repugnant to the word of God Ibid. p. 201 202 203 204 205. Lastly his discourse wherein he shews that it is unlawful for the Church of after Ages to add any thing to the Faith of the Apostles And many of his Arguments whereby he proves that in the judgement of the Ancient Church the Apostles Creed was esteem'd a sufficient summary of the necessary Points of simple belief and a great number of great authorities to justifie the Doctrin of the Church of England touching the Canon of Scripture especially the old Testament S. 7. p. 221 223 228 229. All these parts of Doctor Potter's book for reason best known to your self you have dealt with as the Priest and Levite in the Gospel did with the wounded Samaritan that is only look't upon them and pass'd by But now at least when you are admonish't of it that my Reply to your second part if you desire it may be perfect I would entreat you to take them into your consideration and to make some shew of saying something to them lest otherwise the world should interpret your obstinate silence a plain confession that you can say nothing FINIS THE Apostolical Institution OF EPISCOPACY DEMONSTRATED BY WILL. CHILLINGWORTH Master of Arts of the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD NOSCE TE IPSVM NE QUID NIMIS LONDON Printed by E. Cotes dwelling in Aldersgate-street Anno Dom. M.DC.LXIV THE Apostolical Institution OF EPISCOPACY DEMONSTRATED SECT I. IF we abstract from Episcopal Government all accidentals and consider only what is essential and necessary to it we shall finde in it no more but this An appointment of one man of eminent sanctity and sufficiency to have the care of all the Churches within a certain Precinct or Diocess and furnishing him with authority not absolute or arbitrary but regulated and bounded by Laws and moderated by joyning to him a convenient number of assistants to the intent that all the Churches under him may be provided of good and able Pastors and that both of Pastors and people conformity to Laws and performance of their duties may be required under penalties not left to discretion but by Law appointed SECT II. To this kind of Government I am not by any particular interest so devoted as to think it ought to be maintained either in opposition to Apostolick Institution or to the much desired reformation of mens lives and restauration of Primitive discipline or to any Law or Precept of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for that were to maintain a means contrary to the end for Obedience to our Saviour is the end for which Church-Government is appointed But if it may be demonstrated or made much more probable than the contrary as I verily think it may I. That it is not repugnant to the government setled in and for the Church by the Apostles II. That it is as complyable with the Reformation of any evill which we desire to reform either in Church or State or the introduction of any good which we desire to introduce as any other kind of Government And III. That there is no Law no Record of our Saviour against it Then I hope it will not be thought an unreasonable Motion if we humbly desire those that are in Authority especially the High Court of Parliament That it may not be sacrificed to Clamour or over-born by Violence and though which God forbid the greater part of the Multitude should cry Crucifie Crucifie yet our Governours would be so full of Justice and Counage as not to give it up until they perfectly understand concerning Episcopacy it self Quid mali fecit SECT III. I shall speak at this time only of the first of these three points That Episcopacy is not repugnant to the Government setled in the Church for perpetuity by the Apostles Whereof I conceive this which follows is as clear a Demonstration as any thing of this nature is capable of That this Government was received universally in the Church either in the Apostles time or presently after is so evident and unquestionable that the most learned adversaries of this Government do themselves confess it SECT IV. Petrus Molinaeus in his Book De munere pastorali purposely written in defence of the Presbyterial-government acknowledgeth That presently after the Apostles times or even in their time as Ecclesiastical story witnesseth it was ordained That in every City one of the Presbytery should be called a Bishop who should have pre-eminence over his Colleagues to avoid confusion which oft times ariseth out of equality And truly this form of Government all Churches every where received SECT V. Theodorus Beza in his Tract De triplici Episcopatûs genere confesseth in effect the same thing For having distinguished Episcopacy into three kinds Divine Humane and Satanical and attributing to the second which he calls Humane but we maintain and conceive to be Apostolical not only a priority of Order but a superiority of Power and Authority over other Presbyters bounded yet by Laws and Canons provided against Tyranny he clearly professeth that of this kind of Episcopacy is to be understood whatsoever we read concerning the authority of Bishops or Presidents as Justin Martyr calls them in Ignatius and other more ancient Writers SECT VI. Certainly from * To whom two others also from Geneva may be added Daniel Chamierus in Panstratia tom 2. lib. 10. cap. 6. Sect. 24. and Nicol. Vedelius Exereitat 3. in epist Ignatii ad Philadelph cap. 14. Exercit. 8. in Epist ad Mariam cap. 3. which is fully also demonstrated in D. Hammond's Dissertations against Blondel which never were answered and never will by the testimonies of those who wrote in the very next Age after the Apostles these two great Defenders of the Presbytery we should never have had this free acknowledgement so prejudicial to their own pretence and so advantagious to their adversaries purpose had not the evidence of clear and undeniable truth enforced them to it It will not therefore be necessary to spend any time in confuting that uningenuous assertion of the anonymous Author of the Catalogue of Testimonies for the equality of Bishops and Presbyters who affirms That their disparity began long after the Apostles times But we may safely take for granted that which these two learned Adversaries have confessed and see whether upon this foundation laid by them we may not by unanswerable reason raise this superstructure That seeing Episcopal Government is confessedly so Ancient and so Catholique it cannot with reason be denyed to be Apostolique SECT VII For so great a change as between Presbyterial Government and Episcopal could not possibly have prevailed all the world over in a little time Had Episcopal Government been an aberration from or a corruption of the Government left in the Churches by the Apostles it had been very strange that it should have been received inany one Church so suddainly or that it should have prevailed in all for many Ages after Variâsse debuerat error Ecclesiarum quod
Patron as to the great Defendor of it which style Your Majesty hath ever so exactly made good both in securing it from all dangers and in vindicating it by the well ordering and rectifying this Church from all the foul aspersions both of Domestick and Foraign enemies of which they can have no ground but their own want of Judgement or want of Charity But it is an argument of a despairing and lost cause to support it self with these impetuous out-cries and clamours the faint refuges of those that want better arguments like that Stoick in Lucian that cryed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O damned villain when he could say nothing else Neither is it credible the wiser sort of them should believe this their own horrid assertion That a God of goodness should damn to eternal torments those that love him and love truth for errors which they fall into through humane frailty But this they must say otherwise their only great argument from their damning us and our not being so peremtory in damning them because we hope unaffected Ignorance may excuse them would be lost and therefore they are engaged to act on this Tragical part only to fright the simple and ignorant as we do little children by telling them that bites which we would not have them meddle with And truely that herein they do but act a part and know themselves to do so and deal with us here as they do with the King of Spain at Rome whom they accurse and Excommunicate for fashion sake on Maundy-Thursday for detaining part of St. Peters Patrimony and absolve him without satisfaction on Good-Friday methinks their faltring and inconstancy herein makes it very apparent For though for the most part they speak nothing but thunder and lightning to us and damn us all without mercy or exception yet sometimes to serve other purposes they can be content to speak to us in a milder strain and tell us as my Adversary does more than once That they allow Protestants as much Charity as Protestants allow them Neither is this the only contradiction which I have discovered in this uncharitable Work but have shewed that by forgetting himself and retracting most of the principal grounds he builds upon he hath saved me the labour of a Confutation which yet I have not in any place found any such labour or difficulty but that it was undertakable by a man of very mean that is of my abilities And the reason is because it is Truth I plead for which is so strong an argument for it self that it needs only light to discover it whereas it concernes Falshood and Error to use disguises and shadowings and all the fetches of Art and Sophistry and therefore it stands in need of abler men to give that a colour at least which hath no real body to subsist by If my endeavours in this kind may contribute any thing to this discovery and the making plain that Truth which my Charity perswades me the most part of them disaffect only because it hath not been well represented to them I have the fruit of my labour and my wish who desire to live to no other end than to do service to Gods Church and Your most Sacred Majesty in the quality of Your MAJESTIES Most faithful Subject and most humble and devoted Servant William Chillingworth The CONTENTS of the Chapters with the Answers thereunto THe Author of Charity Maintained his Preface to the Reader Page 1. The Answer to the Preface Page 5. The FIRST PART CHAP. I. THe State of the Question with a summary of the Reasons for which men of different Religions one side only can be saved Page 23. The Answer to the First Chapter Shewing that the Adversary grants the Former Question and proposeth a New One And that there is no reason why among men of different Opinions and Communions one Side only can be saved Page 25 CHAP. II. What is that means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our understanding and which must determine Controversies in Faith and Religion Page 37 The Answer to the Second Chapter Concerning the means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our Understanding and which must determine Controversies in Faith and Religion Page 45 CHAP. III. That the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental is neither pertinent nor true in our present Controversie And that the Catholique visible Church cannot err in either kind of the said Point Page 107 The Answer to the Third Chapter Wherein is maintained That the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental is in this present Controversie good and pertinent And that the Catholique Church may err in the latter kind of the said Points Page 115 CHAP. IV. To say that the Creed contains all Points necessary to be believed is neither pertinent to the Question in hand nor in it self true Page 165 The Answer to the Fourth Chapter Wherein is shewed that the Creed contains all necessary Points of meer belief Page 172 CHAP. V. That Luther Calvin their Associates and all who began or continue the Separation from the external Communion of the Roman Church are guilty of the proper and formal sin of Schism Page 210 The Answer to the Fifth Chapter The separation of Protestants from the Roman Church being upon just and necessary causes is not any way guilty of Schism Page 227 CHAP. VI. That Luther and the rest of the Protestants have added Heresie unto Schism Page 279 The Answer unto the Sixth Chapter That Protestants are not Heretiques Page 289 CHAP. VII In regard of the Precept of Charity towards ones self Protestants are in a state of Sin as long as they remain separate from the Roman-Church Page 341 The Answer to the Seventh Chapter That Protestants are not bound by the Charity which they owe to themselves to re-unite themselves to the Roman-Church Page 345 The Conclusion Page 365 THE PREFACE To the AUTHOR of CHARITY MAINTAINED WITH An Answer to his Pamphlet entituled A Direction to N. N. SIR UPon the first news of the publication of your Book I used all diligence with speed to procure it and came with such a mind to the reading of it as S. Austin before he was a setled Catholique brought to his conference with Faustus the Manichee For as he thought that if any thing more than ordinary might be said in defence of the Manichean Doctrine Faustus was the man from whom it was to be expected So my perswasion concerning you was Si Pergama dextrâ Defendi possunt certè hac defensa videbo For I conceived that among the Champions of the Roman Church the English in reason must be the best or equall to the best as being by most expert Masters trained up purposely for this war and perpetually practised in it Among the English I saw the Jesuites would yield the first place to none and men so wise in their generation as the Jesuits were if they had any Achilles among them I presumed
whom you question first in point of learning and sufficiency and then in point of conscience and honesty as prevaricating in the Religion which they profess and inclining to Popery Their Learning you say consists only in some superficial talent of preaching languages and elocution and not in any deep knowledge of Philosophy especially of Metaphysicks and much less of that most solid profitable subtile and O rem ridiculam Cato jocosam succinct method of School-Divinity Wherein you have discovered in your self the true Genius and spirit of detraction For taking advantage from that wherein Envy it self cannot deny but they are very eminent and which requires great sufficiency of substantial learning you disparage them as insufficient in all things else As if forsooth because they dispute not eternally Utrum Chimaera bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones Whether a Million of Angels may not sit upon a Needle 's point Because they fill not their brains with notions that signifie nothing to the utter extermination of all reason and common sense and spend not an Age in weaving and unweaving subtile Cobwebs fitter to catch flyes than Souls therefore they have no deep knowledge in the Acroamatical part of Learning But I have too much honoured the poorness of this detraction to take notice of it 20. The other Part of your accusation strikes deeper and is more considerable And that tels us that Protestantism waxeth weary of it self that the Professors of it they especially of greatest worth learning and authority love Temper and Moderation and are at this time more unresolved where to fasten than at the infancy of their Church That Their Churches begin to look with a new face Their walls to speak a new language Their Doctrine to be altered in many things for which their Progenitors forsook the then Visible Church of Christ For example The Pope not Antichrist Prayer for the dead Limbus Patrum Pictures That the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to Interpret Scripture about Freewil Predestination Universal Grace That all our works are not sins Merit of good works Inherent Justice Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledge Traditions Commandments possible to be kept That their thirty nine Articles are patient nay ambitious of some sense wherein they may seem Catholique That to alledge the necessity of wife and children in these dayes is but a weak plea for a married Minister to compass a Benefice That Calvinism is at length accounted Heresie and little less than Treason That men in talk and writing use willingly the once fearful names of Priests and Altars That they are now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers which if they do with sincerity it is easie to tell what doom will pass against Protestants seeing by the confession of Protestants the Fathers are on the Papists side which the Answerer to some so clearly demonstrated that they remained convinced In fine as the Samaritans saw in the Disciples countenances that they meant to go to Jerusalem so you pretend it is even legible in the fore-heads of these men that they are even going nay making haste to Rome Which scurrilous Libel void of all truth discretion and honesty what effect it may have wrought what credit it may have gained with credulous Papists who dream what they desire and believe their own dreams or with ill-affected jealous and weak Protestants I cannot tell But one thing I dare boldly say that you your self did never believe it 21. For did you indeed conceive or had any probable hope that such men as you describe men of worth of learning and authority too were friends and favourers of your Religion and inclinable to your Party Can any imagine that you would proclaim it and bid the world take heed of them Sic notus Ulysses Do we know the Jesuits no better than so What are they turned prevaricators against their own Faction Are they likely men to betray and expose their own Agents and Instruments and to awaken the eyes of Jealousie and to raise the clamor of the people against them Certainly your Zeal to the See of Rome testified by your fourth Vow of special obedience to the Pope proper to your Order and your cunning carriage of all affairs for the greater advantage and advancement of that See are clear demonstrations that if you had thought thus you would never have said so The truth is they that run to extreams in opposition against you they that pull down your infallibility and set up their own they that declaim against your tyranny and exercise it themselves over others are the Adversaries that give you greatest advantage and such as you love to deal with whereas upon men of temper and moderation such as will oppose nothing because you maintain it but will draw as neer to you that they may draw you to them as the truth will suffer them such as require of Christians to believe only in Christ and will damn no Man nor Doctrine without express and certain warrant from God upon such as these you know not how to fasten but if you chance to have conference with any such which yet as much as possibly you can you avoid and decline you are very speedily put to silence and see the indefensible weakness of your cause laid open to all men And this I verily believe is the true reason that you thus rave and rage against them as foreseeing your time of prevailing or even of subsisting would be short if other Adversaries gave you no more advantage than they do 22. In which perswasion also I am much confirmed by consideration of the silliness and poorness of those Suggestions and partly of the apparent vanity and falshood of them which you offer in justification of this wicked Calumny For what if out devotion towards God out of a desire that he should be worshipped as in Spirit and truth in the first place so also in the beauty of holiness what if out of fear that too much simplicity and nakedness in the publique Service of God may beget in the ordinary sort of men a dull and stupid irreverence and out of hope that the outward state and glory of it being well-disposed and wisely moderated may ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto God's Soveraign Majesty and Power what if out of a perswasion and desire that Papists may be won over to us the sooner by the removing of this scandall out of their way and out of an holy jealousie that the weaker sort of Protestants might be the easier seduced to them by the magnificence and pomp of their Church-service in case it were not removed I say What if out of these considerations the Governours of our Church more of late than formerly have set themselves to adorn and beautifie the places where God's Honour dwels and
MAndetur Typis hic Liber cui Titulus The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation In quo nihil occurrit à bonis Moribus à Doctrinâ Disciplinâ in Ecclesiâ Anglicanâ assertis alienum RICH. BAILIE Vicecan Oxon. PErlegi hunc Librum cui Titulus est The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation In quo nihil reperio Doctrinae vel Disciplinae Ecclesiae Anglicanae adversum sed quamplurima quae Fidem Orthodoxam egregiè illustrant adversantia glossemata acutè perspicuè modestè dissipant Jo. PRIDEAUX S.T.P. Regius Oxon. EGo Samuel Fell Publicus Theol. Professor in Univ. Oxon. ordinarius Praelector D. Marg. Comitiss Richmondiae perlegi Librum cui Titulus est The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation In quo nihil reperio Doctrinae vel Disciplinae Ecclesiae Anglicanae aut bonis Moribus adversum sed multa nervosè modestè eventilata contra Adversarios nostrae Ecclesiae veritatis Catholicae quam felicitèr tuetur Dat. 14º Octob. 1637. SAM FELL Fiat secunda Editio juxta hoc Exemplar Ex. Aedib London Feb. 6. 1637. SAM BAKER PErlegi hunc Librum cui Tit. The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation item Novem Consciones nuperimè additas In quibus omnibus nihil reperio Doctrinae vel Disciplinae Ecclesiae Anglicanae contrarium quo minus cum summâ omnium utilitate Imprimatur Ex. Aed Lambeth 16. Octob. 1663. G. STRADLING S.T.P. Reverendis in Christo Pat. D. Gilb. Archiep. Cant. à Sac. Domest THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS A Safe way to Salvation OR An ANSWER to a Book Entituled Mercy and Truth or Charity maintain'd by Catholiques Which pretends to prove the Contrary To which is Added in this Third Impression The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy AS ALSO IX SERMONS The First Preached before His Majesty King CHARLES the First the other Eight upon special and eminent Occasions BY William Chillingworth Master of Arts of the University of OXFORD Isaac Casaubon in Epist ad Card. Perron Regis JACOBI nomine scriptâ Rex arbitratur rerum absolutè necessariarum ad salutem non magnum esse numerum Quare existimat ejus Majestas nullam ad incundam concordiam breviorem viam fore quà m si diligentèr separentur necessaria à non necessariis ut de necessariis conveniat omnis opera insumatur in non necessariis libertati Christianae locus detur Simplicitèr necessaria Rex appellat quae vel expressè verbum Dei praecipit credenda faciendave vel ex verbo Dei necessariâ consequentiâ vetus Ecclesia elicuit Si ad decidendas hodiernas Controversias haec distinctio adhiberetur jus divinum à positivo seu Ecclesiastico candidè separaretur non videtur de iis quae sunt absolutè necessaria inter pios moderatos viros longa aut acris contentio futura Nam pauce illa sunt ut modò dicebamus ferè ex aequo omnibus probantur qui se Christianos dici postulant Atque istam distinctionem Sereniss Rex tanti putat esse momenti ad minuendas Controversias quae hodiè Ecclesiam Dei tantopere exercent ut omnium pacis studiosorum judicet officium esse diligentissimè hanc explicare docere urgere LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for J. Clark and are to be sold by Thomas Thornicroft at the sign of the Eagle and Child in St. Pauls Church-yard near the little North-door M.DC.LXIV TO THE Most HIGH and MIGHTY PRINCE CHALES By the Grace of God KING of Great-Britain France and Ireland Defendor of the Faith c. May it please your most Excellent Majesty I Present with all humility to Your most Sacred hands a Defence of that Cause which is and ought to be infinitely dearer to you than all the World Not doubting but upon this Dedication I shall be censured for a double boldness both for undertaking so great a Work so far beyond my weak abilities and again for presenting it to such a Patron whose judgement I ought to fear more than any Adversary But for the first it is a satisfaction to my self and may be to others that I was not drawn to it out of any vain opinion of myself whose personal defects are the only thing which I presume to know but undertook it in obedience in Him who said Tu conversus confirma fratres not to St. Peter only but to all men being encouraged also to it by the goodness of the Cause which is able to make a weak man strong To the belief hereof I was not led partially or by chance as many are by the prejudice and prepossession of their Country Education and such like inducements which if they lead to Truth in one place perhaps lead to Error in a hundred but having with the greatest equality and indifferency made enquiry and grounds on both Sides I was willing to impart to others that satisfaction which was given to my self For my inscribing to it Your Majesties Sacred Name I should labour much in my excuse of it from high presumption had it not some appearance of Title to your Majesties Patronage and protection as being a Defence of that Book which by special order from Your Majesty was written some years since chiefly for the general good but peradventure not without some aime at the recovery of One of Your meanest Subjects from dangerous deviation and so due unto Your Majesty as the fruit of Your own High Humility and most Royal Charity Besides it is in a manner nothing else but a pursuance of and a superstruction upon that blessed Doctrine wherewith I have adorned and armed the Frontispice of my Book which was so earnestly recommended to Your Royal Father of happy memory to all the lovers of Truth and Peace that is to all that were like Himself as the only hopeful means of healing the Breaches of Christendome whereof the Enemy of souls makes such pestilent advantage The lustre of this blessed Doctrine I have endeavoured to uncloud and unvail and to free it from those mists and fumes which have been raised to obscure it by one of that Order which envenomes even poison it self and makes the Roman Religion much more malignant and turbulent than otherwise it would be whose very Rule and Doctrine obliges them to make all men as much as lies in them subjects unto Kings and servants unto Christ no farther than it shall please the Pope So that whether Your Majesty be considered either as a Pious Son towards Your Royall Father King James or as a tender hearted and compassionate Son towards Your distressed Mother the Catholique Church or as a King of Your Subjects or as a Servant unto Christ this Work to which I can give no other commendation but that it was intended to do You service in all these capacities may pretend not unreasonably to Your Gracious acceptance Lastly being a Defence of that whole Church and Religion You profess it could not be so proper to any
only sayes That there are some points so Fundamental as that all are obliged to know and believe them explicitely but never tels us whether there be any other points of Faith which a man may deny or disbelieve though they be sufficiently presented to his understanding as truths revealed or testified by Almighty God which was the only thing in question For if it be damnable as certainly it is to deny or disbelieve any one truth witnessed by Almighty God though the thing be not in it self of any great consequence or moment and since of two disagreeing in matters of Faith one must necessarily deny some such truth it clearly followes that amongst men of different Faiths or Religions one only can be saved though their difference consist of divers or but even one point which is not in his own nature Fundamental as I declare at large in divers places of my first Part. So that it is clear D. Potter even in this his last refuge and distinction never comes to the point in question to say nothing that he himself doth quite overthrow it and plainly contradict his whole designe as I shew in the third Chapter of my first Part. 4. And as for D. Potter's manner of handling those very points which are utterly beside the purpose it consists only in bringing vulgar mean Objections which have been answered a thousand times yea and some of them are clearly answered even in Charity Mistaken but he takes no knowledge at all of any such answers and much less doth he apply himself to confute them He alledgeth also Authors with so great corruption and fraud as I would not have believed if I had not found it by clear and frequent experience In his second Edition he hath indeed left out one or two gross corruptions amongst many others no less notorious having as it seems been warned by some friends that they could not stand with his credit but even in this his second Edition he retracts them not at all nor declares that he was mistaken in the First and so his Reader of the first Edition shall ever be deceived by him though withall he read the Second For preventing of which inconvenience I have thought it necessary to take notice of them and to discover them in my Reply 5. And for conclusion of this point I will only say that D. Potter might well have spared his pains if he had ingenuously acknowledged where the whole substance yea and sometime the very words and phrases of his Book may be found in far briefer manner namely in a Sermon of D. Usher's preached before our late Soveraign Lord King James the 20. of June 1624. at Wansted containing A Declaration of the Universality of the Church of Christ and the Unity of Faith professed therein which Sermon having been roundly and wittily confuted by a Catholique Divine under the name of Paulus Veridicus within the compass of about four sheets of Paper D. Potter's Answer to Charity Mistaken was in effect confuted before it appeared And this may suffice for a general Censure of his Answer to Charity Mistaken Concerning my Reply 6. For the second touching my Reply if you wonder at the Bulk thereof compared either with Charity Mistaken or D. Potter's Answer I desire you to consider well of what now I am about to say and then I hope you will see that I was cast upon a meer necessity of not being so short as otherwise might peradventure be desired Charity Mistaken is short I grant and yet very full and large for as much as concerned his design which you see was not to treat of particular Controversies in Religion no not so much as to debate whether or no the Romane Church be the only true Church of Christ which indeed would have required a larger Volume as I have understood there was one then coming forth if it had not been prevented by the Treatise of Charity Mistaken which seemed to make the other intended work a little less seasonable at that time But Charity Mistaken proves only in General out of some Universal Principles well backed and made good by choice and solid Authorities that of two disagreeing in points of Faith one only without repentance can be saved which aim exacted no great bulk And as for D. Potter's Answer even that also is not so short as it may seem For if his marginal notes printed in a small letter were transferred into the Text the Book would appear to be of some bulk though indeed it might have been very short if he had kept himself to the point treated by Charity Mistaken as shall be declared anon But contrarily because the question debated betwixt Charity Mistaken and D. Potter is a point of the highest consequence that can be imagined and in regard that there is not a more pernitious Heresie or rather indeed ground of Atheism than a perswasion that men of different Religions may be saved if otherwise forsooth they lead a kind of civil and moral life I conceive that my chief endeavour was not to be employed in answering D. Potter but that it was necessary to handle the Question it self somewhat at large and not only to prove in geral that both Protestants and Catholiques cannot be saved but to shew also that Salvation cannot be hoped for out of the Catholique Roman Church and yet withall not to omit to answer all the particulars of D. Potter's Book which may any way import To this end I thought it fit to divide my Reply into two Parts in the former whereof the main question is handled by a continued discourse without stepping aside to confute the particulars of D. Potter's Answer though yet so as even that in this first Part I omit not to answer such passages of his as I find directly in my way and naturally belong to the points whereof I treat and in the second Part I answer D. Potter's Treatise Section by Section as they lie in order I here therefore intreat the Reader that if heartily he desire satisfaction in this so important Question he do not content himself with that which I say to D. Potter in my second Part but that he take the First before him either all ot at least so much as may serve most to his purpose of being satisfied in those doubts which press him most For which purpose I have caused a Table of the Chapters of the first Part together with their Titles and Arguments to be prefixed before my Reply 7. This was then a chief reason why I could not be very short But yet there wanted not also divers other causes of the same effect For there are so several kinds of Protestants through the difference of Tenets which they hold as that if a man convince but one kind of them the rest will conceive themselves to be as truly unsatisfied and even unspoken to as if nothing had been said therein at all As for example Some hold a necessity of a perpetual
