obedience is required in case they erre No violent opposition to he made against them Rare Inconveniencies hinder not the effect of a just power It cannot rationally be supposed that such General Councils as are here meant should often or dangerously erre The true notion of a General Council explained The Freedom requisite in the proceedings of it The Rule it must judge by Great Difference between external obedience and internal assent to the Decrees of Councils This latter unites men in errour not the former As great uncertainties supposing General Councils Infallible as not Not so great certainty requisite for submission as Faith Whether the Romanists Doctrine of the Infallibility of Councils or ours tend more to the Churches peace St. Austin explained The Keyes according to him given to the Church No unremediable inconvenience supposing a General Council erre But errours in Faith are so supposing them Infallible when they are not The Church hath power to reverse the Decrees of General Councils The power of Councils not by Divine Institution The unreasonableness of making the Infallibility of Councils depend on the Popes Confirmation No consent among the Romanists about the subject of Infallibility whether in Pope or Councils No evidence from
it to be so to be any matter of Faith unless we had better reason for it than we have For say you To refuse to believe God's Revelation is either to give God the lye or to doubt whether he speak truth or no But have you so little wit as not to distinguish between not believing God's Revelation and not believing what is propounded for God's Revelation Must every one who doth not believe every thing that is propounded for God's Revelation presently give God the lye and doubt whether he speak truth or no And are not you then guilty of that fault every time a Quaker or Enthusiast tells you That the Spirit of God within him told him this and that But you said Sufficiently propounded But the Question is What sufficient Proposition is and who must be Judge whether the Proposition be sufficient or no you or the conscience of the person to whom the thing is proposed to be believed If any one indeed that judgeth a Proposition sufficient do notwithstanding question the truth of it he doth interpretatively call God's Veracity into question but not he certainly who thinks not God's Veracity at all concerned in that which you call a sufficient Proposition but he judgeth not to be so Let us now see how you prove your Assumption which is very fairly done from a Supposition which his Lordship denies which is That General Councils cannot erre But say you he adds That though he should grant it yet this cannot down with him that all Points even so defined were Fundamentals I grant those are his words and his reasons follow them For Deductions are not prime and native Principles nor are Superstructures Foundations That which is a Foundation for all cannot be one and another to different Christians in regard of it self for then it could be no common Rule for any nor could the souls of men rest upon a shaking Foundation No if it be a true Foundation it must be common to all and firm under all in which sense the Articles of Christian Faith are Fundamental What now do you prove to destroy this You very strenuously prove That if men believe A General Council cannot erre they believe it cannot erre so far and no further than it cannot erre But if you mean any thing further your meaning is better than your proof for when you would prove that to disbelieve the Churches Definition is to dis-believe God's Revelation and in order to that confound the Church and General Councils together and from the General Council's not erring inferr the former Proposition because what is testified by the Church is testified by an Authority that cannot erre you do not consider that all this while you prove nothing against his Lordship unless you first prove that whatever is testified to be revealed from God is presently Fundamental to all Churches and Christians which his Lordship utterly denies by distinguishing even things which may be testified to be revealed from God into such things as are common to all Christians to be believed by them and such things as vary according to the different respects of Christians But yet further I add that taking Fundamentals in your sense you prove not the thing you intended but only to such as do acknowledge and as far as they do acknowledge that General Councils cannot erre For they who acknowledge them infallible only in Fundamentals do not judge any thing Fundamental by their Decision but judge their Decisions infallible so long as they hold to Fundamentals and so for all that I can see leave themselves Judges when General Councils are infallible and when not and therefore if they go about to testifie any thing as revealed from God which is not Fundamental they do not believe that their testimony cannot erre and so are not bound to believe that it is from God They who believe General Councils absolutely infallible I do verily think do believe General Councils infallible in all they say for that is the substance of all you say But what that is to those who neither do nor can see any reason to believe them infallible in all they say or testifie as revealed from God I neither do nor can possibly understand And if you hope such kind of Arguments can satisfie your ingenuous Reader you suppose him a good-natur'd man in the Greek sense of the phrase But all of a sudden we find you in a very generous strain and are contented to take Fundamentals for Fundamentals which is a huge Concession and his Lordship were he living would take it for a singular favour from you Yet to deal freely with the Bishop say you even taking Fundamentals in a General way as it ought to be taken only here for a thing belonging to the Foundation of Religion and it is a strange Fundamental which hath no respect to the Foundation but they who build downwards must have their Foundations on tops of their houses It is also manifest that all Points defined by the Church are Fundamental by reason of that formal Object or infallible Authority propounding them though not alwaies by reason of the matter which they contain The main proof of which lyes in this That he who doth not believe the Church infallible can believe nothing at all infallibly and therefore no Fundamental of Religion but if he believe any thing upon the Churches Infallibility he must believe all things on the same account of her Infallibility and therefore must believe all equally and so whatever is propounded by the Church is to be believed as Fundamental This you cannot deny to be the force and strength of your verbose and confused way of arguing And therefore I give you a short Answer That I utterly deny the Infallibility of any Church to be in any thing the Foundation of Divine and Infallible Faith as you will find it abundantly proved in the proper place for it in the Controversie of the Resolution of Faith Where it will be largely discussed in what sense Faith may be said to be Divine and Infallible what the proper grounds and reasons of our believing are and how much you impose upon the world in pretending that the Resolution of Faith is into the Catholick Churches Infallibility whereby it will appear to be far from a Fundamental Errour not to believe on the Churches Infallibility and that he who denies it will have no reason to call into Question the Canon of Scripture or the Foundations of all Religion But that you rather by these absurd and unreasonable pretences of yours have done your utmost to shake the true Foundations of Religion and advance nothing but Sceptiscism not to say Atheism in the world These things I take upon me to make good in their proper place and therefore shall not enter the discussion of them here but since this is the main and in truth the only Foundation of your Doctrine of Fundamentals the vanity falshood and absurdity of it cannot be sufficiently
to Salvation and that this is owned by the Church of England This is the substance of the Argument which being resolved into its parts will consist of these Propositions 1. That some things owned not to be Fundamental in the matter are yet acknowledged in the Creed of Athanasius to be necessary to Salvation 2. That the reason why these things do become necessary is because the Church hath defined them to be so 3. That this is acknowledged by the Church of England And therefore by parity of reason whatever is defined by the Church must be necessary to Salvation But every one of these Propositions being ambiguous the clear stating of them will be the best way of solving the difficulty which seems to lye in the present Argument And the main Ambiguity lyes in the meaning of that necessity to Salvation which is implied in the Athanasian Creed as to the Articles therein contained for there being different grounds and reasons upon which things may be supposed necessary there can be no just consequence made from the general owning a necessity of the belief of some things to the making those things necessary to be believed upon one particular account of it For the necessity of believing things to Salvation may arise from one of these three grounds 1. The Supposition that the matter to be believed is in it self necessary this makes it necessary to all those persons who are of that perswasion and on this ground it is plain that the main Articles of the Athanasian Creed are generally supposed necessary viz. those concerning the Trinity in Vnity the Incarnation Resurrection and Eternal Life c. Now these being supposed to be necessary from the Matter any Church may own them under this degree of necessity in that expression used in several places of the Athanasian Creed Whosoever will be saved it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith which Catholick Faith is c. But then we are to consider that this is only a Declaration of the sense of that Church what things she owns as necessary and what not And this Declaration doth not oblige the conscience of particular persons any further than as the Articles of that Church are required to be owned as the conditions of Communion with her i. e. where the degree of necessity is not declared nor expresly owned by a Church but left in general terms no man is bound to believe the things judged as necessary with any particular kind of necessity exclusive of others but only that the Church in General may use that Creed supposed necessary and that the Use of that Creed is a lawful condition of that Churches Communion 2. The belief of a thing may be supposed necessary because of the clear Conviction of mens understandings that though the matters be not in themselves necessary yet being revealed by God they must be explicitly believed but then the necessity of this Belief doth extend no further than the clearness of that Conviction doth As suppose it inserted into a Creed that the Article of the Descent must be understood according to the sense of the Scriptures this doth oblige no man to any further necessity of belief of the sense of the Article then he is convinced that it is the sense of the Scriptures And the case is the same when the Article is expressed only in general terms which are known to be capable of very different senses when none of which are expressed no particular sense can be said to be necessary to Salvation to particular persons but only that sense in general which all must agree in who own it and the particulars are left to the Convictions of mens understandings upon the use of the best means of satisfaction So that he that believes fully that the meaning of this Article from Scripture is that Christ's soul did locally descend to Hell it is necessary for him to believe so upon such Conviction but he that sees no more necessary to be believed by it but that