the faith is meant only that Doctrine which is necessary to salvation and to say that salvation may be had without any the least thing which is necessary to salvation implyes a repugnance and destroies it selfe 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 Gospell of Christ seeing he makes it uneffectuall to the end for which it was intended the Salvation of mens soules But why you should conceive that all differences about Religon are concerning matters of faith in this high notion of the word for that I conceive no reason CHAP. VII In regard of the Precept of Charity towards ones self Protestants are in state of Sinne as long as they remain separated from the Roman Church THAT due Order is to be observed in the Theologicall Vertue of Charity whereby we are directed to preferre some Objects before others is a truth taught by all Divines and declared in these words of holy Scripture He hath ordered Charity in me The reason whereof is because the infinite Goodnesse of God which is the formall Obiect or Motive of Charity and for which all other things are loved is differently participated by different Objects and therefore the love we beare to them for Gods sake must accordingly be unequall In the vertue of Faith the case is farre otherwise because all the Objects or points which we believe doe equally participate the divine Testimony or Revelation for which we believe alike all things propounded for such For it is as impossible for God to speake an untruth in a small as in a great matter And this is the ground for which we have so often affirmed that any least errour against Faith is injurious to God and destructive of Salvation 2 This order in Charity may be considered Towards God Our owne soule The soule of our Neighbour Our owne life or Goods and the life or goods of our Neighbour God is to be beloved above all things both objectivè as the Divines speake that is we must wish or desire to God a Good more great perfect and noble then to any or all other things namely all that indeed He is a Nature Infinite Independent Immense c. and also appretiative that is wee must sooner loose what good soever then leave and abandon Him In the other Objects of Charity of which I spake this order is to be kept We may but are not bound to preferre the life and goods of our Neigbour before our owne we are bound to preâ—erre the soule of our Neighbour before our own temporall goods or life if he happen to be in extreme spirituall necessity and that we by our assistance can succour him according to the saying of S. Iohn In this we have knowne the Charity of God because he hath yielded his life for us and we ought to yield our life for our Brethren And S. Augustine likewise saith A Christian will not doubt to loose his owne temporall life for the eternall life of his Neighbour Lastly we are to preferre the spirituall good of our own soule before both the spirituall and temporall good of our Neighbour because as Charity doth of its own Nature chiefly encline the person in whom it resides to love God and to be united with him so of it selfe it enclines him to procure those things whereby the said Vnion with God is effected rather to himselfe then to others And from hence it followes that in things necessary to salvation no man ought in any case or in any respect whatsoever to preferre the spirituall good either of any particular person or of the whole world before his own soule according to those words of our Blessed Saviour What doth it availe a man if he gaine the whole world and sustaine the damage of his own soule And therefore to come to our present purpose it is directly against the Order of Charity or against Charity as it hath a reference to our selves which Divines call Charitas propria to adventure either the omitting of any meanes necessary to salvation or the committing of any thing repugnant to it for whatsoever respect and consequently if by living out of the Roman Church we put our selves in hazard either to want some thing necessarily required to salvation or else to performe some act against it wee commit a most grievous sinne against the vertue of Charity as it respect our selves and so cannot hope for salvation without repentance 3 Now of things necessary to salvation there are two sorts according to the doctrine of all Divines Some things say they are necessary to salvation necessitate praecepti necessary only because they are commanded For If thou wilt enter into life keepe the Commandements In which kind of things as probable ignorance of the Law or of the commandement doth excuse the party from all faulty breach thereof so likewise doth it not exclude salvation in case of ignorance Some other things are said to be necessary to salvation necessitate medij finis or salutis because they are Meanes appointed by God to attaine our End of eternall salvation in so strict a manner that it were presumption to hope for Salvation without them And as the former meanes are said to be necessary because they are commanded so the latter are commonly said to be commanded because they are necessary that is Although there were