will assure him that if he keep himself to the point of every diffficulty and not weary the Reader and overcharge his margent with unnecessary quotations of Authors in Greek and Latine and sometime also in Italian and French together with Proverbs Sentences of Poets and such Grammatical stuff nor affect to cite a multitude of our Catholique School-Divines to no purpose at all his Book will not exceed a competent size nor will any man in reason be offended with that length which is regulated by necessity Again before he come to set down his answer or propose his Arguments let him consider very well what may be replyed and whether his own objections may not be retorted against himself as the Reader will perceive to have hapned often to his disadvantage in my Reply against him But especially I expect and Truth it self exacts at his hand that he speak clearly and distinctly and not seek to walk in darkness so to delude and deceive his Reader now saying and then denying and alwayes speaking with such ambiguity as that his greatest care may seem to consist in a certain Art to find a shift as his occasions might chance either now or hereafter to require and as he might fall out to be urged by diversity of several Arguments And to the end it may appear that I deal plainly as I would have him also do I desire that he declare himself concerning these points 11. First whether our Saviour Christ have not alwayes had and be not ever to have a visible true Church on earth and whether the contrary Doctrine be not a damnable heresie 12. Secondly what visible Church there was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman Church and agreeing with the pretended Church of Protestants 13. Thirdly Since he will be forced to grant That there can be assigned no visible true Church of Christ distinct from the Church of Rome and such Churches as agreed with her when Luther first appeared whether it doth not follow that she hath not erred Fundamentally because every such error destroyes the nature and beeing of the Church and so our Saviour Christ should have had no visible Church on earth 14. Fourthly if the Roman Church did not fall into any Fundamental error let him tell us how it can be damnable to live in her Communion or to maintain errors which are known and confessed not to be Fundamental or damnable 15. Fiftly if her Errors were not damnable nor did exclude salvation how can they be excused from Schism who forsook her Communion upon pretence of errors which were not damnable 16. Sixthly if D. Potter have a minde to say That her Errors are Damnable or Fundamental let him do us so much charity as to tell us in particular what those Fundamental errors be But he must still remember and my self must be excused for repeating it that if he say The Roman Church erred Fundamentally he will not be able to shew that Christ our Lord had any visible Church on earth when Luther appeared and let him tell us How Protestants had or can have any Church which was universal and extended herself to all ages if once he grant that the Roman Church ceased to be the true Church of Christ and consequently how they can hope for Salvation if they deny it to us 17. Seventhly whether any one Error maintained against any one Truth though never so small in it self yet sufficiently propounded as testified or revealed by Almighty God do not destroy the Nature and Unity of Faith or at least is not a grievous offence excluding Salvation 18. Eighthly if this be so how can Lutherans Calvinists Swinglians and all the rest of disagreeing Protestants hope for Salvation since it is manifest that some of them must needs err against some such truth as is testified by Almighty God either Fundamental or at least not Fundamental 19. Ninthly we constantly urge and require to have a particular Catalogue of such Points as he cals Fundamental A Catalogue I say in particular and not only some general definition or description wherein Protestants may perhaps agree though we see that they differ when they come to assign what Points in particular be Fundamental and yet upon such a particular Catalogue much depends as for example in particular Whether or no a man do not err in some Point Fundamental or necessary to Salvation and whether or no Lutherans Calvinists and the rest do disagree in Fundamentals which if they do the same heaven cannot receive them all 20. Tenthly and lastly I desire that in answering to these Points he would let us know distinctly what is the Doctrine of the Protestant English Church concerning them and what he utters only as his own private opinion 21. These are the Questions which for the present I find it fit and necessary for me to ask of D. Potter or any other who will defend his cause or impugne ours And it will be in vain to speak vainly and to tell me that a Fool may ask more questions in an hour than a Wise man can answer in a year with such idle Proverbs as that For I ask but such questions as for which he gives occasion in his Book and where he declares not himself but after so ambiguous and confused a manner as that Truth it self can scarce tell how to convince him so but that with ignorant and ill judging men he will seem to have somewhat left to say for himself though Papists as he cals them and Puritans should presse him contrary wayes at the same time and these questions concern things also of high importance as whereupon the knowledge of God's Church and true Religion and consequently Salvation of the soul depends And now because he shall not taxe me with being like those men in the Gospel whom our blessed Lord and Saviour charged with laying heavy burdens upon other mens shoulders who yet would not touch them with their finger I oblige my self to answer upon any demand of his both to all these Questions if he find that I have not done it already and to any other concerning matter of Faith that he shall ask And I will tell him very plainly what is Catholique Doctrin and what is not that is what is defined or what is not defined and rests but in discussion among Divines 22. And it will be here expected that he perform these things as a man who professeth learning should do not flying from questions which concern things as they are considered in their own nature to accidental or rare circumstances of ignorance incapacity want of means to be instructed erroneous conscience and the like which being very various and different cannot be well comprehended under any general Rule But in delivering general Doctrins we must consider things as they be ex natura rei or per se loquendo as Divines speak that is according to their natures if all circumstances concurr proportionable thereunto As for example some may for a time have invincible
Protestants is very good Upon these grounds you say C.M. clearly evinces That any least difference in faith cannot stand with salvation and therefore seeing Catholiques and Protestants disagree in very many points of faith they both cannot hope to be saved without Repentance you must mean without an explicite and particular repentance and dereliction of their errors for so C.M. hath declared himself p. 14. where he hath these words We may safely say that a man who lives in Protestancy and who is so far from Repenting it as that he will not so much as acknowledge it to be a sin though he be sufficiently enformed thereof c. From whence it is evident that in his judgement there can be no repentance of an errour without acknowledging it to be a sin And to this D. Potter justly opposes That both Siaes by the confession of both Sides agree in more points than are simply and indispensably necessary to Salvation and differ only in such as are not precisely necessary That it is very possible a man may die in error and yet die with Repentance as for all his sins of ignorance so in that number for the errors in which he dies with a repentance though not explicite and particular which is not simply required yet implicit and general which is sufficient so that he cannot but hope considering the goodness of God that the truth is retained on both Sides especially those of the necessity of Repentance from dead Works and Faith in Jesus Christ if they be put in practice may be an Antidote against the errors held on either Side to such he means and says as being diligent in seeking truth and desirous to find it yet miss of it through humane frailty and die in errour If you will but attentively consider and compare the undertaking of C. M. and D. Potter's performance in all these points I hope you will be so ingenuous as to acknowledge that you have injured him much in imputing tergiversation to him and pretending that through his whole Book he hath not once truly and really fallen upon the Point in Question Neither may you or C. M. conclude him from hence as covertly you do An enemy to souls by deceiving them with ungrounded false hopes of Salvation seeing the hope of salvation cannot be ungrounded which requires and supposes belief and practice of all things absolutely necessary unto salvation and repentance of those sins and errours which we fall into by humane frailty Nor a friend to indifferency in Religions seeing he gives them only hope of pardon of Errours who are desirous and according to the proportion of their opportunities and abilities industrious to find the truth or at least truly repentant that they have not been so Which Doctrine is very fit to excite men to a constant and imâ—artial search of truth and very far from teaching them that it is indifferent what Religion they are of and without all controversie very honourable to the Goodness of God with which how it can consist not to be satisfied with his servant's true endeavours to know his will and do it without full and exact performance I leave it to you and all good men to judge 4. As little justice me-thinks you shew in quarrelling with him for descending to the particular disputes here mentioned by you For to say nothing that many of these Questions are immediately and directly pertinent to the business in hand as the 1 2 3 5 6. and all of them fall in of themselves into the stream of his Discourse and are not drawn in by him and besides are touched for the most part rather than handled to say nothing of all this you know right well if he conclude you erroneous in any one of all these be it but in the Communion in one kind or the Language of your service the infallibility of your Church is evidently overthrown And this being done I hope there will be no such necessity of hearkening to her in all things It will be very possible to separate from her communion in some things without Schism and from her Doctrine so far as it is erroneous without Heresie Then all that she proposes will not be eo ipso fundamental because she proposes it and so presently all Charity Mistaken will vanish into smoak and clouds and nothing 5. You say he was loth to affirm plainly that generally both Catholiques and Protestants may be saved which yet is manifest he doth affirm plainly of Protestants throughout his Book and of erring Papists that have sincerely sought the truth and failed of it and die with a general repentance p. 77 78. And yet you deceive your self if you conceive he had any other necessity to do so but only that he thought it true For we may and do pretend that before Luther there were many true Churches besides the Roman which agreed not with her in particular The Greek Church So that what you say is evidently true is indeed evidently false Besides if he had had any necessity to make use of you in this matter he needed not for this end to say that now in your Church Salvation may be had but only that before Lurhers time it might be Then when your means of knowing the Truth were not so great and when your ignorance might be more invincible and therefore more excusable So that you may see if you please it is not for ends but for the love of truth that we are thus charitable to you 6. Neither is it material that these particulars he speaks against are not fundamental errours for though they be not destructive of salvation yet the convincing of them may be and is destructive enough of his Adversarie's assertion and if you be the man I take you for you will not deny they are so For certainly no Consequence can be more palpable than this The Church of Rome doth err in this or that therefore it is not infallible And this perhaps you perceived your self and therefore demanded not Since they be not fundamental what imports it whether we hold them or no simply But for as much as concerns our possibility to be saved As if we were not bound by the love of God and the love of Truth to be zealous in the defence of all Truths that are any way profitable though not simply necessary to salvation Or as if any good man could satisfie his conscience without being so affected and resolved Our Saviour himself having assured us * Mat. 5.19 That he that shall break one of his least Commandments some whereof you pretend are concerning venial sins and consequently the keeping of them not necessary to salvation and shall so teach men shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven 7. But then it imports very much though not for the possibility that you may be saved yet for the probability that you will be so because the holding of these errors though it did not merit might yet occasion damnation
As the doctrine of Indulgences may take away the fear of Purgatory and the doctrine of Purgatory the fear of Hell as you well know it does too frequently So that though a godly man might be saved with these errours yet by means of them many are made vicious and so damned By them I say though not for them No godly Layman who is verily perswaded that there is neither impiety nor superstition in the use of your Latine-service shall be damned I hope for being present at it yet the want of that devotion which the frequent hearing the Offices understood might happily beget in them the want of that instruction and edification which it might afford them may very probably hinder the salvation of many which otherwise might have been saved Besides though the matter of an Errour may be only something profitable not necessary yet the neglect of it may be a damnable sin As not to regard venial sins is in the Doctrine of your Schools mortal Lastly as venial sins you say dispose men to mortal so the erring from some profitable though lesser truth may dispose a man to errour in greater matters As for example The belief of the Pope's infallibility is I hope not unpardonably damnable to every one that holds it yet if it be a falshood as most certainly it is it puts a man into a very congruous disposition to believe Antichrist if he should chance to get into that See 8. Ad § 3. In his Distinction of point fundamental and not fundamental he may seem you say to have touched the point but does not so indeed Because though he says There are some points so fundamental as that all are obliged to believe them explicitely yet he tels you not whether a man may disbelieve any other points of faith which are sufficiently presented to his understanding as Truths revealed by Almighty God Touching which matter of Sufficient Proposal I beseech you to come out of the clouds and tell us roundly and plainly what you mean by Points of faith sufficiently propounded to a man's understanding as Truths revealed by God Perhaps you mean such as the person to whom they are proposed understands sufficiently to be Truths revealed by God But how then can he possibly choose but believe them Or how is it not an apparent contradiction that a man should disbelieve what himself understands to be a Truth o◠any Christian what he understands or but believes to be testified by God Doctor Potter might well think it superfluous to tell you This is damnable because indeed it is impossible And yet one may very well think by your saying as you do hereafter That the impiety of heresie consists in calling God's truth in question that this should be your meaning Or do you esteem all those things sufficiently presented to his understanding as Divine truths which by you or any other man or any Company of men whatsoever are declared to him to be so I hope you will not say so for this were to oblige a man to believe all the Churches and all the men in the world whensoever they pretend to propose Divine Revelations D. Potter I assure you from him would never have told you this neither Or do you mean by sufficiently propounded as Divine Truths all that your Church propounds for such That you may not neither For the Question between us is this Whether your Churches Proposition be a sufficient Proposition And therefore to suppose this is to suppose the Question which you know in Reasoning is always a fault Or lastly do you mean for I know not else what possibly you can mean by sufficiently presented to his understanding as revealed by God that which all things considered is so proposed to him that he might and should and would believe it to be true and revealed by God were it not for some voluntary and avoidable fault of his own that interposeth it self between his understanding and the truth presented to it This is the best construction that I can make of your words and if you speak of truths thus proposed and rejected let it be as damnable as you please to deny or disbelieve them But then I cannot but be amaz'd to hear you say That D. Potter never tells you whether there be any other Points of faith besides those which we are bound to believe explicitely which a man may deny or disbelieve though they be sufficiently presented to his understanding as truths revealed or testified by Almighty God seeing the light it self is not more clear than D. Potter's Declaration of himself for the Negative in this Question p. 245 246 247 249 250. of his Book Where he treats at large of this very Argument beginning his discourse thus It seems fundamental to the faith and for the salvation of every member of the Church that he acknowledge and believe all such points of faith as whereof he may be convinced that they belong to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ To this conviction he requires three things Clear Revelation Sufficient Proposition and Capacity and Understanding in the Hearer For want of clear Revelation he frees the Church before Christ and the Disciples of Christ from any damnable errour though they believed not those things which he that should now deny were no Christian To Sufficient Proposition he requires two things 1. That the points be perspicuously laid open in themselves 2. So forcibly as may serve to remove reasonable doubts to the contrary and to satisfie a teachable mind concerning it against the principles in which he hath been bred to the Contrary This Proposition he says is not limited to the Pope or Church but extended to all means whatsoever by which a man may be convinced in conscience that the matter proposed is divine Revelation which he professes to be done sufficiently not only when his conscience doth expresly bear witness to the truth but when it would do so if it were not choaked and blinded by some unruly and unmortified lust in the will The difference being not great between him that is wilfully blind and him that knowingly gainsayeth the Truth The third thing he requires is Capacity and Ability to apprehend the Proposal and the Reasons of it the want whereof excuseth fools and madmen c. But where there is no such impediment and the will of God is sufficiently propounded there saith he he that opposeth is convinced of errour and he who is thus convinced is an Heretique and heresie is a work of the Flesh which excludeth from salvation he means without Repentance And hence it followeth that it is fundamentall to a Christian's faith and necessary for his salvation that he believe all revealed truths of God whereof he may be convinced that they are from God This is the conclusion of Doctor Potter's discourse many passages whereof you take notice of in your subsequent disputations and make your advantage of them And therefore I cannot but say again that it amazeth me to
Adversary Pretending his objections are mean and vulgar and such as have been answered a thousand times But if your cause were good these Arts would be needless For though some of his Objections have been often shifted by men * I mean the Divines of Doway whose profession we have in your Belgick Expurgatorius p. 12. in censura Bertrami in these words Seeing in other ancient Catholiques we tolerate extenuate and excuse very many errors and dâ—vising some shift often deny them and put upon them a convenient sense when they are objected to us in disputations and conflâ—cts with our Adversaries we see no reason why Bertram may not deserve the same equity that make a profession of devising shifts and evasions to save themselves and their Religion from the pressure of truth by men that are resolved they will say somthing though they can say nothing to purpose yet I doubt not to make it appear that neither by others have they been truly and really satisfied and that the best Answer you give them is to call them Mean and vulgar objections 12. Ad § 5. But this pains might have been spared For the substance of his Discourse is in a Sermon of D. Ushers and confuted four years ago by Paulus Veridicus It seems then the substance of your Reply is in Paulus Veridicus and so your pains also might well have deen spared But had there been no necessity to help and peece out your confuting his Arguments with disgracing his Person which yet you cannot do you would have considered that to them who compare D. Potters Book and the Arch-Bishops Sermon this aspersion will presently appear a poor Detraction not to be answered but scorned To say nothing that in D. Potter being to answer a Book by express Command from Royal Authority to leave any thing material unsaid because it had been said before especially being spoken at large and without any relation to the Discourse which he was to Answer had been a ridiculous vanity and foul prevarication 13. Ad § 6. In your sixth Parag. I let all pass saving only this That a perswasion that men of different Religions you must mean or else you speak not to the point Christians of divers Opinions and Communions may be saved is a most pernitious Heresie and even a ground of Atheism What strange extractions Chymistry can make I know not but sure I am he that by reason would inferr this Conclusion That there is no God from this ground That God will save men in different Religions must have a higher strain in Logick than you or I have hitherto made shew of In my apprehension the other part of the Contradiction That there is a God should much rather follow from it And whether Contradictions will flow from the same fountain let the Learned judge Perhaps you will say You intended not to deliver here a positive and measured truth and which you expected to be called to account for but only a high and tragical expression of your just detestation of the wicked Doctrin against which you write If you mean so I shall let it pass only I am to advertize the lesse-wary Reader that passionate Expressions and vehement Asseverations are no Arguments unless it be of the weakness of the cause that is defended by them or the man that defends it And to remember you of what Boethius sayes of some such things as these Nubila mens est Haec ubi regnant For my part I am not now in passion neither will I speak one word which I think I cannot justifie to the full and I say and will maintain that to say That Christians of different Opinions and Communions such I mean who hold all those things that are simply necessary to Salvation may not obtain pardon for the Errors wherein they die ignorantly by a general Repentance is so far from being a ground of Atheism that to say the contrary is to crosse in Diameter a main Article of our Creed and to overthrow the Gospel of Christ 14. Ad § 7 8. To the two next Parag. I have but two words to say The one is that I know no Protestants that hold it necessary to be able to prove a Perpetual Visible Church distinct from Yours Some perhaps undertake to do so as a matter of curtesie but I believe you will be much to seek for any one that holds it necessary For though you say that Christ hath promised there shall de a perpetual Visible Church yet you your selves do not pretend that he hath promised there shall be Histories and Records alwayes extant of the professors of it in all ages nor that he hath any where enjoyned us to read those Histories that we may be able to shew them 15. The other is That Breerelie's great exactnesse which you magnifie so and amplifie is no very certain demonstration of his fidelity A Romance may be told with as much variety of circumstances as a true Story 16. Ad 9 10. § Your desires that I would in this rejoynder Avoid impertinencies Not impose doctrins upon you which you disclaim Set down the substance of your Reasons faithfully and entirely Not weary the Reader with unnecessary Quotations Object nothing to you which I can answer my self or which may be returned upon my self And lastly which you repeat again in the end of your Preface speak as clearly and distinctly and univocally as possibly I can are all very reasonable and shall be by me most punctually and fully satisfied Only I have reason to complain that you give us rules only and not good example in keeping them For in some of these things I shall have frequent occasion to shew that Medice cura teipsum may very justly be said unto you especially for objecting what might very easily have been answered by you and may be very justly returned upon you 17. To your ensuing demands though some of them be very captious and ensnaring yet I will give you as clear and plain ingenuous Answers as possibly I can 18. Ad 11. § To the first then about the Perpetuity of the visible Church my Answer is That I believe our Saviour ever since his Ascention hath had in some place or other a Visible true Church on earth I mean a Company of men that professed at least so much truth as was absolutely necessary for their Salvation And I believe that there will be somewhere or other such a Church to the Worlds end But the contrary Doctrin I do at no hand believe to be a damnable Heresie 19. Ad § 12. To the second What Visible Church there was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman I answer that before Luther there were many Visible Churches in many things disagreeing from the Roman But not that the whole Catholique Church disagreed from her because she her self was a Part of the Whole though much corrupted And to undertake to name a Catholike Church disagreeing from her is to make her no Part of
endevour But because this Supposition though certainly possible is very rare and admirable I say secondly that I am verily perswaded that God will not impute errors to them as sins who use such a measure of industry in finding truth as humane prudence and ordinary discretion their abilities and opportunities their distractions and hinderances and all other things considered shall advise them unto in a matter of such consequence But if herein also we fail then our errors begin to be malignant and justly imputable as offences against God and that love of his truth which he requires in us You will say then that for those erring Protestants which are in this case which evidently are far the greater patt they sin damnably in erring and therefore there is little hope of their Salvation To which I answer that the consequence of this Reason is somewhat strong against a Protestant but much weakned by coming out of the mouth of a Papist For all sins with you are not damnable and therefore Protestants errors might be sins and yet not damnable But yet out of courtesie to you we will remove this rubbe out of your way and for the present suppose them mortal sins and is there then no hope of Salvation for him that commits them Not you will say if he die in them without repentance and such Protestants you speak of Who without repentance die in their Errors Yea but what if they die in their errors with repentance then I hope you will have Charity enough to think they may be saved Charity Mistaken takes it indeed for granted that this supposition is destructive of it self In the place above quoted and that it is impossible and incongruous that a man should repent of those errors wherein he dies or die in those whereof he repents But it was wisely done of Him to take it for granted for most certainly He could not have spoken one word of sense for the confirmation of it For seeing Protestants believe as well as you God's infinite and most admirable perfections in himself more than most worthy of all possible love seeing they believe as well as you his infinite goodness to them in creating them of nothing in creating them according to his own Image in creating all things for their use and benefit in streaming down his favours on them every moment of their lives in designing them if they serve him to infinite and eternal happiness in redeeming them not with corruptible things but the precious blood of his beloved Son seeing they believe as well as you his infinite goodness and patience towards them in expecting their Conversion in wooing alluring leading and by all means which his wisdom can suggest unto him and man's nature is capable of drawing them to Repentance and Salvation Seeing they believe these things as well as you and for ought you know consider them as much as you and if they do not it is not their Religion but They that are too blame what can hinder but that the consideration of God's most infinite goodness to them and their own almost infinite wickedness against him God's Spirit co-operating with them may raise them to a true and sincere and a cordial love of God And seeing sorrow for having injured or offended the person beloved or when we fear we may have offended him is the most natural effect of true love what can hinder but that love which hath oft-times constrained them to lay down their lives for God which our Saviour assures us is the noblest sacrifice we can offer may produce in them an universal sorrow for all their sins both which they know they have committed and which they fear they may have In which number their being negligent or not dispassionate or not unprejudicate enough in seeking the truth and the effect thereof their errors if they be sins cannot but be comprized In a word what should hinder but that that Prayer Delicta sua quis intelligit Who can understand his faults Lord cleanse thou me from my secret sins may be heard and accepted by God as well from a Protestant that dies in some errors as from a Papist that dies in some other sins of Ignorance which perhaps he might more easily have discovered to be sins than a Protestant could his errors to be errors As well from a Protestant that held some error which as he conceived God's word and his reason which is also in some sort God's word lead him unto as from a Dominican who perhaps took up his opinion upon trust not because he had reason to believe it true but because it was the Opinion of his Order for the same man if he had light upon another Order would in all probability have been of the other opinion For what else is the cause that generally all the Dominicans are of one opinion and all the Jesuits of the other I say from a Dominican who took up his opinion upon trust and that such an opinion if we believe the Writers of your Order as if it be granted true it were not a point-matter what opinions any man held or what actions any man did for the best would be as bad as the worst and worst the as good as the best And yet such is the partiality of your Hypocrisie that of disagreing Papists neither shall deny the truth testified by God but both may hope for salvation but of disagreeing Protestants though they differ in the same thing one side must deny God's Testimony and be incapable of salvation That a Dominican through culpable negligence living and dying in his error may repent of it though he knowes it not or be saved though he do not But if a Protestant do the very same thing in the very same point and die in his error his case is desperate The sum of all that hath been said to this Demand is this 1. That no erring Protestant denies any truth testified by God under this formality as testified by him nor which they know or believe to be testified by him And therefore it is an horrible calumny in you to say They call God's Veracity in question For God's undoubted and unquestioned Veracity is to them the ground why they hold all they do hold neither do they hold any opinion so stiffly but they will forgo it rather than this one That all which God says is true 2. God hath not so clearly and plainly declared himself in most of these things which are in Controversie between Protestants but that an honest man whose heart is right to God and one that is a true lover of God and of his truth may by reason of the conflict of contrary Reasons on both sides very easily and therefore excusably mistake and embrace error for truth and reject truth for error 3. If any Protestant or Papist be betrayed into or kept in any Error by any sin of his will as it is to be feared many millions are such Error is as the cause of
should be the holy Scripture or whatsoever else must be indued with an Universal Infallibility in whatsoever it propoundeth for a divine Truth that is as revealed spoken or testified by Almighty God whether the matter of its nature be great or small For if it were subject to Error in any one thing we could not in any other yield it infallible assent because we might with good reason doubt whether it chanced not to err in that particular 8. Thus far all must agree to what we have said unless they have a minde to reduce Faith to Opinion And even out of these grounds alone without further proceeding it undeniably follows that of two men dissenting in matters of faith great or small few or many the one cannot be saved without repentance unless Ignorance accidentally may in some particular person plead excuse For in that case of contrary belief one must of necessity be held to oppose Gods Word or Revelation sufficiently represented to his understanding by an infallible Propounder which opposition to the Testimony of God is undoubtedly a damnable sin whether otherwise the thing so testified be in it self great or small And thus we have already made good what was promised in the argument of this Chapter that amongst men of different Religions one is only capable of being saved 9. Nevertheless to the end that men may know in particular what is the said infallible means upon which we are to relie in all things concerning Faith and accordingly may be able to judge in what safety or danger more or less they live and because D. Potter descendeth to divers particulars about Scriptures and the Church c. we will go forward and prove that although Scripture be in it self most sacred infallible and divine yet it alone cannot be to us a Rule or Judge fit and able to end all doubts and debates emergent in matters of Religion but that there must be some external visible publique living Judge to whom all sorts of persons both learned and unlearned may without danger of error have recourse and in whose judgement they may rest for the interpreting and propounding of Gods Word or Revelation And this living Judge we will most evidently prove to be no other but that Holy Catholique Apostolique and Visible Church which our Saviour purchased with the effusion of his most precious bloud 10. If once therefore it be granted that the Church is that means which God hath left for deciding all Controversies in Faith it manifestly will follow that she must be infallible in all her determinations whether the matters of themselves be great or small because as we said above it must be agreed on all sides that if that means which God hath left to determine Controversies were not infallible in all things proposed by it as truths revealed by Almighty God it could not settle in our minds a firm and infallible belief of any one 11. From this Universal Infallibility of God's Church it followeth that whosoever wittingly denyeth any one Point proposed by her as revealed by God is injurious to his divine Majesty as if he could either deceive or be deceived in what he testifieth The averring whereof were not a Fundamental error but would overthrow the very foundation of all Fundamental Points and therefore without repentance could not possibly stand with salvation 12. Out of these grounds we will shew that although the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental be good and useful as it is delivered and applyed by Catholique Divines to teach what principal Articles of faith Christians are obliged explicitely to believe yet that it is impertinent to the present purpose of excusing any man from grievous sin who knowingly disbelieves that is believes the contrary of that which God's Church proposeth as Divine Truth For it is one thing not to know explicitely something testified by God and another positively to oppose what we know he hath testified The former may often be excused from sin but never the latter which only is the case in Question 13. In the same manner shall be demonstrated that to alleadge the Creed as containing all Articles of Faith necessary to be explicitely believed is not pertinent to free from sin the voluntary denial of any other Point known to be defined by God's Church And this were sufficient to overthrow all that D. Potter alleadgeth concerning the Creed though yet by way of Supererogation we will prove that there are divers important matters of Faith which are not mentioned at all in the Creed 14. From the aforesaid main Principle that God hath alwayes had and alwayes will have on earth a Church Visible within whose Communion Salvation must be hoped and infallible whose definitions we ought to believe we will prove that Luther Calvin and all other who continue the division in Communion or Faith from that Visible Church which at and before Luther's appearance was spread over the world cannot be excused from Schism and Heresie although they opposed her Faith but in one only Point whereas it is manifest they dissent from her in many and weighty matters concerning as well belief as practice 15. To these reasons drawn from the vertue of Faith we will add one other taken from Charitas propria the Vertue of Charity as it obligeth us not to expose our soul to hazard of perdition when we can put our selves in a way much more secure as we will prove that of the Roman Catholiques to be 16. We are then to prove these points First that the infallible means to determine controversies in matters of Faith is the visible Church of Christ Secondly that the distinction of Points Fundamental and not-Fundamental maketh nothing to our present Question Thirdly that to say the Creed contains all Fundamental Points of Faith is neither pertinent nor true Fourthly that both Luther and all they who after him persist in division from the Communion and Faith of the Roman Church cannot be excused from Schism Fifthly nor from Heresie Sixthly and lastly that in regard of the precept of Charity towards one's self Protestants be in state of sin as long as they remain divided from the Roman Church And these six Points shall be several Arguments for so many ensuing Chapters 17. Only I will here observe that it seemeth very strange that Protestants should charge â—s so deeply with Want of Charity for only teaching that both they and we cannot be saved seeing themselves must affirm the like of whosoever opposeth any least Point delivered in Scripture which they hold to be the sole Rule of Faith Out of which ground they must be enforced to let all our former Inferences pass for Good For is it not a grievous sin to deny any one truth contained in Holy Writ Is there in such denial any distinction between Points Fundamental and not-Fundamental sufficient to excuse from Heresie Is it not impertinent to alledge the Creed containing all Fundamental Points of Faith as if believing it alone we
