rest of the Points of Faith are necessary to be believed necessitate praecepti only conditionally that is to all such to whom they are sufficiently propounded as defined by the Church which necessity proceeds not precisely from the material object or matter contained in them but from the formal object of Divine Authority declared to Christians by the Churches Definition Whether therefore the Points in question be necessary in the first manner or no by reason of their precise matter yet if they be necessary by reason of the Divine Authority or Formal object of Divine Revelation sufficiently declared and propounded to us they will be Points Fundamental that is necessary to Salvation to be believed as we have shewed Fundamental must here be taken These words of yours containing the full state of the question in your own terms and being the substance of all you say on this Controversie I have recited at large that you may not complain your meaning is mistaken in them You assert then that besides that necessity which ariseth from the matter of things to be believed and from th◠absolute Command of God there is another necessity conditionally upon the Churches Definition but supposing that Definition the thing so propounded becomes as necessary to Salvation as what is necessary from the matter for in all hypothetical propositions the supposition being in act the matter becomes necessary For unless you speak of such a necessity as becomes as universally obligatory on supposition of the Churches Definition as that which ariseth from the matter or absolute command you are guilty of the greatest tergiversation and perverting the state of the Question For otherwise that cannot be said to be fundamental or necessary to Salvation in the sense of this Question which is not generally necessary to Salvation to all Christians For no man was ever so silly as to imagine that the Question of Fundamentals with a respect to whole Churches as it is here taken can be understood in any other sense than as the matter call'd Fundamental or Necessary must be equally fundamental and necessary to all persons And that this must be your meaning appears by the rise of the Controversie which concerns the whole Greek Church which you exclude from being a Church because she erres fundamentally and that she errres fundamentally because the Church hath defined it to be an errour So that what the Church determines as matter of Faith is as necessary to be believed in order to Salvation as that which is necessary from the matter or from an absolute Command For otherwise the Greek Church might not be in a Fundamental Errour notwithstanding the Churches Definition the ground of this Errour being Fundamental not being derived from the matter or absolute Command but from the Churches Definition If therefore the denial of what the Church defines doth exclude from Salvation the necessity and obligation must be equal to that which ariseth from the matter to be believed And if the Church defines any particulars to be explicitly believed as necessary to Salvation not only the not disbelieving them but the not explicit believing them will be as destructive to Salvation as if the matter of the things themselves were necessary or that it were absolutely commanded for in those cases you say the not explicit believing is that which damns and so on your principles it will do here when the explicit belief is the thing defined by the Church This will be more plain by an Instance It is notoriously known that at the shutting up of the Council of Trent a Confession of Faith was drawn up and confirmed by the Bull of Pius 4. A. D. 1564. and that ut unius ejusdem fidei professio uniformitèr ab omnibus exhibeatur That the Profession of one and the same Faith may be made known to all and declared uniformally by all In which Confession after the enumeration of the Articles contained in the Ancient Creed there are many others added concerning Traditions Seven Sacraments the Decrees of the Council of Trent as to Original sin and Justification The Sacrifice of the Mass Transubstantiation Communion in one kind Purgatory Invocation of Saints Worship of Images Indulgences the Pope's Supremacy c. All which are required to be believed with an equal assent to the former as absolutely necessary to Salvation and necessary Conditions of Catholick Communion For thus it ends Hanc veram Catholicam Fidem extra quam nemo salvus esse potest quam in praesenti sponte profiteor veraciter teneo eandem integram inviolatam usque ad extremum vitae spiritum c. This true Catholick Faith without which none can be saved which at present I profess and truly hold and will do whole and undefiled to my lives end c. Judge you now whether an equal explicit Faith be not here required to the Definitions of the Church as to the Articles of the Creed and if so there must be an equal necessity in order to Salvation of believing both of them it being here so expresly declared that these Definitions are Integral Parts of that Catholick Faith without which there is no Salvation And what could be more said of those things whose matter or absolute precept do make them necessary This Confession of Faith therefore gives us the truest state of the present Question in these particulars 1. That the Definitions of the Church are to be believed to be as necessary to Salvation as the Articles of the Ancient Creed without the belief of which no Salvation is to be expected 2. That the explicit Belief of these Definitions as necessary to Salvation may be required in order to Catholick Communion and that they are to be believed of all as such because they are defined by the Church So that the Question is not What is so required by the Churches Definition declared and propounded to us that it ought not to be dis-believed without mortal and damnable sin which unrepented destroyes Salvation as you stated it for this seems only to respect the Faith of particular persons who are to believe according as the Proposition may be judged sufficient but the true state of the Question is Whether any Definitions of the Church may be believed as Necessary Articles of Faith and whether they may be imposed on others to be believed as such so that they may be excluded Catholick Communion if they do not For this is really the true state of the Question between your Church and ours ever since the Council of Trent and as to it thus stated as it ought to be I do most readily joyn issue with you For the clearing of which important Question on which the main cause of our being separated from your Communion depends these three things will be necessary to be exactly discussed 1. What the Grounds are on which any thing doth become necessary to Salvation 2. Whether any thing whose matter is not necessary and is not required by an
hard to go that way to Heaven especially to them that have had the truth manifested and a little after But we have not so learned Christ as either to return evil for evil in this heady course or to deny salvation to some ignorant silly souls whose humble peaceable obedience makes them safe among any part of men that profess the Foundation Christ. And in another place I do indeed for my part leaving other men free to their own judgement acknowledge a possibility of salvation in the Roman Church But so as that which I grant to Romanists is not as they are Romanists but as they are Christians that is as they believe the Creed and hold the Foundation Christ himself not as they associate themselves wittingly and knowingly to the gross Superstitions of the Roman Church And I am willing to hope there are many among them which keep within that Church and yet wish the superstitions abolished which they know and which pray to God to forgive their errours in what they know not and which hold the Foundation firm and live accordingly and which would have all things amended that are amiss were it in their power And to such I dare not deny a possibility of salvation for that which is Christs in them though they hazzard themselves extreamly by keeping so close to that which is superstition and in the case of Images comes too near Idolatry The substance then of what his Lordship saith is that the Protestant way is a safe and secure way to salvation that in the Roman Church there is extream hazzard made of it which all who love their souls ought to avoid but yet for such who by reason of ignorance see not the danger and by reason of honesty keep close to Christ the Foundation and repent of all miscarriages known or unknown he dares not deny a possibility of salvation for them But he is far from asserting it of those who either know the corruptions of that Church and yet continue in them or such who wilfully neglect the means whereby they may be convinced of them So that you strangely either mistake or pervert his Lordships meaning when you would inferr from these passages That he asserts a possibility of being saved to those who joyn with the Roman Church though their ignorance be not invincible and though all or the chief motives which the Protestants bring against you be never so sufficiently proposed to them For he still speaks either of such whose meer ignorance doth excuse them where the Fundamentals are held and a life lead according to them or else of such who condemn your superstitions as far as they are discovered to them and sincerely desire to find impartially the way that leads to Heaven Of such as these he dares not deny a possibility of salvation And you are the most uncharitable persons in the world if you dare assert the contrary of Protestants You expresly grant a possibility of salvation to those who joyn with the Protestant Church in case of invincible ignorance and dare you deny it where there is a preparation of mind to find out and embrace the most certain way to Heaven where all endeavours are used to that end and where there is a conscientious obedience to the Will of God so far as it is discovered If you dare peremptorily deny a possibility of salvation to such persons meerly because not of the Roman Church this prodigious uncharitableness would make us question the possibility of your salvation more while you persist in it For What is there more contrary to the design and spirit of the Gospel then this is From whence must we gather the terms of salvation but only from thence But it seems by you although men give never so hearty an assent to the Doctrine of the Gospel and live in the most universal obedience to it and abound in the fruits of the spirit of God of which Charity is none of the least yet if they be not in the Communion of your Church there is no hopes of salvation for them But Who is it the mean while that hath the disposal of this salvation Is it in your hands or Christs If it be in His we dare rely on His promise although you pretend to know His mind better than He did himself For notwithstanding a sincere endeavour to know and obey the will of God be the great Fundamental in order to salvation which is delivered us by the Doctrine of Christ yet it seems by you there may be this where there may be not so much as possibility of salvation By which assertion of yours you are so far from working upon any but very weak persons to bring them over to your Church that nothing can more effectually prejudice it among all such who dare believe Christ to be more Infallible then the Church of Rome For what is this else but to make heaven and eternal salvation stalk to the interess of your Church and to lay more weight upon being in your communion then upon the most indispensable precepts of Christianity But when we consider how many among you dispute for the possibility of the salvation of Heathens and yet deny it to those who own all the Fundamentals of Christianity when we see how much you lay the weight of salvation upon being in your Church and what wayes you have for those who are in it to reconcile the hopes of salvation with the practise of sin What can we otherwise imagine but it is the Interess of your Church that you more aim at than the salvation of mens-souls For you have so many wayes to give indulgence in sin to those who desire it and yet such ready wayes of pardon and such an easie task of repentance and so little troublesome means of obtaining grace by the Sacraments ex opere operato that it is hard conceiving what way a man should sooner take who would live in his sins and come to heaven at last then to be of your Church And yet you who are so soft and gentle so kind and indulgent to the sons of your Church are not more ready to send those who are out of it to the fire in this world than to eternal flames in another But we have not so learned Christ we dare not deal so inhumanely with them in this world much less judge so uncharitably as to another of those who profess to fear God and work righteousness though they be not of the same opinion or communion with us Yet we tell men of the danger of hazzarding their salvation by erroneous doctrines and superstitious practises and suppose that sufficient to perswade such who sincerely regard their future happiness to avoid all such things as tend so much to their eternal ruine And such who will continue in such things meerly because there is a possibility some persons may be saved in them by reason of Ignorance or Repentance are no wiser men then such who should split
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
therefore they sung at the Burial Return my soul to thy rest for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee And this he proves likewise from the Ancient Liturgies wherein prayers are made for all Saints Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs and others And S. Ambrose after he had said That Valentinian and Gratian were both blessed and enjoyed the pleasures of everlasting life and yet subjoyns his Orizons for them Thus he prayes for Theodosius of whom he had said That he enjoyes everlasting light and continual tranquillity And so for his Brother Satyrus when he had pronounced of him before That he had entred into the Kingdom of Heaven The same doth Gregory Nazianzen for his Brother Caesarius Now Is it possible you should think that Prayer for the Dead as used in the the Ancient Church doth necessarily inferr Purgatory when they who made these Prayers did suppose the persons they made them for to be at rest and in joy and in the Kingdom of Heaven And I hope that is a different state from that of Purgatory Therefore you see it is not barely proved that some different accounts are given of Prayer for the Dead but such as are exclusive of it and those such as appear from the eldest times of the Church when such Prayers were used Now having thus shewed for whom these Prayers were made he proceeds to shew of what kinds they were whereof he saith some were Eucharistical for the blessed estate of the party deceased others deprecatory and petitory that God would forgive him his sins keep him from Hell and place him in the Kingdom of Heaven which though at first well meant were turned to an ill use afterwards when these intercessions began once to be applied not only to the good but evil livers also unto whom by the first Institution they were never intended And he at large proves by very many examples that the primary Intention of the Church in her supplications for the Dead was That the whole man not the soul separated only might receive publick remission of sins and a solemn acquittal in the judgement of that great Day and so obtain both a full escape from all the consequences of sin and a perfect consummation of bliss and happiness And of this nature he shews afterwards were the Prayers of the Church used in Epiphanius his time which Aërius was condemned for rejecting of and he plainly proves that the Church of Rome comes nearer the Opinion of Aërius than they would seem to do For they agree with Aërius in rejecting that kind of praying and offering for the Dead which was used in the Church at that time which was for such as were believed to be in bliss For since the Romanists say That without the supposition of Purgatory Prayer for the Dead would be unprofitable and at that time the souls they prayed for are supposed to be already in bliss therefore they do as much condemn those Prayers for the Dead which were then used as Aërius did And it is very strange if the releasing of souls out of Purgatory had been any ground then of praying for the Dead that Epiphanius among all his far-fetcht Reasons should never assign that which you think to be the only proper ground of such Prayers Thus we see what was the general Intention of the Church in those Prayers which were made for the Dead and how far this was from inferring Purgatory But besides this there were several particular Opinions among the Ancient Fathers touching the place and condition of souls separated from their bodies and according to the several apprehensions which they had thereof they made different interpretations and applications of the Vse of praying for the Dead whose particular intentions and devotions in that kind must of necessity therefore be distinguished from the general intention of the whole Church Thus there were two Opinions much in vogue among many of the Fathers viz. of souls being kept in secret receptacles till the day of resurrection and the purging of them in the fire of conflagration at the day of judgement of which Opinion were not only S. Augustin but Origen Lactantius S. Hilary S. Ambrose and others Now according to these Opinions they interpreted the Vse of praying for the Dead And thence S. Augustin saith That the oblations and alms usually offered in the Church for all the Dead that received Baptism were thanksgivings for such as were very good propitiations for such as were not very bad but as for such as were very evil although they were no helps of the Dead yet were they some kind of consolations of the Living but this was only a private exposition of the Churches meaning in her Prayers because it is not to be found in the writings of the former Fathers and because it suiteth not well with the general practice of the Church which it intendeth to interpret For it is somewhat too harsh an interpretation to imagine that one and the same act of praying should be a petition for some and for others only a thanksgiving Some other private Opinions there were besides these as that of Theophylact That God did not alwaies cast grievous sinners into Hell but that the Prayers of the Church might keep them from being cast into Hell another That an augmentation of Glory might be procured for the Saints and either a total deliverance or a diminution of torment at least obtained for the wicked to which S. Chrysostom and others incline Besides there were different Opinions concerning the benefit which the Dead received by the Prayers of the Living For the Authour of the Questions and Answers in Justin Martyrs work 's Gregory Nazianzen Theodoret Diodorus Tarsensis and S. Hierom all conclude that there is no release to the expected for the sins of those who were dead But others supposed the Dead might receive profit by the Prayers of the Living either for be remission of their sins or the ceasing of their punishment but they were not agreed as to the nature of the sins which might be pardoned or the manner of the benefit which they received whether their punishment were only lessened or at last extinguished And Stephanus Gobarus in Photius tells us That though some held these things yet the true sentence of the Church was That none at all was freed from punishment But that still this was a Question in the Church Whether the Dead received profit by the Prayers of the Living that learned Authour more at large proves but my design is only to give a very brief extract of his discourse that you may from thence see how far by the Intention of the Church in praying for the Dead you are from gathering the necessary belief of Purgatory And by this a full Answer is given to what you object concerning the practice of the Fathers to pray for the soul and not the body and that when we pray for them they receive ease comfort and
