the Jewish Church endued with an absolutely infallible direction in case of moment as all Points belonging to divine Faith are Now the Church of Christ our Lord was before the Scriptures of the New Testament which were not written instantly nor all at one time but successively upon several occasions and some after the decease of most of the Apostles and after they were written they were not presently known to all Churches and of some there was doubt in the Church for some Ages after our Saviour Shall we then say that according as the Church by little and little received holy Scripture she was by the like degrees devested of her possessed Infallibility and power to decide Controversies in Religion That sometime Churches had one Judge of Controversies and others another That with moneths or years as new Canonical Scripture grew to be published the Church altered her whole Rule of Faith or Judge of Controversies After the Apostles time and after the writing of Scriptures Heresies would be sure to rise requiring in God's Church for their discovery and condemnation Infallibility either to write new Canonical Scripture as was done in the Apostles time by occasion of emergent Heresies or Infallibility to interpret Scriptures already written or without Scripture by divine unwritten Traditions and assistance of the holy Ghost to determine all Controversies as Tertullian saith The soul is h De test aniâ cap. 5. before the letter and speech before Books and sense before style Certainly such addition of Scripture with derogation or substraction from the former power and infallibility of the Church would have brought to the world division in matters of faith and the Church had rather lost than gained by holy Scripture which ought to be farr from our tongues and thoughts it being manifest that for decision of Controversies Infallibility setled in a living Judge is incomparably more useful and fit than if it were conceived as inherent in some inanimate writing Is there such repugnance betwixt Infallibility of the Church and Existence of Scripture that the production of the one must be the destruction of the other Must the Church wax dry by giving to her Children the milk of sacred Writ No No. Her Infallibility was and is derived from an inexhausted Fountain If Protestants will have the Scripture alone for their Judge let them first produce some Scripture affirming that by the entring thereof Infallibility went out of the Church D. Potter may remember what himself teacheth That the Church is still endued with Infallibility in Points Fundamental and consequently that Infallibility in the Church doth well agree with the truth the sanctity yea with the sufficiency of Scripture for all matters necessary to Salvation I would therefore gladly know out of what Text he imagineth that the Church by the coming of Scripture was deprived of Infallibility in some Points and not in others He affirmeth that the Jewish Synagogue retained infallibility in herself notwithstanding the writing of the Old Testament and will he so unworthily and unjustly deprive the Church of Christ of Infallibility by reason of the New Testament Especially if we consider that in the Old Testament Laws Ceremonies Rites Punishments Judgements Sacraments Sacrifices c. were more particularly and minutely delivered to the Jews than in the New Testament is done our Saviour leaving the determination or declaration of particulars to his Spouse the Church which therefore stands in need of Infallibility more than the Jewish Synagogue D. Potter i Pag. 24. against this argument drawn from the power and infallibility of the Synagogue objects That we might as well inserr that Christians must have one Soveraign Prince over all because the Jews had one chief Judge But the disparity is very clear The Synagogue was a type and figure of the Church of Christ not so their civil Government of Christian Common-wealths or Kingdoms The Church succeeded to the Synagogue but not Christian Princes to Jewish Magistrates And the Church is compared to a house or k Heb. 13. family to an l Cant. 2. Army to a m 1 Cor. 10. Ephes 4. body to a n Mat. 12. kingdom c. all which require one Master one General one head one Magistrate one spiritual King as our blessed Saviour with fict Unum ovile o Joan. c. 10. joyned Unus Pastor One Sheepsold One Pastour But all distinct Kingdoms or Common-wealths are not one Army Family c. And finally it is necessary to Salvation that all have recourse to one Church but for temporal weale there is no need that all submit or depend upon one temporal Prince Kingdom or Common-wealth and therefore our Saviour hath left to his whole Church as being One one Law one Scripture the same Sacraments c. Whereas Kingdoms have their several Laws different governments diversity of Powers Magistracy c. And so this objection returneth upon D. Potter For as in the One Community of the Jews there was one Power and Judge to end debates and resolve difficulties so in the Church of Christ which is One there must be some one Authority to decide all Controversies in Religion 24. This Discourse is excellently proved by ancient S. Irenaeus p Lib. 5. c. 4. in these words What if the Apostles had not lest Scriptures ought we not to have followed the order of Tradition which they delivered to those to whom they committed the Churches to which order many Nations yield assent who believe in Christ having Salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit of God without letters or lake and diligent keeping ancient Tradition It is easie to receive the truth from God's Church seeing the Apostles have most fully deposited in her as in a rich store-house all things belonging to truth For what if there should arise any contention of some small question ought we not to have recourse to the most ancient Churches and from them to receive what is certain and clear concerning the present question 25. Besides all this the doctrine of Protestants is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to err in interpreting Scripture or they have not If not then the Scripâure to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible Faith nor a meet Judge of Controversies If they have certain infallible means and so cannot err in their interpretations of Scriptures then they are able with infallibility to hear examine and determine all Controversies of Faith and so they may be and are Judges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own doctrin they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides Scripture alone 26. Lastly I ask D. Potter Whether âhis Assertion Scripture alone is Judge of all Controversies in Faith be a fundamental Point of Faith or no He must be well advised before he say that it is a Fundamental Point For he will have against him as many Protestants as teach that by Scripture alone it
Miracles how shall I proceed at our meeting Or how shall I know the man on whom I may securely relie Procure will you say to know whether he believe all Fundamental Points of Faith For if he do his faith for point of belief is sufficient for Salvation though he err in an hundred things of less moment But how shall I know whether he hold all Fundamental Points or no For till you tell me this I cannot know whether or no his belief be sound in all Fundamental Points Can you say the Creed Yes and so can many damnable Hereticks But why do you ask me this question Because the Creed contains all fundamental Points of Faith Are you sure of that Not sure I hold it very probable (y) Pag. 241. Shall I hazard my soul on probabilities or even wagers This yeelds a new cause of dispaire But what doth the Creed contain all Points necessary to be believed whether they rest in the understanding or else do further extend to practice No. It was composed to deliver Credenda not Agenda to us Faith not Practice How then shall I know what Points of belief which direct my practice be necessary to Salvation Still you chalk out new paths for Desperation Well are all Articles of the Creed for their nature and matter Fundamental I cannot say so How then shall I know which in particular be and which be not fundamental Read my Answer to a late Popish Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken c. there you shall find that fundamental Doctrins are such Catholique Verities as principally and essentially pertain (z) Pag. 211 213 214. to be Faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved They are those grand and capital Doctrins which make up our Faith in Christ that is that common Faith which is alike precious in all being one and the same in the highest Apostle and the meanest Believer which the Apostle else-where cals the first Principles of the Oracles of God and the form of sound words But how shall I apply these general definitions or descriptions or to say the truth these only varied words and phrases for I understand the word fundamental as well as the word principal essential grand and capital doctrins c. to the particular Articles of the Creed in such sort as that I may be able precisely exactly particularly to distinguish Fundamental Articles from Points of less moment You labour to tell us what Fundamental Points be but not which they be and yet unless you do this your Doctrin serves only either to make men dispair or else to have recourse to those whome you call Papists and which give one certain Rule that all Points defined by Christs visible Church belong to the foundation of Faith in such sense as that to deny any one cannot stand with Salvation And seeing your self acknowledges that these men do not err in Points Fundamental I cannot but hold it most safe for me to joyn with them for the securing of my soul and the avoiding of desperation into which this your Doctrin must cast all them who understand and believe it For the whole discourse and inferences which here I have made are either your own direct Assertions or evident Consequences cleerly deduced from them 20. But now let us answer some few Objections of D. Potters against that which we have said before to avoid our argument That the Scripture is not so much as mentioned in the Creed he saith The Creed is an abstract of such (a) Pag. 234. necessary Doctrins as are delivered in Scripture or collected out of it and therefore needs not express the Authority of that which it supposes 21. This Answer makes for us For by giving a reason why it was needless that Scripture should be expressed in the Creed you grant as much as we desire namely that the Apostles judged it needless to express all necessary Points of Faith in their Creed Neither doth the Creed suppose or depend on Scripture in such sort as that we can by any probable consequence inferr from the Articles of the Creed that there is any Canonical Scripture at all and much less that such Books in particular be Canonical Yea the Creed might have been the same although holy Scripture had never been written and which is more the Creed even in priority of time was before all the Scripture of the New Testament except the Gospel of S. Mathew And so according to this reason of his the Scripture should not mention Articles contained in the Creed And I note in a word how little connexion D. Potters arguments have while he tels us that The Creed (b) Pag. 234. is an Abstract of such necessary Doctrins as are delivered in Scripture or collected out of it and therefore needs not express the authority of that which it supposes it doth not follow The Articles of the Creed are delivered in Scripture therefore the Creed supposeth Scripture For two distinct writtings may well deliver the same Truths and yet one of them not suppose the other unless D. Potter be of opinion that two Doctors cannot at one time speake the same truth 22. And notwithstanding that D. Potter hath now told us it was needless that the Creed should express Scripture whose Authority it supposes he comes at length to say that the Nicene Fathers in their Creed confessing that the holy Ghost spake by the Prophets doth thereby sufficiently avow the divine Authority of all Canonical Scripture But I would ask him whether the Nicene Creed be not also an Abstract of Doctrins delivered in Scripture as he said of the Apostles Creed and thence did infer that it was needless to express Scripture whose authority it supposes Besides we do not only believe in general that Canonical Scripture is of divine Authority but we are also bound under pain of damnation to believe that such and such particular Books not mentioned in the Nicene Creed are Canonical And lastly D. Potter in this answer grants as much as we desire which is that all Points of Faith are not contained in the Apostles Creed even as it is explained by other Creeds For these words who spake by the Prophets are no waies contained in the Apostles Creed and therefore contain an Addition not an Explanation thereof 23. But how can it be necessary saith D. Potter for any Christian to have more in his Creed than the (c) Pag. 221. Apostles had and the Church of their times I answer You trifle not distinguishing between the Apostles belief and that abridgment of some Articles of Faith which we call the Apostles Creed and withall you beg the question by supposing that the Apostles believed no more than is contained in their Creed which every unlearned person knows and believes and I hope you will not deny but the Apostles were endued with greater knowledg than ordinary persons 24. Your
before I told you if you will believe all the Points of the Creed you cannot choose but believe all the Points of it that are Fundamental though you be ignorant which are so and which are not so Now I believe your desire to know which are Fundamentals proceeds only from a desire to be assured that you do believe them which seeing you may be assured of without knowing which they be what can it be but curiosity to desire to desire to know it Neither may you think to mend your self herein one whit by having recourse to them whom we call Papists for they are as far to seek as we in this Point which of the Articles of the Creed are for their nature and matter Fundamental and which are not Particularly you will scarce meet with any amongst their Doctors so adventurous as to tell you for a certain Whether or no the conception of Christ by the Holy Ghost his being born of a Virgin his Burial his Descent into Hell and the Communion of Saints be Points of their own nature and matter Fundamental Such I mean as without the distinct and explicite knowledge of them no man can be saved 63. But you will say at least they give this certain Rule that all Points defined by Christ's visible Church belong to the foundation of faith in such sense as to deny any such cannot stand with Salvation So also Protestants give you this more certain Rule That whosoever believes heartily those books of Scripture which all the Christian Churches in the world acknowledge to be Canonical and submits himself indeed to this as to the rule of his belief must of necessity believe all things Fundamental and if he live according to his faith cannot fail of Salvation But besides What certainty have you that that rule of Papists is so certain By the visible Church it is plain they mean only their own and why their own only should be the Visible Church I do not understand and as little why all Points defined by this Church should belong to the foundation of faith These things you had need see well and substantially proved before you rely upon them otherwise you expose your self to danger of imbracing damnable errors instead of Fundamental truths But you will say D. Potter himself acknowledges that you do not err in Fundamentals If he did so yet me-thinks you have no reason to rest upon his acknowledgement with any security whom you condemn of error in many other matters Perhaps excess of Charity to your persons may make him censure your errors more favourably than he should do But the truth is and so I have often told you though the Doctor hopes that your errors are not so unpardonably destructive but that some men who ignorantly hold them may be saved yet in themselves he professes and proclaims them damnable and such as he fears will be certainly destructive to such as you are that is to all those who have eyes to see and will not see them 64. Ad § 20 21 22 ãâã In the Remainder of this Chapter you promise to answer D. Potter's Arguments against that which you said before But presently forgetting your self instead of answering his Arguments you fall a confuting his Answers to your own The arguments objected by you which here you vindicate were two 1. The Scripture is not so much as mentioned in the Creed therefore the Creed contains not all things necessary to be believed 2. Baptism is not contained in the Creed therefore not all things necessary To both which Arguments my answer shortly is this that they prove something but it is that which no man here denies For. D. Potter as you have also confessed never said nor undertook to shew that the Apostles intended to comprize in the Creed all Points absolutely which we are bound to believe or after sufficient proposal not to disbelieve which yet here and every where you are obtruding upon him But only that they purposed to comprize in it all such doctrines purely speculative all such matters of simple belief as are in ordinary course necessary to be distinctly and explicitly believed by all men Now neither of these objections do any way infringe or impeach the truth of this Assertion Not the first because according to your own doctrin all men are not bound to know explicitely what books of Scripture are Canonical Nor the second because Baptism is not a matter of Faith but practice not so much to be believed as to be given and received And against these Answers whether you have brought any considerable new matter let the indifferent Reader judge As for the other things which D. Potter rather glanceth at than builds upon in answering these objections as the Creeds being collected out of Scripture and supposing the Authority of it which Gregery of Valentia in the place above cited seems to me to confess to have been the Judgment of the Ancient Fathers and the Nicene Creeds intimating the authority of Canonical Scripture and making mention of Baptism These things were said ex abundanti and therefore I conceive it superfluous to examine your exceptions against them Prove that D. Potter did affirm that the Creed contains all things necessary to be believed of all sorts and then these objections will be pertinent and deserve an answer Or produce some Point of simple belief necessary to be explicitely believed which is not contained either in terms or by consequence in the Creed and then I will either answer your Reasons or confess I cannot But all this while you do but trifle and are so far from hitting the Mark that you rove quite beside the Butt 65. Ad § 23 24 25. D. Potter demands How it can be necessary for any Christian to have more in his Creed than the Apostles had and the Church of their times You Answer That he trifles not distinguishing between the Apostles belief and that abridgment of some Articles of faith which we call the Apostles Creed I reply that it is you which trifle affectedly confounding what D. Potter hath plainly distinguished the Apostles belief of the whole Religion of Christ as it comprehends both what we are to do and what we are to believe with their belief of that part of it which contains not duties of obedience but only the necessary Articles of simple Faith Now though the Apostles Belief be in the former sense a larger thing than that which we call the Apostles Creed yet in the latter sense of the word the Creed I say is a full comprehension of their belief which you your self have formerly confessed though somewhat fearfully and inconstantly and here again unwillingness to speak the truth makes you speak that which is hardly sense and call it an abridgement of some Articles of Faith For I demand these some Articles which you speak of Which are they Those that are out of the Creed or those that are in it Those that are in it it comprehends at large
being prepared in mind to come out of all Error in Faith or material Heresie which certainly you will not deny or if you do you pull down the only pillar of your Church and Religion and deny that which is in effect the only thing you labour to prove through your whole Book 79. The latter Creed which now we have is so uneffectual for these good purposes that you your self tell us of innumerable gross damnable Heresies that have been are and may be whose contrary Truths are neither explicitly nor by consequence comprehended in this Creed So that no man by the belief of this 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 mis-guide men into this as you conceive it pernitious error That believing the Creed they believe all necessary Points of Faith whereas indeed according to you they do not so Now upon these grounds I thus conclude That Creed which hath great commodities and no danger would certainly be better than that which hath great danger and wants many of these great commodities But the former short Creed propos'd 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 80. But say you by this kind of arguing one might infer quite contrary If the Apostles Creed contain all Points necessary to Salvation What need have we of any Church to teach us And consequently what need of the Article of the Church To which I answer that having compared your inference and D. Potter's together I cannot discover any shadow of resemblance between them nor any shew of Reason why the perfection of the Apostles Creed should exclude a necessity of some body to deliver it Much less why the whole Creed's containing all things necessary should make the belief of a part of it unnecessary As well for ought I understand you might avouch this inference to be as good as D. Potters The Apostles Creed contains all things necessary therefore there is no need to believe in God Neither doth it follow so well as D. Potter's Argument follows That if the Apostles Creed contains all things necessary that all other Creeds and Catechisms wherein are added divers other Particulars are superfluous For these other Particulars may be the duties of obedience they may be profitable Points of Doctrine they may be good expositions of the Apostles Creed and so not superfluous and yet for all this the Creed may still contain all Points of Belief that are simply necessary These therefore are poor consequences but no more like D. Potters than an apple is like an oister 81. But this consequence after you have sufficiently slighted and disgraced it at length you promise us news and pretend to grant it But what is that which you mean to grant That the Apostles did put no Article in their Creed but only that of the Church Or that if they had done so they had done better than now they have done This is D. Potter's inference out of your Doctrin and truly if you should grant this this were news indeed Yes say you I will grant it but only thus far that Christ hath referred us only to his Church Yea but this is clean another thing and no news at all that you should grant that which you would fain have granted to you So that your dealing with us is just as if a man should proffer me a courtesie and pretend that he would oblige himself by a note under his hand to give me twenty pound and instead of it write that I owe him forty and desire me to subsctibe to it and be thankful Of such favours as these it is very safe to be liberal 82. You tell us afterward but how it comes in I know not that it were a childish argument The Creed contains not all things necessary Ergo It is not profitable Or The Church alone is sufficient to teach us by some convenient means Ergo She must teach us without means These indeed are childish arguments but for ought I see you alone are the father of them for in D. Potter's book I can neither meet with them nor any like them He indeed tels you that if by an impossible supposition your Doctrin were true another and a far shorter Creed would have been more expedient even this alone I believe the Roman Church to be infallible But why you should conclude he makes this Creed which we have unprofitable because he says another that might be conceived upon this false supposition would be more profitable or that he lays a necessity upon the Church of teaching without means or of not teaching this very Creed which now is taught these things are so subtil that I cannot apprehend them To my understanding by those words And sent us to the Church for all the rest he does rather manifestly imply that the rest might be very well not only profitable but necessary and that the Church was to teach this by Creeds or Catechisms or Councels or any other means which she should make choice of for being Infallible she could not chuse amiss 83. Whereas therefore you say If the Apostles had exprest no Article but that of the Catholique 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 in stead 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 Symbol should
most certain and infallible wherein it surpasseth humane Opinion it must relie upon some motive and ground which may be able to give it certainly and yet not release it from Obscurity For if this motive ground or formal Object of Faith were any thing evidently presented to our understanding and if also we did evidently know that it had a necessary connection with the Articles which we believe our assent to such Articles could not be obscure but evident which as we said is against the nature of our faith If likewise the motive and ground of our faith were obscurely propounded to us but were not in it self infallible it would leave our assent in obscurity but could not endue it with certainty We must therefore for the ground of our faith find out a motive obscure to us but most certain in it self that the act of faith may remain both obscure and certain Such a motive as this can be no other but the divine authority of Almighty God revealing or speaking those truths which our faith believes For it is manifest that God's infallible testimony may transfâââ Certainty to our faith and yet not draw it out of obscurity because no humane discourse or demonstration can evince that God revealeth any supernatural truth since God hath been no less perfect than he is although hââââ never revealed any of those objects which we now believe 4 Nevertheless because Almighty God out of his infinite wisdom and sweetness doth conour with his Creatures in such sort as may befit the temper and exigence of their natures and because Man is a Creature endued with reason God doth not exact of his Will or Understanding any other then as the Apostle faith rationabile (f) Rom. 12.1 obsequium an Obedience sweetned with good reason which could not so appear if our Understanding were summoned to believe with certainty things no way represented as infallible and certain And therefore Almighty God obliging us under pain of eternal camnation to believe with greatest certainty divers verities not known by the light of natural reason cannot fail to furnish our Understanding with such inducements motives and arguments as may sufficiently perswade any mind which is not partial or passionate that the objects which we believe proceed from an Authority so Wise that it cannot be deceived so Good that it cannot deceive according to the words of David Thy Testimonies are made (g) Psal 92. credible exceedingly These inducements are by Divines called argumenta credibilitatis arguments of credibility which though they cannot make us evidently see what we believe yet they evidently convince that in one wisdom and prudence the objects of faith deserve credit and ought to be accepted as things revealed by God For without such reasons and inducements our judgment of faith could not be conceived prudent holy Scripture telling us that be who soon (h) Eccles 19. â believes is light of heart By these arguments and inducements our Understanding is both satisfied with evidence of credibility and the objects of faith retain their obsenrity because it is a different thing to be evidently credible and evidently true as those who were present at the Miracles wrought by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles did not evidently see their doctrin to be true for then it had not been Faith but Science and all had been necessitated to believe which we see fell out otherwise but they were evidently convinced that the things confirmed by such Miracles were most credible and worthy to be imbraced as truth revealed by God 5 These evident arguments of Credibility are in great abundance found in the Visible Church of Christ perpetually existing on earth For that there hath been a company of men professing such and such doctrines we have from our next Predecessors and these from theirs upward till we come to the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour which gradation is known by evidence of sense by reading books or hearing what one man delivers to another And it is evident that there was neither cause nor possibility that men so distant in place so different in temper so repugnant in private ends did or could agree to tell one and the self same thing if it had been but a fiction invented by themselves as ancient Tertullian well saith How is it likely that so many (i) Praescript c. 28. and so great Churches should err in one saith Among many events there is not one issue the error of the Churches must needs have varied But that which among many is sound to be One is not mistaken but delivered Dare then any body say that they erred who delivered it With this never-interrupted existence of the Church are joyned the many and great miracles wrought by mân of that Congregation or Church the sanctity of the persons the renowned victories over so many persecutions both of all sorts of men and of the infernal spirits and lastly the perpetual existence of so holy a Church being brought up to the Apostles themselves she comes to partake of the same assurance of truth which They by so many powerful ways did communicate to their Doctrin to the Church of their times together with the divine Certainty which they received from our blessed Saviour himself revealing to Mankind what he heard from his Father and so we conclude with Tertullian We receive it from the Churches the Churches (k) Praese c. 21. 37. from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from his Father And if we once interrupt this line of succession most certainly made known by means of holy Tradition we cannot conjoyn the present Church and doctrin with the Church and doctrin of the Apostles buâ must invent some new means and arguments sufficient of themselves to find out and prove a true Church and faith independently of the preaching and writing of the Apostles neither of which can be known but by Tradition as is truly observed by Tertullian saying I will prescribe that (l) Praesc c. 22. there is no means to prove what the Apostles preached but by the same Church which they sounded 6 Thus then we are to proceed By evidence of manifest and incorrupt Tradition I know that there hath always been a never interrupted Succession of men from the Apostles time believing professing and practising such and such doctrines By evident arguments of credibility as Miracles Sanctity Unity c. and by all those ways whereby the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour himself confirmed their doctrin we are assured that what the said never-interrupted Church proposeth doth deserve to be accepted and acknowledged as a divine truth By evidence of Sense we see that the same Church proposeth such and such doctrins as divine truths that is as revealed and testified by Almighty God By this divine Testimony we are infallibly assured of what we believe and so the last period ground motive and formal object of our Faith is the infallible testimony of that supreme Verity which
if you will needs comprehend all those Churches which want succession you must confess that your Church doth not only communicate with Schismatical and Heretical Churches but is also compounded of such Churches and your selves cannot avoid the note of Schismatiques or Heretiques if it were but for participating with such heretical Churches For it is impossible to retain Communion with the true Catholique Church and yet agree with them who are divided from her by Schism or Heresie because that were to affirm that for the self same time they could be within and without the Catholique Church as proportionably I discoursed in the next precedent Chapter concerning the communicating of moderate Protestants with those who maintain that Heresie of the Latency and Invisibility of Gods Church where I brought a place of S. Cyprian to this purpose which the Reader may be pleased to review in the fifth Chapter and 17 Number 22 But besides this defect in the personal Succession of Protestant Bishops there is another of great moment which is that they want the right Form of ordaining Bishops and Priests because the manner which they use is so much different from that of the Roman Church at least according to the common opinion of Divines that it cannot be sufficient for the Essence of Ordination as I could demonstrate if this were the proper place of such a Treatâfe and will not faâl to do if D. Potter give me occasion In the mean time the Reader may be pleased to read the Author (z) See Adam Tannerum tom 4. disp 7. quaest 2. dub 3. 4. cited here in the margent and the compare the form of our Ordination with that of Protestants and to remember that if the form which they use either in consecrating Bishops or in ordaining Priests be at least doubtful they can neither have undoubted Priests nor Bishops For Priests cannot be ordained but by true Bishops nor can any be a true Bishop unless he first be Priest I say their Ordination is at least doubtful because that sufficeth for my present purpose For Bishops and Priests whose Ordination is notoriously known to be but doubtful are not to be esteemed Bishops or Priests and no man without Sacriledge can receive Sacraments from them all which they administer unlawfully And if we except Baptism with manifest danger of invalidity and with obligation to be at least conditionally repeated so Protestants must remain doubtful of Remission of sins of their Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and may not pretend to be a true Church which cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests nor without due administration of Sacraments which according to Protestants is an essential note of the true Church And it is a world to observe the proceeding of English Protestants in this point of their Ordinations For first An 3. Edw. 6. cap. 2. when he was a Child about 12. years of age It was enacted that such (a) Dyer fol. 234. term Mich. 6 7. Eliz. form of making and consecrating of Bishops and Priests as by six Prelates and six other to be appointed by the King should be divised mark this word devised and set forth under the great Seal should be used and none other But after this Act was repealed 1. Mar. Sess 2. in so much as that when afterward An. 6. 7. Reg. Eliz. Bishop Bonner being endicted upon a certificate made by D. Horn a Protestant Bishop of Winchester for his refusal of the Oath of Supremacy and he excepting against the indictment because D. Horn was no Bishop all the Judges resolved that his exception was good if indeed D. Horn was not Bishop and they were all at a stand till An S. Eliz. cap. 1. the Act of Edw 6. was renewed and confirmed with a particular proviso that no man should be impeached or molested by means of any certificate by any Bishop or Archbishop made before this last Act. Whereby it is clear that they made some doubt of their own ordination and that there is nothing but uncertainty in the whole business of their Ordination which forsooth must depend upon Six Prelates the great Seal Acts of Parliament being contrary one to another and the like 23 But though they want Personal Succession yet at least they have succession of Doctrin as they say and pretend to prove because they believe as the Apostles believed This is to beg the Question and to take what they may be sure will never be granted For if they want Personal Succession and slight Ecclesiastical Tradition how will they perswade any man that they agree with the doctrin of the Apostles We have heard Tertullian saying I will prescribe (b) Sup. c. 5. against all Heretiques that there is no means to prove what the Apustles preached but by the same Churches which they founded And S. Irenaeus tells us that We may (c) L. 3. c. 5. behold the Tradition of the Apostles in every Church if men be desirous to hear the truth and we can number them who were made Bishops by the Apostles in Churches and their Successors even to us And the same Father in another place saith We ought to obey (d) L. 4. c. 43. those Priests who are in the Church who have Succession from the Apostles and who together with Succession in their Bishopricks have received the certain gift of truth S. Augustine saith I am kept in the Church (e) Contâ epist Fundam c. 4. by the succession of Priests from the very Sea of Peter the Apostle to whom our Saviour after his Resurrection committed his sheep to be fed even to the present Bishop Origen to this purpose giveth us a good and wholsome Rule happy if himself had followed the same in these excellent words Since there be many who think (f) Praef. ad lib. Periarchon they believe the things which are of Christ and some are of different opinion from those who went before them let the preaching of the Church be kept which is delivered by the Apostles by order of Succession and remains in the Church to this very day that only is to be believed for truth which in nothing disagrees from the Tradition of the Church In vain then do these men brag of the doctrin of the Apostles unless first they can demonstrate that they enjoyed a continued succession of Bishops from the Apostles and can shew us a Church which according to S. Austin is deduced by undoubted SUCCESSION from the Sea (g) Cont. Faust cap. 2. of the Apostles even to the present Bishops 24 But yet nevertheless suppose it were granted that they agreed with the doctrin of the Apostles this were not sufficient to prove a Succession in Doctrine For Succession besides agreement or similitude doth also require a never-interrupted conveying of such doctrine from the time of the Apostles till the dayes of those persons who challenge such a Succession And so S Augustine saith we are to believe that Gospel which from the time
whom you question first in point of learning and sufficiency and then in point of conscience and honesty as prevaricating in the Religion which they profess and inclining to Popery Their Learning you say consists only in some superficial talent of preaching languages and elocution and not in any deep knowledge of Philosophy especially of Metaphysicks and much less of that most solid profitable subtile and O rem ridiculam Cato jocosam succinct method of School-Divinity Wherein you have discovered in your self the true Genius and spirit of detraction For taking advantage from that wherein Envy it self cannot deny but they are very eminent and which requires great sufficiency of substantial learning you disparage them as insufficient in all things else As if forsooth because they dispute not eternally Utrum Chimaera bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones Whether a Million of Angels may not sit upon a Needle 's point Because they fill not their brains with notions that signifie nothing to the utter extermination of all reason and common sense and spend not an Age in weaving and unweaving subtile Cobwebs fitter to catch flyes than Souls therefore they have no deep knowledge in the Acroamatical part of Learning But I have too much honoured the poorness of this detraction to take notice of it 20. The other Part of your accusation strikes deeper and is more considerable And that tels us that Protestantism waxeth weary of it self that the Professors of it they especially of greatest worth learning and authority love Temper and Moderation and are at this time more unresolved where to fasten than at the infancy of their Church That Their Churches begin to look with a new face Their walls to speak a new language Their Doctrine to be altered in many things for which their Progenitors forsook the then Visible Church of Christ For example The Pope not Antichrist Prayer for the dead Limbus Patrum Pictures That the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to Interpret Scripture about Freewil Predestination Universal Grace That all our works are not sins Merit of good works Inherent Justice Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledge Traditions Commandments possible to be kept That their thirty nine Articles are patient nay ambitious of some sense wherein they may seem Catholique That to alledge the necessity of wife and children in these dayes is but a weak plea for a married Minister to compass a Benefice That Calvinism is at length accounted Heresie and little less than Treason That men in talk and writing use willingly the once fearful names of Priests and Altars That they are now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers which if they do with sincerity it is easie to tell what doom will pass against Protestants seeing by the confession of Protestants the Fathers are on the Papists side which the Answerer to some so clearly demonstrated that they remained convinced In fine as the Samaritans saw in the Disciples countenances that they meant to go to Jerusalem so you pretend it is even legible in the fore-heads of these men that they are even going nay making haste to Rome Which scurrilous Libel void of all truth discretion and honesty what effect it may have wrought what credit it may have gained with credulous Papists who dream what they desire and believe their own dreams or with ill-affected jealous and weak Protestants I cannot tell But one thing I dare boldly say that you your self did never believe it 21. For did you indeed conceive or had any probable hope that such men as you describe men of worth of learning and authority too were friends and favourers of your Religion and inclinable to your Party Can any imagine that you would proclaim it and bid the world take heed of them Sic notus Ulysses Do we know the Jesuits no better than so What are they turned prevaricators against their own Faction Are they likely men to betray and expose their own Agents and Instruments and to awaken the eyes of Jealousie and to raise the clamor of the people against them Certainly your Zeal to the See of Rome testified by your fourth Vow of special obedience to the Pope proper to your Order and your cunning carriage of all affairs for the greater advantage and advancement of that See are clear demonstrations that if you had thought thus you would never have said so The truth is they that run to extreams in opposition against you they that pull down your infallibility and set up their own they that declaim against your tyranny and exercise it themselves over others are the Adversaries that give you greatest advantage and such as you love to deal with whereas upon men of temper and moderation such as will oppose nothing because you maintain it but will draw as neer to you that they may draw you to them as the truth will suffer them such as require of Christians to believe only in Christ and will damn no Man nor Doctrine without express and certain warrant from God upon such as these you know not how to fasten but if you chance to have conference with any such which yet as much as possibly you can you avoid and decline you are very speedily put to silence and see the indefensible weakness of your cause laid open to all men And this I verily believe is the true reason that you thus rave and rage against them as foreseeing your time of prevailing or even of subsisting would be short if other Adversaries gave you no more advantage than they do 22. In which perswasion also I am much confirmed by consideration of the silliness and poorness of those Suggestions and partly of the apparent vanity and falshood of them which you offer in justification of this wicked Calumny For what if out devotion towards God out of a desire that he should be worshipped as in Spirit and truth in the first place so also in the beauty of holiness what if out of fear that too much simplicity and nakedness in the publique Service of God may beget in the ordinary sort of men a dull and stupid irreverence and out of hope that the outward state and glory of it being well-disposed and wisely moderated may ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto God's Soveraign Majesty and Power what if out of a perswasion and desire that Papists may be won over to us the sooner by the removing of this scandall out of their way and out of an holy jealousie that the weaker sort of Protestants might be the easier seduced to them by the magnificence and pomp of their Church-service in case it were not removed I say What if out of these considerations the Governours of our Church more of late than formerly have set themselves to adorn and beautifie the places where God's Honour dwels and