no other speciall precept concerning them yet supposing they bee once appointed as meanes absolutely necessary to salvation there cannot but arise an obligation of procuring to have them in vertue of that universall precept of Charity which obligeth every man to procure the salvation of his own soule In this sort divine infallible Faith is necessary to salvation as likewise repentance of every deadly sinne and in the doctrine of Catholiques Baptisme in re that is in act to Children and for those who are come to the use of reason in voto or harty desire when they cannot have it in act And as Baptisme is necessary for remission of Originall and Actuall sinne committed before it so the Sacrament of Confession or Pennance is necessary in re or in voto in act or desire for the remission of mortall sinnes committed after Baptisme The Minister of which Sacrament of Pennance being necessarily a true Priest true Ordination is necessary in the Church of God for remission of sinnes by this sacrament as also for other ends not belonging to our present purpose From hence it riseth that no ignorance or impossibility can supply the want of those means which are absolutely necessary to salvation As if for example a sinner depart this world without repenting himselfe of all deadly sinnes although he dye suddenly or unexpectedly fall out of his wits and so commit no new sinne by omission of repentance yet he shall be eternally punished for his former sinnes committed and never repented
you plainly if it be a fault I know not whose it should be but theirs For sure it can be no fault in me to follow such Guides whether â—oever they lead me Now I say they haue led me into this perswasion because they haue given me great reason to belieue it and none to the contrary The reason they haue given me to belieue it is because it is apparent and confest they did propose to themselues in composing it some good end or ends As that Christians might haue a forme by which for matter of faith they might professe themselues Catholiques So Putean out of Th. Aquinas That the faithfull might know what the Christian people is to believe explicitely So Vincent Filiucius That being separated into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing And that that might serve as a mark to distinguish true Christians from Infidels So Cardinall Richlieu Now for all these and for any other good intent I say it will be plainly uneffectuall unlesse it contain at least all points of simple beliefe which are in ordinary course necessary to be explicitely known by all men So that if it be fault in me to belieue this it must be my fault to belieue the Apostles wise and good men which I cannot doe if I belieue not this And therefore what Richardus de sancto Victore sayes of God himselfe I make no scruple at all to apply to the Apostles and to say Si error est quod credo à vobis deceptus sum If it be an errour which I belieue it is you and my reverend esteem of you and your actions that hath led me into it For as for your suspition That we are led into this perswasion out of a hope that we may the better maintain by it some opinions of our own It is plainly uncharitable I know no opinion I haue which I would not as willingly forsake as keep if I could see sufficient reason to enduce me to believe that it is the will of God I should forsake it Neither doe I know any opinion I hold against the Church of Rome but I haue more evident grounds then this whereupon to build it For let but these Truths bee granted That the authority of the Scripture is independent on your Church dependent only in respect of us upon universall Tradition That Scripture is the only Rule of faith That all things necessary to salvation are plainly delivered in Scripture Let I say these most certain and divine Truths be laid for foundations and let our superstructions bee consequent and coherent to them and I am confident Peace would be restored and Truth maintained against you though the Apostles Creed were not in the world CHAP. V. That Luther Calvin their Associates all who began or continue the separation from the externall Communion of the Roman Church are guilty of the proper and formall sinne of Schisme THE Searcher of all Hearts is witnesse with how unwilling minds we Catholiques are drawen to fasten the denomination of Schismatiques or Heretiques on them for whose soules if they imployed their best blood they judge that it could not be better spent If we rejoyce that they are contistated at such titles our joy riseth not from their trouble or griefe but as that of the Apostles did from the fountaine of Charity because they are contâ—â—stated to repentance that so after unpartiall examination they finding themselves to be what we say may by Gods holy grace begin to dislike what themselves are For our part we must remember that our obligation is to keep within the meane betwixt uncharitable bitternesse and pernicious flattery not yeelding to worldly respects nor offending Christian Modesty but uttering the substance of truth in so Charitable manner that not so much we as Truth and Charity