adventure Thus might Divines dispute without any danger to 〈◊〉 Souls if the Romanists had not been so lavish in coyning matter for Contention rather then in searching Scriptures for Edification of Christs Church Or if the Laitie would be as carefull of their Spiritual as Bodily Health and not take their Physick blind-fold at such Mountebanks hands as Jesuites Priests and Seminaries be who minister none but such as either shall intoxicate the Brain or inflame the Heart with preposterous zeal Nor should variance in Points of Doctrine amongst Divines breed any danger or disturbance to Common-weals if they would not be Statists or Underminers of States as the Jesuites be If their Contentions were for the manner uncivil or bitter as are all contentions which the Jesuites breed the Supreme Magistrate whether Ecclesiastick or Civil might bind their Tongues and Pens to good abearance were it not for these Romish Wolves which in Sheeps cloathing convey themselves into the Fold of Christ and once crept in will admit of no triall but in the Lions Den unto which they are sworn Purvevors for whose maintenance like their Master that great Accuser of Gods Children they compasse Sea and Land and fetch their range about the World 10 Who can imagine any other Cause besides this their insolent challenge of Soveraigntie over all others Faith why the Scripture might not be admitted Judge over all Controversies of Divinitie much better then Hypocrates or Galen of all Controversies in Physick without any infallible Physitian perpetually resident in the World to give sentence viva voce It is no Paradox to hold that God which made us these Souls and gave the Scripture for their Health did much better know what was necessarie for them then either Hippocrates or Galen did what was good and wholesome for mens Bodies one hair of which they neither made black or white Even what they best knew they knew not otherwise to communicate unto Posteritie then by these dumb Characters or atramentarie instructers Whatsoever our Adversaries can urge to the prejudice of Scriptures Sufficiencie or Abilitie of Gods Spirit is true of these great Authours and their Writings all other Means of teaching though their dearest Schollers died with them now not able either to strengthen or consolidate the weak or shallow brain or illuminate darkned understandings they cannot so much as take notice of their Followers towardly pains and industrie or reward such as are most devoted to their Memorie and use their Aphorismes as infallible Rules of Bodily life and health with any blessing of Art or Nature But our God lives for ever and knows best who are his alwayes ready to Reward such as love him And as there is none living but hath received some Gift or other from him so hath he promised to give more and more unto all such as well Use what he hath already given If Nature be dulled so it be not slothfull withall in good courses he can sharpen it by Art though both be defective yet can he so inflame the heart with Zeal as it shall pierce more deeply into the Mysteries of mans Salvation then the acutest unregenerate Wit that Nature yeelds or Art can fashion His Spirit cannot be bound but bloweth where he listeth and giveth life to whom he pleaseth and can inlighten our mindes to see that Truth now written which he taught others to Write for our good 11 Physitians look not Hippocrates or Galen should stand on earth again Vessalius like to read Anatomy-Lectures upon their Followers live-tongues or other instruments of breath and speech abused to debate and strife or blowing the coals of bitter Dissention about their Meaning But we all look if we Believe aright that Christ Jesus who hath left us these his Sacred Lawes and Legend of his most blessed Life as a Patern whereby to frame our own free from contention peaceable humble and meek will one day after which shall be no more exact a strict accompt of every idle Word much more will he punish such Tongues or Pens as have been continually set on fire by Hell with the everlasting flames of that brimstone lake 12 Were our exorbitant Affections brought within compasse by hope and fear answerable to the Consequences of the former sweet Promises made to such as rightly use and terrible Threats against all such as abuse the good Means ordained by God for knowing his Will his infâ—… wordâ— from whose mouth soever uttered yea though but privately read with attentive silence would instruct us how to demean our selves in the search of Truth inform us how to direct fasten or inhibit finally how in all Mysteries of our Salvation to moderate our Assent much better then this supposed infallible Authoritie residing usually in men most like to Heathen Idols Though Mouthes they have as they pretend infallible yet fearce speak they once in two ages whose words when they are uttered portend more danger to the Christian World then if brute beasts should speak like men 13 No Christian Common-wealth but either hath or might have good Lawes for composing Contentions or establishing Unitie in the studie of Truth To see what should be done is never hard would strength of Authoritie be as willing to enforce men unto a Civil and orderly observation of Means known and prescribed Our Statutes are much more absolute and complete then Israels were when it was a sin to enquire after other Means either more easie or effectual for their conduction unto that true Happinesse whereat all States aim but onely such shall light on as put these Sacred Lawes in execution It is the common Errour of all corrupted mindes to seek that far off which as the Lord told his people is within them even in their Hearts and in their Mouthes so they would be Doers not Hearers onely of the Law Many Heathens have used such diligent care and unrelenting Resolution for just execution of their defective erroneous Laws as would the coactive Power every where resident where Christianity is professed use the like for establishing an uniform and unpartial though but an external and civil Practise of the ten Commandements and other Sacred Moral Precepts of whose Truth no Christian doubts about whose Meaning nor Protestant nor Papist nor any Sect this day living do or can contend fallible Judges might effect what the Papists pretend as infalliblie as if every particular Congregation had such a true infallible Teacher as they falsely deem or fain their Pope to catechise them ex cathedra thrice a week For who could better resolve us in all Points of Moment or retain our hearts in Unitie of Faith then Truth it self once clearly seen or made known unto us yet is it in it self much brighter then the Sun we daily see which it likewise herein exceeds That whilest Gods Word endures amongst us it still remains above our Horizon and cannot set onely grosse and foggie Interpositions raised from exhalation of such foul Lusts and reeking sins as
custome before any other businesse discourse or care of Himself were he never so wet or weary to call for a retiring room to pour out his soul unto God who led him safely in his journey And this he did not out of any specious pretence of Holiness to devour a Widows House with more facility Rack their Rents or Enhance their Fines for excepting the constant Revenue to the Founder to whom he was a strict accountant no man ever did more for them or less for himself For thirty years together he used this following Anthem and Collect commanded by the Pious Founder in Honour and Confession of the Holy and Undivided Trinity Salva nos Libera nos Vivifica nos O Beata Trinitas c. Save us Deliver us Quicken us O Blessed Trinity Let us praise God the Father and the Son with the Holy Spirit let us praise and Super-exalt his Name for ever Almighty and everlasting God which hast given unto us thy servants Grace by the Confession of a true Faith to acknowledge the Glory of the Eternal Trinity and in the Power of the Divine Majesty to Worship the Unity We beseech thee that through the stedfastness of this Faith we may evermore be defended from all Adversitie which livest and raignest c. This he did perform not onely as a Sacred Injunction of the Founder upon him and all the Society but he received a great Delight in the performance of it No man ever wrote more highly of the Attributes of God then he and yet he professes that he alwaies took more comfort in admiring then in disputing and in praying to and acknowledgeing the Majesty and Glory of the Blessed Trinite then by too curiously prying into the Mysterie He Composed a Book of Private Devotions which some judicious men having perused the same much Extolled and Admired as being replenished with Holy Raptures and Divine Meditations which if it be not already annexed to this Book I hope the Reader will shortly enjoy in a Portable Volume by it self Thus have many other Famous Scholars and Polemical men in their Elder times betaken themselves to Catechizing and Devotion as Pareus Bishop Andrews Bishop Usher and Bellarmin himself seems to prefer his Book De Ascensione Mentis ad Deum Of the Ascension of the Soul to God before any other part of his Works Books saies he are not to be estimated Ex multitudine foliorum sed ex fructibus By the multitude of the Leaves but the Fruit. My other Books I read onely upon necessity but this I have willingly read over three or four times and resolve to read it more often whether it be saies he that the Love towards it be greater then the Merit because like another Benjamin it was the Son of mine old age He seemed to be very Prophetical of the Ensuing times of trouble as may evidently appear by his Sermons before the King and Appendix about the signs of the Times or Divine Fore-warnings therewith Printed some years before touching the Great Tempest of Wind which fell out upon the Eve of the Fifth of November 1636. He was much astonished at it and what apprehension he had of it appears by his words This mighty Wind was more then a Sign of the Time the very Time it self was a Sign and portends thus much That though we of this Kingdom were in firm League with all Nations yet it is still in Gods Power we may fear in his Purpose to plague this Kingdom by this or like tempests more grievously then he hath done at any time by Famin Sword or Pestilence to bury many living souls as well of Superiour as of Inferiour Rank in the Ruin of their stately Houses or meaner Cottages c. Which was observed by many but signally by the Prefacer to M. Herberts Remains I shall not prevent the Reader or detain him so long from the Original of that Book as to repeat the Elogies which are there conferred upon Him I cannot forbear one passage in that Preface wherein he makes this profession I speak it in the presence of God I have not read so hearty vigorous a Champion against Rome amongst our writers of his rank so convincing and demonstrative as D. Jackson is I bless God for the confirmation which he hath given me in the Christian Religion against the Athean Jew and Socinian and in the Protestant against Rome As he was alwaies a Reconciler of differences in his Private Government so he seriously lamented the Publick Breaches of the Kingdom For the Divisions of Reuben he had great Thoughts of Heart At the first Entrance of the Scots into England he had much compassion for his Countrymen although that were but the beginning of their Sorrows He well knew that War was commonly attended with Ruin and Calamity especially to Church and Church-men and therefore that Prayer was necessary and becoming of them Da pacem Domine in diebus nostris c. Give peace in our time O Lord because there is no other that fighteth for us but onely thou O God One drop of Christian blood though never so cheaply spilt by others like water upon the ground was a deep Corrosive to his tender heart Like Rachel weeping for her children he could not be comforted His body grew weak the chearful hue of his countenance was impaled and discoloured and he walked like a dying Mourner in the streets But God took him from the evil to come It was a sufficient Degree of punishment for him to foresee it it had been more then a thousand Deaths unto him to have beheld it with his Eyes When his Death was now approaching being in the chamber with many others I overheard him with a soft voice repeating to himself these and the like Ejaculations I wait for the Lord my Soul doth wait and in his Word do I hope my Soul waiteth for the Lord more then they that watch for the morning As for me I will behold thy face in righteousness I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness And he ended with this Cygnean Cantion Psal 116. 5. Gracious is the Lord and righteous yea our God is merciful The Lord preserveth the simple I was brought low and he helped me Return unto thy Rest O my Soul for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee And having thus spoken soon after he surrendered up his Spirit to Him that gave it If you shall curiously enquire what this Charitable man left in Legacie at his death I must needs answer that giving all in his Life time as he owed nothing but Love so he left nothing when he Dyed The Poor was his Heir and he was the Administrator of his own Goods or to use his own Expression in one of his last Dedications he had little else to leave his Executors but his Papers onely which the Bishop of Armagh being at his Funerals much desired might be carefully preserved This was that which he left to Posterity in pios usus for
145 CAP. 33. A brief direction for preventing scruples and resolving doubts concerning particular sentences or passages in the Canon of Scripture 148 CAP. 34. Concluding the first Book with some brief admonition to the Reader 149 The Second Book How far the ministery of Men is necessary for planting Christian Faith and retaining the unity of it planted SECT I. What obedience is due to Gods Word what to his Messengers Pag. 154 CAP. 1. The sum of the Romanists exceptions against the Scriptures 155 CAP. 2. The former objection as far as it concerns illiterate and Lay-men retorted and answered 156 CAP. 3. The general heads of Agreements or differences betwixt us and the Papists in this argument 162 CAP. 4. Of the two contrary extremities the one in excesse proper to the Papists transferring all obedience from Scriptures to the Church the other in defect proper to the Anti-papist defrauding the Church of all spiritual authority That there is some peculiar obedience due unto the Clergie 165 CAP. 5 Of the diversitie of humane actions the Original of their lawfulnesse unlawfulnesse or indifferencie which without question belong to the proper subject of Obedience which not 168 CAP. 6. That sincere obedience unto lawful authority makes sundry actions lawful and good which without it would be altogether unlawful and evil pag. 170 CAP. 7. That the Apostles rule Whatsoever is not of faith is Sin doth no way prejudice the former resolution What actions are properly said to be not of faith In what case or subject doubt or scruple make them such 177 CAP. 8. That such as most pretend liberty of conscience from our Apostles rule do most transgresse it with general directions for squaring our actions unto it or other rules of faith That by it the flock stands bound to such conditional assent as was mentioned Chap. 4. 185 CAP. 9. Of the nature use conditions or properties of conditional assent or obedience 189 CAP. 10. Wherein this conditional belief differeth from the Romans implicit faith That the one is the other not subordinate to Gods Word or Rule of faith 196 CAP. 11. In what sence we hold the Scriptures to to be The Rule of Faith 198 SECT II. That the pretended obscurity of Scriptures is no just exception why they should not be acknowledged the Absolute Rule of Faith which is the Mother-objection of the Romanist 201 CAP. 12. How far it may be granted the Scriptures are obscure with some premonitions for the right state of the question 201 CAP. 13. The true state of the question about the Scriptures obscuritie or perspicuity unto what men and for what causes they are obscure 206 CAP. 14. How men must be qualified ere they can understand Scriptures aright that the Pope is not so qualified 210 CAP. 15. The Romanists objections against the Scriptures for being obscure do more directly impeach their first Authour and his Messengers their Pen-men then us and the cause in hand 220 CAP. 16. That all the pretences of Scriptures obscurity are but mists and vapours arising from the corruption of the flesh and may by the pure light of Scriptures rightly applied easily be dispelled 223 CAP. 17. That the Mosaical writings were a most perfect rule plain and easie to the ancient Israelites 229 CAP. 18. Concluding this controversie about the obscurity of Scriptures according to the state proposed with the testimony of Saint Paul 233 SECT III. That the continuall practise of Hereticks in urging Scriptures for to establish Heresie and the diversity of opinions amongst the learned about the sence of them is no just exception why they should not be acknowledged as the sole entire and compleat Rule of Faith 235 CAP. 19. Containing the true state of the question with the adversaries generall objections against the truth 236 CAP. 20. That the former objections and all of like kind drawn from the cunning practise of Hereticks in colouring false opinions by Scriptures are most pregnant to confirm ours and most forcible to confute the adversaries doctrine 239 CAP. 21. The pretended excellencie of the supposed Roman rule for composing controversies impeached by the frequencie of Heresies in the Primitive Church and the imperfection of that union whereof since that time they so much boast Page 242 CAP. 22. That our Adversaries objections do not so much infringe as their practise confirms the sufficiencie of Scriptures for composing the greatest controversies in Religion 247 CAP. 23. The sufficiencie of Scriptures for final determination of controversies in Religion proved by our Saviours and his Apostles authority and practise 254 CAP. 24. That all their objections drawn from dissentions amongst the learned or the uncertainty of private spirits either conclude nothing of what they intend against us or else more then they mean or at the least dare avouch against Gods Prophets and faithfull people of old 260 CAP. 25. How farre upon what termes or grounds we may with modesty dissent from the Ancient or others of more excellent gifts than our selves That our adversaries arguments impeach as much the certainty of human sciences as of private spirits 266 SECT IIII. The last of the three main Objections before proposed which was concerning our supposed defective means for composing controversies or retaining the unity of faith fully answered and retorted That the Roman faith hath no foundation 271 CAP. 26. Containing the true state of the question or a comparison betwixt the Romish Church and ours for their means of preventing or composing controversies 272 CAP. 27. That the Romish Church hath most need of some excellent means for taking up of contentions because it necessarily breeds so many and so grievous 275 CAP. 28. Of two sences in which the excellencie of the Romish Churches pretended means for retaining the unity of faith can onely possibly be defended the one from the former discourse proved apparently false the other in it self as palpably ridiculous 278 CAP. 29. That their arguments drawn from conveniencie of reason or pretended correspondencie between Civil and Ecclesiastical Regiment do prejudice themselves not us 282 CAP. 30. That the finall triall of this controversie must be by Scriptures that the Jesuites and modern Papists fierce oppugning all certainty of private spirits in discerning the divine truth of Scriptures or their true sence hath made the Church their mother utterly uncapable of any Plea by Scriptures for establishing her pretended infallibility 285 CAP. 31. The insufficiencie of the Roman Rule of faith for effecting what it aims at albeit we grant all they demand in this controversie The ridiculous use thereof amongst such as acknowledge it The sufficiencie of Scriptures for composing all contentions further illustrated 297 CAP. 32. Brieflie collecting the summe of the second Book 306 THE ETERNAL TRUTH OF SCRIPTURES AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF thereon wholly Depending manifested by its own LIGHT The first Book of Comments upon the Creed First Generall Part. SECT I. I believe in God the Father c. IF in any at all most of
Infallibility wherewith they hale most silly souâ—… to them were too far spread before the Trent councel too commodious to bâ— called in on a sodain Had they then begun to deny the Authority of this Booâ— though then pronouncing their mothers wo more openly then any Prophecies of old had done the ensuing desolations of the Jews every child 〈◊〉 have caught hold on this string that this Church as they suppose alwayâ—â— the same never obnoxious to any errour had in former time acknowledgeed it for Authentick and divine albeit no question but many of them sincâ— have wish'd from their hearts that their forefathers had used the same as Seraiah did Jeremiahs books which he wrote against Babylon Jer. 51. that botâ— it and all memory of it had been drowned in the Bottom of the deepest seâ— and a milstone thrown upon it by Gods Angel that it never might rise up again to interrupt their whorish mothers beastly pleasures by discovering her filthy nakedness daily more and more For conclusion of this point for this present That this and other Canonical books had been long preserved or rather imprisoned by the Romish Church in darkness and ignorance until the Almightie gave his voice and caused them to speak in every tongue throughout these parts of the world doth no more argue her to have been the true and Catholick Church then Moses Education in Pharaohs Court during the time of his Infancie or Nonage doth argue the Egyptian Courtiers to have been Gods chosen People CAP. XXXIII A brief direction for preventing Scruples and resolving doubts concerning particular Sentences or passages in the Canon of Scripture UNto the second demand How we know this or that Sentence in any Foâ—… of Canonical Scripture to have been from God Not inserted by man Some perhaps would say this must be known by the Spirit Which indeed is the Briefest Answer that can be given but such as would require a long Apologie for its Truth or at least a large Explication in what Sense it were true if any man durst be so bold as to reply upon it Consequently to our former Principles we may Answer That our full and undoubted Assent unto some Principal Parts doth bind us unto the Whole Frame of Scriptures 〈◊〉 you will say we Believe such special parts from undoubted Experience 〈◊〉 their Truth in our hearts and without This our Belief of them could not be 〈◊〉 stedfast how then shall we stedfastly believe those parts of whose divâ—… truth we have no such Experiments for of every Sentence in Scripture wâ—… suppose few or none can have any Yet even unto those parts whereof we have no Experiments in particular we do adhere by our Former Faith because ouâ—… Souls and Consciences are as it were tied and fastned unto other Parts wherâ—… with they are conjoyned as the pinning nailing of two plain bodies in somâ—… few parts doth make them stick close together in all so as the one cannot bâ—… pulled from the other in any part whilest their fastning holds It will be râ—…plied that this Similitude would hold together if one part of Canonical Scripture were so firmly or naturally united to another as the divers portions 〈◊〉 one and the same continuate or Solid Body are but seeing it is evident 〈◊〉 so they are not who can warrant the contrarie but that a Sentence or Peâ—… od perhaps a whole Page might have been Foisted into the Canon by some Scribe or other Here we must retire unto our First Hold or Principles of Faith For if we sted fastly Believe from Experiments or otherwise that some principal parts of Scripture have come from God and that the same are sure Pledges for mans good the only means of his Salvation this Doctrine or Experience of Gods Providence once fully established will establish our Faith and Assent unto other parts of his Word whereof should we take them alone we could have no such Experiments For he that knoweth God or his Providence aright knows this withall that he will not suffer us to be tempted above our strength And once having had Experience of his Mercies past we cannot without Injurie to his Divine Majestie but in Confidence of it Believe and Hope that his All-seeing Wisdom and Almightie Power will still maugre the spight of Death Hell Satan and their Agents preserve his Sacred Word sincere without admixture of any profane false or humane Inventions that might overthrow or pervert our Faith begun Hereto we may refer all former Documents of His Care and Providence in preserving the Canon of our Faith from the Tyrannie of such as sought utterly to deface it and the Treachery of others who sought to corrupt it And it ought to be no little motive unto us thus to think when we see Austin Gregory and other of the Ancient writers either maimed or mangled or purged of their best Bloud where they make against the Romish Church or else her untruths fathered upon Them by her shamelesse sons in places where they are silent for her and yet this Sacred Volume untouched and uncorrupt by any violence offered to it by that Church only it hath lost its natural Beautie and Complexion by long durance in that homely and vulgar Prison whereunto they have confined it 2 But as from these and like Documents of Gods Care and Providence in preserving it and of His Love and Favour towards us we conceive Faith and sure Hope that he will not suffer us to be tempted with doubts of this nature above our strength so must we be as far from tempting Him by these or like unnecessary unseasonable curious Demands How should we know This or That Clause or Sentence if we should find them alone to be Gods word Why might not an Heretick of malice have forged or a Scribe through negligence altered them It should suffice that they have been commended to us not alone but accompanied with such Oracles as we have already Entertained for Divine And if any Doubt shall happen to arise we must rely upon that Oracle of whose truth every true Christian hath and all that would be such may have sure Trial. Deus cum tentatione simul vires dabit God with the Temptation will give Issue yea Joyful Issue to such Temptations as he suffers to be suggested by Others Not unto such as we thrust our selves into by our needless Curiosity When we are called unto the search of truth by Satan or his Instruments Objections against it the Lord will give us better reasons for our own or others Satisfactions then yet we know of or should be able to find but by the conduct of his untempted Providence CAP. XXXIV Concluding the First Book with some Brief Admonition to the Reader TO conclude this Treatise as it was begun The greater the Reward proposed to the faithful Practise or the Punishment threatned to the Neglect of these divine Oracles the greater is the Madnesse of many men in our time who in contemplative
Studies whose Principal End is delight can under go long toyl and great pains never attaining to exact Knowledge but by Believing their Instructors and taking many Theoremes and Conclusions upon Trust before they can make Infallible Trial of their Truth and yet in matters of their Salvation which cannot be exactly Known but only Believed in this life and whose Belief must be got by Practise not by Discourse demand Evidence of Truth and infallible Demonstration before they will vouchsafe to Believe or adventure their pains on their Practise and finally so Demean themselves in speech and resolution as if God Almightie should think himself highly graced and our Saviour his Son much beholden to them that they should Deign to be his Scholars sooner then Mahomets or Machiavels But we that are his Messengers must not debase His Word nor Disparage our Calling by Wooing them upon such Terms or professing to shew them the Truth before they be willing to learn it One first Principle whereof is this That such as will seek may find starting holes enough to run out of Christs Fold and escape his Mercies profered in his Church And as many reasons are daily brought sufficient to perswade a Right-disposed understanding of the Truth of Scriptures so no Argument can be found of force enough to convince a Froward Will or perswade perverse Affections These are they which make a many altogether uncapable of any Moral most of all of any Divine Truth and must be laid aside at the first Entrance into the School of Christ and continually kept under by the Rod of his Judgements and Terrours of that Dreadful Day Unto such as account these Consequents lesse dreadful or their dread lesse probable then that they should for a time at least lay aside all Perversitie of will or Humour of Contradiction to make sure trial of those divine Oracles for their Good we can apply no other Medicine but that of Saint John He that is Filthy let him be Filthy still Rev. 22. 11. 2. Thus much of general Inducements to Belief In the Observation and Use of all these and others of what kind soever we must implore the Assistance of Gods Spirit who only worketh True and lively Faith but ordinarily by these or like means These Scriptures are as the Rule or Method prescribing us our Diet and Order of life these Experiments joyned with it are as Nutriment and the Spirit of God digesteth all to our Health and Strength Without It all other means or matters of best Observation are but as good Meat to weak or corrupt Stomacks With It every Experiment of our own or others Estate taken according to the rules of Scriptures doth nourish and strengthen Faith and preserve our spiritual Health Many in our dayes uncessantly blame their Brethrens Backwardnesse to Entertain the Spirit or rely upon it only being more Blame-worthy themselves for being too forward in Believing Every Spirit and seeking to discern Canonical from Apocryphal Scriptures by the Spirit and again to Trie True from False Spirits by the Scriptures without serious Observation and setled Examination of Experiments answerable unto sacred Rules Such mens fervent Zeal unto the Letter of the Gospel is like an hot Stomach accustomed to light meats which increase Appetite more then Strength and fill the body rather with bad Humors then good Bloud 3 The Spirit no doubt speaks often unto us when we attend not but we must not presume to understand His Suggestions by His immediate Voice or Presence only by His Fruits and the inward Testimony of an appeased Conscience which he alone can work must we know him He that seeks as †Ignatius Ignatius Loyola taught his sons to discern Him without more ado by his manner of breathing may instead of him be troubled with an unwelcome Guest alwayes ready to invite himself where he sees preparation made for his Better and one I am perswaded that hath learned more kinds of Salutations then Loyola knew of able to fill empty Breasts or shallow Heads unsetled in Truth with such pleasant mild and gentle Blasts as are apt to breed strong perswasions of more then Angelical Inspirations 4 God grant the carriage of ensuing Times may argue these Admonitions needlesse which further to prosecute in respect of times late past and now present could not be unseasonable but thus much by the way must now suffice me purposed hereafter if God permit to Treat of the Trial of Spirits and certain apprehension of inherent Faith about the general means of whose production and establishment the Question most controversed in these days â—s Whether beside the Testification of Gods Spirit which as all agree must by these late mentioned or other means work Faith in our hearts the Testimony or authority of others besides our selves be necessary either for ascertaining our Apprehension of the Spirit thus working or for assuring the truth of Experiments wrought by it in our Souls or if no other besides the testimony of Gods Spirit and our own Conscience be necessary either after their Sentence given or whilest they give it How far the Authoritie or Ministery of men is necessary or behoveful either for bringing us acquainted with the Spirit of God or for the assistance and direction of our Conscience in giving right Sentence of the Truth or true meaning of Gods word Of these questions and others subordinate to them we are to dispute at large in the Books following How far the Ministry of Men is Necessary for PLANTING True Christian Faith and retaining the Unity of It PLANTED The Second Book of Comments upon the CREED AS in the first Intention so after some Prosecution of this long work my purpose was to refer the full Examination of the Romish Churches pretended Authoritie in matters Spiritual unto the Article of the Catholick Church Which with those three others of the Holy Ghost Communion of Saints and forgivenesse of Sins for more exact Methods sake and continuation of matters in nature and sacred writ most united I have reserved for the last place in this Frame of Christian Belief annexing the Articles of the Bodies resurrection and Everlasting life unto that of Final Judgement whereon these Two have most Immediate and most direct Dependance 2 But after the Platform was cast and matter for Structure prepared upon evident discovery of the Jesuites Treachery in setting up the Pope as a secret Competitor with the Blessed Trinity for Absolute Soveraignty over mens Souls and for this purpose continually plotting to have the Doctrine of their Churches Infallibilitie planted as low and deep as the very first and Fundamental Principles of Belief albeit in laying the former Foundations I had come to ground firm enough if free from undermining to bear all I meant to build upon it I was notwithstanding in this place constrained to Bare the whole Foundation and all about it unto the very Rock on whose strength it stands lest this late dismal Invention concerning the Popes
