as because you impose them and will allow your Communion to none but to those that will hold them with you and have so ordered your Communion that either we must communicate with you in these things or nothing And for this very reason though it were granted that these Protestants held this Doctrin which you impute to them And though this Error were as damnable and as much against the Creed as you pretend Yet after all this this disparity between you and them might make it more lawful for us to communicate with them than you because what they hold they hold to themselves and refuse not as you do to communicate with them that hold the contrary 41. Thus we may answer your Argument though both your former Suppositions were granted But then for a second answer I am to tell you that there is no necessity of granting either of them For neither do these Protestants hold the failing of the Church from its being but only from its visibility which if you conceive all one then must you conceive that the Stars fail every day and the Sun every night Neither is it certain that the Doctrin of the Churches failing is repugnant to the Creed For as the truth of the Article of the Remission of sins depends not upon the actual remission of any mans sins but upon Gods readiness and resolution to forgive the sins of all that believe and repent so that although unbelief or impenitence should be universal and the Faithful should absolutely fail from the children of men and the son of man should find no faith on the earth yet should the Article still continue true that God would forgive the sins of all that repent In like manner it is not certain that the truth of the Article of the Catholick Church depends upon the actual existence of a Catholick Church but rather upon the right that the Church of Christ or rather to speak properly the Gospel of Christ hath to be universally believed And therefore the Article may be true though there were no Church in the world In regard this notwithstanding it remains still true that there ought to be a Church and this Church ought to be Catholick For as of these two Propositions There is a Church in America and There should be a Church in America The truth of the latter depends not upon the truth of the former so neither does it in these two There is a Church diffused all the world over and There should be a Church diffused all the world over 44. Ad § 17. The next Section in three long leaves delivers us this short sense That those Protestants which say they have not left the Churches external Communion but only her corruptions pretend to do that which is impossible Because these corruptions were inherent in the Churches external Communion and therefore he that forsakes them cannot but forsake this 45. Ans But who are they that pretend they forsook the Churches corruptions and not her external communion Some there be that say they have not left the Church that is not ceased to be members of the Church but only left her corruptions some that they have not left the communion but the corruptions of it meaning the internal communion of it and conjunction with it by faith and obedience which disagree from the former only in the manner of speaking for he that is in the Church is in this kind of communion with it and he that is not in this internal communion is not in the Church Some perhaps that they left not your external communion in all things meaning that they left it not voluntarily being not fugitivi but fugati Casaubon in Ep. ad Card. Perron as being willing to joyn with you in any act of piety but were by you necessitated constrained to do so because you would not suffer them to do well with you unless they would do ill with you Now to do ill that you may do well is against the will of God which to every good man is a high degree of necessity But for such Protestants as pretend that de facto they forsook your corruptions only and not your external communion that is such as pretend to communicate with you in your Confessions and Liturgies and participation of Sacraments I cannot but doubt very much that neither you nor I have ever met with any of this condition And if perhaps you were led into error by thinking that to leave the Church and to leave the external communion of it was all one in sense and signification I hope by this time you are disabused and begin to understand that as a man may leave any fashion or custom of a Colledge and yet remain still a member of the Colledge so a man may possibly leave some opinion or practice of a Church formerly common to himself and others and continue still a member of that Church Provided that what he forsakes be not one of those things wherein the essence of the Church consists Whereas peradventure this practice may be so involved with the external communion of this Church that it may be simply impossible for him to leave this practice and not to leave the Churches external communion 46. You will reply perhaps That the difficulty lies as well against those who pretend to forsake the Churches corruptions and not the Church as against those who say they forsook the Churches corruptions and not her external communion And that the reason is still the same because these supposed corruptions were inherent in the whole Church and therefore by like reason with the former could not be forsaken but if the whole Church were forsaken 47. Ans A pretty Sophism and very fit to perswade men that it is impossible for them to forsake any Error they hold or any Vice they are subject to either peculiar to themselves or in common with others Because forsooth they cannot forsake themselves and Vices and Errors are things inherent in themselves The deceit lies in not distinguishing between a Local and a Moral forsaking of any thing For as it were an absurdity fit for the maintainers of Transubstantiation to defend that a man may locally and properly depart from the accidents of a subject and not from the subject it self So is it also against reason to deny that a man may by an usual phrase of speech forsake any custom or quality good or bad either proper to himself or common to himself with any company and yet never truly or properly forsake either his company or himself Thus if all the Jesuites in the Society were given to write Sophistically yet you might leave this ill custome and yet not leave your Society If all the Citizens of a City were addicted to any vanity they might either all or some of them forsake it and yet not forsake the City If all the parts of a mans Body were dirty or filthy nothing hinders but that all or some of them might
and did no more than Papists are bound to justifie what several Popes have said and done c. 5.112 M. They may be members of the Catholick Church that are not united in external Communion c. 5.9 The Protestant Doctrin of Merit explained c. 4.35 36. The Authors Motives to change his Religions with Answers to them Pref. 42.43 The Faith of Papists resolved at last into the Motives of Credibility c. 2.154 The Mischiefs that followed the Reformation not imputable to it c. 5.92 N. What make points necessary to be believed c. 4.4 11. No more is necessary to be believed by us than by the Apostles c. 4.67 70 71 72. Papists make many things necessary to salvation which God never made so c. 7.7 All necessary points of Faith are contained in the Creed c. 4.73 74. Why some points not so necessary were put into the Creed c. 4.75 76. Protestants may agree in necessary points though they may overvalue some things they hold c. 7.34 To impose a necessity of professing known errors and practising known corruptions is a just cause of separation c. 5.31 36 40 50 59 60 68 69. O. A blind obedience is not due to Ecclesiastical decisions though our practise must be determined by the sentence of superiours in doubtful cases c. 5.110 A probable opinion may be followed according to the Roman Doctors though it be not the safest way for avoiding sin c. 7 8. Optatus's saying impertinently urged against Protestants c. 5.99 100. Though we receive Ordination and Scripture from a false Church yet we may be a true Church c. 6.54 P. Whether Papists or Protestants most hazard their souls on probabilities c. 4.57 What we believe concerning the Perpetuity of the Visible Church Ans Pref. 18. Whether 1 Tim. 3.15 The Pillar and ground of Truth belong to Timothy or to the Church c. 3.76 If those words belong to the Church whether they may not signifie her duty and yet that she may err in neglecting it c. 3.77 A possibility of being deceived argues not an uncertainty in all we believe c. 3.26 50 c. 5.107 c. 6.47 By joyning in the Prayers of the Roman Church we must joyn in her unlawful practices c. 3.11 Preaching of the Word and administring the Sacrament how they are inseparable notes of the Church and how they make it visible c. 5.19 Private Spirit how we are to understand it c. 2.110 Private Spirit is not appealed to i. e. to dictates pretending to come from Gods spirit when Controversies are referred to Scripture c. 2.110 Whether one is left to his private spirit reason and discourse by denying the Churches infallibility and the harm of it Pref. 12 13. c. 2.110 A mans private judgment may be opposed to the publick when Reason and Scripture warrant him c. 5.109 A probable opinion according to the Roman Doctors may be followed though it is not the safest way for avoiding sin c. 7.8 It 's hard for Papists to resolve what is a sufficient proposal of the Church c. 3.54 Protestants are on the surer side for avoiding sin and Papists on the more dangerous side to commit sin shewed in instances c. 7.9 R. Every man by Reason must judge both of Scripture and the Church c. 2.111 112 113 118 120 122. Reason and judgment of discretion is not to be reproached for the private spirit c. 2.110 If men must not follow their Reason what they are to follow c. 2.114 115. Some kind of Reformation may be so necessary as to justifie separation from a corrupt Church though every pretence of reformation will not c. 5.53 Nothing is more against Religion than using violence to introduce it c. 5.96 The Religion of Protestants which is the belief of the Bible a wiser and safer way than that of the Roman Church shewed at large c. 6. from 56. to 72. Inclus All Protestants require Repentance to remission of sins and remission of sins to Justification c. 7.31 No Revelations known to be so may be rejected as not Fundamental c. 4.11 A Divine revelation may be ignorantly disbelieved by a Church and yet it may continue a Church c. 3.20 Things equally revealed may not be so to several persons c. 3.24 Papists cannot have Reverence for the Scripture whilst they advance so many things contrary to it c. 2.1 No argument of their reverence to it that they have preserved it intire c. 2.2 The Roman Church when Luther separated was not the visible Church though a visible Church and part of the Catholick c. 5.26 27. The present Roman Church has lost all Authority to recommend what we are to believe in Religion c. 2.101 The properties of a perfect Rule c. 2.5.6 7. Whether the Popish Rule of Fundamentals or ours is the safest c. 4.63 S. Right administration of Sacraments uncertain in the Roman Church c. 2. from 63. to 68. inclusive In what sense Salvation may be had in the Roman Church Ans Pref. 5 7. Salvation depends upon great uncertainties in the Roman Church c. 2. from 63. to 73. inclus Schisms whence they chiefly arise and what continues them c. 4.17 Schism may be a Division of the Church as well as from it c. 5.22 He may be no Schismatick that forsakes a Church for Errors not damnable Ans Pref. 2. No Schism to leave a corrupted Church when otherwise we must communicate in her corruptions c. 5.25 Not every separation from the external Communion of the Church but a causeless one is the sin of Schism c. 5.30 They may not be Schismaticks that continue the separation from Rome though Luther that began it had been a Schismatick c. 5.4 c. 6.14 The Scripture cannot be duly reverenced by Papists c. 2. n. 1. The Scripture how proved to be the word of God c. 4.53 The Divine Authority of the Scripture may be certain though it be not self-evidently certain that it is Gods word c. 6.51 Books of Scripture now held for Canonical which the Roman Church formerly rejected c. 2.90 91. Whether some Books of Scripture defined for Canonical were not afterward rejected c. 3.29 The Scripture in things necessary is intelligible to learned and unlearned c. 2.104 105 106. Some Books of Scripture questioned by the Fathers as well as by Protestants c. 2.34 The Scripture has great Authority from internal Arguments c. 2.47 The Truth of Scripture inspiration depends not on the authority of the Roman Church Pref. 14. c. 6.45 If the Scriptures contain all necessary truths Popery is confuted Pref. 30. to 38. inclusive The true meaning of Scripture not uncertain in necessary points c. 2.84 A determinate sense of obscure places of Scripture is not needful c. 2.127 150. The sense of plain places of Scripture may be known by the same means by which the Papists know the sence of those places that prove the Church c. 2.150 151. God may give means to the Church to know the true sense of Scripture yet it is not necessary it should have that sense c. 2.93 It
Pictures That the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to interpret Scripture about Freewil Predestination Universal Grace That all our Works are not Sins Merit of good Works Inherent Justice Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledg Traditions Commandments possible to be kept That their thirty nine Articles are patient nay ambitious of some sence wherein they may seem Catholick That to Alledge the necessity of Wife and Children in these days is but a weak Plea for a Married Minister to compass a Benefice That Calvinism is at length accounted Heresie and little less than Treason That Men in Talk and Writing use willingly the once fearful Names of Priests and Altars That they are now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers which if they do with sincerity it is easie to tell what Doom will pass against Protestants seeing by the confession of Protestants the Fathers are on the Papists side which the Answerer to some so clearly demonstrated that they remained convinced In fine as the Samaritans saw in the Disciples countenances that they meant to go to Hierusalem so you pretend it is even legible in the Fore-heads of these Men that they are even going nay making hast to Rome Which scurrilous Libel void of all Truth Discretion and Honesty what effect it may have wrought what credit it may have gained with credulous Papists who dream what they desire and believe their own dreams or with ill-affected jealous and weak Protestants I cannot tell But one thing I dare boldly say that you your self did never believe it 21. The truth is they that run to extreams in opposition against you they that pull down your Infallibility and set up their own they that declaim against your Tyranny and exercise it themselves over others are the Adversaries that give you the greatest advantage and such as you love to deal with whereas upon Men of temper and moderation such as will oppose nothing because you maintain it but will draw as near to you that they may draw you to them as the Truth will suffer them such as require of Christians to believe only in Christ and will Damn no Man nor Doctrine without express and certain warrant from Gods Word upon such as these you know not how to fasten but if you chance to have conference with any such which yet as much as possibly you can you avoid and decline you are very speedily put to silence and see the indefensible weakness of your cause laid open to all Men. And this I verily believe is the true Reason that you thus rave and rage against them as foreseeing your time of prevailing or even of subsisting would be short if other adversaries gave you no more advantage than they do 22. In which perswasion also I am much confirmed by consideration of the Silliness and Poorness of those suggestions and partly of the apparent vanity and Falshood of them which you offer in justification of this wicked Calumny For what if out of Devotion towards God out of a desire that He should be Worshiped as in Spirit and Truth in the first place so also in the Beauty of Holiness what if out of fear that too much Simplicity and Nakedness in the publick Service of God may beget in the ordinary sort of Men a dull and stupid irreverence and out of hope that the outward State and Glory of it being well disposed and wisely moderated may ingender quicken encrease and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto Gods Sovereign Majesty and Power What if out of a persuasion and desire that Papists may be won over to us the sooner by the removing of this Scandal out of their way and out of an Holy Jealousie that the weaker sort of Protestants might be the easier seduced to them by the Magnificence and Pomp of their Church-service in case it were not removed I say what if out of these considerations the Governors of our Church more of late than formerly have set themselves to adorn and beautifie the places where Gods Honour dwells and to make them as Heavenly as they can with Earthly Ornaments Is this a sign that they are warping towards Popery Is this Devotion in the Church of England an argument that She is coming over to the Church of Rome Sir Edwin Sands I presume every Man will grant had no inclination that way yet He Forty Years since highly commended this part of Devotion in Papists and makes no scruple of proposing it to the imitation of Protestants little thinking that they who would follow his Counsel and endeavour to take away this disparagement of Protestants and this Glorying of Papists should have been censured for it as making way and inclining to Popery His Words to this purpose are excellent Words and because they shew plainly Survey of Religion that what is now practised was approved by Zealous Protestants so long ago I will here set them down 23. This one thing J cannot but highly commend in that sort and Order They spare nothing which either cost can perform in enriching or skill in adorning the Temple of God or to set out his Service with the greatest Pomp and magnificence that can be devised And although for the most part much Baseness and Childishness is predominant in the Masters and contrivers of their Ceremonies yet this outward State and Glory being well disposed doth ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and Devotion which is due unto Sovereign Majesty and Power And although I am not ignorant that many Men well reputed have embraced the thrifty Opinion of that Disciple who thought all to be wasted that was bestowed upon Christ in that sort and that it were much better bestowed upon him on the Poor yet with an eye perhaps that themselves would be his quarter Almoners notwithstanding I must confess it will never sink into my Heart that in proportion of Reason the allowance for furnishing out of the Service of God should be measured by the scant and strict rule of meer necessity a proportion so low that Nature to other most bountiful in matter of necessity hath not failed no not the most ignoble Creatures of the World and that for our selves no measure of heaping but the most we can get no rule of expence but to the utmost Pomp we lift Or that God himself had so inriched the lower parts of the World with such wonderfull varieties of Beauty and Glory thut they might serve only to the Pampering of Mortal Man in his Pride and that in the Service of the High Creator Lord and giver the outward Glory of whose higher Pallace may appear by the very Lamps that we see so far off Burning gloriously in it only the Simpler Baser Cheaper Less Noble Less Beautiful Less Glorious things should be imployed Especially seeing as in Princes Courts so in the Service