Christ's soul was during his Body's lying in the Grave in a state of Separation from it how can you prove it necessary to Salvation for him to believe any more than this And the case is the same as to all Modes of Existence and particular explications of Articles in themselves owned as of the different Subsistencies in the Trinity the manner of the Hypostatical Vnion of the two Natures in Christ's Person supposing the Doctrines themselves believed what reason can there be to assert it necessary to Salvavation to all persons to believe them under such a sense if the Article may be it self believed without it any further than as things under those explications are manifested to such persons to be necessary to be believed As Leo 3. defined in the Article of the Holy Ghost's Procession from the Son To such who by reason of capacity and apprehension could attain to the Knowledge of it it was necessary to be believed but not by others as appears in our former Discourse on that Subject Therefore from hence we see another account why things may become necessary to be believed and owned as such besides the matter and the Churches Definition These things may be said to be necessary to be believed by such who believe the Churches Proposition to be sufficient though it be not as suppose any member of the Greek Church should believe their Church infallible it is necessary for such a one to believe whatever is propounded by that Church though you suppose that judgement of his to be false in it self because you say the Greek Church is not infallible So that from hence it appears that the necessity arising from the Churches Definition doth depend upon the Conviction that whatever the Church defines is necessary to be believed And where that is not received as an antecedent principle the other cannot be supposed By this opening the several grounds of necessity your difficulty concerning the Athanasian Creed comes to nothing For granting that the Church of England doth own and approve the Creed going under the name of Athanasius and supposing that her Vse of the Creed doth extend to the owning of those expressions which import the necessity of believing the things therein contained in order to Salvation yet this doth not reach to your purpose unless you prove that the Church of England doth own that necessity purely on the account of the Churches Definition of those things which are not Fundamental which it is very unreasonable to imagine it being directly contrary to her sense in her nineteenth and twentieth Articles And thence that supposed necessity of the belief of the Articles of the Athanasian Creed must according to the sense of the Church of England be resolved either into the necessity of the Matters or into that necessity which supposeth clear Convictions that the things therein contained are of Divine Revelation From hence then it cannot at all follow because the Church of England owns the Creed
them and to acknowledge their words for infallible Oracles of Truth Was not here then sufficient ground for assent in the Primitive Christians to the Apostles Doctrine Not as you weakly imagine because the Doctrine of the Apostles was suitable to the Doctrine of Christ for the ground why they assented to the Doctrine of Christ was because of the Testimony of the Apostles And therefore to say They believed the Doctrine of the Apostles because it was agreeable to the Doctrine of Christ and then that they believed the Doctrine of Christ because it was suitable to the Testimony of the Apostles is a Circle fit for none but your self and that silly person of your own moulding whom you call the Sectary It were worth considering too How the works of Christ could prove the Doctrine of the Apostles suitable to his own I had thought Christs works had proved his own Testimony to be true and not the Apostles Doctrine to be consonant to his The works of Christ shew us the reason why he was to be believed in what he delivered and did not the works of the Apostles do so too What need then any rational person enquire further why the Apostles Doctrine was to be believed Was it not on the same account that the Doctrine of Christ was to be believed But say you How should you know their Doctrine was the same What do you want an infallible Testimony for this too or do you believe that God can contradict himself or that Christ should send such to deliver his Doctrine to the world and attest it with miracles who should falsifie and corrupt it Now you will say I am come over to you and answer as you do that the Apostles Testimony was to be believed because of the pregnant and convincing Motives of Credibility This I grant but must be excused as to what follows That these same Motives moved the Primitive Christians and us in our respective times to believe the Church Prove but that and I yield the cause But till then I pray give us leave to believe that still you prove idem per idem and your Answers are like your Proofs for this we have had often already and have sufficiently examined before as likewise your other Coccysm about the Formal Object of Faith and certain inducements to accept the Churches Infallibility which I shall not think worth repeating till you think what I have said against it before worth answering Your second Instance is ad hominem whereby you would prove That if he acknowledge the Church infallible in Fundamentals he must prove idem per idem as much as you do For say you if he be demanded a reason why he believes such Points as he calls Fundamental his Answer is because they are agreeable to the Doctrine of Christ. If he be asked How he knows them to be so he will no doubt produce the words sentences and works of Christ who taught the said Fundamental Points But if he be asked a third time By what means he is assured that these Testimonies do make for him then he will not have recourse to the words themselves i. e. to the Bible but his final Answer will be He knows them to be so and that they do make for him because the present Church doth infallibly witness so much from Tradition and according to Tradition which is say you to prove idem per idem as much as we Things are not alwaies just as you would have them If we allow you to make both Objections and Answers for us no doubt you are guilty of no Absurdity so great but we shall be equally guilty of it But it is the nature both of your Religion and Arguments not to be able to stand a Tryal but however they must undergo it I say then that granting the Church infallible in the belief of Fundamentals it doth not follow that we must prove idem per idem as you do For when we ask you Why you believe your Doctrine to be the sole Catholick Faith your final Answer is because your Church is infallible which is answering by the very thing in Question for you have no other way to judge of the Catholick Faith but by the Infallibility of your Church but when you ask us Why we believe such an Article to be Fundamental as for Instance That Christ will give Eternal Life to them that obey him we answer not because the Church which is infallible in Fundamentals delivers it to be so which were answering idem per idem but we appeal to that common reason which is in mankind Whether if the Doctrine of Christ be true this can be other than a Fundamental Article of it it being that without which the whole design of Christian Religion comes to nothing Therefore you much mistake when you think we resolve our Faith of Fundamentals into the Church as the infallible Witness of them for though the Church may be infallible in the belief of all things Fundamental for otherwise it were not a Church if it did not believe them it doth not thence necessarily follow That the Church must infallibly witness what is Fundamental and what not It is sufficient that the Church doth deliver from the consent of universal Tradition that infallible Rule of Faith which to be sure contains all things Fundamental in it though she never meddle with the deciding what Points are Fundamental and what not If you therefore ask me Why I believe any Point supposed Fundamental I answer By all the evidence which assures me that the Doctrine containing that Point is of Divine Revelation If you aske me How I know that this Point is part of that Doctrine I appeal to the common sense and reason of the world as to things plainly Fundamental and therefore by this means your third Question is prevented How I know this to be the meaning of those words for I suppose no one that can tell that two and two make four can question but if the Doctrine of Christ be true the belief of it is necessary to Salvation which is it we mean by Fundamental Either therefore prove it necessary that the Church must infallibly witness what is Fundamental and what not and that we must rely on such a Testimony in the belief of Fundamentals or you prove nothing at all to your purpose no more than your convincing Motives of Credibility which were they made into a grand Sallad would know the way to the Table they are served so often up But I have found them so dry and insipid already I have no encouragement to venture on them any more But still you are deservedly afraid we should not think worthily enough of your Churches Infallibility You therefore tell us very wisely that this Infallibility is not a thing that is not infallible For say you Which Infallibility must come from the Holy Ghost and be more than humane or moral and therefore must be truly supernatural c. It
is well you tell us of such a rare distinction of Infallibility for else I assure you we had never thought of it viz. of an Infallibility that may be deceived and an Infallibility that cannot be deceived or in your words a humane and moral Infallibility and a supernatural divine Infallibility To ease you therefore of your fears I solemnly promise you that when I believe your Church infallible I will not believe it to have a humane moral Infallibility but supernatural and divine That is when I believe her infallible I believe her infallible Your mind being eased of this grand fear you think all the difficulty is over and that you are out of any possibility of a Circle but I have endeavoured before to shew you are not infallible in that For the charge you exhibit against the Bishop as though you had left him tumbling in the Circle you had so easily got out of I shall consider it in its due time and place but if one may guess at being in a Circle by tumbling you will not seem very free from it who seem to be at very little ease by your impatience of being held to the subject in hand Well but yet our Conceptions must once more be rectified as to the nature of this Infallibility before our danger was least we should have believed it to be only a humane moral and not supernatural Infallibility and now we are bid have a care lest we think it to be any more than in a sort and in some manner divine But what kind of transcendental thing is this Infallibility It is not humane nor yet divine and yet it is supernatural which is scarce in some sort or in a manner sense How comes it to be supernatural if it be not divine Or is it naturally supernatural and humanely divine It must not then be called divine but in a manner and after a sort But yet say you so far as concerns precise Infallibility or certain Connexion with Truth it is so truly supernatural and certain that in this respect it yields nothing to the Scripture it self These are your own words And if you did not believe Transubstantiation I should think this the greatest non-sense in the world But What doth that Infallibility which is more than in a sort divine import beyond what you assert doth belong to the Church Is that any more than precise Infallibility and certain Connexion with Truth and such as is in the Scripture and all this your Church hath and yet when we say so she drops a Courtâ—sie and