Adversary Pretending his objections are mean and vulgar and such as have been answered a thousand times But if your cause were good these Arts would be needless For though some of his Objections have been often shifted by men * I mean the Divines of Doway whose profession we have in your Belgick Expurgatorius p. 12. in censura Bertrami in these words Seeing in other ancient Catholiques we tolerate extenuate and excuse very many errors and dâvising some shift often deny them and put upon them a convenient sense when they are objected to us in disputations and conflâcts with our Adversaries we see no reason why Bertram may not deserve the same equity that make a profession of devising shifts and evasions to save themselves and their Religion from the pressure of truth by men that are resolved they will say somthing though they can say nothing to purpose yet I doubt not to make it appear that neither by others have they been truly and really satisfied and that the best Answer you give them is to call them Mean and vulgar objections 12. Ad § 5. But this pains might have been spared For the substance of his Discourse is in a Sermon of D. Ushers and confuted four years ago by Paulus Veridicus It seems then the substance of your Reply is in Paulus Veridicus and so your pains also might well have deen spared But had there been no necessity to help and peece out your confuting his Arguments with disgracing his Person which yet you cannot do you would have considered that to them who compare D. Potters Book and the Arch-Bishops Sermon this aspersion will presently appear a poor Detraction not to be answered but scorned To say nothing that in D. Potter being to answer a Book by express Command from Royal Authority to leave any thing material unsaid because it had been said before especially being spoken at large and without any relation to the Discourse which he was to Answer had been a ridiculous vanity and foul prevarication 13. Ad § 6. In your sixth Parag. I let all pass saving only this That a perswasion that men of different Religions you must mean or else you speak not to the point Christians of divers Opinions and Communions may be saved is a most pernitious Heresie and even a ground of Atheism What strange extractions Chymistry can make I know not but sure I am he that by reason would inferr this Conclusion That there is no God from this ground That God will save men in different Religions must have a higher strain in Logick than you or I have hitherto made shew of In my apprehension the other part of the Contradiction That there is a God should much rather follow from it And whether Contradictions will flow from the same fountain let the Learned judge Perhaps you will say You intended not to deliver here a positive and measured truth and which you expected to be called to account for but only a high and tragical expression of your just detestation of the wicked Doctrin against which you write If you mean so I shall let it pass only I am to advertize the lesse-wary Reader that passionate Expressions and vehement Asseverations are no Arguments unless it be of the weakness of the cause that is defended by them or the man that defends it And to remember you of what Boethius sayes of some such things as these Nubila mens est Haec ubi regnant For my part I am not now in passion neither will I speak one word which I think I cannot justifie to the full and I say and will maintain that to say That Christians of different Opinions and Communions such I mean who hold all those things that are simply necessary to Salvation may not obtain pardon for the Errors wherein they die ignorantly by a general Repentance is so far from being a ground of Atheism that to say the contrary is to crosse in Diameter a main Article of our Creed and to overthrow the Gospel of Christ 14. Ad § 7 8. To the two next Parag. I have but two words to say The one is that I know no Protestants that hold it necessary to be able to prove a Perpetual Visible Church distinct from Yours Some perhaps undertake to do so as a matter of curtesie but I believe you will be much to seek for any one that holds it necessary For though you say that Christ hath promised there shall de a perpetual Visible Church yet you your selves do not pretend that he hath promised there shall be Histories and Records alwayes extant of the professors of it in all ages nor that he hath any where enjoyned us to read those Histories that we may be able to shew them 15. The other is That Breerelie's great exactnesse which you magnifie so and amplifie is no very certain demonstration of his fidelity A Romance may be told with as much variety of circumstances as a true Story 16. Ad 9 10. § Your desires that I would in this rejoynder Avoid impertinencies Not impose doctrins upon you which you disclaim Set down the substance of your Reasons faithfully and entirely Not weary the Reader with unnecessary Quotations Object nothing to you which I can answer my self or which may be returned upon my self And lastly which you repeat again in the end of your Preface speak as clearly and distinctly and univocally as possibly I can are all very reasonable and shall be by me most punctually and fully satisfied Only I have reason to complain that you give us rules only and not good example in keeping them For in some of these things I shall have frequent occasion to shew that Medice cura teipsum may very justly be said unto you especially for objecting what might very easily have been answered by you and may be very justly returned upon you 17. To your ensuing demands though some of them be very captious and ensnaring yet I will give you as clear and plain ingenuous Answers as possibly I can 18. Ad 11. § To the first then about the Perpetuity of the visible Church my Answer is That I believe our Saviour ever since his Ascention hath had in some place or other a Visible true Church on earth I mean a Company of men that professed at least so much truth as was absolutely necessary for their Salvation And I believe that there will be somewhere or other such a Church to the Worlds end But the contrary Doctrin I do at no hand believe to be a damnable Heresie 19. Ad § 12. To the second What Visible Church there was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman I answer that before Luther there were many Visible Churches in many things disagreeing from the Roman But not that the whole Catholique Church disagreed from her because she her self was a Part of the Whole though much corrupted And to undertake to name a Catholike Church disagreeing from her is to make her no Part of
Apocalyps is most truly verified in fictions revelations If any (k) Cap. ult v. 18. shall add to these things God will add unto him the plagues which are written in this Book and D. Potter saith to add (l) Pag. 122. to it speaking of the Creed is high presumption almost as great as to detract from it And therefore to say the Church may add false revelations is to accuse her of high presumption and of pernitious error excluding Salvation 10. Perhaps some will here reply that although the Church may err yet it is nor imputed to her for sin by reason she doth not err upon malice or wittingly but by ignorance or mistake 11. But it is easily demonstrated that 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 at least she cannot be certain that she cannot err and therefore cannot be excused from headlong and pernitious temerity in proposing Points not Fundamental to be believed by Christians as matters of Faith wherein she can have no certainty yea which always imply a falshood For although the thing might chance to be true and perhaps also revealed yet for the matter she for her part doth always expose her self to danger of falshood and error and in fact doth always err in the manner in which she doth propound any matter not Fundamental because she proposeth it as a Point of Faith certainly true which yet is always uncertain if she in such things may be deceived 12. Besides if the Church may err in Points not Fundamental she may err in proposing some Scripture for Canonical which is not such or else err in nor keeping and conserving from corruptions such Scriptures as are already believed to be Canonical For I will suppose that in such Apocryphal Scripture as she delivers there is no Fundamental Error against Faith or that there is no falshood at all but only want of Divine testification in which case D. Potter must either grant that it is a Fundamental Error to apply Divine revelation to any Point not revealed or else must yield that the Church may err in her Proposition or Custody of the Canon of Scripture and so we cannot be sure whether she hath not been deceived already in Books recommended by her and accepted by Christians And thus we shall have no certainty of Scripture if the Church want certainty in all her definitions And it is worthy to be observed that some Books of Scripture which were not alwayes known to be Canonical have been afterward received for such but never any on Book or syllable defined by the Church to be Canonical was afterward questioned or rejected for Apocryphal A sign that God's Church is infallibly assisted by the holy Ghost never to propose as Divine truth any thing not revealed by God and that Omission to define Points not sufficiently discussed is laudable but Commission in propounding things not revealed inexcusable into which precipitation our Saviour Christ never hath nor never will permit his Church to fall 13. Nay to limit the general promises of our Saviour Christ made to his Church to Points only Fundamental namely that the gates (m) Mat. 16.18 of hell shall not prevail against her and that the holy Ghost (n) Joan. 16.13 shall lead her into all Truth c. is to destroy all Faith For we may be that Doctrin and manner of interpreting the Scripture limit the Infallibility of the Apostles words and preaching only to Points Fundamental and whatsoever general Texts of Scripture shall be alledged for their infallibility they may be D. Potter's example be explicated and restrained to Points Fundamental By the same reason it may be farther affirmed that the Apostles and other Writers of Canonical Scripture were indued with infallibility only in setting down Points Fundamental For if it be urged that all Scripture is divinely inspired that it is the Word of God c. D. Potter hath afforded you a ready answer to say that Scripture is inspired c. only in those parts or parcels wherein it delivereth Fundamental Points In this manner D. Fotherby saith The Apostle (o) In his Sermons Serm. 2. pag. 50. twice in one Chapter professed that this he speaketh and not the Lord He is very well content that where he lacks the warrant of the express Word of God that part of his writings should be esteemed as the word of man D. Potter also speaks very dangerously towards this purpose Sect. 5. where he endeavoureth to prove that the infallibility of the Church is limited to Points Fundamental because as Nature so God is neither defective in (p) Pag. 150. necessaries nor lavish in superfluities Which reason doth likewise prove that the infallibility of Scripture and of the Apostles must be restrained to Points necessary to Salvation that so God be not accused as defective in (p) Pag. 150. necessaries or lavish insuperfluities In the same place he hath a discourse much tending to this purpose where speaking of these words The Spirit shall lead you into all Truth and shall abide with (q) Joan. c. 16.13 c. 14.16 you for ever he saith Though that promise was (r) Pag. 151 152. directly and primarily made to the Apostles who had the Spirit 's guidance in a more high and absolute manner than any since them yet it was made to them for the behoof of the Church and is verified in the Church Universal But all truth is not simply all but all of some kind To be lead into all truths is to know and believe them And who is so simple as to be ignorant that there are many millions of Truths in Nature History Divinity whereof the Church is simply ignorant How many Truths lie unrevealed in the infinite Treasury of God's wisdom wherewith the Church is not acquainted c So then the Truth it self enforceth us to understand by all Truths not simply all not all which God can possibly reveal but all pertaining to the substance of Faith all Truth absolutely necessary to Salvation Mark what he saith That promise The Spirit shall lead you into all Truth was made directly to the Apostles and is verified in the Universal Church but by all Truth is not understood simply all but all appertaining to the substance of Faith and absolutely necessary to Salvation Doth it not hence follow that the promise made to the Apostles of being lead into all Truth is to be understood only of all Truth absolutely necessary to Salvation and consequently their preaching and writing were not infallible in Points not Fundamental or if the Apostles were infallible in all things which they proposed as divine Truth the like must be affirmed of the Church because D. Potter teacheth the said promise to be verified in the Church And as he limits the aforesaid words to Points Fundamental so may he restrain what other Text soever that can be
brought for the universal infallibility of the Apostles or Scriptures So he may and so he must lest otherwise he receive this answer of his own from himself How many Truths lie unrevealed in the infinite Treasury of God's wisdom wherewith the Church is not acquainted And therefore to verifie such general sayings they must be understood of Truths absolutely necessary to Salvation Are not these fearful consequences And yet D. Potter will never be able to avoid them till he come to acknowledge the infallibility of the Church in all Points by her proposed as divine Truths and thus it is universally true that she is lead into all Truth in regard that our Saviour never permits her to define or teach any falshood 14. All that with any colour may be replyed to this Argument is That if once we call any one Book or parcel of Scripture in question although for the matter it contain no Fundamental error yet it is of great importance and Fundamental by reason of the consequence because if once we doubt of one Book received for Canonical the whole Canon is made doubtful and uncertain and therefore the infallibility of Scripture must be universal and not confined within compass of Points Fundamental 15. I answer For the thing it self it is very true that if I doubt of any one parcel of Scripture received for such I may doubt of all and thence by the same parity I infer that if we did doubt of the Churches infallibility in some Points we could nor believe her in any one and consequently not in propounding Canonical Books or any other Points Fundamental or not Fundamental which thing being most absurd and withal most impious we must take away the ground thereof and believe that she cannot err in any Point great or small and so this reply doth much more strengthen what we intend to prove Yet I add that Protestants cannot make use of this reply with any good coherence to this their distinction and some other Doctrines which they defend For if D. Potter can tell what Points in particular be Fundamental as in his 7. Sect. he pretendeth then he might be sure that whensoever he meets with such Points in Scripture in them it is infallibly true although it may err in others and not only true but clear because Protestants teach that in matters necessary to Salvation the Scripture is so clear that all such necessary Truths are either manifestly contained therein or may be clearly deduced from it Which Doctrines being put together to wit That Scriptures cannot err in Points Fundamental that they clearly contain all such Points and that they can tell what Points in particular be such I mean Fundamental it is manifest that it is sufficient for Salvation that Scripture be infallible only in Points Fundamental For supposing these Doctrines of theirs to be true they may be sure to find in Scripture all Points necessary to Salvation although it were fallible in other Points of less moment Neither will they be able to avoid this impiety against holy Scripture till they renounce their other Doctrines and in particular till they believe that Christ's promises to his Church are not limited to Points Fundamental 16 Besides from the fallibility of Christ's Catholique Church in some Points it followeth that no true Protestant learned or unlearned doth or can with assurance believe the universal Church in any one Point of Doctrine Not in Points of lesser moment which they call not-Fundamental because they believe that in such Points she may err Not in Fundamental because they must know what Points be Fundamental before they go to learn of her lest otherwise they be rather deluded than instructed in regard that her certain and infallible direction extends only to Points Fundamental Now if before they address themselves to the Church they must know what Points are Fundamental they learn not of her but will be as sit to teach as to be taught by her How then are all Christians so often so seriously upon so dreadful menaces by Fathers Scriptures and our blessed Saviour himself counselled and commanded to seek to hear to obey the Church S. Austin was of a very disterent mind from Protestants If saith he the (s) Epist 118. Church through the whole world practise any of these things to dispute whether that ought to be so done is a most insolent madness And in another place he saith That which (t) Lib. 4. de Bapt. cap. 24. the whole Church holds and is not ordained by Councels but hath always been kept is most rightly believed to be delivered by Apostolical Authority The sâme holy Father teacheth that the custom of baptizing children cannot be proved by Scripture alone and yet that it is to be believed as derived from the Apostles The custom of our Mother the (u) Lib. 10. de Geaâsi ad liter cap. 23. Church saith he in baptizing Infants is in no wise to be contemned nor to be accounted superfluous nor is it at all to be believed unless it were an Apostolical Tradition And elsewhere Christ (w) Serm. 14. de verbis Apost cap. 18. is of profit to Children baptized Is he therefore of profit to persons not believing But God forbid that I should say Infants do not believe I have already said he believes in another who sinned in another It is said he believes and it is of force and he is reckoned among the faithful that are baptized This the authority of our Mother the Church hath against this strength against this invincible wall whosoever rusheth shall be crushed in pieces To this argument the Protestants in the Conference at Ratisbon gave this round Answer Nos ab Augustino (x) See protocol Monach. edit 2. p 367. hac in parte liberè dissentimus In this we plainly disagree from Augustin Now if this Doctrine of baptizing Infants be not Fundamental in D. Potter's sense then according to S. Augustine the infallibility of the Church extends to Points not Fundamental But if on the other side it be a Fundamental Point then according to the same holy Doctor we must relie on the authority of the Church for some Fundamental Point not contained in Scripture but delivered by Tradition The like argument I frame out of the same Father about the not re-baptizing of those who were baptized by Heretiques whereof he excellently to our present purpose speaketh in this manner We follow (y) Lib. 1. cont Crescon cap. 32. 34. indeed in this matter even the most certain authority of Canonical Scriptures But how consider his words Although verily there be brought no example for this Point out of the Canonical Scriptures yet even in this Point the truth of the same Scriptures is held by us while we do that which the authority of Scriptures doth recommend that so because the holy Scripture cannot deceive us whosoever is afraid to be deceived by the obscurity of this question must have recourse to the same
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 Traveller is not always certain of his way but often mistaken and doth 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 Infallibility 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. 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 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 Tradition of which the testimony of any present Church is but a little part So that here you fall into the Fallacy à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter For in effect this is the sense of your Argument Unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty of Scripture from the Authority of the Church Therefore unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty hereof at all As if a man should say If the Vintage of France miscarry we can have no Wine from France Therefore if that Vintage miscarry we can have no Wine at all And for the incorruption of Scripture I know no other rational assurance we can have of it than such as we have of the incorruption of other ancient Books that is the consent of ancient Copies such I mean for the kind though it be far greater for the degree of it And if the Spirit of God give any man any other Assurance hereof this is not rational and discursive but supernatural and infused And Assurance it may be to himself but no Argument to another As for the infallibility of the Church it is so far from being a proof of Scriptures Incorruption that no proof can be pretended for it but incorrupted places of Scripture which yet are as subject to corruption as any other and more likely to have been corrupted if it had been possible than any other and made to speak as they do for the advantage of those men whose ambition it hath been a long time to bring all under their Authority Now then if any man should prove the Scriptures uncorrupted because the Church says so which is infallible I would demand again touching this very thing That there is an Infallible Church seeing it is not of it self evident how shall I be assured of it And what can he answer but that the Scripture says so in these and these places Hereupon I would ask him how shall I be assured that the Scriptures are incorrupted in these places seeing it is possible and not altogether improbable that these men which desire to be thought Infallible when they had the government of all things in their own hands may have altered them for their purpose If to this he answer again that the Church is infallible and therefore cannot do so I hope it would be apparent that he runs round in a circle and proves the Scriptures incorruption by the Churches infallibility and the Churches infallibility by the Scriptures incorruption and that is in effect the Churches infallibility by the Churches infallibility and the Scriptures incorruption by the Scriptures incorruption 28. Now for your Observation that some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received for such But never any Book or Syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal I demand touching the first sort Whether they were commended to the Church by the Apostles as Canonical or not If not seeing the whole Faith was preached by the Apostles to the Church and seeing after the Apostles the Church pretends to no new Revelations How can it be an Article of Faith to believe them Canonical And how can you pretend that your Church which makes this an Article of Faith is so assisted as not to propose any thing as a Divine Truth which is not revealed by God If they were How then is the Church an infallible keeper of the Canon of Scripture which hath suffered some Books of Canonical Scripture to be lost and others to lose for a long time their being Canonical at least the necessity of being so esteemed and afterwards as it were by the law of Postliminium hath restored their Authority and Canonicalness unto them If this was delivered by the Apostles to the Church the point was sufficiently discussed and therefore your Churche's omission to teach it for some Ages as an Article of Faith nay degrading it from the number of Articles of Faith and putting it among disputable problems was surely not very laudable If it were not revealed by God to the Apostles and by the Apostles to the Church then can it be no Revelation and therefore her presumption in proposing it as such is inexcusable 19. And then for the other part of it that never any Book or Syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal Certainly it is a bold Asseveration but extremely false For I demand The Book of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom the Epistle of St. James and to the Hebrews were they by the Apostles approved for Canonical or no If not With what face dare you approve them and yet pretend that all your doctrin is Apostolical Especially seeing it is evident that this point is not deducible by rational discourse from any other defined by them If they were approved by them this I hope was a sufficient definition and therefore you were best rub your forehead hard and say that these Books were never questioned But if you do so then I shall be bold to ask you what Books you meant in saying before Some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received Then for the Book of Macchabees I hope you will say it was defined for Canonical before S. Gregorie's time and yet he lib. 19. Moral c. 13. citing a testimony out of it prefaceth to it
after this manner Concerning which matter we do not amiss if we produce a testimony out of Books although not Canonical yet set forth for the edification of the Church For Eleazar in the Book of Macchabees c. Which if it be not to reject it from being Canonical is without question at least to question it Moreover because you are so punctual as to talk of words and syllables I would know whether before Sixtus Quintus his time your Church had a defined Canon of Scripture or not If not then was your Church surely a most Vigilant Keeper of Scripture that for 1500. years had not defined what was Scripture and what was not If it had then I demand Was it that set forth by Sixtus or that set forth by Clement or a third different from both If it were that set forth by Sixtus then is it now condemned by Clement if that of Clement it was condemned I say but sure you will say contradicted and questioned by Sixtus If different from both then was it questioned and condemned by both and still lies under the condemnation But then lastly Suppose it had been true That both some Book not known to be Canonical had been received and that never any after receiving had been questioned How had this been a sign that the Church is infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost In what mood or figure would this Conclusion follow out of these Premisses Certainly your flying to such poor signs as these are is to me a great sign that you labour with penury of better Arguments and that thus to catch at shadows and bulrushes is a shrewd sign of a sinking cause 3. 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 The Argument put in form and made compleat by supply of the concealed Proposition runs thus The Infallibility promised to the present Church of any Age is as absolute and unlimited as that promised to the Apostles in their Preaching and Writings But the Apostles Infallibility is not to be limited to Fundamentals Therefore neither is the Churche's Infallibility thus to be limited Or thus The Apostles Infallibility in their Preaching and Writing may be limited to Fundamentals as well as the Infallibility of the present Church But that is not to be done Therefore this also is not to be done Now to this Argument I answer that if by may be as well in the Major Proposition be understood may be as possibly it is true but impertinent If by it we understand may be as justly and rightly It is very pertinent but very false So that as D. Potter limits the infallibility of the Present Church unto Fundamentals so another may limit the Apostles unto them also He may do it de facto but de jure he cannot that may be done and done lawfully this also may be done but not lawfully That may be done and if it be done cannot be confuted 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 end Besides there is not the same reason for the Churche's absolute Infallibility as for the Apostles and Scripture's 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 then the Churche's which is built upon them Again a dependant Infallibility especially if the dependance 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 as the straitness of the thing regulated upon the straitness of the Rule and besides this dependance 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 hath free-will and is subject to passions and error Therefore the Churche's 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 lye and that the eternal Truth should set his hand and seal to the confirmation of a falshood or of such Doctrine as is partly true and partly false The Apostles Doctrine 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 errour 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 Saviour's 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 humane 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 1. Epist to the Corinth 7.12 To the rest speak I not the Lord And again Concerning Virgins I have no commandment of the
Lay-men but in one kind That Pictures may be worshipped That Saints are to be invocated and so in the rest and then your differences about the Popes Supremacy Transubstantiation and all the rest will speedily be ended If you say the advice is good in this but not in other cases I must request you not to expect alwaies to be believed upon your word but to shew us some reason why any one thing namely the Churches Infallibility is fit to prove it self and any other thing by name the Popes Supremacy or Transubstantiation is not as fit Or if for shame you will at length confess that the Churches infallibility is not fit to decide this difference Whether the Church be infallible then you must confess it is not fit to decide all Unless you will say it may be fit to decide all and yet not fit to decide this or pretend that this is not comprehended under all Besides if you grant that your Churches Infallibility cannot possibly be well grounded upon or decided by it self then having professed before that there is no possible means besides this for us to agree hereupon I hope you will give me leave to conclude that it is impossible upon good ground for us to agree that the Roman Church is infallible For certainly light it self is not more clear than the evidence of this Syllogism If there be no other means to make men agree upon your Churches Infallibility but only this and this be no means then it is simply impossible for men upon good grounds to agree that your Church is infallible But there is as you have granted no other possible means to make men agree hereupon but only a submissive ackdowledgment of her Infallibility And this is apparently no means Therefore it is simply impossible for men upon good grounds to agree that your Church is infallible 90. Lastly to the place of S. Austin wherein we are advis'd to follow the way of Catholique Discipline which from Christ himself by the Apostles hath come down even to us and from us shall descend to all posterity I answer That the way which S. Austin spake of and the way which you commend being divers wayes and in many things clean contrary we cannot possibly follow them both and therefore for you to apply the same words to them is a vain equivocation Shew us any way and do not say but prove it to have come from Christ and his Apostles down to us and we are ready to follow it Neither do we expect demonstration hereof but such reasons as may make this more probable than the contrary But if you bring in things into your now Catholique Discipline which Christians in S. Austins time held abominable as the picturing of God and which you must and some of you do confess to have come into the Church seven hundred yeers after Christ if you will bring in things as you have done the halfe Communion with a non obstante notwithstanding Christs Institution and the practice of the Primitive Church were to the contrary If you will do such things as these and yet would have us believe that your whole Religion came from Christ and his Apostles this we conceive a request too unreasonable for modest men to make or for wise men to grant CHAP. IV. To say that the Creed contains all Points necessarily to be believed is neither pertinent to the Quâstion in hand nor in it self true I SAY neither pertinent nor true Not pertinent Because our Question is nor What Points are necessary to be explicitely believed but what Points may be lawfully disbelieved or rejected after sufficient Proposition that they are divine Truths You say the Creed contains all Points necessary to be believed Be it so But doth it likewise contain all Points not to be disbelieved Certainly it doth not For how many Truths are there in holy Scripture not contained in the Creed which we are not obliged distinctly and particularly to know and believe but are bound under pain of damnation not to reject as soon as we come to know that they are found in holy Scripture And we having already shewed that whatsoever is proposed by God's Church as a Point of Faith is infallibly a truth revealed by God it followeth that whosoever denyeth any such Point opposeth God's sacred testimony whether that Point be contained in the Creed or no. In vain then was your care imployed to prove that all Points of Faith necessary to be explicitely believed are contained in the Creed Neither was that the Catalogue which Charity Mistaken demanded His demand was and it was most reasonable that you would once give us a List of all Fundamentals the denyal whereof destroyes Salvation whereas the denyal of other Points not Fundamental may stand with Salvation although both these kinds of Points be equally proposed as revealed by God For if they be not equally proposed the difference will arise from diversity of the Proposal and not of the Matter fendamental or not fundamental This Catalogue only can shew how farre Protestants may disagree without breach of Unity in Faith and upon this may other matters depend according to the ground of Protestants But you will never adventure to publish such a Catalogue I say more You can not assigne any one Point so great oâ fundamental that the denyal thereof will make a man an Heretique if it be not sufficiently propounded as a divine Truth Nor can you assigne any one Point so small that it can without heresie be rejected if once it be sufficiently represented as revealed by God 2. Nay this your instance in the Creed is not only impertinent but directly against you For all Points in the Creed are not of their own nature Fundamental as I shewed (a) Cap. 3. n. 3. before And yet it is damnable to deny any one Point contained in the Creed So that it is cleer that to make an error damnable it is not necessary that the matter be of it self fundamental 3. Moreover you cannot ground any certainty upon the Creed it self unless first you presuppose that the Authority of the Church is universally infallible and consequently that it is damnable to oppose her Declarations whether they concerne matters great or small contained or not contained in the Creed This is clear Because we must receive the Creed it self upon the credit of the Church without which we could not know that there was any such thing as that which We call the Apostles Creed and yet the Arguments whereby you endeavour to prove that the Creed contains all Fundamental Points are grounded upon supposition that the Creed was made either by the Apostles themselves or by the (b) Pag. 216. Church of their times from them which thing we could not certainly know if the succeeding and still continued Church may err in her Traditions neither can we be assured whether all Fundamental Articles which you say were out of the Scriptures summed and contracted into the Apostles
Azorius had thought thus of it how could he have called it (a) Azor. part 1. c 5. A brief comprehension of the Faith and a sum of all things to be believed and as it were a sign or cognizance whereby Christians are to be differenced and distinguished from the impious and mis-believers who profess either no faith or not the right If Huntly had been of this mind how could he have said of it with any congruity (b) Cont. 2. c. 10. n. 10. That the rule of Faith is expresly contained in it and all the prime foundations of Faith And That the Apostles were not so forgetful as to omit any prime principal foundation of Faith in that Creed which they delivered to be believed by all Christians The words of Filiucius are pregnant to the same purpose (c) Moral quest Tr. 22. c. 2. n 34. There cannot be a fitter Rule from whence Christians may learn what they are explicitely to believe than that which is contained in the Creed Which words cannot be justified if all Points necessary to be believed explicitely be not comprised in it To this end saith Putean (d) In 2.2 qu. 2. Art 3. Dubuit was the Creed composed by the Apostles that Christians might have a form whereby they might profess themselves Catholiques But certainly the Apostles did this in vain if a man might profess this and yet for matter of Faith be not a Catholique 26. The words of Cardinal Richelieu (e) Instruction du Christien Lecon prâmiere exact this sense and refuse your gloss as much as any of the former The Apostles Creed is the Summary and Abridgement of that Faith which is necessary for a Christian These holy persons being by the Commandement of Jesus Christ to disperse themselves over the world and in all parts by preaching the Gospel to plant the Faith esteemed it very necessary to reduce into a short sum all that which Christians ought to know to the end that being dispersed into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing in a short Form that it might be the easier remembred For this effect they called this Abridgement a Symbole which signifies a mark or sign which might serve to distinguish true Christians which imbraced it from Infidels which rejected it Now I would fain know how the composition of the Creed could serve for this end and secure the Preachers of it that they should preach the same thing if there were other necessary Articles not comprized in it Or how could it be a sign to distinguish true Christians from others if a man might believe it all and for want of believing something else not be a true Christian 27. The words of the (f) Ch. 3. Confid 1. Sect 5. p. 119. Author of the Consideration of four heads propounded to King James require the same sense and utterly renounce your qualification The Symbole is a brief yet entire Methodical sum of Christian Doctrin including all Points of Faith either to be preached by the Apostles or to be believed by their Disciples Delivered both for a Direction unto them what they were to preach and others to believe as also to discern and put a difference betwixt all faithful Christians and mis-believing Infidels 28. Lastly (g) 2.2 dis 1. q. 2. p. 4. in fin Gregory of Valence affirms our Assertion even in terms The Articles of Faith contained in the Creed are as it were the first principles of the Christian Faith in which is contained the sum of Evangelical Doctrin which all men are bound explicitely to believe 29. To these Testimonies of your own Doctors I should have added the concurrent Suffrages of the ancient Fathers but the full and free acknowledgment of the same Valentia in the place above quoted will make this labour unnecessary So judg saith he the holy Fathers affirming that this Symbole of Faith was composed by the Apostles that all might have a short sum of those things which are to be believed and are dispersedly contained in Scripture 30. Neither is there any discord between this Assertion of your Doctors and their holding themselves obliged to believe all the Points which the Council of Trent defines For Protestants and Papists may both hold that all Points of Belief necessary to be known and believed are summed up in the Creed and yet both the one and the other think themselves bound to believe whatsoever other Points they either know or believe to be revealed by God For the Articles which are necessary to be known that they are revealed by God may be very few and yet those which are necessary to be believed when they are revealed and known to be so may be very many 31. But Summaries and Abstracts are not intended to specifie all the particulars of the Science or Subject to which they belong Yes if they be intended for perfect Summaries they must not omit any necessary doctrin of that Science whereof they are Summaries though the Illustration and Reasons of it they may omit If this were not so a man might set down forty or fifty of the principal Definitions and Divisions and Rules of Logick and call it a Summary or Abstract of Logick But sure this were no more a Summary than that were the picture of a man in little that wanted any of the parts of a man or that a total sum wherein all the particulars were not cast up Now the Apostles Creed you here intimate that it was intended for a Summary otherwise why talk you here of Summaries and tell us that they need not contain all the particulars of their Science And of what I pray may it be a Summary but of the Fundamentals of Christian Faith Now you have already told us That it is most full and compleat to that purpose for which it was intended Lay all this together and I believe the product will be That the Apostles Creed is a perfect Summary of the Fundamentals of the Christian Faith and what the duty of a perfect Summary is I have already told you 32. Whereas therefore to disprove this Assertion in divers particles of this Chapter but especially the fourteenth you muster up whole Armies of Doctrins which you pretend are necessary and not contained in the Creed I answer very briefly thus That the Doctrins you mention are either concerning matters of practice and not simple Belief or else they are such Doctrins wherein God hath not so plainly revealed himself but that honest and good men true Lovers of God and of Truth those that desire above all things to know his will and do it may err and yet commit no sin at all or only a sin of infirmity and not destructive of Salvation or lastly they are such Doctrins which God hath plainly revealed and so are necessary to be believed when they are known to be divine but not necessary to be known and believed not necessary to be known for divine that they may be