your self § 16. is this That the Infallible means of determining Controversies is the Visible Church That the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental maketh nothing to the present Question That to say the Creed containeth all Fundamentals is neither pertinent nor true That whosoever persist in Division from the Communion and Faith of the Roman Church are guilty of Schism and Heresie That in regard of the Precept of Charity towards one self Protestants are in state of Sin while they remain divided from the Roman Chruch To all these Assertions I will content my self for the present to oppose this one That not one of them all is true Only I may not omit to tell you that if the first of them were as true as the Pope himself desires it should be yet the Corollary which you deduce from it would be utterly inconsequent That whosoever denys any point proposed by the Church is injurious to Gods Divine Majesty as if he could deceive or be deceived For though your Church were indeed as Infallible a Propounder of Divine Truths as it pretends to be yet if it appeared not to me to be so I might very well believe God most true and your Church most false As though the Gospel of S. Matthew be the Word of God yet if I neither knew it to be so nor believed it I might believe in God and yet think that Gospel a Fable Hereafter therefore I must entreat you to remember that our being guilty of this impiety depends not only upon your being but upon our knowing that you are so Neither must you argue thus The Church of Rome is the Infallible Propounder of Divine Verities therefore he that opposes Her calls Gods Truth in Question But thus rather The Church of Rome is so and Protestants know it to be so therefore in opposing Her they impute to God that either he deceives them or is deceived himself For as I may deny something which you upon your knowledg have affirmed and yet never disparage your honesty if I never knew that you affirmed it So I may be undoubtedly certain of Gods Omniscience and Veracity and yet doubt of something which he hath revealed provided I do not know nor believe that he hath revealed it So that though your Church be the appointed witness of Gods Revelations yet until you know that we know she is so you cannot without foul Calumny impute to us That we charge God blasphemously with deceiving or being deceived You will say perhaps That this is directly consequent from our Doctrine That the Church may Err which is directed by God in all Her proposals True if we knew it to be directed by him otherwise not much less if we believe and know the contrary But then if it were consequent from our Opinion have you so little Charity as to say that men are justly chargeable with all the consequences of their Opinions Such consequences I mean as they do not own but disclaim and if there were a necessity of doing either would much rather forsake their Opinion than embrace these Consequences What Opinion is there that draws after it such a Train of portentous Blasphemies as that of the Dominicans by the judgment of the best Writers of your own Order And will you say now that the Dominicans are justly chargeable with all these Blasphemies If not seeing our case take it at the worst is but the same why should not your judgment of us be the same I appeal to all those Protestants that have gone over to your Side whether when they were most averse from it they did ever deny or doubt of Gods omniscience or veracity whether they did ever believe or were taught that God did deceive them or was deceived himself Nay I provoke to you your self and desire you to deal truly and to tell Us whether you do in your Heart believe that we do indeed not believe the Eternal Veracity of the Eternal Verity And if you judge so strangely of us having no better ground for it than you have or can have we shall not need any farther proof of your uncharitableness towards us this being the extremity of true uncharitableness If not then I hope having no other ground but this which sure is none at all to pronounce us damnable Hereticks you will cease to do so and hereafter as if your ground be true you may do with more truth and Charity Collect thus They only Err damnably who oppose what they know God hath testified But Protestants sure do not oppose what they know God hath testified at least we cannot with Charity say they do Therefore they either do not Err damnably or with Charity we cannot say they do so 13. Ad 17. § Protestants you say according to their own grounds must hold that of Persons contrary in whatsoever point of belief one part only can be saved therefore it is strangely done of them to charge Papists with want of Charity for holding the same The consequence I acknowledg but wonder much what it should be that lays upon Protestants any necessity to do so You tell us it is their holding Scripture the sole Rule of Faith for this you say obligeth them to pronounce them damned that oppose any least point delivered in Scripture This I grant If they oppose it after sufficient declaration so that either they know it to be contained in Scripture or have no just probable Reason and which may move an honest man to doubt whether or no it be there contained For to oppose in the first Case in a man that believes the Scripture to be the Word of God is to give God the Lie To oppose in the second is to be obstinate against Reason and therefore a sin though not so great as the former But then this is nothing to the purpose of the necessity of damning all those that are of contrary belief and that for these Reasons First because the contrary belief may be touching a point not at all mentioned in Scripture and such points though indeed they be not matters of Faith yet by men in variance are often over-valued and esteemed to be so So that though it were damnable to oppose any point contained in Scripture yet Persons of a contrary belief as Victor and Polycrates S. Cyprian and Stephen might both be saved because their contrary belief was not touching any point contained in Scripture Secondly because the contrary belief may be about the sense of some place of Scripture which is ambiguous and with probability capable of diverse Senses and in such Cases it is no marvel and sure no Sin if several men go several ways Thirdly because the contrary belief may be concerning points wherein Scripture may with so great probability be alledged on both sides which is a sure note of a point not necessary that men of honest and upright Hearts true lovers of God and of truth such as desire above all things to know Gods Will and to do
fail of performance by reason of their Error 128. But It is more useful fit you say for the deciding of Controversies to have besides an infallible Rule to go by a living infallible Judge to determine them from hence you conclude that certainly there is such a Judge But why then may not another say that it is yet more useful for many excellent purposes that all the Patriarchs should be infallible than that the Pope only should Another that it would be yet more useful that all the Archbishops of every Province should be so than that the Patriarchs only should be so Another that it would be yet more useful if all the Bishops of every Diocess were so Another that it would be yet more available that all the Parsons of every Parish should be so Another that it would be yet more excellent if all the Fathers of Families were so And lastly another that it were much more to be desired that every Man and every Woman were so just as much as the prevention of Controversies is better than the decision of them and the prevention of Heresies better than the condemnation of them and upon this ground conclude by your own very consequence That not only a general Council nor only the Pope but all the Patriarchs Archbishops Bishops Pastors Fathers nay all the men in the World are infallible If you say now as I am sure you will that this conclusion is most gross and absurd against sense and experience then must also the ground be false from which it evidently and undeniably follows viz. that That course of dealing with men seems always more fit to Divine Providence which seems most fit to humane reason 129. And so likewise That there should men succeed the Apostles which could shew themselves to be their successors by doing of Miracles by speaking all kind of Languages by delivering men to Satan as S. Paul did Hymenaeus and the incestuous Corinthian it is manifest in human reason it were incomparably more fit and useful for the decision of Controversies than that the successour of the Apostles should have none of these gifts and for want of the signs of Apostleship be justly questionable whether he be his successor or no and will you now conclude That the Popes have the gift of doing Miracles as well as the Apostles had 130. It were in all reason very useful and requisite that the Pope should by the assistance of Gods Spirit be freed from the vices and passions of men lest otherwise the Authority given him for the good of the Church he might imploy as divers Popes you well know have done to the disturbance and oppression and mischief of it And will you conclude from hence That Popes are not subject to the sins and passions of other men That there never have been ambitious covetous lustful tyrannous Popes 131. Who sees not that for mens direction it were much more beneficial for the Church that Infallibility should be setled in the Popes Person than in a general Council That so the means of deciding Controversies might be speedy easie and perpetual whereas that of general Councils is not so And will you hence infer that not the Church Representative but the Pope is indeed the infallible Judge of Controversies certainly if you should the Sorbon Doctors would not think this a good conclusion 132. It had been very commodious one would think that seeing either Gods pleasure was the Scripture should be translated or else in his Providence he knew it would be so that he had appointed some men for this business and by his Spirit assisted them in it that so we might have Translations as Authentical as the Original yet you see God did not think fit to do so 133. It had been very commodious one would think that the Scripture should have been at least for all things necessary a Rule plain and perfect And yet you say it is both imperfect and obscure even in things necessary 134. It had been most requisite one would think that the Copies of the Bibles should have been preserved free from variety of Readings which makes men very uncertain in many places which is the Word of God and which is the error or presumption of man and yet we see God hath not thought fit so to provide for us 135. Who can conceive but that an Apostolick Interpretation of all the difficult places of Scripture would have been strangely beneficial to the Church especially there being such danger in mistaking the sense of them as is by you pretended and God in his providence foreseeing that the greatest part of Christians would not accept of the Pope for the Judge of Controversies And yet we see God hath not so ordered the matter 136. Who doth not see that supposing the Bishop of Rome had been appointed Head of the Church and Judge of Controversies that it would have been infinitely beneficial to the Church perhaps as much as all the rest of the Bible that in some Book of Scripture which was to be undoubtedly received this one Proposition had been set down in Terms The Bishops of Rome shall be always Monarchs of the Church and they either alone or with their adherents the Guides of Faith and the Judges of Controversies that shall arise amongst Christians This if you will deal ingenuously you cannot but acknowledge for then all true Christians would have submitted to him as willingly as to Christ himself neither needed you and your fellows have troubled your self to invent so many Sophisms for the proof of it There would have been no more doubt of it among Christians than there is of the Nativity Passion Resurrection or Ascension of Christ You were best now rub your forehead hard and conclude upon us that because this would have been so useful to have been done therefore it is done Or if you be as I know you are too ingenuous to say so then must you acknowledge that the ground of your Argument which is the very ground of all these absurdities is most absurd and that it is our duty to be humbly thankful for those sufficient nay abundant means of Salvation which God hath of his own goodness granted us and not conclude he hath done that which he hath not done because forsooth in our vain judgments it seems convenient he should have done so 137. But you demand what repugnance there is betwixt infallibility in the Church and existence of Scripture that the production of the one must be the destruction of the other Out of which words I can frame no other argument for you than this There is no Repugnance between the Scriptures existence and the Churches infallibility therefore the Church is infallible Which consequence will then be good when you can shew that nothing can be untrue but that only which is impossible that whatsoever may be done that also is done Which if it were true would conclude both you and me to be infallible as well as
Books and not the Authority of the Books and therefore if a man should profess the not believing of these I should have reason to fear he did not believe that But there is not always an equal necessity for the belief of those things for the belief whereof there is an equal reason We have I believe as great reason to believe there was such a man as Henry the VIII King of England as that Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate yet this is necessary to be believed and that is not so So that if any man should doubt of or disbelieve that it were most unreasonably done of him yet it were no mortal sin nor no sin at all God having no where commanded men under pain of damnation to believe all which reason induceth them to believe Therefore as an Executor that should perform the whole Will of the dead should fully satisfie the Law though he did not believe that Parchment to be his written Will which indeed is so So I believe that he who believes all the particular doctrines which integrate Christianity and lives according to them should be saved though he neither believed nor knew that the Gospels were written by the Evangelists or the Epistles by the Apostles 160. This discourse whether it be rational and concluding or no I submit to better judgment But sure I am that the corollary which you draw from this position that this point is not Fundamental is very inconsequent that is that we are uncertain of the truth of it because we say the whole Church much more particular Churches and private men may err in points not Fundamental A pretty Sophism depending upon this Principle that whosoever possibly may err he cannot be certain that he doth not err And upon this ground what shall hinder me from concluding that seeing you also hold that neither particular Churches nor private men are Infallible even in Fundamentals that even the Fundamentals of Christianity remain to you uncertain A Judge may possibly err in judgment can he therefore never have assurance that he hath judged right A Traveller may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtful whether I am in the right way from my Hall to my Chamber Or can our London Carrier have no certainty in the middle of the day when he is sober and in his wits that he is in the way to London These you see are right worthy consequences and yet they are as like your own as an Egg to an Egg or Milk to Milk 163. Ad § 27. C. M. S. Austin plainly affirms that to oppose the Churches definitions is to resist God himself speaking of the Controversie of Rebaptization de Unit. Eccl. cap. 22. where he saith that Christ bears witness to his Church and whosoever refuseth to follow the practice of the Church doth resist our Saviour himself who by his testimony recommends the Church c. I HIL I Answer First that in many things you will not be tried by S. Augustines judgment nor submit to his authority not concerning Appeals to Rome not concerning Transubstantiation not touching the use and worshiping of Images not concerning the State of Saints souls before the day of judgment not touching the Virgin Maries freedom from actual and original sin not touching the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants not touching the damning Infants to Hell that die without Baptism not touching the knowledge of Saints departed not touching Purgatory not touching the fallibility of Councils even general Councils not touching perfection and perspicuity of Scripture in matters necessary to Salvation not touching Auricular Confession not touching the half Communion not touching Prayers in an unknown tongue In these things I say you will not stand to S. Austines judgment and therefore can with no reason or equity require us to do so in this matter 2. To S. Augustine in heat of disputation against the Donatists and ransacking all places for arguments against them we oppose S. Austine out of this heat delivering the doctrine of Christianity calmly and moderately where he says In iis quae apertè posita sunt in sacris Scriptur is omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent fidem moresque vivendi 3. We say he speaks not of the Roman but the Catholick Church of far greater extent and therefore of far greater credit and authority than the Roman Church 4 He speaks of a point not expressed but yet not contradicted by Scripture whereas the errors we charge you with are contradicted by Scripture 5. He says not that Christ has recommended the Church to us for an Infallible definer of all emergent controversies but for a credible witness of Ancient Tradition Whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practice of the Church understand of all places and ages though he be thought to resist our Saviour what is that to us who cast off no practiecs of the Church but such as are evidently post-nate to the time of the Apostles and plainly contrary to the practice of former and purer times Lastly it is evident and even to impudence it self undeniable that upon this ground of believing all things taught by the present Church as taught by Christ Error was held for example the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants and that in S. Austines time and that by S. Austine himself and therefore without controversie this is no certain ground for truth which may support falshood as well as truth 164. To the Argument wherewith you conclude I Answer That though the visible Church shall always without fail propose so much of Gods revelation as is sufficient to bring men to Heaven for otherwise it will not be the visible Church yet it may sometimes add to this revelation things superfluous nay hurtful nay in themselves damnable though not unpardonable and sometimes take from it things very expedient and profitable and therefore it is possible without sin to resist in some things the Visible Church of Christ But you press us farther and demand what Visible Church was extant when Luther began whether it were the Roman or Protestant Church As if it must of necessity either be Protestant or Roman or Roman of necessity if it were not Protestant yet this is the most usual fallacy of all your disputers by some specious Arguments to perswade weak men that the Church of Protestants cannot be the true Church and thence to infer that without doubt it must be the Roman But why may not the Roman be content to be a part of it and the Grecian another And if one must be the whole why not the Greek Church as well as the Roman there being not one Note of your Church which agrees not to her as well as to your own unless it be that she is poor and oppressed by the Turk and you are in glory and splendor CHAP. III. The ANSWER to the Third CHAPTER Wherein it is maintained That the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental is in this present Controversie
good and pertinent And that the Catholick Church may err in the latter kind of the said points 1. This distinction is imployed by Protestants to many purposes and therefore if it be pertinent and good as they understand and apply it the whole Edifice built thereon must be either firm and stable or if it be not it cannot be for any default in this distinction 2. If you object to them discords in matter of faith without any means of agreement They will answer you that they want not good and solid means of agreement in matters necessary to salvation viz. Their belief of all those things which are plainly and undoubtedly delivered in Scripture which who so believes must of necessity believe all things necessary to salvation and their mutual suffering one another to abound in their several sense in matters not plainly and undoubtedly there delivered And for their agreement in all Controversies of Religion either they have means to agree about them or not If you say they have why did you before deny it If they have not means why do you find fault with them for not agreeing 3. You will say that their fault is that by remaining Protestants they exclude themselves from the means of agreement which you have and which by submission to your Church they might have also But if you have means of agreement the more shame for you that you still disagree For who I pray is more inexcusably guilty for the omission of any duty they that either have no means to do it or else know of none they have which puts them in the same case as if they had none or they which profess to have an easie and expedite means to do it and yet still leave it undone If you had been blind saith our Saviour to the Pharisees you had had no sin but now you say you see therefore your sin remaineth 4. If you say you do agree in matters of Faith I say this is ridiculous for you define matters of Faith to be those wherein you agree So that to say you agree in matters of Faith is to say you agree in those things wherein you do agree And do not Protestants do so likewise Do not they agree in those things wherein they do agree 5. But you are all agreed that only those things wherein you do agree are matters of Faith And Protestants if they were wise would do so too Sure I am they have reason enough to do so seeing all of them agree with explicite Faith in all those things which are plainly and undoubtedly delivered in Scripture that is in all which God hath plainly revealed and with an implicite Faith in that sense of the whole Scripture which God intended whatsoever it was Secondly That which you pretend is false for else why do some of you hold it against Faith to take or allow the Oath of Allegiance others as learned and honest as they that it is against Faith and unlawful to refuse it and allow the refusing of it Why do some of you hold that it is de Fide that the Pope is Head of the Church by divine Law others the contrary Some hold it de Fide that the Blessed Virgin was free from Actual sin others that it is not so Some that the Popes indirect power over Princes in temporalties is de Fide Others the contrary Some that it is Universal Tradition and consequently de Fide that the Virgin Mary was conceived in original sin others the contrary 6. But what shall we say now if you be not agreed touching your pretended means of agreement how then can you pretend to Unity either Actual or Potential more than Protestants may Some of you say the Pope alone without a Council may determine all Controversies But others deny it Some that a General Council without a Pope may do so Others deny this Some Both in conjunction are infallible determiners Others again deny this Lastly some among you hold the Acceptation of the decrees of Councils by the Universal Church to be the only way to decide Controversies which others deny by denying the Church to be Infallible And indeed what way of ending Cotroversies can this be when either part may pretend that they are part of the Church and they receive not the decree therefore the whole Church hath not received it 7. Again Means of agreeing differences are either Rational and well grounded and of Gods appointment or voluntary and taken up at the pleasure of men Means of the former nature we say you have as little as we For where hath God appointed that the Pope or a Council or a Council confirmed by the Pope or that Society of Christians which adhere to him shall be the Infallible Judge of Controversies I desire you to shew any one of these Assertions plainly set down in Scripture as in all Reason a thing of this nature should be or at least delivered with a full consent of Fathers or at least taught in plain terms by any one Father for four Hundred years after Christ And if you cannot do this as I am sure you cannot and yet will still be obtruding your selves upon us for our Judges who will not cry out perisse frontem de rebus that you have lost all modesty 8. But then for means of the other kind such as yours are we have great abundance of them For besides all the ways which you have devised which we may make use of when we please we have a great many more which you yet have never thought of for which we have as good colour out of Scripture as you have for yours For first we could if we would try it by Lots whose Doctrine is true and whose false And you know it is written a Prov. 16.33 The Lot is cast into the Lap but the whole disposition of it is from the Lord. 2. We could refer them to the King and you know it is written b Prov. 16.10 A Divine sentence is in the Lips of the King his mouth transgresseth not in judgment c Prov. 21.1 The Heart of the King is in the hand of the Lord. We could refer the matter to any assembly of Christians assembled in the name of Christ seeing it is written where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them We may refer it to any Priest because it is written d Mat. 2.7 The Priests Lips shall preserve knowledge f Mat. 25.2 The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Chair c. To any Preacher of the Gospel to any Pastor or Doctor for to every one of them Christ hath promised g Mat. 28.20 he will he with them alwaies even to the end of the World and of every one of them it is said h Luk. 10.16 He that heareth you heareth me c. To any Bishop or Prelate for it is written i Heb. 13.17 Obey your Prelates and again k Eph.
