particularly than vpon any other and let it be redd over an hundred tymes it will be still the same and no more fit alone to terminate Controversyes in Faith than the Law would be to end suites if it were given over to the phansy and glosse of every single man 184. And this which hath bene sayd in generall of any one writing is in a particular manner to be affirmed of Holy Scripture or of any writing contayning Divine and sublime Mysteryes which seeme repugnant to naturall Reason For the height of such truthes moves the will and perswades the vnderstanding to seek out any sense of words though orherwise seeming cleare rather then to belieue things seeming evidently contrary to Reason Besides seing as I alledged out of Doctour Taylour in his § 3. N. 2. words may be taken in a litterall or spirituall sense and both these senses are subdivided For the litterall sense is either naturall or figuratiue And the spirituall is sometymes allegoricall somtymes anagogicall nay somtymes there are divers litterall senses in the same sentence as appeares in divers quotations in the New Testament where the Apostles and Divine Writers bring the same Testimony to divers purposes Seing I say this is so how it is possible that any one writing can be so evident both for words and meaning that all men by only reading the same words must be necessitated to take them in the same sense literall spirituall naturall figuratiue allegoricall anagogicall and that even of divers literall senses of the same Text every person must see all which if he do not he may misse in one though he chance to hitt right in another since there cannor possibly be assigned any infallible Rule which yet is necessary for settling an Act of Faith to know in particular when and where words capable of so many and so different meanings are determinately to be vnderstood in this or that sense If you say God might put a remedy to this diversity of meanings by setling the indetermination or diversity of mens vnderstandings with perpetuall Miracles effectually keeping them all to the same judgment of all the same places or subtracting his concurse to all contrary assents I answer this would be a strang kind of proceeding or Miracle neither would it make any thing to your purpose because as I sayd we speake of a writing taken alone without Miracle or Tradition And seing de facto God workes no such Miracle as we see by Experience in the disagreements of Christians concerning places of Scripture which for the words seeme very evident it followes that both for the divinity and Interpretation or true meaning of Scripture we must depend on Tradition or a Living Judge And thus is answered your Argument that no man can without Blasphemy deny that Christ Iesus could haue writ vs a Rule of Faith so plaine and perfect as that it should haue wanted neither any part to make vp its integrity nor any clearness to make it sufficiently intelligible For I grant that our Saviour could by Miracle haue procured that all men should frame the same Judgment of the same words but deny that this could haue happened infallibly by meanes of any one writing alone which is our present Question and your having recourse to our Saviours extraordinary Power proves the very thing to be true which I affirme that it cannot be done by any one writing alone And when Charity Maintayned sayd we acknowledg Holy scripture to be a most perfect Rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule every one sees by the whole drift of his discovrse and plain words that he spoke of a writing alone and considered according to the nature therof and in that course which God de facto holds without dreaming of Metaphysicall suppositions of your imagination or of flying to such Miracles as God neither hath nor for ought we can vvith any shadow of reason imagine ever vvill worke vniversally in the vnderstandings of all men to belieue with certainty the particular dogmaticall sense of words for the vnderstanding wherof they haue no certaine vniversall Rule either evidently seene by Reason or certainly believeed by revelation It is also evident that when Cha Ma spoke the aforesayd words of Scripture He compared it not with all writings which successively and without end may interpret or declare one an other but with any one writing taken alone which as I haue proved can not possibly propose conserue or interpret itself For as Scripture or the Bible is one whole work or booke so it ought to be compared only with one other writing or booke as also He spoke of a writing as it is contradistinguished from Tradition or a perpetuall Living Judg. But if you will be supposing a multiplication or as it were successiue addition of a latter writing to extend or declare the former you are out of our case of a sole writing and joyne a writing with a Living Writer and Judg and so grant perforce the very thing which we affirme and you pretend to deny If the Apostles were still Living to declare their former writings by word of mouth or new Scriptures we needed no other Living Judg but seing they are deceased and no one writing is sufficient to interpret it selfe we must haue recourse to some present alwayes existent and Living Judg for determining Controversyes of Faith and interpreting Holy Scripture I belieue the vnpartiall Reader will Judge that which you call Boyes-play to haue turned in good earnest to a greater disadvantage to yourselfe and your cause than you imagined And that your Arguments are of no force to proue that any one writing can of it self be a perfect Rule of Faith 185. We grant that whatsoever is spoken may be written and affirme that as no one writing so no one speech can be a compleat Rule of Faith but both the one and the other stand in need of some other speach or writing to declare them as occasion shall require neither do we pretend that the Church can set downe in any one writing all traditions and Interpretations or Declarations of all things belonging to Faith but she can and will by severall writings declare Doubts as they shall occurre necessary to be determined You say Neither is that an Interpretation which needs againe to be interpreted as if a word or writing or Interpretation might not be cleare for some part and yet need a further Declaration in some other respect or point or purpose or for such as did not fully vnderstand the first Interpretation And as you say it is one thing to be a perfect Rule of Faith another to be proved so vnto vs so it is one thing to be a true yea a full Interpretation in it self another to appeare so without addition of some other declaration as also the first interpretation may giue some light yet to be further perfited by some subsequent exposition None can deny that the Canonicall Writers of the New Testament
sinne of Protestants who do not only erre but also communicate with others who erre from which Communion we haue heard him confess that Charity Maintayned hath some probability to disswade men In the eyes of vulgar people this mixture of different Sects vnder one name of Protestancy may seeme a kind of good thing as bearing a shew of Charity yet indeed to wise men such communicants must appeare to be as litle zealous constant and firme in their owne Religion as they affect to be esteemed charitable to others And to every such Protestant doe fully agree those excellent words of glorious S. Austine de Civit Dei Lib 21. Cap 17. He doth erre so much the more absurdly and against the word of God more perversly by how much he seemeth to himself to Judge more charitably 12. Neither in this Discourse doe we relie vpon his wordsonly but on his Tenets and Grounds and such Truths as both hee often delivers and must be granted by all Christians namely that it is damnable to deny any least Truth sufficiently propounded to a man as revealed by God and therefore seing Protestants disagree about such Truths some of them must of necessity erre damnably And so he ought to alter the Title of his Book into the direct contradictorie and saie The Religion of Protestants not a safe way to salvation For bonum ex integra causa malum ex quocunque defectu and as we cannot affirme that Action to be vertuous which failes in any one morall circumstance so Protestants being confessedly guilty of damnable errours he must giue this Title to his Booke Protestancy not a safe way to salvation but vnrepented a certaine way to damnation 13. Or if he be resolved not to chang his Title vpon this Ground That albeit Protestants erre damnably yet they may be saved because they erre not in Fundamentall Articles absolutely and indispensably necessary to constitute one a member of the Church and in that regard may be either excused by Ignorance or pardoned by Repentance Then 14. I proue my second Proposition That for the verie same reason he must say and might haue put for the Title of his Book The Religion of Roman Catholiques a safe waie to salvation seing he expresly and purposely teaches through his whole Book that we erre not in fundamentall points and that we may be saved by ignorance or Repentance That our Errors be not Fundamentall he declares in plaine termes For Ch Ma in his preface to the Reader N. 13. having saied Since he will be forced to grant that there can be assigned no visible true Church of Christ distinct from the Church of Rome and such Churches as agreed with her when Luther first appeared whether it doe not follow that she hath not erred fundamentally because everie such errour destroyes the nature and being of the Church and so our Saviour should haue had no visible Church on earth To which demand Mr. Chillingworth answers in these words Pag 16. N. 20. I say in our sense of the word Fundamentall it does follow For if it be true that there was then no Church distinct from the Roman then it must be either because there was no Church at all which we deny Or because the Roman Church was the whole Church which we also deny Or because she was a part of the Whole which we grant And if she were a true part of the Church then she retained those Truths which were simply necessary to salvation and held no errours which were inevitably and vnpardonably destructiue of it For this is precisely necessary to constiture any man or any Church a member of the Church Catholique In our sence therefore of the word Fundamentall I hope she erred not Fundamentally but in your sense of the word I feare she did That is she held something to be Divine Revelation which was not something not to be which was Behold how he frees vs from all Fundamentall errors though he feares we are guilty of errours which he calls damnable that is repugnant to some Divine Revelation whereas he professes as a thing evident that some Protestants must erre fundamentally in that sense because they hold Contradictories of which both partes cannot be true And so even this for consideration he must say The Religion of Roman Catholiques a safer way to salvation than Protestancy seing he can not proue that we erre by Reason of any contradiction among ourselves in matters of Faith as it is manifest that one Protestant is contrarie to an other especially if we reflect that not onlie one particular or single person contradicts an other but whole Sects are at variance and contrariety as Lutherans Calvinists Anabaptists new Arians Socinians c The first point then it is cleare he confesses I meane that our supposed errours are not Fundamentall which is so true that whereas in severall occasions he writes or rather declaimes against vs for denying the cup to laymen and officiating in an vnknown toung as being in his opinion points directly contrarie to evident Revelation yet Pag 137. N. 21. he hopes that the deniall of them shall not be laid to our charge no otherwise then as building hay and stubble on the foundations not overthrowing the foundation itself 15. But for the second doth he hold that we may be excused by ignorance or saved by Repentance as he saieth Protestants may Heare what he speakes to Catholiques Pag 34. N. 5. I can very hardly perswade myself so much as in my most secret consideration to devest you of these so needfull qualifications of ignorancce and Repentance But whensoever your errors come into my minde my only comfort is amidest these agoriâ—s that the Doctrine and practise too of Repantance is yet remaining in your Church And this hee teaches through all his Book together with Dr. Potter and they vniversally affirme that those Catholiques may be saved who in simplicity of hart believe what they profess as they may be sure English Catholiques doe who might be begged for fooles or sent to Bedlam if they did not belieue that Faith and Religion be be true for the truth whereof they haue indured so long and grievous persecution Besides it being evident that many learned Protestants in the chiefest points controverted betwene them and vs agree with vs against their pretended Brethren as is specified and proved hereafter and is manifest by evidence of fact the Religion of Protestants cannot be safe or free from damnable Opinions vnless our Religion be also such For I hope they will not say that the selfe same Assertions taken in the same sense are true in the mouth of Protestants and false in ours We must therefore conclude that if he will make good his title The Religion of Protestants a safe way to salvation he must say the same of vs Catholiques whoâ— he acknowledges not to erre in fundamentall points and to be capable of inculpable Ignorance or Repentance for which selfsame respects he pretends The