believed Now all these sorts of Doctrins are impertinent to the present Question For D. Potter never affirmed either that the necessary duties of a Christian or that all Truths piously credible but not necessary to be believed or that all Truths necessary to be believed upon the supposal of divine Revelation were specified in the Creed For this he affirms only of such speculative divine Verities which God hath commanded particularly to be preached to all and believed by all Now let the Doctrins objected by you be well considered and let all those that are reducible to the three former heads be discarded and then of all these Instances against D. Potter's Assertion there will not remain so much as one 33. First the Questions touching the conditions to be performed by us to obtain remission of sins the Sacraments the Commandements and the possibility of keeping them the necessity of imploring the Assistance of Gods Grace and Spirit for the keeping of them how far obedience is due to the Church Prayer for the Dead the cessation of the old Law are all about Agenda and so cut off upon the first consideration 34. Secondly the Question touching Fundamentals is profitable but not fundamental He that believes all Fundamentals cannot be damned for any error in Faith though he believe more or less to be Fundamental than is so That also of the procession of the Holy-Ghost from the Father and the Son of Purgatory of the Churches Visibility of the Books of the New-Testament which were doubted of by a considerable part of the Primitive Church until I see better reason for the contrary than the bare authority of men I shall esteem of the same condition 35. Thirdly These Doctrins That Adam and the Angels sinned that there are Angels good and bad that those Books of Scripture which were never doubted of by any considerable part of the Church are the Word of God that S. Peter had no such Primacy as you pretend that the Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith and consequently that no necessary Doctrine is unwritten that there is no one Society or Succession of Christians absolutely infallible These to my understanding are Truths plainly revealed by God and necessary to be believed by them who know they are so but not so necessary that every man and woman is bound under pain of damnation particularly to know them to be divine Revelations and explicitely to believe them And for this reason these with innumerable other Points are to be referred to the third sort of Doctrins above-mentioned which were never pretended to have place in the Creed There remains one only Point of all that Army you mustered together reducible to none of these heads and that is that God is and is a Remunerator which you say is questioned by the denyal of Merit But if there were such a necessary indissoluble coherence between this Point and the Doctrine of merit me-thinks with as much reason and more charity you might conclude That we hold Merit because we hold this Point than that we deny this Point because we deny Merit Besides when Protestants deny the Doctrine of Merits you know right-well for so they have declared themselves a thousand times that they mean nothing else but with David that their well-doing extendeth not is not truly beneficial to God with our Saviour when they have done all which they are commanded they have done their duty only and no curtesie And lastly with S. Paul that all which they can suffer for God and yet suffering is more then doing is not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed So that you must either misunderstand their meaning in denying Merit or you must discharge their Doctrin of this odious consequence or you must charge it upon David and Paul and Christ himself Nay you must either grant their denial of true Merit just and reasonable or you must say that our good actions are really profitable to God that they are not debts already due to him but voluntary and undeserved Favours and that they are equal unto and well worthy of eternal glory which is prepared for them As for the inconvenience which you so much fear That the denial of Merit makes God a Giver only and not a Rewarder I tell you good Sir you fear where no fear is And that it is both most true on the one side that you in holding good Works meritorious of eternal glory make God a Rewarder only and not a Giver contrary to plain Scripture affirming that The gift of God is eternal life And that it is most false on the other side that the Doctrin of Protestants makes God a Giver only and not a Rewarder In as much as their Doctrin is That God gives not Heaven but to those which do something for it and so his Gift is also a Reward but withal that whatsoever they do is due unto God before-hand and worth nothing to God worth nothing in respect of Heaven and so mans work is no Merit and Gods Reward is still a Gift 36. Put the case the Pope for a reward of your service done him in writing this Book had given you the honor and means of a Cardinal would you not not only in humility but in sincerity have professed that you had not merited such a Reward And yet the Pope is neither your Creator nor Redeemer nor Preserver nor perhaps your very great Benefactor sure I am not so great as God Almighty and therefore hath no such right and title to your service as God hath in respect of precedent Obligations Besides the work you have done him hath been really advantagious to him and lastly not altogether unproportionable to the fore-mentioned Reward And therefore if by the same work you will pretend that either you have or hope to have deserved immortal happiness I beseech you consider well whether this be not to set a higher value upon a Cardinals cap than a Crown of immortal glory and with that Cardinal to prefer a part in Paris before a part in Paradise 37. In the next Paragraph you beat the air again and fight manfully with your own shadow The Point you should have spoken to was this That there are some Points of simple belief necessary to be explicitely believed which yet are not contained in the Creed Instead hereof you trouble your self in vain to demonstrate That many important Points of Faith are not contained in it which yet D. Potter had freely granted and you your self take particular notice of his granting of it All this pains therefore you have imployed to no purpose saving that to some negligent Reader you may seem to have spoken to the very Point because that which you speak to at the first hearing sounds somewhat near it But such a one I must intreat to remember there be many more Points of Faith than there be Articles of Simple belief necessary to be explicitely believed And that though all of
neither can deceive nor be deceived 7 By this orderly deduction our Faith cometh to be endued with those qualities which we said were requisite thereto namely Certainty Obscurity and Prudence Certainty proceeds from the infallible Testimony of God propounded and conveyed to our understanding by such a mean as is infallible in it self and to us is evidently known that it proposeth this point or that and which can manifestly declare in what sense it proposeth them which means we have proved to be only the visible Church of Christ Obscurity from the manner in which God speaks to Mankind which ordinarily is such that it doth not manifeilly shew the person who speaks nor the truth of the thing spoken Prudence is not wanting because our faith is accompanied with so many arguments of Credibility that every well disposed Understanding may and ought to judge that the doctrins so confirmed deserve to be believed as proceeding from divine Authority 8 And thus from what hath been said we may easily gather the particular nature or definition of Faith For it is a voluntary or free infallible obscure assent to some truth because it is testified by God and is sufficiently propounded to us for such which proposal is ordinarily made by the Visible Church of Christ I say Sufficiently propused by the Church not that I purpose to dispute whether the proposal of the Church enter into the formal Object or Motive of Faith or whether any error be an heresie formally and precisely because it is against the proposition of the Church as if such proposal were the formal Object of Faith which D. Potter to no purpose at all labours so very hard to disprove But I only affirm that when the Church propounds any Truth as revealed by God we are assured that it is such indeed and so it instantly grows to be a fit object for Christian faith which inclines and enables us to believe whatsoever is duly presented as a thing revealed by Almighty God And in the same manner we are sure that whosoever opposeth any doctrin proposed by the Church doth thereby contradict a truth which is testified by God As when any lawful Superiour notifies his will by the means and as it were proposal of some faithful messenger the subject of such a Superiour in performing or neglecting what is delivered by the Messenger is said to obey or disobey his own lawful Superiour And therefore because the testimony of God is notified by the Church we may and we do most truly say that not to believe what the Church proposeth is to deny God's holy word or testimony signified to us by the Church according to that saying of S. Irenaeus We need not go (m) Lib. 3. com Haeres cap. 4. to any other to seck the truth which we may easily receive from the Church 9 From this definition of faith we may also know what Heresie is by taking the contrary terms as Heresie is contrary to Faith and saying Heresie is a voluntary error against that which God hath revealed and the Church hath proposed for such Neither doth it import whether the error concern points in themselves great or small fundamental or not fundamental For more being required to an act of Vertue than of Vice if any truth though never so small may be believed by faith as scon as we know it to be testified by divine revelation much more will it be a formal Heresie to deny any least point sufficiently propounded as a thing witnessed by God 10 This divine Faith is divided into Actual and Habitual Actual faith or faith actuated is when we are in act of consideration and belief of some mysterie of Faith for example that our Saviour Christ is true God and Man c. Habitual faith is that from which we are denominated Faithful or Believers as by Actual faith they are stiled Believing This Habit of faith is a Quality enabling us most firmly to believe Objects above humane discourse and it remaineth permanently in our Soul even when we are sleeping or not thinking of any Mysterie of faith This is the first among the three Theological Vertues For Charity unites us to God as he is infinitely Good in himself Hope ties us to him as he is unspeakably Good to us Faith joyns us to him as he is the Supreme immoveable Verity Charity relies on his Goodness Hope on his Power Faith on his divine Wisdom From hence it followeth that Faith being one of the Vertues which Divines term Infused that is which cannot be acquired by humane wit or industry but are in their Nature and Essence supernatural it hath this property that it is not destroyâd by little and little contrarily to the Habits called acquisiti that is gotten by humane endeavour which as they are successively produced so also are they lost successively or by little and little but it must either be conserved entire or wholly destroyed And since it cannot stand entire with any one act which is directly contrary it must be totally overthrown and as it were demolished and razed by every such act Wherefore as Charity or the love of God is expelled from our soul by any one act of Hatred or any other mortal sin against his Divine Majesty and as Hope is destroyed by any one act of voluntary Desperation so Faith must perish by any one act of Heresie because every such act is directly and formally opposite thereunto I know that some sins which as Divines speak are ex genere suo in their kind grievous and moâtal may be much lessened and fall to be venial ob levitatem materiae because they may happen to be exercised in a matter of small consideration as for example to steal a penny is venial although Theft in his kind be a deadly sin But it is likewise true that this Rule is not general for all sorts of sins there being some so inexcusably wicked of their own nature that no smalness of matter nor paucity in number can defend them from being deadly sins For to give an instance what blasphemy against God or voluntary false Oath is not a deadly sin Certainly none at all although the salvation of the whole world should depend upon swearing such a falshood The like hapneth in our present case of Heresie the iniquity redounding to the injury of God's supreme wisdom and goodness is always great and enormous They were no precious stones which David (n) 1. Reg. 17. pickt out of the water to encounter Golias yet if a man take from the number but one and say they were but four against the Scripture affirming them to have been five he is instantly guilty of a damnable sin Why Because by this substraction of One he doth deprive God's Word and Testimony of all credit and infallibility For if either he could deceive or be deceived in any one thing it were but wisdom to suspect him in all And seeing every Heresie opposeth some Truth revealed by God it is
true doctrin this Position of yours thus nakedly set down That any error against any one revealed truth destroies all divine faith For they all require not your self excepted that this truth must not only be revealed but revealed publiquely 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 And therefore the contradiction of Protestants though this vain doctrin of your Divines were supposed true is but a weak argument That any of them have no divine Faith seeing you neither have nor ever can prove without begging the Question of your Churches infallibility that the truths about which they differ are of this quality and condition But though out of courtesie we may suppose this doctrin true yet we have no reason to grant it nor to think it any thing but a vain and groundless fancie and that this very weak and inartificial argument from the authority of your Divines is the strongest pillar which it hath to support it Two reasons you alleadge for it out of Thomas Aquinas the first whereof vainly supposeth against reason and experience that by the commission of any deadly sinne the habit of Charitie is quite exstirpated And for the second though you cry it up for an Achilles and think like the Gorgons head it will turne us all into stone and in confidence of it insult upon Doctor Potter as if he durst not come neare it yet in very truth having considered it well I finde it a serious grave prolixe and profound nothing I could answer it in a word by telling you that it begges without all proof or colour of proof the main Question between us That the infallibilitie of your Church is either the formal motive or rule or a necessarie condition of faith which you know we flatly deny and therefore all that is built upon it has nothing but wind for a foundation But to this answer I will adde a large consutation of this vain fancie out of one of the most rational and profound Doctors of your own Church I mean Essius who upon the third of the Sent. the 23. dist the 13. § writes thus It is disputed saith he 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 In which question we must before all carefully distinguish between those who retaining a general readiness to believe whatsoever the Church believes yet erre by ignorance in some Doctrin of faith because it is not as yet sufficiently declared to them that the Church does so believe and those who after sufficient manifestation of the Churches Doctrin do yet choose to dissent from it either by doubting of it or affirming the contrary For of the former the answer is easie but of these that is of Heretiques retaining some part of wholesome Doctrin the question is more difficult and on both sides by the Doctors probably disputed For that there is in them true faith of the Articles wherein they do not erre first experience seems to convince For many at this day denying for example sake Purgatory or Invocation of Saints nevertheless firmly hold as by divine revelation that God is Three and One that the Son of God was incarnate and suffered and other like things As anciently the Novatians excepting their peculiar error of denying reconciliation to those that fell in persecution held other things in common with Catholiques So that they assisted them very much against the Arrians as Socrates relates in his Eccl. Hist Moreover the same is proved by the example of the Apostles who in the time of Christ's passion being scandaliz'd lost their faith in him as also Christ after his resurrection upbraids them with their incredulity and calls Thomas incredulous for denying the Resurrection John 20. Whereupon S. Austin also in his preface upon the 96 Psalme saith That after the Resurrection of Christ the faith of those that fell was restored again And yet we must not say that the Apostles then lost the faith of the Trinity of the Creation of the world of Eternal life and such like other Articles Besides the Jewes before Christs comming held the faith of one God the Creator of Heaven and Earth who although they lost the true faith of the Messias by not receiving Christ yet we cannot say that they lost the faith of one God but still retained this Article as firmely as they did before Add hereunto that neither Jews nor Heretiques seem to lye in saying they believe either the books of the Prophets or the four Gospels it being apparent enough that they acknowledge in them Divine Authority though they hold not the true sense of them to which purpose is that in the Acts chap. 20. Believest thou the Propheis I know that thou believest Lastly it is manifest that many gifts of God are found even in bad men and such as are out of the Church therefore nothing hinders but that Jews and Heretiques though they erre in many things yet in other things may be so divinely illuminated as to believe aright So S. Austine seems to teach in his book De Unico Baptismo contra Petilianum c. 3. in these words When a Jew comes to us to be made a Christian we destroy not in him God's good things but his own ill That he believes One God is to be worshipped that he hopes for eternal life that he doubts not of the Resurrection we approve and commend him we acknowledge that as he did believe these things so he is still to believe them and as he did hold so he is still to hold them Thus he subjoyning more to the same purpose in the next and again in the 26 Chapter and in his third Book De Bapt. contr Donat. cap. ult and upon Psal 64. But now this reason seems to perswade the contrary Because the formal object of faith seems to be the first verity as it is manifested by the Churches Doctrin as the Divine and infallible Rule wherefore whosoever adheres not to this Rule although he assent to some matters of faith yet he embraces them not with faith but with some other kind of assent as if a man assent to a conclusion not knowing the reason by which it is demonstrated he hath not true knowledge but an opinion only of the same conclusion Now that an Heretique adheres not to the rule aforesaid it is manifest Because if he did adhere to it as divine and infallible he would receive all without exception which the Church teacheth and so would not be an Heretique After this manner discourseth Saint Thom. 2.2 q. 5. art 3. From whom yet Durand dissents upon this distinction thinking there may be in an Heretique true faith in respect of the Article in which he doth not erre Others as Scotus and Bonaventure define not the matter plainly but seem to choose
false Church may preserve the Scripture trure as now the old Testament is preserved by the Jewes either not being arriv'd 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 aske 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 Doctrin 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 dependance 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 somtimes 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 Scale but those negative commendations which you are pleas'd 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 doctrin no leader but Luther in a quarel begun upon no ground but passion no Church no Ordination no Scriptures but such as they receiv'd 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 turne But then if it may appear that part of these objections are falsely made against them the rest vainly that whatsoever of truth is in these imputations is impertinent to this trial and whatsoever is pertinent is untrue and besides that plenty of good matter may be alleadged 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 Doctrin before Luther Luther's being alone when he first opposed your Church Our having our Church Ordination Scriptures personal and yet not doctrinal Succession from you are vain and impertinent allegations against the truth of our Doctrin 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 Heretiques I tell you that though all Heretiques are choosers yet all choosers are not Heretiques otherwise they also which choose your Religion must be Heretiques As for our wanting Unity and Means of proving it Luther 's opposing your Church upon meere passion Our following private men rather than the Catholique Church the first and last are meere 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 Luther's opposing your Church upon meere 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 condemne 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 alleaged for the justification of Protestants which are dissembled by you and not put into the ballance Know then Sir that when I say The Religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferr'd before yours as on the one side I do not understand by your Religion the doctrin of Bellarmin or Baronius or any other private man amongst you nor the Doctrin 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 Doctrin of the Councel of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrin of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelberg 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 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 hapiness 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 Councels against Councels 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
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 Soveraigne in lawful things though an Heretique 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 prevail'd and enlarg'd 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 conscience by counterfeiting false miracles forging false stories by obtruding on the world supposititions writings by corrupting the monuments of former times and defacing out of them all which any way makes against you by Warres 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 and Professors whereof it is most certain they could have no worldly ends upon the world that they should 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 Successour 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 halfe an eye that most of those Doctrins 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 Doctrin is even loaded with an infinitie of weak childish ridiculous unsavoury Superstitions and Ceremonies and full of that righteousness for which Christ shall judge the world 69. Following the Scriptures I shall believe that which Universal never-failing Tradition assures me that it was by the admitable supernatural works of God confirm'd to be the word of God whereas never any miracle was wrought never so much as a lame horse cur'd 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 doctrin yet this proves nothing but the truth of the Scripture which foretold that God's providence permitting it and the wickedness of the world deserving it strange signes and wonders should be wrought to confirm false doctrin that they which love not the truth may be given over to strong 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 continve all my life long in a course of sin and without the practice of any vertue yet gives me assurance that I may be lett into heaven at a postern gate even by an Act of Attrition at the hour of death if it be joyn'd 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 summe whereof is in manner compriz'd 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 sayeth Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdome but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven and again Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth 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 lawes for all Christians but Counsels of perfection and matters of Supererogation 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 sonnes of Zebede to the right hand or to the left hand of Christ But if a man will be content barely to go to heaven and to be a door-keeper in the house of God especially if he will be content to taste of Purgatory in the way he may obtain it at an easier purchase Therefore the Religion of your Church is not so holy nor so good as the Doctrin of Christ delivered in Scripture and therefore not so likely to come from the Fountain of holiness and goodness 72. Lastly if I follow your Church for my Guide I shall do all one as if I should follow a Company of blind men in a judgement of colours or in the choice of a way For every unconsidering man is blind in that which he does not consider Now what is your Church but a company of unconsidering men who comfort themselves because they are a great company together but all of them either out of idleness refuse the trouble of a fevere tryall of their Religion as if heaven were not worth it or out of superstition fear the event of such a tryall that they may be scrupled and staggered and disquieted by it and therefore for the most part do it not at all Or if they do it they do it negligently and hypocritically and perfunctorily rather for the satisfaction of others than themselves but certainly without indifference without liberty of judgement without a resolution to doubt of it if upon
justification by faith without the works of the Law were never read in the Church but when the 13. Chapter of the 1. Epistle to the Corinth concerning the absolute necessity of Charity should be to prevent misprision read together with them 33. Whereas you say that some Protestants do expresly affirm the former point to be the soul of the Church c. and therefore they must want the Theological vertue of Hope and that none can have true hope while they hope to be saved in their communion I answ They have great reason to believe the Doctrin of justification by faith only a point of great weight and importance if it be rightly understood that is they have reason to esteem it a principal and necessary duty of a Christian to place his hope of justification and salvation not in the perfection of his own righteousness which if it be imperfect will not justifie but only in the mercies of God through Christs satisfaction and yet notwithstanding this nay the rather for this may preserve themselves in the right temper of good Christians which is a happy mixture and sweet composition of confidence and fear If this Doctrin be otherwise expounded than I have here expounded I will not undertake the justification of it only I will say that which I may do truly that I never knew any Protestant such a soli-sidian but that he did believe these divine truths That he must make his calling certain by good works That he must work out his salvation with Fear and Trembling and that while he does not so he can have no well grounded hope of Salvation I say I never met with any who did not believe these divine Truths and that with a more firm and a more unshaken assent than he does that himself is predestinate and that he is justified by believing himself justified I never met with any such who if he saw there were a necessity to do either would not rather forgoe his belief of these Doctrins than the former these which he sees disputed and contradicted and opposed with a great multitude of very potent Arguments than those which being the express words of Scripture whosoever should call into question could not with any modesty pretend to the title of Christian And therefore there is no reason but we may believe that their full assurance of the former Doctrin doth very well qualifie their perswasion of the later and that the former as also the lives of may of them do sufficiently testifie are more effectual to temper their hope and to keep it at a stay of a filial and modest assurance of Gods favour built upon the conscience of his love and fear than the later can be to swell and puffe them up into vain confidence and ungrounded presumption This reason joyn'd with our experience of the honest and religious conversation of many men of this opinion is a sufficient ground for Charity to hope well of their Hope and to assure our selves that it cannot be offensive but rather most acceptable to God if notwithstanding this diversity of opinion we embrace each other with the strict embraces of love and communion To you and your Church we leave it to separate Christians from the Church and to proscribe them from heaven upon trivial and trifling causes As for our selves we conceive a charitable judgement of our Bretheren and their errors though untrue much more pleasing to God than a true judgement if it be uncharitable and therefore shall alwayes choose if we do err to err on the milder and more merciful part and rather to retain those in our Communion which deserve to be ejected than eject those that deserve to be retain'd 34. Lastly whereas you say that seeing Protestants differ about the point of Justification you must needs inferre that they want Unity in faith and consequently all faith and then that they cannot agree what points are fundamentall I answer to the first of these inferences that as well might you inferre it upon Victor Bishop of Rome and Polycrates upon Stephen Bishop of Rome and Saint Cyprian in asmuch as it is undeniably evident that what one of those esteemed necessary to salvation the other esteemed not so But points of Doctrin as all other things are as they are and not as they are esteemed neither can a necessary point 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 Soule of man you may read in Aristotle de anima and Cicero's Tusculan Questions notwithstanding their divers opinions touching the nature of the soule yet all of them had soules and soules of the same nature Or as those Physitians who dispute whether the Brain or Heart be the principall part of a man yet all of them have brains and have hearts and herein agree sufficiently So likewise though some Protestants esteem that Doctrine the soule of the Church which others do not so highly value yet this hinders not but that which is indeed the soule 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 prov'd formerly that there is no such necessity as you imagine 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 some hurtful opinions for necessary and fundamental Truths C 3. Sect. 54. alibi 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 defin'd 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 Councel Others in a Councel though divided from the Pope Others only in the conjunction of Councel 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 defin'd and therefore
MAndetur Typis hic Liber cui Titulus The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation In quo nihil occurrit à bonis Moribus à Doctrinâ Disciplinâ in Ecclesiâ Anglicanâ assertis alienum RICH. BAILIE Vicecan Oxon. PErlegi hunc Librum cui Titulus est The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation In quo nihil reperio Doctrinae vel Disciplinae Ecclesiae Anglicanae adversum sed quamplurima quae Fidem Orthodoxam egregiè illustrant adversantia glossemata acutè perspicuè modestè dissipant Jo. PRIDEAUX S.T.P. Regius Oxon. EGo Samuel Fell Publicus Theol. Professor in Univ. Oxon. ordinarius Praelector D. Marg. Comitiss Richmondiae perlegi Librum cui Titulus est The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation In quo nihil reperio Doctrinae vel Disciplinae Ecclesiae Anglicanae aut bonis Moribus adversum sed multa nervosè modestè eventilata contra Adversarios nostrae Ecclesiae veritatis Catholicae quam felicitèr tuetur Dat. 14º Octob. 1637. SAM FELL Fiat secunda Editio juxta hoc Exemplar Ex. Aedib London Feb. 6. 1637. SAM BAKER PErlegi hunc Librum cui Tit. The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation item Novem Consciones nuperimè additas In quibus omnibus nihil reperio Doctrinae vel Disciplinae Ecclesiae Anglicanae contrarium quo minus cum summâ omnium utilitate Imprimatur Ex. Aed Lambeth 16. Octob. 1663. G. STRADLING S.T.P. Reverendis in Christo Pat. D. Gilb. Archiep. Cant. à Sac. Domest THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS A Safe way to Salvation OR An ANSWER to a Book Entituled Mercy and Truth or Charity maintain'd by Catholiques Which pretends to prove the Contrary To which is Added in this Third Impression The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy AS ALSO IX SERMONS The First Preached before His Majesty King CHARLES the First the other Eight upon special and eminent Occasions BY William Chillingworth Master of Arts of the University of OXFORD Isaac Casaubon in Epist ad Card. Perron Regis JACOBI nomine scriptâ Rex arbitratur rerum absolutè necessariarum ad salutem non magnum esse numerum Quare existimat ejus Majestas nullam ad incundam concordiam breviorem viam fore quà m si diligentèr separentur necessaria à non necessariis ut de necessariis conveniat omnis opera insumatur in non necessariis libertati Christianae locus detur Simplicitèr necessaria Rex appellat quae vel expressè verbum Dei praecipit credenda faciendave vel ex verbo Dei necessariâ consequentiâ vetus Ecclesia elicuit Si ad decidendas hodiernas Controversias haec distinctio adhiberetur jus divinum à positivo seu Ecclesiastico candidè separaretur non videtur de iis quae sunt absolutè necessaria inter pios moderatos viros longa aut acris contentio futura Nam pauce illa sunt ut modò dicebamus ferè ex aequo omnibus probantur qui se Christianos dici postulant Atque istam distinctionem Sereniss Rex tanti putat esse momenti ad minuendas Controversias quae hodiè Ecclesiam Dei tantopere exercent ut omnium pacis studiosorum judicet officium esse diligentissimè hanc explicare docere urgere LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for J. Clark and are to be sold by Thomas Thornicroft at the sign of the Eagle and Child in St. Pauls Church-yard near the little North-door M.DC.LXIV TO THE Most HIGH and MIGHTY PRINCE CHALES By the Grace of God KING of Great-Britain France and Ireland Defendor of the Faith c. May it please your most Excellent Majesty I Present with all humility to Your most Sacred hands a Defence of that Cause which is and ought to be infinitely dearer to you than all the World Not doubting but upon this Dedication I shall be censured for a double boldness both for undertaking so great a Work so far beyond my weak abilities and again for presenting it to such a Patron whose judgement I ought to fear more than any Adversary But for the first it is a satisfaction to my self and may be to others that I was not drawn to it out of any vain opinion of myself whose personal defects are the only thing which I presume to know but undertook it in obedience in Him who said Tu conversus confirma fratres not to St. Peter only but to all men being encouraged also to it by the goodness of the Cause which is able to make a weak man strong To the belief hereof I was not led partially or by chance as many are by the prejudice and prepossession of their Country Education and such like inducements which if they lead to Truth in one place perhaps lead to Error in a hundred but having with the greatest equality and indifferency made enquiry and grounds on both Sides I was willing to impart to others that satisfaction which was given to my self For my inscribing to it Your Majesties Sacred Name I should labour much in my excuse of it from high presumption had it not some appearance of Title to your Majesties Patronage and protection as being a Defence of that Book which by special order from Your Majesty was written some years since chiefly for the general good but peradventure not without some aime at the recovery of One of Your meanest Subjects from dangerous deviation and so due unto Your Majesty as the fruit of Your own High Humility and most Royal Charity Besides it is in a manner nothing else but a pursuance of and a superstruction upon that blessed Doctrine wherewith I have adorned and armed the Frontispice of my Book which was so earnestly recommended to Your Royal Father of happy memory to all the lovers of Truth and Peace that is to all that were like Himself as the only hopeful means of healing the Breaches of Christendome whereof the Enemy of souls makes such pestilent advantage The lustre of this blessed Doctrine I have endeavoured to uncloud and unvail and to free it from those mists and fumes which have been raised to obscure it by one of that Order which envenomes even poison it self and makes the Roman Religion much more malignant and turbulent than otherwise it would be whose very Rule and Doctrine obliges them to make all men as much as lies in them subjects unto Kings and servants unto Christ no farther than it shall please the Pope So that whether Your Majesty be considered either as a Pious Son towards Your Royall Father King James or as a tender hearted and compassionate Son towards Your distressed Mother the Catholique Church or as a King of Your Subjects or as a Servant unto Christ this Work to which I can give no other commendation but that it was intended to do You service in all these capacities may pretend not unreasonably to Your Gracious acceptance Lastly being a Defence of that whole Church and Religion You profess it could not be so proper to any
would make choice of him for this service And besides I had good assurance that in the framing of this building though you were the only Architect yet you wanted not the assistance of many diligent hands to bring you in choise materials towards it nor of many careful and watchful eyes to correct the errors of your Work if any should chance to escape you Great reason therefore had I to expect great matters from you and that your Book should have in it the Spirit and Elixir of all that can be said in defence of your Church and Doctrine and to assure my self that if my resolution not to believe it were not built upon the rock of evident grounds and reasons but only upon some sandy and deceitful appearances now the wind and storm and floods were coming which would undoubtedly overthrow it 2. Neither truly were you more willing to effect such an alteration in me then I was to have it effected For my desire is to go the right way to eternal happiness But whether this way lie on the right hand or the left or straight forwards whether it be by following a living Guide or by seeking my direction in a Book or by hearkning to the secret whisper of some private Spirit to me it is indifferent And he that is otherwise affected and hath 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 humane 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 Shepherd 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 alwaies 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 then 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 eaven ballance held by an eaven 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 arms 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 somewhat in my good opinion both of your sufficiency and sincerity but was exceedingly confirmed in my 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 perswade and very little that might move an understanding man and one that can discern between Discourse and Sophistry In short I was verily perswaded 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 thorow it from the beginning to the end And letting some Friends understand so much I suffered my self to be perswaded by them that it would not be either unproper for me nor unacceptable to God nor peradventure altogether unserviceable to his Church nor justly offensive to you if you indeed were a lover of Truth and not a maintainer of a Faction if setting aside the Second Part which was in a manner wholly employed in particular disputes repetitions and references and in wranglings with D. Potter about the sense of some supernumerary quotations and whereon the main question no way depends I would make a fair and ingenuous answer to the First wherein the substance of the present Controversie is confessedly contained and which if it were clearly answered no man would desire any other answer to the Second This therefore 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 From this Rule sure I am I have not willingly swerved in either part of it and that I might not do it ignorantly I have not only my self examined mine own Work perhaps with more severity than I have done yours as conceiving it a base and unchristian thing to go about to satisfie others with what I my self am not fully satisfied but have also made it pass the fiery tryal of the exact censures of many understanding Judges alwayes heartily wishing that you your Self had been of the Quorum But they who did undergo this burthen as they wanted not sufficiency to discover any heterodox Doctrine so I am sure they have been very careful to let nothing slip dissonant from truth or from the authorized Doctrine of the Church of England and therefore whatsoever causeless or groundless jealousie any man may entertain concerning my Person yet my Book I presume in reason and common equity should be free from them wherein I hope that little or nothing hath escaped so many eyes which being weighed in the balance of the Sanctuary will be found too light And in this hope I am much confirmed by your strange carriage of your self in this whole business For though by some crooked and sinister arts you have got my Answer into your hands now a year since and upwards as I have been assured by some that profess to know it and those of your own party though you could not want every day fair opportunities of
