most certain and infallible wherein it surpasseth humane Opinion it must relie upon some motive and ground which may be able to give it certainly and yet not release it from Obscurity For if this motive ground or formal Object of Faith were any thing evidently presented to our understanding and if also we did evidently know that it had a necessary connection with the Articles which we believe our assent to such Articles could not be obscure but evident which as we said is against the nature of our faith If likewise the motive and ground of our faith were obscurely propounded to us but were not in it self infallible it would leave our assent in obscurity but could not endue it with certainty We must therefore for the ground of our faith find out a motive obscure to us but most certain in it self that the act of faith may remain both obscure and certain Such a motive as this can be no other but the divine authority of Almighty God revealing or speaking those truths which our faith believes For it is manifest that God's infallible testimony may transfâ—â—â— Certainty to our faith and yet not draw it out of obscurity because no humane discourse or demonstration can evince that God revealeth any supernatural truth since God hath been no less perfect than he is although hâ—â—â—â— never revealed any of those objects which we now believe 4 Nevertheless because Almighty God out of his infinite wisdom and sweetness doth conour with his Creatures in such sort as may befit the temper and exigence of their natures and because Man is a Creature endued with reason God doth not exact of his Will or Understanding any other then as the Apostle faith rationabile (f) Rom. 12.1 obsequium an Obedience sweetned with good reason which could not so appear if our Understanding were summoned to believe with certainty things no way represented as infallible and certain And therefore Almighty God obliging us under pain of eternal camnation to believe with greatest certainty divers verities not known by the light of natural reason cannot fail to furnish our Understanding with such inducements motives and arguments as may sufficiently perswade any mind which is not partial or passionate that the objects which we believe proceed from an Authority so Wise that it cannot be deceived so Good that it cannot deceive according to the words of David Thy Testimonies are made (g) Psal 92. credible exceedingly These inducements are by Divines called argumenta credibilitatis arguments of credibility which though they cannot make us evidently see what we believe yet they evidently convince that in one wisdom and prudence the objects of faith deserve credit and ought to be accepted as things revealed by God For without such reasons and inducements our judgment of faith could not be conceived prudent holy Scripture telling us that be who soon (h) Eccles 19. â— believes is light of heart By these arguments and inducements our Understanding is both satisfied with evidence of credibility and the objects of faith retain their obsenrity because it is a different thing to be evidently credible and evidently true as those who were present at the Miracles wrought by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles did not evidently see their doctrin to be true for then it had not been Faith but Science and all had been necessitated to believe which we see fell out otherwise but they were evidently convinced that the things confirmed by such Miracles were most credible and worthy to be imbraced as truth revealed by God 5 These evident arguments of Credibility are in great abundance found in the Visible Church of Christ perpetually existing on earth For that there hath been a company of men professing such and such doctrines we have from our next Predecessors and these from theirs upward till we come to the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour which gradation is known by evidence of sense by reading books or hearing what one man delivers to another And it is evident that there was neither cause nor possibility that men so distant in place so different in temper so repugnant in private ends did or could agree to tell one and the self same thing if it had been but a fiction invented by themselves as ancient Tertullian well saith How is it likely that so many (i) Praescript c. 28. and so great Churches should err in one saith Among many events there is not one issue the error of the Churches must needs have varied But that which among many is sound to be One is not mistaken but delivered Dare then any body say that they erred who delivered it With this never-interrupted existence of the Church are joyned the many and great miracles wrought by mâ—n of that Congregation or Church the sanctity of the persons the renowned victories over so many persecutions both of all sorts of men and of the infernal spirits and lastly the perpetual existence of so holy a Church being brought up to the Apostles themselves she comes to partake of the same assurance of truth which They by so many powerful ways did communicate to their Doctrin to the Church of their times together with the divine Certainty which they received from our blessed Saviour himself revealing to Mankind what he heard from his Father and so we conclude with Tertullian We receive it from the Churches the Churches (k) Praese c. 21. 