the Church may declare matters of Faith The testimony of St. Augustine vindicated Page 44. CHAP. III. The Absurdities of the Romanists Doctrine of Fundamentals The Churches Authority must be Divine if whatever she defines be Fundamental His Lordship and not the Testimony of S. Augustine shamefully abused three several wayes Bellarmin not mis-cited the Pelagian Heresie condemned by the General Council at Ephesus The Popes Authority not implyed in that of Councils The gross Absurdities of the distinction of the Church teaching and representative from the Church taught and diffusive in the Question of Fundamentals The Churches Authority and Testimony in matters of Faith distinguished The Testimony of Vincentius Lirinensis explained and shewed to be directly contrary to the Roman Doctrine of Fundamentals Stapleton and Bellarmin not reconciled by the vain endeavours used to that end Page 79. CHAP. IV. The Protestant Doctrine of Fundamentals vindicated The unreasonableness of demanding a Catalogue of Fundamentals The Creed contains the Fundamentals of Christian Communion The belief of Scripture supposed by it The Dispute concerning the Sense of Christs Descent into Hell and Mr. Rogers his Book confessed by T. C. impertinent With others of the same nature T. C. his fraud in citing his Lordships words Of Papists and Protestants Vnity The Moderation of the Church of England compared with that of Rome Her grounds of Faith justified Infant-Baptism how far proved out of Scripture alone Page 98. CHAP. V. The Romanists way of Resolving Faith The ill consequences of the resolution of Faith by the Churches Infallibility The grand Absurdities of it manifested by its great unreasonableness in many particulars The certain Foundations of Faith unsettled by it as is largely proved The Circle unavoidable by their new attempts The impossibility of proving the Church Infallible by the way that Moses Christ and his Apostles were proved to be so Of the Motives of Credibility and how far they belong to the Church The difference between Science and Faith considered and the new art of mens believing with their wills The Churches Testimony must be according to their principles the formal object of Faith Of their esteem of Fathers Scripture and Councils The rare distinctions concerning the Churches Infallibility discussed How the Church can be Infallible by the assistance of the Holy Ghost yet not divinely Infallible but in a manner and after a sort T.C. applauded for his excellent faculty in contradicting himself Page 109. CHAP. VI. Of the Infallibility of Tradition Of the unwritten Word and the necessary Ingredients of it The Instances for it particularly examined and disproved The Fathers Rule for examining Traditions No unwritten Word the Foundation of Divine Faith In what sense Faith may be said to be Divine Of Tradition being known by its own light and the Canon of the Scripture The â—estimony of the Spirit how far pertinent to this Controversie Of the use of Reason in the resolution of Faith C's Dialogue answered with another between himself and a Sceptick A twofold resolution of Faith into the Doctrine and into the Books Several Objections answered from the Supposition made of a Child brought up without sight of Scripture Christ no Ignoramus nor Impostor though the Church be not Infallible C's Blasphemy in saying otherwise The Testimonies of Irenaeus and S. Augustin examined and retorted Of the nature of Infallible Certainty as to the Canon of Scripture and whereon it is grounded The Testimonies produced by his Lordship vindicated p. 161. CHAP. VII The Protestant Way of resolving Faith Several Principles premised in order to it The distinct Questions set down and their several Resolutions given The Truth of matters of fact the Divinity of the Doctrine and of the Books of Scripture distinctly resolved into their proper grounds Moral Certainty a sufficient Foundation for Faith and yet Christian Religion proved to be infallibly true How Apostolical Tradition made by his Lordship a Foundation of Faith Of the Certainty we have of the Copies of Scripture and the Authority of them S. Augustine's Testimony concerning Church-Authority largely discussed and vindicated Of the private Spirit and the necessity of Grace His Lordship's Way of resolving Faith vindicated How far Scripture may be said to be known by its own Light The several Testimonies of Bellarmine Brierly and Hooker cleared p. 202. CHAP. VIII The Churches Infallibility not proved from Scripture Some general Considerations from the design of proving the Churches Infallibility from Scripture No Infallibility in the High-Priest and his Clergy under the Law if there had been no necessity there should be under the Gospel Of S. Basil's Testimony concerning Traditions Scripture less liable to corruptions than Traditions The great uncertainty of judging Traditions when Apostolical when not The Churches perpetuity being promised in Scripture proves not its Infallibility His Lordship doth not falsifie C's words but T. C. doth his meaning Producing the Jesuits words no traducing their Order C's miserable Apology for them The particular Texts produced for the Churches Infallibility examined No such Infallibility necessary in the Apostles Successours as in Themselves The Similitude of Scripture and Tradition to an Ambassadour and his Credentials rightly stated p. 235. CHAP. IX The Sense of the Fathers in this Controversie The Judgement of Antiquity enquired into especially of the three first Centuries and the reasons for it The several Testimonies of Justin Martyr Athenagoras Tatianus Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and all the Fathers who writ in vindication of Christian Religion manifested to concurr fully with our way of resolving Faith C's Answers to Vincentius Lyrinensis à Gandavo and the Fathers produced by his Lordship pitifully weak The particulars of his 9th Chapter examined S. Augustine's Testimony vindicated C's nauseous Repetitions sent as Vagrants to their several homes His Lordships Considerations found too heavy for C's Answers In what sense the Scripture may be called a Praecognitum What way the Jews resolved their Faith This Controversie and the first part concluded p. 261 PART II. Of Schism CHAP. I. Of the Universal Church THe Question of Schism explained The nature of it enquired into Several general Principles laid down for clearing the present Controversie Three grounds of the charge of Schism on Protestant Churches by our Authour The first of the Roman Churches being the Catholick Church entred upon How far the Roman Church may be said to be a true Church The distinction of a Church morally and metaphysically true justified The grounds of the Unity of the Catholick Church as to Doctrine and Government Cardinal Perron's distinction of the formal causal and participative Catholick Church examined The true sense of the Catholick Church in Antiquity manifested from S. Cyprian and several cases happening in his time as the Schism of Novatianus at Rome the case of Felicissimus and Fortunatus Several other Instances out of Antiquity to the same purpose by all which it is manifest that the Unity of the Catholick Church had no dependence on the Church of Rome
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
cannot be owned as an Apostolical Tradition 2. That what you call an unwritten Word must be something doctrinal so you call them your self doctrinal Traditions i. e. such as contain in them somewhat dogmatical or necessary to be believed by us and thence it was this Controversie rose from the Dispute concerning the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a Rule of Faith Whether that contained all God's Word or all matters to be believed or no or Whether there were not some Objects of Faith which were never written but conveyed by Tradition 3. That what is thus doctrinal must be declared by the Church to be an Apostolical Tradition which you in terms assert According then to these Rules we come to examine the Evidences by you produced for such an unwritten Word For which you first produce several Instances out of S. Austin of such things which were in his time judged to be such i. e. doctrinal Traditions derived from the Apostles and have ever since been conserved and esteemed such in the whole Church of Christ. The first you instance in is that we now treat That Scripture is the Word of God for which you propose the known place wherein he affirms he should not believe the Gospel but for the Authority of the Church moving him thereto But this proves nothing to your purpose unless you make it appear that the Authority of the Church could not move him to believe the Gospel unless that Authority be supposed to be an unwritten Word For I will suppose that S. Austin or any other rational man might be sufficiently induced to believe the Gospel on the account of the Churches Authority not as delivering any doctrinal Tradition in the nature of an unwritten Word but as attesting that Vniversal Tradition which had been among all Christians concerning it Which Universal Tradition is nothing else but a conveying down to us the judgement of sense and reason in the present case For the Primitive Christians being best able to judge as to what Authentick Writings came from the Apostles not by any unwritten Word but by the use of all moral means it cannot reasonably be supposed that the successive Christians should imbezzle these Authentick Records and substitute others in the place of them When therefore Manichaeus pretended the Authenticalness of some other writings besides those then owned by the Church S. Austin did no more than any reasonable man would do in the like case viz. appeal to the Vniversal Tradition of the Catholick Church upon the account of which he saies He was induced to believe the Gospel it self i. e. not so much the Doctrine as the Books containing it But of this more largely elsewhere I can hardly excuse you from a falsification of S. Austin's meaning in the ensuing words which you thus render If any clear Testimony were brought out of Scripture against the Church he would neither believe the Scripture nor the Church whereas it appears by the words cited in your own Margin his meaning is only this If you can find saith he something very plain in the Gospel concerning the Apostleship of Manichaeus you will thereby weaken the Authority of those Catholicks who bid me that I should not believe you whose Authority being weakned neither can I believe the Gospel because through them I believed it Is here any like what you said or at least would seem to have apprehended to be his meaning which is plainly this If against the consent of all those Copies which the Catholick Christians received those Copies should be found truer which have in them something of the Apostleship of Manichaeus this