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 31. Grant this and it will presently follow in opposition to your first Conclusion and the Argument of your first Chap. 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 are the disputes of Protestants Good men and âââers 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 judgement after a mature consideration of the matter differ about it 32. Grant this and it will appear Secondly that the meanes 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 33. 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 Catholique Church may err in the latter kind of the said Points because Truths not necessary to the Salvation cannot be necessary to the Beeing 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 because 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 34. 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 unnecessary 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 35. 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 Churche's peace and dividing Unity for such matters is in a high degree presumptuous and Schismatical 36. 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 37. 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 practise at least by their Religion are not hindered from practising and performing all things necessary to Salvation 38. So that the position of this one Principle is the direct overthrow of your whole Book and thârefore 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 basis and adequate foundation of my Answer and which while it stands firm and unmoveable cannot but be the supporter of my Book and the certain ruine 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 Chap. 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 39. And thus your Venom against me is in a manner spent saving only that there remain two little Impertinencies whereby you would disable me from being a fit Advocate for the cause of Protestants The first because I refuse to subscribe the Articles of the Church 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 40. 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 savable 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 perswaded 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 41. Your other objection against me is yet more impertinent and frivolous than the former Unless perhaps it be a just exception against a Physitian that himself was sometimes in and recovered himself from that disease which he undertakes to cure or against a Guide in a way that at first before he had experience himself mistook it and afterwards found his error and amended it That noble
Writer Michael de Montaigne was surely of a far different minde for he will hardly allow any Physitian competent but only for such diseases as himself had passed through And a far greater than Montaigne even he that said Tu conversus confirma fratres gives us sufficiently to understand that they which have themselves been in such a state as to need conversion are not thereby made incapable of but rather engaged and obliged unto and qualified for this charitable function 42. Neither am I guilty of that strange and preposterous zeal as you esteem it which you impute to me for having been so long careless in removing this scandal against Protestants and answering my own Motives and yet now shewing such fervor in writing against others For neither are they other Motives but the very same for the most part with those which abused me against which this Book which I now publish is in a maner wholly imployed And besides though you Jesuits take upon you to have such large and universal intelligence of all State-affairs and matters of importance yet I hope such a contemptible matter as an Answer of mine to a little piece of paper may very probably have been written and escaped your Observation The truth is I made an Answer to them three years since and better which perhaps might have been published but for two reasons One because the Motives were never publique until you made them so The other because I was loath to proclaim to all the world so much weakness as I shewed in suffering my self to be abused by such silly Sophisms All which proceed upon mistakes and false suppositions which unadvisedly I took for granted as when I have set down the Motives in order by subsequent Answers to them I shall quickly demonstrate and so make an end 43. The Motives then were these 1. Because perpetuall visible profession which could never be wanting to the Religion of Christ nor any part of it is apparently wanting to Protestant Religion so far as concerns the points in contestation 2. Because Luther and his Followers separating from the Church of Rome separated also from all Churches pure or impure true or false then being in the World upon which ground I conclude that either Gods promises did fail of performance if there were then no Church in the world which held all things necessary and nothing repugnant to Salvation or else that Luther and his Sectaries separating from all Churches then in the World and so from the true if there were any true were damnable Schismaticks 3. Because if any credit may be given to as creditable Records as any are extant the Doctrine of Catholiques hath been frequently confirmed and the opposite Doctrine of Protestants confounded with supernatural and divine Miracles 4. Because many points of Protestant doctrine are the damned opinions of Heretiques condemned by the Primitive Church 5. Because the Prophecies of the old Testament touching the conversion of Kings and Nations to the true Religion of Christ have been accomplished in and by the Catholique Roman Religion and the Professors of it and not by Protestant Religion and the Professors of it 6. Because the doctrine of the Church of Rome is conformable and the Doctrine of Protestants contrary to the Doctrine of the Fathers of the Primitive Church even by the confession of Protestants themselves I mean those Fathers who lived within the compasse of the first 600. years to whom Protestants themselves do very frequently and very confidently appeal 7. Because the first pretended Reformers had neither extraordinary Commission from God nor ordinary Mission from the Church to Preach Protestant Doctrine 8. Because Luther to preach against the Masse which contains the most material points now in Controversie was perswaded by reasons suggested to him by the Devil himself disputing with him So himself professeth in his Bock de Missa Privata That all men might take heed of following him who professeth himself to follow the Devill 9. Because the Protestant cause is now and hath been from the beginning maintained with grosse falsifications and Calumnies whereof their prime Controvârsie-Writers are notoriously and in high degree guilty 10. Because by denying all humane authority either of Pope or Councels or Church to determine Controversies of Faith they have abolished all possible means of suppressing Heresie or restoring Unity to the Church These are the Motives now my Answers to them follow briefly and in order 44. To the first God hath neither decreed nor foretold that his true Doctrine should de facto be alwayes visibly professed without any mixture of falshood To the second God hath neither decreed not foretold that there shall be always a visible company of men free from all error in it self damnable Neither is it always of necessity Schismatical to separate from the external communion of a Church though wanting nothing necessary For if this Church supposed to want nothing necessary require me to profess against my conscience that I believe some errour though never so small and innocent which I do not believe and will not allow me her Communion but upon this condition In this case the Church for requiring this condition is Schismatical and not I for separating from the Church To the third If any credit may be given to Records far more creditable than these the Doctrine of Protestants that is the Bible hath been confirmed and the Doctrine of Papists which is in many points plainly opposite to it confounded with supernatural and divine Miracles which for number and glory outshine Popish pretended Miracles as much as the Sun doth an Ignis fatuus those I mean which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles Now this Book by the confession of all sides confirmed by innumerous Miracles foretels me plainly that in after-ages great signs and wonders shall be wrought in confirmation of false doctrin and that I am not to believe any doctrin which seems to my understanding repugnant to the first though an Angel from Heaven should teach it which were certainly as great a Miracle as any that was ever wrought in attestation of any part of the doctrine of the Church of Rome But that true doctrine should in all ages have the testimony of Miracles that I am no where taught So that I have more reason to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signs of false doctrine than much to regard them as certain Arguments of the Truth Besides setting aside the Bible and the Tradition of it there is as good story for Miracles wrought by those who lived and dyed in opposition to the Doctrine of the Roman Church as by S. Cyprian Colmannus Columbanus Aidanus and others as there is for those that are pretended to be wrought by the members of that Church Lastly it seems to me no strange thing that God in his Justice should permit some true Miracles to be wrought to delude them who have forged so many as apparently the Professors of
Protestants is very good Upon these grounds you say C.M. clearly evinces That any least difference in faith cannot stand with salvation and therefore seeing Catholiques and Protestants disagree in very many points of faith they both cannot hope to be saved without Repentance you must mean without an explicite and particular repentance and dereliction of their errors for so C.M. hath declared himself p. 14. where he hath these words We may safely say that a man who lives in Protestancy and who is so far from Repenting it as that he will not so much as acknowledge it to be a sin though he be sufficiently enformed thereof c. From whence it is evident that in his judgement there can be no repentance of an errour without acknowledging it to be a sin And to this D. Potter justly opposes That both Siaes by the confession of both Sides agree in more points than are simply and indispensably necessary to Salvation and differ only in such as are not precisely necessary That it is very possible a man may die in error and yet die with Repentance as for all his sins of ignorance so in that number for the errors in which he dies with a repentance though not explicite and particular which is not simply required yet implicit and general which is sufficient so that he cannot but hope considering the goodness of God that the truth is retained on both Sides especially those of the necessity of Repentance from dead Works and Faith in Jesus Christ if they be put in practice may be an Antidote against the errors held on either Side to such he means and says as being diligent in seeking truth and desirous to find it yet miss of it through humane frailty and die in errour If you will but attentively consider and compare the undertaking of C. M. and D. Potter's performance in all these points I hope you will be so ingenuous as to acknowledge that you have injured him much in imputing tergiversation to him and pretending that through his whole Book he hath not once truly and really fallen upon the Point in Question Neither may you or C. M. conclude him from hence as covertly you do An enemy to souls by deceiving them with ungrounded false hopes of Salvation seeing the hope of salvation cannot be ungrounded which requires and supposes belief and practice of all things absolutely necessary unto salvation and repentance of those sins and errours which we fall into by humane frailty Nor a friend to indifferency in Religions seeing he gives them only hope of pardon of Errours who are desirous and according to the proportion of their opportunities and abilities industrious to find the truth or at least truly repentant that they have not been so Which Doctrine is very fit to excite men to a constant and imâartial search of truth and very far from teaching them that it is indifferent what Religion they are of and without all controversie very honourable to the Goodness of God with which how it can consist not to be satisfied with his servant's true endeavours to know his will and do it without full and exact performance I leave it to you and all good men to judge 4. As little justice me-thinks you shew in quarrelling with him for descending to the particular disputes here mentioned by you For to say nothing that many of these Questions are immediately and directly pertinent to the business in hand as the 1 2 3 5 6. and all of them fall in of themselves into the stream of his Discourse and are not drawn in by him and besides are touched for the most part rather than handled to say nothing of all this you know right well if he conclude you erroneous in any one of all these be it but in the Communion in one kind or the Language of your service the infallibility of your Church is evidently overthrown And this being done I hope there will be no such necessity of hearkening to her in all things It will be very possible to separate from her communion in some things without Schism and from her Doctrine so far as it is erroneous without Heresie Then all that she proposes will not be eo ipso fundamental because she proposes it and so presently all Charity Mistaken will vanish into smoak and clouds and nothing 5. You say he was loth to affirm plainly that generally both Catholiques and Protestants may be saved which yet is manifest he doth affirm plainly of Protestants throughout his Book and of erring Papists that have sincerely sought the truth and failed of it and die with a general repentance p. 77 78. And yet you deceive your self if you conceive he had any other necessity to do so but only that he thought it true For we may and do pretend that before Luther there were many true Churches besides the Roman which agreed not with her in particular The Greek Church So that what you say is evidently true is indeed evidently false Besides if he had had any necessity to make use of you in this matter he needed not for this end to say that now in your Church Salvation may be had but only that before Lurhers time it might be Then when your means of knowing the Truth were not so great and when your ignorance might be more invincible and therefore more excusable So that you may see if you please it is not for ends but for the love of truth that we are thus charitable to you 6. Neither is it material that these particulars he speaks against are not fundamental errours for though they be not destructive of salvation yet the convincing of them may be and is destructive enough of his Adversarie's assertion and if you be the man I take you for you will not deny they are so For certainly no Consequence can be more palpable than this The Church of Rome doth err in this or that therefore it is not infallible And this perhaps you perceived your self and therefore demanded not Since they be not fundamental what imports it whether we hold them or no simply But for as much as concerns our possibility to be saved As if we were not bound by the love of God and the love of Truth to be zealous in the defence of all Truths that are any way profitable though not simply necessary to salvation Or as if any good man could satisfie his conscience without being so affected and resolved Our Saviour himself having assured us * Mat. 5.19 That he that shall break one of his least Commandments some whereof you pretend are concerning venial sins and consequently the keeping of them not necessary to salvation and shall so teach men shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven 7. But then it imports very much though not for the possibility that you may be saved yet for the probability that you will be so because the holding of these errors though it did not merit might yet occasion damnation
hear you say that he declines this Question and never tells you whether or no there be any other points of faith which being sufficiently propounded as divine Revelations may be denied and dis-believed He tells you plainly there are none such and therefore you cannot say that he tells you not whether there be any such 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 me-thinks 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 lye 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 sufficiently 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 oblig'd to believe it For in such cases the Rule of the Law hath 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 Savior says He that believeth not shall be damn'd Who sees not that it is possible two Churches may excommunicate and damn each other for keeping Christmass ten dayes 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 Christmass Anciently some good Catholique Bishops excommunicated and damned others for holding there were Antipodes and in this question I would fain know on which side was the sufficient proposal The contra-Remonstrants differ from the Remonstrants about the point 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 Apostolique Tradition That Heretiques gave true Baptism Others there were and they as good Catholiques 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 Apostolique tradition as the Baptizing 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 Catholique 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 resolv'd 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 God's truth sufficiently propounded or they did not If they did then they which do deny God's 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 God's 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 inferr 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 ruine the Gospel of Christ I leave it to the Pope and the Cardinals to determine For if against this it be alleaged 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 11. Ad § 4. You proceed in sleighting and disgracing your
to your charge the transgression of your own chief prescription which you say truth exacts at our hands that is to speak clearly or distinctly and not to walk in darkness but that your following words to my understanding declare sufficiently that you speak of both sorts For there you tell us that the Reasons why you damn not any man that dies with the esteem of a Protestant are 1. Because you are not alwayes acquainted with what sufficiency of means he was furnished for instruction You must mean touching the falshood of his own Religion and the truth of yours Which reason is proper to those that are Protestants in truth and not only in estimation 2. Because you do not penetrate his capacity to understand his Catechist which is also peculiar to those who for want of capacity as you conceive remain Protestants indeed and are not only so accounted 3. Because you have no Revelation what light might clear his errors which belongs to those which were esteemed Protestants but indeed were not so 4. Because you have no Revelation what Contrition might have retracted his sins which reason being distinct from the former and divided from it by the disjunctive Particle Or insinuates unto us that though no light did clear the errors of a dying Protestant yet Contrition might for ought you know retract his sins which appropriates this reason also to Protestants truly so esteemed I wish with all my heart that in obedience to your own Prescription you had expressed your self in this matter more fully and plainly Yet that which you say doth plainly enough afford us these Corollaries 1 That whatsoever Protestant wanteth capacity or having it wanteth sufficient means of instruction to convince his Conscience of the falshood of his own and the truth of the Roman Religion by the confession of his most rigid Adversaries may be saved notwithstanding any error in his Religion 2 That nothing hinders but that a Protestant dying a Protestant may die with Contrition for all his sins 3 That if he do die with Contrition he may and shall be saved 4. All these acknowledgements we have from you while you are as you say stating but as I conceive granting the very Point in question which was as I have already proved out of C. M. Whether without uncharitableness you may pronounce that Protestants dying in the belief of their Religion and without particular repentance and dereliction of it cannot possibly be saved Which C. M. affirms universally and without any of your limitations But this presumption of his you thus qualifie by saying that This sentence cannot he pronounced truly and therefore sure not charitably Neither of those Protestants that want means sufficient to instruct and convince them of the truth of your Religion and the falshood of their own Nor of those who though they have negected the means they might have had dyed with Contrittion that is with a sorow for all their sins proceeding from the love of God So that according to your Doctrin it shall remain upon such only as either were or but for their own fault might have been sufficiently convinced of the truth of your Religion and the falshood of their own and yet dye in it without Contrition Which Doctrine if you would stand to and not pull down and pull back with one hand what you give and build with the other this Controversie were ended and I should willingly acknowledge that which follows in your fourth Paragraph That you allow Protestants as much Charity as D. Potter allows you But then I must intreat you to alter the argument of this Chapter and not to go about to give us reasons why amongst men of different Religions one side only can be saved absolutely which your Reasons drive at But you must temper the crudeness of your Assertion by saying One side only can be saved unless want of Conviction or else Repentance excuse the other Besides you must not only abstain from damning any Protestant in particular but from affirming in general that Protestants dying in their Religion cannot be saved for you must always remember to add this Caution unless they were excusably Ignorant of the falshood of it or died with Contrition And then considering that you cannot know whether or no all things considered they were convinced sufficiently of the truth of your Religion and the falshood of their own you are obliged by Charity to judge the best and hope they are not Considering again that notwithstanding their Errors they may die with Contrition and that it is no way improbable that they do so and the contrary you cannot be certain of You are bound in Charity to judge and hope they do so Considering thirdly and lastly that if they die not with Contrition yet it is very probable they may die with Attrition and that this pretence of yours that Contrition will serve without actual Confession but Attrition will not is but a nicety or fancy or rather to give it the true name a Device of your own to serve ends and purposes God having no where declared himself but that wheresoever he will accept of that Repentance which you are pleased to call Contrition he will accept of that which you call Attrition For though he like best the bright flaming holocaust of Love yet he rejects not he quencheth not the smoaking flax of that Repentance if it be true and effectual which proceeds from hope and fear These things I say considered unless you will have the Charity of your Doctrine rise up in judgement against your uncharitable Practice you must not only not be peremptorie in damning Protestants but you must hope well of their Salvation and out of this hope you must do for them as well as others those as you conceive Charitable Offices of Praying giving Alms and offering Sacrifice which usually you do for those of whose Salvation you are well and charitably perswaded for I believe you will never conceive so well of Protestants as to assure your selves they go directly to heaven These things when you do I shall believe you think as charitably as you speak But until then as he said in the Comedie Quid verba audiam cum facta videam so may I say to you Quid verba audiam cum facta non videam To what purpose should you give us charitable words which presently you retract again by denying us your charitable actions And as these things you must do if you will stand to and make good this pretended Charity so must I tell you again and again that one thing you must not do I mean You must not affright poor people out of their Religion with telling them that by the confession of both sides your way is safe but in your judgement ours undoubtedly damnable Seeing neither you deny Salvation to Protestants dying with repentance nor we promise it to you if ye die without it For to deal plainly with you I know no Protestant that hath any other
though through the malice of men not always effectual for that the same means may be Sufficient for the compassing an end and not Effectual you must not deny who hold that God gives to all men sufficient means of Salvation and yet that all are not saved I said also Sufficient to determine all Controversies which were necessary to be determined For if some Controversies may for many Ages be undetermined and yet in the mean-while men be saved why should or how can the Churche's being furnisht with effectual means to determine all Controversies in Religion be necessary to Salvation the end it self to which these means are ordained being as experience shews not necessary Plain sense will teach every man that the necessity of the means must always be measured by and can never exceed the necessity of the end As if eating be necessary only that I may live then certainly if I have no necessity to live I have no necessity to eat If I have no need to be at London I have no need of a horse to carry me thither If I have no need to fly I have no need of wings Answer me then I pray directly and categorically Is it necessary that all Controversies in Religion should be determined or is it not If it be Why is the the Question of Predetermination of the immaculate Conception of the Pope's indirect power in Temporalties so long undetermined If not What is it but hypocrisie to pretend such great necessity of such effectual means for the atchieving that end which is it self not necessary Christians therefore have and shall have means sufficient though not always effectual to determine not all Controversies but all necessary to be determined I proceed on farther with you and grant that this means to decide Controversies in Faith and Religion must be endued with an Universal Infallibility in whatsoever it propoundeth for a divine Truth For if it may be false in any one thing of this nature in anything which God requires men to believe we can yield unto it but a wavering and fearful assent in any thing These Grounds therefore I grant very readily and give you free leave to make your best advantage of them And yet to deal truly I do not perceive how from the denial of any of them it would follow that Faith is Opinion or from the granting them that it is not so But for for my part whatsoever clamour you have raised against me I think no otherwise of the Nature of Faith I mean Historical Faith than generally both Protestants and Papists do for I conceive it an assent to divine Revelations upon the Authority of the Revealer Which though in many things it differ from Opinion as commonly the word opinion is understood yet in some things I doubt not but you will confess that it agrees with it As first that as Opinion is an Assent so is Faith also Secondly that as Opinion so Faith is always built upon less evidence than that of Sense or Science Which Assertion you not only grant but mainly contend for in your sixth Chapter Thirdly and lastly that as Opinion so Faith admit degrees and that as there may be a strong and weak Opinion so there may be a strong and weak Faith These things if you will grant as sure if you be in your right mind you will not deny any of them I am well contented that this ill-sounding word Opinion should be discarded and that among the Intellectual habits you should seek out some other Genus for Faith For I will never contend with any man about words who grants my meaning 8. But though the essence of Faith exclude not all weakness and imperfection yet may it be enquired Whether any certainty of Faith under the highest degree may be sufficient to please God and attain Salvation Whereunto I answer That though Men are unreasonable God requires not any thing but Reason They will not be pleased without a down-weight but God is contented if the scale be turned They pretend that heavenly things cannot be seen to any purpose but by the mid-day light But God will be satisfied if we receive any degree of light which makes us leave the works of darkness and walk as children of the light They exact a certainty of Faith above that of sense or science God desires only that we believe the Conclusion as much as the Premisses deserve that the strength of our Faith be equal or proportionable to the credibility of the Motives to it Now though I have and ought to have an absolute certainty of this Thesis All which God reveals for truth is true being a Proposition that may be demonstrated or rather so evident to any one that understands it that it needs it not Yet of this Hypothesis That all the Articles of our Faith were revealed by God we cannot ordinarily have any rational and acquired certainty more than moral founded upon these Considerations First that the goodness of the precepts of Christianity and the greatness of the promises of it shews it of all other Religions most likely to come from the Fountain of goodness And then that a constant famous and very general Tradition so credible that no wise man doubts of any other which hath but the fortieth part of the credibility of this such and so credible a Tradition tells us that God himself hath set his Hand and Seal to the truth of this Doctrine by doing great and glorious and frequent Miracles in confirmation of it Now our Faith is an assent to this Conclusion that the doctrine of Christianity is true which being deduced from the former Thesis which is Metaphysically certain and from the former Hypothesis whereof we can have but a Moral certainty we cannot possibly by natural means be more certain of it than of the weaker of the Premisses as a River will not rise higher than the fountain from which it flows For the Conclusion always follows the worser part if there be any worse and must be Negative particular Contingent or but Morally certain if any of the Propositions from whence it is derived be so Neither can we be certain of it in the highest degree unless we be thus certain of all the Principles whereon it is grounded As a man cannot go or stand strongly if either of his legs be weak Or as a building cannot be stable if any one of the necessary pillars thereof be infirm and instable Or as If a message be brought me from a man of absolute credit with me but by a messenger that is not so my confidence of the Truth of the Relation cannot but be rebated and lessened by my diffidence in the Relatour 9. Yet all this I say not as if I doubted that the Spirit of God being implored by devout and humble prayer and sincere obedience may and will by degrees advance his servants higher and give them a certainty of adherence beyond their certainty of evidence But what God gives as a reward
his malice had caused And besides it were to say that Infants dying without Baptism might be saved God supplying the want of Baptism which to them is unavoidable But beyond all this it were to put into my mouth a full and satisfying Answer to your Argument which I am now returning so that in answering my Objection you should answer your own For then I should tell you that it were altogether as abhorrent from the goodness of God and as repugnant to it to suffer an ignorant Lay-man's soul to perish meerly for being misled by an undiscernable false Translation which yet was commended to him by the Church which being of necessity to credit some in this matter he had reason to relie upon either above all other or as much as any other as it is to damn a penitent sinner for a secret defect in that desired Absolution which his Ghostly Father perhaps was an Atheist and could not give him or was a villain and would not This answer therefore which alone would serve to comfort your penitent in his perplexities and to assure him that he cannot fail of Salvation if he will not for fear of inconvenience you must forbear And seeing you must I hope you will come down from the Pulpit and preach no more against others for making mens Salvation depend upon fallible and uncertain grounds lest by judging others you make your selves and your own Church inexcusable who are strongly guilty of this fault above all the men and Churches of the World whereof I have already given you two very pregnant demonstrations drawn from your presumptuous tying God and Salvation to your Sacraments And the efficacy of them to your Priest's Qualifications and Intentions 69. Your making the Salvation of Infants depend on Baptism a Casual thing and in the power of man to conferre or not conferre would yield me a Third of the same nature And your suspending the same on the Baptizer's Intention a Fourth And lastly your making the Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist depend upon the casualties of the Consecrator's true Priesthood and Intention and yet commanding men to believe it for certain that he is present and to adore the Sacrament which according to your Doctrine for ought they can possibly know may be nothing else but a piece of Bread so exposing them to the danger of Idolatry and consequently of damnation doth offer me a Fifth demonstration of the same Conclusion if I thought fit to insist upon them But I have no mind to draw any more out of this Fountain neither do I think it charity to cloy the Reader with uniformity when the Subject affords variety 70. Sixthly therefore I return it thus The faith of Papists relies alone upon their Churche's infallibility That there is any Church infallible and that Theirs is it they pretend not to believe but only upon prudential Motives Dependance upon prudential Motives they confess to be obnoxious to a possibility of erring What then remaineth but Truth Faith Salvation and All must in them relie upon a fallible and uncertain ground 71. Seventhly The Faith of Papists relies upon the Church alone The Doctrine of the Church is delivered to most of them by their Parish-Priest or Ghostly Father or at least by a company of Priests who for the most part sure are men and not Angels in whom nothing is more certain than a most certain possibility to err What then remaineth but that Truth Faith Salvation and All must in them relie upon a fallible and uncertain ground 72. Eighthly thus It is apparent and undeniable that many Thousands there are who believe your Religion upon no better grounds than a man may have for the belief almost of any Religion As some believe it because their Forefathers did so and they were good People Some because they were Christened and brought up in it Some because many Learned and Religious men are of it Some because it is the Religion of their Countrey where all other Religions are persecuted and proscribed Some because Protestants cannot shew a perpetual succession of Professors of all their Doctrines Some because the service of your Church is more stately and pompous and magnificent Some because they find comfort in it Some because your Religion is farther spread and hath more Professors of it than the Religion of Protestants Some because your Priests compass Sea and Land to gain Proselytes to it Lastly an infinite number by chance and they know not why but only because they are sure they are in the right This which I say is a most certain experimented truth and if you will deal ingenuously you will not deny it And without question he that builds his faith upon our English Translation goes upon a more prudent ground than any of these can with reason be pretended to be What then can you alledge but that with you father than with us Truth and Faith and Salvation and All relie upon fallible and uncertain grounds 73. Ninthly Your Rhemish and Doway Translations are delivered to your Proselytes such I mean that are dispenced with for the reading of them for the direction of their Faith and Lives And the same may be said of your Translations of the Bible into other National languages in respect of those that are licenced to read them This I presume you will confess And moreover that these Translations came not by inspiration but were the productions of humane Industry and that not Angels but men were the Authors of them Men I say meer men subject to the same passions and to the same possibility of erring with our Translators And then how does it not unavoidably follow that in them which depend upon these Translations for their direction Faith and Truth and Salvation and All relies upon fallible and uncertain grounds 74. Tenthly and lastly to lay the ax to the root of the tree the Helena which you so fight for your vulgar Translation though some of you believe or pretend to believe it to be in every part and particle of it the pure and uncorupted Word of God yet others among you and those as good and zealous Catholiques as you are not so confident hereof 75. First for all those who have made Translations of the whole Bible or any part of it different many times in sense from the Vulgar as Lyranus Cajetan Pagnine Arias Erasmus Valla Steuchus and others it is apparent and even palpable that they never dreamt of any absolute perfection and authentical infallibility of the Vulgar Translation For if they had Why did they in many places reject it and differ from it 76. Vega was present at the Councel of Trent when that Decree was made which made the Vulgar Edition then not extant any where in the world authentical and not to be rejected upon any pretence whatsoever At the forming this Decree Vega I say was present understood the mind of the Councel as well as any man and professes that he was instructed in it
of Irenaeus alledged here by you is utterly and plainly impertinent Or whether by this discourse you mean as I think you do not your Discourse but your Conclusion which you discourse on that is that Your Church is the Infallible Judge in Controversies For neither hath 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 no eyes we must have felt out our way If we had no legs 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 legs 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 Tradition 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 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 Apostle's Creed and besides the knowledge of the ten Commandments and some of the Sacraments Other things are 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 some things to all to wit those things which were profitable for all other things only to Prelates 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 preached 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 God's Church then in the Age next after the Apostles Then when all the Ancient and Apostolique 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 extreamly difficult or rather impossible to find the Church first independently of the true Doctrin and then to find the truth by the Church 147. As for the last clause of the sentence it will not any whit advantage but rather prejudice your Assertion Neither wil I seek to avoid the pressure of it by saying that he speaks of small Questions and therefore not of Questions touching things necessary to Salvation which can hardly be called small Questions But I will favour you so far as to suppose that saying this of small Questions it is probable he would have said it much more of the Great but I will answer that which is most certain and evident and which I am confident you your self were you as impudent as I believe you modest would not deny That the Ancient Apostolique Churches are not now as they were in Irenaeus his time then they were all at Unity about matters of Faith which Unity was a good assurance that what they so agreed in came from some one common Fountain and that no other than of Apostolique Preaching And this is the very ground of Tertullian's so often mistaken Prescription against Heretiques Variâsse debuerat Errer Ecclesiarum quod autem apud multos unum est non est erratum sed traditum If the Churches had erred they could not but have varied but that which is one among so many came not by Error but Tradition But now the case is altered and the mischief is that these ancient Churches are divided among themselves and if we have recourse to them one of them will say This is the way to heaven another that So that now in place of receiving from them certain and clear truths we must expect nothing but certain and clear contradictions 148. Neither will the Apostle's depositing with the Church all things belonging to truth be any proof that the Church shall certainly keep this depositum entire and sincere without adding to it or taking from it for this whole depositum was committed to every particular Church nay to every particular man which the Apostles converted And yet no man I think will say that there was any certainty that it should be kept whole and inviolate by every man and every Church It is apparent out of Scripture it was committed to Timothy and by him consigned to other faithful men and yet S. Paul thought it not superfluous earnestly to exhort him to the careful keeping of it which exhortation you must grant had been vain and superfluous if the not keeping of it had been impossible And therefore though Irenaeus says The Apostles fully deposited
