be sufficient But then I must tell you that the proposal of the present Roman Church is only pretended to be sufficient for this purpose but is not so especially all the Rayes of the Divinity which they pretend to shine so conspicuously in her proposals being so darkned and even extinguished with a cloud of contradiction from Scripture Reason and the Ancient Church 26. Ad 18. § To the Eighth How of disagreeing Protestants both parts may hope for Salvation seeing some of them must needs Err against some Truth testified by God I answer 1. The most disagreeing Protestants that are yet thus far agree that these Books of Scripture which were never doubted of in the Church are the undoubted Word of God and a perfect rule of Faith 2. That the sense of them which God intended whatsoever it is is certainly true So that they believe implicitely even those very truths against which they Err and why an implicit Faith in Christ and his Word should not suffice as well as an implicit Faith in your Church I have desired to be resolved by many of your Side but never could 3. That they are to use their best endeavours to believe the Scripture in the true sense and to live according to it This if they perform as I hope many on all Sides do truly and sincerely it is impossible but that they should believe aright in all things necessary to Salvation that is in all those things which appertain to the Covenant between God and man in Christ for so much is not only plainly but frequently contained in Scripture And believing aright touching the Covenant if they for their parts perform the condition required of them which is sincere obedience why should they not expect that God will perform his promise and give them Salvation For as for other things which lie without the Covenant and are therefore less necessary if by reason of the seeming conflict which is oftentimes between Scripture and Reason and Authority on the one side and Scripture Reason and Authority on the other if by reason of the variety of tempers Abilities Educations and unavoidable prejudices whereby mens understandings are variously formed and fashioned they do embrace several Opinions whereof some must be erroneous to say that God will Damn them for such Errors who are lovers of him and lovers of truth is to rob man of his comfort and God of his goodness it is to make Man desperate and God a Tyrant But they deny Truths testified by God and therefore shall be Damned Yes if they knew them to be thus testified by him and yet would deny them that were to give God the lie and questionless damnable But if you should deny a truth which God had testified but only to a Man in the Indies as I said before and this testification you had never heard of or at least had no sufficient reason to believe that God had so testified would not you think it a hard case to be Damned for such a denial Yet consider I pray a little more attentively the difference between them and you will presently acknowledge the question between them is not at any time or in any thing Whether God says true or no or whether he says this or no But supposing he says this and says true whether he means this or no As for example between Lutherans Calvinists and Zwinglians it is agreed that Christ spake these Words This is my Body and that whatsoever he meant in saying so is true But what he meant and how he is to be understood that 's the question So that though some of them deny a truth by God intended yet you can with no reason or justice accuse them of denying the truth of Gods Testimony unless you can plainly shew that God hath declared and that plainly and clearly what was his meaning in these Words I say plainly and clearly For he that speaks obscurely and ambiguously and no where declares himself plainly sure he hath no reason to be much offended if he be mistaken When therefore you can shew that in this and all other their Controversies God hath interposed his Testimony on one side or other so that either they do see it and will not or were it not for their own voluntary and avoidable fault might and should see it and do not let all such Errors be as damnable as you please to make them In the mean while if they suffer themselves neither to be betraid into their Errors nor kept in them by any sin of their will if they do their best endeavour to free themselves from all Errors and yet fail of it through humane frailty so well am I persuaded of the goodness of God that if in me alone should meet a confluence of all such Errors of all the Protestants in the World that were thus qualified I should not be so much afraid of them all as I should be to ask pardon for them For whereas that which you affright us with of calling Gods Veracity in Question is but a Panick fear a fault that no man thus qualified is or can be guilty of to ask pardon of simple and purely involuntary errors is tacitely to imply that God is angry with us for them and that to impute to him the strange Tyranny of requiring Brick when he gives no Straw of expecting to gather where he strewed not to reap where he sowed not of being offended with us for not doing what he knows we cannot do This I say upon a supposition that they do their best endeavours to know Gods will and do it which he that denys to be possible knows not what he says for he says in effect that Men cannot do what they can do for to do what a Man can do is to do his best endeavour But because this supposition though certainly possible is very rare and admirable I say secondly that I am verily persuaded that God will not impute Errors to them as sins who use such a measure of industry in finding truth as humane prudence and ordinary discretion their abilities and opportunities their distractions and hindrances and all other things considered shall advise them unto in a matter of such consequence But if herein also we fail then our Errors begin to be malignant and justly imputable as offences against God and that love of his truth which he requires in us You will say then that for those Erring Protestants which are in this case which evidently are far the greater part they sin damnably in Erring and therefore there is little hope of their Salvation To which I answer that the consequence of this Reason is somewhat strong against a Protestant but much weakned by coming out of the Mouth of a Papist For all Sins with you are not damnable But yet out of courtesie to you we will remove this rubb out of your way and for the present suppose them mortal Sins and is there then no hope of Salvation for him that
either your Church or Pope in as much as there is no more repugnance between the Scriptures existence and our infallibility than there is between theirs 138. Obj. But if Protestants will have the Scripture alone for their Judge let them first produce some Scripture affirming that by the entrance thereof infallibility went out of the Church Ans This Argument put in form runs thus No Scripture affirms that by the entring thereof infallibility went out of the Church Therefore there is an infallible Church and therefore the Scripture alone is not Judge that is the Rule to judge by But as no Scripture affirms that by the entring of it Infallibility went out of the Church so neither do we neither have we any need to do so But we say that it continued in the Church even together with the Scriptures so long as Christ and his Apostles were living and then departed God in his providence having provided a plain and infallible Rule to supply the defect of living and infallible Guides 141. But the Jewish Church retained Infallibility in her self and therefore it is unjust to deprive the Church of Christ of it Ans That the Jews had sometimes an infallible miraculous direction from God in some cases of moment he doth affirm and had good warrant but that the Synagogue was absolutely Infallible he no where affirms and therefore it is unjustly and unworthily done of you to obtrude it upon him And indeed how can the Infallibility of the Synagogue be conceived but only by setling it in the High Priest and the company adhering and subordinate unto him And whether the High Priest was Infallible when he believed not Christ to be the Messias but condemned and excommunicated them that so professed and caused him to be crucified for saying so I leave it to Christians to judge But then suppose God had been so pleased to do as he did not to appoint the Synagouge an infallible guide Could you by your rules of Logick constrain him to appoint such a one to Christians also or say unto him that in wisdom he could not do otherwise Vain man that will be thus always tying God to your imaginations It is well for us that he leaves us not without directions to him but if he will do this sometime by living Guides sometime by written Rules what is that to you may not he do what he will with his own 144. Ad § 24. Neither is this Discourse if you mean your Conclusion that Your Church is the infallible Judge in Controversies confirmed by Irenaeus at all Iren. l. 3. c. 3. For neither has Irenaeus one syllable to this purpose neither can it be deduced out of what he says with any colour of consequence For first in saying What if the Apostles had not left Scripture ought we not to have followed the Order of Tradition And in saying That to this Order many Nations yield assent who believe in Christ having Salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit of God without Letters or Ink and diligently keeping ancient Tradition Doth he not plainly shew that the Tradition he speaks of is nothing else but the very same that is written nothing but to believe in Christ To which whether Scripture alone to them that believe it be not a sufficient guide I leave it to you to judge And are not his words just as if a man should say If God had not given us the light of the Sun we must have made use of Candles and Torches If we had had no Eyes we must have felt out our way If we had no Leggs we must have used Crutches And doth not this in effect import that while we have the Sun we need no Candles While we have our Eyes we need not feel out our way While we enjoy our Leggs we need not Crutches And by like reason Irenaeus in saying If we had no Scripture we must have followed Tradition and they that have none do well to do so doth he not plainly import that to them that have Scripture and believe it Tradition is unnecessary which could not be if the Scripture did not contain evidently the whole tradion Which whether Irenaeus believed or no these words of his may inform you Non enim per alios c. we have received the disposition of our Salvation from no others but from them by whom the Gospel came unto us Which Gospel truly the Apostles first preached and afterwards by the will of God delivered in writing to us to be the Pillar and Foundation of our Faith Bellarm. de verbo Dei l. 4 c. 11. Upon which place Bellarmine's two observations and his acknowledgment ensuing upon them are very considerable and as I conceive as home to my purpose as I would wish them His first Notandum is That in the Christian Doctrin some things are simply necessary for the Salvation of all men as the knowledge of the Articles of the Apostles Creed and besides the knowledge of the ten Commandments and some of the Sacraments Other things not so necessary but that a man may be saved without the explicit knowledge and belief and profession of them His Second Note is That those things which were simply necessary the Apostles were wont to preach to all men But of other things not all to all but something to all to wit those things which were profitable for all other things only to Prelats and Priests These things premised he acknowledgeth That all those things were written by the Apostles which are necessary for all and which they were wont openly to preach to all But that other things were not all written And therefore when Irenaeus says that the Apostles wrote what they Preach in the World it is true saith he and not against Traditions because they preached not to the People all things but only those things which were necessary or profitable for them 145. So that at the most you can infer from hence but only a suppositive necessity of having an infallible Guide and that grounded upon a false supposition In case we had no Scripture but an absolute necessity hereof and to them who have and believe the Scripture which is your assumption cannot with any colour from hence be concluded but rather the contrary 146. Neither because as he says it was then easie to receive the Truth from Gods Church then in the Age next after the Apostles Then when all the ancient and Apostolick Churches were at an agreement about the Fundamentals of Faith Will it therefore follow that now 1600 years after when the ancient Churches are divided almost into as many Religions as they are Churches every one being the Church to it self and heretical to all other that it is as easie but extremely difficult or rather impossible to find the Church first independently of the true Doctrin and then to find the truth by the Church 148. Neither will the Apostles depositing with the Church all things belonging to truth be any proof
Council of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelburg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherein they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect rule of their Faith and Actions that is The Bible The Bible I say The Bible only is the Religion of Protestants Whatsoever else they believe besides it and the plain irrefragable indubitable consequences of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves nor require the belief of it of others without most high and most Schismatical presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe and hope impartial search of the true way to Eternal Happiness do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my Foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councils against Councils some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one Age against a Consent of Fathers of another Age the Church of one Age against the Church of another Age. Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended but there are few or none to be found No Tradition but only of Scripture can derive it self from the Fountain but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in in such an Age after Christ or that in such an Age it was not in In a word there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to build upon This therefore and this only I have reason to believe This I will profess according to this I will live and for this if there be occasion I will not only willingly but even gladly lose my life though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me Propose me any thing out of this Book and require whether I believe it or no and seem it never so incomprehensible to humane reason I will subscribe it with Hand and Heart as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this God hath said so therefore it is true In other things I will take no mans liberty of judgment from him neither shall any man take mine from me I will think no man the worse man nor the worse Christian I will love no man the less for differing in opinion from me And what measure I mete to others I expect from them again I am fully assured that God does not and therefore that men ought not to require any more of any man than this To believe the Scripture to be Gods word to endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it 57. This is the Religion which I have chosen after a long deliberation and I am verily persuaded that I have chosen wisely much more wisely than if I had guided my self according to your Churches authority For the Scripture being all true I am secured by believing nothing else that I shall believe no falshood as matter of Faith And if I mistake the sense of Scripture and so fall into Error yet am I secure from any danger thereby if but your grounds be true because endeavouring to find the true sense of Scripture I cannot but hold my Error without pertinacy and be ready to forsake it when a more true and a more probable sense shall appear unto me And then all necessary truth being as I have proved plainly set down in Scripture I am certain by believing Scripture to believe all necessary Truth And he that does so if his life be answerable to his Faith how is it possible he should fail of Salvation 58. Besides whatsoever may be pretended to gain to your Church the credit of a Guide all that and much more may be said for the Scripture Hath your Church been Ancient The Scripture is more Ancient Is your Church a means to keep men at Unity So is the Scripture to keep those that believe it and will obey it in Unity of belief in matters necessary or very profitable and in Unity of Charity in points unnecessary Is your Church Universal for time or place Certainly the Scripture is more Universal For all the Christians in the World those I mean that in truth deserve this name do now and always have believed the Scripture to be the Word of God whereas only you say that you only are the Church of God and all Christians besides you deny it 59. Thirdly following the Scripture I follow that whereby you prove your Churches infallibility whereof were it not for Scripture what pretence could you have or what notion could we have and by so doing tacitely confess that your selves are surer of the Truth of the Scripture than of your Churches authority For we must be surer of the proof than of the thing proved otherwise it is no proof 60. Fourthly following the Scripture I follow that which must be true if your Church be true for your Church gives attestation to it Whereas if I follow your Church I must follow that which though Scripture be true may be false nay which if Scripture be true must be false because the Scripture testifies against it 61. Fifthly to follow the Scripture I have Gods express warrant and command and no colour of any prohibition But to believe your Church infallible I have no command at all much less an express command Nay I have reason to fear that I am prohibited to do so in these Words call no man Master on Earth They fell by infidelity Thou standest by Faith Be not high minded but fear The Spirit of truth The World cannot receive 62. Following your Church I must hold many things not only above reason but against it if any thing be against it whereas following the Scripture I shall believe many mysteries but no impossibilities many things above reason but nothing against it many things which had they not been revealed reason could never have discovered but nothing which by true reason may be confuted many things which reason cannot comprehend how they can be but nothing which reason can comprehend that it cannot be Nay I shall believe nothing which reason will not convince that I ought to believe it For reason will convince any man unless he be of a perverse mind that the Scripture is the Word of God And then no reason can be greater than this God says so therefore it is true 63. Following your Church I must hold many things which to any mans judgment that will give himself the liberty of judgment will seem much more plainly contradicted by Scripture than the infallibility of your Church appears to be confirmed by it and consequently must be so
requiring men upon only probable and Prudential motives to yield a most certain assent unto things in humane reason impossible and telling them as you do too often that they were as good not believe at all as believe with any lower degree of Faith be not a likely way to make considering men scorn your Religion and consequently all if they know no other as requiring things contradictory and impossible to be performed Lastly Whether your pretence that there is no good ground to believe Scripture but your Churches infallibility joyn'd with your pretending no ground for this but some Texts of Scripture be not a fair way to make them that understand themselves believe neither Church nor Scripture 9. Your Calumnies against Protestants in general are set down in these words Chap. 2. § 2. The very doctrine of Protestants if it be followed closely and with coherence to it self must of necessity induce Socinianism This I say confidently and evidently prove by instancing in one Error which may well be termed the Capital and Mother-heresie from which all other must follow at ease I mean their Heresie in affirming that the perpetual visible Church of Christ descended by a never interrupted Succession from our Saviour to this day is not infallible in all that it proposeth to be believed as revealed truths For if the Infallibility of such a publick Authority be once impeached what remains but that every man is given over to his own wit and discourse and talk not here of holy Scripture for if the true Church may err in defining what Scriptures be Canonical or in delivering the sense and meaning thereof we are still devolved either upon the private Spirit a foolery now exploded out of England which finally leaving every man to his own conceits ends in Socinianism or else epon natural wit and judgment for examining and determining what Scriptures contain true or false Doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected And indeed take away the authority of Gods Church no man can be assured that any one Book or parcel of Scripture was written by Divine Inspiration or that all the Contents are infallibly true which are the direct Errors of Socinians If it were but for this reason alone no man who regards the eternal salvation of his Soul would live or die in Protestancy from which so vast absurdities as these of the Socinians must inevitably follow And it ought to be an unspeakable comfort to all us Catholicks while we consider that none can deny the infallible authority of our Church but jointly he must be left to his own wit and ways and must abandon all infused Faith and true Religion if he do but understand himself aright In all which Discourse the only true word you speak is This I say confidently As for proving evidently that I believe you reserved for some other opportunity for the present I am sure you have been very sparing of it 10. You say indeed confidently enough that the denyal of the Churches infallibility is the Mother-heresie from which all other must follow at ease which is so far from being a necessary truth as you make it that it is indeed a manifest falshood Neither is it possible for the wit of man by any good or so much as probable consequence from the denialaof the Churches Infallibility to deduce any one of the ancient Heresies or any one Error of the Socinians which are the Heresies here entreated of For who would not laugh at him that should argue thus Neither the Church of Rome nor any other Church is infallible Ergo The Doctrine of Arrius Pelagius Eutyches Nestorius Photinus Manichaeus was true Doctrine On the other side it may be truly said and justified by very good and effectual reason that he that affirms with you the Popes Infallibility puts himself into his hands and power to be led by him at his ease and pleasure into all Heresie and even to Hell it self and cannot with reason say so long as he is constant to his grounds Domine cur it a facis Sir Why do you thus but must believe white to be black and black to be white vertue to be vice and vice to be vertue nay which is a horrible but a most certain truth Christ to be Antichrist and Antichrist to be Christ if it be possible for the Pope to say so Which I say and will maintain howsoever you daub and disguise it is indeed to make men apostate from Christ to his pretended Vicar but real Enemy For that name and no better if we may speak truth without offence I presume he deserves who under pretence of interpreting the Law of Christ which Authority without any word of express warrant he hath taken upon himself doth in many parts evacuate and dissolve it So dethroning Christ from his dominion over mens consciences and instead of Christ setting up himself In as much as he that requires that his Interpretations of any Law should be obeyed as true and genuine seem they to mens understandings never so dissonant and discordant from it as the Bishop of Rome does requires indeed that his Interpretations should be the Laws and he that is firmly prepared in mind to believe and receive all such Interpretations without judging of them and though to his private judgment they seem unreasonable is indeed congruously disposed to hold Adultery a venial sin and Fornication no sin whensoever the Pope and his adherents shall so declare And whatsoever he may plead yet either wittingly or ignorantly he makes the Law and the Law-maker both stales and obeys only the Interpreter As if I should submit to the Laws of the King of England but should indeed resolve to obey them in that sence which the King of France should put upon them whatsoever it were I presume every understanding man would say that I did indeed obey the King of France and not the King of England If I should pretend to believe the Bible but that I would understand it accordingly to the sense which the chief Mufty should put upon it who would not say that I were a Christian in pretence only but indeed a Mahumetan 11. Nor will it be to purpose for you to pretend that the precepts of Christ are so plain that it cannot be feared that any Pope should ever go about to dissolve them and pretend to be a Christian For not to say that you now pretend the contrary to wit that the Law of Christ is obscure even in things necessary to be believed and done and by saying so have made a fair way for any foul interpretation of any part of it certainly that which the Church of Rome hath already done in this kind is an evident argument that if she once had this Power unquestioned and made expedite and ready for use by being contracted to the Pope she may do what she pleaseth with it Who that had lived in the Primative Church would not have thought it as utterly improbable
Christian Lay-man should come into a Country of Infidels and had ability to persuade them to Christianity who would say he might not use it for want of Commission To the Eighth Luthers conference with the Devil might be for ought I know nothing but a Melancholy Dream If it were real the Devil might persuade Luther from the Mass hoping by doing so to keep him constant to it Or that others would make his dissuasion from it an argument for it as we see Papists do and be afraid of following Luther as confessing himself to have been persuaded by the Devil To the Ninth Illiacos intra muros peccatur extra Papists are more guilty of this fault than Protestants Even this very Author in this very Pamphlet hath not so many leaves as falsifications and Calumnies To the Tenth Let all Men believe the Scripture and that only and endeavour to believe it in the true sense and require no more of others and they shall find this not only a better but the only means to suppress Heresie and restore Unity For he that believes the Scripture sincerely and endeavours to believe it in the true sense cannot possibly be an Heretick And if no more than this were required of any Man to make him capable of the Churches Communion then all Men so qualified though they were different in opinion yet notwithstanding any such difference must be of necessity one in Communion THE ANSWER TO THE PREFACE TO the First and Second § If beginnings be ominous as they say they are D. Potter hath cause to look for great store of uningenuous dealing from you the very first words you speak of him viz. That he hath not so much as once truly and really fallen upon the point in question being a most unjust and immodest imputation 2. For the point in question was not that which you pretend Whether both Papists and Protestants can be saved in their several Professions But whether you may without uncharitableness affirm that Protestancy unrepented destroys Salvation For there is no incongruity but that it may be true That you and we connot both be Saved and yet as Ttrue That without uncharitableness you cannot pronounce us Damned And therefore though the Author of Charity Mistaken had proved as strongly as he hath done weakly that one Heaven could not receive Protestants and Papists both yet certainly it was very hastily and unwarrantably and therefore uncharitably concluded that Protestants were the part that was to be excluded As though Jews and Christians cannot both be saved yet a Jew cannot justly and therefore not charitably pronounce a Christian Damned 3. Neither may you or C. M. conclude him from hence as covertly you do an Enemy to Souls by deceiving them with ungrounded false hopes of Salvation seeing the hope of Salvation cannot be ungrounded which requires and supposes belief and practise of all things absolutely necessary to Salvation and repentance of those Sins and Errors which we fall into by humane frailty Nor a friend to indifferency in Religions seeing he gives them only hope of pardon of Errors who are desirous and according to the proportion of their opportunities and abilities industrious to find the truth or at least truly repentant that they have not been so Which Doctrine is very fit to excite men to a constant and impartial search of truth and very far from teaching them that it is indifferent what Religion they are of and without all controversie very honourable to the goodness of God with which how it can consist not to be satisfied with his Servants true endeavours to know his will and do it without full and exact performance I leave it to you and all good men to judge 5. You say he was loth to affirm plainly that generally both Catholicks and Protestants may be saved which yet is manifest he doth affirm plainly of Protestants throughout his Book and of Erring Papists that have sincerely sought the truth and failed of it and Die with a generalrepentance p. 77.78 And yet you deceive your self if you conveive he had any other necessity to do so but only that he thought it true For we may and do pretend that before Luther there were many true Churches besides the Roman which agreed not with her in particular The Greek Church So that what you say is evidently true is indeed evidently false Besides if he had had any necessity to make use of you in this matter he needed not for this end to say that now in your Church Salvation may be had but onely that before Luthers time it might be Then when your means of knowing the truth were not so great and when your ignorance might be more invincible and therefore more excusable So that you may see if you please it is not for ends but for the love of truth that we are thus charitable to you 6. Neither is it material what you alledge that they are not Fundamental Errors and then what imports it whether we hold them or no forasmuch as concerns cur possibility to be Saved As if we were not bound by the Love of God and the love of truth to be zealous in the defence of all Truths that are any way profitable though not simply necessary to Salvation Or as if any good man could satisfie his Conscience with being so affected and resolved Our Saviour himself having assured us a That he that shall break one of his least Commandments some whereof you pretend are concerning venial sins and consequently the keeping of them not necessary to Salvation and shall so teach men shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven 7. But then it imports very much though not for the possibility that you may be saved yet for the probability that you will be so because the holding of these Errors though it did not merit migh yet occasion Damnation As the Doctrine of Indulgences may take away the fear of Purgatory and the Doctrine of Purgatory the fear of Hell as you well know it does too frequently So that though a godly man might be saved with these Errors yet by means of them many are made vicious and so damned By them I say though not for them No godly Lay-man who is verily persuaded that there is neither impiety nor superstition in the use of your Latin Service shall be Damned I hope for being present at it yet the want of that Devotion which the frequent hearing the Offices understood might happily beget in them the want of that instruction and edification which it might afford them may very probably hinder the Salvation of many which otherwise might have been saved Besides though the matter of an Error may be only something profitable not necessary yet the neglect of it may be a damnable Sin As not to regard Venial Sins is in the Doctrine of your Schools mortal Lastly as Venial Sins you say dispose men to mortal so the erring from some profitable though lesser truth may dispose a
your self § 16. is this That the Infallible means of determining Controversies is the Visible Church That the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental maketh nothing to the present Question That to say the Creed containeth all Fundamentals is neither pertinent nor true That whosoever persist in Division from the Communion and Faith of the Roman Church are guilty of Schism and Heresie That in regard of the Precept of Charity towards one self Protestants are in state of Sin while they remain divided from the Roman Chruch To all these Assertions I will content my self for the present to oppose this one That not one of them all is true Only I may not omit to tell you that if the first of them were as true as the Pope himself desires it should be yet the Corollary which you deduce from it would be utterly inconsequent That whosoever denys any point proposed by the Church is injurious to Gods Divine Majesty as if he could deceive or be deceived For though your Church were indeed as Infallible a Propounder of Divine Truths as it pretends to be yet if it appeared not to me to be so I might very well believe God most true and your Church most false As though the Gospel of S. Matthew be the Word of God yet if I neither knew it to be so nor believed it I might believe in God and yet think that Gospel a Fable Hereafter therefore I must entreat you to remember that our being guilty of this impiety depends not only upon your being but upon our knowing that you are so Neither must you argue thus The Church of Rome is the Infallible Propounder of Divine Verities therefore he that opposes Her calls Gods Truth in Question But thus rather The Church of Rome is so and Protestants know it to be so therefore in opposing Her they impute to God that either he deceives them or is deceived himself For as I may deny something which you upon your knowledg have affirmed and yet never disparage your honesty if I never knew that you affirmed it So I may be undoubtedly certain of Gods Omniscience and Veracity and yet doubt of something which he hath revealed provided I do not know nor believe that he hath revealed it So that though your Church be the appointed witness of Gods Revelations yet until you know that we know she is so you cannot without foul Calumny impute to us That we charge God blasphemously with deceiving or being deceived You will say perhaps That this is directly consequent from our Doctrine That the Church may Err which is directed by God in all Her proposals True if we knew it to be directed by him otherwise not much less if we believe and know the contrary But then if it were consequent from our Opinion have you so little Charity as to say that men are justly chargeable with all the consequences of their Opinions Such consequences I mean as they do not own but disclaim and if there were a necessity of doing either would much rather forsake their Opinion than embrace these Consequences What Opinion is there that draws after it such a Train of portentous Blasphemies as that of the Dominicans by the judgment of the best Writers of your own Order And will you say now that the Dominicans are justly chargeable with all these Blasphemies If not seeing our case take it at the worst is but the same why should not your judgment of us be the same I appeal to all those Protestants that have gone over to your Side whether when they were most averse from it they did ever deny or doubt of Gods omniscience or veracity whether they did ever believe or were taught that God did deceive them or was deceived himself Nay I provoke to you your self and desire you to deal truly and to tell Us whether you do in your Heart believe that we do indeed not believe the Eternal Veracity of the Eternal Verity And if you judge so strangely of us having no better ground for it than you have or can have we shall not need any farther proof of your uncharitableness towards us this being the extremity of true uncharitableness If not then I hope having no other ground but this which sure is none at all to pronounce us damnable Hereticks you will cease to do so and hereafter as if your ground be true you may do with more truth and Charity Collect thus They only Err damnably who oppose what they know God hath testified But Protestants sure do not oppose what they know God hath testified at least we cannot with Charity say they do Therefore they either do not Err damnably or with Charity we cannot say they do so 13. Ad 17. § Protestants you say according to their own grounds must hold that of Persons contrary in whatsoever point of belief one part only can be saved therefore it is strangely done of them to charge Papists with want of Charity for holding the same The consequence I acknowledg but wonder much what it should be that lays upon Protestants any necessity to do so You tell us it is their holding Scripture the sole Rule of Faith for this you say obligeth them to pronounce them damned that oppose any least point delivered in Scripture This I grant If they oppose it after sufficient declaration so that either they know it to be contained in Scripture or have no just probable Reason and which may move an honest man to doubt whether or no it be there contained For to oppose in the first Case in a man that believes the Scripture to be the Word of God is to give God the Lie To oppose in the second is to be obstinate against Reason and therefore a sin though not so great as the former But then this is nothing to the purpose of the necessity of damning all those that are of contrary belief and that for these Reasons First because the contrary belief may be touching a point not at all mentioned in Scripture and such points though indeed they be not matters of Faith yet by men in variance are often over-valued and esteemed to be so So that though it were damnable to oppose any point contained in Scripture yet Persons of a contrary belief as Victor and Polycrates S. Cyprian and Stephen might both be saved because their contrary belief was not touching any point contained in Scripture Secondly because the contrary belief may be about the sense of some place of Scripture which is ambiguous and with probability capable of diverse Senses and in such Cases it is no marvel and sure no Sin if several men go several ways Thirdly because the contrary belief may be concerning points wherein Scripture may with so great probability be alledged on both sides which is a sure note of a point not necessary that men of honest and upright Hearts true lovers of God and of truth such as desire above all things to know Gods Will and to do