the Holy Ghost did write we answer briefly That the Language Tongue or Dialect is but the Vesture of Truth the Truth it self for substance is one and the same in all Languages And the Holy Spirit who instructed the first Messengers of the Gospel with the true sense and knowledge of the Truths therein revealed and furnished them with Diversity of Tongues to utter them to the capacitie of divers Nations can and doth throughout all succeeding Ages continue his gifts whether of Tongues or others whatsoever are necessarie for conveying the true sense and meaning of saving Truth already taught immediately to the Hearts of all such in every Nation as are not for their sin judged unworthy of his societie of all such as resist not His Motions to follow the Lusts of the Flesh And as for men altogether Illiterate that cannot read the Scripture in any Tongue we do not hold them bound nor indeed are any to Beleive absolutely or expresly every Clause or sentence in the sacred Canon to be the Infallible Oracle of Gods Spirit otherwise then is before expressed but unto the several Matters or substance of Truth contained in the principal Parts thereof their souls and Spirits are so surely tied and fastned that they can say to their own Concences Wheresoever these men that teach us these good Lessons learned the same themselves most certain it is that Originally they came from God and by the gracious Providence of that God whose Goodnesse they so often mention are they now come to us Such are the Rules or Testimonies of Gods Providence the Doctrines or real truths of Oriâ—…il Sin of our Misery by Nature and Freedom by Grace Such are the Articles of Christs Passion and the Effects thereof of the Resurrection and Life everlasting Unto These and other Points of like Nature and Consequence every true Christian Soul indued with Reason and Discourse gives a ful a firm and absolute Assent directly and immediately fastned upon these Truths themselves not tied or held unto them by any Authority of Man For albeit true and stedfast Belief of these Fundamental Points might be as scant as the true Worship of God seemed to be unto Flias in his daies yet every Faithful Soul must thus resolve Though all the World besides my self should worship Baal and follow after other Gods yet will I follow the God of Heaven in whom our Fathers trusted and on whose Providence who so reâ—…es shal never fall So likewise must every Christian both in Heart resolve Cutwardly profess with Peter but with unfaâ—â—ed praiers for better Succesâ—… diligent Indeavours by his Example to beware of all Presumption Though the World beside my self should abâ—ure Christ and admit of Mahomet for their Mediator yet would not I follow so great a Multitude to so great an Evil but always cleave unto the cruciâ—ied Christ my only Saviour and Redeemer who I know is both Able and Willing to save all such as follow him both in Life and Death So again though all the subtiltie and wisdom of Hell the World and Flesh should joyntly bend their Force stretch Invention to overthrow the glorious Hope of our Resurrection from the dead yet every Faithful Christ an must here resolve with Job and out of his Believing Heart profess I am sure that my Redeemer liveth and he shal stand the last on the earth and though after my skin this Body be destroyed yet shal I see God in my Plesh whom I my self shal see and mine eyes shal behold and none other for me Job 19. 25. As we hope to see Christ with our own eyes immediately and directly in his Person not by any other mens eyes so must we in this life stedfastly believe and fasten our Faith upon those Points and Articles which are Necessarie for the aâ—taining of this sight of Christ In and For Themselves not from any Authoritie or Testimonie of Men upon which we must relie for this were to see with the eyes of others Faith not with our own 12 Many other Points there be not of like Necessitie or Consequence which unto men specially altogether unlearned or otherwiâ—e of less capacity may be proposed as the Infallible Oracles of God unto some of which it is not lawful for them to give so absolute and firm irrevocable Asâ—ent as they must do unto the former because they cannot discern the Truth of them in it self or for it self or with their own eyes as it is supposed they did the Truth of the former CAP. III. The general Heads of Agreements or Differences betwixt us and the Papists in this Argument 1 Aâ—… the Diâ—â—iculties in this Argument may be reduced to these Three Heads First How we can know whether God hath spoken any thing or no unto his Church Secondly What the Extent of his Word or Speech is as whether All he hath spoken be VVritten or some Unwritten or how we may know amongst Books written which are written by Him which not Likewise of Unwritten Verities which are Divine which Counterfeit Thirdly How we know the Sense and Meaning of Gods VVord whether VVritten or Unwritten 2 These Difficulties are common to the Jews Turks Christians and all Hereticks whatsoever All which agree in this main Principle That whatsoever God hath said or shall say at any time is most undoubtedly and infallibly True 3 But for this present we must dismisse all Questions about the Number or Sufficiencie of Canonical Books or Necessitie of Traditions For these are without the lists of our proposed Method All the Professours either of reformed or Romish Religion agree in this Principle That certain Books which both acknowledge do contain in them the undoubted and infallible Word of God 4 The first Point of Breach or Difference betwixt us and the Papist is concerning the Means how a Christian man may be in Conscience perswaded as stedfastly and infallibly as is necessarie unto Salvation That these Books whose Authoritie none of them denie but both outwardly acknowledge are indeed Gods Words 5 The second Point of Difference admitting the stedfast and infallible Belief of the former is concerning the Means how every Christian man may be in Conscience perswaded as infallibly as is necessary to his Salvation of the true Sense and Meaning of these Books joyntly acknowledged and stedfastly believed of both 6 In the Means or Manner how we come to Believe both these Points stedfastly and infallibly we agree again in this Principle That neither of the former Points can ordinarily be fully and stedfastly Believed without the Ministerie Asseveration Proposal or instructions of men appointed by God for the begetting of Faith and Belief in others hearts both of us agree that this Faith must come by Hearing of the Divine Word 7 Concerning the Authority of Preachers or men thus appointed for the begetting of Faith the Question again is Twofold 8 First whether this Authority be primarily or in some peculiar sort
of Canonical Scripture May private Spirits discern their true Sence in matters of Faith as clearly as if they were a Light indeed to thee Oh no you quite mistake his meaning in making such Collections Let Valentian explicate himself in the end of this fourth Paragraph 8 After the Church hath once gathered any Opinion out of Scriptures and thereupon opposeth the Scripture thus understood by it according to the Apostolical Tradition unto contrary Errours It is extream Impiety and wickedness to desire any more either concerning the Authority or Interpretation of that parcel of Scripture under what Pretence soever of Difficulty Obscurity or the like To that Scripture I pray mark his words wel which is commended and expounded unto us by the Authority of the Church that Scripture now ea jam even for this Reason hoc ipso is most Authentick and shines most splendently mojt clearly like a Light videlicet as we have formerly expounded put upon a Candlestick Nay in good sooth just like a Candlestick put upon a Light or Candle For in this Countrey wherein we live we see the Candlestick by vertue of the Light not the Light by means or vertue of the Candlestick And yet if your Church be the Candlestick as you suppose and the Scripture the Light as you expresly acknowledge we must by your Doctrine discern the Light of Scriptures only by the Commendation Explication or Illumination of your Church the Candlestick And this Illumination is only her bare Asseveration for Scriptures she seldom expounds but only by Negatives or Anathemas The best Correction that can be made of this untoward crooked unwieldly Similitude would be this whereas this Doctor supposeth the Pope to be the Church and saith further necesse est ut lumen illud si dei quod in divinis literis splendet praeser at Ecclesia Let him put lucem for lumen and so the Pope being by his Assertion the Church may be truly called Lucifer And then as when Cloth shrinks in the wetting men shape their Garments accordingly making sometimes a Jerkin of that which was intended for a Jacket so out of this unhandsome ill-spun similitude which was marred in the making we may frame a shorter which wil hold exceeding wel on this fashion Even as Satan being the Prince of Darknesse doth to mens seeming transform him self into an Angel of Light Just so doth the Roman Lucifer being by Valentians Confession but the Candlestick labour to transform him self into the Light it self and would be taken for such a Light or Candle as should make the very Light of Heaven it self Gods Word to shine most splendently and clearly by the glorious Beams of his Majestical Infallibility once cast upon it For otherwise unlesse the Supernatural Glory of his Infallibility do infuse Light or adde fresh Lustre to this Light or Lantern of Truth the Candlestick naturally gives no increase of perspicuity to the Light or Candle Which wil shine as clear in a private Mans hands so he wil take the pains to hold it as in a Publick Candlestick But that which I would have the serious Reader to observe especially is this Speech of his Scripture as once commended unto us or expounded by the Churches Authority becomes thereby most Authentick and shines most clearly and most splendently For this same Doctor if a Doctor may be said the same affirming and denying the same in the beginning of that Dispute would gladly shuffle so as he should not be taken with that Trick which wil discredit their Cause for ever and descry their villanous Blasphemy in this Doctrine of their Churches Authority There he would perswade us that he doth not allow of this Speech I believe this or that to be a Divine Revelation because the Church doth tell me so or of this the Church is the Cause why I believe the Divine Revelations whereas this Speech of his Quae Scriptura per Authoritatem doth infer the Authority of the Church to be the very principal and immediate Cause of our Assent unto Scriptures 9 Secondly I would have the sober Christian Reader to observe what an unhallowed and unchristian Conceit it is to admit the Scriptures for a Lantern and yet to affirm that Christians cannot behold the Light therein contained but only as the Church of Rome doth hold it out what is this else but to call the People from the marvailous Light of the Gospel unto the fearful Lightnings of the Law And to make the Pope that Mediator which the People implicitely did request when they desired that Moses might speak to them not God If we be in Christ then are we not called into Mount Sinai to burning Fire Blindnesse Darknesse and Tempests this Light of the Gospel is not environed with a fearful Cloud or Smoak threatning Destruction if we should go up into the Mount to hear the Lord himself speak we have an Advocate with the Father and need not look for a Moses to go up for us while we stand trembling a far off For as our Apostle tels us Heb. 12. 22. We are come unto the Mount Sion and to the City of the living God the celestial Jerusalem and to the company of innumerable Angels and to the congregation of the first-born which are written in heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the Spirits of just and perfect men and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Testament and to the bloud of sprinkling that speaketh better things then that of Abel What is the Consequence or Effect of this our Calling Our Apostle makes this Inference verse 25. See therefore that ye despise not him that speaketh Whom did he mean The Pope or Cardinals But they would be but of like Authority as Moses was but he that Speaketh untous is of far greater For so our Apostle collects See that ye despise nâ—t him that speaketh for if they escape not which refused him that spake on Earth much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him which speaketh from Heaven The Israelites I suppose had despised Moses if they had admitted any other infallible Teacher besides him whilest he was alive or believed any other as wel as his Writings after his death but only so far forth as they could discern their Words to be consonant unto his If Moses Writings were to these Jews a plain Rule of Faith then much more must Christs Word registred by his Apostles and Evangelists by the Rule of Faith unto us That Moses Doctrine was their Rule of Faith a Rule most plain and easie these places following abundantly testifie CAP. XVII That the Mosaical Writings were a most perfect Rule plain and easie to the Ancient Israelites 1 SO perfect Directions had Moses left for Posterities perpetual instruction that a great Prophet in later Ages desirous to bring Gods people into the right Paths which their Fathers had forsaken and for this purpose professing to impart to them whatsoever he had
Fathers who had learned Christian Obedience alwayes ready to give honour where honour was due would most willingly have acknowledged so absolute a Soveraigntie and could have been glad to have used the Benefits of it to have spared themselves a great deal of trouble and pains if it could have been proved then to have been such an excellent Mean for allaying all Contentions amongst the Learned The Pope was much to blame to let Athanasuis suffer such pains exile and abuse by the Arian faction in the defence of the Truth if his Infallibilitie could have composed the Quarrel Austin hath been famous throughout all Generations since for his learned Labours against the Pelagian Heresie Cyril for his accurate Confutation of Nestorius and yet the Scripture was the best Weapon they knew Neither of them did ever appeal to the Popes Infallibilitie not the Popes themselves which then lived would have used any other Rule but Scripture for their own defence 3 Your usuall Argumentis that unlesse God had left such an infallible Authority as might take up all Controversies he had not sufficiently provided for his Church Then by your consent he left such an Authority as was sufficient to perform this good service to it To whom then did he commit it To the Sea of Rome say you How chanceth it your fore-elders did not put it in practise and make the Power of it better known This Blame you cannot lay 〈◊〉 the Almighty for he for his part by your confession provided abundantly for the Peace and Quiet of his Church And yet it seems the Church was ill provided for when Schisms and Heresies sprung so fast This therefore was your Churches fault that bore this Spiritual Sword in vain and world not use it when the Christian world stood most in need of it for the 〈◊〉 Decision of Controversies So then although we should grant you that your Church had sometimes the Birth-right amongst all the Israel of God yâ—â— might we justly say of it as old Israel said of Reuben his eldest son Thy â—â—nity is gone and we were to seek this Supream Authority if God had given any such Supremacy to any in some other Tribe which were likely to use it better 4 If you reply your Churches Authority in composing Controversies amongst the learned hath been better known since that flourishing Agâ—â— learned and religious Fathers and since it hath been so well known and acknowledged Heresies have been more thin sown then before few or 〈◊〉 till Luther arose daring to confront the Church or Popes Authority with Scripture You give us hereby just cause to suspect that Heresie had get the upper hand of Truth for the Multitude of followers that there had been a general Combination in Falshood till Luther brake it For if sundry 〈◊〉 the Ancient Hereticks with whose Doctrine the Primitive Church was pesterâ—… could under pretence of Scripture have got into Supream Authority or 〈◊〉 established their Propositions framed as they thought out of Gods Word with strength of Temporal Sword as Mahomet did his It were great Simplicity to think that they could not have been content to have let the Scriptures sleep or have threatned all with Death and Destruction that should have urged them to the prejudice of their Opinions especially of such Opinions as did concern their Dignity For all Falshood and Spiritual Blindnesse hates this Light and could either wish it put out or them utterly extinct that Object it to them As he that hath wound himself into anothers Inheritance by some quirk in Law or Captious clause not well understood would not be much offended to have all Evidences of primary Copies either burnt or buried even That by which he got it if It upon better Consideration or more indifferent hearing were likely to overthrow his Title 5 And if we may guesse at the course of Satans Policy in watching his Opportunities to effect his purpose by the customary fashion of secular Politicians his Schollars in like Cases most probable it is that after these Broâ—'s of Dissention about the Gospel of Peace so frequent in the Primitive Church the great Calamities and bodily Affliction which followed thereon most men grew weary of their Spiritual Warfare and became slothful in the search of Scriptures the only Armory for all munition in this kind of war Every man afterwards in the fresh memory of the Church their Mothers bleeding Wounds and the Desolation which had ensued these furious Broâ—'s became more tractable to entertain conditions of Peace and Satan himself who had sown the seeds of all the former Dissention after he saw all or most weary of war was content to turn Peace-maker for his own advantage These were as the first Preparations for laying the Foundations of the myâ—â—cal â—abel in whose erection the Marner Method and Circumstances of the formers dissolution are all inverted The Building of the first was hindered by the Confusion of Tongues or the Division of one Language into many whence insued the scattering of the People throughout the earth the second was finished by the Concourse of divers People and the Composition or Confusion of different Languages For as Goropius acutely observes the present temper of modern Italian Spanish French we may adde of our English Dialects was from the mixture of the Roman and Barbarous Tongues whilest the natural inhabitants of these Countries before accustomed to the Roman Language and the Barbarians which at that time over-ran them were inforced to imitate each other in their words and manner of speech that they might be the better understood in matters of necessary Commerce or ordinary Contracts And this is the true reason why our Ancient English Latinisms are not as the Latin Graecisms which were derived by Art and Imitation from clear Helicon extracted from the purest Roman but from Latin of the base and vulgar stamp This Confusion of the Latin and other barbarous Tongues was but a Type or picture of confounding the Ancient true Roman Religion with barbarous Heresies Heathenish Rites and several kinds of Paganisms whilest the Romans who had already begun to distaste the Truth sought by lying Legends and false Wonders to please the grosse Palate of the Goths Vandals Hunnes Alans Franks and Saxons and they again here-with delighted were content to imitate the other in sundry sacred and religious Rites so as neither kept their Ancient Religion but all imbraced this mixture or new confused Masse And to speak properly that Unity whereof the Adversary so much boasts since that flourishing Age of Fathers wherein Contentions were so rife and the Roman Church no better esteemed then some of her sisters was not a Positive Consent in the sincere Truth wrought by the Spirit of God as a perfect Homogeneal mixture by true and lively heat but rather a bare Negation of actual Dissention caused by a dull Confusion of the dregs of Errour coagulate and congealed together by Ignorance
Delusions and Appearances as well as the true their divine Illuminations whence the Contention amongst the professed Prophets themselves was as great as any now amongst the learned Interpreters of Prophecies or other Scriptures And from this Contention amongst the Prophets the unlearned or rather all in that people not Prophets were by the Romanist Objections against us were they pertinent to waver and halt between the contrariety of Illuminations and Visions professed as well by the false Prophets as the true Nor will any Jesuite I think be so bold as to deny lest every man might perceive him to deny more then possibly he could know that those lying Spirits in the mouthes of Ahabs Prophets were then as cunning in imitating true Revelations as now in counterfeiting Orthodoxal Interpretations of Truth revealed Or if this they cal in question let them resolve us why Idolatry in those Ages wherein true Prophets flourished most should be as frequent and various as Heresies in later times wherein the preaching of the Gospel is most plentiful The true Reason whereof as we suppose is this These lying Spirits were alike apt to imitate Gods several manner of speaking whether by means ordinary or extraordinary in divers Ages At all times if we compare either their native Capacity or acquired skil with our own though in matters wherein we have been most conversant if to their sagâ—…y we adde their malicious Temper and eager Desires of doing ill which alwayes adde an Edge unto Wit in mischievous Invention In all these they so far exceed the sons of seduced Adam that unlesse the Almighty did either 〈◊〉 us by his Holy Spirit or restrain them in the exercise of their skil especially in Spiritual matters wherewith the natural man hath no acquaintance who could in any Age be able to discern their Jugling much less to avoid their snares alwayes suited to the present season Notwithstanding most evident it is that in Ahabs as in all other times tainted with the like or a quivalent Sins the Almighty gives them leave to do their worst to practise with such cunning in every kind as leaves men so disposed as these false Prophets were until they amend no more possibility of distinguishing Devilish Suggestions from Divine Oracles then Ahab had without repentance to escape his doom read by Elias and Michaiah For he had not fallen unlesse his Prophets had been first seduced Their Errour therefore was by Gods just judgement as Fatal as his Fall both absolutely inevitable upon supposition of their obstinate Disobedience to the undoubted Mandates of Gods written Law Thus no one tittle of our Adversaries Objections how the learned should be sure of their interpretations when others as learned as they are as strongly perswaded to the contrary but is as directly opposite unto the Certainty of true Prophets Revelations seeing many yea most of that Profession and in the judgement of man men of better gifts and places then such as proved true Prophets were otherwise perswaded usually such as the people esteemed best strangeliest deluded 3 That from this Variety of Opinions amongst the Prophets about their Illuminations others not endued with the gift of Prophesie were in the self same case the unlearned people throughout the Christian world are in wheresoever or whensoever Dissentions arise amongst the learned admits no question but amongst wranglers For albeit the excellent Brightness of Divine Truth did necessarily imprint an infallible Evidence in their apprehension to whom it was immediately by Means extraordinary revealed yet could they not communicate this Evidence or Certainty unto the people but by preaching the Word revealed after the self same manner we do Yea sometime it was only communicated unto them by the Ministery of others no Prophets Here let any Jesuite or other Patron of the Romish Churches Cause answer me to these Demands First whether the People were not bound to believe the true Prophesies either delivered by the Prophets own mouthes or read by others or directed to them in writing to be the Word of GOD and to reject the contrary Doctrine of false Prophets as Delusions Secondly whether if the ordinary People of those times could by any Christians though private men in later may not by the same Means distinguish the Word of God being in like sort read or expounded or preached unto them from the Word of Man The Word remains stil the same the Truth of it better confirmed unto the World by the continuance of it in power and strength throughout all Ages intermediate wherein Gods Spirit by which it was first manifested to the Prophets and written in the Peoples hearts hath been more plentiful then before especially since the Revelation of the Gospel most plentiful in this present if I may so speak the second time of Grace Our Argument then stands good A fortiori If every private man amongst GODS People of Old might and ought Believe and believing Obey his Word revealed to others only read or expounded unto him rejecting all contrary or erroneous Doctrines the People of this Age must do the like and all Objections possible against the judgement of modern private Spirits conclude as much against all private persons of Ancient times For their Means of knowing the Prophets Illuminations or Visions were ordinary such as we have now liable to all exceptions that can be made against our knowledge or perswasion of the true Sense of Scripture But neither theirs nor our Imbecillity in knowing or Facility of erring was or is any just Exception why the Scripture should not be a Rule to both Albeit all the Papists Arguments might be urged with far greater probability against them who were to Believe Prophetical Writings first For more easie it is to Assent unto Particulars contained in a general Canon already established by the approbation of former Ages and confirmed by joynt consent of Parties most adverse and contrary in the interpretation of several parcels then to admit the general Canon it self for the undoubted Word of GOD or yield obedience to the Particulars therein contained Yet were the Ancient people bound to admit the Prophesie of Isaias Jeremiah as the undoubted Word of God albeit unknown to their Ancestors but only in the generality of Moses doctrine much more as we conclude may Christians now living assent unto the true expositions or particular contents of these Prophesies or other Scriptures of whose absolute Truth in general they do not doubt and of whose 〈◊〉 articulars they may now behold the sundry Opinions and Expositions of divers Ages 4 To presse the former Arguments more fully parallel'd to our present Controversie a little farther I would demand of any Jesuite whether the Word of God taught by the Prophets who were to win credit by their skil not presumed skilful for their Authority in the Church or credit in Common-weal or the definitive sentence of the High-Priests or others in eminent place were to be the Rule of Israels Faith Whether the
