A VINDICATION â—F THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX Wherein the Principles OF THE ROMAN CHURCH As to Moderation Unity and Truth are Examined And sundry Important Controversies concerning the Rule of Faith Papal Supremacy the Mass Images c. Discussed By John Owen D. D. LONDON Printed for Ph. Stephens at the Gilded-Lion in St. Pauls Church-yard and George Sawbridge at the Bible on Ludgate Hill 1664. Imprimatur Tho. Grigg R. in Christ. P. D. Humfr. Episc. Lond. à Sac. domesticis Decemb. 9. 1663. TO THE READER Christian Reader ALthough our Lord Jesus Christ hath laid blessed and stable foundations of Unity Peace and Agreement in judgement and affection amongst all his Disciples and given forth Command for their attendance unto them that thereby they might glorifie him in the world and promote their own spiritual advantage yet also foreknowing what effect the crafts of Satan in conjunction with the darkness and lusts of men would produce that no offence might thence be taken against him or any of his wayes he hath sorewarned all men by his Spirit what Differences Divisions Schisms and Heresies would ensue on the publication of the Gospel and arise even among them that should profess subjection unto his Authority and Law And accordingly it speedily came to pass For what Solomon sayes that he discovered concerning the first Creation namely that God made man upright but he sought out many inventions or immixed himself in endless questions the same fell out in the new creation or erection of the Church of Christ. The state of it was by him formed upright and all that belonged unto it were of one heart and one soul. But this harmony and perfection of beauty in answer to his Will and Institution lasted not long among them many who mixed themselves with those Primitive converts or succeeded them in their profession quickly seeking out perverse inventions Hence in the dayes of the Apostles themselves there were not only schisms and divisions made in sundry Churches of their own planting with disputes about Opinions and needless impositions by those of the Circumcision who believed but also opposition was made unto the very fundamental Doctrines of the Deity and Incarnation of the Son of God by the Spirit of Antichrist then entring into the world as is evident from their Writings and Epistles But yet as all this while our Lord Jesus Christ according to his promise preserved the root of Love and Vnity amongst them who sincerely believed in him entire as he doth still and will do to the end by giving the one and selfsame spirit to guide sanctifie and unite them all unto himself so the care and Authority of the Apostles during their abode in the flesh so far prevailed that notwithstanding some temporary impeachments of Love and Union in or amongst the Churches yet no signal prejudice of any long continuance befell them For either the miscarriages which they fell into were quickly retrieved by them the truth infallibly cleared and provision made for Peace Vnity and Moderation in and about things of less concernment or else the evil guilt and danger of them remained only with and upon some particular persons the notoriety of whose wickedness and folly cast them out by common consent from the communion of all the Disciples of Christ. But no sooner was that sacred Society 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with their immediate successors as Egesippus speaks in Eusebius departed unto their rest with God but that the Church it self which untill then was preserved a pure and incorruppted Virgin began to be vexed with abiding contention and otherwise to degenerate from its primitive original purity From thence forward especially after the heat of bloody and fiery persecutions began to abate far the greatest part of Ecclesiastical Records consists in relations of the Divisions Differences Schisms and Heresies that fell out amongst them who professed themselves the Disciples of Christ. For those failings errors and mistakes which were found in men of peaceable minds the Church indeed of those dayes extended her Peace and Vnity if Justin Martyr and others may be believed to such as the seeming warmer zeal and really colder charity of the succeeding Ages could not bear withal But yet divisions and disputes were multiplyed into such an excess as that the Gentiles fetcht advantage from them not only to reproach all Christians withall but to deterr others from the proâ—ession of Christianity So Celsus in his third Book deals with them for saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 At first when they were but a few they were of one mind or agreed well enough But being increased and the multitude of them scattered abroad they were presently divided again and again and every one would have his own party or division and as in a divided multitude opposed and reproved one another so that they had no communion among themselves but only in name which for shame they retain So doth he for his purpose as is the manner of men invidiously exaggerate the differences that were in those early times amongst Christians for he wrote about the dayes of Trajan the Emperour That others of them took the same course is testified by Clemens Stromat lib. 7. Augustin lib. de Ovib. c. 15. and sundry others of the antient Writers of the Church But that no just offence as to the truth or any of the wayes of Christ might hence be taken we are as I said before forewarned of all these things by the Lord himself and his Apostles as also of the use and necessity of such events and issues Whence Origen cryes out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Most admirable unto me seems the saying of Paul There must be Heresies amongst you that those who are approved may be manifest Nor can any just excception be hence taken against the Gospel it self For it doth not belong unto the excellency or â—ignity of any thing to free it self from all opposition but only to preserve it self from being prevailed against and to remain victorious as the sacred truths of Christ have done and will do unto the end Not a few indeed in these evil dayes wherein we live the ends of the world and the difficulties with which they are attended being come upon us persons ignorant of things past and regardless of things to come in bondage to their present lusts and pleasures are ready to make use of the pretence of divisions and differences among Christians to give up themselves unto Atheism and indulge to their pleasures like the beasts that perish Let us eat and drink for too morrow we shall dye Quid aliud inscribi poterat sepulchro bovis But whatever they pretend to the contrary it may be easily evinced that it is their personal dislike of that holy obedience which the Gospel requireth not the differences that are about the Doctrines of it which alienates their minds from the truth They will not some of them foregoe all Philosophical inquiries after the
by Gods providence called thereunto and as they receive ability from him for that purpose to contend earnestly for it Nor is their so doing any part of the evil that attends differences and divisions but a means appointed by God himself for their cure and removal provided as the Apostle speaks that they strive or contend lawfully The will of God must be done in the wayes of his own appointment Outward force and violence corporal punishments swords and faggots as to any use in things purely spiritual and religious to impose them on the consciences of men are condemned in the Scripture by all the antient or first writers of the Church by sundry Edicts and Laws of the Empire and are contrary to the very light of Reason whereby we are men and all the principles of it from whence mankind consenteth and coalesceth into civil society Explaining declaring proving and confirming the truth convincing of gainsayers by the evidence of common principles on all hands assented unto and right reason with prayer and supplications for success attended with a conversation becoming the Gospel we profess is the way sanctified by God unto the promotion of the truth and the recovery of them that are gone astray from it Into this work according as God hath imparted of his gifts and spirit unto them some in most ages of the Church have been engaged and therein have not contracted any guilt of the evils of the contentions and divisions in their dayes but cleared themselves of them and faithfully served the interest of those in their generation And this justifies and warrants us in the pursuit of the same work by the same means in the same days wherein we live And when at any time men sleep in the neglect of their duty the envious one will not be wanting to sow his Tares in the field of the Lord which as in the times and places wherein we live it should quicken the diligence and industry of those upon whom the care of the preservation of the truth is by the providence of God in an especial manner devolved and who have manifold advantages for their encouragement in their undertaking so also it gives countenance even to the meanest endeavours that in sincerity are employed in the same work by others in their more private capacity amongst which I hope the ensuing brief discourse may with impartial Readers find admittance It is designed in general for the defence and vindication of the truth and that truth which is publickly professed in this Nation against the solicitation of it and opposition made unto it with more then ordinary vigilancy and seeming hopes of prevalency on what grounds I know not This is done by those of the Roman Church who have given in themselves as sad an instance of a degeneracy from the truth as ever the Christian world had experience of from insensible and almost imperceptible entrances into deviations from the holy rule of the Gospel countenanced by pecious pretences of piety and devotion but really influenced by the corrupt lusts of ambition love of preheminence and earthly mindedness in men ignorant or neglective of the 〈◊〉 and simplicity of the Gospel their Apostâ—cy hath been carried on by various degrees upon advantages given unto those that made the benefit of it unto themselves by political commotions and alterations until by sundry artifices and sleights of Sathan and men it is grown unto that stated opposition to the right wayes of God which we behold it come unto at this day The great Roman Historian desires his Reader in the perusal of his discourses to consider and observe quae vita qui mores fuerint per quos viros quibusque artibus domi militiaeque partum auctum imperium sit Labente â—einde paulatim disciplina velut dissidenâ—â—s primo mores sequatur animo deinde at magis magisque lapsi sint tum ire caeperint praecipites donec ad haec tempora quibus nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus perventum est What was the course of life what were the manners of thâ—se men both at home and abroad by whom the Roman Empire was â—rected and enlarged as also how antient discipline insensibly decaying far different manners ensued whose decay more and 〈◊〉 increasing at length they began violently to decline untill we came unto these dayes wherein we are able to beare neither our vices nor their remedies All which may be as truly and justly spoken of the present Roman Ecclesiastical estate The first Rulers and members of that Church by their exemplary sanctity and suffering for the truth deservedly obtained great renown reputation amongst the other Churches in the world but after a while the discipline of Christ decaying amongst them and the purity of his doctrine beginning to be corrupted they insensibly fell from their pristine glory untill at length they precipitantly tumbled into that condition wherein because they fear the spiritual remedy would be their temporal ruine they are resolved to abide be it never so desperate or deplorable And hence also it is that of all the opposition that ever the disciples of Christ had to contend withall to suffer under or to witness against that made unto the truth by the Roman Church hath proved the longest and been attended with the most dreadful consequents For it is not the work of any one Age or of a few persons to unravel that web of falshood and unrighteousness which in a long tract of time hath been cunningly woven and closely compacted together Besides the Heads of this declension have provided for their security by intermixing their concerns with the Polity of many Nations and moulding the constitutions of their Governments unto a subserviency to their interests and ends But he is strong and faithful who in his own way and time will rescue his Truth and Worship from being trampled on and defiled by them In the mean time that which renders the errors of the Fathers and Sons of that Church most peâ—nitious unto the professors of Christianity is that whether out of blind zeal rooted in that obstinacy which men are usually given up unto who have refused to retain the Truth in the love and power of it or from their being necessitated thereunto in their Councils for the supportment and preservation of their present interests and secular advantages they are not contented to embrace practice and adhere unto those crooked paths that they have chosen to walk in and to attempt the drawing of others into them by such wayes and means as the light of Nature right reason with the Scripture directs to be used in and about the things of Religion which relate to the minds and souls of men but also they have pursued an imposition of their conceptions and practises on other men by force and violence untill the world in many places hath been made a stage of oppression rapine cruelty and war and that which they call their Church a very Shambles
Apostasie also For why must that needs be the notion of these termes in the division you made that you now express Is it from the strict sense and importance of the words themselves or from the Scripturall or Ecclesiasticall use of them or whence is it that it must be so and that it is so None of these will give you any relief or the least countenance unto your fancie Both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in themselves of an indifferent signification denoting things or acts good or evill according to their accidentall limitations and applications It is said of some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they will depart from the faith 1 Tim. 4. 1. And the same Apostle speaking of them that name the name of Christ sayes let every one of them depart from iniquity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 2. 19. so that the word it self signifies no more but a single and bare departure from anything way rule or practice be it good or bad wherein a man hath been ingaged or which he ought to avoid and fly from And this is the use of it in the best Greek Authors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are such in Homer who are farre distant or remote on any account from any thing or place And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Aristotle things very remote To leave any place company thing Society or Rule on any cause is the common use of the word in Thucydides Plutarch Lucian and the rest of their companions in the propriety of that language Apostasia by Ecclesiasticall writers is restrained unto either a back sliding in Faith subjective and manners or a causeless relinquishment of any Truth before professed So the Jews charge Paul Acts 21. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou teachest Apostasie from Moses Law Such also is the nature of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a speciall option choyce or way in profession of any Truth or Error So Paul calls Pharisaisme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 26. 5. the most exact heresie or way of Religion among the Jews And Clemens Alexandrinus Strom lib. 8. calls Christian Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the best Heresie And the great Constantine in one of his Edicts calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Catholick or generall Heresie and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most holy Heresie The Latines also constantly used that word in a sense indifferent Cato faith Cicero est in ea heresi quae nullum orationis florem sequitur The words therefore themselves you see are of an indifferent signification having this difference between them that the one for the most part is used to signifie the Relinquishment of that which a man had before embraced and the other a choice or embracing of that which a man had not before received or admitted And this difference is constantly observed by all Ecclesiasticall writers who afterwards used these words in the worst or an evill sense so that Apostasie in this appropriation of it denotes the relinquishment of any Important Truth or way in Religion and Heresie the choice or embracement of any new destructive Opinion or Principle or way in the profession thereof A man then may be an Apostate by partiall Apostasie that is depart from the Profession of some Truth he had formerly embraced or the performance of some duty which he was engaged in without being an Heretick or choosing any new opinion which he did not before embrace Thus you signally call a Monke that deserts his Monasticall Profession an Apostate though he embrace no opinion which is condemned by your Church or which you think hereticall And a man may be an Heretick that is choose and embrace some new false opinion which he may coyn out of his own imagination without a direct renunciation of any Truth which before he was instructed in And this is that which I intended when I told you that your Church is fallen by partiall Apostasie and by Heresie Shee hath renounced many of the important Truths which the old Roman Church once believed and professed and so is fallen by Apostasie And she hath invented or coyned many Articles pretended to be of faith which the old Roman Church never believed and so is fallen by Heresie also Now what say you hereunto Why good S r in this division Apostasie is set to express a totall relapse in opposition to Heresie which is the partiall But who gave you warrant or leave so to set them It would it may be somewhat serve your turn in evading the Charge of Apostasie that lyes against your Church but Good S r will not prove that you may thus confound things for your advantage Idolatry is Heresie and Apostasie is Heresie and what not because you suppose you have found a way to escape the imputation of Heresie I say then yet again in answer to your enquiry that your Church is fallen by Apostasie in her relinquishment of many important truths and neglect of many necessary duties which the old Roman Church embraced and performed That these may be the more evident unto you I shall give you some few instances of your Apostasie desiring only that you would grant me that the primitive Church of Rome believed and faithfully retained the doctrine of truth wherein from the Scripture it was instructed That Church believed expresly that all they who die in the Lord do rest from all their labours Rev. 14. 8. which truth you have forsaken by sending many of them into the flames of Purgatory It believed that the sufferings of this life are not worthy of the glory that shall be revealed in us Rom. 8. 18. Your Church is otherwise minded asserting in our works and sufferings a merit of and condignity unto the glory that shall be received It believed that we were saved freely by grace by faith which is not of our selves but the gift of God not by works left any one should boast Eph 2. 8. Tit. 3. 5. and therefore besought the Lord not to enter into judgement with them because in his sight no flesh could be justified Psal. 130. 4. 143. 2. And you are apostatized from this part of their faith It believed that Christ was once only offered Heb. 10 12. and that it could not be that he should often offer himself because then he must have often suffered and died Heb. 9. 25. Which faith of theirs you are departed from It believed that we have one only Mediatour and Intercessour with God 1 Tim. 2. 5. 1 Joh. 2. 2. Wherein also you have renounced their perswasion as likewise you have done in what it professed that we may invocate only him in whom we do believe Rom. 10. 14. It believed that the Command to abstain from Meats and Marriage was the doctrine of Devils 1 Tim. 4. 1 2. Do you abide in the same faith It believed that Every soul without exception was to be subject to the higher Powers Rom. 13. 1. You will not