knoweth no Man but the Spirit of Man which is in him And who are you to take upon you to make us believe that we do not believe what we know we do But if I may think verily that I believe the Scripture and yet not believe it how know you that you believe the Roman Church I am as verily and as strongly persuaded that I believe the Scripture as you are that you believe the Church And if I may be deceived why may not you Again what more ridiculous and against sense and experience than to affirm That there are not Millions amongst you and us that believe upon no other reason than their Education and the authority of their Parents and Teachers and the Opinion they have of them The tenderness of the subject and aptness to receive impressions supplying the defect and imperfection of the Agent And will you proscribe from Heaven all those believers of your own Creed who do indeed lay the Foundation of their Faith for I cannot call it by any other name no deeper than upon the Authority of their Father or Master or Parish Priest Certainly if these have no true Faith your Church is very full of Infidels Suppose Xaverius by the Holiness of his Life had converted some Indians to Christianity who could for so I will suppose have no knowledge of your Church but from him and therefore must last of all build their Faith of the Church upon their Opinion of Xaverius Do these remain as very Pagans after their Conversion as they were before Are they brought to assent in their Souls and obey in their Lives the Gospel of Christ only to be Tantalized and not saved and not benefited but deluded by it because forsooth it is a man and not the Church that begets Faith in them What if their motive to believe be not in reason sufficient Do they therefore not believe what they do believe because they do it upon sufficient motives They choose the Faith imprudently parhaps but yet they do choose it Unless you will have us believe that that which is done is not done because it is not done upon good reason which is to say that never any man living ever did a foolish action But yet I know not why the Authority of one Holy Man which apparently has no ends upon me joyned with the goodness of the Christian Faith might not be a far greater and more rational motive to me to embrace Christianity than any I can have to continue in Paganism And therefore for shame if not for Love of Truth you must recant this fancy when you write again and suffer true Faith to be many times where your Churches Infallibility has no hand in the begetting of it And be content to tell us hereafter that we believe not enough and not go about to persuade us we believe nothing for fear with telling us what we know to be manifestly false you should gain only this Not to be believed when you speak truth Some pretty Sophisms you may happily bring us to make us believe we believe nothing but Wise men know that Reason against Experience is alwaies Sophistical And therefore as he that could not answer Zeno's subtilties against the existence of Motion could yet confute them by doing that which he pretended could not be done So if you should give me a hundred Arguments to persuade me because I do not believe Transubstantiation I do not believe in God and the Knots of them I could not unty yet I should cut them in pieces with doing that and knowing that I do so which you pretend I cannot do 53. It is superfluous for you to prove out of S. Athanasius and Austine that we must receive the sacred Canon upon the credit of Gods Church Understanding by Church as here you explain your self The Credit of Tradition And that not the Tradition of the Present Church which we pretend may deviate from the Ancient but such a Tradidition which involves an evidence of Fact and from Hand to Hand from Age to Age bringing us up to the times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour Himself commeth to be confirmed by all these Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrine to be true Thus you Now prove the Canon of Scripture which you receive by such Tradition and we will allow it Prove your whole Doctrine or the Infallibility of your Church by such a Tradition and we will yield to you in all things Take the alledged places of S. Athanasius and S. Austin in this sense which is your own and they will not press us any thing at all We will say with Athanasius That only four Gospels are to be received because the Canons of the Holy and Catholick Church understand of all Ages since the perfection of the Canon have so determined 54. We will subscribe to S. Austin and say That we also would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholick Church did move us meaning by the Church the Church of all Ages and that succession of Christians which takes in Christ himself and his Apostles Neither would Zwinglius have needed to cry out upon this saying had he conceived as you now do that by the Catholick Church the Church of all Ages fince Christ was to be understood As for the Council of Carthage it may speak not of such Books only as were certainly Canonical and for the regulating of Faith but also of those which were only profitable and lawful to be read in the Church Which in England is a very slender Argument that the Book is Canonical where every body knows that Apocryphal Books are read as well as Canonical But howsoever if you understand by Fathers not only their immediate Fathers and Predecessors in the Gospel but the succession of them from the Apostles they are right in the Thesis that whatsoever is received from these Fathers as Canonical is to be so esteemed Though in the application of it to this or that particular Book they may happily Err and think that Book received as Canonical which was only received as Profitable to be read and think that Book received alwaies and by all which was rejected by some and doubted of by many 55. But we cannot be certain in what Language the Scriptures remain uncorrupted I HIL Not so certain I grant as of that which we can demonstrate But certain enough morally certain as certain as the nature of the thing will bear So certain we may be and God requires no more We may be as certain as S. Austin was who in his second Book of Baptism against the Donatists c. 3. plainly implies the Scripture might possibly be corrupted He means sure in matters of little moment such as concertain not the Covenant between God and Man But thus he saith The same S. Austin in his 48. Epist clearly intimates a Neque enim sic posuit integritas atque notitia literarum quamlibet illustris Episcopi
so careless of preserving the integrity of the Copies of her Translation as to suffer infinite variety of Readings to come in to them without keeping any one perfect Copy which might have been as the Standard and Polycletus his Canon to correct the rest by So that which was the true reading and which the false it was utterly undiscernable but only by comparing them with the Originals which also she pretends to be corrupted 84. Ad 17. § In this Division you charge us with great uncertainty concerning the true meaning of Scripture Which hath been answered already by saying That if you speak of plain places and in such all things necessary are contained we are sufficiently certain of the meaning of them neither need they any Interpreter If of obscure and difficult places we confess we are uncertain of the sense of many of them But then we say there is no necessity we should be certain For if Gods Will had been we should have understood him more certainly he would have spoken more plainly And we say besides that as we are uncertain so are You too which he that doubts of let him read your Commentators upon the Bible and observe their various and dissonant Interpretations and he shall in this point need no further satisfaction 85. Obj. But seeing there are contentions among us we are taught by nature and Scripture and experience so you tell us out of M. Hooker to seek for the ending of them by submiting unto some Judicical sentence whereunto neither part may refuse to stand Answ This is very true Neither should you need to persuade us to seek such a means of ending all our Controversies if we could tell where to find it But this we know that none is fit to pronounce for all the World a judicial definitive obliging Sentence in Controversies of Religion but only such a Man or such a society of Men as is authorized thereto by God And besides we are able to demonstrate that it hath not been the pleasure of God to give to any Man or Society of Men any such authority And therefore though we wish heartily that all Controversies were ended as we do that all sin were abolisht yet we have little hope of the one or the other till the World be ended And in the mean while think it best to content our selves with and to persuade others unto an Unity of Charity and mutual Toleration seeing God hath authorized no man to force all men to Unity of Opinion Neither do we think it fit to argue thus To us it seems convenient there should be one Judge of all Controversies for the whole World therefore God has appointed one But more modest and more reasonable to collect thus God hath appointed no such Judge of Controversies therefore though it seems to us convenient there should be one yet it is not so Or though it were convenient for us to have one yet it hath pleased God for Reasons best known to himself not to allow us this convenience 87. Ad 18. § That the true Interpretation of the Scripture ought to be received from the Church you need not prove for it is very easily granted by them who profess themselves very ready to receive all Truths much more the true sense of Scripture not only from the Church but from any Society of men nay from any man whatsoever 88. That the Churches Interpretation of Scripture is always true that is it which you would have said and that in some sense may be also admitted viz. If you speak of that Church which before you speak of in the 14. § that is of the Church of all Ages since the Apostles Upon the Tradition of which Church you there told us We were to receive the Scripture and to believe it to be the Word of God For there you teach us that our Faith of Scripture depends on a Principle which requires no other proof And that such is Tradition which from Hand to Hand and Age to Age bring us up to the Times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrine to be true Wherefore the Ancient Fathers avouch that we must receive the Sacred Scripture upon the Tradition of this Church The Tradition then of this Church you say must teach us what is Scripture and we are willing to believe it And now if you make it good unto us that the same Tradition down from the Apostles hath delivered from Age to Age and from Hand to Hand any Interpretation of any Scripture we are ready to embrace that also But now if you will argue thus The Church in one sense tells us what is Scripture and we believe therefore if the Church taken in another sense tell us this or that is the meaning of the Scripture we are to believe that also this is too transparent Sophistry to take any but those that are willing to be taken 89. If there be any Traditive Interpretation of Scripture produce it and prove it to be so and we embrace it But the Tradition of all Ages is one thing and the authority of the present Church much more of the Roman Church which is but a Part and a corrupted Part of the Catholick Church is another And therefore though we are ready to receive both Scripture and the sense of Scripture upon the authority of Original Tradition yet we receive neither the one nor the other upon the Authority of your Church 90. First for the Scripture how can we receive them upon the Authority of your Church who hold now those Books to be Canonical which formerly you rejected from the Canon I instance in the Book of Macchabees and the Epistle to the Hebrews The first of these you held not to be Canonical in S. Gregories time or else he was no member of your Church for it is apparent a See Greg. Mor. l. 19. c. 13. He held otherwise The second you rejected from the Canon in S. Hieroms time as it is evident out of b Thus he testifies Com. in Esa c. 6. in these words Vnde Paulus Apost in Epist ad Heb. quam Latina consuetudo non recipit and again in c. 8. in these In Ep. quae ad Hebraeos scribitur â—licet eam â—aâ—ina Consuetudo inter Canonicas Scripturas non recipiat c. many places of his Works 91. If you say which is all you can that Hierom spake this of the particular Roman Church not of the Roman Catholick Church I answer there was none such in his time None that was called so Secondly what he spake of the Roman Church must be true of all other Churches if your Doctrine of the necessity of the Conformity of all other Churches to that Church were then Catholick Doctrine Now then choose whether you will either that the particular Roman Church was not then believed to be the Mistris of all other Churches
from the Act and Object in general if the Habit be special from the Act and Object in special Then for the motive to a thing that it cannot be of the Essence of the thing to which it moves who can doubt that knows that a motive is an efficient cause and that the efficient is always extrinsecal to the effect For the fourth that Gods Revelation is alike for all Objects It is ambiguous and if the sense of it be that his Revelation is an equal Motive to induce us to believe all objects revealed by him it is true but impertinent If the sense of it be that all objects revealed by God are alike that is alike plainly and undoubtedly revealed by him it is pertinent but most untrue Witness the great diversity of Texts of Scripture whereof some are so plain and evident that no man of ordinary sense can mistake the sense of them Some are so obscure and ambiguous that to say this or this is the certain sense of them were high presumption For the 5. Protestants disagree in things equally revealed by God! In themselves perhaps but not equally to them whose understandings by reason of their different Educations are fashioned and shaped for the entertainment of various Opinions and consequently some of them more inclined to believe such a sense of Scripture others to believe another which to say that God will not take into his consideration in judging mens Opinions is to disparage his goodness But to what purpose is it that these things are equally revealed to both as the light is equally revealed to all blind men if they be not fully revealed to either The sense of this Scripture Why are they then baptized for the dead and this He shall be saved yet so as by fire and a thousand others is equally revealed to you and to another interpreter that is certainly to neither He now conceives one sense of them and you another and would it not be an excellent inference if I should conclude now as you do That you forsake the formal motive of Faith which is Gods Revelation and consequently lose all faith and unity therein So likewise the Jesuits and Dominicans the Franciscans and Dominicans disagree about things equally revealed by Almighty God and seeing they do so I beseech you let me understand why this reason will not exclude them as well as Protestants from all faith and unity therein Thus you have failed of your undertaking in your first part of your Title and that is a very ill omen especially in points of so streight mutual dependance that we shall have but slender performance in your second assumpt Which is That the Church is Infallible in all her Definitions whether concerning points Fundamental or not Fundamental 26. Ad § 9.10 11. I grant that the Church cannot without damnable sin either deny any thing to be true which she knows to be Gods truth or propose any thing as his truth which she knows not to be so But that she may not do this by ignorance or mistake and so without damnable sin that you should have proved but have not But say you this excuse cannot serve for if the Church be assisted only for points fundamental she cannot but know that she may err in points not fundamental Ans It does not follow unless you suppose that the Church knows that she is assisted no farther But if being assisted only so far she yet did conceive by error her assistance absolute and unlimited or if knowing her assistance restrained to fundamentals she yet conceived by error that she should be guarded from proposing any thing but what was fundamental then the consequence is apparently false But at least she cannot be certain that she cannot err and therefore cannot be excused from headlong and pernicious temerity in proposing points not fundamental to be believed by Christians as matters of Faith Ans Neither is this destruction worth any thing unless it be understood of such fundamental points as she is not warranted to propose by evident Text of Scripture Indeed if she propose such as matters of Faith certainly true she may well be questioned Quo Warranto She builds without a foundation and says thus saith the Lord when the Lord doth not say so which cannot be excused from rashness and high presumption such a presumption as an Embassador should commit who should say in his Masters name that for which he hath no commission Of the same nature I say but of a higher strain as much as the King of Heaven is greater than any earthly King But though she may err in some points not fundamental yet may she have certainty enough in proposing others as for example these That Abraham begat Isaac that S. Paul had a Cloak that Timothy was sick because these though not fundamental i. e. no essential parts of Christianity yet are evidently and undeniably set down in Scripture and consequently may be without all rashness proposed by the Church as certain divine Revelations Neither is your Argument concluding when you say If in such things she may be deceived she must be always uncertain of all such things For my sense may sometimes possibly deceive me yet I am certain enough that I see what I see and feel what I feel Our Judges are not infallible in their judgments yet are they certain enough that they judge aright and that they proceed according to the evidence that is given when they condemn a Thief or a Murderer to the Gallows A Travelleris not always certain of his way but often mistaken and does it therefore follow that he can have no assurance that Charing-Cross is his right way from the Temple to White-Hall The ground of your error here is your not distinguishing between actual certainty and absolute infallibillty Geometricians are not infallible in their own Science yet they are very certain of those things which they see demonstrated And Carpenters are not infallible yet certain of the straightness of those things which agree with their Rule and Square So though the Church be not infallibly certain that in all her definitions whereof some are about disputable and ambiguous matters she shall proceed according to her Rule yet being certain of the infallibility of her Rule and that in this or that thing she doth manifestly proceed according to it she may be certain of the Truth of some particular Decrees and yet not certain that she shall never decree but what is true 27. Ad § 12. Obj. But if the Church may err in points not fundamental she may err in proposing Scripture and so we cannot be assured whether she have not been deceived already Ans The Church may err in her proposition or custody of the Canon of Scripture if you understand by the Church any present Church of one denomination for example the Roman the Greek or so Yet have we sufficient certainty of Scripture not from the bare testimony of any present Church but from Universal
is a shrewd sign of a sinking cause 30. Ad § 13. We are told here That the general promises of Infallibility to the Church must not be restrained only to points fundamental Because then the Apostles words and writings may also be so restrained Ans This also may be done but if it be done may easily be confuted It is done to our hand in this very Paragraph by five words taken out of Scripture All Scripture is divinely inspired Shew but as much for the Church Shew where it is written That all the decrees of the Church are divinely inspired and the Controversie will be at an end Besides there is not the same reason for the Churches absolute Infallibility as for the Apostles and Scriptures For if the Church fall into error it may be reformed by comparing it with the rule of the Apostles doctrine and Scripture But if the Apostles have erred in delivering the doctrine of Christianity to whom shall we have recourse for the discovering and correcting their error Again there is not so much strength required in the Edifice as in the Foundation and if but wise men have the ordering of the building they will make it much a surer thing that the foundation shall not fail the building than that the building shall not fall from the foundation And though the building be to be of Brick or Stone and perhaps of Wood yet if it may be possibly they will have a Rock for their foundation whose stability is a much more indubitable thing than the adherence of the structure to it Now the Apostles and Prophets and Canonical Writers are the foundation of the Church according to that of S. Paul built upon the foundation of Apostles and Prophets therefore their stability in reason ought to be greater than the Churches which is built upon them Again a dependent Infallibility especially if the dependence be voluntary cannot be so certain as that on which it depends But the Infallibility of the Church depends upon the Infallibility of the Apostles and the streightness of the thing regulated upon the streightness of the Rule and besides this dependence is voluntary for it is in the power of the Church to deviate from this Rule being nothing else but an aggregation of men of which every one has free will and is subject to passions and error Therefore the Churehes infallibility is not so certain as that of the Apostles 31. Lastly Quid verba audiam cum facta videam If you be so infallible as the Apostles were shew it as the Apostles did They went forth saith S. Mark and Preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming their words with Signs following It is impossible that God should lie and that the eternal Truth should set his hand and seal to the confirmation of a falshood or of such Doctrin as is partly true and partly false The Apostles Doctrin was thus confirmed therefore it was intirely true and in no part either false or uncertain I say in no part of that which they delivered constantly as a certain divine Truth and which had the Attestation of Divine Miracles For that the Apostles themselves even after the sending of the Holy Ghost were and through inadvertence or prejudice continued for a time in an error repugnant to a revealed Truth it is as I have already noted unanswerably evident from the story of the Acts of the Apostles For notwithstanding our Saviours express warrant and injunction to go and preach to all Nations yet until S. Peter was better informed by a vision from Heaven and by the conversion of Cornelius both he and the rest of the Church held it unlawful for them to go or preach the Gospel to any but the Jews 32. And for those things which they profess to deliver as the dictates of human reason and prudence and not as divine Revelations why we should take them to be divine revelations I see no reason nor how we can do so and not contradict the Apostles and God himself Therefore when S. Paul says in the first Epistle to the Corinth 7.12 To the rest speak I not the Lord And again concerning Virgins I have no commandment of the Lord but I deliver my Judgment If we will pretend that the Lord did certainly speak what S. Paul spake and that his judgment was Gods commandment shall we not plainly contradict S. Paul and that spirit by which he wrote which moved him to Write as in other places divine Revelations which he certainly knew to be such so in this place his own judgment touching some things which God had not particularly revealed unto him 34. Obj. But if the Apostles were Infallible in all things proposed by them as divine Truths the like must be affirmed of the Church because Protestants teach the promise of leading into all Truth to be verified in the Church Ans It 's true that to the Apostles the promise was made and to them only yet the words are true also of the Church But they agree to the Apostles in a higher to the Church in a lower sense to the Apostles in more absolute to the Church in a more limited sense To the Apostles absolutely for the Churches direction to the Church Conditionally by adherence to that direction and so far as she doth adhere to it In a word the Apostles were led into all Truths by the Spirit efficaciter The Church is led also into all Truth by the Apostles writings sufficienter So that the Apostles and the Church may be fitly compared to the Star and the Wisemen The Star was directed by the finger of God and could not but go right to the place where Christ was But the Wisemen were led by the Star to Christ led by it I say not efficaciter or irresistibiliter but sufficienter so that if they would they might follow it if they would not they might choose So was it between the Apostles writing Scriptures and the Church They in their writing were infallibly assisted to propose nothing as a divine Truth but what was so The Church is also led into all Truth but it is by the intervening of the Apostles writings But it is as the Wisemen were led by the Star or as a Traveller is directed by a Mercurial Statue or as a Pilot by his Card and Compass led sufficiently but not irresistibly led so that she may follow not so that she must For seeing the Church is a society of men whereof every one according to the Doctrine of the Romish Church hath free-will in believing it follows that the whole aggregate has free-will in believing And if any man say that at least it is morally impossible that of so many whereof all may believe aright not any should do so I answer It is true if they did all give themselves any liberty of judgment But if all as the case is here captivate their understandings to one of them all are as likely to err as that one
And he more likely to err than any other because he may err and thinks he cannot and because he conceives the Spirit absolutely promised to the succession of Bishops of which many have been notoriously and confessedly wicked men Men of the World whereas this Spirit is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because he seeth him not neither knoweth him 38. Ad § 16. To this Paragraph which pretends to shew that if the Catholick Church be fallible in some points it follows that no true Protestant can with assurance believe the Universal Church in any one point of Doctrin I Answer Though the Church being not Infallible I cannot believe her in every thing she says yet I can and must believe her in every thing she proves either by Scripture Reason or Universal Tradition be it Fundamental or be it not Fundamental This you say we cannot in points not Fundamental because in such we believe she may err But this I know we can because though she may err in some things yet she does not err in what she proves though it be not Fundamental Again you say we cannot do it in Fundamentals because we must know what points be Fundamental before we go to learn of her Not so but I must learn of the Church or of some part of the Church or I cannot know any thing Fundamental or not Fundamental For how can I come to know that there was such a Man as Christ that he taught such Doctrin that he and his Apostles did such miracles in confirmation of it that the Scripture is Gods Word unless I be taught it So then the Church is though not a certain Foundation and proof of my Faith yet a necessary introduction to it 39. But the Churches infallible direction extending only to Fundamentals unless I know them before I go to learn of her I may be rather deluded than instructed by her The reason and connexion of this consequence I fear neither I nor you do well understand And besides I must tell you you are too bold in taking that which no man grants you that the Church is an infallible directer in Fundamentals For if she were so then must we not only learn Fundamentals of her but also learn of her what is fundamental and take all for fundamental which she delivers to be such In the performance whereof if I knew any one Church to be infallible I would quickly be of that Church But good Sir you must needs do us this favor to be so acute as to distinguish between being infallible in fundamentals and being an infallible guide in fundamentals That there shall be always a Church infallible in fundamentals we easily grant for it comes to no more but this that there shall be always a Church But that there shall be always such a Church which is an infallible Guide in fundamentals this we deny For this cannot be without setling a known infallibility in some one known society of Christians as the Greek or the Roman or some other Church by adhering to which Guide men might be guided to believe aright in all Fundamentals A man that were destitute of all means of communicating his thoughts to others might yet in himself and to himself be infallible but he could not be a Guide to others A man or a Church that were invisible so that none could know how to repair to it for direction could not be an infallible guide and yet he might be in himself infallible You see then there is a wide difference between these two and therefore I must beseech you not to confound them nor to take the one for the other 40. But they that know what points are Fundamental otherwise than by the Churches authority learn not of the Church Yes they may learn of the Church that the Scripture is the word of God and from the Scripture that such points are fundamental others are not so and consequently learn even of the Church even of your Church that all is not fundamental nay all is not true which the Church teacheth to be so Neither do I see what hinders but a man may learn of a Church how to confute the Errors of that Church which taught him as well as of my Master in Physick or the Mathematicks I may learn those rules and principles by which I may confute my Masters erroneous conclusions 41. But you ask If the Church be not an infallible teacher why are we commanded to hear to seek to obey the Church I Answer For commands to seek the Church I have not yet met with any and I believe you if you were to shew them would be your self to seek But yet if you could produce some such we might seek the Church to many good purposes without supposing her a Guide infallible And then for hearing and obeying the Church I would fain know whether none may be heard and obeyed but those that are infallible Whether particular Churches Governors Pastors Parents be not to be heard and obeyed Or whether all these be Infallible I wonder you will thrust upon us so often these worn-out Objections without taking notice of their Answers 42. Your Argument from S. Austine's first place is a fallacy A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter If the whole Church practise any of these things matters of order and decency for such only there he speaks of to dispute whether that ought to be done is insolent madness And from hence you infer If the whole Church practise any thing to dispute whether it ought to be done is insolent madness As if there were no difference between any thing and any of these things Or as if I might not esteem it pride and folly to contradict and disturb the Church for matter of order pertaining to the time and place and other circumstances of Gods worship and yet account it neither pride nor folly to go about to reform some errors which the Church hath suffered to come in and to vitiate the very substance of Gods worship It was a practice of the whole Church in Saint Austines time and esteemed an Apostolick Tradition even by Saint Austine himself That the Eucharist should be administred to Infants Tell me Sir I beseech you Had it been insolent madness to dispute against this practice or had it not If it had how insolent and mad are you that have not only disputed against it but utterly abolished it If it had not then as I say you must understand Saint Austines words not simply of all things but as indeed he himself restrained them of these things of matter of Order Decency and Uniformity 44. Obj. But the Doctrines that Infants are to be baptized and those that are baptized by Hereticks are not to be rebaptized are neither of them to be proved by Scripture And yet according to S. Austine they are true Doctrins and we may be certain of them upon the Authority of the Church which we could not be unless the
savour wherewith shall it be Salted it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast forth and to be trodden under Foot So the Church may be by Duty the Pillar and Ground that is the Teacher of Truth of all truth not only necessary but profitable to Salvation and yet she may neglect and violate this Duty and be in fact the teacher of some Error 78. Fourthly and lastly if we deal most liberally with you and grant that the Apostle here speaks of the Catholick Church calls it the Pillar and ground of Truth and that not only because it should but because it always shall and will be so yet after all this you have done nothing your Bridge is too short to bring you to the Bank where you would be unless you can shew that by truth here is certainly meant not only all necessary to Salvation but all that is profitable absolutely and simply All. For that the true Church alwaies shall be the maintainer and teacher of all necessary truth you know we grant and must grant for it is of the essence of the Church to be so and any company of Men were no more a Church without it than any thing can be a Man and not be reasonable But as a Man may be still a Man though he want a Hand or an Eye which yet are profitable parts so the Church may be still a Church though it be defective in some profitable truth And as a Man may be a Man that has some Boyls and Botches on his Body so the Church may be the Church though it have many corruptions both in Doctrine and practice 79. And thus you see we are at liberty from the former places having shewed that the sense of them either must or may be such as will do your Cause no service But the last you suppose will be a Gordian knot and ties us fast enough The words are Eph. 4.11 12 13. He gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. to the consummation of Saints to the work of the Ministry c. Until we all meet into the Unity of Faith c. That we be not hereafter Children wavering and carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine Out of which words this is the only argument which you collect or I can collect for you There is no means to conserve unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrine unless it be a Church universally Infallible But it is impious to say there is no means to conserve unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrine Therefore there must be a Church universally Infallible Whereunto I answer that your major is so far from being confirmed that it is plainly confuted by the place alledged For that tells us of another means for this purpose to wit the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascension and that their consummating the Saints doing the work of the Ministry and Edifying the body of Christ was the means to bring those which are there spoken of be they who they will to the unity of Faith and to perfection in Christ that they might not be wavering and carried about with every wind of false Doctrine Now the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors are not the present Church therefore the Church is not the only means for this end nor that which is here spoken of 80. Peradventure by he gave you conceive is to be understood he promised that he would give unto the worlds end But what reason have you for this conceit Can you shew that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath this signification in other places and that it must have it in this place Or will not this interpretation drive you presently to this blasphemous absurdity that God hath not performed his promise Unless you will say which for shame I think you will not that you have now and in all Ages since Christ have had Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists for as for Pastors and Doctors alone they will not serve the turn For if God promised to give all these then you must say he hath given all or else that he hath broke his promise Neither may you pretend that the Pastors and Doctors were the same with the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and therefore having Pastors and Doctors you have all For it is apparent that by these names are denoted several Oâ—ders of men clearly distinguished and diversified by the Original Text but much more plainly by your own Translations for so you read it some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Doctors and yet more plainly in the parallel place 1 Cor. 12. to which we are referred by your Vulgar Translation God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers therefore this subterfuge is stopped against you Obj. But how can they which died in the first Age keep us in Unity and guard us from Error that live now perhaps in the last This seems to be all one as if a Man should say that Alexander or Julius Caesar should quiet a mutiny in the King of Spains Army Ans I hope you will grant that Hippocrates and Galen and Euclid and Aristotle and Salust and Caesar and Livie were dead many Ages since and yet that we are now preserved from Error by them in a great part of Physick of Geometry of Logick of the Roman story But what if these men had writ by divine Inspiration and writ compleat bodies of the Sciences they professed and writ them plainly and perspicuously You would then have granted I believe that their works had been sufficient to keep us from error and from dissention in these matters And why then should it be incongruous to say that the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascension by their writings which some of them writ but all approved are even now sufficient means to conserve us in Unity of Faith and guard us from Error Especially seeing these writings are by the confession of all parts true and divine and as we pretend and are ready to prove contain a plain and perfect Rule of Faith and as the * Perron Chiefest of you acknowledge contain immediatly all the Principal and Fundamental points of Christianity referring us to the Church and Tradition only for some minute particularities But tell me I pray the Bishops that composed the Decrees of the Council of Trent and the Pope that confirmed them are they means to conserve you in Unity and keep you from Error or are they not Peradventure you will say their Decrees are but not their Persons but you will not deny I hope that you owe your unity and freedom from Error to the Persons that made these Decrees neither will you deny that the writings which they have left behind them are sufficient for this purpose And why may not then the Apostles