Peoples distraction in following some one false Prophet some another fewest of all the true Prophets most their High-Priests and men in Authority might exempt any from acknowledgement of such Prophesies as in the issue proved Divine for the Rule of their Belief If that People either upon the Variety of Opinions or the Authority of the Priests or others might reject the Word of God either preached unto them by the Prophets or read by others or appeal from It to any visible company of men on whose decrees they might safely rely then may the Romanists with some probability teach men to rely upon the decrees of their Church for their infallible Rule not upon Scriptures only But if the People of those times were bound to rely upon MOSES Law and the Prophets Writings against all the World besides albeit joyntly conspiring to teach them otherwise though with Glozes and pretences of Moses Authority then much more must these Writings be of like Authority unto us And all the Mimical Objections which the Jesuites can frame to this or like purpose If the Scripture be the Rule of Faith and must be discerned by private Spirits how comes it to passe that Calvin expounds it one way Luther another Zwinglius a third and yet all think they have the Spirit are the very same in effect with the false Prophet Zedekiah's Exception against Michaiah When went the Spirit of the Lord from me to speak unto thee 5 Zeclekiah had four hundred more of his opinion and this People had been very dull if conscious of their own factious greatnesse they could not have pleaded all the Papists Arguments against Michaiah all that can be drawn from the Universality or Authority of the Church All which have meer ignorance or incogitancy of a Divine Providence for their Root but branch themselves in their after-grouth into positive Atheism and contradictious Infidelity First their Authors the Priests and Jesuites erre not knowing the Scriptures nor the Power of God able to lead men unto Life by this written Way though narrow and private yet straight and plain Afterwards as if they were Satans sworn Takers or authorized Purveyoâ—â—s to furnish Hell with guests observing some who rather idly wish or loosly profer then seriously purpose or earnestly strive to enter in at the streight Gate either sail in their first Adventures or finally miscarry they watch hence all opportunities of haling Passengers to their broad beaten Catholick Way which almost all heretofore have gone as they brag wherein a blind man so he will follow his Guide cannot easily trip so I think until both come at the very Pit-brink of Destruction whereunto it tends directly and infallibly But is this your Catholick Way more plain or better beaten then rebellious Israels or Judahs was Could not these also whilest backed by their blinded Guides have mockt at private Spirits and bestowed Titles upon Gods true Servants because in number fewest and most opposite to their Prelates as foul and odious as Sectaries Schismaticks or Hereticks Or did these willingly and wittingly go astray as knowing their wayes to be the wayes of death Therefore my people is gone into captivity saith the Lord because they had no knowledg Ignorance the Nurse of your Devotion was the true Mother of their Superstition and Idolatry yet was this want of Knowledge which thus proved the fertile Seed of all their insuing Misery the native Fruit of their former Negligence in not practising the known Precepts of Moses Law And because increase of Ignorance in Gods Word did breed in them a greater delight of hearing Lies and pleasant things then the Truth he gave them their Lust as he had done their Forefathers Quails in his displeasure Son of man saith the Lord unto his Prophet these men have set up their Idols in their heart and put the stumbling Block of their Iniquity before their face should I being required answer them Therefore say unto them Thus saith the Lord God Every man of the House of Israel that setteth up his 〈◊〉 in his heart and putteth the stumbling Block of his Iniquity before his face and cometh to the Prophet I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his Idols That I may take the House of Israel in their own heart because they are all departed from me through their Idols 6 This evidently proves that unlesse the Moral Law be duly practised and those stumbling Blocks which the wicked set before their faces removed to seek after such a facile inerrable Rule as the Papists have framed for direction in points of Faith is to solicit a snare for their own Souls as no doubt God gave the Romans for their distast of his Word and that longing after Genulism before mentioned this broken Reed whereon to this day they rely as he had done the Israelites a King in his wrath And though in every Age since the Goths and Vandals over-ran the Empire God hath raised up some poor Michaiah to withstand their state-Prelates Yet those lying Spirits which possessed Ahabs Prophets have ever born greatest sway in that Church seducing Princes and People as they had done Ahab by multitude of Voices to their own Destruction That the Romanists can produce men of great fame and note through many Generations for their defence in some one point or other it skils not much For as God in times past suffered Prophets or Dreamers to take opportunity from their strange Predictions of inticing his people to Idolatry forbidden by his written Law so in every Age his Providence permits men of excellent Gifts and great skill in Scriptures to have yea to seek to establish their plansible Errours under pretences of Revelations secret Assistance or abundant measure of his Spirit that by this means he may try our Fidelity in searching Scriptures and Diligence in trying Spirits as he did the Israelites by such presumptions of Divine Prophesies or Visions And if amongst this great Variety of Opinions I might deliver mine as freely as I willingly submit it to each sober Prophets Censure much more to the Correction of my lawful Superiours I should for ought I yet see to the contrary avouch first that no Christian in any Age but is oft put upon his Trial Whether he love God or the great Ones of this world more Whether he will Confesse or Deny Christ before men Secondly That during these dayes of Peace and Security which we now enjoy our Acquital or Condemnation in both the Two former main Interrogatories stands especially upon our abandoning or abetting their Errours in some points of Danger whose Worth in others we justly admire So much addicted are we for the most part to such mens persons as have been Gods Instruments for our good that upon often experience of those wholesome Medicines wherewith their shops are plentifully furnished we swallow down whatsoever there we find when as perhaps the disease they had to deal with or some other
circumstances of the time were such as required an extraordinary Medicine which whilst we administer without mixture of like Ingredients or not upon the same Occasions we may chance to poyson both our selves and our Patients Others of us again are so much accustomed to politick Observation that we commonly make no other trial of Divine Truths then by some such forinsecal form of proceeding as is used in secular Inquisitions wherein determinations go by calculation of most Voices But unlesse the Lord did suffer us to have plausible shews and goodly inducements in the worlds sight for Believing that which is contrary unto Truth our Faith should not be sincere nor as an Armour of proof to resist all temptations seeing there is no man almost but is apt by Nature to follow a multitude to do that which publick Laws have judged evil much more to think or Believe as most men or men most esteemed do On the contrary if we look into our Calling Not many wise men after the flesh not many noble are chosen of God Such as are His ought to be like Him in this that they see not as men not as Natural men be they never so many see nor judge not as they judge 7 The stay whereupon they as in all other Difficulties so especially in this Trial of Spirits must rely is his Providence which in time wil bring the Truth to light and daily diffuseth the odour of life able were not our Senses dull or prepossessed with the fragrant Smel of earthly Pleasures to lead us to that invisible Truth which in this life we must follow not by View but by Faith Yet not by Faith if we take the Jesuites for our Guides who in this present Controversie play false Huntsmen alwayes seeking to bring us from the Prints of Gods Providence unto the Pathes and foot-steps of Men that have corrupted their wayes casting the form of secular Proceeding before our eyes so to withdraw us from following him who hath sweetned the 21 wherein we breath with the words of Eternal Life If men would be so mad as to frame their lives according to their Doctrine Hell it self could not wish a more Devilish Means to make men Christians in conceit and At heists or Infideis in heart And yet besides the Impiety of all other kinds of Heresies or Infidelities that are or have been this of theirs is the most palpably absurd and most contradictory to the Rules of Reason and Principles of Arts received by all For if the Arguments they bring against us conclude any thing at all they conclude as much against all Certainty of secular or natural Sciences 8 And because whether purposely or as meer Instruments managed by Satan to what use they know not they still labour to make civil Modesty but a mask for Infidelity rightly judging though to a wrong end ingenuous Humility and mens lowly conceipts of their own worth the fittest disposition whence utter distrust of Gods Favour towards such poor Creatures as men so minded deem themselves can be wrought and if once wrought and deeply planted in soft minds or humble hearts the only sure Foundation whence they can hope to raise their Blind Implicit Faith It shall not be amiss whilst we prosecute the second Branch of their immoderate Folly last mentioned to discover withall and partly dissolve The Snares which they have set for the Simple and Ingenuous CAP. XXV How far upon what terms or grounds we may with Modesty dissent from the Ancient or others of more excellent Gifts then our selves That our Adversaries Arguments impeach as much the Certainty of Human Sciences as of private Spirits 1 LEt it be granted that many Places of great Moment are diversely expounded by learned men what will hence follow That not the greatest Schollars in reformed Churches can be as sure of their true Sense and Meaning as the Pope Not unlesse you first can make it evident that Learning or Subtility of wit is the only Means whereby the true sense of Scriptures can be found out And this being proved you must assure us that the Pope is alwayes better learned then others otherwise he may fail as wel as they Or if you admit not Learning for the only Means of distinguishing Doctrines as indeed it is not yet must you secure the world that the Pope hath all those other good Qualifications whose want caused the learned to erre Or if you require neither one nor other of these you must prove that the best Gifts of God the peculiar Attribute of whose Glory is to be no Respecter of persons are infallibly entailed to a certain succession of men without all respect of Learning Wit or Honesty Lastly you must prove that the Holy Ghost was a Private Spirit and might erre when he said The Lord giveth Grace to the Humble Or the Law of the Lord Wisdom unto the Simple And that our Saviours words Ventus spirat ubi vult did not import as he meant that his Spirit might enlighten whom he pleased For if all these and that Deus cujus vult miseretur be true who can hinder Him or His Spirit to open the eyes of some less learned to behold clearly the true Sense and Meaning of that Scripture wherein many excellent Writers have either erred or been overseen or who can hinder God if these places be true to reveal his Will to little ones and keep it secret from the wise and mighty because it is his pleasure so to do and that for this end that men should learn to rely upon his Mercy and Providence not upon the Authority or Skill of Men. Or who can hinder his Omnipotency even in this Age to make his Power seen in our Weaknesse If this his Power be not limited now then may he stil both reveal the true Sense and Meaning of his Word in some points unto men of lesse Capacity in others and furnish them with ability too for demonstrating by Evidence of Argument and surest Grounds of Reason unto others that this sense must needs be the true sense and that all other Interpretations given of the same places by men otherwise excellent for their Learning and Skill in Scripture cannot stand with those Principles of Christian Faith which all sorts of Believers stedfastly Believe Must such a man or those to whom God reveals the Truth by his Ministry doubt of the Evidence of the Truth revealed and mistrust Gods Word because others as learned or more learned then either he that hath the Truth revealed unto him first or they that take it from him are of another mind He must verily by this Objection For a Jesuite would say Why should he not think others as likely to have the Spirit as himself Let him esteem of them as far better Scholars and men indued with as great or greater Measure of Gods Spirit then himself for so the Scripture teacheth us not to be wise in our own conceipt but to think better of others then
of our selves And again the Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets 2 And yet both these Rules concern the greatest Scholars and most skilful Interpreters in some degree as well as the meanest For none is so absolutely good none so far exceeds another but in part may be exceeded by him Nor doth this Christian Modesty which the Scripture thus teacheth bind any Christian soul or ingenuous mind to such absolute servility as the Objection must inforce upon all if it prove ought For there is no ingenuous man especially of meaner gifts but will in heart and conscience acknowledge many both Ancient and modern for far more excellent Scholars then himself and yet be fully perswaded in Conscience that in sundry particulars he hath the Truth on his side which they oppugne and the true sense of Gods Spirit in some points wherein they have erred or were ignorant For neither wil an indefinite Proposition in matters whose revelation depends upon the free Wil and Liberty of Gods Spirit and are in respect of us contingent infer every particular nor will one or sew particulars in any point infer an Universal Proposition or such as we call vera ut plurimum true for the most part Now to say believe that such a man is a better Scholar and of far more excellent gifts is but indefinite not infinite for the extent of his Scholarship or gifts beyond mine Wherefore it wil not hence follow that he is a better Scholar or interpreter in this albeit he be so in many or in most other particulars much lesse will it follow that I am a better Scholar or interpreter then he because I am better seen in this one or few particulars The Consequence or Corollary of which two Assertions is again as evident I may without breach of Modesty think I have the Truth on my side in sundry particulars against him that is far better seen in Scriptures and other Sciences then my self For albeit he were much better seen in both then he is yet are his gifts measured as well as mine although God hath given him a greater measure of such gifts then me Wherefore as I would willingly yield unto him in infinite others so may I safely dissent from him in this or â—…r particulars that are contained in the small measure of Gods gifts upon me without any just censure of Arrogancy or breach of Modesty for entring the lists of Comparison with him absolutely For now we are to be compared but in this one or few Cases not according to the whole measure of Gods gifts in us which I acknowledge far greater in him and reverence him as my Superiour for them And as I acknowledge him absolutely for my better so is he in these particulars in some sort to yield Superiority unto me Christian Modesty teacheth every man not to be hasty or rash in gain-saying the Doctrine of the Ancient or other men of Worth but rather binds him to diligence in examination of the Truth to use deliberation in gain-saying the Opinions of men better learned then himself But Christianity it self binds all Christians not to believe mens Authority against their own Consciences nor to admit of their Doctrines for Rules of Faith be they never so excellent unlesse they can discern them to be the Doctrine of that great Prophet Cui DEUS non admetitur Spiritum He cannot fail in any thing and whatsoever He saith or what his SPIRIT shall witnesse to my Spirit to have proceeded from Him I am bound to Believe But for men to whom God gives his Spirit but in measure albeit in great measure because I cannot know the particulars unto which it extends I neither may absolutely refuse nor absolutely admit their doctrines for true until I see perfectly how they agree with or disagree from his Doctrine of whose Fulnesse we have all received And even the Truth of their Writings to whom he hath given his gifts in great measure I am to examin by their Consonancy unto that small measure of his undoubted gifts in my self so far as they concern my self or others committed to my charge And in the confidence of Gods Promises for the increase of Faith and Grace to all such as use them aright every Christian in sobriety of spirit may by the Principles of Faith planted by Gods singer in his heart examin the Sentences and Decrees of the wisest men on earth to approve them if he can discern them for true to confute them if false to suspend his judgement and limit the terms of his disobedience unto them if doubtful and finally to admit or reject them according to the degrees of their Probability or Improbability which he upon sober diligent and unpartial search directed and continued in reverence of Gods Word and sincere love of Truth shall find in them 3 All the Arguments which they can heap up from the Variety of Opinions amongst the learned albeit they could make a Catalogue of Confusion in this kind as long as the tower of Babel was high can only prove thus much That no man especially no man indued with the gift of interpreting may rely upon any other mans Opinions Expositions or Decrees without further examination of them but only upon the Scripture it self which never varieth from it self nor from the Truth for this cause to be admitted as the only Infallible Rule of all Divine Truths whereunto every man must conform his Belief and Perswasions For even this Variety of Opinions about the particular Sense or Meaning of this Canon of Truth amongst such as joyntly acknowledge the Infallibility of it in general is a sufficient Reason to disclaim any mans Authority for the Rule of Faith seeing Experience shews such Variety and Partiality in them and the general Foundation of Faith held by all thus dissenting binds every man to Believe that the Scripture is not subject to any of these Inconveniences This undoubted certainty of it when it is rightly understood and perceived should incourage all to seek out the right Sense and Meaning of it which once found is by all mens consent the surest foundation of Faith for by our Adversaries consent it is the Ground of the Churches Faith and where they cannot presently attain unto it to suspend their judgements and not to follow mens Authorities but onely in Particulars whose Generals are contained in Scripture lest they may lead them against the true Sense and Meaning of it And if men generally should have no other Ground but mans Authority or Believe this or that to be the Meaning of Scripture because such a man or companie of men doth tell him so besides his wronging of Gods Spirit herein he should also wrong many other men oft-times far better learned and skilfull in Scriptures more dear in the sight of God and better acquainted with his Spirit then are they on whose Authoritie he relies Every one to whom God hath given a wise heart and Power in Scripture might
justlie challenge him of Partialitie and Disobedience in not giving as much to his Authoritie as to the former But as the Truth revealed unto him by the meanest of Gods Servants binds his Conscience to Believe it so the Varietie of other mens Opinions be it never so great the Authors and Favourers of them never so well learned never so stiff and confident in maintaining them ought to be no Motive either to disswade him from assenting unto the Truth known or to discourage him in the industrious and sober search of it by such good Means as God hath appointed for his Calling For there hath been as great Varietie of Opinions in other Sciences and Faculties as in Divinitie yet no later Jesuite nor other learned Papists that I have read or heard of for these diverse hundred years have sought to prove that no man can be certain he knows any thing because many think they know that which they do not Or if any Jesuite will renounce Aristotle and revive the old Academicks Opinion That there can be no certainty of any thing but onely an Opinion our Universities shall be ready to answer him albeit hereby they should disenable their supposed infallible Rule as much as ours In the mean time holding Aristotles Doctrine about the certaintie of Sciences for true they answer themselves in all they can Object against us in this Point For they neither denie a Certaintie in secular Arts because many erre nor do they perswade young students in their Schools to give over their studious and industrious searching into speculative Sciences because many have taken much pains in them to little purpose Nor do they hold it sufficient for good scholars in such matters to relie wholly on other mens judgements without any triall of Conclusions or examination of Arguments according to the Principles of those Sciences which they have professed In a word the Varietie of Opinions hath not yet occasioned them to create a Pope of Arts and secular sciences albeit such a Creature were by their Arguments much more necessarie or at least lesse harmefull in those Faculties then in matters of Religion For in them we have no promise for the assistance of a secret Teacher the true Illuminator of our souls whose Authority is as infallible as the Spirit of Truth Aristotle takes it for an infallible token that there is a Certaintie to be had in Sciences because all men think themselves certain in their Perswasions of things that may be known as well those that know not the Truth but onely think they know it as those that know it indeed If Aristotles Argument which the Jesuites so acknowledge be good then is their Argument in this Cause most absurd Many men say they perswade themselves they know the right sense of sundry places in Scripture when they do not therefore no man no private man no man but the Pope qui neque Deus est neque homo by any search or industrie can be sure that he hath it Whereas by Aristotles reason which indeed is a Rule of Reason the contrarie rather followes That there is a Certaintie to be had concerning the Truth and true sense of Scripture by all such as seek it aright because even such as erre and seek it amisse are strongly perswaded of their Certaintie in it From the same Topick do the Schoolmen and other judicious Contemplators prove a Certaintie of true and perfect Blisse able alone to satiate the greedie Appetite and stay the unconstant longing of mans Soal because even misereants and such as indefatigablie hold on like Dromedaries in those ungracious Courses which in wiser Heathens sight lead directly unto Infalicitie and true Miserie cannot cast away all conceit of Happinesse from which they wander but rather suppose it to be seated in those sensuall Pleasures which they follow Yet would our Adversaries Arguments disprove all Certaintie in apprehension of true Happinesse with greater probaâ—… then they can impeach the assurance of private Spirits in any other point-of Faith as might to omit other reasons be proved by this one Because some of their Popes none of which as they suppose can erre in ordinary matters of Faith never have any tast or apprehension of true Happinesse 4 Of the manner of knowing the true Sense of Scripture occasion will be given us in the last part of this Discourse of the Impediments which trouble most men in this search and of the Original of all Errors in Divine Mrters and the Means to avoid them we shall speak by Gods assistance in the Article of the Godhead Thus much may now suffice that no man ought to be disinayed in seeking or despair to find the true Sense and Meaning of Scriptures in all Points necessarie for him in his Calling because other men much more expert in all kind of Learning then himself have foully erred in this search and finally missed of that they sought For out of the Rules of Scripture already set down when such Temptations shall arise in our brests we may quell them thus They who have gone astray were much better learned then I in all kind of Knowledge It may be they were hence more confident of their Gifts for scientia inslat their excellent Knowledge might puss them up with self-conceit and he that is wisest of all hath said I will destroy the Wisdom of the Wise and the understanding of the Pruden shall be bid it may be as they were exceeding Wise so they much gloried in their Wisdom but I will seek to glorie onely in the Lord of whom I have received every good Gift I have and will alwaies esteem this best which shall teach me not to rejoyce above that which is meet in any other As they were Prudent so it may be they were Proud and the Scripture saith Deus resistat superbis God resisieth the Proud and such as trust too much to their own conceit As for me I will not be high-minded but fear for the same Scripture tels me Deus dat gratiam humilibus yea grace to understand the true Sense and Meaning of his gracious Promises made in Christ And in confidence of them I will continue these my daily Prayers Lord grant me true unfained Christian Humility and with it grace to know the wonderfull things of thy Law Others have erred of far more excellent natural parts even men of deepest reach and surest Observation It may be as their Wits were stronger and their Understandings riper so their Wills were unrulier and their Desires or Affections greener But O Lord break the stubbornnesse of my Will purifie my Heart and renue a right Spirit within me so shall I see thee and thy goodnesse in thy Word which shall enlighten me to teach thy Waves unto the wicked and convert sinners unto thee so shall thy Law thy perfect Law convert my Soul for thy Testimonies are sure and give Wisdom to the Simple Yea but they who first instructed me in thy Word do dissent
all though different in their particular Natures and peculiar Properties uniform for the transmission of Light But after the dissolution of the Christian Empire and the constitution of several States and Soveraignties throughout Europe all compleat within themselves and different one from another in Laws and Customes the transfusion of such an absolute Ecclesiastick Authoritie through all would be unequal and make Christendom like a Monster compact of many several entire Bodies made up in one or like some uglie living creature that had many Heads and but one Heart or Soul CAP. XXX That the final Trial of this Controversie must be by Scriptures That the Jesuites and modern Papists fierce oppugning all certainty of private Spirits in discerning the Divine Truth of Scriptures or their true Sense hath made the Church their Mother utterly uncapable of any plea by Scriptures for establishing her pretended Infallibility 1 BUt what Christian heart could have suspected that any man acknowledging the infinite Majestie of an Omnipotent God filling every place with his Presence ruling all things by his Power and having every least Creature of the World a world of Witnesses of his inconceivable Wisdome and unspeakable Providence over the Works of his own Hand durst once have presumed to think much lesse have opened his mouth to utter least of all have imployed his pen to proclaim such foul Impietie to the world as that a Power so infinite could not sufficiently provide for his Church in deciding matters of Faith surpassing all reach of Reason unlesse he had ordained some one Supream Tribunal Seat on earth the Judges whereof should be but mortal men whose Bodies can be but in one place at once whose Voices cannot reach without the precincts of their Consistories whereas the Law of this our God unto whose sentence in matters of Faith we appeal is or might be but for these our Antiscripturian Adversares importunitie every where throughout the Christian World dispersed and besides the external helps of an ordinary Ministerie or Magistracie alike common to all Nations the Holy Spirit is every where assistant to all such as seek him in the written Word by him revealed whose live-characters are as the prints or footsteps of his wonted Motions in Gods Prophets or Apostles hearts by which the faithful may discern his approach or Presence in their own Nor wil the Jesuites be so wilful I hope as to denie that this Holy Spirit who did dictate the Word to such as wrote it in these material Tables having first written it in the fleshly Tables of their Hearâ—ts is able now also to write the same immediately in the Hearts of all such as with fear and reverence prepare themselves for his fit and decent entertainment That this was possible to be performed by the Almighty Wisdom of God they would not I know deny were this 〈◊〉 direct and plain termes made the main Controversie betwixt us Albeit as much as we have charged them withall will most necessarily follow from their absurd and lavishly blasphemous Speeches which in the heat of contention have distilled from their pens in this present Controversie But of the Possibilitie of Gods immediate teaching every Christian Heart or rather of the Probabilities which may induce all to relie immediately hereupon we shall have occasion to discourse hereafter Let us now in sobrietie of Spirit rather dispute of Gods Will then his Power As whether there be any sure Argument to perswade us that it was his intent or purpose either to instruct men in the true Sense of Scriptures or to take up all Controversies in matters of Faith by this supposed Infallibilitie of some visible Church All this and somewhat more our Adversaries in this Point seriously avouch and earnestly contend for Let us therefore briefly see whether or no Gods Spirit hath taught thus much That the Sense of Scriptures cannot be had without the Assistance or working of Gods Spirit both jointly acknowledge They must be understood and interpreted saith Bellarmin by the same Spirit which wrote them as he very well gathers out of Saint Peter Whence likewise he well collects that the whole difficultie in this Question about taking up Controversies and finding out the true Sense of Scriptures consists in this where this Spirit is and where the distressed Soul and doubtfull Conscience ought to seek it In the Visible and Catholike Church saith Bellarmin and all the Modern Roman Catholicks that is as they interpret it in the Consistorie of the Pope and Cardinals or in the Assemblie of Bishops or as the Modern Jesuites will have it in the Pope alone speaking ex Cathedra 3 Every man say we ought to seek the Spirit of God in his own Soul and Conscience being directed and ruled by the Sacred Word which was revealed and uttered by the same Spirit This Word directs them in this search and the Spirit once found out or rather finding them thus seeking him establisheth their Assent unto the Word already revealed and written by imprinting the same invisible Word or the true Sense and Meaning of it in their Hearts 4 Why this Spirit should be infallibly present to the Visible Church all our Adversaries uncessantly urge Scripture I will not abuse the Readers patience with allegation of the Places which have been very fully answered by many of our Church That which I intend at this time is First to debar them by their own Grounds of this Plea of Scriptures by shewing their Absurditie and folly in urging any Scripture at all for the proof of their Aâ—lertion And secondly to overthrow the Assertion it self by manifest proofs that either their Churches transcendent Authoritie as it is now taught must fall or Christianitie cannot stand To make way for our dearer passage in the former 5 They generally hold That this Infallibilitie of the Visible Church consists directly in this That the Holy Ghost is infalliblie present to it and gives it the true Sense and Meaning of Scriptures which he doth not give to private persons whom in their judgements he will not vouchsafe immediately to instruct so that his Dictates already revealed cannot be a Rule unto them because they want his infallible Assistance for their Exposition and for the same reason Certain they cannot be without the Churches Authority that they understand the Scripture aright 6 This their Assertion being two-fold for their Churches infallible Expositions and against all private Interpretations is grounded upon these two Principles They are to be Believed in exposition of Scriptures fide divina whom the Holy Ghost infallibly assists They are not so to be Believed whom the Holy Ghost doth not so assist Whence what he said before will follow that no man besides the Pope may believe his own interpretations of Scriptures His or the Churches all must nay all men must believe fide divina that the Church or Pope is in all Determinations infalliblie assisted by the Holy Ghost For if we were not bound to