37. from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from his Father And if we once interrupt this line of succession most certainly made known by means of holy Tradition we cannot conjoyn the present Church and doctrin with the Church and doctrin of the Apostles buâ— must invent some new means and arguments sufficient of themselves to find out and prove a true Church and faith independently of the preaching and writing of the Apostles neither of which can be known but by Tradition as is truly observed by Tertullian saying I will prescribe that (l) Praesc c. 22. there is no means to prove what the Apostles preached but by the same Church which they sounded 6 Thus then we are to proceed By evidence of manifest and incorrupt Tradition I know that there hath always been a never interrupted Succession of men from the Apostles time believing professing and practising such and such doctrines By evident arguments of credibility as Miracles Sanctity Unity c. and by all those ways whereby the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour himself confirmed their doctrin we are assured that what the said never-interrupted Church proposeth doth deserve to be accepted and acknowledged as a divine truth By evidence of Sense we see that the same Church proposeth such and such doctrins as divine truths that is as revealed and testified by Almighty God By this divine Testimony we are infallibly assured of what we believe and so the last period ground motive and formal object of our Faith is the infallible testimony of that supreme Verity which
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 Treatâ—fe and will not faâ—l 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
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 Scripâ—ure 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 â—his 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
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
will not stand to S. Austin's judgment and therefore can with no reason or equity require us to do so in this matter 2. To S. Augustine in heat of disputation against the Donatists and ransacking all places for Arguments against them we oppose S. Austin out of this heat delivering the Doctrine of Christianity calmly and moderately where he says In iis quae apretè posita sunt in sacris Scripturis omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent fidem moresque vivendi 3. We say he speaks not of the Roman but the Catholike Church of far greater extent and therefore of far greater credit and authority than the Roman Church 4. He speaks of a point not expressed but yet not contradicted by Scripture whereas the errors we charge you with are contradicted by Scripture 5. He says not that Christ hath recommended the Church to us for an infallible definer of all emergent Controversies but for a credible witness of ancient Tradition Whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practice of the Church understand of all places and ages though he be thought to resist our Saviour what is that to us who cast off no practices of the Church but such as are evidently post-nate to the time of the Apostles and plainly contrary to the practice of former and purer times Lastly it is evident and even to Impudence it self undeniable that upon this ground of believing all things taught by the present Church as taught by Christ Error was held for example the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants and that in S. Austin's time and that by S. Austin himself and therefore without controversie this is no certain ground for truth which may support falshood as well as truth 164. To the Argument wherewith you conclude I answer That though the Visible Church shall always without fail propose so much of God's Revelation as is sufficient to bring men to Heaven for otherwise it will not be the visible Church yet it may sometimes add to this revelation things superfluous nay hurtful nay in themselves damnable though not unpardonable and sometimes take from it things very expedient and profitable and therefore it is possible without sin to resist in some things the Visible Church of Christ But you press us farther and demand What visible Church was extant when Luther began whether it were the Roman or Protestant Church As if it must of necessity either be Protestant or Roman or Roman of necessity if it were not Protestant Yet this is the most usual fallacy of all your Disputers by some specious Arguments to perswade weak men that the Church of Protestants cannot be the true Church and thence to inferr that without doubt it must be the Roman But why may not the Roman be content to be a part of it and the Grecian another And if one must be the whole why not the Greek Church as well as the Roman there being not one Note of your Church which agrees not to her as well as to your own unless it be that she is poor and oppressed by the Turk and you are in glory and splendor 165. Neither is it so easie to be determined as you pretend That Luther and other Protestants opposed the whole visible Church in matters of Faith neither is it so evident that the Visible Church may not fall into such a state wherein she may be justly opposed And lastly for calling the distinction of points into Fundamental and not Fundamental an Evasion I believe you will find it easier to call it so than to prove it so But that shall be the issue of the Controversie in the next Chapter CHAP. III. That the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental is neither pertinent nor true in our present Controversie And that the Catholique Visible Church cannot err in either kind of the said Points THis distinction is abused by Protestants to many purposes of theirs and therefore if it be either untrue or impertinent as they understand and apply it the whole edifice built thereon must be ruinous and false For if you object their bitter and continued discords in matters of Faith without any means of agreement they instantly tell you as Charity Mistaken plainly shews that they differ only in Points not Fundamental If you convince them even by their own Confessions that the Ancient Fathers taught divers Points held by the Roman Church against Protestants they reply that those Fathers may nevertheless be saved because those errors were not Fundamental If you will them to remember that Christ must alwayes have a Visible Church on earth with administration of Sacraments and succession of Pastors and that when Luther appeared there was no Church distinct from the Roman