not such a feeling of Scripture and the Gospell of Christ they are no Christians nor ought we to forbeare the declaring how necessary infallible Faith is for any panicall feare of this Pharisaicall scandall Rather we are obliged to declare the truth least we become accessary to their perdition which none can avoyd who deny the certainty of Christian Faith and Religion and rest in the false confidence of fallible probable faith of the same kind with the belief which they give to the truth of other storyer I know you rely much vpon that Axiom that the Conclusion followes the weaker Premise but I did not imagine as I touched hertofore you would so farr betray yourselfe as to hold that If one have probable Motives to believe that some Man did testify a truth and have equall Motives that God reveales or witnesserh the same thing his assent to that truth as it is witnessed by God is not greater than his belief therof as it is witnessed by man if the Reasons for which I believe it is witnessed by God and by Man be of equall strength and yet you must say so if with your considering men you believe the Scripture and Gospell of Christ with the same kind of belief which they give to the truth of other storyes Wherin I confess you would doe as all Heretiques are wont pass from ill to worse For Pag 141. N. 27. you say For the incorruption of Scripture I know no other rationall assurance we can have of it then such as we have of the incorruption of other ancient Bookes that is the consent of ancient Copyes such I meane for the kind though it be farr greater for the degree of it And Pag 62. N. 24. speaking also of the incorruption of Scripture you say I know no other meanes to be assured herof than I have that any other Book is incorrupted For though I have a greater degree of rationall and humane Assurance of that than this in regard of divers considerations which make it more credible That the Scripture hath bene preserved from any materiall alteration yet my assurance of both is of the same kind and condition both Morall assurances and neither Physicall or Mathematicall But now you are very carefull that the faith of considering men be not crackt by too much straining but be left to believe the Gospell of Christ with such a kind of assent as they yeald to other matters of tradition and is vndiscernable from the belief they give to the truth of other storyes Vnhappy men who relying on their considering and discoursing forget that Christian Faith is a Gift infused by the Holy Ghost and not to be measured by meere humane Motives or Rules of logick I will not loose tyme in telling you that a thing may be crack't by too much strayning not only by excess as you vnjustly accuse vs but also by way of Defect such as your weake faith is in order to the true saving Faith of Christians which being reduced to probability looseth its very Essence and Kind 102. Object 8. Against these words of Charity Maintayned Chap 6. N. 2. Allmighty God having ordained man to a supernaturall End of Beatitude by supernaturall meanes it was requisite that his vnderstanding should be enabled to apprehend that End and meanes by a supernaturall knowledg And because if such a knowledge were no more than probable it could not be able sufficiently to over-beare our will and encounter with humane probabilityes being backed with the strength of flesh and bloud it was further necessary that this supernaturall knowledg should be most certaine and infallible and that Faith should believe nothing more certainly then that it selfe is a most certain Belief and so be able to beare downe all gay probabilityes of humane Opinyon You argue thus Pag 327. N. 5. Who sees not that many millions in the world forgoe many tymes their present ease and pleasure vndergoe great and toyisome labours encounter great difficultyes adventure vpon great dangers and all this not vpon any certaine expectation but vpon a probable hope of some future gaine and commodity and that not infinite and eternall but finite and temporall Who sees not that many men abstaine from many things they exceedingly desire not vpon any certaine assurance but a probable feare of danger that may come after What man ever was there so madly in love with a present penny but that he would willingly spend it vpon a little hope that by doing so be might gaine a hundred thousand pound and I would faine know what gay probabilityes you could devise to disswade him from this Rosolution And if you can devise none what reason then or sence is there but that a probable hope of infinite and eternall happyness provided for all those that obey Christ Iesus and much more a firme faith though not so certain in some fort as sense or science may be able to sway our will to obedience and encounter with all those temptations which Flesh and Bloud can suggest to avert vs from it Men may therfor talke their pleasure of an absolute and most infallible certainty but did they generally belieue that obedience to Christ were the only way to present and eternall felicity but as firmely and vndoubtedly as that there is such a Citty as Constaninople nay but as much as Caesars Commentaryes or the History of Salust I belieue the life of most men both Papists and Protestants would be better than they are Thus therfor out of your owne words I argue against you He that requires to true faith an absolute and infallible certainty for this only Reason because any less degree could not be able to overbeare our will c imports that if a less degree of faith were able to doe this then a less degree of faith may be true and divine and saving faith But experience shews and Reason confirmes that a firme faith though not so certaine as sense or science may be able to encounter and overcome our will and affections And therfor it followes from your owne reason that faith which is not a most certaine and infallible knowledg may be true and divine and saving faith 103. Answer First when Charity Maintayned wrote against D. Potter who with other Protestants and Catholiques maintaynes the infallibility of Christian Faith he never dreamed of any necessity to proue such an infallibility and therfor he touched that point incidently and not of purpose as a thing presupposed not to be proved And therfor what you object against vs is to be answered by those whom you call Brethren 104. Secondly I might speedily and easily answer in one word That your Objection doth not so much as touch the Argument of Char Maintayned which was that vnless Faith were infallible it would not be able to beare downe all probabilityes of humane Opinyon offering themselves against it that is it could not be constant and permanent and therfor must either be infallible or end in none at
and supernaturall Objects hold so great disproportion with humane Reason and contrariety with our naturall inclinations that they appeare either hard or impossible and no more apprehensible by possession than comprehensible by reason I beseech you tell me sincerely what you thinke would haue been the Success of S. Paules preaching to the Athenians against their false Gods and for the true Messias and Resurrection of the dead if he had told them clearly that they could haue no certainty of those or any other Mysteryes of Christianity 111. Vpon these grounds it appeares that your Objections are of no force and in particular that which you did propose as vnanswerable What man say you was there ever so madly in loue with a present penny but that he would willingly spend it vpon any litle hope that by doyng so he might gaine an hundred thousand pround This I say proves nothing at all because as you nakedly deliver it it proves too much and yourself and all Protestants and all Christians must answer it as being manifestly repugnant to the experience of all men who surely find greater difficulty naturally speaking to keepe the commandements to forgive and do good to their deadly enemyes to suffer persecution to beare their Cross to deny themselves c. then they could even possibly find in spending a single penny in the case you propose devested of any accidentall difficulty or aggravating circumstance only considering the disproportion betweeÌ„ a penny and so many thousand pounds which is so vast and evident to sense and reason that the will remaynes determined and in a manner necessitated to giue so litle for so much and a man greedy of gaine would in some sort find as great difficulty in such a case not to giue a penny for so many pounds as to giue so many pounds for a penny which in respect of those thousands lookes like nothing compared to something But the difference betweene earthly and heavenly things though it be in it selfe incomparably greater than any disproportion can be conceyved betweene worldly objects compared amongst themselves yet to vs it appeares not with evidence to be so and therfore our vnderstanding and will need the support and certainty of a high and Divine ranke to supply the evidence of reason or sense aÌ„d resist all kind of temptations For which cause Faith is called the substance of things hoped for and an Argument of things not seene which therfor in order to vs who by nature are strangers to mysteryes so sublime must receyue being existence and subsistence from a firme and certaine belief And now Sir is it indeed as easy to keepe the commandements which many of those whom you call Brethren hold impossble to be kept and Catholikes belieue it cannot be done without Gods speciall Grace as it is to spend a penny for gayning so many pounds because our Saviour hath so revealed that to giue a cup of could water which is not worth a penny for his sake shall not want a reward iâ—sinitely greater not only than millions of pounds but of millions of worlds and yet we see men are not so liberall to the poore as they must needs be if your objection were of force and that there were the same proportion betweene earthly and heavenly things as there is between earthly things compared with one another If keeping the Commandements be as easy as to spend a penny for gaining thousands of pounds how comes it that so few keepe and so many breake them which scarcely any Christian would yea in some sense could do if your case did hold no less in heaveÌ„ly things theÌ„earthly How could the speciall Grace of the Holy Ghost be necessary for keeping the commandements as in the introduction we shewed if it be as easy to keepe them as to spend a penny for gayning thousands of pounds How comes that pious woman in the Gospell to be so highly commended by God incarnate for offering a mite if it be so very easy to forgoe things present vpon hope of a reward after this life 112 But let vs alter your case a litle and vest it with some particular circumstances For example that you had but one or very few pence and apprehended them to be necessary for present expences as worldly men conceyue all they haue to be too litle for their occasions that your life or health depended on it as Esau apprehended of the mease of potage for which he sold his inheritance that it must not be given once only but every day and hower as it happens in our endeavour to keepe the Commandements For The life of man vpon earth is a warfare Iob 7.1 let vs I say confider your case with these or the like circumstances and then answer whether it would appeare so easy as you made it Or can you proue by it so stated that any faith or any hope will serue to keepe the commandements which are hard to flesh and bloud which must continually be kept and therfore require an incessant Vigilancy and solicitude which oblige vs to loose fortunes health and life rather then committ any one sin You cannot but see the weakness of your Argument and the necessity yourselfe and all Christians haue to answer it 113. But there remaynes yet an Argument of higher consideration against you who discourse like yourselfe that is a Socinian and Pelagian as if the Commandements could be kept by the strength ordirection of reason alone or as if the will could of it selfe performe or avoyde whatsoever the vnderstanding dictates to be performed or avoyded without particular Grace conferred for the sacred Merits of our Blessed Saviour which is a Luciferian pride evacuating the fruite of his life and Death Wheras all Orthodox Christians who belieue the speciall Grace of the Holy Ghost to be necessary for true Obedience are therby assured that the will hath not of it selfe force to follow or fly whatsoever the vnderstanding proposes to be embraced or avoyded and consequently it is no good Argument The vnderstanding directs vs to do this Therfor our will may do it without the particular Grace of God which if it be necessary to the will for working it must also be necessary in the vnderstanding for Believing with a supernaturall Divine Assent without which God doth not giue Grace to the will for keeping the Commandements which holds particularly in your Principle that Faith is the cause of Charity and then if the effect be aboue the force of nature much more the cause must be so Morover if Faith be but probable and consequently only naturall which sequele I haue proved aboue it cannot be a proportionable meanes to supernaturall Eternall Happynesse and so you must hold that even the Beatificall Vision is but naturall which if it be how will you moue men with your specious but empty words to keepe hard wayes Psam 16. V. 4. for an End meerly naturall and proportioned to a probable and changeable faith which may proue false