though through the malice of men not always effectual for that the same means may be Sufficient for the compassing an end and not Effectual you must not deny who hold that God gives to all men sufficient means of Salvation and yet that all are not saved I said also Sufficient to determine all Controversies which were necessary to be determined For if some Controversies may for many Ages be undetermined and yet in the mean-while men be saved why should or how can the Churche's being furnisht with effectual means to determine all Controversies in Religion be necessary to Salvation the end it self to which these means are ordained being as experience shews not necessary Plain sense will teach every man that the necessity of the means must always be measured by and can never exceed the necessity of the end As if eating be necessary only that I may live then certainly if I have no necessity to live I have no necessity to eat If I have no need to be at London I have no need of a horse to carry me thither If I have no need to fly I have no need of wings Answer me then I pray directly and categorically Is it necessary that all Controversies in Religion should be determined or is it not If it be Why is the the Question of Predetermination of the immaculate Conception of the Pope's indirect power in Temporalties so long undetermined If not What is it but hypocrisie to pretend such great necessity of such effectual means for the atchieving that end which is it self not necessary Christians therefore have and shall have means sufficient though not always effectual to determine not all Controversies but all necessary to be determined I proceed on farther with you and grant that this means to decide Controversies in Faith and Religion must be endued with an Universal Infallibility in whatsoever it propoundeth for a divine Truth For if it may be false in any one thing of this nature in anything which God requires men to believe we can yield unto it but a wavering and fearful assent in any thing These Grounds therefore I grant very readily and give you free leave to make your best advantage of them And yet to deal truly I do not perceive how from the denial of any of them it would follow that Faith is Opinion or from the granting them that it is not so But for for my part whatsoever clamour you have raised against me I think no otherwise of the Nature of Faith I mean Historical Faith than generally both Protestants and Papists do for I conceive it an assent to divine Revelations upon the Authority of the Revealer Which though in many things it differ from Opinion as commonly the word opinion is understood yet in some things I doubt not but you will confess that it agrees with it As first that as Opinion is an Assent so is Faith also Secondly that as Opinion so Faith is always built upon less evidence than that of Sense or Science Which Assertion you not only grant but mainly contend for in your sixth Chapter Thirdly and lastly that as Opinion so Faith admit degrees and that as there may be a strong and weak Opinion so there may be a strong and weak Faith These things if you will grant as sure if you be in your right mind you will not deny any of them I am well contented that this ill-sounding word Opinion should be discarded and that among the Intellectual habits you should seek out some other Genus for Faith For I will never contend with any man about words who grants my meaning 8. But though the essence of Faith exclude not all weakness and imperfection yet may it be enquired Whether any certainty of Faith under the highest degree may be sufficient to please God and attain Salvation Whereunto I answer That though Men are unreasonable God requires not any thing but Reason They will not be pleased without a down-weight but God is contented if the scale be turned They pretend that heavenly things cannot be seen to any purpose but by the mid-day light But God will be satisfied if we receive any degree of light which makes us leave the works of darkness and walk as children of the light They exact a certainty of Faith above that of sense or science God desires only that we believe the Conclusion as much as the Premisses deserve that the strength of our Faith be equal or proportionable to the credibility of the Motives to it Now though I have and ought to have an absolute certainty of this Thesis All which God reveals for truth is true being a Proposition that may be demonstrated or rather so evident to any one that understands it that it needs it not Yet of this Hypothesis That all the Articles of our Faith were revealed by God we cannot ordinarily have any rational and acquired certainty more than moral founded upon these Considerations First that the goodness of the precepts of Christianity and the greatness of the promises of it shews it of all other Religions most likely to come from the Fountain of goodness And then that a constant famous and very general Tradition so credible that no wise man doubts of any other which hath but the fortieth part of the credibility of this such and so credible a Tradition tells us that God himself hath set his Hand and Seal to the truth of this Doctrine by doing great and glorious and frequent Miracles in confirmation of it Now our Faith is an assent to this Conclusion that the doctrine of Christianity is true which being deduced from the former Thesis which is Metaphysically certain and from the former Hypothesis whereof we can have but a Moral certainty we cannot possibly by natural means be more certain of it than of the weaker of the Premisses as a River will not rise higher than the fountain from which it flows For the Conclusion always follows the worser part if there be any worse and must be Negative particular Contingent or but Morally certain if any of the Propositions from whence it is derived be so Neither can we be certain of it in the highest degree unless we be thus certain of all the Principles whereon it is grounded As a man cannot go or stand strongly if either of his legs be weak Or as a building cannot be stable if any one of the necessary pillars thereof be infirm and instable Or as If a message be brought me from a man of absolute credit with me but by a messenger that is not so my confidence of the Truth of the Relation cannot but be rebated and lessened by my diffidence in the Relatour 9. Yet all this I say not as if I doubted that the Spirit of God being implored by devout and humble prayer and sincere obedience may and will by degrees advance his servants higher and give them a certainty of adherence beyond their certainty of evidence But what God gives as a reward
is impossible to know what Books be Scripture which yet to Protestants is the most necessary and chief Point of all other D. Covell expresly saith Doubtless q In his Defence of Mr. Hookers books art 4. p. 31. it is a tolera le opinion in the Church of Rome if they go no further as some of them do not he should have said as none of them do to affirm that the Scriptures are holy and divine in themselves but so esteemed by us for the authority of the Church He will likewise oppose himself to those his Brethren who grant that Controversies cannot be ended without some external living Authority as we noted before Besides how can it be in us a fundamental Error to say the Scripture alone is not Judge of Controversies seeing notwithstanding this our belief we use for interpreting of Scripture all the means which they prescribe as Prayer Conferring of places Consulting the Originals c. and to these add the Instruction and Authority of God's Church which even by his confession cannot err damnably and may afford us more help than can be expected from the industry learning or wit of any private person and finally D. Potter grants that the Church of Rome doth not maintain any fundamental error against Faith and consequently he cannot affirm that our doctrin in this present Controversie is damnable If he answer that their Tenet about the Scriptures being the only Judge of Controversies is not a Fundamental Point of Faith then as he teacheth that the universal Church may err in Points Fundamental so I hope he will not deny but particular Churches and private men are much more obnoxious to error in such Points and in particular in this that Scripture alone is Judge of Controversies And so the very Principle upon which their whole Faith is grounded remains to them uncertain and on the other side for the self-same season they are not certain but that the Church is Judge of Controversies which if she be then their case is lamentable who in general deny her this Authority and in particular Controversies oppose her definitions Besides among publique Conclusions defended in Oxford the year 1633. to the questions Whether the Church have Authority to determine Controversies in Faith And To interpret holy Scripture The answer to both is Affirmative 27. Since then the visible Church of Christ our Lord is that infallible Means whereby the revealed truths of Almighty God are conveyed to our understanding it followeth that to oppose her definitions is to resist God himself which blessed St. Augustine plainly affirmeth when speaking of the Controversie about Rebaptization of such as were baptized by Heretiques he saith This r De unit Eccles c. 2◠is neither openly nor evidently read neither by you nor by me yet if there were any wise man of whom our Saviour had given testimony and that he should be consulted in this question we should make no doubt to perform what he should say lest we might seem to gain-say not him so much as Christ by whose testimony he was recommended Now Christ beareth witness to his Church And a little after Whosoever refuseth to follow the practice of the Church doth resist our Saviour himself who by his testimony recommends the Church I conclude therefore with this argument Whosoever resisteth that means which infallibly proposeth to us God's Word or Revelation commits a sin which unrepented excludes Salvation But whosoever resisteth Christ's visible Church doth resist that means which infallibly proposeth God's Word or Revelation to us Therefore whosoever resisteth Christ's visible Church commits a sin which unrepented excludes Salvation Now what visible Church was extant when Luther began his pretended Reformation whether it were the Roman or Protestant Church and whether he and other Protestants do not oppose that visible Church which was spread over the World before and in Luther's time is easie to be determined and importeth every one most seriously to ponder as a thing whereon eternal salvation dependeth And because our Adversaries do here most insist upon the distinction of Points Fundamental and not-Fundamental and in particular teach that the Church may erre in Points not-Fundamental it will be necessary to examine the truth and weight of this evasion which shall be done in the next Chapter An ANSWER to the SECOND CHAPTER Concerning the means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our Understanding and which must determine Controversies in Faith and Religion AD § 1. He that would usurp an absolute Lordship and tyranny over any people need not put himself to the trouble and difficulty of abrogating and disanulling the Laws made to maintain the common liberty for he may frustrate their intent and compass his own design as well if he can get the power and authority to interpret them as he pleases and add to them what he pleases and to have his interpretations and additions stand for Laws if he can rule his people by his Laws and his Laws by his Lawyers So the Church of Rome to establish her tyranny over mens consciences needed not either to abolish or corrupt the holy Scriptures the Pillars and supporters of Christian liberty which in regard of the numerous multitude of Copies dispersed through all places translated into almost all Languages guarded with all sollicitous care and industry had been an impossible attempt But the more expedite way and therefore more likely to be successeful was to gain the opinion and esteem of the publique and authoriz'd Interpreter of them and the Authority of adding to them what Doctrin she pleased under the title of Traditions or Definitions For by this means she might both serve herself of all those clauses of Scripture which might be drawn to cast a favourable countenance upon her ambitious pretences which in case the Scripture had been abolished she could not have done and yet be secure enough of having either her power limited or her corruptions and abuses reformed by them this being once setled in the minds of men that unwritten doctrins if proposed by her were to be received with equal reverence to those that were writen and that the sense of Scripture was not that which seemed to mens reason and understanding to be so but that which the Church of Rome should declare to be so seemed it never so unreasonable and incongruous The matter being once thus ordered and the holy Scriptures being made in effect not your Directors and Judges no farther than you please but your servants and instruments alwayes prest and in readiness to advance your designes and disabled wholly with minds so qualified to prejudice or impeach them it is safe for you to put a crown on their head and a reed in their hands and to bow before them and cry Hail Ring of the Jews to pretend a great deal of esteem and respect and reverence to them as here you do But to little purpose is verbal reverence without entire submission and syncere
Priest even until he comes to the very fountain of Priesthood For take any one in the whole train and succession of Ordainers and suppose him by reason of any defect only a supposed and not a true Priest then according to your Doctrine he could not give a true but only a supposed Priesthood and they that receive it of him and again they that derive it from them can give no better than they received receiving nothing but a name and shadow can give nothing but a name and shadow and so from age to age from generation to generation seeing equivocal Fathers beget only equivocal Sons No Principle in Geometry being more certain than this That the unsuppliable defect of any necessary Antecedent must needs cause a nullity of all those Consequences which depend upon it In fine to know this one thing you must first know ten thousand others whereof not any one is a thing that can be known there being no necessity that it should be true which only can qualifie any thing for an object of Science but only at the best a high degree of probability that it is so But then that of ten thousand probables no one should be false that of ten thousand requisites whereof any one may fail not one should be wanting this to me is extreamly improbable and even cousin-german to Impossible So that the assurance hereof is like a Machin composed of an innumerable multitude of pieces of which it is strangely unlikely but some will be out of order and yet if any one be so the whole Fabrick of necessity falls to the ground And he that shall put them together and maturely consider all the possible ways of lapsing and nullifying a Priesthood in the Church of Rome I believe will be very inclinable to think that it is an hundred to one that amongst an hundred seeming Priests there is not one true one Nay that it is not a thing very improbable that amongst those many millions which make up the Romish Hierarchy there are not twenty true But be the truth in this what it will be once this is certain that They which make mens salvation as you do depend upon Priestly Absolution and this again as you do upon the Truth and reality of the Priesthood that gives it and this lastly upon a great multitude of apparent uncertainties are not the fittest men in the world to object to others as a horrible crime That they make mens Salvation depend upon fallible and uncertain foundations And let this be the first retortion of your Argument 68. But suppose this difficulty assoyled and that an Angel from Heaven should ascertain you for other assurances you can have none that the person you make use of is a true Priest and a competent Minister of the Sacrament of Pennance yet still the doubt will remain Whether he will do you that good which he can do whether he will pronounce the absolving words with intent to absolve you For perhaps he may bear you some secret malice and project to himself your damnation for a compleat Italian revenge Perhaps as the tale is of a Priest that was lately burnt in France he may upon some conditions have compacted with the Devil to give no Sacraments with Intention Lastly he may be for ought you can possibly know a secret Jew or Moor or Anti-Trinitarian or perhaps such a one as is so far from intending your forgiveness of sins and salvation by this Sacrament that in his heart he laughs at all these things and thinks Sin nothing and Salvation a word All these doubts you must have clearly resolved which can hardly be done but by another Revelation before you can upon good grounds assure your self that your true Priest gives you true and effectual absolution So that when you have done as much as God requires for your Salvation yet can you by no means be secure but that you may have the ill luck to be damned which is to make Salvation a matter of chance and not of choice and which a man may fail of not only by an ill life but by ill fortune Verily a most comfortable Doctrine for a considering man lying upon his death-bed who either feels or fears that his repentance is but attrition only and not contrition and consequently believes that if he be not absolved really by a true Priest he cannot possibly escape damnation Such a man for his comfort you tell first you that will have mens salvation depend upon no uncertainties that though he verily believe that his sorrow for sins is a true sorrow and his purpose of amendment a true purpose yet he may deceive himself perhaps it is not and if it be not he must be damned Yet you bid him hope well But Spes est rei incertae nomen You tell him secondly that though the party he confesses to seem to be a true Priest yet for ought he knows or for ought himself knows by reason of some secret undiscernâ—ble invalidity in his Baptism or Ordination he may be none and if he be none he can do nothing This is a hard saying but this is not the worst You tell him thirdly that he may be in such a state that he cannot or if he can that he will not give the Sacrament with due Intention and if he does not all is in vain Put case a man by these consideration should be cast into some agonies what advice what comfort would you give him Verily I know not what you could say to him but this that first for the Qualification required on his part he might know that he desired to have true sorrow and that that is sufficient But then if he should ask you Why he might not know his sorrow to be a true sorrow as well as his desire to be sorrowful to be a true desire I believe you would be put to silence Then secondly to quiet his fears concerning the Priest and his Intention you should tell him by my advice that God's goodness which will not suffer him to damn men for not doing better than their best will supply all such defects as to humane endeavours were unavoidable And therefore though his Priest were indeed no Priest yet to him he should be as if he were one and if he gave Absolution without Intention yet in doing so he should hurt himself only and not his penitent This were some comfort indeed and this were to settle mens salvation upon reasonable certain grounds But this I fear you will never say for this were to reverse many Doctrines established by your Church and besides to degrade your Priesthood from a great part of their honour by lessening the strict necessity of the Laitie's dependance upon them For it were to say that the Priests Intention is not necessary to the obtaining of Absolution which is to say that it is not in the Parson's power to damn whom he will in his Parish because by this rule God should supply the defect which
Gods will For so it is in the 4. and 5. v. Call for Simon whose sirname is Peter he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do and at the 33. v. We are all here present before God to hear all things that are commanded thee of God So that though even in his Gentilism he was accepted in his present state yet if he had continued in it refused to believe in Christ after the sufficient revelation of the Gospel to him and God's will to have him believe it he that was accepted before would not have continued accepted still for then that condemnation had come upon him That light was come unto him and he loved darkness more than light So that to proceed a step farther to whom Faith in Christ is sufficiently propounded as necessary to Salvation to them it is simply necessary and fundamental to believe in Christ that is to expect remission of sins and Salvation from him upon the performance of the conditions he requires among which conditions one is that we believe what he hath revealed when it is sufficiently declared to have been revealed by him For by doing so we set to our seal that God is true and that Christ was sent by him Now that may be sufficiently declared to one all things considered which all things considered to another is not sufficiently declared and consequently that may be fundamental and necessary to one which to another is not so Which variety of Circumstances makes it impossible to set down an exact Catalogue of Fundamentals and proves your request as reasonable as if you should desire us according to the Fable to make a coat to fit the Moon in all her changes or to give you a garment that will fit all statures or to make you a Dial to serve all Meridians or to design particularly what provision will serve an Army for a year whereas there may be an Army of ten thousand there may be of one hundred thousand And therefore without setting down a Catalogue of Fundamentals in particular because none that can be given can universally serve for all men God requiring more of them to whom he gives more and less of them to whom he gives less we must content our selves by a general description to tell you what is Fundamental And to warrant us in doing so we have your own example § 19. where being engaged to give us a Catalogue of Fundamentals instead thereof you tell us only in general That all is Fundamental and not to be disbelieved under pain of damnation which the Church hath defined As you therefore think it enough to say in general That all is fundamental which the Church hath defined without setting down in particular a compleat Catalogue of all things which in any Age the Church hath defined which I believe you will not undertake to do and if you do it will be contradicted by your Fellows So in reason you might think it enough for us also to say in general That it is sufficient for any mans salvation to believe that the Scripture is true and contains all things necessary for salvation and to do his best endeavour to find and believe the true sense of it without delivering any particular Catalogue of the Fundamentals of Faith 14. Neither doth the want of such a Catalogue leave us in such a perplexed uncertainty as you pretend For though perhaps we cannot exactly distinguish in the Scripture what is revealed because it is necessary from what is necessary consequently and accidentally meerly because it is revealed yet we are sure enough that all that is necessary any way is there and therefore in believing all that is there we are sure to believe all that is necessary And if we err from the true intended sense of some nay of many obscure and ambiguous Texts of Scripture yet we may be sure enough that we err not damnably because if we do indeed desire and endeavour to find the Truth we may be sure we do so and as sure that it cannot consist with the revealed goodness of God to damn him for error that desires and indeavours to find the Truth 15. Ad § 2. The effect of this Paragraph for as much as concerns us is this That for any man to deny belief to any one thing be it great or small known by him to be revealed by Almighty God for a Truth is in effect to charge God with falshood for it is to say that God affirms that to be Truth which he either knows to be not a Truth or which he doth not know to be a Truth and therefore without all controversie this is a damnable sin To this I subscribe with hand and heart adding withall that not only he which knows but he which believes nay though it be erroneously any thing to be revealed by God and yet will not believe it nor assent unto it is in the same case and commits the same sin of derogation from Gods most perfect and pure Veracity 16. Ad § 3. I said purposely known by himself and believes himself For as without any disparagement of a mans honesty I may believe something to be false which he affirms of his certain knowledge to be true provided I neither know nor believe that he hath so affirmed So without any the least dishonour to Gods eternal never-failing veracity I may doubt of or deny some Truth revealed by him if I neither know nor believe it to be revealed by him 17. Seeing therefore the crime of calling Gods Veracity into question and consequently according to your grounds of erring Fundamentally is chargeable upon those only that believe the contrary of any one point known not by others but themselves to be testified by God I cannot but fear though I hope otherwise that your heart condemned you of a great calumny and egregious sophistry in imputing Fundamental and damnable Errors to disagreeing Protestants Because forfooth some of them disbelieve and directly wittingly and willingly oppose what others do believe to be testified by the Word of God The sophistry of your Discourse will be apparent if it be contrived into a Syllogism Thus therefore in effect you argue Whosoever disbelieves any thing known by himself to be revealed by God imputes falshood to God and therefore errs fundamentally But some Protestants disbelieve those things which Others believe to be testified by God Therefore they impute falshood to God and err Fundamentally Neither can you with any colour pretend that in these words known to be testified by God you meant not by himself but by any other Seeing he only in fact affirms that God doth deceive or is deceived who denyes some things which himself knows or believes to be revealed by God as before I have demonstrated For otherwise if I should deny belief to some things which God had revealed secretly to such a man as I had never heard of I should be guilty of calling Gods Veracity into Question which is evidently false
the means by Protestants appointed I have told you before that all this is vain and hypocritical if as your manner and your doctrin is you give not your selves liberty of judgment in the use of these means if you make not your selves Judges of but only Advocates for the Doctrin of your Church refusing to see what these means shew you if it any way make against the Doctrin of your Church though it be as clear as the light at noon Remove Prejudice eaven the Ballance and hold it eaven make it indifferent to you which way you go to heaven so you go the true which Religion be true so you be of it then use the means and pray for Gods assistance and as sure as God is true you shall be lead into all necessary Truth 87. Whereas you say you neither do nor have any possible means to agree as long as you are left to your selves The first is very true That while you differ you do not agree But for the second That you have no possible means of agreement as long as you are left to your selves i. e. to your own reasons and judgment this sure is very false neither do you offer any proof of it unless you intended this that you do not agree for a proof that you cannot which sure is no good consequence not halfe so good as this which I oppose against it D. Potter and I by the use of these means by you mentioned do agree concerning the sense of these places therefore there is a possible means of agreement and therefore you also if you would use the same means with the same minds might agree so far as it is necessary and it is not necessary that you should agree farther Or if there be no possible means to agree about the sense of these Texts whilst we are left to our selves then sure it is impossible that we should agree in your sense of them which was That the Church is universally infallible For if it were possible for us to agree in this sense of them then it were possible for us to agree And why then said you of the self same Texts but in the page next before These words seem clearly enough to prove that the Church is Universally infallible A strange forgetfulness that the same man almost in the same breath should say of the same words They seem cleerly enough to prove such a Conclusion true and yet that three indifferent men all presum'd to be lovers of Truth and industrious searchers of it should have no possible means while they follow their own reason to agree in the Truth of this Conclusion 88. Whereas you say that It were great impiety to imagine that God the lover of Souls hath left no certain infallible means to decide both this and all o'her differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion I desire you to take heed you commit not an impiety in making more impieties than Gods Commandements make Certainly God is no way oblig'd either by his Promise or his Love to give us all things that we may imagine would be convenient for us as formerly I have proved at large It is sufficient that he denyes us nothing necessary to Salvation Deus non deficit in necessariis nee redundat in superfluis So D. Stapleton But that the ending of all Controversies or having a certain means of ending them is necessary to Salvation that you have often said and suppos'd but never proved though it be the main pillar of your whole discourse So little care you take how slight your Foundations are so your Building make a fair shew And as little care how you commit those faults your self which you condemn in others For you here charge them with great impiety who imagine that God the lover of Souls hath left no infallible means to determine all differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion And yet afterwards being demanded by D. Potter Why the Questions between the Jesuits and Dominicans remain undetermined You return him this cross Interrogatory Who hath assured you that the Point wherein these learned men differ is a revealed Truth or capable of definition or is not rather by plain Scripture indeterminable or by any Rule of Faith So then when you say It were great impiety to imagine that God hath not left infallible means to decide all differences I may answer It seems you do not believe your self For in this Controversie which is of as high consequence as any can be you seem to be doubtful whether there be any means to determine it On the other side when you ask D. Potter Who assured him that there is any means to determine this Controversie I answer for him that you have in calling it a great impiety to imagine that there is not some infallible means to decide this and all other differences arising about the Interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion For what trick you can devise to shew that this difference between the Dominicans and Jesuits which includes a difference about the sense of many texts of Scripture and many other matters of moment was not included under this and all other differences I cannot imagine Yet if you can find out any thus much at least we shall gain by it that general speeches are not always to be understood generally but sometimes with exceptions and limitations 89. But if there be any infallible means to decide all differences I beseech you name them You say it is to consult and hear Gods Visible Church with submissive acknowledgment of her Infallibility But suppose the difference be as here it is whether your Church be infallible what shall decide that If you would say as you should do Scripture and Reason then you foresee that you should be forced to grant that these are fit means to decide this Controversie and therefore may be as fit to decide others Therefore to avoid this you run into a most ridiculous absurdity and tell us that this difference also Whether the Church be infallible as well as others must be agreed by a submissive acknowledgment of the Churches Infallibility As if you should have said My Bretheren I perceive there is a great Contention amongst you whether the Roman Church be infallible If you will follow my advice I will shew you a ready means to end it you must first agree that the Roman Church is infallible and then your contention whether the Roman Church be infallible will quickly be at an end Verily a most excellent advice and most compendious way of ending all Controversies even without troubling the Church to determine them For why may not you say in all other differences as you have done in this Agree that the Pope is supream head of the Church That the substance of the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament is turned into the Body and Blood of Christ That the Communion is to be given to