whose Communion and Doctrine Luther then forsook and for that cause must be guilty of Schism and Heresie they have an Answer such as it is that the Catholique Church cannot perish yet may err in Points not Fundamental and therefore Luther and other Protestants were obliged to forsake her for such errors under pain of Damnation as if sorsooth it were Damnable to hold an error not Fundamental nor Damnable If you wonder how they can teach that both Catholiques and Protestants may be saved in their several Professions they salve this contradiction by saying that we both agree in all Fundamental Points of Faith which is enough for salvation And yet which is prodigiously strange they could never be induced to give a Catalogue what Points in particular be Fundamental but only by some general description or by referring us to the Apostles Creed without determining what Points therein be Fundamental or not Fundamental for the matter and in what sense they be or be not such And yet concerning the meaning of divers Points contained or reduced to the Creed they differ both from us and among themselves And indeed it being impossible for them to exhibit any such Catalogue the said distinction of Points although it were pertinent and true cannot serve them to any purpose but still they must remain uncertain whether or not they disagree from one another from the ancient Fathers and from the Catholique Church in Points Fundamental which is to say they have no certainty whether they enjoy the substance of Christian Faith without which they cannot hope to be saved But of this more hereafter 2. And to the end that what shall be said concerning this distinction may be better understood we are to observe that there be two precepts which concern the vertue of Faith or our obligation to believe divine Truths The one is by Divines called Affirmative whereby we are obliged to have a positive explicit belief of some chief Articles of Christian Faith The other is temed Negative which strictly binds us not to disbelieve that is not to believe the contrary of any one Point sufficiently represented to our understandings as revealed or spoken by Almighty God The said Affirmative Precept according to the nature of such commands injoyns some Act to
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 sâ—me 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 Geaâ—si 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
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
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
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
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
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
3. Church in the house and territory of a Spanish Lady called Lucilla who went flying out of the Catholique Church because she had been justly checked by Caecilianus And the same Saint speaking of the conference he had with Fortunius the Donatist saith Here did he first (x) Ep. 163. attempt to affirm that his Communion was spread over the whole Earth c. but because the thing was evidently false they got out of this discourse by confusion of language whereby nevertheless they sufficiently declared that they did not hold that the true Church ought necessarily to be confined to one place but only by meer necessity were forced to yield that it was so in fact because their Sect which they held to be the only true Church was not spread over the world In which point Fortunius and the rest were more modest than he who should affirm that Luther's reformation in the very beginning was spread over the whole Earth being at that time by many degrees not so far diffused as the Sect of the Donatists I have no desire to prosecure the similitude of Protestanes with Donatists by remembring that the Sect of these men was begun and promoted by the passion of Lucilla and Who is ignorant what influence two women the Mother and Daughter ministred to Protestancy in England Nor will I stand to observe their very likeness of phrase with the Donatists who called the Chair of Rome the Chair of pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot which is D. Potter's own phrase wherein he is less excusable than they because he maintaineth her to be a true Church of Christ and therefore let him duly ponder these words of S. Augustin against the Donatists If I persecute him justly who detracts (y) Conc. super gest cum Emerit from his Neighbour why should I not presecute him who detracts from the Church of Christ and saith This is not she but this is an Harlot And least of all will I consider whether you may not be well compared to one Ticonius a Dona i st who wrote against Parmenianus likewise a Donatist who blasphemed that the Church of Christ had perished as you do even in this your Book write against some of your Protestant Brethren or as you call them Zelots among you who hold the very same or rather a worse Heresie and yet remained among them even after Parmenianus had excommunicated him as those your Zealous Brethren would proceed against you if it were in their power and yet like Ticonius you remain in their Communion and come nor into that Church which is hath been and shall ever be universal For which very cause S. Augustin complains of Ticonius that although he wrote against the Donatists yet he was of an heart (z) De doctr Christ lib. 3. cap. 30. so extremely absurd as not to forsake them altogether And speaking of the same thing in another place he observes that although Ticonius did manifestly confute them who affirmed that the Church had perished yet he saw not saith this holy Father that which in good consequence (a) Cont. Parm. l. 1. cap. 1. he should have seen that those Christians of Africa belonged to the Church spread over the whole world who remained united not with them who were divided from the communion and unity of the same world but with such as did communicate with the whole world But Parmenianus