the Church may declare matters of Faith The testimony of St. Augustine vindicated Page 44. CHAP. III. The Absurdities of the Romanists Doctrine of Fundamentals The Churches Authority must be Divine if whatever she defines be Fundamental His Lordship and not the Testimony of S. Augustine shamefully abused three several wayes Bellarmin not mis-cited the Pelagian Heresie condemned by the General Council at Ephesus The Popes Authority not implyed in that of Councils The gross Absurdities of the distinction of the Church teaching and representative from the Church taught and diffusive in the Question of Fundamentals The Churches Authority and Testimony in matters of Faith distinguished The Testimony of Vincentius Lirinensis explained and shewed to be directly contrary to the Roman Doctrine of Fundamentals Stapleton and Bellarmin not reconciled by the vain endeavours used to that end Page 79. CHAP. IV. The Protestant Doctrine of Fundamentals vindicated The unreasonableness of demanding a Catalogue of Fundamentals The Creed contains the Fundamentals of Christian Communion The belief of Scripture supposed by it The Dispute concerning the Sense of Christs Descent into Hell and Mr. Rogers his Book confessed by T. C. impertinent With others of the same nature T. C. his fraud in citing his Lordships words Of Papists and Protestants Vnity The Moderation of the Church of England compared with that of Rome Her grounds of Faith justified Infant-Baptism how far proved out of Scripture alone Page 98. CHAP. V. The Romanists way of Resolving Faith The ill consequences of the resolution of Faith by the Churches Infallibility The grand Absurdities of it manifested by its great unreasonableness in many particulars The certain Foundations of Faith unsettled by it as is largely proved The Circle unavoidable by their new attempts The impossibility of proving the Church Infallible by the way that Moses Christ and his Apostles were proved to be so Of the Motives of Credibility and how far they belong to the Church The difference between Science and Faith considered and the new art of mens believing with their wills The Churches Testimony must be according to their principles the formal object of Faith Of their esteem of Fathers Scripture and Councils The rare distinctions concerning the Churches Infallibility discussed How the Church can be Infallible by the assistance of the Holy Ghost yet not divinely Infallible but in a manner and after a sort T.C. applauded for his excellent faculty in contradicting himself Page 109. CHAP. VI. Of the Infallibility of Tradition Of the unwritten Word and the necessary Ingredients of it The Instances for it particularly examined and disproved The Fathers Rule for examining Traditions No unwritten Word the Foundation of Divine Faith In what sense Faith may be said to be Divine Of Tradition being known by its own light and the Canon of the Scripture The âestimony of the Spirit how far pertinent to this Controversie Of the use of Reason in the resolution of Faith C's Dialogue answered with another between himself and a Sceptick A twofold resolution of Faith into the Doctrine and into the Books Several Objections answered from the Supposition made of a Child brought up without sight of Scripture Christ no Ignoramus nor Impostor though the Church be not Infallible C's Blasphemy in saying otherwise The Testimonies of Irenaeus and S. Augustin examined and retorted Of the nature of Infallible Certainty as to the Canon of Scripture and whereon it is grounded The Testimonies produced by his Lordship vindicated p. 161. CHAP. VII The Protestant Way of resolving Faith Several Principles premised in order to it The distinct Questions set down and their several Resolutions given The Truth of matters of fact the Divinity of the Doctrine and of the Books of Scripture distinctly resolved into their proper grounds Moral Certainty a sufficient Foundation for Faith and yet Christian Religion proved to be infallibly true How Apostolical Tradition made by his Lordship a Foundation of Faith Of the Certainty we have of the Copies of Scripture and the Authority of them S. Augustine's Testimony concerning Church-Authority largely discussed and vindicated Of the private Spirit and the necessity of Grace His Lordship's Way of resolving Faith vindicated How far Scripture may be said to be known by its own Light The several Testimonies of Bellarmine Brierly and Hooker cleared p. 202. CHAP. VIII The Churches Infallibility not proved from Scripture Some general Considerations from the design of proving the Churches Infallibility from Scripture No Infallibility in the High-Priest and his Clergy under the Law if there had been no necessity there should be under the Gospel Of S. Basil's Testimony concerning Traditions Scripture less liable to corruptions than Traditions The great uncertainty of judging Traditions when Apostolical when not The Churches perpetuity being promised in Scripture proves not its Infallibility His Lordship doth not falsifie C's words but T. C. doth his meaning Producing the Jesuits words no traducing their Order C's miserable Apology for them The particular Texts produced for the Churches Infallibility examined No such Infallibility necessary in the Apostles Successours as in Themselves The Similitude of Scripture and Tradition to an Ambassadour and his Credentials rightly stated p. 235. CHAP. IX The Sense of the Fathers in this Controversie The Judgement of Antiquity enquired into especially of the three first Centuries and the reasons for it The several Testimonies of Justin Martyr Athenagoras Tatianus Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and all the Fathers who writ in vindication of Christian Religion manifested to concurr fully with our way of resolving Faith C's Answers to Vincentius Lyrinensis à Gandavo and the Fathers produced by his Lordship pitifully weak The particulars of his 9th Chapter examined S. Augustine's Testimony vindicated C's nauseous Repetitions sent as Vagrants to their several homes His Lordships Considerations found too heavy for C's Answers In what sense the Scripture may be called a Praecognitum What way the Jews resolved their Faith This Controversie and the first part concluded p. 261 PART II. Of Schism CHAP. I. Of the Universal Church THe Question of Schism explained The nature of it enquired into Several general Principles laid down for clearing the present Controversie Three grounds of the charge of Schism on Protestant Churches by our Authour The first of the Roman Churches being the Catholick Church entred upon How far the Roman Church may be said to be a true Church The distinction of a Church morally and metaphysically true justified The grounds of the Unity of the Catholick Church as to Doctrine and Government Cardinal Perron's distinction of the formal causal and participative Catholick Church examined The true sense of the Catholick Church in Antiquity manifested from S. Cyprian and several cases happening in his time as the Schism of Novatianus at Rome the case of Felicissimus and Fortunatus Several other Instances out of Antiquity to the same purpose by all which it is manifest that the Unity of the Catholick Church had no dependence on the Church of Rome
are for he speaks of those things which all Christians who have a care of their Salvation are to avoid of such things as are contrary to all Antiquity and such kind of Dogmata I freely grant the Definitions of your Church to be Your second citation is as happy as the first cap. 28. Crescat saith he speaking of the Church sed in suo duntaxat genere in eodem scilicet Dogmate eodem sensu eâdemque sententiâ An excellent place no doubt to prove it in the Churches power to define new Articles of Faith because the Church must alwaies remain in the same Belief sense and opinion When his words but little foregoing are Profectus sit ille fidei non permutatio which without the help of English Lexicons you would willingly render by leaving out that troublesome Particle non that the best progress in Faith is by adding new Articles though it be as contrary to reason as it is to the sense of Vincentius Lerinensis If Vincentius saith that the Pelagians erred in Dogmate fidei which words neither appear cap. 24. nor 34. he gives this reason for it because they contradict the Vniversal sense of Antiquity and the Catholick Church cap. 34. So that still Vincentius where-ever he speaks of this Dogma fidei speaks in direct opposition to your sense of it for new definitions of the Church in matters of Faith There being scarce any book extant which doth more designedly overthrow this opinion of yours then that of Vincentius doth To shew therefore how much you have wronged his Lordship and what little advantage comes to your cause by your insisting on Vincentius his testimony I shall give a brief account both of his Design and Book The design of it is to shew what wayes one should use to prevent being deceived by such who pretend to discover new matters of Faith and those he assigns to be these two setling ones faith on the Authority of Scripture and the tradition of the Catholick Church But since men would enquire The Canon of Scripture being perfect and abundantly sufficient for all things what need can there be of Ecclesiastical tradition He answers For finding out the true sense of Scripture which is diversly interpreted by Novatianus Photinus Sabellius Donatus Arrius Eunomius Macedonius Apollinaris c. In the following Chapter he tells us what he means by this Ecclesiastical tradition Quod ubique quod semper ab omnibus creditum est that which hath Antiquity Vniversality and Consent joyning in the belief of it And can any new Definitions of the Church pretend to all or any of these He after enquires what is to be done in case a particular Church separates it self from the communion of the Catholick He answers We ought to prefer the health of the whole body before any pestiferous or corrupted member But in case any Novel Contagion should spread over not a part only but endanger the whole Church then saith he a man must adhere to Antiquity which cannot be deceived with a pretence of Novelty But if in Antiquity we find out the errour of two or three particular Persons or City or Province what is then to be done then saith he the Decrees of General Councils are to be preferred But in case there be none then he adds The general consent of the most approved writers of the Church is to be enquired after and what they all with one consent openly frequently constantly held writ and taught that let every man look on himself as bound to believe without hesitation Now then prove but any one of the new Articles of Faith in the Tridentine Confession by these rules of Vincentius and it will appear that you have produced his Testimony to some purpose else nothing will be more strong and forcible against all your pretences than this discourse of Vincentius is which he inlarges by the examples of the Donatists Arrians and others in the following Chapters in which still his scope is to assert Antiquity and condemn all Novelties in matters of Faith under any pretext whatsoever For this ch 12 14. he cites a multitude of Texts of Scripture forbidding our following any other Doctrine but what was delivered by Christ and his Apostles and Anathematizing all such as such as should Preach any other Gospel and concludes that with this remarkable speech It never was never is never will be lawful to propose any thing as matter of Faith to Christian Catholicks besides what they have received And it was is and will be becoming Christians to Anathematize all such who declare any thing but what they have received Do you think this man was not of your minde in the Doctrine of Fundamentals could he do otherwise then believe it in the Churches power to define things necessary to Salvation who would have all those Anathematized who pretend to declare any thing as matter of Faith but what they received as such from their Ancestours And after he hath at large exemplified this in the Photinian Nestorian Apollinarian Heresies and shewed how little the Authority of private Doctors how excellent soever is to be relyed on in matters of faith he concludes again with this Whatsoever the Catholick Church held universally that and that alone is to be held by particular persons And after admires at the madness blindness perverseness of those who are not contented with the once delivered and ancient rule of Faith but are still seeking new things and alwaies are itching to add alter take away some thing of Religion or matter of Faith As though that were not a Heavenly Doctrine which may suffice to be once revealed but an earthly institution which cannot be perfect but by continual correction and amendment Is not this man now a fit person to explain the sense of your Churches new Definitions and Declarations in matters of Faith And have not you hit very right on this sense of Dogma when here he understands by it that Doctrine of Faith which is not capable of any addition or alteration And thus we understand sufficiently what he means by the present controverted place that if men reject any part of the Catholick Doctrine they may as well refuse another and another till at last they reject all By the Catholick Doctrine or Catholicum dogma there he means the same with the Coeleste dogma before and by both of them understands that Doctrine of Faith which was once revealed by God and which is capable of no addition at all having Antiquity Vniversality and Consent going along with it and when you can prove that this Catholicum dogma doth extend beyond those things which his Lordship calls Catholick Maxims or properly Fundamental Truths you will have done something to the purpose which as yet you have failed in And thus we say Vincentius his rule is good though we do not say that he was infallible in the application of it but that he might mention some such things to
in charging him with a threefold falsification of Vincentius Lerinensis The second thing which his Lordship answers is That all determinations of the Church are not made firm to us by one and the same Divine Revelation because some are made by Scripture and others as Stapleton saith without any evident or probable testimony of Holy writ though therein Bellarmine falls quite off and confesses in express terms that nothing can be certain by certainty of Faith unless it be contained immediately in the Word of God or be deduced thence by evident consequence Your only design here is to vindicate your two great Champions from contradicting each other which though it be of little consequence to the main Assertion of his Lordship which you knew well enough and therefore carefully avoid the main Charge of your enemy to part two of your quarrelling friends yet since you intend this for a tryal of your skill we must see how well you play your Prize Stapleton you say means that we must submit to the determinations of the Church and the traditions she approves though they be not expresly contained in Scripture Excellently well guessed at Stapletons meaning when the very words you cite out of him are We ought not to deny our assent in matters of Faith though we have them only by tradition or the decisions of the Church against Hereticks and not confirmed with evident or probable testimony of Scripture What a rare Interpreter are you grown since your acquaintance with Rider and other English Lexicons Who make not denying assent in matters of Faith to be the same with submitting to the Churches Determinations when you know well enough we plead for submission to the Churches Determinations where there may be a liberty as to internal assent and it is as good to make no evident or probable testimony of Scripture the same with not being expresly contained in Scripture as though nothing which was not expresly contained in Scripture could have any probable testimony from thence And from this we may guess what an easie matter it is for you to accommodate all persons who differ if one sayes Yes and the other No you will tell them they do not differ but that one of them by Yes means No and the other by No means Yes Just so here you reconcile Stapleton and Bellarmine for you say Stapleton by no probable testimony means some kind of probable testimony viz. such as though not express may be yet deduced from Scripture and Bellarmine when he speaks of Gods written Word as the ground of certainty means that which is neither Gods Word nor yet written viz. Tradition I never met with one who had a better faculty of reconciling than you seem to have by this attempt But his Lordship had prevented this subterfuge as to Bellarmine and Stapleton as if Stapleton spake of the Word of God written and Bellarmine of the Word of God unwritten as he calls Tradition For Bellarmine saith he there treats of the knowledge which a man hath of the certainty of his own Salvation And I hope A. C. will not tell us there 's any Tradition extant unwritten by which particular men may have assurance of their several Salvations Therefore Bellarmine 's whole Disputation there is quite beside the matter Or else he must speak of the written Word and so lye cross to Stapleton as is mentioned You tell us This Reason is very strange but I dare say yours exceeds it in strangeness which is because Bellarmines design was to shew there was no such unwritten Tradition to be found But doth Bellarmine dispute against any body or no body If he disputes against any body upon your principles those whom he disputes against must be such who assert that men may have certainty of Faith concerning their Salvation from Tradition and you would do well to tell us Who those were that pretended that there was a Tradition or unwritten word delivered down from the Apostles that they should be saved And though Bellarmine was not to affirm this yet those he disputed against upon your Principles must be supposed to do it But certainly you thought none of your Readers did ever intend to look into Bellarmine for the place in Controversie for if they did nothing could be more plain than that Bellarmines reason against Catharinus and others proceeds wholly and only upon the written Word For 1. When he saith that Nothing can be certain with the certainty of Faith but what is either immediately contained in the Word of God or may be deduced thence by evident consequence because Faith can rest on nothing but the authority of Gods Word he adds That of this Principle neither the Catholicks nor the Hereticks doubt But I pray do those whom Bellarmine there calls Hereticks acknowledge the unwritten Word as a foundation for certainty of Faith in the Case Disputed therefore it is plain he speaks exclusively of a written Word 2. When he mentions the Assumption he evidently explains himself of the written Word for saith he There is no such Proposition contained in the Word of God that such and such a particular person is justified for there are none mentioned therein save Mary Magdalen and a certain Paralytick of whom it is said their sins are forgiven them Caeteri homines in sacris literis nè nominantur quidem And will Rider and your other good friends the English Lexicons help you to interpret Sacrae literae by unwritten Traditions Could any one that had either any common sense left in him or else had not a design most grosly to impose on his Readers offer to perswade men that Bellarmine could here understand the Word of God in a sense common to Scripture and Tradition If you can prove that Bellarmine saith otherwise elsewhere you are so far from reconciling Bellarmine and Stapleton that you will not easily reconcile Bellarmine to himself The remainder of this Chapter either refers to something to be handled afterwards as the Infallibility of the Church and Councils or else barely repeats what hath been discussed already concerning your sense of Fundamentals and therefore I dare not presume so far on the Reader 's patience as to give him the same things over and over CHAP. IV. The Protestant Doctrine of Fundamentals vindicated The unreasonableness of demanding a Catalogue of Fundamentals The Creed contains the Fundamentals of Christian Communion The belief of Scripture supposed by it The Dispute concerning the Sense of Christ's Descent into Hell and Mr. Rogers his Book confessed by T. C. impertinent With others of the same nature T. C ' s fraud in citing his Lordships words Of Papists and Protestants Vnity The Moderation of the Church of England compared with that of Rome Her grounds of Faith justified Infant-Baptism how far proved out of Scripture alone THis Chapter begins with a very pertinent Question as you call it we might the easier believe it to be so because it is
c. Can any thing be more plain and obvious to any one who looks into that discourse of Vincentius than that he makes it not his business to give an account of the general Foundations of Faith as to the Scriptures being Gods Word but of the particular Doctrines of Faith in opposition to the Heresies which arise in the Church So that all that he speaks concerning Scripture is not about the authority but the sense and interpretation of it If therefore I should grant you that he speaks of Christian and Divine Faith What is this to your purpose unless you could prove that he speaks of that Divine Faith whereby we believe the Scripture to be the Word of God But yet your argument is very good to prove that he speaks not of any humane fallible perswasion but true Christian Divine Faith for he opposes it to Heresie and calls it sound Faith and his Faith It seems then whatever Faith is sound for the matter of it is presently Christian Divine and Infallible and so whosoever believes any thing which is materially true in opposition to Heresies needs never fear as long as he doth so for according to you he hath Christian and Infallible Faith but what if the Devils Faith be as sound as any Catholicks ' Must it therefore be Divine Faith No it may be you will answer because he wants the formal object of Faith and doth not believe on the account of your Churches Infallibility I verily believe you for he knows the jugglings of it too much to believe it infallible But take Vincentius in what sense you please that is evident in him which his Lordship produced him for that for the preserving Faith entire he places authority of Scripture first and then Tradition unless you will serve his Testimony as you do his Lordships because it makes for your purpose say He mentions Tradition first and then Scripture but say you He sayes Tradition doth as truly confirm Divine Faith as Scripture though Scripture doth it in a higher manner If you did but consider either what kind of Tradition or what kind of Faith Vincentius insists on you could not possibly think his words any thing to your purpose For he speaks not of any Tradition infallibly attested to us without which you pretend there can be no Divine Faith but of such an Vniversal Tradition which depends wholly upon Antiquity Vniversality and Consent and never so much as mentions much less pretends to any thing of Infallibility So that if you grant such a kind of Tradition doth as truly confirm Faith as the Scripture then you must grant no necessity of an Infallible Testimony to assure us of that Tradition for Vincentius speaks of such a kind of Tradition as hath no connexion with Infallibility For if Vincentius had ever in the least thought of any such thing so great and zealous an opposer of Heresies would not have left out that which had been more to his purpose than all that he had said For wise men who have throughly considered of Vincentius his way though in general they cannot but approve of it so far as to think it highly improbable that there should be Antiquity Vniversality and Consent against the true and genuine sense of Scripture yet when they consider this way of Vincentius with all those cautions restrictions and limitations set down by him â 1. c. 39. they are apt to think that he hath put men to a wild-goose-chase to finde out any thing according to his Rules and that S. Augustine spake a great deal more to the purpose when he spake concerning all the Writers of the Church That although they had never so much learning and sanctity he did not think it true because they thought so but because they perswaded him to believe it true either from the Authority of Scripture or some probable Reason If therefore S. Austin's Authority be not sunk so low as that of the Monk of Lerins we have very little reason to think that Tradition can as truly confirm Faith to us as the Scriptures supposing that to have been the meaning of Vincentius Which yet is not reasonable to imagine since Vincentius himself grants that in case of inveterate Heresie or Schism either the sole Authority of Scripture is to be used or at most the determinations of General Councils nay and in all cases doth suppose that the Canon of Scripture is perfect and is abundantly sufficient of it self for all things Can you yet therefore suppose that Vincentius did think that Tradition did as truly confirm our Faith as the Scripture Which is your assertion and the only thing whereby you pretend that the Bishop hath misconstrued Vincentius but whether be more guilty of it I leave to impartial judgement The next Testimony you consider is that of Henricus à Gandavo For his Lordship had said That the School had confessed this was the way ever For which he cites the Testimony of that Schoolman That daily with them that are without Christ enters by the woman i. e. the Church and they believe by that fame which she gives alluding to the story of the woman of Samaria But when they come to hear Christ himself they believe His words before the words of the woman For when they have once found Christ they do more believe his words in Scripture than they do the Church which testifies of him because then propter illam for the Scripture they believe the Church And if the Church should speak contrary to the Scripture they would not believe it Thus saith his Lordship the School taught then No that did it not say you But let us see how rarely you prove it For you say he speaks all this of a supernatural and Divine Faith to be given both to the Scriptures and the Church Gandavensis certainly is much obliged to you who venture to speak such great Absurdities for his sake for if he be understood in both places of Divine and Infallible Faith these rare consequences follow 1. That the first beginning of Faith is equal to the highest degree of it for when he speaks of the Church he speaks of Christs entring by that which can be meant of nothing else but the first step to Faith as is plain in the parallel case of the woman of Samaria but if this were Divine and Infallible it must be equal to the highest degree for that I suppose can be but Divine and Infallible unless you can find out degrees in Infallibility By this Rule you make him that is but over the threshold as much in the house as he that is sate down to the Table a plant at its first peeping out of the earth to be as tall as at its full growth and the Samaritans as firmly to believe in Christ at the first mention of him by the Woman as when they saw and heard him 2. By this you make an Infallible Faith to be built on a Fallible
looked on nothing else as a Foundation for their definitions but the written word of God then the Council of Trent did not proceed legally in offering to define matters of Faith on such grounds which were not acknowledged by the Primitive Church to be sufficient Foundation for such Definitions Cardinal Cusanus at large gives an account of the method of proceeding in the Ancient General Councils and therein tells us not only that the Word of God was placed in the middle among those who sate in Council but gives this as the only Rule of their proceeding quòd secundum testimonia Scripturarum decrevit Synodus that they decreed according to the testimonies of Scripture Now if another Council shall go according to a different Rule from what the Church hath esteemed the only true and adaequate Foundation for definition of Faith that Council breaks the inviolable Laws of Councils and therefore its proceedings cannot be legal As for Instance Supposing a Parliament not to have power to make new Laws but to declare only what is Law and what not for that is all you pretend to as to General Councils and that all other former Parliaments have all along professed this to be their Rule viz. that they search into the body of the Laws and if any thing be controverted Whether it be a Law or no they make a diligent search into it and examine all circumstances concerning it for their own satisfaction and according to the evidence they find of its being contained in this body of Laws they declare themselves but many things growing much in use among a prevailing party which have no colour of being in the written Laws but yet tend much to the Interest of that party and these being opposed by such who stand up for the ancient and known Laws the other are forced to make use of as good an Expedient as they can to preserve their interest and credit together To which end they pack together a company of such who are most concerned to maintain the things in Question and among these the great Innovator sits as President among them and suffers none to come there but such as are obliged by Oath to speak nothing against his Interest and these when met together seeing how unable they are to manage their business according to former Precedents the first thing they do is to declare That customs and usages have as much the force of Laws among them as any contained in the body of them and having established this their Rule according to it they decree all the matters in difference to be true and real Laws Would any man say That these men proceeded legally who first make the Foundation they are to go on contrary to all former Precedents and then define according to that Yet this in all particulars is exactly the case of the Council of Trent but the last part is that we are now about that they should contrary to the proceedings of all General Councils in matters of Faith first make their Rule and then bind all men to all those Decrees which are made according to it And therefore though the Council of Trent may be thought to act wisely in advancing Traditions to an equality with Scripture in the first place yet he must have a great deal of confidence and little judgement who say's that in decreeing matters of Faith from Tradition it acted legally i. e. according to the rules of the undoubted General Councils I cannot therefore say whether you have more of the one or less of the other when you tell us without offering to prove it That the Council did not proceed in a different manner from other lawful General Councils whil'st she grounded her definitions partly on Scripture partly on Tradition even in matters not deducible by any particular or Logical Inference from Scripture The absurdity of which Doctrine in it self I have at large discovered already in our discourse of the Resolution of Faith where it is shewed in what sense his Lordship say's That Apostolical Tradition is the Word of God But that this was a legal way of proceeding in the Council of Trent to define matters of Faith by such Traditions as have no ground in Scripture had need be better proved than by your bare Affirmation And if that be a Tradition too I am sure it is one that is neither contained in nor deducible from the Scripture 2. His Lordship justly excepts against the Council of Trent from the Popes sitting as President in it For saith he Is that Council legal where the Pope the chief person to be reformed shall sit President in it and be chief Judge in his own cause against all Law Divine Natural and Humane To this you return an Answer both to the matter of Right and the matter of Fact To the matter of Right you say That the Pope not being justly accusable of any crime but such as must involve not only the Council but the whole Church as well as himself the Protestants had no just cause to quarrel with the Popes presiding in it Nay that it is conformable to all Law Divine Natural and Humane that the Head should preside over the members and to give Novellists liberty to decline the Popes judgement or the judgement of any other their lawful Superiours upon pretence of their being parties is in effect to exempt absolutely such people from all legal censure and to grant there is no sufficient means effectually to govern the Church or condemn Heresie Schism and other offences against Religion But is it not unanswerable on the other side that this plea of yours makes it impossible that the errours and corruptions of a Church should be reformed in case the Governours of the Church do abett and maintain them If you say That it is not possible the Governours of the Church should do so we have nothing but your bare word for it and reason and experience manifest the contrary In case then there be a vehement presumption at least in a considerable party of the Church that the Church is much degenerated and needs reformation but those who call themselves the lawful Superiours of the Church utterly oppose it What is to be done in this case must the Church continue as it did meerly because the Superiours make themselves parties Nay suppose that which you would call Idolatry be in the Church and the Pope and a Council of his packing declare for it must there be no endeavours of a Reformation but by them who pronounce all Hereticks who oppose them But you say The Head must preside over the members an excellent Argument to defend all usurpations both in Church and State for doubtless they who are in power will call themselves the Heads of all others if that will secure them from any danger But this will exempt them from all legal censure so will your principles all Governours of the Church though guilty of Heresie Blasphemy Idolatry or what crime
might satisfie for the temporary punishment of sin and be translated out of that state to the Kingdom of Heaven And thence although in the Bull of Vnion published by Eugenius 4. at the concluding the Florentine Council no more was concluded than that those penitents who departed this life before they had satisfied for their former sins by worthy fruits of pennance should have their souls purged after death poenis purgatoriis with purgatory punishments yet Marcus Eugenicus utterly refused to subscribe it thus which certainly he would never have done if all the Controversie had been only Whether the fire were real or metaphorical And the whole Greek Church utterly refused those terms of union and therefore Alphonsus à Castro recounts the denying Purgatory among the errours of the Greeks The Greeks indeed do not believe that any souls enjoy the beatifical Vision before the day of Judgement and on that account they allow of prayer for the dead notwith any respect to a deliverance of souls out of purgatory but to the participation of their happiness at the great Day But there is a great deal of difference between this Opinion and that of your Church for they believe all souls of believers to be in expectation of the final Judgement but without any temporary punishment for sin or any release from that punishment by the prayers of the living which your Church asserts and is the proper state of the Question concerning Purgatory Which is not Whether there be any middle state wherein the souls of the Faithful may continue in expectation of the final consummation of their happiness at the great day nor Whether it be lawful in that sense for the Church on earth to pray for departed souls in order to their final justification at the day of Judgment or in St. Pauls language That God would have mercy on them in that day but Whether there be such a state wherein the souls of men undergo a temporary punishment for sin the guilt being pardoned out of which they may be released by the prayers of the living and translated from Purgatory to the Kingdom of Heaven before the day of Resurrection This is the true state of the Question between us and the Church of Rome and now we come to examine Whether your Doctrine concerning Purgatory be either an Article of Faith or Apostolical Tradition which how confidently so ever you may assert we shall find your confidence built on very little reason Which we may the easier believe since there are so many among your selves who do not think themselves obliged to own this Doctrine of your Church concerning Purgatory Nay we have not only the confession of several of your party that your Doctrine of Purgatory was not known in the Primitive Church as Alphonsus à Castro Roffensis Polydore c. and of others that it cannot be sufficiently proved from Scripture as Petrus â Soto Perionius Bulenger whose testimonies are produced by others but there are some persons of note among you who have expresly denied the Doctrine it self and confuted the pretended reasons which are given for it Petrus Picherellus saith There is no fuel to be found in Scripture either to kindle or maintain the fire of Purgatory and which afterwards he largely disproves in his excellent Discourse de Missâ Father Barns acknowledges That the punishment of souls in Purgatory is a thing which lyes meerly in humane opinion which cannot be firmly deduced from Scriptures Fathers or Councils Yea saith he with submission to better judgements the opposite opinion seems more agreeable to them But later then these you cannot but know Who it is here at home that hath not only pull'd down the superstructure but raced the very Foundations of your Doctrine of Purgatory in his discourse de medio Animarum statu wherein he professedly disproves the Doctrine of your Church though he is loath to own it to be so in this particular and shews at large that it hath no foundation at all either in Scripture Antiquity or Reason But if your Doctrine of Purgatory be to be believed as an Article of Faith and Apostolical Tradition if any be How come these differences among your selves about it How comes that Authour not to be answered and his reasons satisfied But if you be not agreed among your selves What this Article of Faith is you are most unreasonable men to tell us We are as much bound to believe it as the Trinity or Incarnation We ask you What it is we are bound to believe You tell us according to the sense of your Church The punishment of souls in a future state out of which they may be delivered by the prayers of the Faithful and translated into the Kingdom of Heaven Another he denies all this and saith We are in effect only bound to believe That faithful souls do not enjoy their full happiness till the resurrection and that there is no deliverance at all out of any state in which mens souls are after death till the day of Judgement and that the prayers of the Church only respect that Day but that the former Doctrine is so far from being an Article of Faith that it is contrary to Scripture Antiquity and Reason If such a state of expectation wherein faithful souls are at rest but according to different degrees of grace which they had at their departure hence and look for the day of Resurrection when they shall have a perfect consummation of their bliss were all the Purgatory which your Church asserted the breach might be far nearer closing as to this Article than now it is For although we find some particular persons ready to give a fair and tolerable sense of your Doctrine herein yet we cannot be ignorant that the General apprehension and sense of your Church is directly contrary and those persons who have discovered the freedom of their judgements as to this and other particulars know how much it concerns them to keep a due distance from Rome if they would preserve the freedom of their persons But you are not one of those that hath cause for any such fears for what ever Bellarmin saith you are ready to swear to it and accordingly set your self to the defence of Purgatory upon his principles which are far more suitable to the Doctrine of your Church than to Scripture or Antiquity But because this Controversie is not managed between his Lordship and you about the sense of the Scripture but the Fathers concerning it I must therefore enquire Whether your Doctrine of Purgatory were ever owned by the Fathers as an Article of Faith or Apostolical Tradition And that I may the more fully clear it before I come to examine your proofs for it I shall lay down some general considerations 1. Nothing ought to be looked on as an Article of Faith among the Fathers but what they declare that they believe on the account of Divine Revelation As to all other things which
he ever speak so concerning the Trinity or the Incarnation of Christ which you parallel with Purgatory What would men have thought of him if he had said of either of those Articles It is not incredible they may be true and it may be enquired into whether they be or no Whatever then St. Austins private opinion was we see he delivers it modestly and doubtfully not obtruding it as an Article of Faith or Apostolical Tradition if any be And the very same he repeats in his Answer to the first Question of Dulcitius so that this was all that ever he asserted as to this Controversie What you offer to the contrary from other places of St. Austin shall be considered in its due place 4. Where any of the Fathers build any Doctrine upon the sense of doubtful places of Scripture we have no further reason to believe that Doctrine then we have to believe that it is the meaning of those places So that in this case the enquiry is taken off from the judgement of the Fathers and fixed upon the sense of the Scriptures which they and we both rely upon For since they pretend themselves to no greater evidence of the truth of the Doctrine then such places do afford it is the greatest reason that the argument to perswade us be not the testimony of the Father but the evidence of the place it self Unless it be evident some other way that there was an universal Tradition in the Church from the Apostles times concerning it and that the only design of the Father was to apply some particular place to it But then such a Tradition must be cleared from something else besides the sense of some ambiguous places of Scripture and that Tradition manifested to be Vniversal both as to time and place These things being premised I now come particularly to examine the evidence you bring That all the Fathers both Greek and Latin did constantly teach Purgatory from the Apostles times and consequently that it must be held for an Apostolical Tradition or nothing can be And as you follow Bellarmin in your way of proving it so must I follow you and he divides his proofs you say into two ranks First Such who affirm prayer for the dead 2. Such who in the successive ages of the Church did expresly affirm Purgatory First with those who affirm prayer for the dead Which you say doth necessarily infer Purgatory whatever the Bishop vainly insinuates to the contrary The Question then between us is Whether that prayer for the dead which was used in the ancient Church doth necessarily inferr that Purgatory was then acknowledged This you affirm for say you If there were no other place or condition of being for departed souls but either Heaven or Hell surely it were a vain thing to pray for the dead especially to pray for the remission of their sins or for their refreshment ease rest relaxation of their pains as Ancients most frequently do From whence you add that Purgatory is so undenyably proved that the Relator finding nothing himself sufficient to Answer was forced to put us off to the late Primate of Armagh 's Answer to the Jesuits Challenge Which you say You have perused and find only there that the Authour proves that which none of you deny viz. That the prayers and commemorations used for the dead had reference to more souls than those in Purgatory But you attempt to prove That the nature and kind of those prayers do imply that they were intended for other ends than meerly that the body might be glorified as well as the soul and to praise God for the final happy end of the deceased Whereas that Answerer of the Jesuite would you say by his allegations insinuate to the Reader a conceit that it was used only for those two reasons and no other Which you say you must needs avouch to be most loudly untrue and so manifestly contrary to the Doctrine and practise of the Fathers as nothing can be more A high charge against two most Reverend and learned Primates together against the one as not being able to Answer and therefore turning it off to the other against the other for publishing most loud untruths instead of giving a true account of the grounds of the Churches practise It seems you thought it not honour enough to overcome one unless you led the other in triumph also but you do neither of them but only in your own fancy and imagination And never had you less cause to give out such big words then here unless it were to amuse the spectatours that they might not see how you fall before them For it was not the least distrust of his sufficiency to Answer which made his Lordship to put it oft to the Primate of Armagh but because he was prevented in it by him Who as he truly saith had very learnedly and at large set down other reasons which the Ancients gave for prayer for the dead without any intention to free them from Purgatory Which are not only different from but inconsistent with the belief of Purgatory for the clearing of which and vindicating my Lord Primate from your calumnies rather then answers it will be necessary to give a brief account of his Discourse on that subject He tells us therefore at first That we are here prudently to distinguish the Original institution of the Church from the private opinions of particular Doctors which waded further herein then the general intendment of the Church did give them warrant Now he evidently proves that the memorials oblations and prayers made for the dead at the beginning had reference to such as rested from their labours and not unto any souls which were thought to be tormented in that Vtopian Purgatory whereof there was no news stirring in those dayes This he gathers first by the practise of the ancient Christians laid down by the Authour of the Commentaries on Job who saith The memorials of the Saints were observed as a memorial of rest to the souls departed and that they therein rejoyced for their refreshing St. Cyprian saith they offered Sacrifices for them whom he acknowledgeth to have received of the Lord Palms and Crowns and in the Authour of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy the party deceased is described by him to have departed this life replenished with Divine joy as now not fearing any change to worse being come unto the end of all his labours and publickly pronounced to be a happy man and admitted into the society of the Saints and yet the Bishop prayes that God would forgive him all his sins he had committed through humane infirmity and bring him into the light and band of the living into the bosoms of Abraham Isaac and Jacob into the place from whence pain and sorrow and sighing flyeth And Saint Chrysostom shews that the funeral Ordinances of the Church were appointed to admonish the living that the parties deceased were in a state of joy and not of grief and
decrying the use of those things which should discover their falsity For although the judgement of sense were that which the Apostles did appeal to that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you although that were the greatest and surest evidence to them of the Resurrection of Christ although Christ himself condemned them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen yet according to your Principles men must have a care of relying on the judgement of sense in matters of Faith lest perchance they should not believe that great Affront to humane Nature the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Neither are men only deprived of the judgement of sense but of the concurrent use of Scripture and Reason for these are pretended to be uncertain fallible nay dangerous without the Churches Infallibility So that the short of your grounds of establishing Faith is If we will find our way we must renounce the judgement of sense and reason submit our selves and Scripture to an Infallible Guide and then you tell us we cannot miss of our way when it is impossible for us to know our Guide without the use of those things which we are bid to renounce These things laid together make us admire more at your confidence than invention in making the current title of your Book to be Dr. Lawd's Labyrinth in which it is hard to say whether your immodesty or blindness be the greater But as though you were the only Heroes for asserting the Christian Cause and all others but more subtle betrayers of it you begin your Book with a most ingenious comparison of the learned labours of those of your Church to the stately Temple of Solomon and the artificial but pestiferous works of all Heretical Authors i. e. all but your selves to Labyrinths and intricate Dungeons In which only your discretion is to be commended in placing this at the entrance of your Book for whosoever looks but further into it and compares it with that you pretend to answer will not condemn the choice of your Similitudes but your forgetfulness in misapplying them But it matters not what titles you give to the books of our Authors unless you were better able to confute them and if no other book of any late Protestant Writer hath been any more discovered to be of this intangling nature than this of his Lordship whom you call our grand Author is by you you may very justly say of them as you do in the next words they are very liable to the same Reproach In which we commend your ingenuity that when you had so lately disparaged our Authors and Writings you so suddenly wipe off those Aspersions again by giving them the deserved name of Reproaches When you say his Lordships Book is most artificially composed we have reason to believe so fair a Testimony from a professed Adversary but when notwithstanding this you call it a Labyrinth we can interpret it only as a fair plea for your not being able to answer it And who can blame you for calling that a Labyrinth in which you have so miserably lost your self but in pity to you and justice to the cause I have undertaken I shall endeavour with all kindness and fairness to reduce you out of your strange entanglements into the plain and easie paths of Truth which I doubt not to effect by your own Clew of Scripture and Tradition by which you may soon discover what a Labyrinth you were in your self when you had thought to have made directive Marks as you call them for others to avoid it To omit therefore any further preface I shall wait upon you to particulars the first of which is the Occasion of the Conference which you say was for the satisfaction of an honourable Lady who having heard it granted in a former Conference that there must be a continual visible company ever since Christ teaching unchanged doctrine in all points necessary to salvation and finding it seems in her own reason that such a company or Church must not be fallible in its teaching was in quest of a Continual Visible Infallible Church as not thinking it fit for unlearned persons to judge of particular doctrinals but to depend on the judgement of the true Church The Question then was not concerning a Continual and Visible Church which you acknowledge was granted but concerning such a Church as must be infallible in all she teaches and if she be infallible according to your doctrine of Fundamentals whatever she teaches is necessary to salvation which that Lady thought necessary to be first determined because saith Mr. Fisher It was not for her or any other unlearned persons to take upon them to judge of particulars without depending upon the judgement of the true Church which seeming to allow of some use of our own judgement supposing the Churches Authority you pervert into these words Not thinking it fit to judge c. but to depend c. But let them be as they will unless you gave greater reason for them it is not material which way they pass For his Lordship had returned a sufficient Answer to that pretence which you are content to take no notice of in saying That it is very fit the people should look to the judgement of the Church before they be too busie with particulars But yet neither Scripture nor any good Authority denyes them some moderate use of their own understanding and judgement especially in things familiar and evident which even ordinary capacities may as easily understand as read And therefore some particulars a Christian may judge without depending To which you having nothing to say run post to the business of Infallibility for when it was said The Lady desired to rely on an Infallible Church therein his Lordship says neither the Jesuite nor the Lady her self spake very advisedly For an Infallible Church denotes a particular Church in that it is set in opposition to some other particular Church that is not infallible Here now you begin your discoveries for you tell us he makes this his first crook in his projected Labyrinth which is apparent to any man that has eyes even without the help of a Perspective As seldome as Perspectives are used to discern the turns of Labyrinths nothing is so apparent as that your eyes or your judgement were not very good when you used this expression For I pray what crook or turn is there in that when a Lady demanded an Infallible Church to her guide to say that by that question she supposeth some particular Church as distinct from and opposite to others to be infallible No say you she sought not any one particular Church infallible in opposition to another Church not infallible but some Church such as might without danger of errour direct her in all doctrinal points of Faith Rarely well distinguish'd Not any particular Church but some particular Church For if