cryes No forsooth though she be infallible yet she desires to be excused she is not infallible but only as if one should say in a manner and after a sort and so forth Just as if one should ask a new married woman Whether she were certainly married to such a man and she should answer as to what concerns marrying she was certainly married but yet she was not absolutely married but only in a manner and after a sort This is so great a mystery you will oblige the world much to inform it a little more fully in these following Questions What kind of Infallibility that is which is supernatural and by the assistance of the Holy Ghost which is equal to the Scripture it self in point of Certainty and Infallibility your own words and yet is divine but in a manner and after a sort And what way we should come to understand that manner and sort and what degrees and sorts there are in Infallibility Whether any thing so far as it is infallible be not absolutely as well as precisely infallible and whether that which is but in a sort divine be not in a sort not divine Whether that which is in a sort not divine be not likewise in the same sort not infallible since all this Infallibility by your own Confession is from the Holy Ghost and whether this be not an excellent way in a manner and after a sort to reconcile Contradictions For if a man should ask you Whether one might be and not be at the same time you might easily tell him That absolutely and precisely he cannot be and not be but in a manner and after a sort he may be and not be together You have cause therefore to make much of this distinction and you never need fear baffling as long as you carry it about with you it is a most excellent preservative against all the batteries of sense and reason But lest yet for all this we should apprehend something by this in a manner and after a sort as though they were some odd diminishing terms You tell us No Catholick Divines by this manner of speaking do not intend to deny the Church to be equal even to Scripture it self in point of Certainty and Infallibility What is now become of our manner and sort when the Church dares justle with the Scripture for the upper hand at least for an equal place as to Infallibility What then is the intent of this distinction It is to shew the prerogatives of Scripture above the Definitions of the Church This doth well however to follow the rest it comes so near to a contradiction for if the Church be equal to Scripture in point of Certainty and Infallibility What prerogative can be left to the Scripture above the Church when that which makes it Scripture and the Rule of Faith is only its Certainty and Infallibility Yes you tell us The Scripture doth much exceed the Church in regard of its larger extent of Truth because there not only every reason but every word and tittle is matter of Faith but in the Definitions of the Church neither the arguments reasons nor words are absolutely speaking matters of Faith but only the thing declared to be such Excellent good still and all of a piece I commend you that you would not offer to mix any thing of sense in so good a discourse For 1. How comes the Scripture to have a larger extent of Truth than the Church if we cannot know what Truth is in the Scripture but from the Church 2. How every word and tittle comes to be matter of Faith in Scripture and not in the Church when you say The Church is equal to the Scripture in point of Certainty and Infallibility 3. How any word and tittle can be any where a matter of Faith I had thought it had been the sense and thing understood by those words had been matters of Faith and then it is all one with the Scripture and Church for you say as to the Church the thing declared is a matter of Faith 4. What that thing is which is declared by the Church which is neither arguments reasons nor words and if it doth consist of these how one can be believed and not the other Doth your Church declare things so nakedly as to do it without arguments reasons or words That she can do it without words it is hard to believe but very
that they are the Word of God than the distinction of colours to a blind man 2. That the peculiar strain and genius of Scripture argues something Divine in it because notwithstanding its simplicity it hath so great power and efficacy on the minds of men far beyond any humane art or Rhetorick 3. That this may be discerned in the very Books of Scripture without the supposition of the authority of any Church for he mentions the Doctrine meerly as written and what may be found by the reading of it Go then and learn some piety and ingenuity where it is so seldome to be learned from a Jesuite and think not that we shall ever have the meaner thoughts of the Scripture for such bold expressions but we can easily see that the Infallibility of the Church and the Honour of Scripture cannot possibly stand together Your subsequent discourse consists of some rare pieces of subtilty which may be resolved into these consequences If your Church of Rome hath erred as to the number of Canonical Books then the Catholick Church ever since Christs time hath erred if the Church may erre then we cannot be certain but she hath erred if we can have no infallible certainty then we can have none at all These consequences your discourse to n. 5. may be resolved into and make good ever a one of them I will say you have proved something which is more than you have done yet N. 5. You object against his Lordship That he requires so many things in order to the resolution of Faith that he makes none capable of it but men of extraordinary parts and learning To which I answer that his Lordship is not undertaking to give an account of the Faith of rude or illiterate persons but such a one as may satisfie men of parts and learning i. e. he endeavoured to lay down the true rational account of it and not to enquire how far God obligeth every man that comes to Heaven to a critical Resolution of his Faith And therefore for the generality of such persons who heartily believe the Truth of Scriptures but are not able to give a clear and satisfactory account of it to others I answer as S. Austin did in the same case Caeteram quippe turbam non intelligendi vivacitas sed credendi simplicitas tutissimam facit That God requires not from the common sort of believers the subtilty of Speculation but the simplicity of Faith which may be very firm even in them from the reading of Scriptures and hearing the Doctrine of it plainly delivered to them though they are not able to give such accounts of their Faith which may be satisfactory to any but themselves So we say That the way is so plain that mean capacities may not erre therein But I wonder at you of all men that you should charge our way with intricacy who lead men into such perplexities and difficulties before they can be satisfied that they ought to believe for to this end you make the infallible Testimony of the Church necessary and how many insuperable difficulties are there before one can be assured of that first he must know your Church to be the True Church and this must be proved by a continual succession of Pastors in your Church and by a conformity of your Doctrine with the Ancients and Do you think these two are not very easie introductions to Faith like the taking Rome in ones way to go from York to London but though a man should pull down a House to find a Key to open it and after he had searched in all the rubbish of antiquity find enough to perswade him yours may be a True Church yet he is as far from believing as ever unless he finds a way through another Trap-door for his Faith which is that yours though a particular Church is yet the only Catholick Church i. e. that the first room he comes in is infallibly the whole house and therefore he never needs look further But supposing this yet if he doth not believe this Church to be infallible in all it says he had as good never come into it and therefore he must believe strenuously That whatever it says is infallibly True which being so hard a task as for a man that sees a house half down before his eyes to believe it can never fall it had need have some good buttresses to support it and at last finds nothing but some feeble Motives of Credibility which signifie nothing as to the Church but might have been strong enough if set in the right place viz. not to support the Church but to prove the truth of Christian Doctrine These and many other intrigues which I have formerly discovered do unavoidably attend the resolution of your Faith among all persons who profess to believe on the account of your Churches Infallibility What follows next concerning Grace is already answered What certainty we have that Scripture is of Divine Revelation and consequently what obligation lyes upon men to believe it are things largely discoursed on in the beginning of this Chapter and I shall suppose sufficiently cleared till you shew me reason to the contrary By which it will appear contrary to what follows n. 6. that we have the highest reasons or motives of Credibility to assent to the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures But you proceed to an attempt of something new which is in a long harangue to disprove his Lordships Opinion of resolving Faith into that Divine Light which appears in Scripture This you insist on from n. 6. to n. 8. the substance of all which discourse I suppose may be reduced to these three things 1. That though the Scripture be called a Light yet that is to be understood only of those who own its authority 2. That the Scripture cannot shew it self to be an Infallible Light 3. That if there were such Light in Scriture all others would see it as well as he Before I come to a particular handling of each of these it will be necessary to consider What it is which his Lordship means by this Divine Light in Scripture for there is nothing causeth more confusion in the discourses and apprehensions of men than the applying Metaphors taken from the sense to the acts of the Vnderstanding For by this means we are apt to judge of our intellectual acts in a way wholly suitable to those of sense We are not therefore to conceive there can be any thing in Divine Truths which so immediately doth discover it self to the mind as light doth to the eye But that only which bears proportion to the light in the mind is reason for mens minds being discursive and not intuitive they do not behold the truth of things by immediate intuition but by such reason and arguments as do induce and perswade to assent We are not therefore to imagine any such Light in Scripture that doth as immediately work upon the understanding as the Light