and the rest of the Donatists saw that consequence and resolved rather to settle their mind in obstinacy against the most manifest truth which Ticonius maintained than by yielding thereto to be overcome by those Churches in Africa which enjoyed the Communion of that Unity which Ticonius defended from which they had divided themselves How firly these words agree to Catholiques in England in respect of the Protestants I desire the Reader to consider But these and the like resemblances of Protestants to the Donatists I willingly let pass and only urge the main point That since Luther's Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was because so forsooth they will needs have it in the Apostles time they must of necessity affirm heretically with the Donatists that the true and unsported Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O blasphemy an Harlot Moreover the same heresie follows out of the doctrin of D. Potter and other Protestants that the Church may err in points not fundamental because we have shewed that every errour against any one revealed truth is Heresie and damnable whether the matter be otherwise of it self great or small And how can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain a damnable Heresie Besides we will hereafter prove that by any act of Heresie all divine faith is lost and to imagine a true Church of faithful persons without any faith is as much as to fancy a living man without life It is therefore clear that Donatist-like they hold that the Church of Christ perished yea they are worse than the Donatists who said that the Church remained at least in Africa whereas Protestants must of necessity be forced to grant that for a long space before Luther she was no where at all But let us go forward to other reasons 18 The holy Scripture and Ancient Fathers do assign Separation from the Visible Church as a mark of Heresie according to that of S. John They went out (b) 2. Joan. 19. from us And Some who (c) Act. 15.24 went out from us And Out of you shall (d) Act. 20.30 arise men speaking perverse things And accordingly Vincentius Lyrinensis saith Who ever (e) Lib. adversus haer c. 34. began heresies who did not first separate himself from the Universality Antiquity and Consent of the Catholique Church But it is manifest that when Luther appeared there was no visible Church distinct from the Roman out of which she could depart as it is likewise wel known that Luther and his followers departed out of her Therefore she is no way liable to this Mark of Heresie but Protestants cannot possibly avoid it To this purpose S. Prosper hath these pithy words A Christian communicating (f) Dimid temp cap. 5. with the universal Church is a Catholique and he who is divided from her is an Heretique and Antichrist But Luther in his first Reformation could not communicate with the visible Catholique Church of those times because he began his Reformation by opposing the supposed Errors of the then visible Church we must therefore say with S. Prosper that he was an Heretique c. Which likewise is no less clearly proved out of S. Cyprian saying Not we (g) Ep. 57. ad Damas departed from them but they from us and since Heresies and Schisms are bred afterwards while they make to themselves divers Conventicles they have forsaken the head and origin of Truth 19. And that we might not remain doubtful what Separation
God or grounded upon Scripture but only by the Church and therefore alterable at the Churches pleasure i This is falsely translated Convenire ad Romanam Ecclesiam every body knows signifies no more but to resort or come to the Roman Church which then there was a necessity that men should do because that the affairs of the Empire were transacted in that place But yet Irenaeus sayes not so of every Church simply which had not been true but only of the Adjacent Churches for so he expounds himself in saying To this Church it is necessary that every Church that is all the faithful round about should resort With much more reason therefore we return the Argument thus Had Irenaeus thought that all Churches must of necessity agree with the Roman how could he and all other Bishops have then pronounc'd that to be no matter of Faith no sufficient ground of Excommunication which Victor his adherents thought to be so And how then could they have reprehended Victor so much for the ill use of his power as Cardinal Perron confesses they did seeing if that was true which is pretended in this also as well as other things it was necessary for them to agree with the Church of Rome Some there are that say but more wittily than truly that all Cardinal Bellarmines works are so consonant to themselves as if he had written them in two hours Had Cardinal Perron wrote his Book in two hours sure he would not have done that here in the middle of the Book which he condemns in the beginning of it For here he urgeth a Consequence drawn from the mistaken words of Irenaeus against his lively and actual practice which Proceeding there he justly condemns of evident injustice His words are * In his Letter to Casaubon towards the end For who knows not that it is too great an injustice to alleage consequences from passages and even those ill interpreted and misunderstood and in whose Illation there is always some Paralogism hid against the express words and the lively and actual practise of the same Fathers from whom they are collected and that it may be good to take the Fathers for Adversaries and to accuse them for want of sense or memory but not to take them for Judges and to submit themselves to the observation of what they have believ'd and practised k This is nothing to the purpose he might choose these examples not as of greater force and authority in themselves but as fitter to be imployed against Victor as domestique examples are fitter and more effectual than forrain and for his omitting to press him with his own example and others to what purpose