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truth_n	according_a	church_n	doctrine_n	2,019	5	6.0761	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B22558	The Popish labyrinth wherein is made manifest, that the Papists are entangled in the fundamental article of their faith, that the church cannot erre / written in Dutch by ... Dr. Simon Episcopius, unto which is added, The life and death of the author ; as also, The life and death of James Arminius, both of them famous defenders of God	Episcopius, Simon, 1583-1643.; Bertius, Petrus, 1565-1629. Oratio in obitum reverendi & clarissimi viri D. Jacobi Arminii. English.; Chardon de Courcelles, Etienne, 1705-1775? Short and compendious history of Simon Episcopius.	1673 (1673)	Wing E3163	56,195	122

lawful if the succeeding Pope had approved of the same But now forsooth it shall be unlawful because the Pope that was made by this Council said not of himself and those like him that he was subject to the Council but on the contrary Lucifer-like maintained that he was above the Council Howbeit it is altogether credible that the Decree of the Council was approved of by Him before he was chosen for Pope Who here sees not a Circle of Absurdities However it be if the Authority of the Council be no more than the Popes it could not depose the Pope and therefore those ungodly Knaves Popes are to be reckoned among the Bishops that lawfully succeed by a continual Succession not interrupted by Reason of their Heresie Atheism Simony Force and Villanies or if there be granted an Interruption there will now forthwith be no Succession at all upon the same Account that Bellarmine denies that the Succession of the Greeks is to be accounted lawful He that seeth not that the Papists are wholly at a loss in all these Things as in an endless Labyrinth of Errours he truly seeing is blind For howsoever the Case stands touching Succession the Question concerning Truth will alwayes remain To what Purpose therefore do they enter into so intricate a Labyrinth and take so great Pains for to prove a Succession One of these must necessarily be concluded either that the Truth is sufficient to constitute a true Church or that it is not If the former be true To what End is Succession by these endless Windings to and fro proved If the latter What doth Truth avail if it do not constitute a true Church It is contrary to the Nature and Propertie of Truth not to constitute a true Church whether those who teach the Truth have it by Tradition from others or no or at least know not the List of their Names from whom they have it delivered to them Gold will be Gold although it have been hid and buried in the Earth a thousand Years But you will say it is requisite that there be some before I know Gold to teach me that that is Gold But say I shall the Church thorowly do this But then there is required some one besides by whom I may be sure that that this Church which doth affirm that this is Gold doth know it most exactly and cannot err therein Who shall that be Here the Papists make a Circle We assert that the Scripture is Truth which the Church of Rome granteth us But yet it is the Prerogative of the Church saith he to tell us that the Scripture is Truth But say I who shall tell me that the Church that affirms this saith true She hath not this Priviledge by Succession unless it clearly appear that she never defected from the Truth This cannot appear unless I know what is Truth If the Church herself assume this she then singeth to us the same Song and so the Church will be both Plantiff and Judge and that in her own proper Cause Here will be no End of contending And that is it which Tertullian meant in that most known Place and commonly in the mouth of all the Papists which they quote in all their Writings with a very perverse wresting of the Sense thereof in his Book of Proscript against Hereticks Chap. 32. Where he thus speaketh But if any Heresies dare insert themselves in the Times of the Apostles that so they may be thought to have been delivered by the Apostles because they were in the Apostles Dayes we may say that is we may in such Case demand of them the Succession of which they boast saying Let them produce the Originals of their Churches turn over the Order of their Bishops so running down by Succession from the Beginning as that first Bishop had some one of the Apostles or Apostolical men who yet continued with the Apostles for his Author and Predecessor c. And a little after Let the Hereticks feign any such Thing which is to be noted as serving our Purpose yet though they shall feign it they shall prevail nothing For their very Doctrine compared with that of the Apostles by its Diversity and Contrariety will aloud declare that it hath neither any Apostle nor Apostolical Man for its Authour For as the Apostles would not have taught Things differing among themselves so also the Apostolical Men would not have published Things contrary to the Apostles except it were those who revolted from the Apostles and taught otherwise According to this Form therefore or Manner note it well shall those Churches appeal which though they can produce none of the Apostles or Apostolick Men as their Authour as being long after and which lastly are daily instituted yet agreeing in the same Faith to wit with the Apostles or Apostolick Men they are not the less deemed Apostolical by Reason of the cousanguinity or nearness of kin of their Doctrine That is according to Tertullians style because they agree with the