absolute Command can by any means whatsoever afterwards become necessary 3. Whether the Church hath power by any Proposition or Definition to make any thing become necessary to Salvation and to be believed as such which was not so before These three I suppose you cannot deny but will take in all that is considerable in this Controversie Which I shall with the more care examine because nothing tends more to the peace of the Christian World than a through and clear discussion of it and nothing causeth more the Schisms and Divisions of it than the want of a right and due conception of it 1. What the Grounds are on which any thing doth become necessary to Salvation For our better understanding of which we must consider two things 1. What things are necessary to the Salvation of men as such or considered in their single and private capacities 2. What things are necessary to be owned in order to Salvation by Christian Societies or as the bonds and conditions of Ecclesiastical Communion The want of understanding this distinction of the necessity of things hath caused most of the perplexities and confusion in this Controversie of Fundamentals 1. What those things are which are necessary to the Salvation of particular persons But that we make all as clear as possible in a matter of so great intricacy two things again must be inquired into 1. What the Ground is why any thing becomes necessary to be believed in order to Salvation 2. What the Measure and Extent is of those things which are to be believed by particular persons as necessary to Salvation 1. What the Ground or Foundation is on which things become necessary to be believed by particular persons And that which is the true ground of the necessity why any thing is to be believed is the proper ratio of a Fundamental Article For I suppose it a much clearer notion of Fundamentals to understand them not as Principles from whence Deductions may be drawn of Theological Truths but in regard of that immediate respect which they have to mens Salvation Those things therefore which are necessary to be explicitly believed by particular persons are Fundamentals in order to their Salvation Now all belief in this case supposing Divine Revelation nothing can be imagined to be necessary to be believed but what may be certainly known to be of Divine Revelation But when we consider that besides the general reason of believing what God hath revealed we must either suppose that all things are of equal necessity which are revealed in order to the general end of this Revelation or that some things therein contained are expresly necessary to the end and other things to be believed on the general account of Faith so far as they are known to be of Divine Revelation Now from hence ariseth a twofold necessity of things to be believed the first more general and large the second more particular and absolute The first depends upon the formal reason of Faith the second on the particular end of Divine Revelation That which depends on the formal reason of that Assent we call Faith is that which supposeth Divine Veracity or the impossibility of Gods deceiving us in any thing revealed by Him now this extends to all things whatsoever which are supposed by men to be of Divine Revelation For though men may mistake in the matter yet the reason of Assent holding under that mistake they are bound necessarily to believe whatever is supposed by them to be Divine Revelation Here lyes no difficulty in the ground of Faith but all the care is to be used in the search into the matters which are to be believed on the account of this Revelation But here we are to consider that the only thing which is in general and absolutely necessary to Salvation is the general act of Faith viz. Believing whatever God reveals to be true else God's Veracity would be call'd in question but particular objects cannot be said on this account to be absolutely and universally necessary but only so far as there are sufficient convictions that those particulars are of Divine Revelation And the more general and extensive the means of conviction are the more large and universal is the obligation to Faith As that the Scriptures contain in them the Word of God is a matter of more universal obligation than particular things therein revealed because the belief of the one depends upon the acknowledgement of the other And withall supposing it believed that the matters contained in Scripture are of Divine Revelation yet all things are not equally clear to all capacities that they are therein contained Which is a sufficient ground for us to say It was not God's intention that all things contained in his Word should be believed with the same degree of necessity by all persons And therefore though the general reason of Faith depends on Gods Veracity yet the particular obligation to the belief of particular things as revealed by God depends on the means whereby we may be assured that such things are revealed by him which means admitting of so great Variety as to the circumstances and capacities of particular persons there can be no general Rule set down what things are necessary to be believed by all particular persons For those who have greater means of knowledge a larger capacity and clearer proposal are bound to believe more things explicitly than those who want all these or have a lower degree of them In which case it is an unreasonable thing to say that such a one who dis-believes any thing propounded to him as a matter of Faith doth presently call in question God's Veracity for he may as firmly believe that as any in general and yet may have ground to question whether God's Veracity be at all concerned in that which is propounded to him as a matter of Faith because he sees no reason to believe that this was ever revealed by God And by this a clear answer is given to that Question which you propose Whether all those Truths which are sufficiently proposed to any Christian as defined by the Church for matter of Faith can be dis-believed by such a Christian without mortal and damnable sin which unrepented destroyes Salvation To which the answer is easie upon the grounds here assigned for this question concerning particular persons and particular objects of Faith the resolution of it doth depend upon the sufficiency of the means to convince such a person that whatever is propounded as Defined by the Church for a matter of Faith is certainly and truly so For to instance in any one of those new Articles of Faith Transubstantiation or the Pope's Supremacy c. you tell me These are necessary to be believed or at least cannot be dis-believed without sin which is all one in this case supposing clear conviction for then what cannot be dis-believed without sin must be explicitly believed I desire to know the grounds why they may not you tell me These
are truths which are sufficiently proposed to me as defined by the Church for matters of Faith I deny the Churches Proposition to be sufficient to convince me that these are matters of Faith for I understand not what Power your Church hath to define any thing for matter of Faith if I granted that I must understand what you mean by sufficient Proposition whether that your Church hath so defined them or that she hath power so to define them and because I am heartily willing to believe any thing that I have reason to believe is a matter of Faith certainly it can be no sin in me not to believe that which I can see no ground at all to believe either in it self or because of your Churches Definition And all this while I have as high thoughts of God's Veracity as you can have and it may be higher because I interest it not in the false and contradictory Definitions of your Church If therefore you will prove it to be a damnable sin not to believe whatever is proposed by your Church for a matter of Faith you must first prove that there is as universal an obligation to believe whatever is sufficiently proposed as defined by the Church for matter of Faith as there is to assent to whatever God reveals as true And when you have done this I will give you leave to state the Question as you do for then you would offer something to the proof of it which now you do not The substance then of what concerns the obligation to Faith as to particular objects on the account of Diuine Revelation lyes in the means of conviction concerning those particular objects being divinely revealed which being various the degrees of Assent must be various too but yet so that the more men are negligent of the means of conviction the more culpable their unbelief is but where men use all moral diligence to understand what is revealed and what not if they cannot be convinced that some particular thing is of Divine Revelation it is hard to prove them guilty of mortal and damnable sin without first proving that God absolutely requires from men an Assent to that which it is impossible in their Circumstances they should believe And this is the first sort of things necessary to be believed by particular persons such as are believed on the general account of God's Veracity in revealing them But because there must be a more particular reason assigned of any such intention in God to reveal his mind to the world viz. Some peculiar end which he had in it therefore a further degree of the necessity of things to be believed must be enquired after viz. such as have an immediate and necessary respect to the prosecution of that end Now the only end assignable of that great expression of Divine Goodness in declaring to man the Will of God is the Eternal Welfare and Happiness of mankind for nothing else can be imagined suitable and proportionable to the Wisdom and Goodness of God besides that this is expresly mentioned in Scripture as God's great end in it Now this being the great end of Divine Revelation the necessity of things to be believed absolutely and in themselves must be taken from the reference or respect which they have to the attainment of this end And although the distinction be commonly received of necessity of the means and of the command as importing a different kind of necessity yet in the sense I here take Necessity in the members of that distinction do to me seem coincident For I cannot see any reason to believe that God should make the belief of any thing necessary by an absolute Command but what hath an immediate tendency by way of means for the attainment of this end For otherwise that which is call'd the Necessity of Precept falls under the former degree of Necessity viz. That which is to be believed on the general account of Divine Revelation And although these things which are necessary as means are to be believed on the same formal reason of Faith yet since God had a different end in the Revelation of these from the other therefore there is a necessity of putting a difference between them For supposing God to have such a design to bring the souls of men to Happiness in order to this end some means must be necessary and these must consequently be revealed to men because they are so necessary in order to such an end now it is apparent All things contained in Scripture are not of that nature some being at so great a remove from this end that the only reason of believing them is because they are contained in that Book which we have the greatest reason to believe contains nothing false in it Now the only way whereby we may judge of the nature of these things is from the consideration of what is made the most necessary condition in order to happiness and the way by which we may come to it And nothing being more evident than that the Gospel contains in it a Covenant of Grace or the conditions on which our Salvation depends whatever is necessary in order to our performance of the conditions required of us must be necessary to be believed by all The Gospel therefore tendring Happiness upon the conditions of our believing in Christ and walking in him these two things are indispensably necessary to Salvation where the Gospel is known for we have no reason to enquire into the method of God's proceeding with others An hearty Assent to the Doctrine of Christ and A conscientious walking according to the Precepts of it But to undertake to define what parts of that Doctrine are necessary to Salvation and what not seems to me wholly unnecessary because the Assent to the Doctrine of Christ as revealed from God must necessarily carry in it so much as is sufficient in order to Salvation Whatever therefore is necessary to a Spiritual Life is necessary absolutely to Salvation and no more but what and how much that is must be gathered by every one as to himself from Scripture but is impossible to be defined by others as to all persons But in all Faith towards God and in our Lord Jesus Christ and repentance from dead works are absolutely and indispensably necessary to Salvation which imply in them both an universal readiness of mind to believe and obey God in all things And by this we see what the Rule and Measure of the necessity of things to be believed is as to particular persons which lyes in these things 1. Whatever God hath revealed is undoubtedly and infallibly true 2. Whatever appears to me upon sufficient enquiry to be revealed by God I am bound to believe it by virtue of God's Veracity 3. All things not equally appearing to all persons to be revealed of God the same measure of necessity cannot be extended to all persons 4. An universal Assent to the Will of God and universal Obedience to it
all Churches in order to their being true Churches as is plain by the rise of this Controversie for Mr. Fisher was proving the Greek Church to be no true Church and in order to that proves that she erred Fundamentally for which he makes Vse of this Medium That whatever is defined by the Church is Fundamental So that the whole Process of the Dispute lyes thus TWhat ever Church is guilty of a Fundamental Errour ceaseth to be a true Church but the Greek Church is guilty of a Fundamental Errour ergo The Minor being denyed he thus proves it If whatever is defined by the Church be Fundamental then the Greek Church is guilty of a Fundamental errour because she denyes something defined by the Church but whatever is defined by the Church is Fundamental which is the thing his Lordship denyes and his adversary is bound to prove So that any one who was not resolved to wink as hard as you do might easily see the state of the Controversie doth not concern what things are Fundamental supposing men know them to be sufficiently propounded but what things are so necessary to be owned for Fundamentals that upon the denying them a Church ceaseth to be a true Church Yet this mistake as gross and palpable as it is runs through your whole Discourse of Fundamentals which without it cannot hold together If you will therefore prove that besides such things whose necessity ariseth from the matter there are other from the Formal Object which all Churches are equally bound to believe in order to their being true Churches you do something but not before But we must still attend your Motions especially when they tend towards proofs as yours do now For say you Now I shew the difficulty being understood as it ought to be of the Formal Object whereby Points of Faith are manifested to Christians that all Points defined by the Church as matter of Faith are Fundamental that is necessary to Salvation to be believed by all those to whom they are sufficiently propounded to be so defined by this Argument Whosoever refuseth to believe any thing sufficiently propounded to him for a truth revealed from God commits a sin damnable and destructive of Salvation But whosoever refuses to believe any Point sufficiently propounded to him for defined by the Church as matter of Faith refuses to believe a thing sufficiently propounded to him for a truth revealed from God Ergo Whosoever refuses to believe any Point sufficiently propounded to him for defined by the Church as matter of Faith commits a sin damnable and destructive of Salvation Before you proceed to the proof of your Minor several things must here be considered that we may better understand your meaning and know what it is you intend to prove Especially what you intend by sufficient Proposition Do you mean such a Proposition as carries evidence along with it or not in which case the very understanding the terms is sufficient Proposition as that two and two make four but I suppose you mean not this therefore it must be the sufficient Proposition of something which wants natural evidence and therefore something else must be required besides the propounding the thing to make the Proposition be said to be sufficient For Sufficiency relates to some end so that a sufficient Proposition must be such a Proposition as is sufficient for its end now the end of the Proposition of Matters of Faith is that they may be believed and therefore the sufficiency of the Proposition lyes in the Arguments or Motives inducing men to believe Now the Objects of Faith being of a different nature the Sufficiency of the Proposition must be taken from a respect to them for in things which are so clearly revealed as necessary to Salvation that none who acknowledge the Scripture to be God's Word can doubt but such things are necessary in this case the Sufficiency of the Proposition lyes in the Evidence of Divine Revelation and the clearness of it to all understandings who consider it and the Reasons or Motives of Faith in that case are the same with those which induce men to believe that the Scripture it self is from Divine Revelation But there being other things in Scripture which neither appear so clear or so necessary to be believed by all something else is required in order to a sufficient Proposition of them and in order to the making any of these things universally obligatory to Christians on pain of damnation for not believing them these things are necessary 1. It must be much clearer than the thing which is propounded to be believed on the account of it for to propound a thing to be believed by something at least as disputable as the matter it self cannot certainly be call'd a sufficient Proposition 2. It must be antecedently proved to be a true and certain Proposition before any thing can be believed on the account of it For if men cannot see any reason to believe that there is any necessary Connexion between that which you call a sufficient Proposition and any matter of Faith they cannot be guilty of any sin at all in not believing what you think is sufficiently propounded But in this case it is not your judgement what Proposition is sufficient that makes it so but the Reason of the Thing and the Evidence that God hath appointed that way to reveal his Will to men and that what is so propounded is necessary to be believed As for instance suppose you were told by the Greek Church that to believe the Pope's Supremacy jure divino were a damnable sin and that whosoever did not believe this being sufficiently propounded to them as a matter of Faith as defined by the Church were guilty of a sin destructive to Salvation what answer would you return in this case Would you not say That the Proposition though judged sufficient by them is not judged so by you and that they must first prove that whatever their Church defines as a matter of Faith is to be believed for such before the other can be believed on the account of it Just the same answer we return to you prove first of all to us in a clear and evident manner that God hath appointed the Definition of your Church as the means whereby we may be infallibly assured what is Matter of Faith and what not and then we may grant that what your Church propounds as a matter of Faith is sufficiently propounded as a matter revealed from God but not before For while I see no reason to believe the Churches Proposition to be sufficient I have no reason to believe that what she propoundes as defined for matter of Faith is truly so And as long as I can see no reason to believe it prove the disbelief of it to be a sin in me when you can Thus we see how far from being evident that Major of yours is though you are pleased to tell us it is so but we do not believe your Defining