either to be perplexed and doubtfull of Christian Religion or vtterly to forsake it ād become Jewes or Turks Such were Castalio David Georg Ochinus Neuserus Alemannus and others as may be seene exactly set downe in Brierly Tract 2. Cap. 1. Sect. 5. 12. These things considered we must say that if it be once believed against wicked Atheists that there is a God that he hath Providence over his creatures and is to be worshipped in some Religion it is impossible that he can bestow so great Prerogatives vpon the Roman Church and affoard so many forcible and evident Reasons convincing Her to be the true Church and yet that she should not be so indeed For such an errour could not be ascribed to man following the best guidance of evident Reason but to God alone which cannot be affirmed without blasphemy And how is it possible that Gods will should be that we embrace his true Worship and Religion and yet affoard to the contrary errour so great strength of Reason that in all prudence and reason men should embrace not the true but the false Faith and Religion 13. And this may suffice for the present to demonstrate that we are free enough from walking in a circle and that you speake very vntruly when you say Pag 377. N. 59. and in your Answer to the Direction N. 8. and 14. that we can pretend no proofe for the Church but some Texts wherin you contradict even yourself who Pag 66. N. 35. say that our Faith even of the Fundation of all our Faith our Churches Authority is built lastly and wholly vpon prudentiall Motives If wholly vpon prudentiall Motives how do you so often tell vs that we build it only vpon Scripture And that by so doing we run round in a Circle proving Scripture by the Church and the Church by Scripture 14. But now let vs consider a litle whether your pretended Brethren the Protestants can themselves avoyd that which you and they do so vehemently object to vs. First then They who profess to know the private spirit cannot avoyd a Circle while they proue Scripture by that spirit and that spirit by Scripture by which alone according to their Principles they can try whether or no it proceede from God Wherof Ihaue spoken heretofore 15. Secondly they who pretend to know the Scripture by certaine internall criteria or signes found in Scripture itself as light majesty efficacy or as Potter speakes Pag 141. a glorious beame of divine light which shines in Scripture must fall into the same Circle with those men of the private spirit For seing those criteria which they fancy to themselves are nor evident either to sense or naturall reason they must be knowen by some other meanes which can be none except some internall private spirit or Grace within as Potter expressly speakes Pag 141. and Pag 142. saith There is in the Scripture it self light sufficient which the eye of Reason cleared by Grace may discover to be Divine descended from the Father and fountaine of light If then we aske these men why they belieue Scripture to be indued with such light majesty c. seing these things appeare not evidently to any of our senses nor to our vnderstanding as prima principia of naturall Reason which are manifest of themselves their Answer must be that internall Gracē assures vs therof and so this Grace is necessary not only ex parte subjecti or potentiae to assist our soule aboue our naturall forces in order to supernaturall Objects but it is the reason motiue and medium ex parte objecti for which we belieue for other reason these men can giue none and then enters the Argument which I made even now How can they know that this light or spirit is infused by God and proceeds not from some bad spirit except by Scripture and consequently by first knowing Scripture wherby that light must be examined and yet they cannot know scripture except they be first inspired with this light and know it to be a true light and not an illusion which is a manifest Circle placing this light before Scripture and Scripture before this light and finally they are in effect cast vpon the private spirit Catholikes I grant belieue that the particular assistance of the Holy Ghost is necessarie for exercising an Act of Faith but they require it only ex parte potentiae to enable our vnderstanding to assent to an object represented and proposed by Motives sufficient to oblige vs to an infallible Act having for its principall and formall Object the Divine Revelation which Revelation and Motives are adequately and perfectly distinguished from the sayd Assistance as in proportion we belieue by the vertue and strength of the Habit of Faith ex parte potentiae but we do not belieue for it neither is it apprehended or considered or represented to our vnderstanding when we belieue but that which we apprehend moves the Act of our vnderstanding is the reason and motiue for which we beleeue as also the facultie of our vnderstanding is necessary for vs to belieue and yet we do not belieue for but by it And therfore Protestants avoyd a Circle as we evidently do 16. Thirdly As for you who profess to belieue the Scripture for the Church if you be free from an vnprofitable Circle we also who receyue and belieue the Scripture for the Authority of the Church are secured from it for the same reason and therfore you must either acquit vs or condemne yourself though you will never be able to be proved not guilty of vntruth and injustice in objecting to vs alone that very thing of which yourself are guilty 17. But now because in this Controversy about the Church Protestants seeke to make great vse of a distinction between Fundamentall and not Fundamentall Poynts I must in the next Chapter say somthing therof that is wheras Charity Maintayned hath shewed against Dr. Potter the falshood and impertinency of that distinction as it is applyed by Protestants yea and that they contradict themselves therin I will now endeavour to proue that notwithstanding all that you haue written in defense of the Doctour the Arguments of Charity Maintayned remayne in force as also that you in this matter contradict both Protestants and yourself CHAP. VI. ABOVT FVNDAMENTALL AND NOT FVNDAMENTALL POYNTS OF FAITH 1. THis Question concerning Fundamentall and not Fundamentall Poynts of Faith is stated at large by Charity Maintayned Chap 3. N. 2. The summe is Some Points are called Fundamentall or necessary because every one is obliged to know and belieue them expressly and explicitely and Potter Pag 243. speaking of some Points of Faith sayth These are so absolutely necessary to all Christians for attaining the End of our Faith that is the salvation of our soules that a Christian may loose himself not only by a positive erring in them or denying of them but by a pure ignorance or nescience or not knowing of them Other Points are called not
erre he cannot be certaine that he doth not erre vnless you add this necessary restriction he cannot be certaine that he doth not erre as long as he grounds himselfe only vpon that Principle which he believes to be fallible and subject to errour though for other things or vpon other certaine and infallible Grounds he may be and is sure that he neither doth nor can erre while he relyes vpon those infallible Grounds 72. For better vnderstanding of this matter We may distinguish a double infallibility The one may be termed Personall or belonging to or accompanying the Person The other we may call Reall or taken from the thing itselfe If God promise his assistance to some person that he shall never erre even in things of themselves obscure this man shall be sure never to erre not in vertue of any intrinsecall evident Principle but by reason of that Divine assistance But if one haue no such promise or Priviledge yet is directed by some Principle evident to humane Reason he is certaine that he neither doth nor can erre by a certainty derived from evidence of the Thing it selfe as long as he relyes vpon that certaine ground Now to our purpose You cannot be certaine of this proposition Scripture alone is the totall Rule of Faith by evidence of sense or some Principle knowne to naturall Reason but only by certainty proceeding from infallible supernaturall Assistance And therfore seing you deny any such Assistance to the vniversall Church and much more to particular Churches or private persons for Points not Fundamentall as you acknowledge this to be it followes that you can haue no certainty of it which is the thing that Charity Maintayned affirmed and so it proves to be very true that whosoever may erre cannot be certaine that he doth not erre if he depend vpon Grounds subject to falshood and errour as contrarily whosoever doth not erre because he relyes vpon evident Principles or vpon some extrinsecall Authority being in it selfe and being believed to be Infallible he is sure he cannot erre in such matters though he may erre in other knowne by some probable reason or fallible Authority If you say A thing may be certainly knowne or believed because it is evidently contained in Scripture which we belieue to be infallible This evasion answers not my argument For if you imagine a thing to be so evident in Scripture that there is required no more than evidence of sense or Reason to see and read and know the Grammaticall signification of the word then whosoever does so he is certaine not only that he doth not but that he cannot erre seing he is evidently certaine that he sees reades and vnderstands the Grammaticall signification of the word If beside the sayd knowledge or ability to see read c. there be other meanes required as certainly there are to know what is not the Grammaticall signification but the meaning of the word intended by the Holy Ghost in that place then if those meanes be fallible and only probable no man can by the assistance of them alone be certaine that he doth not erre But if the meanes be and be believed to be infallible he is sure that he neither doth nor can erre by vsing those meanes and so to erre in a way in which one is certaine that he doth not erre and yet may erre as long as he retaines the meanes of that Certainty and followes them is an impossible thing Thus your owne Objection turnes vpon yourselfe and makes good the discourse of Charity Maintayned 73. But you vrge vs and say Vpon this Ground what will hinder me from concluding that seing you also hold that neither particular Churches nor private men are in fallible even in Fundamentalls that even the Fundamentalls of Christianity remaine to you vncertaine 74. Answer Your inference were very good if in the beliefe of the Fundamentalls of Christianity we did rely vpon the Authority of particular Churches or private men But we rely vpon the Authority of the vniversall Church which is absolutly infallible Contrarily for you who rely vpon no infallible Authority of any Church but vpon your owne fallible discourse or the Scripture interpreted by fallible meanes nothing I am sure can hinder vs from concluding that even the Fundamentalls of Christianity remaine to you vncertaine Still you are wounded with your owne weapons And to turne also against you your owne similitudes A Judge may possibly erre in judgment if he proceed only vpon probable reasons that he Judges according to Law neither can he haue assurance that he hath judged right if his sentence be grounded vpon such reasons only If in some other case he haue assurance that he hath judged right it must be grounded vpon certaine and evident reasons which can never faile nor he ever can fall into errour by following such reasons or rules Neither can your London Carryer or any other in the middle of the day when he is sober and in his witts mistake the waie which he knowes with absolute certainty and evidence as you aboue all others must grant who say that we need no Guide for Controversyes of Faith because as you pretend you haue a cleare way namely Scripture which therefore if you can mistake and know the meaning therof only probably you must confess the necessity of some Guide to direct and keepe you in that way Your owne caution in the middle of the day might haue put you in mynd that Faith is obscure and like a light in a darke place as S. Peter speakes which therfore is a way which may not only be mistaken but cannot be assuredly found without the direction of some infallible Guide How many wayes do your Arguments strongly recoyle against yourselfe without the least hurt to your Adversary Even your vaine conclusion these you see are right worthy consequences and yet they are as like your owne as an egg to an egge or milke to milke must be applyed against yourselfe that as one egg is really different from another so your consequences are really different from those of Charity Maintayned though to your friendes they may perhaps haue seemed to be all one But indeed being examined proue to be as like to those of Charity Maintayned as an apple to an oyster 75. By what I haue sayd your N. 161. is fully answered and your Examples appeare to be clearly impertinent For these Propositions the snowe is black the fire is cold c are false and the contrary true as is evident to sense and reason not so that Scripture is the totall Rule of Faith the truth or falshood wherof must be tryed by some other meanes and you can haue none certaine if you take away the infallibility of Gods Church And I wonder you can say concerning these words of Charity Maintayn for the selfe same reason Protestants are not certaine that the Church is not Judge of Controversyes the Ground of this Sophâ—sme is very like the former viz That