themselves to be Divine because the Talmud Alcoran and Philosophers have some things in them which the Scripture hath But Can you prove that the Scripture hath nothing else in it but what may be found in any or all of these Books Will you undertake to shew any where such representations of the Being and Attributes of God so suitable to the conceptions which naturally flow from the Idea of a Supreme and Infinite Being and yet those Attributes discovered in such contrivances for mans Good which the wit of man could never have reached to above all in the reconciliation of the world to himself by the death of his Son Will you find out so exact a Rule of Piety consisting of such excellent Precepts such incouraging Promises as are in Scripture in any other writings whatsoever Can you discover any where such an unexpressible energy and force in a writing of so great simplicity and plainness as the Scripture is Is there any thing unbecoming that Authority which it awes the consciences of men with Is there any thing mean trivial fabulous and impertinent in it Are not all things written with that infinite decorum and suitableness as do highly express the Majesty of him from whom it comes but in the most sweet affable and condescending manner Are there any such arguments in the writings of Seneca Plutarch Aristotle for the Being of God and Immortality of souls as there are in Scripture Are there any moral instructions built on such good grounds carried on to so high a degree written with that life and vigour in any of the Heathen Philosophers as are in the Scriptures How infinitely do the highest of them fall short of the Scripture in those very things which they seem most to have in common with it As were it here a fit place might be at large discovered But besides and beyond all these Are there not other things which evidence the Divine Revelation of the Doctrine contained in Scripture which none of the writings you mention can in the least pretend to viz. the accurate accomplishment of Prophecies and the abundance of Miracles wrought for the confirmation of the Divine Testimony of those who delivered this Doctrine to the world And these very things now to us are internal to the Scripture the motives of Faith being delivered to us in the same Books that the Doctrine of Faith is In which sense the Scriptures may well be said to be proved Divine by themselves and that they appear infallible by the Light which is in them notwithstanding you most pitifully pretend to the contrary And if your Church will again pardon you for such opprobrious language of Scripture as not only to compare the writings of Seneca Plutarch and Aristotle with it which yet are commendable in their kind for moral Virtue and natural Knowledge but those wretched and notorious impostures of the Alcoran and the fabulous relations of the Talmud if I say your Church will pardon such expressions as these because they tend to inhance her Infallibility well fare that Pope who said Heu quam minimo regitur mundus As for your following instance of a Candle lighted in a room which shews that it is a light but not who lighted it so the sentences in Scripture are lights and shew themselves to be such but they cannot shew themselves to be such infallible lights which are produced by none but God himself I answer That I commend your discretion in making choice of a Candle rather than of the light of the Sun to set forth the Scripture by For a Candle yields but a dim uncertain light may be put into a dark lanthorn and snuffed at pleasure so would your Church fain pretend of the Scripture that its light is very weak and uncertain that your Church must open the sides of the Lanthorn that it may give light and make use of some Apostolical Snuffers of the Popes keeping to make it shine the clearer though they often endanger the almost extinguishing of it at least as to the generation of those who should enjoy the benefit of it But because that poor light of a Candle cannot shew who lighted it Will not the light of the Sun manifest it self to be no greater than that of a Candle Cannot any one inferr from the vast extent of that light from the vanishing of it upon the Suns setting and its dispersing it self at his rising that this light can proceed only from that great luminous body which is in the Heavens And may we not proportionably inferr from the clearness greatness majesty coherency of those truths revealed in Scripture that they must certainly come from none but God especially being joyned with those impregnable evidences which himself by the persons who delivered them that they were imployed by himself for that end But because this is a matter of great consequence give me leave to propound these questions to you and after you have considered them seriously return me a rational answer to them 1. Doth it imply any repugnancy at all in the nature of the thing or to the nature of God that he should reveal his mind to the world 2. If it doth not as I suppose you will grant that Whether is it possible that God should make it evident to the world that such a Revelation is from himself 3. If this be not impossible Is it not necessary that it should be so supposing that God should require the belief of a Doctrine so revealed on pain of eternal damnation for not believing it 4. Whether God may not give as great evidence of a Revelation that he makes of his mind to the world as he doth of his Being from the Wisdom Goodness and Power which may be seen in the works of Creation 5. Whether any other way be conceivable that it should be evident that a Doctrine comes from God but that it contains things highly suitable to the Divine nature things above the finding out of humane reason things only tending to advance Holiness and Goodness in the world and this doctrine to be delivered by persons who wrought unparalleld miracles 6. Whether all these be not in the most evident manner imaginable contained in the Doctrine of Christianity and in the Books of Scripture which I leave any man that hath common sense to judge of 7. Whether then it be not the highest disparagement of this Divine doctrine to make it stand in need of an Infallible testimony of any company who shall take the boldness to call themselves the Catholick Church in order to the believing of it and whether there can be any greater dishonour done it then to say it hath no more light to discover it self Divine than the Writings of Philosophers not to add of Jews and Mahumetans These things I leave you and the reader to consider of and proceed What follows concerning the Fathers and others proving the Scriptures to be the Word of God by themselves after they have believed them infallibly
Scriptures do convey to them We own therefore the Apostles as Gods immediate Embassadours whose miracles did attest their commission from Heaven to all they came to and no persons could pretend ignorance that this is Gods hand and Seal but all other Pastors of the Church we look on only as Agents settled to hold correspondency between God and Vs but no extraordinary Embassadours who must be looked on as immediately transacting by the Infallible Commission of Heaven When therefore the Pastor or Pastors of your Church shall bring new Credentials from Heaven attested with the same Broad-seal of Heaven which the Apostles had viz. Miracles we shall then receive them in the same capacity as Apostles viz. acting by an Infallible Commission but not till then By which I have given a sufficient Answer to what follows concerning the credit which is given to Christ's Legats as to himself for hereby it appears they are to have no greater authority than their Commission gives them Produce therefore an Infallible Commission for your Pastors Infallibility either apart or conjunctly and we shall receive it but not else Whether A.C. in the words following doth in terms attribute Divine and Infallible authority to the Church supposing it infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost is very little material for Whether he owns it or no it is sufficient that it necessarily follows from his Doctrine of Infallibility For How can the Church be infallible by virtue of those Promises wherein Divine Infallibility you say is promised and by virtue of which the Apostles had Divine Infallibility and yet the Church not to be divinely Infallible The remainder of this Chapter which concerns the sense of the Fathers in this Controversie will particularly be considered in the next which is purposely designed for it CHAP. IX The Sense of the Fathers in this Controversie The Judgement of Antiquity enquired into especially of the three first Centuries and the reasons for it The several Testimonies of Justin Martyr Athenagoras Tatianus Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and all the Fathers who writ in vindication of Christian Religion manifested to concurr fully with our way of resolving Faith C's Answers to Vincentius Lyrinensis à Gandavo and the Fathers produced by his Lordship pitifully weak The particulars of his 9th Chapter examined S. Augustine's Testimony vindicated C's nauseous Repetitions sent as Vagrants to their several homes His Lordships Considerations found too heavy for C's Answers In what sense the Scripture may be called a Praecognitum What way the Jews resolved their Faith This Controversie and the first Part concluded HAving thus largely considered whatever you could pretend to for the advantage of your own cause or the prejudice of ours from Reason and Scripture nothing can be supposed to remain considerable but the judgement of the Primitive Church in this present Controversie And next to Scripture and Reason I attribute so much to the sense of the Christian Church in the ages next succeeding the Apostles that it is no mean confirmation to me of the truth of the Protestant Way of resolving Faith and of the falsity of yours that I see the one so exactly concurring and the other so apparently contrary to the unanimous Consent of Antiquity For though you love to make a great noise with Antiquity among persons meanly conversant in it yet those who do seriously and impartially enquire into the sense of the Primitive Church and not guess at it by the shreds of Citations to your hands in your own writers which is generally your way will scarce in any thing more palpably discern your jugling and impostures then in your pretence to Antiquity I shall not here enquire into the corruptions crept into your Church under that disguise but as occasion is ministred to me in the following discourse shall endeavour to pluck it off but shall keep close to the matter in question Three things then I design in this Chapter 1. To shew the concurrence of Antiquity with us in the resolution of Faith 2. Examine what you produce from thence either to assert your own way or enervate ours 3. Consider what remains of this Controversie in your Book 1. For the manifesting the concurrence of Antiquity with us I shall confine my present discourse to the most pure and genuine Antiquity keeping within the compass of the three first Centuries or at least of those who have purposely writ in vindication of the Christian Faith Not that I do in the least distrust the consent of the succeeding Writers of the Primitive Church but upon these Reasons 1. Because it would be too large a task at present to undertake since no necessity from what you object but only my desire to clear the Truth and rectifie the mistakes of such who are led blindfold under the pretence of Antiquity hath led me to this discourse 2. Because in reason they could not but understand best the waies and methods used by the Apostles for the perswading men to the Christian Faith and if they had mentioned any such thing as an Infallibility alwaies to continue in the Charch those Pastors certainly who received the care of the Church from the Apostles hands could not but have heard of it And were strangely to blame if they did not discover and make use of it Whatever therefore of truly Apostolical Tradition is to be relyed on in such cases must be conveyed to us from those persons who were the Apostles immediate Successors and if it can be made manifest that they heard not of any such thing in that when occasion was offered they are so far from mentioning it that they take such different waies of satisfying men which do manifestly suppose that they did not believe it I know some of the greatest Patrons of the Church of Rome and such who know best how to manage things with best advantage for the interest of that Church have made little account of the three first ages and confined themselves within the compass of the four first Councils upon this pretence because the Books and Writers are so rare before and that those persons who lived then had no occasion to write of the matters in Controversie between them and us But if the ground why those other things which are not determined in Scripture are to be believed by us and practised as necessary be that they were Apostolical Traditions Who can be more competent Judges what was so and what not then those who lived nearest the Apostolical times and those certainly if they writ of any thing could not write of any thing of more concernment to the Christian world than the knowledge of such things would be or at least we cannot imagine but that we should find express intimations of them where so many so wise and learned persons do industriously give an account of themselves and their solemn actions to their Heathen persecutors But however silent they may be in other things which they neither heard nor thought of as in the