that it were a needless task to repeat them who so unanimously assert the sufficiency unalterableness and perfection of that Faith which is contained in the Creed making it the summe of all necessary Doctrines the Foundation of the Catholick Faith and of the Church the first and sole Confession of Evangelical Doctrine Of all which and many more expressions to the same purpose produced not only by our Writers but by yours too no tolerable sense can be made without asserting that whatever was judged necessary to be believed by all by the Catholick Church of that Age they lived in or before them was therein contained Besides what account can be given why any such Summaries of Faith should at all be made either by Apostles or Apostolical persons but only for that end that necessary Articles of Faith might be reduced into such a compass as might become portable to the weakest capacities If the rise of Creeds were as most probable it was from the things propounded to the Catechumens to be believed in order to Baptism can we reasonably think that any thing judged necessary to be believed should be left out If the Apostolical Creed be a summary comprehension of that Form of sound Doctrine which the Apostles delivered to all Christians at their first conversion as it is generally supposed either we must think the Apostles unfaithful in their work or the Creed an unfaithful account of their Doctrine or that such things which were supposed universally necessary to be believed are therein comprehended Which is sufficient for my purpose that nothing ought to be looked on as a necessary Article of Faith or was so esteemed by the Catholick Church which is not contained in the Ancient Creeds 2. Nothing ought to be judged a necessary Article of Faith but what was universally believed by the Catholick Church to be delivered as such by Christ or his Apostles So that it is not the judgement but the testimony of the Catholick Church which must be relyed on and that testimony only when universal as delivering what was once infallibly delivered by Christ or his Apostles From whence it follows that any one who will undertake to make out any thing as a necessary Article of Faith by Catholick Tradition meerly must do these things 1. He must make it appear to be universally embraced at all times and in all places by such who were members of the Catholick Church 2. That none ever opposed it but he was presently disowned as no member of the Catholick Church because opposing something necessary to Salvation 3. That it be delivered by all those Writers of the Church who give an account of the Faith of Christians or what was delivered by Christ and his Apostles to the Church 4. That it was not barely looked on as necessary to be believed by such as might be convinced it was of Divine Revelation but that it was deliver'd with a necessity of its being explicitly believed by all 5. That what is deliver'd by the consent of the Writers of the Catholick Church was undoubtedly the Consent of the Church of those ages 6. That all those Writers agree not only in the Belief of the thing it self but of the Necessity of it to all Christians 7. That no Writers or Fathers of succeeding Ages can be supposed to alter in the belief either of the matters believed before or the necessity of them 8. That no oppositions of Hereticks or heats of Contention could make them judge any Article so opposed to be more necessary than it was judged before that Contention or they themselves would have judged it had it not been so opposed 9. That when they affirm many Traditions to be Apostolical which yet varied in several Churches they could not affirm any Doctrine to be Apostolical which they were not universally agreed in 10. That when they so plainly assert the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a Rule of Faith they did yet believe something necessary to Salvation which was not contained therein When you or any one else will undertake to make good these conditions I shall then begin to believe that something may be made appear to be a necessary Article of Faith which is not clearly revealed in Scripture but not before but till then this Negative will suffice that nothing ought to be embraced as the judgement of the Church concerning a necessary Article of Faith but what appears to be clearly revealed in Scriture and universally embraced by the Catholick Church of all Ages 3. Nothing ought to be looked on as a necessary Article of Faith by the judgement of the Catholick Church the denyal of which was not universally opposed and condemned as Heresie For otherwise the Catholick Church was very little sensible of the honour of Christian Faith if it suffered dissenters in necessary things without putting a mark of dishonour upon them Therefore we may conclude that whatever was patiently born with in such as dissented from the generality of Christians especially if considerable persons in the Church were the authors or fomenters of such opinions however true the contrary Doctrine was supposed to be yet it was not supposed necessary because then the opposers would have been condemned of Heresie by some open act of the Catholick Church But if beyond these Negatives we would enquire what was positively believed as necessary to Salvation by the Catholick Church we shall hardly find any better way than by the Articles of the Ancient Creeds and the universal opposition of any new Doctrine on its firsts appearance and the condemning the broachers of it for Heresie in Oecumenical Councils with the continual disapprobation of those Doctrines by the Christian Churches of all Ages As is clear in the cases of Arrius and Pelagius For it seems very reasonable to judge that since the necessary Articles of Faith were all delivered by the Apostles to the Catholick Church since the foundation of that Church lyes in the belief of those things which are necessary that nothing should be delivered contrary to any necessary Article of Faith but the Church by some evident act must declare its dislike of it and its resolution thereby to adhere to that necessary Doctrine which was once delivered to the Saints And withall it seems reasonable that because Art and Subtilty may be used by such who seek to pervert the Catholick Doctrine and to wrest the plain places of Scripture which deliver it so far from their proper meaning that very few ordinary capacities may be able to clear themselves of such mists as are cast before their eyes the sense of the Catholick Church in succeeding ages may be a very useful way for us to embrace the true sense of Scripture especially in the great Articles of the Christian Faith As for instance in the Doctrine of the Deity of Christ or the Trinity though the subtilty of such Modern Hereticks who oppose either of these may so far prevail on persons either not of sufficient
judgement or not sufficiently versed in the Scriptures as at present to make them acknowledge the places are not so clear as they imagined them to be yet they being alwaies otherwise interpreted by the Catholick Church or the Christian Societies of all ages layes this potent prejudice against all such attempts as not to believe such interpretations true till they give a just account why if the belief of these Doctrines were not necessary the Christians of all ages from the Apostles times did so unanimously agree in them that when any began first to oppose them they were declared and condemned for Hereticks for their pains So that the Church of England doth very piously declare her consent with the Ancient Catholick Church in not admitting any thing to be delivered as the sense of Scripture which is contrary to the consent of the Catholick Church in the four first ages Not as though the sense of the Catholick Church were pretended to be any infallible Rule of interpreting Scripture in all things which concern the Rule of Faith but that it is a sufficient Prescription against any thing which can be alledged out of Scripture that if it appear contrary to the sense of the Catholick Church from the beginning it ought not to be looked on as the true meaning of the Scripture All this security is built upon this strong presumption that nothing contrary to the necessary Articles of Faith should he held by the Catholick Church whose very being depends upon the belief of those things which are necessary to Salvation As long therefore as the Church might appear to be truly Catholick by those correspondencies which were maintained between the several parts of it that what was refused by one was so by all so long this unanimous and uncontradicted sense of the Catholick Church ought to have a great sway upon the minds of such who yet profess themselves members of the Catholick Church From whence it follows that such Doctrines may well be judged destructive to the Rule of Faith which were so unanimously condemned by the Catholick Church within that time And thus much may suffice for the first Inquiry viz. What things are to be esteemed necessary either in order to Salvation or in order to Ecclesiastical Communion 2. Whether any thing which was not necessary to Salvation may by any means whatsoever afterwards become necessary so that the not believing it becomes damnable and unrepented destroyes Salvation We suppose the Question to proceed on such things as could not antecedently to such an act whereby they now become necessary be esteemed to be so either from the matter or from any express command For you in terms assert a necessity of believing distinct from the matter and absolute command and hath the Churches Definition for its formal object which makes the necessity of our Faith continually to depend upon the Churches Definition but this strange kind of Ambulatory Faith I shall now shew to be repugnant to the design of Christ and his Apostles in making known Christian Religion and to all evidence of Reason and directly contrary to the plain and uncontradicted sense of the Primitive and Catholick Church 1. It is contrary to the design of Christ and his Apostles in making known the Christian Religion to the world For if the design of Christ was to declare whatever was necessary to the Salvation of mankind if the Apostles were sent abroad for this very end then either they were very unfaithful in discharge of their trust or else they taught all things necessary for their Salvation and if they did so how can any thing become necessary which they did never teach Was it not the great Promise concerning the Messias that at his coming the Earth should be full of the Knowledge of the Lord as the Waters cover the Sea that then they shall all be taught of God Was not this the just expectation of the people concerning him That when he came he would tell them all things Doth not he tell his Disciples That all things I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you And for all this is there something still remaining necessary to Salvation which neither he nor his Disciples did ever make known to the world Doth not he promise Life and Salvation to all such as believe and obey his Doctrine And can any thing be necessary for eternal life which he never declared or did he only promise it to the men of that Age and Generation and leave others to the mercy of the Churches Definitions If this be so we have sad cause to lament our condition upon whom these heavy loyns of the Church are fallen how happy had we been if we had lived in Christs or the Apostles times for then we might have been saved though we had never believed the Pope's Supremacy or Transubstantiation or Invocation of Saints or Worshipping Images but now the case is altered these Milstones are now hung about our necks and how we shall swim to Heaven with them who knows How strangely mistaken was our Saviour when he said Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed For much more blessed certainly were they who did see him and believe in him for then he would undertake for their Salvation but now it seems we are out of his reach and turned over to the Merciless Infallibility of the present Church When Christ told his Disciples His yoke was easie and burden light he little thought what Power he had left in the Church to lay on so much load as might cripple mens belief were it not for a good reserve in a corner call'd Implicit Faith When he sent the Apostles to teach all that he commanded them he must be understood so that the Church hath power to teach more if she pleases and though the Apostles poor men were bound up by this commission and S. Peter himself too yet his Infallible Successors have a Paramount Priviledge beyond them all Though the Spirit was promised to the Apostles to lead them into all Truth yet there must be no incongruity in saying They understood not some necessary Truths for how should they when never revealed as Transubstantiation Supremacy c. Because though they never dreamt of such things yet the Infallible Church hath done it since for them and to say truth though the Apostles names were put into the promise yet they were but Feoffees in trust for the Church and the benefit comes to the Church by them For they were only Tutors to the Church in its minority teaching it some poor Rudiments of Christ and Heaven of Faith and Obedience c. But the great and Divine Mysteries of the seven Sacraments Indulgences Worship of Images Sacrifice of the Mass c. were not fit to be made known till the Church were at age her self and knew how to declare her own mind When S. Paul speaks so much of the great Mysteries hidden from Ages and Generations but
believe them this Divine Testimor is never pretended to be contained in the Creed but that it is only a summary Collection of the most necessary Points which God hath revealed and therefore something else must be supposed as the ground and formal reason why we assent to the truth of those things therein contained So that the Creed must suppose the Scripture as the main and only Foundation of believing the matters of Faith therein contained But say you If all the Scripture be included in the Creed there appears no great reason of scruple why the same should not be said of Traditions and other Points especially of that for which we admit Scripture it self But do you make no difference between the Scripture being supposed as the ground of Faith and all Scripture being contained in the Creed And doth not his Lordship tell you That though some Articles may be Fundamental which are infolded in the Creed it would not follow that therefore some unwritten Traditions were Fundamental for though they may have Authority and use in the Church as Apostolical yet are they not Fundamental in the Faith And as for that Tradition That the Books of Holy Scripture are Divine and Infallible in every part he promises to handle it when he comes to the proper place for it And there we shall readily attend what you have to object to what his Lordship saith about it But yet you say His Lordship doth not answer the Question as far as it was necessary to be answered we say he doth No say you For the Question arising concerning the Greek Churches errour whether it were Fundamental or no Mr. Fisher demanded of the Bishop What Points he would account Fundamental to which he answers That all Points contained in the Creed are such but yet not only they and therefore this was no direct Answer to the Question for though the Greeks errour was not against the Creed yet it may be against some other Fundamental Article not contained in the Creed This you call fine shuffling To which I answer That when his Lordship speaks of its not being Fundamentum unicum in that sense to exclude all things not contained in the Creed from being Fundamental he spake it with an immediate respect to the belief of Scripture as an Infallible Rule of Faith For saith he The truth is I said and say still That all the Points of the Apostles Creed as they are there expressed are Fundamental And herein I say no more than some of your best learned have said before me But I never said or meant that they only are Fundamental that they are Fundamentum unicum is the Council of Trent's 't is not mine Mine is That the belief of Scripture to be the Word of God and Infallible is an equal or rather a preceding Principle of Faith with or to the whole body of the Creed Now what reason can you have to call this shuffling unless you will rank the Greeks errour equal with the denying the Scripture to be the Word of God otherwise his Lordship's Answer is as full and pertinent as your cavil is vain and trifling His Lordship adds That this agrees with one of your own great Masters Albertus Magnus who is not far from the Proposition in terminis To which your Exceptions are so pitiful that I shall answer them without reciting them for he that supposeth the sense of Scripture joyned with the Articles of Faith to be the Rule of Faith as Albertus doth must certainly suppose the belief of the Scripture as the Word of God else how is it possible its sense should be the Rule of Faith Again it is not enough for you to say That he believed other Articles of Faith besides these in the Creed but that he made them a Rule of Faith together with the sense of Scripture 3. All this while here is not one word of Tradition as the ground on which these Articles of Faith were to be believed If this therefore be your way of answering I know none will contend with you for fine shuffling What follows concerning the right sense of the Article of the Descent of Christ into Hell since you say You will not much trouble your self about it as being not Fundamental either in his Lordships sense or ours I look on that expression as sufficient to excuse me from undertaking so needless a trouble as the examining the several senses of it since you acknowledge That no one determinate sense is Fundamental and therefore not pertinent to our business Much less is that which follows concerning Mr. Rogers his Book and Authority in which and that which depends upon it I shall only give you your own words for an Answer That truly I conceive it of small importance to spend much time upon this subject and shall not so far contradict my judgement as to do that which I think when it is done is to very little purpose Of the same nature is that of Catharinus for it signifies nothing to us whether you account him an Heretick or no who know Men are not one jot more or less Heretick for your accounting them to be so or not You call the Bishop your good friend in saying That all Protestants do agree with the Church of England in the main Exceptions which they joyntly take against the Roman Church as appears by their several Confessions For say you by their agreeing in this but in little or nothing else they sufficiently shew themselves enemies to the true Church which is one and only one by Vnity of Doctrine from whence they must needs be judged to depart by reason of their Divisions As good a friend as you say his Lordship was to you in that saying of his I am sure you ill requite him for his Kindness by so palpable a falsification of his words and abuse of his meaning And all that Friendship you pretend lyes only in your leaving out that part of the Sentence which takes away all that you build on the rest For where doth his Lordship say That the Protestants only agree in their main Exceptions against the Roman Church and not in their Doctrines Nay doth he not expresly say That they agree in the chiefest Doctrines as well as main Exceptions which they take against the Church of Rome as appears by their several Confessions But you very conveniently to your purpose and with a fraud suitable to your Cause leave out the first part of agreement in the chiefest Doctrines and mention only the latter lest your Declamation should be spoiled as to your Unity and our Disagreements But we see by this by what means you would perswade men of both by Arts and Devices fit only to deceive such who look only on the appearance and outside of things and yet even there he that sees not your growing Divisions is a great stranger to the Christian world Your great Argument of the Vnity of your party because
That the external accidents might remain where the substance was changed Now therefore when the Assurance of Christian Religion came from the judgement of the Senses of those who were Eye-witnesses of the Miracles and the Resurrection of Christ if the Senses of men may be so grosly deceived in the proper Objects of them in the case of Transubstantiation what assurance could they themselves have who were Eye-witnesses of them and how much less assurance can we have who have all our Evidence from the certainty of their report So that it appears upon the whole that take away the certainty of the judgement of Sense you destroy all Certainty in Religion for Tradition only conveys to us now what was originally grounded upon the judgement of Sense and delivers to us in an undoubted manner that which the Apostles saw and heard And do not you then give a very good account of Religion by the Infallibility of your Church when if I believe your Church to be infallible I must by vertue of that Infallibility believe something to be true which if it be true there can be no certainty at all of the Truth of Christian Religion 2. Another principle is That we can have no certainty of any of the grounds of Faith but from the Infallibility of your present Church Whereby you do these two things 1. Destroy the obligation to Faith which ariseth from the rational evidence of Christian Religion 2. Put the whole stress of the truth of Christianity upon the proofs of your Churches Infallibility by which things any one may easily see what tendency your doctrine of resolving Faith hath and how much it designs the overthrow of Christianity 1. You destroy the obligation to Faith from the rational evidence of Christian Religion by telling men as you do expresly in the very Title of your next Chapter That there can be no unquestionable assurance of Apostolical Tradition but for the infallible authority of the present Church If so then men cannot have any unquestionable assurance that there was such a Person as Christ in the world that he wrought such great miracles for confirmation of his Doctrine that he dyed and rose again it seems we can have no assurance of these things if the present Church be not Infallible And if we can have no assurance of them what obligation can lye upon us to believe them for assurance of the matters of fact which are the foundations of Faith is necessary in order to the obligation to believe I mean such an assurance as matters of fact are capable of for no higher can be required then the nature of things will bear And what a strange assertion then is this that matters of fact cannot be conveyed to us in an unquestionable manner unless the present Church stamp her Infallibility upon them Cannot we have an unquestionable assurance that there were such persons as Caesar and Pompey and that they did such and such things without some infallible testimony if we may in such things why not in other matters of fact which infinitely more concern the world to know then whatever Caesar or Pompey did But this will be more at large examined afterwards I only now take notice of the consequence of this principle and how fairly it destroyes all rational evidence of the truth of our Religion which whosoever takes away will be by force of reason a Sceptick in the first place and an Infidel in the second Neither is the danger meerly in destroying the rational evidence of Religion but 2. In putting the whole weight of Religion upon the proofs of the present Churches infallibility which whosoever considers how silly and weak they are cannot sufficiently wonder at the design of those men who put the most excellent Religion in the world and which is built upon the highest and truest reason to such a strange kind of Ordeal tryal that if she pass not through this St. Winifreds needle her innocency must be suspected and her truth condemned So that whosoever questions the truth of this kind of Purgation will have a greater suspition of a juggle and imposture if she be acquitted then if she had never submitted to such a tryal And when we come to examine the proofs brought for this Infallibility it will then further appear what uncertainty in Religion men are betrayed to under this confident pretext of Infallibility Thus we see what Scepticism in Religion the principles owned upon the account of Infallibility do bring men to 3. When you have brought men to this that the only sure ground of Faith is the Infallibility of your Church you are not able to give them any satisfactory account at all concerning it but plunge them into greater uncertainties then ever they were in before For you can neither satisfie them what that Church is which you suppose Infallible what in that Church is the proper subject of this Infallibility what kind of Infallibility this is nor how we should know when the Church doth decide Infallibly and when not and yet every one of these questions is no less then absolutely necessary to be resolved in order to the satisfaction of mens minds as to the foundation of their Faith 1. You cannot satisfie men What that Church is which you suppose to be Infallible Certainly if you had a design to give men a certain foundation for their Faith you would not be so shy of discovering what it is you understand by that Church which you would have Infallible if you had meant honestly the first thing you should have done was to have prevented all mistakes concerning the meaning of the Church when you know what various significations it hath not only in Scripture but among your selves Whether you mean the Church essential representative or vertual for every one of these upon occasion you make use of and it was never more necessary to have explained them then in this place and yet you with wonderful care and industry avoid any intimation of what you mean by that Church which you would prove Infallible When you plead so earnestly for the Churches Infallibility I pray tell us what you mean by the Church do you intend the truly Catholick and Vniversal Church which comprehends in it all such as own and profess the Doctrine of Christ in which sense it was well said by Abulensis Ecclesia universalis nunquam errat quia nunquam tota errat The universal Church never erres because the whole Church is never deceived Or do you mean by your Catholick Church some particular part of it to which you apply the name of Catholick not for Vniversality of extent but soundness of Doctrine then it will be necessary yet further to shew what part of the Church that is by what right and title that hath engrossed the name of Catholick so as to exclude other Societies of Christians from it and whether you must not first prove the absolute integrity and soundness of her Doctrine before
us still more evidence of your self-contradicting faculty for which we need no more than lay your words together Your words next before were If the Church should fall into errour it would be as much ascribed to God himself as in case of immediate Divine Revelation but here you add Neither is it necessary for us to affirm that the Definition of the Church is God's immediate Revelation as if the Definition were false God's Revelation must be also such It is enough for us to averr that God's Promise would be infringed as truly it would in that Supposition From which we may learn very useful instructions 1. That God's Promise may he infringed and yet God's Revelation not proved to be false But whence came that Promise Was it not a Divine Revelation if it was undoubtedly such Can such a Promise be false and not God's Revelation 2. That though if the Church erre God must be fallible yet for all this all God's Revelations may remain infallible 3. That though the only ground of Infallibility be the immediate Assistance of the Holy Ghost which gives as great an Infallibility as ever was in Prophets and Apostles yet we must not say That such an Infallibility doth suppose an immediate Revelation 4. That though God's Veracity would be destroyed if the Church should define any thing for a point of Catholick Faith which were not revealed from God which are your next words yet we are not to think if her Definition be false God's Revelation must be also such which are your words foregoing Those are excellent Corollaries to conclude so profound a discourse with And if the Bishop as you say had little reason to accuse you for maintaining a party I am sure I have less to admire you for your seeking Truth and what ever animosity you are led by I hope I have made it evident you are led by very little reason CHAP. VI. Of the Infallibility of Tradition Of the unwritten Word and the necessary Ingredients of it The Instances for it particularly examined and disproved The Fathers Rule for examining Traditions No unwritten Word the Foundation of Divine Faith In what sense Faith may be said to be Divine Of Tradition being known by its own light and the Canon of the Scripture The Testimony of the Spirit how far pertinent to this Controversie Of the use of reason in the resolution of Faith T. C ' s. Dialogue answered with another between himself and a Sceptick A twofold resolution of Faith into the Doctrine and into the Books Several Objections answered from the Supposition made of a Child brought up without sight of Scripture Christ no Ignoramus nor Impostor though the Church be not infallible T. C ' s. Blasphemy in saying otherwise The Testimonies of Irenaeus and S. Augustin examined and retorted Of the nature of infallible Certainty as to the Canon of Scripture and whereon it is grounded The Testimonies produced by his Lordship vindicated YOu begin this Chapter with as much confidence as if you had spoken nothing but Oracles in the foregoing Whether the Bishop or you were more hardly put to it let any indifferent Reader judge If he did as you say tread on the brink of a Circle we have made it appear notwithstanding all your evasions that you are left in the middle of it The reason of his falling on the unwritten Word is not his fear of stooping to the Church to shew it him and finally depend on her Authority but to shew the unreasonableness of your proceedings who talk much of an unwritten Word and are not able to prove any such thing If he will not believe any unwritten Word but what is shewn him delivered by the Prophets and Apostles I think he hath a great deal of reason for such incredulity unless you could shew him some assurance of any unwritten Word that did not come from the Apostles Though he desired not to read unwritten Words in their Books which is a wise Question you ask yet he reasonably requested some certain evidence of what you pretend to be so that he might not have so big a Faith as to swallow into his belief that every thing which his adversary saies is the unwritten Word is so indeed If it be not your desire he should we have the greater hopes of satisfaction from you but if you crave the indifferent Reader 's Patience till he hear reason from you I am afraid his patience will be tyred before you come to it But whatever it is it must be examined Though your discourse concerning this unwritten Word be as the rest are very confused and immethodical yet I conceive the design and substance of it lyes in these particulars as will appear in the examination of them 1. That there is an unwritten Word which must be believed by us containing such doctrinal Traditions as are warranted by the Church for Apostolical 2. That the ground of believing this unwritten Word is from the Infallibility of the Church which defines it to be so 3. That our belief of the Scriptures must be grounded on such an unwritten Word which is warranted by the Church under each of these I shall examine faithfully what belongs to them in your indigested discourse The first of these is taken from your own words where you tell us That our Ensurancer in the main Principle of Faith concerning the Scriptures being the Word of God is Apostolical Tradition and well may it be so for such Tradition declared by the Church is the unwritten Word of God And you after tell us That every Doctrine which any particular person may please to call Tradition is not therefore to be received as God's unwritten Word but such doctrinal Traditions only as are warranted to us by the Church for truly Apostolical which are consequently God's unwritten Word So that these three things are necessary ingredients of this unwritten Word 1. That it must be originally Apostolical and not only so but it must be of Divine Revelation to the Apostles too For otherwise it cannot be God's Word at all and therefore not his unwritten Word I quarrel not at all with you for speaking of an unwritten Word if you could prove it for it is evident to me that God's Word is no more so by being written or printed than if it were not so for the writing adds no Authority to the Word but only is a more certain means of conveying it to us It is therefore God's Word as it proceeds from him and that which is now his written Word was once his unwritten Word but however whatever is God's Word must come from him and since you derive the source of the unwritten Word from the Apostles whatever you call an unwritten Word you must be sure to derive its pedegree down from them So that insisting on that point of time when this was declared and owned for an unwritten Word you must be able to shew that it came from the Apostles otherwise it
obtruded without possibility of amendment of them excuse your Church from Imposture if you can for my part I cannot nor any one else who throughly considers it For the second it will follow indeed that the Testimony of your Church is as much as nothing as to any infallible Foundation of Faith but yet it may be of great use for conveying Vniversal Tradition to us and so by that delivering the Scripture into our hands as the infallible Rule of Faith To the third it by no means follows that there is nothing but the sole Letter of Scripture left to convince us of the Divine Authority of Scripture I hope the working Miracles fulfilling Prophecies the nature and reasonableness of the Doctrine of Scriptures are all left besides the bare letter of Scripture and these we say are sufficient to make us believe that the Scripture contains the infallible Word of God Now your profound Christian begins to reflect on the Bishops way which is say you That the Testimony of the Church is humane and fallible and that the belief of the Scripture rests upon the Scripture it self But it will be more to our purpose to hear the Bishop deliver his own mind than to hear you so lamely deliver it which in short he summs up thus A man is probably led by the Authority of the present Church as by the first informing inducing perswading means to believe the Scripture to be the Word of God But when he hath studied considered and compared this Word with its self and with other writings with the help of ordinary grace and a mind morally induced and reasonably perswaded by the voice of the Church the Scripture then gives greater and higher Reasons of Credibility to it self than Tradition alone could give And then he that believes resolves his last and full Assent that Scripture is of Divine Authority into internal Arguments found in the Letter it self though found by the help of Tradition without and Grace within This is the substance of his Lordship's Opinion against which we shall now consider what your Discourser hath to object 1. The first is from the case of ignorant and illiterate persons such who either through want of learning could not read the Scripture and examine or else made little use of it because they supposed they might have infallible Faith without it What then becomes of millions of such souls both in former and present times To that I answer Although the Ignorance and carelesness of men in a matter of so great consequence be so great in all ages as is not to be justified because all men ought to endeavour after the highest waies of satisfaction in a matter so nearly concerning them and it is none of the least things to be blamed in your Church that she doth so much countenance this ignorance and neglect of the Scripture yet for such persons who either morally or invincibly are hindered from this capacity of examining Scripture there may be sufficient means for their Faith to be built upon For although such illiterate persons cannot themselves see and read the Scripture yet as many as do believe do receive the Doctrine of it by that sense by which Faith is conveyed that is Hearing and by that means they have so great certainty as excludes all doubting that such Doctrines and such matters of fact are contained in these Books by which they come to the understanding of the nature of this Doctrine and are capable of judging concerning the Divinity of it For the Light spoken of in Scripture is not a Light to the eye but to the mind now the mind is capable of this Light as well by the ear as by the eyes The case then of such honest illiterate persons as are not capable of reading Scripture but diligently and devoutly hear it read to them is much of the same nature with those who heard the Apostles preach this Doctrine before it was writ For whatever was an Argument to such to believe the Apostles in what they spake becomes an Argument to such who hear the same things which are certainly conveyed to us by an unquestionable Tradition So that nothing hinders but such illiterate persons may resolve their Faith into the same Doctrine and Motives which others do only those are conveyed to them by the ear which are conveyed to others by the eyes But if you suppose persons so rude and illiterate as not to understand any thing but that they are to believe as the Church believes do you if you can resolve their Faith for them for my part I cannot and am so far from it that I have no reason to believe they can have any 2. The second thing objected by your discourser is That if the Churches judgement be fallible then much more ones own judgement is fallible And therefore if notwithstanding all the care and pains taken by the Doctors of the Church their perswasion was only humane and fallible What reason hath any particular person to say That he is divinely and infallibly certain by his reading the Scripture that it is Divine Truth But 1. Is there no difference between the Churches Perswasion and the Churches Tradition Doth the Bishop deny but the perswasion of the Doctors of the Church is as infallible as that of any particular person But this he denies that they can derive that Infallibility of the grounds of their Perswasion into their Tradition so as those who are to receive it on their Testimony may be competent Judges of it May we not then suppose their Tradition to be humane and fallible whose perswasion of what they deliver is established on infallible grounds As a Mathematician is demonstratively convinced himself of the Truth of any particular Problem but if he bids another believe it on his Testimony the other thereby hath no demonstrative evidence of the Truth of it but only so great moral evidence as the Testimony of that person carries along with it The case is the same here Suppose those persons in the Church in every Age of it have to themselves infallible evidence of the Divinity of the Scripture yet when they are to deliver this to be believed by others unless their Testimony hath infallible evidence in it men can never have more than humane or moral certainty of it 2. It doth not at all follow that if the Testimony of the Church be fallible no particular person can be infallibly assured of the Divinity of the Scripture unless this assurance did wholly depend upon that Testimony indeed if it did so the Argument would hold but otherwise it doth not at all Now you know the Bishop denies that the Faith of any particular person doth rest upon the judgement of the Church only he saith This may be a Motive and Inducement to men to consider further but that which they rely upon is that rational evidence which appears in the Scripture it self 3. He goes on and argues against this use of
actually present when Christ delivered his Doctrine and wrought his Miracles Which that we may better understand we may consider what the use of our senses had been if we had been then present and consequently what the use of tradition is now to us Now it is apparent that the use of the senses to those who saw the Miracles and heard the Doctrine of Christ was not to give any credibility to either of them but only to be the means of conveying to them those things which might induce them to believe the same doth tradition now to us it doth not in it self make the Doctrin more credible but supplies the use of our senses in a certain conveyance of those things to us which were the motives to believe then For the motives to Faith both to them and us are the same only the manner of conveyance is different but our case is much the same with those who lived in the same Age but by reason of distance of place could not be personally present at what Christ did or said now if those persons were obliged to believe and had sufficient reason for Faith who by reason of distance of place could not exercise their senses about Christs Doctrine and Miracles the same reason and obligation have we who cannot do it by reason of distance of time And if there be any advantage on either side it is on ours because though the tradition doth not in it self give any credibility to the Doctrine yet there are such circumstances accompanying this tradition which may much facilitate our belief above theirs because by such a continued tradition we have an evidence of the efficacy of this Doctrine which had so continual a power as to engage so many in all ages since its first appearance to be the propagators and defenders of it And therefore this hath very much the advantage of the report of any credible persons in that age who might report to any at distance the Miracles and Doctrine of Christ. And this is the way of resolution of Faith which the Scripture it self directs us to How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will Where we plainly see the resolution of Faith as to the Divinity of the Doctrine was into the Miracles wrought for the confirmation of it which was the proper witness or testimony of the Holy Ghost but the means of conveyance was by the tradition of those who were eye and ear-witnesses of what Christ said or did As therefore it was not supposed necessary for them who saw the miracles of Christ either to have some inward Testimony of the Spirit or some external Infallible Testimony of the Church to assure them that these miracles were really done by Christ but God left them to the judgement of sense so proportionably neither of those two is now necessary for the resolution of our Faith but God instead of the judgement of sense leaves us to the evidence of Tradition Object But all this is you say no more then Moral certainty which being fallible we cannot from thence be assured that Christian Religion is Infallibly true Answ. This being the great bug-bear wherewith you would fright men out of their Religion I shall in this place shew that it serves only to scare fools and children with For 1. What greater certainty had they who lived in the time of Christ and his Apostles and did not see their Miracles Had they or could they have any more than this you call moral Certainty and Do you really think that all such could not be sufficiently assured that Christian Religion was infallibly true 2. Moral Certainty may be a sufficient Foundation for the most firm Assent and therefore if the matter to be believed be the infallible Truth of a Doctrine upon suitable evidence though we have now but moral Certainty of that evidence the Assent may be firm to such a Doctrine as infallible And therefore the grand mistake lyes here as though our Faith were resolved finally into this moral Certainty or as if the Faith of those who saw Christ's Miracles were resolved into their eyes and not into the Miracles for as their eyes were but the means of conveyance of that evidence which was infallible so is that Tradition to us by which we have our Certainty of those evidences of the infallible Truth of Christian Religion And we are further to consider that the nature of Certainty is not so much to be taken from the matters themselves as from the grounds inducing the Assent that is Whether the things be Mathematical Physical or Moral if there be no reason to question the grounds of belief the case is all one as to the nature of the Assent So that moral Certainty may be as great as Mathematical and Physical supposing as little reason to doubt in moral things as to their natures as in Mathematical and Physical as to theirs Therefore this great quarrel about moral Certainty is very unreasonable unless it be proved that there is no cause of firm Assent upon moral grounds now if the cause of the Assent may be as equal and proportionable to their nature in moral things as in Mathematical there may be as firm an Assent in the One as in the Other as I have already shewed For which this reason is plain and evident that Certainty implies the taking away all suspicion of doubt But there can be no taking away all suspicion of doubt in Mathematical things without Mathematical evidence but in moral things all suspicion of doubt is removed upon moral evidence and therefore the Certainty may be as great in the Assent to one as the other Thus we see how unjustly and how much to the dishonour of Religion you quarrel with moral evidence as an uncertain thing But I answer yet further 3. That the greatest assurance we can desire that any Religion is infallibly True is from moral Certainty and that upon these three grounds 1. Because the grounds of all Religion are capable of no more 2. Because the highest evidence of any Religion must depend upon it 3. Because this in it self may evidently demonstrate that Christian Religion is infallibly True 1. There can be no greater than this moral Certainty of the main Foundations of all Religion which are The Being of God and Immortality of souls without the supposition of which there can be no such thing as Infallibility in the world and therefore from thence I may easily prove that there can be no more than moral Certainty of the existence of a Deity For if the very notion of Infallibility doth suppose a God then you cannot infallibly prove that there is One in your sense of Infallibility for then you must beg
can desire that they are infallibly conveyed to us 1. If the Doctrine of Christ be True and Divine then all the Promises be made were accomplished Now that was one of the greatest That his Spirit should lead his Apostles into all Truth Can we then reasonably think that if the Apostles had such an infallible Assistance of the Spirit of God with them in what they spake in a transitory way to them who heard them that they should want it in the delivering those Records to the Church which were to be the standing monuments of this Doctrine to all Ages and Generations If Christ's Doctrine therefore be True the Apostles had an infallible Assistance of God's Spirit if they had so in delivering the Doctrine of Christ by preaching nothing can be more unreasonable than to imagine such should want it who were employed to give an account to the world of the nature of this Doctrine and of the Miracles which accompanied Christ and his Apostles So that it will appear an absurd thing to assert that the Doctrine of Christ is Divine and to question whether we have the infallible Records of it It is not pertinent to our Question in what way the Spirit of God assisted them that wrote Whether by immediate suggestion of all such things which might be sufficiently known without it and whether in some things which were not of concernment it might not leave them to their own judgement as in that place When they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs when no doubt God's Spirit knew infallibly whether it was but thought not fit to reveal it whether in some lighter circumstances the Writers were subject to any inadvertencies the negative of which is more piously credible whether meer historical passages needed the same infallible Assistance that Prophetical and Doctrinal these things I say are not necessary to be resolved it being sufficient in order to Faith that the Doctrine we are to believe as it was infallibly delivered to the world by the preaching of Christ and his Apostles so it is infallibly conveyed to us in the Books of Scripture 2. Because these Books were owned for Divine by those Persons and Ages who were most competent Judges Whether they were so or no. For the Age of the Apostles was sufficiently able to judge whether those things which are said to be spoken by Christ or written by the Apostles were really so or no. And we can have no reason at all to question but what was delivered by them was infallibly true Now from that first Age we derive our knowledge concerning the Authority of these Books which being conveyed to us in the most unquestionable and universal Tradition we can have no reason in the world to doubt and therefore the greatest reason firmly to assent that the Books we call the Scripture are the infallible Records of the Word of God And thus much may suffice in general concerning the Protestant Way of resolving Faith I now return to the examination of what you give us by way of answer to his Lordship's discourse The first Assault you make upon his Lordship is for making Apostolical Tradition a ground of Faith but because your peculiar excellency lyes in the involving plain things the best service I can do is to lay things open as they are by which means we shall easily discern where the truth lyes I shall therefore first shew how far his Lordship makes Apostolical Tradition a ground of Faith and then consider what you have to object against it In that Section which your Margent referrs to all that he sayes of it is That the Voice and Tradition of that Church which included in it Apostles Disciples and such as had immediate Revelation from Heaven was Divine and the Word of God from them is of like validity written or delivered And as to this Tradition he saith there is abundance of Certainty in it self but how far it is evident to us shall after appear At the end of the next n. 21. he saith That there is double Authority and both Divine that confirms Scripture to be the Word of God Tradition of the Apostles delivering it and the internal worth and argument in the Scripture obvious to a soul prepared by the present Churches Tradition and Gods Grace But n. 23. he saith That this Apostolical Tradition is not the sole and only means to prove Scripture Divine but the moral perswasion reason and force of the present Church is ground enough for any one to read the Scripture and esteem reverently of it And this once done the Scripture hath then In and home-arguments enough to put a soul that hath but ordinary Grace out of doubt that the Scripture is the Word of God infallible and Divine I suppose his Lordships meaning may be comprized in these particulars 1. That to those who lived in the Apostolical times the Tradition of Scripture by those who had an infallible Testimony was a sufficient ground of their believing it infallibly true 2. That though the conveyance of that Tradition to us be not infallible yet it may be sufficient to raise in us a high esteem and veneration for the Scripture 3. That those who have this esteem for the Scripture by a through studying and consideration of it may undoubtedly believe that Scripture is the Divine and Infallible Word of God This I take to be the substance of his Lordships discourse We now come to examine what you object against him Your first demand is How comes Apostolical Primitive Tradition to work upon us if the present Church be fallible Which I shall answer by another How come the decrees of Councils to work upon you if the reporters of those Decrees be fallible If you say It is sufficient that the Decree it self be infallible but it is not necessary that the reporter of those Decrees should be so The same I say concerning the Apostolical Tradition of Scripture though it were infallible in their Testimony yet it is not necessary that the conveyance of it to us should be infallible And if you think your self bound to believe the Decrees of General Councils as infallible though fallibly conveyed to you Why may not we say the same concerning Apostolical Tradition Whereby you may see though Tradition be fallible yet the matter conveyed by it may have its proper effect upon us Your next Inquiry if I understand it is to this sense Whether Apostolical Tradition be not then as credible as the Scriptures I answer freely supposing it equally evident what was delivered by the Apostles to the Church by word or writing hath equal Credibility You attempt to prove That there is equal evidence because the Scripture is only known by the Tradition of the Church to be the same that was recommended by the Apostolical Church which you have likewise for Apostolical Tradition But 1. Do you mean the same Apostolical Tradition here or no which the Arch-Bishop