in the Church all truth yet he says not neither can we infer from what he says That the Church should always infallibly keep this depositum entire without the loss of any truth and sincere without the mixture of any falshood 149. Ad § 25. But you proceed and tell us That beside all this the Doctrine of Protestants is destructive of it self For either they have certains and infallible means not to err in interpreting or not If not Scripture to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible faith If they have and so cannot err in interpreting Scripture then they are able with infallibility to hear and determine all Controversies of Faith and so they may be and are Judges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies beside Scripture alone And may not we with as much reason substitute Church and Papists instead of Scripture and Protestants and say unto you Besides all this the doctrin of Papists is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to err in the choice of the Church and interpreting her Decrees or they have not If not then the Church to them cannot be a sufficient but meerly a phantastical ground for infallible faith nor a meet Judge of Controversies For unless I be infallibly sure that the Church is infallible How can I be upon her Authority infallibly sure that any thing she says is Infallible If they have certain infallible means and so cannot err in the choice of their Church and in interpreting her Decrees then they are able with Infallibility to hear examine and determine all Controversies of Faith although they pretend to make the Church their Guide And thus against their own Doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides the Church alone Nay every one makes himself a chuser of his own Religion and of his own sense of the Churches Decree which very thing in Protestants they so highly condemn and so in judging others condemn themselves 150. Neither in saying thus have I only cried quittance with you but that you may see how much you are in my debt I will shew unto you that for your Sophism against our way I have given you a Demonstration against yours First I say your Argument against us is a transparent fallacy The first Part of it lies thus Protestants have no means to interpret without Errour obscure and ambiguous places of Scripture therefore plain places of Scripture cannot be to them a sufficient ground of Faith But though we pretend not to certain means of not erring in interpreting all Scripture particularly such places as are obscure and ambiguous yet this me-thinks should be no impediment but that we may have certain means of not erring in and about the sense of those places which are so plain and clear that they need no Interpreters and in such we say our Faith is contained If you ask me How I can be sure that I know the true meaning of these places I ask you again Can you be sure that you understand what I or any man else says They that heard our Saviour and the Apostles preach could they have sufficient assurance that they understood at any time what they would have them do If not to what end did they hear them If they could Why may we not be as well assured that we understand sufficiently what we conceive plain in their writings 151. Again I pray tell us whether you do certainly know the sense of these Scriptures with which you pretend you are led to the knowledge of your Church If you do not How know you that there is any Church Infallible and that these are the notes of it and that this is the Church that hath these notes If you do then give us leave to have the same means and the same abilities to know other plain places which you have to know these For if all Scripture be obscure how come you to know the sense of these places If some places of it be plain Why should we stay here 152. And now to come to the other part of your Dilemma in saying If they have certain means and so cannot err methinks you forget your self very much and seem to make no difference between having certain means to do a thing and the actual doing of it As if you should conclude because all men have certain means of Salvation therefore all men certainly must be saved and cannot do otherwise as if Whosoever had a horse must presently get up and ride Whosoever had means to find out a way could not neglect those means and so mistake it God be thanked that we have sufficient means to be certain enough of the truth of our Faith But the priviledge of not being in possibility of erring that we challenge not because we have as little reason as you to do so and you have none at all If you ask seeing we may possibly err How can we be assured we do not I ask you again seeing your eye-sight may deceive you How can you be sure you see the Sun when you do see it Perhaps you may be in a dream and perhaps you and all the men in the World have been so when they thought they were awake and then only awake when they thought they dreamt But this I am sure of as sure as that God is good that he will require no impossibilities of us not an Infallible nor a certainly-unerring belief unless he hath given us certain means to avoid error and if we use those which we have will never require of us that we use that which we have not 153. Now from this mistaken ground That it is all one to have means of avoiding error and to be in no danger nor possibility of error You infer upon us an absurd Conclusion That we make our selves able to determine Controversies of Faith with Infallibility and Judges of Controversies For the latter part of this Inference we acknowledge and embrace it We do make our selves Judges of Controversies that is we do make use of our own understanding in the choice of our Religion But this if it be a crime is common to us with you as I have proved above and the difference is not that we are chusers and you not chusers but that we as we conceive chuse wisely but you being willfully blind chuse to follow those that are so too not remembring what our Saviour hath told you When the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch But then again I must tell you You have done ill to confound together Judges and Infallible Judges unless you will say either that we have no Judges in our Courts of Civil Judicature or that they are all Infallible 154. Thus have we cast off your Dilemma and broken both the horns of it But now my retortion lies heavy upon you and will not be turned off For
they might be saved God requiting of us under pain of damnation only to believe the verities therein contained and not the divine Authority of the Books wherein they are contained Not but that it were now very strange and unreasonable if a man should believe the matter of these Books and not the Authority of the Books and therefore if a man should profess the not-believing of these I should have reason to fear he did not believe that But there is not always an equal necessity for the belief of those things for the belief whereof there is an equal reason We have I believe as great reason to believe there was such a man as Henry the eighth King of England as that Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate yet this is necessary to be believed and that is not so So that if any man should doubt of or dâsbelieve that it were most unreasonably done of him yet it were no mortal sin nor no sin at all God having no where commanded men under pain of damnation to believe all which reason induceth them to believe Therefore as an Executor that should perform the whole will of the dead should fully satisfie the Law though he did not believe that Parchment to be his written Will which indeed is so So I believe that he who believes all the particular Doctrines which integrate Christianity and lives according to them should be saved though he neither believed nor knew that the Gospels were written by the Evangelists or the Epistles by the Apostles 160. This disourse whether it be rational and concluding or no I submit to better judgment but sure I am that the Corollary which you draw from this Position that this Point is not Fundamental is very inconsequent that is that we are uncertain of the truth of it because we say The whole Church much more particular Churches and private men may err in points not Fundamental A pretty sophism depending upon this Principle that whosoever possibly may err he cannot be certain that he doth not err And upon this ground what shall hinder me from concluding that seeing you also hold that neither particular Churches nor private men are infallible even in Fundamentals that even the Fundamentals of Christianity remain to you uncertain A Judge may possibly err in judgment can he therefore never have assurance that he hath judged right A Traveller may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtful whether I am in the right way from my Hall to my Chamber Or can our London-Carrier have no certainty in the middle of the day when he is sober and in his wits that he is in the way to London These you see are right worthy consequences and yet they are as like your own as an egg to an egg or milk to milk 161. And for the self same reason you say we are not certain that the Church is not Judge of Controversies But now this self same appears to be no reason and therefore for all this we may be certain enough that the Church is no Judge of Controversies The ground of this sophism is very like the former viz. that we can be certain of the falshood of no propositions but these only which are damnable errors But I pray good Sir give me your opinion of these The Snow is black the Fire is cold that M. Knot is Arch-Bishop of Toledo that the whole is not greater than a part of the whole that twice two make not four In your opinion good Sir are these damnable Heresies Or because they are not so have we no certainty of the falshood of them I beseech you Sir to consider seriously with what strange captions you have gone about to delude your King and your Country and if you be convinced they are so give glory to God and let the world know it by your deserting that Religion which stands upon such deceitful foundations 162. Besides you say among publique Conclusions defended in Oxford the year 1633. to the Questions Whether the Church have Authority to determine Controversies of Fâith And to interpret holy Scripture The Answer to both is âffirmative But what now if I should tell you that in the year 1632. among publique Conclusions defended in Doway one was That God predeterminates men to all their actions good bad and indifferent Will you think your self obliged to be of this opinion If you will say so If not do as you would be done by Again me-thinks so subtil a man as you are should easily apprehend a wide difference between Authority to do a thing and an Absolute The former the Doctor together with the Article of the Church of England attributeth to the Church nay to particular Churches and I subscribe to his opinion that is an Authority of determining Controversies of Faith according to plain and evident Scripture and Universal Tradition and Infallibility while they proceed according to this Rule As if there should arise an Heretique that should call in question Christ's Passion and Resurrection the Church had Authority to decide this Controversie and infallible direction how to do it and to excommunicate this man if he should persist in error I hope you will not deny but that the Judges have Authority to determine Criminal and Civil Controversies and yet I hope you will not say that they are absolutely infallible in their determination Infallible while they proceed according to Law and if they do so but not infallibly certain that they shall ever do so But that the Church should be infallibly assisted by God's Spirit to decide rightly all emergent Controversies even such as might be held diversly of divers men Salva compage fidei and that we might be absolutely certain that the Church should never fail to decree the truth whether she used means or no whether she proceed according to her Rule or not or lastly that we might be absolutely certain that she would never fail to proceed according to her Rule this the Defender of these Conclusions said not and therefore said no more to your purpose than you have all this while that is just nothing 163. Ad § 27. To the place of S. Austin alledged in this Paragraph I Answer First that in many things you will not be tried by S. Augustin's judgement nor submit to his Authority not concerning Appeals to Rome not concerning Transubstantiation not touching the use and worshipping of Images not concerning the State of Saint's souls before the day of Judgment not touching the Virgin Marie's freedom from actual and original sin not touching the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants not touching the damning Infants to hell that die without Baptism not touching the knowledge of Saints departed not touching Purgatory not touching the fallibility of Councels even general Councels not touching perfection and perspicuity of Scripture in matters necessary to Salvation not touching Auricular Confession not touching the half-Communion not touching prayers in an unknown tongue In these things I say you
Church concerning it which without any ambiguity the holy Scripture doth demonstrate to us Among many other Points in the aforesaid words we are to observe that according to this holy Father when we prove some Points not particularly contained in Scripture by the authority of the Church even in that case we ought not to be said to believe such Points without Scripture because Scripture it self recommends the Church and therefore relying on her we relie on Scripture without danger of being deceived by the obscurity of any question defined by the Church And elsewhere he saith Seeing this is (z) De Unit. Eccles c. 19. written in no Scripture we must believe the testimony of the Church which Christ declareth to speak the truth But it seems D. Potter is of opinion that this Doctrin about not-rebaptizing such as were baptized by Heretiques is no necessary Point of Faith nor the contrary an Heresie wherein he contradicteth S. Augustine from whom we have now heard that what the Church teacheth is truly said to be taught by Scripture and consequently to deny this particular Point delivered by the Church is to oppose Scripture it self Yet it he will needs hold that this Point is not Fundamental we must conclude out of S. Augustine as we did concerning the baptizing of Children that the infallibility of the Church reacheth to Points not-Fundamental The same Father in another place concerning this very question of the validity of Baptism conferred by Heretiques saith The (a) De Bapt. cont Donat. l. 5. c. 23. Apostles indeed have prescribed nothing of this but this Custom ought to be believed to be originally taken from their Tradition as there are many things that the universal Church observeth which are therefore with good reason believed to have been commanded by the Apostles although they be not written No less clear is S. Chrysostom for the infallibility of the Traditions of the Church For treating these words 2 Thes 2. Stand and hold the Traditions which you have learned whether by speech or by Epistle he saith Hence it is (b) Hom. 4. manifest that they delivered not all things by letter but many things also without writing and these also are worthy of belief Let us therefore account the Tradition of the Church so be worthy of belief It is a Tradition Seek no more Which words are so plainly against Protestants that Whitaker is as plain with S. Chrysostom saying I answer (c) De Sacra Script p. 678. that this is an inconsiderate speech and unworthy so great a Father But let us conclude with S. Augustine that the Church cannot approve any Error against Faith or good manners The Church saith he being (d) Ep. 119. placed between much chaff and cockle doth tolerate many things but yet she doth not approve nor dissemble nor do those things which are against Faith or good life 17. And as I have proved that Protestants according to their grounds cannot yield infallible assent to the Church in any one Point so by the same reason I prove that they cannot relie upon Scripture it self in any one Point of Faith Not in Points of lesser moment or not Fundamental because in such Points the Catholique Church according to D. Potter and much more any Protestant may err and think it is contained in Scripture when it is not Not in Points Fundamental because they must first know what Points be Fundamental before they can be assured that they cannot err in understanding the Scripture and consequently independently of Scripture they must foreknow all Fundamental Points of Faith and therefore they do not indeed relie upon Scripture either for Fundamental or not Fundamental Points 18. Besides I mainly urge D. Potter and other Protestants that they tell us of certain Points which they call Fundamental and we cannot wrest from them a list in particular of such Points without which no man can tell whether or no he err in Points Fundamental and be capable of Salvation And which is most lamentable instead of giving us such a Catalogue they fall to wrangle among themselves about the making of it 19. Calvin holds the (e) Instit l. 4. cap. 2. Pope's Primacy Invocation of Saints Freewill and such like to be Fundamental Errors overthrowing the Gospel Others are not of his mind as Melancthon who saith in (f) Cent. Ep. Theol. Ep. 74. the opinion of himself and other his Brethren That the Monarchy of the Bishop of Rome is of use or profit to this end that consent of Doctrin may be retained An agreement therefore may easily be established in this Article of the Pope's Primacy if ether Articles could be agreed upon If the Pope's Primacy be a means that consent of Doctrin may be retained first submit to it and other articles will be easily agreed upon Luther also saith of the Pope's Primacy it may be born (g) In Assertionib art 36. withall And why then O Luther did you not bear with it And how can you and your followers be excused from damnable Schism who chose rather to divide God's Church then to bear with that which you confess may be born withall But let us go forward That the Doctrin of Freewill Prayer for the dead worshipping of Images Worship and Invocation of Saints Real presence Transubstantiation Receiving under one kind Satisfaction and Merit of works and the Mass be not fundamental Errors is taught respectivè by divers Protestants carefully alledged in the Protestants (h) Tract 1. c. 2. Sect. 14. after F. Apology c. as namely by Perkins Cartwright Frith Fulke Sparke Goad Luther Reynolds Whitaker Tindal Francis Johnson with others Contrary to these is the Confession of the Christian Faith so called by Protestants which I mentioned (i) Cap. 1. v. 4. heretofore wherein we are damned unto unquenchable fire for the Doctrin of Mass Prayer to Saints and for the dead Freewill Presence at Idol-service Mans merit with such like Justification by Faith alone is by some Protestants affirmed to be the soul of the (k) Chalk in the Tower disputation the 4. dayes conference Church The only Principal origin of (l) Fox Act. Mon. p. 402. Salvation of all other Points of (m) The Confession of Bohemia in the Harmony of Confessions p. 253. Doctrin the chiefest and weightiest Which yet as we have seen is contrary to other Protestants who teach that merit of good works is not a Fundamental Error yea divers Protestants defend merit of good works as may be seen in (n) Tract 3. Sect. 7. under m. n. 15. Breereley One would think that the King's Supremacy for which some blessed men lost their lives was once amongst Protestants held for a Capital Point but now D. Andrews late of Winchester in his Book against Bellarmine tells us that it is sufficient to reckon it among true Doctrins And Wotton denies that Protestants (o) In his answer to a Popish pamphlet p 68. hold the King's
Saviour speaketh clearly The Gates of Hell (e) Mat. 16. shall not prevail against her And I will ask my (f) Joan. 14. Father and he will give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever The Spirit of Truth And But when he the Spirit of (g) Joan. 16. Truth cometh he shall teach you all Truth The Apostle saith that the Church is the Pillar and ground of (h) 1 Tim. c. 3. Truth And He gave some Apostles and some Prophets and othersome Evangelists and othersome Pastors and Doctors to the consummation of the Saints unto the work of the Ministry unto the edifying of the Body of Christ until we meet all into the unity of Faith and knowledge of the Son of God into a perfect man into the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ that now we be not children wavering and carried about with every wind of Doctrin in the wickedness of men in craftiness to the circumvention (i) Ephes 4. of Error All which words seem clearly enough to prove that the Church is universally infallible without which unity of Faith could not be conserved against every wind of Doctrin And yet D Potter (k) Pag. 151 153. limits these promises and priviledges to Fundamental Points in which he grants the Church cannot err I urge the words of Scripture which are universal and do not mention any such restraint I alledge that most reasonable and Received Rule that Scripture is to be understood literally as it soundeth unless some manifest absurdity force us to the contrary But all will not serve to accord our different interpretation In the mean time divers of D. Potter's Brethren step in and reject his limitation as over-large and somewhat tasting of Papistry And therefore they restrain the mentioned Texts either to the Infallibility which the Apostles and other sacred Writers had in penning of Scripture or else to the invisible Church of the Elect and to them not absolutely but with a double restriction that they shall not fall damnably and finally and other men have as much right as these to interpose their opinion and interpretation Behold we are three at debate about the selfesame words of Scripture We confer divers places and Texts We consult the Originals We examine Translations We endeavour to pray heartily We profess to speak sincerely To seek nothing but Truth and Salvation of our own souls and that of our Neighbours and finally we use all those means which by Protestants themselves are prescribed for finding out the true meaning of Scripture Nevertheless we neither do or have any possible means to agree as long as we are left to our selves and when we should chance to be agreed the doubt would still remain whether the thing it self be a Fundamental Point or no And yet it were great impiety to imagine that God the lover of Souls hath left no certain infallible means to decide both this and all other differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion Our remedy therefore in these contentions must be to consult and hear Gods Visible Church with submissive acknowledgment of her Power and Infallibility in whatsoever the proposeth as a revealed Truth according to that divine advice of St. Augustine in these words If at length (l) De util cred cap. 8. thou seem to be sufficiently tossed and hast a desire to put an end to thy pains follow the way of the Catholique Discipline which from Christ himself by the Apostles hath come down even to us and from us shall descend to all posterity And though I conceive that the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental hath now been sufficiently confuted yet that no shadow of difficulty may remain I will particularly refel a common saying of Protestants that it is sufficient for Salvation to believe the Apostles Creed which they hold to be a Summary of all Fundamental Points of Faith The ANSWER to the THIRD CHAPTER Wherein it is maintained That the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental is in this present Controversie good and pertinent And that the Catholique Church may err in the latter kind of the said Points 1 THis Distinction is imployed by Protestants to many purposes and therefore if it be pertinent and good as they understand and apply it the whole edifice built thereon must be either firme and stable or if it be not it cannot be for any default in this Distinction 2. If you object to them discords in matter of Faith without any means of agreement They will answer you that they want not good and solid means of agreement in matters necessary to Salvation viz. Their beliefe of all those things which are plainly and undoubtedly delivered in Scripture which who so believes must of necessity believe all things necessary to Salvation and their mutual suffering one another to abound in their several sense in matters not plainly and undoubtedly there delivered And for their agreement in all Controversies of Religion either they have means to agree about them or not If you say they have why did you before deny it If they have not means why do you find fault with them for not agreeing 3. You will say that their fault is that by remaining Protestants they exclude themselves from the means of agreement which you have and which by submission to your Church they might have also But if you have means of agreement the more shame for you that you stil disagree For who I pray is more inexcusably guilty for the omission of any duty they that either have no means to do it or else know of none they have which puts them in the same case if as they had none or they which professe to have an easie and expedite means to do it and yet still leave it undone If you had been blind saith our Saviour to the Pharisees you had had no sin but now you say you see therefore your sin remaineth 4. If you say you do agree in matters of Faith I say this is ridiculous for you define matters of Faith to be those wherein you agree So that to say you agree in matters of Faith is to say you agree in those things wherein you do agree And do not Protestants do so likewise Do not they agree in those things wherein they do agree 5. But you are all agreed that only those things wherein you do agree are matters of Faith And Protestants if they were wise would do so too Sure I am they have reason enough to do so seeing all of them agree with explicite Faith in all those things which are plainly and undoubtedly delivered in Scripture that is in all which God hath plainly revealed and with an implicite Faith in that sense of the whole Scripture which God intended whatsoever was Secondly That which you pretend is false for else why do some of you hold it against faith to take or allow the Oath of
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 God's 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 And if D. Potter did speak to this purpose that the Apostles were Infallible only in these things which they spake of certain knowledg I cannot see what danger there were in saying so Yet the Truth is you wrong D. Potter It is not he but D. Stapleton in him that speaks the words you cavil at D. Stapleton saith he p. 140. is full and punctual to this purpose then sets down the effect of his discourse l. 8. Princ. Doct. 4. c. 15. and in that the words you cavil at and then p. 150. he shuts up this Paragraph with these words Thus D. Stapleton So that if either the Doctrine or the Reason be not good D. Stapleton not D. Potter is to answer for it 33. Neither do D. Potter's ensuing words limit the Apostle's infallibility to truths absolutely necessary to salvation if you read them with any candor for it is evident he grants the Church infallible in Truths absolutely necessary and as evident that he ascribes to the Apostles the Spirit 's guidance and consequently infallibility in a more high and absolute manner than any since them From whence thus I argue He that grants the Church infallible in Fundamentals and ascribes to the Apostles the infallible guidance of the Spirit in a more high and absolute manner than to any since them limits not the Apostles infallibility to Fundamentals But D. Potter grants to the Church such a limited infallibility and ascribes to the Apostles the Spirit 's infallible guidance in a more high and absolute manner Therefore he limits not the Apostles infallibility to Fundamentals I once knew a man out of courtesie help a lame dog over a stile and he for requital bit him by the fingers Just so you serve D. Potter He out of courtesie grants you that those words The Spirit shall lead you into all Truth and shall abide with you ever though in their high and most absolute sense they agree only to the Apostles yet in a conditional limited moderate secundary sense they may be understood of the Church But says that if they be understood of the Church All must not be simply all No nor so large an All as the Apostles all but all necessary to salvation And you to requite his courtesie in granting you thus much cavil at him as if he had prescribed these bounds to the Apostles also as well as the present Church Whereas he hath explained himself to the contrary both in the clause fore-mentioned The Apostles who had the Spirit 's guidance in a more high and absolute manner than any since them and in these words ensuing whereof the Church is simply ignorant and again wherewith the Church is not acquainted But most clearly in those which being most incompatible to the Apostles you with an c I cannot but fear craftily have concealed How many obscure Texts of Scripture which she understands not How many School-Questions which she hath not happily cannot determine And for matters of fact it is apparent that the Church may err and then concludes That we must understand by All truths not simply All But if you conceive the words as spoken of the Church All Truth absolutely necessary to salvation And yet beyond all this the negative part of his answer agrees very well to the Apostles themselves for that All which they were lead into was not simply All otherwise S. Paul erred in saying we know in part but such an All as was requisite to make them the Churches Foundations Now such they could not be without freedom from errour in all those things which they delivered constantly as certain revealed Truths For if we once suppose they may have erred in some things of this nature it will be utterly undiscernable what they have erred in and what they have not Whereas though we suppose the Church hath erred in some things yet we have means to know what she hath erred in and what she hath not I mean by comparing the Doctrine of the present Church with the Doctrin of the Primitive Church delivered in Scripture But then last of all suppose the Doctor had said which I know he never intended that this promise in this place made to the Apostles was to be understood only of Truths absolutely necessary to salvation Is it consequent that he makes their Preaching and Writing not infallible in Points not Fundamental Do you not blush for shame at this Sophistry The Doctor says no more was promised in this place Therefore he says no more was promised Are there not other places besides this And may not that be promised in other places which is not promised in this 34. But if the Apostles were Infallible in all things proposed by them as Divine Truths the like must be affirmed of the Church because D. Potter teacheth the said promise to be verified in the Church True he doth so but not in so absolute a manner Now what is opposed to Absolute but Limited or restrained To the Apostles then it was made and to them only yet the words are true of the Church And this very promise might have been made to it though here it is not They agree to the Apostles in a higher to the Church in a lower sense to the Apostles in a 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 lead 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 chuse 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 as that she may follow not so
one thing upon the sole warrant of this authority or unreasonably in not believing all things equally warranted by it Let this therefore be granted and what will come of it Why then you say we cannot believe her in propounding Canonical Books If you mean still as you must do unless you play the Sophister not upon her own Authority I grant it For we believe Canonical Books not upon the Authority of the present Church but upon Universal Tradition If you mean Not at all and that with reason we cannot believe these Books to be Canonical which the Church proposes I deny it There is no more consequence in the Argument than in this The devil is not infallible therefore if he sayes there is one God I cannot believe him No Geometrician is Infallible in all things therefore not in these things which he demonstrates M. Knot is not infallible in all things therefore he may not believe that he wrote a Book entituled Charity Maintained 37. But though the Reply be good Protestants cannot make use of it with any good coherence to this distinction and some other Doctrins of theirs because they pretend to be able to tell what points are Fundamental and what not and therefore though they should believe Scripture erroneous in others yet they might be sure it erred not in these To this I answer That if without dependance on Scripture they did know what were Fundamental and what not they might possibly believe the Scripture true in Fundamentals and erroneous in other things But seeing they ground their belief that such and such things only are Fundamentals only upon Scripture and goe about to prove their assertion true only by Scripture then must they suppose the Scripture true absolutely and in all things or else the Scripture could not be a sufficient warrant to them to believe this thing that these only Points are Fundamental For who would not laugh at them if they should argue thus The Scripture is true in something the Scripture sayes that these Points only are Fundamental therefore this is true that these only are so For every Fresh-man in Logick knows that from meer particulars nothing can be certainly concluded But on the other side this reason is firme and demonstrative The Scripture is true in all things But the Scripture sayes that these only Points are the Fundamentals of Christian Religion therefore it is true that these only are so So that the knowledge of Fundamentals being it self drawn from Scripture is so far from warranting us to believe the Scripture is or may be in part True and in part False that it self can have no foundation but the Universal truth of Scripture For to be a Fundamental Truth presupposes to be a Truth now I cannot know any Doctrin to be a Divine and supernatural Truth or a true part of Christianity but only because the Scripture sayes so which is all true Therefore much more can I not know it to be a Fundamental Truth 38. Ad. § 16. To this Paragraph I answer Though the Church being not infallible I cannot believe her in every thing she sayes 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 erre But this I know we can because though she may erre in some things yet she does not erre 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 seeing Faith comes by Hearing and by hearing those who give testimony to it which none doth but the Church and the Parts of it I must learn of the Church or of some part of it 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 of GOD's 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 Director 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 favour to be so acute as to distinguish between being infallible in Fundamentals and being an infallible Guide in Fundamentals That there shall be alwaies a Church infallible in Fundamentals we easily grant for it comes to no more but this that there shall be alwais a Church But that there shall be alwaies 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 Master's erroneous Conclusions 41. But you ask If the Church be not an Infallible
Testimonies have I taken as mine heritage for ever And lastly in the Ep. to Philemon He therefore departed from thee for a time that thou shouldst receive him for ever 75. And thus I presume I have shewed sufficiently that this for ever hinders not but that the promise may be appropriated to the Apostles as by many other circumstances I have evinced it must be But what now if the place produced by you as a main pillar of your Churches Infallibility prove upon trial an engine to batter and overthrow it at least which is all one to my purpose to take away all possibility of our assurance of it This will seem strange news to you at first hearing and not far from a prodigy And I confess as you here in this place and generally all your Writers of Controversie by whom this Text is urged order the matter it is very much disabled to do any service against you in this question For with a bold sacriledge and horrible impiety somewhat like Procrustes his cruelty you perpetually cut off the head and foot the beginning and end of it and presenting to your Confidents who usually read no more of the Bible than is alledged by you only these words I will ask my Father and he shall give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of Truth conceal in the mean time the words before and the words after that so the promise of God's Spirit may seem to be absolute whereas it is indeed most clearly and expresly conditional being doth in the words before restrained to those only that love GOD and keep his Commandments and in the words after flatly denied to all whom the Scriptures stile by the name of the World that is as the very Antithesis gives us plainly to understand to all wicked and wordly men Behold the place entire as it is set down in your own Bible If ye love me keep my Commandments and I will ask my Father and he shall give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of the Truth whom the world cannot receive Now from the place thus restored and vindicated from your mutilation thus I argue against your pretence We can have no certainty of the Infallibility of your Church but upon this supposition that your Popes are infallible in confirming the Decrees of General Councels we can have no certainty hereof but upon this supposition that the Spirit of Truth is promised to them for their direction in this work And of this again we can have no certainty but upon supposal that they perform the condition whereunto the promise of the Spirit of Truth is expresly limited viz. That they love God and keep his Commandments And of this finally not knowing the Popes heart we can have no certainty at all therefore from the first to the last we can have no certainty at all of your Churches Infallibility This is my first Argument Another follows which will charge you as home as the former If many of the Roman See were such men as could not receive the Spirit of Truth even men of the World that is Wordly Wicked Carnal Diabolical men then the Spirit of Truth is not here promised but flatly denied them and consequently we can have no certainty neither of the Decrees of Councels which these Popes confirm nor of the Churches Infallibility which is guided by these Decrees But many of the Roman See even by the confession of the most zealous Defenders of it were such men Therefore the Spirit of Truth is not here promised but denied them and consequently we can have no certainty neither of the Decrees which they confirm nor of the Churches Infallibility which guides her self by these Decrees 76. You may take as much time as you think fit to answer these Arguments In the mean while I proceed to the consideration of the next Text alledged for this purpose by you out of S. Paul 1 Ep. to Timothy where he saith as you say The Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth But the truth is you are somewhat too bold with S. Paul For he says not in formal terms what you make him say The Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth neither is it certain that he means so for it is neither impossible nor improbable that these words the pillar and ground of truth may have reference not to the Church but to Timothy the sense of the place that thou maist know how to behave thy self as a Pillar and Ground of the Truth in the Church of God which is house of the living God which exposition offers no violence at all to the words but only supposes an Ellipsis of the Particle ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the Greek very ordinary Neither wants it some likelihood that S. Paul comparing the Church to a house should here exhort Timothy to carry himself as a Pillar in that house should do according as he had given other principal men in the Church the name of Pillars rather then having called the Church a House to call it presently a Pillar which may seem somewhat heterogeneous Yet if you will needs have S. Paul refer this not to Timothy but to the Church I will not contend about it any farther then to say Possibly it may be otherwise But then secondly I am to put you in mind that the Church which S. Paul here speaks of was that in which Timothy conversed and that was a Particular Church and not the Roman and such you will not have to be Universally Infallible 77. Thirdly if we grant you out of courtesie for nothing can enforce us to it that he both speaks of the Universal Church and says this of it then I am to remember you that many Attributes in Scripture are not notes of performance but of duty and reach us not what the Thing or Person is of necessity but what it should be Ye are the Salt of the Earth said our Saviour to his Disciples not that this quality was inseparable from their Persons but because it was their Office to be so For if they must have been so of necessity and could not have been otherwise in vain had he put in them fear of that which follows If the Salt hath lost his 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 Catholike 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 always 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 hath some biles 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 tie us fast enough The words are He gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. to the consummation of Saints to the work of the Ministery c. Until we all meet into the Unity of faith c. That we be not hereafter Children wavering and carryed up and down with every wind of Doctrin 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 Doctrin 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 Doctrin 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 alleadged For that tels 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 Ministery 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 carryed about with every wind of false Doctrin 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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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 Orders 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 Object 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 Spain 's Army Answ 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 immediately 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 Councel 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 freedome from Error to the Persons that made these Decrees neither will they deny that the writings which they have left behind them are sufficient for this purpose And why may not then the Apostles writings be as fit for such a purpose as the Decrees of your Doctors Surely their intent in writing was to conserve us in Unity of Faith and to keep us from errour and we are sure God spake in them but your Doctors from whence they are we are not so certain Was the Holy Ghost then unwilling or unable to direct them so that their writings should be fit and sufficient to attain that end they aimed at in writing For if he were both able and willing to do so then certainly he did do so And then their writings may be very sufficient means if we would use them as we should do to preserve us in Unity in all necessary