we can be certaine of the fallhood of no Propositions but these only which are damnable Errours For you know that we spoke not of whatsoever truth or falshood but of a Proposition the truth or falshood wherof cannot be knowne by sense or naturall Reason but only by Revelation in which if the vniversall Church may erre for Points not Fundamentall we cannot possibly haue certainty of the truth of them as I haue proved and it is intolerable in you to make this Argument we may be certaine that snow is not blacke nor fire cold therfore we may be certaine of truths which can be knowne only by Revelation for Points in which you say the whole Church of Christ and much more private men may erre 76. To your N. 162. I need only say that a publike and vniversall Authority to decide Controversyes of Faith and interpret Scriptures must be infallible otherwise it might either be disobeyed or els men would be forced to obey exteriourly that which they judge in Conscience to be a damnable Errour as hertofore I haue declared and shewed a large difference betweene a Judge in Civill causes and Controversyes in matters of Faith alledging to that purpose your owne words Pag 59. N. 17. That in Matters of Religion such a Iudge is required whom we should be obliged to belieue to haue judged right So that in Civill Controversyes every honest vnderstanding man is fitt to be a Iudge but in Religion none but he that is infallible And yet so farre you forget yourself as to object to vs in this N. 162. I hope you will not deny but that the Iudges haue Authority to determine criminall and Civill Controversyes and yet I hope you will not say that they are absolutely infallible in their determinations Infallble while they proceed according to Law How then can you distinguish betwene a Judge in Civill and a Judge in Controversyes of Religion vnless you grant not only a conditionall but an absolute infallibility to this latter whereby he is sure never to erre whereas a Judg in Civill matters may erre by not proceeding according to Law If therfore the Propositions which were publikly defended in Oxford that the Church hath Authority to determine Controversyes in Faith and to interpret Scripture be patient of your Explication I can only say that they either say nothing or teach men to dissemble in matters of Faith by obeying the Commandements of the Church against their Conscience I haue read your friend Irenaeus Philalethes Dissertatione de Pace Ecclesiae who teaches that no man ought now after the tyme of the Apostles who were infallible to be punished by Excommunication as long as he followes the dictamen of his Conscience and how do you tell vs that now one may be excommunicated for an errour in Faith Though you admit no infallible Judge to declare the sense of Scripture and that those Texts which seeme evident to some appeare obscure to others as is manifest in the examples which you alledge as evident of our Saviours Passion and Resurection which diverse Heretikes haue either denyed or vnderstood in a different way from the doctrine of Gods Church and yourselfe in particular belieue that his suffering and Death was not the Death and Passion of God and that his Sufferings did not merit and satisfy for mankind and that he remaines in Heaven with a Body of a different nature and Essence from that which he had vpon Earth which is to deny his Resurrection for substance and Death for the fruite therof You say The Doctor who defended the saied Conclusions together with the Article of the Church of England attributeth to the Church nay to particular Churches and I subscribe to his opinion an Authority of determining Controversyes of Faith according to plain and evident Scripture and vniversall Tradition and infallibility while they proceed according to this Rule But how doth this agree with the whole Scope of your Booke that the Bible the Bible the Bible is the only Rule and with your express words heere N. 155. that no vnwritten Doctrine hath attestatten from Tradition truly vniversall Seing beside Scripture you grant a Tradition which you say gives an infallibility to him who proceeds according to it Which shewes that there is some infallible vnwritten word or Tradition You say But what now if I should tell you that in the yeare 1632. among publike Conclusions defended in Doway one was that God predeterminates men to All their Actions I answer That if you will inferr any thing from hence it must only be this that as the Question about Predetermination is not defined by the Church but left to be disputed in Schooles with an express command of our Supreme Pastour that one part do not censure another so if you grant that out of the sayd Propositions defended in Oxford I may inferr that the Scripture alone is not the Rule of Faith or at least that you are not certaine it is so nor can condemne vs Catholikes for holding the contrary if I say you grant this you overthrow that Ground in which alone all Protestants pretend to agree and of which if they be not absolutly certaine the whole structure of their Faith must be ruinous You overlash in supposing we say that the Church cannot erre whether she vse meanes or no. But we are sure that as the Holy Ghost promised Her the End of not erring so also he will not faile to moue Her essectually to vse such meanes as shall be needfull for that End Your N. 163. about a place of S. Austine I haue answered very largly hertofore 77. In your N. 164. you say Why may not the Roman Church be content to be a Part of that visible Church which was extant when Luther began and the Grecian another And if one must be the whole why not the Greeke Church as well as Roman There being not one Note of your Church which agrees not to Her as well as to your owne 78. Answer If you speake of the true Church of Christ in Greece she is so farr from being divided from the Roman that she doth not only agree with but submitts to Her and receives from her Priests ordained in Rome it selfe and brought vp in Catholique Countries The Scismaticall Grecians to their division from the Roman Church haue added Heresy as even Protestants confesse and so are neither the whole Church nor any Church at all it being indeed no lesse than a kind of blasphemy to affirme that Conventicles of Heretikes can be the true Church of Christ Dr Lawde Pag 24. saith of the Errour of the Grecians I know and acknowledge that Errour of denying the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son to be a grievous errour in Divinity And Pag 154. I would faine know what Article of the Faith doth more concerne all Christians in generall than that of Filioque Which Errour of the Grecians hath beene condemned by three Generall Councells in which the Grecians
N. 154. I hope you will giue vs leaue to consider whether the motiues to your Church be not impeached and opposed with compulsiues and enforcements from it so others will say of the Motiues to Christian Religion that they are impeached with contrary compulsiues from it besides the sublimity of the Misteryes themselues aboue humane Reason which is apt to doubt of whatsoever it doth not ynderstand as we feare not only bad but also vnknowne pathes and as to our eye the clearest skye if it be almost beyond our kenning seemes to be a kind of darkness Thus then the probability of Chillingworths faith being brought downe frō the highest pretended degree of probability becomes compatible with good and great probability of the contrary side as heate and cold if neither of them be in the most intense degree may stand togeather and consequently the vnderstanding may conceyue not only a possibility but a probability also and a feare that the Christian Religion is false For auoiding which wicked sequele there is no other remedy except to acknowledg Faith to be an Assent certaine and infallible aboue all probability of humane Motiues or arguments of Credibility 19. And in this occasion we may obserue that the examples vsually alleadged to proue that we can no more doubt of the Conclusion drawne from the Arguments of Credibility than a man doubts whether such an one be his father and the like doe not vrge but rather may be retorted For in such cases it is supposed that there are many good reasons for one side for example that such a man is father to such a child c. and none to the contrary But it happeneth otherwise in our case there being many and hards objections obuious to humane reason against the Mysteryes of Faith which may diminish that degree of assent which otherwise might be grounded vpon the Arguments of Credibility if they were considered alone as one could not belieue such a man to be his father if he had some very probable proofes for the contrary with the same firme perswasion as he would doe in case no such proofes did offer themselues and so as I sayd this and the like Arguments and examples may be retorted againist those who bring them and still we must conclude that we cannot belieue Christian Religion as we ought without an absolute certaine ād jnfallible Assent which will more appeare by the Reason following 20. These very Motiues of Credibility manuduce and send vs vp to an Authority which is able to transfuse greater perfection to our Assent than they themselues can giue Because they tell vs of Objects to be belieued for Diuine Reuelation and so proclaime themselves to be only Dispositions and Preparations which being supposed God affords his particular Grace for producing an Act proportionable to his Diuine Testimony as with some proportion by hearing or reading spirituall things the species are excited and God by that occasion giues inspiration for Faith Hope Charity c. aboue the naturall power of the externall words and as Experimentall knowledg by sense is a Disposition to Scientificall knowledg which yet takes not its nature essence and perfection from the senses 21. From hence it followes that men are obliged to belieue Christian Religion not in what manner soeuer but as a Doctrine deliuered and reuealed by God and therfor to be embraced aboue all that is aboue all contrary objects or objections and not to be altered vpon any occasion supposition or authority of men or Angels as S. Paule teaches vs by an impossible supposition to express the matter home Galat 1.8 Although we or an Angel from Heauen euangelize to you beside that which we haue euangelized to you be he anathema This admonition or denuntiation of S. Paule must needs suppose Christian Faith to be aboue all probability For it is euidently against reason to joyne togeather these two judgments or Assertions This doctrine is only probable and grounded only in probable and credible Arguments and yet That it is reasonable or necessary òr euen possible to assent to it in such manner as neuer to belieue the contrary though reasons seeming vpon the best examination a man can make better than the former should offer themselues against it seing it is certaine that he cannot be certaine that better reasons cannot possibly be offered For if he be certaine that better reasons for the contrary are not possible his assent is not probable but certaine Therfor since we are not to forsake Christian Religion for whatsoeuer possible motiue or Reason or Authority of Men or Angels we must giue it absolute certainty and not only probability 22. And because this kind of Argument is of greater moment than perhaps appeares at first sight I will dilate it by saying further that according to his Assertion about the probability of faith no Christian yea no man can be setled in any Religion since he must be ready to chang whensoeuer better reasons shal be presented against it neither can he be certaine that he may not sooner or later fynd some such reason For a faith only probable is a perpetuall Temptation to it selfe and we may truly say Accedens tentator dicit in the present Tense seing Probability doth not exclude some feare that the contrary may be true Nay euery consideration about Faith to such men as Chill who loue to be esteemed considering and discoursing men is more than a Temptation it is a yeelding or consent against Faith inuoluing this judgment Perhaps that which I belieue is false and the contrary true 23. Yea this vast absurdity doth not only flow from this doctrine but it is in effect acknowledged by him in express words Pag. 380. N. 72. Where he deeply taxes all Catholiques because they eyther out of idleness refuse the trouble of a scuere tryall of their Religion or out of superstition feare the euent of such a triall that they may be scrupled and staggered and disquieted by it and therfor for the most part doe it not at all or if they doe it they doe it without indifference without liberty of judgment without a resolution to leaue it if it proue apparentily false My owne experience assures me that in this imputation I doe you Catholiques no injury but it is very apparent to all men from your ranking doubting of any part of your Doctrine among mortall sinnes For from hence it followes that seing euery man must resolue he will neuer commit mortall sinne that he must neuer examine the grounds of it at all for stare he should be moued to doubt or if he doe he must resolue that no motiues be they neuer so strong shall moue him to doubt but that with his will and resolution he will vphold himselfe in affirme belief of your religion Doth not it appeare by these words that he must haue no such resolution as he reprehends in vs but must be ready to doubt or to leaue his and all Christian Religion And Pag. 326.