c. Can any thing be more plain and obvious to any one who looks into that discourse of Vincentius than that he makes it not his business to give an account of the general Foundations of Faith as to the Scriptures being Gods Word but of the particular Doctrines of Faith in opposition to the Heresies which arise in the Church So that all that he speaks concerning Scripture is not about the authority but the sense and interpretation of it If therefore I should grant you that he speaks of Christian and Divine Faith What is this to your purpose unless you could prove that he speaks of that Divine Faith whereby we believe the Scripture to be the Word of God But yet your argument is very good to prove that he speaks not of any humane fallible perswasion but true Christian Divine Faith for he opposes it to Heresie and calls it sound Faith and his Faith It seems then whatever Faith is sound for the matter of it is presently Christian Divine and Infallible and so whosoever believes any thing which is materially true in opposition to Heresies needs never fear as long as he doth so for according to you he hath Christian and Infallible Faith but what if the Devils Faith be as sound as any Catholicks ' Must it therefore be Divine Faith No it may be you will answer because he wants the formal object of Faith and doth not believe on the account of your Churches Infallibility I verily believe you for he knows the jugglings of it too much to believe it infallible But take Vincentius in what sense you please that is evident in him which his Lordship produced him for that for the preserving Faith entire he places authority of Scripture first and then Tradition unless you will serve his Testimony as you do his Lordships because it makes for your purpose say He mentions Tradition first and then Scripture but say you He sayes Tradition doth as truly confirm Divine Faith as Scripture though Scripture doth it in a higher manner If you did but consider either what kind of Tradition or what kind of Faith Vincentius insists on you could not possibly think his words any thing to your purpose For he speaks not of any Tradition infallibly attested to us without which you pretend there can be no Divine Faith but of such an Vniversal Tradition which depends wholly upon Antiquity Vniversality and Consent and never so much as mentions much less pretends to any thing of Infallibility So that if you grant such a kind of Tradition doth as truly confirm Faith as the Scripture then you must grant no necessity of an Infallible Testimony to assure us of that Tradition for Vincentius speaks of such a kind of Tradition as hath no connexion with Infallibility For if Vincentius had ever in the least thought of any such thing so great and zealous an opposer of Heresies would not have left out that which had been more to his purpose than all that he had said For wise men who have throughly considered of Vincentius his way though in general they cannot but approve of it so far as to think it highly improbable that there should be Antiquity Vniversality and Consent against the true and genuine sense of Scripture yet when they consider this way of Vincentius with all those cautions restrictions and limitations set down by him ◠1. c. 39. they are apt to think that he hath put men to a wild-goose-chase to finde out any thing according to his Rules and that S. Augustine spake a great deal more to the purpose when he spake concerning all the Writers of the Church That although they had never so much learning and sanctity he did not think it true because they thought so but because they perswaded him to believe it true either from the Authority of Scripture or some probable Reason If therefore S. Austin's Authority be not sunk so low as that of the Monk of Lerins we have very little reason to think that Tradition can as truly confirm Faith to us as the Scriptures supposing that to have been the meaning of Vincentius Which yet is not reasonable to imagine since Vincentius himself grants that in case of inveterate Heresie or Schism either the sole Authority of Scripture is to be used or at most the determinations of General Councils nay and in all cases doth suppose that the Canon of Scripture is perfect and is abundantly sufficient of it self for all things Can you yet therefore suppose that Vincentius did think that Tradition did as truly confirm our Faith as the Scripture Which is your assertion and the only thing whereby you pretend that the Bishop hath misconstrued Vincentius but whether be more guilty of it I leave to impartial judgement The next Testimony you consider is that of Henricus à Gandavo For his Lordship had said That the School had confessed this was the way ever For which he cites the Testimony of that Schoolman That daily with them that are without Christ enters by the woman i. e. the Church and they believe by that fame which she gives alluding to the story of the woman of Samaria But when they come to hear Christ himself they believe His words before the words of the woman For when they have once found Christ they do more believe his words in Scripture than they do the Church which testifies of him because then propter illam for the Scripture they believe the Church And if the Church should speak contrary to the Scripture they would not believe it Thus saith his Lordship the School taught then No that did it not say you But let us see how rarely you prove it For you say he speaks all this of a supernatural and Divine Faith to be given both to the Scriptures and the Church Gandavensis certainly is much obliged to you who venture to speak such great Absurdities for his sake for if he be understood in both places of Divine and Infallible Faith these rare consequences follow 1. That the first beginning of Faith is equal to the highest degree of it for when he speaks of the Church he speaks of Christs entring by that which can be meant of nothing else but the first step to Faith as is plain in the parallel case of the woman of Samaria but if this were Divine and Infallible it must be equal to the highest degree for that I suppose can be but Divine and Infallible unless you can find out degrees in Infallibility By this Rule you make him that is but over the threshold as much in the house as he that is sate down to the Table a plant at its first peeping out of the earth to be as tall as at its full growth and the Samaritans as firmly to believe in Christ at the first mention of him by the Woman as when they saw and heard him 2. By this you make an Infallible Faith to be built on a Fallible
you are so fond of your unwritten Revelations pray prove the necessity of them as strongly against Atheists as his Lordship hath done the necessity of a written one In the last Consideration he musters up all the several arguments whereby men may be perswaded that this Revelation is contained in those Books we call the Scripture as the Tradition of the Church the Testimony of former Ages the consent of times the Harmony of Prophets and the Prophecies fulfilled the success of the Doctrine the constancy of it the spiritual nature and efficacy of it and lastly the inward light and excellency of the Text it self which with a great deal of Rhetorick is there set forth But to all this you say no more than what hath been abundantly disproved viz. That all these only justifie our belief when it is received as the ancients received it upon the Infallible Authority of Church-Tradition but never otherwise Whereas we have proved that the ancients received it only on the same grounds which are here mentioned and therefore certainly are sufficient not only to justifie our Faith but to perswade us to believe Your argument against what his Lordship saith of the necessity of the Spirit 's assistance with these Motives and the Light of Scripture for producing Divine Faith will equally hold against all those of your own side who hold the necessity of Gods Spirit for believing the Churches Infallibility and against all such of both sides who hold any necessity of Divine Grace for then you must say that either that Grace is not necessary in order to salvation or that those who want it are neither truly Christians nor capable of salvation And how horridly soever these consequences sound in the ears of the unlearned they can sound no worse than those multitudes of Scriptures do which tell men That without true Divine Faith and real Grace they are under eternal condemnation But it may be that the unlearned may not be affrighted with such sentences as those are you think it a great deal better to let them hear little or nothing of the Scripture and to let them be continually entertained with the sweet and melodious voice of the Church No doubt you thought your next argument had done the business effectually For say you to make them more sensible of the foulness of this errour viz. the danger of such who do not savingly believe Let them consider that when young and unlearned Christians are taught to say their Creed and profess their belief of the Articles contained in it before they read Scripture they are taught to lye and profess to do that which they neither do nor can do in his Tenet An excellent argument against making Children say their Creed but Will not the same hold against all publick using of the Creed because it is unquestionable but there are some who do not savingly or divinely believe it Nay Will it not much more hold against any in your Church saying their Creed at all unless they first believe your Church to be Infallible which is very well known that all do not For then according to you they do but lye and profess to do that which they neither do nor can do without the Churches Infallible Testimony And therefore you must begin a new work of Catechizing the members of your Church to know whether they believe the Churches Infallibility before they can say their Creed Unless you solve it among your selves by saying It is not a formal lye but only an aequivocation which many of you say is lawful in case of danger as you see apparently this is But if the aequivocation be said only to lye in the word Believe you might easily discern the weakness of your argument through it For if some may truly believe what they do not savingly believe there is no lye certainly told in saying They do believe as far as they do which is by a firm assent to the Truth of all the Articles of Faith by that which is call'd an historical or dogmatical Faith where there may be no saving Faith But that because Children are taught as a short systeme of the Articles of Faith to say their Creed we must be convinced of the foulness of our errour is an apparent evidence that either you apprehended our understandings to be very weak or that you sufficiently discover your own to be so The only quarrel which you have with his Lordships Synthetical way is That he confounds his Reader with multiplicity of arguments and weakens the authority of the Church without which if you may be believed he might tire himself and others but never be able to make a clear resolution of Faith How clear an account you have given of Faith in your Analytical way by the Authority of the Church hath been sufficiently laid open to you but I wonder not that you quarrel with multiplicity of arguments there being nothing which doth