Creed without the former can be possibly guarded from falling into them and continuing obstinate in them Nay so far is this Creed from guarding them from these mischiefs that it is more likely to ensnare them into them by seeming and yet not being a full comprehension of all necessary points of Faith which is apt as experience shews to misguide men into this pernitious error That believing the Creed they believe all necessary points of faith whereas indeed they do not so Now upon these grounds I thus conclude That Creed which hath great commodities and no danger would certainly be better then that which hath great danger and wants many of these great commodities But the former short Creed proposed by me I believe the Roman Church to be Infallible if your doctrin be true is of the former condition and the latter that is the Apostles Creed is of the latter Therefore the former if your doctrin be true would without controversie be better than the latter 83. Whereas you say If the Apostles had exprest no Article but that of the Catholick Church she must have taught us the other Articles in particular by Creeds or other means This is very true but no way repugnant to the truth of this which follows that the Apostles if your doctrin be true had done better service to the Church though they had never made this Creed of theirs which now we have if instead thereof they had commanded in plain terms that for mens perpetual direction in the faith this short Creed should be taught all men I believe the Roman Church shall be for ever Infallible Yet you must not so mistake me as if I meant that they had done better not to have taught the Church the substance of Christian Religion for then the Church not having learnt it of them could not have taught it us This therefore I do not say but supposing they had written these Scriptures as they have written wherein all the Articles of their Creed are plainly delivered and preached that Doctrin which they did preach and done all other things as they have done besides the composing their Symbol I say if your doctrin were true they had done a work infinitely more beneficial to the Church of Christ if they had never composed their Symbol which is but an imperfect comprehension of the necessary points of simple belief and no distinctive mark as a Symbole should be between those that are good Christians and those that are not so but instead thereof had delivered this one Proposition which would have been certainly effectual for all the aforesaid good intents and purposes The Roman Church shall be forever Infallible in all things which she proposes as matters of Faith 84. Whereas you say If we will believe we have all in the Creed when we have not all it is not the Apostles fault but our own I tell you plainly if it be a fault I know not whose it should be but theirs For sure it can be no fault in me to follow such Guides whether soever they lead me Now I say they have led me into this perswasion because they have given me great reason to believe it and none to the contrary The reason they have given me to believe it is because it is apparent and confest they did propose to themselves in composing it some good end or ends As that Christians might have a form by which for matter of Faith they might profess themselves Catholicks So Putean out of Thomas Aquinas That the faithful might know what the Christian people is to believe explicitly So Vincent Filiucius That being separated into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing And that that might serve as a mark to distinguish true Christians from Infidels So Cardinal Richlieu Now for all these and for any other good intent I say it will be plainly uneffectual unless it contain at least all points of simple belief which are in ordinary course necessary to be explicitly known by all men So that if it be a fault in me to believe this it must be my fault to believe the Apostles wise and good men which I cannot do if I believe not this And therefore what Richardus de sancto Victore says of God himself I make no scruple at all to apply to the Apostles and to say Si error est quod credo à vobis deceptus sum If it be an Error which I believe it is you and my reverend esteem of you and your actions that hath led me into it For as for your suspicion That we are led into this perswasion out of a hope that we may the better maintain by it some opinions of our own It is plainly uncharitable I know no opinion I have which I would not as willingly forsake as keep if I could see sufficient reason to induce me to believe that it is the will of God I should forsake it Neither do I know any opinion I hold against the Church of Rome but I have more evident grounds than this whereupon to build it For let but these Truths be granted That the authority of the Scripture is independent on your Church and dependent only in respect of us upon universal Tradition That Scripture is the only Rule of Faith That all things necessary to salvation are plainly delivered in Scripture Let I say these most certain and divine Truths be laid for foundations and let our superstructions be consequent and coherent to them and I am confident Peace would be restored and Truth maintained against you though the Apostles Creed were not in the world CHAP. V. The ANSWER to the Fifth CHAPTER Shewing that the separation of Protestants from the Roman Church being upon just and necessary causes is not any way guilty of Schism 1. AD § 1.2 3 4 5 6 7. In the seven first Sections of this Chapter there be many things said and many things supposed by you which are untrue and deserve a censure As 2. First That Schism could not be a Division from the Church or that a Division from the Church could not happen unless there always had been and should be a visible Church Which Assertion is a manifest falsehood For although there never had been any Church Visible or Invisible before this age nor should be ever after yet this could not hinder but that a Schism might now be and be a Division from the present Visible Church As though in France there never had been until now a lawful Monarch nor after him ever should be yet this hinders not but that now there might be a Rebellion and that Rebellion might be an Insurrection against Sovereign Authority 3. That it is a point to be granted by all Christians that in all ages there hath been a visible Congregation of faithful people Which Proposition howsoever you understand it is not absolutely certain But if you mean by Faithful as it is plain you do free from all error in faith then
as because you impose them and will allow your Communion to none but to those that will hold them with you and have so ordered your Communion that either we must communicate with you in these things or nothing And for this very reason though it were granted that these Protestants held this Doctrin which you impute to them And though this Error were as damnable and as much against the Creed as you pretend Yet after all this this disparity between you and them might make it more lawful for us to communicate with them than you because what they hold they hold to themselves and refuse not as you do to communicate with them that hold the contrary 41. Thus we may answer your Argument though both your former Suppositions were granted But then for a second answer I am to tell you that there is no necessity of granting either of them For neither do these Protestants hold the failing of the Church from its being but only from its visibility which if you conceive all one then must you conceive that the Stars fail every day and the Sun every night Neither is it certain that the Doctrin of the Churches failing is repugnant to the Creed For as the truth of the Article of the Remission of sins depends not upon the actual remission of any mans sins but upon Gods readiness and resolution to forgive the sins of all that believe and repent so that although unbelief or impenitence should be universal and the Faithful should absolutely fail from the children of men and the son of man should find no faith on the earth yet should the Article still continue true that God would forgive the sins of all that repent In like manner it is not certain that the truth of the Article of the Catholick Church depends upon the actual existence of a Catholick Church but rather upon the right that the Church of Christ or rather to speak properly the Gospel of Christ hath to be universally believed And therefore the Article may be true though there were no Church in the world In regard this notwithstanding it remains still true that there ought to be a Church and this Church ought to be Catholick For as of these two Propositions There is a Church in America and There should be a Church in America The truth of the latter depends not upon the truth of the former so neither does it in these two There is a Church diffused all the world over and There should be a Church diffused all the world over 44. Ad § 17. The next Section in three long leaves delivers us this short sense That those Protestants which say they have not left the Churches external Communion but only her corruptions pretend to do that which is impossible Because these corruptions were inherent in the Churches external Communion and therefore he that forsakes them cannot but forsake this 45. Ans But who are they that pretend they forsook the Churches corruptions and not her external communion Some there be that say they have not left the Church that is not ceased to be members of the Church but only left her corruptions some that they have not left the communion but the corruptions of it meaning the internal communion of it and conjunction with it by faith and obedience which disagree from the former only in the manner of speaking for he that is in the Church is in this kind of communion with it and he that is not in this internal communion is not in the Church Some perhaps that they left not your external communion in all things meaning that they left it not voluntarily being not fugitivi but fugati Casaubon in Ep. ad Card. Perron as being willing to joyn with you in any act of piety but were by you necessitated constrained to do so because you would not suffer them to do well with you unless they would do ill with you Now to do ill that you may do well is against the will of God which to every good man is a high degree of necessity But for such Protestants as pretend that de facto they forsook your corruptions only and not your external communion that is such as pretend to communicate with you in your Confessions and Liturgies and participation of Sacraments I cannot but doubt very much that neither you nor I have ever met with any of this condition And if perhaps you were led into error by thinking that to leave the Church and to leave the external communion of it was all one in sense and signification I hope by this time you are disabused and begin to understand that as a man may leave any fashion or custom of a Colledge and yet remain still a member of the Colledge so a man may possibly leave some opinion or practice of a Church formerly common to himself and others and continue still a member of that Church Provided that what he forsakes be not one of those things wherein the essence of the Church consists Whereas peradventure this practice may be so involved with the external communion of this Church that it may be simply impossible for him to leave this practice and not to leave the Churches external communion 46. You will reply perhaps That the difficulty lies as well against those who pretend to forsake the Churches corruptions and not the Church as against those who say they forsook the Churches corruptions and not her external communion And that the reason is still the same because these supposed corruptions were inherent in the whole Church and therefore by like reason with the former could not be forsaken but if the whole Church were forsaken 47. Ans A pretty Sophism and very fit to perswade men that it is impossible for them to forsake any Error they hold or any Vice they are subject to either peculiar to themselves or in common with others Because forsooth they cannot forsake themselves and Vices and Errors are things inherent in themselves The deceit lies in not distinguishing between a Local and a Moral forsaking of any thing For as it were an absurdity fit for the maintainers of Transubstantiation to defend that a man may locally and properly depart from the accidents of a subject and not from the subject it self So is it also against reason to deny that a man may by an usual phrase of speech forsake any custom or quality good or bad either proper to himself or common to himself with any company and yet never truly or properly forsake either his company or himself Thus if all the Jesuites in the Society were given to write Sophistically yet you might leave this ill custome and yet not leave your Society If all the Citizens of a City were addicted to any vanity they might either all or some of them forsake it and yet not forsake the City If all the parts of a mans Body were dirty or filthy nothing hinders but that all or some of them might
creature that hath skill in Astronomy For as all Astronomers are men but all men are not Astronomers and therefore Astronomy ought not to be put into the definition of men where nothing should have place but what agrees to all men So though all that are truly wise that is wise for Eternity will believe aright yet many may believe aright which are not wise I could wish with all my Heart as Moses did that all the Lords People could Prophesie That all that believe the true Religion were able according to S. Peters injunction to give a reason of the hope that is in them a reason why they hope for Eternal Happiness by this way rather than any other neither do I think it any great difficulty that men of ordinary capacities if they would give their mind to it might quickly be enabled to do so But should I affirm that all true believers can do so I suppose it would be as much against experience and modesty as it is against Truth and Charity to say as you do that they which cannot do so either are not at all or to no purpose true believers And thus we see that the foundations you build upon are ruinous and deceitful and so unfit to support your Fabrick that they destroy one another I come now to shew that your Arguments to prove Protestants Hereticks are all of the same quality with your former grounds which I will do by opposing clear and satisfying Answers in order to them 11. Ad § 13. To the first then delivered by you § 13. That Protestants must be Hereticks because they opposed divers Truths propounded for Divine by the Visible Church I Answer It is not Heresie to oppose any Truth propounded by the Church but only such a Truth as is an essential part of the Gospel of Christ 2. The Doctrines which Protestants opposed were not Truths but plain and impious falshoods Neither thirdly were they propounded as Truths by the Visible Church but only by a Part of it and that a corrupted Part. 12. Ad § 14. The next Argument in the next Particle tells us That every error against any doctrin revealed by God is damnable Heresie Now either Protestants or the Roman Church must err against the word of God But the Roman Church we grant perforce doth not err damnably neither can she because she is the Catholick Church which we you say confess cannot err damnably Therefore Protestants must err against Gods word and consequently are guilty of formal Heresie Whereunto I answer plainly that there be in this argument almost as many falshoods as assertions For neither is every error against any Doctrin revealed by God a damnable Heresie unless it be revealed publickly and plainly with a command that all should believe it 2. D. Potter no where grants that the Errors of the Roman Church are not in themselves damnable though he hopes by accident they may not actually damn some men amongst you and this you your self confess in divers places of your book where you tell us that he allows no hope of Salvation to those amongst you whom ignorance cannot excuse 3. You beg the Question twice in taking for granted First that the Roman Church is the truly Catholick Church which without much favour can hardly pass for a part of it And again that the Catholick Church cannot fall into any error of it self damnable for it may do so and still be the Catholick Church if it retain those Truths which may be an antidote against the malignity of this error to those that held it out of a simple un-affected ignorance Lastly though the thing be true yet I might well require some proof of it from you that either Protestants or the Roman Church must err against Gods word For if their contradiction be your only reason then also you or the Dominicans must be Hereticks because you contradict one another as much as Protestants and Papists 13. Ad § 15. The third Argument pretends that you have shewed already that the Visible Church is Judge of Controversies and therefore Infallible from whence you suppose that it follows that to oppose her is to oppose God To which I answer that you have said onely and not shewed that the Visible Church is Judge of Controversies And indeed how can she be judge of them if she cannot decide them And how can she decide them if it be a question whether she be judge of them That which is questioned it self cannot with any sense be pretended to be fit to decide other questions and much less this question whether it have Authority to judge and decide all questions 2. If she were judge it would not follow that she were infallible for we have many Judges in our Courts of Judicature yet none infallible Nay you cannot with any modesty deny that every man in the world ought to judge for himself what Religion is truest and yet you will not say that every man is infallible 3. If the Church were supposed Infallible yet it would not follow at all much less manifestly that to oppose her declaration is to oppose God unless you suppose also that as she is infallible so by her opposers she is known or believed to be so Lastly If all this were true as it is all most false yet were it to little purpose seeing you have omitted to prove that the Visible Church is the Roman 14. Ad § 16. Instead of a fourth Argument this is presented to us That if Luther were an Heretick then they that agreed with him must be so And that Luther was a formal Heretick you endeavor to prove by this most formal Syllogism To say the Visible Church is not Universal is properly an Heresie but Luthers Reformation was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie Whereunto I Answer first to the first part that it is no way impossible that Luther had he been the inventer and first broacher of a false Doctrin as he was not might have been a formal Heretick and yet that those who follow him may be only so materially and improperly and indeed no Hereticks Your own men out of S. Augustin distinguish between Haeretici Haereticorum sequaces And you your self though you pronounce the leaders among the Arrians formal Hereticks yet confess that Salvian was at least doubtful whether these Arrians who in simplicity followed their Teachers might not be excused by ignorance And about this suspension of his you also seem suspended for you neither approve nor condemn it Secondly to the second part I say that had you not presumed upon our ignorance in Logick as well as Metaphysicks and School Divinity you would never have obtruded upon us this rope of sand for a formal Syllogism It is even Cousin-German to this To deny the Resurrection is properly an Heresie But Luthers Reformation was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie Or to this To say the Visible Church is not Universal
every one of these infallible as well as the Roman For though he make a Panegyrick of the Roman Church in particular and of the rest only in general yet as I have said for point of direction he makes them all equal and therefore makes them choose you whether either all fallible or all infallible Now you will and must acknowledge that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Churches of Ephesus or Corinth or if he did that as experience shews he Erred in doing so and what can hinder but then we may say also that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Roman Church or if he did that he Erred in doing so 38. Ad § 20 21 22 23. The sum of your discourse in these Sections if it be pertinent to the Question must be this Want of Succession of Bishops and Pastors holding always the same Doctrine and of the forms of ordaining Bishops and Priests which are in use in the Roman Church is a certain mark of Heresie But Protestants want all these things Therefore they are Hereticks To which I answer That nothing but wnat of truth and holding Error can make or prove any man or Church Heretical For if he be a true Aristotelian or Platonist or Pyrrhonian or Epicurean who holds the Doctrine of Aristotle or Plato or Pirrho or Epicurus although he cannot assign any that held it before him for many Ages together why should I not be made a true and Orthodox Christian by believing all the Doctrine of Christ though I cannot derive my descent from a perpetual Succession that believed it before me By this reason you should say as well that no man can be a good Bishop or Pastor or King or Magistrate or Father that succeeds a bad one For if I may conform my will and actions to the Commandments of God why may I not embrace his Doctrine with my understanding although my predecessor do not so You have above in this Chapter defined Faith a free Infallible obscure supernatural assent to Divine Truths because they are revealed by God and sufficiently propounded This definition is very phantastical but for the present I will let it pass and desire you to give me some piece of shadow or reason why I may not do all this without a perpetual Succession of Bishops and Pastors that have done so before me You may judge as uncharitably and speak as maliciously of me as your blind zeal to your Superstition shall direct you but certainly I know and with all your Sophistry you cannot make me doubt of what I know that I do believe the Gospel of Christ as it is delivered in the undoubted Books of Canonical Scripture as verily as that it is now day that I see the light that I am now writing and I believe it upon this Motive because I conceive it sufficiently abundantly superabundantly proved to be Divine Revelation And yet in this I do not depend upon any Succession of men that have always believed it without any mixture of Error nay I am fully persuaded there hath been no such Succession and yet do not find my self any way weakned in my Faith by the want of it but so fully assured of the truth of it that not only though your Devils at Lowden do tricks against it but though an Angel from Heaven should gainsay it or any part of it I persuade my self that I should not be moved This I say and this I am sure is true and if you will be so Hypersceptical as to persuade me that I am not sure that I believe all this I desire you to tell me how are you sure that you believe the Church of Rome For if a man may persuade himself he doth believe what he doth not believe then may you think you believe the Church of Rome and yet not believe it But if no man can Err concerning what he believes then you must give me leave to assure my self that I do believe and consequently that any man may believe the aforesaid truths upon the aforesaid motives without any dependence upon any Succession that hath believed it always And as from your definition of Faith so from your definition of Heresie this fancy may be refuted For questionless no man can be an Heretick but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary Error therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretick whether he will or no by want of such a thing that is not in his power to have But that there should have been a perpetual Succession of Believers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in your power therefore our being or not being Hereticks depends not on it Besides what is more certain than that he may make a streight line who hath a Rule to make it by though never man in the World had made any before and why then may not he that believes the Scripture to be the Word of God and the Rule of Faith regulate his Faith by it and consequently believe aright without much regarding what other men either will do or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his Words believed he by his Providence must take order that either by Succession of men or by some other means natural or supernatural it be preserved and delivered and sufficiently notified to be his Word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no Error against it certainly there is no more necessity than that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sin against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgress it certainly they may also preserve directions for their Faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Barr do find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined oftimes make against themselves This they do ignorantly it being in their power to suppress or perhaps to alter them And why then should any man conceive it strange that an erroneous and corrupted Church should preserve and deliver the Scriptures uncorrupted when indeed for many reasons which I have formally alleged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetual Succession of men Orthodox in all points certainly there is no necessity at all of any such neither can the want of it prove any man or any Church Heretical 39. When therefore you have produced some proof of this which was your Major in your former Syllogism That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresie you shall then receive a full answer to your Minor We shall then consider whether your indelible Character be any reality or whether it be a Creature of your own making a fancy of your own imagination And if it be a thing and not only a Word whether our Bishops and Priests have
condition with ours And why then may not we be certain of an obscure thing as well as you 51. But then besides I am to tell you that you are here every where extreamly if not affectedly mistaken in the Doctrin of Protestants who though they acknowledge that the things which they believe are in themselves as certain as any demonstrable or sensible verities yet pretend not that their certainty of adherence is most perfect and absolute but such as may be perfected and increased as long as they walk by faith and not by sight And consonant hereunto is their doctrin touching the evidence of the objects whereunto they adhere For you abuse the world and them if you pretend that they hold the first of your two principles That these particular Books are the word of God for so I think you mean either to be in it self evidently certain or of it self and being devested of the motives of credibility evidently credible For they are not so fond as to be ignorant nor so vain as to pretend that all men do assent to it which they would if it were evidently certain nor so ridiculous as to imagine that if an Indian that never heard of Christ or Scripture should by chance find a Bible in his own Language and were able to read it that upon the reading it he would certainly without a miracle believe it to be the word of God which he could not chuse if it were evidently credible What then do they affirm of it Certainly no more than this that whatsoever man that is not of a perverse mind shall weigh with serious and mature deliberation those great moments of reason which may incline him to believe the Divine authority of Scripture and compare them with the light objections that in prudence can be made against it he shall not chuse but find sufficient nay abundant inducements to yield unto it firm faith and sincere obedience Let that learned man Hugo Grotius speak for all the rest in his Book of the Truth of Christian Religion which Book whosoever attentively peruses shall find that a man may have great reason to be a Christian without dependence upon your Church for any part of it and that your Religion is no foundation of but rather a scandal and an objection against Christianity He then in the last Chapter of his second Book hath these excellent words If any be not satisfied with these arguments abovesaid but desires more forcible reasons for confirmation of the excellency of Christian Religion let such know that as there are variety of things which be true so are there divers ways of proving or manifesting the truth Thus is there one way in Mathematicks another in Physicks a third in Ethicks and lastly another kind when a matter of fact is in question wherein verily we must rest content with such Testimonies as are free from all suspicion of untruth otherwise down goes all the frame and use of History and a great part of the art of Physick together with all dutifulness that ought to be between parents and children for matters of practice can no way else be known but by such Testimonies Now it is the pleasure of Almighty God that those things which he would have us to believe so that the very belief thereof may be imputed to us for obedience should not so evidently appear as those things which are apprehended by sense and plain demonstration but only be so far forth revealed as may beget faith and a perswasion thereof in the hearts and minds of such as are not obstinate That so the Gospel may be as a touchstone for tryal of mens judgments whether they be sound or unsound For seeing these arguments whereof we have spoken have induced so many honest godly and wise men to approve of this Religion it is thereby plain enough that the fault of other mens infidelity is not for want of sufficient testimony but because they would not have that to be had and embraced for truth which is contrary to their wilful desires it being a hard matter for them to relinquish their honours and set at naught other commodities which thing they know they ought to do if they admit of Christs Doctrin and obey what he hath commanded And this is the rather to be noted of them for that many other historical narrations are approved by them to be true which notwithstanding are only manifest by authority and not by any such strong proofs and perswasions or tokens as do declare the history of Christ to be true which are evident partly by the confession of those Jews that are yet alive and partly in those companies and congregations of Christians which are any where to be found whereof doubtless there was some cause Lastly seeing the long duration or continuance of Christian Religion and the large extent thereof can be ascribed to no human power therefore the same must be attributed to miracles or if any deny that it came to pass through a miraculous manner this very getting so great strength and power without a miracle may be thought to surpass any miracle 52. And now you see I hope that Protestants neither do nor need to pretend to any such evidence in the doctrin they believe as cannot well consist both with the essence and the obedience of faith Let us come now to the last nullity which you impute to the faith of Protestants and that it is want of prudence Touching which point as I have already demonstrated that wisdom is not essential to faith but that a man may truly believe truth though upon insufficient motives So I doubt not but I shall make good that if prudence were necessary to faith we have better title to it than you and that if a wiser than Solomon were here he should have better reason to believe the Religion of Protestants than Papists the Bible rather than the Council of Trent But let us hear what you can say 53. Ad § 31. You demand then first of all What wisdom was it to forsake a Church confessedly very ancient and besides which there could be demonstrated no other Visible Church of Christ upon earth I answer Against God and truth there lies no prescription and therefore certainly it might be great wisdom to forsake ancient Errors for more ancient Truths One God is rather to be followed than innumerable worlds of men And therefore it might be great wisdom either for the whole Visible Church nay for all the men in the world having wandred from the way of Truth to return unto it or for a part of it nay for one man to do so although all the world besides were madly resolute to do the contrary It might be great wisdom to forsake the Errors though of the only Visible Church much more the Roman which in conceiving her self the whole Visible Church does somewhat like the Frog in the Fable which thought the Ditch he lived in to be all the World 54. You demand again
What wisdom was it to forsake a Church acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation indued with Succession of Bishops c. usque ad Election or Choice I answer Yet might it be great wisdom to forsake a Church not acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation but accused and convicted of many damnable errors certainly damnable to them who were convicted of them had they still persisted in them after their conviction though perhaps pardonable which is all that is acknowledged to such as ignorantly continued in them A Church vainly arrogating without possibility of proof a perpetual Succession of Bishops holding always the same doctrine and with a ridiculous impudence pretending perpetual possession of all the world whereas the world knows that a little before Luthers arising your Church was confined to a part of a part of it Lastly a Church vainly glorying in the dependence of other Churches upon her which yet she supports no more than those crouching Anticks which seem in great buildings to labour under the weight they bear do indeed support the Fabrick For a corrupted and false Church may give authority to preach the Truth and consequently against her own falshoods and corruptions Besides a false Church may preserve the Scripture true as now the Old Testament is preserved by the Jews either not being arrived to that height of impiety as to attempt the corruption of it or not able to effect it or not perceiving or not regarding the opposition of it to her corruptions And so we might receive from you lawful Ordination and true Scriptures though you were a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need we ask your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need we ask your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church is enough to make us a true one As for a Succession of men that held with us in all points of Doctrine it is a thing we need not and you have as little as we So that if we acknowledge that your Church before Luther was a true Church it is not for any ends for any dependence that we have upon you but because we conceive that in a charitable construction you may pass for a true Church Such a Church and no better as you do sometimes acknowledge Protestants to be that is a Company of men wherein some ignorant Souls may be saved So that in this ballancing of Religion against Religion and Church against Church it seems you have nothing of weight and moment to put into your Scale nothing but Smoak and Wind vain shadows and phantastical pretences Yet if Protestants on the other side had nothing to put in their Seal but those negative commendations which you are pleased to afford them nothing but no Unity nor means to procure it no farther extent when Luther arose than Luthers Body no Universality of time or place no visibility or being except only in your Church no Succession of Persons or Doctrine no leader but Luther in a quarrel begun upon no ground but passion no Church no Ordination no Scriptures but such as they received from you if all this were true and this were all that could be pleaded for Protestants possibly with an allowance of three grains of partiality your Scale might seem to turn But then if it may appear that part of these objections are falsly made against them the rest vainly that whatsoever of truth is in these imputations is impertinent to this Tryal and whatsoever is pertinent is untrue and besides that plenty of good matter may be alledged for Protestants which is here dissembled then I hope our Cause may be good notwithstanding these pretences 55. I say then that want of Universality of time and place The invisibility or not existence of the professors of Protestant Doctrine before Luther Luthers being alone when he first opposed your Church Our having our Church Ordinations Scriptures personal and yet not Doctrinal Succession from you are vain and impertinent allegations against the truth of our Doctrine and Church That the entire truth of Christ without any mixture of Error should be professed or believed in all places at any time or in any place at all times is not a thing evident in reason neither have we any Revelation for it And therefore in relying so confidently on it you build your House upon the Sand. And what obligation we had either to be so peevish as to take nothing of yours or so foolish as to take all I do not understand For whereas you say that this is to be choosers and therefore Hereticks I tell you that though all Hereticks are choosers yet all choosers are not Hereticks otherwise they also which choose your Religion must be Hereticks As for our wanting Unity and Means of proving it Luthers opposing your Church upon meer passion our following private men rather than the Catholick Church the first and last are meer untruths for we want not Unity nor means to procure it in things necessary Plain places of Scripture and such as need no interpreter are our means to obtain it Neither do we follow any private men but only the Scripture the Word of God as our rule and reason which is also the gift of God given to direct us in all our actions in the use of this rule And then for Luthers opposing your Church upon meer passion it is a thing I will not deny because I know not his Heart and for the same reason you should not have affirmed it Sure I am whether he opposed your Church upon reason or no he had reason enough to oppose it And therefore if he did it upon passion we will follow him only in his action and not in his passion in his opposition not in the manner of it and then I presume you will have no reason to condemn us unless you will say that a good action cannot be done with reason because some Body before us hath done it upon passion You see then how imprudent you have been in the choice of your arguments to prove Protestants unwise in the choice of their Religion 56. It remains now that I should shew that many reasons of moment may be alledged for the justification of Protestants which are dissembled by you and not put into the Balance Know then Sir that when I say the Religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferred before yours as on the one side I do not understand by your Religion the Doctrine of Bellarmine or Baronius or any other private man amongst you nor the Doctrine of the Sorbon or of the Jesuits or of the Dominicans or of any other particular Company among you but that wherein you all agree or profess to agree the Doctrine of the