Sancto mihi It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and me as the Apostles in the first Councell sayd Visum est Spiritui Sancto nobis It hath seemed good to the holy Ghost and vs. Beside this manner of expression It seemed to me also having had perfect vnderstanding of things from the first or as the Rhemes testament hath out of the vulgat and Greeke having diligently attained to all things and as Cornel a Lap interprets assecuto out of the Greek assectato studiosè investiganti ideoque assecuto all which may according to your divinity signify an humane endeavour and diligence rather then divine inspiration Revelation or infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost And this argument may be strongly vrged by calling to mynd that Calvin in Antid Cocil seekes to proue that the writer of the book of the Machabees cannot be esteemed Canonicall because in his second booke second Chapter he sayth And to our owne selves indeed which haue taken vpon vs this worke to make an abridgment we haue taken in hand no easy labour yea rather a business full of watching and swette For Canonicall writters did write not out of their owne witt and industry but by the revelation of the Holy Ghost Doth not this argument of Calvin if it be good as it is not yet as good as Chillingworths Principle or rather the same in effect proue also against S. Lukes both Preface and Gospell because he affirmes that he hath diligently attained to all things and that he wrote in order taking them from those who had heard and seene them Which words according to Calvins discourse signify that S. Luke composed the Gospell after a humane manner by inquiry by diligence by labour by following a method and order c. Wheras Sacred authors wrote not by their owne witt and labour but by revelation of the holy Ghost Therfor if once it be granted as you both grant and seeke to proue that the Apostles did somtyme deliver not divine Revelations but the dictates of humane reason and prudence where can it happen more probably than in this our present case Or what proof can you bring out of some evident Text of scripture that in fact it is not so Thus in steed of prooving out of S. Lukes Preface to his Gospell that his Gospell containes all Points necessary to salvation you plainly deprive both Preface and Gospell of all credit due to them as to the word of God And therfor you cannot draw Arguments from them for yourself against vs. 106. 4. Since it cannot be denyed but that the Holy Ghost might haue vsed the pen of S. Luke to deliver what best pleased his Divine wisdom and Goodness neither can we by humane reason or topicall and seeming probable discourses gather with certainty how far he decreed from Eternity to vse the writing of that holy Evangelist dare any man presume by the strenthg of witt or arguments to force God himself to decree and performe what he imagines should haue been donne yourself Pag. 102. N. 128. affirme this ground to be false that That course of dealing with men seemes always more fit to Divine providence which seems most fit to humane reason And P. 104. N. 136. you say It is our duty to be humbly thankfull for those sufficient nay abundant meanes of salvation which God hath of his owne Goodness granted vs and not conclude he hath done that which he hath not done because forsooth in our vaine judgements it seems conveniâ—nt he should haue done so And Pag. 84. N. 85. Though iâ— were convenient for vs to haue one Judg of controversyes yet it hath pleased God for reasons best known to himself not to allow vs this convenience These passages of yours I relate in this place as very considerable not only for this present occasion but as a generall antidote against your poysonous manner of proving your opinions not by authority or evideÌ„t texts of scripture but with some conceypts or reasons of your owne which you apprehend as probable But this humane prudence is but foolishness when it is applyed to determine what were the Free Eternall decrees of God whose thoughts are raysed aboue our imaginations more than Heaven aboue earth And to come to our purpose the Holy Ghost might haue decreed to teach the world by S. Luke either all things necessary to every man or necessary to the perfect constitution of the Church or mysticall Body of Christ or no things necessary but only profitable or some necessary and some profitable leaving other points necessary or profitable to be learned from the other Canonicall writers or from the Church and Tradition In all which cases the word All had bene truly verifyed because S. Luke had perfectly written All that the Holy Ghost intended to be written by his meanes concerning the words and works of our Blessed Saviour For seing as I sayd aboue All cannot be taken in the most vniversall sense which of it self it might beare the particular limitation or restriction therof must wholy depend on the hidden will and Decree of God which we cannot know with certainty by any humane probable discourse but only by Revelation and consequently no sound and certaine limitation or explication of the vniversall particle All can be given except that which I haue declared that S. Luke hath delivered All according to the End prescribed by the Motion and Inspiration of the Holy Ghost Otherwise what certaine reason can be given why all the Evangelists do somtyme deliver the self same Points and somtyme not yea some one expresses some particular which all the rest haue omitted Or why of these millions of words or deèds which all of them haue omitted some were not sett downe as well as those which now we reade in theÌ„ And so vpon due consideration the expressing the word All cannot he of any advantage to you because it must haue been vnderstood though it had not bene expessed and being expressed signifyes no more then if it had bene only vnderstood and collected from the nature of Holy Scripture and Priviledg of Canonicall Writers for whom we may and must most certainly avouch that they perfectly sett downe All things according to the direction which they receyved from the Holy Ghost Yourself teach Pag. 35. N. 7. that Christians haue meaâ—es sufficient to determine not all controversyes but all necessary to be determined and why should you judg it an incongruity in vs to say that S. Luke wrote not all the words and works of our Sauiour but all necessary to be written by him whose purpose if it had bene to make a Catechisme or Creed or a Summe of Christian Doctrine would haue required an other forme and method different from the Historicall way which he and other Evangelists hold And that S. Luke proposed to himself a farr different End appeares by Eusebius L. 3. C. 24. affirming that S. Luke wrote for this only reason that he saw some others
interpretation but that of Gods Church And it is an injury to the insinite wisdom of our B. Saviour to imagine that he left that for a sufficient Meanes to conserue Vnity which hitherto neither hath had nor ever will nor ever can haue that effect without a perpetuall great and vnusuall Miracle by making men different in all other things agree in the sense of Scripture You will not deny but that while the Apostles and other Canonicall writers were aliue the scripture ioined with such explication as they could giue by word of mouth or by writing new bookes was sitter to conserue vnity then now it is and by not making vse of such help of some authenticall interpreter it is sayd of the Epistles of S. Paul 2. Pet. 3 V. 16. that there were in them some hard things to be vnderstood which vnlearned and inconstant persons did depraue to their owne perdition as they did also other Scriptures Now the Church supplyes that want of the Apostles personall presence And so we may say of all Controversyes in Faith as S. Austine de vnit Eccles C. 22. writes concerning the Question about Rebaptization of such as were baptized by Heretikes Seing we find not in Scripture that some pass to the Church from heretiks and were receyved as I say or as thou sayest I suppose that if there were any wise man of whom our Saviour had given testimony and that he should be consulted in this question we should make no doubt to performe what he should say least we might feeme to gainsay not him so much as Christ by whose testimony he was recommended Now Christ beares witness to his Church And a litle after Whosoever refuses to follow the practise of the Church doth resist our Saviour himself who by his testimony recommends the Church 179. To your demand Why may not the Apostles writings be as fit meanes to conserue vs in vnity and keep vs from errour as the Decrees of the Church The Answer is easy and cleare First If one Decree be obscure it may be declared by another seing the church cā never perish 2. If any new cōtroversy in faith arise the Church alwayes living and present cā determine it by some new Decree or Declaration These conditions are wanting in scripture which is alwayes the same and wil be no more cleare or of any larger extent for the contents therof to morrow than it is to day nor can ' it speake and declare it self by it selfe but only can be declared by some living Judg or Interpreter And you are in a great errour if you conceiue that we hold any one Writing or Decree to be sufficient for deciding all Controversyes But we say that the Church vpon severall exigents can declare her mynd either by explicating former Decrees or by promulgating new ones as necessity shall require And for this cause there are extant so many Decrees of Councells c If we did yield to any one writing the sufficiency of ending all emergent Controversyes God forbid we should deny it to hòly scripture Neither do we distinguish Tradition from the written word because Tradition is not written by any or in any booke or writing but because it is not written in the scripture or Bible For Tradition hath this advantage that it may be both written and delivered by word of mouth and so be certainly conserved By these considerations is answered an Objection which you make against some words of Cha Ma and it shall be 180. Object 5. Pag 54. N. 5. You are pleased to speak to your Adversary in this manner In the next words of Cha Ma Part 1. Chap 2. N. 1. we haue direct Boyes-play a thing given with one hand and taken away with the other an acknowledgment made in one line and retracted in the next We acknowledg say you Scripture to be a perfect rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule Only we deny that it excludes vnwritten Tradition As if you should haue sayd we acknowledg it to be as perfect a Rule as a writing can be only we deny it to be as perfect a rule as a writing may be Either therfor you must revoke your acknowledgment or retract your retraction of it for both cannot possibly stand togeather For if you will stand to what you haue granted That Scripture is as perfect a rule of Faith as a writing can be You must then grant it both so compleat that it needes no addition and so evident that it needs no interpretation Now that a writing is capable of both these perfections you say N. 7. is so plaine that I am even ashamed to proue it For he that denyes it must say That something may be spoken which cannot be written For if such a compleat and evident rule of Faith may be delivered by word of mouth as you pretend it may and is and whatsoever is delivered by word of mouth may also be written then such a compleat and evident rule of Faith may also be written Answer me Whether your Church can set downe in writing all these which she pretends to be Divine vnwritten Traditions and add them to the verityes already written And whether she can set vs downe such interpretations of all obscurityes in Faith as shall need no farther interpretations If shee can let her doe it and then we shall haue a writing not only capable of but actually endowed with both these perfections of being both so compleat as to need no Addition and so evident as to need no Interpretation Lastly no man can without Blasphemy deny that Christ Iesus if he had pleased could haue writ vs a rule of Faith so plaine and perfect as that it should haue wanted neither any part to make vp its integrity nor any clearness to make it sufficiently intelligible and then a writing there might haue been endowed with both these propertyes 181. Answer I haue had the patience to set downe your words much more at large than was needfull the answer having been given already that no one writing can without a great and vnvsuall miracle be capable of being a perfect Rule of Faith and your Arguments proue no such matter as will appeare anone But first I must tell you that you cite Cha Ma very disadvantagiously or rather falsely thus We acknowledg scripture to be a perfect Rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule only we deny that it excludes vnwritten Tradition and here you stopp wheras He added We only deny that it excludes either divine Tradition though it be vnwritten or an externall judge to keep to propose to interpret it in a true Orthodox and Catholique sense Now that no writing is able to propose or proue it self to be authentiall or true or to keep and conserue it self Cha Ma proved ibidem N. 3.4.5.6 and the thing is of it self so true and evident that Pag 61. N. 24. to the words of Cha Ma The scripture stands in need of some
alledging some passages of the Old and by alledging them to a certaine purpose they interpret and declare them to signify that for which they alledge them are not alwayes so cleare in every respect as that they may not require some Interpretation or Explication as we see performed by Holy Fathers and Interpreters of scripture who somtyme find difficulty even in fynding in the Old Testament what is cited out of it and we have heard out of a Protestant Doctour that The Apostles and divine Writers bring the same Testimony to divers purposes which shewes that every interpretation doth not adequate the sense yea since some Protestants hold that the same Text of Scripture cannot admit severall true and different senses as Fulk in his Confutation of Purgatory Pag 151. and Willet in his Synopsis Pag 26. they must aknowledg great difficulty in the interpretation of the same places to â—â—vers purposes as Divine Writers haue done and will be forced to giue some interpretation or declaration of those very different interpretations which Canonicall Writers gaue of those Texts of the Old Testament Thus your Arguments being clearly confuted I must put you in mynd of some Points on which I belieue you did not reflect and which will proue that it is not Char Main but yourself who giue a thing with one hand and take it away with the other 186. In your first Answer to an Objection which you make against yourself Pag 55 N. 8. you say God might giue a writing the attestation of perpetuall Miracles that it is a Rule of Faith and the word of God This you giue heer and yet you take it away in your Answer to your Third Motiue to be a Roman Catholike where you say the Bible hath bene confirmed with those supernaturall and divine Meracies which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles and add It seemes to me no strang thing that God in his Iustice should permit sometrue Miracles to be wrought to delude them who haue forged so many as apparently the professours of the Roman Doctrine haue to abuse the world The same you expressly deliver Pag 379. N. 69 Now if even true Miracles may be wrought to delude any sort of people certainly they might haue been wrought to delude the Jewes who despised and impugned the Miracles of our Saviour Christ and his Apostles and denyed Christ to be the true Messias and forged false witnesses to put Him to death and discredit