Apostles in Doctrine These words of Tertullian which the Papists so shamefully abuse and so violently wrest do not obscurely confirm what we have said For Tertullian says three Things First that those Churches which have the Truth agreeable with the Doctrine of the Apostles are no less Apostolical Churches then others although they cannot shew their Succession for that only Cause for that they have the Truth on their side Secondly that those Churches which glory of their Succession and Original derived from the Apostles and cannot demonstrate it are justly to be rejected as those who obtrude upon us that which is false And Thirdly that those Churches which demonstrate their Succession whether lawfully or unlawfully are not to be counted for true Churches unless it appear that their Doctrine is agreeable to the Doctrine of the Apostles What Churches agree therein the same are Apostolical although they be destitute of Succession This is more clear then the Noon-dayes Sun The same affirmeth Augustine in that Place which is also quoted as unfaithfully and contrary to the Meaning of Augustine by the Papists in his Book which he wrote against the fundamental Epistle of Manichee Chap. 4. For when he had said that he clave to the Catholick Church wherein from the See of Peter even to his Time the Succession of Bishops and Priests had been deduced he addes these words which are altogether agreeable with our Judgment With you he speaks of the Manichees where there is none of these to invite and detain me there is onely the noise of the Promise of Truth which indeed were it so manifestly shewed that it could not be questioned were to be preferred before all those Things by Reason whereof I am detained in the Catholick Church What could Augustine have spoken more clear to prove and shew that neither Antiquity nor Succession can avail so as that any one should be able to quit himself of the Labyrinth of Doubts touching the true Church but that the Truth

there is required a skill in Tongues continual or diligent reading an acute Judgment and an accurate Examination of the Words and Phrasiologie or manner of expression of the Fathers But supposing also that there is no Controversie touching these Things Then Fourthly the Question will be whether all those Things which the Father 's believed and wrote are to be believed and received as true If you deny it I will query in the Fifth Place why one more than another If you say because they are all agreed in that or the one then these Questions will forthwith arise First wherefore should all those Things wherein they are agreed amongst themselves be accounted or held by the Church of Rome for undoubted and certain The Second is what are those things concerning which they are agreed and which are to be embraced To know this you must attentively turn over the Writings of all the Fathers Greek and Latine from Head to Foot for the which some Years space is requisite And Thirdly if any Doubt happen either touching the Sense of their Writings as there is doubt made of the Scripture or of their Phrases and forms of Expression which they at that Time used and now are both used and understood far otherwise what end will there be But passing this seeing the Fathers agree among themselves in this that they would have neither their own nor any Writings of Men except the Books that are Canonical to be lookt upon as free from Error yea seeing they roundly confess that they may err and by Consequence would not that their Writings should be believed not to be lyable to Error but do expresly will that they be tryed by the Word of God desiring that they should be rejected if they agree not therewith What shall be done then What Certainty can there be had from their Writings against Errors Certainly none at all Yea rather if we make Use of them for this end that we may from thence be assured in our belief we use them contrary to the Intention of the Fathers and so against their plain and express Protestation and Prohibition wherein the Fathers are all agreed CHAP. VIII That the same cannot be proved by Reasons IF he at length have a mind to confirm his Thesis by Reasons he falls out of one Labyrinth into another For first what Reasons will sway with him whereon to rely when as in the main Article of his Belief he doth not only not heed Rea●ons but doth not believe so much as his outward Senses Can there be given any more solid Argument for the convincing of any one than that which is drawn from that which we see with our own Eyes which we perceive with our Senses being sound and lastly which we feel and taste These things notwithstanding the true Papist makes small Account of Seeing that neither by Reasons nor by his own Senses he suffers himself to be induced to believe that the Eucharistical Bread in the Lord's Supper is essentially and substantially Bread Yea when he will undoubtedly believe that one and the same Body is in many places together and they far distant each from other remaining individed notwithstanding that it be distant and separate from it self one hundred yea a thousand and if it were possible a thousand thousand Miles that one and the same Body at the same Time should be able to move in this Place and elsewhere not to move That one and the same Body should meet it self and move with contrary Motions at the same moment of Time that is together at once from East to West and from West to East Upward and Downward Foreward and Backward That one and the same Body here should be as hot as Fire