must needs weaken much the Authority of the Catholick Church in its Tradition whom he adhered to against the Manichees and their Authority being thus weakned his Faith as to the Scriptures delivered by them must needs be much weakned too To give you an Instance of a like nature The Mahumetans pretend that in the Scripture there was anciently express mention of their Prophet Mahomet but that the Christians out of hatred of their Religion have erased all those places which spake of him Suppose now a Christian should say If he should find in the Gospel express mention of Mahomet's being a Prophet it would much weaken the Authority of the whole Christian Church which being so weakned it must of necessity weaken the Faith of all those who have believed our present Copies Authentick upon the account of the Christian Churches Authority Is not this plainly the case S. Austin speaks of and Is it any more than any man's reason will tell him Not that the Churches Authority is to be relyed on as judicially or infallibly but as rationally delivering such an Universal Tradition to us And might not S. Austin on the same reason as well believe the Acts of the Apostles as the Gospel when they were both equally delivered by the same Universal Tradition What you have gained then to your purpose from these three citations out of S. Austin in your first Instance I cannot easily imagine Your second Tradition is That the Father is not begotten of any other person S. Austin's words are Sicut Patrem in illis libris nusquam Ingenitum legimus tamen dicendum esse defenditur We never read in the Scriptures that the Father is unbegotten and yet it is defended that we must say so And had they not good reason with them to say so who believed that he was the Father by way of exclusion of such a kind of Generation as the Eternal Son of God is supposed to have But Must this be an Instance of a doctrinal Tradition containing some Object of Faith distinct from Scripture Could any one whoever believed the Doctrine of the Trinity as revealed in Scripture believe or imagine any other that though it be not in express terms set down in Scripture yet no one that hath any conceptions of the Father but this is implied in them If it be therefore a Tradition because it is not expresly in Scripture Why may not Trinity Hypostasis Person Consubstantiality be all unwritten Traditions as well as this You will say Because though the words be not there yet the sense is and I pray take the same Answer for this of the Father's being unbegotten Your third is Of the perpetual Virginity of the Virgin Mary This indeed S. Austin saith is to be believed fide integra but he saith not divinâ but Do you therefore make this a doctrinal Tradition and an unwritten Word If you make it a doctrinal Tradition you must shew us what Article of Faith is contained in it that it was not looked on as an unwritten Word will appear by the disputations of those Fathers who writ most eagerly about it who make it their design to prove it out of Scripture Those who did most zealously appear against the Opinion of Helvidius were S. Hierom and S. Ambrose of the Latin Church S. Austin only mentions it in
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
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
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
Reason For I look upon all these Assertions to serve you in no other capacity than as excursions from the matter in hand and therefore I shall not gratifie you so far as particularly to examine them For all then that hath been yet produced by you his Lordships Argument remains good that according to your Principles the Churches Testimony must be made the Formal Object of Faith and I am the more confirmed in it by the weakness of your evasions and I hope I have now made good those words which you challenge his Lordship for That it were no hard thing to prove it The next Absurdity charged upon you by his Lordship is That all the Authorities of Fathers Councils nay of Scripture too must be finally resolved into the Authority of the present Roman Church And though they would seem to have us believe the Fathers and the Church of old yet they will not have us take their Doctrine from their own writings or the Decrees of Councils because as they say We cannot know by reading them what their meaning was but from the infallible Testimony of the present Roman Church teaching by Tradition And this he tells you is the cunning of this devise To which you answer By what hath been said it appears That there is no device or cunning at all either in taking away any thing due to the Fathers Councils or Scripture or in giving too much to the Tradition of the present Church For we acknowledge all due respect to the Fathers and as much to speak modestly as any of our adversaries party But they must pardon us if we prefer the general interpretation of the present Church before the result of any mans particular Phansie As for Scripture we ever extol it above the Definitions of the Church yet affirm it to be in many places so obscure that we cannot be certain of its true sense without the help of a living infallible Judge to determine and declare it which can be no other than the present Church And what we say of Scripture may with proportion be applied to Ancient General Councils For though we willingly submit to them all yet where they happen to be obscure in matters requiring Determination we seek the assistance and direction of the same living Infallible Rule viz. the Tradition or the Sentence of the present Church The Question is Supposing your Churches Testimony to be infallible without which we can have no Assurance of what Fathers Scriptures and Councils say What Authority remains among you to any or all of these And it is not what respect you tell us you give them for you may as easily speak as believe contradictions but what is really left to them if your Opinion concerning the present Churches Infallibility be true And he that cannot see the cunning of this Device of resolving all into the Authority of the present Roman Church will never understand the interest of your Church but it seems you apprehend it so much as not to seem to do it and have too much cunning to confess it But this must not be so easily passed over this being one of the grand Artifices of your Church to make a great noise with Fathers Scriptures and Councils among those most who understand them least when your selves resolve them all into the present Churches Testimony Which is first to gagge them and then bid them speak First For the Fathers you say You acknowledge all due respect to them but the Question is What kind of respect that is which can be due to them when let them speak their minds never so plainly and agree in what they please and deliver what they will as the Judgement of the Church yet all this can give us no Assurance at all on your Principles unless your Church doth infallibly determine the same way What then do the Fathers signifie with you Doth the Infallibility of your Churches Definition depend on the consent of the Fathers No you tell us She is supernaturally assisted by the Holy Ghost and if so I suppose the judgement of the Fathers is not that which she relyes on But it may be you will say This supernatural Assistance directs the Church to that which was the Judgement of the Fathers in all Ages This were something indeed if it could be proved But then I would never read the Fathers to know what their mind is but aske your Church what they meant And though your Church delivers that as their sense which is as opposite as may be both to their words and judgements yet this is part of the respect due to them not to believe whatever they say themselves but what your Church tells us they say A most compendious way for interpreting Fathers and making them sure not to speak any thing against your Church Therefore I cannot but commend the ingenuity of Cornelius Mussus the Bishop of Bitonto who spake that out which more wary men are contented onely to think Ego ut ingenuè fatear plus uni summo Pontitifici crediderim in his quae mysteria fidei tangunt quà m mille Augustinis Hieronymis Gregoriis That I may deal freely saith he I would sooner believe the Pope in matters of Faith than a thousand Augustines Hieromes and Gregories Bravely said and like a man that did heartily believe the Pope's Infallibility And yet no more than every one will be forced to do that understands the Consequence of his own Principles And therefore Alphonsus à Castro was not to be blamed for preferring an Epistle of Anacletus though counterfeit because Pope before Augustine Hierome or any other however holy or learned These men understood themselves and the interest of their Church And although the rest of them make finer leggs to the Fathers than these do yet when they seem to cross their way and entrench upon their Church they find not much kinder entertainment for them We may guess at the rest by two of them men of great note in their several waies the one for Controversies the other for his Commentaries viz. Bellarmine and Maldonate and let us see when occasion serves how rudely they handle the Fathers If S. Cyprian speaks against Tradition it was saith Bellarmine In defence of his errour and therefore no wonder if he argued after the manner of erroneous persons If he opposeth Stephen the Bishop of Rome in the business of Rebaptization He seemeth saith he To have erred mortally in it If S. Ambrose pronounce Baptism in the name of Christ to be valid without the naming other Persons in the Trinity Bellarmine is not afraid to say That in his judgement his Opinion is false If S. Chrysostome saith That it is better not to be present at the Eucharist than to be present and not receive it I say saith Bellarmine That Chrysostome as at other times went beyond his bounds in saying so If S. Augustine expound a place of Scripture not to his mind
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
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
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
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