make any Hereticks but such as have reason to believe that she cannot erre in her Definitions From whence Protestants will be in less danger of Heresie than Papists till you give us more sufficient reasons to prove that whatever the Church declares is certainly revealed by God And although you tell us Men may be accounted Hereticks before they are condemned as such by General Councils if they oppose the Doctrine clearly contained in Scripture or generally received by the Church yet you tell us not what the measures are whereby we ought to judge what things are thus clearly contained in Scripture or universally received whether the Churches judgement must be taken or every man 's own judgement if the former the ground of Heresie lyes still in the Churches Definition contrary to what Scotus affirms if the latter then no one can be an Heretick but he that opposeth that which he is or may be convinced is clearly contained in Scripture or generally received by the Church If that which he is convinced then no man is an Heretick but he that goes against his present judgement and so there will be few Hereticks in the world If that which he may be convinced of it must be understood either in his own judgement or yours if in his own judgement then a Heretick is one who dissents to things rashly without using means to inform himself if in yours why may not he say You may as well be convinced of the truth of that which he believes as he be convinced of the truth of that which you believe and so you may be a Heretick to him by the same reason that he is to you But you say further That there are many things which in themselves are matters of Faith yet so obscure in relation especially to unlearned and particular persons that before the decree of the Church we are not Hereticks though we should either doubt of them or deny them because as yet there appears no sufficient reason that can oblige us to believe them although after the Definition of the Church we ought as well to believe them as any other But it is impossible to understand how there can be such things which men might safely not believe but upon the Definition of the Church they are bound to believe them necessarily unless it be clear to them that the Church hath power to make obscure things plain and unnecessary things to become necessary For suppose one of these obscure things be this very Power of the Church in defining such things while this remains so obscure you tell me I may doubt or disbelieve it without Heresie and while I do so I may certainly doubt or disbelieve all she declares But by what means shall this thing become clear must it be by the Churches defining it But that very Power of defining is the thing in question and therefore cannot be cleared by it And if there be any thing then so obscure that men may without sin doubt of it or disbelieve it certainly the Churches Power in defining matters of Faith is such it being not capable by any act of the Church of being made so clear as to oblige men to believe it But we must see how his Lordship hath wronged the Testimony of Scotus For first say you He would perswade his Reader that this Author supposed a real difference between the Ancient Greek and Latin Fathers about the Procession of the Holy Ghost whereas Scotus declares that there was no real difference between them But doth his Lordship say there was doth he not expresly cite Scotus his testimony in an hypothetical manner If there be a true real difference c. and it is evident from Scotus his words that he supposeth If the difference had been real that either the Greeks or Latins were truly Hereticks And therefore you are guilty of a much greater injury to his Lordship than he was to Scotus Again you say He wrongs him in saying That after the Churches Definition it becomes of the substance of Faith Now say you Scotus hath not one word of the substance of Faith much less of Fundamental which he imposes presently upon him but sayes only thus Ex quo Ecclesia declaravit hoc esse tenendum c. tenendum est quod Spiritus Sanctus procedat ab utroque Since the Church hath so declared so it must be held Sure you never expect to be believed but by a very implicit Faith for if one doth but offer to search an Author your Jugling becomes notorious Had you the confidence to say That Scotus has not one word of the substance of Faith I pray who made that c. for you in the sentence If you did it your self you abuse your Readers if another did it for you he abused you For that very c. leaves out those words sicut de substantia fidei and try if you can render that otherwise than as of the substance of Faith to manifest your Forgery the whole place is cited in the Margin Is this your fidelity in quoting Authors even when you charge others with wronging them It may be you will say yet That Scotus doth not say it is to be held sicut de substantia fidei though it be declared by the Church to be so held But what means then the ex quo if men's Faith must not be guided by the Churches Declaration for if it be therefore to be believed necessarily because declared by the Church it must be believed as it is declared by the Church If therefore the Church declares that it is to be held as of the substance of Faith it ought to be held so by such as are bound to believe it on the Churches Declaration Besides you will not say but that it was to be believed before now what alteration is caused by the Declaration of the Church but this That which was before to be believed simply and in it self is now to be believed on the account of the Churches Declaration as of the substance of Faith And thus it is impossible to relieve your self with your old shift of Material and Formal Object which you betake your self to Thus still we see you are that most unhappy person who never begin a charge against your adversary but it falls back most unevitably upon your self who so readily make use of forgeries to prove others guilty of them Upon Scotus his mentioning the Churches Declaration his Lordship inquires What this Declaration is and how far it extends For which his Lordship saith The Master teacheth and his Scholars too that every thing which belongs to the Exposition or Declaration of another intus est is not another contrary thing but is contained within the bowels and nature of that which is interpreted from which if the Declaration depart it is faulty and erronious because instead of declaring it gives another and contrary sense Therefore when the Church declares any thing in Council either that which
other Questions not diligently digested not yet made firm by full Authority of the Church there errour is to be born with but it ought not to proceed so farre that it should labour to shake the Foundation it self of the Church Now to this place his Lordship answers 1. He speaks of a Foundation of Doctrine in Scripture not of a Church-Definition This appears saith he For few lines before he tells us There was a Question moved to S. Cyprian Whether Baptism was concluded to the eighth day as well as Circumcision and no doubt was made then of the beginning of sin and that out of this thing about which no Question was moved that Question that was made was answered And again that S. Cyprian took that which he gave in Answer from the Foundation of the Church to confirm a Stone that was shaking Now S. Cyprian in all the Answer that he gives hath not one word of any Definition of the Church therefore ea res that thing by which he answered was a Foundation of prime and setled Scripture-Doctrine not any Definition of the Church Therefore that which he took out of the Foundation of the Church to fasten the Stone that shook was not Definition of the Church but the Foundation of the Church it self the Scripture upon which it is builded as appeareth in the Milevitane Councils where the Rule by which Pelagius was condemned is the Rule of Scripture Therefore S. Augustine goes on in the same sense that the Disputer is not to be born any longer that shall endeavour to shake the Foundation it self upon which the whole Church is grounded 2. His Lordship answers That granting that the Churches Definition was meant by S. Austin yet it can never follow out of any or all these Circumstances that all Points defined by the Church are Fundamental because this Foundation may be upon Humane Authority and that which follows only is That things are not to be opposed which are made firm by full Authority of the Church but it cannot be thence concluded They are therefore Fundamental in the Faith This is the substance of his Lordships Answer to this place which we must consider what you reply to First you say That it cannot be doubted but that S. Austin 's judgement was that all our Faith depended on the Authority of the Church and therefore that he that opposeth himself against this endeavoureth to shake and destroy the very ground-work of all Divine and Supernatural Faith This is a rare way of silencing Adversaries by telling them That cannot be doubted which others can see no reason at all to believe As in this present case you tell me that cannot be doubted which I utterly deny viz. That S. Austins judgement was that all our Faith depended on the Authority of the Church and if all the proof you have for it be only that well-known place Ego verò Evangelio non crederem c. You shall in time see what an ill choice you made of fixing your proof wholly upon that But whoever is never so little conversant in S. Augustin's way of disputing either against the Donatists Pelagians or Manichees will find very little reason to doubt but that he made the Foundation of Faith to be God's Word and not the Authority of the Church Indeed S. Austin by way of Prescription often makes use of the Churches Authority not where there hath been particular Definitions but Vniversal Consent which he understands by the settlement by full Authority of the Church but this he insists not on as the ground of Faith but to shew the unreasonableness of mens opposing those things which the Vniversal Church was agreed in as in this Controversie here disputed by him concerning Original Sin in Infants Therefore if I understand S. Austin in this place he doth not at all speak concerning what is to be owned as a matter of Faith simply in it self but what the Churches Carriage towards Dissenters is For after that Citation of S. Cyprian at the Conclusion of his Sermon he addresseth himself to the Pelagians as his dissenting Brethren Therefore saith he Let us if possible intreat this of our Brethren That they would no longer call us Hereticks because we might as well call them so if we would but we do not Why was S. Austin so scrupulous of calling the Pelagians Hereticks if he made the Definition of the Church the Foundation of Faith and looked on this Controversie as defined by full Authority of the Church And after speakes of the Churches bearing with them still in order to their instruction though they were gone so far that they were scarce to be born with and that the Church exercised great patience towards them therefore intreats them not to abuse this patience of the Church but to be reformed since they did exhort as Friends and not contend as enemies And so brings in the former words which I thus paraphrase It is a thing to be taken for granted that in disputable Points and such as the Church hath not alwaies been agreed in dissenters may be born with but if direct and full opposition to the clear sense of the Church should still be suffered it would overthrow the very Foundation of the Church it self And that this and no other is the plain and genuine meaning of S. Austin is evident to any one who impartially considers antecedents and consequents and the natural sense of the words themselves Before he spake how far the Church had born with them in the words themselves he tells them They must not expect the Church would alwaies bear with them if they joyned Obstinacy with their Errours for that would ruine the Church if she continually suffered such as violently opposed things contrary to her clearest sense and after tells them This is not expedient for hitherto it may be our patience is not to be found fault withall but we ought likewise to fear lest we be blamed for our negligence Which words immediately follow the former And is not this now a rare consequence If the Church must not alwaies bear with such as oppose her then whatever is defined by the Church is Fundamental For it is most evident S. Austin speaks not of the Churches Power in defining matters of Faith but of the Churches proceeding with obstinate Hereticks And therefore the Foundation spoken of is not the Foundation of her Belief but of her Communion which the continual bearing with such obstinate persons as the Pelagians were would in time overthrow The want of understanding this to be S. Augustine's meaning hath made you spend many words to very little purpose supposing all along that he speaks of the Churches Definition and not her proceedings Your Reply to his Lordships second Answer runs upon the same mistake that he speaks of Shaking the Foundation of Faith whereas I have already shewed that he speaks of no such thing and therefore that as well as the former Answer fall to
ill founded which S. Austin is so far from supposing that one may do that he judges him a mad man who disputes against any thing quod universa Ecclesia sentit and that they have hearts not only of Stone but even of Devils who resist so great a manifestation of Truth as is made by an Oecumenical Council for of that he speaks Your design is to prove that S. Austin doth not admit of any plea from Scripture Sense or Reason against any Definitions of the Church for which you first produce that known place in which S. Austin accounts it madness to oppose the universal practices of the Church which will hold for your purpose as far as rites and matters of Faith have any Analogy with each other your latter Testimony seems more to the purpose to all persons who do not examine it and to none else For although you seemed very careful to prevent any examination of the place by a false citation of Epist. 153. for 152. yet that hath not hindered my discovering your fraud in asserting that S. Austin there speaks of an Oecumenical Council For there is not so much as any thing like it in that Epistle I acknowledge those words to be found there which you produce Nulla excusatio jam remansit nimium dura nimium diabolica sunt hominum corda quae adhuc tantae manifestationi veritatis obsistunt But there needs no more to confute the most of your Testimonies out of the Fathers but to mention the occasion of their being produced or the scope and design of the Authors as is most evident in this place For this Epistle is written in the name of Silvanus Valentinus Aurelius Innocentius Maximinus Optatus Augustinus Donatus and other Bishops for satisfaction of the Donatists concerning the proceedings at the Council of Carthage For the Donatist Bishops being therein baffled had dispersed among their Proselytes many false rumours of that Council and of their being circumvented by their Catholick Adversaries To disprove which in this Epistle they first shew the fraud and falsitie of the Donatists and then the Integrity of their own proceedings by the choice of seven persons on either side who should speak in behalf of the rest and seven others as Counsellors to them and four Notaries on either side and four other persons who should keep the Records to prevent all fraud Besides all this every one was to subscribe in his own words that no man might complain that any thing was corrupted afterwards which things being dispersed while the persons themselves lived there was no probability Posterity should be deceived in the report of them And then follow those words That no excuse hath now been left but that their hearts are too hard and diabolical who could gainsay so clear a manifestation of Truth Is it not now a rare consequence from hence to inferr That it is not lawful upon any ground of Scripture Sense or Reason to dispute the Definitions of General Councils Whereas no such thing was ever mentioned as a General Council as appears by the very next words where he sayes expresly it was only a Council of African Bishops and elsewhere S. Austin tells the Donatists that they never durst appeal to a General Council And supposing the Council never so Oecumenical he mentions nothing of the Definitions of it but the manner of its proceedings So that the greatest Truth hereby manifested is your design to abuse his Lordship and the Reader together Since you disown the distinction of things being Fundamental in the matter and in the manner I shall not trouble you with shewing you the weakness of it but it were easie to manifest it as good as that you embrace of the material and formal Object which hath been sufficiently refuted in the precedent chapter and I have no leisure for repetitions His Lordship endeavouring further to shew What little Foundation your Doctrine of Fundamentals hath in the forecited place of S. Augustine urgeth this as an Argument against it That if all Points defined by the Church are therefore Fundamental because that is not to be shaken which is setled by full Authority of the Church then it must follow That the Point there spoken of the remission of Original Sin in the Baptism of Infants was defined when S. Augustine wrote this by a full sentence of a General Council You deny the Consequence for say you By Authority of the Church you mean and not unproperly the Church generally practising this Doctrine and defining it in a National Council confirmed by the Pope For this was plena authoritas Ecclesiae though not plenissima and to dispute against what was so practised and defined is in S. Augustine's sense to shake the Foundation of the Church if not wholly to destroy it It seems a little hard to understand what you mean by the Churches being not unproperly said to practise this Doctrine What did the Church practise the Doctrine of the remission of Original Sin in Infants That a Church should practise a matter of Faith seems a little wonderful but that it should do this and that not unproperly increaseth the admiration And we might think it a peculiar priviledge belonging to your Church but that she is not so much used to practise things more capable of it And can you think it enough to run us down by telling us That the Pope with a National Council hath defined it unless you first prove that the Pope and a National Council have as much authority as a General Council which you pretend to be infallible and if a National Council with the Pope be so too I wonder to what end General Councils are ever call'd since the Infallibility may be had at a much cheaper rate And by the same reason you make National Councils Infallible you may do Provincial if the Pope concurrs with them and by the same reason the Colledge of Cardinals may be Infallible without any of them because of the Pope's concurrence with them And so all this business of Councils is but a formal piece of Pageantry since all the Infallibility they have by this pretence is conferred by the Pope in his concurrence whose Infallibility doth not depend on the presence of a Council and therefore he must be as Infallible without a Council as with it So that at last this Discourse comes to this issue He that shakes the Pope's Infallibility shakes the Foundation of the Church and prove but this to have been S. Augustine's meaning you will highly advance the interest of your cause But whatever S. Austin's meaning be you think your self engaged to vindicate Bellarmine who his Lordship had said was deceived in saying That the Pelagian Heresie was never condemned in an Oecumenical Council but only in Nationals For saith he While the Pelagians stood out impudently against National Councils some of them defended Nestorius which gave occasion to the first Ephesine Council to excommunicate and depose