walk in the steps of their faith herein It believed that all Image-worship was forbidden Exod. 20. And whether you abide in the same perswasion we shall afterwards examine And many more instances of the like kind you may at any time be minded of You hast to that you would fain be at which will be found as little to your purpose as those whose consideration you so carefully avoid You say Did she fall by Heresie in adhering to any errour in Faith contrary to the approved doctrine of the Church Here you smile seriously and tell me that since I take the Roman and Catholick Church to be one she could not indeed adhere to any thing but what she did adhere unto S r I take them indeed to be one but here I speak ad hominem to one that doth not take them so And then if indeed the Roman Church had ever swerved in faith as you say she has and be her self as another ordinary particular Church as you say she is them might you find some one or other more generall Church if any there were to judge her some Oecumenicall Councell to condemn her some Fathers either Greek and Latin expresly to writs against her as Protestants now do some or other grave Authority to censure her or at least some company of Believers out of whose body she went and from whose faith she fell None of which since you are not able to a assign wherein you have spoken more rightly than you were aware of for not to be able to assign none of them infers at least an ability to assign some if not all of them my Query remains unanswered and the Roman still as flourishing a Church as ever she was Answ. 1. You represent my Answer lamely I desire the Reader to consult it in the Animadversions pag. 66 67 68. What you have taken notice of discovers only your fineness in making Heresie an adherence to an errour in faith contrary to the doctrine of the Church and your selves the Church whereby you must needs be secured from Heresie though you should adhere to the most hereticall Principles that ever were broached in the world But nothing of all this as I have shewed will be allowed you 2. As we have seen some of the Reasons why you were so unwilling to try the Cause of your Church on the heads of Idolatry and Apostasie so here you discover a sufficient Reason why you have passed over your other head of Schism in silence You avow your self one of the most schismaticall Principles that were ever adhered unto by any professing the name of Christ. The Roman Church and the Catholick are with you one and the same Is not this Petilianus his in parte Donati nay Basilides his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan Heres 4. We only are men all others are Dogs and Swine Macte virtute If this be not to shew modcration and to persue reconciliation at once to shut out all men but your selves from the Church here and consequently Heaven hereafter what can be thought so to be In earnest S r you may talk what you please of moderation but whilest you avow this one wretched schismaticall Principle you do your endeavour to exclude all true Christian moderation out of the world 3. Why do you conclude that your Query is not answered Suppose one Question could not be answered doth it necessarily follow that another cannot I suppose you take notice that this is another Question and not that at first proposed as I told you before Your first enquiry was about your Churches crime this is about her conviction and condemnation and your Conclusion hath no strength in it but what is built on this unquestionable Maxim that None ever offended who was not publickly judged as though there were no Harlot in the world but those that have been carted It is enough S r that her condition is sub judice as it will be whether you or I will or no and that there is not evidence wanting for her conviction nor ever was since her fall though it may be it hath not at all times been so publickly managed And yet so vain is your triumphant Conclusion that we rest not here but prove also that she hath been of old judged and condemned as you will hear anon And thus I have once more given you an Answer to your enquiry how your Church fell namely that she hath done so by all the wayes and means by which it is possible for a Church to fall She failed under the just hand of God when the persons of that Vrbick Church were extirpated partly by others but totally by Totilas as the Brittish Church in England fell by the sword of the Saxons She hath fallen by Idolatry and corruption of life as did the Church of the Jews before the Captivity She hath fallen by her relinquishment of the written Word as the only rule of faith and worship and by adhering to the uncertain traditions of men as did the Church of the Jews after their return from captivity She hath fallen by Apostasie in forsaking the profession of many important truths of the Gospel as the Church of the Galatians did for a season in their relinquishment of the doctrine of Justification by grace alone She hath fallen by Heresie in coyning new Articles of faith and imposing them on the consciences of the Disciples of Christ as the Montanists did with their new Paraclete and rigid observances She hath fallen by Schisme in her self as the Judaical Church did when divided into Essenes Sadduces and Pharisees setting up Pope against Pope and Councell against Councell continuing in her intestine broils for some ages together and from all others by the wretched Principle but-now avowed by you as the Donatists did of old She hath fallen by Ambition in the Hildebrandine Principle asserting a Soveraignty in the Pope over the Kings and Potentates of the earth whereof I can give you no precedent instance unless it be of him who claimed the Kingdomes of the world to be his own and boasted that he disposed of them at his pleasure Mat. 4. And now I hope you will not take it in ill part that I have given you a plain Answer unto your Question which as I suppose was proposed unto us for that end and purpose But although these things are evident and sufficiently proved yet I see nothing will satisfie you unless we produce testimonies of former times to manifest that your Church hath been arraigned judged condemned written against by Fathers Councils or other Churches Now though this be somewhat an unreasonable expectation in you and that which I am no way bound unto by the Law of our Discourse to satisfie you in yet to prevent for the future such Ivasions as you have made use of on all occasions in your Epistle I shall in a few pregnant and unquestionable Instances give you an account both when how and by whom the falls of your Church have been
gathered out of your Fiat which you thus lay down It is say you frequently pleaded by our Author that all things as to Religion were ever quiet and in 〈◊〉 before the Protestants Relinquishment of the Roman Sea That ever is your own addition but let it pass what say you hereunto This Principle you pretind is drawn out of Fiat Lux not because it is there but only to open a door to your self to exspatiate into some wide generall discourse about the many wars distractions alterations that have been aforetime up and down in the world in some severall Ages of Christianity And you thereforê say it is frequently pleaded by me because indeed I never spake one word of it and it is in truth a false and fond Assertion Though neither you nor I can deny that such as keep unity of faith with the Church can never so long as they hold it fall out upon that account S r I take you to be the Author of Fiat Lux and if you are so I cannot but think you were a sleep when you talk'd at this rate The Assertion is false and fond you speak not one word of it Pray S r take a little advice of your Son Fiat not to talk on this manner and you will wonder your self how you came to swallow so much confidence as in the face of the world to vent such things as these He tells us from you p. 234 235 236. Chap 4. Ed. 2. that After the conversion of this Land by the Children of blessed S t Benet notwithstanding the interposition of the Norman Conquest that all men lived peaceably together without any the least disturbance upon the account of Religion untill the end of King Henry the eighth's raign about five hundred years after the Conquest See also what in generall you discourse of all places to this purpose p. 221 222 And p. 227. you do in express terms lay down the position which here you so exclaim against as false and fond but you may make as bold with it as you please for it is your own Never had this Land say you for so many hundred years as it was Catholick upon the account of Religion any disturbance at all whereas after the exile of the Catholick belief in our Land from the period of King Henry the seventh's Raign to these dayes we have been in actuall disquiet or at least in fears Estne haec tunica filii tui Are not these your words Doth not your Son Fiat wear this livery And do you not speak to this purpose in twenty other places Is it not one of the main suppositions you proceed upon in your whole discourse You do well now indeed to acknowledg that what you spake was fond and false and you might do as much for the most that you have written in that whole discourse but now openly to deny what you have asserted and that in so many places that is not so well done of you There are S t many wayes to free your self from that dammage you feel or fear from the Animadversions When any thing is charged on you or proved against you which you are not able to defend you may ingenuously acknowledg your mistake and that without any dishonour to you at all Good men have done so so may you or I when we have just occasion It is none of your Tenents that you are all of you Infallible or that your personall mistakes or miscarriages will prejudice your Cause Or you might pass it by in silence as you have done with the things of the most importance in the Animadversions and so keep up your reputation that you could Reply to them if you would or were free from flyes And we know 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Menander speaks Silence is with many the best Answer Or you might attempt to disprove or answer as the case requires But this that you have fixed upon of denying your own words is the very worst course that you could have chosen upon the account either of Conscience or Reputation However thus much we have obtained One of the chief pretences of your Fiat is by your own confession false and fond It is indeed no wonder that it should be so it was fully proved to be so in the Animadversions but that you should acknowlâ—dge it to be so is somewhat strange and it would have been very welcome news had you plainly owned your conviction of it and not renounced your own off-spring But I see you have a mind to the benefit you aymed at by it though you are ashamed of the way you used for the obtaining of it and therefore adde That neither you nor I can deny that such as keep the unity of faith with that Church can never so long as they hold it fall out on that account But this on the first consideration seems to mee no very singular Priviledge me-thinks a Turk a few an Arian may say the same of their Societies It being no more but this So long as you agree with us you shall be sure to agree with us They must be very unfriendly minded towards you that will call these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into question Yet there remains still one Scruple on my mind in reference unto what you assert I am not satisfied that there is in your Church any such unity of faith as can keep men from falling out or differing in and about the Doctrines and Opinions they profess If there be the children of your Church are marvellous morose that they have not all this while learned to be quiet but are at this very day writing volumes against one another and procuring the Books of one another to be prohibited and condemned which the writings of one of the learnedest of you in this Nation have fately not escaped I know you will say sometimes that though you differ yet you differ not in things belonging unto the unity of faith But I fear this is but a Blind an Apron of Fig-leaves What you cannot agree in be it of never so great importance you will agree to say that it belongs not unto the unity of faith when things no way to be compared in weight and use with them so you agree about them shall be asserted so to do And in what you differ whilest the scales of Interest on the part of the combatanfs hang eeven all your differences are but in School and disputable points But if one party prevail in Interest and Reputation and render their Antagonists inconsiderable as to any outward trouble those very Points that before were disputable shall be made necessary and to belong to the Vnity of Faith as it lately happened in the Case of the Jansenists And here you are safe again The Unity of the Faith is that which you agree in and that which you cannot agree about belongs not unto it as you tell us though you talk at another rate among your selves But wee must think that the Unity of
Faith is bounded by the confines of your wranglements and your agreement is the Rule of it This it may be you think suits your turn but whether it be so well suited unto the Interest of the Gospell and of Truth you must give men leave to enquire or they will do it ingrati whether you will or no. But if by the Unity of Faith you intend the substantiall Doctrines of the Gospell proposed in the Scripture to be believed on necessity unto Salvation it is unquestionably among all the Churches in the world and might possibly be brought forth into some tolerable communion in Profession and Practice did not your Schismaticall Interest and Principles interpose themselves to the contrary The fifth Supposition in your Fiat observed in the Animadversions is That the first Reformers were most of them contemptible Persons their Means indirect and their Ends sinister To which you reply Where is it S t where is it that I meddle with any mens persons or say they are contemptible what and how many are those Persons and where did they live But this you adde of your own is in a vast universall notion to the end you may bring in the Apostles and Prophets and some Kings into the list of Persons by mesur named contemptible and liken my speech who never spake any such thing to the Sarcasms of Celsus Lucian Porphyry Julian and other Pagans So you begin but ne savi magne Sacerdos Have a little patience and I will direct you to the places where you display in many words that which in a few I represented They are in your Fiat Chap. 4. § 18. 2. edit from pag. 239 unto § 20. p. 251. Had you lost your Fiat that you make such an outcry after that which in a moment he could have supplyed you withall Calvin and a Taylors Widdow Luther and Catherine Bore pleased with a naked Vnicorn swarms of Reformers as thick as Grashoppers fallen Priests and Votaries ambitious heads emulating one another if not the worst yet none of the best that ever were so eagerly quarrelling among themselves that a sober man would not have patience to hear their Sermons or read their Books with much more to the same purpose you will find in the places which I have now directed you unto But I see you love to say what you please but not to hear of it again But he that can in no more words more truely express the full and genuine sense of your eighteenth and nineteenth Chapter than I have done in the Assertion you so cry out against shall have my thanks for his pains Only I must mind you that you have perverted it in placing the last words as if they referred unto the Reformers you talk of that they did their work for sinister Ends when I only said that their Doctrine according to their Insinuations was received for sinister Ends wherein I comprized your foul reflections upon King Henry the Eighth and Queen Elizabeth his Daughter not placing them as you now faign among the number of them whom I affirmed to be reported by you as a company of Contemptible Persons But now upon a confidence that you have shifted your hands of a necessity to re-inforce this Assertion which you find it may be in your self an incompetency for you reflect back upon some former passages in the Animadversions wherein the generall Objections that you lay against Protestancy are observed to be the same for substance that long ago were by Celsus objected unto Christianity And say So likewise in the very beginning of this your second Chapter you spend four leaves in a parallel betwixt mee and the Pagan Celsus where of there is not any member of it true Doth Fiat Lux say you lay the cause of all the troubles disorders tumults warres within the Nations of Europe upon Protestants doth he charge the Protestants that by their schisms and seditions they make a way for other revolts doth he gather a Rhapsody of insignificant words doth he insist upon their divisions doth he mannage the Arguments of the jews against Christ c so doth Celsus who is confuted by Origen Where does Fiat Lux where does does he does he any such thing Are you not ashamed to talk at this rate I give a hint indeed of the Divisions that be amongst us and the frequent argumentations that are made to embroyl and pusle one another with our much evil and little appearance of any good in order unto unity and peace which is the end of my discourse But must I therefore be Celsus Did Celsus any such thing to such an end It is the end that moralizeth and specifies the action To diminish Christianity by upbraiding our frailties is paganish to exhort to unity by representing the inconvenience of faction is a Christian and pious work When honest Protestants in the Pulpit speak ten times more full and vehemently against the divisions warres and contentions that be amongst us than ever came into my thoughts must they therefore every one of them be a Celsus a Pagan Celsus What stuff is this But it is not only my defamation you aym at your own glory comes in the reer If I be Celsus the Pagan Celsus you then forsooth must be Origen that wrote against him honest Origen that is the thing Pray S t it is but a word let me advise you by the way that you do not forget your self in your heat and give your Wife occasion to fall out with you However you may yet will not your Wife like it perhaps so well that her Husband should be Origen Such trash as this must he consider who is forced to have to do with you These it seems are the meditations you are conversant with in your retirements What little regard you have in them unto Truth or honesty shall quickly be discovered unto you 1. Do I compare you with Celsus or do I make you to be Celsus I had certainly been very much mistaken if I had done so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to compare a Person of so small abilities in literature as you discover your self so to be with so learned a Philosopher had been a great Mistake And I wish you give me not occasion to think you as much Inferiour unto him in morals as I know you are in your intellectuals But S r I no where compare you unto him but only shew a co-incidence of your objections against Protestancy with some of his against Christianity which the likeness of your Cause and interest cast you upon 2. I did not say You had the same end with him I expressed my thoughts to the contrary nor did compare your act and his in point of Morality but only shewed as I said before a Co-incidence in your Reasonings This you saw and read and now in an open defiance of Truth and Ingenuity express the contrary Celsus would not have done so But I must tell you S r you are mistaken if you suppose that the