really weaken the authority of your Church so much as they do and they are men certainly of your temper who will be soon tired with too much reason What follows concerning the captiousness of the Question as first propounded and the vicious Circle you would free your selves of by the Motives of Credibility deserve no further answer Only when you would make A. C. go your way and both together prove the Church Infallible independently on Scripture you did not certainly consider that it is an Infallibility by Promise which you challenge and for that end in the precedent Chapter were those places of Scripture produced by A. C. and urged by you All that I shall return by way of Answer to your tedious discourse concerning Scriptures being a Principle supposed among Christians the main of it depending on the circumstances of the dispute between his Lordship and Mr. Fisher shall be in these following particulars 1. That in all Controversies among Christians whose decision depends upon the authority of Scripture the Scripture must be supposed as granted to be of Divine Authority by both parties 2. That in that Question Whether the Scripture contains all necessary things of Faith that necessity must be supposed to relate to the things which depend upon Scripture and therefore implies it believed on other grounds that this Scripture is of Divine Revelation For the Question is Whether God hath consigned his Will so fully to us in this Revelation of himself that nothing necessary to be believed is left out of it For men then to say That this is left out of it viz. to believe that this is a Divine Revelation is an unreasonable Cavil it being supposed in the very Question that it is so 3. That in this sense the Scripture may be said to be a supposed Principle because it hath a different way of probation from particular objects of Faith revealed in Scripture For to a rational Enquirer who seems to doubt of the Truth of Scriptures it is equally absurd to give him any
formal guilt of Schism it being impossible any person should have just cause to disown the Churches Communion for any thing whose belief is necessary to salvation And whosoever doth so thereby makes himself no member of the Church because the Church subsists on the belief of Fundamental truths But in all such cases wherein a division may be made and yet the several persons divided retain the essentials of a Christian Church the separation which may be among any such must be determined according to the causes of it For it being possible of one side that men may out of capricious humours and fancies renounce the Communion of a Church which requires nothing but what is just and reasonable and it being possible on the other side that a Church calling her self Catholick may so far degenerate in Faith and practise as not only to be guilty of great errours and corruptions but to impose them as conditions of Communion with her it is necessary where there is a manifest separation to enquire into the reasons and grounds of it and to determine the nature of it according to the justice of the cause which is pleaded for it And this I hope may help you a little better to understand what is meant by such who say There can be no just cause of Schism and how little this makes for your purpose But you go on and I must follow And to his calling for truth c. I Answer What Hereticks ever yet forsook the Church of God but pretended truth and complain'd they were thrust out and hardly dealt with meerly because they call'd for truth and redress of abuses And I pray what Church was ever so guilty of errours and corruptions but would call those Hereticks and Schismaticks who found fault with her Doctrine or separated from her Communion It is true Hereticks pretend truth and Schismaticks abuses but is it possible there should be errours and corruptions in a Churches Communion or is it not if not prove but that of your Church and the cause is at an end if it be we are to examine whether the charge be true or no. For although Hereticks may pretend truth and others be deceived in judging of it yet doubtless there is a real difference between truth and errour If you would never have men quarrel with any Doctrine of your Church because Hereticks have pretended truth would not the same reason hold why men should never enquire after Truth Reason or Religion because men have pretended to them all which have not had them It is therefore a most senseless cavil to say we have no reason to call for truth because Hereticks have done so and on the same grounds you must not be call'd Catholicks because Hereticks have been call'd so But those who have been Hereticks were first proved to be so by making it appear that was a certain truth which they denyed do you the same by us prove those which we call errours in your Church to be part of the Catholick and Apostolick Faith prove those we account corruptions to be parts of Divine worship and we will give you leave to call us Hereticks and Schismaticks but not before But say you He should have reflected that the Church of God is stiled a City of Truth by the Prophet and so it may be and yet your Church be a fortress of Errour And a pillar and foundation of Truth by the Apostle but what is this to the Church of Romes being so And by the Fathers a rich depository or Treasury of all Divine and Heavenly Doctrines so it was in the sense the Fathers took the Church in for the truly Catholick Christian Church And we may use the same expressions still of the Church as the Prophets Apostles and Fathers did and nevertheless charge your Church justly with the want of truth and opposition to the preaching of it and on that ground justly forsake her Communion which is so far from being inexcusable impiety and presumption that it was only the performance of a necessary Christian duty And therefore that Woe of scandal his Lordship mentioned still returns upon your party who gave such just cause of offence to the Christian world and making it necessary for all such as aimed at the purity of the Christian Church to leave your Communion when it could not be enjoyed without making shipwrack both of Faith and a good Conscience And this is so clear and undeniable to follow you still in your own language that we dare appeal for a tryal of our cause to any Assembly of learned Divines or what Judge and Jury you please provided they be not some of the parties accused and because you are so willing to have Learned Divines I hope you will believe the last Pope Innocent so far as not to mention the Pope and Cardinals What follows in Vindication of A. C. from enterfeiring and shuffling in his words because timorous and tender consciences think they can never speak with caution enough for fear of telling a lye will have the force of a demonstration being spoken of and by a Jesuite among all those who know what mortal haters they are of any thing that looks like a lye or aequivocation And what reason there is that of all persons in the world they should be judged men of timorous and tender consciences But whatever the words were which passed you justifie A. C. in saying That the Protestants did depart from the Church of Rome and got the Name of Protestants by protesting against her For this say you is so apparent that the whole world acknowledgeth it If you mean that the Communion of Protestants is distinct from yours Whoever made scruple of confessing it But because in those terms of departing leaving forsaking your Communion you would seem to imply that it was a voluntary act and done without any necessary cause enforcing it therefore his Lordship denyes that Protestants did depart for saith he departure is voluntary so was not theirs But because it is so hard a matter to explain the nature of that separation between your Church and Ours especially in the beginning of it without using those terms or some like them as when his Lordship saith that Luther made a breach from it It is sufficient that we declare that by none of these expressions we mean any causeless separation but only such acts as were necessarily consequential to the imposing your errours and corruptions as conditions of Communion with your Church To the latter part his Lordship answers That the Protestants did not get that name by Protesting against the Church of Rome but by Protesting and that when nothing else would serve against her errours and superstitions Do you but remove them from the Church of Rome our Protestation is ended and our Separation too This you think will be answered with our old put off That it is the common pretext of all Hereticks when they sever themselves from the Roman Catholick
declaimed against as monstrous and blasphemous if not Antichristian Where by the way either these two Popes Pelagius and S. Gregory erred in this weighty business about an Vniversal Bishop over the whole Church Or if they did not erre Boniface and the rest which after him took it upon them were in their very predecessors judgement Antichristian Before you come to a particular Answer you think it necessary to make a way for it by premising two things 1. That the Title of Vniversal Bishop was anciently attributed to the Bishops of Rome but they never made use of it 2. That the ancient Bishops of Constantinople never intended by this usurped Title to deny the Popes Vniversal Authority even over themselves These two things I shall therefore consider because they tend much to the clearing the main Controversie I begin therefore with the Title of Vniversal Bishop attributed to the Bishop of Rome and before I answer your particular allegations we must more fully consider in what sense that title of Vniversal Bishops was taken in Antiquity and in what manner it was attributed to him For when titles have different senses and those senses evidently made use of by the ancient Writers it is a most unreasonable thing meerly from the title to inferr one determinate sense which is the most contrary to the current of Antiquity The title then of Vniversal Bishop may be conceived to import one of these three things 1. A general care and solicitude over all the Churches of the Christian world 2. A peculiar dignity over the Churches within the Empire 3. Vniversal Jurisdiction over all Churches so that all exercise of it in the Church is derivative from him as Vniversal Pastor and Head of the Church This last is that which you attribute to the Pope and though you find the name of Vniversal Bishop a hundred times over in the records of the Church yet if it be taken in either of the two former senses it makes nothing at all to your purpose Our business is therefore now to shew that this title was used in the Church in the two former senses and that nothing from hence can be inferred for that Oecumenical Pastorship which you say doth of Divine Right belong to the Bishop of Rome I begin with the first as this Title may import a general care and solicitude over all the Christian Churches and I deny not but in this sense this title might be attributed in Antiquity to the Bishop of Rome but then I assert that nothing peculiar to him can be inferred from hence because expressions importing the same care are attributed to other Bishops especially such who were placed in the greater Sees or were active in promoting the Churches interest For which we must consider that power and authority in the Bishops of the Church is given with an immediate respect to the good of the whole Church so that if it were possible that every particular Bishop could take care of the whole Church they have authority enough by their Function to do it But it not only being impossible that every Bishop should do it but it being inconsistent with peace and order that all should undertake it therefore it was necessary that there should be some restraints and bounds set for the more convenient management of that authority