enough for his purpose to prove it by such sufficient evidence as may convince any reasonable man And this was all his Lordship meant when he said That our Negative Articles do refute where the thing is not affirmed in Scripture or not directly concluded out of it And if you will stand to the strict sense of these words you will be forced to prove all those Doctrines of your Church which ours denies to be true so evidently and demonstratively i. e. undeniably as you would put him upon for the proof of Infant-Baptism To leave therefore this verbal dispute and come to the thing His Lordship saith That it may be concluded directly out of Scripture That Infants ought to be baptized c. For which he insists on two places of Scriture Joh. 3.8 Except a man be born again of Water and of the Spirit c. which being interpreted according to the sense of the Fathers and the Ancient Church and as your own party acknowledge it ought to be interpreted do evidently assert Infant-Baptism By which your exception of a Pelagian Anabaptist who denies Original sin and from thence saith That Infants cannot be born again is taken away for the same Tradition of the Ancient Church which from hence inferrs the Baptism of Infants doth it upon that ground because they are guilty of Original sin as you might have seen by his Lordship's Citations to that purpose The other place he insists on is Act. 2.38 39. which by the acknowledgement of Ferus and Salmeron holds for Infant-Baptism But when you say That you would not weaken the Argument from Joh. 3. for Infant-Baptism because you only would shew that it cannot be proved demonstratively from Scripture alone against a perverse Heretick You seem not much to consider what those perverse Hereticks as you call them hold as to Infant-Baptism which is not meerly that Infant-Baptism is not commanded in Scripture but that it is a thing unlawful as being a perverting of the Institution of Christ as to the subject of Baptism For the main Question between us and the Antipaedobaptists is not concerning an absolute and express command for Baptizing Infants but whether our Blessed Saviour hath not by a positive Precept so determined the subject of Baptism viz. adult persons professing the Faith that the alteration of the subject viz. in Baptizing Infants be not a deviation from and perversion of the Institution of Christ in a substantial part of it or in short thus whether our Saviour hath so determined the subject of Baptism as to exclude Infants And although the question being thus stated the proof ought to lye on those who affirm it yet taking in only the help of Scripture and reason it were no difficult matter to prove directly and evidently that Infants are so far from being excluded Baptism by the Institution of Christ that there are as many grounds as are necessary to a matter of that nature to prove that the Baptizing them is suitable to the Institution of Christ and agreeable to the state of the Church under the Gospel For if there were any ground to exclude them it must be either the incapacity of the subject or some express precept and Institution of our Saviour But neither of these can be supposed to do it 1. Not incapacity as to the ends of Baptism for clearing which these two things must be premised 1. That the rule and measure as to the use and capacity of Divine Institutions is to be fetched from the end of them For this was the ground of the Circumcision of the Proselytes under the Law and this was the way the Apostles did interpret Christs Commission for Baptizing all Nations as to the capacity of the subjects of it Acts 10.47 Can any man forbid water that these should not be Baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we where the question was concerning the subject of Baptism For it might be made evident that the Apostles at first did interpret their Commission of Baptizing all Nations only of the Jews of all Nations for after that St. Peter looked on the Gentiles as unclean and the Disciples at Jerusalem charged St. Peter with it as a great fault for going in to men uncircumcised Acts 11.3 Therefore we see when the question was concerning the subject of Baptism the only Argument is drawn from the design and ends of it that they who were capable of the thing signified ought not to be denyed the use of the sign And thus by a parity of reason built on equal grounds those who are capable of the great things represented in Baptism and confirmed by it viz. Gods pardoning grace and acceptation to eternal life ought not to be denyed the external sign which is Baptism it self And therefore 2. Where there is a capacity as to the main ends of an Institution an incapacity as to some ends doth not exclude from it As is most evident in the Baptism of our Blessed Saviour in whom was a greater incapacity as to the main ends of Baptism then possibly can be in Infants for his Baptism could not at all be for the remission of sins Now we see although there were but one end and that a very general one mentioned That he might fulfill all righteousness Matth. 3.15 yet we see that was sufficient to perswade John to Baptize him Whereby we see evidently in this practise of our Saviour built on a general and common ground that a capacity as to one end of a positive Institution is sufficient to make such a practice lawful and in some cases a duty These two general Principles being laid down it were easie to shew 1. That what incapacity there is in Infants is not destructive of the main ends of Baptism which is chiefly thought to be the incapacity of understanding the nature or ends of the Institution and if that exclude it must either be that it is a thing repugnant to reason that any Divine Institution should be applyed to persons uncapable of understanding the nature and ends of it which would highly reflect on the wisdome of God in appointing Circumcision for Children eight dayes old who were certainly as uncapable of understanding the ends of that as our Children are of Baptism or else that there is some peculiarity in the Institution of Baptism which must exclude them from it under the Gospel which that there is not will appear presently 2. That there is a capacity in Infants as to the main ends of Baptism which have either an aspect from God to us in regard of its Institution or from us to God in regard of our undertaking it Now the chief ends of a Divine Institution as such are such as respect Gods Intention in it towards us in which respect it is properly a sign but as it respects God from us it is properly a Ceremony betokening our profession and restipulation towards God Now the ends of it as a sign are to represent
to prove the Infallibility of the Church and Scripture to You tell us That when you prove the Infallibility of the Church by Scripture you make use only of Arguments ad hominem and argue ex principiis concessis against Sectaries who deny the Infallibility of your Church but admit the Divine Authority of the Scriptures and therefore you may justly use Scripture-arguments against them I grant it but still I say you avoid not the Circle by this subterfuge neither For 1. The question is not Which way you will prove the Infallibility of the Church against those who deny it but which way you resolve your own faith of the Churches Infallibility therefore this signifies nothing at all as to your Question about the resolution of Faith for I suppose you build not that on any thing which your adversary grants or denyes Is there no difference between the way of proving a thing to an adversary and the resolving ones own Faith I question not but you may dispute with him upon Principles he grants and you deny but I should think you no wise man to build your Faith upon such Principles So that this evasion comes not near the business 2. Even in disputing against your Adversaries you cannot avoid the circle which I thus prove You offer to prove to them the Church to be Infallible out of Scripture for this you bring them particular places and think presently to vanquish them with Super hanc Petram Pasce oves Dabo tibi claves but hence ariseth another Question How you come infallibly to know that this is the sense of those places You know your Adversaries presently deny any such thing as Infallibility to be proved out of them And what way have you to assure them this is the sense of them but because your Church which is infallible delivers this to be the sense of them And is not this then a plain circle You are to believe the Church infallible because the Scripture saith so and you are to believe the Scripture saith so because the Church is infallible If this be not still a plain circle you may question whether there be any such figure in Mathematicks 3. I prove you cannot avoid the Circle from your own Confession of the nature of that Infallibility which you say is in the Church For you tell us That the Churches Testimony doth not suppose any new Revelation from God but only a supernatural Assistance of the Holy Ghost preserving her from all errour in defining the Points of Christian Faith By this Assertion you destroy all possibility of avoiding the Circle by the Motives of Credibility for if these had proved an immediate Divine Revelation in the Church I confess you had proved the Churches Infallibility independently on Scripture but when you offer to prove only a Divine Assistance with the Church in delivering former Revelations you cannot and the reason is because you can bring no ground at all why such an Assistance should be necessary in the Church or why it should be expected but from the Promises made in Scripture concerning such an Assistance of God's Spirit to be with the Church and therefore the utmost your Motives of Credibility can pretend to is only to notifie that Church from others which you suppose infallible but still the formal reason of your beleeving this Infallibility cannot be from those Motives but upon those Promises which you suppose to import such an Assistance of the Holy Ghost with the Church which shall secure her from errour So that still the Circle returns upon you For you believe the Scriptures infallible because of the Churches Testimony and you believe the Church infallible because of the Promises in Scripture concerning the Assistance of the Holy Ghost with the Church so as to secure her from all errour And thus I hope I have made good this general Attempt upon your way of resolving Faith by manifesting the great unreasonableness and manifest insufficiency of it I now come to handle the particulars of this Chapter which consists of two things Proofs and Evasions the Proofs you produce for your Churches Infallibility and your Evasions as to those Arguments which are objected by his Lordship Both of these will deserve our Consideration and if it appear that your Proofs are weak and your Evasions silly you will have no great cause to triumph in this Attempt of yours As to your Proofs two things are considerable your Method of proving and the Proofs themselves I begin with the first which you deliver in these words Wherefore as to the last demand in which only there is difficulty viz. How we know the Church to be infallibly governed by the Holy Ghost we answer that we prove it first in general not by the Scripture but by the Motives of Credibility which belong to the Church in the same manner as the Infallibity of Moses and other Prophets of Christ and his Apostles was proved which was by the Miracles they wrought and by other signs of an Infallible Spirit direction and guidance from God which appeared in them Whence it is clear that we incurr no circle That supposing all that true which you said before yet thereby you avoid not the circle I shall take it for granted I have already proved till you better inform me Our business now therefore is to consider which way you prove this Infallibility of your Church which you tell us is not by Scripture for which I commend your ingenuity but by the Motives of Credibility But lest any should think this a weak way of probation you tell us It is in the same manner that the Infallibility of all persons divinely inspired was proved not excepting Christ himself A most heroical and generous Attempt For which the Church of Rome is infinitely obliged to you if you make it good For then it necessarily follows that there is as great danger in not believing the Infallibility of your Church as in not believing Moses and the Prophets Christ and his Apostles For where there is an equal obligation to believe there is an equal sin in not believing and where the sin is equal it stands to reason that the punishment should be so too I suppose you deny not but Where there are equal Motives inducing to believe there results an equal Obligation to Faith because the Grounds obliging to assent can be no other than the Motives inducing to it and if these Motives be as strong and evident for your Churches Infallibility as for that of Moses and Christ men must be as much obliged now to believe your Church infallible as that Moses and Christ were so So that the denial of your Churches Infallibility must needs be accounted by you to be as high a piece of Infidelity as if one should call in question the Infallibility of Christ himself For you assert That you have the same Proofs for the Infallibility of your Church which there were to prove him infallible I
the liberty it indulgeth them in sin here and yet the hopes it gives them of heaven hereafter Our doctrine requires indispensable obedience to all the precepts of Christ Yours tells them those which are the most strict and severe are not precepts but counsels of perfection Ours That there is no hope of Salvation without hearty amendment of life Yours That Pennance is requisite and external satisfaction to the Church and for internals that Contrition is very commendable but if there be not that Attrition will serve the turn Ours Charges men to look to their Salvation in this life because when life is ended their estate is irrecoverable Yours That though men dye in their sins yet they may be relieved by the prayers of the living and that there is hope they may get through Purgatory to Heaven at last So that supposing any persons to own Christianity to be true it is hard to conceive there should be more Artifices imagined to reconcile the Love of the pleasures of sin here with the hopes of Heaven at last than are used by those of your Profession So that if I should suppose my self a Heathen Philosopher and any of your Profession should come and tell me These were the Precepts and these the Promises of Christian Religion but I could believe none of them but by the Infallible proposition of your Church and that I was to know your Church Infallible by that Sanctity of life which was in it when I had throughly considered not only the impieties committed by the great ones of your Religion even in Rome in the first place but the Artifices used to enervate all the Precepts of real Sanctity and so plainly to see what interest and design is carried on under all these disguises I should be insuperably assaulted with the thoughts that those of your Religion who were the Authours of these things were so far from believing your Church Infallible that they really believed neither Christian nor any other Religion in the world So much for that Sanctity of life which is in your Chuch As for your other motives of Vnity Succession Antiquity and the name of Catholick c. they have so little affinity with any pretence of Infallibility and do equally agree to those Churches as the Greek and Abyssine which you are so far from acknowledging Infallible that you will not grant them to be true Churches notwithstanding these Motives that I cannot easily imagine to what end you produced them unless to let us see you had the gift of saying something though nothing to the purpose When you have thus apparently failed in producing any shadow of proof for your Churches Infallibility by these motives of credibility we now come to see how good you are at the defensive part who have been so unhappy in your Attempts Therefore we must consider what arts you use in putting by the force of those arguments which are produced against you by his Lordship After he had urged that question against you How it may appear that your Church is infallibly governed by the Holy Ghost to which we have seen how impossible it is for you to give any satisfactory answer he proceeds to another Argument which lies in these words Besides this is an inviolable ground of reason That the principles of any conclusion must be of more credit then the conclusion it self Therefore if the Articles of Faith the Trinity the Resurrection and the rest be the conclusions and the Principles by which they are proved be only Ecclesiastical Tradition it must needs follow that the tradition of the Church is more infallible then the Articles of Faith if the Faith which we have of the Articles should be finally resolved into the veracity of the Churches Testimony To this your Answer is very considerable 1. You tell us That the ground of all this discourse is the authority of Aristotle cited in the Margent which you repeat after him But I pray Whence learn'd you that this was all the ground of his discourse For his Lordship doth not say that Aristotle saith so and therefore it is so but saies That it is an inviolable ground of reason which words you prudently left out that there might appear some shadow for such a cavil and cites only the concurrent testimony of Aristotle with that evidence of reason which is in it And will you deny this to be an undoubted principle in reason that That which is assumed as the ground and reason why I assent to any thing must be more certain and evident then that is which I assent to on that ground Certainly you must have an art above all other men to make the superstructure stronger then the foundation the particular Problems in Mathematicks more evident then the Postulata the conclusion surer then the Premisses But you think to come off this absurdity 2. By distinguishing between Science and Faith or as you express it between the proceeding of the understanding when it works naturally and necessarily by and from the evidence and clearness of its object and when it works supernaturally and produceth supernatural and free acts meerly or at least principally from the impulse and inclination of the will for in such cases the Maxim holds not viz. That the principles of a Conclusion must be of more credit then the conclusion it self Now the act of believing is such an act that is which the understanding elicites rather by a voluntary and free inclination and consent of the will then from any evident certainty in the object whereto it assents A most judicious and profound discourse to which I know not whether ever I can perswade my will but I am sure I never shall my understanding Lest you should think it is only some impulse of my will which hinders my assent I shall fairly lay down the Reasons which keep me from it 1. That all assent of the understanding is grounded upon evidence 2. That however that evidence proceeds yet the Foundation of assent must be more evident then the thing assented to And these two I suppose will fully reach the scope of your Answer by shewing that your distinction of acts natural and supernatural is both untrue and impertinent 1. That all assent is grounded upon evidence i. e. that no man can assent to any thing meerly because he will but there must be sufficient reason inducing and perswading to that assent You acknowledge this to be true in acts of Knowledge but not of Faith but What do you make to be the genus in your definition of Faith I suppose you will say it is an assent of the mind If it be so the mind cannot be supposed to elicite an act of the same nature in so repugnant a manner to it self that it should assent to any thing without evidence I know what discourses those of your party have concerning the obscurity which is necessary to Faith If you mean obscurity as to the object believed i. e.