man will swallow amongst them that which is destitute of all Probability but what is included in the evidence given unto it by Divine Revelation which is not yet pleaded unto him It may be then you will work Miracles to confirm your Assertions Let us see them For although very many things are requisite to manifest any works of wonder that may be wrought in the world to be reall Miracles and good Caution be required to judge unto what end Miracles are wrought yet if we may have any tolerable evidence of your working Miracles in Confirmation of this Assertion that you are the true and only Church of God with the other Inferences depending thereon which we are in the Consideration of you will find us very easie to be treated withall But herein also you fail You have then no way to deal with such a man as we first supposed but as you do with us and produce Testimonies of Scripture to prove and confirm the Authority of your Church and then you will quickly find where you are and what snares you have cast your selves into Will not a man who hears you proving the Authority of your Church by the Scripture ask you And whence hath this Scripture its Authority yea that is supposed to be the thing in Question which denying unto it an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you yet produce to confirm the Authority of that by whose Authority alone its self is evidenced to have any Authority at all Rest in the Authority of God manifesting its self in the Scripture witnessed unto by the Catholick Tradition of all Ages you will not But you will prove the Scripture to be the Word of God by the Testimony of your Church and you will prove your Châ—â—â—h to be enabled sufficiently to testifie the Scriptures to be of God by the Testimonies of the Scripture Would you knew where to begin and where to end But you are indeed in a Circle which hath neither beginning nor ending I know not when we shall be enabled to say Inventus Chrysippe tui finitor acervi Now do you think it reasonable that we should leave our stable and immoveable firm foundations to run round with you in this endless Circle untill through giddiness we fall into Unbelief or Atheism This is that which I told you before you must either acknowledge our Principle in this matter to be firm and certain or open a door to Atheism and the Contempt of Christian Religion seeing you are not able to substitute and thing in the room thereof that is able to bear the weight that must be laid upon it if we believe For how should you do so shall man be like unto God or equall unto him The Testimony we rest in is Divine fortified from all Objections by the strongest humane Testimony possible namely Catholick Tradition That which you would supply us with is meerly Humane and no more And 4. your Importunity in opposing this Principle is so much the more marvellous unto us because therein you openly oppose your selves to express Testimonies of Scripture and the full Suffrage of the Ancient Church I wish you would a little weigh what is affirmed 2 Pet. 1. 19 20. Psal. 119. 152. Joh. 5. 34 35 36 39. 1 Thess. 2. 13. Act. 17. 11. 1 Joh. 5. 6 10. 1 Joh. 2. 20. Heb. 11. 1 Tim. 1. 15. Act. 26. 22. And will you take with you the consent of the Ancients Clemens Alexand. Strom. 7. speaks fully to our purpose as he doth also lib. 4. where he plainly affirms that the Church proved the Scripture by its selfâ— and other things as the Unity of the Deity by the Scripture But his own words in the former place are worth the recital 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the beginning of Faith or Principle of what we teach we have the Lord who in sundry manners and by divers parts by the Prophets Gospel and holy Apostles leads us to knowledge And if any one suppose that a Principle stands in need of another to prove it he destroys the nature of a Principle or it is no longer preserved a Principle This is that we say The Scripture the Old and New Testament is the Principle of our Faith This is proved by its self to be of the Lord who is its Author and if we cause it to depend on any thing else it is no longer the Principle of our Faith and Profession And a little after where he hath shewed that a Principle ought not to be disputed nor to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of any debate he addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is meet then that receiving by Faith the most absolute Principle without other demonstration and taking demonstrations of the Principle from the Principle its self that we be instructed by the voice of the Lord unto the knowledge of the Truth That is we believe the Scripture for its own sake and the Testimony that God gives unto it in it and by it and do prove every thing else by it and so are confirmed in the faith or knowledge of the Truth So he further explains himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For we do not simply or absolutely attend or give heed unto men determining or defining against whom it is equall that we may define or declare our judgements So it is whilest the Authority of man or men any Society of men in the world is pleaded the Authority of others may be as good reason be objected against it as whilest you plead your Church and its definitions others may on as good grounds oppose theirs unto you therein And therefore Clemens proceeds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For if it be not sufficient meerly to declare or assert that which appears to be truth but also to make that Credible or fit to be believed which is spoken we seek not after the Testimony that is given by men but we confirm that which is proposed or enquired about with the voice of the Lord which is more full than any demonstration or rather is its self the only demonstration according to the knowledge whereof they that have tasted of the Scriptures are believers Into the voice the Word of God alone the Church then resolved their Faith this only they built upon acknowledging all humane Testimony to be too weak and infirm to be made a foundation for it And this voice of God in the Scripture evidencing its self so to be is the only Demonstration of Faith which they rested in whereupon a little after he addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so wee having perfect Demonstrations out of the Scriptures are by Faith demonstratively assured or perswaded of the Truth of the things proposed This was the Profession of the Church of old this the resolution of their faith This is that which Protestants in this Case adhere unto They proved the Scripture to be from God as he elswhere speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as
we also do Strom. 4. To this purpose speaks Salvianus de Gub. Lib. 3. Alia omnia idest humana dicta argumentis testibus egent Dei autem Sermo ipse sibi test is est quia necesseest ut quicquid incorrupta verityas loquitur incorruptum sit testimonium veritatis All other sayings stand in need of Arguments and witnesses to confirm them the Word of God is witness to its self For whatever the Truth incorrupted speaks must of necessity be an incorrupt Testimony of Truth And although some of them allowed the Testimony of the Church as a motive unto believing the Gospell or things preached from it yet as to the belief of the Scripiure with faith Divine and Supernaturall to be the Word of God they required but these two things 1. That Self-Evidence in the Scripture its self which is needfull for an indemonstrable Principle from which and by which all other things are to be demonstrated And that Self-Evidence Clemens puts in the place of all Demonstrations 2. The Efficacy of the Spirit in the heart to enable it to give a saving assent unto the Truth proposed unto it Thus Austin in his Confessions Lib. 6. cap. 5. Persuasisti mihi ô Domine Deus non eos qui crederent libris tuis quos tanta in omnibus ferè Gentibus authoritate fundasti esse culpandos sed eos qui non crederent new audiendesesse siqui mihi forte dicerent Unde scis illos libres unius veracissimi Dei Spirituesse humano generi ministratos idipsum enim maximè credendum erat O Lord God thou hast perswaded me that not they who believe thy Books which with so great Authority thou hast setled almost in all Nations were to be blamed but those who believe them not and that I should not hearken unto any of them who might chance to say unto me Whence dost thou know those Books to be given out unto mankind from the Spirit of the only True GOD for that is the thing which principally was to be believed In which words the holy man hath given us full direction what to say when you come upon us with that Question which some used it seems in his dayes A great Testimony of the Antiquity of your Principles Adde hereunto what he writes in the 11 th Book and 3 d Chapter of the same Treatise and wee have the summe of the Resolution and Principle of his Faith Audiam saith he intelligam quomodo fecisti Coelam terram Scripsit hoc Moses scripsit abiit transivit hinc ad Te. Neque enim nunc ante me est nam si esset tenerem eum rogaremeum per Teobsecrarem ut mihi ist a paâ—derct praberem aures corporis mei sonis erumpentibus ex ere ejus At si Hebraea voce loqueretur frustra pulsaret sensum meum nec inde mentem meam tangeret si autem Latinè scirem quid diceret sed Unde scirem an verum dicoret quod si hoc scirem num ab illâ— scirem Intus utique mihi intus in domicilio cogitationis nec Hebraea nec Graeca nec Latina nec barbara verityas sine oris linguae organis sine strepitu syllabarum diceret verum diâ—it ego statim â—â—tus confidenter illi homini tuo dicerem Verumolits Cum ergo illum interrogare non possim Te quo 〈◊〉 vera dixit Veritas rogo Te Deus meus rogo partepeccatis meis qui illi servo tuo dedisti haec dicere 〈◊〉 mihi haEc intelligere I would bear and understand O Lord how thou hast made the Heavens and the earth Moses wrote this he wrote it and is gene and he is gone to Thee For now he is not present with mee if he were I would lay hold on him and ask him and beseech him for thy sake that he would unfold these things unto me and I would cause the ears of my body to attend unto the words of his mouth But if he should speak in the Hebrew tongue he would only in vain strike upon my outward sense and my mind within would not be affected with it If he speak in Latine I should know what he sayed but whence should I know that he spake the Truth should I know this also from him The Truth that is neither Hebrew Greck Latine nor expressed in any Barbarous Language would say unto me inwardly in the dwelling place of my thoughts without the organs of mouth or tongue or noyse of syllables He speaks the Truth and I with confidaence should say unto him thy servam Thou speakest the Truth Seeing therefore I cannot enquire of him I beseech Thee that art Truth with whom he being filled spake the Truth I beseech thee O my God pardon my sinnes and thou who gavest unto him by servant to speak these things grant unto me tounderstand Thus this holy man ascribes his assent into the one unquestionable Principle of the Scripture as to the effecting of it in himself to the work if Gods Spirit in his heart As Basil also doth on Psal. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faith which draws the soul unto consent above the efficacy of all rational wayes or methods of perswasion Faith that is wrought and begotten in us not by geometricall enforcements or demonstrations but by the effectuall operations of the Spirit And both these Principles are excellently expressed by one amongst your selves even Baptista Mantuanus Lib. de Patientia Cap. 32 33. Saepenumerò faith he mecum cogitavi Unde tam sâ—adibilis esset ista Scriptura ut tam potenter insluat in animos auditorum unde tantum habeat energiae ut non adopinandum sed ad solidè credendum omnes inflectat I have often thought with my self Whence the Scripture is so perswasive whence it doth so powerfully influence the minds of the hearers whence it hath so much efficacy that it should incline and bow all men not to think as probable but solidly to believe the things it proposeth Non saith he est hoc imputandum rationum evidentiaequas non adducit non artis industriae verbis suavibus ad persuadendum accommodatis quibus non utitur It is not to be ascribed unto the evidence of Reasons which it bringeth not neither to the excellency of Art sweet words and accommodated unto per swasion which it makes no use of Sed vide an id in causa sit quod persuasi sumus eam à prima veritate flâ—xisse But see if this be not the Cause of it that wee are perswaded that it proceeds from the prime Verity He proceeds Sed unde sumus ita persuasi nisi ab ipsa quasi ad ei credendum non sua ipsiâ—â— trahat Authoritas Sed unde quaeso hanc sibi Authoritatem vindicavit Neque enim vidimus nos Deum concionantem scribentem docentem tamen ac si vidissemus credimus tenemus à Spiritu Sancto fluxisse quod legimus Forsitan
And that A man once rid of his Authority may as easily deride and as solidly confute the Incarnation as the Sprinkling of Holy water so resolving our faith of the Incarnation of Christ into his Authority or Testimony Yea and in the same page That if it had not been for the Pope Christ himself had not been taken in the world for any such Person as he is believed this day And p. 378. to the same purpose The first great fundamental of Christian Religion which is the Truth and Divinity of Christ had it not been for him had failed long ago in the world with much more to the same purpose Hence it is evident that in your judgment all Truth and Certainty in Region depends on the Popes Anthority and Infallibility or as you express it his unerring guidance This is your Principle this you propose as the only medium to bring us unto that Settlement in Religion which you suppose the Scripture is not able to do What course should we now take would you have us believe you at the first word without further triall or examination would you have a man to do so who never before heard of Pope or Church We are commanded to try all things and to hold fast that which is good to try pretending Spirits and the Beraeans are commended for examining by the Scripture what Paul himself preached unto them An implicit Credulity given up to such Dictates is the height of Fanaticism Have wee not reason then to call you and your copartners in this design to an accoun â—how you prove that which you so strenuously assert and suppose and to examine the Principles of that Authority whereunto you resolve all your faith and Religion If upon mature consideration these prove Solid and the Inferences you make from them Cogent it is good Reason that you should be attended unto If they prove otherwise if the first be false and the latter Sophistical you cannot justly take it ill of him that shall advise you to take heed that whilest you are gloriously displaying your Colours the ground that you stand upon do not sink under your feet And here you are forced to go many a step backward to fix your first footing untill you leave your Pope quite out of sight from whence you advance towards him by severall degrees and so arive at his Supremacie and Infallibility and so we shall have Reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri 1. Your first Principle to this purpose is That Peter was the Prince of the Apostles and that in him the Lord Jesus founded a Monarchy in his Church So pag. 360. you call him the head and Prince of the whole Congregation Now this wee think no meet Principle for any one to begin withall in asserting the foundation of Faith and Religion Nor do we think that if it were meet so to be used that it is any way subservient unto your design and purpose 1. A Principle fundamental or first entrance into any way of Settlement in Faith or Religion it cannot possibly be because it presupposeth the knowledg of and assent unto many other great fundamental Articles of Christian Religion yea upon the matter all that are so For before you can rationally talk with a man about Peters Principality and the Monarchical state of the Church hereon depending you must suppose that he believes the Scripture 〈◊〉 be the Word of God and all things that are taught therein concerning Jesus Christ his Person Nature Offices Work and Gospell to be certainly and infallibly true for they are all supposed in your Assertion which without the knowledg of them is uncouth horrid insignificant and forraign to all notions that a man can rationally entertain of God or Religion Nay no attempt of proof or confirmation can be given unto it but by and from Scripture whereby you fall directly into the Principle which you seek so carefully to avoid namely that the Scripture is the only way and means of setling us in the Truth since you cannot settle any man in the very first proposition which you make to lead him into another way but by the Scripture So powerfull is Truth that those who will not follow it willingly it will lead them captive in Triumph whether they will or no. 2. It is unmeet for any purpose because it is not true No one word from the Scripture can you produce in its confirmation wherein yet if it be not revealed it must pass as a very uncertain and frivolous conjecture You can produce no suffrage of the Ancient Church unto your purpose which yet if you could would not presently render any Assertion so confirmed infallibly certain much less fundamental Some indeed of the 4 th Century call Peter Principem Apostolorum but explain themselves to intend thereby 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first or Leader not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Prince or Ruler And when the ambiguity of that word began to be abused unto pretensions of Preeminence the Council of Carthage expresly condemned it allowing none to be termed Princeps Sacerdotum Many in those dayes thought Peter to be among the Apostles like the Princeps Senatus or Princeps Civi atis the chief in their Assemblies or Principall in dignity how truly I know not but that he should be amongst them and over them a Prince in Office a Monarch as to Rule and Power is a thing that they never once dreamed of and the Asseveration of it is an open untruth The Apostles were equall in their Call Office Place Dignity Employments All the difference between them was in their Labours Sufferings and Success wherein Paul seems to have had the pre-eminence who as Peter and all the rest of the Apostles every one singly and for himself had the care of all the Churches committed unto him thought it may be for the better discharge of their Duty ordinarily they divided their work as they found it necessary for them to apply themselves unto it in particular See 2 Cor. 11. And this equality between the Apostles is more than once insinuated by Paul and that with speciall reference unto Peter 1 Cor. 1. Gal. 1. 18 19. ch 2. 9. And is it not wonderfull that if this Assertion should not only be true but such a Truth as on which the whole faith of the Church was to be built that the Scripture should be utterly silent of it that it should give us no Rules about it no directions to use and improve it afford us no one instance of the exercise of the Power and Authority intimated no not one but that on the contrary it should lay down Principles exclusive of it Matth. 22. 25 26. Luk. 22. 26. And when it comes to make an enumeration of all the Offices appointed by Christ in his Church Eph. 4. 11. should pass over the Prince and his Office in silence on which all the rest were to depend You see what a Foundation you begin to build upon a meer