affirm he may be an Heretick or a Son of Satan although it were true he could not propose an Heresie to be Believed yet is there no shew of Truth why he may not be so maliciously bent as he wil not vouchsafe actually to determin that for Heresie in others which in his judgement as he is a Doctor or private man is very orthodoxal thus doing he should go against his own Conscience to give Sentence Gods Spirit as they say wil guide his Tongue when or whilest he speaks ex cathedra But an evil Spirit may so work upon his Affections that he shal not come in good time so to speak especially against that Opinion which in his private Conscience he holds for true This I think none of them can deny 4 Now whilest these doubts stand unsatisfied and ye without further assurance of his Infallibility in deciding Controversies then only this Hypothetical or conditional if he speaks ex cathedra all the comfort which the Christian World perplexed with the variety of Opinions and diversities of Sects can reap from these fair promises of the Jesuites concerning their Church or Popes infallible Authority is but as if a man should say unto a Husbandman doubtful upon the uncertaintie of Weather when to sow or reap tush be of good cheer you shall certainly know what season is good what not for Seed-time and Harvest when the man in the Moon sets forth an Almanack Veritas hypotheticae propositionis saith old Javel nihil ponit in crumena Many die with fewer pounds in their purses then Arguments in their heads sufficient to prove the Truth of this conditional Proposition If I had five thousand pounds I should be a wealthy man In like manner if this be all the assurance their infallible Rule can afford us That a general Councel if lawfully assembled or the Pope if he speak ex cathedra cannot possibly erre The most pestiferous and noisome Heresies that now infect the Church may perhaps be quelled some hundred years after all now alive be dead When the Pope wil call a Councel or consult his Chair GOD knows what manner of Resolutions were to be expected if either should happen we may conjecture by their wonted Practise which is thus 5 After a Councel is called the Major part being made to serve their Makers turn for of Bishops the most must be the Popes new creatures the rest must subscribe to their Decrees usually set forth in the weather Wizards language and their sceptick School-men appointed to riddle out some good meaning that may save their Prelates Credit In the mean time the Pope and his Cardinals may follow their pleasures take their ease and with it the dreaming Captains Motto Tot urbes capio dormiens ac vigilans We take up as many Controversies we edifie the Church as much sleeping as waking If no tolerable interpretation of their doubtful Decisions can be found yet a good sense must be Believed and private Spirits may not peremptorily avouch that the Councel meant this or that but only it meant the best and this we take to be the best and therefore we think it meant thus but with humble submission to their infallible Authority All this while the Sectaries so they term us must be set to prove Negatives as that there can be no true Meaning in those speeches which may have twenty But if out of their School-mens Wranglings who can better seek out then follow the truth found any interpretation or manner of Tenet can be found which may yield advantage to them or prejudice to their Adversaries about some hundred years after perhaps when they have light on a Pope and Cardinals whose wits and they once in their life-times meet a Decision may be had upon this Opportunity of seeming advantage And yet the Catholick Church during this hundred or perhaps two hundred years of her silence must be supposed to have held perpetually the self-same Tenet which this private man hath bolted out of late albeit neither he nor any particular member thereof did know as much yea though five heads of the Church and as many principal members five successions of Popes Cardinals and Bishops have died in the mean time no one of which in all their lives did trouble their thoughts with any such matter and whilest both their Schoolmens private speculations and their publick Practise have witnessed the contrary Was the Doctrine of Justification and Merits held by any of their Doctors heretofore as the later Jesuites have refined them Did any of their Popes and Councels determin of their manner of Worshipping Images as Vasquez hath of late And yet I think if the Pope should be driven to a Decision of this Question he would define as Vasquez hath done so extraordinary is the Approbation of his Apologie for Imagery as if It likewise were worthy of Adoration And if this Pope should so determin it you must think that all his Predecessours were of the same Opinion if they had been asked cundem sensum tenuit semper mater Ecclesia 6 But what is most strange That Church may for five six or twelve hundred years and more use a Translation justly suspicious as for many other Reasons so for this That of the divers Authors thereof some we know not others we know too wel and yet when a Councel after so long time shal meet every mans work found very authentick Some learned Papists have been perswaded that their vulgar Translators were docti à Deo omnes all assisted by the Holy Ghost in their Translations But Bellarmin thinks this Opinion too charitable for so they must grant that Theodotion the Heretick the undoubted Author of some parts of that Edition was infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost If he were not how is that part of their Vulgar which they have from him authentick and true Though erre he might as being a private man or rather a publick Heretick Dicimus tamen eum non errasse in ea translatione quam approbavit Ecclesia yet we say saith Bellarmin but I hope no wise man wil so think that he did not erre in that Translation which the Church hath approved I see then it is all one whether the Holy Ghost do assist the Translatour whilest he is about his work or the Pope his Translation after it be finished and He dead nor doth it skil how he were Qualified whilest he lived either for Integrity Wit or Learning the Cause is all one as in the Pope himself who may as freely bestow this particular gift of not erring in Translations upon whom he please without all respect of good Qualities as Saint Peter did that transcendent donative of absolute Infallibility upon him and his Successors Saint Jeroms Translation had laudable Testimonies of Antiquity yet not generally received in his time onely prejudiced by the Newnesse of it and Antiquity of the Italick But whose is the Vulgar or how first came it in request It is saith Bellarmine
severe unpartial execution of known Lawes might easily restrain usually eclipse or hide it from us Such as are not so Eagle-sighted as to behold the brightnesse of every Divine Truth in it proper Sphere might yet safely behold the reflexion of it in one part or other of the sacred Fountain were it not troubled with the muddy conceipts of unsetled and unquiet Frains or were not such men oftentimes in great places as minding nothing but earthly things alwayes mingle filth and clay with the Chrystal-streams of the Water of Life Happie is that man of God that in this turbulent Age can in points of greatest moment see the Divine Truth himself small hope have any of causing others to see it whilest carnal mindes may every where without fear of Punishment but not without terrour of such Ecclesiastick Power as shall controul them foam out their own shame and overcast the face of Heaven whence Light should come unto their Souls with blasphemous unhallowed Breath whilest dunghill-Sinks may be suffered to evaporate the abundance of that inward Filth which is lodged in their hearts as it were of purpose to choak the good Spirit of God whilest it seeks to breath in others Mouthes whose Breasts it hath inspired with Grace 14 In brief lest my Adversary should challenge me of Partialitie As the Means which our Church from Gods Word prescribes for establishing mens hearts in the Unity of true Faith were the execution of known Lawes any way correspondent might as is said infallibly effect what the Papists falsely pretend so in truth it cannot without Hypocrisie be dissembled that whiles our Practise is so dissonant to our Doctrine and our Publick Discipline so loose though in detestation of their Errours we have turned our backs upon them with Protestation to follow a contrary Rule yet for the most part we jump with them at the journeys end To omit more finall agreements of our Contrarieties elsewhere shewed They wholly permit the Keyes of the Well of Life to ones mans hands who for his own advantage we may be sure will lock it up so close as none shall look upon it but with Spectacles of his making For as the Head is such we must expect the Eyes will be if the one the other must be universall too such as will leave nothing to be seen by private or particular eyes but what they have seen before or in one word if we admit one absolute visible Head his must be the onely Eyes of the Church We not through default of publick Constitutions nor so much by connivence of Ecclesiastick Magistrates as by presumptuous disobedience of Inferiours are so far from committing the custodie of this Sacred Fountain into one or few mens hands that the Flock for the most part never expect the Pastors marshalling but rushing into it without order trample in it with unclean feet If any Beam of Truth have found entrance into one of their Souls though quickly eclipsed or smothered by earthly cogitations he straight-way presumes Gods Word more plentifully dwels in him then in all his Teachers whence if his Purse be strong it is with him as with an Horse when Provender pricks him he kicks against all Ecclesiastick Authority and spurns at his poor Overseer that should feed him like the wanton Asse in the Fable that seeing the Moon lately shining where she was drinking suddenly covered with a cloud upon imagination she had drunk it up ran winsing out ere her thirst was quenched and threw her Rider 15 Thrice happie is that Land and State where Civil Policie and Spiritual Wisdom grave Experience and profound Learning in whose right Commixture consists the perfect Temperature of every Christian State do rightly symbolize These where they mutually clasp in their Extreams without intermedling in the Essence of each others Profession are like the Side-postes or Arches in the Lords House and the awfull respect of Christ Jesus the Judge of both and that dreadfull Day continually sounding in their ears by the voice of Gods faithfull and sincere Ministers would be as the Binding-stone or Coupling to fasten them surely in the joyning But whilest these each jealous of other start asunder that Breach is made whereat the Enemies of the Church and State hope for speedy entrance to the utter ruine of both CAP. XXXII Brieflie Collecting the Summe of this second Book 1 TO draw a brief Map of these large Disputes As the Occasions that breed so the right Means to avoid all Contentions and Schismes are most perspicuously set down in Scriptures Amongst others most necessary for this purpose for the plantation increase and strength of true and lively Faith sincere Obedience to Spiritual Authoritie is the chief For more willing and chearful performance hereof Choice should be made of Pastors or Overseers qualified as Scripture requires men of so high a Calling should be men not given to Quarrels or strife men of mild and lowlie Spirits fearing God and hating Covetousnesse men esteeming the hidden treasure of a good Conscience at so high a rate as neither Fear of man nor Hopes of any Worldly favour can move them to hazard or adventure it Were these Rules by such as have the oversight of Gods Flock as faithfully practised as they are by Scripture plainly taught the knowledg of Gods Word should daily encrease Piety Devotion and Christian Charitie continually flourish all Strife and Dissention quickly fade 2 But if through the default of Princes or Potentates no fit choice be made of spiritual Governours if by their negligence worse be made of inferiour Ministers the cause comes not by devolution to be reformed by the Congregation What then must they be altogether silent at such abuse No the Scripture hath given as plain a Rule for their imployment as for the others The more or more often Higher Powers offend the more fervently frequent should the lower Sort be in pouring out supplications prayers and intercessions for Kings and for all that are in Authority that they may Rule according to Gods Word In the mean time albeit they Rule otherwise Inferiours should consider that GOD gives them such Superiours for their pronenesse to disobedience scurrilitie scoffing at lawfull Authoritie or other like sins expresly forbidden by his Word To every People as well as Israel he gives such Rulers in his wrath as shall not seek them but theirs not his Glory in their salvation but their own Glory by their harm 3 But as the Tongues of Inferiours must be tied from scoffing or jesting at men in Authorities bad proceedings so must not the Word of God be bound If their Consciences rightly and unpartially examined direct them otherwise then their Governours command they must notwithstanding their Superiours checks speak as they think until Death command them silence if for the freedom of their Speech upon good warrant of Conscience they be punished Vengeance is Gods he will repay Superiours for it unto whose lawfull Authority whilest Obedience is denied upon
perswasions receive increase of strength from addition of probabilities But his words are more general and concern not onely uncertain but all perswasions that a faithfull man in this life can have of Gods Word at least of those Writings which we and they acknowledge for such and the mark he aims at is That no perswasion in Divine matters can be certain without the Churches confirmation as he expressely addeth in his answer to the next Argument 3 If the Reader will be attentive he shall easily perceive that not our Writers Objections but Bellarmias Answer is tainted with a quivecation For this speech of his The Church doth judge whether that which the Scriptures 〈◊〉 be true or false hath a double and doubtfull sence It may be meant either Of Scriptures taken indefinitely or indeterminately for that which God hath spoken whatsoever that be Or Of those particular Scriptures which we and they acknowledge or any determinate written or unwritten precepts questionable whether they were from God or no. 4 If we speak of Scriptures in the former sence Bellarmins answer is true For the Romish Church doth not take upon her to judge whether that which is supposed or acknowledged by all for Gods Word be most true in it proper and native but indeterminate sence seeing this is a Maxim unquestionable amongst all such as have any notion of a Dietie Whatsoever God hath spoken is most true in that sense wherein he meant it But if we descend to any terminate speeches written or unwritten either acknowledged or supposed for Gods Word or such as can but ground any possible question whether they are Gods Words or no the present Romish Church doth take upon her absolutely to judge of all and every part of them For this is the very Abstract or abridgement of that infinite Prerogative which she challengeth All man must infalliblie believe That to be Gods Word which she commends That not to be His Word which she disclaims for such So as onely the former transcendent and indeterminate truth Whatsoever God saith is true is exempt from the Popes unlimited transcendent royal sentence no other word or syllable of truth which we can imagine God hath or might have spoken since the World began either by his own or his Sons mouth by the Ministery of his Angels Prophets Apostles or Evangelists but is every way absolutely subject to the Popes Monarchical censure 5 And here let not the Reader mistake it as any argument of our Adversaries ingenuitie that they will for their own advantage vouchsafe to grant what no Heathen Idolater did ever deny Whatsoever God saith is true For unlesse this were granted by all the Pope could have no possible grounds of pretence or claim to his absolute Infallibilitie or infinite supremacie over all And that which his hirelings seek to build upon the former foundation is Whatsoever the Pope hath said or shall say ex cathedra is most true because if we descend to any determinate truths we must believe that God hath spoken all and onely that which the Pope hath already testified or when any question ariseth shall testifie he hath spoken In fine the present Pope by their Positions is Gods onely living Mouth onely alsufficient to justifie or authentically witnesse all his words past all which without him are unto us as Dead Whence they must of necessity admit the same proportion betwixt the present Popes and Gods acknowledged written Word or supposed unwritten veritie which in civil matters we make betwixt a credible mans personal avouchment or living testimony of what he hath seen heard or known by undoubted experience and another mans heresay report either of the matters he spake of his speeches themselves or their true sence and meaning after his death For the Prophets Apostles and Evangelists to use their words are dead and Christ is absent so as we can neither be certain what they have spoken or what they meant in their supposed speeches but per vivam vocem Ecclesiae by the living voice of the present visible Church whose words are altogether as unfallible as Gods own words were And for this reason must be acknowledged a most absolute Judge of Gods written and unwritten words aswell of their Spiritual Sence and meaning as of their outward frame or visible Character This is the height of their iniquitie and will infer more then our purposed Conclusion in this Section That even of such places as are acknowledged by them for Gods Word we must not believe any determinate sence or meaning but what the Pope shall expressely give or may be presumed to allow of 6 This Doctrine as I would request the Reader to observe brings the second and third Person in Trinity on the one Partie and the Pope on the other to as plain and evident competition for Rule or Soveraignty over professed Christians faith as God and Baal were at in Elia's time This their Doctrine thus in shew grounded upon in deed and issue most opposite to Scriptures is the true Spiritual Inquisition-house whereof that material or bodily one is but a Type These following are the joynts or limmes of that rack of Conscience whereunto all such as are or would be true members of Christ but willing withall to hold their Union with the Pope as Visible Head of the Church are daily and hourly subject 7 First their souls are tied by surest bonds of faith and nature unto this Principle Whatsoever God hath said is most true the Jesuites again seek to fasten their faith and conscience as strongly unto this God speaks whatsoever the Pope speaks ex cathedra This third likewise must be believed as an Oracle of God even by Papists for the Pope hath spoken it ex cathedra The Books of Moses the Prophets the four Evangelists are Gods Words Whatsoever these have spoken we contend all should believe for Gods own Word upon such grounds as Saint Peter did from experience of their life-working sence communicate unto them by hearing reading meditating or practise But the Pope upon some controversies arising propounds a sence of these Writings or of some part of them quite contrary to that which brought the former comfort to our souls a sence to all unpartiall sences contradictory to the places joyntly acknowledged for Gods Word A sence the more we think on in sobriety the more we dislike a sence the more earnestly we pray to God for his Spirits assistance and other good means for the right understanding of his Word and encrease of faith the more still we distast and loath Here unlesse we let go some one or more of the mentioned holdfasts of faith either the first whatsoever God saith is true or the second Whatsoever the Pope saith God saith or the third The Mosâ—â—cal Evangelical and Apostolical Writings or those particular places about whose senâ—e the Controversie is were spoken by God our souls are put to more violent torture then Raviliacks bodie was But
Syllogismâ—… wherein a Proposition of Faith is Concluded can be but Conjectural 5 The proposed inconvenience we may drive from this difficulty How the Papists themselves can attain to the infallible belief of the Churches infallible authority The Church they think hath a publick spirit and publick spirits they know are infallible hence they may perswade themselves the Church is infallible only upon the same terms they believe it hath a publick spirit if their belief of this later be but conjectural their assent unto the former can be no better Seeing then they must of necessity grant for this is the principal mark they aim at that all must infallibly believe the Church hath a publick spirit the difficulty removes to this point how this infallible perswasion is or may be wrought in them Either it must be grounded upon Scriptures or not avouched unto them and wrought in their hearts it must be either by a publick or private spirit Let us examin all the parts of this division 6 First if private mens infallible perswasion of the Churches publick or Authentick spirit be not grounded upon Scriptures acknowledged by us and them the Churches Authority without all controversie is much greater then the authority of Scriptures if it by this assertion can be any and the Churches not all in all For unto that which men cannot know whether it be true or false they cannot be bound to yield absolute or immediate obedience unto that authority which they absolutely believe as infallible they are bound to yield infallible assent and absolute obedience directly in it self and for it self But by this supposition men cannot know Scriptures infallibly without the Churches authority and yet they must infallibly believe the Churches authority without Scriptures The Scriptures authority therefore is either lesse then the Churches or none at all 7 But be it supposed that private mens infallible Belief of the Churches publick spirit is grounded upon Scriptures acknowledged by us and urged by them to this purpose as upon these it seemeth good to the Holy Ghost and us I have prayed for thee thy faith should not fail The question whereunto we demand an answer is whether this infallible Belief of the Churches authority grounded upon these places must be wrought in mens hearts by a private or publick spirit If by a private spirit only Bellarmin believed the Churches publick spirit or those Scriptures truth or true meaning whereon he grounds it He and all other Papists such as he was when he delivered this Doctrine neither Bishops nor Cardinals are subject to the same inconveniences which he hath condemned us for as Hereticks For all private spirits by his positions are abnoxious to errour unsufficient to plant any infallible perswasion in matters of faith yet such is this article of the Churches Authentick spirit of which unlesse men be so perswaded infallibly perswaded they cannot be of the minor proposition in any Syllogism wherein a point of faith is concluded and uncertain of the minor they cannot be certain of the conclusion which as Bellarmin rightly observes alwayes follows the weaker part The infallible conclusion therefore of Bellarmin's resolution is unlesse private men may have publick spirits to warrant the truth of Scriptures and the Churches infallibility thereon grounded they cannot truely believe any conclusion of faith It remains then we inquire what inconvenience wil follow if they admit private men to be partakers of publick spirits 8 Diversity of such spirits they acknowledge not If therefore private mens Infallible Assent unto the truth or true sense of those particular Scriptures whence they seek to prove their Churches Infallibility must be planted by a publick spirit planted it must be by the same spirit which guides and guiding makes the Church and Pope authentick and infallible both in their proposal of Scriptures and declaration of Scriptures sence Seeing this spirit is one and the same if it can make the Church or Pope infallible in all why may it not make all private men by this supposition partakers of it alike infallible at the least in the right understanding of those places which warrant the Churches Infallibility or publick spirit For our adversaries I hope wil easily grant that the Churches publick and Authentick spirit must be most infallibly Believed because so expresly taught in those Scriptures cited by Bellarmin to this purpose If this publick or Authentick spirit can work such infallible apprehension of those places true meaning in private hearts why not in all others as necessary for them to know that is in all necessary to salvation And if thus it do why are we bound to believe the Pope more then the Pope us we being partakers of a publick and infallible spirit as wel as he 9 Or if they hold it no absurdâ—ty to say we must believe two or three places It seemeth good to the Holy Ghost and us Peter feed my sheep by a publick and authentick spirit teaching us from these to rely upon the Pope in all other parts of Gods Word because as it must be supposed we have but a private spirit for their assurance by this supposition the Popes authority in respect of us must have the same excesse of superiority unto Scriptures that a publick spirit hath unto a private or the Pope who believeth all Scriptures by a publick spirit hath unto a private man This publick spirit whereof they vaunt is the same which did inspire the Scriptures to Atoses the Prophets and Apostles and must by this position be the Pope or Churches immediate Agent for establishing this inviolable league of absolute allegeance with mens souls unto them but of none so absolute to their Creator and Redeemer and the rest of whose written laws and eternal decrees must be communicated unto them by a private spirit and subscribed unto with this condition If the Pope shal witnesse them to be his laws or to have this or that meaning 10 Nor can our adversaries deny the truth of this subsequent collection If it were possible for the Pope in matters controversed to teach contrary to Gods Word we were bound to follow him For they themselves argue thus If the Pope could erre in matters of Faith Faith might perish from the Earth all Christians bound to erre because bound to obey him This proves that our Assent to any Scriptures besides those which teach the Popes authority cannot in it self be perfect and absolute but subject to this condition if the Pope be infallible And even of those places which as they pretend witnesse him to be such there yet remains a further difficulty These the Pope believes not because they are confirmed to him by his predecessor but directly and immediately by his publick spirit But may private men believe them so too No. For these especially and the Churches infallibility contained in them are by all our adversaries consent propositions of Faith in respect of us and need by their doctrine the proposal or
is essentially subordinate CAP. IV. Containing a further Resolution of Romish faith necessarily inferring the authority of the Romish Church to be of greater authority then Gods Word absolutely not only in respect of us IF we rack the former syllogism a little farther and stretch it out in every joynt to its ful length we may quickly make it confesse our proposed conclusion and somewhat more The Syllogism was thus What soever God hath spoken is most true But God hath spoken and caused to be written all those words contained in the Canon of Scriptures acknowledged by opposite religions of these times Therefore these words are most true The certainty of the Minor depends as our adversaries wil have it upon the present Romish Churches Insallibility which hath commended unto us these Books for Gods Word Be it then granted for disputations sake that we cannot know any part of Gods Word much lesse the just bounds extent or limits of all his words supposed to be revealed for our good but by the Romish Church The Spiritual Sense or true meaning of al most or many parts of these determinate Volums and visible Characters as yet is undeterminate and uncertain whereas all ponts of belief must be grounded on the determinate and certain sence of some part of Gods Word revealed for our adversaries acknowledg all points of Faith should be resolved into the First Truth Hence if we descend to any particular or determinate conclusion of Faith it must be gathered in his Syllogism Whatsoever the Church teacheth concerning the determinate and true sence of Scriptures whereon points of Faith are grounded is most trâ—â— But the Church teacheth thus and thus for example That her own authority is infallibly taught by the Holy Ghost in these words Peter feed my sheep Peter I have prayed for thee that thy faith should not fail ergo this sence and meaning of these words is most true And as true as it is must the sence likewise of every proposition or part of Scripture by this Church expounded or declared be accounted 2 The Major proposition of this Syllogism is as undoubted amongst the Roman Catholicks as the Major of the former was unto all Christians but as yet the Minor The Church doth give this or that sence of this or that determinate place may be as uncertain indeed as they would make our belief unto the Minor proposition in the general Syllogism before it be confirmed by the Churches authority For how can we be certain that the Church doth teach al those particulars which the Jesuites propose unto us we have Books indeed which go under the name of the Trent Councel but how shall we know that this Councel was lawfully assembled that some Canons have not been foisted in by private Spirits that the Councel left not some unwritten tradition for explicating their decrees after another fashion then the Jesuites do who shall assure us in these or like doubts The present Church All of us cannot repair to Rome such as can when they come thither cannot be sure to hear the true Church speak ex Cathedra If the Pope send his Writs to assure us what Critick so cunning as to assure us whether they be authentick or counterfeit Finally for all that can be imagined in this case only the Major of the Catholick syllogism indefinitely taken is certain and consequently no particular or definite conclusion of Faith can be certain to a Romanist because there are no possible means of ascertaining the Minor What the true Church doth infallibly define unto his Conscience 3 Or if they wil hold such conclusions as are ordinarily gathered from the Trent Councel or the Popes decisions as infallible points of faith they make their authority to be far greater then the infallibility of Gods written word yea more infallible then the Deity This Collection they would deny unlesse it followed from their own premisses These for example That a conclusion of faith cannot be gathered unless the minor God did say this or that determinately be first made certain But from the Pope or Churches infallibility conclusions of faith may be gathered albeit the minor be not certain de Fide For who can make a Jesuites report of the Popes Decrees or an Historical relation of the Trent Councel certain de fide as certain as an Article of faith And yet the Doctrine of the Trent Councel and Popes Decrees must be held de fide upon pain of damnation albeit men take them only from a Priests mouth or upon a Jesuites faith and credit 4 This is the madnesse of that Antichristian Synagogue that acknowledgeth Gods Word for most infallible and the Scriptures which we have for his word if it self be infallible For it tels us they are such yet wil not have collections or conclusions with equal probability deduced thence so firmly believed by private men as the collections or conclusions which are gathered from the Churches Infallibility An implicit faith of particulars grounded upon the Churches general infallibility so men stedfastly believe it may suffice But implicit faith of particulars grounded only upon our general Belief of Gods infallibility providence or written word sufficeth not This proves the authority of the Church to be above the athority of Scriptures or the Deity absolutely considered not only in respect of us that is all besides the Pope and his Cardinals For that is of more authority absolutely not only in respect of us which upon equal notice or knowledge is to be better believed more esteemed or obeyed but such is the authority of the Church in respect of the divine authority such is the authority of the Popes Decrees in respect of Gods Word For the Minor proposition in both the former Syllogisms being alike uncertain the conclusion must be more certain in that Syllogism whose major relies upon the Popes infallibility then in the other whose Major was grounded upon the infallibility of the Deity 6 Briefly to collect the sum of all The authority of the Church is greater then the authority of Scriptures both in respect of Faith and Christian Obedience In respect of Faith because we are bound to believe the Churches decisions read or explicated unto us by the Popes messenger though a Sir John Lack-latin without any appeal but no part of Scripture acknowledged by us and them we may believe without appeal or submission of our interpretation to the Church albeit the true sence and meaning of it seem never so plain unto private consciences in whom Gods Spirit worketh Faith The same argument is most firm and evident in respect of Obedience 6 That authority over us is alwayes greatest unto which we are to yield most immediate most strict and absolute obedience but by the Romish Churches Doctrine we are to yield supream and most absolute obedience to the Church more supream and absolute then unto Gods word therefore the authority of the Church is greater over us The Major is out of controversie seeing