may seeme to speak according to the wholesome advise of S. Gregory Nazianzen in these divine words We doe not affect peace with preiudice of the true doctrine that so we may get a name of being gentle and mild and yet we seek to conserue peace fighting in a lawfull manner and containing our selves within our compasse and the rule of Spirit And of these things my iudgment is and for my part I prescribe the same law to all that deale with soules and treat of true doctrine that neither they exasperate meâ—s minds by harshnesse nor make them haughty or insolent by submission but that in the cause of faith they behave themselves prudently and advisedly and doe not in either of these things exceed the meane With whom aÌ„greeth S. Leo saying It behoveth us in such causes to be most carefull that without noise of contentions both Charity be conserved and Truth maintained 2. For better Methode we will handle these points in order First we will set downe the nature and essence or as I may call it the Quality of Schisme In the second place the greatnesse and grievousnesse or so to tearme it the Quantity thereof For the Nature or Quality will tell us who may without injury be iudged Schismatiques and by the greatnesse or quantity such as finde themselves guilty thereof will remaine acquainted with the true state of their soule and and whether they may conceive any hope of salvation or no. And because Schisme will be found to be a division from the Church which could not happen unlesse there were alwaies a visible Church we will Thirdly prove or rather take it as a point to be granted by all Christians that in all ages there hath beene such a Visible Congregation of Faithfull People Fourthly we will demonstrate that Luther Calvin and the rest did separate themselves from the Communion of that alwaies visible Church of Christ and therefore were guilty of Schisme And fifthly we will make it evident that the visible true Church of Christ out of which Luther and his followers departed was no other but the Roman Church and consequently that both they and all others who persist in the same division are Schismatiques by reason of their separation from the Church of Rome 3 For the first point touching the Nature or Quality of Schisme As the naturall perfection of man consists in his being the Image of God his Creator by the powers of his soule so his supernaturall perfection is placed in fimilitude with God as his last End and Felicity and by having the said spirituall faculties his Vnderstanding and Will linked to him His Vnderstanding is united to God by Faith his Will by Charity The former relies upon his infallible Truth The latter carrieth us to his infinite Goodnesse Faith hath a deadly opposite Heresie Contrary to the Vnion or Vnity of Charity is Separation and Division Charity is twofold As it respects God his Opposite Vice is Hatred against God as it uniteth us to our Neighbour his contrary is Seperation or division of affections and will from our Neighbour Our Neighbour may be considered either as one private person
they must of necessity affirme heretically with the Donatists that the true unspotted Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O Blasphemy anharlot By which words it seemes you are resolute perpetually to confound True and Vnspotted and to put no difference between a corrupted Church and none at all But what is this but to make no difference betwen a diseased and a dead man Nay what is it but to contradict your selves who cannot deny but that sinnes are as great staines and spots and deformities in the sight of God as errors and confesse 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 sinne You proceed 19 But say you The same heresy followes out of D. Potter and other Protestants that the Church may erre in points not fundamentall because we have shewed that every error against any revealed truth is Heresy and Damnable whether the matter be great or small And how can the Church more truly be said to perish then when she is permitted to maintaine damnable Heresy Besides we will hereafter prove that by every act of Heresy all divine faith is lost to maintaine a true Church without any faith is to fansy a living man without life Ans. what you have said before hath been answered before and what you shall say hereafter shall be confuted hereafter But if it be such a certain ground that every error against any one revealed truth is a damnable Heresy Then I hope I shall have your leave to subsume That the Dominicans in your account must hold a damnable heresy who hold an error against the immaculate Conception which you must needs esteeme a revealed truth or otherwise why are you so urgent and importunate to have it defined seeing your rule is nothing may be defined unlesse it be first revealed But without your leave I will make bold to conclude that if either that or the contrary assertion be a revealed truth you or they choose you whether must without contradiction hold a damnable Heresy if this ground be true that every contradiction of a revealed Truth is such And now I dare say for fear of inconvenience