from the Act and Object in general if the Habit be special from the Act and Object in special Then for the motive to a thing that it cannot be of the Essence of the thing to which it moves who can doubt that knows that a motive is an efficient cause and that the efficient is always extrinsecal to the effect For the fourth that Gods Revelation is alike for all Objects It is ambiguous and if the sense of it be that his Revelation is an equal Motive to induce us to believe all objects revealed by him it is true but impertinent If the sense of it be that all objects revealed by God are alike that is alike plainly and undoubtedly revealed by him it is pertinent but most untrue Witness the great diversity of Texts of Scripture whereof some are so plain and evident that no man of ordinary sense can mistake the sense of them Some are so obscure and ambiguous that to say this or this is the certain sense of them were high presumption For the 5. Protestants disagree in things equally revealed by God! In themselves perhaps but not equally to them whose understandings by reason of their different Educations are fashioned and shaped for the entertainment of various Opinions and consequently some of them more inclined to believe such a sense of Scripture others to believe another which to say that God will not take into his consideration in judging mens Opinions is to disparage his goodness But to what purpose is it that these things are equally revealed to both as the light is equally revealed to all blind men if they be not fully revealed to either The sense of this Scripture Why are they then baptized for the dead and this He shall be saved yet so as by fire and a thousand others is equally revealed to you and to another interpreter that is certainly to neither He now conceives one sense of them and you another and would it not be an excellent inference if I should conclude now as you do That you forsake the formal motive of Faith which is Gods Revelation and consequently lose all faith and unity therein So likewise the Jesuits and Dominicans the Franciscans and Dominicans disagree about things equally revealed by Almighty God and seeing they do so I beseech you let me understand why this reason will not exclude them as well as Protestants from all faith and unity therein Thus you have failed of your undertaking in your first part of your Title and that is a very ill omen especially in points of so streight mutual dependance that we shall have but slender performance in your second assumpt Which is That the Church is Infallible in all her Definitions whether concerning points Fundamental or not Fundamental 26. Ad § 9.10 11. I grant that the Church cannot without damnable sin either deny any thing to be true which she knows to be Gods truth or propose any thing as his truth which she knows not to be so But that she may not do this by ignorance or mistake and so without damnable sin that you should have proved but have not But say you this excuse cannot serve for if the Church be assisted only for points fundamental she cannot but know that she may err in points not fundamental Ans It does not follow unless you suppose that the Church knows that she is assisted no farther But if being assisted only so far she yet did conceive by error her assistance absolute and unlimited or if knowing her assistance restrained to fundamentals she yet conceived by error that she should be guarded from proposing any thing but what was fundamental then the consequence is apparently false But at least she cannot be certain that she cannot err and therefore cannot be excused from headlong and pernicious temerity in proposing points not fundamental to be believed by Christians as matters of Faith Ans Neither is this destruction worth any thing unless it be understood of such fundamental points as she is not warranted to propose by evident Text of Scripture Indeed if she propose such as matters of Faith certainly true she may well be questioned Quo Warranto She builds without a foundation and says thus saith the Lord when the Lord doth not say so which cannot be excused from rashness and high presumption such a presumption as an Embassador should commit who should say in his Masters name that for which he hath no commission Of the same nature I say but of a higher strain as much as the King of Heaven is greater than any earthly King But though she may err in some points not fundamental yet may she have certainty enough in proposing others as for example these That Abraham begat Isaac that S. Paul had a Cloak that Timothy was sick because these though not fundamental i. e. no essential parts of Christianity yet are evidently and undeniably set down in Scripture and consequently may be without all rashness proposed by the Church as certain divine Revelations Neither is your Argument concluding when you say If in such things she may be deceived she must be always uncertain of all such things For my sense may sometimes possibly deceive me yet I am certain enough that I see what I see and feel what I feel Our Judges are not infallible in their judgments yet are they certain enough that they judge aright and that they proceed according to the evidence that is given when they condemn a Thief or a Murderer to the Gallows A Travelleris not always certain of his way but often mistaken and does it therefore follow that he can have no assurance that Charing-Cross is his right way from the Temple to White-Hall The ground of your error here is your not distinguishing between actual certainty and absolute infallibillty Geometricians are not infallible in their own Science yet they are very certain of those things which they see demonstrated And Carpenters are not infallible yet certain of the straightness of those things which agree with their Rule and Square So though the Church be not infallibly certain that in all her definitions whereof some are about disputable and ambiguous matters she shall proceed according to her Rule yet being certain of the infallibility of her Rule and that in this or that thing she doth manifestly proceed according to it she may be certain of the Truth of some particular Decrees and yet not certain that she shall never decree but what is true 27. Ad § 12. Obj. But if the Church may err in points not fundamental she may err in proposing Scripture and so we cannot be assured whether she have not been deceived already Ans The Church may err in her proposition or custody of the Canon of Scripture if you understand by the Church any present Church of one denomination for example the Roman the Greek or so Yet have we sufficient certainty of Scripture not from the bare testimony of any present Church but from Universal
scandalizing many holy persons or provoking those that are turbulent I dare not freely disallow Nay the Catholick Church it self did see and dissemble and tolerate them for these are the things of which he presently says after the Church of God and you will have him speak of the true Catholick Church placed between Chaffe and Tares tolerates many things Which was directly against the command of the Holy Spirit given the Church by S. Paul To stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made her free and not to suffer her self to be brought in bondage to these survile burdens Our Saviour tells the Scribes and Pharisees that in vain they Worshiped God teaching for Doctrines mens Commandments For that laying aside the Commandments of God they held the Traditions of men as the washing of Pots and Cups and many other such like things Certainly that which S. Austin complains of as the general fault of Christians of his time was parallel to this Multa saith he quae in divinis libris saluberrima praecepta sunt minus curantur This I suppose I may very well render in our Saviours Words The commandments of God are laid aside and then tam multis presumptionibus sic plena sunt omnia all things or all places are so full of so many presumptions and those exacted with such severity nay with Tyranny that he was more severely censured who in the time of his Octaves touched the Earth with his naked Feet than he which drowned and buried his Soul in Drink Certainly if this be not to teach for Doctrines mens Commandments I know not what is And therefore these superstitious Christians might be said to Worship God in vain as well as Scribes and Pharisees And yet great variety of superstitions of this kind were then already spread over the Church being different in divers place This is plain from these Words of S. Austin of them diversorum locorum diversis moribus innumerabiliter variantur and apparent because the stream of them was grown so violent that he durst not oppose it liberiùs improbare non audeo I dare not freely speak against them So that to say the Catholick Church tolerated all this and for fear of offence durst not abrogate or condemn it is to say if we Judge rightly of it that the Church with silence and connivence generally tolerated Christians to worship God in vain Now how this tolerating of Universal superstition in the Church can consist with the assistance and direction of Gods omnipotent spirit to guard it from superstition and with the accomplishment of that pretended Prophesie of the Church I have set Watchmen upon thy Walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace Day nor Night besides how these superstitions being thus nourished cherished and strengthned by the practice of the most and urged with great violence upon others as the commandments of God and but fearfully opposed or contradicted by any might in time take such deep Root and spread their Branches so far as to pass for Universal Customs of the Church he that does not see sees nothing Especially considering the catching and contagious nature of this sin and how fast ill Weeds spread and how true and experimented that rule is of the Historian Exempla non confistunt ubi incipiunt sed quamlibet in tenuem recepta tramitem latissimè evagandi sibi faciunt potestatem Examples do not stay where they begin but tho at first pent up in a narrow Tract they make themselves room for extravagant wandrings Nay that some such superstition had not already even in S. Austins time prevailed so far as to be Consuetudine universae Ecclesiae roboratum confirmed by the Custom of the Universal Church who can doubt that considers that the practice of Commiunicating Infants had even then got the credit and authority not only of an Universal Custom but also of an Apostolick Tradition 49. But now after all this ado what if S. Austin says not this which is pretended of the Church viz. That she neither approves nor dissembles nor practises any thing against Faith or good Life but only of good men in the Church Certainly though some Copies read as you would have it yet you should not have dissembled that others read the place otherwise vix Ecclesia multa tolerat tamen quae sunt contra Fidem bonam vitam nec bonus approbat c. The Church tolerates many things and yet what is against Faith or good Life a good man will neither approve nor dissemble nor practise 50. Ad § 17. That Abraham begat Isaacc is a point very far from being Fundamental and yet I hope you will grant that Protestants believing Scripture to be the Word of God may be certain enough of the truth and certainty of it For what if they say that the Catholick Church and much more themselves may possibly Err in some unfundamental points it is therefore consequent they can be certain of none such What if a wiser man than I may mistake the sense of some obscure place of Aristotle may I not therefore without any arrogance or inconsequence conceive my self certain that I understand him in some plain places which carry their sense before them And then for points Fundamental to what purpose do you say That we must first know what they be before we can be assured that we cannot Err in understanding the Scripture when we pretend not at all to any assurance that we cannot Err but only to a sufficient certainty that we do not Err but rightly understand those things that are plain whether Fundamental or not Fundamental That God is and is a rewarder of them that seek him That there is no Salvation but by Faith in Christ That by repentance and Faith in Christ Remission of sins may be obtained That there shall be a Resurrection of the Body These we conceive both true because the Scripture says so and Truths Fundamental because they are necessary parts of the Gospel whereof our Saviour saies Qui non crediderit damnabitur All which we either learn from Scripture immediately or learn of those that learn it of Scripture so that neither Learned nor Unlearned pretend to know these things independently of Scripture And therefore in imputing this to us you cannot excuse your self from having done us a palpable injury 52. Ad § 19. To that which is here urged of the differences amongst Protestants concerning many points I answer that those differences between Protestants concerning Errors damnable and not damnable Truths Fundamental and not Fundamental may be easily reconciled For either the Error they speak of may be purely and simply involuntary or it may be in respect of the cause of it voluntary If the cause of it be some voluntary and avoidable fault the Error is it self sinful and consequently in its own nature damnable As if by negligence in seeking the Truth by unwillingness to find it by Pride by obstinacy by desiring that Religion should
contrary Lastly why it is not sufficient for any mans Salvation to use the best means he can to inform his Conscience and to follow the direction of it To all these demands when you have given fair and ingenious answers you shall hear further from me 55. Ad § 20. At the first entrance into this Parag. from our own Doctrine That the Church cannot Err in Points necessary it is concluded if we are wise we must forsake it in nothing least we should forsake it in something necessary To which I answer First that the supposition as you understand it is falsly imposed upon us and as we understand it will do you no service For when we say that there shall be a Church alwaies somewhere or other unerring in Fundamentals our meaning is but this that there shall be alwaies a Church to the very being whereof it is repugnant that it should Err in Fundamentals for if it should do so it would want the very essence of a Church and therefore cease to be a Church But we never annexed this priviledg to any one Church of any one Denomination as the Greek or the Roman Church which if we had done and set up some setled certain Society of Christians distinguishable from all others by adhering to such a Bishop for our Guide in Fundamentals then indeed and then only might you with some colour though with no certainty have concluded that we could not in Wisdom forsake this Church in any point for fear of forsaking it in a necessary point But now that we say not this of any one determinate Church which alone can perform the Office of Guide or Director but indefinitely of the Church meaning no more but this That there shall be alwaies in some place or other some Church that Errs not in Fundamentals will you conclude from hence that we cannot in Wisdom forsake this or that the Roman or the Greek Church for fear of Erring in Fundamentals 56. Yea but you may say for I will make the best I can of all your Arguments That this Church thus unerring in Fundamentals when Luther arose was by our confession the Roman and therefore we ought not in Wisdom to have departed from it in any thing I answer First that we confess no such thing that the Church of Rome was then this Church but only a Part of it and that the most corrupted and most incorrigible Secondly that if by adhering to the Church we could have been thus far secured this Argument had some shew of reason But seeing we are not warranted thus much by any priviledg of that Church that she cannot Err Fundamentally but only from Scripture which assures us that she doth Err very heinously collect our hope that the Truths she retains and the practice of them may prove an Antidote to her against the Errors which she maintains in such Persons as in simplicity of Heart follow this Absalom we should then do against the light of our Conscience and so sin damnably if we should not abandon the profession of her Errors though not Fundamental Neither can we thus conclude we may safely hold with the Church of Rome in all her points for she cannot Err damnably For this is false she may though perhaps she does not But rather thus These points of Christianity which have in them the nature of Antidotes against the Poyson of all Sins and Errors the Church of Rome though otherwise much corrupted still retains therefore we hope she Errs not Fundamentally but still remains a Part of the Church But this can be no warrant to us to think with her in all things seeing the very same Scripture which puts us in hope she Errs not Fundamentally assures us that in many things and those of great moment she Errs very greviously And these Errors though to them that believe them we hope they will not be pernitious yet the professing of them against Conscience could not but bring us to certain damnation As for the fear of departing from some Fundamental Truths withal while we depart from her Errors Happily it might work upon us if adhering to her might secure us from it and if nothing else could But both these are false For first adhering to her in all things cannot secure us from erring in Fundamentals Because though de facto we hope she does not Err yet we know no priviledges she has but she may Err in them her self and therefore we had need have better security hereof than her bare Authority Then secondly without dependence on her at all we may be secured that we do not Err Fundamentally I mean by believing all those things plainly set down in Scripture wherein all things necessary and most things profitable are plainly delivered Suppose I were Travelling to London and knew two ways thither the one very safe and convenient the other very inconvenient and dangerous but yet a way to London and that I overtook a Passenger on the way who himself believed and would fain perswade me there was no other way but the worse and would perswade me to accompany him in it because I confessed his way though very inconvenient yet a way so that going that way we could not fail of our Journies end by the consent of both Parties but he believed my way to be none at all and therefore I might justly fear lest out of a desire of leaving the worst way I left the true and the only way If now I should not be more secure upon my own knowledge than frighted by this fallacity would you not beg me for a Fool Just so might you think of us if we would be frighted out of our own knowledge by this bugbear For the only and the main reason why we believe you not to Err in Fundamentals is your holding the Doctrines of Faith in Christ and Repentance which knowing we hold as well as you notwithstanding our departure from you we must needs know that we not Err in Fundamentals as well as we know that you do not Err in some Fundamentals and therefore cannot possibly fear the contrary Yet let us be more liberal to you and grant that which can never be proved that God had said in plain terms The Church of Rome shall never destroy the Foundation but withal had said that it might and would lay much Hay and Stubble upon it That you should never hold any Error destructive of Salvation but yet many that were prejudicial to Edification I demand might we have dispensed with our selves in the believing and professing these Errors in regard of the smalness of them Or had it not been a damnable sin to do so though the Errors in themselves were not damnable Had we not had as plain Direction to depart from you in some things profitable as to adhere to you in things necessary In the beginning of your Book when it was for your purpose to have it so the greatness or smalness of the matter was not considerable
request too unreasonable for modest men to make or for wise Men to grant CHAP. IV. The ANSWER to the Fourth CHAPTER Wherein is shewed that the Creed contains all necessary points of meer Belief AD § 1 2 3 4 5 6. Concerning the Creeds containing the Fundamentals of Christiany this is D. Potters assertion delivered in the 207. p. of his Book The Creed of the Apostles as it is explained in the latter Creeds of the Catholick Church is esteemed a sufficient summary or Catalogue of Fundamentals by the best learned Romanists and by Antiquity 2. By Fundamentals he understands not the Fundamental rules of good Life and Action though every one of these is to be believed to come from God and therefore virtually includes an Article of Faith but the Fundamental Doctrines of Faith such as though they have influence upon our lives as every essential Doctrine of Christianinity hath yet we are commanded to believe them and not to do them The assent of our understandings is required to them but no obedience from our wills 3. But these speculative Doctrines again he distinguishes out of Aquinas Occham and Canus and others into two kinds of the first are those which are the Objects of Faith in and for themselves which by their own nature and Gods prime intention are essential parts of that Gospel such as the Teachers in the Church cannot without Mortal sin omit to teach the Learners such as are intrinsecal to the Covenant between God and Man and not only plainly revealed by God and so certain truths but also commanded to be preacht to all men and to be believed distinctly by all and so necessary truths Of the second sort are Accidental Circumstantial Occasional objects of Faith Millions whereof there are in Holy Scripture such as are to be believed not for themselves but because they are joyned with others that are necessary to be believed and delivered by the same Authority which delivered these Such as we are not bound to know to be Divine Revelations for without any fault we may be Ignorant hereof nay believe the contrary such as we are not bound to examine whether or no they be Divine Revelations such as Pastors are not bound to teach their Flock nor their Flock bound to know and remember no nor the Pastors themselves to know them or believe them or not to disbelieve them absolutely and always but then only when they do see and know them to be delivered in Scripture as Divine Revelations 4. I say when they do so and not only when they may do For to lay an obligation upon us of believing or not disbelieving any Verity sufficient Revelation on Gods part is not sufficient For then seeing all the express Verities of Scripture are either to all men or at least to all learned men sufficiently revealed by God it should be a damnable sin in any learned men actually to disbelieve any one particular Historical verity contained in Scripture or to believe the contradiction of it though he knew it not to be there contained For though he did not yet he might have known it it being plainly revealed by God and this revelation being extant in such a Book wherein he might have found it recorded if with dilligence he had perused it To make therefore any points necessary to be believed it is requisite that either we actually know them to be Divine Revelations and these though they be not Articles of Faith nor necessary to be believed in and for themselves yet indirectly and by accident and by consequence they are so The necessity of believing them being inforced upon us by a necessity of believing this Essential and Fundamental Article of Faith That all Divine Revelations are true which to disbelieve or not to believe is for any Christian not only impious but impossible Or else it is requisite that they be First actually revealed by God Secondly commanded under pain of damnation to be particularly known I mean known to be Divine Revelations and distinctly to be believed And of this latter sort of speculative Divine Verities D. Potter affirmed that the Apostles Creed was a sufficient summary yet he affirmed it not as his own opinion but as the Doctrine of the Ancient Fathers and your own Doctors And besides he affirmed it not as absolutely certain but very probable 5. In brief all that he says is this It is very probable that according to the judgment of the Roman Doctors and the Ancient Fathers the Apostles Creed is to be esteemed a sufficient summary of all those Doctrines which being meerly Credenda and not Agenda all men are ordinarily under pain of Damnation bound particularly to believe 6. Now this assertion you say is neither pertinent to the question in hand nor in it self true Your Reasons to prove it impertinent put into form and divested of impertinencies are these 1. Because the question was not what points were necessary to be explicitely believed but what points were necessary not to be disbelieeved after sufficient proposal And therefore to give a Catalogue of points necessary to be explicitely believed is impertinent 7. Secondly because Errors may be damnable though the contrary truths be not of themselves Fundamental as that Pontius Pilate was our Saviours Judge is not in it self a Fundamental truth yet to believe the contrary were a damnable Error And therefore to give a Catalogue of Truths in themselves Fundamental is no pertinent satisfaction to this demand what Errors are damnable 8. Thirdly because if the Church be not Universally infallible we cannot ground any certainty upon the Creed which we must receive upon the Credit of the Church and if the Church be Universally Infallible it is damnable to oppose her declaration in any thing though not contained in the Creed 9. Fourthly Because not to believe the Articles of the Creed in the true sense is damnable therefore it is frivolous to say the Creed contains all Fundamentals without specifying in what sense the Articles of it are Fundamental 10. Fifthly because the Apostles Creed as D. Potter himself confesses was not a sufficient Catalogue till it was explained by the first Council nor then until it was declared in the second c. by occasion of emergent Heresies Therefore now also as new Heresies may arise it will need particular explanation and so is not yet nor ever will be a compleat Catalogue of Fundamentals 11. Now to the first of these objections I say First that your distinction between points necessary to be believed and necessary not to be disbelieved is more subtil than sound a distinction without a difference There being no point necessary to be believed which is not necessary not to be disbelieved Nor no point to any man at any time in any circumstances necessary not to be disbelieved but it is to the same man at the same time in the same circumstances necessary to be believed Yet that which I believe you would have said I acknowledge true