which doth propose and indeed believe them hath for matter of Faith the essence of a true Church that which doth not hath not Now to this Question though not to yours D. Potter's Assertion if it be true is apparently very pertinent And though not a full and total satisfaction to it yet very effectual and of great moment towards it For the main Question being What Points are necessary to Salvation and Points necessary to Salvation being of two sorts some of simple belief some of Practice and Obedience he that gives you a sufficient summary of the first sort of necessary Points hath brought you half way towards your journies end And therefore that which he doth is no more to be slighted as vain and impertinent than an Architect's work is to be thought impertinent towards the making of a house because he doth it not all himself Sure I am if his Assertion be true as I believe it is a Corollary may presently be deduced from it which if it were embraced cannot in all reason but do infinite service both to the Truth of Christ and the peace of Christendom For seeing falshood and errour could not long stand against the power of Truth were they not supported by Tyranny and worldly advantages he that could assert Christians to that liberty which Christ and his Apostles left them must needs do Truth a most Heroical service And seeing the overvaluing of the differences among Christians is one of the greatest maintainers of the Schisms of Christendom he that could demonstrate that only those Points of Belief are simply necessary to Salvation wherein Christians generally agree should he not lay a very fair and firm foundation of the peace of Christendom Now the Corollary which I conceive would produce these good effects and which flows naturally from D. Potter's Assertion is this That what Man or Church soever believes the Creed and all the evident consequences of it sincerely and heartily cannot possibly if also he believe the Scripture be in any Error of simple belief which is offensive to God nor therefore deserve for any such Error to be deprived of his life or to be cut off from the Churches Communion and the hope of Salvation And the production of this again would be this which highly concerns the Church of Rome to think of That whatsoever Man or Church doth for any error of simple belief deprive any man so qualified as above either of his temporal life or livelihood or liberty or of the Churches Communion and hope of Salvation is for the first unjust cruel and tyrannous Schismatical presumptuous and uncharitable for the second 13. Neither yet is this as you pretend to take away the necessity of believing those verities of Scripture which are not contained in the Creed when once we come to know that they are written in Scripture but rather to lay a necessity upon men of believing all things written in Scripture when once they know them to be there written For he that believes not all known Divine Revelations to be true How doth he believe in God Unless you will say that the same man at the same time may not believe God and yet believe in him The greater difficulty is How it will not take away the necessity of believing Scripture to be the Word of God But that it will not neither For though the Creed be granted a sufficient Summary of Articles of meer Faith yet no man pretends that it contains the Rules of obedience but for them all men are referred to Scripture Besides he that pretends to believe in God obligeth himself to believe it necessary to obey that which Reason assures him to be the Will of God Now Reason will assure him that believes the Creed that it is the Will of God he should believe the Scripture even the very same Reason which moves him to believe the Creed Universal and never-failing Tradition having given this testimony both to Creed and Scripture that they both by the works of God were sealed and testified to be the words of God And thus much be spoken in Answer to your first Argument the length whereof will be the more excusable if I oblige my self to say but little to the Rest 14. I come then to your second And in Answer to it deny flatly as a thing destructive of it self that any Error can be damnable unless it be repugnant immediatly or mediatly directly or indirectly of it self or by accident to some Truth for the matter of it Fundamental And to your example of Pontius Pilat's being Judge of Christ I say the denial of it in him that knows it to be revealed by God is manifestly destructive of this Fundamental Truth that All Divine Revelations are true Neither will you find any error so much as by accident damnable but the rejecting of it will be necessarily laid upon us by areal belief of all Fundamentals and simply necessary Truths And I desire you would reconcile with this that which you have said § 15. Every Fundamental Error must have a contrary Fundamental Truth because of two Contradictory Propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true c. 15. To the Third I answer That the certainty I have of the Creed that it was from the Apostles and contains the Principles of Faith I ground it not upon Scripture and yet not upon the Infallibility of any present much less of your Church but upon the Authority of the Ancient Church and written Tradition which as D. Potter hath proved gave this constant testimony unto it Besides I tell you it is guilty of the same fault which D. Potter's Assertion is here accused of having perhaps some colour toward the proving it false but none at all to shew it impertinent 16. To the Fourth I answer plainly thus that you find fault with D. Potter for his Vertues you are offended with him for not usurping the Authority which he had not in a word for not playing the Pope Certainly if Protestants be faulty in this matter it 's for doing it too much and not too little This presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the words of God the special senses of men upon the general words of God and laying them upon mens consciences together under the equal penalty of death and damnation this Vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the words of God This Deifying our own Interpretations and Tyrannous inforcing them upon others This restraining of the word of God from that latitude and generality and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and the Apostles left them (a) This peââsâasion is no singularity of mine but the doctrin which ãâã have learned ââom Divinâs of gâeât learning and judgment Let the ãâã Reader be pleased to peruse the seventh book of Acont de Strat. Satanae And Zanch. his last Oration delivered by him after the composing of the discord
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 God's 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 Doctrin 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 Catholique and Apostolique 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 Dis 57. in Epist 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 give us a little before in these words Unius Augustini doctrina Assumptionis B. Deiparae cultum in Ecclesiam introduxit The Doctrin of Augustine only hath brought into the Church the Worship of the Assumption of the Mother of God c. Others again mince and palliate the matter with this pretence that your Church undertakes not to coyn new Articles of Faith but only to declare those that want sufficient Declaration But if sufficient declaration be necessary to make any Doctrin an Article of Faith then this Doctrin which before wanted it was not before an Article of Faith and your Church by giving it the Essential form and last complement of an Article of Faith makes it though not a Truth yet certainly an Article of Faith But I would fain know whether Christ and his Apostles knew this Doctrin which you pretend hath the matter but wants the form of an Article of Faith that is sufficient declaration whether they knew it to be a necessary Article of the Faith or no. If they knew it not to be so then either they taught what they knew not which were very strange or else they taught it not and if not I would gladly be informed seeing you pretend to no new Revelations From whom you learned it If they knew it then either they concealed or declared it To say they concealed any necessary part of the Gospel is to charge them with far greater sacriledge than what was punished in Ananias and Saphira It is to charge these glorious Stewards and Dispensers of the Mysteries of Christ with want of the great vertue requisite in a Steward which is Fidelity It is to charge them with presumption for denouncing Anathema's even to Angels in case they should teach any other Doctrin than what they had received from them which sure could not merit an Anathema if they left any necessary part of the Gospel untaught It is in a word in plain terms to give them the lye seeing they profess plainly and frequently that they taught Christians the whole Doctrin of Christ If they did know and declare it then it was a full and formal Article of faith and the contrary a full and formal Heresie without any need of further declaration and then their Successors either continued the declaration of it or discontinued it If they did the latter How are they such faithful Depositaries of Apostolique Doctrin as you pretend Or what assurance can you give us that they might not bring in new and false Articles as well as suffer the oldand true ones to be lost If they did continue the declaration of it and deliver it to their Successors and they to theirs and so on perpetually then continued it still a full and formal Article of Faith and the repugnant doctrin a full and formal Heresie without and before the definition or declaration of a Councel So that Councels as they cannot make that a truth or falshood which before was not so so neither can they make or declare that to be an Article of Faith or an Heresie which before was not so The supposition therefore on which this Argument stands being false and ruinous whatsoever ' is built upon it must together with it fall to the ground This explication therefore and restriction of this doctrin whereof you make your advantage was to my understanding unnecessary The Fathers of the Church in after-times might have just cause to declare their judgment touching the sense of some general Articles of the Creed but to oblige others to receive their declarations under pain of damnation what warrant they had I know not He that can shew either that the Church of all Ages was to have this Authority or that it continued in the Church for some Ages and then expired He that can shew either of these things let him for my part I cannot Yet I willingly confess the judgment of a Councel though not infallible is yet so far directive and obliging that without apparent reason to the contrary it may be sin to reject it at least not to afford it an outward submission for publique peace sake 19. Ad § 7 8 9. Were I not peradventure more fearful than I need to be of the imputation of tergiversation I might very easily rid my hands of the remainder of this Chapter For in the Question there discussed you grant for ought I see as much as D. Potter desires and D. Potter grants as much as
the former sort are not contained in the Creed yet all of the latter sort may be As for your Distinction between Heresies that have been and Heresies that are and Heresies that may be I have already proved it vain and that whatsoever may be an Heresie that is so and whatsoever is so that alwayes hath been so ever since the publication of the Gospel of Christ The Doctrine of your Church may like a Snow-ball increase with rowling and again if you please melt away and decrease But as Christ Jesus so his Gospel is yesterday and today and the same for ever 38. Our Saviour sending his Apostles to preach gave them no other Commission than this Go teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy-Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you These were the bounds of their Commission If your Church have any larger or if she have a Commission at large to teach what she pleaseth and call it the Gospel of Christ let her produce her Letters-patents from heaven for it But if this be all you have then must you give me leave to esteem it both great sacriledge in you to forbid any thing be it never so small or ceremonious which Christ hath commanded as the receiving of the Communion in both kinds and as high a degree of presumption to enjoyn men to believe that there are or can be any other Fundamental Articles of the Gospel of Christ then what Christ himself commanded his Apostles to teach all men or any damnable Heresies but such as are plainly repugnant to these prime Verities 39. Ad § 16 17. The saying of the most learned Prelate and excellent man the Arch-Bishop of Armach is only related by D. Potter p. 155. and not applauded though the truth is both the Man deserves as much applause as any man and his saying as much as any saying it being as great and as good a Truth and as necessary for these miserable times as possibly can be uttered For this is most certain and I believe you will easily grant it that to reduce Christians to Unity of Communion there are but two ways that may be conceived probable The one by taking away diversity of Opinions touching matters of Religion The other by shewing that the diversity of Opinions which is among the several Sects of Christians ought to be no hinderance to their Unity in Communion 40. Now the former of these is not to be hoped for without a miracle unless that could be done which is impossible to be performed though it be often pretended that is unless it could be made evident to all men that God hath appointed some visible Judge of Controversies to whose judgement all men are to submit themselves What then remains but that the other way must be taken Christians must be taught to set a higher value upon these high Points of Faith and Obedience wherein they agree than upon these matters of less moment wherein they differ and understand that agreement in those ought to be more effectual to joyn them in one Communion than their difference in other things of less moment to divide them When I say in one Communion I mean in a common Profession of those Articles of Faith wherein all consent A joynt-worship of God after such a way as all esteem lawful and a mutual performance of all those works of Charity which Christians owe one to another And to such a Communion what better inducement could be thought of than to demonstrate that what was universally believed of al Christians if it were joyned with a love of truth and with holy obedience was sufficient to bring men to heaven For why should men be more rigid then God Why should any error exclude any man from the Churches Communion which will not deprive him of eternal Salvation Now that Christians do generally agree in all those Points of Doctrin which are necessary to Salvation it is apparent because they agree with one accord in believing all those Books of the Old New Testament which in the Church were never doubted of to be the undoubted Word of God And it is so certain that in all these Books all necessary Doctrins are evidently contained that of all the four Evangelists this is very probable but of S. Luke most apparent that in every one of their Books they have comprehended the whole substance of the Gospel of Christ For what reason can be imagined that any of them should leave out any thing which he knew to be necessary and yet as apparently all of them have done put in many things which they knew to be only profitable and not necessary What wise and honest man that were now to write the Gospel of Christ would do so great a work of God after such a negligent fashion Suppose Xaverius had been to write the Gospel of Christ for the Indians think you he would have left out any Fundamental Doctrin of it If not I must beseech you to conceive as well of S. Matthew and S. Mark and S. Luke and S. John as you do of Xaverius Besides if every one of them have not in them all necessary Doctrins how have they complyed with their own design which was as the Titles of their Books shew to write the Gospel of Christ and not a part of it Or how have they not deceived us in giving them such Titles By the whole Gospel of Christ I understand not the whole History of Christ but all that makes up the Covenant between God and man Now if this be wholly contained in the Gospel of S. Mark and S. John I believe every considering man will be inclinable to believe that then without doubt it is contained with the advantage of many other profitable things in the larger Gospels of S. Matthew and S. Luke And that S. Mark 's Gospel wants no necessary Article of this Covenant I presume you will not deny if you believe Irenaeus when he says Matthew to the Hebrews in their tongue published the Scripture of the Gospel When Peter and Paul did preach the Gospel and found the Church or a Church at Rome or of Rome and after their departure Mark the scholar of Peter delivered to us in writing those things which had been preached by Peter and Luke and the follower of Paul compiled in a Book the Gospel which was preached by him And afterwards John residing in Asia in the City of Ephesus did himself also set forth a Gospel 41. In which words of Irenaeus it is remarkable that they are spoken by him against some Heretiques that pretended as you know who do now adays that some necessary Doctrins of the Gospel were unwritten and that out of the Scriptures truth he must mean sufficient truth cannot be found by those which know not Tradition Against whom to say that part of the Gospel which was preached by Peter was written by S. Mark and some other
And therefore it was a great fault in you either willingly to conceal these words which evacuate your Objection or else negligently to oversee them Especially seeing your friend to whom you are so much beholding Paulus Veridicus in his scurrilous and sophistical Pamphler against B. Usher's Sermon hath so kindly offered to lead you by the hand to the observation of them in these words To consider of your Coinopista or communiter Credenda Articles as you call them universally believed of all these several Professions of Christianity which have any large spread in the World These Articles for example may be the Unity of the Godhead the Trinity of Persons the immortality of the Soul c. Where you see that your friend whom you so much magnifie hath plainly confessed that notwithstanding the Bishop's words the denial of the Doctrin of the Trinity may exclude Salvation and therefore in approving and applauding his Answer to the Bishop's Sermon you have unawares allowed this Answer of mine to your own greatest Objection 46. Now for the foul contradiction which you say the Doctor might easily have espyed in the Bishop's saying he desires your pardon for his oversight sight for Paulus Veridicus his sake who though he set himself to find faults with the Bishop's Sermon yet it seems this he could not find or else questionless we should have heard of it from him And therefore if D. Potter being the Bishop's friend have not been more sharp-sighted than his enemies this he hopes to indifferent Judges will seem no unpardonable offence Yet this I say not as if there were any contradiction at all much less any foul contradiction in the Bishop's words but as Antipheron's picture which he thought he saw in the air before him was not in the air but in his disturbed phansie so all the contradiction which here you descant upon is not indeed in the Bishop's saying but in your imagination For wherein I pray lies this foul contradiction In supposing say you a man may believe all Truths necessary to salvation and yet superinduce a damnable Heresie I answer It is not certain that his words do suppose this neither if they do doth he contradict himself I say it is not certain that his words import any such matter For ordinarily men use to speak and write so as here he doth when they intend not to limit or restrain but only to repeat and press and illustrate what they have said before And I wonder why with your Eagles eyes you did not espy another foul contradiction in his words as well as this and say that he supposes a man may walk according to the rule of holy obedience and yet vitiate his holy Faith with a lewd and wicked Conversation Certainly a lewd Conversation is altogether as contradictious to holy Obedience as a damnable Heresie to necessary Truth What then was the reason that you espyed not this foul contradiction in his words as well as that Was it because according to the Spirit and Genius of your Church your zeal is greater to that which you conceive true doctrin than holy obedience and think simple error a more capital crime than sins committed against knowledge and conscience Or was it because your Reason told you that herein he meant only to repeat and not to limit what he said before And why then had you not so much candour to conceive that he might have the same meaning in the former part of the disjunction and intend no more but this Whosoever walks according to this rule of believing all necessary Truths and holy Obedience neither poysoning his faith of those Truths which he holds with the mixture of any damnable Heresie nor vitiating it with a wicked life Peace shall be upon him In which words what man of any ingenuity will not presently perceive that the words within the parenthesis are only a repetition of and no exception from those that are without S. Athanasius in his Creed tels us The Catholique Faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance and why now do you not tell him that he contradicts himself and supposes that we may worship a Trinity of Persons and one God in substance and yet confound the Persons or divide the substance which yet is impossible because Three remaining Three cannot be confounded and One remaining One cannot be divided If a man should say unto you he that keeps all the Commandments of God committing no sin either against the love of God or the love of his neighbour is a perfect man Or thus he that will live in constant health had need be exact in his dyet neither eating too much nor too little Or thus he that will come to London must go on straight forward in such a way and neither turn to the right hand or to the left I verily believe you would not find any contradiction in his words but confess them as coherent and confonant as any in your Book And certainly if you would look upon this saying of the Bishop with any indifference you would easily perceive it to be of the very same kind and capable of the very same construction And therefore one of the grounds of your accusation is uncertain Neither can you assure us that the Bishop supposes any such matter as you pretend Neither if he did suppose this as perhaps he did were this to contradict himself For though there can be no damnable Heresie unless it contradict some necessary Truth yet there is no contradiction but the same man may at once believe this Heresie and this Truth because there is no contradiction that the same man at the same time should believe contradictions For first whatsoever a man believes true that he may and must believe But there have been some who have believed and taught that contradictions might be true against whom Aristotle disputes in the third of his Metaphysicks Therefore it is not impossible that a man may believe Contradictions Secondly they which believe there is no certainty in Reason must believe that contradictions may be true For otherwise there will be certainty in this Reason This contradicts Truth therefore it is false But there be now divers in the world who believe there is no certainty in Reason and whether you be of their mind or no I desire to be informed Therefore there be divers in the world who believe contradictions may be true Thirdly They which do captivate their understandings to the belief of those things which to their understanding seem irreconcileable contradictions may as well believe real contradictions For the difficulty of believing arises not from their being repugnant but from their seeming to be so But you do captivate your understandings to the belief of those things which seem to your understandings irreconcileable contradictions Therefore it is as possible and easie for you to believe those that indeed are so Fourthly some men may
relie 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 you your self in the very leaf after this take notice that D. Potter doth so Where to this Question How shall I know in particular which Points be and which be not Fundamental You scurrilously bring him in making this ridiculous answer Read my Answer to a late Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken c. There you shall find that Fundamental Doctrins are such Catholick Verities as principally and essentially pertain to the Faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved All which words he used not to tell what Points be Fundamental as you dishonestly impose upon him but to explain what he meant by the word Fundamental May it please you therefore now at last to take notice that by Fundamental we mean all and only that which is 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 you say that more is necessary than that which is necessary 53. Ad § 19. This long discourse so full of un-ingenuous dealing with your adversary perhaps would have done reasonably in a Farce or a Comedy and I doubt not but you have made your self and your courteous Readers good sport with it But if D. Potter or I had been by when you wrote it we should have stopt your carere at the first starting and have put you in mind of these old School-Proverbs Ex falso supposito sequitur quodlibet and Uno absurdo dato sequuntur mille For whereas you suppose first that to a man desirous to save his soul and requiring whose direction he might rely upon the Doctors answer would be Upon the truly Catholick Church I suppose upon better reason because I know his mind that he would advise him to call no man Master on Earth but according to Christs command to rely upon the direction of God himself If he should enquire where he should find this direction He would answer him In his Word contained in Scripture If he should enquire what assurance he might have that the Scripture is the Word of God He would answer him that the doctrin 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 And that he might not instruct him as partial in this advice he might farther tell him that a Gentleman that would be nameless that has written a Book against him called Charity maintained by Catholiques though in many things he differ from him yet agrees with him in this that Tradition is such a principle as may be rested in and which requires no other proof As indeed 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 direction to 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 too little Books of it S. 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 of 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 Commandements 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 at least into all necessary Truths and suffer him to fal into no pernicious 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 being feee from err our but endeavouring to know the truth and obey it and endeavouring to be free from err our is by this way made the only condition of Salvation As for your supposition That he would advise such a man to rely upon the Catholique Church for the finding out the doctrin of Christ he utterly disclaims it and truly very justly There being no certain way to know that any Company is a true Church but only by their professing the true doctrin of Christ And therefore as it is impossible I should know that such a company of Philosophers are Peripateticks or Stoicks unless I first know what was the doctrin of the Peripateticks and Stoicks so is it impossible that I should certainly know any company to be the Church of Christ before I know what is the doctrin of Christ the Profession whereof constitutes the visible Church the
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 for ever 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 whithersoever 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 Catholiques So Putean out of Tho. 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 Card Riclieu Now for all these 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 suspition 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 enduce 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 then 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. That Luther Calvin their Associates and all who began or continue the Separation from the external Communion of the Roman Church are guilty of the proper and formal sin of Schism THE Searcher of all Hearts is witness with how unwilling minds we Catholiques are drawn to fasten the denomination of Schismatiques or Heretiques on them for whose souls if they employed their best blood they judge that it could not be better spent If we rejoyce that they are contristated at such titles our joy riseth not from their trouble or grief but as that of the Apostles did from the fountain of Charity because they are contristated to repentance that so after unpartial examination they finding themselves to be what we say may by God's holy grace begin to dislike what themselves are For our part we must remember that our obligation is to keep within the mean betwixt uncharitable bitterness and pernitious flattery not yielding to worldly respects nor offending Christian Modesty but uttering the substance of truth in so Charitable manner that not so much we as Truth and Charity may seem to speak according to the wholesome advice of S. Gregory Nazianzen in these divine words We do not affect peace with (a) Orat. 32. prejudice of the true doctrine that so we may get a name of being geatle and mild and yet we seek to conserve peace fighting in a lawful manner and containing our selves within our compass and the rule of Spirit And of these things my judgment is and for my part I prescribe the same law to all that deal with souls and treat of true Doctrine that neither they exasperate mens minds by harshness nor make them haughty or insolent by submission but that in the cause of Faith they behave themselves prudently and advisedly and do not in either of these things exceed the mean With whom agreeth S. Leo saying it behoveth us in such causes to be (b) Epist 8. most careful that without noise of contentions both Charity be conserved and Truth maintained 2. For better method we will handle these Points in order First we will set down the nature and essence or as I may call it the Quality of Schism In the second place the greatness and grievousness or so to term it the Quantity thereof For the Nature or Quality will tell us who may without injury be judged Schismatiques and by the greatness or quantity such as find themselves guilty thereof will remain acquainted with the true state of their soul and whether they may conceive any hope of Salvation or no. And because Schism will be found to be a division from the Church which could not happen unless there were always a visible Church we will Thirdly prove or rather take it as a Point to be granted by all Christians that in all Ages There hath been such a Visible Congregation of Faithful People Fourthly we will demonstrate that Luther Galvin and the rest did separate themselves from the Communion of that always visible Church of Christ and therefore were guilty of Schism And fifthly we will make it evident that the visible true Church or Christ out of which Luther and his followers departed was no other but the Roman Church and consequently that both they and all others who persist in the same divisions are Schismatiques by reason of their separation from the Church of Rome 1. Point The nature of Schism 3. For the first Point touching the Nature or Quality of Schism As the natural perfection of man consists in his being the Image of God his Creator by the powers of his soul so his supernatural perfection is placed in similitude with God as his last End and Felicity and by having the said spiritual faculties his Understanding and Will is linked to him
manners but the approbation of them doth yield sufficient cause to leave the Church I reply with S. Augustine that the Church doth as the pretended Reformers ought to have done tolerate or bear with scandals and corruptions but neither doth nor can approve them The Church saith he being placed (z) Pag. 75. betwixt much chaffe and cockle doth bear with many things but doch not approve nor dissemble nor act those things which are against Faith and good life But because to approve corruption in manners as lawful were an error against Faith it belongs to corruption in Doctrin which was the second part of my demand 19. Now then that corruptions in Doctrin I still speak upon the untrue supposition of our Adversaries could not afford any sufficient cause or colourable necessity to depart from that Visible Church which was extant when Luther rose I demonstrate out of D. Potter's own confession that the Catholique Church neither hath nor can err in Points Fundamental as we shewed out of his own express words which he also of set purpose delivereth in divers other places and all they are obliged to maintain the same who teach that Christ had alwayes a visible Church upon earth because any one Fundamental error overthrows the being of a true Church Now as Schoolmen speak it is implicatio in terminis a contradiction so plain that one word destroyeth the other as if one should say A living dead man to affirm that the Church doth not err in Points necessary to Salvation or damnably and yet that it is damnable to remain in her Communion because she teacheth errors which are confessed not to be damnable For if the error be not damnable nor against any Fundamental Article of Faith the belief thereof cannot be damnable But D. Potter teacheth that the Catholique Church cannot and that the Roman Church hath not erred against any Fundamental Article of Faith Therefore it cannot be damnable to remain in her Communion and so the pretended corruptions in her doctrins could not induce any obligation to depart from her Communion nor could excuse them from Schism who upon pretence of necessity in Point of Conscience forsook her And D. Potter will never be able to salve a manifest contradiction in these his words To depart from the Church a of Rome in some Doctrins and practises there might be necessary cause though she wanted nothing necessary to Salvation For if notwithstanding these Doctrins and practises she wanted nothing necessary to Salvation how could it be necessary to Salvation to forsake her And therefore we must still conclude that to forsake her was properly an act of Schism 20. From the self-same ground of the infallibility of the Church in all Fundamental Points I argue after this manner The visible Church cannot be forsaken without damnation upon pretence that it is damnable to remain in her Communion by reason of corruption in Doctrin as long as for the truth of her Faith and belief she performeth the duty which she oweth to God and her Neighbour As long as she performeth what our Saviour exacts at her hands as long as she doth as much as lies in her power to do But even according to D. Potters Assertions the Church performeth all these things as long she erreth not in Points Fundamental although she were supposed to err in other Points not Fundamental Therefore the Communion of the visible Church cannot be forsaken without damnation upon pretence that it is damnable to remain in her Communion by reason of corruption in Doctrin The Major or first Proposition of it self is evident The Minor or second Proposition doth necessarily follow out of D. Potter's own Doctrin above-rehearsed that the promises of our Lord made to his Church for his assistance are to be (b) Pag. 131. extended only to Points of Faith or Fundamental Let me note here by the way that by his or he seems to exclude from Faith all Points which are not Fundamental and so we may deny innumerable Texts of Scripture That It is (c) Pag. 155. comfort enough for the Church that the Lord in mercy will secure her from all capital dangers c. but she may not hope to triumph over all sin and error till she be in heaven For it is evident that the Church for as much as concerns the truth of her Doctrins and belief ows no more duty to God and her Neighbour neither doth our Saviour exact more at her hands nor is it in her power to do more than God doth assist her to do which assistance is promised only for Points Fundamental and consequently as long as she teacheth no Fundamental error her Communion cannot without damnation be forsaken And we may fitly apply against D. Potter a Concionatory declamation which he makes against us where he saith May the Church of after-Ages make the narrow way to heaven (d) Pag. 221. narrower than our Saviour lest it c since he himself obligeth men under pain of damnation to forsake the Church by reason of errors against which our Saviour thought it needless to promise his assistance and for which he neither denyeth his grace in this life or glory in the next Will D. Potter oblige the Church to do more then she may even hope for or to perform on earth that which is proper to heaven alone 21. And as from your own Doctrin concerning the infallibility of the Church in Fundamental Points we have proved that it was a grievous sin to forsake her so do we take a strong argument from the fallibility of any who dare pretend to reform the Church which any man in his wits will believe to be indued with at least as much infallibility as private men can challenge and D. Potter expresly affirmeth that Christs promises of his assistance are not intended (e) Pag. 151. to any particular persons or Churches and therefore to leave the Church by reason of errors was at best hand but to flit from one erring company to another without any new hope of triumphing over errors and without necessity or utility to forsake that Communion of which S. Augustine saith There is (f) Ep. cont Parmen lib. 2. c. 1â no just necessity to divide Unity Which will appear to be much more evident if we consider that though the Church had maintained some false Doctrins yet to leave her Communion to remedy the old were but to add a new increase of errors arising from the innumerable disagreements of Sectaries which must needs bring with it a mighty mass of fallehoods because the truth is but one and indivisible And this reason is yet stronger if we still remember that even according to D. Potter the visible Church hath a blessing not to err in Points Fundamental in which any private Reformer may fail and therefore they could not pretend any necessity to forsake that Church out of whose Communion they were exposed to danger of falling into many more and even into
truly Catholique by reason of pretended corruptions not Fundamental For your self avouch and endeavour to prove that the true Catholique Church may err in such Points Moreover I hope you will not so much as go about to prove that when Luther rose there was any other true visible Church disagreeeing from the Roman and agreeing with Protestants in their particular Doctrins and you cannot deny but that England in those days-agreed with Rome and other Nations with England And therefore either Christ had no visible Church upon Earth or else you must grant that it was the Church of Rome A truth so manifest that those Protestants who affirm the Roman Church to have lost the nature and being of a true Church do by inevitable consequence grant that for divers ages Christ had no visible Church on earth from which error because D. Potter disclaimeth he must of necessity maintain that the Roman Church is free from Fundamental and damnable error and that she is not cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation And if saith he any Zelols amongst us have proceeded (h) Ibid. to heavier censures their zeal may be excused but their Charity and wisdom cannot be justified 48. And to touch particulars which perhaps some may object No man is ignorant that the Grecians even the Schismatical Grecians do in most Points agree with Roman Catholiques and disagree from the Protestant Reformation They teach Transubstantiation which Point D. Potter also (i) Pag. 225. confesseth Invocation of Saints and Angels Veneration of Reliques and Images Auricular Confession enjoyned Satisfaction Confirmation with Chrism Extream Unction All the seven Sacraments Prayer Sacrifice Alms for the dead Monachism That Priests may not marry after their Ordination In which Points that the Grecians agree with the Roman Church appeareth by a Treatise published by the Protestant Divines of Wittemberg intituled Acta Theologorum Wittembergensium Jeremiae Patriarchae Constantinop de Augustana consessione c. Wittembergae anno 1584. by the Protestant (k) De statu Eccles Pag. 253. Crispinus and by Sir Edwin Sands in the Relation of the State of Religion of the West And I wonder with what colour of truth to say no worse D. Potter could affirm that the Doctrins debated between the Protestants (l) Pag. 22â and Rome are only the partial and particular fancies of the Roman Church unless happily the opinion of Transubstantiation may be excepted wherein the latter Grecians seem to agree with the Romanists Beside the Protestant Authors already cited Petrus Arcudius a Grecian and a learned Catholique Writer hath published a large Volume the Argument and Title whereof is Of the agreement of the Roman and Greek Church in the seven Sacraments As for the Heresie of the Grecians that the Holy-Ghost proceeds not from the Son I suppose that Protestants disavow them in that error as we do 49. D. Potter will not I think so much wrong his reputation as to tell us that the Waldenses Wiecliffe Huss or the like were Protestants because in some things they disagreed from Catholiques For he well knows that the example of such men is subject to these manifest exceptions They were not of all Agesâ nor in all Countries but confined to certain places and were interrupted in Time against the notion and nature of the word Catholique They had no Ecclesiastical Hierarchy nor Succession of Bishops Priests and Pastors They differed among themselves and from Protestants also They agreed in divers things with us against Protestants They held Doctrins manifestly abusurd and damnable heresies 50. The Waldenses began not before the year 1218. so far were they from Universality of all Ages For their Doctrin first they denyed all Judgments which extended to the drawing of bloud and the Sabbath for which cause they were called In-sabbatists Secondly they taught that Lay-men and women might consecrate the Sacrament and preach no doubt but by this means to make their Master Waldo a meer lay-man capable of such functions Thirdly that Clergy-men ought to have no possessions or proprieties Fourthly that there should be no division of Parishes not Churches for a walled Church they reputed as a Barn Fifthly that men ought not to take an Oath in any case Sixthly that those persons sinned mortally who accompanyed without hope of issue Seventhly they held all things done above the girdle by kissing touching words compression of the breasts c. to be done in Charity and not against Continency Eightly that neither Priest nor civil Magistrate being guilty of mortal sin did enjoy their dignity or were to be obeyed Ninthly they condemned Princes and Judges Tenthly they assinned singing in the Church to be an hellish clamor Eleventhly they taught that men might dissemble their Religion and so accordingly they went to Catholique Churches dissembling their Faith and made Offertoâies Confessions and Communions after a dissembling manner Waldo was so unlearned that saith (m) Act. Mon. â⦠Pag. 628. Fox he gave rewards to certain learned men to translate the holy Scripture for him and being thus holpen did as the same Fox there reporteth conferr the form of Religion in his time to the insallible Word of God A goodly example for such as must needs have the Scripture in English to be read by every simple body with such fruit of godly Doctrine as we have seen in the foresaid gross heresies of Waldo The followers of Waldo were like their Master so unlearned that some of them saith (n) Ibid. Fox expounded the words Joan. 1. Sui eum non receperunt Swine did not receive hâm And to conclude they agreed in divers things with Catholiques against Protestants as may be seen in (o) Tract 2. cap. 2. sect sâââ¦d 3. Bâerely 51. Neither can it be pretended that these are slanders forged by Catholiques For besides that the same things are testified by Protâstant writers as Illyricus Cowper and others our Authors cannot be suspected of partiality in disfavour of Protestants unless you will say perhaps that they were Prophets and some hundred years ago did both foresee that there were to be Protestants in the world and that such Protestants were to be like the Waldenses Besides from whence but from our Histories are Protestants come to know that there were any such men as the Waldenses and that in some Points they agreed with the Protestants and disagreed from them in others And upon what ground can they believe our Author for that part wherein the Waldenses were like to Protestants and imagin they lyed the rest 52. Neither could Wickliffe continue a Church never interrupted from the time of the Waldenses after whom he lived more than one hundred and fifty years to wit the year 1371. He agreed with Catholiques about the worshipping of Reliques and Images and about the Intercession of our blessed Lady the ever Immaculate Mother of God he went so far as to say It seems to me (p) In serm de Assump Mariae