most part yet living These are your assertions and because you seek not to prove them it shall be sufficient to oppose ours to them Our assertion therefore is that the Church and Court of Rome are guilty of this Schism by obtruding erroneous Doctrines and superstitious practises as the conditions of her Communion by adding such Articles of Faith which are contrary to the plain rule of Faith and repugnant to the sense of the truly Catholick and not the Roman Church by her intolerable incroachments and usurpations upon the liberties and priviledges of particular Churches under a vain pretence of Vniversal Pastourship by forcing men if they would not damn their souls by sinning against their consciences in approving the errours and corruptions of the Roman Church to joyn together for the Solemn Worship of God according to the rule of Scripture and practise of the Primitive Church and suspending Communion with that Church till those abuses and corruptions be redressed In which they neither deny obedience to any Lawful Authority over them nor take to themselves any other Power than the Law of God hath given them receiving their Authority in a constant Succession from the Apostles they institute no Rites and Ceremonies either contrary to or different from the practise of the Primitive Church they neither exclude or dispossess others of their Lawful Power but in case others neglect their office they may be notwithstanding obliged to perform theirs in order to the Churches Reformation Leaving the Supreme Authority of the Kingdome or Nation to order and dispose of such things in the Church which of right appertain unto it And this we assert to be the case of Schism in reference to the Church of England which we shall make good in opposition to your assertions where we meet with any thing that seems to contradict the whole or any part of it These and the like practises of yours to use your own words not any obstinate maintaining any erroneous Doctrines as you vainly pretend we averre to have been the true and real causes of that separation which is made between your Church and Ours And you truly say That Protestants were thrust out of your Church which is an Argument they did not voluntarily forsake the Communion of it and therefore are no Schismaticks but your carriage and practises were such as forced them to joyn together in a distinct Communion from you And it was not we who left your Church but your Church that left her Primitive Faith and Purity in so high a manner as to declare all such excommunicate who will not approve of and joyn in her greatest corruptions though it be sufficiently manifest that they are great recessions from the Faith Piety and Purity of that Roman Church which was planted by the Apostles and had so large a commendation from the Apostolical men of those first ages Since then such errours and corruptions are enforced upon us as conditions of Communion with you by the same reason that the Orthodox did very well in departing from the Arrians because the Arrians were already departed from the Church by their false Doctrine will our separation from you be justified who first departed from the Faith and Purity of the Primitive Church and not only so but thrust out of your Communion all such as would not depart from it as farr as you Having thus considered and retorted your Assertions we come to your Answers Nor say you does the Bishop vindicate the Protestant party by saying The cause of Schism was ours and that we Catholicks thrust Protestants from us because they call'd for truth and redress of abuses For first there can be no just cause of Schism this hath been granted already even by Protestants And so it is by us and the reason is very evident for it for if there be a just cause there can be no Schism and therefore what you intend by this I cannot imagine unless it be to free Protestants from the guilt of Schism because they put the Main of their tryal upon the justice of the cause which moved them to forsake the Communion of your Church or else you would have it taken for granted that ours was a Schism and thence inferr there could be no just cause of it As if a man being accused for taking away the life of one who violently set upon him in the High-way with an intent both to rob and destroy him should plead for himself that this could be no murther in him because there was a sufficient and justifiable cause for what he did that he designed nothing but to go quietly on his road that this person and several others violently set upon him that he intreated them to desist that he sought to avoid them as much as he could but when he saw they were absolutely bent on his ruine he was forced in his own necessary defence to take away the life of that person Would not this with any intelligent Jury be looked on as a just and reasonable Vindication But if so wise a person as your self had been among them you would no doubt have better informed them for you would very gravely have told them All his plea went on a false supposition that he had a just cause for what he did but there could be no just cause for murther Do you not see now how subtil and pertinent your Answer is here by this parallel to it For as in that case all men grant that there can be no just cause for murther because all murther is committed without a just cause and if there be one it ceaseth to be murther So it is here in Schism which being a causeless separation from the Churches Vnity I wonder who ever imagined there could be just cause for it But to rectifie such gross mistakes as these are for the future you would do well to understand that Schism formally taken alwayes imports something criminal in it and there can be no just cause for a sin but besides that there is that which if you understand it you would call the materiality of it which is the separation of one part of the Church from another Now this according to the different grounds and reasons of it becomes lawful or unlawful that is as the reasons do make it necessary or unnecessary For separation is not lawful but when it is necessary now this being capable of such a different nature that it may be good or evil according to its circumstances there can be no absolute judgement passed upon it till all those reasons and circumstances be duely examined and if there be no sufficient grounds for it then it is formally Schism i. e. a culpable separation if there be sufficient cause then there may be a separation but it can be no Schism And because the Vnion of the Catholick Church lyes in Fundamental and necessary truths therefore there can be no separation absolutely from the Catholick Church but what involves in it the
just cause of actual separation of one Church from another in that Catholick body of Christ the Church of Rome hath given as great cause as any since as Stapleton grants there is scarce any sin that can be thought on by man Heresie only excepted with which that Sea hath not been fouly stained especially from eight hundred years after Christ. And he need not except Heresie into which Biel grants it possible the Bishops of the Sea may fall And Stella and Almain grant it freely that some of them did fall and so ceased to be Heads of the Church and left Christ God be thanked at that time of his Vicars defection to look to his Cure himself But you tell us The discovery of some few motes darkens not the brightness of the Sunshine I wonder what you account Beams if the Sins of your Popes and others be but motes with you We grant that the Sun himself hath his Maculae but they are such as do not Eclipse his Light we find the Maculae in your Church but we are to seek for the bright Sunshine Or Doth it lye in the service of your Religious Votaries For that is the great part of the conspicuous Piety of your Church which you instance in But Is this indeed the bright Sunshine of your Church that there are so many thousand of both Sexes you do well to joyn them together who tye themselves by perpetual vows never to be dissolved by their own seeking and therefore doubtless pleasing to God whether they are able to keep them or no and these pray if they understand what they say and sing Divine Hymns day and night which makes the Sunshine the brighter which you say is a strange and unheard of thing among Protestants What that men and women though not in Cloysters pray and sing Hymns to God no surely For as the Devotion of our Churches is more grave and solemn so it is likewise more pious and intelligible You pray and sing but how Let Erasmus speak who understood your praying and singing well Cantiuncularum clamorum murmurum ac bomborum ubique plus satis est si quid ista delectant Superos Do you think those Prayers and Hymns are pleasing to God which lye more in the throat than the heart And such who have been wise and devout men among your selves have been the least admirers of your mimical uncouth and superstitious devotions but have rather condemned them as vain ludicrous things and wondered as Erasmus said what they thought of Christ who imagined he could be pleased with them Quid sentiunt obsecro de Christo qui putant eum ejusmodi cantiunculis delectari Are these then the glorious parts of your Devotions your Prayers and Hymns But they pray and sing Divine Hymns day and night If this be the only excellency of your Devotion How much are you out-done by the ancient Psalliani and Euchitae that spent all their time in prayer and yet were accounted Hereticks for their pains Still you pray and sing but to whom to Saints and Angels often to the Virgin Mary with great devotion and most solemn invocations but to God himself very sparingly in comparison If this then be the warm Sunshine of your Devotions we had rather use such wherein we may be sure of Gods blessing which we cannot be in such Prayers and Hymns which attribute those honours to his creatures which belong wholly to himself But you not only sing and pray but can be very idle too and the number of those men must be called Religious Orders and the Garment of the Church is said by you to be imbroidered by the variety of them and for this Psalm 44.10 is very luckily quoted And are those indeed the ornaments of your Church which were become such sinks of wickedness that those of your Church who had any modesty left were ashamed of them and call'd loud for a Reformation Those were indeed such Gardens wherein it were more worth looking for useful or odoriferous flowers as you express it than for Diogenes to find out an honest man in his croud of Citizens Therefore not to dispute with you the first Institutions of Monastick life nor how commendable the nature of it is nor the conveniencies of it where there are no indispensable vows the main things we blame in them are the restraints of mens liberties whatever circumstances they are in the great degeneracy of them in all respects from their Primitive Institutions the great snares which the consciences of such as are engaged in them are almost continually exposed to the unusefulness of them in their multitudes to the Christian world the general unserviceableness of the persons who live in them the great debaucheries which they are subject to and often over-run with and if these then be the greatest Ornaments of your Churches Garments it is an easie matter to espy the spots which she hath upon her What you add concerning the good lives of Papists and bad of Protestants if taken universally iâ— as unjust as uncharitable if indefinitely it shews only that not thâ— particular lives of men on either side but the tendency of the Doctrine to promote or hinder the sanctity of them is here to be regarded And to that you speak afterwards but in a most false and virulent manner when you say That though sins be committed among you they are not defended or justified as good works whereas among Protestants Darkness it self is called Light and the greatest of all sins viz. Heresie Schism Sacriledge Rebellion c. together with all the bad spawn they leave behind them are cryed up for perfect Virtue Zeal good Reformation and what not I doubt not but you would be ready to defend and justifie this open Raillery of yours and call it a good work notwithstanding what you said before If we had a mind to follow you in such things How easie a matter were it to rip up all the frauds impostures villanies of all sorts and kinds which have been committed by those who have sate in your Infallible Chair and charge them all on your Church with much more justice than you do the miscarriages of any under the name of Protestants For the Protestant Churches disown such persons and condemn those practices with the greatest indignation whereas you excuse palliate and plead for the lives of the Popes as much as you dare and not out-face the Sun at Noon which hath laid open their Villanies Where do the Principles of Protestants incourage or plead for Heresie Schism Sacriledge Rebellion c. much less cry them up as Heroicall actions Doth not the Church of England disown and disclaim such things to the uttermost Have not her sufferings made it appear how great a hater she is of Heresies Schisms Sacriledge and Rebellion Did she ever cry up those for Martyrs who died in Gun-powder treasons Did she ever teach it lawful to disobey Heretical Princes and to take away their lives
Yet these things have been done by you and the doers of them not condemned but rather fomented and incouraged as zealous promoters of the Holy See and most devout Sons of the Church of Rome Cease therefore to charge the guilt of persons disowned by the Church of England upon her when you are unwilling to hear of the faults of those persons among your selves whom you dare not disown I mean your Popes and Jesuits Leaving therefore these unbecoming Railleries of yours and that which occasioneth them viz. corruption of manners we come to consider that which is more pertinent to our purpose viz. errours in Doctrine which his Lordship truly assigned as the ground of the Reformation and not only that there were doctrinal errours in your Church but that some of the errours of the Roman Church were dangerous to salvation For it is not every light errour in disputable Doctrine and points of curious speculation that can be a just cause of separation in that admirable body of Christ which is his Church or of one member of it from another But that there are errours in Doctrine and some of them such as most manifestly endanger salvation in the Church of Rome is evident to them that will not shut their eyes The proof his Lordship saith runs through the particular points and so is too long for this discourse Now to this you manfully answer That in vain do they attempt to reform the Church of what she can never be guilty Which if it depends on your Churches Infallibility which is largely disproved already must needs fall to the ground with it And it is an excellent Answer when a Church is charged actually with erring to say She doth not erre because she cannot Which is all that you give us here But if you prove it no better than you have done the Heretical and Schismatical obstinacy is like to be found in that Church which in her errours challenges Infallibility The Question now comes to this Whether errours being supposed in the Doctrine and corruptions in the Communion of a Church when the General Church would not reform it was not lawful for particular Churches to reform themselves To this his Lordship answers affirmatively in these words Is it then such a strange thing that a particular Church may reform it self if the general will not I had thought and do so still that in point of Reformation of either Manners or Doctrine it is lawful for the Church since Christ to do as the Church before Christ did and might do The Church before Christ consisted of Jews and Proselytes This Church came to have a separation upon a most ungodly Policy of Jeroboams so that it never pieced together again To a Common Council to reform all they would not come Was it not lawful for Judah to reform her self when Israel would not joyn Sure it was or else the Prophet deceives me that sayes expresly Though Israel transgress yet let not Judah sin And S. Hierom expounds it of this very particular sin of Heresie and Errour in Religion After which he proves That Israel during this Separation was a true Church which we shall insist on when we have considered what Answer you return to his Lordships Argument which lyes in these two things First That Judah did not reform her self Secondly That Judah is not the Protestant party as his Lordship supposeth it to be First You say Judah did not reform her self For Juda being the orthodox Church united with her Head the High Priest and not tainted with any Doctrinal errours What need was there of her Reformation And so the meaning of that place Though Israel transgress yet let not Juda sin is rather against than for him because the sense is rather Let not Juda fall into Schism though Israel does than let Judah reform her self But if it appears that Judah had corruptions crept into her as well as Israel had though not so great and universal then it follows that by these words Judah had power to reform her self And the antecedent is clear to any one who takes the pains to read the Scripture and compare the places in it more than it seems you do For Doth not this very Prophet check Judah as well as Israel for transgressing Gods Covenant Doth he not say That God had a Controversie with Judah and would punish Jacob according to his waies And for all this Was there no need of Reformation in the Church of Judah Indeed in one place it is said That Judah ruleth with God and is faithful with his Saints but then that is to be understood of Judah when she had reformed her self in the daies of Hezekiah for surely you will not say That Judah did not stand in need of Reformation when Hezekiah began his Reign for it is said of him That he removed the high places and brake the Images and cut down the groves And were not these things which wanted Reformation think you If we consider the times of those three Kings before Hezekiah in which Hosea prophesied we shall see what need there was of Reformation among them and those were Vzziah Jotham and Ahaz of the time of Vzziah called Azariah in the Book of Kings it is said That the high places were not removed but the people sacrificed and burnt Incense still on the high places the same is affirmed of the time of Jotham in the same Chapter so that though these Princes were good themselves yet there were many corruptions still among the people But of Ahaz it is said expresly That he walked in the way of the Kings of Israel and he sacrificed and burnt Incense in the high places and on the hills and under everygreen tree Chuse now which of these three you please for it is most improbable those words considering the long time of Hosea's Prophecy should be spoken in the time of Hezekiah the last of the four Kings he prophesied under And will you tell us again That the Church of Judah needed no Reformation But you offer at a reason for it Because she was united with her Head the High-Priest at Hierusalem So then belike as long as Judah and the High-Priest were united she could be guilty of no Doctrinal Errours No not although she should pronounce Christ a blasphemer and condemn him to be crucified as a malefactor for then certainly Judah and the High-Priest were united But I know you will say You spake this of the time before the Messias was come And was it then true that as long as Judah was united with her Head the High-Priest there was no need of Reformation What think you then of the time of Ahaz when Vzziah the Priest built an Altar at the command of Ahaz according to the pattern of the Altar of Damascus contrary to Gods express Law yet according to you as long as Judah was united with her Head the High-Priest there was nothing