had it been to use them seeing their Letters sent to Victor from all parts wherein they reprehend his presumption shewed him sufficiently that their example was against him But besides he that reads Irenaeus his Letter shall see that in the matter of the Lent-Fast and the great variety about the celebration of it which he parallels with this of Easter he presseth Victor with the example of himself and others not Bishops of Rome Both they saith he speaking of other Bishops notwithstanding this difference retained peace among themselves and we also among our selves retain it inferring from his example that Victor also ought to do so l If the Pope's proceeding was just then the Churches of Asia were indeed and in the sight of God excommunicate and out of the state of Salvation which Irenaeus and all the other ancient Bishops never thought And if they were so why do you account them Saints and Martyrs But the truth is that these Councels did no way shew the Pope's proceedings just but rather the contrary For though they setled an uniformity in this matter yet they setled it as a matter formerly indifferent and not as a matrer of faith or necessity as it is evident out of * In ep ad Episcopos in Africa Where he clearly shews that this question was not a question was not a question of faith by saying The Council of Nice was celebrated by occasion of the Arrian Heresie and the difference about Easter In so much as they in Syria and Cilicia and Mesopotamia did differ herein from us and kept this Feast on the same day with the Jews But thanks be to God an agreement was made as concerning the Faith so also concerning this holy Feast Athanasius and consequently they rather declare Victor's proceeding unjust who excommunicated so many Churches for differing from him in an indifferent matter m It seems then Polycrates might be a Saint and a Martyr and yet think the commands of the Roman Church enjoyned upon pain of damnation contrary to the commandements of God Besides S. Peter himself the head of the Church the Vicar of Christ as you pretend made this very answer to the high Priest yet I hope you will not say he was his inferior and obliged to obey him Lastly who sees not that when the Pope commands us any thing unjust as to communicate Lay-men in one kind to use the Latin Service c. we may very fitly say to him It is better to obey God than men and yet never think of any authority he hath over us n Between requesting and summoning me-thinks there should be some difference and Polycrates says no more but he was requested by the Church of Rome to call them and did so Here then as very often the Cardinal is fain to help the dice with a false translation and his pretence being false every one must see that that which he pretends to be insinuated by it is clearly inconsequent o Polycrates was deceived if he believed it to be against Gods Commandement and the Pope deceived as much in thinking it to be Gods commandement for it was neither one nor the other but an indifferent matter wherein God had not interposed his Authority Neither did the Councel of Nice embrace the Censure of Victor by acknowledging his Excommunication to be just and well grounded for which the Cardinal neither doth pretend nor can produce any proof any way comparable to the fore-alledged words of Athanasius testifying the contrary though perventure having setled the observation and reduced it to an uniformity they might excommunicate those who afterward should trouble the Churches peace for an indifferent matter And thus much for Irenaeus 31 I come now to S. Austin and to the first place out of him where he seems to say that the Succession in the Sea of Peter was the Rock which our Saviour meant when he said Upon this Rock c. I answer first we have no reason to be confident of the truth hereof because S. Austin himself was not but retracts it as uncertain and leaves to the Reader whether he will think that or another more probable Retr l. 1. c. 26. Secondly What he says of the Succession in the Roman Church in this place he says it elsewhere of all the Successions in all other
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 apparâ—â—â— 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
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 dâ—sbelieve 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 Fâ—ith And to interpret holy Scripture The Answer to both is â—ffirmative 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
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
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
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
which doth propose and indeed believe them hath for matter of Faith the essence of a true Church that which doth not hath not Now to this Question though not to yours D. Potter's Assertion if it be true is apparently very pertinent And though not a full and total satisfaction to it yet very effectual and of great moment towards it For the main Question being What Points are necessary to Salvation and Points necessary to Salvation being of two sorts some of simple belief some of Practice and Obedience he that gives you a sufficient summary of the first sort of necessary Points hath brought you half way towards your journies end And therefore that which he doth is no more to be slighted as vain and impertinent than an Architect's work is to be thought impertinent towards the making of a house because he doth it not all himself Sure I am if his Assertion be true as I believe it is a Corollary may presently be deduced from it which if it were embraced cannot in all reason but do infinite service both to the Truth of Christ and the peace of Christendom For seeing falshood and errour could not long stand against the power of Truth were they not supported by Tyranny and worldly advantages he that could assert Christians to that liberty which Christ and his Apostles left them must needs do Truth a