his Doctrine Nay what People or what single Person can be sure that their sinnes haue not deserved such a punishment Every deadly sinne vnrepented will certainly be punished with eternall torments which is the greatest evill that can be imagined or rather so great that it cannot be imagined by any mortall man and therfor much more may every such sinne be justly punished by permitting true Miracles to be wrought to delude the sinner if once that be granted which you affirme How then could our Saviour say John 10.38 If you will not belieue me belieue the workes Or doth not this open a way to affirme that the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles haue beene wrought to delude men And finally to come close to our purpose how could God giue any certaine attestation by any Miracle that Scripture is the word of God if true Miracles may be done to delude men And how do you say in your Answer to your sayd Third Motiue to be a Roman Catholike The Bible de facto hath bene confirmed with those Supernaturall and Divine Miracles which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles Is not this with one hand to giue Scripture the prerogatiue of being the word of God and with the other to take it away In the meane tyme I challeng all the enemyes of the Roman Church to shew any one Miracle-forged and approved by Her and yourself know that she censures with excommunication broachers of false Miracles as Charity Maintayned Part 1. Chap. 3. N. 9. shewes and you in your Answer deny it not it being notorious to the whole world that such forgers are most severely punished in Catholique contryes 187. In another respect also you giue and take away Here you tell vs that God might giue scripture the Attestation of perpetuall Miracles that it is the word of God and in your Answer to your third Motiue as I sayd even now you say that the scripture hath bene confirmed with those innumerous supernaturall and Divine Miracles which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles If this be so we must inferr that as the particular contents of scripture for example the Incarnation Life Death Resurtection and Ascension of our Saviour Christ c being confirmed by Miracles became materiall Objects of our Faith so seing you confesse this Truth The Bible is the word of God to be proved by the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles it followes evidently that it is a materiall Object of Faith no less then the particular Truths which it contaynes Andthis your selfe affirme in this very place in your Second Answer where you say by Scriptures not all things absolutely may be proved which are to be believed For it can never be proved by Scripture to a gainsayer that there is a God or that the Book called Scripture is the word of God Is not this to say that one of the things which cannot be proved by Scripture and yet are to be believed is that Scripture is the word of God Therfor we are to belieue that Scripture is the word of God and what is this but to be a materiall Object of our Faith This I say you teach here But in other places you affirme and take care to proue that Scripture is not one of the materiall Objects of our Faith as shall appeare in my next Chapter 188. You do also overthrow what we haue heard you say that Miracles may be wrought to delude men by the contrary doctrine delivered Pag 144. N. 31. in these words It is impossible that God should lye and that the Eternall Truth should set his hand and seale to the Confirmation of a falshood or of such Doctrine as is partly true and partly false The Apostles Doctrine was thus confirmed therfor it was intirely true and in no part either false or vncertaine But how is this true if the Apostles might haue bene permitted to worke even true Miracles to delude men or how is not their Doctrine vncertaine if you cannot be certaine but that their Miracles were wrought to such an end of deluding men How many wayes are you fallen into that which you objected to your Adversary as direct Boyes-play Giving taking away saying vnsaying and in a vvord contradicting yourself not in any by-point or incident speech as that was which without reason you taxed in Charity Mâ—â—tayned but in a matter of greatest moment as is the certainty and belief of Holy Scripture one of the prime Objects of Christian Faith 189. I knovv not
the Eucharist depend vpon the casualtyes of the Consecrators true Priesthood and intention and yet commanding men to belieue it for certaine that he is present and to adore the Sacrament which according to your Doctrine â—â—â—ought they can possibly know may be nothing els but a piece of bread so exposing them to the danger of idolatry and consequently of damnation 65. Answer First Who will not wonder you should object to vs danger of idolatry by reason of some particular case or application of a generall true Ground which can be neither Heresy nor formall idolatry while Protestants are exposed to danger of Heresy and idolatry and consequently of damnation by reason of the very generall Ground by which their Actions should be directed Luther and Lutherans belieue the Reall Presence and divers of their chiefest Writers expressly teach that Christ is to be adored in the Eucharist And Kemnitius proves it by the severall sayings of the Saints Austine Ambrose and Gregory Nazianzen The Reader may be pleased to see Brierley Tract 2. Cap 1. Sect 3. Seing then Zwinglians Calvinists Socinians and all they who deny the Reall Presence hold the opinion of Lutherans to be false and that the Eucharist for substance is but a piece of bread according to your Objection those Lutherans expose themselves not only to the danger of idolatry and consequently of damnation but also to certaine idolatry if the Faith of Sacramentaryes be certainly true as themselves hold it to be On the contrary side If Christ be really and substantially present in the Sacrament they who deny both his Presence and Adoration are Heretiks and expose themselves to the danger of a sin no lesse haynous than idolatry For it is no less if not more injurious to deny that honour to any person which is due to him than it is to yeild greater respect than is due rather this latter is less grievous that that former because to exibite due honour is one of those precepts which Divines call Affirmatiue and do not oblige for all tymes but expressly to deny that honour which is due to one yea and avouch it not to be due is ranked in the class of Negatiue Precepts which oblige for all places tymes and other circumstances Thus we are not obliged to be at all tymes in act of adoring God but we are bound never to deny the supreme honour which Divines call Latria to be due to his Divine Majesty If therfor Lutherans be Hererikes and Idolaters for adoring Christ in the Eucharist if it be only a piece of bread other Protestants shall be Heretikes and as bad or worse than Idolaters if indeed Christ true God and man be really present The difference then and doubtfullness among you concernes Matter of Faith but that which you object to vs concernes only matter of Fact We are most assured of this generall Ground Christ is reâ—â—â— present in the Consecrated Hoast but it is not an Article of Faith that this Hoast in particular is Consecrated or that that which seemes to be bread and wine is indeed such You say We command men to belieue for certaine that Christ is present in the Eucharist but for certaine you speake against your conscience if you would haue the Reader to belieue that we command men to belieue with certainty of Faith that Christ is present in this or that particular Hoast though vnless we haue some grounded positiue reason to the contrary we ought not positively to doubt which would be but an Act of imprudency or perhaps vncharitableness or injustice as it happens in a thousand cases wherin we haue no certainty of Faith or Metaphisicall evidence and yet it would be meere foolishness positively and practically to doubt of them nor could there be in this case any shadow of danger to committ formall or culpable Idolatry Religion is a morall Uertue and requires not for its direction in particular occasions the certainty of Faith but is regulated by the vertue of Prudence which in our case doth most reasonably judg that Christ is really present in that Hoast which we haue good reason to judge is Consecrated and if there be no danger of formall idolatry there can be no danger of damnation But in the meane tyme you should consider that by your fallible Faith you can haue no certainty that Christ either is or is not present in the Eucharist and so you expose yourself to the danger of a grievous sin by not believing and adoring Christ if really he be present Besides seing you hold that any errour against Divine Revelation is damnable in itself no man must read Scripture or seeke to find the sense therof least he chance to misse of the true meaning aÌ„d so expose himself to danger of coÌ„mitting a thing damnable in itself You blame Charity Maintained because you conceaue he would not haue vs subject to any vncertainty in matters belonging to salvation and yet now you object against all Catholiques that they adore our Saviour when they are not absolutely certaine that he is present though indeed if passion did not blind you you would condemne Lutherans only who belieue that bread remaynes and therfor if Christ be not really present as you hold for certaine he is not they adore that which is nothing els but a piece of bread wheras we Catholikes believing that bread doth not remayne cannot possibly direct our intentions and Adoration to bread but to Christ himself and so the most that can be imagined will only be this that we adore Christ thinking he is where he is not our intention being still carried to him aÌ„d not to any Creature which if you will hold for true idolatry you must condemne all good Christians of idolatry who adore God as He is in Heaven Earth and everie where though in the opinion of your fellow Socinians He be really and substantially only in Heaven Even Dr. Taylor in his Liberty of Prophesying Pag 258. Numb 16. speakes home to the purpose of freeing Catholiks from all danger of idolatry in these words idolatry is a forsaking the true God and in giving the Dâ—vine Worship to a Creature or to an idoll that is to an imaginary God who hath no foundation in essence or existence And is that kinde of superstition which by Divines is called superstition of an vndue object Now it is evident that the Object of their Adoration that which is represented to them in their mindes their thoughts and purposes and by which God principally if not solely takes estimate of humane actions in the blessed Sacrament is the only true and eternall God hypostatically ioyned with his holy humanity which humanity they belieue actually present vnder the veile of the SacrameÌ„tall signes And if they thought him not bresent they are so farre from worshipping the bread in this case that themselves professe it to be idolatry to doe soe which is a demonstration that their soule hath nothing in it that is idololatricall If their confidence
this Objection which he makes to himselfe were clearly impertinent and foolish if he could haue dispatched all by saying we erre in essentiall points which had been an evident and more than a just cause to justify their separation which yet appeares further by his Answer to the sayd Objection That to depart from a particular Church and namely from the Church of Rome in some Doctrines and practises there might be just and necessary cause though the Church of Rome wanted nothing neâ—essary to salvation And afterward in the next P. 76. speaking of the Church of Rome he saith expressly Her Communion we forsake not no more than the Body of Christ wherof we acknowledg the Church of Rome to be a member though corrupted And this cleares vs from the imputation of Schisme whose property it is to cut of from the Body of Christ and the hope of salvation the Church from which it separates But if she did erre in any one Fundamentall point by that very errour she would cease to be a member of the Body of Christ and should be cut of from the hope of salvation therfore she doth not erre in any Fundamentall Point P. 83. we were never disioyned from her the Church of Rome in those maine essentiall truths which giue her the name and essence of a Church You must then say that she erres not in any Fundamentall Point For the essence of a Church cannot consist with any such errour And that it may appeare how desirous he is that it should be believed Catholiks and Protestants not to differ in the essence of Religion he adds these words immediatly after those which we haue last cited wherof if the Mistaker doubt he may be better informed by some late Roman Catholique Writers One of France who hath purposely in a large Treatise proved as be believes the Hugonots and Catholikes of that Kingdome to be all of the same Church and Religion because of the truths agreed vpon by both And another of our Country as it is sayd who hath lately published a large Catalogue of learned Authors both Papists and Protestants who are all of the same mynd Thus you see he ransacks all kind of proofes to shew that Catholikes and Protestants differ not in the substance and essence of Faith and to that end cites for Catholike Writers those two who can be no Catholiks as Charity Maintayned Part 1. Chap 3. Pag 104. shewes the former in particular to be a plaine Heretike or rather Atheist Lucian-like jeasting at all Religion Pag 78. he saith we hope and thinke very well of all those Holy and devout soules which in former Ages lived and dyed in the Church of Rome Nay our Charity reaches further to all those at this day who in simplicity of heart belieue the Roman Religion and professe it To these words of the Doctour if we subsume But it were impossble that any can be saved even by Ignorance or any simplicity of heart if he erre in a Fundamentall point because as by every such errour a Church ceases to be a Church so every particular person ceases to be a member of the true Churchs the Conclusion will be that we do not erre in any Fundamentall point Nay Pag 79. he saith further we belieue it the Roman Religion safe that is by Gods great Mercy not damnable to some such as belieue what they professe But we belieue it not safe but very dangerous if not certainly damnable to such as profess it when they belieue or if their hearts were vpright and not perversely obstinate might belieue the contrary Behold we are not only in a possibility to be saved we are even safe vpon condition we belieue that Faith to be true which we professe and for which we haue suffered so long so great and so many losses in all kinds which if we did vndergoe for extetnall profession of that Faith which we do not inwardly belieue to betrue we should deserue rather to be begged for fooles than persecuted for our Religion In the meane tyme every Catholike hath this comfort that he is safe even by the confession of an Adversary if he be not a foolish dissembler which would be cause of damnation in a Protestant or any other Even the profession of a truth believed to be false is a sin But I returne to say it were impossible for any Roman Catholike to be safe vpon what condition soever if we erre in any one Fundamentall Article of Faith Here I must briefly note that wheras Dr. Potter in the words now alledged saith It is not damnable to some and then to declare who those some are adds such as belieue what they profess Chillingworth Pag 404. N. 29. leaves out the distinction or comma placed betweene some and such and puts it after damnable Thus Not damnable to some such as beleue what they professe which words may signify that it is not safe to all such as belieue what they professe which may much alter the sense of Potters words as the Reader will perceiue by comparing them 149. Now Sir who will not wonder at your so often declaiming against Charity Maintayned for saying Dr Potter taught that the Roman Church doth not erre in Fundamentall Points But what if your selfe say the same It is cleare you do so For wheras Charity Maintayned Part 1. Pag 15. N. 13. saith Since Dr. Potter will be forced to grant that there can be assigned no visible true Church of Christ distinct from the Church of Rome and such Churches as greed with her when Luther first appeared I desire him to declare whether it do not follow that she hath not erred Fundamentally because every such errour destroyes the nature and being of a Church and so our Saviour Christ should haue had no visible Church on Earth To these words which you thought fit to set downe very imperfectly you answer Pag 16 N. 20. In this manner I say in our sense of the word Fundamentall it does follow For if it be true that there was then no Church distinct from the Roman then it must be either because there was no Church at all which we deny or because the Roman Church was the whole Church which we also deny Or because she was a part of the whole which we grant And if she were a true Part of the Church then she retained those truths which were simply necessary to salvation and held no errours which were inevitably and vnpardonably destructiue of it For this is precisely necessary to constitute any man or any Church a member of the Church Catholique In our sense therfore of the word Fuudamentall I hope she erred not Fundamentally But in your sense of the word I feare she did That is she held some thing to be Divine Revelation which was not some thing not to be which was You haue spoken so clearly and fully in favour of the Roman Church and not only affirmed but proved that she did not erre in any Fundamentall