That to reform what is amiss in Doctrine or Manners is as lawful for a particular Church as it is to publish and promulgate any thing that is Catholick in either And your Question Quô judice lies alike against both And yet I think saith he It may be proved that the Church of Rome and that as a particular Church did promulgate an orthodox truth which was not then Catholickly admitted in the Church namely the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son If she erred in this fact confess her errour if she erred not Why may not another particular Church do as she did From whence he inferrs That if a particular Church may publish any thing that is Catholick where the whole Church is silent it may reform any thing that is not Catholick where the whole Church is negligent or will not Now to this you answer 1. That this procession from the Son was a truth alwaies acknowledged in the Church but what concerns that and the time of this Article being inserted into the Creed have been so amply discussed already that I shall not cloy the reader with any repetition having fully considered whatever you here say concerning the Article it self or its addition to the Creed 2. You answer That the consequence will not hold that if a particular Church may in some case promulgate an orthodox truth not as yet Catholickly received by the Church then a particular Church may repeal or reverse any thing that the whole Church hath already Catholickly and definitively received Surely no. Yet this say you is his Lordships and the Protestants case You do well to mention an egregious fallacy presently after these words for surely this is so For doth his Lordship parallel the promulgating something Catholick and repealing something Catholick together Surely no. But the promulgating something true but not Catholickly received with the reforming something not Catholick Either therefore you had a mind to abuse his Lordships words or to deceive the reader by beging the thing in Question viz. that all those which we call for a Reformation of were things Catholickly and definitively received by the whole Church which you know we utterly deny But you go on and say That thence it follows not that a particular Church may reform any thing that is not Catholick where the whole Church is negligent or will not because this would suppose errour or something uncatholick to be taught or admitted by the whole Church To put this case a little more plainly by the former Instance Suppose then that the Worship of God under the symbols of the Calves at Dan and Bethel had been received generally as the visible worship of the Tribes of Judah and Benjamin as well as the rest Doth not this Answer of yours make it impossible that ever they should return to the true Worship of God For this were to call in question the truth of Gods Promise to his Church and to suppose something not Catholick to be received by the whole Church And so the greater the corruptions are the more impossible it is to cure them and in case they spread generally no attempts of Reformation can be lawful which is a more false and paradoxical Doctrine than either of those which you call so And the truth is such pretences as these are are fit only for a Church that hateth to be reformed for if something not good in it self should happen in any one age to overspread the visible Communion of all particular Churches this only makes a Reformation the more necessary so far is it from making it the more disputable For thereby those corruptions grow more dangerous and every particular Church is bound the more to regard its own security in a time of general Infection And if any other Churches neglect themselves What reason is it that the rest should For any or all other particular Churches neglecting their duty is no more an argument that no particular Church should reform it self than that if all other men in a Town neglect preserving themselves from the Plague then I am bound to neglect it too But you answer 3. That all this doth not justifie the Protestants proceedings because they promulged only new and unheard of Doctrines directly contrary to what the Catholick Church universally held and taught before them for Catholick Truths This is the great thing in Question but I see you love best the lazy trade of begging things which are impossible to be rationally proved But yet you would seem here to do something towards it in the subsequent words For about the year of our Lord 1517. when their pretended Reformations began was not the real presence of our Saviours body and blood in the Eucharist by a true substantial change of Bread and Wine generally held by the whole Church Was not the real Sacrifice of the Mass then generally believed Was not Veneration of Holy Images Invocation of Saints Purgatory Praying for the dead that they might be eased of their pains and receive the full remission of their sins generally used and practised by all Christians Was not Free will Merit of good works and Justification by Charity or inherent Grace and not by Faith only universally taught and believed in all Churches of Christendom Yea even among those who in some few other points dissented from the Pope and the Latin Church To what purpose then doth the Bishop urge that a particular Church may publish any thing that is Catholick This doth not justifie at all his Reformation he should prove that it may not only add but take away something that is Catholick from the Doctrine of the Church for this the pretended Reformers did as well in England as elsewhere His Lordship never pretends much less disputes that any particular Church hath a power to take away any thing that is truly Catholick but the ground why he supposeth such things as those mentioned by you might be taken away is because they are not Catholick the Question then is between us Whether they were Catholick Doctrines or not this you attempt to prove by this medium Because they were generally held by the whole Church at the time of the Reformation To which I answer 1. If this be a certain measure to judge by what was Catholick and what not then what doth not appear to have been Catholick in this sense it was in our Churches power to reject and so it was lawful to reform our selves as to all such things which were not at the time of the Reformation received by the whole Church And what think you now of the Popes Supremacy your Churches Infallibility the necessity of Coelibate in the Clergy Communion in one kind Prayer in an unknown tongue Indulgences c. Will you say That those were generally received by the Church at the time of the Reformation If you could have said so no doubt you would not have omitted such necessary points and some of which gave the
imposed those things which had been before only the errours of particular persons as the Catholick Doctrines of that Church and the necessary conditions of Communion with her 3. I may answer yet further That it is not enough to prove any Doctrine to be Catholick that it was generally received by Christian Churches in any one Age but it must be made appear to have been so received from the Apostles times So that if we should grant that these Doctrines were owned for Catholick not only by the Church of Rome but all other Christian Churches so far as it can be discerned by their Communion yet this doth not prove these Doctrines so owned to be truly Catholick unless you can first prove that all the Christian Churches of one Age can never believe a Doctrine to be Catholick which is not so You see therefore your task increases further upon you for it is not enough to say That A. D. 1517. such and such Doctrines were looked on as Catholick and therefore they were so but that for 1517. years successively from the Apostles to that time they were judged to be so and then we shall more easily believe you When you will therefore prove Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass Image-worship Invocation of Saints or any other of the good Doctrines mentioned by you in a constant tradition from the Apostles times to have been looked on as Catholick Doctrines you may then say That Protestants in denying these did take away something Catholick from the Doctrine of the Church but till that time these Answers may abundantly suffice We now come closer to the business of the Reformation but before we examine the particulars of it the general grounds on which it proceeded must somewhat further be cleared which his Lordship tells you are built upon the power of particular Churches reforming themselves in case the whole Church is negligent or will not to which you say That you grant in effect as great power as the Bishop himself does to particular Churches to National and Provincial Councils in reforming errours and abuses either of doctrine or practice only we require that they proceed with due respect to the chief Pastor of the Church and have recourse to him in all matters and decrees of Faith especially when they define or declare points not generally known and acknowledged to be Catholick Truths What you grant in effect at first you in effect deny again afterwards For the Question is about Reformation of such errours and abuses as may come from the Church of Rome and when you grant a power to reform only in case the Pope consent you grant no power to reform at all For the experience of the world hath sufficiently taught us How little his consent is to be expected in any thing of Reformation For his Lordship truly saith in Answer to Capellus who denies particular Churches any power of making Canons of Faith without consulting the Roman See That as Capellus can never prove that the Roman See must be consulted with before any Reformation be made So it is as certain that were it proved and practised we should have no Reformation For it would be long enough before the Church should be cured if that See alone should be her Physitian which in truth is her disease Now to this you say That even Capellus himself requires this as though Capellus were not the man whom his Lordship answers as to this very thing But besides you say The practise of the Church is evident for it in the examples of the Milevitan and Carthaginian Councils which as St. Austin witnesseth sent their decrees touching Grace Original sin in Infants and other matters against Pelagius to be confirmed by the Pope but what is all this to the business of Reformation that nothing of that nature is to be attempted without the Popes consent That these Councils did by Julius an African Bishop communicate their decrees to Pope Innocent Who denyes but what is it you would thence infer to your purpose for the utmost which can be drawn hence is that they desired the Pope to contribute his assistance in condemning Pelagius and Coelestius by adding the authority of the Apostolical See to their decrees that so by the consent of the Church that growing Heresie might the more easily be suppressed And who denyes but at that time the Roman Church had great reputation which is all that Authority implyes and by that means might be more serviceable in preventing the growth of Pelagianism if it did concur with the African Councils in condemning that Doctrine But because they communicated their decrees to Pope Innocent desiring his consent with them that therefore no reformation should be attempted in the Church without the consent of the Pope is a very far-fetched inference and unhappily drawn from those African Fathers who so stoutly opposed Zosimus Innocents Successour in the case of Appeals about the business of Apiarius Did they think you look on themselves as obliged to do nothing in the reforming the Church without the Popes authority who would by no means yield to those encroachments of power which Zosimus would have usurped over them Nay it appears that till the African Fathers had better informed him Zosimus did not a little favour Coelestius himself and in case he had gone on so to do do you think they would have thought themselves ever the less obliged to reform their Churches from the Pelagian Heresie which began to spread among them And in this time of the Controversie between Zosimus and them though they carried it with all fairness towards the Roman See yet they were still careful to preserve and defend their own priviledges and in case the Pope should then have challenged that power over them which he hath done since no doubt they would not have struck at calling such incroachments The disease of the Church without any unhandsomness or incivility and would have been far from looking on him as the only Physitian of it To that pretence That things should have been born with till the time of a General Council his Lordship answers First 't is true a General Council free and entire would have been the best remedy and most able for a Gangrene that had spread so far and eaten so deep into Christianity But what should we have suffered this Gangrene to endanger life and all rather then be cured in time by a Physitian of weaker knowledge and a less able hand Secondly we live to see since if we had stayed and expected a General Council what manner of one we should have had if any For that at Trent was neither General nor free And for the errours which Rome had contracted it confirmed them it cured them not And yet I much doubt whether ever that Council such as it was would have been call'd if some Provincial and National Synods under Supreme and Regal power had not first set upon this great work of Reformation which
their ship upon a rock because some have escaped upon a plank notwithstanding So that considering on what terms we grant this possibility of salvation this Concession of ours can be no Argument at all to judge yours to be the safer way and if upon the same terms you deny it to us it shews how much more unsafe your way is where there is so much of Interess and so little Charity But you attempt to prove against all Protestants whatsoever that yours is the safer way to salvation Your first Argument in short is Because we grant that you may be saved upon our own principles but you deny that we may be saved upon yours And what is there more in this Argument but a multitude of words to little purpose then there is in that which his Lordship examines For the main force of it lyes in this That is the safest way which both parties are agreed in and therefore although you would have your Major proposition put out of all doubt yet that wants more proof then I doubt you are able to give it For although we grant Men may be saved who have true Faith Repentance and a holy Conversation without any such Sacrament of Pennance which you make necessary for conveying the grace of Justification yet What security can thence come to a man in the choice of his Religion since we withall say That where there is a continuance in the corruptions and errours of your Church it is hard to conceive there should be that Faith and Repentance which we make necessary to Salvation You go therefore on a very false supposition when you take it for granted that we acknowledge that all those whom you admit to your Sacrament of Pennance have all things upon our own principles which are necessary to Salvation And so your Minor is as false as your Major uncertain viz. That many are saved in the Roman Church according to the principles which are granted on both sides But you would seem to prove That all admitted by you at death to the Sacrament of Pennance as you call it have all things necessary to Salvation upon Protestant principles because you say That Faith Hope true Repentance and a purpose of Amendment are necessary to the due receiving the Sacrament of Pennance and these are all which Protestants make necessary to Salvation But supposing that Is it necessary that all those things must be in them which make the necessary requisites to this Sacrament of yours Do none receive this unworthily as many do a far greater Sacrament than this granting it to be any at all It seems Salvation is very easie to be had in your Church then for this Sacrament is supposed by you to be given to men upon their death-beds when you say It cannot be supposed that men will omit any thing necessary for the attaining Salvation and by vertue of this Sacrament they receive the grace of Justification whereby of sinners they are made the Sons of God and heires of eternal life But I assure you we who believe Men must be saved only by the terms of the Gospel make no such easie matter of it as you do we profess the necessity of a through-renovation of heart and life to be indispensable in order to happiness for without holiness no man shall see the Lord and although we take not upon us to judge the final estate of men whose hearts we know not yet the Gospel gives us very little ground to think that such who defer the work of their Salvation to their death-beds shall ever attain to it The main design of Christian Religion being The turning mens souls from sin to God in order to the serving him in this world that they may be happy in another For if Salvation depended on no more then you require the greatest part of the Gospel might have been spared whose great end is to perswade men to holiness of heart and life It is not a meer purpose of amendment when men can sin no longer that we make only necessary to Salvation But so hearty a repentance of sin past as to carry with it an effectual reformation without this men may flatter themselves into their own ruine by your Sacraments of Pennance and such contrivances of men but there can be no grounded hopes of any freedom from eternal misery And their Faith too must be as weak as their Repentance shallow who dare venture their souls into another world upon no better security than that By receiving the Sacrament of Pennance they are made the Sons of God and heirs of eternal life But you betray men into stupid ignorance and carelesness as to their eternal Salvation and then deal most unfaithfully with them by telling them that a death-bed Repentance will suffice them and the Sacrament of Pennance will presently make them heirs of eternal life So that although your Doctrine be very unreasonable and your Superstitions very gross yet this unfaithfulness to the souls of men makes all true lovers of Christian Religion and of the Salvation of mens souls more averse from your Doctrine and Practises then any thing else whatsoever For what can really be more pernicious to the world then to flatter them into the hopes of Salvation without the performance of those things which if the Gospel be true are absolutely necessary in order to it How quietly do you permit the most stupid ignorance in such who are the zealous practisers of your fopperies and superstitions What excellent arts have you to allure debauches upon their death-beds to you by promising them that in another world which our principles will not allow us to do How many wayes have you to get the pardon of sin or at least to delude people with the hopes of it without any serious turning from sin to God What do your Doctrines of the sufficiency of bare contrition and the Sacraments working grace ex opere operato of Indulgences Satisfactions regulating the intention and the like tend to but to supersede the necessity of a holy life And at last you exchange the inward hatred and mortification of sin for some external severities upon mens bodies which is only beating the servant for the Masters fault So that it is hard to imagine any Doctrine or way of Religion which owns Christianity which doth with more apparent danger to the souls of men undermine the foundations of Faith and Obedience than yours doth And as I have at large shewed the former How destructive your principles are to the grounds of Faith so it hath been fully and lately manifested by a learned Bishop of our Church What Doctrines and practises are allowed in your Church which in themselves or their immediate consequences are direct impieties and give warranty to a wicked life Which being so of your own side we must see what reasons you give for your most uncharitable Censure That there are very few or none among Protestants that escape damnation And