and at Rome as cold as Ice That it should be alive here and dead at Venice He that will believe these Things which are diametrically contrary to the Nature of Man and right Reason by what Reason shall he either dare or be able to perswade himself or others of any thing Those who shame not to question so clear a Truth and obstinately to believe the cont●●ry and as I may so say wilfully to draw a Film over their Eyes that they may not see with such I say Reasons are like Counters which stand for so much as they desire they should stand for that use them in Accounts But be it that they make Use of Reasons What Reasons I pray you will they here produce Will they take them from the Scripture But then the same Difficulties will remain as we have already recounted Or shall their Reasons not be taken from Scripture But those by other Reasons may most easily and not without just cause be called into Doubt For if the Church cannot err this must necessarily proceed from the Divine Will and Decree For if God will not have the Church to be beyond or out of all Danger of Errour what Reason will there be given undenyably proving that the Church cannot err Now the will and Decree of God cannot be understood without the Scripture much less can it be drawn from mens Wit and Reasoning From whence it followeth that it is altogether most absurd by Reasons which may be doubted of to prove any thing which ought now long before without all Doubt and Controversie to be believed to depend upon the meer free Will and Decree of God By these Things it is manifest in how intricate and inexplicable a Circle the Papists wander in ●espect of the fundamental Article of their Faith when they will believe nothing but what their Church believeth yet cannot certainly shew what their Church properly is or who is the Head of their Church and although they could shew that as they cannot yet were it impossible for them to prove that the Church much less that their Church cannot err And thus far of the first sort of Papists with whom we have said that Dispute is alwayes held in vain CHAP. IX That the Controversie of Succession is useless and endless THe second sort of them is those who greatly desire always to dispute of those Questions which though they be weighed by the exact ballance of Truth yet do they not assure the Consciences of Men nor convince them of the Truth that is chiefly necessary to be believed These are they who have the Antiquity and Succession both of their Doctrine and Church always in their Mouth concluding for certain that they have born away the Palm and gotten the Victory if they may glory thereof This they sound forth as the Burden of the Catholicks Song And which is worthy of the Highest Admiration the chief Cryers and Boasters hereof are even those who haply not so much as ever throughly viewed the Books and Histories of those Men from whence this Antiquity and continued Succession is to be drawn and maintained or if they have viewed them thorow are yet nevertheless no wayes fit to turn them over without Affection and Prejudice to wit being wont either

SIMON EPISCOPIUS This Pictur 's Substance was a matchlesse wight In Learning boldnesse and a life Upright THE Popish Labyrinth Wherein is made manifest That the Papists are entangled in the Fundamental Article of their Faith That the Church cannot Erre Written in Dutch by that holy and learned Man Dr. SIMON EPISCOPIUS Vnto which is added The Life and Death of the Author As also The Life and Death of JAMES ARMINIUS Both of them famous Defenders of God's Universal Grace and Sufferers for it Now published in the English Tongue By J. K. The memory of the Just is blessed Prov. 10.7 LONDON Printed for Francis Smith at the Elephant and Castle in Cornhil near the Royal Exchange and at the same sign first Shop without Temple-Bar 1673. Christian and pious Readers IF you have but to any considerable measure conversed with the Writings of our Protestant Writers either of late or formerly against the Papists you will find that they have abundantly proved them to be if not an apostatical and false yet at least an erroneous and Schismatical Church and one that hath little cause so to boast and magnifie her self upon her pretended Priviledges of Truth and Infallibility above others as she doth That many Worthies of the Protestants both of former times and of late have written sufficiently to have convinced the Popish Partie of their gross and palpable Errors and to prove that they are nothing less than what they pretend to viz. Infallible or such as are not nor can be obnoxious to mistake any one that hath read their Writings and is but master of an ordinary measure of Reason Ingenuity and Impartiality will confess That many Worthies of the Protestants both of former and latter Times have sufficiently yea abundantly proved the Church of Rome if not wholly an apostatical and false yet at least a most grosly erroneous and corrupt Church no man of ordinary Ingenuity and Reason will deny To wave what hath been written for their Conviction by those more Ancient one would think that what some excellent Men of late Mr. B. Dr. Tiliotson and Dr. Stillingfleet have written against them would have put to utter silence their Ignorance and Folly And that they would not have had a word to plead for their Infallibility who have been found to err so grosly and palpably concerning the Faith in many the weightiest Doctrines of the Gospel as they have done but that they would have acknowledged the mighty Power of