you will beginne to temper the crudenesse of your former assertion and tell us that neither of you are Heretiques because the Truth against which you erre though revealed is not sufficiently propounded And so say I neither is your Doctrine which Protestants contradict sufficiently propounded For though it be plain enough that your Church proposeth it yet still methinkes it is as plain that your Churche's proposition is not sufficient and I desire you would not say but prove the contrary Lastly to your Question How can the Church more truly be said to perish then when she is permitted to maintaine a damnable Heresy I Answer she may be more truly said to perish when she is not only permitted to doe so but defacto doth maintaine a damnable Heresy Again she may be more truly said to perish when she falls into an Heresy which is not only damnable in it selfe and ex natura rei as you speak but such an Heresy the belief of whose contrary Truth is necessary not only necessitate praecepti but medii and therefore the heresy so absolutely and indispensably destructive of salvation that no ignorance can excuse it nor any generall repentance without a dereliction of it can begge a pardon for it Such an heresy if the Church should fall into it might be more truly said to perish then if it fell only into some heresy 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 would not cannot upon any good ground hope for Salvation yet without question it might send many soules to heaven who would gladly have embrac'd the truth but that they wanted means to discover it Thirdly and lastly shee may yet more truly bee said to perish when shee Apostates from Christ absolutely or rejects even those Truths out of which her Heresies may bee reformed as if shee should directly deny Iesus to be the Christ or the Scripture to be the Word of God Towards which state of Perdition it may well be feared that the Church of Rome doth somewhat incline by her superinducing upon the rest of her errors the Doctrine of her own infallibility whereby her errors are made incurable and by her pretending that the Scripture is to be interpreted according to her doctrine and not her doctrine to be judg'd of by Scripture whereby she makes the Scripture uneffectuall for her Reformation 20 Ad § 18. I was very glad when I heard you say The Holy Scripture and ancient Fathers doe assigne Separation from the visible Church as a mark of Heresie for I was in good hope that no Christian would so bely the Scripture as to say so of it unlesse hee could have produced some one Text at least wherein this was plainly affirmed or from whence it might be undoubtedly and undeniably collected For assure your selfe good Sir it is a very haynous crime to say thus saith the Lord when the Lord doth not say so I expected therefore some Scripture should haue been alleaged wherein it should haue beene said whosoever separates from the Roman Church is an Heretique or the Roman Church is infallible or the Guide of faith or at least There shall be alwaies some visible Church infallible in matters of faith Some such direction as this I hoped for And I pray consider whether I had not reason The Evangelists and Apostles who wrote the New Testament we all suppose were good men and very desirous to direct us the surest and plainest way to heaven wee suppose them likewise very sufficiently instructed by the Spirit of God in all the necessary points of the Christian faith and therefore certainly not ignorant of this Vnum Necessarium this most necessary point of all others without which as you pretend and teach all faith is no Faith that is that the Church of Rome was designed by God the Guide of Faith Wee suppose thē lastly wise men especially being assisted by the spirit of wisdome and such as knew that a doubtfull questionable Guide was for mens direction as good as none at all And after all these suppositions which I presume no good Christian will call into question is it possible that any Christian heart can believe that not One amongst them all should ad rei memoriam write this necessary doctrine plainly so much as once Certainly in all reason they had provided much better for the good of Christians if they had wrote this though they had writ nothing else Me thinks the Evangelists undertaking to write the Gospell of Christ could not possibly haue omitted any One of them this most necessary point of