yet our own Brethren the Century writers acknowledge that in the times of Cyprian and Tertullian private Confession even of thoughts was used and that it was then commanded and thought necessary and then our Ordination you say is very doubtful and all that depends upon it Answer I also omit to answer 1. That your Brother Rhenanus acknowledges the contrary and assures us that the Confession then required and in use was publick and before the Church and that your auricular Confession was not then in the World for which his Mouth is stopped by your Index Expurgatorius 2. That your Brother Arcudius acknowledges that the Eucharist was in Cyprians time given to Infants and esteemed necessary or at least profitable for them and the giving it shews no less and now I would know whether you will acknowledg your Church bound to give it and to esteem so of it 3. That it might be then commanded and being commanded be thought necessary and yet be but a Church Constitution Neither will I deny if the present Church could and would so order it that the abuses of it might be prevented and conceiving it profitable should enjoyn the use of it but that being commanded it would be necessary 4. Concerning our Ordinations besides that I have proved it impossible that they should be so doubtful as yours according to your own principles I answer that experience shews them certainly sufficient to bring men to Faith and Repentance and consequently to Salvation and that if there were any secret defect of any thing necessary which we cannot help God will certainly supply it 19. It is remarkable against what you say § 7. That any small Error in Faith destroys all Faith that S. Austin whose authority is here stood upon thought otherwise He conceived the Donatists to hold some Error in Faith and yet not to have no Faith His words of them to this purpose are most pregnant and evident you are with us saith he to the Donatist Ep. 48. in Baptism in the Creed in the other Sacraments And again Super gestis cum emerit Thou hast proved to me that thou hast Faith prove to me likewise that thou hast Charity Lib. 5. prope initium Parallel to which words are these of Optatus Amongst us and you is one Ecclesiastical conversation common lessons the same Faith the same Sacraments Where by the way we may observe that in the judgments of these Fathers even the Donatists though Hereticks and Schismaticks gave true Ordination the true Sacrament of Matrimony true Sacramental Absolution Confirmation the true Sacrament of the Eucharist true extream Unction or else choose you whether some of these were not then esteemed Sacraments But for Ordination whether he held it a Sacrament or no certainly he held that it remained with them entire for so he says in express terms in his Book against Parmenianus his Epistle Which Doctrine if you can reconcile with the present Doctrine of the Roman Church Eris mihi magnus Apollo 20. Ad § 8. Obj. You say there is un inevitable necessity for us either to grant Salvation to your Church or to entail certain damnation upon our own because ours can have no being till Luther unless yours be supposed to have been the true Church I answer this cause is no cause For first as Luther had no being before Luther and yet he was when he was though he was not before so there is no repugnance in the terms but that there might be a true Church after Luther though there were none for some Ages before as since Columbus his time there have been Christians in America though before there were none for many Ages For neither do you shew neither does it appear that the generation of Churches is Univocal that nothing but a Church can possibly beget a Church nor that the present being of a true Church depends necessarily upon the perpetuity of a Church in all Ages any more than the present being of Peripateticks or Stoicks depends upon a perpetual pedigree of them For though I at no hand deny the Churches perpetuity yet I see nothing in your Book to make me understand that the truth of the present depends upon it nor any thing that can hinder but that a false Church Gods providence over-watching and over-ruling it may preserve the means of confuting their own Heresies and reducing men to truth and so raising a true Church I mean the integrity and the Authority of the word of God with men Thus the Jews preserve means to make men Christians and Papists preserve means to make men Protestants and Protestants which you say are a false Church do as you pretend preserve means to make men Papists that is their own Bibles out of which you pretend to be able to prove that they are to be Papists Secondly you shew not nor does it appear that the perpetuity of the Church depends on the truth of yours For though you talk vainly as if you were the only men in the World before Luther yet the World knows that this is but talk and that there were other Christians besides you which might have perpetuated the Church though you had not been Lastly you shew not neither doth it appear that your being acknowledged in some sense a true Church doth necessarily import that we must grant Salvation to it unless by it you understand the ignorant members of it which is a very unusual Synechdoche 21. Whereas you say that Catholicks never granted that the Donatists had a true Church or might be saved I answ S. Austin himself granted that those among them who sought the Truth being ready when they found it to correct their Error were not Hereticks and therefore notwithstanding their Error might be saved And this is all the Charity that Protestants allow to Papists Therefore the Argument of the Donatists is as good as that of the Papists against Protestants For the Donatists argued thus speaking to the Catholicks Your selves confess our Baptism Sacraments and Faith good and available We deny yours to be so and say there is no Church no Salvation amongst you Therefore it is safest for all to joyn with us 22. S. Austins words are cont lit petil l. 2. c. 108. Petilianus dixit venite ad Ecclesiam populi aufugite Traditores Cont. lit Petil l. 2. c. 108. si perire non vultis Petilian saith come to the Church ye People and fly from the Traditours if ye will not be damned for that ye may know that they being guilty esteem well of our Faith behold I Baptize these whom they have infected but they receive those whom we have Baptized Where it is plain that Petilian by his words makes the Donatists the Church and excludes the Catholicks from salvation absolutely And whereas you say the Catholicks never yielded that among the Donatists there was a true Church and hope of Salvation I say it appears by what I have alledged out of S. Austin that they
and did no more than Papists are bound to justifie what several Popes have said and done c. 5.112 M. They may be members of the Catholick Church that are not united in external Communion c. 5.9 The Protestant Doctrin of Merit explained c. 4.35 36. The Authors Motives to change his Religions with Answers to them Pref. 42.43 The Faith of Papists resolved at last into the Motives of Credibility c. 2.154 The Mischiefs that followed the Reformation not imputable to it c. 5.92 N. What make points necessary to be believed c. 4.4 11. No more is necessary to be believed by us than by the Apostles c. 4.67 70 71 72. Papists make many things necessary to salvation which God never made so c. 7.7 All necessary points of Faith are contained in the Creed c. 4.73 74. Why some points not so necessary were put into the Creed c. 4.75 76. Protestants may agree in necessary points though they may overvalue some things they hold c. 7.34 To impose a necessity of professing known errors and practising known corruptions is a just cause of separation c. 5.31 36 40 50 59 60 68 69. O. A blind obedience is not due to Ecclesiastical decisions though our practise must be determined by the sentence of superiours in doubtful cases c. 5.110 A probable opinion may be followed according to the Roman Doctors though it be not the safest way for avoiding sin c. 7 8. Optatus's saying impertinently urged against Protestants c. 5.99 100. Though we receive Ordination and Scripture from a false Church yet we may be a true Church c. 6.54 P. Whether Papists or Protestants most hazard their souls on probabilities c. 4.57 What we believe concerning the Perpetuity of the Visible Church Ans Pref. 18. Whether 1 Tim. 3.15 The Pillar and ground of Truth belong to Timothy or to the Church c. 3.76 If those words belong to the Church whether they may not signifie her duty and yet that she may err in neglecting it c. 3.77 A possibility of being deceived argues not an uncertainty in all we believe c. 3.26 50 c. 5.107 c. 6.47 By joyning in the Prayers of the Roman Church we must joyn in her unlawful practices c. 3.11 Preaching of the Word and administring the Sacrament how they are inseparable notes of the Church and how they make it visible c. 5.19 Private Spirit how we are to understand it c. 2.110 Private Spirit is not appealed to i. e. to dictates pretending to come from Gods spirit when Controversies are referred to Scripture c. 2.110 Whether one is left to his private spirit reason and discourse by denying the Churches infallibility and the harm of it Pref. 12 13. c. 2.110 A mans private judgment may be opposed to the publick when Reason and Scripture warrant him c. 5.109 A probable opinion according to the Roman Doctors may be followed though it is not the safest way for avoiding sin c. 7.8 It 's hard for Papists to resolve what is a sufficient proposal of the Church c. 3.54 Protestants are on the surer side for avoiding sin and Papists on the more dangerous side to commit sin shewed in instances c. 7.9 R. Every man by Reason must judge both of Scripture and the Church c. 2.111 112 113 118 120 122. Reason and judgment of discretion is not to be reproached for the private spirit c. 2.110 If men must not follow their Reason what they are to follow c. 2.114 115. Some kind of Reformation may be so necessary as to justifie separation from a corrupt Church though every pretence of reformation will not c. 5.53 Nothing is more against Religion than using violence to introduce it c. 5.96 The Religion of Protestants which is the belief of the Bible a wiser and safer way than that of the Roman Church shewed at large c. 6. from 56. to 72. Inclus All Protestants require Repentance to remission of sins and remission of sins to Justification c. 7.31 No Revelations known to be so may be rejected as not Fundamental c. 4.11 A Divine revelation may be ignorantly disbelieved by a Church and yet it may continue a Church c. 3.20 Things equally revealed may not be so to several persons c. 3.24 Papists cannot have Reverence for the Scripture whilst they advance so many things contrary to it c. 2.1 No argument of their reverence to it that they have preserved it intire c. 2.2 The Roman Church when Luther separated was not the visible Church though a visible Church and part of the Catholick c. 5.26 27. The present Roman Church has lost all Authority to recommend what we are to believe in Religion c. 2.101 The properties of a perfect Rule c. 2.5.6 7. Whether the Popish Rule of Fundamentals or ours is the safest c. 4.63 S. Right administration of Sacraments uncertain in the Roman Church c. 2. from 63. to 68. inclusive In what sense Salvation may be had in the Roman Church Ans Pref. 5 7. Salvation depends upon great uncertainties in the Roman Church c. 2. from 63. to 73. inclus Schisms whence they chiefly arise and what continues them c. 4.17 Schism may be a Division of the Church as well as from it c. 5.22 He may be no Schismatick that forsakes a Church for Errors not damnable Ans Pref. 2. No Schism to leave a corrupted Church when otherwise we must communicate in her corruptions c. 5.25 Not every separation from the external Communion of the Church but a causeless one is the sin of Schism c. 5.30 They may not be Schismaticks that continue the separation from Rome though Luther that began it had been a Schismatick c. 5.4 c. 6.14 The Scripture cannot be duly reverenced by Papists c. 2. n. 1. The Scripture how proved to be the word of God c. 4.53 The Divine Authority of the Scripture may be certain though it be not self-evidently certain that it is Gods word c. 6.51 Books of Scripture now held for Canonical which the Roman Church formerly rejected c. 2.90 91. Whether some Books of Scripture defined for Canonical were not afterward rejected c. 3.29 The Scripture in things necessary is intelligible to learned and unlearned c. 2.104 105 106. Some Books of Scripture questioned by the Fathers as well as by Protestants c. 2.34 The Scripture has great Authority from internal Arguments c. 2.47 The Truth of Scripture inspiration depends not on the authority of the Roman Church Pref. 14. c. 6.45 If the Scriptures contain all necessary truths Popery is confuted Pref. 30. to 38. inclusive The true meaning of Scripture not uncertain in necessary points c. 2.84 A determinate sense of obscure places of Scripture is not needful c. 2.127 150. The sense of plain places of Scripture may be known by the same means by which the Papists know the sence of those places that prove the Church c. 2.150 151. God may give means to the Church to know the true sense of Scripture yet it is not necessary it should have that sense c. 2.93 It
is easier to know the Scripture and its sense than for the ignorant in the Roman Church which is the Church and what are her decrees and the sense of them c. 2.107 108 109. In what Language the Scripture is incorrupted and the assurance of it c. 2.55 56 57. The Scripture is capable of the properties of a perfect Rule c. 2.7 In what sense we say the Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith c. 2.8 The Scripture not properly a judge of Controversies but a Rule to judge by c. 2.11 104 155. The Scriptures incorruption more secured by providence than the Roman Churches vigilancy c. 2.24 When Scripture is made the Rule of Controversies those that concern it self are to be excepted c. 2.8 27 156. The Scripture contains all necessary material objects of Faith of which the Scripture it self is none but the means of conveying them to us c. 2.32.159 The Scripture must determine some Controversies else those about the Church and its Notes are undeterminable c. 2.3 The Scripture unjustly charged with increasing Controversies and Contentions c. 2.4 The Scripture is a sufficient means for discovering Heresies c. 2.127 When Controversies are referred to Scripture it is not referring them to the private spirit understanding it of a perswasion pretending to come from the Spirit of God c. 2.110 Protestants that believe Scripture agree in more things than they differ in and their differences are not material c. 4.49 50. Private men if they interpret Scriptures amiss and to ill purposes endanger only themselves when they do not pretend to prescribe to others c. 2.122 The Protestants Security of the way to happiness c. 2.53 Want of Skill in School-Divinity foolishly objected against English Divines Pref. 19. The Principles of the Church of Englands separating from Rome will not serve to justifie Schismaticks c. 5.71 74 80 81 82 85 86. Socinianism and other Heresies countenanced by Romish Writers who have undermined the Doctrin of the Trinity Pref. 17.18 The promise of the Spirits leading into all truth proves not Infallibility c. 3.71 The promise of the Spirits abiding with them for ever may be personal c. 3.74 And it being a conditional promise cuts off the Roman Churches pretence to infallibility c. 3.75 Want of Succession of Bishops holding always the same Doctrin is not a mark of Heresie c. 6.38 41. In what sense Succession is by the Fathers made a mark of the true Church c. 6.40 Papists cannot prove a perpetual Succession of Professors of their Doctrin c. 6.41 T. Tradition proves the Books of Scripture to be Canonical not the Authority of the present Church c. 2.25 53 90 91 92. c. 3.27 Traditional Interpretations of Scripture how ill preserved by the Roman Church c. 2.10 c. 3.46 No Traditional Interpretations of Scripture though if there were any remaining we are ready to receive them c. 2.88 89 c. 3.46 The Traditions distinct from Scripture which Iraeneus mentions do not favour Popery c. 2.144 145 146. The asserting unwritten Traditions though not inconsistent with the truth of Scripture yet disparages it as a perfect Rule c. 2.10 Though our Translations of the Bible are subject to error yet our salvation is not thereby made uncertain c. 2.68 73. Different Translations of Scripture may as well be objected to the Ancient Church as to Protestants c. 2.58 59. The Vulgar Translation is not pure and uncorrupted c. 2.75 76 77 78 79 80. To believe Transubstantiation how many contradictions one must believe c. 4.46 The Doctrin of the Trinity undermined by Roman Doctors Pref. 17 18. The Church may tolerate many things which she does not allow c. 3.47 Gods Truth not questioned by Protestants though they deny points professed by the Church c. 1.12 Protestants question not Gods Truth though denying some truth revealed by him if they know it not to be so revealed c. 3.16 The Truth of the present Church depends not upon the visibility or perpetuity of the Church in all Ages c. 5.21 c. 7.20 The Apostles depositing Truth with the Church is no argument that she should always keep it intire and sincere c. 2.148 The promise of being led into all truth agrees not equally to the Apostles and to the Church c. 3.34 A Tryal of Religion by Scripture may well be refused by Papists c. 2 3. U. Violence and force to introduce Religion is against the nature of Religion and unjustly charged upon Protestants c. 5.96 What Visible Church was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman Ans Pref. 19. c. 5.27 That there should be always a visible unerring Church of one denomination is not necessary c. 5.27 The Visible Church may not cease though it may cease to be visible c. 5.13 14 41. The Church may not be Visible in the Popish sense and yet may not dissemble but profess her faith c. 5.18 The great uncertainties salvation in the Roman Church depends on c. 2.63 to 73. inclusive Their uncertainty of the right administration of Sacraments c. 2.63 to 68. inclusive The Churches Vnity by what means best preserved c. 3.81 c. 4.13 17 40. Pretence of Infallibility a ridiculous means to Vnity when that is the chief question to be determined c. 3.89 Vnity of Communion how to be obtained c. 4.39 40. Vnity of external Communion not necessary to the being a Member of the Catholick Church c. 5.9 Vniversality of a Doctrin no certain sign that it came from the Apostles c. 3.44 Want of Vniversality of place proves not Protestants to be Hereticks and may as well be objected against the Roman Church c. 6.42 55. We would receive unwritten Traditions derived from the Apostles if we knew what they were c. 3.46 The Vulgar Translation not pure and incorrupted c. 2.75 76 77 78 79 80. W. The whole Doctrin of Christ was taught by the Apostles and an Anathema denounced against any that should bring in new doctrins c. 4.18 The wisdom of Protestants justified in forsaking the errors of the Roman Church c. 6.53 54. The wisdom of Protestants shewed at large against the Papists in making the Bible their Religion c. 6. from 56. to 72. inclusive FINIS ADDITIONAL DISCOURSES OF Mr. Chillingworth NEVER BEFORE PRINTED Imprimatur Ex Aedib Lambeth Jun. 14. 1686. GUIL NEEDHAM RR. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. Ã Sacr. Domesticis LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1687. CONTENTS I. A Conference betwixt Mr. Chillingworth and Mr. Lewgar whether the Roman Church be the Catholick-Church and all out of her Communion Hereticks or Schismaticks p. 1. II. A Discourse against the Infallibility of the Roman Church with an Answer to all those Texts of Scripture that are alledged to prove it p. 26. III. A Conference concerning the Infallibility of the Roman Church proving that the present Church of Rome either errs in her worshiping the Blessed Virgin or that the Ancient Church did err in condemning the Collyridians as Hereticks p. 41. IV. An
Happiness But whether this way lie on the right-hand or the left or strait forwards whether it be by following a living Guide or by seeking my directions in a Book or by hearkening to the secret whisper of some private Spirit to me it is indifferent And he that is otherwise affected and has not a Travellers indifference which Epictetus requires in all that would find the truth but much desires in respect of his ease or pleasure or profit or advancement or satisfaction of friends or any human consideration that one way should be true rather than another it is odds but he will take his desire that it should be so for an assurance that it is so But I for my part unless I deceive my self was and still am so affected as I have made profession not willing I confess to take any thing upon trust and to believe it without asking my self why no nor able to command my self were I never so willing to follow like a sheep every shepheard that should take upon him to guide me or every Flock that should chance to go before me but most apt and most willing to be led by reason to any way or from it and always submitting all other Reasons to this one God hath said so therefore it is true Nor yet was I so unreasonable as to expect Mathematical demonstrations from you in matters plainly incapable of them such as are to be believed and if we speak properly cannot be known such therefore I expected not For as he is an unreasonable Master who requires a stronger assent to his conclusions than his arguments deserve so I conceive him a froward and undisciplin'd Scholar who desires stronger arguments for a conclusion than the matter will bear But had you represented to my understanding such reasons of your Doctrine as being weighed in an even ballance held by an even hand with those on the other side would have turned the Scale and have made your Religion more credible than the contrary certainly I should have despised the shame of one more alteration and with both mine armes and all my heart most readily have embraced it Such was my expectation from you and such my preparation which I brought with me to the reading of your Book 3. Would you know now what the event was what effect was wrought in me by the perusal and consideration of it To deal truly and ingenuously with you I fell somwhat in my good opinion both of your sufficiency and sincerity but was exceedingly confirmed in the ill opinion of the Cause maintained by you I found every where Snares that might entrap and Colours that might deceive the Simple but nothing that might persuade and very little that might move an understanding Man and one that can discern between Discourse and Sophistry In short I was verily perseaded that I plainly saw and could make it appear to all dis-passionate and unprejudicate Judges that a vein of Sophistry and Calumny did run clean through it from the beginning to the end And this I undertook with a full resolution to be an adversary to your Errors but a Friend and Servant to your Person and so much the more a Friend to your Person by how much the severer and more rigid Adversary I was to your Errors 4. In this work my Conscience bears me witness that I have according to your advice proceeded always with this consideration that I am to give a most strict account of every line and word that passeth under my Pen and therefore have been precisely careful for the matter of my Book to defend truth only and only by Truth And then scrupulously fearful of Scandalizing you or any Man with the manner of handling it 6. In your Pamphlet of Directions to N. N. you have loaded not only my person in particular but all the Learned and Moderate Divines of the Church of England and all Protestants in general nay all wise Men of all Religions but your own with unworthy Contumelies and a Mass of portentous and execrable Calumnies 7. To begin with the last you stick not in the begining of your first Chapter to fasten the imputation of Atheism and Irreligion upon all wise and gallant Men that are not of your own Religion In which uncharitable and unchristian Judgment void of all colour or shadow of probability I know yet by experience that very many of the Bigots of your Faction are partakers with you God forbid I should think the like of you Yet if I should say that in your Religion there want not some temptations unto and some Principles of Irreligion and Atheism I am sure I could make my Assertion much more probable than you have done or can make this horrible imputation 8. For to pass by first that which experience justifies that where and when your Religion hath most absolutely commanded there and then Atheism hath most abounded To say nothing Secondly of your notorious and confessed forging of so many false Miracles and so many lying Legends which is not unlikely to make suspitious men to question the truth of all Nor to object to you Thirdly the abundance of your weak and silly Ceremonies and ridiculous Observances in your Religion which in all probability cannot but beget secret contempt and scorn of it in wise and considering men and consequently Atheism and Impiety if they have this persuasion setled in them which is too rife among you and which you account a piece of Wisdom and Gallantry that if they be not of your Religion they were as good be of none at all Nor to trouble you Fourthly with this that a great part of your Doctrine especially in the Points contested makes apparently for the temporal ends of the teachers of it which yet I fear is a great scandal to many Beaux Esprits among you Only I should desire you to consider attentively when you conclude so often from the differences of Protestants that they have no certainty of any part of their Religion no not of those Points wherein they agree whether you do not that which so magisterially you direct me not to do that is proceed a destructive way and object arguments against your adversaries which tend to the overthrow of all Religion And whether as you argue thus Protestants differ in many things therefore they have no certainty of any thing So an Atheist or a Sceptick may not conclude as well Christians and the Professors of all Religions differ in many things therefore they have no certainty of any thing Again I should desire you to tell me ingenuously whether it be not too probable that your portentous Doctrine of Transubstantiation joyn'd with your foremention'd persuasion of No Papists no Christians hath brought a great many others as well as himself to Averroes's resolution Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis Forasmuch as the Christians worship that which they eat let my Soul be with the Philosophers Whether your
if it could be justified But besides that it is confuted by my whole Book and made ridiculous by the Approbations premised unto it it is very easie for me out of your own Mouth and Words to prove it a most injurious calumny For what one Conclusion is there in the whole Fabrick of my Discourse that is not naturally deducible out of this one Principle That all things necessary to Salvation are evidently contained in Scripture Or what one Conclusion almost of importance is there in your Book which is not by this one clearly confutable Grant this and it will presently follow in opposition to your first Conclusion and the argument of your first Ch that amongst men of different opinions touching the obscure and controverted Questions of Religion such as may with probability be disputed on both Sides and such as are the disputes of Protestants Good men and lovers of truth of all Sides may be saved because all necessary things being supposed evident concerning them with men so qualified there will be no difference There being no more certain sign that a Point is not evident than that honest and understanding and indifferent men and such as give themselves liberty of judgment after a mature consideration of the matter differ about it 31. Grant this and it will appear Secondly that the means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our understanding and which are to determine all Controversies in Faith necessary to be determined may be for any thing you have said to the contrary not a Church but the Scripture which contradicts the Doctrine of your Second Chapter 32. Grant this and the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental will appear very good and pertinent For those truths will be Fundamental which are evidently delivered in Scripture and commanded to be Preached to all men Those not Fundamental which are obscure And nothing will hinder but that the Catholick Church may Err in the latter kind of the said points because Truths not necessary to the Salvation cannot be necessary to the being of a Church and because it is not absolutely necessary that God should assist his Church any farther than to bring Her to Salvation neither will there be any necessity at all of any Infallible Guide either to consign unwritten Traditions or to declare the obscurities of the Faith Not for the former end be cause this Principle being granted true nothing unwritten can be necessary to be consigned Nor for the latter because nothing that is obscure can be necessary to be understood or not mistaken And so the discourse of your whole Third Chap will presently vanish 33. Fourthly for the Creed's containing the Fundamentals of simple belief though I see not how it may be deduced from this principle yet the granting of this plainly renders the whole dispute touching the Creed necessary For if all necessary things of all sorts whether of simple belief or practice be confessed to be clearly contained in Scripture what imports it whether those of one sort be contained in the Creed 34. Fifthly let this be granted and the immediate Corollary in opposition to your Fifth Chap. will be and must be That not Protestants for rejecting but the Church of Rome for imposing upon the Faith of Christians Doctrines unwritten and unnecessary and for disturbing the Churches Peace and dividing Unity for such matters is in a high degree presumptuous and Schismatical 35. Grant this sixthly and it will follow unavoidably that Protestants cannot possibly be Hereticks seeing they believe all things evidently contained in Scripture which are supposed to be all that is necessary to be believed and so your Sixth Chapter is clearly confuted 36. Grant this Lastly and it will be undoubtedly consequent in contradiction of your Seventh Chapter that no Man can shew more Charity to himself than by continuing a Protestant seeing Protestants are supposed to believe and therefore may accordingly practice at least by their Religion are not hindered from practising and performing all things necessary to Salvation 37. So that the position of this one Principle is the direct overthrow of your whole Book and therefore I needed not nor indeed have I made use of any other Now this principle which is not only the Corner-stone or chief Pillar but even the base and adequate Foundation of my Answer and which while it stands firm and unmovable cannot but be the supporter of my Book and the certain ruin of yours is so far from being according to your pretence detested by all Protestants that all Protestants whatsoever as you may see in their Harmony of Confessions unanimously profess and maintain it And you your self C. 6. § 30. plainly confess as much in saying The whole Edifice of the Faith of Protestants is setled on these two Principles These particular Books are Canonical Scripture And the sense and meaning of them is plain and evident at least in all points necessary to Salvation 38. And thus your Venom against me is in a manner spent saving only that there remain two little impertinences whereby you would disable me from being a fit advocate for the cause of Protestants The first because I refuse to subscribe the Artic. of the Ch. of England The second because I have set down in writing motives which sometime induced me to forsake Protestantism and hitherto have not answered them 39. By the former of which objections it should seem that either you conceive the 39 Articles the common Doctrine of all Protestants and if they be why have you so often upbraided them with-their many and great differences Or else that it is the peculiar defence of the Church of England and not the common cause of all Protestants which is here undertaken by me which are certainly very gross mistakes And yet why he who makes scruple of subscribing the truth of one or two Propositions may not yet be fit enough to maintain that those who do subscribe them are in a saveable condition I do not understand Now though I hold not the Doctrine of all Protestants absolutely true which with reason cannot be required of me while they hold contradictions yet I hold it free from all impiety and from all Error destructive of Salvation or in it self damnable And this I think in reason may sufficiently qualifie me for a maintainer of this assertion that Protestancy destroys not Salvation For the Church of England I am persuaded that the constant Doctrine of it is so pure and Orthodox that whosoever believes it and lives according to it undoubtedly he shall be saved and that there is no Error in it which may necessitate or warrant any Man to disturb the peace or renounce the Communion of it This in my opinion is all intended by Subscription and thus much if you conceive me not ready to subscribe your Charity I assure you is much mistaken 40. Your other Objection is yet more impertinent and frivolous than the former Unless perhaps it be a just
man to Error in greater matters As for example The Belief of the Popes Infallibility is I hope not unpardonably damnable to every one that holds it yet if it be a falshood as most certainly it is it puts a man into a very congruous disposition to believe Antichrist if he should chance to get into that See 8. To the third § In his distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental he may seem you say to have touched the point but does not so indeed Because though he saies there are some points so Fundamental as that all are obliged to believe them explicitely yet he tells you not whether a man may disbelieve any other points of Faith which are sufficiently presented to his understanding as Truths revealed by Almighty God Touching this matter of Sufficient Proposal if you mean by sufficiently presented to his understanding as revealed by God that which all things considered is so proposed to him that he might and should and would believe it to be true and revealed by God were it not for some voluntary and avoidable fault of his that interposeth it self between his understanding and the truth presented to it if you speak of truths thus proposed and rejected let it be as damnable as you please to deny or disbelieve them But it amazes me to hear you say that Dr. Potter declines this Question seeing the Light it self is not more clear then Dr. Potters Declaration of himself p. 245 246. c. of his Book beginning his discourse thus It seems Fundamental to the Faith and for the Salvation of every member of the Church that he acknowledge and believe all such points of Faith as whereof he may be convinced that they belong to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ To this conviction he requires three things Clear Revelation Sufficient Proposition and Capacity and understanding in the hearer For want of clear Revelation he frees the Church before Christ and the Disciples of Christ from any damnable Error though they believed not those things which he that should now deny were no Christian To sufficient Proposition he requires two things 1. That the points be perspicuously laid open in themselves 2. So forcibly as may serve to remove reasonable doubts to the contrary and to satisfie a teachable mind concerning it against the Principles in which he hath been bred to the contrary This Proposition he says is not limited to the Pope or Church but extended to all means whatsoever by which a man may be convinced in Conscience that the matter proposed is Divine Revelation which he professes to be done sufficiently not only when his Conscience doth expresly bear witness to the truth but when it would do so if it were not choaked and blinded by some unruly and unmortified lust in the will The difference being not great between him that is wilfully blind and him that knowingly gainsaieth the Truth The 3 thing he requires is Capacity and Ability to apprehend the Proposal and the Reasons of it the want whereof excuseth Fools and Madmen c. But where there is no such impediment and the will of God is sufficiently propounded there saith he he that opposeth is convinced of Error and he who is thus convinced is an Heretick and Heresie is a work of the Flesh which excludeth from Salvation he means without Repentance And hence it followeth that it is Fundamental to a Christians Faith and necessary for his Salvation that he believe all revealed truths of God whereof he may be convinced that they are from God Again it is almost as strange to me why you should say this was the only thing in question Whether a Man may deny or disbelieve any point of Faith sufficiently presented to his understanding as a truth revealed by God For to say that any thing is a thing in question methinks at the first hearing of the words imports that it is by some affirmed and denied by others Now you affirm I grant but what Protestant ever denied that it was a sin to give God the lie Which is the first and most obvious sense of these Words Or which of them ever doubted that to disbelieve is then a fault when the matter is so proposed to a Man that he might and should and were it not for his own fault would believe it Certainly he that questions either of these justly deserves to have his wits called in question Produce any one Protestant that ever did so and I will give you leave to say it is the only thing in question But then I must tell you that your ensuing Argument viz To deny a truth witnessed by God is damnable But of two that disagree one must of necessity deny some such truth Therefore one only can be saved is built upon a ground clean different from this postulate For though it be always a fault to deny what either I do know or should know to be testified by God yet that which by a cleanly conveyance you put in the place hereof To deny a Truth witnessed by God simply without the circumstance of being known or sufficienly proposed is so far from being certainly Damnable that it may be many times done without any the least fault at all As if God should testifie something to a man in the Indies I that had no assurance of this testification should not be obliged to believe it For in such cases the Rule of the Law has place Idem est non esse non apparere not to be at all and not to appear to me is to me all one If I had not come and spoken unto you saith our Saviour you had had no sin 10. As little necessity is there for that which follows That of two disagreeing in a matter of Faith one must deny some such truth Whether by such you understand Testified at all by God or testified and sufficiently propounded For it is very possible the matter in controversie may be such a thing wherein God hath not at all declared himself or not so fully and clearly as to oblige all Men to hold one way and yet be so overvalued by the parties in variance as to be esteemed a matter of Faith and one of those things of which our Saviour says He that believeth not shall be Damned Who sees not that it is possible two Churches may excommunicate and Damn each other for keeping Christmas Ten days sooner or later as well as Victor excommunicated the Churches of Asia for differing from him about Easter-Day And yet I believe you will confess that God had not then declared himself about Easter nor hath now about Christmas Anciently some good Catholick Bishops excommunicated and Damned others for holding there were Antipodes and in this questiom I would fain know on which side was the sufficient proposal The contra-Remonstrants differ from the Remonstrants about the points of Predetermination as a matter of Faith I would know in this thing also which way God hath declared himself whether for