but not Fundamentall is but a contradiction to your owne doctrine Seing whatsoever errour is damnable is also Fundamentall and whatsoever is Fundamentall is damnable if we respect the negatiue precept of Faith obliging vniversally all persons in respect of all objects at all tymes semper pro semper as divines speake not to deny any Point sufficiently proposed as revealed by God as Charity Maâ—nâ—ayned declares at large Part 1. Pag 79. And the same is taught by your selfe Pag 194. N. 4. In these words To make any Points necessary to be believeâ— it is requisite that either we actually know them to be Divine Revelations and these though they he not Articles of Faith nor necessary to be belâ—eâ—ed in and for themselves yet indirectly and by accident and by consequence they are so The necessity of believing them being inforce vpon vs by a necessity of believing this essentiall and Fundamentall â—â—rtâ—cle of Faith that all Divine Revelations are true which to dâ— belieue or not to belâ—â—ue is for any Christian not only in pious but impossible Or els it is requisite that they be first actually revealed by God secondly â—ommaÌ„ded vnder â—â—ine of â—amnation to be particularly knowne and distinctly to be believed From these words of yours it clearly followes that culpably to deny any point sufficiently proposed as revealed by God implyes a contrariety with this essentiall and Fundamentall Article of Faith that all Divine revelations are true which certainly is a Fundamentall Truth and therfore all errours that are culpable and damnable are in this sense opposite to a Truth which indirectly and by accident and by consequence as you speake becomes Fundamentall The same you deliver Pa 197. N. 14. where you say to Charity Maintayned I deny flatly as aâ—thing destructive of it selfe that any errour can be damnable vnless it be repugnant immediatly or mediatly directly or indirectly of it selfe or by accident to some truth for the matter of it Fundamentall Why then do you distinguish between damnable and Fundamentall errours Morover if every damnable errour as you confess every errour to be which disbelieves any sufficiently proposed Divine Truth be Fundamentall every damnable errour destroyes the Essence of a Church which you confess cannot exist togeather with a Fundamentall errour and consequently the Church cannot erre culpably even in points not fundamentall of themselves and remaine a Church which is the thing we teach and you through your whole Booke deny and are forced to doe so in regard you hold that Christ hath always had a Church on Earth and yet must pretend that she hath erred to saue yourselves from the imputation of Schisme and Heresy The truth is every sinfull errour against Faith in a point of itselfe never so small is damnable and destroyes Faith Church and salvation neither is there any difference for the generall effect of damnation between errours in Points Fundamentall and not Fundamentall and therfore it is impossible the true Church can erre in either kind of such points because it is impossible that she can want any thing necessary to salvation or be obnoxious to any thing destructiue therof and so as I sayd for the Negatiue precept of not disbelieving any thing sufficiently proposed to be revealed by God there is no difference between those two sorts of Articles and the reason is because the Formall object or Motiue of our belief is the same in them both namely the Divine Revelation But for the affirmatiue precept of being obliged to belieue explicitly some prime Materiall Objects of Faith there is difference in regard that as such Truths are Fundamentall and necessary to be actually believed so errours contrary to them are most properly Fundamentall errours or errours directly and immediatly opposite to some Materiall Object of Faith Fundamentall of itselfe which every body sees doth not happen in all errours Otherwise how do you Potter and other Protestants distinguish between errours in Points Fundamentall and not Fundamentall if all errours be Fundamentall or against a Fundamentall truth But you erre by not distinguishing or not rightly applying the distinction between the Affirmatiue and Negatiue Precept of Faith nor between the Formall and Materiall Object therof The Negatiue Precept arises from the Formall Object it being vniversally and intrinsecè vnlawfull to disbelieve any thing invested with the Divine Testimony wheras the affirmatiue Precept is taken from the Materiall Object of Faith in regard that God hath commanded some Truths to be expressly knowne and believed as absolutely necessary to salvation Vpon this erronious mistake youvnadvisedly find fault with Charity Maintayned in your Pag 197. N. 14. for saying Part 1. Chap. 3 N. 2. That errours may be damnable though they be against some Points for their matter and nature in themselves not fundamentall which are the precise words of Ch Ma. Where you see he speakes of the Matter or Materiall Object and not of the Formall of Faith which is Divine Revelation and so this Doctrine of his is evidently true For â—s all Truths of Faith are not of their owne nature fundamentall Truths so neither can all errours be fundamentall Errours But say you the deny all of any revealed Truth for example of that of Pontius Pilates being judge of Christ is destructiue of this Fundamentall Truth that All Divine Revelations are true I answer as aboue that you erre by not distinguishing between the Materiall and Formall Object of Faith and not considering that fundamentall or not fundamentall Truths are not to be distinguished in order to the formall object of Divine Revelation which being the same in all Truths all should be fundamentall or all should not be Fundamentall But as I sayd that distinction is to be taken from the Materiall objects accordingly as some are more important and more necessary to be actually believed than other If any object that this truth All Divine Revelations are to be believed is a thing which we belieue as a Fundamentall Truth and therfore every errour against it must be Fundamentall To this I answer as aboue that those errours are Fundamentall which are directly and immediatly opposed to Fundamentall Truths not those which only mediatly and by consequence are such Now the errour directly opposite to this truth All Divine Revelations are true is this All Divine Revelations are not true which certainly is a Fundamentall errour as contrarily errours opposed immediatly and directly to Points not Fundamentall of themselves are not Fundamentall errours in the common sense of that distinction which were no distinction at all if every errour were equally opposite to a point Fundamentall in itselfe 171. You desire Charity Maintayned to reconcile his doctrine that errours may be damnable though they be repugnant to some point for its matter and nature not Fundamentall with his other saying Part 1. Chap 4. N. 15. Every Fundamentall errour must haue a contrary Fundamentall Truth because of two contradictory propositions in the same degree the one is false the
you would spend tyme in such toyes The maine Question being whether the Church or Scripture be Judge or Rule of Controversyes in Faith Charity Maintayned N. 19. proves that the Scripture cannot be such a Judge because it is not intelligible to all that is to vnlearned persons as the Church is and therfore inferrs that not the Scripture but the Church must be Judge And is not that a good consequence Besides you say that Charity Maintayned in the beginning of his N. 19. which you impugne vndertooke only to proue that Scripture is not a Judge Therfore you grant that he proved all that he vndertooke in that place though he added by way of supererogation that the Church must be that Judge which was the chiefe thing he intended to proue in this Chapter and which followes evidently of the Scriptures not being Judge it being supposed that either the Scripture or Church must be A grievous Crime in Charity Maintayned to proue a pertinent and most important Truth 31. The words of the Apostle Rom 14.5 Let every one abound in his owne sense are prophanely applyed by you as if every one might follow his owne sense for the interpretation of Scripture which delivers Divine Revelations and you confess that to disbelieue objects so revealed is damnable in it selfe S. Paul speakes of things indifferent and which at that tyme were neither commanded not absolutly forbidden to the Jewes in the Old Law which then was mortua but not mortifera dead but not deadly 32. Your N. 104. till the N. 106. inclusiuè haue beene answered at large You suppose N. 108. and N. 113. that to find out the true Church every one must be able to examine the succession of visible Professours of the same doctrine through all Ages or els to examine the Church by the conformity of her doctrine with the doctrine of the first Age as you speak N. 108. Both which we deny and affirme that the Catholique Church of every Age carryes along with her so many conspicuous Notes of the true Church and all her enemies appeare with so many Markes of Errour that no man who seriously thinkes of his Eternall Happyness can chuse but clearly see the difference and behold a way so cleare ita vt stulti non errent per eam This answer is solid and evident for vs. But you who teach that we receaue Scripture from the vniversall Tradition of the Churches of all Ages and not for the Testimony of the present Church how will you enable all men to examine whether the Scripture and much more whether every Booke and parcell of Scripture hath bene delivered by all Churches even till you arriue to the Primitiue Church and by it include the Apostles Wherin we may vse these your owne words N. 108. This tryall of necessity requires a great sufficiency of knowledge of the monuments of Christian Antiquity which no vnlearned can haue because he that hath it cannot be vnlearned You say also How shall he an vnlearned man possibly be able to know whether the Church of Rome hath had a perpetuall Succession of visible Professors which held always the same doctrine which they now hold without holding any thing to the contrary vnless he hath first examined what was the doctrine of the Church in the first Age what in the second and so forth And whether this be not a more difficult worke than to stay at the first Age and to examine the Church by the conformity of Her Doctrine with the Doctrine of the first Age every man of ordinary vnderstanding may Iudge But I would know how one can examine the Church by the conformity of her Doctrine with the Doctrine of the first Age except by the monuments and Tradition of all the Ages which intervene betwixt the first Age and his which no vnlearned can doe because he that can doe it cannot be vnlearned And so it seemes you will haue vnlearned men despaire of all meanes to find the true Faith Church and salvation Will you haue them passe as it were persaltum immediately from this present Age to the first or Primitiue Age of the Church without the helpe of writings or other meanes of the middle Ages What remedy therfore can there be to overcome these difficultyes except an infallible beliefe that the Vniversall Church of every Age cannot erre And that otherwise all will be brought to vncertaintyes euery man of ordinary vnderstanding may Judge 32. For Answer to your N. 110. till the 122. inclusiuè I say No man indued with reason will deny the vse of Reason even in matters belonging to Faith But we deny that Reason is not to yield to Authority when assisted by Gods Grace it hath once shewed vs some infallible Guide and Authority to which all must submitt and so as it were cease to be different particular men and be in a manner one vnderstanding guided by one visible infallible Judge for want wherof Protestants remaine irreconciliably divided into as many opinions as they are men of different vnderstanding and will yea one man is divided from himself as he alters his Opinions Reason then may dispose or manuduct vs to Faith but the Object into which Faith is resolved is the Divine Revelation at which Reason did point and to which it must submitt Otherwise Faith were but Opinion which even Dr Potter affirmes to be a good consequence And it should not be the Gift of God but the Act of it should be produced by the force of nature and the Habit be an acquired and not infused Habit which is evidently against Scripture as I proved in the Introduction I wonder how you dare alledge Scripture as you do as if the places which you alledg N. 116. for trying of Spirits did signify that we are to try them by humane Reason and not by the Doctrine of the Church and Holy Scripture interpreted by Her But in this you shew yourselfe to haue drunke the very quintessence of Socinianisme 33. Charity Maintayned had Reason to say N. 29. What good states men would they be who should ideate or fancy such a Commonwealth as these men haue framed to themselves a Church And N. 22. What confusion to the Church what danger to the Commonwealth this denyall of the Authority of the Church may bring I leaue to the consideration of any judicious indifferent man For if it be free for every one to thinke as he pleases who will hinder him from vttering his thoughts in matters which he conceives belong to Faith and to conforme his practise to his thoughts and words And by that meanes sowe discord in the Church and sedition in the Commonwealth And therfore what you say N. 122. that men only interpret for themselves is not alwaies true but their selfe interpretation may indeed redound to the hurt of other both Private ād Publicke Persons and Communityes if their thoughts chance to pitch vpon some object which may be cause of mischiefe 34. Howsoever N. 118.