for our Saviour tells us in the next words that the world cannot receive him that is men of the world carnally minded men cannot do so for he is the peculiar inheritance of those that are called sanctified and do believe Now if ever there was any world in the world any of the world in the earth some many of your Popes have been so and therefore by the testimony of Christ could not receive the Spirit that he promised unto his Church Again it is promised unto the Church Mysticall or Catholick in the first and chiefest notion of it that all her children shall be holy all taught of God and all that are so taught as our Saviour informs us come to him by saving faith you will not I am sure for shame affirm that this Promise hath been made good to all either Children or Fathers of your Church Innumerable other Promises made to the Catholick Church may be instanced in which you can no better or otherwise apply unto your Church than one of your Popes did that of the Psalmist to himself Thou shalt tread on the Lion and the Basilisk when he set his foot on the neck of Fredrick the Emperour But the Arguments are endless whereby the vanity of this pretence may be disproved I shall only adde Sixtly That it is contrary to all Story Reason and common sense For it is notorious that far the greatest part of Christians that belong to the Catholick Church of Christ of have done so from the dayes that Christianity first entred the world successively in all Ages never thought themselves any otherwise concerned in the Roman Church than in any other particular Church of name in the world And is it not a madness to exclude them all from being Christians or belonging to the Catholick Church because they belonged not to the Roman This I could easily demonstrate throughout all Ages of the Church successively But we need not insist longer on the disproving of that Assertion which implyes a flat Contradiction in the very terms of it If any Church be the Catholick it cannot therefore be the Roman and if it be the Roman properly it cannot therefore be the Catholick 2. If you shall say that you mean only that you are a Particular Church of Christ but yet that or such a Particular Church as hath the great Priviledges of Infallibility and universall Authority annexed unto it which makes it of necessity for all men to submit unto it and to acquiesce in its Determinations I answer 1. I fear you will not say so you will not I fear renounce your claim unto Catholicism I have already observed that your self in particular affirm the Roman and Catholick Church to be one and the same It is not enough for you that you belong any way to the Church of Christ but you plead that none do so but your selves 2. Indeed you do not own your selves in this very Assertion to be a Particular Church your claim of Universall Authority and Jurisdiction which you still carry along with you is inconsistent with any such concession 3. To make the best of it that we can what ground have you to give us this Difference between the Churches of Christ that one is fallible another infallible that one hath power over all the rest that one depends on Christ all the rest on that one where is the least intimation given of any such thing in the Scripture where or by whom is it expresly asserted amongst the Antient Writers of the Church Was this Principle pleaded or once asserted in any of the Antient Councels Some ambiguous expressions of particular Persons most of them Bishops of Rome in the declining days of the Church you produce indeed unto this purpose But can any rationall man think them a sufficient foundation of that stupendious fabrick which you endeavour to erect upon them I suppose you will not find any such Persons hasty in their so doing Those who are already engaged will not be easily recovered For new Proselytes unto these Principles you have small ground to expect any unless it be of Persons whose lives are either tainted with sensuality which they would gladly have a refuge for against the accusations of their Consciences or whose minds are entangled with worldly secular advantages suited to their conditions tempers and inclinations Thus I have with what briefness I could shewed you the uncertainty indeed falsness of those Generall Principles from which you educe all your other pleas and reasonings into which they must be resolved And now I pray consider the ground-work you lay for the bringing of men unto a Settlement in the Truth and unto the unity of Faith in opposition to the Scripture which you reject as insufficient unto this purpose The summe of it is an acquiesceney in the proposals and Determinations of your Church as to all things that concern faith and the worship of God The two main Principles that concurre unto it we have apart considered and have found them every way insufficient for the end proposed Neither have they one jot more of strength when they are complicated and blended together as they usually are by you than they have in and of themselves as they stand singly on their own bottoms A thousand falshoods put together will be farre enough from making one Truth A multiplication of them may encrease a Sophism but not adde the least weight or strength to an Argument An army of Cripples will not make one sound man And can you think it reasonable that we should renounce our sure and firm Word of Prophecy to attend unto you in this chase of uncertain Conjectures and palpable untruths Suppose this were a way that would bring you and us to an Agreement and take away the evil of our Differences I can name you twenty that would do it as effectually and they should none of them have any evil in them but only that whch yours also is openly guilty of namely the Relinquishment of our Duty towards God and Care of our own Souls to come to some peace amongst our selves in this world which would be nothing else but a plain Conspiracy against Jesus Christ and rejection of his Authority At present I shall say no more but that he who is lead into the Truth by so many Errors and is brought unto establishments by so many uncertainties hath singular success and such as no other man hath reason to look for Or he is like Robert Duke of Normandy who when he caused the Saracens to carry him into Jerusalem sent word unto his friends in Europe that he was carried into Heaven on the backs of Devils It may also in particular be easily made to appear how unsuited your means of bringing men unto the unity of faith are unto that Supposition of the present Differences in Religion between you and us which you proceed upon For suppose a man be convinced that many things taught by your Church are false and contrary to the
then that of any of them And therefore on what terms and reasons soever a man may relinquish the opinions and renounce the Communion of any other Church upon the same may he renounce the Communion and relinquish the Opinions of yours And if there be no reasons sufficiently cogent so to deal with any Church whatever I pray on what grounds do you proceed to perswade others to such a Course that they may joyn with you Dicisque facisque quod ipse Non Sani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes To disintangle you out of this Labyrinth whereinto you have cast your self I shall desire you to observe that if the Lord Christ by his Word be the Supream Revealer of all Divine Truth and the Church that is any Church whatever be only the Ministerial proposer of it under and from him being to be regulated in all its propositions by his Revelation if it shall chance to propose that for Truth which is not by him revealed as it may do seeing it hath no security of being preserved from such failures but only in its attendance unto that Rule which it may neglect or corrupt A man in such a Case cannot discharge his Duty to the Supream Revealer without dissenting from the Ministerial proposer Nay if it be a Truth which is proposed and a man dissent from it because he is not convinced that it is revealed he is in no danger to be induced to question other Propositions which he knows to be so revealed his faith being built upon and resolved into that Revelation alone All that remains of your discourse lyes with its whole weight on this presumption because some men may either wilfully prevaricare from the Truth or be mistaken in their apprehensions of it and so dissent from a Church that teacheth the truth and wherein she so teacheth it without cause therefore no man may or ought to relinquish the errors of a Church which he is really and truly convinced by Scripture and solid reason suitable thereunto so to be An inference so wild and so destructive of all assurance in every thing that is knowable in the world that I wonder how your Interest could induce you to give any countenance unto it For if no man can certainly and infallibly know any thing by any way or means wherein some or other are ignorantly or wilfully mistaken we must bid adiew for ever to the certain knowledge of any thing in this world And how slightly soever you are pleased to speak of Scripture Light Spirit and Reason they are the proper names of the wayes and helps that God hath graciously given to the sons of men to come to the knowledge of himself And if the Scripture by the assistance of the Spirit of God and the light unto it communicated unto men by him be not sufficient to lead them in the use and improvement of their Reason unto the saving knowledge of the will of God and that assurance therein which may be a firm foundation of acceptable obedience unto him they must be content to go without it for other wayes and means of it there are none But this is your manner of dealing with us All other Churches must be sleighted and relinquished the means appointed and sanctified by God himself to bring us unto the knowledge of and settlement in the Truth must be rejected that all men may be brought to a fanatical unreasonable resignation of their faith to you and your Church if this be not done men may with as good reason renounce Truth as Error and after they have rejected one error be inclined to cast off all that Truth for the sake whereof that error was rejected by them And I know not what other inconveniences and mischiefs will follow It must needs be well for you that you are Gallinae filius albae Seeing all others are Viles pulli nati infelicibus ovis Your only misadventure is that you are fallen into somewhat an unhappy age wheréin men are hard-hearted and will not give away their Faith and Reason to every one that can take the confidence to beg them at their hands But you will now prove by instances that if a man deny any thing that your Church proposeth he may with as good reason deny every Truth whatever I shall follow you through them and consider what in your matter or manner of proposal is worthy that serious perusal of them which you so much desire To begin See if the Quakers deny not as resolutely the regenerating power of Baptisme as you the efficacy of Absolution See if the Presbyterians do not with as much reason evacuate the Prelacy of Protestants as they the Papacy All things it seems are alike Truth and Error and may with the same reason be opposed and rejected And because some men renounce errors others may on as good grounds renounce the Truth and oppose it with as solid and cogent reasons The Scripture it seems is of no use to direct guide or settle men in these things that relate to the worship and knowledge of God What a strange dream hath the Church of God been in from the dayes of Moses if this be so Hitherto it hath been thought that what the Scripture teacheth in these things turned the scales and made the embracement of it reasonable as the rejection of them the contrary As the woman said to Joab They were wont to speak in old time saying they shall surely ask counsel at Abel and so they ended the matter They said in old time concerning these things To the Law and the Testimonies search the Scriptures and so they ended the matter But it seems tempora mutantur and that now Truth and Falsehood are equally probable having the same grounds the same evidences Quis leget haec min tu istud ais Do you think to be believed in these incredible figments fit to bear a part in the stories of Vlysses unto Alcinous Yet you proceed See if the Socinian Arguments against the Trinity be not as strong as yours against the Eucharist But where did you ever read any Arguments of ours against the Eucharist Have you a dispensation to say what you please for the promotion of the Catholick Cause Are not the Arguments you intend indeed rather for the Eucharist then against it Arguments to vindicate the nature of that holy Eucharistical Ordinance and to preserve it from the manifold abuses that you and your Church do put upon it That is they are arguments against your Transubstantiation and proper sacrifice that you intend And will you now say that the Arguments of the Socinians against the Trinity the great fundamental Article of our Prosession plainly taught in the Scripture and constantly believed by the Church of all Ages are of equal force and validity with those used against your Transubstantiation and Sacrifice of the Mass things never mentioned no not once in the whole Scripture never heard of nor believed by the Church of old and
briefly mind you of the principles which you oppose in it and seek to evert by it as also of those which you intend to compass your purpose by Of the first sort are these 1. That the Lord Christ God and Man in one person is and ever continuâ—s to be the only absolute Monarchical Head of his own Church I suppose it needless for me to confirm this Principle by Testimonies of Scripture which it being a matter of pure Revelation is the only way of confirmation that it is capable of That he is the Head of his Church is so frequently averred that every one who hath but read the New Testament will assent unto it upon the bare repetition of the words with the same faith whereby he assents unto the writing its self whatever it be and we shall afterwards see that the notion of an Head is absolutely exclusive of competition in the matter denoted by it An Head properly is singly and absolutely so and therefore the substitution of another head unto the Châ—rch in the room of Christ or with him is perfectly exclusive of him from being so 2. That Christ as God-man in his whole person was never visible to the fleshly eyes of men and whereas as such he was Head of the Church as the Head of the Church he was never absolutely visible His humane nature was seen of old which was but something of him as he was and is the Head of the Church otherwise then by faith no man hath seen him at any time and it changeth the condition of the Church to suppose that now it hath a Head who being a meer man is in his whole person visible so far as a man may be seen 3. That the visibility of the Church consisteth in its publick profession of the Truth and not in its being objected to the bodily eyes of men It is a thing that faith may believe it is a thing that Reason may take notice of consider and comprehend the eyes of the body being of no use in this matter When a Church professeth the Truth it is the ground and pillar of it a City on a hill that is visible though no man see it yea though no man observe or contemplate on any thing about it It s own Profession not other mens observation constitutes it visible Nor is there any thing more required to a Churches visibility but its Profession of the Truth unto which all the outward advantages which it hath or may have of appearing conspicuously or gloriously to the consideration of men are purely accidental which may be separated from it without any prejudice unto its visibility 4. That the sameness of the Church in all Ages doth not depend on its sameness in respect of degrees of visibility That the Church be the same that it was is required that it profess the same Truth it did whereby it becomes absolutely visible but the degrees of this visibility as to conspicuousness and notoriety depending on things accidental unto the being and consequently visibility of Church do no way affect as unto any change Now from hence it follows 1. That the presence or absence of the Humane nature of Christ with or from his Church on earth doth not belong unto the visibility of it so that the absence of it doth no way inferr a necessity of substituting another visible head in his stead Nor was the presence of his humane Nature with his Church any way necessary to the visibility of it his conversation on the earth being wholly for other ends and purposes 2. That the presence or absence of the humane nature of Christ not varying his headship which under both considerations is still the same the supposition of another Head is perfectly destructive of the whole Headship of Christ there being no vacancy possible to be imagined for that supply but by the removal of Christ out of his place For he being the Head of his Church as God and man in his whole person invisible and the visibility of the Church consisting solely in its own profession of the Truth the absence of his humane nature from the earth neither changeth his own Headship nor prejudiceth the Churches visibility so that either the one or the other of them should induce a necessity of the supply of another Head Consider now what it is that you oppose unto these things You tell us â— That Christ was the Head of the Church in his humane nature delegated by and under Gâ—d to that purpâ—se You mean he was so absolutely and as man exclusively to his divine nature This your whole Discourse with the Inferences that you draw from this supposition abundantly manifests If you can make this good you may conclude what you please I know no man that hath any great cause to oppose himself unto you for you have taken away the very foundation of the being and 〈◊〉 of the Church in your supposition 2. You inform us That Christ by his Ascension into heaven ceased to be that Head that he was so that of necessity another must be substituted in his place and room and this we must think to be the Pope He is I confess absent from his Church here on earth as to his bodily appearance amongst us which as it was not necessary as to his Headship so he promised to supply the inconvenience which 〈◊〉 Disciples apprehended would ensue thereupon so that they should have great cause to rejoyce at it as that wherein their great advantage would lye John 16. 7. That this should be by giving us a Pope at Rome in his stead he hath no way intimated And unto those who know what your Pope is and what he hath done in the world you will hardly make it evident that the great advantage which the Lord Christ promised unto his Disciples upon his absence is made good unto them by his Supervisorship 3. You would have the visibility of the Church depend on the visibility of its Head as also its sameness in all ages And no one you are secure who is now visible pretends to be the Head of the Church but the Pope alone and therefore of necessity he it must be But Sir if the Lord Jesus Christ had had no other nature then that wherein he was visible to the eyes of men he could never have been a meet Head for a Church dispersed throughout the whole world nor have been able to discharge the Duty annexed by God unto that office And if so I hope you will not take it amiss if on that supposition I deem your Pope of whom millions of Christians know nothing but by uncertain rumors nor he of then to be very unmeet for the discharge of it And for the visibility of the Church I have before declared wherein it doth consist Upon the whole matter you do not only come short of proving the Indentity and Oneness of the Church to depend upon one visible Bishop as its Monarchical Head but also the