Predetermination or against it Stephen Bishop of Rome held it as a matter of Faith and Apostolick tradition That Hereticks gave true Baptism Others there were and they as good Catholicks as he that held that this was neither matter of Faith nor matter of Truth Justin Martyr and Irenaeus held the Doctrine of the Millenaries as a matter of Faith and though Justin Martyr deny it yet you I hope will affirm that some good Christians held the contrary S. Augustine I am sure held the communicating of Infants as much Apostolick tradition as the Baptising of them whether the Bishop and the Church of Rome of his time held so too or held otherwise I desire you to determine But sure I am the Church of Rome at this present holds the contrary The same S. Austin held it no matter of Faith that the Bishops of Rome were Judges of Appeals from all parts of the Church Catholick no not in Major Causes and Major Persons whether the Bishop or Church of Rome did then hold the contrary do you resolve me but now I am resolved they do so In all these differences the point in question is esteemed and proposed by one side at least as a matter of Faith and by the other rejected as not so and either this is to disagree in matters of Faith or you will have no means to shew that we do disagree Now then to shew you how weak and sandy the Foundation is on which the whole Fabrick both of your Book and Church depends answer me briefly to this Dilemma Either in these oppositions one of the opposite Parts erred damnably and denied Gods truth sufficiently propounded or they did not If they did than they which do deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded may go to heaven and then you are rash and uncharitable in excluding us though we were guilty of this fault If not then there is no such necessity that of two disagreeing about a matter of Faith one should deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded And so the Major and Minor of your Argument are proved false Yet though they were as true as Gospel and as evident as Mathematical Principles the conclusion so impertinent is it to the Premises might still be false For that which naturally issues from these propositions is not Therefore one only can be saved But Therefore one of them does something that is damnable But with what Logick or what Charity you can infer either as the immediate production of the former premises or as a Corollary from this conclusion Therefore one only can be saved I do not understand unless you will pretend that this consequence is good such a one doth something damnable therefore he shall certainly be damned which whether it be not to overthrow the Article of our Faith which promises remission of sins upon repentance and consequently to ruin the Gospel of Christ I leave it to the Pope and the Cardinals to determine For if against this it be alledged that no man can repent of the sin wherein he Dies This muce I have already stopped by shewing that if it be a sin of Ignorance this is no way incongruous 13. Ad 6. § In your sixth Parag. I let all pass saving only this That a persuasion that men of different Religions you must mean Christians of different Opinions or Communions may be saved is a most pernicious Heresie and even a ground of Atheism What strange extractions Chymistry can make I know not but sure I am he that by reason would infer this Conclusion That there is no God from this ground That God will save men in different Religions must have a higher strain of Logick than you or I have hitherto made shew of In my apprehension the other part of the contradiction That there is a God should much rather follow from it and I say and will maintain that to say That Christians of different Opinions and Communions such I mean who hold all those things that are simply necessary to Salvation may not obtain Pardon for the Errors wherein they Die ignorantly by a general Repentance is so far from being a ground of Atheism that to say the contrary is to cross in Diameter a main Article of our Creed and to overthrow the Gospel of Christ 14. Ad 7. § To what you say of some Protestants that hold it necessary to be able to prove a perpetual Visible Church distinct from Yours I answer Some perhaps undertake to do so as a matter of courtesie but I believe you will be much to seek for any one that holds it necessary For though you say that Christ hath promised there shall be a Perpetual Visible Church yet you your selves do not pretend that he hath promised there shall be Histories and Records always extant of the Professors of it in all Ages nor that he hath any where enjoyned us to read those Histories that we may be able to shew them 17. To your ensuing demands though some of them be very captious and ensnaring yet I will give you as clear and plain and Ingenuous Answers as possibly I can 18. Ad 11. § To the First then about the Perpetuity of the visible Church my Answer is That I believe our Saviour ever since his Ascension hath had in some place or other a Visible true Church on Earth I mean a Company of Men that professed at least so much truth as was absolutely necessary for their Salvation And I believe that there will be somewhere or other such a Church to the Worlds end But the contrary Doctrine I do at no hand believe to be a damnable Heresie 19. Ad 12. § To the Second what Visible Church there was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman I answer that before Luther there were many Visible Churches in many things disagreeing from the Roman But not that the whole Catholick Church disagreed from Her because She her self was a Part of the Whole though much corrupted And to undertake to name a Catholick Church disagreeing from Her is to make her no Part of it which we do not nor need not pretend And for men agreeing with Protestants in all points we will then produce them when you shall either prove it necessary to be done which you know we absolutely deny or when you shall produce a perpetual succession of Professors which in all points have agreed with you and disagreed from you in nothing But this my promise to deal plainly with you I conceive and so intended it to be very like his who undertook to drink up the Sea upon condition that he to whom the promise was made should first stop the Rivers from runing in For this unreasonable request which you make to us is to your selves so impossible that in the very next Age after the Apostles you will never be able to name a Man whom you can prove to have agreed with you in all things nay if you speak of such whose Works are extant and unquestioned whom we cannot prove
contemporaries and by writings wrote indeed by some but approved by all of them taught their Christian posterity to the Worlds End how all these ends and that which is the End of all these ends Salvation is to be atchieved And these means the Providence of God hath still preserved and so preserved that they are sufficient for all these intents I say sufficient though through the Malice of Men not always effectual for that the same means may be sufficient for the compassing an end and not effectual you must not deny who hold that God gives all men sufficient means of Salvation and yet that all are not saved I said also sufficient to determine all controversies which were necessary to be determined For if some controversies may for many Ages be undetermined and yet in the mean while men be saved why should or how can the Churches being furnished with effectual means to determine all Controversies in Religion be necessary to Salvation the end it self to which these means are ordained being as experience shews not necessary Plain sense will teach every man that the necessity of the means must always be measured by and can never exceed the necessity of the end As if eating be necessary only that I may live then certainly if I have no necessity to live I have no necessity to eat If I have no need to be at London I have no need of a Horse to carry me thither If I have no need to Fly I have no need of Wings Answer me then I pray directly and Categorically Is it necessary that all Controversies in Religion should be determined or is it not If it be why is the question of Predetermination of the immaculate conception of the Popes indirect power in temporalties so long undetermined if not what is it but Hypocrisie to pretend such great necessity of such effectual means for the archieving that end which is it self not necessary Christians therefore have and shall have means sufficient though not always effectual to determine not all controversies but all necessary to be determined I proceed on farther with you and grant that this means to decide controversies in Faith and Religion must be indued with an Universal Infallibility in whatsoever it propoundeth for a Divine truth For if it may be false in any one thing of this nature in any thing which God requires men to believe we can yield unto it but a wavering and fearful assent in any thing These grounds therefore I grant very readily and give you free leave to make your best advantage of them And yet to deal truly I do not perceive how from the denial of any of them it would follow that Faith is Opinion or from the granting them that it is not so But for my part whatsoever clamour you have raised against me I think no otherwise of the Nature of Faith I mean Historical Faith than generally both Protestants and Papists do for I conceive it an assent to Divine Revelations upon the Authority of the revealer Which though in many things it differ from Opinion as commonly the Word Opinion is understood yet in some things I doubt not but you will confess that it agrees with it As first that as Opinion is an Assent so is Faith also Secondly that as Opinion so Faith is always built upon less evidence than that of Sence or Science Which assertion you not only grant but mainly contend for in your sixth Ch. Thirdly and lastly that as Opinion so Faith admits degrees and that as there may be a strong and weak Opinion so there may be a strong and weak Faith These things if you will grant as sure if you be in your right mind you will not deny any of them I am well contented that this ill-sounding Word Opinion should be discarded and that among the Intellectual habits you should seek out some other Genus for Faith For I will never contend with any man about Words who grants my meaning 8. But though the Essence of Faith exclude not all weakness and imperfection yet may it be enquired whether any certainty of Faith under the highest degree may be sufficient to please God and attain Salvation Whereunto I answer that though men are unreasonable God requires not any thing but Reason They will not be pleased without a down weight but God is contented if the Scale be turned They pretend that Heavenly things cannot be seen to any purpose but by the mid-day-light But God will be satisfied if we receive any degree of light which makes us leave the Works of Darkness and walk as Children of the Light They exact a certainty of Faith above that of Sence or Science God desires only that we believe the conclusion as much as the premises deserve that the strength of our Faith be equal or proportionable to the credibility of the Motives to it Now though I have and ought to have an absolute certainty of this Thesis All which God reveals for truth is true being a proposition that may be demonstrated or rather so evident to any one that understands it that it needs it not Yet of this Hypothesis That all the Articles of our Faith were revealed by God we cannot ordinarily have any rational and acquired certainty more than moral founded upon these considerations First that the goodness of the precepts of Christianity and the greatness of the promises of it shews it of all other Religions most likely to come from the Fountain of goodness And then that a constant famous and very general Tradition so credible that no Wise Man doubts of any other which hath but the Fortieth part of the credibility of this such and so credible a Tradition tells us that God himself hath set his Hand and Seal to the Truth of this Doctrine by doing great and glorious and frequent miracles in confirmation of it Now our Faith is an assent to this conclusion that the Doctrine of Christianity is true which being deduced from the former Thesis which is Metapyhsically certain and from the former Hypothesis whereof we can have but a Moral certainty we cannot possibly by natural means be more certain of it than of the weaker of the premises as a River will not rise higher than the Fountain from which it flows For the conclusion always follows the worser part if there be any worse and must be Negative Particular Contingent or but Morally certain if any of the Propositions from whence it is derived be so Neither can we be certain of it in the highest degree unless we be thus certain of all the principles whereon it is grounded As a man cannot go or stand strongly if either of his Legs be weak Or as a building cannot be stable if any one of the necessary Pillars thereof be infirm and instable Or as If a meassage be brought me from a man of absolute credit with me but by a messenger that is not so my confidence of the Truth of the Relation
And whether she can set us down such interpretations of all obscurities in the Faith as shall need no farther interpretations If she cannot then she hath not that power which you pretend she hath of being an Infallible Teacher of all Divine verities and an infallible interpreter of obscurities in the Faith for she cannot teach us all Divine verities if she cannot write them down neither is that an interpretation which needs again to be interpreted If she can Let her do it and then we shall have a writing not only capable of but actually endowed with both these perfections of being both so compleat as to need no Addition and so evident as to need no Interpretation Lastly whatsoever your Church can do or not do no man can without Blasphemy deny that Christ Jesus if he had pleased could have writ us a rule of Faith so plain and perfect as that it should have wanted neither any part to make up its integrity nor any clearness to make it sufficiently intelligible And if Christ could have done this then the thing might have been done a writing there might have been indowed with both these properties Thus therefore I conclude a writing may be so perfect a Rule as to need neither Addition nor Interpretation But the Scripture you acknowledge a perfect Rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule therefore it needs neither Addition nor Interpretation 8. You will say that though a writing be never so perfect a Rule of Faith yet it must be beholden to Tradition to give it this Testimony that it is a Rule of Faith and the Word of God I answer First there is no absolute necessity of this For God might if he thought good give it the attestation of perpetual Miracles Secondly that it is one thing to be a perfect Rule of Faith another to be proved so unto us And thus though a writing could not be proved to us to be a perfect rule of Faith by its own saying so for nothing is proved true by being said or written in a Book but only by Tradition which is a thing credible of it self yet it may be so in it self and contain all the material Objects all the particular Articles of our Faith without any dependance upon Tradition even this also not excepted that this Writing doth contain the rule of Faith Now when Protestants affirm against Papists that Scripture is a perfect rule of Faith their meaning is not that by Scripture all things absolutely may be proved which are to be believed For it can never be proved by Scripture to a gainsayer that there is a God or that the Book called Scripture is the Word of God For he that will deny these Assertions when they are spoken will believe them never a whit the more because you can shew them written But their meaning is that the Scripture to them which presuppose it Divine and a Rule of Faith as Papists and Protestants do contains all the material Objects of Faith is a compleat and Total and not only an imperfect and a partial Rule 9. But every Book and Chapter and Text of Scripture is Infallible and wants no due perfection and yet excludes not the Addition of other Book of Scripture Therefore the perfection of the whole Scripture excludes not the Addition of unwritten Tradition I answer Every Text of Scripture though it have the perfection belonging to a Text of Scripture yet it hath not the perfection requisite to a perfect Rule of Faith and that only is the perfection which is the subject of our discourse So that this is to abuse your Reader with the ambiguity of the word Perfect In effect as if you should say a Text of Scripture may be a perfect Text though there be others beside it therefore the whole Scripture may be a perfect Rule of Faith though there be other parts of this Rule besides the Scripture and though the Scripture be but a part of it 10. The next Argument to the same purpose is for Sophistry Cosin German to the former When the first Books of Scripture were written they did not exclude unwritter Tradition Therefore now also that all the Books of Scripture are written Traditions are not excluded The sense of which Argument if it have any must be this When only a part of the Scripture was written then a part of the Divine Doctrine was unwritten Therefore now when all the Scripture is written yet some part of the Divine Doctrine is yet unwritten If you say your conclusion is not that it is so but without disparagement to Scripture may be so without disparagement to the truth of Scripture I grant it but without disparagement to the Scriptures being a perfect Rule I deny it And now the Question is not of the Truth but the perfection of it which are very different things though you would fain confound them For Scripture might very well be all true though it contain not all necessary Divine Truth But unless it do so it cannot be a perfect Rule of Faith for that which wants any thing is not perfect For I hope you do not imagine that we conceive any Antipathy between Gods Word Written and unwritten but that both might very well stand together All that we say is this that we have reason to believe that God de Facto hath ordered the matter so that all the Gospel of Christ the whole Covenant between God and Man is now Written Whereas if he had pleased he might so have disposed it that part might have been written and part unwritten but then he would have taken order to whom we should have had recourse for that part of it which was not written which seeing he hath not done as the Progress shall demonstrate it is evident he hath left no part of it unwritten We know no man therefore that says It were any injury to the written Word to be joyned with the unwritten if there were any wherewith it might be joyned but that we deny The fidelity of a Keeper may very well consist with the Authority of the thing committed to his Custody But we know no one Society of Christians that is such a faithful Keeper as you pretend The Scripture it self was not kept so faithfully by you but that you suffered infinite variety of Readings to creep into it all which could not possibly be Divine and yet in several parts of your Church all of them until the last Age were so esteemed The interpretations of obscure places of Scripture which without Question the Apostles taught the Primitive Christians are wholly lost there remains no certainty scarce of any one Those Worlds of Miracles which our Saviour did which were not written for want of writing are vanished out of the memory of men And many profitable things which the Apostles taught and writ not as that which S. Paul glances at in his second Epistle to the Thesalon of the cause of the hindrance of the coming of
such great harm or danger in not having such a certainty whether some Books be Canonical or no as you require If they had why may not Protestants notwithstanding their differences have sufficient certainty hereof as well as the Ancient Fathers and Churches notwithstanding theirs 35. You proceed And whereas the Protestants of England in the 6. Art have these Words In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those Books of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church you demand what they mean by them Whether that by the Churches consent they are assured what Scriptures be Canonical I Answer for them Yes they are so And whereas you infer from hence This is to make the Church Judge I have told you already That of this Controversie we make the Church the Judge but not the present Church much less the present Roman Church but the consent and Testimony of the Ancient and Primitive Church Which though it be but a highly probable inducement and no demonstrative enforcement yet methinks you should not deny but it may be a sufficient ground of Faith Whose Faith even of the Foundation of all your Faith your Churches Authority is built lastly and wholly upon Prudential Motives 36. But by this Rule the whole Book of Esther must quit the Canon because it was excluded by some in the Church by Melito Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen Then for ought I know he that should think he had reason to exclude it now might be still in the Church as well as Melito Athanasius Nazianzen were And while you thus inveigh against Luther and charge him with Luciferian Heresies for doing that which you in this very place confess that Saints in Heaven before him have done are you not partial and a Judge of evil thoughts 37. Luther's censures of Ecclesiastes Job and the Prophets though you make such Tragedies with them I see none of them but is capable of a tolerable construction and far from having in them any Fundamental Heresie He that condemns him for saying the Book of Ecclesiastes is not full That it hath many abrupt things condemns him for ought I can see for speaking truth And the rest of the censure is but a bold and blunt expression of the same thing The Book of Job may be a true History and yet as many true Stories are and have been an Argument of a Fable to set before us an example of Patience And though the Books of the Prophets were not written by themselves but by their Disciples yet it does not follow that they were written casually Though I hope you will not damn all for Hereticks that say some Books of Scripture were written casually Neither is there any reason they should the sooner be called in question for being written by their Disciples seeing being so written they had attestation from themselves Was the Prophesie of Jeremy the less Canonical for being written by Baruch Or because S. Peter the Master dictated the Gospel and S. Mark the Scholar writ it is it the more likely to be called in Question 38. But leaving Luther you return to our English Canon of Scripture And tell us that in the New Testament by the above mentioned rule of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church divers Books must be discanonized Not so For I may believe even those questioned Books to have been written by the Apostles and to be Canonical but I cannot in Reason believe this of them so undoubtedly as of those Books which were never questioned At least I have no warrant to damn any man that shall doubt of them or deny them now having the example of Saints in Heaven either to justifie or excuse such their doubting or denial 39. You observe in the next place that our sixth Article specifying by name all the Books of the Old Testament shuffles over these of the New with this generality All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we do receive and account them Canonical And in this you fancy to your self a mystery of iniquity But if this be all the shuffling that the Church of England is guilty of I believe the Church as well as the King may give for her Motto Honi soit qui mal y pense For all the Bibles which since the Composing of the Articles have been used and allowed by the Church of England do testifie and even proclaim to the World that by Commonly received they meant received by the Church of Rome and other Churches before the Reformation I pray take the pains to look in them and there you shall find the Books which the Church of England counts Apocryphal marked out and severed from the rest with this Title in the beginning The Books called Apocrypha and with this close or Seal in the End The End of the Apocrypha And having told you by name and in particular what Books only She Esteems Apocryphal I hope you will not put Her to the trouble of telling you that the rest are in Her judgment Canonical 40. But if by Commonly received She meant by the Church of Rome Then by the same reason must She receive divers Books of the Old Testament which She rejects 41. Certainly a very good Consequence The Church of England receives the Books of the New Testament which the Church of Rome receives Therefore she must receive the Books of the Old Testament which she receives As if you should say If you will do as we in one thing you must in all things If you will pray to God with us you must pray to Saints with us If you hold with us when we have reason on our side you must de so when we have no reason 43. But with what Coherence can we say in the former part of the Article That by Scripture we mean those Books that were never doubted of and in the latter say We receive all the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received whereas of them many were doubted I answer When they say of whose Authority there was never any doubt in the Church They mean not those only of whose Authority there was simply no doubt at all by any man in the Church But such as were not at any time doubted of by the whole Church or by all Churches but had attestation though not Universal yet at least sufficient to make considering men receive them for Canonical In which number they may well reckon those Epistles which were sometimes doubted of by some yet whose number and Authority was not so great as to prevail against the contrary suffrages 44. But if to be commonly received pass for a good Rule to know the Canon of the New Testament by why not of the Old You conclude many times very well but still when you do so it is out of principles which no man grants For who ever told you that to be commonly received is a good Rule to know the Canon of the New Testament
notwithstanding Ad hanc Ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est omnes qui sunt undique fideles which Card. Perron and his Translatress so often translates false Or if you say she was you will run into a greater inconvenience and be forced to say that all the Churches of that time rejected from the Canon the Epistle to the Hebrews together with the Roman Church And consequently that the Catholick Church may Err in rejecting from the Canon Scriptures truly Canonical 92. Secondly How can we receive the Scripture upon the authority of the Roman Church which hath delivered at several times Scriptures in many places different and repugnant for Authentical and Canonical which is most evident out of the place of Malacby which is so quoted for the Sacrifice of the Mass that either all the Ancient Fathers had false Bibles or yours is false Most evident likewise from the comparing of the story of Jacob in Genesis with that which is cited out of it in the Epistle to the Hebrews according to the vulgar Edition But above all to any one who shall compare the Bibles of Sixtus and Clement so evident that the wit of man cannot disguise it 93. Thus you see what reason we have to believe your Antecedent That your Church it is which must declare what Books be true Scripture Now for the consequence that certainly is as liable to exception as the Antecedent For if it were true that God had promised to assist you for the delivering of true Scripture would this oblige him or would it follow from hence that He had obliged himself to teach you not only sufficiently but effectually and irrisistably the true sense of Scripture God is not defective in things necessary neither will he leave himself without witness nor the World without means of knowing his will and doing it And therefore it was necessary that by his Providence he should preserve the Scripture from any undiscernable corruption in those things which he would have known otherwise it is apparent it had not been his will that these things should be known the only means of continuing the knowledg of them being perished But now neither is God lavish in superfluities and therefore having given us means sufficient for our direction and power sufficient to make use of these means he will not constrain or necessitate us to make use of these means For that were to cross the end of our Creation which was to be glorified by our free obedience whereas necessity and freedom cannot stand together That were to reverse the Law which he hath prescribed to himself in his dealing with men and that is to set Life and Death before him and to leave him in the hands of his own Counsel God gave the Wisemen a Star to lead them to Christ but he did not necessitate them to follow the guidance of this Star that was left to their liberty God gave the Children of Israel a Fire to lead them by Night and a Pillar of Cloud by Day but he constrained no man to follow them that was left to their liberty So he gives the Church the Scripture which in those things which are to be believed or done are plain and easie to be followed like the Wisemens Star Now that which he desires of us on our part is the Obedience of Faith and love of the Truth and desire to find the true sense of it and industry in searching it and humility in following and Constancy in professing it all which if he should work in us by an absolute irresistible necessity he could no more require of us as our duty than he can of the Sun to shine of the Sea to Ebb and Flow and of all other Creatures to do those things which by meer necessity they must do and cannot choose Besides what an impudence is it to pretend that your Church is infallibly directed concerning the true meaning of the Scripture whereas there are Thousands of places of Scripture which you do not pretend certainly to understand and about the Interpretation whereof your own Doctors differ among themselves If your Church be infallibly directed concerning the true meaning of Scripture why do not your Doctors follow her infallible direction And if they do how comes such difference among them in their Interpretations 94. Again why does your Church thus put her Candle under a Bushel and keep her Talent of interpreting Scripture infallibly thus long wrapt up in Napkins Why sets she not forth Infallible Commentaries or Expositions upon all the Bible Is it because this would not be profitable for Christians that Scripture should be Interpreted Is it blasphemous to say so The Scripture it self tells us All Scripture is profitable And the Scripture is not so much the Words as the Sense And if it be not profitable why does she imploy particular Doctors to interpret Scriptures fallibly unless we must think that fallible Interpretations of Scripture are profitable and infallible Interpretations would not be so 95. If you say the Holy Ghost which assists the Church in interpreting will move the Church to interpret when he shall think fit and that the Church will do it when the Holy Ghost shall move her to do it I demand whether the Holy Ghosts moving of the Church to such works as these be resistible by the Church or irresistible If resistible then the Holy Ghost may move and the Church may not be moved As certainly the Holy Ghost doth always move to an Action when he shews us plainly that it would be for the good of men and Honour of God As he that hath any sense will acknowledge that an infallible exposition of Scripture could not but be and there is no conceivable reason why such a work should be put off a day but only because you are conscious to your selves you cannot do it and therefore make excuses But if the moving of the Holy Ghost be irresistible and you are not yet so moved to go about this work then I confess you are excused But then I would know whether those Popes which so long deferred the calling of a Council for the Reformation of your Church at length pretended to be effected by the Council of Trent whether they may excuse themselves for that they were not moved by the Holy Ghost to do it I would know likewise as this motion is irresistible when it comes so whether it be so simply necessary to the moving of your Church to any such publick Action that it cannot possibly move without it That is whether the Pope now could not if he would seat himself in Cathedra and fall to writing expositions upon the Bible for the directions of Christians to the true sense of it If you say he cannot you will make your self ridiculous If he can then I would know whether he should be infallibly directed in these expositions or no If he should then what need he to stay for irresistible motion Why does he
not go about this noble work presently If he should not How shall we know that the calling of the Council of Trent was not upon his own voluntary motion or upon humane importunity and suggestion and not upon the motion of the Holy Ghost And consequently how shall we know whether he were assistant to it or no seeing he assists none but what he himself moves to And whether he did move the Pope to call this Council is a secret thing which we cannot possibly know nor perhaps the Pope himself 96. If you say your meaning is only That the Church shall be infallibly guarded from giving any false sense of any Scripture and not infalliblyassisted positively to give the true sense of all Scripture I put to you your own Question why should we believe the Holy Ghost will stay there Or why may we not as well think he will stay at the first thing that is in teaching the Church what Books be true Scripture For if the Holy Ghosts assistance be promised to all things profitable then will he be with them infallibly not only to guard them from all Errors but to guide them to all profitable truths such as the true senses of all Scripture would be Neither could he stay there but defend them irresistibly from all Vices Nor there neither but infuse into them irresistibly all Vertues for all these things would be much for the benefit of Christians If you say he cannot do this without taking away their free-will in living I say neither can he necessitate men to believe aright without taking away their free-will in believing and in professing their belief 97. Obj. To the place of S. Austin I would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Church did move me Contr. ep Fund c. 5. Answ I answer That not the Authority of the present Church much less of a Part of it as the Roman Church is was that which alone moved Saint Austin to believe the Gospel but the perpetual Tradition of the Church of all Ages Which you your self have taught us to be the only Principle by which the Scripture is proved and which it self needs no proof and to which you have referred this very saying of S. Austin Ego vero Evangelio non crederem nisi c. p. 55. And in the next place which you cite out of his Book De Util. Cred. c. 14. he shews that his motives to believe were Fame Celebrity Consent Antiquity And seeing this Tradition this Consent this Antiquity did as fully and powerfully move him not to believe Manichaeus as to believe the Gospel the Christian Tradition being as full against Manichaeus as it was for the Gospel therefore he did well to conclude upon these grounds that he had as much reason to disbelieve Manichaeus as to believe the Gospel Now if you can truly say that the same Fame Celebrity Consent Antiquity that the same Universal and Original Tradition lies against Luther and Calvin as did against Manichaeus you may do well to apply the Argument against them otherwise it will be to little purpose to substitute their names instead of Manichaeus unless you can shew the things agrees to them as well as him 98. If you say that S. Austin speaks here of the Authority of the Present Church abstracting from consent with the Ancient and therefore you seeing you have the present Church on your side against Luther and Calvin as S. Austin against Manichaeus may urge the same words against them which S. Austin did against him 99. I answer First that it is a vain presumption of yours that the Catholick Church is of your side Secondly that if S. Austin speak here of that present Church which moved him to believe the Gospel without consideration of the Antiquity of it and its both Personal and Doctrinal succession from the Apostles His Argument will be like a Buskin that will serve any leg It will serve to keep an Arrian or a Grecian from being a Roman Catholick as well as a Catholick from being an Arrian or a Grecian In as much as the Arrians and Grecians did pretend to the Title of Catholicks and the Church as much as the Papists now do If then you should have come to an Ancient Goth or Vandal whom the Arrians converted to Christianity and should have moved him to your Religion might he not say the very same words to you as S. Austin to the Manichaeans I would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Church did move me Them therefore whom I obeyed saying believe the Gospel why should I not obey saying to me do not believe the Homoousians Choose what thou pleasest If thou shalt say believe the Arrians they warn me not to give any Credit to you If therefore I believe them I cannot believe thee If thou say do not believe the Arrians thou shalt not do well to force me to the Faith of the Homoousians because by the Preaching of the Arrians I believed the Gospel it self If you say you did well to believe them commending the Gospel but you did not well to believe them discommending the Homoousians Doest thou think me so very foolish that without any reason at all I should believe what thou wilt and not believe what thou wilt not It were easie to put these words into the mouth of a Grecian Abyssine Georgian or any other of any Religion And I pray bethink your selves what you would say to such a one in such a case and imagine that we say the very same to you 101. And whereas you say S. Austin may seem to have spoken Prophetically against Protestants when he said Why should I not most diligently inquire what Christ commanded of them before all others by whose Authority I was moved to believe that Christ Commanded any good thing Answ I answer Until you can shew that Protestants believe that Christ commanded any good thing that is That they believe the truth of Christian Religion upon the Authority of the Church of Rome this place must be wholly impertinent to your purpose which is to make Protestants believe your Church to be the infallible expounder of Scriptures and judge of Controversies nay rather is it not directly against your purpose For why may not a member of the Church of England who received his Baptism Education and Faith from the Ministry of this Church say just so to you as S. Austin here to the Manichees Why should I not most diligently inquire what Christ commanded of them the Church of England before all others by whose authority I was moved to believe that Christ commandded any good thing Can you F. or K. or whosoever you are better declare to me what he said whom I would not have thought to have been or to be if the belief thereof had been recommended by you to me This therefore that Christ Jesus did those miracles and taught that Doctrine which is contained evidently in the undoubted Books of the New