given in Heaven and in earth hath got an interest in the chief Kingdoms of the World disposing such as he can best spare or worst manage to any potent Prince that wil fall down and worship him and his copartner the Prince of darknesse who of late years have almost shared the whole World betwixt them the one ruling over insidels the other over professed Christians And seeing the Pope because his pomp and dignity must be maintained by Worldly wealth and revenews dares not part with the propriety of so many Kingdoms at once as Satan who only looks for honour profered he hath found out a trick to supply his wants for purchasing like honour and worship by his office of keeping S. Peters keys if earthly Provinces or Dominions fail him Gods Word his sons bloud and body all shal be set to sale at this price Fall down and worship him For no man we may rest assured no Nation or Kingdom whom he can hinder shal ever taste of the Lords Cup unlesse they wil first acknowledge lawful authority in him to grant deny or dispose of it at his pleasure which is an homage wherewith the Devil is more delighted then if we did acknowledge him Supream Lord of all the Kingdoms of the Earth for that were as much lesse prejudicial to Christs prerogative royal as a damage in possession or goods would be to a personal disgrace or some foul maim or deformity wrought upon a Princes body CAP. VI. Propounding what possibly can be said on our adversaries behalf for avoiding the force of the former arguments and shewing withal the special points that lie upon them to prove as principally whether their Belief of the Churches authority can be resolved into any divine Testimony 1 UNto all the difficulties hitherto proposed I can rather wish some learned Priest or Jesuite would then hope any such ever wil directly answer point by point For the Readers better satisfaction I wil first briefly set down what possibly can be said on their behalf and after a disclosure of their last secret refuge draw forth thence the dead and putrified darknesse of Romish faith which unto the ignorant and superstitious that cannot uncover the holes and clefts wherein these impostors upon every search are wont to hide it may yet seem to live and breath as the Fable went of S. John the Evangelists body after many years reposal in the grave or as the blinded Jews to this day brag the scepter of Judah yet flourisheth beyond Babylon in Media or some unknown part of India whither no European is likely to resort for a disproval of his relation 2 Unto the Demonstrative Evidences as wel of their error in expounding Scriptures pretended for as of other Scriptures rightly alledged by us against their former or like Decrees they wil be ready to oppose what Bellarmin hath done That the Church must judge of Scriptures Evidence and private errours in expounding it not private men of the Churches expositions Unto the objected dreadful consequences of their decrees could these possibly be erroneous they would regest disobedience to the Church that to disobey it is to disobey God Father Son and Holy Ghost a sin as hainous as mangling of Christs Last Will and Testament as Idolatry On the contrary to obey the Church even in her negative decrees and naked decisions unguarded with any pretence of Scripture much more where this loving Mother for the education of her children wil vouchsafe what she need not to alledge some clause or sentence of Holy writ we obey not the Church only but Gods Word also though not in those particular places which in our judgements either contradict the former or like decrees or else make nothing at all for them yet in texts produced for the Churches transcendent general authority As he that adores the consecrated host in procession because his holy Mother commands him so to do or accounts want of Christs bloud no losse because denied him by her authority although unto private spirits he may seem to contradict that Law Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve doth yet sincerely obey the Holy Ghost and rightly observe the true sence and meaning of these his dictates Peter I have prayed for thee that thy faith should not fail Peter feed my sheep Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church From these places once firmly believing the Church possibly cannot erre he must not question whether the the practises by it injoyned contradict the former laws both being delivered by the holy spirit who cannot contradict himself This I take it is the sum of all the most learned of our adversaries can or would reply unto the former difficulties Not to draw faster but rather remitting the former Bonds wherein they have inextricably intangled themselves by their circular progresse in their resolution of faith admit their late doctrine left any possibility of knowing Scriptures acknowledged by both to be Gods word or of distinguishing humane testimonies written or unwritten from divine The present question we may draw with their free consent unto this issue whether their belief of the Churches infallible authority undoubtedly established as they pretend in the fore-cited places can be truly resolved into any branch of the First Truth or into humane testimonies only If into the later only the case is clear that absolutely obeying the Romish Church in the former or like decrees which her authority set aside to all or most mens consciences would seem to contradict Gods principal laws we believe and in believing obey men more then God humane authorities laws or testimonies more then divine 4 The strength or feeblenesse of Roman faith wil best appear if we try it in any one of these joynts Whether by Divine testimony it can be proved that S. Peter had such an universal infallible absolute authority as these men attribute unto the Pope Whether by like infallible testimony it can be proved the Popes from time to time without exception were Peters undoubted successours heirs apparant to all the preheminencies or prerogatives he injoyed Whether either the soveraignty or universality of their authority supposed probable in it self or to themselves or particular injunctions derived from it can be so fully notified to all Christians as they need not question whether in yielding obedience to decrees of like consequences as were the former they do not grievously disobey Gods Word For though the Popes themselves might know this truth by Divine revelation or otherwise their internal assurance unlesse generally communicable by divine testimonies could be no warant unto others for undertaking matters of fearful consequences whereof they doubt not only out of secret instinct or grudging of their consciences but from an apprehension of opposition betwixt the very forms of laws papal and divine 5 First it is improbable that he to whom our Saviour said If thy brother trespasse against thee dic Ecclesiae
but only equivalency of their inward meaning This method the holy Spirit useth the rather I think because he would accustome us to investigate his sense and meaning not so much by the like form or Character of words as by the Analogie of Faith For as the Apostle saith the letter killeth because it usually leadeth such as rely upon it to strange and unwholsome senses as the identity of our Saviours and S. Peters name in the Syriack or their vicinitie in the Greek and Latin made the Rock of salvation become a Rock of Offence unto the Romanist who by his stumbling at the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fals upon the stone laid in Sion and shall be broken yea for this disobedience to this eternal word and seeking to lay another foundation then what was laid already that stone shall fall upon him and grind him at least his doctrine to powder as 〈◊〉 more sully appear if we compare their exposition of that Donative they suppose he did bestow upon S. Peter with that Disciples doctrine whom he loved 11 As we have shewed from S. Peter and S. Paul and the general Analogie of Faith that Simon the son of Jonah had his name of Cephas or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from his affinity with the Rock of salvation or chief corner stone he being as the first wrought stone in that Edisice so doth S. John whose doctrine pregnantly confirms our former exposition of these words Thou art Peter c. make that very confession which Peter uttered as the surest square or line the perfect Index whereby to try and examin all other stones whether sitting or rightly proportioned to this everlasting structure Dearly beloved saith he believe not every spirit but trie the spirits whether they are of God for many false Prophets are gone out into the world How should they know true Prophets from false such as were true were of God such as were false of Antichrist how should they know such as were of God from such as were of Antichrist Hereby shall ye know the spirit of God every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God 12 But is every spirit of God that can frame an Orthodoxal conceit of this great mysterie and outwardly confesse what they inwardly assent unto as undoubtedly true So should the wicked spirits be of God for a spirit of an unclean Devil openly said as much in effect as Peter did what he knew by arguments more sure then most Popes do I know who thou art even The Holy One of God yea many came out of the possessed crying what Peter afterwards confessed Thou art the Christ the Son of God The mysterie it seems they had conceived aright because our Saviour gives them the like injunctions his Disciples had upon Peters confession the one he rebuked and would not suffer to say the other he charged they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ because this Rock was not as yet to be plainly manifested to the world Although it is most probable he would not have the unclean spirits at any time to be proclamers of this mysterie for unto the wicked said God What hast thou to do to declare mine ordinances that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy month seeing thou hatest to be reformed and hast cast my words behind theeâ— c. If unclean spirits may not be permitted to promulge this or like divine mysteries by the mouthes of men whose bodily members they so possesse as to cause them utter they know not what may we without exception safely admit all their Cathedral Decisions whose souls and minds they have wholly transformed into the similitude of their uncleannesse for heavenly Oracles for â—…ages of Salvation immediately sent from God for Foundations of Faith and manners Christ by the same Psalmist hath said To him that disposeth his way aright will I shew the salvation of God 13 But to proceed by our Apostles former rule from which and others of his fully parallel thereunto it is evident that for a just trial of a spirit speaking by God there must be both a plat-form of doctrine rightly proportioned to the former Foundation Christ come in the flesh and a correspondent edification not of verbal or school consequences but of real and material works proceeding from lively faith and inward sanctity so testifying the habitation of Christ the living stone in the confessors heart as Christs own works and doctrine did the Godheads bodily dwelling in him the Apostle adds Every spirit which confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God that is is opposite unto the spirit of God but this is the spirit of Antichrist of whom ye have heard how that he should come and now already he is in the world A spirit of Antichrist then is manifested by a contrariety in the form of doctrine or by an hostility between the very foundations which he and the spirit of God endeavour to lay so as the edification of the one doth in the issue menace the demolition of the other And as this opposition unto Gods spirit is greater or lesse so doth it argue the party in whom it is to participate more or lesse of the spirit of Antichrist In both these respects of opposition or hostility in the foundation or in the issue or consequences of all heretical temples or congregations that hitherto have been or can be imagined as possibly future the structure of the Romish Church doth most fully answer to the Idea or plat-form of that edifice which the Apostle hath foretold great Antichrist should erect 14 For demonstrating which conclusion we only suppose what every one must grant that if the spirit of unclean devils he whose coming is by the power of Satan in guile and deceit may without prejudice to his grand hostility against Christ in formal tearms confesse the great mysterie of salvation Christ manifested in the flesh for seeing he must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 opposite unto Christ not by way of negation or contradiction but by a positive contrariety or hostility Christian Religion and Antichristianism must as all other contraries agree in some one kind or matter and the kind or matter in matters of Religion must be the object If we here only set aside an agreement with true professors in that general transcendent object that Christ is the son of the living God the very first principle of Romish Religion even the specifical difference which makes it Romish is as contrary with the first Element of true orthodoxal Christian Religion as fire to water heat to cold For if to confesse Christ come in the flesh put to death and raised again be as is proved all one as to acknowledge him the chief corner stone rejected of men but advanced by God if this be the main foundation of Christianity so all-sufficient that without it no other must be laid How were it
his Apostles was THat the Church of Rome doth advance her decrees above the laws and ordinances of the Almighty her words that in this kind is called Gods above all divine Oracles written and unwritten is apparant out of their own positions hitherto discussed yet is this but the first degree of great Antichrists Exaltation 〈◊〉 second is the exalâ—â—ng the Popes above any personal authority that ever was either practised or established on earth This in brief is the assertion which by Gods assistance we are in this present section to maâ—e evident The authority which the Jesuites and Jesuited Priests give and would bind others upon pain of damnation to give unto the present Church or Pope throu 〈◊〉 every age is greater then any authority that ever was challenged since the world began by any man or visible company of men the man Christ Jesus not excepted This conclusion followeth immediately out of three Positions generally held and stifly maintained by that Church The first that the Pope live he as he list cannot erre in matters of faith and manners when he speaketh ex Cathedra that we are bound infallibly to believe whatsoever he so speaks without examination of his doctrine by Gods word or evident external sign or internal Experiment of Gods spirit speaking in him The second that we cannot assure our selves the Scriptures are the Oracles of God but by the infallible testimony of the Visible Church The third that the true sense and meaning of Scriptures in cases doubtful or controversed cannot be undoubtedly known without the infallible declaration of the same Church CAP. XI What restraint precepts for obedience unto the Priests of the Law though 〈◊〉 ing most universal for their Form did necessarily admit And how universal Propositions of Scriptures are to be limited 1 SEing we undertake to prove that no such authority as the Romish Church doth callenge was ever established on earth The answering of those arguments drawn from the authority of the Priests in the old Testament may to the judicious seem at the first sight needlesse yet because such as they set the fairest glosses upon if we look into the inside or substance are fullest fraught with their own disgrace and ignominy It wil not be superfluous to acquaint the Reader with some particulars prefixing some general admonitions to the younger sort for more commodious answering of all that can be brought of like kind 2 Their common places of cozening the world especially smatterers of Logick or school learning with counterfeit proofs of Scripture is either from some universal precept of obedience given to the people or general promises of infallibility made to the Priests in the old Testament Such as come unto the Scriptures having their mind dazled with notionâ— of universale primum or other Logick rules true in some cases think the former precepts being for their form universal may admit no exception limitation or restraint otherwise the holy Ghost might break the rule of Logick when as they admit many restraints not alwayes from one but oft-times from divers reasons from these following especially God sometimes injoyns obedience as we say in the Abstract to set us a pattern of such true accurate obedience as men should perform unto authority it self or unto such governours as neither in their lives nor in the Seat of judgement would decline either to the right hand or to the left but square all their proceedings to the exact rule of Gods word Unto such governours continual and compleat obedience was to be performed because the 〈◊〉 governed upon examination should alwayes find them jump with the law of God unto which absolute obedience as hath been shewed is due Nor doth the word of God in setting out such exact obedienc lie open to that exception which Politicians take against Philosophers as if it as Philosophers do did give instructions only for happy men of Aristotles making or for the Stoicks wise men who can no where be found but in Plato's common-wealth whose Metropolis is in the Region of Eutopia For the ancient Israel of God had this prerogative above all the nations of the earth that their Priests lips whilest they themselves were clothed with righteousness and bare holinesse unto the Lord in their breasts should still preserve knowledge and be able to manifest the wil of God unto the people not only by interpreting the general written law but by revelations concerning particular facts of principal moment as may be gathered from that law Also thou shalt put in the breast-plate of judgement the Urim and the Thummim which shall be upon Aarons heart when he goeth in before the Lord And Aaron shall bear the judgement of the children of Israel upon his heart before the Lord continually 3 To omit the various interpretations and divers opinions of this Brest-plates use why it was called the Breast-plate of Judgement Josephus and Suidas in my mind come nearest the truth That the Revelation by it was Extraordinary that Gods presence or Juridical approbation of doubts proposed was represented upon the pretious stones that were set therein is probable partly from the aptnesse of it to allure the Israelites unto Idolatry partly from that formality which the Egyptians in imitation of the Ephods ancient use amongst the Jews retained long after in declaration of the truth in Judgement For Diodorus tels us that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or chief Judg in that Famous and venerable Egyptian high Court or Parliament did wear about his neck in a golden chain Insigne a Tablet of pretious stone or if the Reader be disposed to correct the Translator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they called as the Septuagint did Aarons Breast-plate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on which he stedfastly looked while matters were debating as Suidas saith the High Priest did on his Breast-plate whilest they asked counsel of God and whilest he gave Sentence turned it unto the better cause exhibited as the fashion was in that Court in writing iâ— sign the Truth it self did speak for it That the Urim or Thummim were more then an Emblem yea an Oracle of Justice and right Judgement is apparant out of Scripture When Josâ—… was consecrated to be Israels chief Governour in Moses stead he was to stand before Fleazar the Priest ordained to ask counsel for him by the Judgement of Urim before the Lord So did Abiathar certisie David of Sauls malitious resolution against him and the Lords of â—eilahs treachery if he should trust unto them So again David is assured of victory by the judgement of Urim and Thummim if he would follow the Amalekites that had burnt Zâ—klâ—g 4 Such Priests as these were to be absolutely obeyed in answers thus given from the mouth of God And it is most probable that the parties whom these answers did concern had perfect notice of the Revelation made to the Priests howsoever the truths of such answers being confirmed by Experiment in those
Popes cause as they would make all other in Gods they could tell how to limit such commands though delivered in most universal and ample termes This is the matter then which so vexeth their devout hearts and sets them besides themselves with furious zeal in this argument that any Christian should be as wary and circumspect lest he should prove disloyall unto the Creator and Redeemer of mankind as they are lest they should disobey the advancer and supporter of their Order 16 But to come nearer the point and instance in some Precepts of obedience delivered in most general forme Might the literal or Logick note of Universalitie carry away such absolute soveraignty as they contend for far greater reason there is why every father or master should be an absolute Pope over his own familie then why the Pope of Rome should be a father of all Christian Congregations an absolute Judge of Scripture or master over mens faith Saint Paul Col. 2. 20. Commands children to obey their fathers in All things for that is well-pleasing unto the Lord which is as much as if he had said in obeying them you obey the Lord. Again he commands servants to be obedient unto them that are their masters according to the flesh in All things not with eye-service as men pleasers but with singlenesse of heart fearing God Both these precepts are conceived in termes as general as any precept for obedience to spiritual Governours In the Precept concerning wives obedience to their husbands the note of universalitie is omitted for he saith Wives sabmit your selves unto your husbands as it is comely in the Lord not in all things Had the Apostle made any mention of obedience unto spirituall Governours or were there any hope to comprehend Pastors under the name of fathers or masters it would quickly be inferred the note of universality was purposely added by our Apostle in these later precepts that men might know absolute obedience without limitation or examination was due unto the Pope 17 But the Holy men of God whose mouthes alwayes spake out of the abundance of their hearts as the spirit gave them utterance and were not curious to cast their words in such exact scholastick moulds as men addicted to artificial meditations having their brains more exercised then their hearts in Gods word usually do even where they seem to speak most Universally for the Form are to be Universally understood only in that subject or matter which for the present they mind most As when our Apostle commands servants and children to obey the one their masters the other their parents in all things the meaning is as if he had said ye that are christian servants be ye most willing to yield all obedience that is due unto masters ye that are christian children to yield all obedience unto your parents which is convenient for any children to yield to theirs So that the universal note doth rather injoyn a totality of heartinesse and cheerfulnesse a perfection of sincerity in performing that obedience which other children ought to their fathers or servants to their masters then any way extend the object of christian childrens or servants obedience to more particulars then others were bound unto at the least he doth not extend the object of their obedience to any particulars which might prejudice the sincerity of their obedience due unto other commanders whilest he enjoyneth servants to obey their masters in all things he reserves their allegiance intire unto Princes and higher powers Such must be obeyed both by masters and servants by fathers and sons Much more doth God when he injoyns obedience in most ample form unto Kings or spiritual governours reserve obedience due to himself most intire and absolute 18 Yet intire and absolute it cannot be unless it depend immediately and absolutely upon his laws unless it be exempt from the uncontrollable disposal or infallible direction of other authorities Nor can Christ be said our supream Lord unless our obedience to him and those laws which he hath left us do limit and restrain all other obedience due unto any authority derived from him and his laws more then a Prince could be said to be that servants supream Lord or Soveraign which were bound absolutely to obey his Master in all points without examination whether his designments were hot contrary to the publick laws and statutes of his Prince and Country Wherefore as the oath of Allegeance unto Princes doth restrain the former precepts Servants obey your Masters in All things that is in all things that are not repugnant to publick laws nor prejudicial to the Crown and dignity of your Soveraign so must that solemn vow of fidelity made unto Christ in Baptism and our dayly acknowledgement of him for our Soveraign Lord restrain all precepts injoyning performance of obedience to any power on earth and set these immoveable bounds and limits to them Obey thy King and Governour in All things that is in All things that are not repugnant to the laws and ordinances of the Great King thy supream Lord and Governour Whilest thou obeyest him thou doest wel in disobeying them as wel as that servant that takes Arms against his Master in the Kings desence whilest thou disobeyest him all other obedience is rebellion Ye are bought with a price saith our Apostle be not ye the servants of men Service according to the flesh he else-where approves he strictly injoyns for that is freedom in respect of this servitude of mind and conscience in being wholly at any other mans disposition 19 Nor is it more difficult for Christs servants to discern when governours solicit them to disloyalty against him then for servants according to the flesh to know when their masters seduce them unto rebellion so Christian men would fear God as much as natural men do earthly Princes Such as fear God are sure of a better expositor of his laws for fundamental points then servants can have for their Princes The transgression of both are easie to discern in the beginning of revolts or Apostasies but the later more difficult when traitors or usurpers are grown strong and can pretend fair titles unto soveraignties or coin false pedegrees yet it is not impossible for sober and observant spirits in such a case to foresee what party to follow unto such the Signs of the time and carriage of the several causes will bewray who have the true title But this difficulty is in none in our spiritual obedience challenged by the Church of Rome for that Church in words confesseth Christ to be the true King and supream Lord no usurper which is as much as to say the Pope is an usurper and a rebel that dares in deeds and substance challenge the soveraignty from him as you heard in the former dispute by making claim to this unlimited unreserved obedience Upon what grounds especially we are now to examin by these rules hitherto discussed CAP. XII The authority of the Sanhedrim not so
another manner then the Lacedâ—monians did Lycurgus laws were from Apollo For when the Law which enjoyns the worship of one God was given unto the people it did appear as far forth as the divine providence did judge sufficient by strange signs and motions whereof the people themselves were spectators that the creature did perform service to the Creator for the giving of that Law But we must believe as firmly as this people did Moses that all the Popes injunctions are given by God himself without any other sign or testimony then the Lacedemonians had that Lycurgus laws were from Apollo Yet is it here further to be considered that the Israelites might with far lesse danger have admitted Moses laws then we may the Popes without any examination for divine seeing there was no written law of God extant before his time whereby his writings were to be tried No such charge had been given this people as he gives most expresly to this purpose Now therefore hearken O Israel unto the ordinances and to the Laws which I teach you to do that ye may live and go in and possesse the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you Ye shall put nothing unto the word which I command you neither shall ye take ought there from that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you But was the motive or argument by which he sought to establish their belief or assent unto these commandments his own infallible authority no but their own experience of their truth as it followeth Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal-Peor For all the men that followed Baal-Peor the Lord thy God hath destroyed every one from among you but ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day so gracious and merciful is our God unto mankind and so far from exacting this blind obedience which the Pope doth challenge that he would have his written word established in the fresh memory of his mighty wonders wrought upon Pharaoh and all his host The experiment of their deliverance by Moses had been a strong motive to have perswaded them to admit of his doctrine for infallible or at the least to have believed him in his particular promises When the snares of death had compassed them about on every side and they see no way but one or rather two inevitable wayes to present death and destruction the red sea before them and a mighty host of bloud behind them the one serving as a glasse to represent the cruelty of the other they as who in their case would not cry out for fear He that could have foretold their strange deliverance from this imminent danger might have gotten the opinion of a God amongst the Heathen yet â—… confidently promiseth them even in the midst of this perplexity the utter destruction of the destroyer whom they feared Fear ye not stand 〈◊〉 and behold the salvation of the Lord which he will shew to you this day for the Egyptians whom you have seen this day you shal never see again The Lord shal fight for you therefore hold you your peace Notwithstanding all this Moses never enacts this absolute obedience to be believed in all that ever he shall say or speak unto them without farther examination or evident experiment of his doctrine For God requires not this of any man no not of those to whom he spake face to face alwayes ready to feed such as call upon him with infallible signs and pledges of the truth of his promises For this reason the waters of Mâ—rah are sweetned at Moses prayer And God upon this new experiment of his power and goodnesse takes occasion to re-establish his former covenant using this semblable event as a further earnest of his sweet promises to them If thou wilt diligently hearken O Israel unto the voice of the Lord thy God and wilt do that which is right in his sight and wilt give ear unto his commandments and keep all his ordinances then wil I put none of these diseases upon thee which I brought upon the Egyptians for I am the Lord that healeth thee As if he had said This healing of the bitter waters shal be a token to thee of my power in healing thee Yet for all this they distrust Gods promises for their food as it followeth cap. 16. Nor doth Moses seek to force their assent by fearful Anathema's or sudden destruction but of some principal offenders herein For God wil not have true faith thunder-blasted in the tender blade but rather nourished by continuance of such sweet experiments for this reason he showres down Manna from heaven I have heard the murmuring of the children of Israel tell them therefore and say At evening ye shall eat flesh and in the morning you shall be filled with bread and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God For besides the miraculous manner of providing both Quails and Manna for them the manner of nourishment by Manna did witnesse the truth of Gods word unto them They had been used to grosse and solid meats such as did fill their stomacks distend their bellies whereas Manna was in substance slender but gave strength and vigour to their bodies and served as an emblem of their spiritual food which being invisible yet gave life more excellently then these grosse and solid meats did So saith Moses Therefore he humbled thee and made thee hungry and fed thee with Manna which thou knowest not neither did thy Fathers know it that he might teach thee that man liveth not by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord. 6 Yet in their distresse so frail is our faith until it be strengthned by continual experiments they doubt and tempt the Lord saying Is the Lord amongst us or no Nor doth Moses interpose his infallible authority or charge them to believe him against their experience of their present thirst under pain of eternal damnation or sufferance of greater thirst in hell such threats without better instruction in Gods word and the comfort of his spirit may bring distrusts or doubts to utter despaire and cause faith to wither where it was wel nigh ripe they never ripen and strengthen any true and lively faith Moses himself is fain to cry unto the Lord saying What shall I do unto this people for they be almost ready to stone me As the Papists would do to the Pope were he to conduct them thorow the wildernesse in such extremity of thirst able to give them no better assurance of his favour with God then his Anathema's or feed them only with his Court-holy-water or blessings of wind But even here again God feeds Israels faith with waters issuing out of the rock making themselves eye-witnesses of all his wonders that so they might believe his words and promises nay himself from their own sense