weakness of your Argument For the crimes of Schism and unsoundness of Faith are still as chargeable upon you though we may grant a possibility of Salvation to some in your Church And I cannot possibly discern any difference between the judgment of the Catholicks concerning the Donatists and ours concerning you for if they judged the Donatists way very dangerous because of their uncharitableness to all others so do we of yours but if they notwithstanding that hoped that the misled people among them might be saved that is as much as we dare say concerning you And you very much mistake if you think the contrary For his Lordship no where saith as you would seem to impose upon him That a man may live and dye in the Roman Church and that none of his errours shall hinder salvation whatsoever motives he may know to the contrary But on the other side he plainly saith That he that lives in the Roman Church with a resolution to live and dye in it is presumed to believe as that Church believes And he that doth so I will not say is as guilty but guilty he is more or less of the Schism which that Church first caused by her corruptions and now continues by them and her power together And of all her damnable opinions too and all other sins also which the Doctrine and mis-belief of that Church leads him into Judge you now I pray Whether we think otherwise of those in your Church than the Orthodox did of the Donatists So that if the Argument doth hold for you it would as well have held for them too And therefore his Lordship well inferrs That this Principle That where two parties are dissenting it is safest believing that in which both parties agree or which the adversary confesses may lead men by your own confession into known and damnable Schism and Heresie for such you say the Donatists were guilty of And such his Lordship saith there is great danger of in your Church too for saith he in this present case there 's peril great peril of damnable both Schism and Heresie and other sins by living and dying in the Roman Faith tainted with so many superstitions as at this day it is and their tyranny to boot I pray now bethink your self What difference is there between the Orthodox judgement of the Donatists and ours concerning your Church And therefore the comparison between Petilian the Donatist and his Lordships adversary holds good still for all your Answer depends upon a mistake of Protestants granting a possibility of Salvation as I have already shewed you And in what way soever you limit this agreement you cannot possibly avoid but that it would equally hold as to the Donatists too for the concession was then as great in order to Salvation as it is now But you say Whether he asserts it or no it must needs follow from the Bishops Principles that there can be no peril of damnation by living and dying in the Roman Church because he professedly exempts the Ignorant and grants as much of those who do wittingly and knowingly associate themselves to the gross superstitions of the Roman Church if they hold the Foundation Christ and live accordingly From whence you argue That if neither voluntary nor involuntary superstition can hinder from Salvation then there is confessedly no peril of damnation in your Church And yet his Lordship saith All Protestants unanimously agree in this That there is great peril of damnation for any man to live and dye in the Roman Perswasion And therefore saith he that is a most notorious slander where you say that they which affirm this peril of damnation are contradicted by their own more learned Brethren By which we see the unjustice of your proceeding in offering to wrest his Lordships words contrary to his express meaning and since all your Argument depends upon your adversaries confession you ought to take that confession in the most clear and perspicuous terms and to understand all obscure expressions suitably to their often declared sense Which if you had attended to you would never have undertaken to prove that this Lordship grants that there is no peril of damnation in your Church which he so often disavows and calls it a most notorious slander and a most loud untruth which no ingenuous man would ever have said And even of those persons whom he speaks most favourably of he saith That although they wish for the abolishing the superstitions in use yet all he grants them is a possibility of Salvation but with extreme hazard to themselves by keeping close to that which is superstition and comes so near Idolatry Are these then such expressions which import no peril of damnation in the Roman Church And therefore when he speaks of the possibility of the Salvation of such who associate themselves wittingly and knowingly to the gross superstitions of the Romish Church he declares sufficiently that he means it not of those who do in heart approve of them but only of such who though they are convinced they are gross superstitions yet think they may communicate with those who use them as long as they do not approve of them Which errour of theirs though he looks on it as dangerous yet not as wholly destructive of Salvation But since your Answer to this is That he mistakes very much in supposing such persons to belong to your Church and Communion you are not aware How much thereby you take off from the Protestants Confession since those whom we contend for a possibility of Salvation for are such only whom you deny to be of your Churches Communion and so the Argument signifies much less by your confession than it did before Thus we see how this Argument upon the same terms you manage it against us would have held as well in the behalf of the Donatists against the Communion of the Catholick Church For what other impertinencies you mix here and there it is time now to pass them over since the main grounds of them have been so fully handled before We therefore proceed to the second Answer his Lordship gives to this Argument viz. That if the Principle on which it stands doth hold it makes more for the advantage of Protestants than against them For if that be safest which both parties are agreed in then 1. You are bound to believe with us in the point of the Eucharist For all sides agree in the Faith of the Church of England that in the most blessed Sacrament the worthy Receiver is by his Faith made spiritually partaker of the true and real body and blood of Christ truly and really and of all the benefits of his passion Your Roman Catholicks add a manner of this presence Transubstantiation which many deny and the Lutherans Consubstantiation which more deny If this Argument be good then even for this consent it is safer communicating with the Church of England than with the
Church because that was the root and matrix of the Catholick Church his advice had signified nothing for the Question was not between the Church of Rome and other Churches in which case it might have been pertinent to have said they should adhere to the Church of Rome because that was the root c. But when the difference was at Rome it self between two Bishops there this reason had been wholly impertinent for the only reason proper in this case must be such as must discriminate the one party from the other which this could not do because it was equally challenged by them both And had belonged to one as well as the other in case Novatianus had proved the lawful Bishop and not Cornelius And therefore the sense of Cyprian's words must be such as might give direction which party to joyn with at Rome on which account they cannot import any priviledge of the Church of Rome over other Churches but only contain this advice that they should hold to the Vnity of the Catholick Church and communicate only with that party which did it This reason is so clear and evident to me that this place cannot be understood of any priviledge of the Church of Rome above other Churches that if there were nothing else to induce me to believe it this were so pregnant that I could not resist the force of it But besides this his Lordship proves that elsewhere S. Cyprian speaks in his own person with other Catholick Bishops nos qui Ecclesiae unius caput radicem tenemus we who hold the head and root of one Church by which it appears he could not make the Church of Rome the root and matrix of the Catholick this being understood of the Vnity and Society of the Catholick Church without relation to the Church of Rome and S. Cyprian writes to Cornelius that they had sent Caldonius and Fortunatus to reduce the Church of Rome to the Vnity and Communion of the Catholick Church and because no particular Church can be the root of the Catholick and if any were Jerusalem might more pretend to it than Rome and because S. Cyprian and his Brethren durst not have suspended their communion at all if they had looked on the Church of Rome as the root and matrix of the Catholick as Baronius confesses they did all which things are largely insisted on by his Lordship and do all confirm that hereby was not meant any Authority or Priviledge of the Church of Rome above other Apostolical Churches which in respect of the lesser Churches which came from them are called Matrices Ecclesiae by Tertullian and others But you are still so very unreasonable that though no more be said of the Church of Rome than might be said of any other Apostolical Church yet because it is said of the Church of Rome it must import some huge Authority which if it had been said of any other would have been interpreted by your selves into nothing For so do you deal with us here for because it is said that they who joyned with Cornelius did preserve the Unity of the Catholick Church therefore it must needs be understood that the Roman Church is the root of the Catholick But he must have a very mean understanding that can be swayed by such trifles as these are For Was there not a Catholick and Schismatical party then at Rome and if they who joyned with Novatianus did separate from the Catholick Church then they who were in communion with Cornelius must preserve the Vnity of it And Would not this Argment as well prove the Catholick party at Carthage to be the root and matrix of the Catholick Church as well as at Rome But such kind of things must they deal with who are resolved to maintain a cause and yet are destitute of better means to do it with So that I cannot find any thing in all your Answer but what would equally hold for any other Church at that time which was so divided as Rome was considering the great care that then was used to preserve the Vnity of the Catholick Church And what particularly S. Cyprian's apprehension was concerning the Nature and Vnity of the Catholick Church we have at large discoursed already to which place we referr the Reader if he desires any further satisfaction Your whole N. 5. depends on personal matters concerning the satisfaction of the Lady's conscience but if you would thence inferr That she did well to desert the Protestant Communion you must prove that it can be no sin to follow the dictates of an erroneous conscience For such we say it was in her and you denying it all this discourse signifies nothing but depends on the truth of the matters in controversie between us But you most notoriously impose on his Lordship when because he asserts the possibility of Salvation of some in your Church you would make him say That it is no sin to joyn with your Church You might as well say Because he hopes some who have committed Adultery may be saved therefore it is no sin to commit Adultery So that while you are charging him falsly for allowing dissimulation you do that which is more in saying that which you cannot but know to be a great untruth If our Religion be not the same with yours as you eagerly contend it is not let it suffice to tell you that our Religion is Christianity let yours be what it will And if it please you better to have a name wholly distinct from us yours shall be called the Roman Religion and ours the Christian. If you judge us of another Religion from yours because we do not believe all that you do we may judge you to have a different Religion from the Christian because you impose more by your own confession to be believed as necessary in order to Salvation than ever Christ or the Apostles did And certainly the main of any Religion consists in those things which are necessary to be believed in it in order to eternal happiness In your following discourse you are so far from giving us any hopes of peace with your Church that you plainly give us the reason why it is vain to expect or desire it which is that if your Church should recede from any thing it would appear she had erred and if that appears farewell Infallibility and then if that be once gone you think all is gone And while you maintain it we are so far from hoping any peace with you that the Peace of Christendom may still be joyned in the Dutchmans Sign with the quadrature of the circle and the Philosophers Stone for the sign of the three hopelesse things How far we are bound to submit to General Councils hath been so fully cleared already that I need not go about here to vindicate his Lordships Opinion from falsity or contradiction both which you unreasonably charge it with and that still from no wiser a
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
from the very Apostles times and consequently that it must be held for an Apostolical Tradition or nothing can be So then if confidence would carry it we must not only tremble at the fears of Purgatory but we must firmly believe it as an Article of Faith and as a most undoubted Apostolical Tradition But before we can digest these things we must see a little more ground for them than as yet we do and therefore you must be content to hear our reasons Why we neither look on it as a matter of Faith or Apostolical tradition in order to which nothing is more necessary then to enquire what you mean by Purgatory For as long as you can shelter your selves under General words you think you are safe enough but when we once bring you to a fuller explication of your meaning Purgatory it self is not half so evident as those impostures are whereby you would maintain it But for our clear understanding this Controversie we must find out what your Doctrine is concerning it for as confident as you are of it there are not a few among you who are afraid to declare what you mean by it lest by that means the world should see how far it is from having foundation either in Scripture or Antiquity We are therefore told by some either are ashamed of the Doctrine it self or loth to betray their cause who by declaring themselves that your Church requires no more then to believe that there is a Purgatory for which they avouch the Council of Trent which only defines That the sound Doctrine concerning Purgatory should be taught This was indeed necessary to be said by such who do not at all believe the Roman Doctrine concerning it what ever they pretend but rather agree with the Greek Church about the middle state of souls But although the Council of Trent did not expresly define what they meant by Purgatory yet the sense of the Council concerning it is easie to be gathered from the comparing of places together in it For the Council of Trent in the last Session when it passed the decree of Purgatory referrs us to two things by which we may fully understand the meaning of it For in the Preface to the Decree it saith That the Catholick Church had in this and former Oecumenical Councils taught that there was a Purgatory by which we may understand What this Purgatory is which was now decreed and you say we are bound to believe it as an Article of Faith Now in all the former Decrees and Anathematisms of the Council there is no place which seems to concern the Doctrine of Purgatory so much as the thirtieth Anathema of the sixth Session in these words Si quis ita reatum poenae aeternae deleri dixerit ut nullus remaneat reatus poenae temporalis exsolvendae vel in hoc seculo vel in futuro in Purgatorio antequam ad regna coelorum aditus patere possit Anathema sit If any one shall affirm that the guilt of eternal punishment is so forgiven as that there remains no guilt of temporal punishment to be paid either in this life or hereafter in Purgatory before there can be any entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven let them be Anathema From whence it evidently follows that the Doctrine of Purgatory as it is taught by the Council of Trent doth depend upon this principle That there is a guilt of temporal punishment remaining after the sin is pardoned which temporal punishment is to be satisfied for either in this life or in Purgatory So that all those who are in Purgatory are there on that account that they might satisfie the justice of God for the temporal punishment of sin For the guilt of mortal sin being remitted by the merits of Christ the punishment is supposed still to remain which being exchanged from eternal to temporal by the keyes of the Church this punishment remains to be satisfied for in the pains of Purgatory But this punishment being temporal the possibility of a release from them is necessarily supposed before the day of judgement for the Council of Trent in the Decree of Purgatory declares that the souls there detained are relieved by the prayers of the Faithful and especially by the sacrifice of the Altar Which in the 22 Session it saith is offer'd pro defunctis in Christo nondum ad plenum purgatis for the departed in Christ not yet fully purg'd So that the satisfaction of the debt of temporal punishment which remains when the sin is pardoned and the translation of souls from thence to Heaven by the prayers of the living and the sacrifice of the Mass are the main Foundations of the Doctrine of your Church concerning Purgatory And this will further appear by the state of the Controversie between the Greek and Latin Church upon this Subject For the main thing which the Greeks objected against the Latins was this temporary punishment for sin in a future state For they say in their Apology delivered into the Council of Basil We own no Purgatory fire nor any temporary punishment by fire which shall have an end for we received no such thing by tradition nor doth the Eastern Church confess it And afterwards We deny that any souls pass through this fire to eternal fire for in saying so we should weaken the consent of the whole Church and it is to be fear'd if we should assert such a temporary fire that people would be apt to believe that all the fire in the other life were only temporary by which means they would fall into such neglect and carelesness that they would make the more fuel for eternal fire And therefore they conclude That they neither have nor shall assert any such Purgatory fire But you would seem to perswade us That the Contest between the Greeks and Latins was only whether the fire of Purgatory were material or no For you say The Greeks in the Council of Florence never doubted in the least measure nor denyed Purgatory it self but only question'd Whether the fire were material or metaphorical But if you speak of those Greeks who held to what was generally received in the Greek Church you are very much deceived therein for the sense of the Greek Church was fully delivered by them in this Apology penned as is supposed by Marcus Ephesius but the year before at the Council of Basil and herein they not only dispute against the fire but against any such state of purgation after this life by the undergoing any temporary punishment for sin For thus that Apology ends For these causes the Doctrine proposed of a Purgatory fire is to be cast out of the Church as that which tends to slacken the endeavours of the diligent and which hinders them from doing their utmost to purge themselves in this life since another purgation is expected after it Is not this plain enough for their denyal of any state of purgation after this life by which men