which doth propose and indeed believe them hath for matter of Faith the essence of a true Church that which doth not hath not Now to this Question though not to yours D. Potter's Assertion if it be true is apparently very pertinent And though not a full and total satisfaction to it yet very effectual and of great moment towards it For the main Question being What Points are necessary to Salvation and Points necessary to Salvation being of two sorts some of simple belief some of Practice and Obedience he that gives you a sufficient summary of the first sort of necessary Points hath brought you half way towards your journies end And therefore that which he doth is no more to be slighted as vain and impertinent than an Architect's work is to be thought impertinent towards the making of a house because he doth it not all himself Sure I am if his Assertion be true as I believe it is a Corollary may presently be deduced from it which if it were embraced cannot in all reason but do infinite service both to the Truth of Christ and the peace of Christendom For seeing falshood and errour could not long stand against the power of Truth were they not supported by Tyranny and worldly advantages he that could assert Christians to that liberty which Christ and his Apostles left them must needs do Truth a most Heroical service And seeing the overvaluing of the differences among Christians is one of the greatest maintainers of the Schisms of Christendom he that could demonstrate that only those Points of Belief are simply necessary to Salvation wherein Christians generally agree should he not lay a very fair and firm foundation of the peace of Christendom Now the Corollary which I conceive would produce these good effects and which flows naturally from D. Potter's Assertion is this That what Man or Church soever believes the Creed and all the evident consequences of it sincerely and heartily cannot possibly if also he believe the Scripture be in any Error of simple belief which is offensive to God nor therefore deserve for any such Error to be deprived of his life or to be cut off from the Churches Communion and the hope of Salvation And the production of this again would be this which highly concerns the Church of Rome to think of That whatsoever Man or Church doth for any error of simple belief deprive any man so qualified as above either of his temporal life or livelihood or liberty or of the Churches Communion and hope of Salvation is for the first unjust cruel and tyrannous Schismatical presumptuous and uncharitable for the second 13. Neither yet is this as you pretend to take away the necessity of believing those verities of Scripture which are not contained in the Creed when once we come to know that they are written in Scripture but rather to lay a necessity upon men of believing all things written in Scripture when once they know them to be there written For he that believes not all known Divine Revelations to be true How doth he believe in God Unless you will say that the same man at the same time may not believe God and yet believe in him The greater difficulty is How it will not take away the necessity of believing Scripture to be the Word of God But that it will not neither For though the Creed be granted a sufficient Summary of Articles of meer Faith yet no man pretends that it contains the Rules of obedience but for them all men are referred to Scripture Besides he that pretends to believe in God obligeth himself to believe it necessary to obey that which Reason assures him to be the Will of God Now Reason will assure him that believes the Creed that it is the Will of God he should believe the Scripture even the very same Reason which moves him to believe the Creed Universal and never-failing Tradition having given this testimony both to Creed and Scripture that they both by the works of God were sealed and testified to be the words of God And thus much be spoken in Answer to your first Argument the length whereof will be the more excusable if I oblige my self to say but little to the Rest 14. I come then to your second And in Answer to it deny flatly as a thing destructive of it self that any Error can be damnable unless it be repugnant immediatly or mediatly directly or indirectly of it self or by accident to some Truth for the matter of it Fundamental And to your example of Pontius Pilat's being Judge of Christ I say the denial of it in him that knows it to be revealed by God is manifestly destructive of this Fundamental Truth that All Divine Revelations are true Neither will you find any error so much as by accident damnable but the rejecting of it will be necessarily laid upon us by areal belief of all Fundamentals and simply necessary Truths And I desire you would reconcile with this that which you have said § 15. Every Fundamental Error must have a contrary Fundamental Truth because of two Contradictory Propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true c. 15. To the Third I answer That the certainty I have of the Creed that it was from the Apostles and contains the Principles of Faith I ground it not upon Scripture and yet not upon the Infallibility of any present much less of your Church but upon the Authority of the Ancient Church and written Tradition which as D. Potter hath proved gave this constant testimony unto it Besides I tell you it is guilty of the same fault which D. Potter's Assertion is here accused of having perhaps some colour toward the proving it false but none at all to shew it impertinent 16. To the Fourth I answer plainly thus that you find fault with D. Potter for his Vertues you are offended with him for not usurping the Authority which he had not in a word for not playing the Pope Certainly if Protestants be faulty in this matter it 's for doing it too much and not too little This presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the words of God the special senses of men upon the general words of God and laying them upon mens consciences together under the equal penalty of death and damnation this Vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the words of God This Deifying our own Interpretations and Tyrannous inforcing them upon others This restraining of the word of God from that latitude and generality and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and the Apostles left them (a) This peâ—â—sâ—asion is no singularity of mine but the doctrin which 〈◊〉 have learned â—â—om Divinâ—s of gâ—eâ—t learning and judgment Let the 〈◊〉 Reader be pleased to peruse the seventh book of Acont de Strat. Satanae And Zanch. his last Oration delivered by him after the composing of the discord
the former sort are not contained in the Creed yet all of the latter sort may be As for your Distinction between Heresies that have been and Heresies that are and Heresies that may be I have already proved it vain and that whatsoever may be an Heresie that is so and whatsoever is so that alwayes hath been so ever since the publication of the Gospel of Christ The Doctrine of your Church may like a Snow-ball increase with rowling and again if you please melt away and decrease But as Christ Jesus so his Gospel is yesterday and today and the same for ever 38. Our Saviour sending his Apostles to preach gave them no other Commission than this Go teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy-Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you These were the bounds of their Commission If your Church have any larger or if she have a Commission at large to teach what she pleaseth and call it the Gospel of Christ let her produce her Letters-patents from heaven for it But if this be all you have then must you give me leave to esteem it both great sacriledge in you to forbid any thing be it never so small or ceremonious which Christ hath commanded as the receiving of the Communion in both kinds and as high a degree of presumption to enjoyn men to believe that there are or can be any other Fundamental Articles of the Gospel of Christ then what Christ himself commanded his Apostles to teach all men or any damnable Heresies but such as are plainly repugnant to these prime Verities 39. Ad § 16 17. The saying of the most learned Prelate and excellent man the Arch-Bishop of Armach is only related by D. Potter p. 155. and not applauded though the truth is both the Man deserves as much applause as any man and his saying as much as any saying it being as great and as good a Truth and as necessary for these miserable times as possibly can be uttered For this is most certain and I believe you will easily grant it that to reduce Christians to Unity of Communion there are but two ways that may be conceived probable The one by taking away diversity of Opinions touching matters of Religion The other by shewing that the diversity of Opinions which is among the several Sects of Christians ought to be no hinderance to their Unity in Communion 40. Now the former of these is not to be hoped for without a miracle unless that could be done which is impossible to be performed though it be often pretended that is unless it could be made evident to all men that God hath appointed some visible Judge of Controversies to whose judgement all men are to submit themselves What then remains but that the other way must be taken Christians must be taught to set a higher value upon these high Points of Faith and Obedience wherein they agree than upon these matters of less moment wherein they differ and understand that agreement in those ought to be more effectual to joyn them in one Communion than their difference in other things of less moment to divide them When I say in one Communion I mean in a common Profession of those Articles of Faith wherein all consent A joynt-worship of God after such a way as all esteem lawful and a mutual performance of all those works of Charity which Christians owe one to another And to such a Communion what better inducement could be thought of than to demonstrate that what was universally believed of al Christians if it were joyned with a love of truth and with holy obedience was sufficient to bring men to heaven For why should men be more rigid then God Why should any error exclude any man from the Churches Communion which will not deprive him of eternal Salvation Now that Christians do generally agree in all those Points of Doctrin which are necessary to Salvation it is apparent because they agree with one accord in believing all those Books of the Old New Testament which in the Church were never doubted of to be the undoubted Word of God And it is so certain that in all these Books all necessary Doctrins are evidently contained that of all the four Evangelists this is very probable but of S. Luke most apparent that in every one of their Books they have comprehended the whole substance of the Gospel of Christ For what reason can be imagined that any of them should leave out any thing which he knew to be necessary and yet as apparently all of them have done put in many things which they knew to be only profitable and not necessary What wise and honest man that were now to write the Gospel of Christ would do so great a work of God after such a negligent fashion Suppose Xaverius had been to write the Gospel of Christ for the Indians think you he would have left out any Fundamental Doctrin of it If not I must beseech you to conceive as well of S. Matthew and S. Mark and S. Luke and S. John as you do of Xaverius Besides if every one of them have not in them all necessary Doctrins how have they complyed with their own design which was as the Titles of their Books shew to write the Gospel of Christ and not a part of it Or how have they not deceived us in giving them such Titles By the whole Gospel of Christ I understand not the whole History of Christ but all that makes up the Covenant between God and man Now if this be wholly contained in the Gospel of S. Mark and S. John I believe every considering man will be inclinable to believe that then without doubt it is contained with the advantage of many other profitable things in the larger Gospels of S. Matthew and S. Luke And that S. Mark 's Gospel wants no necessary Article of this Covenant I presume you will not deny if you believe Irenaeus when he says Matthew to the Hebrews in their tongue published the Scripture of the Gospel When Peter and Paul did preach the Gospel and found the Church or a Church at Rome or of Rome and after their departure Mark the scholar of Peter delivered to us in writing those things which had been preached by Peter and Luke and the follower of Paul compiled in a Book the Gospel which was preached by him And afterwards John residing in Asia in the City of Ephesus did himself also set forth a Gospel 41. In which words of Irenaeus it is remarkable that they are spoken by him against some Heretiques that pretended as you know who do now adays that some necessary Doctrins of the Gospel were unwritten and that out of the Scriptures truth he must mean sufficient truth cannot be found by those which know not Tradition Against whom to say that part of the Gospel which was preached by Peter was written by S. Mark and some other
necessary parts of it omitted had been to speak impertinently and rather to confirm than confute their error It is plain therefore that he must mean as I pretend that all the necessary Doctrine of the Gospel which was preached by S. Peter was written by S. Mark Now you will not deny I presume that S. Peter preached all therefore you must not deny that S. Mark wrote all 42. Our next inquiry let it be touching S. John's intent in writing his Gospel whether it were to deliver so much truth as being believed and obeyed would certainly bring men to eternal life or only part of it and to leave part unwritten A great man there is but much less than the Apostle who saith that writing last he purposed to supply the defects of the other Evangelists that had wrote before him which if it were true would sufficiently justifie what I have undertaken that at least all the four Evangelists have in them all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ Neither will I deny but S. John's secondary intent might be to supply the defects of the former three Gospels in some things very profitable But he that pretends that any necessary Doctrine is in S. John which is in none of the other Evangelists hath not so well considered them as he should do before he pronounce sentence of so weighty a matter And for his prime intent in writing his Gospel what that was certainly no Father in the world understood it better than himself Therefore let us hear him speak Many other signs saith he also did Jesus in the sight of his Disciples which are not written in this Book But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing you may have life in his Name By these are written may be understood either these things are written or these signs are written Take it which way you will this conclusion will certainly follow That either all that which S. John wrote in his Gospel or less then all and therefore all much more was sufficient to make them believe that which being believed with lively faith would certainly bring them to eternal life 43. This which hath been spoken I hope is enough to justifie my undertaking to the full that it is very probable that every one of the four Evangelists hath in his Book the whole substance all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ But for S. Luke that he hath written such a perfect Gospel in my judgment it ought to be with them that believe him no manner of question Consider first the introduction to his Gospel where he declares what he intends to write in these words For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us even as they delivered unto us which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and Ministers of the Word it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of things from the first to write to thee in order most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed Add to this place the entrance to his History of the Acts of the Apostles The former Treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up Weigh well these two places and then answer me freely and ingenuously to these demands 1. Whether S. Luke doth not undertake the very same thing which he says many had taken in hand 2. Whether this were not to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst Christians 3. Whether the whole Gospel of Christ and every necessary Doctrine of it were not surely believed among Christians 4. Whether they which were Eye-witnesses and Ministers of the Word from the beginning delivered not the whole Gospel of Christ 5. Whether he doth not undertake to write in order these things whereof he had perfect understanding from the first 6. Whether he had not perfect understanding of the whole Gospel of Christ 7. Whether he doth not undertake to write to Theophilus of all those things wherein he had been instructed 8. And whether he had not been instructed in all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ 9 Whether in the other Text All things which Jesus began to do and teach must not at least imply all the Principal and necessary things 10. Whether this be not the very interpretation of your Rhemish Doctors in their Annotation upon this place 11. Whether all these Articles of the Christian Faith without the belief whereof no man can be saved be not the Princicipal and most necessary things which Jesus taught 12. And lastly Whether many things which S. Luke hath wrote in his Gospel be not less principal and less necessary than all and every one of these When you have well considered these proposals I believe you will be very apt to think if S. Luke be of credit with you That all things necessary to salvation are certainly contained in his writings alone And from hence you will not chuse but conclude that seeing all the Christians in the world agree in the belief of what S. Luke hath written and not only so but in all other Books of Canonical Scripture which were never doubted of in and by the Church the Learned Arch-Bishop had very just and certain ground to say That in these Propositions which without Controversie are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting Salvation and that we have no cause to doubt but that as many as walk according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable Heresie thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy Faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and upon the Israel of God 44. Against this you object two things The one that by this Rule Seeing the Doctrin of the Trinity is not received universally among Christians the denial of it shall not exclude Salvation The other that the Bishop contradicts himself in supposing a man may believe all necessary Truths and yet superinduce some damnable Heresies 45. To the first I answer what I conceive he would whose words I here justifie that he hath declared plainly in this very place that he meant not an absolute but a limited Universality and speaks not of propositions universally believed by all Professions of Christianity that are but only by all those several Professions of Christianity that have any large spread in any part of the world By which words be excludes from the universality here spoken of the deniers of the Doctrin of the Trinity as being but a handful of men in respect of all nay in respect of any of these Professions which maintain it
And therefore it was a great fault in you either willingly to conceal these words which evacuate your Objection or else negligently to oversee them Especially seeing your friend to whom you are so much beholding Paulus Veridicus in his scurrilous and sophistical Pamphler against B. Usher's Sermon hath so kindly offered to lead you by the hand to the observation of them in these words To consider of your Coinopista or communiter Credenda Articles as you call them universally believed of all these several Professions of Christianity which have any large spread in the World These Articles for example may be the Unity of the Godhead the Trinity of Persons the immortality of the Soul c. Where you see that your friend whom you so much magnifie hath plainly confessed that notwithstanding the Bishop's words the denial of the Doctrin of the Trinity may exclude Salvation and therefore in approving and applauding his Answer to the Bishop's Sermon you have unawares allowed this Answer of mine to your own greatest Objection 46. Now for the foul contradiction which you say the Doctor might easily have espyed in the Bishop's saying he desires your pardon for his oversight sight for Paulus Veridicus his sake who though he set himself to find faults with the Bishop's Sermon yet it seems this he could not find or else questionless we should have heard of it from him And therefore if D. Potter being the Bishop's friend have not been more sharp-sighted than his enemies this he hopes to indifferent Judges will seem no unpardonable offence Yet this I say not as if there were any contradiction at all much less any foul contradiction in the Bishop's words but as Antipheron's picture which he thought he saw in the air before him was not in the air but in his disturbed phansie so all the contradiction which here you descant upon is not indeed in the Bishop's saying but in your imagination For wherein I pray lies this foul contradiction In supposing say you a man may believe all Truths necessary to salvation and yet superinduce a damnable Heresie I answer It is not certain that his words do suppose this neither if they do doth he contradict himself I say it is not certain that his words import any such matter For ordinarily men use to speak and write so as here he doth when they intend not to limit or restrain but only to repeat and press and illustrate what they have said before And I wonder why with your Eagles eyes you did not espy another foul contradiction in his words as well as this and say that he supposes a man may walk according to the rule of holy obedience and yet vitiate his holy Faith with a lewd and wicked Conversation Certainly a lewd Conversation is altogether as contradictious to holy Obedience as a damnable Heresie to necessary Truth What then was the reason that you espyed not this foul contradiction in his words as well as that Was it because according to the Spirit and Genius of your Church your zeal is greater to that which you conceive true doctrin than holy obedience and think simple error a more capital crime than sins committed against knowledge and conscience Or was it because your Reason told you that herein he meant only to repeat and not to limit what he said before And why then had you not so much candour to conceive that he might have the same meaning in the former part of the disjunction and intend no more but this Whosoever walks according to this rule of believing all necessary Truths and holy Obedience neither poysoning his faith of those Truths which he holds with the mixture of any damnable Heresie nor vitiating it with a wicked life Peace shall be upon him In which words what man of any ingenuity will not presently perceive that the words within the parenthesis are only a repetition of and no exception from those that are without S. Athanasius in his Creed tels us The Catholique Faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance and why now do you not tell him that he contradicts himself and supposes that we may worship a Trinity of Persons and one God in substance and yet confound the Persons or divide the substance which yet is impossible because Three remaining Three cannot be confounded and One remaining One cannot be divided If a man should say unto you he that keeps all the Commandments of God committing no sin either against the love of God or the love of his neighbour is a perfect man Or thus he that will live in constant health had need be exact in his dyet neither eating too much nor too little Or thus he that will come to London must go on straight forward in such a way and neither turn to the right hand or to the left I verily believe you would not find any contradiction in his words but confess them as coherent and confonant as any in your Book And certainly if you would look upon this saying of the Bishop with any indifference you would easily perceive it to be of the very same kind and capable of the very same construction And therefore one of the grounds of your accusation is uncertain Neither can you assure us that the Bishop supposes any such matter as you pretend Neither if he did suppose this as perhaps he did were this to contradict himself For though there can be no damnable Heresie unless it contradict some necessary Truth yet there is no contradiction but the same man may at once believe this Heresie and this Truth because there is no contradiction that the same man at the same time should believe contradictions For first whatsoever a man believes true that he may and must believe But there have been some who have believed and taught that contradictions might be true against whom Aristotle disputes in the third of his Metaphysicks Therefore it is not impossible that a man may believe Contradictions Secondly they which believe there is no certainty in Reason must believe that contradictions may be true For otherwise there will be certainty in this Reason This contradicts Truth therefore it is false But there be now divers in the world who believe there is no certainty in Reason and whether you be of their mind or no I desire to be informed Therefore there be divers in the world who believe contradictions may be true Thirdly They which do captivate their understandings to the belief of those things which to their understanding seem irreconcileable contradictions may as well believe real contradictions For the difficulty of believing arises not from their being repugnant but from their seeming to be so But you do captivate your understandings to the belief of those things which seem to your understandings irreconcileable contradictions Therefore it is as possible and easie for you to believe those that indeed are so Fourthly some men may
offered are either innocently or perhaps affectedly ignorant of the contrariety of them for men in such cases easily to swallow and digest contradictions he that denies it possible must be a meer stranger in the world 48. Ad § 18. This Paragraph consists of two immodest Untruths obtruded upon us without shew or shadow of Reason and an evident Sophism grounded upon an affected mistake of the sense of the word Fundamental 49. The first Untruth is that D. Potter makes a Church of men agreeing scarcely in one Point of Faith of men concurring in some one or few Articles of Belief and in the rest holding conceits plainly contradictory Agreeing only in this one Article that Christ is our Saviour but for the rest like to the parts of a Chimaera c. Which I say is a shameless calumny not only because D. Potter in this Point delivers not his own judgment but relates the opinion of others M. Hooker and M. Morton but especially because even these men as they are related by D. Potter to the constituting of the very Essence of a Church in the lowest degree require not only Faith in Christ Jesus the Son of God and Saviour of the World but also submission to his Doctrin in mind and will Now I beseech you Sir tell me ingenuously whether the Doctrin of Christ may be called without blasphemy scarcely one Point of Faith or whether it consists only of some one or few Articles of Belief Or whether there be nothing in it but only this Article That Christ is our Saviour Is it not manifest to all the world that Christians of all Professions do agree with one consent in the belief of all those Books of Scripture which were not doubted of in the Ancient Church without danger of damnation Nay is it not apparent that no man at this time can without hypocrisie pretend to believe in Christ but of necessity he must do so Seeing he can have no reason to believe in Christ but he must have the same to believe the Scripture I pray then read over the Scripture once more or if that be too much labour the New Testament only and then say whether there be nothing there but scarcely one Point of Faith But some one or two Articles of Belief Nothing but this Article only That Christ is our Saviour Say whether there be not there an infinite number of Divine Verities Divine Preecepts Divine Promises and those so plainly and undoubtedly delivered that if any sees them not it cannot be because he cannot but because he will not So plainly that whosoever submits sincerely to the Doctrin of Christ in mind and will cannot possibly but submit to these in act and performance And in the rest which it hath pleased God for reasons best known to himself to deliver obscurely or ambiguously yet thus far at least they agree that the sense of them intended by God is certainly true and that they are without passion or prejudice to endeavour to find it out The difference only is Which is that true sense which God intended Neither would this long continue if the walls of separation whereby the Devil hopes to make their Divisions eternal were pulled down and error were not supported against Truth by humane advantages But for the present God forbid the matter should be so ill as you make it For whereas you looking upon their Points of difference and agreement through I know not what strange glasses have made the first innumerable and the other scarse a number the truth is clean contrary That those Divine Verities Speculative and Practical wherein they universally agree which you will have to be but a few or but one or scarcely one amount to many millions if an exact account were taken of them And on the other side the Points in variance are in comparison but few and those not of such a quality but the Error in them may well consist with the belief and obedience of the entire Covenant ratified by Christ between God and man Yet I would not be so mistaken as if I thought the errors even of some Protestants unconsiderable things and matters of no moment For the truth is I am very fearful that some of their opinions either as they are or as they are apt to be mistaken though not of themselves so damnable but that good and holy men may be saved with them yet are too frequent occasions of our remisness and slackness in running the race of Christian Profession of our deferring Repentance and Conversion to God of our frequent relapses into sin and not seldom of security in sinning consequently though not certain causes yet too frequent occasions of many mens damnation and such I conceive all these Doctrins which either directly or obliquely put men in hope of eternal happiness by any other means saving only the narrow way of sincere and universal obedience grounded upon a true and lively Faith These errors therefore I do not elevate or extenuate an◠on condition the ruptures made by them might be composed do heartily wish that the cement were made of my dearest bloud and only not to be an Anathema from Christ Only this I say that neither are their Points of agreement so few nor their differences so many as you make them nor so great as to exclude the opposite Parties from being Members of one Church Militant and joynt-heirs of the glory of the Church Triumphant 50. Your other palpable untruth is that Protestants are far more bold to disagree even in matters of Faith than Catholique Divines you mean your own in Questions meerly Philosophical or not determined by the Church For neither do they differ at all in matters of Faith if you take the word in the highest sense and mean by matters of Faith such Doctrins as are absolutely necessary to Salvation to be believed or not to be dis-believed And then in those wherein they do differ with what colour or shadow of Argument can you make good that they are more bold to disagree than you are in Questions meerly Philosophical or not determined by the Church For is there not as great repugnancy between your assent and dissent your affirmation and negation your Est Est Non Non as there is between theirs You follow your Reason in those things which are not determined by your Church and they theirs in things not plainly determined in Scripture And wherein then consists their greater their far greater boldness And what if they in their contradictory opinions pretend both to relie upon the truth of God doth this make their contradictions ever a whit the more repugnant I had always thought that all contradictions had been equally contradictions and equally repugnant because the least of them are as far asunder as Est and Non est can make them and the greatest are no farther But then you in your differences by name about Predetermination the Immaculate Conception the Pope's Infallibility upon what other motive do you
thing to any thing 57. Wherein I am yet more confirmed by the Answer you put in his mouth to your next demand How shall I know whether he hold all Fundamental points or no For whereas hereunto D. Potter having given one Answer fully satisfactory to it which is If he truly believe the undoubted Books of Canonical Scripture he cannot but believe all Fundamentals and another which is but something towards a full satisfaction of it That the Creed contains all the Fundamentals of simple Belief you take no notice of the former and pervert the latter and make him say The Creed contains all Fundamentals of Faith Whereas you know and within six or seven lines after this confess that he never pretended it to contain all simply but all of one sort all necessary Points of simple belief Which assertion because he modestly delivers as very probable being willing to conclude rather less than more than his reasons require hereupon you take occasion to ask Shall I hazzard my soul on probabilities or even wagers As if whatsoever is but probable though in the highest degree of probability were as likely to be false as true Or because it is but Morally not Mathematically certain that there was such a Woman as Q. Elizabeth such a man as H. the 8. that is in the highest degree probable therefore it were an even wager there were none such By this reason seeing the truth of your whole Religion depends finally upon Prudential motives which you do but pretend to be very credible it will be an even wager that your Religion is false And by the same reason or rather infinitely greater seeing it is impossible for any man according to the grounds of your Religion to know himself much less another to be a true Pope or a true Priest nay to have a Moral certainty of it because these things are abnoxious to innumerable secret and undiscernable nullities it will be an even wager nay if we proportion things indifferently a hundred to one that every Consecration and Absolution of yours is void and that whensoever you adore the Host you and your Assistants commit Idolatry That there is a nullity in any Decree that a Pope shall make or any Decree of a Council which he shall confirm Particularly it will be at least any even wager that all the Decrees of the Council of Trent are void because it is at most but very probable that the Pope which confirmed them was true Pope If you mislike these Inferences then confess you have injur'd D. Potter in this also that you have confounded and made all one Probabilities and even Wagers Whereas every ordinary Gamester can inform you that though it be a thousand to one that such a thing will happen yet it is not sure but very probable 58. To make the measure of your injustice yet fuller you demand If the Creed contains only points of simple belief how shall you know what points of belief are necessary which direct our practise D. Potter would have answered you in our Saviours words Search the Scriptures But you have a great mind it seems to be dispairing and therefore having proposed your Question will not suffer him to give you Answer but shut your ears and tell him still he chalks out new paths for desperation 59. In the rest of your interlude I cannot but commend one thing in you that you keep a decorum and observe very well the Rule given you by the great Master of your Art Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerat sibi constet One vein of scurrility and dishonesty runs clean through it from the beginning to the end Your next demand then is Are all the Articles of the Creed for their nature and matter Fundamental and the Answer I cannot say so Which Answer though it be true D. Potter no where gives it neither hath he occasion but you make it for him to bring in another question and that is How then shall I know which in particular be and which be not Fundamental D. Potter would have answered It is a vain question believe all and you shall be sure to believe all that is Fundamental 60. But what says now his prevaricating Proxy What does he make him say This which follows Read my Answer to a late Popish Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken There you shall find that Fundamental doctrins are such Catholique verities as principally and essentially pertain to the Faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved They are those Grand and Captital Doctrins which make up our Faith that is the Common Faith which is alike pretious in all being one and the same in the highest Apostle and the meanest believer which the Apostle elsewhere cals The first Principles of the Oracles of God and The form of sound words 61. But in earnest Good Sir doth the Doctor in these places by you quoted make to this question this same sottish answer Or do you think that against an Heretique nothing is unlawful Certainly if he doth answer thus I will make bold to say he is a very fool But if he does not as indeed he does not then But I forbear you and beseech the Reader to consult the places of D. Potter's Book and there he shall find that in the former half of these as you call them varyed words and phrases he declared only what he meant by the word Fundamental which was needful to prevent mistakes and cavilling about the meaning of the word which is metaphorical and therefore ambiguous and that the latter half of them are several places of Scripture imployed by D. Potter to shew that his distinction of Fundamental and not Fundamental hath express ground in it Now of these two places very pertinent unto two very good purposes you have exceeding fairly patcht together a most ridiculous Answer to a Question that D. Potter never dreamed of But the words you will say are in D. Potters Book though in divers places and to other purposes Very true And so the words of Ausonius his obscene Fescennine are taken out of Virgil yet Virgil surely was not the Author of this Poem Besides in D. Potters book there are these words Dreâ—d Soveraign amongst the many excellent vertues which have made your Majesties person so dear unto God c. And why now may you not say as well that in these he made Answer to your former question what Points of the Creed were and what were not Fundamentals 62. But unlâ—ss this question may be answered his doctrin you say serves only either to make men despair or else to have recourse to these whom we call Rapists It seems a little thing will make you despair if you be so sullen as to do so because men will not trouble themselves to satisfie your curious questions And I pray be not offended with me for so esteeming it because as