the Assumption of the Mother of God c. Others again mince and palliate the matter with this pretence that your Church undertakes not to coyn new Articles of Faith but only to declare those that want sufficient declaration But if sufficient declaration be necessary to make any Doctrin an Article of Faith then this Doctrin which before wanted it was not before an Article of Faith and your Church by giving it the Essential form and last complement of an Article of Faith makes it though not a Truth yet certainly an Article of Faith But I would fain know whether Christ and his Apostles knew this Doctrin which you pretend hath the matter but wants the form of an Article of Faith that is sufficient declaration whether they knew it to be a necessary Article of the Faith or no! If they knew it not to be so then either they taught what they knew not which were very strange or else they taught it not and if not I would gladly be informed seeing you pretend to no new Revelations from whom you learnt it If they knew it then either they concealed or declared it To say they concealed any necessary part of the Gospel is to charge them with far greater Sacriledg than what was punished in Ananias and Saphira It is to charge these glorious Stewards and dispensers of the Mysteries of Christ with want of the great vertue requisite in a Steward which is Fidelity It is to charge them with presumption for denouncing Anathema's even to Angels in case they should teach any other doctrin than what they had received from them which sure could not merit an Anathema if they left any necessary part of the Gospel untaught It is in a word in plain terms to give them the lie seeing they profess plainly and frequently that they taught Christians the whole Doctrin of Christ If they did know and declare it then was it a full and formal Article of Faith and the contrary a full and formal Heresie without any need of further declaration and then their Successors either continued the declaration of it or discontinued If they did the latter how are they such faithful depositaries of Apostolick Doctrin as you pretend Or what assurance can you give us that they might not bring in new and false Articles as well as suffer the old and true ones to be lost If they did continue the declaration of it and deliver it to their Successors and they to theirs and so on perpetually then continued it still a full and formal Article of faith and the repugnant doctrin a full and formal Heresie without and before the definition or declaration of a Council So that Councils as they cannot make that a truth or falshood which before was not so so neither can they make or declare that to be an Article of Faith or an Heresie which before was not so The supposition therefore on which this argument stands being false and ruinous whatsoever is built upon it must together with it fall to the ground This explication therefore and restriction of this doctrin whereof you make your advantage was to my understanding unnecessary The Fathers of the Church in after times might have just cause to declare their judgment touching the sense of some general Articles of the Creed but to oblige others to receive their declarations under pain of damnation what warrant they had I know not He that can shew either that the Church of all Ages was to have this Authority or that it continued in the Church for some Ages and then expired He that can shew either of these things let him for my part I cannot Yet I willingly confess the judgment of a Council though not infallible is yet so far directive and obliging that without apparent reason to the contrary it may be sin to reject it at least not to afford it an outward submission for publick peace sake 20. Ad § 7.8 9. I come now to shew that you also have requited D. Potter with a mutual courteous acknowledgment of his assertion That the Creed is a sufficient summary of all the necessary Articles of Faith which are meerly Credenda 21. First then § 8. You have these words That it cannot be denied that the Creed is most full and compleat to that purpose for which the holy Apostles inspired by God meant that it should serve and in that manner as they did intend it which was not to comprehend all particular points of Faith but such general heads as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the Faith of Christ to Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learnt and remembred These words I say being fairly examined without putting them on the rack will amount to a full acknowledgment of D. Potters Assertion But before I put them to the question I must crave thus much right of you to grant me this most reasonable postulate that the doctrin of repentance from dead works which S. Paul saith was one of the two only things which he preacht and the doctrin of Charity without which the same S. Paul assures us that the knowledge of all mysteries and all faith is nothing were doctrins more necessary and requisite and therefore more fit to be preacht to Jews and Gentiles than these under what judge our Saviour suffered that he was buried and what time he rose again which you have taught us cap. 3. § 2. for their matter and nature in themselves not to be Fundamental 22. And upon this grant I will ask no leave to conclude that whereas you say the Apostles Creed was intended for a comprehension of such heads of faith as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the faith of Christ c. You are now for fear of too much debasing those high doctrines as Repentance and Charity to restrain your assertion as D. Potter does his and though you speak indefinitely to say you meant it only of those heads of faith which are meerly Credenda And then the meaning of it if it have any must be this That the Creed is full for the Apostles intent which was to comprehend all such general heads of faith which being points of simple belief were most fit and requisite to be preached to Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred Neither I nor you I believe can make any other sence of your words than this And upon this ground thus I subsume But all the points of belief which were necessary under pain of damnation for the Apostles to preach and for those to whom the Gospel was preached particularly to know and believe were most fit and requisite nay more than so necessary to be preached to all both Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easie learn'd and remembred therefore the Apostles intent by your confession was in this Creed to comprehend all such points And you say the
you know all Protestants with one consent affirm it to be false and therefore without proof to take it for granted is to beg the Question 4. That supposing Luther and they which did first separate from the Roman Church were guilty of Schism it is certainly consequent that all who persist in this division must be so likewise Which is not so certain as you pretend For they which alter without necessary cause the present government of any state Civil or Ecclesiastical do commit a great fault whereof notwithstanding they may be innocent who continue this alteration and to the utmost of their power oppose a change though to the former state when continuance of time hath once setled the present Thus have I known some of your own Church condemn the Low-country-men who first revolted from the King of Spain of the sin of Rebellion yet absolve them from it who now being of your Religion there are yet faithful maintainers of the common liberty against the pretences of the King of Spain 5. That all those which a Christian is to esteem neighbors do concur to make one company which is the Church Which is false for a Christian is to esteem those his neighbors who are not members of the true Church 6. That all the members of the Visible Church are by charity united into one Mystical body Which is manifestly untrue for many of them have no Charity 7. That the Catholick Church signifies one company of faithful people which is repugnant to your own grounds For you require not true faith but only the Profession of it to make men members of the Visible Church 8. That every Heretick is a Schismatick Which you must acknowledge false in those who though they deny or doubt of some point professed by your Church and so are Hereticks yet continue still in the Communion of the Church 9. That all the members of the Catholick Church must of necessity be united in external Communion Which though it were much to be desired it were so yet certainly cannot be perpetually true For a man unjustly excommunicated is not in the Churches Communion yet he is still a member of the Church and divers times it hath happened as in the case of Chrisostom and Epiphanius that particular men and particular Churches have upon an overvalued difference either renounced Communion mutually or one of them separated from the other and yet both have continued members of the Catholick Church These things are in those seven Sections either said or supposed by you untruly without all shew or pretence of proof The rest is an impertinent common place wherein Protestants and the cause in hand are absolutely unconcerned And therefore I pass to the eighth Section 10. Ad. § 8. Here you obtrude upon us a double fallacy One in supposing and taking for granted that whatsoever is affirmed by three Fathers must be true whereas your selves make no scruple of condemning many things of falsehood which yet are maintained by more than thrice three Fathers Another in pretending their words to be spoken absolutely which by them are limited and restrained to some particular cases Thus the words of S. Austin cap. 11. lib. 2. cont Parm. That there is no necessity to divide Unity are not spoken absolutely that there never is nor can be any necessity to divide Unity which only were for your purpose but only in such a special case as he there sets down That is When good men tolerate bad men which can do them no spiritual hurt to the intent they may not be separated from those who are spiritually good Then saith he there is no necessity to divide Unity Which very words do clearly give us to understand that it may fall out as it doth in our case that we cannot keep Unity with bad men without spiritual hurt i. e. without partaking with them in their impieties and that then there is a necessity to divide Unity from them I mean to break off conjunction with them in their impieties Which that it was S. Austins mind it is most evident out of the 21. c. of the same book where to Parmenian demanding how can a man remain pure being joyned with those that are corrupted He answers Very true this is not possible if he be joyned with them that is if he commit any evil with them or favour them which do commit it But if he do neither of these he is not joyned with them And presently after these two things retained will keep such men pure and uncorrupted that is neither doing ill nor approving it And therefore seeing you impose upon all men of your Communion a necessity of doing or at least approving many things unlawful certainly there lies upon us an unavoidable necessity of dividing Unity either with you or with God and whether of these is rather to be done be ye judges 11. Iraeneus also says not simply which only would do you service there cannot possibly be any so important Reformation as to justifie a Separation from them who will not reform But only they cannot make any corruption so great as is the pernitiousness of a Schism Now They here is a relative and hath an antecedent expressed in Iraeneus which if you had been pleased to take notice of you would easily have seen that what Irenaeus says falls heavy upon the Church of Rome but toucheth Protestants nothing at all For the men he speaks of are such as Propter modicas quaslibet causas for trifling or small causes divide the body of Christ such as speak of peace and make war such as strain at Gnats and swallow Camels And these saith he can make no reformation of any such importance as to countervail the danger of a division Now seeing the causes of our separation from the Church of Rome are as we pretend and are ready to justify because we will not be partakers with her in Superstition Idolatry Impiety and most cruel Tyranny both upon the bodies and souls of men Who can say that the causes of our separation may be justly esteemed Modicae quaelibet causae On the other side seeing the Bishop of Rome who was contemporary to Irenaeus did as much as in him lay cut off from the Churches unity many great Churches for not conforming to him in an indifferent matter upon a difference Non de Catholico dogmate sed de Ritu vel Ritus potiùs tempore not about any Catholick Doctrin but only a Ceremony or rather about the time of observing it so Petavius values it which was just all one as if the Church of France should excommunicate those of their own Religion in England for not keeping Christmas upon the same day with them And seeing he was reprehended sharply and bitterly for it by most of the Bishops of the World as * Euseb hist l. 5. c. 24. Perron Replic l. 3. c. 2. Eusebius testifies and as Cardinal Perron though mincing the matter yet confesseth by this very Irenaeus himself
Church to Communicate in her corruptions Or you suppose her Communion uncorrupted If the former and yet will take for granted that all are Schismaticks that leave her Communion though it be corrupted you beg the Question in your proposition If the latter you beg the Question in your supposition for Protestants you know are Peremptory and Unanimous in the Denial of both these things Both that the Communion of the Visible Church was then uncorrupted And that they are truly Schismaticks who leave the Communion of the Visible Church if corrupted especially if the case be so and Luthers was so that they must either leave her Communion or of necessity Communicate with her in her corruptions 26. Besides although it were granted Schism to leave the external Communion of the Visible Church in what state or case so ever it be and that Luther and his followers were Schismaticks for leaving the external Communion of all Visible Churches yet you fail exceedingly of clearing the other necessary point undertaken by you That the Roman Church was then the Visible Church For neither do Protestants as you mistake make the true preaching of the Word and due administration of the Sacraments the notes of the Visible Church but only of a Visible Church now these you know are very different things the former signifying the Church Catholick or the whole Church the latter a Particular Church or a part of the Catholick And therefore suppose out of courtesie we should grant what by argument you can never evince that your Church had these notes yet would it by no means follow that your Church were the Visible Church but only a Visible Church not the whole Catholick but only a part of it 27. Lastly whereas you say that Protestants must either grant that your Church then was the Visible Church or name some other disagreeing from yours and agreeing with Protestants in their particular doctrin or acknowledge there was no Visible Church It is all one as if to use S. Pauls similitude the head should say to the foot either you must grant that I am the whole body or name some other member that is so or confess that there is no body To which the foot might answer I acknowledge there is a body and yet that no member beside you is this body nor yet that you are it but only a part of it And in like manner say we We acknowledge a Church there was corrupted indeed universally but yet such a one as we hope by Gods gracious acceptance was still a Church We pretend not to name any one Society that was this Church and yet we see no reason that can enforce us to confess that yours was the Church but only a part of it and that one of the worst then extant in the World In vain therefore have you troubled your self in proving that we cannot pretend that either the Greeks Waldenses Wickliffites Hussites Muscovites Armenians Georgians Abyssines were then the Visible Church For all this discourse proceeds from a false vain supposition and begs another point in Question between us which is that some Church of one denomination and one Communion as the Roman the Greek c. must be always exclusively to all other Communions the whole Visible Church And though perhaps some weak Protestant having this false principle setled in him that there was to be always some Visible Church of one denomination pure from all error in doctrin might be wrought upon and prevailed with by it to forsake the Church of Protestants yet why it should induce him to go to yours rather than the Greek Church or any other which pretends to perpetual succession as well as yours that I do not understand unless it be for the reason which Aeneas Sylvius gave why more held the Pope above a Council than a Council above the Pope which was because Popes did give Bishopricks and Archbishopricks but Councils gave none and therefore suing in Forma Pauperis were not like to have their cause very well maintained For put the case I should grant of meer favour that there must be always some Church of one Denomination and Communion free from all errors in doctrin and that Protestants had not always such a Church it would follow indeed from thence that I must not be a Protestant But that I must be a Papist certainly it would follow by no better consequence than this if you will leave England you must of necessity go to Rome And yet with this wretched fallacy have I been sometimes abused my self and known many other poor souls seduced not only from their own Church and Religion but unto yours I beseech God to open the eyes of all that love the truth that they may not always be held captive under such miserable delusions 28. Let us come now to the Arguments which you build upon D. Potters own words out of which you promise unanswerable reasons to convince Protestants of Schism 29. But these reasons will easily be answered if the Reader will take along with him these three short Memorandums 30. First That not every separation but only a causeless separation from the external Communion of any Church is the Sin of Schism 31. Secondly That imposing upon men under pain of Excommunication a necessity of professing known errors and practising known corruptions is a sufficient and necessary cause of separation and that this is the cause the Protestants alledge to justifie their separation from which Church of Rome 32. Thirdly That to leave the Church and to leave the external Communion of a Church is not the same thing That being done by ceasing to be a member of it by ceasing to have those requisites which constitute a man a member of it as faith and obedience This by refusing to communicate with any Church in her Liturgies and publick worship of God This Armour if it be rightly placed will repel all those Batteries which you threaten us with all 33. Ad § 13.14 15. The first is a sentence of S. Austin against Donatus applied to Luther thus If the Church perished what Church brought forth Donatus you say Luther If she could not perish what madness moved the sect of Donatus to separate upon pretence to avoid the Communion of bad men Whereunto one fair answer to let pass many others is obvious out of the second observation That this sentence though it were Gospel as it is not is impertinently applied to Luther and Lutherans Whose pretence of separation be it true or be it false was not as that of the Donatists only to avoid the Communion of bad men but to free themselves from a necessity which but by separating was unavoidable of joyning with bad men in their impieties 34. Ad § 16. Your second onset drives only at those Protestants who hold the true Church was invisible for many ages Which Doctrin if by the true Church be understood the pure Church as you do understand it is a certain truth it