nature and causes of things here below though they know well enough that there was never any agreement amongst the wisest and severest that at any time have been engaged in that disquisition nor is it likely that ever there will be so And herein they can countenance themselves with the difficulty obscurity and importance of the things inquired after But as for the high and heavenly mysteries of the Gospel the least whereof is infinitely of more importance then any thing that the utmost reach and comprehension of humane wisdom can attain unto they may be neglected and despised because there are contentions about them Hic nigrae succus loliginis haec est Erugo mera The truth is this is so far from any real ground for any such conclusion that it were utterly impossible that any man should believe the truth of Christian Religion if he had not seen or might not be informed that such contention and differences had ensued in and about it for that they should do so is plainly and frequently foretold in those sacred oracles of it whereof if any one be found to fail the veracity and authority of the whole may justly be called into question If therefore men will have a religion so absolutely facile aud easie that without diligence endeavour pains or enquiry without laying out of their rational abilities or exercising the faculties of their souls about it without foregoing of their lusts and pleasures without care of mistakes and miscarriages they may be securely wrapt up in it as it were whither they will or no I confess they must seek for some other where they can find it Christianity will yield them no relief God hath not proposed an acquaintance with the blessed concernments of his Glory and of their own eternal condition unto the sons of men on any such terms as that they should not need with all diligence to employ and exercise their faculties of their souls in the investigation of them in the use of the means by him appointed for that purpose seeing this is the chiefest end for which he hath made us those souls And as for them who in sincerity give up their minds and consciences unto his Authority and guidance he hath not left them without an infallible dâ—rection for such a discharge of their own duty as is sufficient to guide and lead them in the middest of all differences divisions and oppositions unto rest with himself and the difficulties which are cast upon any in their enquiring after truth by the errour and deviation of other men from it are all sufficiently recompenced unto them by the excellency and sweetness which they find in the truth it self when sought out with diligence according to the mind of Christ. And one said not amiss of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I dare say he is the wisest Christian who hath most diligently conâ—idered the various differences that are in and about Christianity as being built in the knowledge of the truth upon the best and most stable foundations To this end hath the Lord Jesus given us his holy word a perfect and sure Revelation of all that he would have us to believe or do in the worship of God This he commands us diligently to attend unto to study seach and enquire after that we may know his mind and do it It is true in their enquiry into it various apprehensions concerning the sense and meaning of sundry things revealed therein have befallen some men in all ages and Origen gives this as one occasion of the differences that were in those dayes amongst Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 3. Con. Celâ— 1. When many were converted unto Christianity some of them variously understanding the holy Scripture which they joyntly believed it came to pass that heresie ensued For this was the whole rule of faith unity in those dayes the means for securing of us in them imposed on us of late by the Romanists was then not heard of not thought of in the world But moreover to obviate all danger that might in this matter ensue from the manifold weakness of our minds in apprehending spiritual things the Lord Jesus hath promised his holy spirit unto all them that believe in him and ask it of him to prevent their mistakes and miscarriages in the study of his word and to lead them into all that truth the knowledge whereof is necessary that they may believe in him unto the end and live unto him And if they who diligently and conscientiously without prejudices corrupt ends or designs in obedience to the command of Christ shall enquire into the Scriptures to receive from thence the whole object of their faith and rule of their obedience and who believing his promise shall pray for his Spirit and wait to receive him in and by the means appointed for that end may not be and are not thereby secured from all such mistakes and errours as may disinterest them in the promises of the Gospel I know not how we may be brought unto any certainty or assurance in the Truths of God or the everlasting consolation of our own souls Neither indeed is the nature of man capable of any further satisfaction in or about these things unless God should work continual miracles or give continually special revelations unto all individuals whch would utterly overthrow the whole nature of that faith and obedience which he requires at our hands But once to suppose that such persons through a defect of the means appointed by Christ for the instruction and direction before mentioned may everlastingly miscarry is to cast an unspeakable reproach on the goodness grace and faithfulness of God and enough to discourage all men from enquiring after the truth And these things the Reader will find further cleared in the ensuing discourse with a discovery of the weakness falseness and insufficiency of those rules and reliefs which are tendred unto us by the Romanists in the lieu of them that are given us by God himself Now if this be the condition of things in Christian Religion as to any one that hath with sincerity consulted the Scripture or considered the Goodness Grace and Wisdom of God it must needs appear to be it is manifest that mens startling at it or being offended upon the account of divisions and differences among them that make profession thereof is nothing but a pretence to cloke and hide their sloth and supine negligence with their unwillingness to come up unto the indispensable condition of learning the truth as it is in Jesus namely obedience unto his whole will and all his commands so far as he is pleased to reveal them unto us With others they are but incentives unto that diligence and watchfulness which the things themselves in their nature high and arduous and in their importance of everlasting moment require at your hands Further on those who by the means formentioned come to the knowledge of the truth it is incumbent according as they are
antient Church-Fathers and Councils Imposing Rites unnecessary Persecution for Conscience Papal Supremacy The Branches of it Papal Personal Infallibility Religious Veneration of Images p. 48 CHAP. 5. The Principles of Fiat Lux re-examined Things not at quiet in Religion before Reformation of the first Reformers Departure from Rome no Cause of Divisions Returnal unto Rome no means of Vnion p. 89 CHAP. 6. Further Vindication of the second Chapter of the Animadversions Scripture sufficient to settle men in the Truth Instance against it examined removed Principles of Protestants and Romanists in reference unto Moderation compared and discussed p. 99 CHAP. 7. Vnity of Faith wherein consists Principles of Protestants as to the setling men in Religion and Vnity of Faith proposed and confâ—rmed p. 121 CHAP. 8. Principles of Papists whereon they proceed in bringing men to a setlement in Religion and the Vnity of Faith examined p. 161 CHAP. 9. Proposals from Protestant Principles tending unto Moderation and Vnity p. 204 CHAP. 10. Further Vindication of the second Chapter of the Animadversions The remaining Principles of Fiat Lux considered p. 301 CHAP. 11. Judicious Readers Schoolmen the Forgers of Popery 〈…〉 Discourse in Fiat Lux. p. 308 CHAP. 12. False Suppositions causing false and absurd consequences Whence we had the Gospel in England and by whose means What is our Duty in reference unto them by whom we receive the Gospel p. 315 CHAP. 13. Faith and Charity of the Roman Catholicks p. 351 CHAP. 14. Of Reason Jews objections against Christ. p. 362 CHAP. 15. Pleas of Prelate Protestants Christ the only supream and absolute Head of the Church p. 370 CHAP. 16. The Power assigned by Papists and Protestants unto Kings in matters Ecclesiastical Their several Principles discussed and compared p. 398 CHAP. 17. Scripture Story of the Progress and declension of Religion vindicated Papal Artifices for the promotion of their Power and Interest Advantages made by them on the Western Empire p. 423 CHAP. 18. Reformation of Religion Papal contradictions Ejice ancillam p. 447 CHAP. 19. Of preaching the Mass And the Sacrifice of it Transubstantiation Service of the Church p. 452 CHAP. 20. Of the Blessed Virgin p. 47â— CHAP. 21. Images Doctrine of the Council of Trent Oâ— the second Nicene The Arguments for the Adoâ—ration of Images Dctrine of the antient Church Of the chief Doctrine of the Roman Church Practice of the while Vain foundations of the pretences for Image Worship examined and reproved p. 477 CHAP. 22. Of the Latine Service p. 526 CHAP. 23. Communion p. 558. CHAP. 24. Heroes Of the Asses Head whose worship was objected to Jews and Christians p. 559 ERRATA PAge 2. l. 13. r. caeterarum p. 3. l. 23. r. advantage p. 4. l. 1. r. ultio l. 2. r. uocens p. 5. l. 16. r. up p. 7. l. 5. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 11. l. 1. r Crescens p. 12. l. 16. r. you have neither p. 15. l. 1. r. pleadable p. 16. l. 11. r. â—v l. 29 r. parcas p. 67. l. 22. r. that p. 69 l. 5. r. what p. 71. l. 26. r. revengeth p. 75. l. 15. r. tumbled p. 76. l. 22. r. Lybya p 77. l. 24. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 82 l. 10. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 84. l. 1. r. pseudopigraphall p. 85. l. 30 r. Tharasius p. 87. l. 12. r. Demetriad l. 31 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 91 l. â— r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 105 l. 32. r. from p. 106. l. 27. l. feat l 34. after that add they p. 117 l. 33. r. indispeasible p. â—19 l. 9. r. Bogomilus p. 127. l. 5. r. infallibly p. 132. l. 14. r. the p. 139. l 28. r. produce p. 144 l. 6. r. gencri l. 32. r. utique p. 145. l. 34. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 152. l. 8. dele it p. 335. l 7. r. retritius p. 337 l 4. r. suprstitious p. 343. l. 14. r. ipse p. 353. l. 1. r. quoi p. 355. l. 8. r. your Church p 357. l. 31. r. homines p. 359. l. 3 r. Brentius p. 375. l. 3. r. your p. 383. l. 13. r. the Church l. 14. r. affect it p. 389. l. 29. r. preside p. 393. l. 14. r. to p. 396. l. 12. r. preside p. 410. l. 24. r. whereas p. 417. l. 32. r. Panoruitanus p. 419. l. 16. r. with p. 420. l. 7 r. He l. 8. r. the p 439. l. 8. r. with p. 441. l. 22. r. nor p 455. l. 16. add part corr In divers places the Copy was mistaken the Church is Printed instead of our Church the intelligent Reader may easily see the mistake and do the Author right therein A Vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat Lux. CHAP. I. SIR I Have received your Epistle and therein your excuse for your long silence which I willingly admit of and could have been contented it had been longer so that you had been advantaged thereby to have spoken any thing more to the purpose than I find you have now done Sat citò si sat benè Things of this nature are alwayes done soon enough when they are done well enough or as well as they are capeable of being done But it is no small disappointment to find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fruitless flourish of words where a serious debate of an important cause was expected and looked for Nor is it a justification of any man when he has done a thing amiss to say he did it speedily if he were no way necessitated so to do You are engaged in a Cause unto whose tolerable defence opus est Zephyris hirundine multa though you cannot pretend so short a time to be used in it which will not by many be esteemed more than it deserves for all time and pains taken to give countenance to errour is undoubtedly mispent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the great Apostle We can do nothing against the Truth but for the Truth which Rule had you observed you might have spared your whole time and labour in this business However I shall be glad to find that you have given me just cause to believe what you say of your not seeing the Animadversions on your Bock before February As I find you observant of Truth in your Progress or failing therein so shall I judg of your veracity in this unlikely story for every man gives the best measure of himself And though I cannot see how possibly a man could spend much time in trussing up such a fardle of trifles and quibbles as your Epistle is yet it is somewhat strange on the other side that you should not in eight moneths space for so long were the Animadversions made publick before February set eye on that which being your own especiall concernment was to my knowledg in the hands of many of your party To dial friendly with you nolim caeterarum rerum te socordem codem modo Yea I doubt not but you use more diligence in your other affairs
to give us an unquestionable settlement in Religion Whether it be meet to hearken unto God or men judge you For our parts wee seek not for the foundation of our settlement in long uncertain discourses doubious conclusions and inferences fallible conjectures sophisticall reasonings such as you would call us unto but in the express direction and command of God Him we can follow and trust unto without the least fear of miscarriage Whither you would lead us wee know not and are not willing to make desperate experiments in things of so high concernment But since you have been pleased to overlook what hath been discoursed unto this purpose in the Animadversions and with your usuall confidence to affirm that I no where at all speak one word to the Case that you proposed I shall for your further satisfaction give you a little enlargement of my thoughts as to the Principles on which Protestants and Romanists proceed in these matters and compare them together that it may be seen whether of us build on the most stable and adequate foundation as to the superstruction aymed at by us both Two things you profess if I mistake not to ayme at in your Fiat at least you pretend so to do 1. Moderation in and about our differences whilest they continue 2. The reduction of all dissenters unto an unity in faith and Profession Things no doubt great and excellent He can be no Christian that aymes not at them that doth not earnestly desire them You profess to make them your Design Protestants do so also Now let us consider whether of the two you or they are fitted with Principles according unto the diversity of Professions wherein you are engaged for the regular accomplishment and effecting of these ends And in the consideration of the latter of them you will find your present Case fully and clearly resolved For the first of Moderation I intend by it and I think so do you also the mutuall forbearance of one another as to any effects of hatred enmity or animosities of any kind attended with offices of Love Charity Kindness and Compassion proceeding from a frame of heart or gracious habit of mind naturally producing such effects with a quiet peaceable deportment towards one another during our present differences in or about any thing in Religion Certainly this Moderation is a blessed thing earnestly commended unto us by our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles and as necessary to preserve peace among Christians as the Sunne in the firmament is to give light unto the world The very Heathen could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Moderation is the life of all things and nothingis durable but from the Influence which it receives from it Now in pressing after moderation Protestants proceed chiefly on two Principles which being once admitted make it a Duty indispensable And I can assure you that no man will long follow after moderation but only he that looks upon it as his Duty so to do Incident provocations will quickly divert them in their course who pursue it for any other ends or on any other accounts The first Principle of the Protestants disposing them to moderation and indispensably exacting it of them as their Duty is that amongst all the Professours of the Name of Christ who are known by their Relation unto any Church or Way of Note or Mark in the world not actually condemned in the Primitive or Apostolicall times there is so much saving Truth owned and taught as being received with faith and submitted unto with sincere obedience is sufficient to give them that profess it an Interest in Christ and in the Covenant of Grace and Love of God and to secure their salvation This Principle hath been openly defended by them and I profess it to be mine It is true there are wayes whereby the Truth mentioned may be rendred ineffectuall but that hinders not but that the Principle is true and that the Truth so received is sufficient for the producing of those effects in its kind and place And let men ptetend what they please the last day will discover that that Faith which purifieth the heart and renders the person in whom it is accepted to God by Jesus Christ may have its objective Truths confined in a very narrow compass yet it must embrace all that is indispensably necessary to salvation And it is an unsufferable Tyranny over the Souls and Consciences of men to introduce and assert a necessity of believing whatever this or that Church any or indeed all Churches shall please to propose For the proposall of all the Churches in the world cannot make any thing to be necessary to be believed that was not so antecedently unto that proposall Churches may help the faith of Believers they cannot burthen it or exercise any dominion over it He that believeth that whatever God reveales is true and that the holy Scripture is a perfect Revelation of his mind and will wherein almost all Christians agree need not fear that he shall be burdened with multitudes of particular Articles of Faith provided he do his Duty in sincerity to come to an acquaintance with what God hath so revealed Now if mens common Interest in Christ their head and thereby their participation of the same Spirit from him with their union in the bond of the Covenant of Grace and an equall sharing in the Love of God the Father be the Principles and upon the matter the only grounds and reasons of that speciall Love without dissimulation which Christians ought to bear one towards another from whence the moderation pleaded for must proceed or it is a thing of no use in our present case at least no way generally belonging to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and if all these things may be obtained by vertue of that Truth which is professed in common among all known Societies of Christians doth it not unavoidably follow that we ought to exercise moderation towards one another however differing in or about things which destroy not the Principles of Love and Union Certainly we ought unless we will resolvedly stifle the actings of that Love which is implanted in all the Disciples of Christ and besides live in an open disobedience unto his commands This then indispensably exacts moderation in Protestants towards them that differ from them and that not only within the lines of Protestancy because they believe that notwithstanding that dissent they have or may have for ought they know an interest in those things which are the only reasons of that Love which is required in them towards the Disciples of Christ. There is a moderation proceeding from the Principles of Reason in generall and requisite unto our common interest in humanity which is good and an especiall ornament unto them in whom it is especially if they are Persons exalted above others in place of Rule and Goveanment Men fierce implacable revengefull impatient treading down all that they dislike under their feet are the greatest defacers of the