c. Can any thing be more plain and obvious to any one who looks into that discourse of Vincentius than that he makes it not his business to give an account of the general Foundations of Faith as to the Scriptures being Gods Word but of the particular Doctrines of Faith in opposition to the Heresies which arise in the Church So that all that he speaks concerning Scripture is not about the authority but the sense and interpretation of it If therefore I should grant you that he speaks of Christian and Divine Faith What is this to your purpose unless you could prove that he speaks of that Divine Faith whereby we believe the Scripture to be the Word of God But yet your argument is very good to prove that he speaks not of any humane fallible perswasion but true Christian Divine Faith for he opposes it to Heresie and calls it sound Faith and his Faith It seems then whatever Faith is sound for the matter of it is presently Christian Divine and Infallible and so whosoever believes any thing which is materially true in opposition to Heresies needs never fear as long as he doth so for according to you he hath Christian and Infallible Faith but what if the Devils Faith be as sound as any Catholicks ' Must it therefore be Divine Faith No it may be you will answer because he wants the formal object of Faith and doth not believe on the account of your Churches Infallibility I verily believe you for he knows the jugglings of it too much to believe it infallible But take Vincentius in what sense you please that is evident in him which his Lordship produced him for that for the preserving Faith entire he places authority of Scripture first and then Tradition unless you will serve his Testimony as you do his Lordships because it makes for your purpose say He mentions Tradition first and then Scripture but say you He sayes Tradition doth as truly confirm Divine Faith as Scripture though Scripture doth it in a higher manner If you did but consider either what kind of Tradition or what kind of Faith Vincentius insists on you could not possibly think his words any thing to your purpose For he speaks not of any Tradition infallibly attested to us without which you pretend there can be no Divine Faith but of such an Vniversal Tradition which depends wholly upon Antiquity Vniversality and Consent and never so much as mentions much less pretends to any thing of Infallibility So that if you grant such a kind of Tradition doth as truly confirm Faith as the Scripture then you must grant no necessity of an Infallible Testimony to assure us of that Tradition for Vincentius speaks of such a kind of Tradition as hath no connexion with Infallibility For if Vincentius had ever in the least thought of any such thing so great and zealous an opposer of Heresies would not have left out that which had been more to his purpose than all that he had said For wise men who have throughly considered of Vincentius his way though in general they cannot but approve of it so far as to think it highly improbable that there should be Antiquity Vniversality and Consent against the true and genuine sense of Scripture yet when they consider this way of Vincentius with all those cautions restrictions and limitations set down by him ◠1. c. 39. they are apt to think that he hath put men to a wild-goose-chase to finde out any thing according to his Rules and that S. Augustine spake a great deal more to the purpose when he spake concerning all the Writers of the Church That although they had never so much learning and sanctity he did not think it true because they thought so but because they perswaded him to believe it true either from the Authority of Scripture or some probable Reason If therefore S. Austin's Authority be not sunk so low as that of the Monk of Lerins we have very little reason to think that Tradition can as truly confirm Faith to us as the Scriptures supposing that to have been the meaning of Vincentius Which yet is not reasonable to imagine since Vincentius himself grants that in case of inveterate Heresie or Schism either the sole Authority of Scripture is to be used or at most the determinations of General Councils nay and in all cases doth suppose that the Canon of Scripture is perfect and is abundantly sufficient of it self for all things Can you yet therefore suppose that Vincentius did think that Tradition did as truly confirm our Faith as the Scripture Which is your assertion and the only thing whereby you pretend that the Bishop hath misconstrued Vincentius but whether be more guilty of it I leave to impartial judgement The next Testimony you consider is that of Henricus à Gandavo For his Lordship had said That the School had confessed this was the way ever For which he cites the Testimony of that Schoolman That daily with them that are without Christ enters by the woman i. e. the Church and they believe by that fame which she gives alluding to the story of the woman of Samaria But when they come to hear Christ himself they believe His words before the words of the woman For when they have once found Christ they do more believe his words in Scripture than they do the Church which testifies of him because then propter illam for the Scripture they believe the Church And if the Church should speak contrary to the Scripture they would not believe it Thus saith his Lordship the School taught then No that did it not say you But let us see how rarely you prove it For you say he speaks all this of a supernatural and Divine Faith to be given both to the Scriptures and the Church Gandavensis certainly is much obliged to you who venture to speak such great Absurdities for his sake for if he be understood in both places of Divine and Infallible Faith these rare consequences follow 1. That the first beginning of Faith is equal to the highest degree of it for when he speaks of the Church he speaks of Christs entring by that which can be meant of nothing else but the first step to Faith as is plain in the parallel case of the woman of Samaria but if this were Divine and Infallible it must be equal to the highest degree for that I suppose can be but Divine and Infallible unless you can find out degrees in Infallibility By this Rule you make him that is but over the threshold as much in the house as he that is sate down to the Table a plant at its first peeping out of the earth to be as tall as at its full growth and the Samaritans as firmly to believe in Christ at the first mention of him by the Woman as when they saw and heard him 2. By this you make an Infallible Faith to be built on a Fallible
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
cannot erre in his judicial determinations concerning Faith is not to be found either in letter or sense in any Scripture in any Council or in any Father of the Church for the full space of a thousand years and more after Christ To this you answer 1. That in the sense wherein Catholicks maintain the Popes Infallibility to be a matter of necessary belief to all Christians it is found for sense both in Scripture Councils and Fathers as you say you have proved in proving the Infallibility of General Councils of which he is the most principal and necessary member So then when we enquire for the Infallibility of General Councils we are sent to the Pope for his Confirmation to make them so but when we enquire for the Popes Infallibility we are sent back again to the Councils for the proof of it And they are hugely to blame if they give not an ample testimony to the Pope since he can do them as good a turn But between them both we see the greatest reason to believe neither the one nor the other to be Infallible But 2. You would offer at something too for his personal Infallibility in which I highly commend your prudence that you say You will omit Scripture and you might as well have omitted all that follows since you say only That the testimonies you have produced seem to do it in effect and at last say That it is an Assertion you have wholly declined the maintaining of and judge it expedient to do so still And you may very well do so if there be no better proofs for it than those you have produced but however we must examine them Doth not the Council of Chalcedon seem to say in effect that the Pope is Infallible when upon the reading of his Epistle to them in condemnation of the Eutychian Heresie the whole Assembly of Prelates cry out with acclamation and profess that S. Peter who was Infallible spake by the mouth of Leo and that the Pope was interpreter of the Apostles voice You do well to use those cautious expressions of seeming to say in effect for it would be a very hard matter to imagine any such thing as the Popes Infallibility in the highest expressions used by the Council of Chalcedon For after the reading of Leo's Epistle against Eutyches and many testimonies of the Fathers to the same purpose the Council begins their acclamations with these words This is the Faith of the Fathers this is the Faith of the Apostles all who are orthodox hold thus And after it follows Peter by Leo hath thus spoken the Apostles have taught thus Which are all the words there extant to that purpose And Is not this a stout argument for the Popes personal Infallibility For What else do they mean but only that Leo who succeeded in the Apostolical See of S. Peter at Rome did concurr in Faith with S. Peter and the rest of the Apostles But Do they say that it was impossible that Leo should erre or that his judgement was Infallible or only that he owned that Doctrine which was Divine and Apostolical And the Council of Ephesus your next testimony hath much less than this even nothing at all For the Council speaks not concerning S. Peter or the Pope in the place by you cited only one of the Popes officious Legats Philip begins very formally with S. Peter's being Prince and Head of the Apostles c. and that he to this day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lives in his successours and passeth judgement Is it not a very good Inference from hence that the Council acknowledged the Popes personal Infallibility because one of the Popes Legats did assert in the Council that S. Peter lived and judged by the Pope And yet Might not this be done without his personal Infallibility in regard of his succession in that See which was founded by S. Peter But you are very hard driven when you are fain to take up with the Sentence of a Roman Priest instead of a General Council and any judgement in matters of Faith instead of Infallibility Your other testimonies of S. Hierom S. Augustine and S. Cyprian have been largely examined already and for the remaining testimonies of four Popes you justly fear it would be answered that they were Popes and spake partially in their own cause And you give us no antidote against these fears but conclude very warily That you had hitherto declined the defence of that Assertion and professed that it would be sufficient for Protestants to acknowledge the Pope Infallible in and with General Councils only But as we see no reason to believe General Councils at all Infallible whether with or without the Pope so neither can we see but if the Infallibility of the Council depends on the Popes Confirmation you are bound to defend the Popes personal Infallibility as the main Bulwark of your Church 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 occâ—sion 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. Augustins 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 ALthough nothing can be more unreasonable then to pretend that Church Person or Council to be Infallible which we can prove to have actually