of the Sun doth on the organs of sight and therefore that common speech that Light doth discover it self as well as other things is in this sense improperly applied to the Understanding for whatever is discovered to the mind in a discursive manner as all Objects of Faith are must have some antecedent evidence to it self which must be the ground of the act of assent That therefore which is called the Divine Light of Scripture is I suppose that rational evidence which is contained in the Books of Scripture whereby any reasonable man may be perswaded that these Books are of Divine Authority Now that herein I say nothing beyond or besides his Lordships meaning and intention will appear by his own discourse on this subject For 1. His Lordship designedly disproves that Opinion that Scripture should be fully and sufficiently known as by Divine and Infallible Testimony lumine proprio by the resplendency of that Light which it hath in it self only and by the witness that it can so give to it self Because as there is no place in Scripture that tells us such Books containing such and such particulars are the Canon and Infallible Will of God so if there were any such place that could be no sufficient proof for a man may justly ask another Book to bear witness to that and so in infinitum Again this inbred Light of Scripture is a thing coincident with Scripture it self and so the Principles and the Conclusion in this kind of proof should be entirely the same which cannot be Besides if this inward Light were so clear how could there have been any variety among the ancient Believers touching the authority of S. James and S. Judes Epistles and the Apocalypse c. For certainly the Light which is in the Scripture was the same then which now it is On these reasons then we see his Lordship not only disclaims but disproves such knowing the Scripture meerly by the Light within Two things then I hence inferr which will be very necessary to clear his Lordships meaning 1. That he no where attributes such an inward Light to Scripture that by it self it can discover that these Books are from God 2. That where his Lordship mentions this Light most he supposeth Tradition antecedent to it as appears by his whole discourse From whence I gather this to have been the plainest account of his way of resolving Faith as I have already intimated viz. that the resolution of Faith may be considered two waies into the Books and into the Doctrine contained in them The resolution into the Books must of necessity suppose Tradition and rely upon it and this kind of resolution of Faith cannot be into any self-evidence or internal Light but supposing the Books owned on the account of Tradition if the Question be concerning the Divinity of the Doctrine then he asserts that the resolution of this is into the Divine Light of Scripture i. e. into that rational evidence which we find of the Divinity of it in these Books which are owned on the account of Tradition And that this is his Lordships meaning appears 2. By his own Testimony who was best able to explain himself for when he goes about to confirm his Opinion by the Testimonies of the Fathers he tells us This was the way which the ancient Church ever used namely Tradition or Ecclesiastical Authority first and then all other arguments but especially internal from the Scripture it self And for this first instanceth in S. Augustine who saith he gives four proofs all internal to the Scripture it self which are First The Miracles Secondly That there is nothing carnal in the Doctrine Thirdly Fulfilling of Prophecies Fourthly The efficacy of it for conversion of the world All these we see he instanceth in as internal arguments and therefore make up that which he calls Divine Light So that all that he means by this Light of Scripture is only that rational evidence of the Divinity of the Doctrine which may be discovered in it or deduced from it Having thus explained his Lordships meaning it will be no matter of difficulty to return an Answer to the particulars by you alledged 1. You say That when Scripture is said to be a Light by the Royal Prophet it is to be understood in this sense Because after we have once received it from the infallible Authority of the Church it teacheth what we are to do and believe But 1. Doth not the Scripture sufficiently teach what we are to do and believe supposing it not received on the infallible Authority of the Church doth that add any thing to the Light of Scripture Or do you suppose the necessity of infallibly believing it on the Churches Authority before one can discern what it teacheth us to do and believe 2. What ground have you in the least to imagine that David ever believed the Scripture on the infallible authority of the Church That he doth suppose it to be Gods Word when he saith It is a Light to his feet I deny not but that he should suppose it to be so because the Church did infallibly tell him it was so is a most ungrounded Assertion Had he not sufficient evidence that the Law was from God by those many unquestionable and stupendous Miracles which attended the delivery of it Was not the whole constitution and government of the Jewish Nation an impregnable argument that those things were true which were recorded in their Books Did ever the Jewish Sanhedrin High Priest or others arrogate to themselves any infallible Testimony in delivering the Books of Moses to the people The most you can suppose of a ground of certainty among them was from that Sacred Record of the Book of the Law which was kept in the Ark And how could they know that was Authentick but from the same Tradition which conveyed the Miracles of Moses to them So that nothing like any infallible Authority of a Church was looked on by them as necessary to believe the Law to have been from God 3. Supposing it from tradition unquestionable that the Law was from God those incomparable directions which were in it might be a great confirmation to David's Faith that it was his Word Which is that he intends in these words Thy Word is a light to my feet c. to shew that excellency and perspicuity which was in his Word that it gave him the best directions for ordering his conversation And this is all which his Lordship means that to those who by the advantage of Tradition have already venerable thoughts of Scripture the serious conversing with it doth highly advance them and establish their belief of it as that Faith is thereby clinched which was driven in by education And therefore when he saith That Light discovers its self as well as other things he presently adds not till there hath been a preparing instruction what Light it is Thus he saith the Tradition of the Church is the first moral motive
themselves to be Divine because the Talmud Alcoran and Philosophers have some things in them which the Scripture hath But Can you prove that the Scripture hath nothing else in it but what may be found in any or all of these Books Will you undertake to shew any where such representations of the Being and Attributes of God so suitable to the conceptions which naturally flow from the Idea of a Supreme and Infinite Being and yet those Attributes discovered in such contrivances for mans Good which the wit of man could never have reached to above all in the reconciliation of the world to himself by the death of his Son Will you find out so exact a Rule of Piety consisting of such excellent Precepts such incouraging Promises as are in Scripture in any other writings whatsoever Can you discover any where such an unexpressible energy and force in a writing of so great simplicity and plainness as the Scripture is Is there any thing unbecoming that Authority which it awes the consciences of men with Is there any thing mean trivial fabulous and impertinent in it Are not all things written with that infinite decorum and suitableness as do highly express the Majesty of him from whom it comes but in the most sweet affable and condescending manner Are there any such arguments in the writings of Seneca Plutarch Aristotle for the Being of God and Immortality of souls as there are in Scripture Are there any moral instructions built on such good grounds carried on to so high a degree written with that life and vigour in any of the Heathen Philosophers as are in the Scriptures How infinitely do the highest of them fall short of the Scripture in those very things which they seem most to have in common with it As were it here a fit place might be at large discovered But besides and beyond all these Are there not other things which evidence the Divine Revelation of the Doctrine contained in Scripture which none of the writings you mention can in the least pretend to viz. the accurate accomplishment of Prophecies and the abundance of Miracles wrought for the confirmation of the Divine Testimony of those who delivered this Doctrine to the world And these very things now to us are internal to the Scripture the motives of Faith being delivered to us in the same Books that the Doctrine of Faith is In which sense the Scriptures may well be said to be proved Divine by themselves and that they appear infallible by the Light which is in them notwithstanding you most pitifully pretend to the contrary And if your Church will again pardon you for such opprobrious language of Scripture as not only to compare the writings of Seneca Plutarch and Aristotle with it which yet are commendable in their kind for moral Virtue and natural Knowledge but those wretched and notorious impostures of the Alcoran and the fabulous relations of the Talmud if I say your Church will pardon such expressions as these because they tend to inhance her Infallibility well fare that Pope who said Heu quam minimo regitur mundus As for your following instance of a Candle lighted in a room which shews that it is a light but not who lighted it so the sentences in Scripture are lights and shew themselves to be such but they cannot shew themselves to be such infallible lights which are produced by none but God himself I answer That I commend your discretion in making choice of a Candle rather than of the light of the Sun to set forth the Scripture by For a Candle yields but a dim uncertain light may be put into a dark lanthorn and snuffed at pleasure so would your Church fain pretend of the Scripture that its light is very weak and uncertain that your Church must open the sides of the Lanthorn that it may give light and make use of some Apostolical Snuffers of the Popes keeping to make it shine the clearer though they often endanger the almost extinguishing of it at least as to the generation of those who should enjoy the benefit of it But because that poor light of a Candle cannot shew who lighted it Will not the light of the Sun manifest it self to be no greater than that of a Candle Cannot any one inferr from the vast extent of that light from the vanishing of it upon the Suns setting and its dispersing it self at his rising that this light can proceed only from that great luminous body which is in the Heavens And may we not proportionably inferr from the clearness greatness majesty coherency of those truths revealed in Scripture that they must certainly come from none but God especially being joyned with those impregnable evidences which himself by the persons who delivered them that they were imployed by himself for that end But because this is a matter of great consequence give me leave to propound these questions to you and after you have considered them seriously return me a rational answer to them 1. Doth it imply any repugnancy at all in the nature of the thing or to the nature of God that he should reveal his mind to the world 2. If it doth not as I suppose you will grant that Whether is it possible that God should make it evident to the world that such a Revelation is from himself 3. If this be not impossible Is it not necessary that it should be so supposing that God should require the belief of a Doctrine so revealed on pain of eternal damnation for not believing it 4. Whether God may not give as great evidence of a Revelation that he makes of his mind to the world as he doth of his Being from the Wisdom Goodness and Power which may be seen in the works of Creation 5. Whether any other way be conceivable that it should be evident that a Doctrine comes from God but that it contains things highly suitable to the Divine nature things above the finding out of humane reason things only tending to advance Holiness and Goodness in the world and this doctrine to be delivered by persons who wrought unparalleld miracles 6. Whether all these be not in the most evident manner imaginable contained in the Doctrine of Christianity and in the Books of Scripture which I leave any man that hath common sense to judge of 7. Whether then it be not the highest disparagement of this Divine doctrine to make it stand in need of an Infallible testimony of any company who shall take the boldness to call themselves the Catholick Church in order to the believing of it and whether there can be any greater dishonour done it then to say it hath no more light to discover it self Divine than the Writings of Philosophers not to add of Jews and Mahumetans These things I leave you and the reader to consider of and proceed What follows concerning the Fathers and others proving the Scriptures to be the Word of God by themselves after they have believed them infallibly
representing his meaning For where he doth most fully and largely express himself he useth these words which for clearing his meaning must be fully produced Scripture teacheth all supernaturally revealed truth without the knowledge whereof salvation cannot be attained The main principle whereon the belief of all things therein contained dependeth is that the Scriptures are the Oracles of God himself This in it self we cannot say is evident For then all men that hear it would acknowledge it in heart as they do when they hear that every whole is more than any part of that whole because this in it self is evident The other we know that all do not acknowledge it when they hear it There must be therefore some former knowledge presupposed which doth herein assure the hearts of all believers Scripture teacheth us that saving truth which God hath discovered to the world by Revelation and it presumeth us taught otherwise that it self is Divine and Sacred The question then being by what means we are taught this some answer That to learn it we have no other way then only Tradition As namely that so we believe because both we from our predecessours and they from theirs have so received But is this enough That which all mens experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denyed And by experience we all know that the first Motive leading men so to esteem of the Scripture is the Authority of Gods Church For when we know the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture we judge it even at the first an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary mind without cause Afterwards the more we bestow our labour in reading or hearing the mysteries thereof the more we find that the thing it self doth answer our receiv'd opinion concerning it So that the former inducement prevailing somewhat with us before doth now much more prevail when the very thing hath ministred farther reason Can any thing be more plain if mens meaning may be gathered from their words especially when purposely they treat of a subject than that Hooker makes the Authority of the Church the primary inducement to Faith and that rational evidence which discovers it self in the Doctrine revealed to be that which it is finally resolved into For as his Lordship saith on this very place of Hooker The resolution of Faith ever settles upon the farthest reason it can not upon the first inducement By this place then where this worthy Authour most clearly and fully delivers his judgement we ought in reason to interpret all other occasional and incidental passages on the same subject So in that other place For whatsoever we believe concerning salvation by Christ although the Scripture be therein the ground of our belief yet the authority of man is if we mark it the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scriptures I will not dispute whether here he speaks concerning the knowledge of Scripture to be Scripture or concerning the natural sense and meaning of Scripture suppose I should grant you the latter it would make little for your purpose for when he adds The Scripture doth not teach us the things that are of God unless we did credit men who have taught us that the words of Scripture do signifie those things You need not here bid us stay a while For his sense is plain and obvious viz. that men cannot come to the natural sense and importance of the words used in Scripture unless they rely on the authority of men for the signification of those words He speaks not here then at all concerning church-Church-Tradition properly taken but meerly of the authority of man which he contends must in many cases be relyed on particularly in that of the sense and meaning of the words which occurr in Scripture Therefore with his Lordships leave and yours too I do not think that in this place Hooker by the authority of man doth understand church-Church-Tradition but if I may so call it Humane-Tradition viz. that which acquainteth us with the force and signification of words in use When therefore you prove that it is Tradition only which is all the ground he puts of believing Scripture to be the Word of God from those words of his That utterly to infringe the force and strength of mans testimony were to shake the very Fortress of Gods truth Now say you How can that Fortress the Scripture be shaken were not that authority esteemed by him the ground of that Fortress That may very easily be shewn viz. by calling in question the truth of humane testimony in general for he plainly speaks of such a kind of humane testimony as that is whereby we know there is such a City as Rome that such and such were Popes of Rome wherein the ground of our perswasion can be nothing else but humane testimony now take away the credit and validity of this testimony the very Fortress of truth must needs be shaken for we could never be certain that there were such persons as Moses the Prophets Christ and his Apostles in the world we could never be certain of the meaning of any thing written by them But how farr is this from the final resolution of Faith into Church-Tradition But the place you lay the greatest force on is that which you first cite out of him Finally we all believe that the Scriptures of God are sacred and that they have proceeded from God our selves we assure that we do right well in so believing We have for this a demonstration sound and Infallible But it is not the Word of God which doth or can possibly assure us that we do well to think it his Word From hence you inferr That either he must settle no Infallible ground at all or must say that the Tradition of the Church is that ground No Infallible ground in your sense I grant it but well enough in his own for all the difficulty lies in understanding what he means by Infallible which he takes not in your sense for a supernatural but only for a rational Infallibility not such a one as excludes possibility of deception but all reasonable doubting In which sense he saith of such things as are capable only of moral certainty That the Testimony of man will stand as a ground of Infallible assurance and presently instanceth in these That there is such a City of Rome that Pius 5. was Pope there c. So afterwards he saith That the mind of man desireth evermore to know the truth according to the most Infallible certainty which the nature of things can yield by which it is plain that the utmost certainty which things are capable of is with him Infallible certainty and so a sound and Infallible ground of Faith is a certain ground which we all assert may be had without your Churches Infallible Testimony Whether therefore Brierely and you are not guilty if
that you deny not the truth of what is therein contained for otherwise the want of Authority in themselves the ambiguity of them the impossibility of knowing the sense of them without Tradition are the very same arguments which with the greatest pomp and ostentation are produced by you against the Scriptures being the Rule whereby to judge of Controversies Which we have no more cause to wonder at than Irenaeus had in the Valentinians because from them we produce our greatest arguments against your fond opinions Now when the Valentinians pretended their great rule was on oral Tradition which was conveyed from the Apostles down to them to this Irenaeus opposeth the constant Tradition of the Apostolical Churches which in a continued succession was preserved from the Apostles times which was the same every where among all the Churches which every one who desired it might easily be satisfied about because they could number them who by the Apostles were appointed Bishops in Churches and their successors unto our own times who taught no such thing nor ever knew any such thing as they madly fancy to themselves We see then his appeal to Tradition was only in a matter of fact Whether ever any such thing as their opinion which was not contained in Scripture was delivered to them by the Apostles or no i. e. Whether the Apostles left any oral Traditions in the Churches which should be the rule to interpret Scriptures by or no And the whole design of Irenaeus is to prove the contrary by an appeal to all the Apostolical Churches and particularly by appealing to the Roman Church because of its due fame and celebrity in that Age wherein Irenaeus lived So that Irenaeus appealed to the then Roman Church even when he speaks highest in the honour of it for somewhat which is fundamentally contrary to the pretensions of the now Roman Church He then appealed to it for an evidence against such oral Traditions which were pretended to be left by the Apostles as a rule to understand Scripture by and were it not for this same pretence now what will become of the Authority of the present Roman Church After he hath thus manifested by recourse to the Apostolical Churches that there was no such Tradition left among them it was very reasonable to inferr that there was none such at all for they could not imagine if the Apostles had designed any such Tradition but they would have communicated it to those famous Churches which were planted by them and it was absurd to suppose that those Churches who could so easily derive their succession from the Apostles should in so short a time have lost the memory of so rich a treasure deposited with them as that was pretended to be from whence he sufficiently refutes that unreasonable imagination of the Valentinians Which having done he proceeds to settle those firm grounds on which the Christians believed in one God the Father and in one Lord Jesus Christ which he doth by removing the only Objection which the Adversaries had against them For when the Christians declared the main reason into which they resolved their Faith as to these principles was Because no other God or Christ were revealed in Scripture but them whom they believed the Valentinians answered this could not be a sufficient foundation for their Faith on this account because many things were delivered in Scripture not according to the truth of the things but the judgment and opinion of the persons they were spoken to This therefore being such a pretence as would destroy any firm resolution of Faith into Scripture and must necessarily place it in Tradition Irenaeus concerns himself much to demonstrate the contrary by an ostension as he calls it that Christ and the Apostles did all along speak according to truth and not according to the opinion of their auditours which is the entire subject of the fifth Chapter of his third Book Which he proves first of Christ because he was Truth it self and it would be very contrary to his nature to speak of things otherwise then they were when the very design of his coming was to direct men in the way of Truth The Apostles were persons who professed to declare truth to the world and as light cannot communicate with darkness so neither could truth be blended with so much falshood as that opinion supposeth in them And therefore neither our Lord nor his Apostles could be supposed to mean any other God or Christ then whom they declared For this saith he were rather to increase their ignorance and confirm them in it then to cure them of it and therefore that Law was true which pronounced a curse on every one who led a blind man out of his way And the Apostles being sent for the recovery of the lost sight of the blind cannot be supposed to speak to men according to their present opinion but according to the manifestation of truth For what Physitian intending to cure a Patient will do according to his Patients desire and not rather what will be best for him From whence he concludes Since the design of Christ and his Apostles was not to flatter but to cure mens souls it follows that they did not speak to them according to their former opinion but according to truth without all hypocrisie and dissimulation From whence it follows that if Christ and his Apostles did speak according to truth there is then need of no Oral Tradition for our understanding Scripture and consequently the resolution of our Faith as to God and Christ and proportionably as to other objects to be believed is not into any Tradition pretending to be derived from the Apostles but into the Scriptures themselves which by this discourse evidently appears to have been the judgement of Irenaeus The next which follows is Clemens of Alexandria who flourished A. D. 196. whom St. Hierome accounted the most learned of all the writers of the Church and therefore cannot be supposed ignorant in so necessary a part of the Christian Doctrine as the Resolution of Faith is And if his judgement may be taken the Scriptures are the only certain Foundation of Faith for in his Admonition to the Gentiles after he hath with a great deal of excellent learning derided the Heathen Superstitions when he comes to give an account of the Christians Faith he begins it with this pregnant Testimony to our purpose For saith he the Sacred Oracles affording us the most manifest grounds of Divine worship are the Foundation of Truth And so goes on in a high commendation of the Scripture as the most compendious directions for happiness the best Institutions for government of life the most free from all vain ornaments that they raise mens souls up out of wickedness yielding the most excellent remedies disswading from the greatest deceit and most clearly incouraging to a foreseen happiness with more of the same nature And when after he perswades men with so much Rhetorick and
evidence can you bring to convince me both that the Church alwayes observed this rule and could never be deceived in it For I see the Roman Church asserts that things may be de fide in one age which were not in another at least Pope and Councils challenge this and this is the common Doctrine maintained there and others are looked on as no members of their Church who assert the contrary but as persons at least meritoriously if not actually excommunicate Where then shall I satisfie my self what the sense of your Church is as to this particular Must I believe a very few persons whom the rest disown as Heretical and Seditious persons or ought I not rather to take the judgement of the greatest and most approved persons in that Church And these disown any such Doctrine but assert that the Church may determine things de fide which were not so before in which case I ask Whether when a thing is de novo determined to be de fide that Church believed as the precedent did or no If it did How comes any thing to be de fide which was not before If it did not What assurance can I have that every age of the Church believes just as the precedent did and no otherwise when I see they profess the contrary And if a thing may be de fide in one age which was not in a foregoing then a Church may deliver that as a matter of Faith at one time which was never accounted so before by which means the present Church may oblige me to believe that as a matter of Faith which never was so in Christ or the Apostles times and so the Infallibility on the account of Tradition is destroyed 2. What security is there that in no age of the Church any practises should come in which were not used in the precedent You may say Because they could not be deceived what their fore Fathers did but that satisfies not unless you prove that all the Church in every age looked upon it self as obliged to do nothing at all but what their fore-Fathers did For although they might know never so much what was done by them if they did not judge themselves bound to observe unalterably what they did this doth not hinder at all but new customs and opinions might be introduced in the Church And therefore I cannot but justly wonder that any men of parts who professedly disown the vulgar wayes of establishing the Roman Church should think to satisfie themselves with Orall Tradition and cry it up as so impregnable a thing Because no age of the Church can be deceived in what the foregoing did and taught Whereas a very little of that reason which these men pretend to might acquaint them that the force of it doth not lye in their capacity to know what was done by others but in their obligation not to vary at all from it For the main weight of the Argument lyes here That nothing hath been changed in the Faith or Practise of the Church which being the thing to be proved the bare knowledge of what was believed or practised is not sufficient to prove it for men may know very well what others believe and do and yet may believe and do quite contrary themselves But the only thing to be proved in this case is That every age of the Church and all persons in it looked upon themselves as obliged not to vary in any thing from the Doctrine or practise of the precedent age And I pray let me know by what demonstrative medium can this be proved for no less then demonstrations are spoken of by the magnifiers of this way although there be so little evidence in it that it cannot work but upon a very weak understanding Must that obligation to observe all which the precedent age believed or practised be proved by reason particular testimony or universal tradition And let the extollers of this way take their choice so they will undertake to bring evidence equal to the weight which depends upon it It is hard to conceive what reason should inforce it but such as proves the impossibility of the contrary And they have understandings of another mould from others who can conceive it impossible that men should not think themselves obliged to believe and do all just as their Predecessours did If particular testimonies could be produced they signifie no more then their own judgements but we are enquiring for the judgement of every age of the Church and the persons who live in it And to prove an universal tradition of this obligation is the most difficult task of all for it depends upon the truth of that which is to be proved by it For if they did not think themselves obliged to believe and do what their Predecessours did they could not think themselves bound to deliver such an obligation to their posterity to do it And therefore you must first prove the obligation it self before you can prove the universal tradition of it For although one age may deliver it yet you cannot be assured that a former age did it to them unless you can prove the same sense of this obligation ran through them all But this is so far from being an universal tradition that the present age from which it begins was never agreed in it as I have shewed already 3. It is to no purpose to prove the impossibility of motion when I see men move no more is it to prove that no age of the Church could vary from the foregoing when we can evidently prove that they have done it And therefore this Argument is intended only to catch easie minds that care not for a search into the History of the several ages of the Church but had rather sit down with a superficial subtilty than spend time in further enquiries For this Argument proceeds just as if men should prove the world eternal by this medium The present age sees no alteration in it and they could not be deceived in what their fore Fathers believed nor they in theirs and so on in infinitum for no men did ever see the world made and therefore it was never made and so eternal But if we go about to prove by reason the production of the world or by Scripture to shew that it was once made then this oral tradition is spoiled And so it is in the present case These men attempt to prove there could never be any alteration in the Faith or practise of the Church since Christs time for the present age delivers what it had from the precedent and so up till the first institution of the Church but in the mean time if we can evidently prove that there have been such alterations in the Church then it is to no purpose to prove that impossible which we see actually done And this appears not only because the Scripture supposes a degeneracy in the Christian Church which could never be if every age of the Church did
Scripture Reason or Antiquity for the Popes personal Infallibility p. 533. CHAP. III. Of the errours of pretended General Councils The erroneous Doctrine of the Church of Rome in making the Priests intention necessary to the essence of Sacraments That Principle destructive to all certainty of Faith upon our Authours grounds The absurdity of asserting That Councils define themselves to be Infallible Sacramental actions sufficiently distinguished from others without the Priests Intention Of the moral assurance of the Priests Intention and the insufficiency of a meer virtual Intention The Popes confirmation of Councils supposeth personal Infallibility Transubstantiation an errour decreed by Pope and Council The repugnancy of it to the grounds of Faith The Testimonies brought for it out of Antiquity examin'd at large and shewed to be far from proving Transubstantiation Communion in one kind a violation of Christs Institution The Decree of the Council of Constance implyes a non obstante to it The unalterable nature of Christs Institution cleared The several Evasions considered and answered No publick Communion in one kind for a thousand years after Christ. The indispensableness of Christs Institution owned by the Primitive Church Of Invocation of Saints and the Rhetorical expressions of the Fathers which gave occasion to it No footsteps of the Invocation of Saints in the three first Centuries nor precept or example in Scripture as our Adversaries confess Evidences against Invocation of Saints from the Christians Answers to the Heathens The worship of Spirits and Heroes among the Heathens justifiable on the same grounds that Invocation of Saints is in the Church of Rome Commemoration of the Saints without Invocation in S. Austins time Invocation of Saints as practised in the Church of Rome a derogation to the merits of Christ. Of the worship of Images and the near approach to Pagan Idolatry therein No Vse or Veneration of Images in the Primitive Church The Church of Rome justly chargeable with the abuses committed in the worship of Images Page 554. CHAP. IV. Of the possibility of Salvation in the Roman Church Protestants Concessions ought not to be any ground to prefer the Communion of the Church of Rome How far those Concessions extend The uncharitableness of Romanists if they yield not the same to us The weakness of the Arguments to prove the Roman Church the safer way to Salvation on Protestant principles The dangerous Doctrines of Romanists about the easiness of salvation by the Sacrament of Pennance The case parallel'd between the Donatists and Romanists in denying salvation to all but themselves and the advantages equal from their adversaries Concessions The advantage of the Protestants if that be the safest way which both parties are agreed in manifested and vindicated in several particulars The Principle it self at large shewed to be a meer contingent Proposition and such as may lead to Heresie and Infidelity The case of the Leaders in the Roman Church and others distinguished The Errours and Superstitions of the Roman Church make its communion very dangerous in order to Salvation Page 611. CHAP. V. The Safety of the Protestant Faith The sufficiency of the Protestant Faith to Salvation manifested by disproving the Cavils against it C's tedious Repâtitions passed over The Argument from Possession at large consider'd No Prescription allowable where the Law hath antecedently determined the right Of the Infallibility of Oral Tradition That contrary to the received Doctrine of the Roman Church and in it self unreasonable The Grounds of it examined The ridiculousness of the Plea of bare Possession discovered General Answers returned to the remaining Chapters consisting wholly of things already discussed The place of S. Cyprian to Cornelius particularly vindicated The proof of Succession of Doctrine lyes on the Romanists by their own principles Page 625. CHAP. VI. The Sense of the Fathers concerning Purgatory The Advantage which comes to the Church of Rome by the Doctrine of Purgatory thence the boldness of our Adversaries in contending for it The Sense of the Roman Church concerning Purgatory explained The Controversie between the Greek and Latin Church concerning it The Difference in the Church of Rome about Purgatory Some general Considerations about the Sense of the Fathers as to its being an Article of Faith The Doubtfulness and Vncertainty of the Fathers Judgements in this particular manifested by S. Austin the first who seemed to assert a Purgation before the day of Judgement Prayer for the Dead used in the Ancient Church doth not inferr Purgatory The Primate of Armagh vindicated from our Adversaries Calumnies The general Intention of the Church distinguished from the private Opinions of particular persons The Prayers of the Church respected the day of Judgement The Testimonies of the Fathers in behalf of Purgatory examined particularly of the pretended Dionysius Tertullian S. Cyprian Origen S. Ambrose S. Hierom S. Basil Nazianzen Lactantius Hilary Gregory Nyssen c. And not one of them asserts the Purgatory of the Church of Rome S. Austin doth not contradict himself about it The Doctrine of Purgatory no elder than Gregory 1. and built on Credulity and Superstition The Churches Infallibility made at last the Foundation of the belief of Purgatory The Falsity of that Principle and the whole concluded Page 636. Errata sic corrige PAge 21 l 12 for which r them p 37 marg for Baron an 405. r 447. p 48 l 38 for uniformally r uniformly p 64 l 29 for That r What. p 68 l 1 for Sceptiscism r Scepticism p 73 l 46 for dissents r assents p 101 l 3 between you and say insert to p 103 l 14 after men insert were p 116 l 34 blot out not before a good p 125 l 37 for Montallo r Montalto p 12â l 16 for Valentius r Valentia p 128 l 39 r Infallibility p 159 l 26 r Assistance p 178 l 14 blot out bât before probablâ false p 184 l penult for it r Christ. p 210 l 42 before any insert for p 211 l 39 for of the r of this p 215 l 8 after Sixtine insert and. p 218 l 30 for it r them p 219 marg l penult r vetâstiores p 230 l 15 r generality p 235 l 43 blot out but before setting p 243 l 21 r ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã p 263 l 25 blot out where l 41 blot out and p 267 l 17 r ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã p 274 l 26 r ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã marg ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã p 297 l 21 22 r communication of peace title of Brotherhood and common mark of Hospitality p 304 marg l 10 r Mastrucam p 308 l 30 for from r of p 312 l 5 r Sardican p 315 l 38 for contracts r contrasts p 326 l 46 for interrupted r uninterrupted p 340 l 33 for now r not p 344 l 34 for reply r rely l 45 r Ecclesiastical p 378 l 12 r And in the first of her reign of c. p 389 l 47 for Protestants r Patriarchs p 390 l 44 for Gâicenus r Cyzicenus p
to Salvation and that this is owned by the Church of England This is the substance of the Argument which being resolved into its parts will consist of these Propositions 1. That some things owned not to be Fundamental in the matter are yet acknowledged in the Creed of Athanasius to be necessary to Salvation 2. That the reason why these things do become necessary is because the Church hath defined them to be so 3. That this is acknowledged by the Church of England And therefore by parity of reason whatever is defined by the Church must be necessary to Salvation But every one of these Propositions being ambiguous the clear stating of them will be the best way of solving the difficulty which seems to lye in the present Argument And the main Ambiguity lyes in the meaning of that necessity to Salvation which is implied in the Athanasian Creed as to the Articles therein contained for there being different grounds and reasons upon which things may be supposed necessary there can be no just consequence made from the general owning a necessity of the belief of some things to the making those things necessary to be believed upon one particular account of it For the necessity of believing things to Salvation may arise from one of these three grounds 1. The Supposition that the matter to be believed is in it self necessary this makes it necessary to all those persons who are of that perswasion and on this ground it is plain that the main Articles of the Athanasian Creed are generally supposed necessary viz. those concerning the Trinity in Vnity the Incarnation Resurrection and Eternal Life c. Now these being supposed to be necessary from the Matter any Church may own them under this degree of necessity in that expression used in several places of the Athanasian Creed Whosoever will be saved it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith which Catholick Faith is c. But then we are to consider that this is only a Declaration of the sense of that Church what things she owns as necessary and what not And this Declaration doth not oblige the conscience of particular persons any further than as the Articles of that Church are required to be owned as the conditions of Communion with her i. e. where the degree of necessity is not declared nor expresly owned by a Church but left in general terms no man is bound to believe the things judged as necessary with any particular kind of necessity exclusive of others but only that the Church in General may use that Creed supposed necessary and that the Use of that Creed is a lawful condition of that Churches Communion 2. The belief of a thing may be supposed necessary because of the clear Conviction of mens understandings that though the matters be not in themselves necessary yet being revealed by God they must be explicitly believed but then the necessity of this Belief doth extend no further than the clearness of that Conviction doth As suppose it inserted into a Creed that the Article of the Descent must be understood according to the sense of the Scriptures this doth oblige no man to any further necessity of belief of the sense of the Article then he is convinced that it is the sense of the Scriptures And the case is the same when the Article is expressed only in general terms which are known to be capable of very different senses when none of which are expressed no particular sense can be said to be necessary to Salvation to particular persons but only that sense in general which all must agree in who own it and the particulars are left to the Convictions of mens understandings upon the use of the best means of satisfaction So that he that believes fully that the meaning of this Article from Scripture is that Christ's soul did locally descend to Hell it is necessary for him to believe so upon such Conviction but he that sees no more necessary to be believed by it but that Christ's soul was during his Body's lying in the Grave in a state of Separation from it how can you prove it necessary to Salvation for him to believe any more than this And the case is the same as to all Modes of Existence and particular explications of Articles in themselves owned as of the different Subsistencies in the Trinity the manner of the Hypostatical Vnion of the two Natures in Christ's Person supposing the Doctrines themselves believed what reason can there be to assert it necessary to Salvavation to all persons to believe them under such a sense if the Article may be it self believed without it any further than as things under those explications are manifested to such persons to be necessary to be believed As Leo 3. defined in the Article of the Holy Ghost's Procession from the Son To such who by reason of capacity and apprehension could attain to the Knowledge of it it was necessary to be believed but not by others as appears in our former Discourse on that Subject Therefore from hence we see another account why things may become necessary to be believed and owned as such besides the matter and the Churches Definition These things may be said to be necessary to be believed by such who believe the Churches Proposition to be sufficient though it be not as suppose any member of the Greek Church should believe their Church infallible it is necessary for such a one to believe whatever is propounded by that Church though you suppose that judgement of his to be false in it self because you say the Greek Church is not infallible So that from hence it appears that the necessity arising from the Churches Definition doth depend upon the Conviction that whatever the Church defines is necessary to be believed And where that is not received as an antecedent principle the other cannot be supposed By this opening the several grounds of necessity your difficulty concerning the Athanasian Creed comes to nothing For granting that the Church of England doth own and approve the Creed going under the name of Athanasius and supposing that her Vse of the Creed doth extend to the owning of those expressions which import the necessity of believing the things therein contained in order to Salvation yet this doth not reach to your purpose unless you prove that the Church of England doth own that necessity purely on the account of the Churches Definition of those things which are not Fundamental which it is very unreasonable to imagine it being directly contrary to her sense in her nineteenth and twentieth Articles And thence that supposed necessity of the belief of the Articles of the Athanasian Creed must according to the sense of the Church of England be resolved either into the necessity of the Matters or into that necessity which supposeth clear Convictions that the things therein contained are of Divine Revelation From hence then it cannot at all follow because the Church of England owns the Creed
