could not at so small a distance of time prove any corruption by any Copies which were extant For saith he if they should say They would not embrace their writings because they were written by such who were not careful of writing Truth their evasion would be more sâ—y and their errour more pardonable But thus it seems they did by the Acts of the Apostles utterly denying them to contain matter of Truth in them and the reason was very obvious for it because that Book gives so clear an account of the sending the Spirit upon the Apostles which the Manichees pretended was to be only accomplished in the person of Manichaeus And both before and after S. Austin mentions it as their common speech That before the time of Manichaeus there had been corrupters of the sacred Books who had mixed several things of their own with what was written by the Apostles And this they laid upon the Judaizing Christians because their great pique was against the Old Testament and probably some further reason might be from the Nazarene Gospel wherein many things were inserted by such as did Judaize The same thing St. Austin chargeth them with when he gives an account of their Heresie And this likewise appears by the management of the dispute between S. Austin and Faustus who was much the subtillest man among them Faustus acknowledged no more to be Gospel than what contained the Doctrine delivered by our Saviour and therefore denied the Genealogies to be any part of the Gospel and afterwards disputes against it both in S. Matthew and S. Luke And after this S. Austin notes it as their usual custom when they could not avoid a Testimony of Scripture to deny it Thus we see what kind of persons these were and what their pretences were which S. Austin disputes against They embraced so much of Scripture as pleased them and no more To this therefore S. Austin returns these very substantial Answers That if such proceedings might be admitted the Divine Authority of any Books could signifie nothing at all for the convincing of errours That it was much more reasonable either with the Pagans to deny the whole Bible or with the Jews to deny the New Testament than thus to acknowledge in general the Books Divine and to quarrel with such particular passages as pinched them most that if there were any suspicion of corruption they ought to produce more true Copies and more ancient Books than theirs or else be judged by the Original Languages with many other things to the same purpose To apply this now to the present place in dispute S. Austin in that Book against the Epistle of Manichaeus begins with the Preface to it which is made in imitation of the Apostles strain and begins thus Manichaeus Apostolus Jesu Christi providentià Dei Patris c. To this S. Austin saith he believes no such thing as that Manichaeus was an Apostle of Jesus Christ and hopes they will not be angry with him for it for he had learned of them not to believe without reason And therefore desires them to prove it It may be saith he one of you may read me the Gospel and thence perswade me to believe it But what if you should meet with one who when you read the Gospel should say to you I do not believe it But I should not believe the Gospel if the Authority of the Church did not move me Whom therefore I obey in saying Believe the Gospel should I not obey in saying Believe not Manichaeus The Question we see is concerning the proving the Apostleship of Manichaeus which cannot in it self be proved but from some Records which must specifie such an Apostleship of his and to any one who should question the authenticalness of those Records it can only be proved by the testimony and consent of the Catholick Church without which S. Austin professeth he should never have believed the Gospel i. e. that these were the only true and undoubted Records which are left us of the Doctrine and actions of Christ. And he had very good reason to say so for otherwise the authority of those Books should be questioned every time any one such as Manichaeus should pretend himself an Apostle which Controversies there can be no other way of deciding but by the Testimony of the Church which hath received and embraced these Copies from the time of their first publishing And that this was S. Austin's meaning will appear by several parallel places in his disputes against the Manichees For in the same chapter speaking concerning the Acts of the Apostles Which Book saith he I must believe as well as the Gospel because the same Catholick Authority commends both i. e. The same Testimony of the Vniversal Church which delivers the Gospel as the authentick writings of the Evangelists doth likewise deliver the Acts of the Apostles for an authentick writing of one of the same Evangelists So that there can be no reason to believe the one and not the other So when he disputes against Faustus who denied the truth of some things in S. Paul's Epistles he bids him shew a truer Copy than that the Catholick Church received which Copy if he should produce he desires to know how he would prove it to be truer to one that should deny it What would you do saith he Whither would you turn your self What Original of your Book could you shew What Antiquity what Testimony of a succession of persons from the time of the writing of it But on the contrary What huge advantage the Catholicks have who by a constant succession of Bishops in the Apostolical Sees and by the consent of so many people have the Authority of the Church confirmed to them for the clearing the validity of its Testimony concerning the Records of Scripture And after laies down Rules for the trying of Copies where there appears any difference between them viz. by comparing them with the Copies of other Countries from whence the Doctrine originally came and if those Copies vary too the more Copies should be preferred before the fewer the ancienter before the latter If yet any uncertainty remains the original Language must be consulted This is in case a Question ariseth among the acknowledged authentical Copies of the Catholick Church in which case we see he never sends men to the infallible Testimony of the Church for certainty as to the Truth of the Copies but if the Question be Whether any writing it self be authentical or no then it stands to the greatest reason that the Testimony of the Catholick Church should be relyed on which by reason of its large spread and continual Succession from the very time of those writings cannot but give the most indubitable Testimony concerning the authenticalness of the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists And were it not for this Testimony S. Austin might justly say He should not believe the Gospel i. e. Suppose those writings which