they assert we may look on them as private opinions of particular persons but not as such things which were received as Articles of Faith For whatsoever is received as such it must be wholly on the account of Gods revealing it who only can oblige us to believe with that assent which is required to Faith And if it be so as to all other things much more certainly as to the future state of souls of which we can know nothing certainly without Divine Revelation For since the remission of sins and the happiness of the future life depend upon the goodness and mercy of God we can define nothing as to these things any further then God hath declared them If God hath declared that remission of sins lyes in the taking away the obligation to punishment it will be a contradiction to say That he pardons those whom he exacts the punishment of sin from purely to satisfie his justice if he hath declared that the souls of the faithful are in joy and felicity assoon as they are delivered out of this sinful world it is impossible they should undergo unsufferable pains though not to eternity I dispute not now Whether he hath so revealed these things but that it is impossible for any thing to be looked on as an Article of Faith but what hath clear Divine Revelation for it And therefore although many testimonies of the Fathers might be produced one way or other as to these things when they speak only their own fancies and imaginations and not what God hath revealed they cannot all put together make the opinion they assert to be an Article of Faith Nothing is more apparent then that the itching curiosity of humane nature to know more then God hath revealed concerning the future state of souls did betimes discover it self in the Church But the strange diversity of these Imaginations were a sufficient evidence that they speak not by any certain rule but according to their different fancies and therefore that they did not deliver any Doctrine of Faith but only their own private opinions If you would therefore prove that the Fathers did own Purgatory as an Article of Faith you must not think it enough to prove that one or two of the Fathers did speak something tending to it but that all who had occasion to mention it did speak of it as the Doctrine of the Church and that which came from an immediate Divine Revelation 2. There is no reason That should be looked on as an Article of Faith which they who seemed to assert it most did build on such places which they acknowledged themselves to be very obscure For since they deduced it from Scripture it is apparent that they did not believe it on the account of any unwritten word or Divine Revelation conveyed meerly by Tradition and since they confess the places to be very difficult it is unreasonable to judge that they looked on that as a matter of Faith which they supposed was contained in them As for instance St. Austin in several places asserts that all things necessary to be believed are clearly revealed in Scripture and withall he sayes that the place 1 Cor. 3.15 is very difficult and obscure and that it is one of those places in St. Paul which St. Peter saith are hard to be understood and therefore it is not conceivable that S. Austin should make any thing a matter of Faith which he founds upon this place And this is the great and almost only considerable Place which he or the rest of the Fathers did insist on as to the nature of that purgation which was to be in a future state 3. That cannot be looked on as an Article of Faith to such persons who express their own doubts concerning the truth of it For whatever is owned as an Article of Faith by any person is thereby acknowledged to be firmly believed by him Now upon our enquiry into the Fathers we shall find the first person who seemed to assert that any faithful souls passed through a fire of purgation before the day of judgement was St. Austin but he delivers his judgement with so much fear and hesitancy that any one may easily see that he was far from making it any Article of Faith We must consider then that in St. Augustin's time there were many who though they denied Origen's opinion as to the Salvation at last of all persons yet were very willing to believe it as to all those who died in the Communion of the Church that though they passed through the flames of Hell for their sins yet at last they should be saved and for this they mainly insisted on 1 Cor. 3.15 where it is said That some should be saved but as by fire Such say they build upon the foundation gold silver pretious stones who to their Faith add good works but they hay wood and stubble whose life is contrary to their Faith and yet these latter they asserted should come to Heaven at last but they must undergo the torments of Hell first Against these St. Austin writes his book de fide operibus wherein he proves that such as live in sin shall be finally excluded the Kingdom of Heaven And when he comes to the interpretation of that place he gives this account of it That those who do so love Christ as rather to part with all things for him than to lose him but yet have too great a love to the things of the world shall suffer grief and loss on that account Sive ergo in hâc vitâ tantum homines ista patiuntur sive etiam post hanc vitam talia quaedam judicia subsequuntur non abhorret quantum arbitror à ratione veritatis iste intellectus hujus sententiae Whether saith he men suffer these things in this life or such judgements follow after it I suppose this sense of S. Paul 's meaning is not dissonant from truth So far was he from being certain of it that he puts in quantum arbitror as far as I suppose and yet he would not define whether that loss which they were to suffer were only in this life or no. And in his Enchiridion to Laurentius where he disputes the very same matter he saith Tale aliquid post hanc vitam fieri incredibile non est utrum ita sit quaeri potest aut inveniri aut latere Nonnullos fideles per ignem quendam purgatorium quanto magis minusve bona pereuntia dilexerunt tanto tardius citiusve salvari It is not incredible that such a thing should be after this life and it may be enquired after whether it be found to be so or no that some faithful souls pass through a purging fire and are saved sooner or later according to the degree of their affection to worldly things Will any man in his wits think that St. Austin spake this of any matter of Faith or that was generally received in the Church as an Apostolical Tradition Did
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
doth as Bellarmin contends elsewhere contradict this by so much the less is his testimony of any validity in this case it being plain what his meaning is here but that seems the less probable because he writ his Books against the Pelagians in which he asserts the same not long before his death This purging fire then of St. Hierome makes little for your purpose since it is only a more refined branch of Origens Hypothesis and is understood of a fire after the Resurrection and that of Hell and not of Purgatory and wherein wicked men shall be purged if they dyed in the Churches Communion and not such who repented of their sins in this life But if St. Hierom himself do not speak to the purpose you hope one under his name may do it and we must needs say Purgatory hath been alwayes beholding to forgeries for you cite his Commentaries on the Proverbs which are rejected as counterfeit by Sixtus Senensis Canus Marianus Victorius and Bellarmin himself But from St. Hierome we proceed to St. Basil who you say teaches the same Doctrine with him if he doth it is very little for your comfort But so far was St. Basil from asserting your Doctrine that although he speaks of a purging fire he speaks not at all concerning it in another life but only of that which purgeth out sins in the souls of men in this life For he calls the Spirit of God working upon mens souls that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which consumes sin within them as may be seen by comparing his Commentaries on the sixth and the ninth of Isaiah together And where he afterwards speaks not of an utter rejection but an expurgation as by fire it is plain that he understands it of the fire of affliction in this life and not the fire of Purgatory in another But where ever you meet with fire and purging you think it impossible to be understood of any thing but your Purgatory it seems you are hugely possessed with the fears of it that you think you meet with it where ever you go But if you will needs have St. Basil to speak of a future state then your own Sixtus Senensis and Estius will tell you that he is to be understood of the fire of Conflagration at the Day of Judgement of which he speaks in several other places And so Nicetas understands the place of Gregory Nazianzene which you produce about Baptism by fire for saith he Per ignis baptismum examen censuramque divini judicii intelligit and for that cites the place of the Apostle Every mans work shall be tryed by fire This he calls elsewhere the last fire by which our works shall be judged and purged And of this Lactantius and Hilary are to be understood for Hilary expresly saith That even the Virgin Mary shall pass through it whom I hope you will not place in Purgatory The testimony of Boethius shall then be taken when you prove that he doth not speak in the person of a Philosopher but of a Christian delivering matters of Faith with an ut puto but if you had considered the design of his Book for the sake of Philosophy you might have spared his citation And so you might for your own sake that of Theodoret which not only the Greeks in their Apology cry out on as counterfeit but no such place as yet appears in any edition of Theodoret. And the same Greeks tell you if you consulted the honour of Gregory Nyssen you would spare him too because he was a favourer of the Origenical Hypothesis concerning the redintegration of all things and so many places are produced out of him wherein he makes the nature of all pains to be Purgatory that the Patriarch Germanus of whom Photius speaks had no other way to vindicate him but by saying that the Origenists had foisted many places into his works If you will therefore say That it is a groundless calumny to say that any of the Fathers did corrupt the Christian Doctrine by the opinions of Plato you must either deny that Origen and his followers ever asserted any Doctrine contrary to Christianity and therein contradict the fifth Oecumenical Council or that any of the Fathers had any touch of Origen's opinion both which I suppose are tasks you will be unwilling to undertake But whether their opinions are true or false which we are not now enquiring after to be sure they are far enough from your Doctrine of Purgatory which supposeth the Sin pardoned in this life and yet the punishment undergone for it in another which Doctrine if it were granted at all reasonable it would be much more asserting it to be after the Resurrection when the body might endure pains as well as the soul than so absurdly as you make the soul only to suffer and that too in a way the most unlikely of all other viz. by a material fire But it is time we come to the succour of St. Austin who it seems hath his share of Purgatory in this life for you say He hath the ill hap to be used the worst of all other Because his Lordship represents him as dubious and uncertain as no doubt he was in this point which argues indeed that he was a Novice in your Roman Faith but thereby the more a Father of the Church But you are the man that let St. Augustin say what he will himself will prove to his face that he could not possibly be thought to deny or doubt of Purgatory And it is a Combat worth seeing to see you dispute against St. Augustin but you do it so pittifully that St. Austin remains as uncertain as ever he was The only place which seems to the purpose Constat animas purgari post hanc vitam c. is so notorious a counterfeit that not only Vives confesses no such words appeared in the ancient Copies but they are wholly left out not only in the Basil Edition 1556. but in that of Lyons 1560. and in the later Lovain and Paris editions The other places you confess your self relate to the benefit which the dead receive by the prayers of the living of which a large account hath been already given without any supposition of Purgatory Whether St. Austins doubts did referr only to the circumstances of Purgatory and not to the thing it self I leave it to the consideration of any reasonable man who will read the places already cited wherein those doubts are expressed By which one may see at what rate you use your expressions when you can have the face to say That S. Austin no less constantly teaches the Doctrine of Purgatory than he doth the Doctrine of Heaven and Hell Which after the language of the Sorbon-Censures is a false rash and scandalous assertion and as ungrounded as Purgatory it self The remaining testimonies of St. Cyril and St. Chrysostom only speak of prayer for the dead and the benefit of that and so offers
wrought to attest this Infallibility For as long as you require such an assent to the present Churches Infallibility it is necessary on your own grounds that the present Church should alwayes work miracles in order to the proving this Infallibility 2. We desire such miracles as may sufficiently convince the Infidels as to this point of your Infallibility For that was alwayes the way used in Scripture The intention of miracles was to perswade those who did not believe Would Pharaoh or the Aegyptians have believed Moses if all his miracles had been wrought in a corner where none but Israelites had been present Would the Jews have believed in Christ if he had not come in publick among them and wrought such frequent publick and uncontrouled miracles that his greatest enemies durst not deny them If you would then have us believe your present Churches Infallibility let your Pope or at least your Priests come and do such kind of miracles among us which may bear the examination of inquisitive men and then try whether we will not believe your Infallibility but till then excuse us Think not we are of such easie Faith that the pretended growing out of a Leg in Spain or any of your famous miracles wrought by your Priests in Italy will perswade us to believe your Church Infallible It is alwayes observed your miracles are most talked on where people are most ignorant and therefore most apt to be deceived Your Priests like the Devils in the Primitive times can do no feats when their opposers are by It is an easie thing for a stump to grow a Leg in its passage from Spain hither for Fama crescit eundo such things are most believed where circumstances are least capable of examination And the juglings and impostures of your Priests have been so notorious in this kind that their pretences to miracles have made more Infidels then Catholicks by making men more apt to question whether ever there were any real miracles done then believe the truth of yours Very likely then it is that you should perswade the world your Church is Infallible because of the miracles wrought in it 3. What discrimination do you put between those lying wonders which you are foretold shall be wrought at the coming of Antichrist and those pretended miracles which are wrought among you Convince us by sufficient evidence that the things which seem most confirmed by your miracles viz. Invocation of Saints is a thing consonant to the doctrine established by the undoubted miracles of Christ and his Apostles If it be contrary to it either you must prove that doctrine false or if you admit it true you prove your miracles to be false because contrary to a doctrine established by miracles undoubtedly Divine And God can never be supposed to attest with miracles the truth of doctrines contrary to each other And thence the wisest of your Church are so far from insisting on this of miracles for a motive of credibility concerning your Churches Infallibility that they leave it out from being a note of the Church because Hereticks as they say may as to all outward appearance work as great miracles as the best Catholicks And therefore Bellarmin saith No man can have an absolute certainty concerning the truth of miracles because the Devil though he cannot work true miracles can work as to appearance the greatest Therefore since the confirmation of Christian Religion by miracles undoubtedly Divine there can be no relyance on the tryal of miracles for the truth of any doctrine for those very miracles and doctrine must be judged according to that rule of Faith which was confirmed by Divine miracles Thus we have examined those motives which seem most to prove Infallibility and shewn how little they agree to the present Churches Infallibility 3. As to the other motives what evidence do you produce That where-ever they are the Church is Infallible and that these do infallibly belong to your Church for both these must be made evident or you do nothing Now these motives are Sanctity of life Succession Vnity Antiquity and the very name of Catholick c. How hard is it to conceive the connexion between these and infallibility Nay they are so far from it that it hath been abundantly proved against your party that these are no certain notes of the true Church which is a Controversie I shall not now discuss And if the Church cannot be proved to be true by them much less certainly will it be proved to be Infallible But suppose all this is your Church so remarkable for Sanctity of life that it should be a motive for your Infallibility Have your Popes been indeed such Holy men that we may not question but they were moved by the Holy Ghost when they spake Certainly you have some other way to know it then all Histories both of friends and enemies and the constant fame of the world which hath then much abused us with stories quite of another nature Or is the state of your Church so pure and holy that it must shew it self Infallible by that But whom will you be judged by in this case I desire you not to stand to the verdict of your Adversaries Will you believe men of your own Communion pray read what sad complaints are made of the degenerate state of your Church by Petrarch Mantuan Clemangis Espencaeus Erasmus Cassander and several others and judge you whether we have not reason to cry up the Sanctity of your Church But these it may be you will say were discontented persons Will you believe then your Cardinals And if ever you will believe them it should certainly be when they meet to advise concerning the state of your Church and was not this the expression of the Colledge of chosen Cardinals for reformation of the Church under Paul 3. Per nos inquimus per nos nomen Christi blasphematur apud gentes Is not this a great evidence of your Sanctity If you will not believe the Cardinals you will not certainly question the judgement of him whom you would fain have to be Infallible the Pope himself And these are the words of Adrian 6. in his Instructions to his Legat at the diet of Norimberg A. D. 1522. Scimus in hâc Sede aliquot jam annis multa abominanda fuisse abusus in Spiritualibus excessus in mandatis omnia denique in perversum mutata If ever Pope was Infallible he was in saying so and he could not but be in Cathedrâ when he said it You see then what evidence you have from your selves concerning that Sanctity of life which is in your Church But it may be still you do not mean real Sanctity but that the doctrine of your Church tends more to promote it then that of any other Church I heartily wish the quite contrary could not be too truly said of it and it is well known that one of your great Artifices whereby you perswade great Persons to your Religion is