his judgment in this matter this express limitation of his former resolution he makes in the very same Section which affords your former quotation and therefore what Apology can be made for you and your Store-house M. Brerely for dissembling of it I cannot possibly imagine 111. D. Potter p. 131. sayes That errors of the Donatists and Novatians were not in themselves Heresies nor could be made so by the Churches determination But that the Churches intention was only to silence disputes and to settle peace and unity in her government which because they factiously opposed they were justly esteemed Schismatiques From hence you conclude that the same condemnation must pass against the first Reformers seeing they also opposed the commands of the Church imposed on them for silencing all Disputes and setling Peace and Unity in Government But this Collection is deceitful and the reason is Because though the first Reformers as well as the Donatists and Novatians opposed herein the Commands of the Visible Church that is of a great part of it yet the Reformers had reason nay necessity to do so the Church being then corrupted with damnable errors which was not true of the Church when it was opposed by the Novatians and Donatists And therefore though they and the Reformers did the same action yet doing it upon different grounds it might in these merit applause and in them condemnation 112 Ad § 43. The next § hath in it some objections against Luther's person and 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 Divel 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 opposed 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 askt Whether it be probable that that should be Gods cause which needs to be maintained by such Divellish means 113 Ad § 44 45. In the two next Particles which are all of this Chapter that remain unspoken to you spend a great deal of reading and wit and reason against some men who pretending to honour and believe the Doctrin and practice of the visible Church you mean your own and condemning their Forefathers who forsook her say they would not have done so yet remain divided from her Communion Which men in my judgment cannot be defended For if they believe the Doctrin of your Church then must they believe this doctrin that they are to return to your Communion And therefore if they do not so it cannot be avoided but they must be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and so I leave them only I am to remember you that these men cannot pretend to be Protestants because they pretend to believe your Doctrin which is opposite in Diameter unto the doctrin of Protestants and therefore in a Work which you profess to have written meerly against Protestants all this might have been spared CHAP. VI. That Luther and the rest of Protestants have added Heresie unto Schism BEcause Vice is best known by the contrary Vertue we cannot well determine what Heresie is nor who be Heretiques but by the opposite vertue of Faith whose Nature being once understood as far as belongs to our present purpose we shall pass on with ease to the definition of heresie and so be able to discern who be Heretiques And this I intend to do not by entring into such particular Questions as are controverted between Catholiques and Protestants but only by applying some general grounds either already proved or else yielded to on all sides 2 Almighty God having ordained Man to a supernatural End of Beatitude by supernatural means it was requisite that his understanding should be enabled to apprehend that End and Means by a supernatural knowledge And because if such a knowledge were no more than probable it could not be able sufficiently to overbear our will and encounter with human probabilities being backed with the strength of flesh and blood It was further necessary that this supernatural knowledge should be most certain and infallible and that Faith should believe nothing more certainly than that it self is a most certain Belief and so be able to bear down all gay probabilities of humane Opinion And because the aforesaid means and end of Beatifical Vâsion do fat exceed the reach of natural wit the certainty of faith could not always be joyned with such evidence of reason as is wont to be found in the Principles or Conclusions of humane natural Sciences that so all flesh might not glory in the arm of flesh but he who glories should glory (a) 2 Cor. 1â in our Lord. Moreover it was expedient that our belief or assent to divine truths should not only be unknown or inevident by any humane discourse but that absolutely also it should be obscure in it self and ordinarily speaking be void even of supernatural evidence that so we might have occasion to actuate and testifie the obedience which we ow to our God not only by submitting our will to his Will and Commands but by subjecting also our Understanding to his Wisdom and words captivating as the Apostle speaks the same Understanding (b) 2 Cor. 10.5 to the Obedience of Faith Which occasion had been wanting if Almighty God had made clear to us the truths which now are certainly but not evidently presented to our minds For where truth doth manifestly open it self not obedience but necessity commands our assent For this reason Divines teach that the Objects of faith being not evident to humane reason it is in mans power not only to abstain from believing by suspending our Judgments or exercising no act one way or other but also to disbelieve that is to believe the contrary of that which faith proposeth as the example of innumerable Arch-heretiques can bear witness This obscurity of faith we learn from holy Scripture according to those words of the Apostle Faith is the (c) Heb. 11. substance of things to be hoped for the argument of things not appearing And We see by a glass (d) 1 Cor. 13. in a dark manner but then face to face And accordingly S. Peter faith Which you do well attending unto as to (e) 2 Pet. 1.19 a Candle shining in a dark place 3 Faith being then obscure whereby it differeth from natural Sciences and yet being
no wonder that no one can be excused from deadly and damnable sin for if voluntary Blasphemy and Perjury which are opposed only to the infused Moral Vertue of Religion can never be excused from mortal sin much less can Heresie be excused which opposeth the Theological Vertue of Faith 11 If any object that Schism may seem to be a greater sin than Heresie because the Vertue of Charity to which Schism is opposite is greater than Faith according to the Apostle saying Now there remain (o) 1 Cor. 13.13 Faith Hope Charity but the greater of these is Charity S. Thomas answers in these words Charity hath two Objects one principal to wit the Divine (p) 2.2 q. 39. ar 2. in corp ad 3. Goodness and another secondary namely the good of our Neighbour But Schism and other sins which are committed against our Neighbour are opposite to Charity in respect of this secondary good which is less than the object of Faith which is God as he is the Prime Verity on which Faith doth relie and therefore these sins are less than Infidelity He takes Infidelity after a general manner as it comprehends Heresie and other vices against Faith 12 Having therefore sufficiently declared wherein Heresie consists Let us come to prove that which we proposed in this Chapter Where I desire it be still remembred That the visible Catholique Church cannot err damnably as D. Potter confesseth And that when Luther appeared there was no other visible true Church of Christ disagreeing from the Roman as we have demonstrated in the next precedent Chapter 13 Now that Luther and his followers cannot be excused from formal Heresie I prove by these reasons To oppose any truth propounded by the visible true Church as revealed by God is formal Heresie as we have shewed out of the desinition of Heresie But Luther Calvin and the rest did oppose divers truths propounded by the visible Church as revealed by God yea they did therefore oppose her because she propounded as divine revealed truths things which they judged either to be false or humane inventions Therefore they committed formal Heresie 14 Moreover every Errour against any doctrin revealed by God is a damnable Heresie whether the matter in it self be great or small as I proved before and therefore either the Protestants or the Roman Church must be guilty of formal Heresie because one of them must err against the word and testimony of God but you grant perforce that the Roman Church doth not err damnably and I add that she cannot err damnably because she is the truly Catholique Church which you confess cannot err damnably Therefore Protestants must be guilty of formal Heresie 15 Besides we have shewed that the visible Church is Judge of Controversies and therefore must be infallible in all her Proposals which being once supposed it manifestly followeth that to oppose what she delivereth as revealed by God is not so much to oppose her as God himself and therefore cannot be excused from grievous Heresie 16 Again if Luther were an Heretique for those points wherein he disagreed from the Roman Church All they who agree with him in those very points must likewise be Heretiques Now that Luther was a formal Heretique I demonstrate in this manner To say that God's visible true Church is not universal but confined to one only place or corner of the world is according to your own express words (q) Pag. 126. properly Heresie against that Article of the Creed wherein we profess to believe the holy Catholique Church And you brand Donatus with heresie because he limited the universal Church to Africa But it is manifest and acknowledged by Luther himself and other chief Protestants that Luther's Reformation when it first began and much more for divers ages before was not Universal nor spread over the world but was confined to that compass of ground which did contain Luther's body Therefore his Reformation cannot be excused from formal Heresie If S. Augustine in those times said to the Donatists There are innumerable testimonies (r) Epist 50. of holy Scripture in which it appeareth that the Church of Christ is not only in Africa as these men with most impudent vanity do rave but that she is spread over the whole earth much more may it be said It appeareth by innumerable testimonies of holy Scripture that the Church of Christ cannot be confined to the City of Wittemberg or to the place where Luther's feet stood but must be spread over the whole world It is therefore most impudent vanity and dotage to limit her to Luthers Reformation In another place also this holy Father writes no less effectually against Luther than against the Donatists For having out of those words In thy seed all Nations shall be blessed proved that God's Church must be universal he saith Why (Å¿) De Unit. Eccles cap. 6. do you superadd by saying that Christ remains heir in no part of the earth except where he may have Donatus for his Coheir Give me this Universal Church if it be among you shew your selves to all Nations which we already shew to be blessed in this Seed Give us this Church or else laying aside all fury receive her from us But it is evident that Luther could not When he said At the beginning I was alone give us an universal Church Therefore happy had he been if he had then and his followers would now receive her from us And therefore we must conclude with the same holy Father saying in another place of the universal Church She hath this (t) Cont. lit Petil. lib. 1. cap. 104. most certain mark that she cannot be hidden She is then known to all Nations The Sect of Donatus is unknown to many Nations therefore that cannot be she The Sect of Luther at least when he began and much more before his beginning was unknown to many Nations therefore that cannot be she 17 And that it may yet further appear how perfectly Luther agreed with the Donatists It is to be noted that they never taught that the Catholique Church ought not to extend it self further than that part of Africa where their faction raigned but only that in fact it was so confined because all the rest of the Church was prophaned by communicating with Caecilianus whom they falsly affirmed to have been ordained Bishop by those who were Traditors or givers up of the Bible to the Persecutors to be burned yea at that very time they had some of their Sect residing in Rome and sent thither one Victor a Bishop under colour to take care of the Brethren in that City but indeed as Baronius (u) Anno 321. nu 2. Spond observeth that the world might account them Catholiques by communicating with the Bishop of Rome to communicate with whom was ever taken by the Ancient Fathers as an assured sign of being a true Catholique They had also as S. Augustin witnesseth a pretended (w) De Uâi Eccles c
without which there can be no hope of Salvation 30 And that he who erreth against any one revealed truth as certainly some Protestants must de because contradictory Propositions cannot both be true doth lose all Divine saith is a very true doctrin delivered by Catholique Divines with so general a consent that the contrary is wont to be censured as temerarious The Angelical Doctor S. Thomas proposeth this Question Whether (o) 23 q. â aââ 3. in corp he who denieth one Article of saith may retain saith in other Articles and resolveth that he cannot which he proveth Argumento sed contra because As deadly sin is opposite to charity so to deny one Article of saith is opposite to saith But charity doth not remain with any one deadly sin Therefore faith doth not remain after the denial of any one Article of faith Whereof he gives this farther reason Because saith he the nature of every habit doth depend upon the formal Motive and Object thereof which Motive being taken away the nature of the habit cannot remain But the formal object of saith is the supreme Truth as it is manifesied in Scriptures and in the doctrin of the Church which proceed from the same supreme Verity Whosoever therefore doth not relie upon the doctrin of the Church which proceeds from the supreme Verity manifested in Scripture as upon an infallible Rule he hath not the habit of faith but believes those things which belong to faith by some other means than by faith as if one should remember some conclusion and not know the reason of that demonstration it is clear that he hath not certain Knowledge but only Opinion Now it is manifest that he who relies on the doctrin of the Church as upon an infallible Rule will yield his assent to all that the Church teacheth For if among those things which she teacheth he hold what he will and doth not hold what he will not he doth not relie upon the doctrin of the Church as upon an infallible Rule but only upon his own will And so it is clear that an Heretique who with pertinacity denieth one Article of saith is not ready to follow the doctrin of the Church in all things And therefore it is manifest that whosoever is an Heretique in any one Article of faith concerning other Articles hath not faith but a kind of Opinion or his own Will Thus far S. Thomas And afterward A man doth believe (q) Ad. 2. all the Articles of faith for one and the self same reason to wit for the Prime Verity proposed to us in the Scripture understood aright according to the Doctrin of the Church and therefore whosoever falls from this reason or motive is totally deprived of saith From this true doctrin we are to infeâr that to retain or want the substance oâ faith doth not consist in the matter or multitude of the Articles but in the opposition against God's divine testimony which is involved in every least error against faith And since some Protestants must needs eâr and that they have no certain rule to know why rather one than another it manifestly follows that none of them have any Certainty for the substance of their faith in any one point Moreover D. Potter being forced to confess that the Roman Church wants not the substance of faith it follows that she doth not err in any one point against faith because as we have seen out of S. Thomas every such error destroys the substance of faith Now if the Roman Church did not err in any one point of faith it is manifest that Protestants err in all those points wherein they are contrary to her And this may suffice to prove that the faith of Protestants wants Infallibility They want the second Condition of Faith Obscurity 31 And now for the second Condition of faith I say If Protestants have Certainly they want Obscurity and so have not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing or noâ necessitating our understanding to an assent For 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 these Canonical Scriptures is clear and evident at least in all points necessary to Salvation Now thâse Principles being once supposed it clearly followeth that what Protestants believe as necessary to salvation is evidently known by them to be true by this argument It is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in the word of God is true But it is certain and evident that these Books in particular are the word of God Therefore it is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in these Books is true Which Conclusion I take for a Major in a second Argument and say thus It is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in these Books is true But it is certain and evident that such particular Articles for example The Trinity Incarnation Original sin c. are contained in these Books Thereâore it is certain and evident that these particular Objects are true Neither will it avail you to say that the said Principles are not evident by natural discourse but only to the eye of reason cleared by grace as you speak For supernatural evidence no less yea rather more draws and excludes obscurity than natural evidence doth neither can the party so enlightned be said voluntarily to caprivate his understanding to that light but rather his understanding is by a necessity made captive and forced not to disbelieve what is presented by so clear a light And therefore your imaginary faith is not the true faith defined by the Apostle but an invention of your own Their faith wants Prudence 32 That the faith of Protestants wanteth the third Condition which was Prudence is deduced from all that hitherto hâth been said 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 A Church acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation endued with Succession of Bishops with Visibility and Universality of Time and Place A Church which if it be not the true Church her enemies cannot pretend to have any Church Ordination Scriptures Succession c. and are forced for their own sake to maintain her perpetual Existence and Being To leave I say such a Church and frame a Community without either Unity or means to procure it a Church which at Luther's first re-revolt had no larger extent than where his body was a Church without Universality of Place or Time A Church which can pretend no Visibility or Being except only in that former Church which it opposeth a Church void of Succession of Persons or Doctrin What wisdom was it to follow such men as Luther in an opposition against the Visible Church of Christ begun upon meer passion What wisdom is it to receive from Us a Church Ordination Scriptures
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 we ought to be and may be infallibly certain that we are to believe the Religion of Christ 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 those 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 premisses 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 if they be not negligent or perverse to perswade them to believe 3. That there is an abundance of Arguments exceedingly credible inducing men to believe the Truth of Christianity I say so credible 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 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. Peter's 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 Heretiques 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 Heretiques 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 Doctrins 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 tell 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 Catholique Church which we you say confess cannot err damnably Therefore Protestants must err against God's 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 publiquely and plainly with a command that a I 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 exouse 3. You beg the Question twice in taking for granted First That the Roman Church is the truly Catholique Church which without much favour can hardly pass for a part of it And again that the Catholique Church cannot fall into any error of it self damnable for it may do so and still be the Catholique 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 God's word For if their contradiction be your only reason then also you or the Dominicans must be Heretiques 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 only and not shewed that the Visible Church is Judg of Controversies
was to all Christians at that time to set up any Pictures in a Church to worship them as your new fashion is bruited abroad to be done in the Churches of the Catholique Church But what answer doth S. Austin and Optatus make to this Accusation Do they confess and maintain it Do they say as you would now It is true we do set Pictures upon our Altar and that not only for ornament or memory but for worship also but we do well to do so and this ought not to trouble you or affright you from our Communion What other answer your Church could now make to such an objection is very hard to imagine And therefore were your Doctrin the same with the Doctrin of the Fathers in this point they must have answered so likewise But they to the contrary not only deny the crime but abhorr and detest it To little purpose therefore do you hunt after these poor shadows of resemblances between us and the Donatists unless you could shew an exact resemblance between the present Church of Rome and the ancient which seeing by this and many other particulars it is demonstrated to be impossible that Church which was then a Virgin may be now a Harlot and that which was detraction in the Donatists may be in Protestants a just accusation 17 As ill success have you in comparing D. Potter with Tyconius whom as S. Austin finds fault with for continuing in the Donatists separation having forsaken the ground of it the Doctrin of the Churches perishing so you condemn the Doctor for continuing in their communion who hold as you say the very same Heresie But if this were indeed the Doctrin of the Donatists how is it that you say presently after that the Protestants who hold the Church of Christ perished were worse than Donatists who said that the Church remained at least in Africa These things me-thinks hang not well together But to let this pass The truth is this difference for which you would fain raise such a horrible dissention between D. Potter and his Brethren if it be well considered is only in words and the manner of expression They affirming only that the Church perished from its integrity and fell into many corruptions which he denies not And the Doctor denying only that it fell from its essence and became no Church at all which they affirm not 18 These therefore are but velitations and you would seem to make but small account of them But the main point you say is that since Luther 's Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was in the Apostles time they must of necessity affirm heretically with the Donatists that the true unspotted Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O Blasphemy an Harlot By which words it seems you are resolute perpetually to confound True and Unspotted and to put no difference between a corrupted Church and none at all But what is this but to make no difference between a diseased and a dead man Nay what is it but to contradict your selves who cannot deny but that sins are as great stains and spots and deformities in the sight of God as errours and confess your Church to be a congregation of men whereof every particular not one excepted and consequently the generality which is nothing but a collection of them is polluted and defiled with sin You proceed 19 But say you The same heresie follows out of D. Potter and other Protestants that the Church may err in points not fundamental because we have shewed that every error against any revealed truth is Heresie and Damnable whether the matter be great or small And how can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain damnable Heresie Besides we will hereafter prove that by every act of Heresie all divine faith is lost and to maintain a true Church without any faith is to fancy a living man without life Answ What you have said before hath been answered before and what you shall say hereafter shall be confuted hereafter But if it be such a certain ground that every error against any one revealed truth is a damnable Heresie then I hope I shall have your leave to subsume That the Dominicans in your account must hold a damnable heresie who hold an error against the immaculate Conception which you must needs esteem a revealed truth or otherwise why are you so urgent and importunate to have it defined seeing your rule is Nothing may be defined unless it be first revealed But without your leave I will make bold to conclude that if either that or the contrary assertion be a revealed truth you or they chuse you whether must without contradiction hold a damnable Heresie if this ground be true that every contradiction of a revealed Truth is such And now I dare say for fear of inconvenience you will begin to temper the crudeness of your former assertion and tell us that neither of you are Heretiques because the Truth against which you err though revealed is not sufficiently propounded And so say I Neither is your doctrin which Protestants contradict sufficiently propounded For though it be plain enough that your Church proposeth it yet still me-thinks it is as plain that your Churches proposition is not sufficient and I desire you would not say but prove the contrary Lastly to your Question How can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain a damnable Heresie I Answer she may be more truly said to perish when she is not only permitted to do so but de facto doth maintain a damnable Heresie Again she may be more truly said to perish when she falls into an Heresie which is not only damnable in it self and ex natura rei as you speak but such an Heresie the belief of whose contrary Truth is necessary not only necessitate praecepti but medii and therefore the Heresie so absolutely and indispensably destructive of salvation that no ignorance can excuse it nor any general repentance without a dereliction of it can beg a pardon for it Such an heresie if the Church should fall into it might be more truly said to perish then if it fell only into some heresie of its own nature damnable For in that state all the members of it without exception all without mercy must needs perish for ever In this although those that might see the truth and would not cannot upon any good ground hope for salvation yet without question it might send many souls to heaven who would gladly have embrac'd the truth but that they wanted means to discover it Thirdly and lastly she may yet more truly be said to perish when she Apostates from âhrist absolutely or rejects even those Truths out of which her Heresies may be reformed as if she should directly deny Jesus to be the Christ or the Scripture to be the Word of God Towards which
every one Is Achaia near thee there thou hast Corinth If thou art not far from Macedonia thou hast Philippi thou hast Thessalonica If thou canst go into Asia there thou hast Ephesus If thou be adjacent to Italy thou hast Rome whose Authority is neer at hand to us in Africk A happy Church into which the Apostles powred forth all their Doctrin together with their blood c. Now I pray you Sir tell me if you can for blushing why this place might not have been urg'd by a Corinthian or Philippian or Thessalonian or an Ephesian to shew that in the judgment of Tertullian separation from any of their Churches is a certain mark of Heresie as justly and rationally as you alledge it to vindicate this priviledge to the Roman Church only Certainly if you will stand to Tertullian's judgment you must either grant the authority of the Roman Church though at that time a good Topical Argument and perhaps a better than any the Heretiques had especially in conjunction with other Apostolique Churches yet I say you must grant it perforce but a fallible Guide as well as that of Ephesus and Thessalonica and Philippi and Corinth or you must maintain the Authority of 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 chuse 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 35 From the saying of S. Basil certainly nothing can be gathered but only that the Bishop of Rome may discern between that which is counterfeit and that which is lawful and pure and without any diminution may preach the faith of our Ancestors Which certainly he might do if ambition and covetousness did not hinder him or else I should never condemn him for doing otherwise But is there no difference between may and must Between he may do so and he cannot but do so Or doth it follow because he may do so therefore he always shall or will do so In my opinion rather the contrary should follow For he that saith you may do thus implies according to the ordinary sense of words that if he will he may do otherwise You certainly may if you please leave abusing the world with such Sophistry as this but whether you will or no of that I have no assurance 36 Your next Witness I would willingly have examined but it seems you are unwilling he should be found otherwise you would have given us your direction where we might have him Of that Maximianus who succeeded Nestorius I can find no such thing in the Councels Neither can I believe that any Patriarch of Constantinople twelve hundred years ago was so base a parasite of the Sea of Rome 37 Your last Witness John of Constantinople I confess speaks home and advanceth the Roman Sea even to heaven But I fear it is that his own may go up with it which he there professes to be all one sea with the sea of Rome and therefore his Testimony as speaking in his own case is not much to be regarded But besides I have little reason to be confident that this Epistle is not a forgery for certainly Binius hath obtruded upon us many a hundred such This though written by a Grecian is not extant in Greek but in Latin only Lastly it comes out of a supicious place an old book of the Vatican Library which Library the world knows to have been the Mint of very many Impostures 38 Ad § 20 21 22 23. The sum of your discourse in the four next Sections if it be pertinent to the Question in agitation must be this Want of succession of Bishops and Pastors holding always the same doctrin 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 Heretiques To which I answer that nothing but want 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 doctrin 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 doctrin of Christ though I cannot derive my descent from a perpetual Succession that believ'd 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 doctrin with my understanding although my predecessor do not so You have above in this Chapter defin'd Faith A free Infallible obscure supernatural assent to divine Truths because they are revealed by God and sufficiently propounded This definition is very phanrastical but for the present I will let it pass and desire you to give me some piece or shadow of 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 malitiously 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 alwayes believed it without any mixture of Errour nay I am fully perswaded there hath been no 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 Divels at Lowden do tricks against it but though an Angel from heaven should gainsay it or any part of it I perswade 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 perswade me that I am not sure that I do believe all this I desire you to tell me how are you sure that you believe the Church of Rome For if
well as the Cardinals do the Pope Whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the government in their hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonical exception Whether the Doctrin that the King is Supreme Head of the Church of England as the Kings of Judah and the first Christian Emperours were of the Jewish and Christian Church be any new found doctrin Whether it may not be true that Bishops being made Bishops have their authority immediatly from Christ though this or that man be not made Bishop without the King's authority as well as you say the Pope being Pope has authority immediately from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the authority of the Cardinals Whether you do well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more authority in ordering the affairs of the Church than the great Turk or the Pagan Emperors Whether the King may not give authority to a Bishop to exercise his function in some part of his Kingdom and yet not be capable of doing it himself as well as a Bishop may give authority to a Physician to practise Physick in his Diocess which the Bishop cannot do himself Whether if Nero the Emperour would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to preach the Gospel of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have question'd his Authority to do so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited King JAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his Injunction upon them to do any thing that is lawful Whether a casual irregularity may not be lawfully dispens'd with Whether the Pope's irregularities if he should chance to incur any be indispensable And if not who is he or who are they whom the Pope is so subject unto that they may dispense with him Whether that be certain which you take for granted That your Ordination imprints a character and ours doth not Whether the power of consecrating and ordaining by imposition of hands may not reside in the Bishops and be derived unto them not from the King but God and yet the King have authority to command them to apply this power to such a fit person whom he shall commend unto them As well as if some Architects only had the faculty of architecture and had it immediatly by infusion from God himself yet if they were the King's subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a Fortress for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himself yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his subjects that has this power to ordain any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it do not follow that whensoever the King commands an house to be built a message to be delivered or a murtherer to be executed that all these things are presently done without intervention of the Archirect messenger or executioner As well as that they are ipso facto ordain'd and consecrated who by the King's authority are commended to the Bishops to be ordained and consecrated Especially seeing the King will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to do what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should do so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himself nor any body else would esteem the person Bishop upon the King's designation Whether many Popes though they were not consecrated Bishops by any temporal Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopal function in this or that place And whether the Emperours had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants do indeed pretend that their Reformation is universal Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you do not forget your self and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of divine institution be Schismatical and Heretical for thinking so Whether your form of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essential to the constitution of a true Church Whether the forms of the Church of England differ essentially from your forms Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other man Lastly Whether any one kind of these external forms and orders and government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives whatsoever it be All these questions will be necessary to be discussed for the clearing of the truth of the Minor proposition of your former Syllogism and your proofs of it and I will promise to debate them fairly with you if first you will bring some better proof of the Major That want of Succession is a certain note of Heresie which for the present remains both unprov'd and unprobable 40 Ad § 23. The Fathers you say assign Succession as one mark of the true Church I confess they did urge Tradition as an Argument of the truth of their doctrin and of the falshood of the contrary and thus far they agree with you But now see the difference They urg'd it not against all Heretiques that ever should be but against them who rejected a great part of the Scripture for no other reason but because it was repugnant to their doctrin and corrupted other parts with their additions and detractions and perverted the remainder with divers absurd interpretations So Tertullian not a leaf before the words by you cited Nay they urg'd it against them who when they were confuted out of Scripture fell to accuse the Scriptures themselves as if they were not right and came not from good authority as if they were various one from another and as if truth could not be found out of them by those who know not Tradition for that it was not delivered in writing they did mean wholly but by word of mouth And that thereupon Paul also said we speak wisdom amongst the perfect So Irenaeus
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 joint Tradition of all the Apostolique Churches with one mouth and one voice teaching the same doctrin Or if for brevity sake they produced 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 of them Irenaeus was Scholar to one who was Scholar to S. John the Apostle Tertullian and Origen were not an age remov'd from him and the last of them all little more then an age from them Yet after all this they urg'd it not as a demonstration but only as a very probable argument far greater then 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 urg'd 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 Catholiques nay who refuse not to be tried by your own Canon and your own Translation 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 corruption and for the mysterie of 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 Catholique to it self alone and Heretical to all the rest nay not only with her ancient and original Traditions but also with her post-nate introduc'd 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 Heretiques 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 urg'd the old Heretiques 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 if you say so either you want Logick which is a certain sign of an ill disputer or are not pleas'd to use it which is a worse For speech is a certain sign of a living man yet want of speech is no sure argument that he is dead for he may be dumb and yet living still and we may have other evident tokens that he is so as eating drinking breathing moving So though the constant and universal delivery of any doctrin by the Apostolique Churches ever since the Apostles be a very great argument of the truth of it yet there is no certainty but that truth even Divine truth may through mens wickedness be contracted from its universality and interrupted in its perpetuity and so lose this argument and yet not want others to justifie and support it self For it may be one of those principles which God hath written in all mens hearts or a conclusion evidently arising from them It may be either contain'd in Scripture in express terms or deducible from it by apparâââ consequence If therefore you intend to prove want of a perpetual Succession of Professors a certain note of Heresie you must not content your self to shew that having it is one sign of truth but you must shew it to be the only sign of it and inseparable from it But this if you be well advis'd you will never undertake First because it is an impossible attempt and then because if you do it you will marr all for by proving this an inseparable sign of Catholique doctrin you will prove your own which apparently wants it in many points not to be Catholique For whereas you say this Succession requires two things agreement with the Apostles doctrin and an uninterrupted conveyance of it down to them that challenge it It will be prov'd against you that you fail in both points and that some things wherein you agree with the Apostles have not been held alwayes as your condemning the Doctrine of the Chiliasts and holding the Eucharist not necessary for Infants and that in many other things you agree not with them nor with the Church for many ages after For example In mutilation of the Communion in having your Service in such a language as the Assistants generally understand not your offering to Saints your picturing of God your worshipping of Pictures 42 Ad § 24. As for Universality of place the want whereof you object to Protestants as a mark of Heresie You have not set down clearly and univocally what you mean by it Whether universality of fact or of right and if of fact Whether absolute or comparative and if comparative Whether of the Church in comparison of any other Religion or only of heretical Christians or if in comparison of these whether in comparison of all other Sects conjoyn'd or in comparison only of any One of them Nor have you proved it by any good argument in any sense to be a certain mark of heresie For those places of S. Austin do not deserve the name And truly in my judgment you have done advisedly in proving it no better For as for Universality of right or a right to Universality all Religions claim it but only the true has it and which has it cannot be determin'd unless it be first determin'd which is the true An absolute Universality and diffusion through all the world if you should pretend to all the world would laugh at you If you should contend for latitude with any one Religion Mahumetism would carry the victory from you If you should oppose yourselves against all other Christians besides you it is certain you would be cast in this suit also If lastly being hard driven you