23. The next § argues thus For many Ages there was no Scripture in the World and for many more there was none in many places of the World yet men wanted not then and there some certain direction what to believe Therefore there was then an Infallible Judge Just as if I should say York is not my way from Oxford to London therefore Bristol is Or a Dog is not a Horse therefore he is a Man As if God had no other ways of revealing himself to men but only by Scripture and an infallible Church * See Chrysost Hom. 1. in Mat. Isidor Pelus l. 3. ep 106. and also Basil in Ps 28. and then you shall confess that by other means besides these God did communicate himself unto men and made them receive and understand his Laws see also to the same purpose Heb. 1.1 S. Chrysostome and Isidorus Pelusiota conceived he might use other means And S. Paul telleth us that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might be known by his Works and that they had the Law written in their Hearts Either of these ways might make some faithful men without either necessity of Scripture or Church 124. But D. Potter says you say In the Jewish Church there was a living Judge indowed with an absolute infallible direction in cases of moment as all points belonging to Divine Faith are And where was that infallible direction in the Jewish Church when they should have received Christ for their Messias and refused him Or perhaps this was not a case of moment D. Potter indeed might say very well not that the high Priest was infallible for certainly he was not but that his determination was to be of necessity obeyed though for the justice of it there was no necessity that it should be believed Besides it is one thing to say that the living judge in the Jewish Church had an infallible direction another that he was necessitated to follow this direction This is the priviledge which you challenge But it is that not this which the Doctor attributes to the Jews As a man may truly say the Wise men had an infallible direction to Christ without saying or thinking that they were constrained to follow it and could not do otherwise 125. But either the Church retains still her infallibility or it was devested of it upon the receiving of Holy Scripture which is absurd An Argument methinks like this Either you have Horns or you have lost them but you never lost them therefore you have them still If you say you never had Horns so say I for ought appears by your reasons the Church never had infallibility 126. But some Scriptures were received in some places and not in others therefore if Scriptures were the Judge of Controversies some Churches had one Judge and some another And what great inconvenience is there in that that one part of England should have one Judge and another another especially seeing the Books of Scripture which were received by those that received fewest had as much of the Doctrine of Christianity in them as they all had which were received by any all the necessary parts of the Gospel being contained in every one of the four Gospels as I have proved So that they which had all the Books of the New Testament had nothing superfluous For it was not superfluous but profitable that the same thing should be said divers times and be testified by divers witnesses And they that had but one of the four Gospels wanted nothing necessary and therefore it is vainly inferred by you that with Months and Years as new Canonical Scriptures grew to be published the Church altered her rule of Faith and judge of Controversies 127. Heresies you say would arise after the Apostles time and after the writing of Scriptures These cannot be discovered condemned and avoided unless the Church be Infallible Therefore there must be a Church infallible But I pray tell me Why cannot Heresies be sufficiently discovered condemned avoided by them which believe Scripture to be the rule of Faith If Scripture be sufficient to inform us what is the Faith it must of necessity be also sufficient to teach us what is Heresie seeing Heresie is nothing but a manifest deviation from and an opposition to the Faith That which is straight will plainly teach us what is crooked and one contrary cannot but manifest the other If any one should deny that there is a God That this God is omnipotent omniscient good just true merciful a rewarder of them that seek him a punisher of them that obstinately offend him that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the World that it is he by obedience to whom men must look to be saved If any man should deny either his Birth or Passion or Resurrection or Ascension or sitting at the right Hand of God his having all Power given him in Heaven and Earth That it is he whom God hath appointed to be Judge of the Quick and the Dead that all men shall Rise again at the last Day That they which believe and repent shall be saved That they which do not believe or repent shall be damned If a man should hold that either the keeping of the Mosaical Law is necessary to Salvation or that good works are not necessary to Salvation In a word if any man should obstinatly contradict the truth of any thing plainly delivered in Scripture who does not see that every one which believes the Scripture hath a sufficient means to discover and condemn and avoid that Heresie without any need of an infallible guide If you say that the obscure places of Scripture contain matters of Faith I answer that it is a matter of Faith to believe that the sense of them whatsoever it is which was intended by God is true for he that does not do so calls Gods Truth into question But to believe this or that to be the true sense of them or to believe the true sense of them and to avoid the false is not necessary either to Faith or Salvation For if God would have had his meaning in these places certainly known how could it stand with his wisdom to be so wanting to his own will and end as to speak obscurely or how can it consist with his Justice to require of men to know certainly the meaning of those words which he himself hath not revealed Suppose there were an absolute Monarch that in his own absense from one of his Kingdoms had written Laws for the Government of it some very plainly and some very ambiguously and obscurely and his Suctjects should keep those that were plainly written with all exactness and for those that were obscure use their best diligence to find his meaning in them and obey them according to the sense of them which they conceived should this King either with justice or wisdom be offended with these Subjects if by reason of the obscurity of them they mistook the sense of them and
damn him for Error that desires and indeavours to find the Truth 15. Ad § 2. The effect of this Paragraph for as much as concerns us is this that for any man to deny belief to any one thing be it great or small known by him to be revealed by Almighty God for a truth is in effect to charge God with falshood for it is to say that God affirms that to be Truth which he either knows to be not a Truth or which he doth not know to be a Truth and therefore without all Controversie this is a damnable sin To this I subscribe with Hand and Heart adding withal that not only he which knows but he which believes nay though it be erroneously any thing to be revealed by God and yet will not believe it nor assent unto it is in the same case and commits the same sin of derogation from Gods most perfect and pure Veracity 16. Ad § 3. I said purposely known by himself and believes himself For as without any disparagement of a mans Honesty I may believe something to be false which he affirms of his certain knowledge to be true provided I neither know nor believe that he has so affirmed So without any the least dishonour to Gods Eternal never failing Veracity I may doubt of or deny some truth revealed by him if I neither know nor believe it to be revealed by him 19. But ignorance of what we are expresly bound to know is it self a fault and therefore cannot be an excuse and therefore if you could shew the Protestants differ in those points the truth whereof which can be but one they were bound expresly to know I should easily yield that one side must of necessity be in a mortal Crime But for want of proof of this you content your self only to say it and therefore I also might be contented only to deny it yet I will not but give a reason for my denial And my reason is because our obligation expresly to know any Divine Truth must arise from Gods manifest revealing of it and his revealing unto us that he has revealed it and that his will is we should believe it Now in the points controverted among Protestants he hath not so dealt with us therefore he hath not laid any such obligation upon us The major of this Syllogism is evident and therefore I will not stand to prove it The minor also will be evident to him that considers that in all the Controversies of Protestants there is a seeming conflict of Scripture with Scripture Reason with Reason Authority with Authority which how it can consist with the manifest revealing of the truth of either Side I cannot well understand Besides though we grant that Scripture Reason and Authority were all on one side and the apparences of the other side all answerable yet if we consider the strange power that education and prejudices instilled by it have over even excellent understandings we may well imagine that many truths which in themselves are revealed plainly enough are yet to such or such a man prepossest with contrary opinions not revealed plainly Neither doubt I but God who knows whereof we are made and what passions we are subject unto will compassionate such infirmities and not enter into judgment with us for those things which all things considered were unavoidable 20. Obj. But till Fundamentals say you be sufficiently proposed as revealed by God it is not against Faith to reject them or rather it is not possible prudently to believe them And points unfundamental being thus sufficiently proposed as divine Truths may not be denied Therefore you conclude there is no difference between them Answ A Circumstantial point may by accident become Fundamental because it may be so proposed that the denial of it will draw after it the denial of this Fundamental truth that all which God says is true Notwithstanding in themselves there is a main difference between them Points Fundamental being those only which are revealed by God and commanded to be Preach'd to all and believed by all Points circumstantial being such as though God hath revealed them yet the Pastors of the Church are not bound under pain of Damnation particularly to teach them unto all men every where and the People may be securely ig-norant of them 21. Obj. You say Not Erring in points Fundamental is not sufficient for the preservation of the Church because any Error maintained by it against Gods Revelation is destructive I answer If you mean against Gods Revelation known by the Church to be so it is true but impossible that the Church should do so for ipso Facto in doing it it were a Church no longer But if you mean against some Revelation which the Church by error thinks to be no Revelation it is false The Church may ignorantly disbelieve such a Revelation and yet continue a Church which thus I prove That the Gospel was to be preached to all Nations was a Truth revealed before our Saviours Ascension in these words Go and teach all Nations Mat. 29.19 Yet through prejudice or inadvertence or some other cause the Church disbelieved it as it is apparent out of the 11. and 12. Chap. of the Acts until the conversion of Cornelius and yet was still a Church Therefore to disbelieve some divine Revelation not knowing it to be so is not destructive of salvation or of the being of the Church Again It is a plain Revelation of God that a 1 Cor. 11 2◠the Sacrament of the Eucharist should be administred in both kinds and b 1 Cor. 14 15 16.26 that the publick Hymns and Prayers of the Church should be in such a language as is most for edification yet these Revelations the Church of Rome not seeing by reason of the veil before their eyes their Churches supposed infallibility I hope the denial of them shall not be laid to their charge no otherwise than as building hay and stubble on the Foundations not overthrowing the Foundation it self 24. Ad § 5. This Paragraph if it be brought out of the Clouds will I believe have in it these Propositions 1. Things are distinguished by their different natures 2. The Nature of Faith is taken not from the matter believed for then they that believed different matters should have different Faiths but from the Motive to it 3. This Motive is Gods Revelation 4. This Revelation is alike for all objects 5. Protestants disagree in things equally revealed by God Therefore they forsake the formal motive of Faith and therefore have no faith nor unity therein Which is truly a very proper and convenient argument to close up a weak discourse wherein both the Propositions are false for matter confused and disordered for the form and the conclusion utterly in consequent First for the second Proposition who knows not that the Essence of all Habits and therefore of Faith among the rest is taken from their Act and their Object If the Habit be general
be true which sutes best with my ends by fear of mens ill opinion or any other worldly fear or any other worldly hope I betray my self to any Error contrary to any Divine revealed Truth that Error may be justly stiled a sin and consequently of it self to such a one damnable But if I be guilty of none of these faults but be desirous to know the Truth and diligent in seeking it and advise not at all with Flesh and Blood about the choice of my opions but only with God and that Reason that he hath given me if I be thus qualified and yet through human infirmity fall into Error that Error cannot be damnable Again the party erring may be conceived either to die with contrition for all his sins known and unknown or without it If he die without it this Error in it self damnable will be likewise so unto him If he die with contrition as his Error can be no impediment but he may his Error though in it self damnable to him according to your Doctrine will not prove so And therefore some of those Authors whom you quote speaking of Errors whereunto men were betrayed or wherein they were kept by their Fault or Vice or Passion as for the most part men are Others speaking of them as Errors simply and purely involuntary and the effects of human infirmity some as they were retracted by Contrition to use your own phrase others as they were not no marvel though they have past upon them some a heavier and some a milder some an absolving and some a condemning sentence The least of all these Errors which here you mention having malice enough too frequently mixed with it to sink a man deep enough into Hell and the greatest of them all being according to your Principles either no fault at all or very Venial where there is no malice of the will conjoyned with it And if it be yet as the most malignant poyson will not poyson him that receives with it a more powerful Antidote so I am confident your own Doctrine will force you to confess that whosoever dies with Faith in Christ and Contrition for all sins known and unknown in which heap all his sinful Errors must be comprized can no more be hurt by any the most malignant and pestilent Error than S. Paul by the Viper which he shook off into the fire Now touching the necessity of Repentance from Dead works and Faith in Christ Jesus the Son of God and Saviour of the World they all agree and therefore you cannot deny but they agree about all that is simply necessary Moreover though if they should go about to choose out of Scripture all these Propositions and Doctrines which integrate and make up the Body of Christian Religion peradventure there would not be so exact agreement amongst them as some say there was between the 70. Interpreters in Translating the Old Testament yet thus far without Controversie they do all agree that in the Bible all these things are contained and therefore that whosoever does truly and sincerely believe the Scripture must of necessity either in Hypothesi or at least in thesi either formally or at least virtually either explicitely or at least implicitely either in Act or at least in preparation of mind believe all things Fundamental It being not Fundamental nor required of Almighty God to believe the true sense of Scripture in all places but only that we should endeavour to do so and be prepared in mind to do so whensoever it shall be sufficiently propounded to us Suppose a man in some disease were prescribed a Medicine consisting of twenty ingredients and he advising with Physitians should find them differing in Opinion about it some of them telling him that all the ingredients were absolutely necessary some that only some of them were necessary the rest only profitable and requisite ad melius esse lastly some that some only were necessary some profitable and the rest superfluous yet not hurtful Yet all with one accord agreeing in this That the whole receipt had in it all things necessary for the recovery of his health and that if he made use of it he should infallibly find it successful what wise man would not think they agreed sufficiently for his direction to the recovery of his health Just so these Protestant Doctors with whose discords you make such Tragedies agreeing in Thesi thus far that the Scripture evidently contains all things necessary to Salvation both for matter of Faith and of practice and that whosoever believes it and endeavours to find the true sense of it and to conform his Life unto it shall certainly perform all things necessary to Salvation and undoubtedly be saved agreeing I say thus far what matters it for the direction of men to Salvation though they differ in opinion touching what points are absolutely necessary and what not What Errors absolutely repugnant to Salvation and what not Especially considering that although they differ about the Question of the necessity of these Truths yet for the most part they agree in this that Truths they are and profitable at least though not simply necessary And though they differ in the Question whether the contrary Errors be destructive of Salvation or no yet in this they consent that Errors they are and hurtful to Religion though not destructive of Salvation Now that which God requires of us is this That we should believe the Doctrines of the Gospel to be Truths not all necessary Truths for all are not so and consequently the repugnant Errors to be falshoods yet not all such falshoods as unavoidably draw with them damnation upon all that hold them for all do not so 53. Yea but you say it is very requisite we should agree upon a particular Catalogue of Fundamental points for without such a Catalogue no man can be assured whether or no he hath Faith sufficient to Salvation This I utterly deny as a thing evidently false and I wonder you should content your self magisterially to say so without offering any proof of it I might much more justly think it enough barely to deny it without refutation but I will not Thus therefore I argue against it Without being able to make a Catalogue of Fundamentals I may be assured of the Truth of this Assertion if it be true That the Scripture contains all necessary points of Faith and know that I believe explicitely all that is exprest in Scripture and implicitely all that is contained in them Now he that believes all this must of necessity believe all things necessary Therefore without being able to make a Catalogue of Fundamentals I may be assured that I believe all things necessary and consequently that my Faith is sufficient I said of the truth of this Assertion if it be true Because I will not here enter into the Question of the truth of it it being sufficient for my present purpose that it may be true and may be believed without any dependence upon a
the Evidence of the Revelation was all in all But here we must err with you in small things for fear of loosing your direction in greater and for fear of departing too far from you not go from you at all even where we see plainly that you have departed from the Truth 57. Beyond all this I say that this which you say in wisdom we are to do is not only unlawful but if we will proceed according to reason impossible I mean to adhere to you in all things having no other ground for it but because you are as we will now suppose Infallible in some things that is in Fundamentals For whether by skill in Architecture a large structure may be supported by a narrow foundation I know not but sure I am in reason no conclusion can be larger than the Principles on which it is founded And therefore if I consider what I do and be perswaded that your infallibility is but limited and particular and partial my adherence upon this ground cannot possibly be Absolute and Universal and Total I am confident that should I meet with such a man amongst you as I am well assur'd there be many that would grant your Church Infallible only in Fundamentals which what they are he knows not and therefore upon this only reason adheres to you in all things I say that I am confident that it may be demonstrated that such a man adheres to you with a fiducial and certain assent in nothing To make this clear because at the first hearing it may seem strange give me leave good Sir to suppose you the man and to propose to you a few questions and to give for you such answers to them as upon this ground you must of necessity give were you present with me First supposing you hold your Church Infallible in Fundamentals obnoxious to Error in other things and that you know not what points are Fundamental I demand C. Why do you believe the Doctrin of Transubstantiation K. because the Church hath taught it which is Infallible C. What Infallible in all things or only in Fundamentals K. in Fundamentals only C. Then in other points she may err K. she may C. and do you know what Points are Fundamental what not K. No and therefore I believe her in all things least I should disbelieve her in fundamentals C. How know you then whether this be a fundamental point or no K. I know not C. It may be then for ought you know an unfundamental point K. yes it may be so C. And in these you said the Church may err K. yes I did so C. Then possibly it may err in this K. It may do so C. Then what certainty have you that it does not err in it K. None at all but upon this supposition that this is a Fundamental C. And this supposition you are uncertain of K. Yes I told you so before C. And therefore you can have no certainty of that which depends upon this uncertainty saving only a suppositive certainty if it be a Fundamental truth which is in plain English to say you are certain it is true if it be both true and necessary Verily Sir if you have no better Faith than this you are no Catholick K. good words I pray I am so and God willing will be so C. You mean in outward profession and practice but in belief you are not no more than a Protestant is a Catholick For every Protestant yields such a kind of assent to all the proposals of the Church for surely they believe them true if they be Fundamental Truths And therefore you must either believe the Church Infallible in all her proposals be they foundations or be they superstructions or else you must believe all Fundamental which she proposes or else you are no Catholick K. But I have been taught that seeing I believed the Church Infallible in points necessary in wisdom I was to believe her in every thing C. That was a pretty plausible inducement to bring you hither but now you are here you must go farther and believe her Infallible in all things or else you were as good go back again which will be a great disparagement to you and draw upon you both the bitter and implacable hatred of our part and even with your own the imputation of rashness and levity You see I hope by this time that though a man did believe your Church Infallible in Fundamentals yet he has no reason to do you the courtesie of believing all her proposals nay if he be ignorant what these Fundamentals are he has no certain ground to believe her upon her Authority in any thing And whereas you say it can be no imprudence to err with the Church I say it may be very great imprudence if the question be Whether we should err with the present Church or hold true with God Almighty 60. Whereas you add That that visible Church which cannot err in Fundamental propounds all her definitions without distinction to be believed under Anathema's Ans Again you beg the question supposing untruly that there is any that Visible Church I mean any Visible Church of one Denomination which cannot err in points Fundamental Secondly proposing definitions to be believed under Anathema's is no good argument that the Propounders conceive themselves infallible but only that they conceive the Doctrine they condemn is evidently damnable A plain proof hereof is this that particular Councils nay particular men have been very liberal of their Anathema's which yet were never conceived infallible either by others or themselves If any man should now deny Christ to be the Saviour of the world or deny the Resurrection I should make no great scruple of Anathematizing his Doctrine and yet am very far from dreaming of Infallibility 62. The effect of the next Argument is this I cannot without grievous sin disobey the Church unless I know she commands those things which are not in her power to command and how far this power extends none can better inform me than the Church Therefore I am to obey so far as the Church requires my obedience I Answer First That neither hath the Catholick Church but only a corrupt part of it declared her self nor required our obedience in the points contested among us This therefore is falsely and vainly supposed here by you being one of the greatest questions amongst us Then Secondly That God can better inform us what are the limits of the Churches power than the Church her self that is than the Roman Clergy who being men subject to the same passions with other men why they should be thought the best Judges in their own cause I do not well understand But yet we oppose against them no human decisive Judges not any Sect or Person but only God and his Word And therefore it is in vain to say That in following her you shall be sooner excused than in following any Sect or Man applying Scriptures against her Doctrine In as much
Scripture which are not contained in the Creed when once we come to know that they are written in Scripture but rather to lay a necessity upon men of believing all things written in Scripture when once they know them to be there written For he that believes not all known Divine Revelations to be true how does he believe in God Unless you will say that the same man at the same time may not believe God and yet believe in him The greater difficulty is how it will not take away the necessity of believing Scripture to be the Word of God But that it will not neither For though the Creed be granted a sufficient summary of Articles of meer Faith yet no man pretends that it contains the Rules of Obedience but for them all men are referred to Scripture Besides he that pretends to believe in God obligeth himself to believe it necessary to obey that which reason assures him to be the Will of God Now reason will assure him that believes the Creed that it is the Will of God he should believe the Scripture even the very same Reason which moves him to believe the Creed Universal and never failing Tradition having given this Testimony both to Creed and Scripture that they both by the works of God were sealed and testified to be the words of God And thus much be spoken in Answer to your first Argument the length whereof will be the more excusable If I oblige my self to say but little to the rest 15. I come then to your second And in Answer to it deny flatly as a thing destructive of it self that any Error can be damnable unless it be repugnant immediatly or mediatly directly or indirectly of it self or by accident to some Truth for the matter of it fundamental And to your example of Pontius Pilat's being Judge of Christ I say the denial of it in him that knows it to be revealed by God is manifestly destructive of this Fundamental truth that all Divine Revelations are true Neither will you find any Error so much as by accident damnable but the rejecting of it will be necessarily laid upon us by a real belief of all Fundamentals and simply necessary Truths And I desire you would reconcile with this that which you have said § 15. Every Fundamental Error must have a contrary Fundamental Truth because of two Contradictory propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true c. 16. To the Third I Answer That the certainty I have of the Creed That it was from the Apostles and contains the principles of Faith I ground it not upon Scripture and yet not upon the Infallibility of any present much less of your Church but upon the Authority of the Ancient Church and written Tradition which as D. Potter hath proved gave this constant Testimony unto it Besides I tell you it is guilty of the same fault which D. Potter's Assertion is here accused of having perhaps some colour toward the proving it false but none at all to shew it impertinent 17. To the Fourth I Answer plainly thus That you find fault with D. Potter for his Vertues you are offended with him for not usurping the Authority which he hath not in a word for not playing the Pope Certainly if Protestants be faulty in this matter it is for doing it too much and not too little This presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the words of God the special senses of men upon the general words of God and laying them upon mens consciences together under the equal penalty of death and damnation this vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the word of God This Deifying our own Interpretations and Tyrannous inforcing them upon others This restraining of the word of God from that latitude and generality and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and the Apostles left them a This perswasion is no singularity of mine but the Doctrin which I have learnt from Divines of great learning and judgment Let the Reader be pleased to peruse the seaventh book of Acontius de Stratag Satanae And Zanchius his last Oration delivered by him after the composing of the discord between him and Amerbachius and he shall confess as much is and hath been the only fountain of all the Schisms of the Church and that which makes them immortal the common incendiary of Christendom and that which as I said before tears into pieces not the coat but the bowels and members of Christ Ridente Turcâ nec dolente Judaeo Take away these Walls of separation and all will quickly be one Take away this Persecuting Burning Cursing Damning of men for not subscribing to the words of Men as the words of God Require of Christians only to believe Christ and to call no man master but him only Let those leave claiming Infallibility that have no title to it and let them that in their words disclaim it disclaim it likewise in their actions In a word take away Tyranny which is the Devils instrument to support errors and superstitions and impieties in the several parts of the World which could not otherwise long withstand the power of Truth I say take away Tyranny and restore Christians to their just and full liberty of captivating their understanding to Scripture only and as Rivers when they have a free passage run all to the Ocean so it may well be hoped by Gods blessing that Universal Liberty thus moderated may quickly reduce Christendom to Truth and Unity These thoughts of peace I am perswaded may come from the God of peace and to his blessing I commend them and proceed 18. Your fifth and last objection stands upon a false and dangerous supposition That new Heresies may arise For an Heresie being in it self nothing else but a Doctrine Repugnant to some Article of the Christian Faith to say that new Heresies may arise is to say that new Articles of Faith may arise and so some great ones among you stick not to profess in plain terms who yet at the same time are not ashamed to pretend that your whole Doctrin is Catholick and Apostolick So Salmeron Non omnibus omnia dedit Deus ut quaelibet aetas suis gaudeat veritatibus quas prior aetas ignoravit God hath not given all things to All So that every age hath its proper Verities which the former age was ignorant of Disp 57. In Ep. ad Rom. And again in the Margent Habet Unumquodque saeculum peculiares Revelationes Divinas Every age hath its peculiar Divine Revelations Where that he speaks of such Revelations as are or may by the Church be made matters of Faith no man can doubt that reads him an example whereof he gives us a little before in these words Unius Augustini doctrina Assumptionis B. Deiparae cultum in Ecclesiam introduxit The Doctrin of Augustin only hath brought in to the Church the Worship of
would easily perceive it to be of the very same kind and capable of the very same construction And therefore one of the grounds of your accusation is uncertain Neither can you assure us that the Bishop supposes any such matter as you pretend Neither if he did suppose this as perhaps he did were this to contradict himself For though there can be no damnable Heresie unless it contradict some necessary Truth yet there is no contradiction but the same man may at once believe this Heresie and this Truth because there is no contradiction that the same man at the same time should believe contradictions For first whatsoever a man believes true that he may and must believe but there have been some who have believed and taught that contradictions might be true against whom Aristotle disputes in the third of his Metaphysicks Therefore it is not impossible that a man may believe contradictions Secondly they which believe there is no certainty in Reason must believe that contradictions may be true For otherwise there will be certainty in this Reason This contradicts Truth therefore it is false But there be now divers in the world who believe there is no certainty in reason and whether you be of their mind or no I desire to be informed Therefore there be divers in the world who believe contradictions may be true Thirdly They which do captivate their understandings to the belief of those things which to their understanding seem irreconcileable contradictions may as well believe real contradictions For the difficulty of believing arises not from their being repugnant but from their seeming to be so But you do captivate your understandings to the belief of those things which seem to your understandings irreconcileable contradictions therefore it is as possible and easie for you to believe those that indeed are so Fourthly some men may be confuted in their Errors and perswaded out of them but no mans Error can be confuted who together with his Error doth not believe and grant some true principle that contradicts his Error for nothing can be proved to him who grants nothing neither can there be as all men know any rational discourse but out of grounds agreed upon by both parts Therefore it is not impossible but absolutely certain that the same man at the same time may believe contradictions Fifthly It is evident neither can you without extream madness and uncharitableness deny that we believe the Bible those Books I mean which we believe Canonical Otherwise why dispute you with us out of them as out of a common Principle Either therefore you must retract your opinion and acknowledge that the same man at the same time may believe contradictions or else you will run into a greater inconvenience and be forced to confess that no part of our Doctrin contradicts the Bible Sixthly I desire you to vindicate from contradiction these following Assertions That there should be Length and nothing long Breadth and nothing broad Thickness and nothing thick Whiteness and nothing white Roundness and nothing round Weight and nothing heavy Sweetness and nothing sweet Moisture and nothing moist Fluidness and nothing flowing many Actions and no Agent many Passions and no Patient That is that there should be a long broad thick white round heavy sweet moist flowing active passive nothing That Bread should be turned into the substance of Christ and yet not any thing of the Bread become any thing of Christ neither the matter nor the form nor the Accidents of Bread be made either the matter or the Form or the Accidents of Christ That Bread should be turned into nothing and at the same time with the same action turned into Christ and yet Christ should not be nothing That the same thing at the same time should have its just dimensions and just distance of its parts one from another and at the same time not have it but all its parts together in one and the self same point That the body of Christ which is much greater should be contained wholly and in its full dimensions without any alteration in that which is lesser and that not once only but as many times over as there are several points in the bread and wine That the same thing at the same time should be wholly above it self and wholly below it self within it self and without it self on the right hand and on the left hand and round about it self That the same thing at the same time should move to and from it self and lie still Or that it should be carried from one place to another through the middle space and yet not move That it should be brought from Heaven to Earth and yet not come out of Heaven nor be at all in any of the middle space between Heaven and Earth That to be one should be to be undivided from it self and yet that one and the same thing should be divided from it self That a thing may be and yet be no where That a Finite thing may be in all places at once That a Body may be in a place and have there its dimensions and colour and all other qualities and yet that it is not in the power of God to make it visible and tangible there nor capable of doing or suffering any thing That there should be no certainty in our senses and yet that we should know something certainly and yet know nothing but by our senses That that which is and was long ago should now begin to be That that is now to be made of nothing which is not nothing but something That the same thing should be before and after it self That it should be truly and really in a place and yet without Locality Nay that He which is Omnipotent should not be able to give it Locality in this place where it is as some of you hold or if he can as others say he can that it should be possible that the same man for example You or I may at the same time be awake at London not awake but asleep at Rome There run or walk here not run or walk but stand still sit or lie along There study or write here do neither but dine or sup There speak here be silent That he may in one place freez for cold in another burn with heat That he may be drunk in one place and sober in another Valiant in one place and a Coward in another A thief in one place honest in another That he may be a Papist and go to Mass in Rome A Protestant and go to Church in England That he may die in Rome and live in England or dying in both places may go to Hell from Rome and to Heaven from England That the Body and Soul of Christ should cease to be where it was and yet not go to another place nor be destroyed All these and many other of the like nature are the unavoidable and most of them the acknowledged consequences of your doctâ—in of