believed to belong to the Unity of Faith Lastly The Determinations of your Church you make to be the next efficient Cause of your Unity now these not being absolutely infallible leave it like Delos flitting up and down in the Sea of Probabilities only This we shall manifest unto you immediately at least we shall evidence that you have no cogent reasons nor slable grounds to prove your Church infallible in her Determinations At present it shall suffice to mind you that she hath Determined Contradictions and that in as eminent a manner as it is possible for her to declare her sense by namely by Councils confirmed by Popes and an infallible determination of Contradictions is not a Notion of any easie digestion in the thoughts of a man in his right wits We confess then that we cannot agree with you in your Rule of the Unity of Faith though the thing its self we press after as our Duty For 2. Protestants do not conceive this Vnity to consist in a precise Determination of all Questions that are or may be raised in or about things belonging unto the Faith whether it be made by your Church or any other way Your Thomas of Aquine who without question is the best and most sober of all your School Doctors hath in one Book given us 522 Articles of Religion which you esteem mraculously stated Quot Articuli tot Miracula All these have at least five Questions one with another stated and determined in explication of them which amount unto 2610 Conclusions in matters of Religion Now we are farre from thinking that all these Determinations or the like belong unto the Unity of Faith though much of the Religion amongst some of you lyes in not dissenting from them The Questions that your Bellarmine hath determined and asserted the Positions in them as of faith and necessary to be believed are I think neer 40 times as many as the Articles of the antient Creed of the Church and such as it is most evident that if they be of the nature and importance pretended it is impossible that any considerable number of men should ever be able to discharge their duty in this business of holding the Vnity of Faith That a man believe in generall that the holy Scripture is given by inspiration from God and that all things proposed therein for him to believe are therefore infallibly true and to be as such believed and that in particular he believe every Article or point of Truth that he hath sufficient means for his instruction in and conviction that it is so revealed they judg to be necessary unto the holding of the Unity of Faith And this also they know that this sufficiency nf means unto every one that enjoys the benefit of the Scriptures extends its self unto all those Articles of Truth which are necessary for him to believe so as that he may yield unto God the obedience that he requireth receive the holy Spirit of promise and be accepted with God Herein doth that Vnity of Faith which is amongst the Disciples of Christ in the world consist and ever did nor can do so in any thing else Nor doth that variety of Apprehensions that in many things is found among the Disciples of Christ and ever was render this Vnity like that you plead for various and incertain For the Rule and formall Reason of it namely Gods Revelation in the Scripture is still one and the same perfectly unalterable And the severall degrees that men attain uuto in their Apprehensions of it doth no more reflect a charge of variety upon it than the difference of Seeing as to the severall degrees of the sharpness or obtuseness of our bodily eyes doth upon the Light given by the Sunne The Truth is if there was any common measure of the Assents of men either as to the intension of it as it is subjectively in their minds or extension of it as it respecteth Truths revealed that belonged unto the Vnity of Faith it were impossible there should be any such thing in the world at least that any such thing should be known to be Only this I acknowledg that it is the Duty of all men to come up to the full and explicit acknowledgment of all the Truths revealed in the word of God wherein the Glory of God and the Christians Duty are concerned as also to a joynt consent in Faith objective or propositions of Truth revealed at least in things of most importance though their faith subjective or the internal assent of their minds have as it will have in severall Persons various degrees yea in the same Persons it may be at different seasons And in our labouring to come up unto this joynt-acknowledgment of the same sense and intendment of God in all revealed Truths consists our endeavour after that perfection in the Vnity of Faith which in this life is attainable as our moderation doth in our walking in peace and love with and towards others according to what we have already attained We may distinguish then between that Unity of Faith which an interest in gives Vnion with Christ unto them that hold it and Communion in Love with all equally interested therein and that Accomplishment of it which gives a sameness of Profession and consent in all acts of outward Communion in the worship of God The first is found in and amongst all the Disciples of Christ in the world where-ever they are the latter is that which moreover it is your Duty to press after The former consists in an Assent in generall unto all the Truths of God revealed in the Scripture and in particular unto them that we have sufficient means to evidence them unto us to be so revealed The latter may come under a double consideration for either there may be required unto it in them who hold it the joynt perception of and assent unto every Truth revealed in the Scripture with an equall degree of certainty in adherence and evidence in perception and it is not in this life wherein the best of us know but in part attainable or only such a concurrence in an assent unto the necessary Propositions of Truth as may enable them to hold together that outward Communion in the worship of God which we before mentioned And this is certainly attainable by the wayes and means that shall immediately be layed down And where this is there is the Vnity of Faith in that compleatness which we are bound to labour for the attainment of This the Apostolicall Churches enjoyed of old and unto the recovery whereof there is nothing more prejudiciall than your new stating of it upon the account of your Churches Proposals This Unity of Faith we judg good and necessary and that it is our Duty to press after it So also in generall do you It remains then that we consider what is the way what are the means and Principles that Protestants propose and insist upon for the attainment of it that is in answer
to your Question What it is that can settle any man in the Truth of Religion and unite all men therein And then because you object this unto us as if we were at some loss and incertainty therein and your selves very secure I shall consider what are the grounds and principles that you proceed upon for the same ends and purposes namely to settle any man in the Truth of Religion and to bring all men to an harmony and consent therein Now I shall herein manifest unto you these two things I. That the Principles which the Protestants proceed upon in the improvement whereof they obtain themselves assured and infallible settlement in the Truth and labour to reduce others unto the Unity of Faith are such as are both suited unto and sufficient for the end and work which they design to effect by them and also in themselves of such unquestionable Truth Certainty and Evidence that either they are all granted by your selves or cannot be denied without shaking the very Foundations of Christianity 2. That those which you proceed upon are some of them untrue and most of them dubious and questionable none of them able to bear the weight that you lay upon them and some of them such as the admission of would give just cause to question the whole Truth of Christian Religion And both these S r I crave leave to manifest unto you whereby you may the better judg whether the Scripture or your Church be the best way to bring men unto settlement in Religion which is the thing enquired after 1. Protestants lay down this as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the very beginning and first Principle of their confidence and Confession that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God as the Holy Ghost teacheth them 2 Tim. 3. 16. That is that the Books of the Old and New Testament were all of them written by the immediate guidance direction and inspiration of God the hand of the Lord as David speaks 1 Chron. 28. 19. being upon the Penmen thereof in writing and his Spirit as Peter informs us speaking in them 1 Pâ—t 1. 11. So that whatever is contained and delivered in them is given out from God and is received on his Authority This Principle I suppose you grant to be true do you not if you will deny it say so and we will proceed no farther untill we have proved it I know you have various wayes laboured to undermine the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Holy Scriptures many Queries you put unto men How they can know it to be from God to be true from Heaven and not of men many scruples you indeavour to possess them with against its Authority it is not my present business to remove them It is sufficient unto mee 1. That you your selves who differ from us in other things and with whom our contest about the best way of coming to settlement in the Truth alone is do acknowledg this Principle were proceed upon to be true And 2. That yee cannot oppose it without setting your selves to digge up the very foundations of Christian Religion and to open a way to let in an inundation of Atheism on the world So our first step is fixed on the grand fundamentall Principle of all the Religion and acceptable worship of God that is in the world 2. They affirm that this Scripture evidenceth it self by many infallible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be so given by Inspiration from God and besides is witnessed so to be by the Testimony of the Church of God from the dayes of Moses wherein it began to be written to the dayes wherein we live our Lord Christ and his Apostles asserting and confirming the same Testimony which Testimony is conveyed unto us by uninterrupted Catholick Tradition The first part of this Position I confess some of you deny and the latter part of it you generally all of you pervert confining the Testimony mentioned unto that of your present Church which is a very inconsiderable part of it if any part at all But how groundlesly how prejudicially to the verity and honour of Christian Religion in generall you do these things I shall briefly shew you Some of you I say deny the first part of this Assertion so doth Andradius Defens Concil Trident. Lib. 3. Neque enim saith he in ipsis Libris quibus Sacra Mysteria conscripta sunt quicquam inest Divinitatis quod nos ad Credendum qua illis continentur religione aliqua constring at Neither is there in the Books themselves wherein the holy Mysteries are written any thing of Divinity that should constrain us by vertue of any religious respect thereunto to believe the things that are contained in them Hence Cocleus Lib. 2. de Authoritate Eccles. Script gathers up a many instances out of the Book of the Scripture which he declares to be altogether incredible were it not for the Authority of the Church I need not mention any more of your Leaders concurring with them you know who is of the same mind with them if the Author of Fiat Lux be not unknown to you Your resolving Vniversal Tradition into the Authority of your present Church to which end there is a Book written not long since by a Jesuit under the name of Vincentius Severinus is no less notorious Some of you I confess are more modest and otherwise minded as to both parts of our Assertion See Malderus Episcop Antwerp de Object Fidei qu. 1. Vaselius Groningen de Potestat Eccles. Epist. ad Jacob. Hock Alliacens in Lib. 1. Sentent Artic. 3. Gerson Exam. dos part 2. Consid. 1. Tom. 1. sol 105. and in twenty other places But when you come to deal with Protestants and consider well the Tendency of this Assertion you use I consess an hundred rergiversations and are most unwilling to come to the acknowledgment of it and rather then suffer from it deny it downwright and that with Scurrilous reflections and Comparisons likening it as to any characters of Gods truth and Holiness upon it unto Livy's Story yea Aesops Fables or a Piece of Poetry And when you have done so you apply your selves to the canvasing of Stories in the Old Testament and to find out appearing Contradictions and tell us of the uncertainty of the Authors of some particular Books that the whole is of its self a dead letter which can prove nothing at all enquiring Who told us that the Penmen of it were divinely inspired seeing they testify no such things of themselves and if they should yet others may do and have done so who notwithstanding were not so inspired and ask us Why we receive the Gospel of Luke who was not an Apostle and reject that of Thomas who one with many the like Cavilling Exceptions But 1. That must needs be a bad Cause which stands in need of such a Defence Is this the voice of Jacob or Esau Are these the expressions of Christians or Pagans from whose
and compleat that is sufficient to enable a man to know so much of God his Mind and Will and to direct him so in his Worship and Obedience unto him as that he may please him here and come to the fruition of him hereafter it must needs become an evident means of deceiving him and ruining him and that to all eternity And the least fear of any such event overthrows all the notions which he had before entertained of those blessed Properties of the Divine Nature and so consequently disposeth him unto Atheism For if a man hath once received the Scripture as the Word of God and that given unto him to be his guide unto Heaven by God himself if one shall come to him and tell him Yea but it is not a perfect Guide but though you should attend sincerely to all the Directions that it gives you yet you may come short of your Duty and Expectation you may neither please God here nor come to the fruition of Him hereafter In case he should assent unto this suggestion can he entertain any other thoughts of God but such as our first Parents did when by attendance unto the false insinuations of the old Serpent they cast off his Soveraignty and their dependance on him Neither can you relieve him against such thoughts by your pretended Traditionall supply seeing it will still be impossible for him to look on this Revelation of the Will of God as imperfect and insufficient for the End for which it plainly professeth its self to be given forth by him without some intrenchment on those notions of his Nature which he had before received For it will presently occurr unto him that seeing this way of revealing himself for the Ends mentioned is good and approved of Himself so to be if he hath not made it compleat for that end it was either because he could not and where then is his Wisdome or because he would not and where then is his Love Care and Goodness and seeing he saith he hath done what you would have him to believe that he hath not done where is his Truth and Veracity Certainly a man that seriously ponders what he hath to do and knows the vanity of an irrationall fanatical Credo will conclude that either the Scripture is to be received as Perfect or not to be received at all 2. Protestants conclude hence That the Scripture given of God for this purpose is intelligible unto men using the means by God appointed to come to the understanding of his Mind and Will therein I know many of your way are pleased grievously to mistake our intention in this Infêrence and Conclusion Sometimes they would impose upon us to say that All places of Scripture all words and sentences in it are plain and of an obvious sense and easie to be understood And yet this you know or may know if you please and I am sure ought to know before you talk of these things with us that we absolutely deny It is one thing to say that all necessary Truth is plainly and clearly revealed in the Scripture which we do say and another that every text and passage in the Scripture is plain and easie to be understood which we do not say nor ever thought as confessing that to say so were to contradict our own experience and that of the Disciples of Christ in all ages Sometimes you faign as though we asserted all the things that are revealed in the Scripture to be plain and obvious to every mans understanding whereas we acknowledge that the things themselves revealed are many of them mysterious surpassing the comprehension of any man in this world and only maintain that the propositions wherein the Revelation of them is made are plain and intelligible unto them that use the means appointed of God to come to a right understanding of them And sometimes you would commit this with another Principle of ours whereby we assert that the supernaturall Light of Grace to be wrought in our hearts by the Holy Ghost is necessary to give unto us a saving perception and understanding of the Mind of God in the Scripture for what needs such speciall assistance in so plain a matter as though the asserting of perspicuity in the object made ability to discern in the subject altogether unnecessary Or that he who affirms the Sun to give light doth at the same time affirm also that men have no need of eyes to see it withall Besides we know there is a vast difference between a notionall speculative apprehension and perception of the meaning and Truth of the Propositions contained in the Scripture which we acknowledge that every reasonable unprejudiced Person may attain unto and a gracious saving spirituall perception of them and assent unto them with faith Divine and Supernatural and this we say is the especiall work of the Holy Ghost in the hearts of the Elect. And I know not how many other exceptions you make to keep your selves from a right understanding of our intention in this Inference but as your self elsewhere learnedly observes who so blind as he that will not see I shall therefore once more that we may proceed declare unto you what it is that we intend in this Assertion It is namely that the things which are revealed in the Scripture to the end that by the belief of them and obedience unto them we may please God are so proposed and declared that a man any man free from prejudices and temptations in and by the use of the means appointed him of God for that purpose may come to the understanding and that infallibly of all that God would have him know or do in Religion there being no defect or hinderance in the Scripture or manner of its revealing things necessary that should obstruct him therein What are the means appointed of God for this purpose we do not now enquire but shall anon declare What defect blindness or darkness there is or may be in and upon the minds of men in their depraved lapsed Condition what disadvantages they may be cast under by their prejudices Traditions negligences sins and prophaneness belongs not unto our present disquisition That which we assert concerns meerly the manner of the proposall of the Truths to be believed which are revealed in the Scripture and this we say is such as that there is no impossibility no nor great difficulty but that a man may come to the right understanding of them not as to the comprehension of the things themselves but the perception of the sense of the Propositions wherein they are expressed And this Assertion of ours is as the former grounded on the Scripture its self See if you please Deut. 30. 11. Psal. 1. 19. 9. and 119. 105. Prov. 6. 22. 2 Cor. 4. 3. 2 Pet. 19. And to deny it is to pluck up all Religion by the roots and to turn men loose unto Scepticism Libertinism and Atheism and that with such an horrible reproach unto God