which they had From hence came the Original of particular Dioceses that within such a compass they might better exercise that power which they enjoyed As if many lights be placed in a great Room though the intention of every one of these is to give light to the whole Room yet that this might the better be done these lights are conveniently placed in the several parts of it And this is that which S. Cyprian means in that famous expression of his That there is but one Bishoprick in the whole world a part of which is held by every Bishop For the Church in common is designed as the Diocese of all Bishops which is set out into several appartiments for the more advantagious governing of it As a flock of many thousand sheep being committed to the care of many Shepherds these all have an eye to the good of the whole Flock but do not therefore sit altogether in one place to over-see it but every one hath his share to look after for the benefit of the Whole But yet so that upon occasion one of them may extend his care beyond his own division and may be very useful for the whole by counsel and direction Thus we shall find it was in the Primitive Church though every Bishop had his particular Charge yet still they regarded the common good of the whole Church and upon occasion did extend their counsel and advice far beyond their particular Churches and exercised their Functions in other places besides those which the Churches convenience had allotted to them Hence it was that dissentions arising between the Asian and Roman Churches Polycarp comes to Rome and there as Eusebius from Irenaeus tells us He exercised with Anicetus his consent his Episcopal Function For as Valesius observes it cannot be understood as Franciscus Florens would have it of his receiving the Eucharist from Anicetus but something of honour is implied in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereas there was nothing but what was common in the other Hence the several Epistles of Ignatius Polycarp Irenaeus and others for the advising confirming and settling Churches Hence Irenaeus concerned himself so much in the business between Victor and the Asian Churches either to prevent or repeal his sentence of Excommunication against them Hence S. Cyprian writes into Spain about the deposing Basilides and Martialis two Apostatizing Bishops and checks Stephen Bishop of Rome for his inconsiderate restoring them Hence Faustus Bishop of Lyons writes to S. Cyprian in the case of Martianus of Arles and he writes to Stephen as being nearer and more concerned in the business of Novatianism for the honour of his predecessors in order to his Deposition yet so as he looks on it as a common cause belonging to them all cui rei nostrum est consulere subvenire frater charissime in which they were all bound to advise and help Hence S. Cyprian writes to the Bishop of Rome as his Brother and Colleague without the least intimation of deriving any Jurisdiction from him but often expressing that charge which was committed to every Bishop which he must look to as mindful of the account he must give to God Hence Nazianzen saith of S. Cyprian That he not only governed the Churches of Carthage and Africa but all the Western parts and even almost all the Eastern Southern and Northern too as far as his fame went Hence Arsenius writes to Athanasius We embrace Peace and Vnity with the Catholick Church over which thou through the Grace of God dost preside Hence Gregory Nazianzen saith of Athanasius That he made Laws for the whole earth Hence
the Catholick Church with them and there was the greater hopes of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Since neither part did agree with the Bishop of old Rome or the Church which joynes with him but both oppose the evil customs and abuses which come by him which bears the same date with the Patriarchs first Answer to the Tubing Divines May 15. 1576. And the Patriarch in his letter heartily wishes an union and conjunction between them From hence we may easily gather how true both those things were viz. That the intent of their writing was to be admitted into the communion of the Greek Church and that the Patriarch did not in the least approve their Doctrine but confirmed the Tenets of the Roman Catholick Church But we must look further into the writings themselves to see how far they agreed and wherein they differed It appears then that the Patriarch did profess his consent with them in these things besides the Articles of the Creed and the satisfaction of Christ and other more general points viz. That the Sacrament was to be received in both kinds that the use of marriage was not to be absolutely forbidden the Clergy though their custom is that they must be married before they take Orders besides the grand Articles of the Popes Supremacy and the Roman Churches Infallibility Doth he that joyns with them in these things not in the least approve their Doctrine but confirm the Tenets of the Roman Catholick Church But withall it must be confessed that besides that common Article of the Procession of the Spirit wherein he disputes most earnestly there are five others in which they dissented from each other about Free will justification by Faith the number of Sacraments Invocation of Saints and Monastick life and about these the remaining disputes were In some of which it is easie to discern how far the right state of the question was from being apprehended which the Lutheran Divines perceiving sent him a larger and fuller explication of their mind in a body of Divinity in Greek but the Patriarchs troubles coming on Cantacuzenus deposing him too and other businesses taking him off upon his restauration he breaks off the Conference between them But although he differed from them in these things yet he was far enough from rebuking them for departing from the Roman Church although he was desirous they should have joyned with them in the approbation of such things as were in use among themselves And in those things in which he seems to plead for some practises in use in the Roman Church yet there are many considerable circumstances about them wherein they differ from the Church of Rome as hath been manifested by many others As in the Article of Invocation of Saints the Patriarch saith They do not properly Invocate Saints but God for neither Peter nor Paul do hear us upon which ground it is impossible to maintain the Romish Doctrine of Invocation of Saints And in most of the other the main difference lies in the want of a true State of the Questions between them But is this any such great matter of admiration that the Patriarch upon the first sight of their confession should declare his dissent from them in these things It is well enough known how much Barbarism had crept into the Greek Church after their being subdued by the Turks the means of Instruction being taken from them and it being very rare at that time to have any Sermons at all in so much that one of your Calogeri being more learned then the rest and preaching there in Lent was thereby under great suspicion and at last was by the Patriarch himself sent out of the way It is therefore more to be wondered they should preserve so much of the Doctrine of Faith entire as they have done then that any corrupt practises should prevail amongst them The most then which you can make of the judgement of the Patriarch Hieremias is that in some things he was opposite to the Protestants as in others to the Church of Rome But what would you have said if any Patriarch of Constantinople had declared his consent so fully with the Church of Rome as the Patriarch Cyril did afterwards with the Protestants who on that account suffered so much by the practises of the Jesuits of whom he complains in his Epistle to Vtenbogard And although a Faction was raised against him by Parthenius who succeeded him yet another Parthenius succeeding him stood up in vindication of him Since therefore such different opinions have been among them about the present Controversies of the Christian world and there being no declared Confession of their Faith which is owned by the whole Greek Church as to these things there can be no confident pronouncing what their judgement is as to all our differences till they have further declared themselves PART III. Of Particular Controversies CHAP. I. Of the Infallibility of General Councils How far this tends to the ending Controversies Two distinct Questions concerning the Infallibility and Authority of General Councils The first entered upon with the state of the Question That there can be no certainty of faith that General Councils are infallible nor that the particular decrees of any of them are so which are largely proved Pighius his Arguments against the Divine Institution of General Councils The places of Scripture considered which are brought for the Churches infallibility and that these cannot prove that General Councils are so Matth. 18.20 Acts 15.28 particularly answered The sense of the Fathers in their high expressions of the decrees of Councils No consent of the Church as to their infallibility The place of St. Austin about the amendment of former General Councils by latter at large vindicated No other places in S. Austin prove them infallible but many to the contrary General Councils cannot be infallible in the conclusion if not in the use of the means No such infallibility without as immediate a revelation as the Prophets and Apostles had taking Infallibility not for an absolute unerring power but such as comes by a promise of Divine Assistance preserving from errour No obligation to internal assent but from immediate Divine Authority Of the consistency of Faith and reason in things propounded to be believed The suitableness of the contrary Doctrine to the Romanists principles IF high pretences and large promises were the only things which we ought to value any Church for there were none comparable to the Church of Rome For there can be nothing imagined amiss in the Christian world but if we believe the bills her Factours set up she hath an Infallible cure for it If any enquire into the grounds of Religion they tell us that her testimony only can give them Infallible Certainty if any are afraid of mistaking in opinions they have the only Infallible Judge of Controversies to go to if any complain of the rents and divisions of the Christian world they have Infallible Councils either to