Truth and have said it is worthy to prevail But so little prevalent with them is the Light of Truth though shining never so bright both in the Scriptures and Reason that their Folly though never so much brayed thereby will not depart from them They still hold as fast as stiffly their grosly irrational and anti-scriptural and absurd Doctrines of Image-worship Transubstantiation Indulgencies Angel-worship Saint-worship or Invocation of them Purgatory c. as ever and will do All Arguments drawn from Scripture and Reason yea from common Sense it self are but as Brass with the Leviathan they esteem them all but as rotten Wood. But you will say Whence or how came this Spirit of Infatuation upon them Why the Apostle will tell you 2 Thes 2.10 But you will say This is an hard saying No not at all If men shew themselves so absurd as not to be ruled by any thing whatsoever that God hath appointed for their right-Ordering and Guidance it is evident that they are wicked as well as absurd 2 Thess 3.2 But you will go on to ask How comes this Infatuation to be so inveterate with them and impossible to be removed This our excellent Author in this little Treatise will tell you 1. They take it for an undeniable Maxime than which yet there is nothing more false that the true Church cannot err 2. They assume which is also as hard yea impossible to prove and so as false as the former that they are that true Church which cannot err or is so infallible Whilest they hold these two Positions you were as good dispute with a Post as go about to convince them of Error let them commit Errors if it were possible Seventy times seven more in Number and more gross and absurd in their Nature than they do Well then what shall or can be done for them for their recovery and for preventing others from incurring the like Distemper of Absurdity and Unreasonableness I answer By following the Directions here brieffly given and taken dextrously from them accordingly these two Maximes Now this you will effectually do if you put them to prove or but to shew you 1. What is that Church that cannot err and who is the Head of it This you you will find an impossible Task for them to perform 2. Put them likewise to prove if they could assign him as they cannot that the Head of their Church cannot err either from Scripture Reason or Fathers and you will find them at the same Loss And indeed no better help will they find from Succession and Antiquity than from the former for that proof of their first Maxime 2. As to the second Maxime that falls of it self viz. That they are that true Church that cannot err For if they cannot tell what is that Church that cannot err or who is the Head of it then cannot they say they are that Church For so they would say they know not what But enough of this For your Prevention and mine own reade this most excellent and learned Treatise written in Dutch by the pious and renowned Dr. Simon Episcopius from thence translated into Latin and now rendred into English which with the Blessing of God upon your serious Perusal may tend to your Reducement from any Hankerings after Popish Trumpery and Establishment in the Truth which is after Godliness And the Blessing of God goe along with it Amen The Popish Labyrinth c. CHAP. I. Of two sorts of Men with whom it is in vain to dispute THere is no Labour that is undertaken with greater Wearisomness and les● Profit than a dispute undertaken with those men who either will not be taught better or as it were being willing to learn better and breathing after the best and clearest Truth dispute of no other things but those which after they have been fully disputed leave the Disputants at as great an uncertainty as they were before whether the certain and necessary truth be found or no. The first are willing to remain in Ignorance The second though they would not seem on purpose and deliberately to love their Ignorance yet do they waver to and fro with uncertainty concerning the Truth yea and that oftentimes then too when after many and difficult Labours sustained they shall seem to have obtained the Victory in Dispute To desire to dispute with either of these two sorts of Men is all one as if one should plow the Sea-shore or beat the Air. To desire indeed to deal with those men with Reasons who

of Antichrist Not because it is more dangerous for them to see Italy than neighbouring Antwerp or Brussel● or Brug● for in Italy there is much more liberty and in these places more superstition by far And it is safer to travel throughout all Italy than Brabant or Flanders but because it is expedient to take all occasions of evil speaking from the adversary and all occasions of evil-surmising from those that are unadvised and imprudent And it is better to prevent an occasion of offence than to excuse it Being come out of Italy he stayed at Geneva and some months after being called home he returned to Amsterdam to his Patrons and Masters furnished through the grace of Christ with a clear testimony from them of Geneva and with a mind very well fitted to do office if it might please the Lord God to use his ministry for his work in his Church For these are the very words of Mr. Beza's Epistle the original of which I have in remembrance At Amsterdam he did easily with grave and prudent men clear himself as to his Italian journey but indeed the weak brethren went on inveighing against it and in their assemblings blaming it till he himself began to be heard in the Church in which as soon as he was beheld it cannot be spoken