himself as that nothing more abominable can be invented The Devil of old being not able to give out certain Answers unto them that came to onquire about their Concernments at his Oracles put them off a long time with dubious aenigmaticall unintelligible Sophisms But when once the world had by experience study and observation improved its self into a Wisdome beyond the pitch of its first rudeness men began generally to despise what they saw could not be certainly understood This made the Devil pluck in his horns as not finding it for the interest of his kingdome to expose himself to be scoffed at by them with whose follies and fanaticall credulity in esteeming highly of that which could not be understood he had for many generations sported himself And do they not blasphemously expose the Oracles of the true holy and living God to no less contempt who for their own sinister ends would frighten men from them with the ugly scare-crow of obscurity or their not being intelligible unto every man by the use of means so far as he is concerned to know them and the mind of God in them And herein also Protestants stand as firmly as the fundamentals of Christianity will bear them 4. Protestants believe that it is the Duty of all men who desire to know the will of God and to worship him according unto his mind to use diligence in the improvement of the means appointed for that end to come unto a right and full understanding of all things in the Scripture wherein their faith and obedience are concerned This necessarily follows from the Principles before laid down Nor is it possible it should be otherwise It is doubtless incumbent on every man to study and know his Duty that cannot be a mans Duty which he is not bound to know especially not such a Duty as whereon his eternall welfare should depend And I suppose a man can take no better Course to come to the knowledge of his Duty than that which God hath appointed for that purpose The Commands and Exhortations which we have given us in the Scripture for our Diligence in this matter with the Explications and improvements of them in the Writings of the Fathers are so obvious trite and known that it were meer loss of time to insist on the Repetition of them I suppose I should speak within compass if I should say that one Chrysostome doth in a hundred places exhort Christians of all sorts to the diligent study and search of the Scriptures and especially of the Epistles of Paul not the most plain and easie part of them I know the practise of your Church lyes to the contrary and what you plead in the justification of that practise but I am sorry both for Her and you both for the contrivers of and consenters unto this abomination and I fear what your accounâ— will be as to this matter at the last day God having granted the inestimable benefit of his Word unto mankind revealing therein unto them the only way by which they may attain unto a blessed eternity Is it not the greatest ingratitude that any man can possibly contract the guilt of to neglect the use of it What then is your Condition who upon sleight and triviall pretences set up your own Wisdome and Authority against the Wisdome and Authority of God advising and commanding men upon the pain of your displeasure in this world not to attend unto that which God commands them to attend unto on pain of his displeasure in the world to come So that though I confess that you deny this Principle yet I cannot see but that you do so not only upon the hazard of your own souls and the souls of them that attend unto you seeing that if the blind lead the blind both must fall into the ditch but also that you do it to the great prejudice of Christian Religion in the very foundations of it For what can a man rationally conclude that shall see you driving all Persons and that on no small penalties excepting your selves who are concerned in the conspiracy and some few others whom you suppose sufficiently initiated in your Mysteries from the reading and study of those Books wherein the world knows and your selves confess that the Arcana of Christian Religion are contained but that there are some things in them like the hidden Sacra of the old Pagan Hierophants which may not be disclosed because however countenanced by a remote veneration yet are indeed turpia or ridicula things to be ashamed of or scorned And the Truth is some of your Doctors have spoken very suspiciously this way whilest they justifie your practise in driving the people from the study of the Scripture by intimations of things and expressions not so pure and chast as to be fit for the knowledge of the promiscuous multitude when in the mean time Themselves or their Associates do publish unto all the world in their rules and directions for Confession such abominable filth and ribaldry as I think was never by any other means vented amongst mankind 5. Protestants say that the Lord Christ hath instituted his Church and therein appointed a Ministry to preside over the rest of his Disciples in his Name and to unfold un to them his mind and will as recorded in his Word for which end he hath promised his presence with them by his Spirit unto the end of the World to enable them in an humble dependance on his assistance to find out and declare his Commands and Appointments unto their brethren This Position I suppose you will not contend with us about although I know that you put another sense upon most of the terms of it than the Scripture will allow or wee can admit of These are the Principles of Protestants this is the Progress of their Faith in coming unto settlement and assurance These are their Foundations which are as unquestionable as any thing in Christianity the most of them your selves being judges And from them one of these two things will necessarily follow Either that all men unto whom the Word of God doth come will come to an agreement in the Truth or the Unity of Faith or Secondly That it is their own fault if they do not so do For what upon these Principles should hinder them from so doing All saving Truth is revealed by God in the Scripture unto the end that men may come to the knowledge of it It is so revealed by Him that it is possible and with his assistance easie formen to know aright his Mind and Will about the things so revealed and be hath appointed regular wayes and means for men to wait upon him in and by for the obtaining of his assistance Now pray revive your Question that gave occasion unto this discourse however men may differ in Religion why is not the Scripture sufficient to bring them unto an agreement and settlement Take heed that in your Answer you deny not some Principle that will
God in his Word than unto these Principles of yours is rejected by you out of the limits of the Catholick Church that is of Christianity for they are the same To make good your judgement and censure then you vent endless Cavils against the Authority Perfection and Perspicuity of the Scriptures pretending to despise and scorn whatever is offered in their viâ—dication This rope of Sand composed â— false suppositions groundless presumptions inconsequent inferences in all which there is not one word of infallible Truth at least that you can any way make appear so to be is the great Bond you use to gird men withall into the Unity of Faith In brief you tell us that if wee will all submit to the Pope wee shall be sure all to agree But this is no more but as I have before told you what every party of men in the world tender us upon the same or the like condition It is not a meer agreement wee aym at but an agreement in the Truth not a meer Vnity but a Unity of Faith and Faith must be built on Principles infallible or it will prove in the close to have been fancy not Faith carnall imagination not Christian belief otherwise wee may agree in Turcism or Judaism or Paganism as well as in Christianity and to as good purpose Now what of this kind do you tender unto us Would you have us to leave the sure word of Prophesie more sure than a voyce from Heaven the Light shining in the dark places of this world which wee are commanded to attend unto by God himself the Holy Scripture given by Inspiration which is able to make us wise unto Salvation the Word that is perfest sure right converting the Soul enlightning the eyes making wise the simple whose observation is attended with great reward to give heed yea to give up all our Spirituall and eternall concernments to the credit of old groundless uncertain Stories inevident presumptions fables invented for and openly improved unto carnal secular and wicked ends Is your request reasonable Would wee could prevail with you to cease your importunity in this matter especially considering â—the dangerous consequence of the admission of these your Principles unto Christianity in generall For if it be so that S t Peter had such an Episcopacy as you talk of and that a continuance of it in a Succession by the Bishops of Rome be of that indispensable necessity unto the preservation of Christian Religion as is pretended many men considering the nature and quality of that Succession how the means of its continuation have been arbitrarily and occasionally changed what place formerly popular Suffrage and the Imperial Authority have had in it how it came to be devolved on a Conclave of Cardinals what violence and tumults have attended one way what briberies and filthy respects unto the lusts of unclean Persons the other what Interruptions the Succession it self hath had by vacancies Schisms and contests for the place and uncertainty of the Person that had the best right unto the Popedome according to the customes of the dayes wherein he lived and that many of the Persons who have had a place in the pretended Succession have been plainly men of the world such as cannot receive the Spirit of Christ yea open enemies unto his Cross would find just cause to suspect that Christianity were utterly failed many Ages ago in the world which certainly would not much promote the Settlement in Truth and Unity of Faith that we are enquiring after And this is the first way that you propose to supply that Defect which you charge upon the Scripture that it is insufficient to reconcile men that are at variance about Religion and settle them in the Truth And if you are able by so many uncertainties and untruths to bring men unto a Certainty and Scttlement in the Truth you need not despair of compassing and thing that you shall have a mind to attempt But you have yet another Plea which you make no less use of than of the former which must therefore be also now you have engaged us in this work a little examined This is the Church its Authority and Infallibilâ—ty The truth is when you come to make a practical Application of this Plea unto your own use you resolve it into and confound it with that foregoing of the Pope in whom solely many of you would have this Authority and Infallibility of the Church to reside Yet because in your mannagement of it you proceed on other Principles than those before mentioned this pretence also shall be apart considered And here you tell us 1. That the Church was before the Scripture and giveth Authority unto it By the Scriptures you know that wee understand the Word of God with this â—ne Adjunct of its being written by his command and appointment We do not say that it belongs unto the Essence of the Word of God that it be written Whatever is spoken by God wee admit as his Word when wee are infallibly assured that by Him it was spoken and that wee should do so before himself doth not require at our hands for he would have us use our utmost diligence not to be imposed upon by any in his Name Therefore wee grant that the Word of God was given out for the Rule of men in his Worship two thousand years before it was written but it was so given forth as that they unto whom it came had infallible assurance that from Him it came and his Word it was And if you or any man else can give us such assurance that any thing is or hath been spoken by him besides what we have now written in the Scripture wee shall receive it with the same faith and obedience wherewith wee receive the Scripture its self Whereas therefore you say That the Church was before the Scripture if you intend no more but that there was a Church in the world before the word of God was written wee grant it true but not at all to your purpose If you intend that the Church is before the Word of God which at an appointed time was written it may possibly be wrested unto your purpose but is farre from being true seeing the Church is a society of men called to the knowledg and worship of God by his Ward They become a Church by the call of that Word which it seems you would have not given untill they are a Church of Effects produce their Causes Children beget their Parents Light brings forth the Sunne and Heat the Fire So are the Prophets and Apostles built upon the foundation of the Church whereof the Pope is the Corner stone So was the Judaical Church before the Law of iâ— constitution and the Christian before the Word of Promise whereon it was founded and the Word of Command by which it was edified In brief from the day wherein Man was first created upon the earth to the days wherein we live never did a Person or
And what was herein done or spoken amiss as yet I cannot discern But I am perswaded that if you had not supposed that you had some of little judgement and less ingenuity to give satisfaction unto you would never have pleased your self with the writing of such empty Trifles in a business wherein you pretend so great a concernment Pag. 31. You observe that I say the Schoolmen were the hammerers and forgers of Popery And add Alas Sir I see that anger spoyls your memory for in the twelfth and thirteenth Chapter you make Popery to be hammered and forged not a few hundreds of years before any Schoolmen were extant And thorefore tell me that I hate the Schoolmen as the Frenchmen do Talbot for having been frightened with them formerly Sed risu inepto res ineptior nulla est I confess the language of your Schoolmen is so corrupt and barbarous many of the things they sweat about so vain curious unprofitable their way of handling things and expressing the notions of their minds so perplexed dark obscure and oftentimes unintelligibe divers of their Assertions and suppositions so horrid and monstrous the whole system of their pretended Divinity so aliene and forreign unto the mysterie of the Gospel that I know no great reason that any man hath much to delight in them These things have made them the sport and scorn of the learnedest men that ever lived in the Communion of your own Church What one said of old of others may be well applyed unto them Statum lacessunt omnipotentis Dei Calumniosis litibus Fidem minutis dissecant ambagibus Vt quisque est linguar nequior Solvunt ligantque quaestionum vincula Per Syllogismos plectiles Indeed to see them come forth harnassed with Syllogismes and Sophisms attended with Obs and Sols speaking part the language of the Jews and part the language of Ashdod fighting and contending amongst themselves as if they had sprung from the teeth of Cadmus Serpent subjecting all the properties decrees and actions of the holy God to your profane bablings might perhaps beget some fear in the minds of men not much guilty of want of Constancy as the sight of the Harpyes did of old to Aenaeas and his Companions of whom they gave that account Tristius hand illis monstrum nec saevior ulla Pestis ira Deum Stygiis sese extulit undis Viaimus subita gelidus formidine sanguis Diriguit cecidêre animi But the Truth is there is no real cause of fear of them They are not like to do mischief to any unless they are resolved aforehand to give up their faith in the things of God to the Authority of this or that Philosopher and forego all solid rational consideration of things to betake themselves to Sophistical canting and the winding up of subtilty into plain non-sence which oftentimes befalls the best of them Whence Melchior Canus one of your selves sayes of some of your learned Disputes Puderet me dicere non intelligere si ipsi intelligerent qui tractarunt I should be ashamed to say I did not understand them but that they understood not themselves Others may be entangled by them who if they cannot unty your knots they may break your webbs especially when they find the Conclusions as oftentimes they are directly contrary to Scripture right reason and natural sense it self For they are the genuine off-spring of the old Sophisters whom Lucian talks of in his Menippus or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and tells us that in hearing the Disputations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That saith he which seemed the most absurd of all was that when they disputed of things absolutely contrary they yet brought invincible and perswasive reasons to prove what they said so that I durst not speak a word against him that affirmed hot and cold to be the same although I knew well enough that the same thing could not be hot and cold at the same time And therefore he tells us that in hearing of them he did like a man half asleep sometimes nod one way and sometimes another which is certainly the deportment of the generality of them who are conversant in the wrangles of your Schoolmen But whatever I said of them or your Church is perfectly consistent with its self and the Truth I grant that before the Schoolmen set forth in the world many unsound opinions were broached in and many Superstitious practices admitted into your Church and a great pretence raised unto a Superintendency over other Churches which were parts of that Mass out of which your Popery is formed But before the Schoolmen took it in hand it was rudis indigestaque moles an heap not an house As Rabbi Juda Hakkadosh gathered the passant Traditions of his own time among the Jews into a body or Systeme which is called the Mishnae or Duplicate of their Law wherein he composed a new Religion for them sufficiently distant from that which was professed by their fore-fathers so have your Schoolmen done also Out of the passant Traditions of the dayes wherein they lived blended with Sophistical corrupted notions of their own countenanced and gilded with the sayings of some Ancient Writers of the Church for the most part wrested or misunderstood they have hammered out that Systeme of Philosophical Traditional Divinity which is now enstamped with the Authority of the Tridentine Council being as far distant from the Divinity of the New Testament as the Farrago of Traditions collected by Rabbi Juda and improved in the Talmuds is from that of the old Pag. 33 34 35. Having nothing else to say you fall again upon my pretended mistake of considering that as spoken absolutely by you which you spake only upon supposition and talk of Metaphysical Speculations in your Fiat which you conceive me very unmeet to deal withal and direct me to Bellarmines Catechism as better suiting my inclination and capacity But Sir we are not wont here in England to account cloudy dark Sophistical declamations to be Metaphysical Speculations nor every feigned supposition to be a Philosophical abstraction I wish you would be perswaded that there is not the least tincture of any solid Metaphysicks in your whole Discourse It may be indeed you would be angry with them that should undeceive you and cry out Pol me occidistis amici Non Servâstis As he did Cui demptus per vim mentis gratissimus Error You may perhaps please your self with conceits of your Metaphysical atchievements but yonr friends cannot but pitty you to see your vanity The least youth in our Vniversities will tell you that to make a general Supposition true or false and to flourish upon it with words of a seeming probability without any cogency or proof belongs to Rhetorick and not at all to Metaphysicks And this is the very nature of your Discourse Nor do I mistake your aim in it as you pretend I grant in the place you would be thought to reply unto though you speak not one word to