Doctrine of these Protestants taken altogether is not a Doctrine of Liberty not a Doctrine that turnes hope into presumptioÌ„ and carnall security though it may justly be feared that many licentious persons taking it by halfes have made this wicked use of it For my part I doe heartily wish that by publique Authority it were so ordered that no man should ever preach or print this Doctrine that Faith alone justifies unlesse he joynes this together with it that universall 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 13. Chap. of the 1. Epist. to the Corinth concerning the absolute necessity of Charity should be to prevent misprision read together with them 33 Whereas you say that some Protestants doe expresly affirme the former point to be the soule of the Church c. and that therefore they must want the Theologicall vertue of Hope and that none can have true hope while they hope to be saved in their Communion I Ans. They have great reason to believe the Doctrine of Iustification by faith only a Point of great weight and importance if it be rightly understood that is they have reason to esteeme it a principall and necessary duty of a Christian to place his hope of justification and salvation not in the perfection of his own righteousnesse which if it be imperfect will not justify 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 feare If this Doctrine be otherwise expounded then I have here expounded I will not undertake the justification of it only I will say that which I may doe 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 workes 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 firme and a more unshaken assent then he does that himselfe is predestinate and that he is justified by believing himselfe justified I never met with any such who if he saw there were a necessity 〈◊〉 doe either would not rather forgoe his beliefe of these Doctrines then the former these which he sees disputed and contradicted and opposed with a great multitude of very potent Arguments then those which being the expresse 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 Doctrines doth very well qualify their perswasion of the latter and that the former as also the lives of many of them doe sufficiently testify are more effectuall to temper their hope and to keep it at a stay of a filiall and modest assurance of Gods favour built upon the conscience of his love and fear then the latter can be to swell and puffe them up into vain confidence and ungrounded presumption This reason joyn'd 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 other with the strict embraces of love communion To you and your Church we leave it to separate Christians from the Church and to proscribe them from heaven upon triviall and trifling causes As for our selves we conceive a charitable judgement of our Brethren and their errors though untrue much more pleasing to God then a true judgement if it be uncharitable and and therefore shall alwaies choose if we doe erre to erre on the milder and more mercifull part and rather to retain those in our Communion which deserve to be ejected then eject those that deserve to be retain'd 34 Lastly whereas you say that seeing Protestants differ about the point of Iustification you must needs inferre that they want Vnity in faith and consequently all faith and then that they cannot agree what points are fundamentall I Answer to the first of these inferences that as well might you inferre it upon Victor Bishop of Rome and Poliâ—rates upon Stephen Bishop of Rome and S. Cyprian in as much as it is indeniably evident that what one of those esteemed necessary to salvation the other esteemed not so But points of Doctrine as all other things are as they are and not as they are esteemed neither can a necessary point be made unnecessary by being so accounted nor an unnecessary point be made necessary by being overvalued But as the ancient Philosophers whose different opinions about the soule of man you may read in Aristotle de Anima and Cicero's Tusculan Questions notwithstanding their divers opinions touching the nature of the soule yet all of them had soules and soules of the same nature Or as those Physitians who dispute whether the braine or heart be the principall part of a man yet all of them have braines and have hearts and herein agree sufficiently So likewise though some Protestants esteeme that Doctrine the soule of the Church which others doe not so highly value yet this hinders not but that which is indeed the soule of the Church may be in both 〈◊〉 of them and though one account that a necessary truth which 〈◊〉 account neither necessary nor perhaps true yet this notwithstanding in those truths which are truly really necessary they may all agree For no Argument can be more sophisticall then this They differ in some points which they esteeme necessary Therefore they differ in some that indeed and in truth are so â—35 Now as concerning the other inference That they cannot agree what points are fundamentall I have said and prov'd formerly that there is no such necessity as you imagin or pretend that men should certainly know what is and what is not fundamentall They that believe all things plainly delivered in Scripture believe all things fundamentall and are at sufficient Vnity in matters of faith though they cannot precisely and exactly distinguish between what is fundamentall and what is profitable nay though by error they mistake some vaine or perhaps hurtfull opinions for necessary and fundamentall Truths Besides I have shewed above that as Protestants doe not agree for you overreach in saying they cannot touching what points are fundamentall so neither doe you agree what points are defin'd so to be accounted and what are not nay nor concerning the subject in which God hath placed this pretended