reality are joyned together Thus one man may consider and love a sinner as he is a man friend benefactor or the like and at the same time not consider him nor love him as he is a sinner because these are acts of our Understanding and Will which may respect their objects under some one formality or consideration without reference to other things contained in the self-same objects But if one should strike or kill a sinful man he will not be excused by alledging that he killed him not as a man but as a sinner because the self-same person being a man and the sinner the external act of murder fell joyntly upon the man and the sinner And for the same reason one cannot avoid the company of a sinner and at the same time be really present with that man who is a sinner And this is our case and in this our Adversaries are egregiously and many of them affectedly mistaken For one may in some Points believe as the Church believeth and disagree from her in other One may love the truth which she holds and detest her pretended corruptions But it is impossible that a man should really separate himself from her external Communion as she is corrupted and be really within the same external Communion as she is sound because she is the self-same Church which is supposed to be sound in some things and to err in others Now our question for the present doth concern only this Point of external Communion because Schism as it is distinguished from Heresie is committed when one divides himself from the External Communion of that Church with which he agrees in Faith Whereas Heresie doth necessarily imply a difference in matter of Faith and belief and therefore to say that they left not the visible Church but her errors can only excuse them from Heresie which shall be tryed in the next Chapter but not from Schism as long as they are really divided from the external Communion of the self-same visible Church which notwithstanding those errors wherein they do in judgment dissent from her doth still remain the true Catholique Church of Christ and therefore while they forsake the corrupted Church they forsake the Catholique Church Thus then it remaineth clear that their chiefest Answer changeth the very state of the question confoundeth internal acts of the Understanding with the external Deeds doth not distinguish between Schism and Heresie and leaves this demonstrated against them That they divided themselves from the Communion of the visible Catholique Church because they conceived that she needed Reformation But whether this pretence of Reformation will acquit them of Schism I refer to the unpartial Judges heretofore (n) Numb 8. alleadged as to S. Irenaeus who plainly saith They cannot make any so important REFORMATION as the Evil of the Schism is pernitious To S. Denis of Alexandria saying Certainly all things should be endured rather than to consent to the division of the Church of God those Martyrs being no less glorious that expose themselves to hinder the dismembring of the Church then those that suffer rather than they will offer sacrifice to Idols To S. Augustine who tels us That not to hear the Church is a more grievous thing than if he were stricken with the sword consumed with flames exposed to wild Beasts And to conclude all in few words he giveth this general prescription There is no just necessity to divide unity And D. Potter may remember his own words There neither was (s) Pag. 75. nor can be any just cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more than from Christ himself But I have shewed that Luther and the rest departed from the Church of Christ if Christ had any Church upon earth Therefore there could be no just cause of Reformation or what else soever to do as they did and therefore they must be contented to be held for Schismatiques 18. Moreover I demand whether those corruptions which moved them to forsake the Communion of the Visible Church were in manners or doctrin Corruption in manners yields no sufficient cause to leave the Church otherwise men must go not only out of the Church but out of the world as the Apostle (t) 1 Cor. 5.10 saith Our blessed Saviour foretold that there would be in the Church tares with choise Corn and sinners with just men If then Protestants wax zealous with the Servants to pluck up the weeds let them first hearken to the wisdom of the Master Let both grow up And they ought to imitate them who as S. Augustine saith Tolerate for the good of (u) Ep. 162. Unity that which they detest for the good of equity And to whom the more frequent and foul such scandals are by so much the more is the merit of their perseverance in the Communion of the Church and the Martyrdom of their patience as the same Saint calls it If they were offended with the life of some Ecclesiastical persons must they therefore deny obedience to their Pastors and finally break with Gods Church The Pastor of Pastors teacheth us another lesson Upon the Chair of Moses (w) Mat. 33. have sitten the Scribes and Pharisees All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you observe yee and do yee but according to their works do you not Must people except against laws and revolt from Magistrates because some are negligent or corrupt in the execurion of the same laws and performance of their office If they intended reformation of manners they used a strange means for the atchieving of such an end by denying the necessity of Confession laughing at austerity of pennance condemning the Vows of Chastity Poverty Obedience breaking Fasts c. And no less unfit were the Men than the Means I love not recrimination But it is well known to how great crimes Luther Calvin Zuinglius Beza and others of the prime Reformers were notoriously obnoxious as might be easily demonstrated by the only transcribing of what others have delivered upon that subject whereby it would appear that they were very far from being any such Apostolical men as God is wont to use in so great a work And whereas they were wont especially in the beginning of their revoult maliciously to exaggerate of the faults some Clergy men Erasmus said well Ep. ad Fratres inferior is Germaniae Let the riot lust ambition avarice of Priests and whatsoever other crimes be gathered together Heresie alone doth exceed all this filthy lake of vices Besides nothing at all was omitted by the sacred Council of Trent which might tend to Reformation of manners And finally the vices of others are not hurtful to any but such as imitate and consent to them according to the saying of S. Augustine we conserve (y) Ep. 116. innocency not by knowing the ill deeds of men but by not yielding conscent to such as we know and by not judging rashly of such faults as we know not If you answer that not corruption in
that those amongst you who were invincibly ignorant of the truth might by Gods great mercy have their errors pardoned and their souls saved And this is all he says and this you confess to be all he says in divers places of your Book which is no more than you your self do and must affirm of Protestants and yet I believe you will not suffer us to inferr from hence that you grant Protestants to have for the substance the true preaching of the Word and due administration of the Sacraments and want nothing fundamental or necessary to salvation And if we should draw this consequence from your concession certainly we should do you injury in regard many things may in themselves and in ordinary course be necessary to salvation to those that have means to attain them as your Church generally hath which yet by accident to these which were by some impregnable impediment debarred of these means may by Gods mercy be made unnecessary 27. Lastly whereas you say that Protestants must either grant that your Church then was the visible Church or name some other disagreeing from yours and agreeing with Protestants in their particular doctrin or acknowledge there was no visible Church It is all one as if to use S. Paul's similitude the head should say to the foot Either you must grant that I am the whole body or name some other member that is so or confess that there is no body To which the foot may answer I acknowledge there is a body and yet that no member beside you is this body nor yet that you are it but only a part of it And in like manner say we We acknowledge a Church there was corrupted indeed universally but yet such a one as we hope by Gods gracious acceptance was still a Church We pretend not to name any one Society that was this Church and yet we see no reason that can inforce us to confess that yours was the Church but only a part of it and that one of the worst then extant in the World In vain therefore have you troubled your self in proving that we cannot pretend that either the Greeks Waldenses Wickliffites Hussites Muscovites Armenians Georgians Abyssines were then the visible Church For all this discourse proceeds upon a false and vain supposition and begs another point in Question between us which is that some Church of one denomination and one Communion as the Roman the Greek c. must be always exclusively to all other Communions the whole visible Church And though perhaps some weak Protestant having this false principle setled in him that there was to be always some Visible Church of one denomination pure from all error in doctrin might be wrought upon prevailed with by it to forsake the Church of Protestants yet why it should induce him to go to yours rather than the Greek Church or any other which pretends to perpetual succession as well as yours that I do not understand unless it be for the reason which Aeneus Sylvius gave why more held the Pope above a Council than a Council above the Pope which was because Popes did give Bishopricks and Archbishopricks but Councils gave none and therefore suing in Forma Pauperis were not like to have their cause very well maintained For put the case I should grant of meer favour that there must be always some Church of one Denomination and Communion free from all errours in doctrin and that Protestants had not always such a Church it would follow indeed from thence that I must not be a Protestant But that I must be a Papist certainly it would follow by no better consequence than this If you will leave England you must of necessity go to Rome And yet with this wretched Fallacy have I been sometimes abused my self and known many other poor souls seduced not only from their own Church and Religion but unto yours I beseech God to open the eyes of all that love the truth that they may not always be held captive under such miserable delusions 28. We see then how unsuccessful you have been in making good your accusation with reasons drawn from the nature of the thing and which may be urged in common against all Protestants Let us come now to the Arguments of the other kind which you build upon D. Potter's own words out of which you promise unanswerable reasons to convince Protestants of Schism 29. But let the understanding Reader take with him but three or four short Remembrances and I dare say he shall find them upon examination not only answerable but already answered The Memorandums I would commend to him are these 30. 1. That not every separation but only a causeless separation from the external Communion of any Church is the Sin of Schism 31. 2. That Imposing upon men under pain of Excommunication a necessity of professing known errours and practising known corruptions is a sufficient and necessary cause of separation and that this is the cause which Protestants alleage to justifie their separation from the Church of Rome 32. 3. That to leave the Church and to leave the external Communion of a Church at least as D. Potter understands the words is not the same thing That being done by ceasing to be a member of it by ceasing to have those requisites which constitute a man a member of it as faith and Obedience This by refusing to communicate with any Church in her Liturgies and publike worship of God This little Armour if it be rightly placed I am perswaded will repel all those Batteries which you threaten shall be so furious 33. Ad § 13 14 15. The first is a sentence of S. Austine against Donatus applyed to Luther thus If the Church perished what Church brought forth Donatus you say Luther If she could not perish what madness moved the sect of Donatus to separate upon pretence to avoyd the Communion of bad men Whereunto one fair answer to let pass many others is obvious out of the second observation That this sentence though it were Gospel as it is not is impertinently applyed to Luther and Lutherans whose pretence of separation be it true or be it false was not as that of the Donatists only to avoid the Communion of bad men but to free themselves from a necessity which but by separating was unavoidable of joyning with bad men in their impieties And your not substituting Luther instead of Donatus in the later part of the Dilemma as well as in the former would make a suspicious man conjecture that you your self took notice of this exception of disparity between Donatus and Luther 34. Ad § 16. Your second onset drives only at those Protestants who hold the true Church was invisible for many ages Which Doctrin if by the true Church be understood the pure Church as you do understand it is a certain truth and it is easier for you to declaim as you do than to dispute against it But these men you say must
contempt Dissimulation Opposition Oppression of them may consist with salvation I truly for my part though I hope very well of all such as seeking all truth find that which is necessary who endeavouring to free themselves from all Errors any way contrary to the purity of Christianity yet fail of performance and remain in some yet if I did not find in my self a love and desire of all profitable truth If I did not put away idleness and prejudice and worldly affections and so examin to the bottom all my opinions of divine matters being prepar'd in mind to follow God and God only which way soever He shall lead me If I did not hope that I either do or endeavour to do these things certainly I should have little hope of obtaining salvation 62. But to oblige any man under pain of damnation to forsake a Church by reason of such errours against which Christ thought it superfluous to promise his assistance and for which he neither denies his grace here nor his glory hereafter what is it but to make the narrow way to heaven narrower than Christ left it Answ It is not for Christ himself hath obliged us hereunto He hath forbad us under pain of damnation to profess what we believe not and consequently under the same penalty to leave that Communion in which we cannot remain without this hypocritical profession of those things which we are convinc'd to be erroneous But then besides it is here falsely supposed as hath been shewed already that Christ hath not promised assistance to those that seek it but only in matters simply necessary Neither is there any reason why any Church even in this world should despair of victory over all errours pernitious or noxious provided she humbly and earnestly implore divine assistance depend wholly upon it and be not wanting to it Though a Triumph over all sin and errour that is security that she neither doth nor can err be rather to be desired than hoped for on earth being a felicity reserved for heaven 63. Ad § 21. But at least the Roman Church is as infallible as Protestants and Protestants as fallible as the Roman Church therefore to forsake the Roman Church for errours what is it but to flit from one erring Society to another Ans The inconsequence of this Argument is too apparent Protestants may err as well as the Church of Rome therefore they did so Boys in the Schools know that à Posse ad Esse the Argument follows not He is equally fallible who believes twice two to be four as he that believes them to be twenty yet in this he is not equally deceived and he may be certain that he is not so One Architect is no more infallible than another and yet he is more secure that his work is right and streight who hath made it by the level than he which hath made it by guess and by chance So he that forsakes the errours of the Church of Rome and therefore renounceth her communion that he may renounce the profession of her errours though he knows himself fallible as well as those whom he hath forsaken yet he may be certain as certain as the nature of the thing will bear that he is not herein deceived because he may see the doctrin forsaken by him repugnant to Scripture and the doctrin embraced by him consonant to it At least this he may know that the doctrin which he hath chosen to him seems true and the contrary which he hath forsaken seems false And therefore without remorse of conscience he may profess that but this he cannot 64. But we are to remember that according to D. Potter the visible Church hath a blessing not to err in Fundamentals in which any private Reformer may fail therefore there was no necessity of forsaking the Church out of whose communion they were exposed to danger of falling into many more and even into damnable errours Answ The visible Church is free indeed from all errours absolutely destructive and unpardonable but not from all errour which in it is self damnable not from all which will actually bring damnation upon them that keep themselves in them by their own voluntary and avoidable fault From such errours which are thus damnable D. Potter doth no where say that the visible Church hath any priviledge or exemption Nay you your self teach that he plainly teacheth the contrary and thereupon will allow him to be no more charitable to Papists than Papists are to Protestants and yet upon this affected mistake your Discourse is founded in almost forty places of your Book Besides any private man who truly believes the Scripture and seriously endeavours to know the will of God and to do it is as secure as the visible Church more secure than your Church from the danger of erring in fundamentals for it is impossible that any man so qualified should fall into any errour which to him will prove damnable For God requires no more of any man to his Salvation but his true endeavour to be saved Lastly abiding in your Churches Communion is so farr from securing me or any man from damnable errour that if I should abide in it I am certain I could not be saved For abide in it I cannot without professing to believe your entire doctrin true profess this I cannot but I must lie perpetually and exulcerate my conscience And though your errours were not in themselves damnable yet to resist the known Truth and to continue in the profession of known errours and falsehood is certainly a capital sin and of great affinity with the sin which shall never be forgiven 65. But neither is the Church of Protestants perfectly free from errours and corruptions so the Doctor confesses p. 69. which he can only excuse by saying they are not fundamental as likewise those in the Roman Church are confessed not to be fundamental And what man of judgment will be a Protestant since that Church is confessedly a corrupted one Ans And yet you your self make large Discourses in this very Chapter to perswade Protestants to continue in the Church of Rome though supposed to have some corruptions And why I pray may not a man of judgment continue in this Communion of a Church confessedly corrupted as well as a Church supposed to be corrupted requires the belief and profession of her supposed corruptions as the condition of her Communion which this Church confessedly corrupted doth not What man of judgment will think it any disparagement to his judgment to preferr the better though not simply the best before that which is stark naught To preferr indifferent good health before a diseased and corrupted state of Body To preferr a field not perfectly weeded before a field that is quite over-run with weeds and thorns And therefore though Protestants have some Errours yet seeing they are neither so great as yours nor impos'd with such tyranny nor maintained with such obstinacy he that conceives it any disparagement to his
judgment to change your Communion for theirs though confessed to have some corruptions it may well be presum'd that he hath but little judgment For as for your pretence that yours are confessed not to be Fundamental it is an affected mistake as already I have often told you 66. Ad § 22. But D. Potter sayes It is comfort enough for the Church that the Lord in mercy will secure her from all her capital dangers but she may not hope to triumph over all sin and errour till she be in heaven Now if it be comfort enough to be secur'd from all capital dangers which can arise only from errour in fundamental points Why were not our first Reformers content with enough but would needs dismember the Church out of a pernitious greediness of more than enough Answ I have already shewed sufficiently how capital danger may arise from errours though not fundamental I add now that what may be enough for men in ignorance may be to knowing men not enough according to that of the Gospel to whom much is given of him much shall be required That the same errour may be not capital to those who want means of finding the truth and capital to others who have means and neglect to use them That to continue in the profession of errour discovered to be so may be damnable though the errour be not so These I presume are reasons enough and enough why the first Reformers might think and justly that not enough for themselves which yet to some of their Predecessors they hope might be enough This very Argument was objected to (a) S. Cyprian Ep. 63. In these words Siquis de antecessoribus nostris vel ignoranter vel simpliciter non hoc observavit tenuit quod nos Dominus sacere Exemplo Magisterio suo docuit potest simplicitati ejus de indulgentia Domini venia concedi noâ—is verò non potest ignosci qui nunc à Domino admoniti instructi sumus S. Cyprian upon another occasion and also by the (b) â—ilfridus to Abbâ—t Colman alleadging that he followeth the example of his Predecessors famous for holiness and famous for mitacles in these words De Patre vestro Columba sequacibus ejus quorum sanctitatem vos imitari reguâ—am ac praecepta coelestibus signis confirmata sequi perhibetis possum respondere Quia multis in judicio dicentibus Domino quòd in nomine ejus prophetaverint dae monia ejecerint virtutes multas seceriat responsurus sit Dominus quia nunquam eos noverit Sed absit ut de patribus vestris hoc dicam quia justius multo est de incognitis bonum credere quam malum Uâ—de illos Dei famulos Deo dilectos esse non nego qui simplicitate rusticâ sed intentione piâ Deum dilexerum Neque illis multum obesse Paschae talem reor observatiam quam diù nullus advenerat qui eis instituti persectioris decreta quae sequerentur ostenderet Quos utique credo siquis tunc ad eos Catholicus circulator adveniret sic ejus monita suisse secuturos quomodo ea quae noverant ac didicerunt Dei mandata probantur suisse secuti Tu autem socii tui si audita decreta sedis Apostolicae imo universalis Ecclesiae haec literis sacris confirmata contemnitis absque ulla dubietate peccatis British Quartodecimans to the maintainers of the Doctrin of your Church and (c) Beda lib 3. Eccl. Hist c. 25. by both this very answer was returned and therefore I cannot but hope that for their sakes you will approve it 67. But if as the Doctor says no Church may hope to triumph over all errour till she be in Heaven then we must either grant that errours not fundamental cannot yield sufficient cause to forsake the Church or you must affirm that all Communities may and ought to be forsaken Answ The Doctor does not say that no Church may hope to be free from all errour either pernitious or any way noxious But that no Church may hope to be secure from all errour simply for this were indeed truly to triumph over all But then we say not that the Communion of any Church is to be forsaken for errors unfundamental unless it exact withall either a dissimulation of them being noxious or a Profession of them against the dictate of Conscience if they be meer errours This if the Church does as certainly yours doth then her Communion is to be forsaken rather than the sin of Hypocrisie to be committed Whereas to forsake the Churches of Protestants for such errours there is no necessity because they err to themselves and do not under pain of Excommunication exact the profession of their errours 68. But the Church may not be left by reason of sin therefore neither by reason of errours not fundamental in as much as both sin and errour are impossible to be avoided till she be in heaven Ans The reason of the consequence does not appear to me But I answer to the Antecedent Neither for sin nor errours ought a Church to be forsaken if she does not impose and injoyn them but if she do as the Roman does then we must forsake men rather than God leave the Churches communion rather than commit sin or profess known errours to be divine truths For the Prophet Ezekiel hath assured us that to say The Lord hath said so when the Lord hath not said so is a great sin and a high presumption be the matter never so small 69. Ad § 23. But neither the quality nor the number of your Churches errours could warrant our forsaking of it Not the quality because we suppose them not fundamental Not the number because the foundation is strong enough to support them Answ Here again you vainly suppose that we conceive your errours in themselves not damnable Though we hope they are not absolutely unpardonable but to say they are pardonable is indeed to suppose them damnable Secondly though the errours of your Church did not warrant our departure yet your Tyrannous Imposition of them would be our sufficient justification For this layes necessity on us either to forsake your company or to profess what we know to be false 70. Our Blessed Saviour hath declared his will that we forgive a private offender seventy seven times that is without limitation of quantity of time or quality of trespasses and then how dare we alledge his command that we must not pardon his Church for errours acknowledged to be not fundamental Ans He that commands us to pardon our brother sinning against us so often will not allow us for his sake to sin with him so much as once He will have us do any thing but sin rather than offend any man But his will is also that we offend all the World rather than sin in the least matter And therefore though his will were and it were in our power which yet is false to
Antiquity of ours A collection of whose testimony we have without thanks to you in your Indices expurgatorii The divine Providence blessedly abusing for the readier manifestation of the Truth this engine intended by you for the subversion and suppression of it Here is no place to stand upon particulars only one general ingenuous confession of that great Erasmus may not be pass'd over in silence Non desunt magni Theologi qui nonverentur affirmare Erasm Ep. lib. 15. Ep ad Godâ—schalcum Ros Nihil esse in Luthero quin per probatos authores defendi possit There want not great Divines which stick not to affirm that there is nothing in Luther which may not be defended by good and allowed authors Whereas therefore you close up this Simile with consider these points and see whether your Similitude do not condemn your Progenitors of Schism from God's visible Church I assure you I have well considered them and do plainly see that this is not D. Potter's similitude but your own and besides that it is wholly made up of mistakes and falshoods and is at no hand a sufficient proof of this great Accusation 92. Let us come now to the second similitude of your making in the entrance whereunto you tell us that from the Monastery D. Potter is fled to an Hospital of persons Universally infected with some disease where he finds to be true what you supposed that after his departure from his Brethren he might fall into greater inconveniences and more infectious diseases than those for which he left them Thus you But to deal truly with you I find nothing of all this nor how it is consequent from any thing said by you or done by D. Potter But this I find that you have composed this your similitude as you did the former of a heap of vain Suspitions pretended to be grounded on our confessions As first that your diseases which we forsook neither were nor could be mortal whereas we assure our selves and are ready to justifie that they are and were mortal in themselves and would have been so to us if when light came to us we had loved darkness more than light And D. Potter though he hope your Church wanted no necessary vital part that is that some in your Church by ignorance might be saved yet he nothing doubts but that it is full of ulcers without and diseases within and is far from so extenuating your errors as to make them only like the superfluous fingers of the gyant of Gath. Secondly that we had no hope to avoyd other diseases like those for which we forsook your company nor to be secure out of it from damnable errors whereas the hope hereof was the only motive of our departure and we assure our selves that the means to be secured from damnable error is not to be secure as you are but carefully to use those means of avoyding it to which God hath promised and will never fail to give a blessing Thirdly that those innumerable mischiefs which followed upon the departure of Protestants were caused by it as by a proper cause whereas their doctrin was no otherwise the occasion of them than the Gospel of Christ of the division of the world The only fountain of all these mischiefs being indeed no other than your pouring out a flood of persecutions against Protestants only because they would not sin and be damn'd with you for company Unless we may add the impatience of some Protestants who not enduring to be torn in pâ—eces like sheep by a company of wolves without resistance choose rather to die like Souldiers than Martyrs 93. But you proceed and falling into a fit of admiration crie out and say thus To what pass hath Heresie brought men who blush not to compare the beloved Spouse of the Lord the only Dove c. to a Monastery that must be forsaken to the gyant in Gath with superfluous fingers But this Spouse of Christ this only Dove this purchase of our Saviours blood this Catholick Church which you thus almost deifie what is it but a Society of men whereof every particular and by consequence the whole company is or may be guilty of many sins daily committed against knowledge and conscience Now I would fain understand why one error in faith especially if not fundamental should not consist with the holiness of this Spouse this Dove this Church as well as many and great sins committed against knowledge and conscience If this be not to strain at gnats and swollow camels I would fain understand what it is And here by the way I desire you to consider whether as it were with one stroke of a spunge you do not wipe out all that you have said to prove Protestants Schismatiques for separating from your Church though supposed to be in some errors not fundamental For if any such error may make her deserve to be compared to a Monastery so disordered that it must be forsaken then if you suppose as here you do your Church in such errors your Church is so disordered that it must and therefore without question may be forsaken I mean in those her disorders and corruptions and no farther 94. And yet you have not done with those similitudes But must observe you say one thing and that is That as these Reformers of the Monastery and others who left the diseased company could not deny but that they left the said communities So Luther and the rest cannot pretend not to have left the visible Church And that D. Potter speaks very strangely when he sayes In a society of men universally infected with some disease they that should free themselves from the common disease could not be therefore said to separate from the society For if they do not separate themselves from the society of the infected persons how do they free themselves frrom the common disease To which I answer That indeed if you speak of the Reformers of a Monastery and of the Desertors of the diseased company as you put the cases that is of those which left these communities then is it as true as Gospel that they cannot deny but that they left the said communities But it appears not to me how it will ensue hereupon That Luther and the rest cannot pretend not to have left the visible Church For to my apprehension this argument is very weak They which left some communities cannot truly deny but that they left them therefore Luther and his followers cannot deny but that they left the visible Church Where me thinks you prove little but take for granted that which is one of the greatest Questions amongst us that is That the Company which Luther left was the whole Visible Church whereas you know we say It was but a part of it and that corrupted and obstinate in her corruptions Indeed that Luther and his followers left off the Practice of those Corruptions wherein the whole Visible Church did communicate formerly which I meant when