is easier for you to declaim as you do than to dispute against it But these men you say must be Hereticks because they separated from the Communion of the Visible Church and therefore also from the Communion of that which they say was invisible In as much as the invisible Church communicated with the visible 35. Ans I might very justly desire some proof of that which so confidently you take for granted That there were no persecuted and oppressed maintainers of the Truth in the days of our Fore-fathers but only such as dissembled their opinions and lived in your Communion And truly if I should say there were many of this condition I suppose I could make my Affirmative much more probable than you can make your Negative We read in Scripture that Elias conceived there was none left besides himself in the whole Kingdom of Israel who had not revolted from God and yet God himself assures us that he was deceived And if such a man a Prophet and one of the greatest erred in his judgment touching his own time and his own Country why may not you who are certainly but a man and subject to the same passions as Elias was mistake in thinking that in former ages in some Countrey or other there were not always some good Christians which did not so much as externally bow their knees to your Baal But this answer I am content you shall take no notice of and think it sufficient to tell you that if it be true that this supposed invisible Church did hypocritically communicate with the visible Church in her corruptions then Protestants had cause nay necessity to forsake their Communion also for otherwise they must have joyned with them in the practice of impieties and seeing they had such cause to separate they presume their separation cannot be Schismatical 36. Yes you reply to forsake the external Communion of them with whom they agree in faith is the most formal and proper sin of Schism Answ Very true but I would fain know wherein I would gladly be informed whether I be bound for fear of Schism to communicate with those that believe as I do only in lawful things or absolutely in every thing whether I am to joyn with them in Superstition and Idolatry and not only in a common profession of the Faith wherein we agree but in a common dissimulation or abjuration of it This is that which you would have them do or else forsooth they must be Schismaticks But hereafter I pray remember that there is no necessity of communicating even with true Believers in wicked actions Nay that there is a necessity herein to separate from them And then I dare say even you being their judge the reasonableness of their cause to separate shall according to my first observation justifie their separation from being Schismatical 37. Arg. But the property of Schism according to D. Potter is to cut off from the hope of salvation the Church from which it separates And these Protestants have this property therefore they are Schismaticks 38. Ans I deny the Syllogism it is no better than this One Smptom of the Plague is a Feaver but such a man hath a Feaver therefore he hath the Plague The true conclusion which issues out of these Premisses should be this Therefore he hath one Symptom of the plague And so likewise in the former therefore they have one property or one quality of Schismaticks And as in the former instance The man that hath one sign of the plague may by reason of the absence of other requisites not have the plague So these Protestants may have something of Schismaticks and yet not be Schismaticks A Tyrant sentencing a man to death for his pleasure and a just judge that condemns a malefactor do both sentence a man to death and so for the matter do both the same thing yet the one does wickedly the other justly What 's the reason because the one hath cause the other hath not In like manner Schismaticks either always or generally denounce damnation to them from whom they separate The same do these Protestants yet are not Schismaticks The Reason because Schismaticks do it and do it without cause and Protestants have cause for what they do The impieties of your Church being generally speaking damnable unless where they are excused by ignorance and expiated at least by a general repentance In fine though perhaps it may be true that all Schismaticks do so yet universal affirmatives are not converted and therefore it follows not by any good Logick that all that do so when there is just cause for it must be Schismaticks The cause in this matter of separation is all in all and that for ought I see you never think of But if these rigid Protestants have just cause to cut off your Church from the hope of salvation How can the milder sort allow hope of salvation to the Members of this Church Ans Distinguish the quality of the Persons censured and this seeming repugnance of their censures will vanish into nothing For your Church may be considered either in regard of those in whom either negligence or pride or worldly fear or hopes or some other voluntary sin is the cause of their ignorance which I fear is the case of the generality of men amongst you or in regard of those who owe their Errors from Truth to want of capacity or default of instruction either in respect of those that might know the truth and will not or of those who would know the truth but all things considered cannot In respect of those that have eyes to see and will not see or those that would gladly see but want eyes or light Consider the former sort of men which your more rigid censures seem especially to reflect upon and the heaviest sentence will not be too heavy Consider the latter and the mildest will not be too mild So that here is no difference but in words only neither are you flattered by the one nor uncharitably censured by the other 39. Your next blow is directed against the milder sort of Protestants who you say involve themselves in the sin of Schism by communicating with those as you call them exterminating Spirits whom you conceive your self to have proved Schismaticks And now load them further with the crime of Heresie For say you if you held your selves obliged under pain of damnation to forsake the Communion of the Roman Church by reason of her Errors which yet you confess were not fundamental shall it not be much more damnable to live in confraternity with these who defend an Error of the failing of the Church which in the Donatists you confess to have been properly Heretical 40. Ans You mistake in thinking that Protestants hold themselves obliged not to communicate with you only or principally by reason of your Errors and Corruption For the true reason according to my third observation is not so much because you maintain Errors and Corruptions
all not only destructive but also hurtful Errors This I say he neither denies nor questions And should he have done so he might have been confuted by evident and express Texts of Scripture When therefore you say That a Church not Erring in Fundamentals doth as much as by Gods assistance lies in her power to do This is manifestly untrue For Gods assistance is alwaies ready to promote her farther It is ready I say but on condition the Church does implore it on condition that when it is offerred in the Divine directions of Scripture and reason the Church be not negligent to follow it If therefore there be any Church which retaining the foundation builds Hay and Stubble upon it which believing what is precisely necessary Errors shamefully and dangerously in other things very profitable This by no means argues defect of Divine assistance in God but neglect of this assistance in the Church Neither is there any reason why such a Church should please her self too much for retaining Fundamental truths while she remains so regardless of others For though the simple defect of some truths profitable only and not simply necessary may consist with Salvation Yet who is there that can give her sufficient assurance that the neglect of such truths is not damnable Besides who is there that can put her in sufficient caution that these Errors about profitable matters may not according to the usual fecundity of Error bring forth others of a higher quality such as are pernitious and pestilent and undermine by secret consequences the very foundations of Religion and Piety Lastly who can say that she hath sufficiently discharged her duty to God and man by avoiding only Fundamental Heresies if in the mean time she be negligent of others which though they do not plainly destroy Salvation yet obscure and hinder and only not block up the way to it Which though of themselves and immediately they damn no man yet are causes and occasions that many men run the race of Christian Piety more remisly than they should many defer their repentance many go on securely in their sins and so at length are damned by means and occasion of these Errors though not for them Such Errors as these though those of the Roman Church be much worse even in themselves damnable and by accident only pardonable yet I say such Errors as these if any Church should tolerate dissemble and suffer them to reign and neglect to reform them and not permit them to be freely yet peaceably opposed and impugned will any wise man say that she hath sufficiently discharged her duty to God and man That she hath with due fidelity dispensed the Gospel of Christ That she hath done what she could and what she ought What shall we say then if these Errors be taught by her and commanded to be taught What if she thunder out her curses against those that will not believe them What if she rave and rage against them and persecute them with Fire and Sword and all kinds of most exquisite torments Truly I do much fear that from such a Church though it hold no Error absolutely unconsistent with Salvation the Candlestick of God either is already removed or will be very shortly and because she is negligent of profitable truths that she will lose those that are Necessary and because she will not be led into all truths that in short time she shall be led into none And although this should not happen yet what mortal man can secure us that not only a probable unaffected ignorance nor only a meer neglect of profitable truths but also a wretchless supine negligence manifest contempt Dissimulation Opposition Oppression of them may consist with Salvation I truly for my part though I hope very well of all such as seeking all truth find that which is necessary who endeavouring to free themselves from all Errors any way contrary to the purity of Christianity yet fail of performance and remain in some yet if I did not find in my self a love and desire of all profitable truth If I did not put away idleness and prejudice and worldly affections and so examine to the bottom all my opinions of Divine matters being prepared in mind to follow God and God only which way soever he shall lead me If I did not hope that I either do or endeavour to do these things certainly I should have little hope of obtaining Salvation 62. Obj. But to oblige any man under pain of damnation to forsake a Church by reason of such Errors against which Christ thought it superfluous to promise his assistance and for which he neither denies his grace here nor his glory hereafter what is it but to make the narrow way to Heaven narrower than Christ left it Answ It is not for Christ himself hath obliged us hereunto He hath forbidden us under pain of damnation to profess what we believe not and consequently under the same penalty to leave that Communion in which we cannot remain without this hypocritical profession of those things which we are convinced to be erroneous But then besides it is here falsely supposed as hath been shewed already that Christ hath not promised assistance to those that seek it but only in matters simply necessary Neither is there any reason why any Church even in this World should despair of Victory over all Errors pernitious or noxious provided she humbly and earnestly implore Divine assistance depend wholly upon it and be not wanting to it Though a Triumph over all sin and Error that is security that she neither doth nor can Err be rather to be desired than hoped for on Earth being a felicity reserved for Heaven 63. Ad § 21. Obj. But at least the Roman Church is as infallible as Protestants and Protestants as fallible as the Roman Church therefore to forsake the Roman Church for Errors what is it but to flit from one Erring Society to another Ans The inconsequence of this Argument is too apparent Protestants may Err as well as the Church of Rome therefore they did so Boys in the Schools know that à Posse ad Esse the Argument follows not He is equally fallible that believes twise two to be four as he that believes them to be twenty yet in this he is not equally deceived and he may be certain that he is not so One Architect is no more infallible than another and yet he is more secure that his work is right and streight who hath made it by the level than he which hath made it by guess and by chance So he that forsakes the Errors of the Church of Rome and therefore renounceth her Communion that he may renounce the profession of her Errors though he knows himself fallible as well as those whom he hath forsaken yet he may be certain as certain as the nature of the thing will bear that he is not herein deceived because he may see the Doctrine forsaken by him repugnant to Scripture and
the Doctrine embraced by him consonant to it At least this he may know that the Doctrine which he hath chosen to him seems true and the contrary which he hath forsaken seems false And therefore without remorse of Conscience he may profess that but this he cannot 64. Obj. But we are to remember that according to Doctor Potter the Visible Church hath a blessing not to Err in Fundamentals in which any private Reformer may fail therefore there was no necessity of forsaking the Church out of whose Communion they were exposed to danger of falling into many more and even into damnable Errors Answ The Visible Church is free indeed from all Errors absolutely destructive and unpardonable but not from all Error which in it self is damnable not from all which will actually bring damnation upon them that keep themselves in them by their own voluntary and avoidable fault Besides any private man who truly believes the Scripture and seriously endeavours to know the will of God and to do it is as secure as the Visible Church more secure than your Church from the danger of Erring in Fundamentals for it is impossible that any man so quallified should fall into any Error which to him will prove damnable For God requires no more of any man to his Salvation but his true endeavour to be saved Lastly abiding in your Churches Communion is so far from securing me or any man from damnable Error that if I should abide in it I am certain I could not be saved For abide in it I cannot without professing to believe your entire Doctrine true profess this I cannot but I must lie perpetually and exulcerate my Conscience And though your Errors were not in themselves damnable yet to resist the known Truth and to continue in the profession of known Errors were not in themselves damnable yet to resist the known Truth and to continue in the profession of known Errors and falshoods is certainly a capital sin and of great affinity with the sin which shall never be forgiven 65. Obj. But neither is the Protestant Church free from corruptions ond Errors And what man of Judgment will be a Protestant since that Church is confessedly a corrupted one Answ And yet you your self make large discourses in this very Chapter to perswade Protestants to continue in the Church of Rome though supposed to have some corruptions And why I pray may not a man of judgment continue in the Communion of a Church confessedly corrupted as well as in a Church supposed to be corrupted Especially when this Church supposed to be corrupted requires the belief and profession of her supposed corruptions as the condition of her Communion which this Church confessedly corrupted doth not What man of judgment will think it any disparagement to his judgment to prefer the better though not simply the best before that which is stark naught To prefer indifferrent good health before a diseased and corrupted state of Body To prefer a field not perfectly weeded before a field that is quite over-run with Weeds and Thorns and therefore though Protestants have some Errors yet seeing they are neither so great as yours nor imposed with such Tyranny nor maintained with such obstinacy he that conceives it any disparagement to his judgment to change your Communion for theirs though confessed to have some corruptions it may well be presumed that he hath but little judgment 66. Ad § 22. Obj. But Protestants say it is comfort enough for the Church to be secured from all capital dangers which can only arise from Error in Fundamental points and not hope to Triumph over all sin and Error till she be in Heaven why therefore were not the first Reformers content with enough but would dismember the Church out of greediness of more than enough Answ I have already shewed sufficiently how capital danger may arise from Errors though not Fundamental I add now that what may be enough for men in ignorance may be to knowing men not enough according to that of the Gospel to whom much is given of him much shall be required That the same Error may be not capital to those who want means of finding the truth and capital to others who have means and neglect to use them That to continue in the profession of Error discovered to be so may be damnable though the Error be not so These I presume are reasons enough and enough why the first Reformers might think and justly that not enough for themselves which yet to some of their Predecessors they hope might be enough This very Argument was objected to a S. Cyprian Ep. 63. In these words Siquis de antecessoribus nostris vel igneranter vel simplÃciter non hoc observavit tenuit quod nos Dominus facere exemplo Magisterio suo docuit potest simplicitati ejus de indulgentia Domini venia concedi nobis verò non potest ignosci qui nunc à Domino admoniti instructi sumus S. Cyprian upon another occasion and also by the b Wilfridus to Abbat Colman alledging that he followed the example of his predecessors famous for Holiness and famous for Miracles in these Words De Patre Vestro Columba sequacibus ejus quorum santitatem vos imitari regulam ac praecepta coelestibus signis confirmata sequi perhibetis possum respondere Quia multis in judicio dicentibus Domino Quòd in nomine ejus prophetaverint daemonia ejecerint virtutes multas fecerint responsurus sit Dominus quia nunquam eos noverit Sed absit ut de patribus vestris hoc dicam quia justius multo est de incognitis bonum credere quam malum Vnde illos Dei famulos Deo dilectos esse non nego qui simplicitate ructicâ sed intentione piâ Deum dilexerunt Neque illis multum obesse Paschae talem reor observantiam quandiu nullus advenerat qui eis instituti perfectioris decreta quae sequerentur ostenderet Quos utique credo si qui tunc ad eos Catholicus calculator adveniret sic ejus monita fuisse secuturos quomodo ea quae noverant ac didicerunt Dei mandata probantur fuisse secuti Tu autem socii tui si audita decreta sedis Apostolicae imo universalis Ecclesiae haec literis sacris confirmata contemnitis absque ulla dubietate peccatis Brittish Quartodecimans to the maintainers of the Doctrine of your Church and c Beda lib. 3. Eccl. Hist c. 25. by both this very answer was returned and therefore I cannot but hope that for their sakes you will approve it 67. Obj. But if no Church may hope to Triumph over Error till she be in Heaven then we must either grant that Errors not Fundamental cannot yield sufficient cause to forsake the Church or affirm that all communities may and ought to be forsaken Answ We do not say that no Church may hope to be free from all Error either pernitious
or any way noxious But that no Church may hope to be secure from all Error simply for this were indeed truly to triumph over all But then we say not that the Communion of any Church is to be forsaken for Errors unfundamental unless it exact with all either a dissimulation of them being noxious or a Profession of them against the dictate of Conscience if they be meer Errors This if the Church does as certainly yours doth then her Communion is to be forsaken rather than the sin of Hypocrisie to be committed Whereas to forsake the Churches of Protestants for such Errors there is no necessity because they Err to themselves and do not under pain of Excommunication exact the profession of their Errors 68. Obj. But the Church may not be left by reason of sin therefore neither by reason of Errors not Fundamental in as much as both sin and Error are impossible to be avoided till she be in Heaven Answ The reason of the consequence does not appear to me But I answer to the Antecedent Neither for sin or Errors ought a Church to be forsaken if she does not impose and joyn them but if she do as the Roman does then we must forsake men rather than God leave the Churches Communion rather than commit sin or profess known Errors to be Divine truths For the Prophet Ezekiel hath assured us that to say the Lord hath said so when the Lord hath not said so is a great sin and a high presumption be the matter never so small 69. Ad § 23. Obj. But neither the Quality nor the number of your Churches Errors could warrant our forsaking of it Not the Quality because we suppose them not Fundamental Not the number because the Foundation is strong enough to support them Answ Here again you vainly suppose that we conceive your Errors in themselves not damnable Though we hope they are not absolutely unpardonable but to say they are pardonable is indeed to suppose them damnable Secondly though the Errors of your Church did not warrant our departure yet your Tyrannous imposition of them would be our sufficient justification For this lays necessity on us either to forsake your company or to profess what we know to be false 70. Obj. Our Blessed Saviour hath declared his Will that we forgive a private offender Seventy Seven times that is without limitation of quantity of time or quality of Trespasses and then how dare we alledge his command that we must not pardon his Church for Errors acknowledged to be not Fundamental Answ He that commands us to pardon our Brother sinning against us so often will not allow us for his sake to sin with him so much as once He will have us do any thing but sin rather than offend any man But his will is also that we offend all the World rather than sin in the least matter And therefore though his will were and it were in our power which yet is false to pardon the Errors of an Erring Church yet certainly it is not his will that we should Err with the Church or if we do not that we should against Conscience profess the Errors of it 71. Ad § 24. Obj. But Schismaticks from the Church of England or any other Church with this very Answer that they forsake not the Church but the Errors of it may cast off from themselves the imputation of Schism Answ True they may make the same Answer and the same defence as we do as a Murtherer can cry not guilty as well as an Innocent person but not so truly nor so justly The question is not what may be pretended but what can be proved by Schismaticks They may object Errors to other Churches as well as we do to yours but that they prove their accusation so strongly as we can that appears not To the Priests and Elders of the Jews imposing that sacred silence mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles S. Peter and S. John answered they must obey God rather than men The three Children to the King of Babylon gave in effect the same answer Give me now any factious Hypocrite who makes Religion the pretence and Cloke of his Rebellion and who sees not that such a one may answer for himself in those very formal words which the Holy Apostles and Martyrs made use of And yet I presume no Christian will deny but this answer was good in the mouth of the Apostles and Martyrs though it were obnoxious to be used by Traitors and Rebels Certainly therefore it is no good consequence to say Schismaticks may make use of this Answer therefore all that do make use of it are Schismaticks But moreover it is to be observed that the cheif part of our defence that you deny your Communion to all that deny or doubt of any part of your Doctrine cannot with any colour be imployed against Protestants who grant their Communion to all who hold with them not all things but things necessary that is such as are in Scripture plainly delivered 72. Obj. But the forsaking the Roman Church opens a way to innumerable Sects and Schisms and therefore it must not be forsaken Answ We must not do evil to avoid evil neither are all courses presently lawful by which inconveniencies may be avoided If all men would submit themselves to the chief Mufty of the Turks it is apparent there would be no divisions yet Unity is not to be purchased at so dear a rate It were a thing much to be desired that there were no divisions yet difference of opinions touching points controverted is rather to be chosen than unanimous concord in damned Errors As it is better for men to go to Heaven by diverse ways or rather by divers Paths of the same way than in the same path to go on peaceably to Hell Amica Pax magis amica Veritas Peace is dear to me but Truth is dearer 74. Ad § 26.27 Here you make D. Potter to say that Protestants did well to forsake the Church of Rome because they judged she retained all means necessary to Salvation Answ Who was ever so stupid as to give this ridiculous reason D. Potter Vindicates Protestants for Schism two ways The one is because they had just and great and necessary cause to separate which Schismaticks never have because they that have it are no Schismaticks For Schism is always a causeless separation The other is because they did not joyn with their separation an uncharitable damning of all those from whom they did divide themselves as the manner of Schismaticks is Now that which he intends for a circumstance of our separation you make him make the cause of it and the motive to it And whereas he says though we separate from you in some things yet we acknowledge your Church a member of the Body of Christ and therefore are not Schismaticks You make him say most absurdly we did well to forsake you because we judged you a member of the Body of Christ