immediately sent from Heaven not made by multiplication of such bread as they might have bought of ordinary Bakers Nor doth our Saviour seek to win them by out-vying Moses in multitude or magnificence of his miracles but by alluring them to taste and prove his heavenly doctrine For The Experiments that give us the seal and assurance of lively faith must of necessety he within us even in our hearts and in our souls and these are they Had this people without miracles been dicto audiens as they were enjoyned by Moses in that they took him for a Prophet they might in short time have known what Peter confessed Verba vitae aeternae habes Thou hast the words of eternal life whose sweetness once inwardly tasted was much more then all the miracles that could be wrought without his hearers or upon them But of such works these proud Jews never dreamed as not knowing the Scriptures nor the vertue of their Messias who as the Prophets had soretold was to preach the Gospel unto the poor to comfort such as mourned in Sion to whom no miracles could be more welcome then such as he did for what could be more acceptable to the blind then restitution of sight to the lame then right use of his limbs what more grateful message could be uttered to the deaf then Ephata to have his ears opened what to the dumb then unâ—ying of the tongue what to the possessed then to be freed from the tyrannie of Satan or his Ministers Finally as the Evangelist notes he did all things well and unto the best contentment possible of every afflicted soul far above the exigence or significations of their peculiar necessities but further beyond their expectation In every work he shewed his willingnesse in all his power to ease and refresh all that were weary and heavy laden but unto such as thought themselves so whole and sound as no way to need his Physick rather desirous to feed their curious fancies with superfluous or unnecessary wonders he was not willing to give satisfaction by turning Gods graces into wantonnesse or vain ostentation of his power or skil Another especial occasion of this peoples stumbling at this stone elect and pretious was their not considering that many of Moses greatest wonders were types partly of those glorious miracles which Messiah was to work secretly by his spirit manifested only to the â—earts and consciences in whom they were wrought partly of that his glory and power which was outwardly revealed to his Disciples and might so have been to more had they not stumbled as the Proverb is in the very Entry and so departed from him in despair bred from a foolish prejudice that no great good could be expected from a Nazarite of parentage birth and education so mean CAP. XXI Confirming the truth delivered in the former Chapter from the very law given by Moses for discerning the great Prophet further exemplifying the use and force of miracles for begetting faith The manner of trying Prophesies of the similitude betwixt Christ and Moses 1 AS well for farther discovery of Romish blasphemy as ratification of our former assertion let us view with diligence that place of Moses wherein such strict obedience and attention to the Messias doctrine is enjoyned as no where else such as no other may exact without incurring the curse there threatned to the disobedient The Lord thy God will raise thee up a Prophet like unto me from among you even of thy brethren unto him ye shall hearken According to all that thou desiredst the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly when thou saidst Let me hear the voice of my Lord God no more nor see this great fire any more that I die not And the Lord said unto me they have well spoken I will raise them up a Prophet from among their Brethren like unto thee and will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him And whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my Name I will require it of him This prophesie by joynt consent of best interpreters as well modern as ancient Pontificians as Protestants may be truly and literally applied to other Prophets whether of the old or new Testament according to that measure of the spirit they had from him of whose fulnesse all as well such as in time went before him as those that came after him had received grace for grace True it is if we rightly value the strict propriety of every word or clause in the whole context what all historical circumstances put together import or the ful extent of S. Peters paraphrase on the last sentence it cannot be exactly fitted unto any but Christ unto whom only the whole discourse is as fully commensurable as a well made garment to the body that wears it yet is this no impediment why the same rule taken according to some literal circumstances might not usually serve for certain discretion of true Prophets from false as we use to notifie lesser but indefinite quantities of things by the known parts of some greater measure commensurable if we take the whole to substances of a larger size 2 Evident it is out of the literal meaning of this law acknowledged by all that Israel was strictly bound to hearken unto such Prophets as God at any time should raise them up though with most attention and greatest reverence to hear The Prince of Prophets But the question is upon what tearms or how far they were bound to hear all Absolutely and at first proposal of their doctrines without examination of them by the written law So might he that could have set the best leg foremost and stept up soonest into Moses chair have kept the rest of his profession in aw by thundering out Anathema's thence as the Pope doth from S. Peters to all gain-sayers priest or people By what rule then were true Prophets to be distinguished from false By miracles These were means of times effectual but as was intimated more usual for enforcing men to an acknowledgement of the truth in general then for trying particular controversies by amongst true professors in respect of whom they were subordinate to that rule given by Moses in the words immediately following But the Prophet that shall presume to speak a word in any Name which I have not commanded him to speak or that speaketh in the name of other Gods even the same Prophet shall die And if thou think in thine heart How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken When a Prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to passe that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken but the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously thou shalt not therefore be afraid of him 3 Before this or any other part of the law was written somewhat in proportion answerable to
over Satan himself then in Moses over his Schollers the Enchanters especially whiles compared with known Prophesies of the Messias did point him out to be The womans Seed ordained of old to bruise the Serpents head to be the Son of man appointed to erect the everlasting Kingdom foretold by Daniel unto whose and other prophesies he refers his enemies in that speech But if I by the spirit or as S. Luke reads by the Finger of God cast out Devils then is the Kingdom of God come unto you Yet were not all his miracles of this kind thus considered so effectual to confirm the faithful or so pregnant to condemn all unbelievers as the former Rule of Moses For this cause after the former dispute ended he gave his adversaries such a Sign as if it did follow would infallibly prove him to be that great Prophet Moses there speaks of and consequently leave them liable to Gods heavy judgement without excuse for not hearkening unto him Of which hereafter 6 Here I may once for all conclude that the power of doing miracles was as effectual to assure such as did them of salvation as sight of them done was to establish spectators in saving faith But the power of casting Devils out or doing greatest miracles was no infallible pledge of salvation to such as did them much lesse could the acknowledgement of this divine power in them breedful assurance of true faith in others but only serve as a means to cause them rely upon the Law and Prophets as their only rule and to taste and prove the bread of life proffered to them by our Saviour which alone could ascertain them their names were written in the book of life But to proceed by the former rule 7 If others by Experiments answerable to it were known to be true Prophets Christ likewise by his known supereminency in that which approved them was to be acknowledged for The Prince of Prophets Now if we revise the History of the old Testament how few Prophets shall we find endowed with the gift of miracles such as were did exercise their power rather among Idolaters then true professors So when Gods messengers were brought to as open competition with Baals Priests in the King of Israels as Moses had been with the Enchanters in Pharaohs Court Elias makes his Calling as clear as the light by calling down fire from heaven which Baals Priests attempting in most furious manner could not effect but Elias professed thus much before as Baals Priests no question had done so as the event answering to his prediction not to the others did by Moses rule demonstrate him to be them not to be Prophets of the living God But when the like controversie was to be tried between Zidkiah and his four hundred complices on the one part and Micaiah on the other before King Ahab in whom Elias late miracles and later threats had wrought such a distaste of Baal and such a liking of the truth in general as he would not consult either any professed servant of the one or open oppugner of the other for his future successe Micaiah as was observed before appeals to this law of Moses as most competent Judge between such as joyntly did embrace it If thou return in peace the Lord hath not spoken by me as if he had said what Moses there doth he hath not put his word in my mouth And having brought his controversie to this trial he desires the people to contestate the issue thus joyned and he said hearken all ye people From this and many like cases ruled by the former express and pregnant law of Moses Jeremy pleads his warrant being born down by the contradictions of Hananiah a professed Prophet of the Lord as he was but of greater favour in the Court because he prophesied peace unto the present state and good successe to the Projects then on foot Even the Prophet Jeremiah said So beâ—it the Lord so do the Lord confiâ—…ly words which thou hast prophefied to restore the vessels of the Lords house and all that is carried Captive from Basel into this place But hear thou now this word that I will speak in thine ears and in the ears of all the people The Prophets that have been before me and before thee in times past propheted against many Countries and against great kingdoms of war and of plagues and of Pestilence And the Prophet which prophesieth of peace when the word of the Prophet shall come to passe then shall the Prophet be known that the Lord hath truly sent him Ezechid likewise refers himself to the same trial amongst such as were professed heared of the word in general which they would not obey in particular And to thou art unto them as a jesting song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can sing well for they hear thy words and do them not And when this â—oweth to passe for lo it will come then shall they know that a Prophet hath been among them 8 From these debatements we may gather in what cases the former rule held for certain First negatively it was universally true for he that prophesied any thing which came not to passe did sufficiently prove himself to be no true Prophet but a Counterfeit So did not every prediction of what afterwards came to passe necessarily argue it to have been from God Yet as the force and vertue of many things not such of themselves became evident from vicinity or irritution of their contraries so though God permitted some to foretel strange events for trial of his peoples faith yet this power he restrained when the controversie came to a Formal trial then he caused the true Prophets words to stand whiles the predictions of the false and the Princes bloud which relied upon them fell to the ground like Dagon before the Ark. So as the fulfilling of what the one and frustrating of what the other had said did sufficiently manifest the one had spoken of himself presumptuously the other what the Lord hath put into his mouth Hence is the determination easie what means this people had to discem amongst true Prophets which was That Great one in all things like to Moses First if events foretold did sufficiently testifie of his divine spirit his own witnesse of himself would be authentick because a true Prophet could hardly lie or make himself greater then he was This is an argument which directly confutes such as acknowledge Christ to have been a Prophet sincere in doctrine and mighty in deeds and yet deny him to be The Prince of that profession The great Mediator of the new Covenant both which he often avouched Because the quantity of that spirit whose sincere quality manifested him to be a Prophet would notifie his excessive Greatnesse in that rank and order or more directly to the question 9 The great Prophet there spoken of was to be known by his similitude with Moses who was as the Symbol or
proportional Mean between him and lesser Prophets Other in these few gifts wherein they resembled their father came far short of him Christ in all far exceeded him Others were all of Jacobs line raised up by Gods appointment so to instruct their brethren in doubtful cases as they should not need to consult sorcerers or entertain familiarity with wicked spirits Christ to omit the eminency of his Prophetical function till hereafter besides this common fraternity with his people was in more especial manner Abrahams seed and in particular sort raised up by Jehovah his God by intrinsick assumption into the unity of his person not by external assistance or impulsion of his spirit Ruseâ—… likewise he was in a strict and proper sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from amid this people being as it were extracted out of the pure virgin as the first woman was out of the man by Jehovahs own immediate hand from his cradle to his crosse most exactly answering to that delineation of the Great Prophet and Mediatour to be revealed which was exhibited first in Moses when he stood before the Lord in Horeb. His strange deliverance from Herodian butchery whiles all the Infant males besides did perish was fully parallel to the others exemption from Pharaohs cruelty like to Moses he was in the number of his Disciples in communication of his spirit unto them in admitting them to more special participation of his secrets in the peculiar testifications of his familiarity with God in his fasting in his transfiguration in multitude of miracles But these and the like I leave to the Readers observation 10 The peculiar and proper undoubted notes of the great Prophet there spoken of wil be most conspicuous in our Saviour if we compare him first with Moses then with ordinary Prophets according to that difference the Lord himself made between these and Moses If there be a Prophet of the Lord among you I will be known to him by a vision and wil speak unto him by dream My servant Moses is not so who is faithful in all mine house Unto him wil I speak mouth to mouth and by vision not in dark words but he shall see the similitude of the Lord. Wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant even against Moses It is said signanter he should see the similitude of of God not God for as the Evangelist saith No man hath seen God at any time so was it told Moses from the Lords own mouth that he could not see his face and live Yet saw this great Prophet more of God then all the Prophets beside Herein then was Christ like unto him but far above him that He was in the bosome of his father not admitted to see his back parts only and hath declared him to the world Moses from the abundance of his Prophetical spirit so perfectly foretold the perpetual estate of his people from the Law given to the time of their Messias as the best Prophets may seem to be but his schollers From participation of that fulnesse which was in Christ hath that Disciple whom he loved far exceeded Moses as wel in the extent weight and variety of matters foretold as in the determinate manner of foretelling them And I know not whether if it were possible to call both Christ and Moses from heaven their presence though more glorious then it was upon Mount Tabor would be more forcible to illuminate the Jew or Athiest then serious reading the books of Deuteronomy and the Revelation comparing the one with the Jews known misery the other with Ecclesiastical Stories the late abominations of the Papacy and Romanists more then Jewish blindnesse The one shews Moses to have been the father of Prophets the other Christ from whose immensurable fulnesse John had that extraordinary measure of the spirit to be The Fountain of Prophesies whose supereminencies and inexhaustible fulnesse may yet be made more apparent by comparing him not with Moses the Symbol or Mean but with the other extream to wit the rank of lesser Prophets 11 It is rightly observed by the Schoolmen Lumen Propheticum erat aliqualiter aenigmaticum these ordinary Prophets illuminations were not so evident or distinct as certain they discerned rather the Proportion then Feature of truth which they saw but as it were through the cover or in the case not in it self And albeit the event did alwayes prove their answers true oft-times in an unexpected sence yet could they not alwayes give such answers when they pleased Nor did the light of Gods countenance perpetually reside upon them as the Suns brightnesse doth by reflexion upon the stars they had their vicissitude of day and night daily Eclipses overcastings many their chief illuminations came but as it were by Flashes Thus Jeremy in the late cited controversie dares not adventure to give the people a sign for confirmation of his doctrine or other more distinct or determinate prediction besides that of the general event about which the contention was That he knew because the Lord had put it into his mouth would in the end condemn his adversarie of presumption But after Hananiah had outfaced him with a sensible sign of his own making breaking the yoak which he had taken from Jeremiahs neck on which the Lord had put it and boldly avouched in the presence of all the people Thus saith the Lord even so will I break the yoak of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babel from the neck of all nations within the space of two years the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah again and sends him back with this message to his adversary Hear now Hananiah the Lord hath not sent thee but thou makest this people to trust in a lie Therefore thus saith the Lord Behold I wil cast thee from off the earth this year thou shalt die because thou hast spoken rebelliously against the Lord. So Hananiah the Prophet died the same year in the seventh moneth Not long after this event were both Prince and people of Jâ—dah rooted out of the land the Lord had given them because contrary to Moses adminition they reverenced the Prophet that spake presumptuously and would not hearken unto the words which the Lord put in Jeremiahs mouth Elisha likewise to whom Elias had given a double portion of his spirit in respect of his fellows of all the Prophets unlesse Elias might be excepted most famous for the gift of miracles a lively type of the Messias in raising from death and giving life had his spirit of Divination but by Fits needed Musick to tune his spirits unto it He gave the barren Shunamite a son of death notwithstanding he knew not as the Lord of life did of Lazarus in his absence nor could he by her unusual gesture or strange signs of sorrow distinctly divine the true cause of her coming only when Gehezi went to thrust her away he said as much as he knew Let her
Come and see a man that hath told me all things that ever I did is not he The Christ Upon their like experience fully consonant to the same common notion on conceit of the Messias did a many of that City conceive Faith from the womans report but moe because of his own words And they said unto the woman Now we believe not because of thy saying for we have heard him our selves and know that This is indeed The Christ the Saviour of the World From the like but more lively experience of his discovering secrets did his Disciples make that confession Now know we that thou knowest all things and needest not that any man should ask thee By this we believe that thou art come out from God 16 The manifestation of this Prophetical Spirit did give life unto his greatest miracles in working Faith for his Disciples believed in him after his resurrection because he had foretold his reedifying the Temple in three dayes space Which speech of his the foolish Jews not knowing His Body to be the true Temple wherein their God did dwell after a more excellent manner then between the Cherubins take as meant of the materiall Temple which had been fourty six yeers in building But saith Saint Iohn Assoon as he was risen from the dead his Disciples remembred that he thus said unto them and they believed the Scripture and the word which Iesus had said Nor did they compare these two together by chance for our Saviour often inculcated this Method as of purpose to imprint the former Oracle of Isaiab in their hearts To assure them of his going to his Father he expresly tels them Now I have spoken unto you before it come that when it is come to passe ye might believe Foretelling the persecution of his Disciples he addes These things have I told you that when the hour shall come ye might remember that I told you them That glory likewise which God had professed he would not give to any other he foretels should be given Him and so demands it as if He that did glorifie and He that was glorified were both One Father Glorifie thy Name Then came there a voice from heaven saying I have both glorified is and will glorifie it again How had he glorified it before By glorifying this great Prophet who did fully expresse but for exceed Moses in all things wherein Former Prophets did resemble him but came far short of him When was he so glorified At his transfiguration upon Mount Tabot which none without Sacrilegious impiety could have foretold as likely to befall him self save he alone that had not as Moses onely seen the Similitude of the Lord but being in the Forme of God thought it no robbery to be Equal with him Yet this Prophet of whom we speak though like to his Brethren in shape and substance to assure them he should come in the Glory of his Father foretells his Disciples that some of them should not die untill they had seen the Kingdom of God come with Power which was accomplished in that Transfiguration where as Saint Peter witnesseth He received of God the Father honour and glory when there came such a voyce unto him from the excedent glory This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Yea so well pleased as for his sake the world might henceforth know how ready he was to hear all that through faith in his Name should call upon him even such as had displeased him most For this cause the Codicil annexed to the divine Will and Testament here signified immediately after to be sealed with the bloud of this Best Beloved Son was that reciprocal duty before intimated in the Law Hear Him as is specified by three Evangelists For more publick manifestation of his Majesty as then revealed but to a few was that glorious commemoration of it lately mentioned celebrated again in the audience of the multitude This voice saith our Saviour came not because of me but for your sakes And in that place again after his wonted predictions of things should after come to passe as of his victory over death he testifies aloud to all the people that he was the great Prophet foretold by Moses sweetly paraphrasing upon his words And Jesus tried and said He that believeth in me believeth not in me but in him that sent me And if any man hear my words and believe not I judge him not for I came not to judge the world but to save the world He did not accurse such as would not acknowledge his authority or derogated from his person or miracles nor needed he so to do for he that refuseth him and receiveth not his words hath one that judgeth him the word which he had spoken it shall judge him in the last day This was that which Moses had said And whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he the great Prophet shall speak in my Name I will require it of him to wit in the last day of accompts For I have not spoken of my self but the Father which sent me he gave me a commandement what I should do and what I should speak And I know that his commandement is life everlasting the things therefore that I speak I speak them so as the Father said unto me What is this but that speech of Moses improved to it Full Value according to the circumstances and signes of those times and as it concerned the Lord and Prince of Prophets I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren like unto thee and will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him 17 This being the last conference our Saviour was willing to entertain with the Jews this his last farewell given in Moses words warrants me to construe that speech of Saint Iohns though he had done so many miracles before them yet believed they not on him as I have done the like before to wit That not his miracles considered alone but with Mosaical and Prophetical writings or common notions of the Messias thence conceived or especially as they concurred with his own predictions did immediately condemn the Jews Under the name of works his words are comprehended such at the least as foretell his admirable works or in generall all those solemn invocations of his Fathers name in such predictions as had he not been the Son of God would rather have brought speedy vengeance from heaven upon his head then such glorious testimonies of his Divinity And to me our Saviour seems to call his very words works in that speech to philip Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me the words that I speak unto you I speak not of my self but the Father that dwelleth in me he doth the works Howsoever as all the works of God were created by this Eternall Word so