consisted of the Apostles who determined not only what others but what themselves were to belieue if they had not believed it already as de facto they did belieue it before the Councell and so the Apostles had determined what the Apostles were to belieue The same may be applyed to Generall Councells who determine even what they themselves are to belieue and vniversally if we do conceiue any congregation to be infallibly assisted by God they may declare what themselves and others are to belieue though that congregation be nothing but an aggregation of such Believers Yourselfe confess that the Governers of the Church may determine Rites Ceremonies c for the whole Congregation and so for themselves according to your inference yea if you vnderstand the matter as you should in determining Rites c they determine what every one is not only to practise but to belieue also as I sayd aboue and so all believers may determine in this sense what they are to belieue But the truth is you erre even in Philosophy not considering that when a thing is determined by a Community endued with sufficient Authority to command and define the obligation falls not vpon the whole collectiuè compared with the whole that is adaequate with it selfe but as the whole respects a particular member or part from which it is truly distinguished as includens ab incluso and the whole a singulis partibns in the manner that a mans soule is distinguished from a man Besides the precept of Faith or Believing is not a pure Ecclesiasticall precept but a Divine command obliging All and Every one to belieue whatsoever the Church propounds as revealed by God which therby becomes an Object of Faith And I hope you will not deny but that although it were granted that a man cannot oblige himself nor a community it self by their owne Authority or command yet God may and doth oblige all and every one to belieue whatsoever is propounded as a Divine truth by such an infallible Propounder as the Church is which in that sense may truly be sayed to determine what all are to belieue We may also add that by the Church are vnderstood the Pastours and Prelates therof who are not the whole Church collectiuè but may command and define for the whole Church Lastly what doth this your answer belong to the Point of which Charity Maintayned spoke That there is a greater necessity of some infallible authority in the Church of Christ than in the Synagogue of the Jewes because the Lawes Rites c were more particularly and as I may say minutely determined in the Old then in the New Law which therfore stands in need of some Living Judge to determine for all the many varietyes and different occasions that may present themselves 48. Your N. 143. is answered in three words that when S. Paul 1. Cor. 16.11 sayd All these thinges chanced to them in figure Every body sees that he meant not of the temporall but of the Ecclesiasticall or spirituall state of the Jewes and so if they had one high Priest who was endued with infallibility much more ought we to belieue that there is such an infallibility in Gods Church And the Reader by comparing the words of Charity Maintayned with your Objection will of himselfe see that you labour to seeke but can find no solide matter against him Neither did he ever say that the Ecclesiasticall Government of the Jewes was a Patterne for the Ecclesiasticall Government to Christians as you would make him speake but expressly that the Synagogue was a type and figure of the Church of Christ for those are his words Now to be only a type and figure argues imperfection To be a Patterne expresses perfection as being a Rule modell and an idea of that in respect wherof it is a Patterne 49. You needed not in your N. 144. pretend to doubt what discourse Ch. Ma. meant when in the beginning of his N. 24. he sayd This discourse is excellently proved by ancient S. Irenaeus For it was easy to see that he spoke of that discourse which he held in his immediatly precedent N. 23. His discourse was that the Church of the Old and New Law did exist respectiuè before any Scripture was written as there he shewes at large and consequently that Tradition and not scripturedid then beget faith which is also clearly confirmed by the place which Ch. Ma. cited N. 24. out of S. Irenaeus whose meaning you do pervert against himselfe and even against yourselfe The words of the Saint Lib 3. Cap 4. are What if the Apostles had not left Scriptures ought we not to haue followed the order of Tradition which they delivered to those to whom they committed the Churches To which order many Nations yield assent who belieue in Christ having salvation written in their harts by the spirit of God without letters or inke and diligently keeping ancient Tradition It is easy to receaue the truth from Gods Church seing the Apostles haue most fully deposited in her as in a rich storehouse all things belonging to truth For what If there should arise any contention of some small question ought we not to haue recourse to the most ancient Churches and from them to receiue what is certaine and cleare concerning the present question These be the words of S. Irenaeus cited by Charity Maintayned which declare that Tradition is sufficient and powerfull to produce Faith even with facility as S. Irenaeus expresses himselfe though no Scripture had beene written And this he affirmes not by way of conjecture or discourse what God would haue done if there had beene no Scriptures but that de facto there was existent such a powerfull Tradition as to it not one nor some nor few but many nations did yield assent without letters or inke that is without Scripture And in this Chapter N. 159. you say Irenaeus tells vs of some barbarous Nations that believed the doctrine of Christ and yet believed not the Scripture to be the word of God for they never heard of it and Faith comes by hearing From whence you inferr That a man may be saved though he should not know or not belieue Scripture to be the word of God if he belieue Christian Religiō wholly and entirely and liue according to it If this be true doth it not follow that Scripture alone is not the only nor a necessary Rule of Faith seing by tradition alone men may be saved though they should not know or not belieue Scripture to be the word of God And that by this concession you directly blott out the very title of this Chapter which is Scripture the only Rule wherby to judge of controversyes 50. Now let vs heare what you can Object against Charity Maintayned in this matter You say N. 144. In saying what if the Apostles had not left Scripture ought we not to haue fellowed the order of Tradition And in saying that to this order many Nations yield assent who
Living Guide to them who haue and belieue the Scripture Wherby you must signify that to those who either haue not Scripture or haue not sufficient reason to belieue it it is all one as if Scripture had never beene written and consequently that de facto there is an absolute necessity of an infallible Guide Nay men could not haue had sufficient reason to belieue infallibly the Scripture except for the Authority of the Church of God which therfore must be believed to be absolutely infallible before any Scripture be believed which is directly contradictory to your saying that the necessity of an infallible Guide is grounded vpon a false supposition in case we had no Scripture For contrarily if we haue and belieue Scripture we must first belieue an infallible Church independently of that supposition and vpon which that supposition of our believing Scripture must depend 57. But it seemes this Authority of S. Irenaeus doth yet vex you And therfore N. 146. 147. 148. you say That in S. Irenaeus his tyme all the Churches were at an agreement about the Fundamentalls of Faith which vnity was a good assurance that what they so agreed in came from some one common fountaine and they had no other then of Apostolique Preaching 58. This I haue answered hertofore and told you that when the Fathers alledge the Authority of the Church or Tradition they suppose the Church to be absolutly infallible and not only that accidentally she teaches at that tyme the truth which had beene no proofe but a meere petitio principij For if the Church might erre as you say she hath done the Heretikes against whom the Fathers wrote would easily haue answered that all Churches might erre and had erred in such or such particular Points and how could you or any Protestant impugne such an Answer supposing once the Church could erre When Luther appeared he forsooke the Faith and Communion of all Churches vpon pretence that they all agreed in errours against Scripture and how do you now tell vs that the agreement of Churches was a good assurance that what they so agreed in came from some one common fountaine and they had no other but Apostolicall Preaching In this manner hertofore I retorted against you the saying which you alledge out of Tertullian Variasse debuerat c If the Churches had erred they could not but haue varied but that which is one amongst so many cannot be errour but Tradition That seing all Churches agreed in a beliefe contrary to the Faith of Protestants we must affirme that the thing which is one among so many can not by errour but Tradition And your words here add a particular strength to my retortions while you say that the agreement and vnity of Churches about the Fundamentalls of Faith is a good assurance that what they so agree in comes from the common fountaine of Apostolique Preaching For those Heretikes might haue answered that the errours of the Church which they impugned were not Fundamentall as we haue proved that you say the errours of the Roman Church and such as agreed with Her when Luther appeared were not Fundamentall and so the assurance taken from vnity in Fundamentalls could be no Argument against them Besides I pray you reflect on your saying that Protestants departed not from the whole Church because they were a part therof and they departed not from themselves and then you cannot but see that those Heretikes in S. Irenaeus his tyme might haue sayd all Churches are not at an agreement about matters of Faith seing we who are a part of the Church do not agree with the rest and therfore the agreement which you speake of is of no force against vs but you must proue by some other kind of Argument that our doctrines are false just as Protestants answer vs when we object against them the agreement of all Churches against the doctrine of Luther when he first appeared Wherfore I must still inferr that it is not the actuall or accidentall agreement but the constant ground therof that is the infallibility of the Church that must assure vs what is Orthodoxe and what is Hereticall doctrine Moreover whereas you say In S. Irenaeus his tyme all the Churches were at an agreement about the Fundamentalls of Faith I beseech you informe vs how it could be otherwise then how can it be otherwise now how shall it be otherwise for the tyme to come or for any imaginable tyme than that all Churches are at an agreement in Fundamentalls of Faith Seing you professe through your whole Booke that if they faile in Fundamentalls they cease to be Churches and so it is as necessary for all Churches to agree in Fundamentalls as for all men to agree in the essence of man And you might as well haue sayd that at S. Irenaeus his tyme the Definition did agree or was all one with the Definitum as that all Churches agreed in Fundamentalls If therfore it was easy to receiue the truth from Gods Church in S. Irenaeus his tyme as he affirmes and you grant it will be no lesse easy to doe it in these our tymes seing the Church can never faile in Fundamentall Points of Faith and so it was easy for Luther and his companions to haue received the truth or rather to haue retained the truths they found in the Church seing she was a true Church and consequently did not erre in Fundamentall Points From whence it followes that when S. Irenaeus saith the Apostles haue most fully deposited in the Church as in a rich store-house all things belonging to truth it must be vnderstood that she cannot but keepe that depositum sincere for Fundamentall Points even according to Protestants and you say here N. 164. The visible Church shall always without faile propose so much of Gods Revelation as is sufficient to bring men to Heaven for otherwise it will not be the visible Church in which sense that depositum is not committed to private persons though otherwise never so qualifyed and therfore all that you haue N. 148. is of no force even in the Principles of Protestants And then further seing indeed any errour against divine Revelation is damnable and without Repentance destroyes salvation as you grant it is impossible that the Church which must needs enjoy all things necessary to salvation as we haue heard you even now saying the visible Church shall always without faile propose so much of Gods Revelation as is sufficient to bring men to Heaven It is I say impossiblle that the Church can fall into any damnable Errour but must be vniversally infallible Which is vnanswerably confirmed by your doctrine that it is impossible to know what Points in particular be Fundamentall and so we cannot know that she failes not to propose so much of Gods Revelation as is sufficient to bring men to Heaven vnless we belieue Her to be infallible in all Points of Faith as well not Fundamentall as Fundamentall And here againe how could you