ill founded which S. Austin is so far from supposing that one may do that he judges him a mad man who disputes against any thing quod universa Ecclesia sentit and that they have hearts not only of Stone but even of Devils who resist so great a manifestation of Truth as is made by an Oecumenical Council for of that he speaks Your design is to prove that S. Austin doth not admit of any plea from Scripture Sense or Reason against any Definitions of the Church for which you first produce that known place in which S. Austin accounts it madness to oppose the universal practices of the Church which will hold for your purpose as far as rites and matters of Faith have any Analogy with each other your latter Testimony seems more to the purpose to all persons who do not examine it and to none else For although you seemed very careful to prevent any examination of the place by a false citation of Epist. 153. for 152. yet that hath not hindered my discovering your fraud in asserting that S. Austin there speaks of an Oecumenical Council For there is not so much as any thing like it in that Epistle I acknowledge those words to be found there which you produce Nulla excusatio jam remansit nimium dura nimium diabolica sunt hominum corda quae adhuc tantae manifestationi veritatis obsistunt But there needs no more to confute the most of your Testimonies out of the Fathers but to mention the occasion of their being produced or the scope and design of the Authors as is most evident in this place For this Epistle is written in the name of Silvanus Valentinus Aurelius Innocentius Maximinus Optatus Augustinus Donatus and other Bishops for satisfaction of the Donatists concerning the proceedings at the Council of Carthage For the Donatist Bishops being therein baffled had dispersed among their Proselytes many false rumours of that Council and of their being circumvented by their Catholick Adversaries To disprove which in this Epistle they first shew the fraud and falsitie of the Donatists and then the Integrity of their own proceedings by the choice of seven persons on either side who should speak in behalf of the rest and seven others as Counsellors to them and four Notaries on either side and four other persons who should keep the Records to prevent all fraud Besides all this every one was to subscribe in his own words that no man might complain that any thing was corrupted afterwards which things being dispersed while the persons themselves lived there was no probability Posterity should be deceived in the report of them And then follow those words That no excuse hath now been left but that their hearts are too hard and diabolical who could gainsay so clear a manifestation of Truth Is it not now a rare consequence from hence to inferr That it is not lawful upon any ground of Scripture Sense or Reason to dispute the Definitions of General Councils Whereas no such thing was ever mentioned as a General Council as appears by the very next words where he sayes expresly it was only a Council of African Bishops and elsewhere S. Austin tells the Donatists that they never durst appeal to a General Council And supposing the Council never so Oecumenical he mentions nothing of the Definitions of it but the manner of its proceedings So that the greatest Truth hereby manifested is your design to abuse his Lordship and the Reader together Since you disown the distinction of things being Fundamental in the matter and in the manner I shall not trouble you with shewing you the weakness of it but it were easie to manifest it as good as that you embrace of the material and formal Object which hath been sufficiently refuted in the precedent chapter and I have no leisure for repetitions His Lordship endeavouring further to shew What little Foundation your Doctrine of Fundamentals hath in the forecited place of S. Augustine urgeth this as an Argument against it That if all Points defined by the Church are therefore Fundamental because that is not to be shaken which is setled by full Authority of the Church then it must follow That the Point there spoken of the remission of Original Sin in the Baptism of Infants was defined when S. Augustine wrote this by a full sentence of a General Council You deny the Consequence for say you By Authority of the Church you mean and not unproperly the Church generally practising this Doctrine and defining it in a National Council confirmed by the Pope For this was plena authoritas Ecclesiae though not plenissima and to dispute against what was so practised and defined is in S. Augustine's sense to shake the Foundation of the Church if not wholly to destroy it It seems a little hard to understand what you mean by the Churches being not unproperly said to practise this Doctrine What did the Church practise the Doctrine of the remission of Original Sin in Infants That a Church should practise a matter of Faith seems a little wonderful but that it should do this and that not unproperly increaseth the admiration And we might think it a peculiar priviledge belonging to your Church but that she is not so much used to practise things more capable of it And can you think it enough to run us down by telling us That the Pope with a National Council hath defined it unless you first prove that the Pope and a National Council have as much authority as a General Council which you pretend to be infallible and if a National Council with the Pope be so too I wonder to what end General Councils are ever call'd since the Infallibility may be had at a much cheaper rate And by the same reason you make National Councils Infallible you may do Provincial if the Pope concurrs with them and by the same reason the Colledge of Cardinals may be Infallible without any of them because of the Pope's concurrence with them And so all this business of Councils is but a formal piece of Pageantry since all the Infallibility they have by this pretence is conferred by the Pope in his concurrence whose Infallibility doth not depend on the presence of a Council and therefore he must be as Infallible without a Council as with it So that at last this Discourse comes to this issue He that shakes the Pope's Infallibility shakes the Foundation of the Church and prove but this to have been S. Augustine's meaning you will highly advance the interest of your cause But whatever S. Austin's meaning be you think your self engaged to vindicate Bellarmine who his Lordship had said was deceived in saying That the Pelagian Heresie was never condemned in an Oecumenical Council but only in Nationals For saith he While the Pelagians stood out impudently against National Councils some of them defended Nestorius which gave occasion to the first Ephesine Council to excommunicate and depose
often-mention'd distinction of the Formal and Material Object of Faith the foundation of which having been already removed whatever you offer to build upon it must of necessity fall to the ground but I shall not follow your ill example in making tedious Repetitions and then cry out You are forced to it His Lordship urgeth further from the Romanists Doctrine of Fundamentals That the Churches Definition must be the Churches Foundation His words are Besides whatsoever is Fundamental in the Faith is Fundamental to the Church which is one by the Vnity of Faith Therefore if every thing defined by the Church be Fundamental in the Faith then the Churches Definition is the Churches Foundation And so upon the matter the Church can lay her own Foundation and then the Church must be in absolute and perfect Being before so much as her Foundation is laid To which you answer But what Absurdity is it to grant That the Definition of the Church teaching is the Foundation of the Church taught or the Definition of the Church representative is the Foundation of the Church diffusive I pray inform us whether this Church teaching and representing be the same Church with the Church taught and diffusive or one different from it If it be different it must have a different Foundation and so must be fundamentally different if it be the same then the Church must still lay its own Foundation for whatever becomes Fundamental by the Definition of the Church is I suppose to be believed as necessary i. e. Fundamental by the Church teaching and representing as well as taught and diffusive Unless you think those who decree things to be believed by all in order to salvation do exclude themselves out of that number and therefore though it be necessary for all others to believe it it is still indifferent for them whether they will believe it or no. And therefore were I of your Church I should heartily wish my self of the teaching and representative Church for then others might go to Hell for not believing that which I might chuse whether I would or no. What an excellent invention this is to make the Pope and Cardinals go to Heaven though they be Atheists and Infidels For you tell us we can have no assurance of any matter of Faith but from the Infallibility of your Church this Infallibility lyes not in the taught and diffusive but in the teaching and representative Church and this distinction here supposes that what is made the Foundation of the Church taught is not the Foundation of the Church teaching i. e. what is necessary to Salvation for one is not so for the other for that is your meaning of Fundamentals Now since all things become necessary to be believed by the Church diffusive upon the Authority of the Church representative it necessarily follows from this distinction That nothing at all is necessary to be believed by the Church representative And is not this a rare Church the mean while but what is it which makes it a Church for though it represents and teaches yet it is still call'd a Church teaching and representative If it be a Church something must make it so What can make it so if not the belief of what is necessary to Salvation And if it doth not believe all that is necessary to Salvation the Church diffusive is much more truly a Church than the representative If it doth believe all that is necessary then it must believe its own Definitions because those are supposed to be so and consequently if those be Fundamental the Church must still lay her own Foundation Or else these consequences follow 1. That may be a true Church which doth not believe all things necessary to Salvation 2. The Church teaching is not bound to believe that which she teaches but only the Church taught 3. That may be the same Church which Fundamentally differs from it self 4. When the Church defines a thing to be necessary she doth not believe it to be necessary but it becomes necessary after her Definition For I pray satisfie us as to this Teaching Church when she defines something necessary to be believed in order to Salvation which was not so defined before Doth she at that Instant of her Definition believe that to be necessary to Salvation or doth she not If she doth then it is necessary before her Definition and so the belief of it as necessary cannot depend upon it But if she believes it only to be necessary because she defines it to be so then she cannot believe it to be necessary till she hath defined it and consequently defines that to be necessary which she believes not to be necessary and so defines contrary to her own judgement and belief Let me therefore ask here some more Questions which I doubt you will think troublesome If the Church representative believed that not to be necessary to Salvation which she defined to be necessary to Salvation was she infallible in that belief or no If she was not infallible then at that time what assurance could men have of any matter of Faith since you tell us That must be had from the Churches Infallibility If she were infallible then either in some things only or in all she believed if only in some things we ought to know what she is infallible in and what not lest we deceive our selves in believing her infallible in that in which she is not infallible If in all things then she is infallible in believing that not to be necessary to Salvation which yet she infallibly defines to be necessary to Salvation And so the Church may infallibly define that to be true which at the very moment of that Definition she infallibly believes to be false All these are the just and excellent Consequences of this useful Distinction of yours which you look on as the only happy Expedient whereby to free your self from asserting that the Church by making things Fundamental by her Definitions doth thereby lay her own Foundation But as absurd and unreasonable as this is you would seem to have something to say for it for you tell us That the Pastors in all Ages preserving Christian People from being carried away with every wind of Doctrine are a Foundation to them of constancy in Doctrine Wonderfully subtle it is pity such excellent reasoning should want the ornaments of Mood and Figure but thus it is in them If the Pastors of the Church may be the means of preserving men from errours then the Definition of the Church teaching is the Foundation of the Church taught which in short amounts to this If the Pastors of the Church may be a Foundation of mens constancy in Doctrine then they may be a Foundation of mens inconstancy in Doctrine If this be not that you mean I can make no sense of what you say and if it be let any one else make Sense of it that hath a gift for it For by constancy in
and exhibit to us the nature of the grace of the Gospel as it cleanseth and purifieth and to confirm the truth of the Covenant on Gods part and to enstate the partakers of it in the priviledges of the Church of God now as to all these ends there is no incapacity in Infants to exclude them from Baptism because of them So that nothing can seem wanting of the ends of Baptism but that which seems most Ceremonial in it which is the personal restipulation which yet may reasonably be supplyed by Sponsors so far as to make it of the nature of a solemn Contract and Covenant in sight of the Congregation Thus far it appears from Scripture and Reason that no incapacity in Infants doth exclude them from Baptism 2. That there is no direct or consequential prohibition made by our Blessed Saviour to exclude them For granting that he had the power to limit and determine the subject of Baptism the question is Whether he hath so far done it as to exclude Infants And nothing of that nature is pretended before the last Commission given to the Apostles of Teaching and Baptizing all Nations Matth. 28.19 And that by this expression there is no exclusion of Infants will appear 1. If our Saviour had intended the gathering of Churches among the Gentiles according to the Law of Moses he could hardly have expressed it after another manner then thus Go Proselyte all Nations Circumcising them Now I appeal to any mans judgement and reason whether in such words it could be imagined that the Infants of such Gentile-Proselytes should be excluded Circumcision and what reason can there be then from these words to imagine that our Saviour did intend to exclude the Infants of Gentile-Converts from Baptism 2. We must consider what apprehensions those whom our Saviour directed these words to viz. the Apostles had concerning the Church-state of such as were in an external Covenant with God which they measured by the general reason of that Covenant which God made with the Jews Can we then think that when our Saviour bid the Apostles gather whole Nations into Churches they should imagine the Infants were excluded out of it when they were so solemnly admitted into it in that dispensation which was in use among them 3. The Gentiles being now to be first Proselyted to Christianity the order of the words was necessary for whoever imagined but that such as were wholly strangers to Christianity as those were whom Christ there speaks of were to be first taught or discipled before they were to be Baptized For suppose it should be said to such persons among whom Infant Baptism is the most used Go and Disciple the Indians Baptizing them c. Could any one conceive the intention of such a Commission was to exclude the Infants of all those Indians from Baptism when it was well known that Infant-Baptism was used among those who came with that Commission And therefore neither these words here nor those Mark 16.16 He that believeth and is Baptized c. can in reason be so interpreted as to exclude Infants when the meer order of nature and necessity of the thing requires that those who first own Christianity by being Baptized ought before such Baptism not only to believe but to make profession of that Faith but this reacheth not at all to the case of such Infants as are born of those persons For if any one had said to Abraham He that believes and is circumcised shall be saved Could it have been so interpreted that the intention was to exclude his Children from Circumcision No more ought these words of our Saviour be strained to a greater prejudice of the right of Infants to Baptism then those other to their right of Circumcision And thus far we see there is no ground from Scriptures or Reason why Infants should be excluded And were it not too large a Digression I might further shew how suitable the Baptism of Infants is to the administration of things under the Gospel but I shall only propound some considerations concerning it 1. That if it had been Christs intention to exclude Infants âhere had been far greater reason for an express prohibition then of an express command if his intention were to admit them because this was suitable to the general grounds of Gods dispensation among them before 2. It is very hard to conceive that the Apostles thought Infants excluded by Christ when after Christs Ascension they looked on themselves as bound to observe the Jewish customes even when they had Baptized many thousand people 3. If admission of Infants to Baptism were a meer Relick of Judaism it seems strange that none of the Judaizing Christians should be charged with it who yet are charged with the observation of other Judaical rites 4. Since the Jewish Christians were so much offended at the neglect of Circumcision Acts 21.21 Can we in reason think they should quietly bear their Childrens being wholly thrown out of the Church as they would have been if neither admitted to Circumcision nor Baptism 5. Had it been contrary to Christs Institution we should not have had such evidence of its early practice in the Church as we have And here I acknowledge the use of Apostolical Tradition to manifest this to us In which sense I acknowledge what St. Austin saith That the custom of our mother the Church is not to be contemned or thought superfluous neither is it to be believed but as an Apostolical Tradition For that the words are to be read so and not as you translate them nor at all to be believed unless it had been an Apostolical Tradition from thence inferring that Infant-Baptism were not to be believed at all but for Tradition appears by three ancient Manuscripts at Oxford as well as the course of the sentence and St. Austins judgement in other places viz. that it ought to be read Nec omninò credenda nisi Apostolica traditio esse and not esset But we grant that the practice of the Church from Apostolical times is a great confirmation that it was never Christs intention to have Infants excluded from Baptism And thus much may suffice to shew what evidence we have from Scripture and Reason without recourse wholly to Tradition or building upon any more controverted places to justifie the Churches practice in Infant-Baptism which is as much as is necessary for us to do What follows concerning the founding Divine Faith on Apostolical Tradition will be fully considered in the succeeding Controversie concerning the resolution of Faith to which we now hasten CHAP. V. The Romanists way of Resolving Faith The ill consequences of the resolution of Faith by the Churches Infallibility The grand Absurdities of it manifested by its great unreasonableness in many particulars The certain Foundations of Faith unsettled by it as is largely proved The Circle unavoidable by their new attempts The impossibility of proving the Church Infallible by the way that Moses Christ and his Apostles
whether an Infallible Assent to the Infallibility of your Church can be grounded on those Motives of Credibility If you affirm it then there can be no imaginable necessity to make the Testimony of your Church infallible in order to Divine Faith for you will not I hope deny but that there are at least equal Motives of Credibility to prove the Divine Authority of the Scriptures as the Infallibility of your Church and if so why may not an Infallible Assent be given to the Scriptures upon those Motives of Credibility as well as to your Churches Infallibility If you deny the Assent built upon the Motives of Credibility to be Infallible how can you make the Assent to your Churches Testimony to be infallible when that Infallibility is attempted to be proved only by the Motives of Credibility And therefore it necessarily follows That notwithstanding your bearing it so high under the pretence of Infallibility you leave mens minds much more wavering in their Assent than before in that as shall afterwards appear these very Motives of Credibility do not at all prove the Infallibility of your Church which undoubtedly prove the Truth and Certainty of Christian Religion Thus while by this device you seek to avoid the Circle you destroy the Foundation of your Discourse That there must be an Infallible Assent to the truth of that Proposition That the Scriptures are the Word of God which you call Divine Faith which how can it be infallible when that Infallibility at the highest by your own confession is but evidently credible and so I suppose the Authority of the Scriptures is without your Churches Infallibility And thus you run into the same Absurdities which you would seem to avoid which is the second thing to manifest the unreasonableness of this way for whatever Absurdity you charge us with for believing the Doctrine of Christ upon the Motives of Credibility unavoidably falls upon your selves for believing the Churches Infallibility on the same grounds for if we leave the Foundation of Faith uncertain you do so too if we build a Divine Faith upon Motives of Credibility so do you if we make every ones reason the Judge in the choice of his Religion so must you be forced to do if you understand the consequence of your own principles 1. It is impossible for you to give a better account of Faith by the Infallibility of your Church than we can do without it for if Divine Faith cannot be built upon the Motives proving the Doctrine of Christ what sense or reason is there that it should be built on those Motives which prove your Churches Infallibility so that if we leave the Foundation of Faith uncertain you much more and that I prove by a Rule of much Authority with you by which you use to pervert the weak judgements of such who in your case do not discern the Sophistry of it Which is when you come to deal with persons whom you hope to Proselyte you urge them with this great Principle That Prudence is to be our Guide in the choice of our Religion and that Prudence directs us to chuse the safest way and that it is much safer to make choice of that way which both sides agree Salvation is to be obtained in than of that which the other side utterly denies men can be saved in How far this Rule will hold in the choice of Religion will be examined afterwads but if we take your word that it is a sure Rule I know nothing will be more certainly advantagious to us in on present case For both sides I hope are agreed that there are sufficient Motives of Credibility as to the belief of the Scriptures but we utterly deny that there are any such Motives as to the Infallibility of your Church it then certainly follows That our way is the more eligible and certain and that we lay a surer Foundation for Faith than you do upon your principles for resolving Faith 2. Either you must deny any such thing as that you call Divine Faith or you must assert that it may have no other Foundation than the Motives of Credibility which yet is that you would seem most to avoid by introducing the Infallibility of your Church that the Foundation of Faith may not be uncertain whereas supposing what you desire you must of necessity do that you would seem most fearful of which is making a Divine Faith to rest upon prudential Motives Which I thus prove It is an undoubted Axiom among the great men of your side That whatever is a Foundation for a Divine Faith must itself be believed with a firm certain and infallible Assent Now according to your principles the Infallibility of the Church is the Foundation for Divine Faith and therefore that must be believed with an Assent Infallible It is apparent then an Assent Infallible is required which is that which in other terms you call Divine Faith now when you make it your business to prove the Churches Infallibility upon your prudential Motives I suppose your design is by those proofs to induce men to believe it and if men then do believe it upon those Motives do you not found an Assent Infallible or a Divine Faith upon the Motives of Credibility And by the same reason that you urge against us the necessity of believing the Scriptures to be the Word of God by Divine Faith because it is the ground why we believe the things contained in the Scripture we press on your side the necessity of believing the Infallibility of the Church by a Faith equally Divine because that is to you the only sufficient Foundation of believing the Scriptures or any thing contained in them 3. You make by this way of resolving Faith every man's Reason the only Judge in the choice of his Religion which you are pleased to charge on us as a great Absurdity yet you who have deserved so very ill of Reason are fain to call in her best assistance in a case of the greatest moment viz. On what ground we must believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God You say Because the Church is infallible which delivers them to us but how should we come to know that she is infallible you tell us By the Motives of Credibility very good But must not every ones reason judge whether these Motives be credible or no and whether they belong peculiarly to your Church so as to prove the Infallibility of it as it is distinct from all other societies of Christians in the world You tell us indeed That these Motives make it evidently credible but must we believe it to be so because you say so If so then the ground of believing is not the Credibility of the Motives but of your Testimony and therefore you ought to make it evidently true that whatever you speak is undoubtedly true which whosoever reads your Book will hardly be perswaded to So that of necessity every mans reason must be Judge whether your Church
their own Infallibility certainly they thought the one afforded not a good foundation for Faith though the other after believing it might highly advance it And therefore I suggest not these things in the least to question the Infallibility of the Apostles but to let us see that even at that time when there was a certainly infallible Testimony yet that is not urged as the only Foundation for Faith but Rational Evidence produced even by those persons who were thus infallible If we descend lower in the Christian Church or walk abroad to view the several Plantations of the Churches at that time Where do we read or meet with the least intimation of an infallible Testimony of the Catholick Church so call'd from its Communion with that of Rome What infallible Testimony of that Church had the poor Brittains to believe on or those Barbarians mentioned in Irenaeus who yet believed without a written word What mention do we meet with in all the ancient Apologeticks of Christians wherein they give so large an account of the grounds of Christian Faith of the modern method for resolving Faith Nay what one ancient Father or Council give the least countenance to this pretended Infallibility much less make it the only sure Foundation of Faith as you do Nay how very few are there among your selves who believe it and yet think themselves never the worse Christians for it If then your Doctrine be true what becomes of the Faith of all these persons mentioned Upon your principles their Faith could not be a true and Divine Faith that is Let them all think they believed the Doctrine of Christ never so heartily and obeyed it never so conscientiously yet because they did not believe it on the Infallibility of your Church their Faith was but a kind of guilded and splendid Infidelity and none of them Christians because not Jesuits And doth not this principle then fairly advance Christianity in the world when the belief of it comes to be setled on Foundations never heard of in the best and purest times of it nay such Foundations as for want of their believing them their Faith must be all in vain and Christ dyed in vain for them 2. You assert such things upon the pretence of Infallibility which destroy all the rational evidence of Christian Religion And what greater disservice could you possibly do to it than by taking away all the proper grounds of certainty of it And instead of building it super hanc Petram upon the Rock of Infallibility you do it only upon a Quick-sand which swallows up the Edifice and sucks in the Foundations of it You would have men to believe the Infallibility of your Church that their Faith might stand upon sure grounds and yet if men believe this Infallibility of your Church you require such things to be believed upon it which destroy all kind of certainty in Religion And that I prove by some of those principles which are received among you upon the account of the Churches Infallibility 1. That the judgement of Sense is not to be relyed on in matters of Faith This is the great Principle upon which the Doctrine of Transubstantiation stands in your Church and this is all the most considerative men among you have to say when all those Contradictions are offered to them which that Doctrine is so big of both to the judgement of sense and reason viz. That though it seem so contradictory yet because the Church which is infallible delivers it they are bound not to question it If this Principle then be true That the judgement of sense is not to be relyed on in matters which sense is capable of judging of it will be impossible for any one to give any satisfactory account of the grand Foundations of Christian Faith For if we carefully examine the grounds of Certainty in Christian Religion we find the great appeal made to the judgement of Sense That which we have seen and heard and handled If then the judgement of Sense must not be taken in a proper object at due distance and in such a thing wherein all mens Senses are equally Judges I pray tell me what assurance the Apostles could have or any from them of any miracles which Christ wrought of any Doctrine which he preached especially because in his miracles there was something above nature in which case men are more apt to suspect Impostures than in things which are the continual Objects of Sense as in the case of Transubstantiation Wherein if men are not bound to rely on the judgement of Sense you must say that our Faculties are so made that they may be imposed upon in the proper Objects of them and if so farewell all Certainty not only in Religion but in all things else in the world For what assurance can I have of the knowledge of any thing if I find that my Faculties not only may be but I am bound to believe that they actually are deceived in a thing that is as proper an Object of sense as any in the world And if a thing which the judgement of all mankind those excepted who have given away their sense and reason in this present case doth unanimously concurr in may be false What evidence can we have when any thing is true For if a thing so plain and evident to our Senses may be false viz. That what I and all other men see is bread what ground of certainty can we have but that which my Senses and all other mens judge to be false may be true For by this means you take away the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã both of Sense and Reason in things and consequently all things are equally true and false to us and thence it follows That Truth and Falshood are but Fancies that our Faculties have no means to difference the one from the other that in things we all agree in as proper objects of Sense we not only may be but are deceived and then farewell Sense Reason and Religion together For I pray Tell me what Assurance could the Apostles have of the Resurrection of Christ's Individual Body from the grave but the Judgement of Sense What waies did he use to convince them that he was not a Spectre or Apparition but by an appeal to their Senses by what means did he reclaim Thomas from his Infidelity but by bidding him make use of his Senses If Thomas had believed Transubstantiation he would easily have answered our Saviours Argument and told him If there were not a productive yet there might be an Adductive Transmutation of some other person into him And the Disciples might all have said It was true there were the accidents of Christ's Body the external shape and figure of it but for all they could discern there might be some Invisible Spirit under those external accidents of shape and therefore they must desire to be excused from believing it to be his Body for Hoc est corpus meum had told them already
them and to acknowledge their words for infallible Oracles of Truth Was not here then sufficient ground for assent in the Primitive Christians to the Apostles Doctrine Not as you weakly imagine because the Doctrine of the Apostles was suitable to the Doctrine of Christ for the ground why they assented to the Doctrine of Christ was because of the Testimony of the Apostles And therefore to say They believed the Doctrine of the Apostles because it was agreeable to the Doctrine of Christ and then that they believed the Doctrine of Christ because it was suitable to the Testimony of the Apostles is a Circle fit for none but your self and that silly person of your own moulding whom you call the Sectary It were worth considering too How the works of Christ could prove the Doctrine of the Apostles suitable to his own I had thought Christs works had proved his own Testimony to be true and not the Apostles Doctrine to be consonant to his The works of Christ shew us the reason why he was to be believed in what he delivered and did not the works of the Apostles do so too What need then any rational person enquire further why the Apostles Doctrine was to be believed Was it not on the same account that the Doctrine of Christ was to be believed But say you How should you know their Doctrine was the same What do you want an infallible Testimony for this too or do you believe that God can contradict himself or that Christ should send such to deliver his Doctrine to the world and attest it with miracles who should falsifie and corrupt it Now you will say I am come over to you and answer as you do that the Apostles Testimony was to be believed because of the pregnant and convincing Motives of Credibility This I grant but must be excused as to what follows That these same Motives moved the Primitive Christians and us in our respective times to believe the Church Prove but that and I yield the cause But till then I pray give us leave to believe that still you prove idem per idem and your Answers are like your Proofs for this we have had often already and have sufficiently examined before as likewise your other Coccysm about the Formal Object of Faith and certain inducements to accept the Churches Infallibility which I shall not think worth repeating till you think what I have said against it before worth answering Your second Instance is ad hominem whereby you would prove That if he acknowledge the Church infallible in Fundamentals he must prove idem per idem as much as you do For say you if he be demanded a reason why he believes such Points as he calls Fundamental his Answer is because they are agreeable to the Doctrine of Christ. If he be asked How he knows them to be so he will no doubt produce the words sentences and works of Christ who taught the said Fundamental Points But if he be asked a third time By what means he is assured that these Testimonies do make for him then he will not have recourse to the words themselves i. e. to the Bible but his final Answer will be He knows them to be so and that they do make for him because the present Church doth infallibly witness so much from Tradition and according to Tradition which is say you to prove idem per idem as much as we Things are not alwaies just as you would have them If we allow you to make both Objections and Answers for us no doubt you are guilty of no Absurdity so great but we shall be equally guilty of it But it is the nature both of your Religion and Arguments not to be able to stand a Tryal but however they must undergo it I say then that granting the Church infallible in the belief of Fundamentals it doth not follow that we must prove idem per idem as you do For when we ask you Why you believe your Doctrine to be the sole Catholick Faith your final Answer is because your Church is infallible which is answering by the very thing in Question for you have no other way to judge of the Catholick Faith but by the Infallibility of your Church but when you ask us Why we believe such an Article to be Fundamental as for Instance That Christ will give Eternal Life to them that obey him we answer not because the Church which is infallible in Fundamentals delivers it to be so which were answering idem per idem but we appeal to that common reason which is in mankind Whether if the Doctrine of Christ be true this can be other than a Fundamental Article of it it being that without which the whole design of Christian Religion comes to nothing Therefore you much mistake when you think we resolve our Faith of Fundamentals into the Church as the infallible Witness of them for though the Church may be infallible in the belief of all things Fundamental for otherwise it were not a Church if it did not believe them it doth not thence necessarily follow That the Church must infallibly witness what is Fundamental and what not It is sufficient that the Church doth deliver from the consent of universal Tradition that infallible Rule of Faith which to be sure contains all things Fundamental in it though she never meddle with the deciding what Points are Fundamental and what not If you therefore ask me Why I believe any Point supposed Fundamental I answer By all the evidence which assures me that the Doctrine containing that Point is of Divine Revelation If you aske me How I know that this Point is part of that Doctrine I appeal to the common sense and reason of the world as to things plainly Fundamental and therefore by this means your third Question is prevented How I know this to be the meaning of those words for I suppose no one that can tell that two and two make four can question but if the Doctrine of Christ be true the belief of it is necessary to Salvation which is it we mean by Fundamental Either therefore prove it necessary that the Church must infallibly witness what is Fundamental and what not and that we must rely on such a Testimony in the belief of Fundamentals or you prove nothing at all to your purpose no more than your convincing Motives of Credibility which were they made into a grand Sallad would know the way to the Table they are served so often up But I have found them so dry and insipid already I have no encouragement to venture on them any more But still you are deservedly afraid we should not think worthily enough of your Churches Infallibility You therefore tell us very wisely that this Infallibility is not a thing that is not infallible For say you Which Infallibility must come from the Holy Ghost and be more than humane or moral and therefore must be truly supernatural c. It
answer that when you say It is necessary we must believe the Scriptures to be the VVord of God with Divine Faith this Divine Faith must be taken in one of these three senses either first that Faith may be said to be Divine which hath a Divine Revelation for its Material Object as that Faith may be said to be a Humane Faith which is conversant about natural causes and the effects of them And in this sense it cannot but be a Divine Faith which is conversant about the Scripture because it is a Divine Revelation Or secondly a Faith may be said to be Divine in regard of its Testimony or Formal Object and so that is called a Divine Faith which is built on a Divine Testimony and that a Humane Faith which is built on a Humane Testimony Thus I assert all that Faith which respects particular Objects of Faith supposing the belief of the Scriptures is in this sense Divine because it is built on a properly Divine Testimony but the Question is Whether that Act of Faith which hath the whole Scripture as its Material Object be in that sense Divine or no. Thirdly Faith may be said to be Divine in regard of the Divine Effects it hath upon the soul of man as it is said in Scripture to purifie the heart overcome the world resist Satan and his Temptations receive Christ c. And this is properly a Divine Faith and there is no Question but every Christian ought to have this Divine Faith in his soul without which the other sorts of Divine Faith will never bring men to Heaven But it is apparent that all who heartily profess to believe the Scriptures to be the VVord of God have not this sort of Divine Faith though they have so firm an assent to the Truth and Authority of it that they durst lay down their lives for it The Assent therefore we see may be firm where the effects are not saving The Question now is Whether this may be called a Divine Faith in the second sense that is Whether it must be built on a Testimony infallible For clearing which we must further consider the meaning of this Question How we know Scripture to be Scripture which may import two things How we know that all these Books contain God's VVord in them Or secondly How we know the Doctrine contained in these Books to be Divine If you then ask me Whether it be necessary that I believe with such a Faith as is built on Divine Testimony that these Books called the Scripture contain the principles of the Jewish and Christian Religion in them which we call God's VVord I deny it and shall do so till you shew me some further necessity of it than you have done yet and my reason is because I may have sufficient ground for such an Assent without any Divine Testimony But if you ask me On what ground I believe the Doctrine to be Divine which is contained in those Books I then answer affirmatively On a Divine Testimony because God hath given abundant evidence that this Doctrine was of Divine Revelation Thus you see what little reason you have to triumph in your Argument from Divine Faith inferring the necessity of an unwritten VVord of God But the further explication of these things must be reserved till I come to the positive part of our way of resolution of Faith I now return Having after your way that is very unsatisfactorily attempted the vindicating your resolution of Faith from the Objections which were offered against it by his Lordship you come now to consider the second way propounded by him for the resolving Faith which is That Scripture should be fully and sufficiently known as by divine and infallible Testimony by the resplendency of that light which it hath in it self only and by the witness it can so give to it self against which he gives such evident reasons that you acknowledge the Relator himself hath sufficiently confuted it and you agree with him in the Confutation Yet herein you grow very angry with him for saying That this Doctrine may agree well enough with your grounds in regard you hold that Tradition may be known for God's VVord by its own light and consequently the like may be said of Scripture This you call aspersing you and obtruding falshoods upon you Whether it be so or no must appear upon examination Two Testimonies are cited from A. C. to this purpose the first is Tradition of the Church is of a Company which by its own light shews it self to be infallibly assisted Your Answer is That the word which must properly relate to the preceding word Company and not to the more remote word Tradition But what of all this Doth any thing the less follow which the Bishop charged A. C. with For it being granted by you That there can be no knowing an Apostolical Tradition but for the Infallibility of the present Church the same light which discovers the Infallibility of that Company doth likewise discover the Truth of Tradition If therefore your Church doth appear infallible by its own light which is your own confession May not the Scripture as well appear infallible by its own light For is there not as great self-evidence at least that the Scripture is infallible as that your Church is infallible And therefore that way you take to shift the Objection makes it return upon you with greater force For I pray tell me how any Company can appear by its own Light to be assisted by the Holy Ghost and not much more the Holy Scripture to be divine Especially seeing you must at last be forced to derive this Infallibility from the Scriptures For you pretend to no other Infallibility than what comes by a promise of the immediate assistance of the Holy Ghost How then can any Company appear by its own Light to be thus infallibly assisted unless it first appear by its own Light that there was such a Promise and how can that unless it antecedently appear by its own Light that the Scripture in which the Promise is written is the VVord of God You tell us A. C ' s. intention is only to affirm That the Church is known by her Motives of Credibility which ever accompany her and may very properly be called her own Light How well you are acquainted with A. C ' s. intention I know not neither is it much matter for granting this to have been his intention may not the Scripture be known by her Motives of Credibility as well as the Church and do not these accompany her as much as the Church and may they not be called her Light as properly as those of the Church It is plain then by all the senses and meanings you can find out in the very same that you say the Church may be known by her own Light the Scripture may much more and therefore you have no reason to quarrel with his Lordship or affirming it The second Testimony
and therefore may cause an undoubted Certainty of Assent As it is in all matters of fact for Will you say that it is as probable that there is not such a place as Rome as that there is because the only Argument you have to be convinced of it is but in it self a probability which is the fame and report of people It is a piece therefore of great weakness of judgement to say That there can be no certain Assent where there is a meer possibility of being deceived For there is no kind of Assent in the humane understanding as to the existence of any thing but there is a possibility of deception in it Will you say because it is possible all mens senses may deceive them therefore there can be no certainty of any object of sense And as well may you say it as destroy any certainty of Assent in Religion where you suppose a possibility of being deceived But if I be not much deceived though I suppose you will account it a grand Paradox an Assent may be as firm and certain upon moral grounds as upon a demonstration that is when the matter is capable of no more than moral grounds For the reason why we suspend Assent is the unproportionateness of the evidence to the matter to be proved So when the matter is capable of more evidence than is produced and I know it to be so my understanding cannot firmly assent on such evidence but when the matter is capable of no more than moral evidence and I know it I may as firmly assent to the Truth of such a thing as to the Truth of a clearer thing upon clearer evidence Thus I may as firmly assent that there are such places as the East and West-Indies upon the constant report of men as that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles I say not the evidence is the same but that the Assent may be as firm You cannot then destroy the certainty of Assent which is required to Christian Religion by telling men that the Arguments they rely on are but moral Arguments And by this you may see there may be a degree far beyond probability in the Assent where the Arguments in themselves considered may be called probable or rather that Moral certainty may be a most firm rational and undoubted certainty Your following discourse between the Bishop and Heathen run upon the former mistake as though his intention were to prove first the Bible to be God's Infallible Word before he would prove Christian Religion to be true which I have already shewed you is a mistake which appears sufficiently by his own words of proving the Christian Religion to stand upon surer grounds than any other Religion not only than that one which the Heathen believed but any other in the world and therefore your Objection is answered that for all this a third Religion may be truer than both Your remaining discourse proves nothing at all but on the former Supposition and therefore supposing his intention be to prove Christianity to be True and Divine his Argument from the power of it over the Devil follows plainly enough And when he mentions the evidence of it out of Scripture he doth not suppose the belief of it as an infallible Word of God but only as of any other history and therefore is far from such a petitio principii as you imagine That which the Bishop saith may reasonably be supposed as a Principle in Divinity as there are postulata in other Sciences is not the Infallibility of the Doctrine or Revelation but the Credibility of both in order to further Conviction concerning their Infallibility for unless the Credibility of it be first assumed as a Principle men will not use the means in order to conviction of its Infallibility And in this sense he doth not contradict himself nor unsay what he had said before and that this was his sense appears by the last words of that discourse That a meer natural man may be thus far convinced that the Text of God is a very credible Text. Thus we see how much notwithstanding your protestation to the contrary You have wronged the Bishop both by falsly imposing on him and dissembling the force of his Argument And how unjust that imputation is That if his Doctrine had been held in the Primitive Church it would have laid the world under an impossibility of being converted to Christianity whereas I have shewed how consonant his way is as I explained it both to reason and the proceedings of the Primitive Christians in the conversion of learned Heathens But since you will needs set the Bishop to convert a learned Heathen I will see what an excellent faculty you have according to your Principles of satisfying an Atheist or a Sceptick in Religion whom for your sake I will suppose more desirous of satisfaction than commonly such persons are Let us see then how he accosts you Scept Sir I understand by a great Book of yours that you have only taken the right course to convince such persons as my self who are a little doubtful concerning the received Principles of Religion in the world for the wisest I have conversed with of those who own those things do offer only to prove them by Reason and Arguments which I understand you decry as a way to make all men such as I am but that you have an excellent recipe for men under my distemper for you promise them no less then Infallible certainty in all things you require them to believe which is a thing I have been so long seeking for and have yet so unhappily mist of that I cannot but rejoyce in meeting with such a healing Priest who offers nothing short of Infallibility in all matters of Religion T. C. Sir I question not but before you and I part I shall cure those distorted joynts of your mind and instead of being a Sceptick make you a sound Catholick For indeed it is true what you say That those who would convince you by reason do but offer to make you more a Sceptick than you are at least you can have no Divine Faith at all upon such principles but if you will follow my counsel I doubt not but to make you Infallibly certain in the things we require you to believe Scept I see then there is hope of a cure for me but I pray tell me what that is I must be Infallibly certain of and by what means I shall attain it I would therefore in the first place be Infallibly certain of the being of God and the immortality of souls for these I take to be the principles of all Religion T. C. You take a wrong method you should first enquire after the means of this Infallible certainty for when once you have got that it will make you Infallibly certain of what ever you desire but as long as you use still so much reason as to demand Infallible certainty in principles