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 Repâ—titions 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 bâ—t 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 vetâ—stiores p 230 l 15 r generality p 235 l 43 blot out but before setting p 243 l 21 r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 263 l 25 blot out where l 41 blot out and p 267 l 17 r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 274 l 26 r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 Gâ—icenus r Cyzicenus p
things before mentioned concerning the Father and the Son where he useth dicimus non dicimus as well as here And therefore Aquinas was much wiser who plainly condemns Damascen for a Nestorian in this licet à quibusdam dicatur c. Although it be said by some that in these words he neither affirms or denys it wherein I am much mistaken if he reflects not on Bonaventure Vasquez Petavius and several others think to bring Damascen off by the distinctions of à filio and per filium much to your purpose but in the great dispute at the Council at Florence between Bessarion and Marcus Ephesius about the importance of the Articles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Marcus Ephesius produceth the words of Damascen expresly that the Spirit doth not proceed from the Son but by the Son whereby it is plain that he understood per filium in opposition to à filio And Bessarion had nothing else to return in answer to it but that he could produce but one out of Antiquity who said so Thus we see if Theophylact and Damascen as well as Theodoret and Photius be Ancient Greeks your distinction comes to nothing But besides this it appears by the disputations of Hugo Etherianus against the Greeks who lived saith Bellarmin A. D. 1160. still extant in the Bibliotheca Patrum that the Greeks held the very same then that they do now And so in the Synod of Bar in Apulia when Anselm disputed so stoutly against the Greeks that Pope Vrban said he was alterius orbis Papa as the story is related by Eadmerus and Wilhelmus Malmesburiensis it appears they denyed the Procession of the Spirit absolutely from the Son and this was A. D. 1096. as is evident from the Letter of Hildebertus to him about the publishing his Disputation and from the Book of Anselm still extant on that subject We find not therefore any ground for this distinction of yours concerning the Ancient and Modern Greeks and therefore they who said that there was no real difference in any matter of Faith between the Ancient Greeks and Latins must be understood as well of the Modern Greeks as them Their words being no more capable of such a tolerable interpretation as you speak of than the words of any of the Modern Greeks are His Lordship was proving that the point was not fundamental that the Greeks and Latins differed in from that acknowledgement of Peter Lombard and the Schoolmen that is to say The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of the Father and the Son and that he is or proceeds from the Father and the Son is not to speak different things but the same sense in different words Now in this cause saith he where the words differ but the sentence of Faith is the same penitùs eadem even altogether the same can the point be fundamental But say you he was to prove that such as were in grievous errour in Divinity erred not fundamentally and for proof of this he alledges such as have no real errour at all in Divinity But do you not herein wilfully mistake his Lordships meaning For in the Paragraph foregoing his Lordship first declares his own judgement concerning the denying the Procession of the Holy Ghost viz. That he did acknowledge it to be a grievous errour in Divinity but yet he could not judge the Greeks guilty of a fundamental errour which he proves by a double medium 1. Because they did not thereby deny the Equality and Consubstantiality of the persons 2. Because divers learned men were of opinion that à filio per filium in the sense of the Greek Church was but a question in modo loquendi and therefore not fundamental now for this he produceth those testimonies Now I pray do you put no difference between the making the denyal of a Proposition to be an errour and the saying that such persons are guilty of the denyal of that Proposition His Lordship grants the denyal of the Procession to be a grievous errour in Divinity but he questioned as the Greeks expressed themselves for those very words he inserts whether they were guilty of denying that Proposition as appears by the authorities of the Schoolmen and therefore certainly much less guilty of a fundamental errour Thus you see his Lordship fully proves what he intends for if they agreed in sense they were much less guilty of a fundamental errour than if they had plainly denyed the Procession which he supposeth from those Authorities that they did not And therefore when you Sarcastically ask Is not this strong Logick The only answer I shall give you is That if you apprehend it not to be so it is because of the weakness of your Theological Reason And therefore you put his Lordships Defender on a strange task to prove from those Authorities that those Greeks who erre grievously in Divinity erre not fundamentally When the only design of his Lordship in producing those Authorities was to shew that according to their opinion the Greeks were so far from erring fundamentally that they did not erre grievously in Divinity And to this purpose the citation of Peter Lombard was pertinent who saith That because the Greeks acknowledge that the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of the Son though he doth not proceed from him therefore the difference between the Greeks and Latins is in words and not in sense but you say He speaks only of such as differed in words and not in substance as though he put a difference between the Greeks that some differed in words and others really which is quite beside his meaning for he takes not the least notice of any such difference among themselves but saith The difference it self concerning the Procession the Greeks acknowledging the Holy Ghost to be the Spirit of the Son is more verbal than real And that the present Greeks say full as much is evident for they acknowledge the same things in express words The testimony of Bonaventure hath been already considered as far as concerns Damascen as for the rest it was sufficient for his Lordships purpose to produce such a Confession from so bitter an enemy of the Greeks as Bonaventure was so his Lordship in his Marginal Citation sayes truly of him licèt Graecis infensissimus c. that he doth not deny but that salvation might be had without the article of Filioque but whether on that supposition there were sufficient reason to add it to the Creed will be considered afterwards Though Bonaventure held the Greeks to be Hereticks and Schismaticks I hope you do not think that is Argument enough to perswade us that they were so That any thing without which salvation might have been had before may by the definition of your Church become so necessary that men cannot be saved without the belief of it had need be more than barely asserted either by Bonaventure or you and we must wait for the proof of it for any thing here said
tam manifesta monstratur where it is plain quae which is relative only to Truth and not to Scripture or any thing else A wonderful abuse of S. Austin to make him parallel plain Scripture evident sense or a full Demonstrative Argument with Truth As though if evident Truth were more prevalent with him than all those Arguments which held him in the Catholick Church plain Scripture evident Sense or Demonstrations would not be so too What Truth can be evident if it be not one of these three Do you think there is any other way of manifesting Truth but by Scripture Sense or Demonstration if you have found out other waies oblige the world by communicating them but till then give us leave to think that it is all one to say Manifest Truth as plain Scripture evident Sense or clear Demonstrations But say you He speaks only of that Truth which the Manichees bragged of and promised As though S. Austin would have been perswaded sooner as it came from them than as it was Truth in it self I suppose S. Austin did not think their Testimony sufficient and therefore sayes Quae quidem si tam manifesta monstratur c. i. e. If they could make that which they said evident to be Truth he would quit the Church and adhere to them and if this holds against the Manichees will it not on the same reason hold every where else viz. That manifest Truth is not to be quitted on any Authority whatsoever which is all his Lordship asserts But You offer to prove that S. Austin by Truth could not mean plain Scripture But can you prove that by Truth he did not mean Truth whereever he found it whether in Scripture or elsewhere No say you It cannot be meant that by Truth he should mean plain Scripture in opposition to the Definitions of the Catholick Church or General Councils For which you give this Reason because he supposes it impossible that the Doctrine of the Catholick Church should be contrary to Scripture for then men according to S. Austin should not believe infallibly either the one or the other Not the Scriptures because they are received only upon the Authority of the Church nor the Church whose Authority is infringed by the plain Scripture which is brought against her For which you produce a large citation out of S. Austin to that purpose But the Answer to that is easie For S. Austin when he speaks of Church-Authority quâ infirmatâ jam nec Evangelio credere potero he doth not in the least understand it of any Definitions of the Church but of the Vniversal Tradition of the Catholick Church concerning the Scriptures from the time of Christ and his Apostles And what plain Scriptures those are supposable which should contradict such a Tradition as this is is not easie to understand But the case is quite otherwise as to the Churches Definitions for neither doth the Authority of Scripture at all rest upon them and there may be very well supposed some plain Scriptures contrary to the Churches Definitions unless it be proved that the Church is absolutely Infallible and the very proof of that depending on Scripture there must be an appeal made to plain Scripture whether the Churches Definitions may not be contradicted by Scripture When therefore you say This is an impossible Supposition that Scripture should contradict the Churches Definitions like that of the Apostle If an Angel from Heaven teach otherwise let him be accursed Gal. 1. You must prove it as impossible for the Church to deviate from Scripture in any of her Definitions as for an Angel to preach another Gospel which will be the braver attempt because it seems so little befriended