if this be a strange matter to you that which I shall tell you will be much stranger I know a man that of a moderate Protestant turn'd a Papist and the day that he did so as all things that are done are perfected some day or other and yet thinks he was no Schismatique for doing so and desires to be informed by you whether or no he was mistaken The same man afterwards upon better consideration became a doubting Papist and of a doubting Papist a confirm'd Protestant And yet this man thinks himself no more to blame for all these changes than a Travailer who using all diligence to find the right way to some remote City where he had never been as the party I speak of had never been in Heaven did yet mistake it and after find his error and amend it Nay he stands upon his justification so far as to maintain that his alterations not only to you but also from you by Gods mercy were the most satisfactory actions to himself that ever he did and the greatest victories that ever he obtained over himself and his affections to those things which in this world are most pretious as wherein for Gods sake and as he was verily perswaded out of love to the Truth he went upon a cerain expectation of those inconveniences which to ingenuous natures are of all most terrible So that though there were much weakness in some of these alterations yet certainly there was no wickedness Neither does he yield his weakness altogether without Apologie seeing his deductions were rational and out of some Principles commonly received by Protestants as well as Papists and which by his education had got possession of his understanding Ad § 40 41. D. Potter p. 81. of his Book to prove our Separation from you not only lawful but necessary hath these words Although we confess the Church of Rome in some sense to be a true Church and her errours to some men not damnable yet for us who are convinced in conscience that she errs in many things a necessity lies upon us even under pain of damnation to forsake her in those errours He means not in the belief of those errours for that is presupposed to be done already for whosoever is convinc'd in Conscience that she errs hath for matter of belief forsaken that is ceased to believe those errours This therefore he meant not nor could 〈◊〉 mean but that whosoever is convinc'd in Conscience that the Church of Rome erres cannot with a good conscience but forsake her in the profession and practice of these errours And the reason hereof is manifest because otherwise he must profess what he believes not and practise what he approves not Which is no more than your self in thesi have divers times affirmed For in one place you say It is unlawful to speak any the least untruth Now he that professeth your Religion and believes it not what else doth he but live in a perpetual lie Again in another you have called them that profess one thing and believe another a damned crew of dissembling Sycophants And therefore in inveighing against Protestants for forsaking the Profession of these errours the belief whereof they had already forsaken what do you but rail at them for not being a damned crew of dissembling Sycophants And lastly § 42. of this Chapter within three leaves after this whereas D. Potter grants but only a necessity of peaceable external obedience to the Declaration of the Church though perhaps erroneous provided it be in matter not of Faith but of Opinions or Rites condemning those men who by occasion of errours of this quality disturb the Churches peace and cast off her Communion Upon this occasion you come upon him with this bitter Sarcasm I thank you for your ingenuous confession in recompence whereof I will do a deed of Charity by putting you in mind into what Labyrinths you are brought by teaching that the Church may err in some points of Faith and yet that it is not lawful for any man to oppose his judgment or leave her Communion though he have evidence of Scripture against her Will you have such a man dissemble against his Conscience or externally deny Truth known to be contained in holy Scripture I answer for him No It is not he but you that would have men do so not he who says plainly that whosoever is convinc'd in Conscience that any Church errs is bound under pain of damnation to forsake her in her profession and practice of these errours but you who find fault with him and make long discourses against him for thus affirming Not he who can easily wind himself out of your Imaginary Labyrinth by telling you that he no where denyes it lawful for any man to oppose any Church erring in matter of Faith for that he speaks not of matters of Faith at all but only of Rites and Opinions And in such matters he sayes indeed at first It is not lawful for any man to oppose his judgment to the publique But he presently explains himself by saying not only that he may hold an opinion contrary to the publique resolution but besides that he may offer it to be considered of so far is he from requiring any sinful dissimulation Provided he do it with great Probability of Reason very modestly and respectfully and without separation from the Churches Communion It is not therefore in this case opposing a mans private judgment to the publique simply which the Doctor finds fault with But the degree only and malice of this Opposition opposing it factiously And not holding a mans own conceit different from the Church absolutely which here he censures But a factious advancing it and despising the Church so farr as to cast off her Communion because forsooth she errs in some opinion or useth some inconvenient though not impious Rites and Ceremonies Little reason therefore have you to accuse him there as if he required That men should dissemble against their Conscience or externally deny a truth known to be contained in holy Scripture But certainly a great deal less to quarrel with him for saying which is all that here he says That men under pain of damnation are not to dissemble but if they be convinc'd in conscience that your or any other Church for the reason is alike for all errs in many things are of necessity to forsake that Church in the Profession and practice of those errours 105. But to consider your exception to this speech of the Doctors somewhat what more particularly I say your whole discourse against it is compounded of falshoods and impertinencies The first falshood is that he in these words avoucheth that no learned Catholiques can be saved Unless you will suppose that all learned Catholiques are convinc'd in conscience that your Church errs in many things It may well be fear'd that many are so convinc'd and yet profess what they believe not Many more have been and have stifled their consciences by thinking
most certain and infallible wherein it surpasseth humane Opinion it must relie upon some motive and ground which may be able to give it certainly and yet not release it from Obscurity For if this motive ground or formal Object of Faith were any thing evidently presented to our understanding and if also we did evidently know that it had a necessary connection with the Articles which we believe our assent to such Articles could not be obscure but evident which as we said is against the nature of our faith If likewise the motive and ground of our faith were obscurely propounded to us but were not in it self infallible it would leave our assent in obscurity but could not endue it with certainty We must therefore for the ground of our faith find out a motive obscure to us but most certain in it self that the act of faith may remain both obscure and certain Such a motive as this can be no other but the divine authority of Almighty God revealing or speaking those truths which our faith believes For it is manifest that God's infallible testimony may transfâ—â—â— Certainty to our faith and yet not draw it out of obscurity because no humane discourse or demonstration can evince that God revealeth any supernatural truth since God hath been no less perfect than he is although hâ—â—â—â— never revealed any of those objects which we now believe 4 Nevertheless because Almighty God out of his infinite wisdom and sweetness doth conour with his Creatures in such sort as may befit the temper and exigence of their natures and because Man is a Creature endued with reason God doth not exact of his Will or Understanding any other then as the Apostle faith rationabile (f) Rom. 12.1 obsequium an Obedience sweetned with good reason which could not so appear if our Understanding were summoned to believe with certainty things no way represented as infallible and certain And therefore Almighty God obliging us under pain of eternal camnation to believe with greatest certainty divers verities not known by the light of natural reason cannot fail to furnish our Understanding with such inducements motives and arguments as may sufficiently perswade any mind which is not partial or passionate that the objects which we believe proceed from an Authority so Wise that it cannot be deceived so Good that it cannot deceive according to the words of David Thy Testimonies are made (g) Psal 92. credible exceedingly These inducements are by Divines called argumenta credibilitatis arguments of credibility which though they cannot make us evidently see what we believe yet they evidently convince that in one wisdom and prudence the objects of faith deserve credit and ought to be accepted as things revealed by God For without such reasons and inducements our judgment of faith could not be conceived prudent holy Scripture telling us that be who soon (h) Eccles 19. â— believes is light of heart By these arguments and inducements our Understanding is both satisfied with evidence of credibility and the objects of faith retain their obsenrity because it is a different thing to be evidently credible and evidently true as those who were present at the Miracles wrought by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles did not evidently see their doctrin to be true for then it had not been Faith but Science and all had been necessitated to believe which we see fell out otherwise but they were evidently convinced that the things confirmed by such Miracles were most credible and worthy to be imbraced as truth revealed by God 5 These evident arguments of Credibility are in great abundance found in the Visible Church of Christ perpetually existing on earth For that there hath been a company of men professing such and such doctrines we have from our next Predecessors and these from theirs upward till we come to the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour which gradation is known by evidence of sense by reading books or hearing what one man delivers to another And it is evident that there was neither cause nor possibility that men so distant in place so different in temper so repugnant in private ends did or could agree to tell one and the self same thing if it had been but a fiction invented by themselves as ancient Tertullian well saith How is it likely that so many (i) Praescript c. 28. and so great Churches should err in one saith Among many events there is not one issue the error of the Churches must needs have varied But that which among many is sound to be One is not mistaken but delivered Dare then any body say that they erred who delivered it With this never-interrupted existence of the Church are joyned the many and great miracles wrought by mâ—n of that Congregation or Church the sanctity of the persons the renowned victories over so many persecutions both of all sorts of men and of the infernal spirits and lastly the perpetual existence of so holy a Church being brought up to the Apostles themselves she comes to partake of the same assurance of truth which They by so many powerful ways did communicate to their Doctrin to the Church of their times together with the divine Certainty which they received from our blessed Saviour himself revealing to Mankind what he heard from his Father and so we conclude with Tertullian We receive it from the Churches the Churches (k) Praese c. 21. 37. from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from his Father And if we once interrupt this line of succession most certainly made known by means of holy Tradition we cannot conjoyn the present Church and doctrin with the Church and doctrin of the Apostles buâ— must invent some new means and arguments sufficient of themselves to find out and prove a true Church and faith independently of the preaching and writing of the Apostles neither of which can be known but by Tradition as is truly observed by Tertullian saying I will prescribe that (l) Praesc c. 22. there is no means to prove what the Apostles preached but by the same Church which they sounded 6 Thus then we are to proceed By evidence of manifest and incorrupt Tradition I know that there hath always been a never interrupted Succession of men from the Apostles time believing professing and practising such and such doctrines By evident arguments of credibility as Miracles Sanctity Unity c. and by all those ways whereby the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour himself confirmed their doctrin we are assured that what the said never-interrupted Church proposeth doth deserve to be accepted and acknowledged as a divine truth By evidence of Sense we see that the same Church proposeth such and such doctrins as divine truths that is as revealed and testified by Almighty God By this divine Testimony we are infallibly assured of what we believe and so the last period ground motive and formal object of our Faith is the infallible testimony of that supreme Verity which
no wonder that no one can be excused from deadly and damnable sin for if voluntary Blasphemy and Perjury which are opposed only to the infused Moral Vertue of Religion can never be excused from mortal sin much less can Heresie be excused which opposeth the Theological Vertue of Faith 11 If any object that Schism may seem to be a greater sin than Heresie because the Vertue of Charity to which Schism is opposite is greater than Faith according to the Apostle saying Now there remain (o) 1 Cor. 13.13 Faith Hope Charity but the greater of these is Charity S. Thomas answers in these words Charity hath two Objects one principal to wit the Divine (p) 2.2 q. 39. ar 2. in corp ad 3. Goodness and another secondary namely the good of our Neighbour But Schism and other sins which are committed against our Neighbour are opposite to Charity in respect of this secondary good which is less than the object of Faith which is God as he is the Prime Verity on which Faith doth relie and therefore these sins are less than Infidelity He takes Infidelity after a general manner as it comprehends Heresie and other vices against Faith 12 Having therefore sufficiently declared wherein Heresie consists Let us come to prove that which we proposed in this Chapter Where I desire it be still remembred That the visible Catholique Church cannot err damnably as D. Potter confesseth And that when Luther appeared there was no other visible true Church of Christ disagreeing from the Roman as we have demonstrated in the next precedent Chapter 13 Now that Luther and his followers cannot be excused from formal Heresie I prove by these reasons To oppose any truth propounded by the visible true Church as revealed by God is formal Heresie as we have shewed out of the desinition of Heresie But Luther Calvin and the rest did oppose divers truths propounded by the visible Church as revealed by God yea they did therefore oppose her because she propounded as divine revealed truths things which they judged either to be false or humane inventions Therefore they committed formal Heresie 14 Moreover every Errour against any doctrin revealed by God is a damnable Heresie whether the matter in it self be great or small as I proved before and therefore either the Protestants or the Roman Church must be guilty of formal Heresie because one of them must err against the word and testimony of God but you grant perforce that the Roman Church doth not err damnably and I add that she cannot err damnably because she is the truly Catholique Church which you confess cannot err damnably Therefore Protestants must be guilty of formal Heresie 15 Besides we have shewed that the visible Church is Judge of Controversies and therefore must be infallible in all her Proposals which being once supposed it manifestly followeth that to oppose what she delivereth as revealed by God is not so much to oppose her as God himself and therefore cannot be excused from grievous Heresie 16 Again if Luther were an Heretique for those points wherein he disagreed from the Roman Church All they who agree with him in those very points must likewise be Heretiques Now that Luther was a formal Heretique I demonstrate in this manner To say that God's visible true Church is not universal but confined to one only place or corner of the world is according to your own express words (q) Pag. 126. properly Heresie against that Article of the Creed wherein we profess to believe the holy Catholique Church And you brand Donatus with heresie because he limited the universal Church to Africa But it is manifest and acknowledged by Luther himself and other chief Protestants that Luther's Reformation when it first began and much more for divers ages before was not Universal nor spread over the world but was confined to that compass of ground which did contain Luther's body Therefore his Reformation cannot be excused from formal Heresie If S. Augustine in those times said to the Donatists There are innumerable testimonies (r) Epist 50. of holy Scripture in which it appeareth that the Church of Christ is not only in Africa as these men with most impudent vanity do rave but that she is spread over the whole earth much more may it be said It appeareth by innumerable testimonies of holy Scripture that the Church of Christ cannot be confined to the City of Wittemberg or to the place where Luther's feet stood but must be spread over the whole world It is therefore most impudent vanity and dotage to limit her to Luthers Reformation In another place also this holy Father writes no less effectually against Luther than against the Donatists For having out of those words In thy seed all Nations shall be blessed proved that God's Church must be universal he saith Why (Å¿) De Unit. Eccles cap. 6. do you superadd by saying that Christ remains heir in no part of the earth except where he may have Donatus for his Coheir Give me this Universal Church if it be among you shew your selves to all Nations which we already shew to be blessed in this Seed Give us this Church or else laying aside all fury receive her from us But it is evident that Luther could not When he said At the beginning I was alone give us an universal Church Therefore happy had he been if he had then and his followers would now receive her from us And therefore we must conclude with the same holy Father saying in another place of the universal Church She hath this (t) Cont. lit Petil. lib. 1. cap. 104. most certain mark that she cannot be hidden She is then known to all Nations The Sect of Donatus is unknown to many Nations therefore that cannot be she The Sect of Luther at least when he began and much more before his beginning was unknown to many Nations therefore that cannot be she 17 And that it may yet further appear how perfectly Luther agreed with the Donatists It is to be noted that they never taught that the Catholique Church ought not to extend it self further than that part of Africa where their faction raigned but only that in fact it was so confined because all the rest of the Church was prophaned by communicating with Caecilianus whom they falsly affirmed to have been ordained Bishop by those who were Traditors or givers up of the Bible to the Persecutors to be burned yea at that very time they had some of their Sect residing in Rome and sent thither one Victor a Bishop under colour to take care of the Brethren in that City but indeed as Baronius (u) Anno 321. nu 2. Spond observeth that the world might account them Catholiques by communicating with the Bishop of Rome to communicate with whom was ever taken by the Ancient Fathers as an assured sign of being a true Catholique They had also as S. Augustin witnesseth a pretended (w) De Uâ—i Eccles c
3. Church in the house and territory of a Spanish Lady called Lucilla who went flying out of the Catholique Church because she had been justly checked by Caecilianus And the same Saint speaking of the conference he had with Fortunius the Donatist saith Here did he first (x) Ep. 163. attempt to affirm that his Communion was spread over the whole Earth c. but because the thing was evidently false they got out of this discourse by confusion of language whereby nevertheless they sufficiently declared that they did not hold that the true Church ought necessarily to be confined to one place but only by meer necessity were forced to yield that it was so in fact because their Sect which they held to be the only true Church was not spread over the world In which point Fortunius and the rest were more modest than he who should affirm that Luther's reformation in the very beginning was spread over the whole Earth being at that time by many degrees not so far diffused as the Sect of the Donatists I have no desire to prosecure the similitude of Protestanes with Donatists by remembring that the Sect of these men was begun and promoted by the passion of Lucilla and Who is ignorant what influence two women the Mother and Daughter ministred to Protestancy in England Nor will I stand to observe their very likeness of phrase with the Donatists who called the Chair of Rome the Chair of pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot which is D. Potter's own phrase wherein he is less excusable than they because he maintaineth her to be a true Church of Christ and therefore let him duly ponder these words of S. Augustin against the Donatists If I persecute him justly who detracts (y) Conc. super gest cum Emerit from his Neighbour why should I not presecute him who detracts from the Church of Christ and saith This is not she but this is an Harlot And least of all will I consider whether you may not be well compared to one Ticonius a Dona i st who wrote against Parmenianus likewise a Donatist who blasphemed that the Church of Christ had perished as you do even in this your Book write against some of your Protestant Brethren or as you call them Zelots among you who hold the very same or rather a worse Heresie and yet remained among them even after Parmenianus had excommunicated him as those your Zealous Brethren would proceed against you if it were in their power and yet like Ticonius you remain in their Communion and come nor into that Church which is hath been and shall ever be universal For which very cause S. Augustin complains of Ticonius that although he wrote against the Donatists yet he was of an heart (z) De doctr Christ lib. 3. cap. 30. so extremely absurd as not to forsake them altogether And speaking of the same thing in another place he observes that although Ticonius did manifestly confute them who affirmed that the Church had perished yet he saw not saith this holy Father that which in good consequence (a) Cont. Parm. l. 1. cap. 1. he should have seen that those Christians of Africa belonged to the Church spread over the whole world who remained united not with them who were divided from the communion and unity of the same world but with such as did communicate with the whole world But Parmenianus and the rest of the Donatists saw that consequence and resolved rather to settle their mind in obstinacy against the most manifest truth which Ticonius maintained than by yielding thereto to be overcome by those Churches in Africa which enjoyed the Communion of that Unity which Ticonius defended from which they had divided themselves How firly these words agree to Catholiques in England in respect of the Protestants I desire the Reader to consider But these and the like resemblances of Protestants to the Donatists I willingly let pass and only urge the main point That since Luther's Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was because so forsooth they will needs have it in the Apostles time they must of necessity affirm heretically with the Donatists that the true and unsported Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O blasphemy an Harlot Moreover the same heresie follows out of the doctrin of D. Potter and other Protestants that the Church may err in points not fundamental because we have shewed that every errour against any one revealed truth is Heresie and damnable whether the matter be otherwise of it self great or small And how can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain a damnable Heresie Besides we will hereafter prove that by any act of Heresie all divine faith is lost and to imagine a true Church of faithful persons without any faith is as much as to fancy a living man without life It is therefore clear that Donatist-like they hold that the Church of Christ perished yea they are worse than the Donatists who said that the Church remained at least in Africa whereas Protestants must of necessity be forced to grant that for a long space before Luther she was no where at all But let us go forward to other reasons 18 The holy Scripture and Ancient Fathers do assign Separation from the Visible Church as a mark of Heresie according to that of S. John They went out (b) 2. Joan. 19. from us And Some who (c) Act. 15.24 went out from us And Out of you shall (d) Act. 20.30 arise men speaking perverse things And accordingly Vincentius Lyrinensis saith Who ever (e) Lib. adversus haer c. 34. began heresies who did not first separate himself from the Universality Antiquity and Consent of the Catholique Church But it is manifest that when Luther appeared there was no visible Church distinct from the Roman out of which she could depart as it is likewise wel known that Luther and his followers departed out of her Therefore she is no way liable to this Mark of Heresie but Protestants cannot possibly avoid it To this purpose S. Prosper hath these pithy words A Christian communicating (f) Dimid temp cap. 5. with the universal Church is a Catholique and he who is divided from her is an Heretique and Antichrist But Luther in his first Reformation could not communicate with the visible Catholique Church of those times because he began his Reformation by opposing the supposed Errors of the then visible Church we must therefore say with S. Prosper that he was an Heretique c. Which likewise is no less clearly proved out of S. Cyprian saying Not we (g) Ep. 57. ad Damas departed from them but they from us and since Heresies and Schisms are bred afterwards while they make to themselves divers Conventicles they have forsaken the head and origin of Truth 19. And that we might not remain doubtful what Separation
HE that will accuse any one man much more any great multitude of men of any great and horrible crime should in all reason and justice take care that the greatness of his Evidence do equal if not exceed the quality of the crime And such an accusation you would here make shew of by pretending first Ad. Sect. 1. to lay such grounds of it as are either already proved or else yielded on all sides and after to raise a firm and stable structure of convincing arguments upon them But both these I find to be meer and vain pretences and having considered this Chapter also without prejudice or passion as I did the former I am enforc'd by the light of Truth to pronounce your whole discourse a painted and ruinous building upon a weak and sandy Foundation 2 Ad § 2 3. First for your grounds a great part of them is falsely said to be either proved or granted It is true indeed that Man by his natural wit or industry could never have attained to the knowledge of Gods will to give him a supernatural and eternal happiness nor of the means by which his pleasure was to bestow this happiness upon him And therefore your first ground is good That is was requisite his understanding should be enabled to apprehend that end and means by a knowledge supernatural I say this is good if you mean by knowledge an apprehension or belief But if you take the word properly and exactly it is both false for faith is not knowledge no more than three is four but eminently contained in it so that he that knows believes and something more but he that believes many times does not know nay if he doth barely and meerly believe he doth never know and besides it is retracted by your self presently where you require That the object of faith must be both naturally and supernaturally unknown And again in the next page where you say Faith differs from science in regard of the object 's obscurity For that science and knowledge properly taken are Synonymous terms and that a knowledge of a thing absolutely unknown is a plain implicancy I think are things so plain that you will not require any proof of them 3 But then whereas you adde that if such a knowledge were no more than probable it could not be able sufficiently to overbear our will and encounter with humane probabilities being backed with the strength of flesh and blood and therefore conclude that it was farther necessary that this supernatural knowledge should be most certain and infallible To this I answer that I do heartily acknowledg and believe the Articles of our faith be in themselves Truths as certain and infallible as the very common Principles of Geometry and Metaphysicks But that there is required of us a knowledge of them and an adherence to them as certain as that offense or science that such a certainty is required of us under pain of damnation so that no man can hope to be in the state of salvation but he that finds in himself such a degree of faith such a strength of adherence This I have already demonstrated to be a great error and of dangerous and pernitious consequence And because I am more and more confirm'd in my perswasion that the truth which I there delivered is of great and singular use I will here confirm it with more reasons And to satisfie you that this is no singularity of my own my Margent presents you with a (a) M. Hooker in his answer to Travers his Supplication I have taught that the assurance of things which we believe by the word is not so certain as of that we perceive by sense And is it as certain Yea I taught that the things which God doth promise in his world are surer unto us than any thing we touch handle or see But are we so sure and certain of them If we be why doth God so often prove his promises unto us as he doth by arguments taken from our sensible experience We must be surer of the proof than the thing proved otherwise it is no proof How is it that if ten men do all look upon the Moon every one of them knows it as certainly to be the Moon as another but many believing one and the same promises all have not one and the same fulness of perswasion How falleth it our that men being assured of any thing by sense can be no surer of it than they are whereas the strongest in faith that liveth upon the earth had alwayes need to labour and strive and pray that his assurance concerning heavenly and spiritual things may grow increase and be augmented Protestant Divine of great authority and no way singular in his opinions who hath long since preached and justified the same doctrin 4 I say that every Text of Scripture which makes mention of any that were weak or of any that were strong in faith of any that were of little or any that were of great faith of any that abounded or any that were rich in faith of encreasing growing rooting grounding establishing confirming in faith Every such Text is a demonstrative refutation of this vain fancy proving that faith even true and saving faith is not a thing consisting in such an indivisible point of perfection as you make it but capable of augmentation and diminution Every prayer you make to God to increase your faith or if you conceive such a prayer derogatory from the perfection of your faith the Apostles praying to Christ to increase their faith is a convincing argument of the same conclusion Moreover if this doctrin of yours were true then seeing not any the least doubting can consist with a most infallible certainty it will follow that every least doubting in any matter of faith though resisted and involuntary is a damnable sin absolutely destructive so long as it lasts of all true and saving faith which you are so far from granting that you make it no sin at all but only an occasion of merit and if you should esteem it a sin then must you acknowledge contrary to your own Principles that there are Actual sins meerly involuntary The same is furthermore invincibly confirmed by every deliberate sin that any Christian commits by any progress in Charity that he makes For seeing as S. John assures us our faith is the victory which overcomes the world certainly if the faith of all true Believers were perfect and if true faith be capable of no imperfection if all faith be a knowledge most certain and infallible all faith must be perfect for the most imperfect that is according to your doctrin if it be true must be most certain and sure the most perfect that is cannot be more than most certain then certainly their victory over the world and therefore over the flesh and therefore over sin must of necessity be perfect and so it should be impossible for any true believer to commit any deliberate sin and therefore he
And indeed how can she be Judge of them if she cannot decide them And how can she decide them if it be a question Whether she be judge of them That which is question'd it self cannot with any sense be pretended to be fit to decide other questions and much less this question Whether it have Authority to judge and decide all questions 2. If she were Judge it would not follow that she were infallible for we have many Judges in our Courts of Judicature yet none infallible Nay you cannot with any modesty deny that every man in the world ought to judge for himself what Religion is truest and yet you will not say that every man is infallible 3. If the Church were supposed infallible yet it would not follow at all much less manifestly that to oppose her Declaration is to oppose God unless you suppose also that as she is infallible so by her opposers she is known or believed to be so Lastly If all this were true as it is all most false yet were it to little purpose seeing you have omitted to prove that the Visible Church is the Roman 14 Ad § 16. Instead of a fourth Argument this is presented to us That if Luther were an Heretique then they that agreed with him must be so And that Luther was a formal Heretique you endeavour to prove by this most formal Syllogism To say the Visible Church is not Universal is properly an Heresie But Luther 's Reformation was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie Whereunto I Answer first to the first part that it is no way impossible that Luther had he been the inventor and first broacher of a false Doctrin as he was not might have been a formal Heretique and yet that those who follow him may be only so materially and improperly and indeed no Heretiques Your own men out of St. Austin distinguish between Haeretici Haereticorum sequaces And you your self though you pronounce the leaders among the Arrians formal Heretiques yet confess that Salvian was at least doubtful whether those Arrians who in simplicity followed their Teachers might not be excused by ignorance And about this suspension of his you also seem suspended for you neither approve nor condemn it Secondly to the second part I say that had you not presumed upon our ignorance in Logick as well as Metaphysicks and School-Divinity you would never have obtruded upon us this rope of sand for a formal Syllogism It is even Consen-German to this To deny the Resurrection is properly an Heresie But Luther's Reformation was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie Or to this To say the Visible Church is not Universal is properly an Heresie But the preaching of the Gospel at the beginning was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie For as he whose Reformation is but particular may yet not deny the Resurrection so many he also not deny the Churches Universality And as the Apostles who preached the Gospel in the beginning did believe the Church Universal though their preaching at the beginning was not so So Luther also might and did believe the Church Universal though his Reformation were but particular I say he did believe it Universal even in your own sense that is Universal de jure though not de facto And as for Universality in fact he believed the Church much more Universal than his Reformation For he did conceive as appears by your own Allegations out of him that not only the Part reformed was the true Church but also that they were Part of it who needed Reformation Neither did he ever pretend to make a new Church but to reform the old one Thirdly and lastly to the first proposition of this unsyllogistical syllogism I answer That to say the true Church is not always de facto universal is so far from being an Heresie that it is a certain truth known to all those that know the world and what Religions possess far the greater part of it Donatus therefore was not to blame for saying that the Church might possibly be confin'd to Africk but for saying without ground that then it was so And S. Augustin as he was in the right in thinking that the Church was then extended farther than Africk so was he in the wrong if he thought that of necessity it alwayes must be so but most palpably mistaken in conceiving that it was then spread over the whole earth and known to all nations which if passion did not trouble you and make you forget how lately almost half the world was discovered and in what estate it was then found you would very easily see and confess 15 Ad § 17. In the next Section you pretend that you have no desire to prosecute the similitude of Protestants with the Donatists and yet you do it with as much spight and malice as could well be devised but in vain For Lucilla might do ill in promoting the Sect of the Donatists and yet the mother and the daughter whom you glance at might do well in ministring influence as you phrase it to Protestants in England Unless you will conclude because one woman did one thing ill therefore no woman can do any thing well or because it was ill done to promote one Sect therefore it must be ill done to maintain any 16 The Donatists might do ill in calling the Chair of Rome the Chair of Pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot and yet the state of the Church being altered Protestants might do well to do so and therefore though S. Austin might perhaps have reason to persecute the Donatists for detracting from the Church and calling her harlot when she was not so yet you may have none to threaten D. Potter that you would persecute him as the Application of this place intimates you would if it were in your power plainly shewing that you are a curst Cow though your horns be short seeing the Roman Church is not now what it was in S. Austin's time And hereof the conclusion of your own book affords us a very pregnant testimony where you tell us out of Saint Austin that one grand impediment which among many kept the seduced followers of the faction of Donatus from the Churches Communion was a calumny raised against the Catholiques That they did set some strange thing upon their Altar To how many saith S. Austin did the reports of ill tongues shut up the way to enter who said that we put I know not what upon the Altar Out of detestation of the calumny and just indignation against it he would not so much as name the impiety wherewith they were charged and therefore by a Rhetorical figure calls it I know not what But compare with him Optatus writing of the same matter and you shall plainly perceive that this I know not what pretended to be set upon the Altar was indeed a Picture which the Donatists knowing how detestable a thing it