a revelation for what he did And the answer to this had been only pertinent and satisfactory So that he might have no reason to question it although he did not believe any thing more then common fidelity in his Fathers testimony For God never when revelations were most common thought it necessary to multiply revelations so far as to make one necessary to attest another but that revelation which was communicated to one was obligatory to all concerned in it though they could have nothing but Moral certainty for it By this it appears that when we now speak of the resolution of Faith though the utmost reason of our assent is that Infallibility which is supposed in Divine Testimony yet the nearest and most proper resolution of it is into the grounds inducing us to believe that such a Testimony is truly Divine and the resolution of this cannot be into any Divine Testimony without a process in infinitum 2. That when we speak of the resolution of Faith by Faith we understand a rational and discursive act of the mind For Faith being an assent upon evidence or reason inducing the mind to assent it must be a rational and discursive act and such a one that one may be able to give an account of to another And this account which men are able to give why they do believe or on what ground they do it is that which we call resolving Faith And by this it appears that whatever resolves Faith into its efficient cause which some improperly call the Testimony of the spirit though it may be true yet comes not home to the question For if by the Testimony of the spirit be meant that operation of the spirit whereby saving Faith is wrought in us then it gives no account from the thing to be believed why we assent to it but only shews how Faith is wrought in us by way of efficiency which is rather resolving the question about the necessity of Grace than the grounds of Faith Our question is not then concerning the necessity of infused habits of Grace but of those rational inducements which do incline the mind to a firm assent For Faith in us however it is wrought being a perswasion of the mind it is not conceivable how there should be any discursive act of the mind without some reason causing the mind to assent to what is propounded to it For without this Faith would be an unaccountable thing and the spirit of revelation would not be the spirit of wisdom and Religion would be exposed to the contempt of all unbelievers if we were able to give no other account of Faith then that it is wrought in us by the Spirit of God When we speak therefore of the resolving Faith we mean what are the rational inducements to believe or what evidence there is in the object propounded to make us firmly assent to it 3. According to the different acts of Faith there must be assigned a different resolution of Faith For every act being rational and discursive must have its proper grounds belonging to it unless we suppose that act elicited without any reason for it which is incongruous with the nature of the humane understanding There are then in the question of resolution of Faith these three questions to be resolved First Why I believe those things to be true which are contained in the Book called the Scripture 2. Why I believe the Doctrine contained in that Book to be Divine 3. Why I believe the Books themselves to be of Divine revelation Now every one of these questions admits of a different way of resolution as will appear by the handling each of them distinctly 1. If I be asked On what grounds I believe the things to be true which are contained in Scripture my answer must be From the greatest evidence of truth which things of that nature are capable of If therefore the persons who are supposed to have writ these things were such who were fully acquainted with what they writ of if they were such persons who cannot be suspected of any design to deceive men by their writings and if I be certain that these which go under the name of their writings are undoubtedly theirs I must have sufficient grounds to believe the truth of them Now that the writers of these things cannot be suspected of ignorance appears by the time and age they writ in when the story of these things was new and such multitudes were willing enough to have contradicted it if any thing had beeen amiss besides some of the writers had been intimately conversant with the person and actions of him whom they writ most of That they could have no intent to deceive appears from the simplicity and candour both of their actions and writings from their contempt of the world and exposing themselves to the greatest hazards to bear witness to them That these are the very same writings appears by all the evidence can be desired For we have as great if not much greater reason to believe them to be the Authors of the Books under their Names than any other writers of any Books whatsoever both because the matters are of greater moment and therefore men might be supposed more inquisitive about them and that they have been unanimously received for ãâã from the very time of their being first written except some very few which upon strict examination were admitted too and we find these very Books cited by the learned Christians under these Names in that time when it had been no difficulty to have found out several of the Original Copy's themselves When therefore they were universally received by Christians never doubted of by Jews or Heathen Philosophers we have as great evidence for this first act of Faith as it is capable of And he is unreasonable who desires more 2. If I be asked why I believe the Doctrine contained in these Books to be Divine I must give in two things for answer 1. That in the Age when the Doctrine was delivered there was sufficient reason to believe it Divine 2. That if there was sufficient reason then we have sufficient reason now 1. That in the Age when the Doctrine was delivered there was sufficient reason to believe it Divine Supposing then that we already believe upon the former answer that all the matters of fact be true I answer that if Christ did such unparalleâd miracles and rose from the dead they who heard his Doctrine had reason to believe it to be of God and this I suppose the greatest Infidel would not deny if himself had been one of the witnesses of his actions and resurection 2. That if they had reason then we have so now because tradition to us doth only supply the want of our senses as to what Christ did and spake i. e. That tradition is a kind of derivative and perpetuated sensation to us it being of the same use to us now which our eyes and ears had been if we had been
contain the Gospel in them for it is plain he speaks of them and not the Doctrine abstractly considered should have wanted that consent of the Catholick Church that it had not been delivered down by a constant succession of all Ages from the Apostles and were not received among the Christian Churches but started out from a few persons who differ from all Christian Churches as this Apostleship of Manichaeus did he might justly question the Truth of them And this I take to be truest and most natural account of these so much controverted words of S. Austin by which sense the other two Questions are easily answered for it is plain S. Austin means not the judgement of the present Church but of the Catholick Church in the most comprehensive sense as taking in all ages and places or in Vincentius his words Succession Vniversality and Consent and it further appears that the influence which this Authority hath is sufficient to induce Assent to the thing attested in all persons who consider it in what age capacity or condition soever And therefore if in this sense you extend it beyond Novices and Weaklings I shall not oppose you in it but it cannot be denied that it is intended chiefly for doubters in the Faith because the design of it is to give men satisfaction as to the reason why they ought to believe But neither you nor any of those you call Catholick Authours will ever be able to prove that S. Austin by these words ever dreamt of any infallible Authority in the present Church as might be abundantly proved from the chapter foregoing where he gives an account of his being in the Catholick Church from the Consent of People and Nations from that Authority which was begun by miracles nourished by hope increased by charity confirmed by continuance which certainly are not the expressions of one who resolved his Faith into the infallible Testimony of the present Church And the whole scope and design of his Book de utilitate credendi doth evidently refute any such apprehension as might be easily manifested were it not too large a subject for this place where we only examine the meaning of S. Austin in another Book The substance of which is that That speech of his doth not contain a resolution of his Faith as to the Divinity of Christs Doctrine but the resolution of it as to the Truth and authenticalness of the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists which we acknowledge to be into the Testimony of the Catholick Church in the most large and comprehensive sense The next thing we come to consider is an Absurdity you charge on his Lordship viz. That if the infallible Authority of the Church be not admitted in the Resolution he must have recourse to the private Spirit which you say though he would seem to exclude from the state of the Question yet he falls into it under the specious title of Grace so that he only changeth the words but admits the same thing for which you cite p. 83 84. That therein his Lordship should averr that where others used to say They were infallibly resolved that Scripture was Gods Word by the Testimony of the Spirit within them that he hath the same assurance by Grace Whether you be not herein guilty of abusing his Lordship by a plain perverting of his meaning will be best seen by producing his words A man saith he is probably led by the Authority of the present Church as by the first informing inducing perswading means to believe the Scripture to be the Word of God But when he hath studied considered and compared this Word with it self and with other writings with the help of ordinary Grace and a mind morally induced and reasonably perswaded by the Voice of the Church the Scripture then gives greater and higher reasons of Credibility to it self than Tradition alone could give And then he that believes resolves his last and full assent that Scripture is of Divine Authority into internal arguments found in the letter it self though found by the help and direction of Tradition without and Grace within Had you not a great mind to calumniate who could pick out of these words That the Bishop resolved his Faith into Grace Can any thing be more plain than the contrary is from them when in the most perspicuous terms he says that the last Resolution of Faith is into internal arguments and only supposeth Tradition and Grace as necessary helps for the finding them Might you not then as well have said That his Lordship notwithstanding his zeal against the Infallibility of Tradition is fain to resolve his Faith into it at last as well as say that he doth it into Grace for he joyns these two together But Is it not possible to assert the Vse and Necessity of Grace in order to Faith but the last Resolution of it must be into it Do not all your Divines as well as ours suppose and prove the Necessity of Grace in order to believing and Are they not equally guilty of having recourse to the private Spirit Do you really think your self that there is any thing of Divine Grace in Faith or no If there be free your Self then from the private Spirit and you do his Lordship For shame then forbear such pitiful calumnies which if they have any truth in them You are as much concerned as Your adversary in it You would next perswade us That the Relator never comes near the main difficulty which say you is if the Church be supposed fallible in the Tradition of Scripture how it shall be certainly known whether de facto she now errs not in her delivery of it If this be your grand difficulty it is sufficiently assoiled already having largely answered this Question in terminis in the preceding Chapter You ask further What they are to do who are unresolved which is the true Church as though it were necessary for men to know which is the true Church before they can believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God but when we assert the tradition of the Church to be necessary for believing the Scriptures we do not thereby understand the particular Tradition of any particular Church whose judgement they must rely on but the Vniversal Tradition of all Christians though this must be first made known in some particular Society by the means of some particular persons though their authority doth not oblige us to believe but only are the means whereby men come acquainted with that Vniversal Tradition And therefore your following discourse concerning the knowing the true Church by its motives is superseded for we mean no other Church than the Community of Christians in this Controversie and if you ask me By what motives I come to be certain which is a Community of Christians and which of Mahumetans and how one should be known from another I can soon resolve you But we are so far from making it necessary to know which particular society
not of falsifying Hookers words yet of perverting his meaning let the Impartial Reader judge CHAP. VIII The Churches Infallibility not proved from Scripture Some general considerations from the design of proving the Churches Infallibility from Scripture No Infallibility in the High-Priest and his Clergy under the Law if there had been no necessity there should be under the Gospel Of St. Basils Testimony concerning Traditions Scripture less lyable to corruption than Traditions The great uncertainty of judging Traditions when Apostolical when not The Churches perpetuity being promised in Scripture proves not its Infallibility His Lordship doth not falsifie C's words but T. C. doth his meaning Producing the Jesuits words no traducing their Order C's miserable Apology for them The particular texts produced for the Churches Infallibility examined No such Infallibility necessary in the Apostles Successours as in Themselves The similitude of Scripture and Tradition to an Ambassadour and his Credentials rightly stated THE main design of this Chapter being to prove the Infallibility of the Church from the Testimonies of Scripture before I come to a particular discussion of the matters contained in it I shall make some general Observations on the scope and design of it which may give more light to the particulars to be handled in it 1. That the Infallibility you challenge to the Church is such as must suppose a promise extant of it in Scripture Which is evident from the words of A. C. which you own to his Lordship That if he would consider the Tradition of the Church not only as it is the Tradition of a company of fallible men in which sense the Authority of it is humane and fallible but as the Tradition of a company of men assisted by Christ and his Holy Spirit in that sense he might easily find it more than an Introduction indeed as much as would amount to an Infallible Motive Whence I inferr that in order to the Churches Testimony being an Infallible Motive to Faith it must be believed that this company of men which make the Church are assisted by Christ and his Holy Spirit Now I demand Supposing there were no Scripture extant the belief of which you said before in defence of Bellarmine was not necessary to salvation by what means could you prove such an Infallible Assistance of the Holy Spirit in the Catholick Church in order to the perswading an Infidel to believe Could you to one that neither believes Christ nor the Holy Ghost prove evidently that your Church had an assistance of both these You tell him that he cannot believe that there is a Christ or a Holy Ghost unless he believes first your Church to be Infallible and yet he cannot believe your Church to be Infallible unless he believes there are such things as Christ and the Holy Ghost for that Infallibility by your own confession doth suppose the peculiar assistance of both these And can any one believe their assistance before he believes they are If you say as you do By the motives of credibility you will prove your Church Infallible But setting aside the absurdity of that which I have fully discovered already Is it possible for you to prove your Church Infallible unless antecedently to the belief of your Churches Infallibility You can prove to an Infidel the truth of these things 1. That the names of Christ and the Holy Ghost are no Chimerical Fancies and Ideas but that they do import something real otherwise an Infidel would speedily tell you these names imported nothing but some kind of Magical spells which could keep men from errour as long as they carried them about with them That as well might Mahomet or any other Impostor pretend an infallible assistance from some Tutelar Angels with hard Arabick names as you of Christ and the Holy Ghost unless you can make it appear to him that really there are such Beings as Christ and the Holy Ghost and when you have proved it to him and he be upon your proof inclinable to believe it you are bound to tell him by your Doctrine that for all these proofs he can only fancy there are such Beings but he cannot really believe them unless he first believes your Church infallible And when he tells you He cannot according to your own Doctrine believe that Infallibility unless he believes the other first Would he not cry out upon you as either lamentable Fools that did not understand what you said or egregious Impostors that play fast and loose with him bidding him believe first one thing and then another till at last he may justly tell you that in this manner he cannot be perswaded to believe any thing at all 2. Supposing he should get through this and believe that there were such Beings as Christ and the Holy Ghost he may justly ask you 1. Whether they be nothing else but such a kind of Intellectus Agens as the Arabick Philosophers imagined some kind of Being which did assist the understanding in conception You answer him No but they are real distinct personalities of the same nature and essence with God himself then he asks 2. Whence doth this appear for these being such grand difficulties you had need of some very clear evidence of them If you send him to Scripture he asks you To what end for the belief of that must suppose the Truth of the thing in Question that your Church is infallible in delivery of this Scripture for Divine Revelation But he further demands 3. Whence comes that Church which you call Infallible to have this Assistance of both these Do they assist all kind of men to make them infallible You answer No. But Do they assist though not all men separately yet all societies of men conjunctly You answer No. Do they assist all men only in Religious actions of what Religion soever they are of Still you answer No. Do they assist then all men of the Christian Religion in their societies No. Do they assist all those among the Christians who say they have this Assistance No. Do they thus assist all Churches to keep them from errour No. Whom is it then that they do thus infallibly assist You answer The Church But what Church do you mean The Catholick Church But which is this Catholick Church for I hear there are as great Controversies about that as any thing You must answer confidently That Church which is in the Roman Communion is the true Catholick Church Have then all in that Communion this Infallible Assistance No. Have all the Bishops in this Communion it No. Have all these Bishops this Assistance when they meet together Yes say you undoubtedly if the Pope be their Head and confirm their Acts. Then it should seem to me that this Infallible Assistance is in the Pope and he it is whom you call the Catholick Church But surely he is a very big man then is he not But say you These are Controversies which are not necessary for you to know it sufficeth
that the Catholick Church is the subject of Infallibility But I had thought nothing could have been more necessary than to have known this But I proceed then How comes this Catholick Church to have this Infallible Assistance Cannot I suppose that Christ and the Holy Spirit may exist without giving this Assistance cannot I suppose that Christian Religion may be in the world without such an Infallibility Is this Assistance therefore a necessary or a free Act A free Act. If a free Act then for all you know Your Catholick Church may not be so assisted No you reply you are sure it is so assisted But Whence can you be sure of an arbitrary thing unless the Authours of this Assistance have engaged themselves by Promise to give your Catholick Church that Infallible Assistance Yes that they have you reply and then produce Luk. 10.16 Mat. 28.20 Joh. 14.16 But although our Infidel might ask some untoward Questions still as How you are sure these are Divine Promises when the knowledge that they are Divine must suppose the thing to be true which you would prove out of them viz. that your Church is infallible Supposing them Divine how are you sure That and no other is the meaning of them when from such places you prove that your Church is the only Infallible Interpreter of Scripture But I let pass these and other Questions and satisfie my self with this That it is impossible for you to prove such an Infallible Assistance of Christ and the Holy Spirit unless you produce some express Promise for it 2. This being impossible it necessarily follows That the only Motives of Credibility which can prove your Church Infallible must be such as do antecedently prove these Promises to be Divine This is so plain and evident a Consectary from the former that it were an affront upon humane understanding to go about to prove it For if the Infallibility doth depend upon the Promise nothing can prove that Infallibility but what doth prove that Promise to be True and Divine True or else not to be believed Divine or else not to be relyed on for such an Assistance none else being able to make a promise of it but the Authour of it As therefore my right to an estate as given by Will depends wholly upon the Truth and Validity of that Will which I must first prove before I can challenge any right to it So your pretence of Infallibility must solely depend upon the Promises which you challenge it by By which it appears that your attempting to prove the Infallibility of your Church by Motives of Credibility antecedent to and independent on the Scripture is vain ridiculous and destructive to that very Infallibility which you pretend to Which being by a free Assistance of Christ and his Spirit must wholly depend on the proof of the Promise made of it For if you prove no Promise all your Motives of Credibility prove nothing at all as I have at large demonstrated before and shall not follow you in needless repetitions 3. No right to any priviledge can be challenged by virtue of a free Promise made to particular persons unless it be evident that the intention of the Promiser was that it should equally extend to them and others For the Promise being free and the Priviledge such as carries no necessity at all along with it in order to the great ends of Christian Religion it is intolerable Arrogance and Presumption to challenge it without manifest evidence that the design of it was for them as well as the persons to whom it was made Indeed in such Promises which are built on common and general grounds containing things agreeable to all Christians it is but reasonable to inferr the universal extent of that Promise to all such as are in the like condition Hence the Apostle inferrs from the particular Promise made to Joshua I will never leave thee nor forsake thee the effect of it upon all believers Although had not the Apostle done it before us it may seem questionable on what ground we could have done it unless from the general reason of of it and the unbounded nature of Divine Goodness in things necessary for the Good of his People But in things arbitrary and such as contain special Priviledge in them to challenge a right to a Promise of the same Priviledge without equal evidence of the descent of it as the first Grant is great presumption and a challenge of the Promisor for partiality if he doth not make it good Because the pretence of the right of the Priviledge goes upon this ground that it is as much due to the Successor as to the Original Grantee 4. Nothing can be more unreasonable than to challenge a right to a Priviledge by virtue of such a Promise which was granted upon quite different considerations from the grounds on which that right is challenged Thus I shall after make it evident that the Promise of an Infallible Assistance of the Holy Ghost had a peculiar respect to the Apostles present employment and the first state of the Church that it was not made upon reasons common to all ages viz. for the Government of the Church deciding Controversies Foundation of Faith all which Ends may be sufficiently attained without them But above all it seems very unreasonable that a Promise made to persons in one office must be applied in the same manner to persons in a quite different office that a Promise made to each of them separate must be equally applied to others only as in Council that a Promise made implying Divine Assistance must be equally applied to such who dare not say that Assistance is Divine but infallible and after a sort Divine that a Promise made of immediate Divine Revelation and enabling the persons who enjoyed the Priviledge of it to work miracles to attest their Testimony to be infallible should be equally applied to such as dare not challenge a Divine Revelation nor ever did work a miracle to attest such an Infallible Assistance Yet all this is done by you in your endeavour of fetching the Infallibility of your Church out of those Promises of the assistance of Christ and his Spirit which were made to the Apostles These general Considerations do sufficiently enervate the force of your whole Chapter which yet I come particularly to consider His Lordship tells A. C. That in the second sense of church-Church-Tradition he cannot find that the Tradition of the present Church is of Divine and Infallible Authority till A. C. can prove that this company of men the Roman Prelates and Clergy he means are so fully so clearly so permanently assisted by Christ and his Spirit as may reach to Infallibility much less to a Divine Infallibilility in this or any other Principle which they teach In answer to this you tell us That the Bishop declines the Question by withdrawing his Reader from the thesis to the hypothesis from the Church to the Church of Rome But
their own Opinions to their posterity but to retain the Tradition of their Fore-fathers As though the other side could not say the same things and with as much confidence as they did but all the Question was What that Tradition was which they were to retain The one said one thing and the other another But as Rigaltius well observes Vincentius speaks very truly and prudently if nothing were delivered by our Ancestors but what they had from the Apostles but under the pretence of our Ancestors silly or counterfeit things may by fools or knaves be delivered us for Apostolical Traditions And whether this doth not often come to pass let the world judge Now therefore when these persons on both sides had incomparably greater advantages of knowing what the Vniversal Apostolical Practice was than we can have and yet so irreconcilably differ about it what likelihood or probability is there that we may have greater certainty of Apostolical Tradition than of the Writings of the Apostles Especially in such matters as these are in which it is very questionable Whether the Apostles had any occasion ministred to them to determine any thing in them And therefore when Stephen at Rome and those of his party pleaded custom and consequently as they thought Apostolical Tradition it was not irrationally answered on the other side by Cyprian and Firmilian that that might be Because the Apostles had not occasion given them to declare their minds in it because either the Heresies were not of such a nature as those of Marcion and Cerdon or else there might not be such returnings from those Heresies in the Apostolical times to the Church which being of so black a nature as to carry in them such malignity by corrupting the lives of men by vicious practices there was less probability either of the true Christians Apostatizing into them or the recovery of such who were fallen into them To this purpose Firmilian speaks That the Apostles could not be supposed to prohibit the baptizing of such which came from the Hereticks because no man would be so silly as to suppose the Apostles did prohibit that which came not in question till afterwards And therefore S. Augustine who concerned himself the most in this Controversie when he saw such ill use made of it by the Donatists doth ingenuously confess That the Apostles did determine nothing at all in it but however saith he that custom which is opposed to Cyprian is to be believed to have its rise from the Apostles Tradition as there are many other things observed in the Church and on that account are believed to have been commanded by the Apostles although they are no where found written But what cogent argument doth S. Austin use to perswade them this was an Apostolical Tradition He grants they determined nothing in it yet would needs have it believed that an Vniversal Practice of succeeding ages should imply such a determination though unwritten But 1. The Vniversal Practice we have seen already was far from being evident when not only the African but the Eastern Church did practise otherwise and that on the account of an Apostolical Tradition too 2. Supposing such an Vniversal Practice How doth it thence follow that it must be derived from the Apostles unless it be first proved that the Church could never consent in the use of any thing but what the Apostles commanded them Which is a very unreasonable supposition considering the different emergencies which might be in the Churches of Apostolical and succeeding times and the different reasons of practice attending upon them with that great desire which crept into the Church of representing the things conveyed by the Gospel in an external symbolical manner whence in the second Century came the use of many baptismal Ceremonies the praegustatio mellis lactis as Tertullian calls it and several of a like nature which by degrees came into the Church Must we now derive these and many other customs of the Church necessarily from the Apostles when even in S. Austins time several customs were supposed to be grounded on Apostolical Tradition which yet are otherwise believed now As in that known Instance of Infants Participation of the Eucharist which is otherwise determined by the Council of Trent and for all that I know the arguments used against this Tradition by some men may as well hold against Infant-Baptism for there is an equal incapacity as to the exercise of all acts of reason and understanding in both and as the Scripture seems to suppose such acts of grace in one as have their foundation in the use of reason it doth likewise in the other and I cannot see sufficient evidence to the contrary but if that place Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven taken in the sense of the Fathers doth imply a necessity of Baptism for all and consequently of Children that other place Verily verily I say unto you Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you taken likewise in the sense of the Fathers will import the necessity of a participation of the Eucharist by Infants as well as others I speak not this with an intention to plead either for this or for the rebaptizing Hereticks but to shew the great uncertainty of knowing Apostolical Traditions some things having been taken for such which we believe were not so and others which could not be known whether so or no by the ages next succeeding the Apostles And therefore let any reasonable person judge what probability there is in what you drive at that Apostolical Traditions may be more easily known than Apostolical Writings By which it appears 3. How vain and insufficient your reasons are Why Traditions should not be so liable to corruption as the Scriptures 1. You say Vniversal Traditions are recorded in Authours of every succeeding age and it seems more incident to have the Bible corrupted than them because of its bulk and passing through the hands of particular men whereas universal and immemorial Traditions are openly practised and taken notice of by every one in all ages To which I answer 1. That you give no sufficient reason why the Bible should be corrupted 2. And as little why Traditions should be more preserved than that Two Accounts you give why the Bible might be corrupted by errours because of its bulk and passing through the hands of particular men But Do you think it a thing impossible or at least unreasonable to suppose that a Book of no greater bulk than the Bible should by the care and vigilancy of men through the assistance of Divine Providence be preserved from any material corruptions or alterations Surely if you think so you have mean thoughts of the Christians in all ages and meaner of Divine Providence For you must suppose God to take no care at all for the preservation of
Scriptures do convey to them We own therefore the Apostles as Gods immediate Embassadours whose miracles did attest their commission from Heaven to all they came to and no persons could pretend ignorance that this is Gods hand and Seal but all other Pastors of the Church we look on only as Agents settled to hold correspondency between God and Vs but no extraordinary Embassadours who must be looked on as immediately transacting by the Infallible Commission of Heaven When therefore the Pastor or Pastors of your Church shall bring new Credentials from Heaven attested with the same Broad-seal of Heaven which the Apostles had viz. Miracles we shall then receive them in the same capacity as Apostles viz. acting by an Infallible Commission but not till then By which I have given a sufficient Answer to what follows concerning the credit which is given to Christ's Legats as to himself for hereby it appears they are to have no greater authority than their Commission gives them Produce therefore an Infallible Commission for your Pastors Infallibility either apart or conjunctly and we shall receive it but not else Whether A.C. in the words following doth in terms attribute Divine and Infallible authority to the Church supposing it infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost is very little material for Whether he owns it or no it is sufficient that it necessarily follows from his Doctrine of Infallibility For How can the Church be infallible by virtue of those Promises wherein Divine Infallibility you say is promised and by virtue of which the Apostles had Divine Infallibility and yet the Church not to be divinely Infallible The remainder of this Chapter which concerns the sense of the Fathers in this Controversie will particularly be considered in the next which is purposely designed for it CHAP. IX The Sense of the Fathers in this Controversie The Judgement of Antiquity enquired into especially of the three first Centuries and the reasons for it The several Testimonies of Justin Martyr Athenagoras Tatianus Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and all the Fathers who writ in vindication of Christian Religion manifested to concurr fully with our way of resolving Faith C's Answers to Vincentius Lyrinensis à Gandavo and the Fathers produced by his Lordship pitifully weak The particulars of his 9th Chapter examined S. Augustine's Testimony vindicated C's nauseous Repetitions sent as Vagrants to their several homes His Lordships Considerations found too heavy for C's Answers In what sense the Scripture may be called a Praecognitum What way the Jews resolved their Faith This Controversie and the first Part concluded HAving thus largely considered whatever you could pretend to for the advantage of your own cause or the prejudice of ours from Reason and Scripture nothing can be supposed to remain considerable but the judgement of the Primitive Church in this present Controversie And next to Scripture and Reason I attribute so much to the sense of the Christian Church in the ages next succeeding the Apostles that it is no mean confirmation to me of the truth of the Protestant Way of resolving Faith and of the falsity of yours that I see the one so exactly concurring and the other so apparently contrary to the unanimous Consent of Antiquity For though you love to make a great noise with Antiquity among persons meanly conversant in it yet those who do seriously and impartially enquire into the sense of the Primitive Church and not guess at it by the shreds of Citations to your hands in your own writers which is generally your way will scarce in any thing more palpably discern your jugling and impostures then in your pretence to Antiquity I shall not here enquire into the corruptions crept into your Church under that disguise but as occasion is ministred to me in the following discourse shall endeavour to pluck it off but shall keep close to the matter in question Three things then I design in this Chapter 1. To shew the concurrence of Antiquity with us in the resolution of Faith 2. Examine what you produce from thence either to assert your own way or enervate ours 3. Consider what remains of this Controversie in your Book 1. For the manifesting the concurrence of Antiquity with us I shall confine my present discourse to the most pure and genuine Antiquity keeping within the compass of the three first Centuries or at least of those who have purposely writ in vindication of the Christian Faith Not that I do in the least distrust the consent of the succeeding Writers of the Primitive Church but upon these Reasons 1. Because it would be too large a task at present to undertake since no necessity from what you object but only my desire to clear the Truth and rectifie the mistakes of such who are led blindfold under the pretence of Antiquity hath led me to this discourse 2. Because in reason they could not but understand best the waies and methods used by the Apostles for the perswading men to the Christian Faith and if they had mentioned any such thing as an Infallibility alwaies to continue in the Charch those Pastors certainly who received the care of the Church from the Apostles hands could not but have heard of it And were strangely to blame if they did not discover and make use of it Whatever therefore of truly Apostolical Tradition is to be relyed on in such cases must be conveyed to us from those persons who were the Apostles immediate Successors and if it can be made manifest that they heard not of any such thing in that when occasion was offered they are so far from mentioning it that they take such different waies of satisfying men which do manifestly suppose that they did not believe it I know some of the greatest Patrons of the Church of Rome and such who know best how to manage things with best advantage for the interest of that Church have made little account of the three first ages and confined themselves within the compass of the four first Councils upon this pretence because the Books and Writers are so rare before and that those persons who lived then had no occasion to write of the matters in Controversie between them and us But if the ground why those other things which are not determined in Scripture are to be believed by us and practised as necessary be that they were Apostolical Traditions Who can be more competent Judges what was so and what not then those who lived nearest the Apostolical times and those certainly if they writ of any thing could not write of any thing of more concernment to the Christian world than the knowledge of such things would be or at least we cannot imagine but that we should find express intimations of them where so many so wise and learned persons do industriously give an account of themselves and their solemn actions to their Heathen persecutors But however silent they may be in other things which they neither heard nor thought of as in the
one of these three Answers 1. That it is a Principle to be supposed for though it be supposed as to the particular debate depending on Scripture yet it is fond and absurd to say It must be supposed when it is the thing in question 2. That it is known meerly by its own Light for the person I have to deal with supposing himself equally capable to judge of Reason and Evidence as my self it doth but betray the weakness of my cause or my inability to manage it to pretend that to be evident which it is much more evident that he doth not think so and it is only to tell him my Vnderstanding must rule his and that whatever appears to me to have Light in it self ought likewise so appear to him 3. It is as absurd as either of the other two to say That you will prove to a rational Enquirer the Scripture to be Gods Word by an unwritten Word of God For 1. His Enquiry is Whether there be any Word of God or no you prove there is because there is for that is all you prove by your unwritten Word He denies or at least questions Whether there be any and particularly instanceth in Scripture you think to end the Question by telling him He must believe it to be so because there is another Word of God which attests it which instead of ending the first Question begets a great many more For 2. He will be more to seek concerning this unwritten Word than before because he might use his Reason in judging concerning the written Word but cannot as to this unwritten it being only told him There is such a thing but he knows not what it is how far it extends who must deliver it what evidence this hath beyond the other that it comes from God that it must be used as an argument to prove it with If you send him to the Infallibility of the Church you must either presume him of a very weak Vnderstanding or else he would easily discern your perfect jugling in this the veins of which I have discovered throughout this discourse There remains nothing then but Reason a Principle common to us both by which I must prove that the Scriptures are from God which Reason partly makes use of the Churches Tradition not in any notion of Infallibility but meerly as built on Principles common to humane nature and partly uses those other arguments which prove by the greatest rational evidence that the Doctrine contained in Scripture was from God and if this were all the meaning of saying The Scriptures are a Principle supposed because of a different way of proving them from particular objects of Faith you can have no reason to deny it The next thing his Lordship insists on is That the Jews never had nor can have any other proof that the Old Testament is the Word of God than we have of the New In your Answer to which I grant that which you contend for That the Tradition of Scriptures among them was by their immediate Ancestors as well as others I grant That their Faith was not a Scientifical Knowledge but a firm perfect assurance only but understand not what you mean by saying That otherwise it would not be meritorious but am as far to seek as ever for any Infallibility in the Jewish Church which should in every age be the ground of believing the Books of the Old Testament to be divinely inspired And if you will prove a constant succession of Prophets from Moses till our Saviour's appearing which you seem willing to believe you would do something towards it but for your permanent Infallible Authority in the High Priest and his Clergy I have already shewed it to be a groundless if not a wilful mistake What remains concerning the nature of Infallibility which at last his Lordship makes to be no more than that which excludes all possibility of doubting and therefore grants that an Infallible Assurance may be had by Ecclesiastical and Humane proof and how far that is requisite to Faith concerning moral Certainty and what Assurance may be had by it concerning the Canon of Scripture Apostolical Tradition the unwritten Word S. Austin 's Testimony about the Church they are all points so fully discussed before that out of pity to the Reader I must referr him to their several places which when he hath throughly considered I will give him leave to summ up the several victories you have obtained in the management of it which will be much more honourable for you than for your self to do it as you do most triumphantly in the end of this Controversie concerning the Resolution of Faith And although I have not been much surprized with your attempts yet I shall heartily conclude this great Debate with your last words in it The Consequence I leave to the serious consideration of the Judicious Reader I beseech God he may make benefit of it to his eternal felicity PART II. Of Schism CHAP. I. Of the Universal Church The Question of Schism explained The nature of it enquired into Several general Principles laid down for clearing the present Controversie Three grounds of the charge of Schism on Protestant Churches by our Authour The first of the Roman Churches being the Catholick Church entered upon How far the Roman Church may be said to be a true Church The distinction of a Church morally and metaphysically true justified The grounds of the Vnity of the Catholick Church as to Doctrine and Government Cardinal Perron's distinction of the formal causal and participative Catholick Church examined The true sense of the Catholick Church in Antiquity manifested from St. Cyprian and several cases happening in his time as the Schism of Novatianus at Rome the case of Felicissimus and Fortunatus Several other Instances out of Antiquity to the same purpose by all which it is manifest that the unity of the Catholick Church had no dependance on the Church of Rome The several testimonies to the contrary of St. Ambrose St. Hierome John Patriarch of Constantinople St. Augustine Optatus c. particularly examined and all found short of proving that the Roman Church is the Catholick Church The several Answers of his Lordship to the testimonies of St. Cyprian St. Hierom St. Greg. Nazianzene St. Cyril and Ruffinus about the infallibility of the Church of Rome justified From all which it appears that the making the Roman-Church to be the Catholick is a great Novelty and perfect Jesuitism SInce so great and considerable parts of the Christian Church have in these last ages been divided in communion from each other the great contest and enquiry hath been which party stands guilty of the cause of the present distance and separation For both sides retain still so much of their common Christianity as to acknowledge that no Religion doth so strictly oblige the owners of it to peace and unity as the Christian Religion doth and yet notwithstanding this we finde these
laudando praecipere by commending them to be such instruct them that such indeed they ought to be to whom perfidiousness should not get access And for this he instanceth in such another Rhetorical expression of Synesius to Theophilus of Alexandria wherein he tells him that he ought to esteem what his Throne should determine as an Oracle or Divine Law And certainly this comes nearer Infallibility than that of St. Cyprian doth But what inconveniency there should be that St. Cyprian by this interpretation should give no more prerogative to the Church of Rome than to that of Alexandria or Antioch I cannot easily imagine till you prove some greater Infallibility attributed then to the Church of Rome than was to other Apostolical Churches which as yet we are to seek for But at length you tell us after much ado he grants perfidia may be taken for errour in Faith or for perfidious misbelievers and Schismaticks who had betrayed their Faith but then say you he cavils with the word Romanos This must be limited only to those Christians who then lived in Rome to whom quà tales as long as they continued such errour in Faith could not have access What you say his Lordship doth at length and after much ado he did freely and willingly but that you might have occasion for those words you altered the course of his answers and put the second in the last place But still you have the unhappiness to misunderstand him For although he grants that perfidia may relate to errour in Faith yet as it is here used it is not understood of it abstractly but concretely for perfidious misbelievers i. e. such perfidious persons excommunicated out of other Churches were not likely to get access at Rome or to find admittance into their communion And in this sense it is plain that St. Cyprian did not intend by these words to exempt the Romans from possibility of errour but to brand his adversaries with a title due to their merit calling them perfidious i. e. such as had betrayed or perverted the Faith When you therefore ask is not this great praise I suppose none but your self would make a question of it viz. that the Church of Rome had then so great purity as not to admit such perfidious misbelievers into her communion And it were well if the present Church of Rome were capable of the same praise But when you add It is as if St. Cyprian should say St. Peters See could not erre so long as it continued constant in the truth you wilfully misunderstand his Lordships meaning who speaks of the persons and not meerly of their errours but however is it not a commendation to say that the Church of Rome consisted of such persons then who adhered to the Apostolical Faith and therefore errour could not have access to them And I look on it as so great a commendation that I heartily wish it could be verified of your Church now Neither is this any such Identical proposition as that you produce but only a declaration of their present constancy and inferring thence how unlikely it was that errours should be admitted by them His Lordship to make it plain that St. Cyprian had no meaning to assert the unerring Infallibility of either Pope or Church of Rome insists on the contest which after happened between St. Cyprian and Pope Stephen upon which he saith expresly That Pope Stephen did not only maintain an errour but the very cause of Hereticks and that against Christians and the very Church of God And after this he chargeth him with obstinacy and presumption And I hope this is plain enough saith his Lordship to shew that St. Cyprian had no great opinion of the Roman Infallibility To this you answer With a famous distinction of the Popes erring as a private Doctor and as the Vniversal Pastor and that St. Cyprian might very well be supposed to think the Pope erred only in the first sense Not to spend time in rifling this distinction of the Popes erring personally but not judicially or as a private Doctor but not as Vniversal Pastor which it were an easie matter to do by manifesting the incongruity of it and the absurdities consequent upon it in case that doctrine which the Pope erres in comes to be judicially decided by him It is sufficient for us at present to shew that this distinction cannot relieve you in our present case For your Doctors tell us the Pope then erres personally and as a private Doctor when he erres only in his own judgement without obliging others to believe what he judges to be true but then he erres judicially and as Vniversal Pastor when he declares his judgement so as to oblige others to receive it as true Now can any thing be more evident then that St. Cyprian judged Pope Stephen to erre in this latter and not in the former sense For doth he not absolutely and severely declare himself against St. Cyprians opinion condemning it as an errour and an innovation But say you He did not properly define any doctrine in that contestation but said nihil innovetur nisi quod traditum But was not that the question what was traditum and what not for Cyprian and his party denyed it to be a tradition which Stephen asserted was so and doth he not therefore undertake to define something in this cause But say you If this argument hold good against the Infallibility of Popes viz. that St. Cyprian held Pope Stephen erred therefore the Pope may erre in matters of Faith it will be a good consequence also to say St. Cyprian held Pope Stephen erred even whilst he maintained an universal immemorial tradition therefore the Pope may erre whilst he follows such a tradition I answer 1. Who besides you would not have seen that the question was not Whether the Pope was Infallible or no but whether St. Cyprian judged him to be Infallible or no for if it appear that St. Cyprian did not judge him Infallible then those former words cannot be interpreted to such a sense as doth imply Infallibility 2. No doubt if the Pope may err in other things he may err when he thinks he follows an universal immemorial tradition not that he doth err when he doth really follow such a one but he may err in judging that to be an universal immemorial tradition which is not and this was the case between St. Cyprian and Pope Stephen the Pope pretended to follow an universal tradition St. Cyprian judgeth him to err in it and that it was not so And is it not plain still notwithstanding these frivolous pretences that St. Cyprian had no opinion at all of the Popes Infallibility in any sense and therefore out of honour to him you are bound to interpret his former words to some other sense then that of any Infallibility in the Church of Rome Thus all his Lordships answers standing good you have gained no great matter by this first testimony of St.