either by sense or reason But say you If the Church may be an erring Definer I would gladly know why an erring Disputer may not oppugn her That which you would so gladly know is not very difficult to be resolved by any one who understands the great difference between yielding an Internal Assent to the Definitions of the Church and open opposing them for it only follows from the possibility of the Churches Errour in defining that therefore we ought not to yield an absolute Internal Assent to all her determinations but must examine them by the best measures of Truth in order to our full Assent to them but though the Church may erre it doth not therefore follow that it is lawful in all cases or for all persons to oppugn her Definitions especially if those Definitions be only in order to the Churches Peace but if they be such as require Internal Assent to them then plain Scripture evidence of Sense or clear Reason may be sufficient cause to hinder the submitting to those Definitions 2. You tell us That his Lordship hath abused S. Austin 's Testimony because he speaks not of the Definitions of the Church in matters not Fundamental according to the matter they contain but the Truth mentioned by him was Fundamental in its matter This is the substance of your second Answer which is very rational and prudent being built on this substantial Evidence If S. Austin doth preferr manifest Truth before things supposed Fundamental in the matter then no doubt S. Austin would not preferr manifest Truth before things supposed not-Fundamental in the matter And do not you think this enough to charge his Lordship with shamefully abusing S. Austin But certainly if S. Austin preferred manifest Truth before that which was greater would he not do it before that which was incomparably less If he did it before all those things which kept him in the Catholick Church such as the consent of Nations Miracles Universal Tradition which he mentions before do you think he would have scrupled to have done it as to any particular Definitions of the Church These are therefore very excellent waies of vindicating the Fathers Testimonies from having any thing of sense or reason in them 3. You say He hath abused S. Austin by putting in a wrangling Disputer But I wonder where his Lordship ever sayes that S. Austin mentions any such in the Testimony cited For his words are these But plain Scripture with evident Sense or a full Demonstrative Argument must have room where a wrangling and erring Disputer may not be allowed it And there 's neither of these over against these words he referrs to S. Austin's Testimony and not the foregoing but may convince the Definition of the Council if it be ill founded When you therefore ask Where the wrangling Disputer is to be found had it not been for the help of this Cavil we might have been to seek for him But when you have been enquiring for him at last you cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oh! I see now And you are the fittest man to find him out that I know You say This is done to distinguish him from such a Disputer as proceeds solidly and demonstratively against the Definitions of the Church when they are
none of your own proposing but yet your very calling it a pertinent Question renders it liable to suspicion and upon examination it will be found both unreasonable and impertinent The Question was What Points the Bishop would account Fundamental and that you may shew how necessary this Question was you add For if he will have some Fundamental which we are bound to believe under pain of damnation and others not Fundamental which we may without sin question or deny it behoves us much to know what they are I have ever desired say you a satisfactory Answer from Protestants to this Question but could never yet have it in the sense demanded An unhappy man you are who it seems have in your time propounded more foolish Questions than a great many wise men were never able to answer But is it not every jot as reasonable That since your Church pretends to the power of making things necessary to the Salvation of all which were not so before we should have from you an exact Catalogue of all your Churches Definitions If for that you referr us to the Confession of Faith at the end of the Council of Trent so may not we with far greater reason send you back to the Apostolical Creed there being no objection which will hold against this being a Catalogue of our Fundamentals but will hold against that Being a Catalogue of yours Nay you assert such things your self concerning the necessity of believing things defined by the Church as make it impossible for you to assign the definite number of such things as are necessary for all persons and therefore it is very unreasonable to demand it of us For still when you speak that the things defined by the Church are necessary to the Salvation of all you add Where they are sufficiently propounded so that the measure of Fundamentals depends on the sufficiency of the Proposition Now will you undertake to assign what number of things are sufficiently propounded to the belief of all persons Can you set down the exact bounds as to all individuals when their ignorance is inexcusable and when not Can you tell what the measure of their capacity was what allowance God makes for the prejudices of Education where there is a mind desirous of instruction Will you say God accounts all those things sufficiently proposed to mens belief which you judge to be so or that all men are bound to think those things necessary to Salvation which you think so by what means shall the Churches Power of defining matters of Faith be sufficiently proposed to men as an Article of Faith Either by its own Definition or without If by its the thing is proposed to be believed which is supposed to be believed already before that Proposition or else the Enquiry returns with as great force Why should I believe that Definition more than any other if without it then the sufficiency of Proposition and the necessity of believing depends not on the Churches Definition These Questions I am apt to think as pertinent and necessary as yours was and now you know my sense and are so discontented you could never meet with a satisfactory Answer from Protestants prevent the same dissatisfaction in me by giving a punctual Answer to such necessary Questions But if you think the demands unreasonable because they depend on such things which none can know but God himself I pray accept of that as a satisfactory Answer to your own very pertinent Question But if the Question be propounded not concerning what things are Fundamental and necessary to particular persons which on the reasons formerly given it is impossible to give a Catalogue of but of such things which are necessary to be owned for Christian Communion as I have shewed this Question of Fundamentals ought only to be taken here then his Lordship's Answer was more pertinent than the Question viz. That all the Points of the Creed were such For saith he Since the Fathers make the Creed the Rule of Faith since the agreeing sense of Scripture with those Articles are the two Regular Precepts by which a Divine is governed about the Faith since your own Council of Trent decrees That it is that principle of Faith in which all that profess Christ do necessarily agree Fundamentum firmum unicum not the firm only but the only Foundation since it is Excommunication ipso jure for any man to contradict the Articles contained in that Creed since the whole body of Faith is so contained in the Creed as that the substance of it was believed even before the coming of Christ though not so expresly as since in the number of the Articles Since Bellarlarmin confesses That all things simply necessary for all mens Salvation are in the Creed and Decalogue What reason can you have to except Thus far his Lordship though from hence it appears what little reason you have to except yet because of that I expect your Exceptions the sooner and therefore very fairly passing by the sense of the Fathers you ask concerning the Council of Trent What if that call the Creed the only Foundation Are you come to a What if with the Council of Trent But I suppose it is not from disputing its Authority but its meaning for you would seem to understand it only of prime Articles of Faith and not of such as all are bound upon sufficient Proposition expresly to believe for that is all the sense I can make of your words But whoever was so silly as to say That all such things which are to be believed on sufficient Proposition that they are revealed by God are contained in the Creed When you seem to imply That this was the sense the Question was propounded in it is a sign you little attend to the Consequence of things when it is most evident that the Question was started concerning the Greek Church and therefore must referr only to such Fundamentals as are necessary to be owned in order to the Being of a true Church And when you can prove that any other Articles are necessary to that besides those contained in the Creed you will do something to purpose but not before But you suppose them to take the Creed in a very large sense who would lap up in the folds of it all particular Points of Faith whatever and I am sure this is not the sense it is to be taken in here nor that in which his Lordship took it He saith indeed That if he had said that those Articles only which are expressed in the Creed are Fundamental it would have been hard to have excluded the Scripture upon which the Creed it self in every Point is grounded For nothing is supposed to shut out its own Foundation And this is built on very good reason For the things contained in the Creed are proposed as matters to be believed all Faith must suppose a Divine Testimony revealing those things to us as the ground on which we
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 â—here 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
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