met them as live-like as they themselves were Was he to them a Prophet mighty in word and deed and yet not able to perform what he had constantly spoken But what was the chief matter of their just reproof That they had not believed his words nor given due credence to his works Dull no doubt they had been in not esteeming better of both unwise in not learning more of Him that taught as never man taught but as in them he teacheth us most dul and most unwise even Fools and slow of heart in not believing all that the Prophets had spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things as if he had said Is it possible your ignorance in them should be grosse as not to know that Christ was thus to suffer and so to enter into his glory 2 You wil say perchance they did not wel in giving so little attention and credit to the Prophets whose light should have led them unto Christ but now that they have light on him in person without their help only by his seeking them shall not he who was the end and scope of all prophetical writings teach them all He will but not by relying only upon his infallible authority This Edifice of Faith must be framed upon the Foundation laid by the Prophets For this reason happily our Saviour would not bewray himself to be their infallible teacher until he had made them by evidence of Scripture by true sense and feeling of his spirit believe and know the truth which he taught to be infallible He had opened their hearts by opening the Scriptures unto them before their eyes were open to discern his person for he began at Moses and at all the Prophets and interpreted unto them in all the Scriptures the things which were written of him Stedfast Belief then of any mans authority must spring out of the solid Experience of his skil and truth of his doctrine These two disciples might now resolve their hearts that this was he who John said should baptize with the holy Ghost and with fire when by the working of his spirit their hearts aid burn within them whiles he talked with them and opened the Scriptures unto them Though before they had received John Baptists witnesse of the truth as a Tie or Fest to stay their fleeting Faith yet now they would not receive the record of man there is another that beareth witnesse of him the spirit of truth which hath imprinted his doctrine in their hearts 3 Would the Pope who challengeth Christs place on earth amongst his living members and requires we should believe his words as wel as these Disciples did Christs but expound those Scriptures unto us which Christ did to them with like evidence and efficacy could he make our hearts thus burn within by opening the secret mysteries of our salvation we would take him for Christs Vicar and believe indeed he were infallibly assisted by the Holy Spirit But seeing he and his followers invert our Saviours method by calling the certainty of both Testaments in question telling us we cannot know them to be Gods word unlesse it shal please this Roman God to give his word for them or confirm their truth seeing this his pretended confirmation is not by manifesting the mysteries of our salvation so distinctly and clearly as Christ did unto these Disciples nor by affording us the true sense and feeling of the spirit in such ardent manner as they enjoyed it and yet accurseth us if we believe not his words as wel as they did their Redeemers we may hence take a perfect measure of that mouth of Blasphemies spoken of by S. John according to all the three dimensions contained in the three assertions prefixed to the beginning of this Section Nor can the reader imagin either any other forepassed like unto it or yet to come likely to prove more abominable if it shal but please him to survey the length and breadth of it but especially the profundity 4 The length of it I make That assertion The Pope must be as well believed as either Christ was whilst he lived on earth or his Apostles after his glorification The breadth His absolute authority must be for extent as large and ample as Christs should be were he on earth again or as that commission he gave unto his Disciples Go Preach the Gospel to every creature his directions must go forth throughout all the earth and his words unto the ends of the world The depth is much greater then the space between heaven and hell For if you would draw a line from the Zenith to the Nadir through the Center it would scarce be a gag long enough for this monstrous mouth so wide as hell cannot conceive a greater The depth I gather partly from the excesse of Christs worth either arising from his personal union with the Godhead his sanctity of life and conversation or from his Hyperprophetical Spirit and abundant miracles For look how much he exceeds any but meer man in all these by so much doth the Pope though supposed as not obnoxious to any crime make his authority and favour with God greater then Christs which is the Semidiameter of this Mouth of Blaspemies The other part equal hereunto in quantity but for the quality more tainted with the dregs of Hell ariseth from that opposition the Popes spirit hath unto Christ or from the luxury and beastly manners of the Papacy erected by Satan as it were of purpose to pollute the world with monstrous sins and to derogate as much from mankind as true Christianity doth advance it finally to make the Christian world as much more wicked as Christs Disciples Apostles and faithful followers are better then the heathen Nor doth the Pope exact Belief only without miracles or manifestation of a prophetical spirit but contrary to all notions of good and evil common to Christians and Heathens and as it were in despight of the Prophesies that have deciphered him for Antichrist What heathen Philosopher could with patience have endured to hear that a dissolute luxurious tyrant could not though in matters of this life give wrong sentence out of the seat of Justice The Jesuites teach it as an Article of faith that the Pope albeit a dissolute and ungracious tyrant Mankinds reproach the disgrace of Christianity cannot possibly give an erroneous sentence ex Cathedra no not in mysteries of religion But as if it were a small thing thus impudently to contradict nature and grieve the souls of ingenuous men unlesse they also grieve their God seeking as it were to crosse his spirit by holding opinions not only contradictory but most contrary to his sacred rules they importune the Christian world with tumultuous clamours to take that which the spirit hath given as the demonstrative Character of great Antichrist the old serpents chief confederate for the infallible cognisance of Christs Vicar the very signet of his beloved Spouse Nor wil they I know
be so authentick in his doctrine Is it not the pretended priviledge of the same spirit which exempts the Pope from privatenesse and makes his authority oecumenical and infallible Whosoever then by participation of this spirit understands the Prophesies either immediately or expounded by others whomsoever his conceit of them or their right interpretation is not private but authentick And Canus though a Papist expresly Teacheth That the immediate ground or Formal Reason of ours and the Apostles Belief must be the same both so immediately and infallibly depending upon the testimony of the spirit as if the whole world beside should teach the contrary yet were every Christian bound to stick unto that inward testimony which the spirit hath given him Though the Church or Pope should expound them to us we could not infallibly believe his expositions but by that spirit by which he is supposed to teach so believing we could not infallibly teach others the same for it is the spirit only that so teacheth all The inference then is as evident as strong that private in the fore-cited place is opposed to that which wants authority not unto publick or common The Kings promise made to me in private is no private promise but wil warrant me if I come to plead before his Majesty albeit others make question whether I have it or no. In this sense that interpretation of scriptures which the spirit affords us that are private men is not private but authentick though not for extent or publication of it unto others yet for the perfection of our warrant in matters of salvation or concerning God For where the spirit is there is perfect liberty yea free accesse of pleading our cause against whomsoever before the Tribunal seat of justice especially being wronged in matters of the life to come To this purpose saith our Apostle But â—e that is spiritual discerneth all things yet he himself is judged of no man In those things wherein he cannot be judged by any he is no private man but a Prince and Monarch for the freedom of his conscience But if any man falsly pretend this freedom to nurse contentions or to withdraw his neck from that yoak whereto he is subject he must answer before his supream Judge and his holy Angels for framing unto himself a counterfeit licence without the assured warrant of his spirit And so shal they likewise that seek to command mens consciences in those matters wherein the spirit hath set them free This is the height of iniquity that hath no temporal punishment in this life but must be reserved as the object of fiercest wrath in that fearful day the very Idea of Antichristianism CAP. XXIV That S. Paul submitted his doctrine to examination by the Words before written That his doctrine disposition and practise were quite contrary to the Romanists in this argument 1 SAint Paul as wel as other Apostles had the gift of miracles which amongst Barbarians or distressed souls destitute of other comfort likely to be won to grace by wonders he did not neglect to practise but sought not to enforce belief upon the Jews by fearful signs or sudden destruction of the obstinate albeit he had power to anathematize not only in word but in deed even to deliver men alive unto Satan When he came to Thessalonica he went as his manner was into the Synagogue and three Sabbath dayes disputed with his country-men by the Scriptures opening and alledging that Christ must have suffered and risen again from the dead and this is Jesus Christ whom I preach to you These Jews had Moses and the Prophets and if they would not hear them neither would they believe for any miracles which to have wrought amongst such had been as the casting of pearls before swine What was the reason they did not believe because the Scriptures which he urged were obscure but Saint Paul did open them Rather they saw the truth as Papists do but would not see it They rightly believed whatsoever God had said was most true that he had said what Moses and the Prophets wrote and yet Saint Paul taught nothing which they had not foretold But that was all one these Jews had rather believe Moses and the Prophets meant as the Scribes and Pharisees or other chief Rulers of their Synagogues taught then as Paul expounded them albeit his expositions would have cleared themselves to such as without prejudice would have examined them But the Beroeans were of a more ingenuous disposition so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports they were not vassals to other mens interpretations or conceits but used their liberty to examin their truth They received the word with all readinesse and searched the Scriptures whether these things were so or no. If they believed in part before their practise confirms the truth of our assertion that they were not to believe the infallibility of Paul but of his doctrine albeit they were wel perswaded of his personal authority If they believed neither in part nor wholly before they saw the truth of his doctrine confirmed by that Scripture which they had formerly acknowledged their ingenuity herein likewise confirms our doctrine and condemns the Papists of insolent blasphemy for arrogating that authority unto the Popes decrees which is only due unto Gods word already established 2 I would demand of any Papists whether the Beroeans did wel or ill in examining Saint Pauls doctrine if ill why hath the Spirit of God commended them if well why is it not lawfull and expedient for all true Christians to imitate them Unlesse the Reader bite his lip I will not promise for him he shall not laugh at Bellarmines answer albeit I knew him for another Heraclitus or Crassus Agelastus who never laughed in all his life save once when he saw an Asse feed on thistles Surely he must have an Asses lips that can taste and a swines belly that can digest this great Clerks Divinity in this point I answer saith he albeit Paul were an Apostle and could not preach false doctrine thus much notwithstanding was not evident to the Beroeans at the first nor wore they bound forthwith to believe unlesse they had seen some miracles or other probable inducements to believe Therefore when Paul proved Christ unto them out of the Prophetical Oracles they did well to search the Scriptures whether those things were so If Saint Paul had thought miracles a more effectuall means then Scriptures for begetting faith in such as acknowledged Moses and the Prophets no doubt he had used miracles rather then their authority Or if the Pope cannot expound the Scriptures as effectually and perspicuously as Saint Paul did why doth he not at the least work miracles are we bound absolutely to believe him and is he bound to do neither of these without which the people of Beroea were not bound as Bellarmine acknowledgeth to believe Saint Paul But if his reason be worth belief Christians which know the Church
it self would rather have held the Negative For if we believe as the Papists generally instruct us that we our selves all private spirits may erre in every perswaâ—on of faith but the Church which onely is assisted by a publick spirit cannot possibly teach amisle in any We must upon terms as peremptory and in equal degree believe every particular point of faith because the Church so teacheth us not because we certainly apprehend the truth of it in itself For we may erre but this publick spirit cannot And consequently we must infallibly believe these propositions ‖ Christ is the Redeemer of the world not Mahomet ‖ There is a Trinity of persons in the divine nature for this reason only that the Church commends them unto us for divine revelations seeing by their arguments brought to disprove the sufficiency of Scriptures or certainty of private spirits no other means possible is left us Nay were they true we should be only certain that without the Churches proposal we stil must be most uncertain in these and all other points because the sons are perpetually obnoxious to errour from which the mother is everlastingly priviledged The same propositions and conclusions we might conditionally believe to be absolutely authentick upon supposal they were Gods word but that they are his word or revelations truly divine we cannot firmly believe but only by firm adherence to the Churches infallible authority as was in the second Section deduced out of the Adversaries principles Hence it follows that every particular proposition of Faith hath such a proper causal dependance upon the Churches proposal as the conclusion hath upon the premisses or any particular upon it universal Thus much Sacroboscus grants 3 Suppose God should speak unto us face to face what reason had we absolutely and infallibly to believe him but because we know his words to be infallible his infallibility then should be the proper cause of our belief For the same reason seeing he doth not speak unto us face to face as he did to Moses but as our adversaries say reveals his will obscurely so as the Revealer is not manifested unto us but his meaning is by the visible Church which is to us in stead of Prophets Apostles and Christ himself and all the several manners God used to speak unto the world before he spake to it by his only son this Panthea's infallibility must be the true and proper cause of our Belief And Valentian himself thinks that Sarah and others of the old world to whom God spake in private either by the mouth of Angels his son or holy spirit or by what means soever did not sin against the doctrine of saith or through unbelief when they did not believe Gods promises They did herein unadvisedly not unbelievingly Why not unbelievingly because the visible Church did not propose these promises unto them 4 If not to believe the visible Churches proposals be that which makes distrust or dissidence to Gods promises infidelity then to believe them is the true cause of believing Gods promises or if Sarah and others did as Valentian faith unadvisedly or imprudently in not assenting to divine truths proposed by Angels surely they had done only prudently and advisedly in assenting to them their assent had not been truly and properly belief So that by this assertion the Churches proposal hath the very remonstrative note and character of the immediat and prime cause whereby we believe and know matters of saith For whatsoever else can concur without this our aslent to divine truths proposed is not true Catholick belief but firmly believing this infallibility we cannot erre in any other point of faith 5 This truth Valentian elsewhere could not dissemble howsoever in his prosessed resolution of Faith he sought to cover it by change of apparel Investing the Churches proposal only with the title of a Condition requisite and yet withal so dislonant is falsity to it self making it the Reason of believing divine Revelations If a reason it be why we should believe them need must it sway any reasonable minde to embrace their truth And whatsoever inclines our minds to the embracement of any truth is the proper efficient cause of belif or assent unto the same Yea Efficiency or Causality it self doth Formally consist in this inclination of the minde Nor is it possible this proposal of the Church should move our minds to imbrace divine Revelations by any other means then by believing it And Belief it self being an inclination or motion of the mind our minds must first be moved by the Churches proposal ere it can move them at all to assent unto other divine truths Again Valentian grants that the orthodoxal or catechistical answer to this interrogation Why do you believe the doctrine of the Trinity to be a divine revelation is because the Church proposeth it to me for such He that admits this answer for sound and Catholick and yet denies the Churches proposal to be the true and proper cause of his Belief in the former point hath smothered doubtlesse the light of nature by admitting too much artificial subtilty into his brains For if a man should ask why do you believe there is a fire in yonder house and answer were made Because I see the smoak go out of the Chimney should the party thus answering in good earnest peremptorily deny the sight of the smoak to be the cause of his Belief there was a fire he deserved very wel to have either his tongue scorched with the one or his eys put out with the other Albeit if we speak of the things themselves not of his Belief concerning them the fire was the true cause of the smoak not the smoak of the fire But whatsoever it be Cause Condition Circumstance or Effect that truly satissieth this demand Why do you believe this or that it is a true and proper cause of our belief though not of the thing believed If then we admit the Churches proposal to be but a condition annexed to divine revelations yet if it be an infallible medium or mean or as our adversaries all agree The only mean infallible whereby we can rightly believe this or that to be a divine revelation it is the true and only infallible cause of our Belief That speech of Valentian which to any ordinary mans capacity includes as much as we now say was before alledged That Scripture which is commended and expounded unto us by the Church is eo ipso even for this reason most authentick and clear He could not more emphatically have expressed the Churches proposal to be the true and prime cause why particular or determinate divine revelations become so credible unto us His Second Sacrobosâ—us hath many speeches to be inserted hereafter to the same effect Amongst others where Dâ— Whittaker objects that the principal cause of faith is by Papists ascribed unto the Church he denies it only thus far What we believe for the Churches proposal we
proposition must finally be resolved Every conclusion of faith as is before observed out of Bellarmine must be gathered in this or like Syllogisme Whatsoever God or the first Truth saith is most true But God said all those words which Moses the Prophets and the Evangelists wrote Therefore all these are most true The Major in this Syllogisme is an Axiom of Nature acknowledged by Turks and Infidels nor can Christian faith be resolved into it as into a Principle proper to it self The Minor say our Adversaries must be ascertained unto us by the Churches authority and so ascertained becomes the first and main principle of faith as Christian whence all other particular or determinate conclusions are thus gathered Whatsoever the Church proposeth to us for a divine Revelation is most certainly such But the Church proposeth the Books of Moses and the Prophets finally the whole volumes of the old and new Testament with all their parts as they are extant in the vulgar Roman Edition for divine revelations Therefore we must infallibly believe they are such So likewise must we believe that to be the true and proper meaning of every sentence in them contained which the Church to whom it belongs to judge of their sence shall tender unto us 2 For better manifestation of the Truth we now teach the young Reader must here be advised of a Twofold Resolution One of the things or matters believed or known into their first parts or Elements Another of our Belief or perswasions concerning them into their first Causes or motives In the one the most general or remotest cause In the other the most immediate or next cause alwayes terminates the resolution The one imitates the other inverts the order of composition so as what is first in the one is last in the other because that which is first intended or resolved upon by him that casteth the plot is last effected by the executioner or manual composer In the former sence we say mixt bodies are lastly resolved into their first Elements houses into stones timber and other ingredients particular truths into general maximes conclusions into their immediate premisses all absurdities into some breach of the rule of contradiction Consonantly to this interpretation of final resolution The First Verity or divine infallibility is that into which all Faith is lastly resolved For as we said before this is the first step in the progresse of true Belief the lowest Foundation whereon any Religion Christian Jewish Mahometan or Ethnick can be built And it is an undoubted Axiom quod primum est in generatione est ultimum in resolutione when we resolve any thing into the parts whereof it is compounded we end in the undoing or unfolding it where nature begun in the composition or making of it But he that would attempt to compose it again or frame the like aright would terminate all his thoughts or purposes by the end or use which is farthest from actual accomplishment Thus the Architect frames stones and timber and layes the first foundation according to the platform he carries in his head and that he casts proportionably to the most commodious or pleasant habitation which though last effected determines all cogitations or resolutions precedent Hence if we take this ultima resolutio as we alwayes take these termes when we resolve our own perswasions that is for a resolution of all doubts or demands concerning the subject whereof we treat A Roman Catholicks faith must according to his Principles finally be resolved into the Churches infallibility For this is the immediate ground or first cause of any particular or determinate point of Christian faith and the immediate cause is alwayes that into which our perswasions concerning the effect is finally resolved seeing it onely can fully satisfie all demands doubts or questions concerning it As for example if you ask why men or other terrestrial Creatures breath when fishes do not to say they have lungs and fishes none doth not fully satisfie all demands or doubts concerning this Subject For it may justly further be demanded what necessity there was the one should have lungs rather then the other If here it be answered that men and other perfect terrestrial creatures are so full of fervent blood that without a cooler their own heat would quickly choak them and in this regard the God of nature who did not make them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or give them life in vain to be presently extinct did with it give them lungs by whose respiration their naturall temper should be continued This answer doth fully satisfie all demands concerning the former effect For no man of sense would further question why life should be preserved whose preservation immediately depends upon respiration or exercise of the lungs and is therefore the immediate cause of both and that whereunto all our perswasions concerning the former subject are lastly resolved Or if it should be demanded why onely man of all other creatures hath power to laugh to say he were indued with reason doth not resolve us for a Philosophical wit would further question Why should reasonable substances have this foolish faculty rather then others A good Philosopher would perswade us the spirits which serve for instruments to the rational part are more nimble and subtle and so more apt to produce this motion then the spirits of any other creatures are But this I must professe resolves not me for how nimble or subtle soever they be unlesse man had other corporeal Organs for this motion the spirits alone could not produce it and all organical parts are framed for the operation or exercise of the faculty as their proper end Whence he that would finally resolve the former Problem must assigne the true final cause why reasonable substances more then others should stand in need of this motion Now seeing unto reason onely it is proper to forecast danger and procure sorrow and contristation of heart by preconceit of what yet is not but perhaps may be it was requisite that our mortality through reason obnoxious to this inconvenience should be able to correct this contristant motion by the contrary and have a faculty to conceive such pleasant objects as might dilate the heart and spirits that as man hurts his body by conceited sorrow whereto no other Creature is subject so he might heal it again by a kind of pleasance whereof he alone is capable 3 Answerable to this latter acception of final resolution if you demand a Roman Catholick why he believes there is a Trinity there shall be a resurrection or life everlasting his answer would be because God or the First Verity hath said so but this doth not fully satisfie for we might further question him as he doth us why do you believe that God did say so Here it sufficeth not to say This truth is expresly taught in Canonical Scriptures for the doubt whereby he hopes to stagger us most is this Why do you believe
or how can you know those Books which ye call Scriptures were from God The last and final answer according to the Jesuitical Catechismes wherein as you heard before out of Bellarmine they think they have great advantage of us would be this The holy Church our Mother doth so instruct giving us this expresse admonition withall his amplius fili 〈◊〉 ne requiras Here upon God their Father and the infallible Church their Mothers blessing their souls are bound to rest without further doubt or demand Whence unlesse they use some mental reservation or seek to shrowd themselves in the former aequivocation hitherto unfolded they must of necessity account themselves accursed if they deny the last or final resolution of their belief to be into the Churches infallibility or veracity Again what reasonable man would demand further resolution of any doubts incident to his faculty be it real or verbal speculative or practick then into the prime and immediate rules He should surely be lasht in a Grammar School that either for quantitie of syllables right accent construction of words or the like would seek a further reason then a known general rule which admitteth no exception So should he with disgrace be turned over the Barre amongst the Lawyers that would demur or seek a devolution of an evident ruled case which by his own confession could never alter Much more grosse would his absurdity appear that in the Mathematicks or other demonstrative science should attempt to resolve a Probleme or conclusion further then into an unquestionable Theorem or definition Finally might we have a centumviral Court of all professions under the Sun our Adversaries would be condemned with joint consent either of intolerable folly or impudency if they should with Valentian deny the last resolution of their faith to be into the Churches infallibilitie seeing they make it such a Catholick inerrable perpetual rule of Christian faith as admits no exception no devolution from it no appeal It is to them more then he said of Logick Ars artium scientia scientiarum a faculty of faculties a Rule of Rules able rightly to resolve all doubts concerning the very Canon of Scriptures or Gods Word written or unwritten or the true sence or meaning of both briefly able most authentically to determine and define all Controversies in Religion of what kind soever 4 Nor will it boot them ought to say that Gods Word in the Churches mouth is the Rule whereinto faith is finally resolved seeing the Church defines nothing but by Gods Word either written or unwritten For this is more then the party which believes it can know nor hath he any other motive to believe it besides the Churches definition or assertion Suppose then we should conceive so well of a temporall Judge as to presume he did never speak but according to the true meaning either of Statute or customary Law yet if we could not know either the one or the other or their right interpretation but onely by his determinations the Law were little beholden to him unlesse for a flout that should say he were resolved jointly by the Judge and it For seeing the Law is to him altogether uncertain but by the Judges avouchment or interpretation his last resolution of any act of justice must be onely into the Judges skill and fidelitie This inference Sacroboscus would not deny he himself hath made the like to prove that not the Scripture but the Church must be the infallible rule of faith You will object saith he when the Church defines it alwayes defines according to the Word of God either written or unwritten New revelations it receives none the promised assistance of the spirit helps it onely to know what is already revealed Therefore from the first to the last that which determines controversies and is the Judge in all questions of faith is the Word of God To this objection thus he answers Because we cannot be certain of the true sence of Gods Word but by the voice of the Church which hears our controversies and answers them The Church is Judge although it judge according to Gods Word which upon examination and by the spirits assistance it alwayes understands aright And if every one of us should have the infallible gift of understanding Gods Word we should not need any other Judge The Reader I hope will remember what was said before that those flowting hypocrites would fain believe the Pope saith nothing but what God saith that God may be thought to say all he sayes which is the most abhominable Blasphemie that ever Hell broacht worse then worshipping of Devils as shall appear hereafter 5 It may be some Novice in Arts that hath late read some vulgar Logicians upon the demonstrations might here frame this doubt in favour of the Romish Churches Doctrine As the finall cause may be demonstrated by the efficient and the efficient by the final so may the Church be infallibly proved by Scriptures and the Scriptures again by the Churches authority both infallibly believed each for others sake as both the former demonstrations are true and certain and yet mutually depending one upon the other 6 This objection had some late Logicians understood what they said would carry some shew of truth to countenance Valentians former Circular Resolution but they lace their Masters Rule uttered by him Pingui Minerva too too straitly For taking it as they do we should admit of circular demonstrations the conceit whereof can have no place but in a giddy brain To demonstrate the final cause in any work of Nature were to assigne a Counsellor to the infinite wisdom of the God of Nature in whose intention the end is first and is the cause of all operation or efficiencie Who could give or who would demand a naturall cause why life should be preserved for this is the will of him that gave it If question were made of the manner how the life of man and other creatures is preserved when as their heat might seem to choak them A man might truely answer by respiration and respiration is from the lungs But it is one thing to ask How or by what Means another for what End any effect is produced The former is an inquiry of the Efficient within these precincts of means or motions alwayes prime and independent The later of the final cause absolutely indemonstrable because it implies a contradiction to give a reason why that should be for whose sake all other things of that rank have being Nor is the End it self to speak properly ever produced though oft-times in common speech we take the Effect immediately thereto destinated because most sensible for the End it self as we do the starre next to the Pole because visible for the Pole or point immoveable Thus we confound respiration or actual preservation of life with the Final cause why men have lungs when as both are effects of the lungs both means of accomplishing Natures or rather the God of Natures