Infallibility upon what other motive do you rely Do not you cite Scripture or Tradition or both on both sides And do you not pretend that both these are the infallible Truths of Almighty God 51. You close up this Section with a fallacy proving forsooth that we destroy by our confession the Church which is the House of God because we stand only upon Fundamental Articles which cannot make up the whole Fabrick of the Faith no more than the Foundation of a House alone can be a House 52. But I hope Sir you will not be difficult in granting that that is a House which hath all the necessary parts belonging to a House now by Fundamental Articles we mean all those which are necessary and then I hope you will grant that we may safely expect Salvation in a Church which hath all things Fundamental to Salvation Unless you will say that more is necessary than that which is necessary 53. Ad § 19. This long discourse is to shew that Protestants give unavoidable occasion of desperation to poor Souls and brings in a Man desirous to save his Soul asking Questions of D. P. and makes answers for him As first if he required whose directions he might rely upon He says the Doctor 's Answer would be upon the truly Catholick Church But I suppose upon better reason because I know his mind that he would advise him to call no man Master upon Earth but according to Christs command to rely upon the direction of God himself If he ask where he should find this direction he would answer him In his Word contained in Scripture If he should inquire what assurance he might have that the Scripture is the Word of God He would answer him that the Doctrine it self is very fit and worthy to be thought to come from God nec vox hominem sonat and that they which wrote and delivered it confirmed it to be the Word of God by doing such works as could not be done but by Power from God himself For assurance of the Truth hereof he would advise him to rely upon that which all Wise Men in all matters of belief rely upon and that is the consent of Ancient records and Universal Tradition No Wise Man doubts but there was such a man as Julius Caesar or Cicero that there are such Cities as Rome or Constantinople though he have no other assurance for the one or the other but only the speech of People This Tradition therefore he would counsel him to rely upon and to believe that the Book which we call Scripture was confirmed abundantly by the Works of God to be the Word of God Believing it the Word of God he must of necessity believe it true and if he believe it true he must believe it contains all necessary directions unto Eternal Happiness because it affirms it self to do so Nay he might tell him that so far is the whole Book from wanting any necessary direction to his Eternal Salvation that one only Author that hath writ but two little Books of it Saint Luke by name in the beginning of his Gospel and in the beginning of his Story shews plainly that he alone hath written at least so much as is necessary And what they wrote they wrote by Gods direction for the direction fo the World not only for the Learned but for all that would do their true endeavour to know the will of God and to do it therefore you cannot but conceive that writing to all and for all they wrote so as that in things necessary they might be understood by all Besides that here he should find that God himself has engaged himself by promise that if he would love him and keep his Commandments and pray earnestly for his Spirit and be willing to be directed by it he should undoubtedly receive it even the Spirit of Truth which shall lead him into all Truth that is certainly into all necessary Truths and suffer him to fall into no pernitious Error The sum of his whole direction to him briefly would be this Believe the Scripture to be the Word of God use your true endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it and then you may rest securely that you are in the true way to Eternal Happiness This is the substance of that Answer which the Doctor would make to any man in this case and this is a way so plain that Fools unless they will cannot Err from it Because not knowing absolutely all truth nay not all profitable truth and not being free from Error but endeavouring to know the truth and obey it and endeavouring to be free from Error is by this way made the only condition of Salvation 56. Neither is this to drive any man to desparation unless it be such a one as hath such a strong affection to this word Church that he will not go to Heaven unless he hath a Church to lead him thither For what though a Council may Err and the whole Church cannot be consulted with yet this is not to send you on the Fools Pilgrimage for Faith and bid you go and confer with every Christian Soul Man and Woman by Sea and 〈◊〉 Land close Prisoner or at Liberty as you dilate the ma◠〈◊〉 But to tell you very briefly that Universal Tradition directs you to the Word of God and the Word of God directs you to Heaven 57. To the next demand How stall I know whether he hold all Fundamental points or no When Protestants answer If he truly believe the undoubted Books of Canonical Scripture he cannot but believe all Fundamentals and that it is very probable that the Creed contains all the Fundamentals of simple belief The Jesuite takes no notice of the former but takes occasion from the latter to ask Shall I hazard my Soul on Probabilities or even Wagers As if whatsoever is but probable though in the highest degree of Probability were as likely to be false as true or because it is but Morally not Mathematically certain that there was such a Woman as Q. Elizabeth such a man as Hen. the 8th that is in the highest degree probable therefore it were an even Wager there were none such By this Reason seeing the truth of your whole Religion depends finally upon Prudential motives which you do but pretend to be very credible it will be an even Wager that your Religion is false And by the same Reason or rather infinitely greater seeing it is impossible for any man according to the grounds of your Religion to know himself much less another to be a true Pope or a true Priest nay to have a Moral certainty of it because these things are obnoxious to innumerable secret and undiscernable nullities it will be an even Wager nay if we proportion things indifferently a hundred to one that every Consecration and Absolution of yours is void and that whensoever you adore the Host you and your Assistants commit Idolatry That there is a
obedience to all Courts of civil judicature yet he says not they are bound to think that determination lawful and that sentence just Nay it is plain he says that they must do according to the Judges sentence though in their private opinion it seem unjust As if I be wrongfully cast in a suit at Law and sentenced to pay an hundred pound I am bound to pay the money yet I know no Law of God or man that binds me in conscience to acquit the Judge of error in his sentence Neither is there any necessity as you say that he must either acknowledge the Universal Infallibility of the Church or drive men into dissembling against their Conscience seeing nothing hinders but I may obey the sentence of a Judge paying the mony he awards me to pay or forgoing the house or land which he hath judged from me and yet withal plainly profess that in my Conscience I conceive his Judgment erroneous To which purpose they have a saying in France that whosoever is cast in any cause hath liberty for ten days after to rail at his Judges 110. But observe I pray that Mr. Hooker says not absolutely and in all their causes but onely in litigious causes of the quality of those whereof he there treats In such matters as have plain Scripture or reason neither for them nor against them and wherein men are perswaded this or that way upon their own only probable collection in such cases This perswasion saith he ought to be fully setled in mens hearts that the will of God is that they should not disobey the certain commands of their lawful Superiors upon uncertain grounds But do that which the sentence of judicial and final decision shall determin For the purpose a Question there is whether a Surplice may be worn in Divine Service The authority of Superiors injoyns this Ceremony and neither Scripture nor reason plainly forbids it Sempronius notwithstanding is by some inducements which he confesses to be onely probable lead to this perswasion that the thing is unlawful The quaere is whether he ought for matter of practice follow the injunction of authority or his own private and only probable perswasion M. Hooker resolves for the former upon this ground that the certain commands of the Church we live in are to be obeyed in all things not certainly unlawful As for requiring a blind and an unlimited obedience to Ecclesiastical decisions universally and in all cases even when plain Text or reason seems to controul them M. Hooker is as far from making such an Idol of Ecclesiastical Authority as the Puritans whom he writes against I grant saith he that proof derived from the authority of mans judgment is not able to work that assurance which doth grow by a stronger proof And therefore although ten thousand General Councils would set down one and the same definitive sentence concerning any point of Religion whatsoever yet one demonstrative reason alledged or one manifest testimony cited from the word of God himself to the contrary could not choose but over-weigh them all in as much as for them to be deceived it is not impossible it is that Demonstrative Reason or Divine Testimony should deceive And again Whereas it is thought that especially with the Church and those that are called mans authority ought not to prevail It must and doth prevail even with them yea with them especially as far as equity requireth and farther we maintain it not For men to be tied and led by authority as it were with a kind of captivity of judgment and though there be reason to the contrary not to listen to it but to follow like beasts the first in the Herd this were brutish Again that authority of men should prevail with men either against or above reason is no part of our belief Companies of learned men be they never so great and reverend are to yield unto reason the weight whereof is no whit prejudiced by the simplicity of his person which doth alledge it but being found to be sound and good the bare opinion of men to the contrary must of necessity stoop and give place Thus M. Hooker in his Seventh Section of his Second Book 112. Ad § 43. The next Section hath in it some objections against Luthers person but none against his cause which alone I have undertaken to justifie and therefore I pass it over Yet this I promise that when you or any of your side shall publish a good defence of all that your Popes have said and done especially of them whom Bellarmine believes in such a long train to have gone to the Devil then you shall receive an ample Apology for all the actions and words of Luther In the mean time I hope all reasonable and equitable Judges will esteem it not unpardonable in the great and Heroical spirit of Luther if being oposed and perpetually baited with a world of Furies he were transported sometimes and made somewhat furious As for you I desire you to be quiet and to demand no more whether God be wont to send such Furies to preach the Gospel Unless you desire to hear of your killing of Kings Massacring of Peoples Blowing up of Parliaments and have a mind to be ask't whether it be probable that that should be Gods cause which needs to be maintained by such Devilish means CHAP. VI. The ANSWER to the Sixth CHAPTER Shewing that Protestants are not Hereticks Ad § 1. HE that will accuse any one man much more any great multitude of men of any great and horrible crime should in all reason and justice take care that the greatness of his evidence do equal if not exceed the quality of the crime And such an accusation you would here make shew of by pretending first to lay such grounds of it as are either already proved or else yielded on all sides and after to raise a firm and stable structure of convincing arguments upon them But both these I find to be meer and vain pretences and having considered this Chapter also without prejudice or passion as I did the former I am enforced by the light of Truth to pronounce your whole discourse a painted and ruinous Building upon a weak and sandy foundation 2. Ad § 2 3. First for your grounds a great part of them is falsely said to be either proved or granted It is true indeed that Man by his natural wit and industry could never have attained to the knowledge of Gods will to give him a supernatural and eternal happiness nor of the means by which his pleasure was to bestow this happiness upon him And therefore your first ground is good That it was requisite his understanding should be enabled to apprehend that end and means by a knowledge supernatural I say this is good if you mean by knowledge an apprehension or belief 3. But then whereas you add that if a such a knowledge were no more than probable it could not be able sufficiently to overbear our
revocation of the former For had you made the matter of Faith either naturally or supernaturally evident it might have been a fitly attempered and duly proportioned object for an absolute certainty natural or supernatural But requiring as you do that Faith should be an absolute knowledge of a thing not absolutely known an infallible certainty of a thing which though it is in it self yet is it not made appear to us to be infallibly certain to my understanding you speak impossibilities And truly for one of your Religion to do so is but a good Decorum For the matter and object of your Faith being so full of contradictions a contradictious Faith may very well become a contradictious Religion Your Faith therefore if you please to have it so let it be a free necessitated certain uncertain evident obscure prudent and foolish natural and supernatural unnatural assent But they which are unwilling to believe nonsense themselves or to persuade others to do so it is but reason they should make the Faith wherewith they believe an intelligible compossible consistent thing and not define it by repugnances Now nothing is more repugnant than that a man should be required to give most certain credit unto that which cannot be made apppear most certainly credible and if it appear to him to be so then is it not obscure that it is so For if you speak of an acquired rational discursive Faith certainly these Reasons which make the object seem credible must be the cause of it and consequently the strength and firmity of my assent must rise and fall together with the apparent credibility of the object If you speak of a supernatural infused Faith then you either suppose it infused by the former means and then that which was said before must be said again for whatsoever effect is wrought meerly by means must bear proportion to and cannot exceed the vertue of the means by which it is wrought As nothing by water can be made more cold than water nor by fire more hot than fire nor by honey more sweet than honey nor by gall more bitter than gall Or if you will suppose it infused without means then that power which infuseth into the understanding assent which bears Analogy to sight in the eye must also infuse evidence that is Visibility into the Object and look what degree of assent is infused into the understanding at least the same degree of evidence must be infused into the Object And for you to require a strength of credit beyond the appearance of the Objects credibility is all one as if you should require me to go Ten Miles an hour upon a Horse that will go but five to discern a man certainly through a mist or cloud that makes him not certainly discernable To hear a sound more clearly than it is audible to understand a thing more fully than it is intelligible and he that doth so I may well expect that his next injunction will be that I must see something that is invisible hear something inaudible understand something that is wholly unintelligible For he that demands ten of me knowing I have but five does in effect as if he demanded five knowing that I have none and by like reason you requiring that I should see things farther than they are visible require I should see something invisible and in requiring that I believe something more firmly than it is made to me evidently credible you require in effect that I believe something which appears to me incredible and while it does so I deny not but that I am bound to believe the truth of many Texts of Scripture the sense whereof is to me obscure and the Truth of many Articles of Faith the manner whereof is obscure and to humane understandings incomprehensible But then it is to be observed that not the sense of such Texts not the manner of these things is that which I am bound to believe but the truth of them But that I should believe the Truth of any thing the truth whereof cannot be made evident with an evidence proportionable to the degree of Faith required of me this I say for any man to be bound to is unjust and unreasonable because to do it is impossible 8. Ad § 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12. Yet though I deny that it is required of us to be certain in the highest degree infallibly certain of the truth of the things which we believe for this were to know and not believe neither is it possible unless our evidence of it be it natural or supernatural were of the highest degree yet I deny not but that we are to believe the Religion of Christ we are and may be infallibly certain For first this is most certain that we are in all things to do according to wisdom and reason rather than against it Secondly this is as certain That wisdom and reason require that we should believe these things which are by many degrees more credible and probable than the contrary Thirdly this is as certain that to every man who considers impartially what great things may be said for the truth of Christianity and what poor things they are which may be said against it either for any other Religion or for none at all it cannot but appear by many degrees more credible that Christian Religion is true than the contrary And from all these premises this conclusion evidently follows that it is infallibly certain that we are firmly to believe the truth of Christian Religion 9. Your discourse therefore touching the fourth requisite to Faith which is Prudence I admit so far as to grant 1. That if we were required to believe with certainty I mean a Moral certainty things no way represented as infallible and certain I mean Morally an unreasonable obedience were required of us And so likewise were it were we required to believe as absolutely certain that which is no way represented to us as absolutely certain 2. That whom God obligeth to believe any thing he will not fail to furnish their understandings with such inducements as are sufficient it they be not negligent or perverse to persuade them to believe 3. That there is an abundance of Arguments exceedingly credible inducing men to believe the Truth of Christianity I say so credibile that though they cannot make us evidently see what we believe yet they evidently convince that in true Wisdom and Prudence the Articles of it deserve credit and ought to be accepted as things revealed by God 4. That without such reasons and inducements our choice even of the true Faith is not to be commended as prudent but to be condemned of rashness and levity 10. But then for your making Prudence not only a commendation of a believer and a justification of his Faith but also essential to it and part of the definition of it in that questionless you were mistaken and have done as if being to say what a man is you should define him A Reasonable
it not as well as yours and whether some mens persuasion that there is no such thing can hinder them from having it or prove that they have it not if there be any such thing Any more than a mans persuasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will make him not to have taken it if he has or hinder the operation of it And whether Tertullian in the place quoted by you speak of a Priest made a Lay-man by a just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some mark upon Hereticks that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferred on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Popes right or an Usurpation If it were his right whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiastical And if by Ecclesiastical only whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to lose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to lose it those that deprived him of it had power to take it from him Or if not whether they had power to suspend him from the use of it until good caution were put in and good assurance given that if he had it again he would not abuse it as he had formerly done Whether in case they had done unlawfully that took his power from him it may not things being now setled and the present Government established be as unlawful to go about to restore it whether it be not a Fallacy to conclude because we believe the Pope hath no power in England now when the King and State and Church hath deprived him upon just grounds of it therefore we cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schism a man may not withdraw obedience from an Usurped Authority commanding unlawful things Whether the Roman Church might not give Authority to Bishops and Priests to oppose her Errors as well as a King gives Authority to a Judge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Trajan gave his Sword to his Prefect with this commission that if he Governed well he should use it for him if ill against Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to Preach against her corruptions in manners And if so why not against her Errors in Doctrine if she had any Whether she gave them not Authority to Preach the whole Gospel of Christ and consequently against her Doctrine if it should contradict any part of the Gospel of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawful in the Church of Rome for any Lay-man or Woman that has ability to persuade others by Word or by Writing from Error and unto truth And why this Liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other Commission or Vocation than that of a Christian to do a work of Charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of Charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without any unnecessary disturbance of order to persuade men out of a false unto a true way of Eternal happiness Especially the Apostle having assured us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the Error of his way shall save a Soul from Death and shall hide a multitude of Sins Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not Consecrate a Metropolitan of England as well as the Cardinals do the Pope whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the Government in their Hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonical exception Whether the Doctrine that the King is supream head of the Church of England as the Kings of Judah and the first Christian Emperors were of the Jewish and Christian Church be any new found Doctrine Whether it be not true that Bishops being made Bishops have their Authority immediately from Christ though this or that man be not made Bishop without the Kings Authority as well as you say the Pope being Pope has Authority immediately from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the Authority of the Cardinals Whether you do well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more Authority in ordering the affairs of the Church than the great Turk or the Pagan Emperors Whether the King may not give Authority to a Bishop to exercise his function in some part of his Kingdom and yet not be capable of doing it himself as well as a Bishop may give Authority to a Physician to practice Physick in his Diocess which the Bishop cannot do himself Whether if Nero the Emperor would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to Preach the Gospel of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have questioned his Authority to do so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited K. JAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his injunction upon them to do any thing that is lawful Whether a casual irregularity may not be lawfully dispenced with Whether the Popes irregularities if he should chance to incur any be indispensable And if not who is he or who are they whom the Pope is so subject unto that they may dispense with him Whether that be certain which you take for granted That your Ordination imprints a Character and ours doth not Whether the power of Consecrating and Ordaining by imposition of hands may not reside in the Bishops and be derived unto them not from the King but God and yet the King have Authority to command them to apply this power to such a fit person whom he shall commend unto them As well as if some Architects only had the faculty of Architecture and had it immediately by infusion from God himself yet if they were the Kings Subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a fortress for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himself yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his Subjects that has this power to ordain any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it do not follow that whensoever the King commands an House to be Built a Message to be delivered or a Murtherer to be Executed that all these things are presently done without intervention of the Architect Messenger or Executioner As well as that they are ipso facto Ordained and Consecrated who by the Kings Authority are commended to the Bishops to be Ordained and Consecrated Especially seeing the King
will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to do what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should do so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himself nor any Body else would esteem the person Bishop upon the Kings designation Whether many Popes though they were not Consecrated Bishops by any temporal Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopal function in this or that place And whether the Emperors had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants do indeed pretend that their Reformation is Universal Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you do not forget your self and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of Divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of Government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of Divine institution be Schismatical and Heretical for thinking so Whether your form of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essential to the constitution of a true Church Whether the forms of the Church of England differ essentially from your forms Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other mans Lastly whether any one kind of these external Forms and Orders and Government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may not be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives whatsoever it be All these Questions will be necessary to be discussed for the clearing of the truth of the Minor proposition of your former Syllogism and your proofs of it and I will promise to debate them fairly with you if first you will bring some better proof of the Major That want of Succession is a certain note of Heresie which for the present remains both unproved and unprobable 40. Obj. You say The Fathers assign Succession as one mark of the true Church Answ I confess they did urge Tradition as an Argument of the Truth of their Doctrine and of the falshood of the contrary and thus far they agree with you But now see the difference They urged it not against all Hereticks that ever should be but against them who rejected a great part of the Scripture for no other reason but because it was repugnant to their Doctrine and corrupted other parts with their additions and detractions and perverted the remainder with divers absurd interpretations So Tertullian not a leaf before the words by you cited Nay they urged it against them who when they were confuted out of Scripture fell to accuse the Scriptures themselves as if they were not right and came not from good authority as if they were various one from another and as if truth could not be found out of them by those who know not Tradition for that it was not delivered in writing they did mean wholly but by word of mouth And that thereupon Paul also said we speak wisdom amongst the perfect So Irenaeus in the very next Chapter before that which you alledge Against these men being thus necessitated to do so they did urge Tradition but what or whose Tradition was it Certainly no other but the joynt Tradition of all the Apostolick Churches with one Mouth and one Voice teaching the same Doctrine Or if for brevity sake they produce the Tradition of any one Church yet is it apparent that that one was then in conjunction with all the rest Irenaeus Tertullian Origen testifie as much in the words cited and S. Austin in the place before alledged by me This Tradition they did urge against these men and in a time in comparison of ours almost contiguous to the Apostles So near that one them Irenaeus was Scholar to one who was Scholar to S. John the Apostle Tertullian and Origen were not an Age removed from him and the last of them all little more than an Age from them Yet after all this they urged it not as a demonstration but only as a very probable argument far greater than any their Adversaries could oppose against it So Tertullian in the place above quoted § 5. How is it likely that so many and so great Churches should Err in one Faith it should be should have Erred into one Faith And this was the condition of this Argument as the Fathers urged it Now if you having to deal with us who question no Book of Scripture which was not Anciently questioned by some whom you your selves esteem good Catholicks nay who refuse not to be tried by your own Canons your own Translations who in interpreting Scriptures are content to allow of all those rules which you propose only except that we will not allow you to be our Judges if you will come fifteen hundred years after the Apostles a fair time for the purest Church to gather much dross and corruptions and for the mystery af iniquity to bring its work to some perfection which in the Apostles time began to work If I say you will come thus long after and urge us with the single Tradition of one of these Churches being now Catholick to it self alone and Heretical to all the rest nay not only with her Ancient Original Traditions but also with her post-nate and introduced Definitions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and Ancient Tradition and all this to decline an indifferent Trial by Scripture under pretence wherein also you agree with the calumny of the Old Hereticks that all necessary truth cannot be found in them without recourse to Tradition If I say notwithstanding all these differences you will still be urging us with this argument as the very same and of the same force with that wherewith the fore-mentioned Fathers urged the Old Hereticks certainly this must needs proceed from a confidence you have not only that we have no School-Divinity nor Metaphysicks but no Logick or common sense that we are but Pictures of men and have the definition of rational creatures given us in vain 41. But now suppose I should be liberal to you and grant what you cannot prove that the Fathers make Succession a certain and perpetual mark of the true Church I beseech you what will come of it What that want of Succession is a certain sign of an Heretical company Truly
pretend is the true sense of them When you have produced certain grounds for all these things I doubt not but it will appear that we also may have grounds certain enough to believe our whole Religion which is nothing else but the Bible without dependence on the Churches infallibility Suppose you should meet with a man that for the present believes neither Church nor Scripture nor God but is ready and willing to believe them all if you can shew some sufficient grounds to build his faith upon will you tell such a man there are no certain grounds by which he may be converted or there are If you say the first you make all Religion an uncertain thing If the second then either you must ridiculously perswade that your Church is infallible because it is infallible or else that there are other certain grounds besides your Churches infallibility 46. Obj. The Holy Scripture is in it self most true and infallible but without the direction and declaration of the Church we can neither have certain means to know what Scripture is Canonical nor what Translations be faithful nor what is the true meaning of Scripture Ans But all these things must be known before we can know the direction of your Church to be infallible for no other proof of it can be pretended but only some Texts of Canonical Scripture truly interpreted Therefore either you are mistaken in thinking there is no other means to know these things but your Churches infallible direction or we are excluded from all means of knowing her direction to be infallible 47. Obj. But Protestants though they are perswaded their own opinions are true and that they have used such means as are wont to be prescribed for understanding the Scripture as Prayer conferring of Texts c. Yet by their disagreement shew that some of them are deceived Now they hold all the Articles of their faith upon this only ground of Scripture interpreted by these rules and therefore it is clear that the ground of their faith is infallible in no point at all Ans The first of these suppositions must needs be true but the second is apparently false I mean that every Protestant is perswaded that he hath used those means which are prescribed for understanding of Scripture But that which you collect from these suppositions is clearly inconsequent and by as good Logick you might conclude that Logick and Geometry stand upon no certain grounds that the rules of the one and the principles of the other do sometimes fail because the disagreement of Logicians and Geometricians shew that some of them are deceived Might not a Jew conclude as well against all Christians that they have no certain ground whereon to relie in their understanding of Scripture because their disagreements shew that some are deceived because some deduce from it the infallibility of a Church and others no such matter So likewise a Turk might use the same argument against both Jews and Christians and an Atheist against all Religions and a Sceptick against all reason Might not the one say Mens disagreement in Religion shews that there is no certainty in any and the other that experience of their contradictions teacheth that the rules of reason do sometimes fail Do not you see and feel how void of reason and how full of impiety your sophistry is And how transported with zeal against Protestants you urge arguments against them which if they could not be answered would overthrow not only your own but all Religion But God be thanked the answer is easie and obvious For let men but remember not to impute the faults of men but only to men and then it will easily appear that there may be sufficient certainty in reason in Religion in the rules of interpreting Scripture though men through their faults take not care to make use of them and so run into divers errors and dissentions 48. Obj. But Protestants cannot determine what points be fundamental and therefore must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamental error Ans By like reason since you acknowledge that every error in points defined and declared by your Church destroys the substance of Faith and yet cannot determine what points be defined it followeth that you must remain uncertain whether or no you be not in some fundamental error and so want the substance of Faith without which there can be no hope of Salvation But though we cannot perhaps say in particular thus much and no more is fundamental yet believing all the Bible we are certain enough that we believe all that is fundamental As he that in a receipt takes twenty ingredients whereof ten only are necessary though he know not which those ten are yet taking the whole twenty he is sure enough that he has taken all that are necessary 49. Ad § 29. Obj. It is generally delivered by Catholick Divines that he who erreth against any one revealed truth tâ—seth all Divine Faith Now certainly some Protestants must do so because they hold contradictions which cannot all be true Therefore some of them at least have no divine faith Ans I pass by your weakness in urging Protestants with the authority of your Divines Yet if the Authority of your Divines were even Canonical certainly nothing could be concluded from it in this matter there being not one of them who delivers for true doctrin this position of yours thus nakedly set down That any error against any one revealed truth destroys all divine faith For they all require not your self excepted that this truth must not only be revealed but revealed publickly and all things considered sufficiently propounded to the erring party to be one of those which God under pain of damnation commands all men to believe But if the Reader will be at the pains he may see this vain fancy confuted out of one of the most rational and profound Doctors of your own Church I mean Estius upon the third Book of the Sententes the 23. Distinct and the 13. Section beginning thus It is disputed whether in him who believes some of the Articles of our Faith and disbelieves others or perhaps some one there be faith properly so called in respect of that which he does believe 50. But if Protestants have certainty they want obscurity and so have not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing This argument you prosecute in the next Paragraph but I can find nothing in it to convince or perswade me that Protestants cannot have as much certainty as is required to faith of an object not so evident as to beget science If obscurity will not consist with certainty in the highest degree then you are to blame for requiring to faith contradicting conditions If certainty and obscurity will stand together what reason can be imagined that a Protestant may not entertain them both as well as a Papist Your bodies and souls your understandings and wills are I think of the same