most Heroical service And seeing the overvaluing of the differences among Christians is one of the greatest maintainers of the Schisms of Christendom he that could demonstrate that only those Points of Belief are simply necessary to Salvation wherein Christians generally agree should he not lay a very fair and firm foundation of the peace of Christendom Now the Corollary which I conceive would produce these good effects and which flows naturally from D. Potter's Assertion is this That what Man or Church soever believes the Creed and all the evident consequences of it sincerely and heartily cannot possibly if also he believe the Scripture be in any Error of simple belief which is offensive to God nor therefore deserve for any such Error to be deprived of his life or to be cut off from the Churches Communion and the hope of Salvation And the production of this again would be this which highly concerns the Church of Rome to think of That whatsoever Man or Church doth for any error of simple belief deprive any man so qualified as above either of his temporal life or livelihood or liberty or of the Churches Communion and hope of Salvation is for the first unjust cruel and tyrannous Schismatical presumptuous and uncharitable for the second 13. Neither yet is this as you pretend to take away the necessity of believing those verities of Scripture which are not contained in the Creed when once we come to know that they are written in Scripture but rather to lay a necessity upon men of believing all things written in Scripture when once they know them to be there written For he that believes not all known Divine Revelations to be true How doth he believe in God Unless you will say that the same man at the same time may not believe God and yet believe in him The greater difficulty is How it will not take away the necessity of believing Scripture to be the Word of God But that it will not neither For though the Creed be granted a sufficient Summary of Articles of meer Faith yet no man pretends that it contains the Rules of obedience but for them all men are referred to Scripture Besides he that pretends to believe in God obligeth himself to believe it necessary to obey that which Reason assures him to be the Will of God Now Reason will assure him that believes the Creed that it is the Will of God he should believe the Scripture even the very same Reason which moves him to believe the Creed Universal and never-failing Tradition having given this testimony both to Creed and Scripture that they both by the works of God were sealed and testified to be the words of God And thus much be spoken in Answer to your first Argument the length whereof will be the more excusable if I oblige my self to say but little to the Rest 14. I come then to your second And in Answer to it deny flatly as a thing destructive of it self that any Error can be damnable unless it be repugnant immediatly or mediatly directly or indirectly of it self or by accident to some Truth for the matter of it Fundamental And to your example of Pontius Pilat's being Judge of Christ I say the denial of it in him that knows it to be revealed by God is manifestly destructive of this Fundamental Truth that All Divine Revelations are true Neither will you find any error so much as by accident damnable but the rejecting of it will be necessarily laid upon us by areal belief of all Fundamentals and simply necessary Truths And I desire you would reconcile with this that which you have said § 15. Every Fundamental Error must have a contrary Fundamental Truth because of two Contradictory Propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true c. 15. To the Third I answer That the certainty I have of the Creed that it was from the Apostles and contains the Principles of Faith I ground it not upon Scripture and yet not upon the Infallibility of any present much less of your Church but upon the Authority of the Ancient Church and written Tradition which as D. Potter hath proved gave this constant testimony unto it Besides I tell you it is guilty of the same fault which D. Potter's Assertion is here accused of having perhaps some colour toward the proving it false but none at all to shew it impertinent 16. To the Fourth I answer plainly thus that you find fault with D. Potter for his Vertues you are offended with him for not usurping the Authority which he had not in a word for not playing the Pope Certainly if Protestants be faulty in this matter it 's for doing it too much and not too little This presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the words of God the special senses of men upon the general words of God and laying them upon mens consciences together under the equal penalty of death and damnation this Vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the words of God This Deifying our own Interpretations and Tyrannous inforcing them upon others This restraining of the word of God from that latitude and generality and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and the Apostles left them (a) This peâ—â—sâ—asion is no singularity of mine but the doctrin which 〈◊〉 have learned â—â—om Divinâ—s of gâ—eâ—t learning and judgment Let the 〈◊〉 Reader be pleased to peruse the seventh book of Acont de Strat. Satanae And Zanch. his last Oration delivered by him after the composing of the discord
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 〈◊〉 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
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 Vâ—sion 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
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