them to leave your Communion and this speech of yours so far as it concerns the same Errors plainly destroys it self For how can they possibly fall into the same Errors by forsaking your Communion which that they may forsake they do forsake your Communion And then for other errors of the like nature and quality or more enormous than yours though they deny it not possible but by their negligence and wickedness they may fall into them yet they are so far from acknowledging that they have no hope to avoid this mischief that they proclaim to all the world that it is most prone and easie to do so to all those that fear God and love the truth and hardly possible for them to do otherwise without supine negligence and extream impiety 89. Obj. But when Luther began he being but one opposed himself to all as well Subjects as Superiors Ans If he did so in the cause of God it was heroically done of him This had been without hyperbolizing Mundus contra Athanasium and Athanasius contra Mundum the world against Athanasius and Athanasius against the world neither is it impossible that the whole world should so far lie in wickedness as S. John speaks that it may be lawful and noble for one man to oppose the world But yet were we put to our Oaths we should surely not testifie any such thing for you for how can we say properly and without streining that he opposed himself to All unless we could say also that All opposed themselves to him And how can we say so seeing the world can witness that so many thousands nay millions followed his standard as soon as it was advanced 90. But none that lived immediatly before him thought or spake as he did This first is nothing to the purpose The Church was then corrupted and sure it was no dishonour to him to begin the Reformation In the Christian warfare every man ought to strive to be foremost Secondly it is more than you can justifie For though no man before him lifted up his voice like a Trumpet as Luther did yet who can assure us but that many before him both thought and spake in lower voice of Petitions and Remonstrances in many points as he did 91. Obj. Many chief learned Protestants are forced to confess the Antiquity of your Doctrin and practice Ans Of many Doctrins and practices of yours this is not true for I pray inform me what confessions of Protestants have you for the Antiquity of the Doctrin of the Communion in one kind the lawfulness and expedience of the Latin Service For the present use of Indulgences For the Popes power in Temporalties over Princes For the picturing of the Trinity For the lawfulness of the worship of Pictures For your Beads and Rosary and Ladies Psalter and in a word for your whole worship of the Blessed Virgin For your oblations by way of consumption and therefore in the quality of Sacrifices to the Virgin Mary and other Saints For your saying of Pater nosters and Creeds to the honour of Saints and of Ave-Maries to the honour of other Saints besides the Blessed Virgin For infallibility of the Bishop or Church of Rome For your prohibiting the Scripture to be read publickly in the Church in such Languages as all may understand For your Doctrin of the Blessed Virgins immunity from actual sin and for your doctrin and worship of her Imaculate conception For the necessity of Auricular Confession For the necessity of the Priests intention to obtain benefit by any of your Sacraments And lastly not to trouble my self with finding out more for this very doctrin of Licentiousness That though a man live and die without the practice of Christian vertues and with the habits of many damnable sins unmortified yet if he in the last moment of life have any sorrow for his sins and joyn confession with it certainly he shall be saved Besides though some Protestants confess some of your Doctrine to be Ancient yet this is nothing so long as it is evident even by the confession of all sides that many Errors I instance in that of the Millenaries and the Communicating of Infants were more Ancient Not any antiquity thereof unless it be absolute and primitive is a certain sight of true Doctrine For if the Church were obnoxious to corruption as we pretend it was who can possible warrant us that part of this corruption might not get in and prevail in the 5. or 4. or 3. or 2. Age Especially seeing the Apostles assure us that the mystery of iniquity was working though more secretly even in their times If any man ask how could it become Universal in so short a time Let him tell me how the Error of the Millenaries and the Communicating of Infants became so soon Universal and then he shall acknowledge what was done in some was possible in others Lastly to cry quittance with you As there are Protestants who confess the Antiquity but always post-nate to Apostolick of some points of your Doctrine so there want not Papists who acknowledge as freely the novelty of many of them and the Antiquity of ours A collection of whose Testimony we have without thanks to you in your Indices expurgatoris The Divine Providence blessedly abusing for the readier manifestation of the Truth this Engine intended by you for the subversion and suppression of it Here is no place to stand upon particulars only one general ingenuous confession of that great Erasmus may not be passed over in silence Non desunt magni Theologi Erasm Ep. lib. 15. Ep. ad Godeschalcum Ros qui non verentur affirmare nihil esse in Luthero quin per probatos authores defendi possit There want not great Divines which stick not to affirm that there is nothing in Luther which may not be defended by good and allowed authors 92. After this you compose a heap of vain suppositions pretended to be grounded on our confessions As first that your Deseases which we forsook neither were nor could be mortal whereas we assure our selves and are ready to justifie that they are and were mortal in themselves and would have been so to us if when light came to us we had loved Darkness more than Light Secondly that we had no hope to avoid other Diseases like those for which we forsook your company nor to be secure out of it from damnable Errors whereas in truth the hope hereof was the only motive of our departure and we assure our selves that the means to be secured from damnable Error is not to be secure as you are but carefully to use those means of avoiding it to which God hath promised and will never fail to give a blessing Thirdly that those innumerable mischiefs which followed upon the departure of Protestants were caused by it as by a proper cause whereas their Doctrine was no otherwise the occasion of them than the Gospel of Christ was of the division of the World
is properly an Heresie But the preaching of the Gospel at the beginning was not Universal therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie For as he whose Reformation is but particular may yet not deny the Resurrection so may he also not deny the Churches Universality And as the Apostles who preached the Gospel in the beginning did believe the Church Universal though their preaching at the beginning was not so So Luther also might and did believe the Church Universal though his Reformation were but particular I say he did believe it Universal even in your own sense that is Universal de jure though not de facto And as for universality in fact he believed the Church much more Universal than his Reformation For he did conceive as appears by your own Allegations out of him that only the Part reformed was the true Church but also that they were Part of it who needed reformation Neither did he ever pretend to make a new Church but to reform the old one Thirdly and lastly to the first proposition of this unsyllogistical syllogism I answer That to say the true Church is not always de facto universal is so far from being an Heresie that it is a certain Truth known to all those that know the world and what Religions possess far the greater part of it Donatus therefore was not to blame for saying that the Church might possibly be confined to Africk but for saying without ground that then it was so And S. Austin as he was in the right in thinking that the Church was then extended farther than Africk so was he in the wrong if he thought that of necessity it always must be so but most palpably mistaken in conceiving that it was then spread over the whole earth and known to all nations which if passion did not trouble you and make you forget how lately almost half the world was discovered and in what estate it was then found you would very easily see and confess 16. The Donatists might do ill in calling the Chair of Rome the Chair of Pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot and yet the state of the Church being altered Protestants might do well to do so and therefore though S. Austin might perhaps have reason to persecute the Donatists for detracting from the Church and calling her Harlot when she was not so yet you may have none to threaten D. Potter that you would persecute him as the Application of this place intimates you would if it were in your power plainly shewing that you are a curst Cow though your horns be short seeing the Roman Church is not now what it was in S. Austins time And hereof the conclusion of your own book affords us a very pregnant testimony where you tell us out of Saint Austin that one grand impediment which among many kept the seduced followers of the faction of Donatus from the Churches Communion was a visible calumny raised against the Catholicks that they did set some strange thing upon their Altar To how many saith Saint Austin did the reports of ill Tongues shut up the way to enter who said that we put I know not what upon the Altar Out of detestation of the calumny and just indignation against it he would not so much as name the impiety wherewith they were charged and therefore by a Rhetorical figure calls it I know not what But compare with him Optatus writing of the same matter and you shall plainly perceive that this I know not what pretended to be set upon the Altar was indeed a picture which the Donatists knowing how detestable a thing it was to all Christians at that time to set up any pictures in a Church to worship them as your new fashion is bruited abroad to be done in the Churches of the Catholick Church But what answer do S. Austin and Optatus make to this accusation Do they confess and maintain it Do they say as you would now It is true we do set Pictures upon our Altar and that not only for ornament or memory but for worship also but we do well to do so and this ought not to trouble you or affright you from our Communion What other answer your Church could now make to such an objection is very hard to imagine And therefore were your Doctrin the same with the Doctrin of the Fathers in this point they must have answered so likewise But they to the contrary not only deny the crime but abhor and detest it To little purpose therefore do you hunt after these poor shadows of resemblances between us and the Donatists unless you could shew an exact resemblance between the present Church of Rome and the Ancient which seeing by this and many other particulars it is demonstrated to be impossible that Church which was then a Virgin may be now a Harlot and that which was detraction in the Donatists may be in Protestants a just accusation 18. But the main point you say is that since Luthers Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was in the Apostles time they must of necessity affirm heretically with the Donatists that the true unspotted Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O Blasphemy an Harlot By which words it seems you are resolute perpetually to confound True and Unspotted and to put no difference between a corrupted Church and none at all But what is this but to make no difference between a diseased and a dead man Nay what is it but to contradict your selves who cannot deny but that sins are as great stains and spots and deformities in the sight of God as errors and confess your Church to be a Congregation of men whereof every particular not one excepted and consequently the generality which is nothing but a collection of them is polluted and defiled with sin 19. You ask How can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain a damnable Heresie I Answer she may be more truly said to perish when she is not only permitted to do so but de facto doth maintain a damnable Heresie Again she may be more truly said to perish when she falls into an Heresie which is not only damnable in it self and ex natura rei as you speak but such an Heresie the belief of whose contrary Truth is necessary not only necessitate praecepti but medii and therefore the Heresie so absolutely and indispensably destructive of salvation that no ignorance can excuse it nor any general repentance without a dereliction of it can beg a pardon for it Such an heresie if the Church should fall into it might be more truly said to perish than if it fell only into some heresie of its own nature damnable For in that state all the members of it without exception all without mercy must needs perish for ever In this although those that might see the truth and would not cannot upon any good ground
foolish as to believe your Church exempted from Error upon less evidence rather than subject to the common condition of mankind upon greater evidence Now if I take the Scripture only for my Guide I shall not need to do any thing so unreasonable 64. If I will follow your Church I must believe impossibilities and that with an absolute certainty upon motives which are confessed to be but only Prudential and probable That is with a weak Foundation I must firmly support a heavy a monstrous heavy building Now following the Scripture I shall have no necessity to undergo any such difficulties 65. Following your Church I must be servant of Christ and a Subject of the King but only Ad placitum Papae I must be prepared in mind to renounce my allegiance to the King when the Pope shall declare him an Heretick and command me not to obey him And I must be prepared in mind to esteem Vertue Vice and Vice Vertue if the Pope shall so determine Indeed you say it is impossible he should do the latter but that you know is a great question neither is it fit my obedience to God and the King should depend upon a questionable Foundation And howsoever you must grant that if by an impossible supposition the Popes commands should be contrary to the law of Christ that they of your Religion must resolve to obey rather the commands of the Pope than the law of Christ Whereas if I follow the Scripture I may nay I must obey my Sovereign in lawful things though an Heretick though a Tyrant and though I do not say the Pope but the Apostles themselves nay an Angel from Heaven should teach any thing against the Gospel of Christ I may nay I must denounce Anathema to him 66. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion which being contrary to Flesh and Blood without any assistance from worldly power wit or policy nay against all the power and policy of the World prevailed and enlarged it self in a very short time all the World over Whereas it is too too apparent that your Church hath got and still maintains her authority over mens Consciences by counterfeiting false miracles forging false stories by obtruding on the World suppositious writings by corrupting the monuments of former times and defacing out of them all which any way makes against you by Wars by persecutions by Massacres by Treasons by Rebellions in short by all manner of Carnal means whether violent or fraudulent 67. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion the first Preachers of Professors whereof it is most certain they could have no worldly ends upon the World that they could not project to themselves by it any of the profits or honours or pleasures of this World but rather were to expect the contrary even all the miseries which the World could lay upon them On the other side the Head of your Church the pretended Successor of the Apostles and Guide of Faith it is even palpable that he makes your Religion the instrument of his ambition and by it seeks to entitle himself directly or indirectly to the Monarchy of the World And besides it is evident to any man that has but half an eye that most of those Doctrines which you add to the Scripture do make one way or other for the honour or temporal profit of the Teachers of them 68. Following the Scripture only I shall embrace a Religion of admirable simplicity consisting in a manner wholly in the worship of God in Spirit and Truth Whereas your Church and Doctrine is even loaded with an infinity of weak childish ridiculous unsavoury superstitions and ceremonies and full of that righteousness for which Christ shall Judge the World 69. Following the Scripture I shall believe that which Universal never-failing Tradition assures me that it was by the admirable supernatural Work of God confirmed to be the Word of God whereas never any miracle was wrought never so much as a lame Horse cured in confirmation of your Churches authority and infallibility And if any strange things have been done which may seem to give attestation to some parts of your Doctrine yet this proves nothing but the truth of the Scripture which foretold that Gods providence permitting it and the wickedness of the World deserving it strange signs and wonders should be wrought to confirm false Doctrine that they which love not the Truth may be given over to strange delusions Neither does it seem to me any strange thing that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude them who have forged so many to deceive the World 70. If I follow the Scripture I must not promise my self Salvation without effectual dereliction and mortification of all Vices and the effectual Practice of all Christian Vertues But your Church opens an easier and a broader way to Heaven and though I continue all my life long in a course of sin and without the Practice of any Vertue yet gives me assurance that I may be let into Heaven at a Postern-gate even by any Act of Attrition at the hour of Death if it be joyned with confession or by an Act of Contrition without confession 71. Admirable are the Precepts of piety and humility of innocence and patience of liberality frugality temperance sobriety justice meekness fortitude constancy and gravity contempt of the World love of God and the love of mankind In a Word of all Vertues and against all vice which the Scriptures impose upon us to be obeyed under pain of damnation The sum whereof is in manner comprised in our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount recorded in the 5 6 and 7. of S. Matthew which if they were generally obeyed could not but make the world generally happy and the goodness of them alone were sufficient to make any wise and good man believe that this Religion rather than any other came from God the fountain of all goodness And that they may be generally obeyed our Saviour hath ratified them all in the close of his Sermon with these universal Sanctions Not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven and again whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them not shall be likned unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rain descended and the flood came and the winds blew and it fell and great was the fall thereof Now your Church notwithstanding all this enervates and in a manner dissolves and abrogates many of these precepts teaching men that they are not Laws for all Christians but Counsels of perfection and matters of Supererrogation that a man shall do well if he do observe them but he shall not sin if he observe them not that they are for them who aim at high places in heaven who aspire with the two sons of Zebede to the right hand or to the left hand of Christ But if a man will be content
barely to go to heaven and to be a door-keeper in the house of God especially if he will be content to tast of Purgatory in the way he may obtain it at any easier purchase Therefore the Religion of your Church is not so holy nor so good as the doctrin of Christ delivered in Scripture and therefore not so likely to come from the Fountain of holiness and goodness 72. Lastly if I follow your Church for my Guide I shall do all one as if I should follow a Company of blind men in a judgment of colours or in the choice of a way For every unconsidering man is blind in that which he does not consider Now what is your Church but a Company of unconsidering men who comfort themselves because they are a great company together but all of them either out of idleness refuse the trouble of a severe tryal of their Religion as if heaven were not worth it or out of superstition fear the event of such a tryal that they may be scrupled and staggered and disquieted by it and therefore for the most part do it not all Or if they do it they do it negligently and hypocritically and perfunctorily rather for the satisfaction of others than themselves but certainly without indifference without liberty of judgment without a resolution to doubt of it if upon examination the grounds of it prove uncertain or to leave it if they prove apparently false My own experience assures me that in this imputation I do you no injury but it is very apparent to all men from your ranking doubting of any part of your Doctrin among mortal sins For from hence it follows that seeing every man must resolve that he will never commit mortal sin that he must never examine the grounds of it at all for fear he should be moved to doubt or if he do he must resolve that no motives be they never so strong shall move him to doubt but that with his will and resolution he will uphold himself in a firm belief of your Religion though his reason and his understanding fail him And seeing this is the condition of all those whom you esteem good Catholicks who can deny but you are a Company of men unwilling and afraid to understand lest you should do good That have eyes to see and will not see that have not the love of truth which is only to be known by an indifferent tryal and therefore deserve to be given over to strong delusions men that love darkness more than light in a word that you are the blind leading the blind and what prudence there can be in following such Guides our Saviour hath taught us in saying If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch 74. Ad § 32. Your next and last argument against the faith of Protestants is because wanting certainty and prudence it must also want the fourth condition Supernaturality For that being a humane perswasion it is not in the essence of it Supernatural and being imprudent and rash it cannot proceed from Divine motion and so is not supernatural in respect of the cause from which it proceedeth Ans This little discourse stands wholly upon what went before and therefore must fall together with it I have proved the Faith of Protestants as certain and as prudent as the faith of Papists and therefore if these be certain grounds of supernaturality our faith may have it as well as yours I would here furthermore be informed how you can assure us that your faith is not your perswasion or opinion for you make them all one that your Churches doctrine is true Or if you grant it your perswasion why is it not the perswasion of men and in respect of the subject of it an humane perswasion I desire also to know what sense there is in pretending that your perswasion is not in regard of the object only and cause of it but in nature or essence of it supernatural Lastly whereas you say that being imprudent it cannot come from divine motion certainly by this reason all they that believe your own Religion and cannot give a wise and sufficient reason for it as millions amongst you cannot must be condemned to have no supernatural faith or if not then without question nothing can hinder but that the imprudent faith of Protestants may proceed from divine motion as well as the imprudent faith of Papists 75. And thus having weighed your whole discourse and found it altogether lighter than vanity why should I not invert your conclusion and say Seeing you have not proved that whosoever errs against any one point of Faith loseth all divine Faith nor that any error whatsoever concerning that which by the Parties litigant may be esteemed a matter of faith is a grievous sin it follows not at all that when two men hold different doctrines concerning Religion that but one can be saved Not that I deny but that the sentence of S. Chrysost with which you conclude this Chapter may in a good sense be true for oftimes by the faith is meant only that Doctrin which is necessary to salvation and to say that salvation may be had without any the least thing which is necessary to salvation implies a repugnance and destroys it self Besides not to believe all necessary points and to believe none at all is for the purpose of salvation all one and therefore he that does so may justly be said to destroy the Gospel of Christ seeing he makes it uneffectual to the end for which it was intended the Salvation of mens souls But why you should conceive that all differences about Religion are concerning matters of faith in this high notion of the word for that I conceive no reason CHAP. VII The ANSWER to the Seventh CHAPTER Shewing that Protestants are not bound by the Charity which they owe to themselves to reunite themselves to the Roman Church 6. Ad § 2. WHereas you say it is directly against Charity to our selves to adventure the omitting of any means necessary to salvation this is true But so is this also that it is directly against the same Charity to adventure the omitting any thing that may any way help or conduce to my salvation that may make the way to it more secure or less dangerous And therefore if the errors of the Roman Church do but hinder me in this way or any way endanger it I am in Charity to my self bound to forsake them though they be not destructive of it Again whereas you conclude That if by living out of the Roman Church we put our selves in hazard to want something necessary to Salvation we commit a grievous sin against the vertue of Charity as it respects our selves This consequence may be good in those which are thus perswaded of the Roman Church and yet live out of it But the supposition is certainly false We may live and die out of the Roman Church without putting our selves in any such hazard Nay to