and fully in these words T is too true indeed that there is a miserable rent in the Church and I make no question but the best men do most bemoan it nor is he a Christian that would not have Vnity might he have it with Truth But I never said nor thought that the Protestants made this rent The cause of the Schism is yours for you thrust us from you because we call'd for truth and redress of abuses For a Schism must needs be theirs whose the cause of it is The woe runs full out of the mouth of Christ ever against him that gives the offence not against him that takes it ever And in the Margent shewing that a separation may sometimes be necessary he instanceth in the orthodox departing from the communion of the Arrians upon which he sayes It cannot be that a man should do well in making a Schism There may be therefore a necessary separation which yet incurrs not the guilt of Schism and that is when Doctrines are taught contrary to the Catholick Faith And after saith The Protestants did not depart for departure is voluntary so was not theirs I say not theirs taking their whole body and cause together For that some among them were peevish and some ignorantly zealous is neither to be doubted nor is there danger in confessing it Your body is not so perfect I wot well but that many amongst you are as pettish and as ignorantly zealous as any of ours You must not suffer for these nor we for those nor should the Church of Christ for either And when A. C. saith That though the Church of Rome did thrust the Protestants from her by excommunication yet they had first divided themselves by obstinate holding and teaching Opinions contrary to the Roman Faith His Lordship answers So then in his Opinion Excommunication on their part was not the prime cause of this division but the holding and teaching of contrary Opinions Why but then in my opinion saith he that holding and teaching was not the prime cause neither but the corruptions and superstitions of Rome which forced many men to hold and teach the contrary So the prime cause was theirs still And A. C. telling him That he said that it was ill done of those who first made the separation He answers That though he remembred not that he said those words yet withall adds If I did not say it then I do say it now and most true it is That it was ill done of those whoere they were who first made the separation But then A. C. must not understand me of Actual only but of Causal separation For as I said before the Schism is theirs whose the cause of it is and he makes the separation that gives the first just cause of it not he that makes an actual separation upon a just cause preceding And this is so evident a Truth that A. C. cannot deny it for he sayes it is most true These passages I have laid together that the Reader may clearly understand the full state of this great Controversie concerning Schism the upshot of which is that it is agreed between both parties that all separation from communion with a Church doth not involve in it the guilt of Schism but only such a separation as hath no sufficient cause or ground for it So that the Question comes to this Whether your Church were not guilty of such errours and corruptions as gave sufficient cause for such a separation The Question being thus stated we now come to consider how you make good your part in it Your first pretence is if reduced into argument for you seem to have a particular pique against a close way of disputing That your Church is a right and orthodox Church and therefore could never give any just cause of separation from it For the Lady asked as A. C. would have it Whether the Roman Church was not the right Church not be not but was not that is relating to the times before the breach was made Now his Lordship tells him That as to the terms he might take his choice For the Church of Rome neither is nor was the right Church as the Lady desired to hear A particular Church it is and was and in some times right and in some times wrong but the right Church or the Holy Catholick Church it never was nor ever can be And therefore was not such before Luther and others left it or were thrust from it A particular Church it was but then A. C. is not distinct enough here neither For the Church of Rome both was and was not a right or orthodox Church before Luther made a breach from it For the word ante before may look upon Rome and that Church a great way off or long before and then in the prime times of it it was a most right and orthodox Church But it may look also nearer home and upon the immediate times before Luther or some ages before that and then in those times Rome was a corrupt and tainted Church far from being Right And yet both these times before Luther made his breach And so he concludes that Section with this clause That the Roman Church which was once right is now become wrong by embracing superstition and errour And what say you now to all this Two things you have to return in answer to it or at least to these two all that you say may be reduced 1. That if the Roman Church was right once it is so still 2. That if the Roman Church were wrong before Luther the Catholick Church was so too These two containing all that is said in this case must be more particularly discussed 1. That if the Roman was the right Church it still is so seeing no change can be shewn in her Doctrine If there have been a change let it appear when and in what the change was made Thus you say but you know his Lordship never granted that the Roman Church ever was the right Church in the sense you take those words for the true Catholick Church that it was once a right particular Church he acknowledged and as such was afterwards tainted with errours and corruptions If so you desire to know what these were and when they came in to the former I shall reserve an Answer till I come to the third part of my task where you shall have an account of them to the latter the time when these came in because this is so much insisted on by your party I shall return you an Answer in this place And that I shall do in these following Propositions 1. Nothing can be more unreasonable than to deny that errours and corruptions have come into a Church meerly because the punctual time of their coming in cannot be assigned For Will any one question the birth of an Infant because he cannot know the time of his conception Will any one deny there are tares in the field because
most part yet living These are your assertions and because you seek not to prove them it shall be sufficient to oppose ours to them Our assertion therefore is that the Church and Court of Rome are guilty of this Schism by obtruding erroneous Doctrines and superstitious practises as the conditions of her Communion by adding such Articles of Faith which are contrary to the plain rule of Faith and repugnant to the sense of the truly Catholick and not the Roman Church by her intolerable incroachments and usurpations upon the liberties and priviledges of particular Churches under a vain pretence of Vniversal Pastourship by forcing men if they would not damn their souls by sinning against their consciences in approving the errours and corruptions of the Roman Church to joyn together for the Solemn Worship of God according to the rule of Scripture and practise of the Primitive Church and suspending Communion with that Church till those abuses and corruptions be redressed In which they neither deny obedience to any Lawful Authority over them nor take to themselves any other Power than the Law of God hath given them receiving their Authority in a constant Succession from the Apostles they institute no Rites and Ceremonies either contrary to or different from the practise of the Primitive Church they neither exclude or dispossess others of their Lawful Power but in case others neglect their office they may be notwithstanding obliged to perform theirs in order to the Churches Reformation Leaving the Supreme Authority of the Kingdome or Nation to order and dispose of such things in the Church which of right appertain unto it And this we assert to be the case of Schism in reference to the Church of England which we shall make good in opposition to your assertions where we meet with any thing that seems to contradict the whole or any part of it These and the like practises of yours to use your own words not any obstinate maintaining any erroneous Doctrines as you vainly pretend we averre to have been the true and real causes of that separation which is made between your Church and Ours And you truly say That Protestants were thrust out of your Church which is an Argument they did not voluntarily forsake the Communion of it and therefore are no Schismaticks but your carriage and practises were such as forced them to joyn together in a distinct Communion from you And it was not we who left your Church but your Church that left her Primitive Faith and Purity in so high a manner as to declare all such excommunicate who will not approve of and joyn in her greatest corruptions though it be sufficiently manifest that they are great recessions from the Faith Piety and Purity of that Roman Church which was planted by the Apostles and had so large a commendation from the Apostolical men of those first ages Since then such errours and corruptions are enforced upon us as conditions of Communion with you by the same reason that the Orthodox did very well in departing from the Arrians because the Arrians were already departed from the Church by their false Doctrine will our separation from you be justified who first departed from the Faith and Purity of the Primitive Church and not only so but thrust out of your Communion all such as would not depart from it as farr as you Having thus considered and retorted your Assertions we come to your Answers Nor say you does the Bishop vindicate the Protestant party by saying The cause of Schism was ours and that we Catholicks thrust Protestants from us because they call'd for truth and redress of abuses For first there can be no just cause of Schism this hath been granted already even by Protestants And so it is by us and the reason is very evident for it for if there be a just cause there can be no Schism and therefore what you intend by this I cannot imagine unless it be to free Protestants from the guilt of Schism because they put the Main of their tryal upon the justice of the cause which moved them to forsake the Communion of your Church or else you would have it taken for granted that ours was a Schism and thence inferr there could be no just cause of it As if a man being accused for taking away the life of one who violently set upon him in the High-way with an intent both to rob and destroy him should plead for himself that this could be no murther in him because there was a sufficient and justifiable cause for what he did that he designed nothing but to go quietly on his road that this person and several others violently set upon him that he intreated them to desist that he sought to avoid them as much as he could but when he saw they were absolutely bent on his ruine he was forced in his own necessary defence to take away the life of that person Would not this with any intelligent Jury be looked on as a just and reasonable Vindication But if so wise a person as your self had been among them you would no doubt have better informed them for you would very gravely have told them All his plea went on a false supposition that he had a just cause for what he did but there could be no just cause for murther Do you not see now how subtil and pertinent your Answer is here by this parallel to it For as in that case all men grant that there can be no just cause for murther because all murther is committed without a just cause and if there be one it ceaseth to be murther So it is here in Schism which being a causeless separation from the Churches Vnity I wonder who ever imagined there could be just cause for it But to rectifie such gross mistakes as these are for the future you would do well to understand that Schism formally taken alwayes imports something criminal in it and there can be no just cause for a sin but besides that there is that which if you understand it you would call the materiality of it which is the separation of one part of the Church from another Now this according to the different grounds and reasons of it becomes lawful or unlawful that is as the reasons do make it necessary or unnecessary For separation is not lawful but when it is necessary now this being capable of such a different nature that it may be good or evil according to its circumstances there can be no absolute judgement passed upon it till all those reasons and circumstances be duely examined and if there be no sufficient grounds for it then it is formally Schism i. e. a culpable separation if there be sufficient cause then there may be a separation but it can be no Schism And because the Vnion of the Catholick Church lyes in Fundamental and necessary truths therefore there can be no separation absolutely from the Catholick Church but what involves in it the
formal guilt of Schism it being impossible any person should have just cause to disown the Churches Communion for any thing whose belief is necessary to salvation And whosoever doth so thereby makes himself no member of the Church because the Church subsists on the belief of Fundamental truths But in all such cases wherein a division may be made and yet the several persons divided retain the essentials of a Christian Church the separation which may be among any such must be determined according to the causes of it For it being possible of one side that men may out of capricious humours and fancies renounce the Communion of a Church which requires nothing but what is just and reasonable and it being possible on the other side that a Church calling her self Catholick may so far degenerate in Faith and practise as not only to be guilty of great errours and corruptions but to impose them as conditions of Communion with her it is necessary where there is a manifest separation to enquire into the reasons and grounds of it and to determine the nature of it according to the justice of the cause which is pleaded for it And this I hope may help you a little better to understand what is meant by such who say There can be no just cause of Schism and how little this makes for your purpose But you go on and I must follow And to his calling for truth c. I Answer What Hereticks ever yet forsook the Church of God but pretended truth and complain'd they were thrust out and hardly dealt with meerly because they call'd for truth and redress of abuses And I pray what Church was ever so guilty of errours and corruptions but would call those Hereticks and Schismaticks who found fault with her Doctrine or separated from her Communion It is true Hereticks pretend truth and Schismaticks abuses but is it possible there should be errours and corruptions in a Churches Communion or is it not if not prove but that of your Church and the cause is at an end if it be we are to examine whether the charge be true or no. For although Hereticks may pretend truth and others be deceived in judging of it yet doubtless there is a real difference between truth and errour If you would never have men quarrel with any Doctrine of your Church because Hereticks have pretended truth would not the same reason hold why men should never enquire after Truth Reason or Religion because men have pretended to them all which have not had them It is therefore a most senseless cavil to say we have no reason to call for truth because Hereticks have done so and on the same grounds you must not be call'd Catholicks because Hereticks have been call'd so But those who have been Hereticks were first proved to be so by making it appear that was a certain truth which they denyed do you the same by us prove those which we call errours in your Church to be part of the Catholick and Apostolick Faith prove those we account corruptions to be parts of Divine worship and we will give you leave to call us Hereticks and Schismaticks but not before But say you He should have reflected that the Church of God is stiled a City of Truth by the Prophet and so it may be and yet your Church be a fortress of Errour And a pillar and foundation of Truth by the Apostle but what is this to the Church of Romes being so And by the Fathers a rich depository or Treasury of all Divine and Heavenly Doctrines so it was in the sense the Fathers took the Church in for the truly Catholick Christian Church And we may use the same expressions still of the Church as the Prophets Apostles and Fathers did and nevertheless charge your Church justly with the want of truth and opposition to the preaching of it and on that ground justly forsake her Communion which is so far from being inexcusable impiety and presumption that it was only the performance of a necessary Christian duty And therefore that Woe of scandal his Lordship mentioned still returns upon your party who gave such just cause of offence to the Christian world and making it necessary for all such as aimed at the purity of the Christian Church to leave your Communion when it could not be enjoyed without making shipwrack both of Faith and a good Conscience And this is so clear and undeniable to follow you still in your own language that we dare appeal for a tryal of our cause to any Assembly of learned Divines or what Judge and Jury you please provided they be not some of the parties accused and because you are so willing to have Learned Divines I hope you will believe the last Pope Innocent so far as not to mention the Pope and Cardinals What follows in Vindication of A. C. from enterfeiring and shuffling in his words because timorous and tender consciences think they can never speak with caution enough for fear of telling a lye will have the force of a demonstration being spoken of and by a Jesuite among all those who know what mortal haters they are of any thing that looks like a lye or aequivocation And what reason there is that of all persons in the world they should be judged men of timorous and tender consciences But whatever the words were which passed you justifie A. C. in saying That the Protestants did depart from the Church of Rome and got the Name of Protestants by protesting against her For this say you is so apparent that the whole world acknowledgeth it If you mean that the Communion of Protestants is distinct from yours Whoever made scruple of confessing it But because in those terms of departing leaving forsaking your Communion you would seem to imply that it was a voluntary act and done without any necessary cause enforcing it therefore his Lordship denyes that Protestants did depart for saith he departure is voluntary so was not theirs But because it is so hard a matter to explain the nature of that separation between your Church and Ours especially in the beginning of it without using those terms or some like them as when his Lordship saith that Luther made a breach from it It is sufficient that we declare that by none of these expressions we mean any causeless separation but only such acts as were necessarily consequential to the imposing your errours and corruptions as conditions of Communion with your Church To the latter part his Lordship answers That the Protestants did not get that name by Protesting against the Church of Rome but by Protesting and that when nothing else would serve against her errours and superstitions Do you but remove them from the Church of Rome our Protestation is ended and our Separation too This you think will be answered with our old put off That it is the common pretext of all Hereticks when they sever themselves from the Roman Catholick
but suppose you knew this it falls short of your purpose unless you can prove that all those who held these things did not hold them as bare Opinions but as Catholick Doctrines and this is again as impossible as the former for How can you tell whether they judged these things to be so unless you knew what their Rule was whereby they judged of Catholick Doctrines If you knew their Rule How can you tell Whether they made a right Vse of it or no or Whether they made any Use at all of it or Whether they did not take up such Opinions by prejudice education the judgement of others and several other waies without examining of what nature or importance the things were If you think you have a certain Rule to judge of Catholick Doctrines by you must prove that they had the same Rule and looked upon it as such too otherwise they might not use it for those ends nor be governed at all by it When you will therefore prove any Doctrines to be Catholick by being generally received you must remember what brave impossibilities you have undertaken But suppose you could master this too and prove that men generally received these as Catholick Doctrines yet before you can prove that these are Catholick Doctrines from thence you have a further task yet upon you which is to prove it impossible that these men should be out in their judgement concerning the nature of an Opinion and that they could not look on any thing as a Catholick Doctrine but what was really so For if they may be mistaken in their judgement we are as far to seek as ever for knowing what are Catholick Doctrines and what not You must therefore prove the judgement of all these persons infallible concerning what are Catholick Doctrines and what not And by that time the Pope will return you little thanks for your pains in making every member of your Church as infallible as himself If it be then so impossible to prove that these were received as Catholick Doctrines either from any definition of your Church or from the general reception of them among the members of it you see what little reason you had to say That the Protestants at the beginning of the Reformation did take away something that was Catholick from the Doctrine of the Church Which is notoriously false and inconsistent with your own principles If we should therefore grant that Transubstantiation Purgatory c. were generally owned in your Church at the time of the Reformation the utmost you can prove is only that they were owned as particular Doctrines by particular men but not that they were owned as the Catholick Doctrines of your Church And therefore we deny not but that party and faction in your Church which owned and contended for these had got the upper-hand of the other before the time of the Reformation so that those who doubted of or denied them durst not appear so publickly as their adversaries did but they were but a party and a faction still and there were many outward members of your Church who groaned under the abuses and tyrannies of the prevailing faction and call'd loud for a Reformation As appeared not only by the open testimonies of some against such Doctrines the sad complaint of others for want of Reformation but by the general sense of the necessity of it at the time when it was set upon the great applause it met with among all persons who allowed themselves liberty to enquire into things the general consent of the main bodies of those who set about reforming themselves in the main Articles of Christian Doctrine and unanimous opposition to those erroneous Opinions which you call Catholick Doctrines So that these were not at the time of the Reformation so much as the owned Catholick Doctrines of the Roman Church but the Opinions of a prevailing Faction in it and therefore the disowning them is no rejecting any thing Catholick but rejecting the opinions and practices of a tyrannical and usurping Faction There must be then a great deal of difference put between the State and Doctrine of the Church of Rome before the beginning of the Reformation and since especially since the Council of Trent For then these Doctrines were owned by a Faction but yet there might have been communion with that Church without believing them to be Catholick Doctrines and no doubt many pious souls went to Heaven without believing any of these things viz. such who believed and improved the common principles of Christianity without regarding the erroneous Doctrines or superstitious Practices of those among whom they lived but upon the first stirrings towards a Reformation the Court of Rome was so far from reforming the abuses which were complained of that they sought to inforce them with the greatest severity upon all persons thundering out Excommunications against all such who should question or dispute them By which means those who might have lived peaceably before within the external Communion of that Church without consenting to the errours of it are now forced out of it unless they would approve of such things which their consciences detested in comparison with the peace of which they accounted not their lives to be dear to them as many thousands of them made it appear in several Countries This is the true and just account of the state of things at the beginning of the Reformation but afterwards when through the necessity of the Pope's affairs a Council was summoned and all the arts imaginable were made use of to steer that grand affair for the Interess of the Court of Rome a new scene of affairs appears in the Christian world those Doctrines which before were owned only by particular men are defined by Pope and Council to be the Catholick Doctrines of the Roman Church and all those Anathematized who will not own them By which means the Roman Church is become it self that party and faction which only prevailed in it before but with reluctancy and opposition and now none are looked on as members of that Church but such as own the definitions of that Council in point of Doctrine Which makes it vastly to differ from what it was before as to the terms of its Communion and the state of the persons who remain in it who can neither enjoy that freedom in judgement which they might use before nor yet can pretend those excuses for not knowing the errours and corruptions of that Church which might have prevented obstinacy in them before So that upon the whole it appears that the Protestants in the beginning of the Reformation were so far from taking away any thing that was received as a Catholick Doctrine by all Christian Churches that they did not reject any thing which could be looked on as the Catholick Doctrine of the Church of Rome and consequently that the Protestants were so far from a wilful separation from the Church of Rome that they were driven out by a prevalent Faction which
Doctrine the Pope could not be Infallible there for you restrain his Infallibility to a General Council and do not assert that it belongs to the particular Church of Rome As well then may any other Provincial Synod determine matters of Faith as that of Rome since that hath no more Infallibility belonging to it as such then any other particular Church hath and the Pope himself you say may erre when he doth not define matters of Faith in a General Council To his Lordships second instance of the Council of Gangra about the same time condemning Eustathius for his condemning marriage as unlawful you answer to the same purpose That Osius was there Pope Sylvester's Legat but what then if the Pope had been there himself he had not been Infallible much less certainly his Legat who could have only a Second-hand Infallibility To the third of the Council of Carthage condemning rebaptization about 348. you grant That it was assembled by Gratus Bishop of Carthage but that no new Article was defined in it but only the perpetual tradition of the Church was confirmed therein Neither do we plead for any power in Provincial Councils to define any new Articles of Faith but only to revive the old and to confirm them in opposition to any Innovations in point of Doctrine and as to this we profess to be guided by the sense of Scripture as interpreted by the unanimous consent of the Fathers and the four first General Councils To the fourth of the Council of Aquileia A. D. 381. condemning Palladius and Secundinus for embracing the Arrian Heresie St. Ambrose being present you answer That they only condemned those who had been condemned already by the Nicene Council and St. Ambrose and other Bishops of Italy being present Who can doubt but every thing was done there by the Popes authority and consent But if they only enforced the decrees of the Council of Nice What need of the Pope's authority to do that And do you think that there were no Provincial Councils in that part of Italy which was particularly distinguished from the suburbicarian Churches under the Bishop of Rome wherein the Pope was not present either by himself or Legats If you think so your thoughts have more of your will then understanding in them But if this Council proceeded according to that of Nice Will it not be as lawful for other Provincial Councils to reform particular Churches as long as they keep to the Decrees not barely of Nice but of the four General Councils which the Church of England looks on as her duty to do In the two following Instances of the second Council of Carthage declaring in behalf of the Trinity and the Milevitan Council about the Pelagian Heresie you say The Bishops of Rome were consulted But what then Were they consulted as the Heads of the Church or only as eminent members of it in regard of their Faith and Piety Prove the former when you are able and as to the latter it depends upon the continuance of that Faith and Piety in them and when once the reason is taken away there can be no necessity of continuing the same resort The same answer will serve for what you say concerning the second Council of Aurange determining the Controversies about Grace and Free-will supposing we grant it assembled by the means of Felix 4. Bishop of Rome as likewise to the third of Toledo We come therefore to that which you call his Lordships reserve and Master-allegation the fourth Council of Toledo which saith he did not only handle matters of Faith for the reformation of that people but even added also something to the Creed which were not expresly delivered in former Creeds Nay the Bishops did not only practise this to condemn Heresies in National and Provincial Synods and so to reform those several places and the Church it self by parts but they did openly challenge this as their right and due and that without any leave asked of the See of Rome For in this fourth Council of Toledo they decree that If there happen a cause of Faith to be setled a general that is a National Synod of all Spain and Gallicia shall be held thereon And this in the year 643. where you see it was then Catholick Doctrine in all Spain that a National Synod might be a competent Judge in a cause of Faith But here still we meet with the same Answer That all this might be done with a due subordination to the See Apostolick but that it doth not hence follow that any thing may be done in Provincial Councils against the authority of it Neither do we plead that any thing may be done against the just authority of the Bishop of Rome or any other Bishop but then you must prove that he had a just authority over the Church of England and that he exercised no power here at the Reformation but what did of right belong to him But the fuller debate of these things must be left to that place where you designedly assert and vindicate the Pope's Authority These things being thus in the general cleared we come to the particular application of them to the case of the Church of England As to which his Lordship say's And if this were practised so often and in so many places Why may not a National Council of the Church of England do the like As she did For she cast off the Pope's usurpation and as much as in her lay restored the King to his right That appears by a Book subscribed by the Bishops in Henry the eighths time And by the Records in the Archbishops office orderly kept and to be seen In the Reformation which came after our Princes had their parts and the Clergy theirs And to these two principally the power and direction for Reformation belongs That our Princes had their parts is manifest by their calling together of the Bishops and others of the Clergy to consider of that which might seem worthy Reformation And the Clergy did their part for being thus call'd together by Regal power they met in the National Synod of sixty two And the Articles there agreed on were afterwards confirmed by acts of State and the Royal assent In this Synod the Positive truths which are delivered are more then the Polemicks So that a meer calumny it is that we profess only a Negative Religion True it is and we must thank Rome for it our Confession must needs contain some Negatives For we cannot but deny that Images are to be adored Nor can we admit maimed Sacraments Nor grant Prayers in an unknown tongue And in a corrupt time or place 't is as necessary in Religion to deny falshood as to assert and vindicate Truth Indeed this latter can hardly be well and sufficiently done but by the former an Affirmative verity being ever included in the Negative to a falshood As for any errour which might fall into this as any other Reformation if
the one signifies Vniversally the other indefinitely undique relating properly to the circumference as undique aequalis on all sides it is equal so that qui sunt undique fideles are those which lye upon all quarters round about And so it doth not imply that all persons were bound to come but that from all quarters some did come as Herodian speaks of Rome ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that it was very populous and did receive them which came from all parts which doth very fitly explain the sense of Irenaeus that to Rome being the Imperial City men came from all quarters But the sense of this will be more fully understood by a parallel expression in the ninth Canon of the Council of Antioch in which it is decreed that the Metropolitan should have the care of all the Bishops in his Province ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã because all persons who have business from all parts resort to the Metropolis here ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is the very same with the undique convenire in Irenaeus so that it relates not to any Obligation on Churches to resort thither but that being the Seat of the Empire all believers from all parts did make their recourse thither Which is most fully expressed by Leo speaking of S. Peter's coming to Rome Cujus nationis homines in hâc Vrbe non essent aut quae uspiam gentes ignorarent quod Roma didicisset And so if I grant you that it extends to all parts I know not what advantages you will get by it for Irenaeus his design is to shew that there was no such secret Tradition left by the Apostles as the Valentinians pretended And for this he appeals to the Church of Rome which being seated in the Imperial City to which Believers from all parts did resort it is impossible to conceive that the Apostles should have left such a Tradition and it not to be heard of there which is the plain genuine meaning of Irenaeus his words Not as you weakly imagine That all Churches in all doubts of Faith were bound to have their recourse thither as to their constant guide therein For Irenaeus was not disputing What was to be done by Christians in doubts of Faith but was enquiring into a matter of fact viz. Whether any such Tradition were ever left in the Church or no and therefore nothing could be more pertinent or convincing than appealing to that Church to which Christians resorted from all parts for it could not be conceived but if the Apostles had left such a Tradition any where it would be heard of at Rome And you most notoriously pervert the meaning of Irenaeus when you would make the force of his argument to lye in the necessity of all Christians resorting to Rome because the Doctrine or Tradition of the Roman Church was as it were the touchstone of all Apostolical Doctrine But I suppose you deal in some English Logicians as well as English Lexicons and therefore I must submit both to your Grammar and Logick but your ingenuity is as great as your reason for you first pervert his Lordships meaning and then make him dispute ridiculously that you might come out with your triumphant language Is not this fine Meandrick Logick well beseeming so noble a Labyrinth Whereas his Lordships reasoning is so plain and clear that none but such a one as had a Labyrinth in his brains could have imagined any Meanders in it As appears by what I have said already in the explication of the meaning of Irenaeus But that I may see the strength of your Logick out of this place of Irenaeus I will translate undique and semper as fully as you would have me and give you the words at large in which by those who come from all places the Apostolical Tradition is alwaies conserved What is it you inferr hence From the Premises you argue thus All the faithful every where must of necessity have recourse to the Church of Rome by reason of her more powerful principality This is S. Irenaeus his proposition But there could be no necessity they all should have recourse to that Church by reason of her more powerful principality if her said power extended not to them all This is evident to reason Ergo this more powerful principality of the Roman Church must needs extend to all the faithful every where and not only to those of the Suburbicary Churches or Patriarchal Diocese of Rome as the Bishop pleads Now I see you are a man at arms and know not only how to grapple with his Lordship but with Irenaeus to boot But we must first see How Irenaeus himself argues that we may the better understand the force of what you deduce from him The Question as I have told you already was Whether the Apostles left any such Tradition in the Church as the Valentinians pretended Irenaeus proves they did not because if there had been any such the Apostolical Churches would certainly have preserved the memory of it but because it would be too tedious to insist on the succession of all Churches he therefore makes choice of the most famous the Church of Rome in which the Apostolical Tradition had been derived by a succession of Bishops down to his own time and by this saith he we confound all those who through vain glory or blindness do gather any such thing For saith he to this Church for the more powerful principality all Churches do make resort i. e. the believers from all parts in which by those who come from all parts the Apostolical Tradition is alwaies preserved We must now see How Irenaeus argues according to your sense of his words If all the faithful every where must of necessity have recourse to the Church of Rome for her more powerful principality then there is no secret Tradition left by the Apostles But Where lyes the connexion between these two What had the Valentinians to do with the power of the Church of Rome over other Churches That was not the business they disputed their Question was Whether there were no such Tradition as they pretended And Rome might have never so great power over all Churches and yet have this secret Tradition too For now we see when she pretends to the greatest power nay to Infallibility she pretends the highest to Traditions Where then lyes the force of Irenaeus his argument Was it in this that the Valentinians did acknowledge the Infallibility of the Church of Rome then in Traditions This were indeed to the purpose if it could be proved Or Doth Irenaeus go about to prove this first But by what argument doth he prove it so that the Valentinians might be convinced by it Yes say you he saith That all the faithful must of necessity have recourse to the Church of Rome This is your way of proving indeed to take things for granted but How doth this necessity appear because say you she hath the more powerful principality But
What principality do you mean over all Churches But that was the thing in Question So that if you will make Irenaeus speak sense and argue pertinently his meaning can be no other than this If there be such a Tradition left it must be left somewhere among Christians if it be left among them it may be known by enquiry Whether they own any such or no. But because it would be troublesome searching of all Churches we may know their judgement more compendiously there is the Church of Rome near us a famous and ancient Church seated in the chief City of the Empire to which all persons have necessities to go and among them you cannot but suppose but that out of every Church some faithful persons should come and therefore it is very unreasonable to think that the Apostolical Tradition hath not alwaies been preserved there when persons come from all places thither Is not every thing in this account of Irenaeus his words very clear and pertinent to his present dispute But in the sense you give of them they are little to the purpose and very precarious and inconsequent And therefore since the more powerful principality is not that of the Church but of the City since the necessity of recourse thither is not for doubts of Faith but other occasions therefore it by no means follows thence That this Churches power did extend over the faithful every where thus by explaining your Proposition your Conclusion is ashamed of it self and runs away For your argument comes to this If English men from all parts be forced to resort to London then London hath the power over all England or if one should say If some from all Churches in England must resort to London then the Church at London hath power over all the Churches in England and if this consequence be good yours is for it is of the same nature of it the necessity of the resort not lying in the Authority of the Church but in the Dignity of the City the words in all probability in the Greek being ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and so relate to the dignity of Rome as the Imperial City From whence we proceed to the Vindication of Ruffinus in his Translation of the 6. Canon of the Council of Nice The occasion of which is this His Lordship saith Supposing that the powerful principality be ascribed to the Church of Rome yet it follows not that it should have power over all Churches for this power was confined within its own Patriarchate and Jurisdiction and that saith he was very large containing all the Provinces in the Diocese of Italy in the old sense of the word Diocese which Provinces the Lawyers and others term Suburbicaries There were ten of them the three Islands Sicily Corsica and Sardinia and the other seven upon the firm Land of Italy And this I take it is plain in Ruffinus For he living shortly after the Nicene Council as he did and being of Italy as he was he might very well know the bounds of the Patriarchs Jurisdiction as it was then practised And he sayes expresly that according to the old custom the Roman Patriarchs charge was confined within the limits of the Suburbican Churches To avoid the force of this testimony Cardinal Perron laies load upon Ruffinus For he charges him with passion ignorance and rashness And one piece of his ignorance is that he hath ill translated the Canon of the Council of Nice Now although his Lordship doth not approve of it as a Translation yet he saith Ruffinus living in that time and place was very like well to know and understand the limits and bounds of that Patriarchate of Rome in which he lived This you say is very little to his Lordships advantage since it is inconsistent with the vote of all Antiquity and gives S. Irenaeus the lye but if the former be no truer than the latter it may be very much to his advantage notwithstanding what you have produced to the contrary What the ground is Why the Roman Patriarchate was confined within the Roman Diocese I have already shewed in the precedent Chapter in explication of the Nicene Canon We must now therefore examine the Reasons you bring Why the notion of Suburbicary Churches must be extended beyond the limits his Lordship assigns that of the smalness of Jurisdiction compared with other Patriarchs I have given an account of already viz. from the correspondency of the Ecclesiastical and Civil Government for the Civil Dioceses of the Eastern part of the Empire did extend much farther than the Western did and that was the Reason Why the Patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria had a larger Metropolitical Jurisdiction than the Bishop of Rome had But you tell us That Suburbicary Churches must be taken as generally signifying all Churches and Cities any waies subordinate to the City of Rome which was at that time known by the name of Urbs or City ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by way of excellency not as it related to the Praefect or Governour of Rome in regard of whose ordinary Jurisdiction we confess it commanded only those few places about it in Italy but as it related to the Emperour himself in which sense the word Suburbicary rightly signifies all Cities or Churches whatsoever within the Roman Empire as the word Romania also anciently signified the whole Imperial Territory as Card. Perron clearly proves upon this subject But this is one instance of what mens wits will do when they are resolved to break through any thing For whoever that had read of the Suburbicary Regions and Provinces in the Code of Theodosius or other parts of the Civil Law as distinguished from other Provinces under the Roman Empire and those in Italy too could ever have imagined that the notion of Suburbicary Churches had been any other than what was correspondent to those Regions and Provinces But let that be granted which Sirmondus so much contends for That the notion of Suburbicary may have different respects and so sometimes be taken for the Churches within the Roman Diocese sometimes for those within the Roman Patriarchate and sometimes for those which are under the Pope as Vniversal Pastor yet How doth it appear that ever Ruffinus took it in any other than the first sense No other Provinces being called Suburbicary but such as were under the Jurisdiction either of the Roman Prefect within a hundred miles of the City within which compass references and appeals were made to him or at the most to the Lieutenant of the Roman Diocese whose Jurisdiction extended to those ten Provinces which his Lordship mentions It is not therefore In what sense words may be taken but in what sense they were taken and what Evidence there is that ever they were so understood Never was any Controversie more ridiculous than that concerning the extent of the Suburbicary Regions or Provinces if Suburbicary were taken in your sense for all the Cities within the Roman