he tells him roundly He did not throughly consider what he said Do not these things argue that due respect they had for the Fathers so long as they think they can make them serve their turns then Who but the Fathers If they appear refractory and will not serve as hewers of wood and drawers of water to them then Who are the Fathers it is the Churches judgement they rely on and not the Fathers And therefore they never want waies themselves of eluding all the Testimonies produced out of them If they cannot say those Testimonies are forged as some of them say it without any shew of reason concerning that part of the Epistle of Epiphanius about the tearing the vail in which an Image was painted at Anablatha And as Bellarmine answers concerning the Author of the imperfect work on Matthew because he saith There is no way to the finding Truth but reading the Scriptures he therefore saith This whole place was inserted by the Arrians as though that had been any part of the Controversie between the Arrians and others If Origen or Cyril on Leviticus saith It is necessary to follow the Scriptures then an Answer is ready That these Homilies are of no great Authority but if these will serve to defend the Apocrypha if they speak of the Obscurity of Scripture if they mention the observation of Lent if they speak of any thing tending to Auricular Confession or Pennance then they are good and authentick enough Thus the price of the Fathers rises and falls according to their Vse like Slaves in the market If yet the Fathers seem to deliver their judgements peremptorily in a matter contrary to the present sense of their Church then either they speak it in the heat of disputation or if not they were contradicted by others as good as they if many of them concurr yet it was but their private judgement not the sense of the Catholick Church which they delivered Still we see the rate the Fathers stand at is their agreement with the present Roman-Church if they differ from this they were Men like others and might be deceived only the Pope is infallible or at least the present Roman-Church For if Hilary Gregory Nyssen Chrysostome Cyril Augustine and others say That Christ when he said Vpon this Rock will I build my Church understood Peter's Confession or himself Nihil magis alienum à sensu Christi cogitari potuit saith Maldonate Nothing could be more incongruous than what they say And in the next words tell us That all the Ancient Writers except Hilary expounded the gates of Hell one way but he gives another sense of them The same liberty he takes in very many other places By which we have a tast of that due respect which you owe to the Fathers which is To value them as far as they concurr with your Church and no more otherwise they are but the results of mens particular phancies and not to be compared with the infallible Judgement of your Church But though it may not be so evident that you give so great respect to the Fathers yet it is notorious what reverence you shew to the sacred Scriptures As for Scripture say you we ever extol it above the Definitions of the Church What ever Do you think we have forgot the brave comparisons which have been made by your Writers to shew the respect you bear to the Scriptures Is it not much for the honour of the Scriptures to be said to have no more Authority than Aesops Fables without the Testimony of the Church Did not those extoll it above the Church who call'd it A Nose of Wax And were not these some of you Doth not Bellarmine profess his high esteem of the Scriptures when he saith That the Scripture is no more to be believed in saying It is from God than Mahomets Alcoran because that saies so too Did not Caranza preferr the Scripture before the Church when he said That the Scripture must be regulated by the Church and not the Church by the Scripture I need not mention Eckius his Evangelium nigrum and Theologia atramentaria Pighius his plumbea Lesbiae regula Valentia his Lapis Offensionis Bellarmin's Commonitorium utile which and many others are remaining Testimonies of that monstruous esteem which those of your party have of the sacred Scriptures But if the esteem you have of the Scriptures be so great Why lock you them up so carefully from the people in an unknown language Is it lest such Jewels should lose their lustre by too often using Why are you so severe against your Proselytes reading them Is it because you would not cast Pearls before Swine But still you extol the Scripture above the Definitions of the Church How is that possible when you tell us The only Authority it hath is from the Churches Testimony For the Authority of it supposeth it to be acknowledged for a Divine Revelation and that you tell us we can have no Assurance of but from your Churches Definition And we had thought that which gave Credit and Authority had been greater than that which received it There can be then little reason to take your word in a case of this nature when your very next words give so palpable a reason to the contrary For you suppose the Scripture unable to express it self to any intent or purpose unless your Church be the Interpreter For the Scripture say you being in many places obscure we cannot be certain of its true sense without the help of a living and infallible Judge to determine and declare it which can be no other than the present Church I answer 1. Your meaning is not so plain but that it wants the interpretation of your Church too For what do you understand by the Scriptures being in many places obscure Is it only that there are some passages which have their difficulties in them But what is this to the purpose unless you could prove that this obscurity is such as hinders it from being a Rule of Faith and Manners If you prove that you do something The Scripture we acknowledge hath its difficulties in it but not such as hinder the great design God intended it for no more than the maculae which are in the Sun hinder it from giving light to the world or some crabbed pieces in our Laws hinder them from being owned as the Laws of the Land 2. Are those places obscure or no which speak of the Churches Infallibility at least such as you produce for it afterwards This is evident that there are no places whose sense is more controverted than theirs Can these then be understood without a living and infallible Judge or no If they may so as we may be certain of their true sense then why not all others which concern the Rule of Faith and manners whose sense is far less disputed than of these If not then we must suppose a living and infallible
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
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 〈◊〉 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 unparalleâ—d 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
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
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
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
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.
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
then it doth when given to other Bishops if it doth you must prove it from some other Arguments and not barely from the title being attributed to them Thus you see though the title were granted to be attributed to him there is nothing new nothing peculiar in it But we must further examine Who they are that attribute this title to him and what the account is of their doing it For this you cite the Council of Chalcedon in a letter inserted in the Acts of it the Council of Constantinople sub Mena John Bishop of Nicopolis Constantinus Pogonatus the Emperour Basil the yonger and Balsamon himself To the first I Answer 1. That this title was not given by the Council of Chalcedon 2. If it had no more was given to the Bishop of Rome then to the Bishops of other Patriarchal Churches 1. That this title was not given by the General Council of Chalcedon this I know Gregory 1. in his Epistles about this subject repeats usque ad nauseam that the title of Vniversal Bishop was offered to the Bishop of Rome by the Council of Chalcedon and that he refused it but there is as little evidence for the one as the other That the title of Oecumenical Patriarch was attributed to the Bishop of Rome by some Papers read and received in that Council I deny not but we must consider the persons who did it and the occasion of it The persons were such who came to inform the Council against Dioscorus the Patriarch of Alexandria and they were no other then Athanasius a Presbyter Theodorus and Ischyrion two Deacons and Sophronius a Laick of Alexandria now these persons not in a letter as you relate it but in their bills exhibited to the Council against Dioscorus give that title of Oecumenical Patriarch or Archbishop to Leo the Bishop of Rome And is this now the offer made of the title of Vniversal Bishop by the Council of Chalcedon But you say This was inserted into the Acts of the Council I grant it was but on what account not with any respect to the title but as containing the Accusations against Dioscorus But where do any of the Bishops of that Council attribute that title to Leo which of them mentions it in their subscriptions to the Deposition of Dioscorus though many of them speak expresly of Leo and Anatolius together with the same titles of honour to them both Why did not the Council superscribe their Synodical Epistle to Pope Leo with that title so indeed Binius rather supposes they should have done then proves they ever did it and that only from Gregories Epistle not Leo's as he mistakes it to Eulogius where he mentions this offer but upon what grounds we have seen already But suppose 2. We should grant that the Council of Chalcedon should have offered the title of Oecumenical Patriarch or Bishop to the Bishop of Rome there are none who understand any thing of the nature of that title or the proceedings of that Council who can imagine they should intend any acknowledgement of the Popes Supremacy by it For the title it self as to the importance of it was common to other Bishops especially of the Patriarchal Sees as I have proved by some instances already and might do yet by more but I shall content my self with the ingenuous confession of Sim. Vigorius That when the Western Fathers call the Roman Bishops Bishops of the Vniversal Church they do it from the custome of their Churches not that they look on them as Vniversal Bishops of the whole Church but in the same sense that the Patriarchs of Constantinople Antioch Alexandria Jerusalem are call'd so or as they are Vniversal over the Churches under their Patriarchate or that in Oecumenical Councils they preside over the whole Church And after acknowledgeth that the title of Vniversal or Oecumenical Bishop makes nothing for the Popes Monarchy in the Church And if it doth not so when given by the Western Fathers much less certainly when given by the Eastern especially those who met in the Council of Chalcedon For it is evident by their 16 Session the 28 Canon and their Synodical Epistle to Pope Leo they designed the advancement of the See of Constantinople to equal priviledges with that of Rome And therefore if they gave the Pope the title of Oecumenical Patriarch or Bishop it was that he might be willing that the Patriarch of Constantinople might be call'd so too And if as Gregory saith the Bishops of Rome would not accept the title of Vniversal Bishop the truest account I know of it is lest the Patriarch of Constantinople should share with him in it but we see when the great Benefactor to your Church the Benigne Phocas as Gregory himself styles him gave it to the Bishop of Rome alone then hands and heart and all were ready to receive it