sin and S. James sure intended to deliver the adequate cause of sin and Death in those words Lust when it hath conceived bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth Death Seeing therefore in such things according to your Doctrine it is sufficient for avoiding of sin that we proceed prudently and by the conduct of some probable opinion maturely weighed and approved by men of Learning Vertue and Wisdom and seeing neither Jews want their Gamaliels nor Pagans their Antoninus's nor any Sect of Christians such professors and maintainers of their several Sects as are esteemed by the People which know no better and that very reasonably men of Vertue Learning and Wisdom it follows evidently that the embracing their Religion proceeds upon such reason as may warrant their action to be prudent and this is sufficient for avoiding of sin and therefore certainly for avoiding damnation for that in humane affairs discourse evidence and certainty cannot be always expected I have stood the longer upon the refutation of this Doctrine not only because it is impious and because bad use is made of it and worse may be but only because the contrary position That men are bound for avoiding sin always to take the safest way is a fair and sure Foundation for a clear confutation of the main conclusion which in this Chapter you labour in vain to prove and a certain proof that in regard of the precept of Charity towards ones self and of obedience to God Papists unless ignorance excuse them are in state of sin as long as they remain in subjection to the Roman Church 9. for if the safer way for avoiding sin be also the safer way for avoiding damnation then certainly the way of Protestants must be more secure and the Roman way more dangerous take but into your consideration these ensuing Controversies Whether it be lawful to worship Pictures to Picture the Trinity to invocate Saints and Angels to deny Lay-men the Cup in the Sacrament to adore the Sacraments to prohibit certain Orders of Men and Women to Marry to Celebrate the publick service of God in a language which the assistants generally understand not and you will not choose but confess that in all these you are on the more dangerous side for the committing of sin and we on that which is more secure For in all these things if we say true you do that which is impious on the other side if you were in the right yet we might be secure enough for we should only not do something which you confess not necessary to be done We pretend and are ready to justifie out of principles agreed upon between us that in all these things you violate the manifest commandments of God and alledge such Texts of Scripture against you as if you would weigh them with any indifference would put the matter out of question but certainly you cannot with any modesty deny but that at least they make it questionable On the other side you cannot with any face pretend and if you should know not how to go about to prove that there is any necessity of doing any of these things that it is unlawful not to worship Pictures not to Picture the Trinity not to invocate Saints and Angels not to give all men the entire Sacrament not to adore the Eucharist not to prohibit Marriage not to Celebrate Divine Service in an unknown Tongue I say you neither do nor can pretend that there is any law of God which enjoyns us no nor so much as an Evangelical Council that advises us to do any of these things Now where no law is there can be no sin for sin is the transgression of the Law It remains therefore that our forbearing to do these things must be free from all danger and suspicion of sin whereas your acting of them must be if not certainly impious without all contradiction questionable and dangerous I conclude therefore that which was to be concluded that if the safer way for avoiding sin be also as most certainly it is the safer way for avoiding damnation then certainly the way of Protestants must be more safe and the Roman way more dangerous 12. Ad § 5. Here you begin to make some shew of arguing and the first Argument put into form stands thus Every least Error in Faith destroys the nature of Faith It is certain that some Protestants do Err and therefore they want the substance of Faith The Major of which Syllogism I have formerly confuted by unanswerable Arguments out of one of your own best Authors who shews plainly that he hath amongst you as strange as you make it many other Abettors Besides if it were true it would conclude that either you or the Dominicans have no Faith in as much as you oppose one another as much as Arminians and Calvinists 13. The Second Argument stands thus Since all Protestants pretend the like certainty it is clear that none of them have any certainty at all Which Argument if it were good then what can hinder but this must also be so Since Protestants and Papists pretend the like certainty it is clear that none of them have any certainty at all And this too Since all Christians pretend the like certainty it is clear that none of them have any certainty at all And thirdly this Since men of all Religions pretend a like certainty it is clear that none of them have any at all And lastly this Since oft-times they which are abused with a specious Paralogism pretend the like certainty with them which demonstrate it is clear that none of them have any certainty at all Certainly Sir Zeal and the Devil did strangely blind you if you did not see that these horrid impieties were the immediate consequences of your positions if you did see it and yet would set them down you deserve worse censure Yet such as these are all the Arguments wherewith you conceive your self to have proved undoubtedly that Protestants have reason at least to doubt in what case they stand 14. Your third and fourth Argument may be thus put into one Protestants cannot tell what points in particular be Fundamental therefore they cannot tell whether they or their Brethren do not Err Fundamentally and whether their difference be not Fundamental Both which deductions I have formerly shewed to be most inconsequent for knowing the Scripture to contain all Fundamentals though many more points besides which makes it difficult to say precisely what is Fundamental and what not knowing this I say and believing it what can hinder but that I may be well assured that I believe all Fundamentals and that all who believe the Scripture sincerely as well as I do not differ from me in any thing Fundamental 15. In the close of this Section you say that you omit to add that we want the Sacrament of Repentance instituted for the remission of sins or at least we must confess that we hold it not necessary and
good works they requiring Charity as a necessary qualification in him that will be saved what sense is there in saying they cannot make their calling certain by good works They know what salvation is as well as you and you have as much reason to desire it They believe it as heartily as you that there is no good work but shall have its proper reward and that there is no possibility of obtaining the eternal reward without good works and why then may not this Doctrin be a sufficient incitement and provocation unto good works 31. You say that they certainly believe that before any good works they are justified But this is a calumny There is no Protestant but requires to Justification Remission of sins and to Remission of sins they all require Repentance and Repentance I presume may not be denied the name of a good work being indeed if it be rightly understood and according to the sense of the word in Scripture an effectual conversion from all sin to all holiness But though it be taken for meer sorrow for sins past and a bare purpose of amendment yet even this is a good work and therefore Protestants requiring this to Remission of sins and Remission of sins to justification cannot with candor be pretended to believe that they are justified before any good work 32. Obj. You say They believe themselves justified by faith alone and that by that faith whereby they believe themselves justified Answ Some peradventure do so but withal they believe that that faith which is alone and unaccompanied with sincere and universal obedience is to be esteemed not faith but presumption and is at no hand sufficient to justificafication that though Charity be not imputed unto justification yet it is required as a necessary disposition in the person to be justified and that though in regard of the imperfection of it no man can be justified by it yet that on the other side no man can be justified without it So that upon the whole matter a man may truly and safely say that the Doctrin of these Protestants taken altogether is not a Doctrin of Liberty not a Doctrin that turns hope into presumption and carnal security though it may justly be feared that many licentious persons taking it by halves have made this wicked use of it For my part I do heartily wish that by publick Authority it were so ordered that no man should ever Preach or Print this Doctrin that Faith alone justifies unless he joyns this together with it that universal obedience is necessary to salvation And besides that those Chapters of S. Paul which intreat of justification by faith without the works of the Law were never read in the Church but when the thirteenth Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians concerning the absolute necessity of Charity should be to prevent misprision read together with them 33. Obj. Whereas you say that some Protestants do expresly affirm the former point to be the soul of the Church c. and that therefore they must want the Theological vertue of Hope and that none can have true hope while they hope to be saved in their Communion I Answer They have great reason to believe the Doctrin of Justification by faith only a point of great weight and importance if it be rightly understood that is they have reason to esteem it a principal and necessary duty of a Christian to place his hope of justification and salvation not in the perfection of his own righteousness which if it be imperfect will not justifie but only in the mercies of God through Christs satisfaction and yet notwithstanding this nay the rather for this may preserve themselves in the right temper of good Christians which is a happy mixture and sweet composition of confidence and fear If this Doctrin be otherwise expounded than I have here expounded I will not undertake the justification of it only I will say that which I may do truly that I never knew any Protestant such a soli-fidian but that he did believe these divine Truths That he must make his calling certain by good works That he must work out his salvation with fear and trembling and that while he does not so he can have no well-grounded hope of Salvation I say I never met with any who did not believe these divine Truths and that with a more firm and a more unshaken assent than he does that himself is predestinate and that he is justified by believing himself justified I never met with any such who if he saw there were a necessity to do either would not rather forgo his belief of these Doctrins than the former these which he sees disputed and contradicted and opposed with a great multitude of very potent Arguments then those which being the express words of Scripture whosoever should call into question could not with any modesty pretend to the title of Christian And therefore there is no reason but we may believe that their full assurance of the former Doctrins doth very well qualifie their perswasion of the latter and that the former as also the lives of many of them do sufficiently testifie are more effectual to temper their hope and to keep it at a stay of a filial and modest assurance of Gods favor built upon the conscience of his love and fear than the latter can be to swell and puff them up into vain confidence and ungrounded presumption This reason joyned with our experience of the honest and religious conversation of many men of this opinion is a sufficient ground for Charity to hope well of their hope and to assure our selves that it cannot be offensive but rather most acceptable to God if notwithstanding this diversity of opinion we embrace each ether with the strict embraces of love and Communion To you and your Church we leave it to separate Christians from the Church and to prescribe them from heaven upon trivial and trifling causes As for our selves we conceive a charitable judgment of our Brethren and their errors though untrue much more pleasing to God than a true judgment if it be uncharitable and therefore shall always chuse if we do err to err on the milder and more merciful part and rather to retain those in our Communion which deserve to be ejected than eject those that deserve to be retained 34. Lastly whereas you say that seeing Protestants differ about the point of Justification you must needs infer that they want unity in faith and consequently all faith and then that they cannot agree what points are fundamental I Answer to the first of these inferences that as well might you infer it upon Victor Bishop of Rome and Policrates upon Stephen Bishop of Rome and S. Cyprian inasmuch as it is undeniably evident that what one of those esteemed necessary to salvation the other esteemed not so But points of Doctrin as all other things are as they are and not as they are esteemed neither can a necessary point
effect of it in their lives and conversations in a word such as were betrayed to their Error and kept for ever in it either by negligence in seeking the Truth or unwillingness to find it or by some other voluntary sin And for these I dare not flatter them with hope of pardon but let me tell you it is not the error of the understanding but the sin of their will that truly and properly damns them But for the former I am confident that nothing is more contumelious to the goodness of God than to think that he will damn any such for he should damn men that truly love him and desire to serve him for doing that which all things considered was impossible for them not to do Obj. If it is said that pride of their own understanding made them not submit to the Church of Rome and to her guidance and that for this being a voluntary sin they may be justly damned Ans I answer that whether the Church of Rome be the guide of all men is the Question and therefore not to be begged but proved that the man we speak of is very willing to follow this Guide could he find any good ground to believe it is his Guide and therefore the reason he follows her not is not pride but ignorance that as it is humility to obey those whom God hath set over us so it is credulity to follow every one that will take upon him to lead us that if the blind lead the blind not only the leader but the follower shall perish Lastly that the present Church of Rome pretends very little and indeed nothing of moment to get the office of being Head and Guide of the Church which Antichrist when he cometh may not and will not make use of for the very same end and purpose and therefore he had reason not to be too sudden and precipitate in committing himself to the conduct of the Pope for fear of mistaking Antichrist for the Vicar of Christ Obj. But in all Commonwealths it is necessary there should be not only a Law for men to live by but also a living and speaking Judge to decide their differences arising about the various Interpretations of the Law and otherwise Controversies would be endless therefore if such a judge be so necessary in civil affairs for the procuring and preserving our temporal peace and happiness how much more necessary is he for the deciding of those Controversies that concern the saving and damning of our souls for ever Ans Hereunto I answer 1. That if it were as evident and certain that God hath appointed the Pope or Church of Rome to be the Guide of Faith and Judge of Controversies as that the King hath appointed such a one to be Lord Chief Justice the having of such a Guide would be very available for to preserve the Church in Unity and to conduct mens souls to Heaven but a Judge that has no better title or evidence to his place than the Pope has to that which he pretends to a Judge that is doubtful and justly questionable whether he be the Judge or no is in all probability likely to produce clean contrary effects and to be himself one of the Apples of strife one of the greatest subjects of Controversie and occasion of dissentions And to avoid this great inconvenience if God had intended the Pope or Church of Rome for this great Office certainly he would have said so very plainly and very frequently if not frequently certainly sometimes once at least he would have said so in express terms but he does not say so no not so much as once nor any thing from whence it may be collected with any sure or firm consequence therefore if it be not certain certainly it is very probable he never meant so Again in Civil Controversies the case can hardly be so put that there should be any necessity that the same man should be Judge and Party but in matters of Religion wherein all have equal interest every man is a party and engaged to judge for temporal respects this way or that way and therefore not fit to be a Judge But what then if he which was with so much clamor and so little reason vouched for the Infallibility of the Roman Church do tell you plainly there is no living Judge on Earth appointed by God to decide the Controversies arising amongst Christians nor no way to determine them but Scripture His words are express and formal and need no other commentary but a true interpretation Optatus Melevit lib. 5. ad princip Vos dicitis Licet nos non Licet inter Vestrum Licet nostrum non Licet nutant remigant animae populorum Nemo vobis credat nemo nobis omnes contentiosi homines sumus Quaerendi sunt judices si Christiani de utrâque parte dari non possunt de foris quaerendus est Judex Si Paganus non potest nosse Christiana Secreta Si Judaeus inimicus est Christiani Baptismatis Ergo in terris de hac re nullum poterit reperiri judicium de coelo quaerendus est Judex Sed ut quid pulsamus caelum cum habeamus hic in Evangelio Testamentum Quia hoc loco rectè possunt terrenae coelestibus comparari tale est quod quivis hominum habens numerosos filios His quamdiu presens est ipse imperat singulis non est adhuc necessarium Testamentum Sic Christus quamdiu praesens in terris fuit quamvis nec modo desit pro tempore quicquid necessarium erat Apostolis imperavit Sed quomodo terrenus pater cùm se in confinio senserit mortis timens ne post mortem suam ruptâ pace litigent fratres adhibitis testibus voluntatem suam de pectore morituro transfert in tabulas diù duraturas si fuerit inter fratres contentio nata non itur ad tumulum sed quaeritur Testamentum qui in tumulo quiescit tacitis de tabulis loquitur vivus Is cujus est testamentum in coelo est Ergo voluntas ejus velut in Testamento sic in Evangelio inquiratur That is You say such a thing is Lawful we say it is Unlawful the minds of the People are doubtful and wavering between your lawful and our unlawful Let no man believe either you or us we are all contentious men We must seek therefore for Judges between us If Christians are to be our Judges both sides will not afford such We must seek for a Judge abroad If he be a Pagan he cannot know the secrets of Christianity If he be a Jew he is an Enemy to Christian Baptism Therefore there is no judgment of this matter can be found on Earth We must seek for a Judge from Heaven But to what end do we sollicite Heaven when we have here in the Gospel a Will and Testament And because here we may fitly compare Earthly things with Heavenly The case is just as if a man had many Sons while
thing provided you do not call it a sacrifice So again Haeres 79. besides his putting cunningly ipsa fuit which before we took notice of he makes no scruple to put in Dogma and Sacrificium wheresoever it may be for his purpose Epiphanius his title to this Heresie is Against the Collyridians who offer to Mary Petavius puts in Sacrifice Again in the same page before D. he puts in his own illo dogmate and whereas Epiphanius says in all this he makes it in all this Opinion Pag. 1061. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he translates this womanish Opinion whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though perhaps it may signifie a thought or act of thinking yet I believe it never signifies an Opinion which we hold Ibid. at B. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this he renders this Opinion Pag. 1064. at C. Nor that we should offer to her name simply and absolutely he makes it Nor that we should offer sacrifice to her name So many times is he fain to corrupt and translate him partially lest in condemning the Collyridians he might seem to have involved the practice of the Roman Church in the same Condemnation My Seventh and last Reason is this Had Epiphanius known that the Collyridians held the virgin Mary to be a Sovereign power and Deity then he could not have doubted whether this their offering was to her or to God for her whereof yet he seems doubtful and not fully resolved as his own words intimate Haeres 79. ad fin Quam multa c. How many things may be objected against this Heresie for idle Women either worshipping the Blessed Virgin offer unto her a Cake or else they take upon them to offer for her this foresaid ridiculous oblation Now both are foolish and from the Devil These Arguments I suppose do abundantly demonstrate to any man not viel'd with prejudice that Epiphanius imputed not to the Collyridians the Heresie of believing the Virgin Mary God and if they did not think her God there is then no reason imaginable why their oblation of a Cake should not be thought a Present as well as the Papists offering a Taper or that the Papists offering a Taper should not be thought a Sacrifice as well as their offering a Cake and seeing this was the difference pretended between them this being vanished there remains none at all So that my first Conclusion stands yet firm that either the Ancient Church erred in condemning the Collyridians or the present errs in approving and practising the same worship An ADVERTISEMENT The Reader when he meets with the Phrase Catholick Doctrin in the two following Discourses must remember that it does not signifie Articles of Faith determined in any General Councils which might be looked upon as the Faith of the whole Church but the Current and Common Opinion of the Age which obtained in it without any known opposition and contradiction Neither need this be wondred at since they are about matters far removed from the Common Faith of Christians and having no necessary influence upon good life and manners whatsoever necessity by mistake of some Scriptures might be put upon them IV. An Argument drawn from the admitting Infants to the Eucharist as without which they could not be saved against the Churches Infallibility THE Condition without the performance whereof no man can be admitted to the Communion of the Church of Rome is this that he believe firmly and without doubting whatsoever the Church requires him to believe More distinctly and particularly thus He must believe all that to be divine Revelation which that Church teaches to be such as the Doctrin of the Trinity the Hypostatical union of two natures in the person of Christ The procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son the Doctrin of Transubstantiation and such like Whatsoever that Church teaches to be necessary he must believe to be necessary As Baptism for Infants Faith in Christ for those that are Capable of Faith Penance for those that have committed mortal sin after Baptism c. Whatsoever that Church declares expedient and profitable he must believe to be expedient and profitable as Monastical Life Prayer to Saints Prayer for the Dead going on Pilgrimages The use of Pardons Veneration of holy Images and Reliques Latin Service where the people understand it not Communicating the Laity in one kind and such like Whatsoever that Church holdeth lawful he must believe lawful As to Marry to make distinction of Meats as if some were clean and others unclean to flie in time of Persecution for them that serve at the Altar to live by the Altar to testifie a truth by Oath when a lawful Magistrate shall require it to possess Riches c. Now is it impossible that any man should certainly believe any thing unless either it be evident of it self or he have some certain reason at least some supposed certain reason and infallible ground for his belief Now the Doctrins which the Church of Rome teacheth it is evident and undeniable that they are not evident of themselves neither evidently true nor evidently credible He therefore that will believe them must of necessity have some certain and infallible ground whereon to build his belief of them There is no other ground for a Mans belief of them especially in many points but only an assurance of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome No man can be assured that that Church is infallible and cannot err whereof he may be assured that she hath erred unless she had some new promise of divine assistance which might for the future secure her from danger of erring but the Church of Rome pretends to none such Nothing is more certain than that that Church hath erred which hath believed and taught irreconcileable Contradictions one whereof must of necessity be an Error That the Receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist is necessary for Infants and that the receiving thereof is not necessary for them That it is the will of God that the Church should administer the Sacrament to them and that it is not the will of God that the Church should do so are manifest and irreconcileable Contradictions Supposing only that which is most evident that the Eucharist is the same thing of the same vertue and efficacy now as it was in the primitive Church That Infants are the same things they were have as much need are capable of as much benefit by the Eucharist now as then As subject to irreverent carriages then as now And lastly that the present Church is as much bound to provide for the spiritual good of Infants as the Ancient Church was I say these things supposed the propositions before set down are plain and irreconcileable Contradictions whereof the present Roman Church doth hold the Negative and the Ancient Church of Rome did hold the Affirmative and therefore it is evident that either the present Church doth err in holding something not necessary which is so or that the Ancient Church did