Synodical Epistle by which I shall prove it impossible that either the Letters of Pope Damasus did concern the calling of the Oecumenical Council or that the sitting of the Council at Rome and the General one at Constantinople could be at the same time The first is from the date of those Letters which is thus expressed there that they met together at Constantinople having received the Letters which were sent the year before from them to the Emperour Theodosius ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã after the Synod at Aquileia Now the Synod at Aquileia by Baronius his computation was held the same year A. D. 381. in which the Oecumenical Council at Constantinople was held and much later in the year too for this was held in the Nones of September and the other in May and so much is likewise confessed by Binius in his notes on that Council Now let me demand of you Whether is it impossible that Damasus should by his Letters summon the Oecumenical Council when the date of those Letters to Theodosius is so long after the sitting of it But besides this these Eastern Bishops in that Council which sate after these Letters of Damasus clearly distinguished themselves from the Oecumenical Council of the year foregoing for after they had given a brief account of their Faith they referr the Pope and Western Council to that declaration of Faith which had been made the year before by the Oecumenical Council assembled at Constantinople ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Is it possible then any thing should be more evident than that this Council assembled upon the Letters of Damasus to Theodosius and sitting with the Council at Rome is clearly distinct from the Oecumenical Council of Constantinople And thus I hope I have dispelled those mists which you would cast before the Readers eyes by confounding these two Councils and thereby offering to prove that the Pope had some kind of very remote Presidency in the second General Council Which is so far from being true that there is not any intimation in any of the ancient Historians Theodoret Socrates or Sozomen that the Pope or any of the Western Bishops had any thing at all to do in it But you will ask How comes it then to be accounted an Oecumenical Council For this indeed Baronius would fain find out some hand that Damasus had in it or else he cannot conceive how it should become Oecumenical but all the proof he produceth is Because in the Acts of the sixth Council it is said that Theodosius and Damasus opposed Macedonius and so I hope he might do by declaring his consent to the Doctrine decreed in this Council not that thereby his approbation made it Oecumenical And as that Doctrine was received and that Confession of Faith embraced all over the world so that Council became Oecumenical For I cannot see but that if Damasus had stood up for Macedonius if the Decrees against him had been received by the Catholick Church it had been never the less Oecumenical in the sense of Antiquity That testimony which Baronius brings out of his own Library and a Copy of the Vatican expressing that Damasus did summon the Council at Constantinople is not to be taken against the consent of the ancient Church-Historians it being well known what Interess those Roman Copies have a long time driven on I deny not therefore but that the Council of Constantinople was assented to by Damasus and the Western Bishops in the matters of Faith there decided but I utterly deny that Damasus had any thing to do in the Presidency over that Council So that we find a Council alwaies acknowledged to be Oecumenical in which the Pope had no Presidency at all and this very Instance sufficiently refutes your Hypothesis viz. that the Popes Presidency is necessary to a General Council In the third General Council held at Ephesus A. D. 431. it is agreed on both sides that S. Cyril Patriarch of Alexandria was the President of it but the Question is In what capacity he sate there whether in his own or as Legat of Celestine Bishop of Rome All the proof you produce for the latter is That it appears by a Letter written to him by the Pope long before he sent any other Legats to that Council in which Letter he gives S. Cyril charge to supply his place as is testified by Evagâius Prosper Photius and divers other Authours But here again you offer to confound two things which are of a distinct nature for you would have your Reader believe that this Letter was sent by Coelestine to Cyril in order to his Presidentship in the Council whereas this Letter was sent the year before without any relation to the Council as appears by the series of the story which is briefly this the differences in the Eastern Churches increasing about the Opinions broached by Nestorius S. Cyril of Alexandria chiefly appearing in opposition to them they both write much about the same time to Pope Coelestine impeaching each other of Heresie But before Coelestine had read the Letters from Nestorius in vindication of himself Possidonius a Deacon of Alexandria comes with several dispatches from S. Cyril wherein a large account is given of the heresie and actions of Nestorius upon which the Pope calls a Council at Rome and therein examines the allegations on both sides which being done the Council condemns Nestorius and passeth this sentence on him That ten daies should be allowed him after notice given for his repentance and in case of obstinacy he should be declared excommunicate And for executing this sentence Coelestine commits his power to Cyril not as though it belonged to the Pope only to do it but that by this means there might appear the Consent of the Western with the Eastern Bishops in putting Nestorius out of the communion of the Catholick Church S. Cyril having received these Letters by the return of Possidonius dated the third of the Ides of August as appears by the Letters extant in Baronius calls a Council at Alexandria in which four Legats are decreed to be sent to Constantinople in pursuance of the sentence against Nestorius they deliver the Letters of Coelestine and Cyril to him he returns them no answer at all but addresses himself to the Emperour Theodosius and complains of the persecutions of Cyril which occasioned a very sharp Letter of the Emperour to him charging him with disturbing the Churches Peace But this was not all for Cyril having with the Synodical Epistle of the Council of Alexandria sent twelve Anathematisms to be subscribed by Nestorius he was so far from it that he charges Cyril with the heresie of Apollinaris in them and sends them to Johannes Antiochenus who with the Syrian Bishops of his Diocese joyn with Nestorius in the impeachment of Cyril So that by this means the sentence against Nestorius could not be put in execution because of the dissent of the Eastern Bishops and that S. Cyril stood
Church all the rest moulders as not being able to stand without them But that is still your way if any thing be said of the Catholick Church we must presently understand it of yours so that it cannot be said in any sense that the Church is without spot or wrinkle but by you it must be understood presently of the Doctrine of the Roman Catholick Church universally received as a matter of Faith but till you prove not only your two former assertions but that St. Austin understood those words ever in that sense your vindication of that place in him concerning it will appear utterly impertinent to your purpose And his Lordships assertion may still stand good That the Church on earth is not any freer from wrinkles in Doctrine and Discipline then she is from spots in life and Conversation Having thus vindicated his Lordships way from the objections you raised against it we must now consider how well you vindicate your own from the unreasonableness he charges it with in several particulars 1. That if we suppose a General Council Infallible and it prove not so but that an errour in Faith be concluded the same erring opinion which makes it think it self Infallible makes the errour of it irrevocable and so leaves the Church without remedy To this you Answer Grant false antecedents and false premises enow and what absurdities will not be consequent and fill up the conclusion But you clearly mistake the present business which is not Whether Councils be Infallible or no but Whether opinion be lyable to greater Inconveniencies that which asserts that they may or that they cannot err Will you have your supposition of the Infallibility of Councils taken for a first principle or a thing as true as the Scriptures So you would seem indeed by the supposing the Scriptures not to be Gods Word which you subjoyn as the parallel to the supposing General Councils fallible But will you say the one is as evident and built on as good reason and as much agreed on among Christians as the other is I suppose you will not and therefore it was very absurd unreasonable to say Supposing the Word of God were not so errours would be irrevocable as if General Councils were supposed Infallible and proved not so But this is a Question you grant to be disputable among Christians and will you not give us leave to make a supposition that it may prove not so You must consider we are now enquiring into the conveniencies of these two opinions and in that case it is necessary to make such suppositions And let any reasonable man judge what opinion can be more pernicious to the Church then yours is supposing it not to be true for then it will be necessary for men to assent to the grossest errours as the most Divine and Infallible truths and there can be no remedy imagin'd for the redress of them If then the Inconvenience of admitting it be so great men had need look well to the grounds on which it is built And I cannot see any reason men can have to admit any Infallible proponent in matters of Faith to the Church but on as great and as clear evidence as the Prophets and Apostles had that they were sent from God For the danger may be as great to believe that to be Infallible which is not as not to believe that to be Infallible which is for the believing an errour to be a Divine truth may be as dangerous to the souls of men as the not believing something which is really revealed by God But to be sure those who see no reason to believe a General Council to be Infallible cannot be obliged to assent to errours propounded by it but such who believe it Infallible must what ever the errours be swallow them down without questioning the truth of them And it argues how conscious you are of the falseness of your principles that you are so loath to have them examined or so much as a supposition made that they should not prove true Whereas truth alwayes invites men to the most accurate search into it We see the Apostles bid men search whether the things they spake were true or no and those are most commended who did it most and I hope men were as much bound to believe them Infallible as General Councils But we see how unreasonable you are you would obtrude such things upon mens Faith which must lead them into unavoidable errours if false and yet not allow men the liberty of examination whether they be true or no. But such proceedings are so far from advancing your cause that nothing can more prejudice it among rational and inquisitive men His Lordship for the clearing this proceeds to an Instance of an errour defined by one of your General Councils viz. Communion in one kind but that we shall reserve the discussion of to the ensuing Chapter which is purposely allotted for the discovery of those errours which have been defined by such as you call General Councils Therefore I proceed 2. His Lordship saith Your opinion is yet more unreasonable because no Body-collective whensoever it assembled it self did ever give more power to the representing body of it then a binding power upon it self and all particulars nor ever did it give this power otherwise then with this reservation in nature that it would call again and reform and if need were abrogate any Law or ordinance upon just cause made evident that the representing Body had failed in trust or truth And this power no Body-collective ecclesiastical or civil can put out of it self or give away to a Parliament or Council or call it what you will that represents it To this again you Answer This is only to suppose and take for granted that a General Council hath no Authority but what is meerly delegate from the Church Vniversal which it represents I grant this is supposed in it and this is all which the nature of a representative body doth imply if you say there is more then that you are bound to prove it Yes say you We maintain its Authority to be of Divine Institution and when lawfully assembled to act by Divine right and not meerly by deputation and consent of the Church But if all the proof you have for it be only that which you refer us to in the precedent Chapter the palpable weakness of it for any such purpose hath been there fully laid open His Lordship saith That the power which a Council hath to order settle and define differences arising concerning Faith it hath not by any Immediate Institution from Christ but it was prudently taken up by the Church from the Apostles example So that to hold Councils to this end is apparent Apostolical Tradition written but the power which Councils have is from the whole Catholick Church whose members they are and the Churches power from God You say True it is the calling such
enough to exercise his Faith needed nothing else to try it but your Doctrine of Transubstantiation But you say The term indeed was first authorised by the Council of Lateran as ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by that of Nice but for the thing it self signified by this term which is a real conversion of the substance of bread into the body of Christ and of wine into his blood 't is clear enough that it was ever held for a Divine truth If you prove but that I will never quarrel with you about the term call it Transubstantiation or what you will but we do not think it so clear as not to want proofs stronger for the belief of it then all the repugnancies of sense and reason are against it For it is a vain thing for you to attempt to prove so unreasonable a Doctrine as this is by some few lame citations of Fathers unless you can first prove that the Authority of them is so great as to make me believe any thing they say though never so contrary to sense and reason If you could bring some places of the Fathers to prove that we must renounce absolutely the judgement of sense believe things most contradictions to reason yet you must first shew that the evidence they bring is greater then that of sense or reason Or that I am more bound to believe them then I am to believe the greatest evidence of sense or reason When you say In these cases we must submit reason to Faith we acknowledge it when it is no manifest contradiction in things so obvious to sense or reason that the asserting it will destroy the use of our faculties and make us turn absolute Scepticks for then Faith must be destroyed too For may not a man question as well whether his hearing may not deceive him as his sight and by that means he may question all the Tradition of the Church and what becometh of his Faith then and if his sight might deceive him in a proper object of it Why might not the Apostles sight deceive them in the body of Christ being risen from the grave And if a man may be bound to believe that to be false which his sense judges to be true what assurance can be had of any miracles which were wrought to confirm the Christian Doctrine and therefore his Lordship might well say That Transubstantiation is not consistent with the grounds of Christian Religion But of this I have spoken already That which I am now upon is not how far reason is to be submitted to Divine Authority in case of certainty that there is a Divine Revelation for what I am to believe but how far it is to be renounced when all the evidence which is brought is from the Authority of the Fathers So that the Question in short is Whether there be greater evidence that I am bound to believe the Fathers in a matter contrary to sense and reason or else to adhere to the judgement of them though in opposition to the Fathers Authority And since you do not grant their Authority immediately Divine since you pretend not to places as clear out of them as the judgement of sense and reason is in this case since you dare not say that all the Fathers are as much agreed about it as the senses of all mankind are about the matter in dispute I think with men who have not already renounced all that looks like reason this will be no matter of Controversie at all From whence it follows that supposing the Fathers were as clear for you as they are against you in this subject yet that would not be enough to perswade us to believe so many contradictions as Transubstantiation involves in it meerly because the Fathers delivered it to us I speak not this as though I did at all fear the clearness of any Testimony you can produce out of them but to shew you that you take not a competent way to prove such a Doctrine as Transubstantiation is For nothing but a stronger evidence than that of sense and reason can be judged sufficient to oversway the clear dictates of both This being premised I come to consider the clear evidence you produce out of Antiquity for this Doctrine and since you pretend to so much choice in referring us to Bellarmin and Gualtierus for more I must either much distrust your judgement or suppose these the clearest to be had in them and therefore the examination of these will save the labour of searching for the rest And yet it is the great unhappiness of your cause that there is scarce one of all the Testimonies you make use of but either its Authority is slighted by some of your own writers or sufficient reasons given against it by many of ours Your first is of St. Cyprian or at least an Authour of those first ages of the Church who speaking of the Sacrament of the Eucharist saith This common bread chang'd into flesh and blood giveth life And again The bread which our Lord gave to his Disciples being chang'd not in its outward form or semblance but in its inward nature or substance by the omnipotency of the word is made flesh As to this Testimony there are two things to be considered the authority and the meaning of it For its Authority you seem doubtful your self whether S. Cyprian's or no since Bellarmin and others of your own deny it but at least you say an Authour of those first ages of the Church but you bring no evidence at all for it Bellarmin grants that he is younger then St. Augustine and others say that none mention him for 800 years after St. Cyprians time And the abundance of barbarisms which that book is so full fraught with manifest that it is of a much later extraction then the time it pretends to But the matter seems to be now out of question since the Book is extant in the King of France's Library with an Inscription to Pope Adrian and a MSS. of it is in the Library of All-Souls in Oxford with the same Inscription and the name of Arnaldus Bonavillacensis who was St. Bernards co-temporary and lived in the twelfth Century And those who have taken the pains to compare this Book with what is extant of the same Authour in the Bibliotheca Patrum not only observe the very same barbarisms but the same conceptions and expressions about the Sacrament which the other hath Although therefore I might justly reject this testimony as in all respects incompetent yet I shall not take that advantage of you but supposing him an Authour as ancient as you would have him I say he proves not the thing you bring him for For which two things must be enquired into 1. What kind of presence of Christ he asserts in the Sacrament 2. What change he supposes to be made in the Elements For your Doctrine asserts That there is a conversion of the whole substance of bread and
wine into the substance of the natural body and blood of Christ and that this conveniently properly and most aptly is call'd Transubstantiation Now if this Authour speaks wholly of a real but spiritual presence of Christ and if he asserts that the substance of bread and wine do remain still you can have no pretence at all left that this Authour asserts your Doctrine of Transubstantiation For the first he expresly saith That these things must not be understood after a carnal sense viz. unless ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man ye shall have no life in you for Christ himself hath said His words are spirit and life And nothing can be more evident then that this Authour speaks not of any corporeal but spiritual presence of Christ by the effects which he attributes to it calling it inconsumptibilem cibum that food which cannot be consumed and the reason he gives of it is because it feeds to eternal life and therefore he saith it is immortalitatis alimonia that which nourisheth to immortality which cannot possibly be conceived of the corporal presence of Christ since you confess the body of Christ remains no longer in the body then the accidents of the bread and wine do And after he tells us What the feeding upon the flesh of Christ is viz. our hunger and desire of remaining in Christ by which the sweetness of his Love is so imprinted and melted as it were within us that the savour of it may remain in our palat and bowels penetrating and diffusing it self through all the recesses of soul and body And so just before he saith Christ did Spiritualinos instruere documento instruct us by a spiritual lesson that we might know that our abiding in him is our eating of him and our drinking a kind of incorporation by the humility of our obedience the conjunction of our wills the union of our affections And in another place denyes That there is any corporal union between Christ and us but a spiritual and therefore adds afterwards As often as we do these things we do not sharpen our teeth to bite but break and divide the holy bread by a sincere Faith All which and many other places in that Authour make it plain that he doth not speak of such a corporal presence as you imagine but of a real but spiritual presence of Christ whereby the souls of Believers have an intimate union and conjunction with Christ which he calls Societatem germanissimam in which respect they have communion with the body of Christ. But I need mention but one place more to explain his meaning in which he fully asserts the spiritual presence of Christ and withall that the substance of the elements doth remain That immortal nourishment is given us which differs from common food that it retains the nature of a corporeal substance but proving the presence of a Divine power by its invisible efficiency So that what presence of Divine power there is is shewed in regard of the effects of it not in regard of any substantial change of the bread into the body of Christ for in reference to that efficiency he calls it immortal nourishment and afterwards That as common bread is the life of the body so this supersubstantial bread is the life of the soul and health of the mind But I know you will quarrel with me for rendring corporalis substantiae retinens speciem by retaining the nature of a corporal substance for you would fain have species to signifie only the accidents of a corporeal substance to remain This being therefore the main thing in dispute if I can evince that species signifies not the bare external accidents but the nature of a corporeal substance then this Authour will be so far from asserting that he will appear point-blank against your Doctrine of Transubstantiation Now I shall prove that species was not taken then for the meer external shape and figure but for the solid body it self especially of such things as were designed for nourishment Thence in the Civil Law we read of the species annonariae and of the species publicae largitionales and fiscales and those who had the care of corn are said to be curatores specierum and thence very often in the Codes of Justinian and Theodosius there is mention of the species vini species olei species tritici But lest you should think it is only used in this sense in the Civil Law not only Cassiodore and Vegetius use it in the same sense for the species tritici and species annonariae but that which comes home to our purpose St. Ambrose uses it where it is impossible to be taken for the meer external accidents but must be understood of the substance it self speaking of Christs being desired to change the water into wine he thus expresses it Vt rogatus ad nuptias aquae substantiam in vini speciem commutaret that he would change the substance of water into the species of wine Will you say that Christ turned it only into the external accidents and not the nature of it So when St. Austin sayes that Christ was the same food to the Jews and us significatione nonspecie he opposes species to a meer type and therefore it imports the substance and reality of the thing And so the translator of Origen opposes the regeneratio in specie to the baptismus in aenigmate and the manna in aenigmate to the manna in specie in both which being opposed to the figure it denotes the reality And one of those Authours whom you cite in the very same Book and Chapter which you cite uses species sanguinis for the substance of blood for he opposes it to the similitudo sanguinis for when the person objects and sayes That after the cup is consecrated speciem sanguinis non video I do not see the nature or substance of blood he answers him Sed similitudinem habet But it hath the resemblance of it for as saith he there is the similitude of his death so there is the similitude of his blood These may be sufficient to shew that species corporalis substantiae does not relate to the external shape and figure but to the nature and reality of it So that his meaning is although it remains still the same substance of bread and wine yet there is such an invisible efficiency of Divine power going along with the use of it as makes it to nourish the souls of men to eternal life And now it will be no matter of difficulty at all to Answer the places you bring out of this Authour The first is This common bread chang'd into flesh and blood giveth life But how little this place makes to your purpose is easie to discern because we do not deny a Sacramental change of the bread into the flesh and blood of Christ but only that substantial change which you assert but that Authour sufficiently
as his reason but the departing from the Institution of Christ and this is done by one as well as the other But he adds That there was a precept for that Do this And so say we was there as plain for the other Drink ye all of this So that the parity of reason is evident for the one as well as the other Upon the same ground doth Pope Julius afterwards condemn the using milk instead of wine because contrary to Christs Institution and so he doth the dipping the bread in the Chalice From whence we inferr that they looked on Christs Example and Institution in the administration to be unalterable But most express is the Testimony of Pope Gelasius who finding some from the remainders of Manichaism did abstain from the Cup gives express order That they who were infected with this odde superstition either should receive the whole Sacrament or abstain wholly from it because the dividing one and the same mystery cannot be done without great sacriledge To this Bellarmin tells us two Answers are commonly given one That these words are meant of Priests another That they relate only to those superstitious persons but both of them are sufficiently taken off by the reason assigned which is not fetched either from their Priesthood or Superstition but only from the Institution of Christ that it would be sacriledge to part those things which Christ by his Institution had joyned together Thus we see the sense of the Church is clear not only for the practice but the command too and the sinfulness of the violation of it Although to you one would think it were wholly needless to prove any more than the Vniversal Practice since the Tradition of the Church is equal with you with an unwritten word but that is when it makes for your purpose and not otherwise For in this case though the Institution be express the universal practice of the Church for at least a thousand years unquestionable yet because it contradicts the present sense and practice of your Church all this signifies nothing at all with you So true is it that it is neither Scripture nor Antiquity which you really regard but Interest and the Present Church And what Cusanus like a downright man spake out in this case is that you must all at last take sanctuary in That the Scriptures must be interpreted according to the current practice of the Church and therefore it is no wonder if they be interpreted at one time one way and another time another way And though this seem a very great absurdity yet it is no more than is necessary to be said by such who maintain things so contrary to Scripture and the practice of former ages of the Church But you are so far from thinking this contrary to the practice of the Church in former ages that you say Not only in S. Thomas his time but in all times of the Church it was both publickly allowed and commonly by some practised even in Churches to receive under one kind only A bold Assertion and which is confidently denied by very many of your own Communion For not only Cassander often confesses that for above a thousand years after Christ no instance can be produced of publick Communion in one kind But Father Barns acknowledges not only that Communion in both kinds is much more agreeable to Scripture Fathers and the Vniversal Church but that per se loquendo jure divino praescribitur taking it in it self it is commanded by a Divine Law But I know these men are too honest for you to own them but as to the universal practice of the Church it is confessed by Ruardus Alphonsus à Castro Lindanus and many others But we need no more than your S. Thomas himself even in that very place where you say He rather makes for you than against you for when he saies that Providè in quibusdam Ecclesiis observatur ut populo sanguis non detur It was a custom providently observed in some Churches not to give the Sacrament in the form of wine to the Laity He thereby shews indeed that in his time about A. D. 1260. this custom did in some places obtain but yet so that the universal practice had been to the contrary for so much is confessed by him in his Commentaries on S. John where his words are secundum antiquam in Ecclesiâ consuetudinem omnes sicut communicabant corpori ita communicabant sanguini quod etiam adhuc in quibusdam Ecclesiis servatur According to the anceint custom of the Church all did communicate in both kinds which as yet is observed in some Churches Now Whether the universal practice of the Church in former times or the practice of some Churches in his time were more agreeable to the Divine Institution we may appeal to Aquinas himself who elsewhere gives this account Why the elements of bread and wine were made use of and delivered severally That they might denote a complete refection and fully represent the death and passion of our Saviour On the same accounts Bonaventure and Alensis make both kinds necessary to the Integrity of the Sacrament And the latter who was Master to the two former saies expresly That whole Christ is not contained sacramentally under either kinds but his flesh under that of bread and his blood under that of wine Than which nothing can be more destructive to the Doctrine of Concomitancy And it is learnedly proved by Pet. Picherellus that the bread was appointed to represent not the body in its compleat substance but the meer flesh when the blood is out of it according to the division of the Sacrifices into flesh and blood from whence it appears that the Sacrifice of Christs death cannot be represented meerly by one kind and that whole Christ is not contained under one in the administration of it And therefore Alensis rightly determines that the res Sacramenti cannot be perfectly represented by one kind and thence sayes He that receives but in one kind doth not receive the Sacrament perfectly No wonder therefore that he tells us That some religious persons in his time when the contrary custom through the superstition of people had somewhat prevailed did earnestly desire that the Sacrament might again be received in both kinds Thus we see when this custom did begin reason and argument was still against it and nothing pleaded for it but only some superstitious fears of some accidental effusions of the blood of Christ. But you are the man who would still perswade us That Communion in one kind was not only publickly allowed but by some practised even in Churches in all times of the Church And therefore in reason we must give attendance to your impregnable demonstrations of it For otherwise say you How is it possible that the Manichees should find liberty and opportunity to communicate amongst Catholicks in Catholick Churches without being perceived since they never drank
wine nor communicated under the form of wine as 't is certain they frequently did in S. Leo 's time and after But you have very unhappily light of this for your first proof which is so evident against you For Leo who mentions the Manichees communicating in Catholick Churches tells the Catholicks What way they might discern them from themselves viz. that though they received the bread yet they refused the wine by which saith he you may discover their sacrilegious hypocrisie and by that means they may be expelled out of the society of Catholicks You were therefore very ill advised to make choice of this for your argument which makes it plain that all Catholicks did receive in both kinds and that the Manichees might be thereby known that they did not And if it were the custom for the Catholicks sometimes to receive in both kinds and sometimes not which is all the shift Bellarmin hath and the Manichees not at all this could be no note of distinction between them for although the Manichees might not receive at one time they could not tell but they might at another Now Leo's intention being to give such a note of distinction that they might not receive at all among them it evidently follows that all the Catholicks did constantly receive in both kinds and that they were only Manichees who did abstain from the Cup. For that Story which Bellarmin insists on and you referr to of the woman who being a Macedonian Heretick yet pretending to communicate with the Catholicks had the bread which her Maid brought with her and which she took instead of the Eucharist turned into a stone in her mouth upon which she runs presently to the Bishop and with tears confessed her fault as we take it wholly upon the Faith of Sozomen from whom Nicephorus transcribes it so I cannot imagine what it proves for your purpose unless it be that they in whose mouths the bread turns into a stone too will hardly have patience till the Cup be administred to them For so both Sozomen and Nicephorus relate it that immediately upon her feeling it to be a stone she ran to the Bishop and shewed him the stone acknowledging with tears her miscarriage But besides this you bring several Instances from the Communion of Hermites in the wilderness of travellers on their journeys of sick persons in their beds and private Communions in houses and lastly little Children in the Church and at home in their Cradles which communicated in form of wine only And Are not all these invincible proofs that there was a publick solemn administration of the Communion in one kind publickly allowed in Churches in all times When you can prove that the Communion of Hermites was in the Church or that they did not receive as well the wine as the bread in the wilderness or that such Communion was approved by the Church That the Communion of Travellers was not meer Communion in Prayers as Baronius and Albaspinaeus assert without any participation of the Eucharist at all or if it were that it was only a participation in one kind against which Albaspinaeus gives many reasons That the Communion of the sick was without wine when Justin Martyr saith That both bread and wine were sent to the absent when Eusebius tells us That the bread given to Serapion was dipt when S. Hierom saith of Exuperius That he preserved the blood in a glass for the use of the sick That Private Communions were without wine since Gregory Nazianzen saith his Sister Gorgonia preserved both the symbols of the body and blood of Christ and Albaspinaeus confesses that one might be carried home as well as the other or that these were approved by the Church since Durantus saith That the use of Private Communions coming up by persecutions were abrogated afterwards and are expresly condemned by the Council of Caesar-Augusta about the year 381. and the first Council of Toledo about A. D. 400. Lastly that the Communion of Infants was only in one kind either in the Church or at home or that this Communion of Infants which the Council of Trent condemns was a due administration of the Eucharist When I say you have proved all these things the utmost you can hence inferr is only that in some rare cases and accidental occasions Communion in one kind was allowed of But what is all this to the proving that the stated solemn administration of the Eucharist in one kind was ever practised much less allowed within a thousand years after Christ. And yet if you could prove that you fall short of vindicating your Church unless you add this which you never so much as touch at viz. That it was ever in all that time thought lawful to forbid the celebration of the Eucharist in both kinds Prove but this which is your only proper task and I say as his Lordship doth in another case You shall be my Apollo for ever We proceed to a fourth errour which is the Invocation of Saints defined by the Council of Trent As to which that which his Lordship saith may be reduced to three things 1. That those expressions of the Fathers which seem most to countenance it are but Rhetorical flourishes 2. That the Church then did not admit of the Invocation of Saints but only of the commemoration of Martyrs 3. That the Doctrine of the Roman Church makes the Saints more then Mediatours of Intercession To these three I shall confine my discourse on this subject and therefore shall follow you close in your Answers to them For the first When you are proving that the Fathers expressions were not Rhetorical flourishes you would fain have your own accounted so For say you How can it seem to any that duly considers it but most extreamly partial and strange to term so many exhortations so many plain and positive assertions so many Instances Examples Histories Reports and the like which the Fathers frequently use and afford in this kind and that upon occasions wherein dogmatical and plain delivery of Christian Doctrine and truth is expected nothing but flourishes of wit and Rhetorick And after you call these meer put-off's as before you had said That when any thing in the Fathers is against us then it is Rhetorick only when against you then it is dogmatical and the real sense of the Fathers But these are only General words fit only to deceive such who believe bold affirmations sooner then solid proofs This is a thing must be tryed by particulars because it is on both sides acknowledged that the Fathers did many times use their Rhetorick and that such things are uttered by them in their Panegyrical Orations especially which will not abide a severe tryal Doth not Bellarmin confess that St. Chrysostome doth often hyperbolize and Sixtus Senensis say as much of others that in the heat of their discourses they are carried beyond what they would have said in a strict debate But who are better
Judges of these things then the Fathers themselves Are they not the men who have bid us distinguish what comes from them in a heat from that which they deliver as the Doctrine of the Church Have not they told us that the popular Orations uttered in Churches are no rules of opinion Have not some of them when they have seemed extream vehement and earnest at last come off with this That they have been declaiming all that while Witness St. Hierome against Helvidius and if you make not use of the same rule to put a favourable construction on his Books against Jovinian Vigilantius Ruffinus and others you will as little be able to excuse him from strange Doctrines as from intemperate heats What put-off then is it for us to say that St. Basil in his Oration on Mammas and the forty eight Martyrs that S. Gregory Nazianzen in his Panegyrical Orations on St. Basil St. Athanasius St. Cyprian his sister Gorgonia St. Gregory Nyssen in his commendation of Theodorus do make use of their Rhetorick in Apostrophe's to the persons whom they praise without any solemn Invocation of them What is there herein unsuitable to their present purpose Is it any more then Oratours have commonly done What strange thing is it then that those great Masters of Rhetorick should make use of their art to raise the people not only to a high esteem of their persons but of those vertues which rendred them so illustrious Might not such expressions by way of Apostrophe be still used by such who are furthest from the Invocation of Saints although by their example we are taught how dangerous it is to indulge Rhetorick too much in such cases But as though they foresaw the ill use would be made of them they add such expressions as sufficiently tell us they made no solemn Invocation of them ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and the like Had these persons a mind to deliver a Doctrine of Invocation of Saints who speak with such hesitation and doubt as to their sense of what was spoken For it is a groundless shift to say that those expressions imply an affirmation and not doubt That which we say then is this That the Doctrine of the Church is not to be judged by such Encomiastick Orations wherein such Rhetorical flourishes are usual and when you bring us their plain and positive assertions we will by no means give you that Answer That those are flourishes of wit and Rhetorick But his Lordship very well knew how far you were from any such dogmatical assertions of the Fathers in this point and that the most plausible testimonies which you had were taken out of those three great Oratours in their Panegyricks in praise of their Friends or of the Martyrs and therefore it was he said Though some of the ancient Fathers have some Rhetorical flourishes about it for the stirring up devotion as they thought yet the Church then admitted not of the Invocation of Saints That is it we stand on that no such thing was admitted by the Church if we should yield that any particular though great persons were too lavish in their expressions this way must these be the standard which we must judge of the Doctrine of the Church by We must consider the Church was now out of persecution and ease and honour attended that profession of Christianity for which such multitudes had endured the flames and the people began to grow more loose and vain then when they still expected Martyrdoms This made these great men so highly commend the Martyrs in their popular Orations not to propound them as objects of Invocation but as examples for their imitation Thence they encouraged them to frequent the Memoriae martyrum that by their assemblies in those places they might revive something of that pristine heat of devotion which was now so much abated among them But the event was so far from answering their expectation that by this means they grew by degrees to place much of their Religion rather in honouring the former Martyrs and Saints then in striving to imitate them in their vertues and graces And from the frequenting the places where the Martyrs were enshrined through the pretence of some extatical dreams and visions or some rare occurrences which they say happened at those places they began to turn their real honour into superstitious devotion which at last ended in solemn Invocation To which no small encouragement was given when such persons as S. Hierom and others were so far from putting a stop to the growing evil that though they confessed many miscarriages committed yet they rather sought to palliate them and make the best construction of them still hoping that this zeal in the people to the honour of the Martyrs would promote devotion among them whereas it sunk gradually into greater superstitions This I take to be the truest and most faithful account of those first beginnings and tendencies to Invocation of Saints which appeared in the latter end of the fourth Century For before that time we meet with nothing that can bear the face of any positive and plain assertions instances examples histories or reports tending that way Which is so clear that Cardinal Perron after the best use of his wit and diligence to find out something to this purpose within the three first Centuries at last confesses that in the Authours who lived nearer the Apostles times no footsteps can be found of the Invocation of Saints But when he gives this account of it That most of the writings of that time are lost it makes us see what poor excuses bad causes will drive the greatest wits to For are not the writings of Justin Martyr Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Tertullian Cyprian Arnobius Lactantius and others still extant who were pious and learned men And is it possible that such men should all of them conceal such a Doctrine as this which would so easily appear in the face of the Church But it is well we have the confession of so great a man for the best ages of the Church and not only so but he acknowledges withall That there is neither precept nor example for it in the Scripture Which others not only assert but offer to give reasons for it for the Old Testament Because the Fathers were not then admitted to the beatifical vision and for the New Testament Because the Apostles were men of such piety and humility that they would not admit of it themselves and therefore made no mention of it in their writings and withall Because in the beginning of Christianity there would have been a suspicion that they had only changed the names of Heathen Deities and retained the same kinds of worship These for the new Testament we admit of not as Rhetorical flourishes but as plain and positive assertions which contain a great deal of truth and reason in them So that here is a confessed silence as to this Doctrine throughout all the story of Scripture and for three