And I much fear Leo 1. and St. Gregory himself would have been shrewdly tempted to receive it if it had been offered them upon those terms that no one else should have it besides them but they scorned it till they could have it alone And for all their declamations against the pride of Anatolius and John Patriarchs of Constantinople they must look very favourably on the actions of those two Popes that discern not their own Pride in condemning of them for it For usually men shew it as much in suspecting or condemning others for it as in any other way whatsoever Thus it was in these persons they thought the Patriarchs of Constantinople proud and arrogant because they sought to be equal with them But Was it not their own greater Pride that they were able to bear no equals and it is to be feared it was their desire to advance their own Supremacy which made them quarrel so much with Anatolius and John and Cyriacus For would they but have been contented to truckle under the Roman Bishops they had been accounted very meek and humble men And St. Gregory himself would not sure have thought much to have call'd them so who most abominably flatters that monster Phocas after the murder of Mauricius and his Children for he begins his Epistle to him with Gloria in excelsis Deo Glory to God on high who according to what is written changes times and transfers Kingdomes and after in such notorious flattering expressions congratulates his coming to the Throne that any one who reads them would think Phocas the greater Saint he rejoyces that the benignity of his piety was advanced to the Imperial Throne nay laetentur coeli exultet terra let the heavens rejoyce and the earth be glad and all the people which hath been hitherto in much affliction revive at the benignity of your actions O rare Phocas Could he do any less then pronounce the Bishop of Rome Vniversal Bishop after this when poor Cyriacus at Constantinople suffered for his opposing him for the execrable murder of his Master Therefore these proceedings of Leo
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because all persons who have business from all parts resort to the Metropolis here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
enough to exercise his Faith needed nothing else to try it but your Doctrine of Transubstantiation But you say The term indeed was first authorised by the Council of Lateran as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by that of Nice but for the thing it self signified by this term which is a real conversion of the substance of bread into the body of Christ and of wine into his blood 't is clear enough that it was ever held for a Divine truth If you prove but that I will never quarrel with you about the term call it Transubstantiation or what you will but we do not think it so clear as not to want proofs stronger for the belief of it then all the repugnancies of sense and reason are against it For it is a vain thing for you to attempt to prove so unreasonable a Doctrine as this is by some few lame citations of Fathers unless you can first prove that the Authority of them is so great as to make me believe any thing they say though never so contrary to sense and reason If you could bring some places of the Fathers to prove that we must renounce absolutely the judgement of sense believe things most contradictions to reason yet you must first shew that the evidence they bring is greater then that of sense or reason Or that I am more bound to believe them then I am to believe the greatest evidence of sense or reason When you say In these cases we must submit reason to Faith we acknowledge it when it is no manifest contradiction in things so obvious to sense or reason that the asserting it will destroy the use of our faculties and make us turn absolute Scepticks for then Faith must be destroyed too For may not a man question as well whether his hearing may not deceive him as his sight and by that means he may question all the Tradition of the Church and what becometh of his Faith then and if his sight might deceive him in a proper object of it Why might not the Apostles sight deceive them in the body of Christ being risen from the grave And if a man may be bound to believe that to be false which his sense judges to be true what assurance can be had of any miracles which were wrought to confirm the Christian Doctrine and therefore his Lordship might well say That Transubstantiation is not consistent with the grounds of Christian Religion But of this I have spoken already That which I am now upon is not how far reason is to be submitted to Divine Authority in case of certainty that there is a Divine Revelation for what I am to believe but how far it is to be renounced when all the evidence which is brought is from the Authority of the Fathers So that the Question in short is Whether there be greater evidence that I am bound to believe the Fathers in a matter contrary to sense and reason or else to adhere to the judgement of them though in opposition to the Fathers Authority And since you do not grant their Authority immediately Divine since you pretend not to places as clear out of them as the judgement of sense and reason is in this case since you dare not say that all the Fathers are as much agreed about it as the senses of all mankind are about the matter in dispute I think with men who have not already renounced all that looks like reason this will be no matter of Controversie at all From whence it follows that supposing the Fathers were as clear for you as they are against you in this subject yet that would not be enough to perswade us to believe so many contradictions as Transubstantiation involves in it meerly because the Fathers delivered it to us I speak not this as though I did at all fear the clearness of any Testimony you can produce out of them but to shew you that you take not a competent way to prove such a Doctrine as Transubstantiation is For nothing but a stronger evidence than that of sense and reason can be judged sufficient to oversway the clear dictates of both This being premised I come to consider the clear evidence you produce out of Antiquity for this Doctrine and since you pretend to so much choice in referring us to Bellarmin and Gualtierus for more I must either much distrust your judgement or suppose these the clearest to be had in them and therefore the examination of these will save the labour of searching for the rest And yet it is the great unhappiness of your cause that there is scarce one of all the Testimonies you make use of but either its Authority is slighted by some of your own writers or sufficient reasons given against it by many of ours Your first is of St. Cyprian or at least an Authour of those first ages of the Church who speaking of the Sacrament of the Eucharist saith This common bread chang'd into flesh and blood giveth life And again The bread which our Lord gave to his Disciples being chang'd not in its outward form or semblance but in its inward nature or substance by the omnipotency of the word is made flesh As to this Testimony there are two things to be considered the authority and the meaning of it For its Authority you seem doubtful your self whether S. Cyprian's or no since Bellarmin and others of your own deny it but at least you say an Authour of those first ages of the Church but you bring no evidence at all for it Bellarmin grants that he is younger then St. Augustine and others say that none mention him for 800 years after St. Cyprians time And the abundance of barbarisms which that book is so full fraught with manifest that it is of a much later extraction then the time it pretends to But the matter seems to be now out of question since the Book is extant in the King of France's Library with an Inscription to Pope Adrian and a MSS. of it is in the Library of All-Souls in Oxford with the same Inscription and the name of Arnaldus Bonavillacensis who was St. Bernards co-temporary and lived in the twelfth Century And those who have taken the pains to compare this Book with what is extant of the same Authour in the Bibliotheca Patrum not only observe the very same barbarisms but the same conceptions and expressions about the Sacrament which the other hath Although therefore I might justly reject this testimony as in all respects incompetent yet I shall not take that advantage of you but supposing him an Authour as ancient as you would have him I say he proves not the thing you bring him for For which two things must be enquired into 1. What kind of presence of Christ he asserts in the Sacrament 2. What change he supposes to be made in the Elements For your Doctrine asserts That there is a conversion of the whole substance of bread and
we believe that the Bread being sanctified by God's Word is changed into the body of the Word of God and a little after The nature of the things we see being trans-elemented into him I might here tell you What Exceptions are taken against this book as not being genuine not only by Protestants as Fronto Ducaeus would have it because of these expressions but by others too But I will not insist on this because I see no sufficient reason to question the Authority of it yet I know not how you can excuse it from some interpolations since he therein mentions Severus an heretical Acephalist who lived not till after Gregory's time yet for the main of the book I say as Casaubon doth that it is Opus planè eximium si paucos navos excipias An excellent piece in the general and becoming its Authour some few escapes excepted And the design of it being to shew that Christian Religion hath nothing absurd or unreasonable in it it would be very strange that he should assert so absurd and unreasonable a Doctrine as Transubstantiation is But there is nothing tending to that in the places cited but only the use of those two words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the main force of all you say depends upon them So that if we can give a good account of them without any Transubstantiation there remains no difficulty at all in these words of Gregory Nyssen For we deny not that there is a change in the elements after Consecration but we say It is a sacramental and you That it is a substantial change and this you offer to prove from these two words here used in reference to the Eucharist The argument commonly formed by your Authours from the first words is Whatsoever is changed is not what it was before which we readily grant so far as the change is but still it remains to be proved that the substance is changed in it self But it were easie to shew that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in multitudes of places of the Fathers is used for an accidental and relative change and Gregory Nyssen himself very frequently uses the word where it is capable of no other sense as when he saith Of