contemporary writers oppose or condemn it And besides they speak not as Doctors but as Witnesses not as of their own private opinion but as Apostolick Tradition and the Doctrine of the Church Horantius and out of him Franciscus a Sancta Clara teach us that under the Gospel there is no where extant any precept of Invocating Saints and tell us that the Apostles reason of their giving no such precept was lest the converted Gentiles might think themselves drawn over from one kind of Idolatry to another If this reason be good I hope then the position whereof it is the reason is true viz. that the Apostles did neither command nor teach nor advise nor persuade the converted Gentiles to invocate Saints for the reason here rendred serves for all alike and if they did not and for this reason did not so how then in Gods name comes invocation of Saints to be an Apostolick Tradition The Doctrines of Purgatory Indulgences and Prayer to deliver Souls out of Purgatory are so closely conjoyned that they must either stand or fall together at least the first being the Foundation of the other two if that be not Apostolick Tradition the rest cannot be so And if that be so what meant the Author of the Book of Wisdom to tell us that after Death the Souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and there shall no torment touch them What means S. John to teach us That they are Blessed which Die in the Lord for that they rest from their Labours But above all what meant Bishop Fisher in his Confutation of Luthers assertion so to prevaricate as to me he seems to do in the 18th Art in saying multos fortasse movet c. Peradventure many are moved not to place too great Faith in Indulgences because the use of them may seem not of long standing in the Church and a very late invention among Christians To whom I answer that * Therefore it is not true that all the Roman Doctrines were taught by Christ and his Apostles it is not certain by whom they began first to be taught Yet some use there was of them as they say very Ancient among the Romans which we are given to understand by the Stations which were so frequented in that City Moreover they say Gregory the first granted some in his time And after Caeterum ut dicere caepimus c. But as we were saying there are many things of which in the Primitive Church no mention was made which yet upon doubts arising are become perspicuous through the diligence of after times Certainly to return to our business no Orthodox man now doubts whether there be a Purgatory of which yet among the Ancients there was made very rare or no mention Moreover the Greeks to this very day believe not Purgatory Who so will let him read the writings of the Ancient Greeks and I think he shall find no speech of Purgatory or else very rarely The Latines also received not this verity all at once but by little and little Neither was the Faith whether of Purgatory or Indulgences so necessary in the Primitive Church as now it is for then Charity was so fervent that every one was most ready to Die for Christ Crimes were very rare and those which were were punished by the Canons with great severity But now a great part of the People would rather put off Christianity than suffer the rigour of the Canons That not without the great Wisdom of the Holy Spirit it hath come to pass that after the course of so many years the Faith of Purgatory and the use of Indulgences hath been by the Orthodox generally received as long as there was no care of Purgatory no man look'd after Indulgences for all the Credit of Indulgences depends on that Take away Purgatory and what need is there of Indulgences We therefore considering that Purgatory was a long while unknown That after partly upon Revelations partly upon Scripture it was believed by some and that so at length the Faith of it was most generally received by the Orthodox Church shall easily find out some reason of Indulgences Seeing therefore it was so late ere Purgatory was known and received by the Universal Church who now can wonder touching Indulgences that in the Primitive Church there was no use of them Indulgences therefore began after men had trembled a while at the Torments of Purgatory For then it is credible the Holy Fathers began to think more carefully by what means they might provide for their Flocks a remedy against those Torments for them especially who had not time enough to fulfil the Penance which the Canons enjoyned Erasmus tell us of himself that though he did certainly know and could prove that Auricular Confession such as is in use in the Roman Church were not of Divine institution yet he would not say so because he conceived Confession a great restraint from sin and very profitable for the times he lived in and therefore thought it expedient that men should rather by Error hold that necessary and commanded which was only profitable and advised than by believing though truly the non-necessity of it to neglect the use of that as by experience we see most men do which was so beneficial If he thought so of Confession and yet thought it not fit to speak his mind why might he not think the like of other points and yet out of discretion and Charity hold his peace And why might not others of his time do so as well as he and if so how shall I be assured that in the Ages before him there were not other men alike minded who though they knew and saw Errors and Corruptions in the Church yet conceiving more danger in the remedy than harm in the disease were contented hoc Catone to let things alone as they were lest by attempting to pluck the Ivy out of the Wall they might pull down the Wall it self with which the Ivy was so incorporated Sir Edwin Sandys relates that in his Travels he met with divers men who though they believed the Pope to be Antichrist and his Church Antichristian yet thought themselves not bound to separate from the Communion of it nay thought themselves bound not to do so because the True Church was to be the Seat of Antichrist from the Communion whereof no man might divide himself upon any pretence whatsoever And much to this purpose is that which Charron tells us in his third Verité cap. 4. § 13.15 That although all that which the Protestants say falsly of the Church of Rome were true yet for all this they must not depart from it and again Though the Pope were Antichrist and the Estate of the Church were such that is as corrupt both in discipline and Doctrine as they Protestants pretend yet they must not go out of it Both these assertions he proves at large in the above-cited Paragraphs with very many and very plausible reasons which I
unless this may pass for one as perhaps it may where reasons are scarce No proposition which contradicts the common judgment of the Fathers can be probable * I should rather subsume but this does so Therefore not probable But it is de fide that our opinion is probable for the Council of Trent hath made it so by giving liberty to all to hold it Therefore without doubt we must hold that it is not whatsoever it seems against the common judgment of the Fathers This argument saith he doth most illustriously convince the followers of the contrary opinion that they ought not to dare affirm hereafter that their opinion flowes from the common judgment and writings of the ancient Doctors His second answer is That whereas Bandillus and Cajetan c. produce general sayings of Irenaeus Origen Athanasius Theophilus Alexandrinus Greg. Nyssen Basil Greg. Naz. Cyprian Hierom Fulgentius and in a manner of all the ancient Fathers exempting Christ alone from and consequently concluding the Virgin Mary under Original sin which Argument must needs conclude if the Virgin Mary be not Christ His answer I say is These Testimonies have little or no strength for did they conclude we must then let us in Gods name say that the Virgin Mary committed also many venial sins For the Scriptures Fathers and Councils set forth in propositions as Universal That there is no man but Christ who is not often defiled at least with smaller sins and who may not justly say that Petition of our Lords Prayer Demitte nobis debita nostra An answer I confess as fit as a Napkin to stop the mouths of his domestick adversaries though no way fit to satisfie their reason But this man little thought there were Protestants in the world as well as Dominicans who will not much be troubled by thieves falling out to recover more of their goods than they expected and to see a prevaricating Jesuit instead of stopping one breach in their ruinous cause to make two For whereas this man argues from the destruction of the Consequent to the destruction of the Antecedent thus If these testimonies were good and concluding then the Virgin Mary should have been guilty not only of Original but also of actual sin But the Consequent is false and blasphemous Therefore the Antecedent is not true They on the others side argue and sure with much more reason and much more conformity to the Ancient Tradition From the Assertion of the Antecedent to the Assertion of the Consequent thus If these testimonies be good and concluding then the Blessed Virgin was guilty both of Original sin and Actual but the Testimonies are good and concluding therefore she was guilty even of actual sins and therefore much more of Original His Third Answer is That their Church hath or may define many other things against which if their works be not depraved there lies a greater consent of Fathers than against the Immaculate Conception and therefore why not this The Instances he gives are four 1. That the Blessed Virgin committed no actual sin 2. That the Angels were not created before the visible world 3. That Angels are Incorporeal 4. That the Souls of Saints departed are made happy by the Vision of God before the day of Judgment Against the first Opinion he alledges direct places out of Origen which he says admit no exposition though Pamelius upon Tertullian and Sixtus Senensis labour in vain to put a good sense on them Out of Euthymias and Theophylact Out of S. Chrysostom divers pregnant testimonies and S. Thomas his confession touching one of them out of the Author of the Questions of the New and Old Testament in S. Austin cap. 75. Out of S. Hilary upon Psa 118. which words yet says he Tolet has drawn to a good construction yet so much difficulty still remains in them Out of Tertullian de carne Christi cap. 7. which he tells us will not be salved by Pamelius his gloss Out of Athanafius out of Irenaeus III. 18. out of S. Austin lib. 2. de Symbolo ad Catech. cap. 5. Whose words yet because they admit says Poza some exposition I thought fit to suppress though some think they are very hard to be avoided Out of Greg. Nyss out of S. Cyprian in his Sermon on the Passion Whose words says he though they may by some means be eluded yet will always be very difficult if we examin the Antecedents and Consequents out of Anselm Rich. de S. Victor S. Ambrose S. Andrew of Hierusalem and S. Bede and then tells us there are many other Testimonies much resembling these and besides many Fathers and Texts of Scripture which exempt Christ only from actual sin and lastly many suspicious sayings against her Immunity in them who use to say that at the Angels Annunciation she was cleansed and purged and expiated from all faults committed by her freewill which saith he though Canisius and others explicate in a pious sense yet at least they shew that either those alledged against the Imaculate conception are as favourable to be expounded Or we must say that a verity may be defined by the See Apostolick against the judgment of some Fathers From these things says he is drawn an unanswerable reason That for the defining the purity of the conception nothing now is wanting For seeing notwithstanding more and more convincing testimonies of Fathers who either did or did seem to ascribe actual sin to the Blessed Virgin notwithstanding the Universal sayings of Scripture and Councils bringing all except Christ under sin Lastly notwithstanding the silence of the Scriptures and Councils touching her Immunity from actual sin seeing notwithstanding all this the Council of Trent hath either decreed Seff VI. c. 23. de Justifical or hath confirmed it being before decreed by the consent of the faithful that the Blessed Virgin never was guilty of any voluntary no not the least sin It follows certainly that the Apostolick See hath as good nay better ground to enrol amongst her Articles the Virgins Immaculate conception The reason is clear for neither are there so many nor so evident sentences of Fathers which impute any fault or blemish to the Conception of the Mother of God as there are in appearance to charge her with actual offences Neither are there fewer Universal propositions in Scripture by which it may be proved that only Jesus was free from actual sin and therefore that the Virgin Mary fell into it Neither can there at this time be desired a greater consent of the faithful nor a more ardent desire than there now is that this verity should be defined and that the contrary Opinion should be Anathematized for Erroneous and Heretical The words of the Council of Trent on which this reason is grounded are these If any man say That a man all his life long may avoid all even venial sins unless by special priviledge from God as the Church holds of the Blessed Virgin let him be Anathema But if the consent of the Church hath prevailed against more clear Testimonies of ancient Fathers even for that which is favoured with no express authority of Scriptures or Councils And if the Council of Trent upon this consent of the faithful hath either defined this Immunity of the Virgin from all actual sin or declared it to be defined Who then can deny but that the Church hath immediate power to define among the Articles of Faith the pious Opinion of the Immaculate Conception His second Example by which he declares the power of their Church to define Articles against a multitude of Fathers and consequently not only without but against Tradition is the opinion that Angels were not created before the Corporeal world was created which saith he is or may be defined though there were more Testimonies of Fathers against it than against the Immaculate Conception So he says in the Argument of his Fifth Chapter and in the end of the same Chapter The Council of Lateran hath defined this against the express judgment of twenty Fathers of which Nazianzen Basil Chrysostome Cyrill Hierom Ambrose and Hillary are part His third Example to the same purpose is the opinion that Angels are Incorporeal against which saith he in the Argument of his sixth Chapter there are more Testimonies of the Fathers than against the Immaculate Conception and yet it is or at least may be defined by the Church and in the end of the Chapter I have for this Opinion cited twenty three Fathers which as most men think is now condemned in the * Firm de summâ Trinitate Lateran Council or at least as †De Angelis lib. 6. Suarez proves is to be rejected as manifestly temerarious His fourth and last Example to the same purpose is The Opinion that the Souls of Saints departed enjoy the Vision of God before the Resurrection Against which he tells us in the first place was the Judgment of Pope John XXI though not as a Pope but as a private Doctor Then he musters up against it a great multitude of Greek and Latin Fathers touching which he says All these Testimonies when * 1. 2. D. 29. cap. 1. Vasquez has related at length he †cap. 3. answers that they might be so explained as to say nothing against the true and Catholick Doctrin Yet if they could not be so explained their Authority ought not to hinder us from embracing that which the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The same argument I make says Peâ—â— The Fathers and ancient Doctors which are objected against the pious opinion of the Conception of the Virgin may be commodiously explicated or at least so handled that they shall not hurt Notwithstanding though they cannot be explicated some of them that their Testimonies ought not to hinder but that the Sea Apostolick may define the Blessed Virgins preservation from Original sin In fine for the close of this Argument he adds Nolo per plura I will not run through more Examples These that I have reckoned are sufficient and admonishes learned men to bring together other like proofs whereby they may promote the desired Determination FINIS
Divel himself if he have a mind to it But I would shew you that divers ways the Doctors of your Church do the principal and proper work of the Socinians for them undermining the Doctrine of the Trinity by denying it to be supported by those Pillars of the Faith which alone are fit and able to support it I mean Scripture and the Consent of the Ancient Doctors 17. For Scripture your Men deny very plainly and frequently that this Doctrine can be proved by it See if you please this plainly taught and urged very carnestly by Cardinal Hosius De Author Sac. Scrip. l. 3. p. 53. By Gordonius Huntlaeus Contr. Tom. 1. Controv. 1. De verbo Dei C. 19. by Gretserus and Tanerus in Colloquio Ratesbon And also by Vega Possevin Wiekus and Others 18. And then for the Consent of the Ancients that that also delivers it not by whom are we taught but by Papists only Who is it that makes known to all the World that Eusebius that great searcher and devourer of the Christian Libraries was an Arrian Is it not your great Achilles Cardinal Perron in his 3. Book 2. Chap. of his Reply to K. James Who is it that informs us that Origen who never was questioned for any Error in this matter in or near his time denyed the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost Is it not the same great Cardinal in his Book of the Eucharist against M. du Plessis l. 2. c. 7 Who is it that pretends that Irenaeus hath said those things which he that should now hold would be esteemed an Arrian Is it not the same Perron in his Reply to K. James in the Fifth Chap. of his Fourth Observation And does he not in the same place peach Tertullian also and in a manner give him away to the Arrians And pronounce generally of the Fathers before the Council of Nice That the Arrians would gladly be tryed by them And are not your fellow Jesuits also even the Prime Men of your Order prevaricators in this point as well as others Doth not your Friend M. Fisher or M. Flued in his Book of the Nine Questions proposed to him by K. James speak dangerously to the same purpose in his Discourse of the Resolution of Faith towards the end Giving us to understand That the new Reformed Arrians bring very many Testimonies of the Ancient Fathers to prove that in this Point they did contradict themselves and were contrary one to another which places whosoever shall read will clearly see that to common People they are unanswerable yea that common People are not capable of the Answers that Learned Men yield unto such obscure passages And hath not your great Antiquary Petavius in his Notes upon Epiphanius in Haer. 69. been very liberal to the Adversaries of the Doctrine of the Trinity and in a manner given them for Patrons and Advocates first Justin Martyr and then almost all the Fathers before the Council of Nice whose Speeches he says touching this point cum Orthodoxae fidei regula minime consentiunt Are no way agreeable to the rule of Orthodox Faith Hereunto I might add that the Dominicans and Jesuits between them in another matter of great importance viz. Gods Prescience of future contingents give the Socinians the premises out of which their conclusion doth unavoidably follow For the Dominicans maintain on the one Side that God can foresee nothing but what he Decrees The Jesuits on the other Side that he doth not Decree all things And from hence the Socinians conclude as it is obvious for them to do that he doth not foresee all things Lastly I might adjoyn this that you agree with one consent and settle for a rule unquestionable that no part of Religion can be repugnant to Reason whereunto you in particular subscribe unawares in saying From truth no Man can by good consequence infer falshood which is to say in effect that Reason can never lead any Man to Error And after you have done so you proclaim to all the World as you in this Pamphlet do very frequently that if Men follow their Reason and Discourse they will if they understand themselves be led to Socinianism And thus you see with what probable matter I might furnish out and justifie my accusation if I should charge you with leading Men to Socinianism Yet I do not conceive that I have ground enough for this odious imputation And much less should you have charged Protestants with it whom you confess to abhor and detest it and who fight against it not with the broken Reeds and out of the Paper Fortresses of an imaginary Infallibility which were only to make sport for their Adversaries but with the Sword of the Spirit the Word of God of which we may say most truly what David said of Goliah's Sword offered him by Abilech non est sicut iste There is none comparable to it 19. Thus Protestants in general I hope are sufficiently vindicated from your Calumny I proceed now to do the same service for the Divines of England whom you question first in point of Learning and Sufficiency and then in point of Conscience and Honesty as prevaricating in the Religion which they profess and inclining to Popery Their Learning you say consists only in some superficial Talent of Preaching Languages and Elocution and not in any deep knowledg of Philosophy especially of Metaphysicks and much less of that most solid profitable subtile O rem ridiculam Cato jocosam succinct method of School Divinity Wherein you have discovered in your self the true Genius and Spirit of detraction For taking advantage from that wherein envy it self cannot deny but they are very eminent and which requires great sufficiency of substantial Learning you disparage them as insufficient in all things else As if Forsooth because they dispute not eternally Utrum Chimaera bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas Intentiones Whether a Million of Angels may not sit upon a Needles point Because they fill not their Brains with notions that fignifie nothing to the utter extermination of all reason and common sence and spend not an Age in weaving and un-weaving subtile Cobwebs fitter to catch Flies than Souls therefore they have no deep knowledge in the Acroamatical part of Learning But I have too much honoured the poorness of this detraction to take notice of it 20. The other Part of your accusation strikes deeper and is more considerable And that tells us that Protestantism waxeth weary of it self that the Professors of it they especially of greatest Worth Learning and Authority love temper and moderation and are at this time more unresolved where to fasten than at the Infancy of their Church That their Churches begin to look with a New Face Their Walls to Speak a New Language Their Doctrine to be altered in many things for which their Progenitors forsook the then Visible Church of Christ For example the Pope not Antichrist Prayer for the Dead Limbus Patrum