foolish as to believe your Church exempted from Error upon less evidence rather than subject to the common condition of mankind upon greater evidence Now if I take the Scripture only for my Guide I shall not need to do any thing so unreasonable 64. If I will follow your Church I must believe impossibilities and that with an absolute certainty upon motives which are confessed to be but only Prudential and probable That is with a weak Foundation I must firmly support a heavy a monstrous heavy building Now following the Scripture I shall have no necessity to undergo any such difficulties 65. Following your Church I must be servant of Christ and a Subject of the King but only Ad placitum Papae I must be prepared in mind to renounce my allegiance to the King when the Pope shall declare him an Heretick and command me not to obey him And I must be prepared in mind to esteem Vertue Vice and Vice Vertue if the Pope shall so determine Indeed you say it is impossible he should do the latter but that you know is a great question neither is it fit my obedience to God and the King should depend upon a questionable Foundation And howsoever you must grant that if by an impossible supposition the Popes commands should be contrary to the law of Christ that they of your Religion must resolve to obey rather the commands of the Pope than the law of Christ Whereas if I follow the Scripture I may nay I must obey my Sovereign in lawful things though an Heretick though a Tyrant and though I do not say the Pope but the Apostles themselves nay an Angel from Heaven should teach any thing against the Gospel of Christ I may nay I must denounce Anathema to him 66. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion which being contrary to Flesh and Blood without any assistance from worldly power wit or policy nay against all the power and policy of the World prevailed and enlarged it self in a very short time all the World over Whereas it is too too apparent that your Church hath got and still maintains her authority over mens Consciences by counterfeiting false miracles forging false stories by obtruding on the World suppositious writings by corrupting the monuments of former times and defacing out of them all which any way makes against you by Wars by persecutions by Massacres by Treasons by Rebellions in short by all manner of Carnal means whether violent or fraudulent 67. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion the first Preachers of Professors whereof it is most certain they could have no worldly ends upon the World that they could not project to themselves by it any of the profits or honours or pleasures of this World but rather were to expect the contrary even all the miseries which the World could lay upon them On the other side the Head of your Church the pretended Successor of the Apostles and Guide of Faith it is even palpable that he makes your Religion the instrument of his ambition and by it seeks to entitle himself directly or indirectly to the Monarchy of the World And besides it is evident to any man that has but half an eye that most of those Doctrines which you add to the Scripture do make one way or other for the honour or temporal profit of the Teachers of them 68. Following the Scripture only I shall embrace a Religion of admirable simplicity consisting in a manner wholly in the worship of God in Spirit and Truth Whereas your Church and Doctrine is even loaded with an infinity of weak childish ridiculous unsavoury superstitions and ceremonies and full of that righteousness for which Christ shall Judge the World 69. Following the Scripture I shall believe that which Universal never-failing Tradition assures me that it was by the admirable supernatural Work of God confirmed to be the Word of God whereas never any miracle was wrought never so much as a lame Horse cured in confirmation of your Churches authority and infallibility And if any strange things have been done which may seem to give attestation to some parts of your Doctrine yet this proves nothing but the truth of the Scripture which foretold that Gods providence permitting it and the wickedness of the World deserving it strange signs and wonders should be wrought to confirm false Doctrine that they which love not the Truth may be given over to strange delusions Neither does it seem to me any strange thing that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude them who have forged so many to deceive the World 70. If I follow the Scripture I must not promise my self Salvation without effectual dereliction and mortification of all Vices and the effectual Practice of all Christian Vertues But your Church opens an easier and a broader way to Heaven and though I continue all my life long in a course of sin and without the Practice of any Vertue yet gives me assurance that I may be let into Heaven at a Postern-gate even by any Act of Attrition at the hour of Death if it be joyned with confession or by an Act of Contrition without confession 71. Admirable are the Precepts of piety and humility of innocence and patience of liberality frugality temperance sobriety justice meekness fortitude constancy and gravity contempt of the World love of God and the love of mankind In a Word of all Vertues and against all vice which the Scriptures impose upon us to be obeyed under pain of damnation The sum whereof is in manner comprised in our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount recorded in the 5 6 and 7. of S. Matthew which if they were generally obeyed could not but make the world generally happy and the goodness of them alone were sufficient to make any wise and good man believe that this Religion rather than any other came from God the fountain of all goodness And that they may be generally obeyed our Saviour hath ratified them all in the close of his Sermon with these universal Sanctions Not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven and again whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them not shall be likned unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rain descended and the flood came and the winds blew and it fell and great was the fall thereof Now your Church notwithstanding all this enervates and in a manner dissolves and abrogates many of these precepts teaching men that they are not Laws for all Christians but Counsels of perfection and matters of Supererrogation that a man shall do well if he do observe them but he shall not sin if he observe them not that they are for them who aim at high places in heaven who aspire with the two sons of Zebede to the right hand or to the left hand of Christ But if a man will be content
be made unnecessary by being so accounted nor an unnecessary point be made necessary by being overvalued But as the ancient Philosophers whose different opinions about the soul of man you may read in Aristotle de Anima and Cicero's Tusculan Questions notwithstanding their divers opinions touching the nature of the soul yet all of them had souls and souls of the same nature Or as those Physicians who dispute whether the brain or heart be the principal part of a man yet all of them have brains and have hearts and herein agree sufficiently So likewise though some Protestants esteem that Doctrin the soul of the Church which others do not so highly value yet this hinders not but that which is indeed the soul of the Church may be in both sorts of them and though one account that a necessary truth which others account neither necessary nor perhaps true yet this notwithstanding in those Truths which are truly and really necessary they may all agree For no Argument can be more sophistical than this They differ in some points which they esteem necessary Therefore they differ in some that indeed and in truth are so 35. Now as concerning the other inference That they cannot agree what points are fundamental I have said and proved formerly that there is no such necessity as you imagin or pretend that men should certainly know what is and what is not fundamental They that believe all things plainly delivered in Scripture believe all things fundamental and are at sufficient Unity in matters of Faith though they cannot precisely and exactly distinguish between what is fundamental and what is profitable nay though by error they mistake some vain or perhaps hurtful opinions for necessary and fundamental Truths Cap. 3. §. 53. alibt Besides I have shewed above that as Protestants do not agree for you over-reach in saying they cannot touching what points are fundamental so neither do you agree what points are defined and so to be accounted and what are not nay nor concerning the subject in which God hath placed this pretended Authority of defining some of you setling it in the Pope himself though alone without a Council Others in a Council though divided from the Pope Others only in the conjunction of Council and Pope Others not in this neither but in the acceptation of the present Church Universal Lastly others not attributing it to this neither but only to the perpetual Succession of the Church of all Ages of which divided Company it is very evident and undeniable that every former may be and are obliged to hold many things defined and therefore necessary which the latter according to their own grounds have no obligation to do nay cannot do so upon any firm and sure and infallible foundation FINIS OUT OF Mr. Chillingworth's Manuscript A LETTER TO Mr. LEWGAR CONCERNING THE Church of Romes Being the Guide of Faith and Judge of Controversies Good Mr. LEWGAR THough I am resolved not to be much afflicted for the loss of that which is not in my power to keep yet I cannot deny but the loss of a friend goes very near unto my heart and by this name of a friend I did presume till of late that I might have called you because though perhaps for want of power and opportunity I have done you no good office yet I have been always willing and ready to do you the best service I could and therefore I cannot but admire at that affected strangeness which in your last Letter to me you seem to take upon you renouncing in a manner all relation to me and tacitly excommunicating me from all interest in you the Superscription of your Letter is to Mr. William Chillingworth and your Subscription John Lewgar as if you either disdained or made a conscience of stiling me your friend or your self mine If this proceed from passion and weakness I pray mend it if from reason I pray shew it If you think me one of those to whom Saint John forbids you to say God save you then you are to think and prove me one of those Deceivers which deny Christ Jesus to be come in the flesh If you think me an Heretick and therefore to be avoided you must prove me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condemned by my own judgment which I know I cannot and therefore I think you cannot If you say I do not hear the Church and therefore am to be esteemed an Heathen or Publican you are to prove that by the Church there is meant the Church of Rome and yet when you have done so I hope Christians are not forbidden to shew humanity and civility even to Pagans for Gods sake Mr. Lewgar free your self from this blind zeal at least for a little space and consider with reason and moderation what strange crime you can charge me with that should deferve this strange usage especially from you Is it a crime to endeavour with all my understanding to find your Religion true and to make my self a believer of it and not be able to do so Is it a crime to imploy all my reason upon the justification of the Infallibility of the Roman Church and to find it impossible to be justified I will call God to witness who knows my heart better than you do that I have evened the scale of my judgment as much as possibly I could and have not willingly allowed any one grain of worldly motives on either side but have weighed the Reasons for your Religion and against with such indifference as if there were nothing in the world but God and my self and is it my fault that that scale goes down which hath the most weight in it that that building falls which has a false foundation have you such power over your understanding that you can believe what you please though you see no reason or that you can suspend your belief when you do see reason If you have I pray for our old friendships sake teach me that trick but until I have learnt it I pray blame me not for going the ordinary way I mean for believing or not believing as I see reason If you can convince me of wilful opposition against the known truth of negligence in seeking it of unwillingness to find it of preferring temporal respects before it or of any other fault which is in my power to amend that is indeed a fault if I amend it not be as angry with me as you please But to impute to me involuntary errors or that I do not see that which I would see but cannot or that I will not profess that which I do not believe certainly this is far more unreasonable error than any which you can justly charge me with for let me tell you the imputing Socinianism to me whosoever was the author of it was a wicked and groundless slander Perhaps you will say for this is the usual song on that side that pride is a voluntary fault and with this I am justly
this is most false and cannot without impudence be pretended as I am ready to justifie to any indifferent Hearer 2. I demand who shall be judge whether the Fathers mean as is pretended If it be said reason will tell me so I say 1. this is false 2. This is again to do that which is objected to Protestants for such a horrid crime that is to build all finally upon reason If it be said they are so interpreted by the Catholick Church I demand whether by the Catholick Church be meant that onely that is in subordination to the Bishop of Rome or any other with that or besides that If any other it is false and impudent to pretend that they so understand the Fathers or Scriptures If that only then this is to say that that Church is infallible because it may be deduced from Scripture that it is so and to prove that it may be deduced from Scripture because the Fathers say so and to prove the Fathers do say and mean so because the Church of Rome says they do so And then what a stir and trouble was here to no purpose why was it not rather said plainly at the beginning The Church of Rome is certainly infallible because she her self says so and she must say true because she is infallible and that is as much to say as unless you grant me the Question I neither can nor will dispute with you If it is said indeed the Fathers do not draw this doctrin from Scripture but yet they affirm it with a full consent as a matter of Tradition I reply 1. That this pretence also is false and that upon tryal it will not appear to have any colour of probability to any who remembers that it is the present Roman Church and not the Catholick Church whose infallibility is here disputed 2. I demand who shall be judge whether the Fathers do indeed affirm this or no If reason then again we are fallen upon that dangerous Rock that all must be resolved into private reason If the Church I ask again what Church is meant If the Church of the Grecians or Abyssines or Protestants or any other but the Roman it is evident they deny it If the Church of Rome then we are again very near the head of the Circle For I ask how shall I be assured this Church will not err and deceive me in interpreting the Fathers and the Answer must be either none or this that the Church is infallible Obj. If it be said that the Infallibility of the Roman Church would yield the Church so many commodities and that the want of an infallible Church to guide men in the way to Heaven would bring so many mischiefs upon the world that it cannot be thought but that God out of his love to men hath appointed this Church as an infallible guide to all other Churches seeing it is so necessary there should be some such guide and so evident there is no other Ans I answer that this argument would serve the Church of Greece or England or Geneva to prove it self infallible and the guide of all other Churches would they but take upon them to be so For every one might say for it self It is necessary there should be some Guide it is evident there is no other Ergo I am appointed by God to be that Guide The same argument any man might use to make himself Monarch of any popular State for first he might represent unto them the commodities of a Monarchy and the mischiefs of a Democracy then he might say That God surely out of his Love to them hath appointed some remedy for their inconveniences And lastly that he hath ordained no other to redress them but himself and then conclude that he alone must of necessity be the man appointed to rule over them I answer Secondly that here also we must resolve all into Reason and the private Spirit or that we are still in the Circle For I demand how do you know that these pretended commodities are to be compassed and these pretended mischiefs are to be avoided only by the Infallibility of the Church of Rome or some other Church and not by any other means which God hath provided If you say reason tells you so I say 1. This is to make reason your last and lowest foundation 2. I assure you Reason tells me no such matter and yet I know that I am as willing to hear it as you are If you say the Church tells you so and she is infallible this I say is to prove the Church infallible because she is so Thirdly I demand How it is possible you should know that these pretended commodities might not be gained and these mischiefs which you fear avoided without any assistance of the Church of Rome's infallibility if all men in the world did believe the Scripture and live according to it and would require no more of others but to do so If you say that notwithstanding this there would be no unity in Doctrin I answer 1. It is impossible you should know this considering that there are many places in Scripture which do more than problably import that the want of piety in living is the cause of want of unity in believing 2. That there would be unity of Opinion in all things necessary and that in things not necessary unity of Opinion is not necessary But lastly that notwithstanding differences in these things of lesser importance there might and would be unity of Communion unity of charity and affection which is one of the greatest blessings which the world is capable of absolute unity of opinion being a matter rather to be desired than hoped for Obj. Against this it has been objected that the Scripture cannot be the guide because many men have used their best endeavors to follow it and yet have fallen some into Arianism others into Pelagianism others into other damnable Heresies and how can I secure any man but he may do the like Ans To this I answer by distinguishing the persons which are pretended to have made use of this Guide and yet to have fallen into Heresie that they were either such as did love the truth sincerely and above all things as did seek it diligently and with all their power to this intent that they might conform their belief and life unto it such as following S. Pauls direction did first try all things deliberately and then chose what in their conscience they thought was best or they were such as for want of the love of the truth God suffered to fall into strong delusions to fall to a false Religion because they brought not forth the fruits of the true to make shipwreck of their faith because they had cast away a good conscience to have their Eyes blinded and their light taken away because they made not the right use of it but were idle and unprofitable and set their hearts upon vanity and had only a form of Religion but denied the
Church which at first perhaps were but wink'd at after tolerated then approved and at length after they had spread themselves into a seeming Generality confirmed for good and Catholick and that therefore there was no certainty that they came from the beginning whose beginning was not known I should have remembred him that even by the acknowledgment of the Council of Trent many corruptions and superstitions had by insensible degrees insinuated themselves into the very Mass and Offices of the Church which they thought fit to cast out and therefore seeing that some abuses have come in God knows how and have been cast out again who can ascertain me that some Errors have not got in and while men slept for it is apparent they did sleep gathered such strength gotten such deep root and so incorporated themselves like Ivy in a Wall in the State and polity of the Roman Church that to pull them up had been to pull them down by rasing the Foundation on which it stands to wit the Churches Infallibility Besides as much water passes under the Mill which the Miller sees not so who can warrant me that some old corruptions might not escape from them and pass for Original and Apostolick Traditions I say might not though they had been as studious to reduce all to the primitive State as they were to preserve them in the present State as diligent to cast out all Postnate and introduct opinions as they were to persuade men that there were none such but all as truly Catholick and Apostolick as they were Roman I should have declared unto him that many things reckoned up in the Roll of Traditions are now grown out of fashion and out of use in the Church of Rome and therefore that either they believed them not whatever they pretended or were not so obedient to the Apostles command as they themselves interpret it Keep the Traditions which ye have received whether by word or by our Epistle And seeing there have been so many vicissitudes and changes in the Roman Church Catholick Doctrines growing exolete and being degraded from their Catholicism and perhaps deprest into the number of Heresies Points of Indifference or at least Aliens from the Faith getting first to be Inmates after procuring to be made Denizons and in process of time necessary members of the Body of the Faith Nay Old Heresies sometimes like old Snakes casting their Skin and their Poyson together and becoming wholsom and Catholick Doctrines I must have desired pardon of my Uncle if I were not so undoubtedly certain what was and what was not Catholick Doctrine in the days of my Fathers Nay perhaps I should have gone further and told him That I was not fully assured what was the Catholick Doctrine in some points no not at this present time For instance to lay the Axe unto the Root of the Tree the infallibility of the present Church of Rome in determining controversies of Faith is esteemed indeed by divers that I have met with not only an Article of Faith but a Foundation of all other Articles But how do I know there are not nay why should I think there are not in the World divers good Catholicks of the same mind touching this matter which Mirandula Panormitan Cusanus Florentinus Clemangis Waldensis Occham and divers others were of who were so far from holding this Doctrine the Foundation of Faith that they would not allow it any place in the Fabrick Now Bellarmine has taught us that no Doctrine is Catholick nor the contrary Heretical that is denied to be so by some good Catholicks From hence I collect that in the time of the forenamed Authors this was not Catholick Doctrine nor the contrary Heretical and being then not so how it could since become so I cannot well understand If it be said that it has since been defined by a General Council I say first This is false no Council has been so foolish as to define that a Council is Infallible for unless it were presumed to be Infallible before who or what could assure us of the Truth of this definition Secondly if it were true it were ridiculous for he that would question the Infallibility of all Councils in all their Decrees would as well question the Infallibility of this Council in this Decree This therefore was not is not nor ever can be an Article of Faith unless God himself would be pleased which is not very likely to make some new Revelation of it from Heaven The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Fountain of the Error in this matter is this That the whole Religion of the Roman Church and every point of it is conceived or pretended to have issued Originally out of the Fountain of Apostolick Tradition either in themselves or in the principles from which they are evidently deducible Whereas it is evident that many of their Doctrines may be Originally derived from the Decrees of Councils many from Papal definitions many from the Authority of some great Man To which purpose it is very remarkable what Gregory Nazianzen says of Athanasius * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat XXI in Laudem Athanasii What pleased him was a law to men what did not please him was as a thing prohibited by Law his Decrees were to them like Moses his Tables and he had a greater veneration paid him than seems to be due from men to Saints And as memorable that in the late great Controversie about Predetermination and Free-will disputed before Pope Clement VII by the Jesuits and Dominicans The Popes resolution was if he had determined the matter to define for that opinion which was most agreeable not to Scripture nor to Apostolick Tradition nor to a consent of Fathers but to the Doctrine of S. Austin so that if the Pope had made an Article of Faith of this Controversie it is evident S. Austin had been the Rule of it Sometimes upon erroneous grounds Customs have been brought in God knows how and after have spread themselves through the whole Church Thus Gordonius Huntleius confesses that because Baptism and the Eucharist had been anciently given both together to men of ripe years when they were converted to Christianity Afterwards by Error when Infants were Baptized they gave the Eucharist also to Infants This Custom in short time grew Universal and in S. Austins time passed currantly for an Apostolick Tradition and the Eucharist was thought as necessary for them as Baptism This Custom the Church of Rome hath again cast out and in so doing profest either her no regard to the traditions of the Apostles or that this was none of that number But yet she cannot possibly avoid but that this example is a proof sufficient that many things may get in by Error into the Church and by degrees obtain the esteem and place of Apostolick Traditions which yet are not so The Custom of denying the Laity the Sacramental Cup and the Doctrine that it is lawful to do so who can
leave good Uncle For first the Greek Church as every body knows pretends to perpetual succession of Doctrine and undertakes to derive it from Christ and his Apostles as confidently as we do ours Neither is there any word in all this discourse but might have been urged as fairly and as probably for the Greek Church as for the Roman and therefore seeing your Arguments fight for both alike they must either conclude for both which is a direct impossibility for then Contradictions should be both true or else which is most certain they conclude for neither and are not Demonstrations as you pretend for never any Demonstration could prove both parts of a Contradiction but meer Sophisms and Captions as the progress of our answer shall justifie Secondly It is so far from Protestants to grant the thing you speak of To wit that the controverted Doctrines of the Roman Church came from Apostolick Tradition that they verily believe should the Apostles now live again they would hardly be able to find amongst you the Doctrin which they taught by reason of abundance of trash and rubbish which you have laid upon it And lastly They pretend not that Fathers and Councils may err and they cannot nor that they were men and themselves are not but that you do most unjustly and vainly to father your inventions of Yesterday upon the Fathers and Councils Nephew I know that we Catholicks do reverence Traditions as much as Scripture it self neither do I see why we should be blamed for it for the words which Christ and his Apostles spake must needs be as infallible as those which were written True But still the question depends whether Christ and his Apostles did indeed speak those words which you pretend they did we say with Irenaeus Praeconiaverunt primum scripserunt postea What they preacht first that they wrote afterwards we say with Tertullian Ecclesias Apostoli condiderunt ipsi eis praedicando tam vivâ quod aiunt voce quam per Epistolas postea The Apostles founded the Churches by their Preaching to them first by word of mouth then after by their writings If you can prove the contrary do so and we yield but hitherto you do nothing Nephew And as for the keeping of it I see the Scripture it self is beholden to Tradition Gods providence presupposed for the integrity both of the letter and the sense Of the letter it is confest of the sense manifest For the sense being a distinct thing from the naked letter and rather fetcht out by force of consequence than in express and formal terms contained which is most true whether we speak of Protestant sense or the Catholick it belongeth rather to Tradition than express Text of Scripture That which you desire to conclude is That we must be beholden to Tradition for the sense of Scripture and your reason to conclude this is because the sense is fetcht out by force of consequence This of some places of Scripture is not true especially those which belong to faith and good manners which carry their meaning in their foreheads Of others it is true but nothing to the purpose in hand but rather directly against it For who will not say If I collect the sense of Scripture by Reason then I have it not from Authority that is unless I am mistaken If I fetch it out by force of Consequence then I am not beholden to Tradition for it But the letter of Scripture has been preserved by Tradition and therefore why should we not receive other things upon Tradition as well as Scripture I answer The Jews Tradition preserved the books of the Old Testament and why then doth our Saviour receive these upon their Tradition and yet condemn other things which they suggested as matters of Tradition If you say it was because these Traditions came not from Moses as they were pretended I say also that yours are only pretended and not proved to come from the Apostles Prove your Tradition of these Additions as well as you prove the Tradition of Scripture and assure your selves we then according to the injunction of the Council of Trent shall receive both with equal reverence Nephew As it may appear by the sense of these few words Hoc est corpus meum whether you take the Protestant or the Catholick sense For the same Text cannot have two contrary senses of it self but as they are fetcht out by force of Argument and therefore what sense hath best Tradition to shew for it self that 's the Truth This is neither Protestant nor Catholick sense but if we may speak the truth direct nonsense For what if the same Text cannot have contrary senses is there therefore no means but Tradition to determin which is the true sense What connexion or what relation is there between this Antecedent and this Consequent certainly they are meer strangers to one another and until they met by chance in this argument never saw each other before He that can find a third proposition to joyn them together in a good syllogism I profess unto you Erit mihi magnus Appollo But what if of these two contrary senses the one that is the Literal draw after it a long train of absurdities The other that is the Figurative do not so Have we not reason enough without advising with Tradition about the matter to reject the Literal sense and embrace the Spiritual S. Austin certainly thought we had For he gives us this direction in his Book de Doctrinâ Christianâ and the first and fittest Text that he could choose to exemplifie his Rule what think you is it even the Cousin-German to that which you have made choice of Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man c. Here saith he the Letter seems to command impiety Figura est ergo Therefore it is a Figure commanding to feed devoutly upon the Passion of our Lord and to lay up in our memory that Christ was crucified for us Uncle These particulars peradventure would require a further discussion and now I will take nothing but what is undeniable As this is to wit That what points are in Controversie betwixt us and Protestants we believe to have been delivered by Christ and his Apostles to our forefathers and by them delivered from hand to hand to our Fathers whom we know to have delivered them for such to us and to have received and believed them for such themselves Certainly though Ink and Paper cannot blush yet I dare say you were fain to rub your forehead over and over before you committed this to Writing Say what you list for my part I am so far from believing you that I verily believe you do not believe your selves when you pretend that you believe those points of your Doctrin which are in controversie to have been delivered to your Forefathers by Christ and his Apostles Is it possible that any sober man who has read the New Testament should believe that Christ and his Apostles taught
scandalizing many holy persons or provoking those that are turbulent I dare not freely disallow Nay the Catholick Church it self did see and dissemble and tolerate them for these are the things of which he presently says after the Church of God and you will have him speak of the true Catholick Church placed between Chaffe and Tares tolerates many things Which was directly against the command of the Holy Spirit given the Church by S. Paul To stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made her free and not to suffer her self to be brought in bondage to these survile burdens Our Saviour tells the Scribes and Pharisees that in vain they Worshiped God teaching for Doctrines mens Commandments For that laying aside the Commandments of God they held the Traditions of men as the washing of Pots and Cups and many other such like things Certainly that which S. Austin complains of as the general fault of Christians of his time was parallel to this Multa saith he quae in divinis libris saluberrima praecepta sunt minus curantur This I suppose I may very well render in our Saviours Words The commandments of God are laid aside and then tam multis presumptionibus sic plena sunt omnia all things or all places are so full of so many presumptions and those exacted with such severity nay with Tyranny that he was more severely censured who in the time of his Octaves touched the Earth with his naked Feet than he which drowned and buried his Soul in Drink Certainly if this be not to teach for Doctrines mens Commandments I know not what is And therefore these superstitious Christians might be said to Worship God in vain as well as Scribes and Pharisees And yet great variety of superstitions of this kind were then already spread over the Church being different in divers place This is plain from these Words of S. Austin of them diversorum locorum diversis moribus innumerabiliter variantur and apparent because the stream of them was grown so violent that he durst not oppose it liberiùs improbare non audeo I dare not freely speak against them So that to say the Catholick Church tolerated all this and for fear of offence durst not abrogate or condemn it is to say if we Judge rightly of it that the Church with silence and connivence generally tolerated Christians to worship God in vain Now how this tolerating of Universal superstition in the Church can consist with the assistance and direction of Gods omnipotent spirit to guard it from superstition and with the accomplishment of that pretended Prophesie of the Church I have set Watchmen upon thy Walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace Day nor Night besides how these superstitions being thus nourished cherished and strengthned by the practice of the most and urged with great violence upon others as the commandments of God and but fearfully opposed or contradicted by any might in time take such deep Root and spread their Branches so far as to pass for Universal Customs of the Church he that does not see sees nothing Especially considering the catching and contagious nature of this sin and how fast ill Weeds spread and how true and experimented that rule is of the Historian Exempla non confistunt ubi incipiunt sed quamlibet in tenuem recepta tramitem latissimè evagandi sibi faciunt potestatem Examples do not stay where they begin but tho at first pent up in a narrow Tract they make themselves room for extravagant wandrings Nay that some such superstition had not already even in S. Austins time prevailed so far as to be Consuetudine universae Ecclesiae roboratum confirmed by the Custom of the Universal Church who can doubt that considers that the practice of Commiunicating Infants had even then got the credit and authority not only of an Universal Custom but also of an Apostolick Tradition 49. But now after all this ado what if S. Austin says not this which is pretended of the Church viz. That she neither approves nor dissembles nor practises any thing against Faith or good Life but only of good men in the Church Certainly though some Copies read as you would have it yet you should not have dissembled that others read the place otherwise vix Ecclesia multa tolerat tamen quae sunt contra Fidem bonam vitam nec bonus approbat c. The Church tolerates many things and yet what is against Faith or good Life a good man will neither approve nor dissemble nor practise 50. Ad § 17. That Abraham begat Isaacc is a point very far from being Fundamental and yet I hope you will grant that Protestants believing Scripture to be the Word of God may be certain enough of the truth and certainty of it For what if they say that the Catholick Church and much more themselves may possibly Err in some unfundamental points it is therefore consequent they can be certain of none such What if a wiser man than I may mistake the sense of some obscure place of Aristotle may I not therefore without any arrogance or inconsequence conceive my self certain that I understand him in some plain places which carry their sense before them And then for points Fundamental to what purpose do you say That we must first know what they be before we can be assured that we cannot Err in understanding the Scripture when we pretend not at all to any assurance that we cannot Err but only to a sufficient certainty that we do not Err but rightly understand those things that are plain whether Fundamental or not Fundamental That God is and is a rewarder of them that seek him That there is no Salvation but by Faith in Christ That by repentance and Faith in Christ Remission of sins may be obtained That there shall be a Resurrection of the Body These we conceive both true because the Scripture says so and Truths Fundamental because they are necessary parts of the Gospel whereof our Saviour saies Qui non crediderit damnabitur All which we either learn from Scripture immediately or learn of those that learn it of Scripture so that neither Learned nor Unlearned pretend to know these things independently of Scripture And therefore in imputing this to us you cannot excuse your self from having done us a palpable injury 52. Ad § 19. To that which is here urged of the differences amongst Protestants concerning many points I answer that those differences between Protestants concerning Errors damnable and not damnable Truths Fundamental and not Fundamental may be easily reconciled For either the Error they speak of may be purely and simply involuntary or it may be in respect of the cause of it voluntary If the cause of it be some voluntary and avoidable fault the Error is it self sinful and consequently in its own nature damnable As if by negligence in seeking the Truth by unwillingness to find it by Pride by obstinacy by desiring that Religion should