that here he maks That the sence of Scriptures is the sword of the spirit This is as much as we contend that the sence of the Scripture is the Scripture Whence the inference is immediately necessary That if the Romish Church bind us to believe or absolutely practise ought contrary to the true sence and meaning of Scriptures with the like devotion we do Gods expresse undoubted commandements she prefers her own authority above Gods Word and makes us acknowledge that allegiance unto her which we owe unto the spirit For suppose we had as yet no full assurance of the spirit for the contradictory sence to that given by the Church we were in Christian duty to expect Gods providence and invoke the spirits assistance for manifestation of the truth from all possibility whereof we desperately exclude our selves if we believe one mans testimony of the spirit as absolutely and irrevocably as we would do the manifest immediate testimony of the spirit yet Sacroboscus acknowledgeth he believes the mysterie of the Trinity as it is taught by their Church onely for the Churches authority and yet this he believes as absolutely as he doth yea as he could believe any other divine Revelation though extraordinarily made unto himself 3 In both parts of Belief above mentioned the causal dependance of our faith upon the Churches proposals may be imagined three wayes either whilest it is in planting or after it is planted or from the first beginning of it to it full groweth or from it first entrance into our hearts untill our departure out of this world How far and in what sort the Ministery of men in the Church is available for planting faith hath been declared heretofore Either for the planting or supporting it the skill or authority of the teacher reaches no further then to quicken or strengthen our internal tast or apprehension of the divine truth revealed in Scriptures or to raise or tune our spirits as Musick did Elishahs the better to perceive the efficacy of Gods spirit imprinting the stamp of those divine Revelations in our Hearts whose Characters are in our Brains The present Churches proposals in respect of our Belief is but as the Samaritan womans report was unto the men of Sichar Many saith the Evangelist believed in him for the saying of the woman which testified he hath told me all things that ever I did But this Beliefe was as none in respect of that which they conceive immediately from his own words For they said unto the woman Now we believe not because of thy saying for we have heard him our selves and know that this is indeed The Christ. The 〈◊〉 saith Job trieth the words as the mouth tasteth meats Consonant hereto is our Churches doctrine that as our bodily mouthes taste and trie meats immediately without interposition of any other mans sense or jugement of them so must the ears of our souls trie and discern divine truths without relying on other mens proposals or reports of their rellish No external means whatsoever can in either case have any use but only either for working a right disposition in the Organ whereby trial is made or by occasioning the exercise of the faculty rightly disposed How essentially faith by our adversaries doctrine depends upon the Churches authority is evident out of the former discourses that this dependance is perpetual is as manifest in that they make it the judge and rule of faith such an indefectible rule and so authentick a Judge as in all points must be followed and may not be so far examined either by Gods written law or rules of nature whether it contradict not it self or them 4 It remains we examin the particular manner of this dependance or what the Churches infallibility doth or can perform either to him that believes or to the object of his belief whence a Roman Catholicks faith should become more firm or certain then other mans It must enlighten either his soul that it may see or divine revelations that they may be seen more clearly otherwise he can exceed others only in blind Belief The cunningest Sophister in that school strictly examined upon these points wil bewray that monstrous Blasphemy which some shallow brains have hitherto hoped to cover We have the same Scriptures they have and peruse them in all the languages they do What is it then can hinder either them from manifesting or us from discerning their Truth or true meaning manifested Do we want the Churches proposal we demand how their present Church it self can better discern them then ours may what testimony of antiquity have they which we have not But it may be we want spectacles to read them our Church hath but the eyes of private men which cannot see without a publick light Their Churches eyes are Cat-like able so to illustrate the objects of Christian faith as to make them clear and perspicuous to it self though dark and invisible unto us Suppose they could Yet Cats-eyes benefit not by-standers a whit for seeing colours in darkness albeit able themselves to see them without any other light then their own The visible Church saith the Jesuite is able to discern all divine truth by her infallible publick spirit How knows he this certainly without an infallible publick spirit perhaps as men see Cats-eyes shine in the dark when their own do not Let him believe so But what doth this belief advantage him or other private spirits for the clear distinct or perfect sight of what the Church proposeth Doth the proposal make divine Truths more perspicuous in themselves Why then are they not alike perspicuous to all that hear read or know the Churches testimonie of them Sacroboscus hath said all that possibly can be said on their behalf in this difficultie The Sectaries albeit they should use the authoritie of the true Church yet cannot have any true belief of the truth revealed If the use of it be as free to them as to Catholicks what debars them from this benefit They do not acknowledge the sufficiencie of the Churches proposal And as a necessary proof or medium is not sufficient to the attaining of science unless a man use and acknowledge it formally as necessary so for establishing true faith it sufficeth not that the Church sufficiently proposeth the points to be believed or avoweth them by that infallible authority wherewith Christ hath enabled her to declare both what books contain Doctrines Divine and what is the true sense of places controversed in them but it is further necessary that we formally use this proposal as sufficient and embrace it as infallible 5 The reason then why a Roman Catholick rightly believes the Truth or true meaning of Scriptures when a Protestant that knows the Churches testimonie as well as he rests in both points uncertain is because the Catholick infallibly believes the Churches authority to be infallible whereof the Protestant otherwise perswaded reaps no benefit by it but continues still in darkness
Valentian I absolutely deny as the Catholick Doctors upon good reasons generally do that the Pope can erre in such a business The certainty of this his belief he would ground upon those promises by which we are assured it shall never come to pass that the universal Church can be deceived in points of Religion But the whole Church should erre very grossly in such matters should it repute and worship him for a Saint which is none Hereit would be observed how Satan instigates these men unto such Tenents as may occasion God and his Gospel to be blasphemed First they would make it an Article of Faith that all must believe as the Pope teacheth whence it follows that either he cannot teach amiss or else faith may perish from off the earth Which if it could God were not true in his promises The surest pledge the Christian world can have of his fidelity in them must be the Popes infallibility so as from the first unto the last he must be held as true in his dealings as God in his sayings If he fail in Canonizing a Saint whom he cannot possibly know to be such unless he knew his heart which belongs wholly unto his maker God must be a lyar and there is no Truth in him The final issue intended by Satan in these resolutions is this When men have been a long time led on with fair hopes of gaining heaven by following the Popes direction and yet in the end see as who not blind sees not his gross errors and detestable villanies they may be hence tempted to blaspheme God as if he had been his copartner in this cosenage From this root I take it hath Atheism sprung so fast in Italy For whilest faith is in the blade and their hopes flourishing they imagine God and the Pope to be such friends as their blind guides make them But afterwards comming to detestation of this man of sin and his treachery holding his spiritual power as ridiculous they think either as despitefully or contemptuously of the Deity or say with the fool in their hearts there is no God 3 Thus Antichrists followers still run a course quite contrary to Christian religion For if it be true as it is most true that faith cannot utterly perish from off the earth what damnable abuse of Gods mercie and favour toward mankinde is this in seeking as the Jesuites do to make all absolutely rely upon one in matters of Faith For so if he fail all others must of necessity fail with him That is the whole world must be as kind supernatural fools to him as that natural idiote was to his Master who being demanded whether he would go to heaven with him or no replyed he would go to hel with so good a Master seeing any man would be willing to go to heaven with an ordinary friend yea with his enemy Though we should use no other argument but that Avoid ye sons of Satan for it is written ye shall not tempt the Lord your God It should me thinks be enough to put all the Jesuites in the world unto silence in this point did they not as far exceed their father in impudency as they come short of him in wit For this manner of tempting God is more shameless then Divels suggestion unto our Saviour when he was instanly silenced with this reproof A presumption it is more damnable to expect the protection or guidance of Gods spirit in such desperate resolutions as Valentian here brings then it were for a man to throw himself headlong from an high towr upon hope of Angelical supportance For seeing as I said God hath promised that true faith shal not perish from off the earth for all men to adventure their faith upon one mans infallibility who may have less saving faith in him then Turk or Infidel is but a provoking or daring of God to recall his promise Or what more damnable doctrine can be imagined then that all men should worship him for a Saint whom the wickedest man on earth doth commend unto him for such 4 But to proceed As the Doctrine is most impious so are the grounds of it most improbable For how can the Pope or Papists infallibly know this or that man to be a Saint Seeing there is no particular revelation made of it either to the Pope or others I answer saith Valentian that the general revelation whereby it is evident that whatsoever the Pope shall decree as pertaining to the whole Church is most true may suffice in this case Moreover saith he unto the Canonizing of Saints appertain these revelations of Scripture in which heavenly joyes are generally proposed to all such as lead a Godly life For by the Popes determination we know the Saint which he hath Canonized to be contained in the foresaid universal proposition Whence it is easie to frame an assent of faith by which we may perswade our selves that such a Saint hath obtained eternal bliss 5 I would request the Reader by the way to note the Jesuites injurious partiality in scoffing at such of our Writers as without express warrant of particular revelation hold a certainty of their own salvation when as they onely by Gods general promises to such as lead a godly life and the Popes infallibility in declaring who have so lived can be certain defide others are saved But the former doubt is rather removed then quite taken away by this his answer if it stand alone As yet it may be questioned how any can infallibly know the truth of what he cannot possibly know at all but onely by other mens testimonies in their nature the Jesuite being judge not infallible and in whose examination it is not impossible his Holinesse may be negligent For how men live or dye in England Spain or the Indies no Pope can tel but by the information of others no Popes The Reader perhaps wil prognosticate Valentians answer as in truth I did For when I first framed the doubt before I read it in him me thought it stood in need of such a reply as Bellarmin brought for defence of the vulgar interpreter Altogether as foolish it were to think any private mans information of anothers uprightness in the sight of God as to hold Theodotion the Heretick could not erre in translating of the Bible But though they may be deceived in testification of anothers sanctity yet Valentian tels you supposing the Pope is once induced by their testimonies though in nature fallible to pronounce him a blessed Saint all must infallibly believe their testimonies at least so far as they prove in general that he died a Godly and religious death are true and that the party commended by them is of that number which as we may gather from the general revelations of Scriptures shall be made partakers of everlasting life Again whether the Pope in defining a controversie use diligence or no yet without all question he shall define infallibly and consequently use the authority
the Obscuritie or Difficulty of Scriptures cannot be meant of all Scriptures in respect of all Ages or all Men. â—…rs degrees of Scriptures Perâ—… arising from the Diversity of mens Conditions or Callings * ‖ Scripture more or lesse difficult to men of the same Profession from the different Measure of their natural Capacities or Gods Gifts bestowed upon them * This is a Point to be obsâ—…ved because the Weaknesse and 〈…〉 of all our Ad 〈◊〉 Ar 〈◊〉 will 〈◊〉 a 〈◊〉 if 〈◊〉 be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—â—all 〈◊〉 by the particulars in this and the next Section * Prov. 3. 34. James 4. 6. 1 Pet. 〈◊〉 5. †〈◊〉 29. 14. 1 Cor. 1 19. 1 Cor. 3. 19. †* Esay 29. 9 10 c. ver 13. * Velamen quod ipse Paulus 2. Cor. 3. 15. assiâ—mat usque in hodiernum diem cum legitur Moses esse positum supra cor Judaeorum profecto textum ut ita dicam bona ex parte est ex difficultate Scripturarum illarum Valent. tom 3. in Aquin disp 1. quaest 1. punct 7. parag 4. He addeth immediately Hoc enim ut antea monuimus est scripturam essedifficilem ejusmodi eam esse tam multa ut illa intelligatur requâ—ri ut proclive fuerit Judaeis 〈◊〉 aliis omnibus non percipere veram ejus sententiam quod quia dare nobis coguntur velint nolint sâ—ctaâ—ij rectè ac 〈◊〉 inde concludimus communem illam regulam magistram fidei quam necesse est esse propositam fidelibus 〈◊〉 non esse scripturam cum non sit cognitu facilis ipsis hominibus Huc illud Isaiae 29. pertinet †So our Saviour expoundeth it Matth. 15. verse 8 9. O Hypocrites Esaias prophesied well of you saying This People c. using the words before cited out of the 13. verse of Esay cap. 29. Out of both places it appears that their Hypocrisie and disobedience is the Truth known caused this Blindnesse and what the Prophet threatned ver 14. our Saviour ratifieth Mat. 15. ver 12 13 14. For when his Disciples said unto him Perceivest thou not that the Pharisâ—es are offended in hearing this saying He answered Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up let them alone they be blind leaders of the blind and if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch So the Prophet had said in the 14. ver The wisdom of their wise men to wit the Pharisees shall perish and the understanding of the prudent shall be hid and in the 9. verse They are blind and make you blind For this cause our Saviour in the fore-mentioned place calleth not them as be did the multitude to hear and understand verse 10. Nor expounds the Parable unto them as he did to his Disciples verse 15. * Jâ—hn 7. 17. * Our Saviour fully confirmeth this Truth unto us which the Psalmist had before in effect delivered Psal 25. ver 14. The secret of the Lord is revealed unto them that fear him and his Covenant to give them understanding and vers 9. Them that be Meek will he guide in judgement and teach the Humble his way vide etiaÌ„ vers 10. 12. This evidently confuteth their folly who think or rather say our Saviour spake in this place of his own peculiar Doctrine and Authority Albeit Canus amongst others might be excused by such as would salve his credit by the common Answer non locutus est ex sua sententia as appeareth by the manner of his replie Lib. 2. de Loc. Theol. cap. 8. †Non hoc dicit Dominus ut ostendat omnes viros bonos per se intelligere posse omnia loca Scripturarum sed ut doceat viros probos carere quibusdam impedimentis propter quae alij quidem nec per se nec per alios fidei veritatem intelligere possunt ut Johan 5. 44. Luke 16. 14. Bellarm. Tom. 1. Lib. 3. cap. 10. Canus in his first Answer to this place seems willing to assent unto the Truth Concediâ—us inquit liberaliter doctrinam cusque in sua vita statu necessariam illi fore perspectam cognitam qui fecerit voluntatem Dei. Sicut enim gustus bene affectus differentias saporum facilè discernit sic animi optima affectio facit ut homo doctrinam Dei ad salutem necessariam discernat ab errore contrario qui ex Deo non est Quae vero Ecclesiae sunt communia nec ad judicium nec ad fidem spectant singulorum ea non à quovis discerni judicari possunt quantumcunque is Dei faciat voluntatem In his second Answer he bewrayes a willingnesse to dissent from us or perhaps a fear not to say somewhat against us and therefore to such as will not be satisfied with the former he gives a second Answer in effect the same with Bellarmines We â—ay admit both their Conclusions without harm to our Cause From that which Canus granteth of private men both in his Answer to the second and third Argument we may conclude against him thus As God giveth them the Spirit of discerning true from false Doctrine in Points necessary to Salvation without all respects of persons so likewise will be by his Providence direct the learned or spirituall Overseers in every Nation without respecting Person Place or other Pâ—…gative for discerning Apocryphal from Canonical Books Nor is there any more Reason to appropriate their Discretion to the Pope or Clergie of Rome more then to appropriate the gift of discerning Truth from Falshood in Points reâ—… to Salvation to their Servants V. Can. Lib. 2. de Loc. Theol. Cap. 8. Responsione ad secundum terâ—… * Râ—m 12. 2. Vâ—â—n which place He whom Bellarmin â—… laterâ—… â—… saith thus Per 〈◊〉 â—â—vationem â—… per â—idem in Christum accepistis â—… ut sic â—eddamini apâ—… quid à vobis 〈◊〉 per toâ—… at Deus Quid gratum sit beneplaâ—… Deo Simile quiddam dâ—cet â—… Prebantâ—s quid sit 〈◊〉 placitum Deo â—… cupiditates caâ—nis noâ—â—â—ae â—… nâ—i ut in actionibus nostris inâ—… voluntas Dei sed quod nostro â—… aâ—rider interpâ—… in id esse voâ—… Dei Sâ—… in 〈◊〉 â—… Vide annotat â—… Beâ—a ad paragraph 5. * * Denique quòd Honorius nonnulli alii Pontifices in errorem lapsi fuisse dicuntur quanquam de nullo prorsus satis compertum est pertinaciter erravisse id quidem utcunque res habeat non nisi ad privatum attiner personarum vitium atque adeo nihil nobis obstare potest ut qui non tam ipsas personas quà m authoritatem illam Apostolicae sedis in definiendo defendimus siâ—… supra Augustini etiam exemplo respondebamus Valent. Tan. 3. Disp 1. Quaest 1. Punct 7. Paragr 41. Casu 11. ‖ Valentianus loco citato Ad fidelitatem Dei erga Ecclesiam speciat ut impediret in eo casu quo minus per Pontificem illum controversia
falsò definiretur Id quod facere Deus possit aut Pontificem de medio tollendo ne ipse sed successor potius rem decerneret aut interna mentis illustratione vel alio aliquo modo Pontificem ab errore revocando Neque vero 〈◊〉 providentia Dei in similibus casibus miraculosa esset consenda â—â—d esset potius quidam effectus ejus legis ordinatiae qua Deus per promissiones de veritate factas sese obstriuxit Ecclesiae Ac â—… hujus rei exemplum illud proferri potest quòd cùm Joannes xxij existimareâ— sanctorum animas ante diem â—udicii divinam essentiam non videre idque eo tempore quo in Ecclesia sicut Canus etiam lib. 6. de locis Theologicis cap. ult ad 1. argument notavit nondum erat satis explicata haec controversia ad rem definiendam sese compararet prinsquam id faceret è vita excessit Benedictus successor contrariam sententiam definivit Homines Animales cum additamento †Quis autem carnalis animalis homo non per phantasmata sui cordis evagetur constituat sibi Deum qualis ei pro suo carnali sensu placuerit atque ita credit tantum longè aliter quam Deus est quantum à veritate vanitas distert Veristimam quippe sententiam dixit Apostolus plenus lumine veritatis Animalu inquâ—t homâ— non percipit quae sunt spiritus Dei. Et tamen de iis faec dicebat quos jam â—uisse baptizaâ—os ipse manifestat Beda in hunc locum ex Augustino l. 3. de Baptismo This Opposition betwixt the Spirit and the Flesh is as we say in Schools Formal or directly contrary so as this Rule and that other late mentioned Rom. 12. hold as true in the Pope as in any If he fashion himself as much to this he is as disproportioned to the world to come as any other If he be as Carnal as other men he is altogether as incompetent a Judge of things belonging to the Spirit of God as others are whosoever Beda in the same place addeth Ad animales pertinet vetus Testamentum ad ad spirituales novum Veteris aâ—tem Sacramenta ceâ—averunt sed concupiscentiae tales non ceâ—â—averunt In illis enim sunt quos Apostolus jam per Sacramentum novi â—… adhuc tamen dicit animales non posse percipere quâ— sunt Spiritus Dei * No â—…al â—… or Desire habiâ—uate but harbour â—… â—f the Soul be well searched or â—… directly crossed as â—hall â—… hereafter appear so that men of â—… â—â—ly conceive well either of such Spiâ—…â—ot directly opposite to their peculiar â—… else of such Generalâ—…es as may be prosecuted â—… to their Affections †The matter of â—… against the Holy Ghost was their â—… in whâ—m he rested with an unclean â—… Maâ—k cha 3. vers 22. â—0 The â—… if I may so speak of that Sin in them was â—… of that conceit against the Evidence of â—… Christs Life and Actions bearing â—… of his Sanctification by the Blessed Spirit The â—… in the Jew and modern Jesuite is all â—… self same impiety only inverted to say 〈◊〉 think the Deâ—il is Author of Goodnesse or the Holy Gâ—…â—f 〈◊〉 tâ— make the Devil a Familiar of the Sâ—n â—… and the Son of Satan an Associate of the Holy Spirit Whether the Popes Works do not oft-times as truly â—… his Impurity as Christ did his Sanctity The Adâ—… will scarce question I will not conclude but God 〈◊〉 the â—…suites Paâ—asitical Eâ—comioâ—s of their Popes Saâ—red Authority â—e not wilful as were the Jews Deâ—… of our Saviour ‖ That the 〈◊〉 hath no such aâ—sâ—lute Authority 〈…〉 from S. Peter pâ—â—ved â—y Sâ—… a * Acts 8. 20. * Mark 4 24 25. And he said unto them take heed what ye hear with what measure you mete it shal be measured unto you and unto you that hear more shall be given For unto him that hath shal be given and from him that hath not shal be taken away even that he hath ‖ Jer. 31. 34. †Apostolus autem spiriâ—â— sancto 〈…〉 scientiam tunc prodesse cum chariâ—as inest sine hac autem infâ—are id est in superbiam 〈…〉 extollere Augustin lib. 9. de Civit. Dei cap 20. The like Affection in the Pope or Clergy of Rome maketh thâ—m arrâ—gate 〈◊〉 â—nto themselves in this businesse of establishing Belief That which S. Austin addeth in the same place seemeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of them Est ergo in daemonibus scientia sine charitate ideo tam 〈…〉 religionis servitutem quam vero Deo deberi sciunt sibi sategerint exhiâ—eri quantum 〈◊〉 apud quos possâ—â—t adhuc agunt And again Contra superbiam porro Daemonum qua pro meritis possidebatur genus humanum Dei humilitas quae in forma servi appaâ—uit quantam virtutem habeat animâ— hominum nesciunt immunditia elationis 〈◊〉 daemonibus similes superbia non scientia * The first of the Coâ—…th 3. Chapt. vers 18. Vid. Jâ—b 37. vers 24. †Mat. 18. 3. 〈◊〉 Simpliâ—ity such as the 〈◊〉 meant when he said Oâ—…e officium simplex est and Plain Dealing are Qualities best Symbolizing with the inteâ—nal Propriety of Scriptures Psal 19. 7. ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 11. 25. Vers 27. a Oâ— if they â—… * Insâ—… iâ—quit aniâ—… 〈◊〉 in scriptuâ—as sacras 〈◊〉 videâ—… quales 〈◊〉 Et â—cce vâ—… deo rem non compeâ—taÌ„â—uperbis neque â—… humilâ—m â—… dedignaâ—ar esse parvulus fastu turgidus mihi grandis esse videbar Aug. lib. 3. Confess cap. 5. †An vâ—ro â—â—lliâ—s â—…tatis reâ—… ab hoc tumore vitiorum vacuum esse eorumqueâ—uligâ—e velatum cor inâ—â—ar Judaeâ—… non 〈◊〉 sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ac docilem discipulum ad hujusmodi Spiritus sancti disciplinam capessendaâ—â— Valentian Tom. 〈◊〉 â—… Purct 7. Sect. 4. ‖ S. Austin supposeth the Scriptures to contain in them the Words of Life â—ut intimateth â—… which either the Scripture should become more plain or the saving Truth which they taught be otherwise â—… then only by practising suâ—h Rules as the Scriptures prescribe for their right understanding whence â—… Râ—… Doctor may again appear See the second part of this last Folly in the annotations unto the third â—… Sixteenth Chapter a Tâ—… Pâ—… such as observe the former Rules proved from the End why they were writter and the Evangelists careful endeaâ—… to make them plain * 〈◊〉 20 31. 〈◊〉 2. 1. †1 〈◊〉 9. 22. ‖ * Mark 4. 13. Mat. 15. 16. †Mark 4. 11. These words confirm the Truth of the state of the Question proposed by us ‖ John 6. 68. a Mark 4. 9. * John 5. 44. 12. 42. †Luke 16. 14. ‖ John 8 39. Matth. 3. 9. Hebr. 6. 8. * James 1. 5. †1 Job 3. 22. ‖ Matt. 12. 20. * â—sd â—… 1â— 5. â—…â—â—mparâ—ns Apostolus Petrus habemus inquit certiorem Pâ—… lâ—câ—â—uae lâ—centi in
lest they also might be plucked away with the errour of the wicked and fall from their woâ—ted stedfastnesse from which others had already fallen For what reason Because they were unlearned Unlearned In what Facultie In the Scriptures no doubt For Saint Peter himself was learned onely in them and would not vouchsafe the Secular Arts of that time standing in opposition unto the Gospel this glorious Title of learning And is want of learning and knowledge in Scriptures the cause of falling from Faith and former stedfastnesse And yet must men abstain from reading them because they are obscure to such blinded Guides or may minister matter of Contention to contentious Spirits or occasion of Errour to the erverse Must we be ignorant in Them and expert in Other means of Faith Because Ignorance and want of learning in them causeth Errours in Faith and what other Means soever of mens Salvation Quis furor hic shall I say ne moriare mort or rather no possis â—…tare perire Must we abstain from our spiritual Food and so â—…evi ably starve because some others by unreasonable or intemperate taking of it have incurred what Diseases indeed very grievous Yet such as might easily have been cured or prevented had the diseased been more accustomed to feed upon those plain and 〈◊〉 Prescripts usual in the later parts of Saint Pauls Epistles as for example amongst others upon that most General Through the grace of God 〈◊〉 given unto me I say to every one that is among you that no man presume to an unstand above that which is meet to understand but that he understand according to â—â—â—riety as God hath dealt to every man the Measure of Faith 10 From carefull and assiduous Attention unto this and other like Elementarie Precepts those unlearned but presumptuous Readers of Saint 〈◊〉 Epistles might quickly have grown so wise and well learned in Scriptures as not to have medled with these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so soon at least not so much rather contenting themselves while such they were like new-born Babes with 〈◊〉 Milk as much better for their weak digestion then his strong Meat so the same Apostle had else where expressely written for their instruction 〈◊〉 not presumed to know above that which was written Eâ—â—ed they had then 〈◊〉 the Truth and fallen away from their former stedfastnesse not so much by 〈◊〉 lowing the hard and difficult as by not following the plain and easie places of 〈◊〉 Paul able to have conducted them from Knowledge to Knowledge whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could they with patience have expected it might in good time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—… the former Difficulties Instances enough have been more might be brought to evince the general Conclusion intimated in the State of the Question before proposed There is no Occasion or Temptation which may move men to obstinate mistaking or perverting Scriptures to aâ—et Contentions but the Scriptures one where or other have a Remedie as easie as soveraigne prescribed against it so men would be diligent to seek or resolute to apply it found in their Practise or Course of life If some Spiders from the fore-mentioned or like difficult Places have suckt poyson yet other parts of the same Canon teach us to lay aside the Spiders temperature even all Maliciousnesse all Envie all Indignation or Contention Though sundry as subtilas Serpents have been mistaken in the Interpretation of some or have inverted others yet some third Place teacheth us to joyn the Doves Innocencie to the Serpents subtiltie and unto both adding the Bees Industry these very Places whence others suckt Poyson shall afford us Henie For the Word of God is in it self and unto us if we be not Spiders to our selves sweeter then Honey and the Honey combe CAP. XXIV That all their Objections drawn from Dissentions amongst the learned or the Uncertainty of private Spirits either conclude nothing of what they inten 〈◊〉 or else more then they mean or at the least dare avouch against Gods Prophets and Faithfull People of old 1 IT is a sure Argument the Truth on our part is exceeding great in that all Objections hitherto brought by our Adversaries as it usually falleth out in men more eagerly set to offend others then defend themselves though otherwise unequally matched conclude Aut nihil Aut 〈◊〉 â—…thing or too much or all for us against the Objectors But especially whilest 〈◊〉 seek to 〈◊〉 the Sufficiencie of our supposed Rule by Dissentions thence ocâ—… 〈◊〉 amongst the learned or such as should be Guides of others as their Pr 〈◊〉 are curtailed and will not touch the Points they aim at so the Conclusion which they would shuffle in not inferred from the Premises is above measure over-lashing First they fail in avouching that indefinitely of all which is true only of some Parts of Scriptures For many are so perspicuous and plain as they minister no matter of Contention no not to the most contentious Spirits professing our or their Religion These well learned and laid up in mens hearts engaged in other particular Controversies would be an excellent Light to many other Places which for want of this Method to most of both sides either seem Obscure or of the same suite their several Dispositions are But to omit particular Causes of Heresies or Hereticks perverting Scriptures else where to be prosecuted The most general and Primary is the quite contrary to that which our Adversaries assign 2 They except against Scripture and say it cannot be the Rule of Faith nor ought to be so taken of all Christians because it is so Obscure and apt to breed Contentions among such as rely upon it We have sufficiently proved that all Obscurities all Contentions about the Sence of Scriptures in points of Moment arise hence Because we do not admit of it for our only Rule all Affection to mens persons state or dignity all private Quarrels laid apart If the Jesuite could prove it should either continue Obscure in points of Faith or minister matter of Contention to such as conform their lives to the Elementary Rules or easie Precepts therein contained their Arguments were to some purpose But while this they neither can nor go about to prove they shall only prove themselves ridiculous Atheists albeit we grant them all they desire about the Variety of Opinions even in places of greatest Moment among the learned For whatsoever they can object to us either concerning the Variety of Opinions amongst the learned or such Distraction as might follow thereon in the simple and illiterate will conclude as much both against that Certainty the Ancient Prophets themselves had of their own Visions and the stedfastnesse of that Belief which the faithful amongst Gods People gave unto their Predictions or Prophecies First it is evident from the Story of Ahab that lying Spirits did counterfeit Visions then as the Spirit of Errour doth now the Spirit of Truth So as the false Prophets had strange