Totilas Besides if we that are now Inhabitants of England must be thought to have first received the Gospel then when it was first preached unto our own Progenitors in a direct line ascending this will be found a matter so dubious and uncertain as not possibly to be a thing of any concernment in Christian Religion and moreover will exempt most of the chief families of England from your enclosure seeing one way or other they derive themselves from the Antient Britains Such pittifull trifles are you forced to make use of to give countenance unto your cause But let it be granted that Christianity was first communicated unto the Saxons from Rome in the dayes of Pope Gregory which yet indeed is not true neither for Queen Berta with her Bishop Luidhardus had both practised the worship of Christ in England before his coming and so prepared the people that Gregory sayes in one of his Epistles Anglorum gentem voluisse fieri Christianam What will thence ensue why plainly that we must be all Papists or Atheists and esteem the whole Gospel a Romance But why so I pray Why the Categorick Assertions are both clear namely that the Pâ—pist first brought us the news of Christianity and that Papists are now odious But how comes this about we were talking of Gregory and some that came from Rome in his dayes And if you take them for Papists you are much deceived Prove that there was one Papist at Rome in the dayes of that Gregory and I will be another I mean such a Papist as your present Pope is or as your self are Do you think that Gregory believed the Catholick Supremacy and Infallibility of the Pope the doing whereof in an especial manner constitutes a man a Papist If you have any such thoughts you are an utter stranger â—o the state of things in those dayes as also to the writings of Gregory himself For your better information you may do well to consult him lib. 4. Epist. 32 36 38. And sundry other instances may be given out of his own writings how remote he was from your present Popery Irregularities and superstitious observations were not a few in his dayes crept into the Church of Rome which you still pertinaciously adhere unto as you have the happiness to adhere firmely unto any thing that you once irregularly embrace But that the main Doctrines Principles Practices and Modes of Worship which constitute Popery were known admitted practised or received at Rome in the dayes of Gregory I know full well that you are not able to prove And by this you may see the Truth of your first Assertion that Papists brought us the first news of Christianity which you do not in the least endeavour to prove but take it hand over head to be the same with this that some from Rome preached the Gospel to the Saxons in the dayes of Gregory which it hath no manner of affinity withall Your second true Assertion is that the Papist is now become odious unto us but yet neither will this be granted you Popery we dislike but that the Papists are become odious unto us we absolutely deny Though we like not the Popery they have admitted yet we love them for the Christianity which they have retained And must not that needs be a doubty Consequence that is enduced out of Principles where in there is not a word of truth Besides I have already in part manifested unto you that supposing both of them to be true as neither of them is yet your Consequence is altogether inconsequent and will by no means follow upon them And this will yet more fully appear in an examination of your ensuing Discourse That which you fix upon to accept against is towards the close of my Discourse to this purpose in these words as set down by you pag. 40. Many things delivered us at first with the first news of Christianity may be afterwards rejected for the love of Christ and by the Commission of Christ. The truth of this Assertion I have newly proved again unto you and have exemplified it in the instance of Papists bringing the first news of Christianity to any place which is not impossible but they may do though to this Nation they did not I had also before confirmed it with such reasons as you judged it best to take no notice of which is your way with things that are too hard for you to grapple withall I must I see drive these things through the thick obstacles of your prejudices with more instances or you will not be sensible of them What think you then of those who received the first news of Christianity by believers of the circumcision who at the same time taught them the necessity of being circumcised and of keeping Moses Law were they not bound afterwards upon the discovery of the mistake of their teachers to retain the Gospel and the truth thereof taught by them and to reject the observation of Mosaical rites and observations or were they free upon the discovery of their mistake to esteem the whole Gospel a Romance What think you of those that were converted by Arians which were great multitudes and some whole Nations were not those Nations bound for the Love of Christ by his word to retain their Christianity and reject their Arianisme or must they needs account the whole Gospel a fable when they were convinced of the Errour of their first teachers denying Christ Jesus in his Divine nature to be of the same substance with his Father or essentially God! To give you an instance that it may be will please you better There are very many Indians in New England or elsewhere Converted unto Christianity by Prote stants without whose instruction they had never received the least rumor or report of it Tell me your judgement if you were now amongst them would you not endeavour to perswade them that Christian Religion indeed was true but that their first Instructers in it had deceived them as to many particulars of it which you would undeceive them in and yet keep them close to their Christianity And do you not know that many who have in former dayes been by Hereticks converted to Christianity from Paganism have afterwards from the Principles of their Christianity been convinced of their heresie and retaining the one have rejected the other It is not for your advantage to maintain an opposition against so evident a Truth and exemplified by so many instances in all ages I know well enough the ground of your pertinaciousness in your mistake it is that men who receive the Gospel do resolve their faith into the Authority of them that first preach it unto them Now this supposition is openly false and universally as to all persons what ever not divinely inspired yea as to the Apostles themselves but only with respect unto their working of Miracles which gave Testimony unto the Doctrine that they taught Otherwise Gods Revelation contained in the Scriptures is that which the
the first news of Christianity be once rejected as they are now amongst us as Romish or Romanical and that rejection or Reformation be permitted then may other parts and all parts if the gap be not stopped be looked upon at length as points of no better a condition I have given you sundry instances already undeniably evincing that some opinions of them who first bring the news of Christian Religion unto any may be afterwards rejected without the least impeachment of the Truth of the whole or of our faith therein Yea men may be necessitated so to reject them to keep entire the Truth of the whole But the rejection supposed is of mens opinions that bring Christian Religion and not of any parts of Christian Religion it self For the mistakes of any men whatever whither in Speculation or Practice about Religion are no parts of Religion much less substantial parts of it Such was the Opinion of the necessity of the observation of Mosaical Rites taught with a suitable practice by many believers of the Circumcision who first preached the Gospel in sundry places in the world And such were the Rites and Opinions brought into England by Austin that are rejected by Protestants if any such there were which as yet you have not made to appear There is no such affinity between Truth and Errour however any men may endeavour to blend them together but that others may separate between them and â—eject the one without any prejudice unto the other male sartâ— gratia nequaquam coit Yea the Truth and Light of the Gospel is of that nature as that if it be once sincerely received in the mind and embraced it will work out all those false notions which by any means together with it may be instilled As rectum is index sui obliqui Whilest then we know and are perswaded that in any Systeme of Religion which is proposed unto us it is only error which we reject having an infallible Rule for the guidance of our judgement therein there is no danger of weakning our assent unto the Truth which we retain Truth and falshood can never stand upon the same bottom nor have the same evidence though they may be proposed at the same time unto us and by the same Persons So that there is no difficulty in apprehending how the one may be received and the other rejected Nor may it be granted though their concernment lye not therein at all that if a man reject or disbelieve any point of Truth that is delivered unto him in an entire Systeme of Truths that he is thereby made enclinable to reject the rest also or disenabled to give a firm assent unto them unless he reject or disbelieve it upon a notion that is common to them all For instance He that rejects any Truth revealed in the Scripture on this ground that the Scripture is not an infallible Revelation of Divine and supernatural Truth cannot but in the persuit of that apprehension of his reject also all other Truths there in revealed at least so far as they are knowable only by that Revelation But he that shall disbelieve any Truth revealed in the Scripture because it is not manifest unto him to be so revealed and is in a readiness to receive it when it shall be so manifest upon the Authority of the Author of the wholâ—â— is not in the least danger to be induced by that disbelief to question any thing of that which he is convinced so to be revealed But as I said your Concernment lyes not therein who are not able to prove thâ—â— Protestants have rejected any one part much less substantial part of Religion and your conclusion upon a supposition of the rejection of errours and practises of the contrary to the Gospel or principles of Religion is very infirm The ground of all your Sophistry lyes in this that men who receive Christian Religion are bound to resolve their saith into the Authority of them that preach it first unto them whereupon it being impossible for them to question any thing they teach without an impeachment of their absolute Infallibility and so far the Authority which they are to rest upon they have no firm foundation left for their assent unto the things which as yet they do not question and consequently in process of time may easily be induced so to do But this presumption is perfectly destructive to all the certainty of Christian Religion For whereas it proposeth the subject matter of it to be believed with divine faith and supernatural it leaves no formal reason or cause of any such faith no foundation for it to be parts of it Such was the Opinion of the necessity of the observation of Mosaical Rites taught with a suitable practice by many believers of the Circumcision who first preached the Gospel in sundry places in the world And such were the Rites and Opinions brought into England by Austin that are rejected by Protestants if any such there were which as yet you have not made to appear There is no such affinity between Truth and Errour however any men may endeavour to blend them together but that others may separate between them and reject the one without any prejudice unto the other male sarta gratia nequaquam coit Yea the Truth and Light of the Gospel is of that nature as that if it be once sincerely received in the mind and embraced it will work out all those false notions which by any means together with it may be instilled As rectum is index sui obliqui Whilest then we know and are perswaded that in any Systeme of Religion which is proposed unto us it is only error which we reject having an infallible Rule for the guidance of our judgement therein there is no danger of weakning our assent unto the Truth which we retain Truth and falshood can never stand upon the same bottom nor have the same evidence though they may be proposed at the same time unto us and by the same Persons So that there is no difficulty in apprehending how the one may be received and the other rejected Nor may it be granted though their concernment lye not therein at all that if a man reject or disbelieve any point of Truth that is delivered unto him in an entire Systeme of Truths that he is thereby made enclinable to reject the rest also or disenabled to give a firm assent unto them unless he reject or disbelieve it upon a notion that is common to them all For instance He that rejects any Truth revealed in the Scripture on this ground that the Scripture is not an infallible Revelation of Divine and supernatural Truth cannot but in the persuit of that apprehension of his reject also all other Truths therein revealed at least so far as they are knowable only by that Revelation But he that shall disbelieve any Truth revealed in the Scripture because it is not manifest unto him to be so revealed and is in a
as Tenants at will and should they not appear to do so were his force wit and courage answerable to his will and pretence of Authority But be it that because you cannot help it you suffer them to live at peace and quietness in the main of their Rule yet you still curb them in their own Dominions for 6. You exempt all the Clergy from under their Rule and Power See your Bellarmine sweating to prove that they are not bound to their Laws so as to be judged by them without their leave if they transgress or to pay any tribute De Cleric Lib. 1. Cap. 28. They are all reserved to the Power and Jurisdiction of the Pope And he that shall consider into what a vast and boundless multitude by reason of the several disorderly orders of your City Monks and Friars your Clergy is swelled into in most places of Europe will easily perceive what your interest is in every Kingdom of it I am perswaded there is scarce a Considerable Nation wherein the Profession of your Religion is enthroned in which the Pope hath not an 100000. able fighting men that are his peculiar subjects exempted from the Power and jurisdiction of Kings themselves which you must needs conceive to be a blessed interpretation of that of the Apostle Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers And 7. You extend the Papal Power to Things as well as Persons in the Dominions of all Kings and Commonwealths For the Lands and Possessions that are given unto any of the Popes especial Subjects you will have to be exempted from Tributes and publick burdens of the state And you farther contend that it is not in the power of any Kings or Rulers to hinder such alienations of Lands and Possessions from their Dominions By this means no small part of the Territories of many Princes is subduced from under their power The dreadful consequences of which Principles so startled the wise state of Venice that you know they disputed it to the utmost with your Vice-god Paul the V. In dealing with them as I remember their attempt was successless for notwithstanding the defence made of the Papal process against them by Baronius Bellarmine and others yet the actings of that sober state in forbidding such alienation of Lands and Fees from their Rule and power without their consent with their plea for the subjection of Ecclesiasticks unto them in their own Dominions was so vindicated by Doctor Paul Suave Marsilius of Padua and others that the horns of the Bull which had been thrust forth against them into so great a length were pulled in again I told you in the entrance of this Discourse how unwilling I should have been to have given you the least disquietment in your way had you only attempted to set off your own respects unto Royal Power unto the best advantage you could but your setting up your Principles and Practices in competition with those of Protestants of any sort whatever and preferring them before and above them as unto your deference unto Kings and that in matters Ecclesiastical hath made these few instances expressive of the real sense of your Church in this matter as I suppose necessary and equal CHAP. 17. Scripture Story of the Progress and declension of Religion vindicated Papal Artifices for the promotion of their Power and Interest Advantages made by them on the Western Empire YOu proceed pag. 70. unto the Animadvèrsions on your 13. Paragraph entituled Scripture wherein how greatly and causelesly it is by you undervalued is fully declared But whatever is offered in it for the discovery of your miscarriage and your own conviction you wisely pass over without taking notice of it at all and only repeat again your Case to the same purpose and almost in the very same words you had done before Now this I have already considered and removed out of our way so that it is altogether needless to divert again to the discussion of it That which we have to do for the answering of all your Cavils and objections in and about the case you frame and propose is to declare and manifest the Scriptures sufficiency for the Revelation of all necessary Truths therein affording us a stable Rule of faith every way suited to the decision of all differences in and about Religion and to keep Christians in perfect peace as it did of old And this we have already done Why this proper work of the Scripture is not in all places and at all times effected proceeds from the Lusts and prejudices of men which when by the Grace of God they shall be removed it will no longer be obstructed Your next attempt p. 72. is upon my story of the progress and Corruption of Christian Religion in the world with respect unto that of your own Yours you tell us is serious temperate and sober every way as excellent as Suffenus thought his verses Mine you say is wrought with defamation and wrath against all Ages and People very good I doubt not but you thought it was fit you should say so though you knew no reason why nor could fix on any thing in it for your warrant in these intemperate reproaches Do I say any thing but what the stories of all Ages and the Experience of Christendome do proclaim Is it now a defamation to report what the learned men of those dayes have recorded what good men bewayled and the sad effects whereof the world long groaned under and was at length ruined by What wrath is in all this may not men be warned to take heed of falling into the like evils by the miscarriages of them that went before them without wrath and defamation Are the books of the Kings Chronicles and Prophets fraught with wrath and defamation because they report complain of and reprove the sad Apostasies of the Church in those dayes with the wickedness of the Kings Priests and People that it was composed of and declare the abomination of those wayes of false worship licenciousness of life violence and oppression whereby they provoked God against them to their ruine If my story be not true why do you not disprove it if it be why do you exclaim against it Do I not direct you unto Authors of unquestionable credit complaining of the things which I report from them And if you know not that many others may be added unto these by me named testifying the same things you know very little of the matter you undertake to treat about But we need go no further then your self to discover how devoid of all pretence your reproaches are and that by considering the exceptions which you put in to my story which may rationally be supposed to be the most plausible you could invent and directed against those parts of it which you imagined were most obnoxious to your charge I shall therefore consider them in the order wherein they are proposed and discover whether the keeness of your assault answer the noise of