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. But you proced and tell us that 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 Answ 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 But Protestants though as you suppose 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 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 rely 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 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 owne 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. But Protestants cannot determine what points be fundamental and therefore must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamental error Answ By like reason since you acknowledg that every error in points defin'd and declared by your Church destroies 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 Now that you are uncertain what points are defined appears from your own words c. 4. § 3. of your second Part where say you No less impertinent is your discourse concerning the difficulty to know what is Heresie For we grant that it is not alwaies easy to determine in particular occasions whether this or that Doctrin be such because it may be doubtful whether it be against any Scripture or divine Tradition or definition of the Church Neither were it difficult to extort from you this confession by naming divers Points which some of you say are defin'd others the contrary And others hang in suspense and know not what to determin But this I have done elsewhere as also I have shewed plainly enough that 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 Receit 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. But that he who erreth against any one revealed truth loseth all Divine Faith is a very true doctrin delivered by Catholique Divines you mean your own with so general a consent that the contrary is wont to be censur'd as temerarious 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 Answ I pass by your weakness in urging Protestants with the authority of your Divines which yet in you might very deservedly be censur'd For when D. Potter to shew the many actual dissentions between the Romish Doctors notwithstanding their braggs of potential Unity referres to Pappus who has collected out of Bellar. their contradictions and set them down in his own words to the number of 237. and to Flacius de Sectis Controversiis Religionis Papisticae you making the very same use of M. Breerely against Protestants yet jeer and scorn D. Potter as if he offer'd you for a proof the bare authority of Pappus and Flacius and tell him which is all the Answer you vouchsafe him It is pretty that he brings Pappus and Flacius flat Heretiques to prove your many contradictions As if he had proved this with the bare authoritie the bare judgement of these men which sure he does not but with the formall words of Bellarmine faithfully collected by Pappus And why then might not we say to you Is it not prettie that you bring Breerely as flat an Heretique as Pappus or Flacius to prove the contradictions of Protestants Yet had he been so vain as to press you with the meer authority of Protestant Divines in any point me-thinks for your own sake you should have pardon'd him who here and in many other places urge us with the judgement of your Divines as with weighty arguments 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
adhere For you abuse the world and them if you pretend that they hold the first of your two principles That these particular Books are the word of God for so I think you mean either to be in it selfe evidently certain or of it self and being devested of the motives of credibility evidently credible For they are not so fond as to conceive nor so vain as to pretend that all men do assent to it which they would if it were evidently certain nor so ridiculous as to imagine that if an Indian that never heard of Christ or Scripture should by chance find a Bible in his owne Language and were able to read it that upon the reading it he would certainly without a miracle believe it to be the word of God which he could not chuse if it were evidently credible What then do they affirm of it Certainly no more than this that whatsoever man that is not of a perverse minde shall weigh with serious and mature deliberation those great moments of reason which may incline him to believe the Divine authority of Scripture and compare them with the leight objections that in prudence can be made against it he shall not chuse but finde sufficient nay abundant inducements to yeeld unto it firm faith and sincere obedience Let that learned man Hugo Grotius speak for all the rest in his Book of the truth of Christian Religion which Book whosoever attentively peruses shall find that a man may have great reason to be a Christian without dependance upon your Church for any part of it and that your Religion is no foundation of but rather a scandal and an objection against Christianity He then in the last Chapter of his second Book hath these excellent words If any be not satisfied with these arguments above-said but desires more forcible reasons for confirmation of the excellency of Christian Religion let such know that as there are variety of things which be true so are there divers wayes of proving or manifesting the truth Thus is there one way in Mathematicks another in Physicks a third in Ethicks and lastly another kind when a matter of fact is in question wherein verily we must rest content with such testimonies as are free from all suspicion of untruth otherwise down goes all the frame and use of history and a great part of the Art of Physick together with all dutifulness that ought to be between parents and children for matters of practice can no way else be known but by such testimonies Now it is the pleasure of Almighty God that those things which he would have us to believe so that the very belief thereof may be imputed to us for obedience should not so evidently appear as those things which are apprehended by sense and plain demonstration but only be so farre forth revealed as may beget faith and a perswasion thereof in the hearts and minds of such as are not obstinate That so the Gospel may be as a touch-stone for triall of mens judgements whether they be sound or unsound For seeing these arguments whereof we have spoken have induced so many honest godly and wise men to approve of this Religion it is thereby plain enough that the fault of other mens infidelity is not for want of sufficient testimony but because they would not have that to be had and embraced for truth which is contrary to their wilful desires it being a hard matter for them to relinquish their honors and set at naught other commodities which thing they know they ought to do if they admit of Christ's doctrin and obey what he hath commanded And this is the rather to be noted of them for that many other historical narrations are approved by them to be true which notwithstanding are only manifest by authority and not by any such strong proofs and perswasions or tokens as do declare the history of Christ to be true 52. And now you see I hope that Protestants neither do need nor protend to any such evidence in the doctrin they believe as cannot well consist both with the essence and the obedience of faith Let us come now to the last Nullity which you impute to the faith of Protestants and that is want of Prudence Touching which point as I have already demonstrated that wisdome is not essential to faith but that a man may truly believe truth though upon insufficient motives So I doubt not but I shall make good that if prudence were necessary to faith we have better title to it than you and that if a wiser then Solomon were here he should have better reason to believe the Religion of Protestants than Papists the Bible rather than the Councel of Trent But let us hear what you can say 53. Ad § 31. You demand then first of all What wisdome was it to forsake a Church confessedly very ancient and besides which there could be demonstrated no other Visible Church of Christ upon earth I answer Against God and truth there lies no Prescription and therefore certainly it might be great wisdome to forsake ancient errors for more ancient Truths One God is rather to be follow'd then innumerable worlds of men And therefore it might be great wisdome either for the whole Visible Church nay for all the men in the world having wandred from the way of Truth to return unto it or for a part of it nay for one man to do so although all the world besides were madly resolute to do the contrary It might be great wisdome to forsake the errors though of the only Visible Church much more of the Roman which in conceiving her self the whole Visible Church does somwhat like the Frog in the Fable which thought the ditch he liv'd in to be all the world 54. You demand again What wisdome was it to forsake a Church acknowledg'd to want nothing necessary to Salvation indued with Succession of Bishops c. usque ad Election or Choice I answer Yet might it be great wisdome to forsake a Church not acknowledged to want nothing necessary to salvation but accused and convicted of Many damnable errors certainly damnable to them who were convicted of them had they still persisted in them after their conviction though perhaps pardonable which is all that is acknowledg'd to such as ignorantly continued in them A Church vainly arrogating without possibility of proof a perpetual Succession of Bishops holding alwaies the same doctrin and with a ridiculous impudence pretending perpetual possession of all the world whereas the world knowes that a little before Luther's arising your Church was confined to a part of a part of it Lastly a Church vainly glorying in the dependance of other Churches upon her which yet she supports no more than those crouching Anticks which seem in great buildings to labour under the weight they bear do indeed support the Fabrick For a corrupted and salfe Church may give authority to preach the truth and consequently against her own falshoods and corruptions Besides a
all to joyn with us 8. By your leave our Argument is not as you say for simple people alone but for all them who have care to save their souls Neither is it grounded upon your Charitable Judgement as you (l) Page 81. speak but upon an inevitable necessity for you either to grant salvation to our Church or to entail certain damnation upon your own because yours can have no being till Luther unless ours be supposed to have been the true Church of Christ And since you term this Argument a Charm take heed you be none of those who according to the Prophet David do not hear the vice of him (m) Ps 57.6 who charmeth wisely But to come to the purpose Catholiques never granted that the Donatists had a true Church or might be saved And therefore you having cited out of S. Augustine the words of the Catholiques that the Donatists had true Baptism when you come to the contrary words of the Donatists you adde No Church No Salvation making the Argument to have quinq terminos without which Addition you did see it made nothing against us For as I said the Catholiques never yielded that among the Donatists there was a true Church or hope of Salvation And your self a few leaves after acknowledge that the Donatists maintained an error which was in the Matter and Nature of it properly heretical against that Article of the Creed wherein we profess to believe the holy (n) Page 126. Catholique Church and consequently you cannot allow salvationi to them as you do and must do to us And therefore the Donatists could not make the like argument agains Catholiques as Catholiques make against you who grant us salvation which we deny to you But at least you will say this Argument for the Certainty of their Baptism was like to Ours touching the Security and Certainty of our Salvation and therefore that Catholiques should have esteemed the Baptism of the Donatists more certain than their own and so have allowed Rebaptization of such as were baptized by Heretiques or sinners as the Donatists esteemed all Catholiques to be I answer No. Because it being a matter of faith that Baptism administred by Heretiques observing due Matter Forme c. is valid to rebaptize any so baptized had been both a sacriledge in reiterating a Sacrament not reiterable and a profession also of a damnable Heresy and therefore had not been more safe but certainly damnable But you confess that in the doctrin or practice of the Roman Church there is no belief or profession of any damnable error which if there were even your Church should certainly be no Church To believe therefore and profess as we do cannot exclude Salvation as Rebaptization must have done But if the Donatists could have affirmed with truth that in the opinion both of Catholiques and themselves their Baptism was good yea and good in such sort as that unless theirs was good that of the Catholiques could not be such but theirs might be good though that of the Catholiques were not and further that it was no damnable error to believe that Baptism administred by the Catholiques was not good nor that it was any Sacriledge to reiterate the same Baptism of Catholiques If I say they could have truly affirmed these things they had said somewhat which at least had seemed to the purpose But these things they could not say with any colour of truth and therefore their argument was fond and impious But we with truth say to Protestants You cannot but confess that our doctrin contains no damnable error and that our Church is so certainly a true Church that unless ours be true you cannot pretend any Yea you grant that you should be guilty of Schism if you did cut off our Church from the Body of Christ and the hope of salvation But we neither do aor can grant that yours is a true Church or that within it there is hope of salvation Therefore it is safest for you to joyne with us And now against whom hath your Objection greatest force 9. But I wonder nor ãâã little and so I think will ever body else what the reason may be that you do not so much as go about to answer the argument of the Donatists which you say is all one with Ours but referre us to S. Augustine there to read it as if every one carried with him a Library or were able to examin the place in S. Augustine and yet you might be sure your Reader would be greedy to see some solid answer to an argument so often urged by us and which indeed unless you can confute it ought alone to move every one who hath care of his soul to take the safest way by incorporating himself in our Church But we may easily imagine the true reason of your silence For the answer which S. Augustin gives to the Donatists is directly against your self and the same which I have given Namely that Catholiques (o) Ad lit Petil. l. 2. cap. 108. approve the Baptism of Donatists but abhorre their heresie of Rebaptization And that as gold is good which is the Similitude used by (p) Contra Cresc lib. 1. cap. 21. S. Augustine yet not to be sought in company of theeves so though Baptism be good yet it must not be sought for in the Conventicles of Donatists But you free us from damnable heresie and yeeld us salvation which I hope is to be imbraced in whatsoever Company it is found or rather that Company is to be imbraced before all other in which all sides agree that salvation may be found We therefore must inferre that it is safest for you to seek salvation among us You had good reason to conceal S. Augustines answer to the Donatists 10. You frame another argument in our behalf and make us speak thus If Protestants believe the (q) Pag. 79. Religion of Catholiques to be a safe way to Heaven why do they not follow it which wise argument of your own you answer at large and confirme your answer by this instance The Jesuits and Dominicans hold different Opinions touching Predetermination and the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Yet so that the Jesuit holds the Dominicans way safe that is his error not damnable and the Dominicans hold the same of the Jesuits Yet neither of them with good consequence can press the other to believe his opinion because by his own confession it is no damnable error 11. But what Catholique maketh such a wise demand as you put into our mouths If our Religion be a safe way to heaven that is not damnable why do you not follow it As if every thing that is good must be of necessity embraced by every body But what think you of the Argument framed thus Our Religion is safe even by your confession therefore you ought to grant that all may embrace it And yet further thus Among different Religons and contrary wayes to heaven one only can be safe But
knowing Papist can promise himself any security or comfort from them We confess saith he the Church of Rome to be in some sense a true Church and her errors to some men not damnable we believe her Religion safe that is by Gods great mercy not damnable to some such as believe what they profess But we believe it not safe but very dangerous if not certainly damnable to such as profess it when they believe or if their hearts were upright and not perversly obstinate might believe the contrary Observe I pray you these restraining terms which formerly you have dissembled A true Church in some sense not damnable to some men a safe way that is by Gods great mercy not damnable to some And then seeing you have pretended these Confessions to be absolute which are thus plainly limited how can you avoid the imputation of an egregious Sophister You quarrel with the Doctor in the end of your Preface for using in his Book such ambiguous terms as these in some sort in some sense in some degree and desire him if he make any reply either to forbear them or to tell you roundly in what sort in what sense in what degree he understands these and the like mincing phrases But the truth is he hath not left them so ambiguous and undetermin'd as you pretend but told you plainly in what sense your Church may pass for a true Church viz. in regard we may hope that she retains those truths which are simply absolutely and indispensably necessary to Salvation which may suffice to bring those good souls to heaven who wanted means of discovering their errors this is the charitable construction in which you may pass for a Church And to what men your Religion may be safe and your errors not damnable viz. to such whom Ignorance may excuse and therefore he hath more cause to complain of you for quoting his words without those qualifications than you to find fault with him for using of them 30. That your Discourse in the 12 § presseth you as forcibly as Protestants I have shewed above I add here 1. Whereas you say that faith according to your rigid Calvinists is either so strong that once had it can never he lost or so more than weak and so much nothing that it can never be gotten That these are words without sense Never any Calvinist affirmed that faith was so weak and so much nothing that it can never be gotâen but it seems you wanted matter to make up your Antithesis and therefore were resolved to speak empty words rather than lose your figure Crimina rasis Librat in antithetis doctas posuisse Figuras Laudatur 2. That there is no Calvinist that will deny the Truth of this Proposition Christ died for all nor to subscribe to that sense of it which your Dominicans put upon it neither can you with coherence to the received Doctrin of your own Society deny that they as well as the Calvinists take away the distinction of sufficient and effectual grace and indeed hold none to be sufficient but only that which is effectual 3. Whereas you say They cannot make their calling certain by good works who do certainly believe that before any good works they are justified and justified by faith alone and by that faith whereby they certainly believe they are justified I answ There is no Protestant but believes that Faith Repentance and universal Obedience are necessary to the obtaining of Gods favour and eternal happiness This being granted the rest is but a speculative Controversie a Question about words which would quickly vanish but that men affect not to understand one another As if a company of Physitians were in consultation and should all agree that three medicines and no more were necessary for the recovery of the Patients health this were sufficient for his direction towards the recovery of his health though concerning the proper and specifical effects of these three medicines there should be amongst them as many differences as men So likewise being generally at accord that these three things Faith Hope and Charity are necessary to salvation so that whosoever wants any of them cannot obtain it and he which hath them all cannot fail of it is it not very evident that they are sufficiently agreed for mens directions to eternal Salvation And seeing Charity is a full comprehension of all good workes they requiring Charity as a necessary qualification in him that will be saved what sense is there in saying they cannot make their calling certain by good works They know what salvation is as well as you and have as much reason to desire it They believe it as heartily as you that there is no good work but shall have its proper reward and that there is no possibility of obtaining the eternal reward without good works and why then may not this Doctrin be a sufficient incitement and provocation unto good works 31. You say that they certainly believe that before any good works they are justified But this is a calumny There is no Protestant but requires to Justification Remission of sins and to Remission of sins they all require Repentance and Repentance I presume may not be denyed the name of a good work being indeed if it be rightly understood and according to the sense of the word in Scripture an effectual conversion from all sin to all holiness But though it be taken for meer Sorrow for sins past and a bare Purpose of amendment yet even this is a good work and therefore Protestants requiring this to Remission of sins and Remission of sins to Justification cannot with candor be pretended to believe that they are justified before any good work 32. You say They believe themselves justified by faith alone and that by that faith whereby they believe themselves justified Some peradventure do so but withal they believe that that faith which is alone and unaccompanied with sincere and universal obedience is to be esteem'd not faith but presumption and is at no hand sufficient to justification that though Charity be not imputed unto justification yet is it required as a necessary disposition in the person to be justified and that though in regard of the imperfection of it no man can be justified by it yet that on the other side no man can be justified without it So that upon the whole matter a man may truly and safely say that the Doctrin of these Protestants taken altogether is not a Doctrin of Liberty not a Doctrin that turns hope into presumtion and carnal security though it may justly be feared that many licentious persons taking it by halfes have made this wicked use of it For my part I do heartily wish that by publique Authority it were so ordered that no man should ever preach or print this Doctrin that Faith alone justifies unless he joyns this together with it that Universal Obedience is necessary to salvation And besides that those Chapters of Saint Paul which intreat of
repugnant to the word of God Ibid. p. 201 202 203 204 205. Lastly his discourse wherein he shews that it is unlawful for the Church of after Ages to add any thing to the Faith of the Apostles And many of his Arguments whereby he proves that in the judgement of the Ancient Church the Apostles Creed was esteem'd a sufficient summary of the necessary Points of simple belief and a great number of great authorities to justifie the Doctrin of the Church of England touching the Canon of Scripture especially the old Testament S. 7. p. 221 223 228 229. All these parts of Doctor Potter's book for reason best known to your self you have dealt with as the Priest and Levite in the Gospel did with the wounded Samaritan that is only look't upon them and pass'd by But now at least when you are admonish't of it that my Reply to your second part if you desire it may be perfect I would entreat you to take them into your consideration and to make some shew of saying something to them lest otherwise the world should interpret your obstinate silence a plain confession that you can say nothing FINIS THE Apostolical Institution OF EPISCOPACY DEMONSTRATED BY WILL. CHILLINGWORTH Master of Arts of the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD NOSCE TE IPSVM NE QUID NIMIS LONDON Printed by E. Cotes dwelling in Aldersgate-street Anno Dom. M.DC.LXIV THE Apostolical Institution OF EPISCOPACY DEMONSTRATED SECT I. IF we abstract from Episcopal Government all accidentals and consider only what is essential and necessary to it we shall finde in it no more but this An appointment of one man of eminent sanctity and sufficiency to have the care of all the Churches within a certain Precinct or Diocess and furnishing him with authority not absolute or arbitrary but regulated and bounded by Laws and moderated by joyning to him a convenient number of assistants to the intent that all the Churches under him may be provided of good and able Pastors and that both of Pastors and people conformity to Laws and performance of their duties may be required under penalties not left to discretion but by Law appointed SECT II. To this kind of Government I am not by any particular interest so devoted as to think it ought to be maintained either in opposition to Apostolick Institution or to the much desired reformation of mens lives and restauration of Primitive discipline or to any Law or Precept of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for that were to maintain a means contrary to the end for Obedience to our Saviour is the end for which Church-Government is appointed But if it may be demonstrated or made much more probable than the contrary as I verily think it may I. That it is not repugnant to the government setled in and for the Church by the Apostles II. That it is as complyable with the Reformation of any evill which we desire to reform either in Church or State or the introduction of any good which we desire to introduce as any other kind of Government And III. That there is no Law no Record of our Saviour against it Then I hope it will not be thought an unreasonable Motion if we humbly desire those that are in Authority especially the High Court of Parliament That it may not be sacrificed to Clamour or over-born by Violence and though which God forbid the greater part of the Multitude should cry Crucifie Crucifie yet our Governours would be so full of Justice and Counage as not to give it up until they perfectly understand concerning Episcopacy it self Quid mali fecit SECT III. I shall speak at this time only of the first of these three points That Episcopacy is not repugnant to the Government setled in the Church for perpetuity by the Apostles Whereof I conceive this which follows is as clear a Demonstration as any thing of this nature is capable of That this Government was received universally in the Church either in the Apostles time or presently after is so evident and unquestionable that the most learned adversaries of this Government do themselves confess it SECT IV. Petrus Molinaeus in his Book De munere pastorali purposely written in defence of the Presbyterial-government acknowledgeth That presently after the Apostles times or even in their time as Ecclesiastical story witnesseth it was ordained That in every City one of the Presbytery should be called a Bishop who should have pre-eminence over his Colleagues to avoid confusion which oft times ariseth out of equality And truly this form of Government all Churches every where received SECT V. Theodorus Beza in his Tract De triplici Episcopatûs genere confesseth in effect the same thing For having distinguished Episcopacy into three kinds Divine Humane and Satanical and attributing to the second which he calls Humane but we maintain and conceive to be Apostolical not only a priority of Order but a superiority of Power and Authority over other Presbyters bounded yet by Laws and Canons provided against Tyranny he clearly professeth that of this kind of Episcopacy is to be understood whatsoever we read concerning the authority of Bishops or Presidents as Justin Martyr calls them in Ignatius and other more ancient Writers SECT VI. Certainly from * To whom two others also from Geneva may be added Daniel Chamierus in Panstratia tom 2. lib. 10. cap. 6. Sect. 24. and Nicol. Vedelius Exereitat 3. in epist Ignatii ad Philadelph cap. 14. Exercit. 8. in Epist ad Mariam cap. 3. which is fully also demonstrated in D. Hammond's Dissertations against Blondel which never were answered and never will by the testimonies of those who wrote in the very next Age after the Apostles these two great Defenders of the Presbytery we should never have had this free acknowledgement so prejudicial to their own pretence and so advantagious to their adversaries purpose had not the evidence of clear and undeniable truth enforced them to it It will not therefore be necessary to spend any time in confuting that uningenuous assertion of the anonymous Author of the Catalogue of Testimonies for the equality of Bishops and Presbyters who affirms That their disparity began long after the Apostles times But we may safely take for granted that which these two learned Adversaries have confessed and see whether upon this foundation laid by them we may not by unanswerable reason raise this superstructure That seeing Episcopal Government is confessedly so Ancient and so Catholique it cannot with reason be denyed to be Apostolique SECT VII For so great a change as between Presbyterial Government and Episcopal could not possibly have prevailed all the world over in a little time Had Episcopal Government been an aberration from or a corruption of the Government left in the Churches by the Apostles it had been very strange that it should have been received inany one Church so suddainly or that it should have prevailed in all for many Ages after Variâsse debuerat error Ecclesiarum quod
unto Sin If risen again then count your selves alive unto Righteousness For how it should come to pass that so much of our Holiness as makes up mortification and no more should be ascribed to Christs Death as a proper effect and fruit thereof And the rest which is newness of life and obedience should be imputed to his Resurrection I shall never be able to comprehend 8. The benefits therefore which accrew unto us by Christ I suppose may be divided either into those which flow from the mârit of his Death or from the power and influence of his Life In the former are comprehended all whatsoever Christ hath done for us In the latter whatsoever he doth or will work in us And both being extremely necessary It shall be this hours employment to shew with what good reason we celebrate a feast at this time that we should not terminate our contemplation only on the great love and bowels of compassions on Good-Friday expressed unto us but also and with better reason on the Joy and comfort which with great reason we may collect from this business of Easter even that lively hope whereunto we are regenerated by the Resurrection of Christ And to joyn with S. Paul in his wonder and amazement at the consideration of the infinite mercy and power of God and thereupon his boasting and challenging securely all manner of adversaries Who is be that shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again 9. In which words are comprehended the great dependance and combination which our non-condemnation or salvation has not only with the death and satisfaction of Christ but also rather even with advantage on his Resurrection Now because they are so few they cannot conveniently be divided I will out of them raise this Doctrinal Proposition Doctr. namely That Christs Resurrection and exaltation is fully as necessary and effectual to procure and perfect our salvation if not more then even the all-sufficient Sacrifice upon the Cross 10. Which that I may more fully and distinctly confirm unto you I will divide into two Propositions which if sufficiently maintain'd doth necessarily infer the Doctrine The first whereof is this Prop. 1. That the purpose of Christ who satisfied for our sins and the Covenant which he made with God who accepted of this satisfaction was not that remission of sins should immediately ensue upon his death but only upon performance of the Conditions of the new Covenant made in Christs Bloud which are unfeigned Repentance for Sin and a serious Conversion unto God by Faith The Second That by the Dominion and Power of Christ Prop. 2. which at his Resurrection and not before he received as a reward of his great humility we are not only enabled to the performance of the conditions of this new Covenant and by consequence made capable of an Actual application of his satisfaction but also by the same power we shall hereafter be raised up and exalted to everlasting Happiness Of these two Propositions therefore in the order proposed very briefly and even too too plainly And first of the first namely That the purpose of Christ who Prop. I. c. 11. I confess it would be no hard matter for a Disputant meeting with an adversary that would be content to be swayed and governed by Reason alone to molest and even fright him from the truth of this Doctrine For if we shall consider not only the excessive unspeakable Torments which Christ suffered for us but especially the infinite Majesty and Glory of the Person who willingly submitted himself to that Curse what less reward can be expected than the present deliverance and salvation not only of a few selected men but even of many worlds of Men and Angels 12. But it is not for us Beloved Christians to set our price and value upon Christs precious Bloud to say Thus much it is worth and no more As there have not wanted men on the other side who have dared to affirm That Christs Bloud according to exact estimation did amount to a certain value by the worth and cost whereof such a set number as shall be saved were redeem'd and purchas'd And if one besides should be delivered it were more than the price of the Bloud came to What a fearful dangerous curiosity is this Is it not a piece of Judas his sin to set our own estimation and value to make a bargain and sale of Christs Death to set up a kind of shambles to sell his Flesh and Bloud in 13. But leaving these vain phantastical Calculations to their chief Professours the Schoolmen who are so unreasonably addicted to this dreaming Learning that nothing can escape their Compass and Ballance For to omit their curious descriptions and Maps of the dimensions and situation of Heaven and Hell the Figure Borders Islands of both They have undertaken to discover the exact proportionable increase of the graces of the Saints especially of the Blessed Virgin whose good actions they have found to encrease just in Octupla ratione so that for example her twentieth good action did exceed the first in virtue and intention of Grace as much as the whole earth doth exceed a grain of mustard-seed 14. Is not this Beloved Friends a learning and wisdom to be pitied Is not this that disease which S. Paul discovers 1 Tim. 6. the effect whereof is to make men sick about vain questions and oppositions of science falsly so called Therefore leaving these vain Speculations as likewise others about the business in hand no less curious and much more dangerous yet securely stated in these daies almost in every Pamphlet and Synopsis As namely Whether God could have contrived any course for mans salvation beside that which he prosecuted Whether without accepting any satisfaction to his Justice he could freely and absolutely have remitted our sins 15. For what use or profit can be made of these Questions though with never so great subtilty and curiosity stated Besides we find that God had professed unto Adam that his death together with the destruction of all mankind should be the reward of the breach of his Covenant By which means Gods Justice being interested in the business the very grounds and foundation of this latter question are destroyed the doubt and scrue whereof must needs have been blasphemous namely Whether God could have been unjust Nay more it makes the sending of Christ into the world together with his obedience to the death even that accursed death of the Cross to be a matter of no necessary importance to be only a great Complement whereby God shews unto mankind that though he could easily have remitted their sins without any satisfaction for whatsoever is possible to God is easie notwithstanding that they should see He would strain himself even farther for them was very requisite and withall to shew his abomination of sin he
use sometimes to allure us and win our hearts to do that which shall please him other times to startle and affright us when we are about something contrary to his command And to say the truth This must of necessity be the issue of the former Doctrin For how is it possible to make these things hold together We are already perfectly reconciled to God by the death of his Son without any consideration had to our personal Faith and Repentance And yet unless we do earnestly repent us of our sins and with a lively Faith adhere to God's Promises we shall never be reconciled unto God! Or these All our sins are already remitted and that only for the vertue of Christ's satisfaction And yet unless we believe our sins shall never be forgiven us 25. So that by this reckoning we must be forced to purge the Gospel of those troublesome dangerous terms of Covenants and Conditions of those fruitless affrighting Conjunctions Si Credideris Si non poenitentiam egeris Or which is all one soften them into a sense utterly repugnant and warring against the natural force and signification of the words on this wise Where the Scripture saith If thou repentest not thy sins shall not be forgiven thee Thou art not to conceive that forgiveness of thy sins is a work yet to be done or that it has any dependance upon any thing in thee But this great blessing shall be hid from thine eyes thou shalt never come to the knowledg of it and thereby shalt live here a discontented pensive suspicious life Again If thou believest thou shalt be saved that is Thou shalt obtain a comfortable assurance of Hope nay an infallible faith of thy future Salvation though that was intended thee without any consideration of thy faith 26. So that the Gospel of Christ is not the power of God unto Salvation for How can the Word be an Instrument of that which was long ago absolutely perform'd and purchased And therefore Christ his preaching his miracles and tears The Apostles travels and persecutions The sending of the Holy Spirit Baptism Eucharist Imposition of hands Absolution and many more blessed means of our Salvation were not instituted for this end to make us capable of Remission of our Sins for that it seems was already not only meritoriously but effectually procured and without all manner of Conditions infallibly destin'd to Gods Elect but only for this end That whilst they live here to their thinking in danger and hazard but they are Fools for thinking so they may now and then be a little cheared and comforted with apprehending what Christ hath done for them and to what a comfortable state and Inheritance he hath destin'd them Thus the Covenant which God hath sworn shall be everlasting is by the improvidence and ignorance of some men rendred unprofitable yea utterly abrogated But Ne quid inclementius dicam we have not so learned Christ 27. The second Reason destroying the former Doctrin I told you should be taken from the necessity of Christ's Resurrection For if the immediate effect of Christs Death be the purchasing of a perfect reconciliation with God and full remission of Sins for us the Elect of God Then I will not say what Benefit but What necessity is there of Christ's Resurrection in respect of us For by this accompt after the Consummatum est upon the Cross when the satisfaction was perfected and our debts pay'd Though Christ had afterwards miscarryed though he had been detain'd by death though his Soul had been left in Hell and he had seen corruption Notwithstanding we should stand upon good terms with God unless we shall conceive of Him worse then of the most oppressing Usurer that when a debt is dischar'gd and the Bond cancell'd will notwithstanding not release the Prisoner unless the undertaker come in Person or by main force deliver him 28. I confess that to see a friend that had ventur'd so farr for us as our Saviour did that to do us good had put himself in such extream danger I say to see such a one to be utterly cast away without all hopes and possibility of being able to pay him our thanks would be a spectacle which would grieve and pierce our very souls it would be a renting to our bowels But this is only Charity and Gratitude or good nature in us which would procure this grief not that it stands upon our safety his preservation being a matter only of convenience not extream necessity to us 29. We all do worthily condemn and detest that blasphemous Heresie of the Socinians who exclude the meritorious death and sufferings of Christ from having any necessary influence into our Justification or Salvation making it of no greater vertue then the sufferings of the blessed Martyrs who by their death set their Seal and Testimony to the Truth of the Gospel which freely offers forgiveness of sins to all penitent believers Now the same injury which these Hereticks do to the merit of Christ's death In proportion the former doctrin fastens upon his Resurrection and new life by taking from it the chief and proper effect thereof which is an actual vindication of us from the power of sin into the glorious liberty of the sons of God by the power of Christs Spirit plentifully by him diffused and shed abroad in our hearts and making the chief vertue thereof to consist in affording us only matter of comfort and hope that God will deal no otherwise with us then he hath dealt with Christ and after a life full of disturbance and misery revive us to glory and immortality with his Son for evermore whereas St. Paul hath another kind of conceit of Christs Resurrection for saith he in Heb. 5.9 Christ being made perfect i. e. glorified c. 2.10 becomes Author of eternal Salvation to all that obey him And if Christ be not risen your faith is vain you are yet in your sins and if Christ be not risen neither shall we ever be raised but be utterly irrecoverably condemned to everlasting rottenness 30. And thus I am unawares fallen upon my second Proposition Prop. II. Namely That by the Dominion and power of Christ which at his Resurrection and not before he received as a reward of his great Humility we are not only enabled to the performance of the conditions of this New Covenant and by consequence made capeable of an actual application of his satisfaction But also by the same power we shall hereafter be raised up and exalted unto everlasting Happiness 31. Though by the vertue of the Incarnation of our Saviour the Humane Nature was raised to a state and condition of unspeakable glory Notwithstanding if in this place as well as before we shall be content to submit our Reason to Scripture We shall find that according to a Covenant made between Christ and his Father he was content not to challenge to himself any right of Dominion and Rule over us till he had perfectly deserv'd