a man may perswade himself he doth believe what he doth not believe then may you think you believe the Church of Rome and yet not believe it But if no man can err concerning what he believes then you must give me leave to assure my self that I do believe and consequently that any man may believe the foresaid truths upon the foresaid motives without any dependance upon any succession that hath believed it always And as from your definition of Faith so from your definition of Heresie this phancy may be refuted For questionless no man can be an Heretique but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary error therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretique whether he will or no by want of such a thing that is not in his power to have But that there should have been a perpetual Succession of Believers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in our own power therefore our being or not being Heretiques depends not on it Besides What is more certain than that he may make a straight line who hath a Rule to make it by though never man in the world had made any before and why then may not he that believes the Scripture to be the word of God and the Rule of faith regulate his faith by it and consequently believe aright without much regarding what other men will do or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his word believed he by his Providence must take order that either by succession of men or by some other means natural or supernatural it be preserv'd and delivered and sufficiently notified to be his word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no error against it certainly there is no more necessity than that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sin against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgress it certainly they may also preserve directions for their faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Bar do find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined of times make against themselves This they do ignorantly it being in their power to suppress or perhaps to alter them And why then should any man conceive it strange that an erroncous and corrupted Church should preserve and deliver the Scriptures uncorrupted when indeed for many reasons which I have formerly alledged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetual Succession of men otthodox in all points certainly there is no necessity at all of any such neither can the want of it prove any man or any Church Heretical 39 When therefore you have produced some proof of this which was your Major in your former Syllogism That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresie you shall then receive a full answer to your Minor We shall then consider whether your indelibe Character be any reality or whether it be a creature of your own making a fancy of your own imagination And if it be a thing and not only a word whether our Bishops and Priests have it not as well as yours and whether some mens perswasion that there is no such thing can hinder them from having it or prove that they have it not if there be any such thing Any more than a mans perswasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will make him not to have taken it if he has or hinder the operation of it And whether Tertullian in the place quoted by you speak of a Priest made a Layman by just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some mark upon Heretiques that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferr'd on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Pope's right or an usurpation If it were his right Whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiastical And if by Ecclesiastical only Whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to lose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to lose it those that deprived him of it had power to make it from him Or if not Whether they had power to suspend him from the use of it until good caution were put in and good assurance given that if he had it again he would not abuse it as he had formerly done Whether in case they had done unlawfully that took his power from him it may not things being now setled and the present Government established be as unlawful to go about to restore it Whether it be not a Fallacy to conclude Because we believe the Pope hath no power in England now when the King and State and Church hath deprived him upon just grounds of it therefore we cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schism a man may not withdraw obedience from an usurp'd Authority commanding unlawful things Whether the Roman Church might not give authority to Bishops and Priests to oppose her errors as well as a King gives Authority to a Judge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Trajan gave his sword to his Praefect with this Commission that If he governed well he should use it for him if ill against him Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to preach against her corruptions in manners And if so Why not against her errors in doctrin if she had any Whether she gave them not authority to preach the whole Gospel of Christ and consequently against her doctrin if it should contradict any part of the Gospel of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawful in the Church of Rome for any Lay-man or woman that has ability to perswade others by word or by writing from errour and unto truth And why this liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other commission or vocation than that of a Christian to do a work of charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without any unnecessary disturbance of order to perswade men out a false unto a true way of eternal happiness Especially the Apostle having assur'd us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain Others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not consecrate a Metropolitan of England as
well as the Cardinals do the Pope Whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the government in their hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonical exception Whether the 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
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