the shining of Moses his face that it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a change to that which was more glorious and when he affirms the souls of men by the Doctrine of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be changed into that which is more divine And in this same Catechetical Oration he uses it several times to the same purpose about the change which shall be in glorified bodies and the change of mens souls by Regeneration But I need not insist more on this since I produced before the confession of Suarez that such expressions are more accommodated to an accidental mutation Neither is there any more strength in the other word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though Suarez thinks this comes nearer the matter and you confidently say What can here be signified by trans-elementation of the nature of the outward element but that which the Church now stiles Transubstantiation I will therefore shew you what else is signified by that word which Gregory used which cannot be properly rendred trans-elementation for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not come from the Noune 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but from the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Greeks expound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you may see in Suidas and others So that it imports not a substantial but an accidental change too and in that sense Gregory Nyssen uses it to express Regeneration by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those who are trans-elemented by Regeneration Would you say those who are transubstantiated by it So that neither of these Testimonies import any more than that there is a sacramental change in the elements after Consecration by which believers are made partakers of the body and blood of Christ which is no more than we assert and falls far short of your Doctrine of Transubstantiation Your third Testimony is of S. Cyril of Hierusalem which you would make us believe is so full and clear that no Catholick could express his own or the Churches belief of this mystery in more full plain and effectual terms Neither shall I here stand to dispute the reasons on which those Mystagogical discourses under his name are questioned but proceed to the consideration of the Testimony it self Which lyes in these words He that changed water into wine by his sole will at Cana in Galilee doth he not deserve our belief that he hath also changed wine into blood Wherefore let us receive with all assurance of Faith the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Seeing under the species of bread the body is given and under the species of wine his blood is given c. knowing and holding for certain that the bread which we see is not bread though it seem to the tast to be bread but the body of Jesus Christ likewise that the wine which we see though to the sense it seem to be wine is not wine for all that but the blood of Jesus Christ. This testimony you have patched together out of several places in that Oration very warily leaving out that which would sufficiently clear the meaning of S. Cyril in the words you cite out of him For it is evident that his design is to perswade the Catechumens from whom the mysterious presence of Christs body in the Sacrament was wont to be concealed that the bread and wine were not meer common elements but that they were designed for a greater and higher use to exhibit the body and blood of Christ to believers And therefore he saith expresly Do not consider them as meer bread and wine for they are the body and blood of Christ according to his own words By which it is plain he speaks of the body and blood of Christ as sacramentally and not corporeally present for he doth not oppose the body and blood of Christ to the substance of bread and wine but to meer bread and wine i. e. that they should not look on the bread and wine as naked signs but as signa efficacia and that there is a real presence of Christ in and with them to the souls of believers And this is it which he saith That they ought not to make a question of since Christ said This is my body and this is my blood For if he could by his will turn the water into wine Shall we not believe him that he can change his wine into his blood And after adds That under the symbols of bread and wine the body and blood of Christ is given that thou mayest be a partaker both of his body and blood You render this under the species or form of bread and wine in Cyril it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
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
fundamental in themselves or only by reduction and consequence Whether you hold all fundamental points literally or no yet if we prove you guilty of any gross dangerous and damnable errours as his Lordship asserts you are that will be abundantly sufficient to our purpose that Yours cannot possibly be any safe way to Salvation And although we should grant your Church right in the exposition of the three Creeds yet if you assert any other errours of a dangerous nature your right exposition of them cannot secure the souls of men from the danger they run themselves upon by embracing the other So much for the Argument drawn from the possibility of Salvation in the Roman Church 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 Repetitions 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 ALthough this Subject hath been sufficiently cleared in the Controversie concerning the resolution of Faith yet the nature of our task requires that we so far resume the debate of it as any thing undiscussed already offers it self to consideration For I cannot think it a civil way of treating the Reader to cloy him with Tautologies or Repetitions nor can I think it a way to satisfie him rather by some incidental passages than by a full and free debate In all those things then which we have had occasion to handle already I shall remit the Reader to the precedent discourses but whatever hath the face of being new and pertinent I shall readily examine the force of it The occasion of this fresh Debate was a new Question of the Lady Whether she might be saved in the Protestant Faith In answering whereof you say The parties conferring are put into new heats Vpon my soul said the Bishop you may Vpon my soul said Mr. Fisher there 's but one saving Faith and that 's the Roman Since the confidence seems equal on both sides we must examine Which is built on the stronger reason And his Lordship's comes first to be examined which he offers very freely to examination For saith he to believe the Scripture and the Creeds to believe these in the sense of the Ancient Primitive Church to receive the four great General Councils so much magnified by Antiquity to believe all points of Doctrine generally received as fundamental in the Church of Christ is a Faith in which to live and dye cannot but give Salvation And therefore saith he I went upon sure ground in the adventure of my soul upon that Faith Besides in all the points controverted between us I would fain see any one point maintain'd by the Church of England that can be proved to depart from the foundation You have many dangerous errours about the very foundation in that which you call the Roman Faith but there I leave you to look to your own soul and theirs whom you seduce Thus far his Lordship Two things you seem to answer to this 1. That such a Faith may not be sufficient 2. That ours is not such a Faith 1. That such a Faith may not be sufficient because you suppose it necessary to believe the Infallibility of the present Church and General Councils But that we are now excused from a fresh enquiry into but you would seem to inferr it from his own principles of submission to General Councils But by what peculiar Arts you can thence draw that some thing else is necessary to be believed in order to Salvation besides what hath been owned as Fundamentals in all ages I am yet to learn And sure you were much to seek for Arguments when you could not distinguish between the necessity of external submission and internal assent But the second is the main thing you quarrel with viz. That the English-Protestant Faith is really and indeed such a Faith and this you undertake at large to disprove You ask first Whether we believe all Scripture or only a part of it we answer All without exception that is Scripture i. e. hath any evidence that ever it was of Divine Revelation In this you say we profess more then we can make good seeing we refuse many books owned for Canonical by the Primitive Church and imbrace some which were not But in both you assert that which we are sure you are never able to defend since we are content to put it upon as fair a tryal as you can desire viz. That the Church of England doth fully agree with the Primitive Church as to the Canon of Scripture Which hath been already made good by the successful diligence of a learned Bishop of our Church to whom I refer you either for satisfaction or confusion But you are the men whose bare words and bold affirmations must weigh more then the greatest evidence of reason or Antiquity You love to pronounce where you are loath to prove and think to bear men down with confidence where you are afraid to enter the lists But our Faith stands not on so sandy a Foundation to be blown down with your biggest words which have that property of wind in them to be leight and loud When you will attempt to prove that the Books call'd Apocrypha have had an equal testimony of Divine Authority with those we receive into the Canon of Scripture you may meet with a further Answer upon that Subject Just as much you say to disprove our believing Scripture and the Creeds in the Primitive Church For you say The Fathers oppose us we deny it you say The Councils condemn us we say and prove the contrary You offer again at some broken evidences of the Popes Supremacy from Councils and Fathers but those have been discussed already and the sense of the Church at large manifested to be contrary to it But I fear your matters lye very ill concocted upon your stomack you bring them us so often up but I am not bound to dance in a circle because you do so And therefore I proceed but when I hope to do so you pull me back again to the Infallibility of Councils and the Church the question of Fundamentals and the Greek Church and scarce a page between but in comes again the Popes Supremacy as fresh as if it had been never handled before But I assure you after this rate I wonder you ever came to an end for you might have writ all your life time after that manner For the
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
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 Credâ—lity 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
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