was to all Christians at that time to set up any Pictures in a Church to worship them as your new fashion is bruited abroad to be done in the Churches of the Catholique Church But what answer doth S. Austin and Optatus make to this Accusation Do they confess and maintain it Do they say as you would now It is true we do set Pictures upon our Altar and that not only for ornament or memory but for worship also but we do well to do so and this ought not to trouble you or affright you from our Communion What other answer your Church could now make to such an objection is very hard to imagine And therefore were your Doctrin the same with the Doctrin of the Fathers in this point they must have answered so likewise But they to the contrary not only deny the crime but abhorr and detest it To little purpose therefore do you hunt after these poor shadows of resemblances between us and the Donatists unless you could shew an exact resemblance between the present Church of Rome and the ancient which seeing by this and many other particulars it is demonstrated to be impossible that Church which was then a Virgin may be now a Harlot and that which was detraction in the Donatists may be in Protestants a just accusation 17 As ill success have you in comparing D. Potter with Tyconius whom as S. Austin finds fault with for continuing in the Donatists separation having forsaken the ground of it the Doctrin of the Churches perishing so you condemn the Doctor for continuing in their communion who hold as you say the very same Heresie But if this were indeed the Doctrin of the Donatists how is it that you say presently after that the Protestants who hold the Church of Christ perished were worse than Donatists who said that the Church remained at least in Africa These things me-thinks hang not well together But to let this pass The truth is this difference for which you would fain raise such a horrible dissention between D. Potter and his Brethren if it be well considered is only in words and the manner of expression They affirming only that the Church perished from its integrity and fell into many corruptions which he denies not And the Doctor denying only that it fell from its essence and became no Church at all which they affirm not 18 These therefore are but velitations and you would seem to make but small account of them But the main point you say is that since Luther 's Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was in the Apostles time they must of necessity affirm heretically with the Donatists that the true unspotted Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O Blasphemy an Harlot By which words it seems you are resolute perpetually to confound True and Unspotted and to put no difference between a corrupted Church and none at all But what is this but to make no difference between a diseased and a dead man Nay what is it but to contradict your selves who cannot deny but that sins are as great stains and spots and deformities in the sight of God as errours and confess your Church to be a congregation of men whereof every particular not one excepted and consequently the generality which is nothing but a collection of them is polluted and defiled with sin You proceed 19 But say you The same heresie follows out of D. Potter and other Protestants that the Church may err in points not fundamental because we have shewed that every error against any revealed truth is Heresie and Damnable whether the matter be great or small And how can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain damnable Heresie Besides we will hereafter prove that by every act of Heresie all divine faith is lost and to maintain a true Church without any faith is to fancy a living man without life Answ What you have said before hath been answered before and what you shall say hereafter shall be confuted hereafter But if it be such a certain ground that every error against any one revealed truth is a damnable Heresie then I hope I shall have your leave to subsume That the Dominicans in your account must hold a damnable heresie who hold an error against the immaculate Conception which you must needs esteem a revealed truth or otherwise why are you so urgent and importunate to have it defined seeing your rule is Nothing may be defined unless it be first revealed But without your leave I will make bold to conclude that if either that or the contrary assertion be a revealed truth you or they chuse you whether must without contradiction hold a damnable Heresie if this ground be true that every contradiction of a revealed Truth is such And now I dare say for fear of inconvenience you will begin to temper the crudeness of your former assertion and tell us that neither of you are Heretiques because the Truth against which you err though revealed is not sufficiently propounded And so say I Neither is your doctrin which Protestants contradict sufficiently propounded For though it be plain enough that your Church proposeth it yet still me-thinks it is as plain that your Churches proposition is not sufficient and I desire you would not say but prove the contrary Lastly to your Question How can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain a damnable Heresie I Answer she may be more truly said to perish when she is not only permitted to do so but de facto doth maintain a damnable Heresie Again she may be more truly said to perish when she falls into an Heresie which is not only damnable in it self and ex natura rei as you speak but such an Heresie the belief of whose contrary Truth is necessary not only necessitate praecepti but medii and therefore the Heresie so absolutely and indispensably destructive of salvation that no ignorance can excuse it nor any general repentance without a dereliction of it can beg a pardon for it Such an heresie if the Church should fall into it might be more truly said to perish then if it fell only into some heresie of its own nature damnable For in that state all the members of it without exception all without mercy must needs perish for ever In this although those that might see the truth and would not cannot upon any good ground hope for salvation yet without question it might send many souls to heaven who would gladly have embrac'd the truth but that they wanted means to discover it Thirdly and lastly she may yet more truly be said to perish when she Apostates from â—hrist absolutely or rejects even those Truths out of which her Heresies may be reformed as if she should directly deny Jesus to be the Christ or the Scripture to be the Word of God Towards which
well as the Cardinals do the Pope Whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the government in their hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonical exception Whether the Doctrin that the King is Supreme Head of the Church of England as the Kings of Judah and the first Christian Emperours were of the Jewish and Christian Church be any new found doctrin Whether it may not be true that Bishops being made Bishops have their authority immediatly from Christ though this or that man be not made Bishop without the King's authority as well as you say the Pope being Pope has authority immediately from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the authority of the Cardinals Whether you do well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more authority in ordering the affairs of the Church than the great Turk or the Pagan Emperors Whether the King may not give authority to a Bishop to exercise his function in some part of his Kingdom and yet not be capable of doing it himself as well as a Bishop may give authority to a Physician to practise Physick in his Diocess which the Bishop cannot do himself Whether if Nero the Emperour would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to preach the Gospel of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have question'd his Authority to do so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited King JAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his Injunction upon them to do any thing that is lawful Whether a casual irregularity may not be lawfully dispens'd with Whether the Pope's irregularities if he should chance to incur any be indispensable And if not who is he or who are they whom the Pope is so subject unto that they may dispense with him Whether that be certain which you take for granted That your Ordination imprints a character and ours doth not Whether the power of consecrating and ordaining by imposition of hands may not reside in the Bishops and be derived unto them not from the King but God and yet the King have authority to command them to apply this power to such a fit person whom he shall commend unto them As well as if some Architects only had the faculty of architecture and had it immediatly by infusion from God himself yet if they were the King's subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a Fortress for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himself yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his subjects that has this power to ordain any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it do not follow that whensoever the King commands an house to be built a message to be delivered or a murtherer to be executed that all these things are presently done without intervention of the Archirect messenger or executioner As well as that they are ipso facto ordain'd and consecrated who by the King's authority are commended to the Bishops to be ordained and consecrated Especially seeing the King will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to do what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should do so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himself nor any body else would esteem the person Bishop upon the King's designation Whether many Popes though they were not consecrated Bishops by any temporal Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopal function in this or that place And whether the Emperours had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants do indeed pretend that their Reformation is universal Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you do not forget your self and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of divine institution be Schismatical and Heretical for thinking so Whether your form of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essential to the constitution of a true Church Whether the forms of the Church of England differ essentially from your forms Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other man Lastly Whether any one kind of these external forms and orders and government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives whatsoever it be All these questions will be necessary to be discussed for the clearing of the truth of the Minor proposition of your former Syllogism and your proofs of it and I will promise to debate them fairly with you if first you will bring some better proof of the Major That want of Succession is a certain note of Heresie which for the present remains both unprov'd and unprobable 40 Ad § 23. The Fathers you say assign Succession as one mark of the true Church I confess they did urge Tradition as an Argument of the truth of their doctrin and of the falshood of the contrary and thus far they agree with you But now see the difference They urg'd it not against all Heretiques that ever should be but against them who rejected a great part of the Scripture for no other reason but because it was repugnant to their doctrin and corrupted other parts with their additions and detractions and perverted the remainder with divers absurd interpretations So Tertullian not a leaf before the words by you cited Nay they urg'd it against them who when they were confuted out of Scripture fell to accuse the Scriptures themselves as if they were not right and came not from good authority as if they were various one from another and as if truth could not be found out of them by those who know not Tradition for that it was not delivered in writing they did mean wholly but by word of mouth And that thereupon Paul also said we speak wisdom amongst the perfect So Irenaeus
adhere For you abuse the world and them if you pretend that they hold the first of your two principles That these particular Books are the word of God for so I think you mean either to be in it selfe evidently certain or of it self and being devested of the motives of credibility evidently credible For they are not so fond as to conceive nor so vain as to pretend that all men do assent to it which they would if it were evidently certain nor so ridiculous as to imagine that if an Indian that never heard of Christ or Scripture should by chance find a Bible in his owne Language and were able to read it that upon the reading it he would certainly without a miracle believe it to be the word of God which he could not chuse if it were evidently credible What then do they affirm of it Certainly no more than this that whatsoever man that is not of a perverse minde shall weigh with serious and mature deliberation those great moments of reason which may incline him to believe the Divine authority of Scripture and compare them with the leight objections that in prudence can be made against it he shall not chuse but finde sufficient nay abundant inducements to yeeld unto it firm faith and sincere obedience Let that learned man Hugo Grotius speak for all the rest in his Book of the truth of Christian Religion which Book whosoever attentively peruses shall find that a man may have great reason to be a Christian without dependance upon your Church for any part of it and that your Religion is no foundation of but rather a scandal and an objection against Christianity He then in the last Chapter of his second Book hath these excellent words If any be not satisfied with these arguments above-said but desires more forcible reasons for confirmation of the excellency of Christian Religion let such know that as there are variety of things which be true so are there divers wayes of proving or manifesting the truth Thus is there one way in Mathematicks another in Physicks a third in Ethicks and lastly another kind when a matter of fact is in question wherein verily we must rest content with such testimonies as are free from all suspicion of untruth otherwise down goes all the frame and use of history and a great part of the Art of Physick together with all dutifulness that ought to be between parents and children for matters of practice can no way else be known but by such testimonies Now it is the pleasure of Almighty God that those things which he would have us to believe so that the very belief thereof may be imputed to us for obedience should not so evidently appear as those things which are apprehended by sense and plain demonstration but only be so farre forth revealed as may beget faith and a perswasion thereof in the hearts and minds of such as are not obstinate That so the Gospel may be as a touch-stone for triall of mens judgements whether they be sound or unsound For seeing these arguments whereof we have spoken have induced so many honest godly and wise men to approve of this Religion it is thereby plain enough that the fault of other mens infidelity is not for want of sufficient testimony but because they would not have that to be had and embraced for truth which is contrary to their wilful desires it being a hard matter for them to relinquish their honors and set at naught other commodities which thing they know they ought to do if they admit of Christ's doctrin and obey what he hath commanded And this is the rather to be noted of them for that many other historical narrations are approved by them to be true which notwithstanding are only manifest by authority and not by any such strong proofs and perswasions or tokens as do declare the history of Christ to be true 52. And now you see I hope that Protestants neither do need nor protend to any such evidence in the doctrin they believe as cannot well consist both with the essence and the obedience of faith Let us come now to the last Nullity which you impute to the faith of Protestants and that is want of Prudence Touching which point as I have already demonstrated that wisdome is not essential to faith but that a man may truly believe truth though upon insufficient motives So I doubt not but I shall make good that if prudence were necessary to faith we have better title to it than you and that if a wiser then Solomon were here he should have better reason to believe the Religion of Protestants than Papists the Bible rather than the Councel of Trent But let us hear what you can say 53. Ad § 31. You demand then first of all What wisdome was it to forsake a Church confessedly very ancient and besides which there could be demonstrated no other Visible Church of Christ upon earth I answer Against God and truth there lies no Prescription and therefore certainly it might be great wisdome to forsake ancient errors for more ancient Truths One God is rather to be follow'd then innumerable worlds of men And therefore it might be great wisdome either for the whole Visible Church nay for all the men in the world having wandred from the way of Truth to return unto it or for a part of it nay for one man to do so although all the world besides were madly resolute to do the contrary It might be great wisdome to forsake the errors though of the only Visible Church much more of the Roman which in conceiving her self the whole Visible Church does somwhat like the Frog in the Fable which thought the ditch he liv'd in to be all the world 54. You demand again What wisdome was it to forsake a Church acknowledg'd to want nothing necessary to Salvation indued with Succession of Bishops c. usque ad Election or Choice I answer Yet might it be great wisdome to forsake a Church not acknowledged to want nothing necessary to salvation but accused and convicted of Many damnable errors certainly damnable to them who were convicted of them had they still persisted in them after their conviction though perhaps pardonable which is all that is acknowledg'd to such as ignorantly continued in them A Church vainly arrogating without possibility of proof a perpetual Succession of Bishops holding alwaies the same doctrin and with a ridiculous impudence pretending perpetual possession of all the world whereas the world knowes that a little before Luther's arising your Church was confined to a part of a part of it Lastly a Church vainly glorying in the dependance of other Churches upon her which yet she supports no more than those crouching Anticks which seem in great buildings to labour under the weight they bear do indeed support the Fabrick For a corrupted and salfe Church may give authority to preach the truth and consequently against her own falshoods and corruptions Besides a
possibly by any sure Mark discern whether their Faith be Divine or humane or if you have any certain signe whereby they may discern whether they believe your Churches infallibility with Divine or only with humane faith I pray produce it for perhaps it may serve us to shew that our faith is divine as well as yours Moreover in affirming that Baptism in act is necessary for Infants and for men only in desire You seem to me in the later to destroy the foundation of the former For if a desire of Baptism will serve men in stead of Baptism then those words of our Saviour Unless a man be born again of water c. are not to be understood literally and rigidly of external Baptism for a desire of Baptism is not Baptism and so your foundation of the absolute necessity of Baptism is destroyed And if you may gloss the Text so far as that men may be saved by the desire without Baptism it self because they cannot have it Why should you not gloss it a litle farther that there may be some hope of the salvation of unbaptized infants to whom it was more impossible to have a desire of Baptism than for the former to have the thing it self Lastly for your Sacrament of Confession we know none such nor any such absolute necessity of it They that confess their sins and forsake them shall find mercy though they confess them to God only and not to men They that confess them both to God and men if they do not effectually and in time forsake them shall not find mercy 3. Whereas you fay that supposing these means once appointed as absolutely necessary to salvation there cannot but arise an obligation of procuring to have them you must suppose I hope that we know them to be so appointed and that it is in our power to procure them otherwise though it may be our ill fortune to fail of the end for want of the means certainly we cannot be obliged to procure them For the rule of the Law is also the dictate of common reason and equity That no man can be obliged to what is impossible We can be obliged to nothing but by vertue of some command now it is impossible that God should command in earnest any thing which he knows to be impossible For to command in earnest is to command with an intent to be obeyed which is not possible he should do when he knows the thing commanded to be impossible Lastly whosoever is obliged to do any thing and does it not commits a fault but Infants commit no fault in not procuring to have Baptism therefore no obligation lies upon them to procure it 4. Whereas you say that if Protestants dissent from you in the point of the necessity of Baptism for infants it cannot be denyed but that our disagreement it in a point fundamental If you mean a point esteemed so by you this indeed cannot be denyed But if you mean a point that indeed is fundamental this may certainly be denyed for I deny it and say that it doth not appear to me any way necessary to Salvation to hold the truth or not to hold an errour touching the condition of these Infants This is certain and we must believe that God will not deal unjustly with them but how in particular he will deal with them concernes not us and therefore we need not much regard it 5. Whereas you say the like of your Sacrament of Penance you only say so but your proofs are wanting Lastly whereas you say This rigour ought not to seem strange or unjust in God but that we are rather to bless him for ordaining us to Salvation by any means I answer that it is true we are not to question the known will of God of injustice yet whether that which you pretend to be Gods will be so indeed or only your presumption this I hope may be question'd lawfully and without presumption and if we have occasion we may safely put you in mind of Ezechiel's commination against all those who say Thus saith the Lord when they have no certain warrant or authority from him to do so 8. Ad § 4. In the fourth Paragraph you deliver this false and wicked Doctrin that for the procuring our own salvation we are alwaies boundunder pain of mortal sin to take the safest way but for avoyding sin we are not bound to do so but may follow the opinion of any probable Doctors though the contrary way be certainly free from sin and theirs be doubtfull Which doctrin in the former part of it is apparently false For though wisdom and Charity to our selves would perswade us alwaies to do so yet many times that way which to our selves and our salvation is more full of hazard is notwithstanding not only lawful but more charitable and more noble For example to fly from a persecution and so to avoid the temptation of it may be the safer way for a mans own salvation yet I presume no man ought to condemn him of impiety who should resolve not to use his liberty in this matter but for Gods greater glory the greater honour of truth and the greater confirmation of his bretheren in the faith choose to stand out the storm and endure the fiery trial rather than avoid it rather to put his own soul to the hazard of a temptation in hope of Gods assistance to go through with it than to baulk the opportunity of doing God and his bretheren so great a service This part therefore of this Doctrin is manifestly untrue The other not only false but impious for therein you plainly give us to understand that in your judgement a resolution to avoid sin to the uttermost of your power is no necessary means of Salvation nay that a man may resolve not to do so without any danger of damnation Therein you teach us that we are to do more for the love of our selves and our own happiness than for the love of God and in so doing contradict our Saviour who expresly commands us to love the Lord our God with all our heart with all our soul and with all our strength and hath taught us that the love of God consists in avoiding sin and keeping his commandements Therein you directly cross S. Pauls doctrin who though he were a very probable Doctor and had delivered his judgement for the lawfulness of eating meats offered to Idols yet he assures us that he which should make scruple of doing so and forbear upon his scruple should not sin but only be a weak brother whereas he who should do it with a doubtful conscience though the action were by S. Paul warranted lawful yet sheuld sin and be condemn'd for so doing You pretend indeed to be rigid defenders and stout champions for the necessity of good works but the truth is you speak lies in hypocrisie and when the matter is well examin'd will appear to make your selves and your own functions necessary but obedience to
autem apud omnes unum est non est erratum sed traditum Had the Churches err'd they would have varied What therefore is one and the same amongst all came not sure by error but tradition Thus Tertullian argues very probably from the consent of the Churches of his time not long after the Apostles and that in matter of opinion much more subject to unobserv'd alteration But that in the frame and substance of the necessary Government of the Church a thing alwayes in use and practice there should be so suddain a change as presently after the Apostles times and so universal as received in all the Churches this is clearly impossible SECT VIII For What universal cause can be assigned or faigned of this universal Apostasie You will not imagine that the Apostles all or any of them made any decree for this change when they were living or left order for it in any Will or Testament when they were dying This were to grant the question to wit That the Apostles being to leave the Government of the Churches themselves and either seeing by experience or foreseeing by the Spirit of God the distractions and disorders which would arise from a multitude of equals substituted Episcopal Government instead of their own General Councels to make a Law for a general change for many ages there was none There was no Christian Emperour no coercive power over the Church to enforce it Or if there had been any we know no force was equal to the courage of the Christians of those times Their lives were then at command for they had not then learnt to fight for Christ but their obedience to any thing against his Law was not to be commanded for they had perfectly learn't to die for him Therefore there was no power then to command this change or if there had been any it had been in vain SECT IX What device then shall we study or to what fountain shall we reduce this strange pretended alteration Can it enter into our hearts to think that all the Presbyters and other Christians then being the Apostles Schollers could be generally ignorant of the Will of Christ touching the necessity of a Presbyterial Government Or dare we adventure to think them so strangely wicked all the World over as against knowledge and conscience to conspire against it Imagine the spirit of Diotrephes had entred into some or a great many of the Presbyters and possessed them with an ambitious desire of a forbidden superiority was it possible they should attempt and atchieve it once without any opposition or contradiction and besides that the contagion of this ambition should spread it self and prevail without stop or controul nay without any noise or notice taken of it through all the Churches in the World all the watchmen in the mean time being so fast asleep and all the dogs so dumb that not so much as one should open his mouth against it SECT X. But let us suppose though it be a horrible untruth that the Presbyters and people then were not so good Christians as the Presbyterians are now that they were generally so negligent to retain the government of Christ's Church commanded by Christ which we now are so zealous to restore yet certainly we must not forget nor deny that they were men as we are And if we look upon them but as meer natural men yet knowing by experience how hard a thing it is even for Policy arm'd with Power by many attempts and contrivances and in along time to gain upon the liberty of any one people undoubtedly we shall never entertain so wild an imagination as that among all the Christian Presbyteries in the World neither conscience of duty nor love of liberty nor aversness from pride and usurpation of others over them should prevail so much with any one as to oppose this pretended universal invasion of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the liberty of Christians SECT XI When I shall-see therefore all the Fables in the Metamorphosis acted and prove Stories when I shall see all the Democracies and Aristocracies in the World lye down and sleep and awake into Monarchies then will I begin to believe that Presbyterial Government having continued in the Church during the Apostles times should presently after against the Apostles doctrine and the will of Christ be whirl'd about like a scene in a masque and transformed into Episcopacy In the mean time while these things remain thus incredible and in humane reason impossible I hope I shall have leave to conclude thus Episcopal Government is acknowledged to have been universally received in the Church presently after the Apostles times Between the Apostles times and this presently after there was not time enough for nor possibility of so great an alteration And therefore there was no such alteration as is pretended And therefore Episcopacy being confessed to be so Ancient and Catholique must be granted also to be Apostolique Quod erat demonstrandum FINIS NINE SERMONS The First Preached before His MAJESTY King CHARLES the FIRST The other Eight upon special and eminent Occasions BY WILL. CHILLINGWORTH Master of Arts of the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD NOSCE TE IPSVM NE QUID NIMIS LONDON Printed by E. Cotes dwelling in Aldersgate-street Anno Dom. M.DC.LXIV TO THE READER Christian Reader THese Sermons were by the Godly and Learned Author of them fitted to the Congregations to which he was to speak and no doubt intended only for the benefit of Hearers not of Readers Nevertheless it was the desire of many that they might be published upon the hope of good that might be done to the Church of God by them There is need of plain Instructions to incite men to holiness of life as well as accurate Treatises in Points Controverted to discern Truth from Error For which end I dare promise these Sermons will make much where they find an honest and humble Reader It was the Author's greatest care as you may find in the reading of them To handle the Word of God by manifestation of the truth commending himself to every mans conscience in the fight of God as once St. Paul pleaded for himself 2 Cor. 4.2 And if that be the property which they say of an eloquent and good speaker Non ex ore sed ex pectore To speak from his heart rather than his tongue then surely this Author was an excellent Orator one that spake out of sound understanding with true affection How great his parts were and how well improved as may appear by these his Labours so they were fully known and the loss of them sufficiently bewailed by those among whom he lived and conversed Many excellencies there were in him for which his memory remains but this above all was his crown that he unfeignedly sought God's glory and the good of mens souls It remains that these Sermons be read by thee with a care to profit and thanks to God for the benefit thou hast by them sith they are such talents