hundred years and more after Christ and in all this time we meet with no such assertions instances examples reports and the like which tend to establish this new Doctrine But in stead of this we meet with very plain assertions to the contrary back'd with strong and invincible reasons and herein not to insist on those places in Scripture which appropriate Invocation to God only and that in regard of his incommunicable attributes of omnisciency and infinite goodness and power which are the only foundations given in Scripture for Invocation nor to mention those places where all tendencies to such kind of worship of any created Being are severely checked and wherein an Inferiour and relative worship is condemned on this account Because all worship is due to God only and wherein that very pretence of humility in not coming to God but through some Mediatour is expresly spoken against nor to inlarge how much this Doctrine of Invocation of Saints is injurious to God by giving that worship to creatures which belongs only to himself and how repugnant it is to Divine wisdom that prayers should be made to Saints for them to intercede with God when they cannot know what those prayers are till God reveals them nor how dishonourable it is to Christ both in regard of his merits and intercession nor how great a check it is to true piety to put men to pray to them whom they can have no ground to believe do hear or regard their prayers and in the mean time to take them off from their serious and solemn addresses to God Not to insist I say on these things because I design no set discourse on this subject which hath been so amply handled by so many already I shall only discover the sense of the Primitive Church in this particular by two things the one of which takes in the first three Centuries and the other extends a great deal farther From which I doubt not but to make it evident how farr the Invocation of Saints was from being received then The first is from the Answers given to the Heathens when it was objected against the Christians that they did worship dead men and Angels I confess some have been so subtle as from hence to inferr that they did it or else say they the Heathens would never have charg'd them with it But they who read the Christians Apologies will find farr more unreasonable things than this laid to their charge and I hope they will not say there must be an equal ground for all the other imputations also But it seems they more believe the Heathens Objections then the Christians Answers who utterly disavow any such thing The first mention we find of any such imputation is in that excellent Epistle of the Church of Smyrna to the Church of Philomylium concerning the Martyrdome of Polycarpe wherein they tell us how some suggested to Nicetas that he should desire the Proconsul that Polycarp's body might not be granted to the Christians Lest say they they should leave to worship Him that was Crucified and worship him to which they return this excellent Answer They are ignorant that we can never be induced to forsake Christ who suffered for the salvation of all who shall be saved of the whole world or to worship any other for him being the Son of God we adore But the Martyrs as the Disciples and followers of the Lord we love worthily for their exceeding great affection toward their own King and Master of whom we wish that we may be partners and disciples Can any thing be more express then this is to shew what difference they put between Christ and the Martyrs Not that they worshipped one as God with an absolute direct worship and the other as subordinate intercessours with a relative and indirect worship as you would have told them but they worship'd Christ and none but him because he was the Son of God but for the Martyrs they loved them indeed but they worship'd them not at all for so much is implyed in the Antithesis between that and their worship of Christ. So that these words are exclusive of any kind of worship which they gave to the Martyrs for they were so far from giving them that worship which belonged to the Son of God that they only expressed their love to them without giving them any worship And in the old Latin translation of this Epistle of which there are two MSS. extant in England when they say They can worship none else but Christ it is there rendred Neque alteri cuiquam precem orationis impendere Nor impart the supplication of prayer to any other As the late learned Lord Primat Vsher hath observed which utterly destroyes the Doctrine of Invocation We proceed further to see what account Origen gives of the Christian Doctrine touching Invocation in his Answer to Celsus wherein he had sufficient occasion given him to declare the sense of the Church at that time And if he had known or approved any relative worship given to Angels or Saints it is not conceivable that he should express himself in such a manner as he doth For when Celsus enquires what kind of Beings they thought Angels to be Origen answers that although the Scripture sometimes calls them Gods it is not with that intention that we ought to worship them For saith he all prayers and supplications and intercessions and thanksgivings are to be sent up to God the Lord of all by the High-priest who is above all Angels being the living Word and God For to call upon Angels we not comprehending the knowledge of them which is above the reach of man is unreasonable And supposing it were granted that the knowledge of them which is wonderful and secret might be comprehended this very knowledge declaring their nature to us and the charge over which every one of them is set would not permit us to presume to pray unto any other but God the Lord of all who is abundantly sufficient for all by our Saviour the Son of God In which Testimony we clearly see what the judgement of the Church then was concerning Invocation For in a matter of Divine worship equally concerning the whole Church we have no reason to imagine that Origen should deliver any private opinion of his own And herein we are plainly told That all prayers and supplications are to be made to God only through Christ that in such cases where we are Ignorant of the nature of Beings it is unreasonable for us to pray to them as we certainly are concerning separated souls as well as Angels that in case we did know them yet it would not be reasonable to pray to them both because they are inferiour and ministring Spirits and that God himself is abundantly sufficient for all through Christ. Now let any reasonable man judge whether these Arguments do not hold as well against a relative and subordinate Invocation as absolute and Soveraign But no
That Saints are not only to be invocated because of their prayers to God but because God bestows many blessings on us eorum merito gratiâ by their merits and favour and after adds Rogaâi peccatorum veniam impetrabunt conciliabunt nobis Dei gratiam Being asked they will obtain the pardon of sin and procure for us the savour of God And What can be more said concerning Christ himself Although therefore you say never so much That your prayers are made to the Saints through the merits of Christ and that you conclude all your prayers per Christum Dominum nostrum yet all this cannot clear you from offering the greatest dishonour to the merits and intercession of Christ since it is plain you rely on the Saints merits in order to the obtaining the Blessings you pray for But say you If the Saints being rewarded in Heaven for their merits be not injurious to the fulness of Christâ merits Why should their being heard by virtue of those merits when they pray to God for us through Christ or our desire that they may be heard for them be thought injurious to Christs merits To which I answer Those merits which you suppose in Saints when they are rewarded in Heaven have either an equal proportion with the reward they receive or not If not then they cease to be merits and the giving the reward though an act of Justice the Promise supposed yet in it self is wholly an act of Grace and Favour if they have then the full recompence is received by that reward and nothing further can be obtained for others on their account But in the sense it is to be suspected you take merits in we as well assert that the proportioning the reward in Heaven to the merits of Saints is injurious to the fulness of Christs merits as their obtaining mercies for others by reason of them Only this latter adds to the dishonour in that there is not only supposed a proportion between Heaven and them but as though that were not enough a further efficacy is attributed to them for obtaining mercies for others too His Lordship therefore does not go about to pervert the sense of the prayers used in your Missal but the plain words and sense of them evidently shew how contrary they are to Christian Doctrine and Piety Bellarmin's saying that the Saints may in some sense be called our Redeemers cannot be vindicated by that saying of S. Paul That he became all things to all men that he might save some because salvation respects the effect of Christs death the promotion of which may in some sense be attributed to the Instruments of it such as S. Paul was here on Earth but Redemption respects the merits by which that effect was obtained and so belongs wholly to Christ and cannot be attributed to any Saints either in Earth or Heaven When you can prove that any subordinate Instruments of Gods Power are called Numina you may then excuse Bellarmin for calling the Saints so but that is so incongruous a sense of the word that it needs no confutation We are now come to the last Errour which his Lordship here charges your pretended General Councils with which is concerning Adoration of Images Of which his Lordship sayes That the Ancient Church knew it not And the Modern Church of Rome is too like to Paganism in the practice of it and driven to scarce intelligible subtilties in her servants writings that defend it And this without any care had of millions of souls unable to understand her subtilties or shun her practice Here you say The Bishop is very bitter but no more than the nature of the thing required All the Answer you return to this lyes in these things 1. That the Church of Rome teaches nothing concerning the Worship of Images but what the second Council of Nice did nine hundred years ago which is that they must be had in Veneration and due Reverence but not have Divine Worship given to them 2. That Images were in common Vse and Veneration too amongst Christians in the Ancient Church 3. That what abuses are crept in are not to be imputed to the Church but to particular persons This is the substance of what you say to the end of the Chapter as to which a brief Answer will suffice because I design not a full handling the Question of the worship of Images If that which you say in the first place be true it doth the more prove that which his Lordship intends viz. that not one barely but two of those you own to be General Councils have erred in this particular If either those Councils or you had intended to have dealt fairly and honestly with the world they and you should have declared what that Veneration and Reverence is which is due to Images What difference you put between that and the Worship due to God and Whether the same pretences and excuses would not as well have justified the Pagan Idolatries For this was it which his Lordship charged you with that you came too near Paganism in your practice But as to this you answer nothing but that if you do so did the Council of Nice too But Is that a sufficient excuse for you It is well enough known What kind of Council that was How much it was opposed by the Synod of Frankford How many persons both in the Eastern and Western Churches declared themselves against the Doctrine of it But What a pitiful plea is it for you to say That the Council of Trent had silenced all calumnies by saying That you attribute no Divinity to the Images but only worship them with such honour and reverence as is due to them Would not any considerate Heathens have said as much as this is But the Question is Whether that Veneration of them which is used by you towards Images be due to them or no This you should have undertaken and set the distinct limits between the worship due to God and that which is given to these You should have proved that this is no prohibited way of worship for if it be it can in no sense be due to them For since God may determine the modes of his own worship what he hath forbidden in his service becomes unlawful and so long as that command continues in force all acts of worship contrary to it are a positive kind of Idolatry For as there is a kind of Natural Idolatry lying in the worship of false Gods instead of the true so there is that which may be called Positive Idolatry which is a worshipping God in a way or manner which he hath forbidden From whence the Israelites in the Golden Calf and the Ten Tribes in the worship of the Calves at Dan and Bethel are charged with Idolatry although they acknowledged the true God and designed that for a Relative worship to him If it were so then you should have shewed us How it comes to be otherwise
ground than not being able to distinguish between the submission of Obedience and Faith For his Lordship saith It may be our duty not to oppose General Councils in case they erre and yet it may be no pride not to believe known and gross errours of General Councils and I pray What shadow of a contradiction is here And if it be pride in us not to believe gross errours imposed on us Is it not much more intolerable in them who offer to impose them What Authority the Pope hath either to order or confirm Councils it is not here a place to enter upon again since it hath been so largely discoursed of in so many places But you force me though not to the repetition of matter yet to the repeating my saying that I will not oftener than I should but only to shew how little you deserve any further answer There is nothing now remaining to the end of your Book which hath not been over and over even in these last Chapters but only a long discourse touching Succession which you shew your self of how little importance it is when after you have endeavoured at large to prove the necessity of personal Succession you grant That it is not sufficient without succession of Doctrine too And on that account you deny the Greek Church to have a true Succession And in vindication of Stapleton you say All the Succession which he and you contend for is a Succession of Pastors which hold entire both the Vnity and the Faith of the Church So that it comes to this at last that you are bound to prove a continual Succession of all that which you call the Faith of your Church in every age from the Apostles times if you would have us believe that Doctrine or own your Church for the true Church of Christ. And therefore I conclude these general Answers with his Lordships words If A. C. T. C. or any Jesuit can prove that by a visible continued Succession from Christ or his Apostles to this day either Transubstantiation in the Eucharist or the Eucharist in one kind or Purgatory or Worship of Images or the Intention of the Priest of necessity in Baptism or the Power of the Pope over a General Council or his Infallibility with or without it or his Power to depose Princes or the publick Prayers of the Church in an unknown tongue with divers other points have been so taught I for my part will give the Cause CHAP. VI. The Sense of the Fathers concerning Purgatory The Advantage which comes to the Church of Rome by the Doctrine of Purgatory thence the boldness of our Adversaries in contending for it The Sense of the Roman Church concerning Purgatory explained The Controversie between the Greek and Latin Church concerning it The Difference in the Church of Rome about Purgatory Some general Considerations about the Sense of the Fathers as to its being an Article of Faith The Doubtfulness and Vncertainty of the Fathers Judgments in this particular manifested by S. Austin the first who seemed to assert a Purgation before the day of Judgement Prayer for the Dead used in the Ancient Church doth not inferr Purgatory The Primate of Armagh vindicated from our Adversaries Calumnies The general Intention of the Church distinguished from the private Opinions of particular persons The Prayers of the Church respected the day of Judgement The Testimonies of the Fathers in behalf of Purgatory examined particularly of the pretended Dionysius Tertullian S. Cyprian Origen S. Ambrose S. Hierom S. Basil Nazianzen Lactantius Hilary Gregory Nyssen c. And not one of them asserts the Purgatory of the Church of Rome S. Austin doth not contradict himself about it The Doctrine of Purgatory no elder than Gregory 1. and built on Credâlity and Superstition The Churches Infallibility made at last the Foundation of the belief of Purgatory The Falsity of that Principle and the whole concluded THese general Answers being dispatched there remains only now this Question concerning Purgatory to be discussed Which being the great Diana of your Church no wonder you are so much displeased at his Lordship for speaking against it for by that means your craft is in danger to be set at nought There being no Opinion in your Church which brings in a more constant revenue by Masses for the dead and Indulgencies besides Casualties and Deodands by dying persons or their friends in hopes of a speedier release out of the pains of Purgatory So that if this Opinion were once out of Countenance in the world you would lose one of the best Arts you have of upholding the Grandeur of your Church For then farewel Indulgences and years of Jubilee farewel all those rich Donations which are given by those at their death who hope by that means to get the sooner out of the Suburbs of Hell to a place of rest and happiness For What Engine could possibly be better contrived to extort the largest gifts from those whose riches were as great as their sins than to perswade them that by that means they would be sooner delivered out of the Flames of Purgatory and need not doubt but they should come to Heaven at last And Would not they be accounted great Fools that would not live as they pleased in this world as long as they could buy themselves out of the pains of another And by this means your Church hath not only eaten but grown fat by the sins of the people it being truly observed by Spalatensis That the Doctrine of Purgatory hath been that which hath most inriched the Church of Rome which he gives as the reason of the most zealous contending for that Doctrine among those of your party who find so much advantage by it And we might easily believe there was something extraordinary in it when you tell us It is therefore firmly to be believed by all Catholicks that there is a Purgatory yea we are as much bound to believe it as we are bound to believe for Instance the Trinity or Incarnation it self because since it is defined by the Church we cannot lawfully or without sin and peril of damnation deny or question this doctrine We had need then look to our selves who look on this Doctrine as a meer figment that hath no foundation at all either in Scripture Reason or Tradition of the Primitive Church but much more had you need to look to your selves who dare with so much confidence obtrude so destructive a Doctine to a Christian life without any evidence of the truth of it to be believed as much as the Trinity or Incarnation it self which expressions take them in the mildest sense you can give them carry a most insufferable boldness with them But these are not all the bold words which you utter on this Subject for you say elsewhere That Bellarmin doth not more boldly than truly affirm yea evidently prove that all the Fathers both Greek and Latin did constantly teach Purgatory
from the very Apostles times and consequently that it must be held for an Apostolical Tradition or nothing can be So then if confidence would carry it we must not only tremble at the fears of Purgatory but we must firmly believe it as an Article of Faith and as a most undoubted Apostolical Tradition But before we can digest these things we must see a little more ground for them than as yet we do and therefore you must be content to hear our reasons Why we neither look on it as a matter of Faith or Apostolical tradition in order to which nothing is more necessary then to enquire what you mean by Purgatory For as long as you can shelter your selves under General words you think you are safe enough but when we once bring you to a fuller explication of your meaning Purgatory it self is not half so evident as those impostures are whereby you would maintain it But for our clear understanding this Controversie we must find out what your Doctrine is concerning it for as confident as you are of it there are not a few among you who are afraid to declare what you mean by it lest by that means the world should see how far it is from having foundation either in Scripture or Antiquity We are therefore told by some either are ashamed of the Doctrine it self or loth to betray their cause who by declaring themselves that your Church requires no more then to believe that there is a Purgatory for which they avouch the Council of Trent which only defines That the sound Doctrine concerning Purgatory should be taught This was indeed necessary to be said by such who do not at all believe the Roman Doctrine concerning it what ever they pretend but rather agree with the Greek Church about the middle state of souls But although the Council of Trent did not expresly define what they meant by Purgatory yet the sense of the Council concerning it is easie to be gathered from the comparing of places together in it For the Council of Trent in the last Session when it passed the decree of Purgatory referrs us to two things by which we may fully understand the meaning of it For in the Preface to the Decree it saith That the Catholick Church had in this and former Oecumenical Councils taught that there was a Purgatory by which we may understand What this Purgatory is which was now decreed and you say we are bound to believe it as an Article of Faith Now in all the former Decrees and Anathematisms of the Council there is no place which seems to concern the Doctrine of Purgatory so much as the thirtieth Anathema of the sixth Session in these words Si quis ita reatum poenae aeternae deleri dixerit ut nullus remaneat reatus poenae temporalis exsolvendae vel in hoc seculo vel in futuro in Purgatorio antequam ad regna coelorum aditus patere possit Anathema sit If any one shall affirm that the guilt of eternal punishment is so forgiven as that there remains no guilt of temporal punishment to be paid either in this life or hereafter in Purgatory before there can be any entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven let them be Anathema From whence it evidently follows that the Doctrine of Purgatory as it is taught by the Council of Trent doth depend upon this principle That there is a guilt of temporal punishment remaining after the sin is pardoned which temporal punishment is to be satisfied for either in this life or in Purgatory So that all those who are in Purgatory are there on that account that they might satisfie the justice of God for the temporal punishment of sin For the guilt of mortal sin being remitted by the merits of Christ the punishment is supposed still to remain which being exchanged from eternal to temporal by the keyes of the Church this punishment remains to be satisfied for in the pains of Purgatory But this punishment being temporal the possibility of a release from them is necessarily supposed before the day of judgement for the Council of Trent in the Decree of Purgatory declares that the souls there detained are relieved by the prayers of the Faithful and especially by the sacrifice of the Altar Which in the 22 Session it saith is offer'd pro defunctis in Christo nondum ad plenum purgatis for the departed in Christ not yet fully purg'd So that the satisfaction of the debt of temporal punishment which remains when the sin is pardoned and the translation of souls from thence to Heaven by the prayers of the living and the sacrifice of the Mass are the main Foundations of the Doctrine of your Church concerning Purgatory And this will further appear by the state of the Controversie between the Greek and Latin Church upon this Subject For the main thing which the Greeks objected against the Latins was this temporary punishment for sin in a future state For they say in their Apology delivered into the Council of Basil We own no Purgatory fire nor any temporary punishment by fire which shall have an end for we received no such thing by tradition nor doth the Eastern Church confess it And afterwards We deny that any souls pass through this fire to eternal fire for in saying so we should weaken the consent of the whole Church and it is to be fear'd if we should assert such a temporary fire that people would be apt to believe that all the fire in the other life were only temporary by which means they would fall into such neglect and carelesness that they would make the more fuel for eternal fire And therefore they conclude That they neither have nor shall assert any such Purgatory fire But you would seem to perswade us That the Contest between the Greeks and Latins was only whether the fire of Purgatory were material or no For you say The Greeks in the Council of Florence never doubted in the least measure nor denyed Purgatory it self but only question'd Whether the fire were material or metaphorical But if you speak of those Greeks who held to what was generally received in the Greek Church you are very much deceived therein for the sense of the Greek Church was fully delivered by them in this Apology penned as is supposed by Marcus Ephesius but the year before at the Council of Basil and herein they not only dispute against the fire but against any such state of purgation after this life by the undergoing any temporary punishment for sin For thus that Apology ends For these causes the Doctrine proposed of a Purgatory fire is to be cast out of the Church as that which tends to slacken the endeavours of the diligent and which hinders them from doing their utmost to purge themselves in this life since another purgation is expected after it Is not this plain enough for their denyal of any state of purgation after this life by which men
produced is That a Tradition may be known to be such by the Light it hath in it self in which you say you find not one word of Tradition being known by its own Light But who are so blind as those who will not see I pray what difference is there between a Tradition being known to be such by its own Light and a Tradition being known by its own Light Yes say you known to be such implies that is to be God's unwritten Word but are not doctrinal Traditions and an unwritten Word with you the same thing Can therefore a Tradition be known to be an unwritten Word by its own Light and not be known to be a Tradition by its own Light Nay How can it possibly be known to be an unwritten Word unless it first appears to be a Tradition for Tradition containing under it both those that are unwritten Words and those that are not it must in order of nature be known to be a Tradition before it can be known to be the other As I must first know you to be a living Creature before I can know you to be a reasonable Creature and I may much sooner know the one than the other You do therefore very well when you have given us such occasion for sport to give us leave to laugh at it as you do in your next words But before you leave this point you have some graver matter to take notice of which is that you desire the reader to consider what the Relator grants viz. That the Church now admits of St. James and St. Judes Epistles and the Apocalypse which were not received for diverse years after the rest of the New Testament From which you wisely inferr That if some Books are now to be admitted for Canonical which were not alwayes acknowledged to be such then upon the same authority some Books may now be received into the Canon which were not so in Ruffinus his time And therefore the Bishop doth elsewhere unjustly charge the Church of Rome that it had erred in receiving more Books into the Canon then were received in Ruffinus his time To which I Answer 1. By your own confession then the Church of Rome doth now receive into the Canon more Books then she did in Ruffinus his time from whence I enquire whether the present Church of Rome were Infallible in Ruffinus his time in determining the Canon of the Scripture If not then the present Church is no Infallible propounder of the Word of God and then all your discourse comes to nothing If she were Infallible then she cannot be now for now she determins otherwise as to a main point of Faith than she did then unless you will say your Church can be Infallible in determining both parts of a contradiction to be true 2. Is the integrity of the Canon of Scripture an Apostolical tradition or no I doubt not but you will say It is if so Whether were these Books which you admit now and were not admitted then known to be of the Canon by this Apostolical tradition If not by what right come they now to be of the Canon if so then was not your Church in Ruffinus's time much to seek for her Infallibility in defining what was Apostolical tradition and what not 3. Your main principle on which the lawfulness of adding more books to the Canon of the Scripture is built is That it is in the power of your Church judicially and authoritatively to determine what books belong to the Canon of the Scripture and what not which I utterly deny For it is impossible that your Church or any in the world can by any definition make that Book to be Divine which was not so before such a definition For the Divinity of the Book doth meerly arise from Divine revelation Can your Church then make that to be a Divine revelation which was not so All that any Church in the world can do in this case is not to constitute any new Canon which were to make Books Divine which were not so but to use its utmost diligence and care in searching into the authenticalness of those Copy's which have any pretence to be of the Canon and whether they did originally proceed from such persons as we have reason to believe had an immediate assistance of the Holy Ghost and according to the evidence they find the Church may declare and give in her verdict For the Church in this case is but a Jury of grand Inquest to search into matters of Fact and not a Judge upon the Bench to determine in point of Law And that is the true reason why the Books of the New Testament were gradually received into the Canon and some a great while after others as St. James St. Jude the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse because at first the Copyes being not so publickly dispersed there was not that occasion ministred to the Church for examination of them upon which when by degrees they came to be more publick it caused scruples in many concerning them because they appeared no sooner especially if any passages in them seemed to gratifie any of the Sects then appearing as the Epistle to the Hebrews the Novatians and the Apocalypse the Millenary's But when upon a through search and examination of all circumstances it did appear that these Copyes were authentical and did originally proceed from Divine Persons then they came to be admitted and owned for such by the Vniversal Church which we call being admitted into the Canon of the Scripture Which I take to be the only true and just account of that which is called the constituting the Canon of Scripture not as though either the Apostles met to do it or St. John intended any such thing by those words in the end of the Apocalypse for that Book being as much lyable to question as any how could that seal the Canon for all the rest much less that it was in the power of any Church or Council and least of all of the Pope to determine what was Canonical and what not but only that the Church upon examination and enquiry did by her Universal reception of these Books declare it self satisfied with the evidence which was produced that those were true and authentick Copyes which were abroad under such names or titles and that there was great reason to believe by a continued tradition from the age and time these Books were written in that they were written by such persons who were not only free from any design of imposture but gave the greatest Rational evidence that they had a more special and immediate assistance of Gods Spirit You see then to how little advantage to your Cause you made this digression As to the third way propounded for resolving the Question How we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God viz. by the testimony of the Holy Ghost three things you object against the Bishops discourse about it First that his discourse
the stage in the Questions of the Pope's Authority and Infallibility of General Councils I come to your following Chapter in which you enter upon the Vindication of the Roman Churches Authority 2. That which his Lordship hath long insisted on and evidently proved is The Right which particular Churches have to reform themselves when the General Church cannot for impediments or will not for negligence do it And your Answers to his proofs have had their weakness sufficiently laid open the only thing here objected further is Whether in so doing particular Churches do not condemn others of Errours in Faith To which his Lordship answers That to reform themselves and to condemn others are two different works unless it fall out so that by reforming themselves they do by consequence condemn any other that is guilty in that point in which they reform themselves and so far to judge and condemn others is not only lawful but necessary A man that lives Religiously doth not by and by sit in judgement and condemn with his mouth all prophane livers but yet while he is silent his very life condemns them To what end his Lordship produceth this Instance any one may easily understand but you abuse it as though his Lordship had said That Protestants only by their Religious lives do condemn your Church and upon this run out into a strange declamation about Who the men are that live so Religiously They who to propagate the Gospel the better marry wives contrary to the Canons and bring Scripture for it Yes surely much more then they who to propagate your Church enjoy Concubines for which if they can bring some Canons of your Church I am sure they can bring no Scripture for it They who pull down Monasteries both of Religious men and women I see you are still as loth to part them as they are to be parted themselves but if all their lives be no more Religious then the most of them have been the pulling of them down might be a greater act of Religion then living in them They who cast Altars to the ground More certainly then they who worshipped them They who partly banish Priests and partly put them to death Or they who commit treasons and do things worthy of death But you are doubtless very Religious and tender-hearted men whose consciences would never suffer you to banish or put any to death for the sake of Religion no not in Queen Maries time here in England They who deface the very Tombs of Saints and will not permit them to rest even when they are dead Or they who profess to worship dead Saints and martyr living ones with Fire and Faggot If this be your religious living none who know what Religion means will be much taken with it I shall easily grant that you stick close to the Pope but are therein far enough from the Doctrine or life of St. Peter If any of you have endured Sequestrations Imprisonments Death it self I am sure it was not for any good you did not for the Catholick Faith but if you will for some Catholick Treasons such as would have enwrapt a whole Nation in misery If this be your suffering persecution for righteousness sake you will have little cause to rejoyce in your Fellow-sufferers But if you had not a mind to calumniate us and provoke us to speak sad truths of you all this might have been spared for his Lordship only chose this Instance to shew that a Church or person may be condemned consequentially which was not intentionally But you say Our Church hath formally condemned yours by publick and solemn censures in the 39. Articles Doth his Lordship deny that our Church in order to our own reformation hath condemned many things which your Church holds No but that our Churches main intention was to reform it self but considering the corruption and degeneracy of your Church she could not do it without consequentially condemning yours and that she did justly in so doing we are ready on all occasions to justifie But his Lordship asks If one particular Church may not judge or condemn another What must then be done where particulars need reformation To which his Adversary gives a plain Answer That particular Churches must in that case as Irenaeus intimateth have recourse to the Church of Rome which hath more powerful principality and to her Bishop who is the chief Pastour of the whole Church as being St. Peters Successour c. This is the rise and occasion of the present Controversie To this his Lordship Answers That it is most true indeed the Church of Rome hath had and hath yet more powerful Principality then any other particular Church But she hath not this power from Christ. The Roman Patriarch by Ecclesiastical constitutions might perhaps have a Primacy of order but for principality of power the Patriarchs were as even as equal as the Apostles were before them The truth is this more powerful Principality the Roman Bishops got under the Emperours after they became Christian and they used the matter so that they grew big enough to oppose nay to depose the Emperours by the same power which they had given them And after this other particular Churches especially here in the West submitted themselves to them for Succour and Protections sake And this was one main cause that swel'd Rome into this more powerful Principality and not any right given by Christ to make that Prelate Pastour of the whole Church To this you Answer That to say that the Roman Churches Principality is not from Christ is contrary to St. Austin and the whole Milevitan Council who in their Epistle to Innocent the first profess that the Popes Authority is grounded upon Scripture and consequently proceeds from Christ. But whoever seriously reads and throughly considers that Epistle will find no such thing as that you aim at there For the scope of the Epistle is to perswade Pope Innocent to appear against Coelestius and Pelagius to that end they give first an account of their Doctrine shewing how pernicious and contrary to Scripture it was after which they tell him that Pelagius being at Jerusalem was like to do a great deal of mischief there but that many of the Brethren opposed him and especially St. Hierom. But we say they do suppose that through the mercy of our Lord Christ assisting you those which hold such perverse and pernicious principles may more easily yield by your Authority drawn out of Scripture Where they do not in the least dream of his Authority as Vniversal Pastor being grounded on Scripture but of his appearing against the Pelagians with his Authority drawn out of Scripture that is to that Authority which he had in the Church by the reputation of the Roman See the Authority of the Scripture being added which was so clear against the Pelagians or both these going together were the most probable way to suppress their Doctrine And it hath been sufficiently proved
by others by very many instances of the writers about that Age that Authoritas was no more then Rescriptum as particularly appears by many passages in Leo's Epistles in which sense no more is expressed by this than that by the Pope's Answer to the Council drawn out of the Authority of Scripture the Pelagians might more probably be suppressed But what is this to an Vniversal Pastorship given by Christ to him any otherwise then to those who sat in any other Apostolical Sees But your great quarrel is against his Lordship for making all the Patriarchs even and equal as to Principality of power and when he saith Equal as the Apostles were you say that is aequivocal for though the Apostles had equal jurisdiction over the whole Church yet St. Peter alone had jurisdiction over the Apostles but this is neither proved from John 21. nor is it at all clear in Antiquity as will appear when we come to that Subject But this assertion of the equality of Protestants is so destructive to your pretensions in behalf of the Church of Rome that you set your self more particularly to disprove it which you offer to do by two things 1. By a Canon of the Nicene Council 2. By the practise of the ancient Church You begin with the first of them and tell us That 't is contrary to the Council of Nice In the third Canon whereof which concerns the jurisdiction of Patriarchs the Authority or Principality if you will of the Bishop of Rome is made the Pattern and Model of that Authority and Jurisdiction which Patriarchs were to exercise over the Provincial Bishops The words of the Canon are these Sicque praeest Patriarcha iis omnibus qui sub ejus potestate sunt sicut ille qui tenet sedem Romae caput est princeps omnium Patriarcharum The Patriarch say they is in the same manner over all those that are under his Authority as he who holds the See of Rome is head and Prince of the Patriarchs And in the same Canon the Pope is afterwards styled Petro similis Authoritate par resembling St. Peter and his equal in Authority These are big words indeed and to your purpose if ever any such thing had been decreed by the Council of Nice but I shall evidently prove that this Canon is supposititious and a notorious piece of Forgery Which forgery is much increased by you when you tell us these words are contained in the third Canon of the Council of Nice Which in the Greek Editions of the Canons by du Tillet and the Codex Canonum by Justellus and all other extant in the Latin versions of Dionysius Exiguus and Isidore Mercator is wholly against the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã i. e. such kind of women which Clergy men took into their houses neither as wives or Concubines but under a pretext of piety In the Arabick Edition of the Nicene Canons set out by Alphonsus Pisanus the third Canon is against the ordination either of Neophyti or criminal persons and so likewise in that of Turrianus So that in no Edition whether Arabick or other is this the third Canon of the Council of Nice and therefore you were guilty either of great ignorance and negligence in saying so or of notorious fraud and imposture if you knew it to be otherwise and yet said it that the unwary reader might believe this Canon to be within the 20. which are the only genuine Canons of the Council of Nice Indeed such a Canon there is in these Arabick Editions but it is so far from being the third that in the Editions both of Pisanus and Turrianus it is the thirty ninth and in it I grant those words are but yet you will have little reason to rejoyce in them when I have proved as I doubt not to do that this whole farrago of Arabick Canons is a meer forgery and that I shall prove both from the true number of the Nicene Canons and the incongruity of many things in the Arabick Canons with the State and Polity of the Church at that time In those Editions set out by Pisanus and Turrianus from the Copy which they say was brought by Baptista Romanus from the Patriarch of Alexandria there are no fewer then eighty Canons whereas the Nicene Council never passed above 20. Which if it appear true that will sufficiently discover the Forgery and Supposititiousness of these Arabick Canons Now that there were no more then twenty genuine Canons of the Council of Nice I thus prove First from Theodoret who after he had given an account of the proceedings in the Council against the Arrians he saith That the Fathers met in Council again and passed twenty Canons relating to the Churches Polity and Gelasius Gricenus whom Alphonsus Pisanus set forth with his Latin version recounts no more then twenty Canons the same number is asserted by Nicephorus Callistus and we need not trouble our selves with reciting the testimonies of more Greek Authors since Binius himself confesseth that all the Greeks say there were no more then twenty Canons then determined But although certainly the Greeks were the most competent Judges in this case yet the Latins themselves did not allow of more For although Ruffinus makes twenty two yet that is not by the addition of any more Canons but by splitting two into four And if we believe Pope Stephen in Gratian the Roman Church did allow of no more then twenty And in that Epitome of the Canons which Pope Hadrian sent to Charles the Great for the Government of the Western Churches A.D. 773. the same number of the Nicene Canons appears still And in a M S. of Hincmarus Rhemensis against Hincmarus Laudunensis this is not only asserted but at large contended for that there were no more Canons determined at Nice then those twenty which we now have from the testimonies of the Tripartite history Ruffinus the Carthaginian Council the Epistles of Cyril of Alexandria and Atticus of Constantinople and the twelfth action of the Council of Chalcedon So that if both Greeks and Latins say true there could be no more then twenty genuine Canons of the Council of Nice which may be yet further proved by two things viz. the proceedings of the African Fathers in the case of Zosimus about the Nicene Canons and the Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Vniversae both which yield an abundant testimony to our purpose If ever there was a just occasion given for an early and exact search into the authentick Canons of the Council of Nice it was certainly in that grand Debate between the African Fathers and the Roman Bishops in the case of Appeals For Zosimus challenging not only a right of Appeals to himself but a power of dispatching Legats unto the African Churches to hear causes there and all this by vertue of a Canon in the Nicene Council and this being delivered to them in Council by Faustinus Philippus and Asellus whom