this way If you say that experience shews Christ never intended this by the errours of particular men in all ages To the same purpose we answer you as to Councils that large experience shews that when Bishops have solemnly met in Council they have been grosly deceived as you confess in all the Arrian Councils If your argument would have ever held from the power and goodness of Christ Would it not have held at that time when so great a matter of Faith was under debate If Christ therefore suffered so many Bishops so grosly to erre in a matter of such importance wherein the Church was so highly concerned How can you inferr from his power and goodness that he will never suffer General Councils to erre If you answer That these erred for not observing the conditions requisite in order to Christs hearing them viz. that they were not met in the name of Christ did not come without prejudice nor rely on Divine Assistance I pray take the same Answer as to all other Councils that we cannot know that Christ hears them or that they are Infallible till we are assured of their performance of the conditions requisite in order to that Infallibility And when you can assure us that such a Council met together in the name of Christ and came meerly with a desire to find out truth and relyed wholly on his assistance for it we do not so much distrust the power and goodness of Christ as to think he will suffer them to be deceived For we know upon those conditions he will not suffer any good man to erre much less an Assembly of them met in a General Council But here you have the hardest task of all lying upon you which is to prove that a General Council hath observed all these conditions without which nothing can be inferred from this place as to Christs being in any sense in the midst of them The last place mentioned for the Infallibility of General Councils is that Act. 15.28 Where the Apostles say of themselves and the Council held by them It seems good to the Holy Ghost and to us And saith his Lordship they might well say it For they had infallibly the assistance of the Holy Ghost and kept close to his direction But there is a great deal of difference between them and succeeding Councils who never arrogated this to their definitions though they presumed of the assistance of the Holy Ghost and though that form might be used yet they did not assume such an Infallibility to themselves as the Apostles had And therefore it is little less than blasphemy in Stapleton to say That the Decrees of Councils are the very Oracles of the Holy Ghost And that all Councils are not so Infallible as was this of the Apostles nor the causes handled in them as there they were is manifest by the ingenuous confession of Ferus to that purpose This is the substance of his Lordships Answer to this place Which you think to take off by saying That there 's no essential difference between the certainty of the things determined by the Apostles and those decided by a General Council confirmed by the Roman Bishop and though after-Councils use not the same expression in terms yet they do it in effect by enjoyning the belief of their decisions under the pain of Anathema If this be the meaning of the Anathema's of Councils there had need indeed be no great difference between the Apostles Decrees and theirs But this had need be very well proved and so it is by you for you produce several expressions of Cyril Athanasius Austin Leo Gregory and some others out of Bellarmin in which they magnifie the Decrees of General Councils calling them a Divine Oracle a Sentence inspired by the Holy Ghost not to be retracted and some others to the same purpose by which you vindicate Stapleton and tell us he said no more than the Fathers had done before him Yet all this is far from any vindication of Stapleton or proving your assertion as to the equal certainty of the Decrees of Councils and of the Apostles For the ground of all those expressions and several others of the same nature was not the supposition of any inherent Infallibility in the Decrees of General Councils but their great assurance of the truth of that Doctrine which was determined by those first General Councils For although I am far enough from believing the Council of Trent Infallible yet if that had determined the same points of Faith which were determined in the first four General Councils and nothing else I might have said That the Decree of that Council was a Holy and Divine Oracle a Sentence inspired by the Holy Ghost c. not that I thought the Council in the least Infallible in determining these things but that they were of themselves Divine Truths which the Council determined And in this sense Athanasius might well term the definition of the Nicene-Council against Arius the word of our Lord which endureth for ever and Constantine stile it a coelestial mandate and Gregory might reverence the four first Councils as the four Gospels though Bellarmin tells you that expression must be taken in a qualified sense yet all these and any other of a like nature I say import no more than that they were fully assured the matters decreed by them were revealed by God in his Word and not that they believed that they became such holy and divine Oracles meerly by the Councils definition For the contrary might be abundantly manifested by many expressions in them quite to another purpose and if instead of all the rest you will but read Athanasius and Hilary concerning Councils you will find your self strangely deceived if you believed they ever thought them Infallible What you add afterwards that it is sufficient that there be a real Infallibility though not like to that of the Apostles will not be sufficient for me till you can shew me the degrees of Infallibility for I will promise you if you can once prove that Councils are really Infallible I shall not stick to say That they are alike Infallible with the Apostles As for your discarding Ferus as a prohibited Authour it only shews the great integrity of the man who spoke too much truth to be born by the tender ears of the Roman Inquisition Before I had proceeded any further I had thought because of a former promise to have looked back to the place where you speak in vindication of the decretal Epistles but because you only referr to Turrianus his defence of them I shall only return you an equal courtesie and referr you to the abundantly sufficient Answer to him by David Blondel One would have thought you should have been ashamed of so notorious an imposture as those decretal Epistles are but we see what shifts a bad cause puts you upon that such men as Ferus Cassander Erasmus are under an Index Expurgatorius but the
Proposition 2. That the ground of believing any unwritten word is the Infallibility of your Church defining it to be so For you say As the Church was Infallible in defining what was written so is she also infallible in defining what was not written And so she can neither tradere non traditum nor can she be unfaithful to God in not faithfully keeping the depositum committed to her trust Neither can her Sons ever justly accuse her of the contrary but are bound to believe her Tradition because she being infallible the Tradition she delivers can never be against the Word of their Father The substance of all which is that which I laid down as your Proposition That the ground of believing any Tradition to be Apostolical or any unwritten word is your Churches Infallibility in defining it to be so Which being built on a Principle I have already manifested to be so fallacious and uncertain I might without further trouble quit my hands of it but I shall however shew how inconsistent this is with the Rules of the Ancients for discerning when Traditions are Apostolical and when not The great Rule we meet with among the Ancients for judging Apostolical Traditions is that of Vincentius Lyrinensis In ipsâ item Catholicâ Ecclesiâ magnoperè curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus creditum est hoc est enim verè proprieque Catholicum If this be a certain Rule to judge of Catholick and Apostolical Traditions by viz. That which hath been held every where alwaies and by all then the judgement of your Church cannot be the infallible definer of Apostolical Traditions unless you will suppose that your Church only can tell us what was held every where alwaies and by all And if your Church alone can infallibly determine what Traditions are Apostolical to what purpose should we be put to such a VVild-goose chase to enquire Vniversality Antiquity and Consent in all things which pretend to be Traditions But to any reasonable man as to any thing which pretends to be a matter necessary to be believed or practised which is not expresly revealed in Scripture this Rule of Vincentius seems very just and equitable that before we believe it necessary it be made appear that it was universally believed by Christians to be so and that in all ages And I assure you I am so far convinced of the reasonableness of this proposal that if you will make out any of those things controverted between us such as Invocation of Saints VVorship of Images Transubstantiation Adoration of the Eucharist Purgatory Indulgences the Pope's Supremacy c. by these Rules and make it appear to me that these were held by all Christian Churches at all times or have Antiquity Vniversality and Consent I shall be very inclinable to embrace what your Church would impose upon me But when I know how impossible a task this is I do not at all wonder that you should quit this formerly magnified saying of Vincentius and resolve all into the Infallibility of the present Church But hereby we see how far you are from the judgement of Antiquity as to this very point of the tryal of doctrinal Traditions since you can see no security any where but in your selves and your Churches Infallibility I will therefore reduce the Controversie yet shorter prove but this Infallibility of your Church in defining the written and unwritten VVord by these Rules of Vincentius Vniversality Antiquity and Consent and I will yield you all the rest But what unreasonable men are you if you must be Parties and Judges too or if we must believe an unwritten VVord because your Church is infallible and believe your Church infallible because that is an unwritten VVord And well may you call it so for search the whole Book of Scriptures and all the Records of the Primitive Church and you find nothing at all of it We see plainly then you are resolved to be tryed by none but your selves and so you are Catholicks because you say You are so and your Church infallible because she pretends to be so 3. That our belief of the Scriptures must be resolved into an unwritten VVord which is defined by your Church to be such This is that for whose sake all your other discourse is brought in and is the main thing to the purpose Although you pretend likewise to a power in your Church to declare what Christ said when he held his peace But Are you sure your Church will be infallible in that too For when his Lordship had said That where-ever Christ held his peace and that his words are not registred no man may dare without rashness to say They were these or these You very gravely add That his Lordship must give you leave to tell him you must bind up his whole assertion with this Proviso but according as the Church shall declare Your Church then must declare when Christ held his peace and when he did not when he spake so that others might hear him and when he did not when any thing was taken notice of that he said and when not But when it is apparent Christ both spake and did much more than ever was written how well doth your Church acquit her Office in being Christ's Remembrancer And therefore I believe your Church will be guilty of the same rashness with any private person in S. Augustine's Opinion In offering to determine what Christ said when either he held his peace or his words are not registred As for those things which you mention for Traditions not contrary to God's written Word which yet are not an unwritten Word such as the Ceremonies of Baptism by you mentioned they are therefore not pertinent to our purpose because they are only rites and ceremonies and our discourse is about doctrinal Traditions neither yet if I would spend time in the enquiry could you derive them from Apostolical Tradition notwithstanding what either you or Bellarmine say But the substance of all you have to say pertinent to your purpose is That though every Tradition be not God's unwritten VVord yet it being necessary for us to believe the Scripture to be the VVord of God we must believe it either for some word written or unwritten or we shall have no Divine Faith at all of the Point because all Divine Faith must rely upon some VVord of God This being a great novelty with you that is something like Argumentation it obliges me to take a little more particular notice of it Any one that considers the force of this Argument will find that it lyes wholly upon your notion of Divine Faith for it appearing unreasonable to you that our belief that the Scripture is the Word should be resolved into the written Word it self therefore you find out an unwritten VVord of God for a Divine Faith to fix it self upon which can be nothing but some VVord of God To this therefore I