unto Sin If risen again then count your selves alive unto Righteousness For how it should come to pass that so much of our Holiness as makes up mortification and no more should be ascribed to Christs Death as a proper effect and fruit thereof And the rest which is newness of life and obedience should be imputed to his Resurrection I shall never be able to comprehend 8. The benefits therefore which accrew unto us by Christ I suppose may be divided either into those which flow from the mâ—rit of his Death or from the power and influence of his Life In the former are comprehended all whatsoever Christ hath done for us In the latter whatsoever he doth or will work in us And both being extremely necessary It shall be this hours employment to shew with what good reason we celebrate a feast at this time that we should not terminate our contemplation only on the great love and bowels of compassions on Good-Friday expressed unto us but also and with better reason on the Joy and comfort which with great reason we may collect from this business of Easter even that lively hope whereunto we are regenerated by the Resurrection of Christ And to joyn with S. Paul in his wonder and amazement at the consideration of the infinite mercy and power of God and thereupon his boasting and challenging securely all manner of adversaries Who is be that shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again 9. In which words are comprehended the great dependance and combination which our non-condemnation or salvation has not only with the death and satisfaction of Christ but also rather even with advantage on his Resurrection Now because they are so few they cannot conveniently be divided I will out of them raise this Doctrinal Proposition Doctr. namely That Christs Resurrection and exaltation is fully as necessary and effectual to procure and perfect our salvation if not more then even the all-sufficient Sacrifice upon the Cross 10. Which that I may more fully and distinctly confirm unto you I will divide into two Propositions which if sufficiently maintain'd doth necessarily infer the Doctrine The first whereof is this Prop. 1. That the purpose of Christ who satisfied for our sins and the Covenant which he made with God who accepted of this satisfaction was not that remission of sins should immediately ensue upon his death but only upon performance of the Conditions of the new Covenant made in Christs Bloud which are unfeigned Repentance for Sin and a serious Conversion unto God by Faith The Second That by the Dominion and Power of Christ Prop. 2. which at his Resurrection and not before he received as a reward of his great humility we are not only enabled to the performance of the conditions of this new Covenant and by consequence made capable of an Actual application of his satisfaction but also by the same power we shall hereafter be raised up and exalted to everlasting Happiness Of these two Propositions therefore in the order proposed very briefly and even too too plainly And first of the first namely That the purpose of Christ who Prop. I. c. 11. I confess it would be no hard matter for a Disputant meeting with an adversary that would be content to be swayed and governed by Reason alone to molest and even fright him from the truth of this Doctrine For if we shall consider not only the excessive unspeakable Torments which Christ suffered for us but especially the infinite Majesty and Glory of the Person who willingly submitted himself to that Curse what less reward can be expected than the present deliverance and salvation not only of a few selected men but even of many worlds of Men and Angels 12. But it is not for us Beloved Christians to set our price and value upon Christs precious Bloud to say Thus much it is worth and no more As there have not wanted men on the other side who have dared to affirm That Christs Bloud according to exact estimation did amount to a certain value by the worth and cost whereof such a set number as shall be saved were redeem'd and purchas'd And if one besides should be delivered it were more than the price of the Bloud came to What a fearful dangerous curiosity is this Is it not a piece of Judas his sin to set our own estimation and value to make a bargain and sale of Christs Death to set up a kind of shambles to sell his Flesh and Bloud in 13. But leaving these vain phantastical Calculations to their chief Professours the Schoolmen who are so unreasonably addicted to this dreaming Learning that nothing can escape their Compass and Ballance For to omit their curious descriptions and Maps of the dimensions and situation of Heaven and Hell the Figure Borders Islands of both They have undertaken to discover the exact proportionable increase of the graces of the Saints especially of the Blessed Virgin whose good actions they have found to encrease just in Octupla ratione so that for example her twentieth good action did exceed the first in virtue and intention of Grace as much as the whole earth doth exceed a grain of mustard-seed 14. Is not this Beloved Friends a learning and wisdom to be pitied Is not this that disease which S. Paul discovers 1 Tim. 6. the effect whereof is to make men sick about vain questions and oppositions of science falsly so called Therefore leaving these vain Speculations as likewise others about the business in hand no less curious and much more dangerous yet securely stated in these daies almost in every Pamphlet and Synopsis As namely Whether God could have contrived any course for mans salvation beside that which he prosecuted Whether without accepting any satisfaction to his Justice he could freely and absolutely have remitted our sins 15. For what use or profit can be made of these Questions though with never so great subtilty and curiosity stated Besides we find that God had professed unto Adam that his death together with the destruction of all mankind should be the reward of the breach of his Covenant By which means Gods Justice being interested in the business the very grounds and foundation of this latter question are destroyed the doubt and scrue whereof must needs have been blasphemous namely Whether God could have been unjust Nay more it makes the sending of Christ into the world together with his obedience to the death even that accursed death of the Cross to be a matter of no necessary importance to be only a great Complement whereby God shews unto mankind that though he could easily have remitted their sins without any satisfaction for whatsoever is possible to God is easie notwithstanding that they should see He would strain himself even farther for them was very requisite and withall to shew his abomination of sin he
and earn'd it by a former voluntary submission and humiliation of himself 32. The conditions on Christ's part we find most exactly performed by him wholly resigning and prostrating his own will to the will disposition of his Father At his private Passion which immediately went before his Attachment when he was sacrificed and even crucified alone in the Garden without the assistance and malice of a trayterous Disciple of the chief Priests or Romans Though he retain'd that innocent fear of death and shame which is natural to Man which forced him to cry out Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me Notwithstanding though he could not hate his own life yet to shew he preferr'd the fulfilling of his Fathers will before it he adds Nevertheless not my will but thy will be done Luk. 22.42 By which words he resigns the whole power and faculty of his will into his Fathers hands In the words of another Evangelist he saith Not what I will Mark 14.36 but what thou wilt Where he resigns and submits the Act and Exercise of his Will And lastly to make all compleat in the expression of a Third Evangelist he saith Not as I will but as thou wilt Matth. 26 39. Where he subjects not only the faculty and the exercise of his will to the performance of what God shall command him but is willing and desirous to do it after what manner and fashion soever God shall be pleased It is not possible for the understanding of man to adde or conceive a degree beyond this 33. In the next place we shall see How God the Father is as good as his word to his Son But first give me leave to complain to you of that Tyranny which custom partiality or something worse has laid upon our Understandings And that is this That wheresoever any former Protestant Writer have suspected a Doctrin as not beneficial but rather dangerous to some conclusion which he is resolved to maintain against the Papists we their Scholars are oblig'd to make good their jealousies and may be groundless suspitions 34. To omit many examples I will produce only these few It lies upon us to maintain that St. John's Baptism was one and the same Sacrament with that of Christs contrary to express words of Scripture and something else That Christ is a Mediatour Secundum Divinam Naturam which borders I fear upon an old dangerous Heresie As likewise which especially concerns this place That Christ merited nothing to Himself by his Passion neither was the Exaltation of his Humane Nature to the Dominion and Rule over all Creatures a reward of his Humility but a preferment due to his Person though by special dispensation the exercise thereof was deferr'd for a time but should have been conferr'd upon him as fully as he now enjoys it though he had never suffered 35. But Scripture reacheth us That Christ was to be made perfect by sufferings That Because he had drunk of the Brook by the way Therefore he should lift up his head That For the joy which was set before him that is Having an eye to the glorious reward and fruit of his suffering he endured the Cross and despised the shame and therefore is set up at the right hand of Glory Because being found in fashion as a Man Phil. 2.8 9. he humbled himself and became obedient to the death even the death of the Cross 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore for this reason God hath highly exalted him and given him a Name which is above every Name c. Nay St. Paul makes the obtaining a Rule and Dominion over man-kind a main end of his death for in Rom. 14.9 he saith Rom. 14.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this end Christ both dyed and rose again that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living By his death meriting this Dominion by his Resurrection receiving it But I will forbear controversie because I desire to seek out no Adversary especially in my preaching but only the Devil and Sin 36. This therefore I think we shall agree upon That it was the purpose and immutable decree of God that after the fall and misery of man whatsoever good should befal us toward our restitution and repairing to our lost happiness should be convey'd unto us by our own nature That the Seed of the Woman should break the Serpent's head That is not only in St. John's phrase destroy the works of the Devil but also in St. Paul's destroy his kingdom and power which is Death So that As by Man came Sin and Error so by Man also should come Grace and Truth As by Man came Death so by Man also should come the Resurrection from the dead By Man also life and immortality should be brought to light 37. Now that these great projects and entendments might be brought about and that the Humane Nature might be furnish'd with ability to discharge this Province and to go through with this great Undertaking God the Father for the merit of Christ's great humility by his Resurrection hath highly exalted him farr above all Principality and Power Eph. 1.20 and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come Phil. 2.9 10 11. And hath given him a Name above all Names that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus is the Lord to the glory of God the Father 38. And thus much Christ himself confesseth and acknowledgeth presently upon his Resurrection for then he saith All power is given unto me in Heaven and Earth It was then only he received the Dominion whereof his Father David's Kingdom was but a Type and shadow And as his Father David was anointed and deputed by God to the Kingdom but received not actual possession of it till after many persecutions and afflictions at the hands of his Master Saul In like manner though our Saviour even in the days of his humility teacheth us that the Father judgeth no man but resigneth all judgment to the Son Notwithstanding these words are to be understood only by way of Anticipation or Prophecy of what should befal him after he should have perform'd the work of our Redemption For while he lived here among men he professed he was so farr from being a King that he had no sufficient authority given him to be a petty Judg in a case of Inheritance And that wicked Pilas himself had power given him from Heaven to become his Judg So that though in the days of his flesh he was Heir of all things yet he was only a conditional heir and therefore till the conditions were perform'd and himself seiz'd of the Inheritance even the Heir himself differed nothing from a Servant 39. But within three days after his Passion the case was much altered
file there follow adversaries of better fashion there is Life and Death and Angels and Principalities and Powers who are those In truth I know not but be they who they will they can do us no harm No nor things present nor things to come nor heighth nor depth These are adversaries we should scarce have dream'd of And to make all sure in a word There is no other creature shall ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 63. Yet for all S. Paul's exactness there remains one enemy behind and that is a sore one of prime note and truly I wonder how the Apostle could miss him And that is Sin I would to God S. Paul had taken notice of him For this one enemy is able to do us more harm than all the rest put together nay but for sin all the rest almost were our very good friends Had we best supply S. Paul's incogitancy and even adventure to put him in the Catalogue too Well let them that have a mind to it do it Truly I dare not And but that I know Martin Luther was a bold-spirited man I should wonder how he durst so confidently have adventured upon it In his Book entituled Captivitatis Babylonicae cap. de Baptismo near the beginning he hath these words Vides quam dives sit homo Christianus sive Baptizatus qui etiam volens non potest perdere suam salutem quantiscunque peccatis nisi nolit credere I will not translate them to you and I would they had never been Englished for by that means it may be some of our loudest preachers would have wanted one point of comfortable false doctrine wherewith they are wont to pleasure their friends and benefactors Only let us do thus much for S. Paul's credit to believe it was not meerly inconsideration in him to leave out Sin in this catalogue that there was some ground of Reason for it For though it may come to pass by the mercy and goodness of God That even Sin it self shall not pluck us out of his hand yet it would be something a strange preposterous Doctrine for a Preacher of the New Covenant to proclaim that we shall undoubtedly obtain the promises of the Covenant though we never so much break the Conditions 64. I do confess my self very guilty and am sorry that I have thus long exercised and wearied your patience And yet for all that have not perform'd that task which I fully resolv'd upon when I adventured upon this subject and that was to spend this time in raising your devotions to the contemplation of the glorious mercies of God expressed to us in Christs Resurrection and exaltation But because other thoughts have carried me away even against my will almost all this while I shall further take leave to wrong and injure your patience with proposing one consideration more which ought by no means to be omitted 65. And that is to take notice of the Person to whom we have been beholding for these unspeakable mercies and that is Christ Christ alone none else mentioned or thought upon If Bellarmine had been to advise S. Paul if he had been privy to the writing of this Epistle it is likely he would not have taken it ill to have had Christs name in the matter of our Salvation But he would not have endured the Apostles utter silence of all helps and aids besides yea though himself acknowlegeth it to be the safest course to put our whole confidence only in the mercy of God yet quia magis honorificum est habere aliquid ex merito because it concerns our credit to put in a little for merit and desert on our side He would not have us so to disparage our selves as to make salvation a meer Alms proceeding meerly out of Courtesie 66. Nay but Oh thou man What art thou that answerest against God What art thou that justifiest thy self before him Nay what art thou that condemnest God making him a lyar all the Scripture over the whole project whereof is this to let us know how unable how sick how dead we are of our selves and therefore ought most necessarily to have recourse to him for our salvation As for us Beloved Christians if we must needs rejoyce let us rejoyce in our infirmities let our glory be our shame and let us lift up our eyes and behold Is 63 1 2. Who is this that cometh from Edom with died garments from Bozrah This that is glorious in his apparel travelling in the greatness of his strength And Christ will say It is I that speak in righteousnesse mighty to save But wherefore Lord art thou red in thine apparel and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wire-fatt He will answer I have trodden the wine-press alone and of the people there was none with me for which reason I am now crown'd with glory and honour and immortality I alone am mighty to save and besides me there is none other 67. And good luck have thou with thine honour Ps 45. Oh Lord ride on because of thy word of truth of meekness and of righteousness and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things Terrible things for the King's enemies for them which would not have thee to rule over them And good luck have we with thine honour O Lord ride on because of thy word of truth of meekness and of righteousness and thy right hand shall teach thee gracious and comfortable things for us thy servants and sheep of thy pasture who dare not exalt a weak arm of flesh against thee Thy right hand shall mightily defend us in the midst of all our enemies Thy right hand shall find us out and gather us up though lost and consum'd in the grave though scattered before the four winds of heaven And thy right hand shall exalt us to glory and immortality for ever with thee in thy heavenly Kingdom where all the daies of our life yea all the daies of thy glorious endless life we shall with Angels and Archangels say Glory and honour and power and immortality be unto him which sitteth on the throne and to the Lamb and to the Holy Spirit for ever and for ever Amen Amen The Sixth Sermon LUKE XVI 9. Make to your selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations THE Children of this world saith Christ are wiser in their generation then the Children of Light To make which good our Saviour in somuch of the Chapter as goes before my Text brings in a Story or as they call it a Parable of a cunning Fellow yet no great Projector neither no very subtile Polititian notwithstanding one who being in an extremity turn'd out of his Office for mispending his Masters Goods had found out a shift and that by meer cousenage to procure so much as would serve to keep him indeed not according to the Port and fashion after which before
may state this question as they please But the fittest time to decide this point is when in a serious contemplation we present before our eyes Almighty God the righteous impartial Judge of heaven and earth sitting in his Throne ready to execute Judgement and our selves arraigned at the Barr before him expecting a final irreversible sentence In these circumstances I would fain see the stoutest-hearted man alive that should dare to say unto Almighty God Thou hast given me a Law which my conscience witnesseth unto me that I have perform'd Therefore I now challenge thee upon thy Truth and Faithfulness that thou perform thy conditions also with me and give me Remission of my former sins as a Reward of my obedience 48. For answer to this Objection This is confessed by all Christians of all Religions that a Profane person or an Hypocrite dying in such an estate shall neither in the last day be acquitted of his sins nor saved Therefore unless a mans heart can witness unto him that he hath unfeignedly kept Gods Commandements God 1 Joh. 3. c. 20. who is greater than his heart and knoweth all things will assuredly condemn him But then we must know that it is not a Christians plea to relie upon his own though sincere unhypocritical Righteousness and therefore to challenge heaven But as our Saviour adviseth us Luke 17.10 We when we have done all we can must say We are unprofitable servants And not say so in a complement only but in the truth and sincerity of our hearts It is the perfection of Evangelical Righteousness to deny our own righteousness to disclaim all meritorious efficacy thereof either in Remission of sins or Salvation Therefore he that after he hath perform'd Gods Commandements shall think to challenge the reward as of debt or as promised only to his own holiness wants the proper peculiar righteousness of a Christian He must say in holy Job's words Though I were righteous yet would I not answer God Job 9.15 but I will make supplication to my Judge I would say unto him Lord look not upon that holiness which is in me which yet is not mine neither for thou wrought'st it in me But look on him in whom only thou art well pleased Accept of me in him and for his sake only who hath fulfill'd all righteousness for me who through the eternal Spirit hath offered himself without spot unto thee being made sin and a curse for me that I might be made the Righteousness of God in him To him only be glory for ever and ever The sum of all which I have said is contain'd Tit. 2.11 -14. The Grace of God which bringeth c. And so I come to the 2d General namely the Promise which God will make good unto us who sincerely obey him contain'd in these words We wait for the Hope c. 49. Which General I divided into two Particulars 1. The nature of the reward promised which I told you was Justification containing Remission of Sins and everlasting Life 2. The interest which during this life we ordinarily have in that reward namely Hope expressed in these words We wait for the Hope of Righteousness that is by hope we expect the reward of righteousness I cannot now enlarge my self in the former particular something I have already been forc'd to say of it which must suffice I will in few words consider the second Particular namely the interest which we have in the Promises which is Hope We wait for c. 50. I know nothing more effectual to perswade me to search for and embrace Divine Truth with singleness of heart and without respect of persons then to consider that there are no opinions so unreasonable so directly contradictory to one another but the Spirit of contradiction and partiality will make a man easily to swallow and digest them As for example whereas the Papists most presumptuously maintain that it is in a mans power by the ordinary assistance of Grace so exactly to perform all Gods Commandements that he shall have no need to say Lord forgive us our trespasses Some of their adversaries strive so much to avoid this Assertion on the contrary extream that they will not allow even the best and most holy Actions of the most Regenerate man to be such as God requires at our hands they will not only have them to be imperfect but sinful I if strictly examined sins And yet for all this those who put it in a mans power to fulfil all Gods Commandements will not suffer any man to have any certainty of their Salvation On the contrary the others though they make a mans best actions to be sins yet require at his hands an infallible divine Faith of his Salvation not only as an attendant but as the very nature and essence of that Faith whereby he shall be Justified 51. It may be possible that one of these parties might light upon the truth if either of them would be willing to change one of his opinions with his adversary but as they have been pleased to yoke such jarring positions together I am confidently perswaded that both of them have miss'd of the truth and left it in the middle to any third person that will be willing to stand neuter in a mean betwixt them both I will not now examine how farr each side have out-run the truth contrary waies only as I am required by that part of my Text which remains I will lay down two Assertions participating in some measure of both opinions The first whereof is this which I have already touch'd That no man can justly and reasonably expect or hope for the reward of righteousness but he whose heart and conscience can unfeignedly witness unto him that he hath though not exactly yet sincerely and without Hypocrisie perform'd the conditions of the New Covenant The second That the interest which such a person ordinarily hath in the Promises is only Hope 52. Now concerning the 1. Assertion Assert 1. namely That no man can justly c. I would not now be mistaken as if I said that before a man can hope for salvation he must perform Gods Commandements exactly but only according to the equity of the Gospel according to that famous saying of S. Augustine Retractat l. 1. c. 19. Omnia mandata facta deputantur quando quicquid non fit ignoscitur Now that a man may keep Gods Commandements as far as the Equity of the Gospel expects from him may I think be thus demonstrated There is no man that hears me this day I am perswaded but he does often seriously desire of God that he would give him the Grace to do his will Now all prayer if it be right is to be perform'd in Faith i. e. with a full perswasion not only that it is lawful and warrantable for him to desire that which he prays for but also with as full a perswasion that Almighty God is not only able but ready and willing also to
I acknowledg'd above that they forsook the external Communion of the Visible Church or that they left that part of the Visible Church in her corruptions which would not be reformed These things if you desire I shall be willing to grant and that by a Synecdoche of the whole for the part he might be said to forsake the Visible Church that is a part of it and the greater part But that properly speaking he forsook the whole Visible Church I hope you will excuse me if I grant not this until you bring better proof of it than your former similitude And my reason is this because he and his Followers were a part of this Church and ceased not to be so by the Reformation Now he and his followers certainly forsook not themselves Therefore not every part of the Church Therefore not the whole Church But then if you speak of D. Potter's cases according as he put them and answer not your own Arguments when you make shew of answering his me-thinks it should not be so unreasonable as you make it for the persons he speaks of to deny that they left the Communities whereof they were Members For example that the Monks of Saint Benets Order make one Body wherof their several Monasteries are several members I presume it will be easily granted Suppose now that all these Monasteries being quite out of Order some 20. or 30. of them should reform themselves the rest persisting still in their irregular courses were it such a monstrous impudence as you make it for these Monasteries which we suppose reformed to deny that they forsook their Order or the Community whereof they were parts In my Opinion it is no such matter Let the world judge Again whereas the Doctor saies that in a Society of men Vniversally infected with some disease they that should free them selves from the common disease could not therefore be said to separate from the Society It is very strange to me that you should say he speaks very strangely Truly Sir I am extreamly deceived if his words be not plain English and plain sense and contain such a manifest Truth as cannot be denied with modesty nor gone about to be proved without vanity For whatsoever is proved must be proved by sometâ—ing more evident Now what can be more evident than this That if some whole Family were taken with Agues if the Father of this Family should free himself from his that he should not therefore deservedly be thought to abandon and disert his Family But say you if they dot no separate themselves from the Society of the wicked persons how do they free themselves from the common disease Do they at the same time remain in the company and yet depart from those infected creatures Me thinks a Writer of Controversies should not be ignorant how this may be done without any such difficulty But if you do not know I 'le tell you There is no necessity they should leave the company of these infected persons at all much less that they should at once depart from it and remain with it which I confess were very difficult But if they will free themselves from their disease let them stay were they are and take physick Or if you would be better informed how this strange thing may be done learn from your self They may free their own persons from the common disease yet so that they remain still in the company infected eating and drinking with them c. Which are your own words within four or five lines after this plainly shewing that your mistaking D. Potter's meaning and your wondring at his words as at some strange monster's was all this while affected and that you are conscious to your self of perverting his Argument that you may seem to say something when indeed you say nothing Whereas therefore you add We must then say that they separate themselves from the persons though it be by occasion of the disease I assure you good Sir you must not do so at any hand for then you alter and spoil D. Potter's case quite and fight not with his reason but your own shadow For the Instanceof a man freeing himself from the disease of his company and not leaving his company is very fit to prove by the parity of reason that it is very possible a man may leave the corruptions of a Church and not leave the Church that is not cease to be a member of it But yours of a man leaving his company by occasion of their disease hath no analogy at all with this business 95. But Luther and his followers did not continue in the company of those from whose diseases they pretend to free themselves Very true neither was it said they did so There is no necessity that that which is compared to another thing should agree with it in all things it is sufficient if it agree in that wherein it is compared A man freeing himself from the common disease of a society and yet continuing a part of it is here compared to Luther and his followers freeing themselves from the corruptions of the visible Church and continuing a part of the Church As for accompanying the other parts of it in all things it was neither necessary nor without destroying our supposition of their forsaking the corruptions of the Church possible Not necessary for they may be parts of the Church which do not joyn with other parts of it in all observances Nor possible for had he accompanied them in all things he had not freed himself from the common corruptions 96. But they indeavoured to force the society whereof they were parts to be healed and reformed as they were and if it refused they did when they had power drive them away even their superiours both Spiritual and Temporal as is notorious The proofs hereof are wanting and therefore I might deferr my answer untill they were produced yet take this before hand If they did so then herein in my opinion they did amiss for I have learnt from the ancient Fathers of the Church that nothing is more against Religion than to force Religion and of S. Paul The weapons of the Christian warfare are not carnal And great reason For humane violence may make men counterfeit but cannot make them believe and is therefore fit for nothing but to breed form without and Atheism within Besides if this means of bringing men to embrace any Religion were generally used as if it may be justly used in any place by those that have power and think they have truth certainly they cannot with reason deny but that it may be used in every place by those that have power as well as they and think they have truth as well as they what could follow but the maintenance perhaps of truth but perhaps only of the profession of it in one place and the oppression of it in a hundred What will follow from it but the preservation peradventure of unity but peradventure only of uniformity in
particular States and Churches but the immortalizing the greater more lamentable divisions of Christendom and the world And therefore what can follow from it but perhaps in the judgement of carnal policy the temporal benefit and tranquillity of temporal States and Kingdoms but the infinite prejudice if not the desolation of the Kingdom of Christ And therefore it well becomes them who have have their portions in this life who serve no higher State than that of England or Spain or France nor this neither any further than they may serve themselves by it who think of no other happiness but the preservation of their own fortunes and tranquillity in this world who think of no other means to preserve States but human power and Machivilian policy and believe no other Creed but this Regi aut Civitati imperium habenti nihil injustum quod utile Such men as these it may become to maintain by worldly power and violence their State-instrument Religion For if all be vain and false as in their judgment it is the present whatsoever is better than any because it is already setled an alteration of it may draw with it change of States and the change of State the subversion of their fortune But they that are indeed servants and lovers of Christ of Truth of the Church and of Mankind ought with all courage to oppose themselves against it as a common enemy of all these They that know there is a King of Kings and Lord of Lords by whose will and pleasure Kings and Kingdoms stand and fall they know that to no King or State any thing can be profitable which is unjust and that nothing can be more evidently unjust than to force weak men by the profession of a Religion which they believe not to lose their own eternal happiness out of a vain and needless fear lest they may possibly disturb their temporal quietness There being no danger to any State from any mans opinion unless it be such an opinion by which disobedience to authority or impiety is taught or licenc'd which sort I confess may justly be punished as well as other faults or unless this sanguinary doctrin be joyn'd with it That it is lawful for him by human violence to enforce others to it Therefore if Protestants did offer violence to other mens consciences and compel them to embrace their Reformation I excuse them not much less if they did so to the sacred Persons of Kings and those that were in authority over them who ought to be so secur'd from violence that even their unjust und tyrannous violence though it may be avoided according to that of our Saviour When they persecute you in one City flie into another yet may it not be resisted by opposing violence against it Protestants therefore that were guilty of this crime are not to be excused and blessed had they been had they chosen rather to be Martyrs than Murderers to die for their religion rather than to fight for it But of all the men in the world you are most unfit to accuse them hereof against whom the souls of the Martyrs from under the Altar cry much lowder than against all their other Persecutors together Who for these many ages together have daily sacrificed Hecatombs of innocent Christians under the name of Heretiques to blind zeal and furious superstition Who teach plainly that you may propagate your Religion whensoever you have power by deposing of Kings and invasion of Kingdoms and think when you kill the adversaries of it you do God good service But for their departing corporally from them whom mentally they had forsaken For their forsaking the external Communion and company of the unreformed part of the Church in their superstitions and impieties thus much of your accusation we embrace and glory in it And say though some Protestants might offend in the maner or degree of their separation yet certainly their separation it self was not Schismatical but innocent and not only so but just and necessary And as for your obtruding upon D. Potter that he should say There neither was nor could be just cause to do so no more than to depart from Christ himself I have shewed divers times already that you deal very injuriously with him confounding together Departing from the Church and Departing from some general opinions and practises which did not constitute but vitiate not make the Church but marr it For though he saies that which is most true that there can be no just cause to depart from the Church that is to cease being a member of the Church no more than to depart from Christ himself in as much as these are not divers but the same thing yet he nowhere denies but there might be just and necessary cause to depart from some opinions and practices of your Church nay of the Catholique Church And therefore you do vainly to inferr that Luther and his followers for so doing were Schismatiques 97. Ad § 35. I answer in a word that neither are Optatus his sayings rules of Faith and therefore not fit to determine Controversies of Faith And then that Majorinus might well be a Schismatique for departing from Caecilianus and the Chayr of Cyprian and Peter without cause and yet Luther and his followers who departed from the Communion of the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop of their own Diocess be none because they had just and necessary cause of their departure For otherwise they must have continued in the profession of known Errors and the practice of manifest Corruptions 98. Ad § 36 In the next Section you tel us that Christ our Lord gave S. Peter and his successors authority over his whole Militant Church And for proof hereof you first referre us to Brerely citing exactly the places of such chief Protestants as have confessed the antiquity of this point Where first you fall into the Fallacy which is called Ignoratio Elenchi or mistaking the Question for being to prove this point true you only prove it ancient Which to what purpose is it when both the parties litigant are agreed that many errors were held by many of the ancient Doctors much more ancient than any of those who are pretended to be confessed by Protestants to have held with you in this matter and when those whom you have to do with and whom it is vain to dispute against but out of Principles received by them are all peremptory that though novelty be a certain note of falshood yet no Antiquity less than Apostolical is a certain note of truth Yet this I say not as if I did acknowledge what you pretend that Protestants did confess the Fathers against them in this point For the point here issuable is not Whether S. Peter were head of the Church Nor whether the Bishop of Rome had any priority in the Church Nor whether he had authority over it given him by the Church But whether by Divine right and by Christs appointment he were Head