with how much respect men of all ranks flocked together to hear him For there was in him as ye know a certain incredible gravity mixed with gracefull pleasantness His voice indeed was slender but sweet and loud and piercing but he had an admirable perswasive faculty If any thing were to be adorn'd he so did it as not to exceed the truth If he were to teach any thing he did it with clearness and perspicuity If he were to dispute any thing he manag'd the same distinctly Now the Melody and altering of his voice was so fitted to things that it seemed to flow from them And sith he did not use a Rhetorical dress and the Greeks boxes of pleasant ointment it was either because his nature did abhor them or because he judged it unworthy the majesty of Divine things to use curles and borrowed ornaments when as the naked truth is of its self sufficient for its own defence notwithstanding he so efficaciously perswaded by force and weight of arguments and by the pithiness of his sentences and by the authority of Scripture it self that no man ever heard him but confess'd that his discourses much affected him Some therefore at that time called him the polishing life of truth others the whetstone and sharpner of wits others called him the razor shaving off growing errors and nothing in Religion and sacred Theology was thought to savour well that did not relish with Arminius Also the Pastors and Preachers themselves of that City men both learned and eloquent did reverence him for his learning and ingeniously acknowledge themselves to have been daily very much advantaged by his Sermons And thus our Arminius with spread out sayles prosperous gales a full company of rowers and the good wishes of all that knew him was carried towards fame and glory when it pleased God to excrcise his servant even with adversity and to make a tryal of his patience and humbleness by the cross and afflictions Now 't is a thing worth the knowing to understand the beginnings and success hereof There was carried about as it chanced in the hands of some pious men a little Book written by some of the brethren of the Church of Delf against Mr. Beza with this Title An answer to some arguments of Beza and Calvin out of a Treatise concerning predestination on the 9. Chap to the Romans This little book was sent over to our Arminius by Mr. Martin Lidyus of blessed memory who had been formerly a Pastor in the Church of Amsterdam but then was professor in the Friezlanders new Academy and by him Arminius was requested to undertake the defence of Mr. Beza against the brethren of Delf For Arminius was verily thought a man very fit for this business by Mr. Lidyus who partly by report partly by experience knew the quickness of his wit the sharpness of his judgment and what a wonderful force and power he had both in preaching and in disputing Neither was Arminius altogether strange from this design being one that newly coming out of the School of Geneva carryed about with him in his ears the sound of Mr. Beza's lectures and arguments He therefore betakes himself to the work But whilst he endeavours a refutation whilst he weighs the arguments on each side whilst he confers the Scriptures whilst he torments and wearys himself he was overcome by the truth At first indeed he followed that same opinion which he undertook to oppose but he afterwards by the guidance of the holy Ghost was carried over to that doctrin which he constantly asserted even to the end of his life Which was this That Gods eternal Decree in predestination was not to elect or chuse precisely and absolutely some to salvation whom as yet he had not purposed to create which Mr. Beza would have neither was it precisely and absolutely to elect some to salvation after the decree of their creation and the foresight of their fall but without an antecedent consideration of Jesus Christ which the Delfian brethren held Bus it was To elect to salvation them of the created and fallen who in time to come would by true obedience of faith answer to God calling them thereunto Which by learned Melancthon and Nicholaus Hemingius and many more divines besides hath been asserted And although such in times past hath been the liberty of our Churches and even now is in very many places that in this Argument in which no ancient Synod hath ever determined any thing any one of the multitude and a Teacher might always without offence to any one choose this or that for to omit others Dr. Jo. Holmannus Secundus who by the very grave advice of excellent Divines and especially of the Lords Curators was called forth after Mr. Pezelius and Mollenius and others were sollicited in vain taught it out of this very place He imbraced as we know the opinion of Hemingius and sharply defended it Not withstanding there were not those wanting at Amsterdam that in this matter were troublesome to Arminius and that accused him for departing from the common and received opinion in our Churches but their vehemency and fiercness was suddenly repress'd and appeas'd by the authority of the Senate and the equanimity and moderation of the brethren so that he always lived with his Collegues at Amsterdam quietly yea friendly and brotherly without any cloud of displeasure or hatred or envy And also this man of God was not only naturally dispos'd to candor and gentleness but also was moreover so formed and fashioned thereto by the holy precepts and Spirit of Christ that he did quietly bear with him that dissented from him and did not easily despair of any one that