contain the Gospel in them for it is plain he speaks of them and not the Doctrine abstractly considered should have wanted that consent of the Catholick Church that it had not been delivered down by a constant succession of all Ages from the Apostles and were not received among the Christian Churches but started out from a few persons who differ from all Christian Churches as this Apostleship of Manichaeus did he might justly question the Truth of them And this I take to be truest and most natural account of these so much controverted words of S. Austin by which sense the other two Questions are easily answered for it is plain S. Austin means not the judgement of the present Church but of the Catholick Church in the most comprehensive sense as taking in all ages and places or in Vincentius his words Succession Vniversality and Consent and it further appears that the influence which this Authority hath is sufficient to induce Assent to the thing attested in all persons who consider it in what age capacity or condition soever And therefore if in this sense you extend it beyond Novices and Weaklings I shall not oppose you in it but it cannot be denied that it is intended chiefly for doubters in the Faith because the design of it is to give men satisfaction as to the reason why they ought to believe But neither you nor any of those you call Catholick Authours will ever be able to prove that S. Austin by these words ever dreamt of any infallible Authority in the present Church as might be abundantly proved from the chapter foregoing where he gives an account of his being in the Catholick Church from the Consent of People and Nations from that Authority which was begun by miracles nourished by hope increased by charity confirmed by continuance which certainly are not the expressions of one who resolved his Faith into the infallible Testimony of the present Church And the whole scope and design of his Book de utilitate credendi doth evidently refute any such apprehension as might be easily manifested were it not too large a subject for this place where we only examine the meaning of S. Austin in another Book The substance of which is that That speech of his doth not contain a resolution of his Faith as to the Divinity of Christs Doctrine but the resolution of it as to the Truth and authenticalness of the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists which we acknowledge to be into the Testimony of the Catholick Church in the most large and comprehensive sense The next thing we come to consider is an Absurdity you charge on his Lordship viz. That if the infallible Authority of the Church be not admitted in the Resolution he must have recourse to the private Spirit which you say though he would seem to exclude from the state of the Question yet he falls into it under the specious title of Grace so that he only changeth the words but admits the same thing for which you cite p. 83 84. That therein his Lordship should averr that where others used to say They were infallibly resolved that Scripture was Gods Word by the Testimony of the Spirit within them that he hath the same assurance by Grace Whether you be not herein guilty of abusing his Lordship by a plain perverting of his meaning will be best seen by producing his words A man saith he is probably led by the Authority of the present Church as by the first informing inducing perswading means to believe the Scripture to be the Word of God But when he hath studied considered and compared this Word with it self and with other writings with the help of ordinary Grace and a mind morally induced and reasonably perswaded by the Voice of the Church the Scripture then gives greater and higher reasons of Credibility to it self than Tradition alone could give And then he that believes resolves his last and full assent that Scripture is of Divine Authority into internal arguments found in the letter it self though found by the help and direction of Tradition without and Grace within Had you not a great mind to calumniate who could pick out of these words That the Bishop resolved his Faith into Grace Can any thing be more plain than the contrary is from them when in the most perspicuous terms he says that the last Resolution of Faith is into internal arguments and only supposeth Tradition and Grace as necessary helps for the finding them Might you not then as well have said That his Lordship notwithstanding his zeal against the Infallibility of Tradition is fain to resolve his Faith into it at last as well as say that he doth it into Grace for he joyns these two together But Is it not possible to assert the Vse and Necessity of Grace in order to Faith but the last Resolution of it must be into it Do not all your Divines as well as ours suppose and prove the Necessity of Grace in order to believing and Are they not equally guilty of having recourse to the private Spirit Do you really think your self that there is any thing of Divine Grace in Faith or no If there be free your Self then from the private Spirit and you do his Lordship For shame then forbear such pitiful calumnies which if they have any truth in them You are as much concerned as Your adversary in it You would next perswade us That the Relator never comes near the main difficulty which say you is if the Church be supposed fallible in the Tradition of Scripture how it shall be certainly known whether de facto she now errs not in her delivery of it If this be your grand difficulty it is sufficiently assoiled already having largely answered this Question in terminis in the preceding Chapter You ask further What they are to do who are unresolved which is the true Church as though it were necessary for men to know which is the true Church before they can believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God but when we assert the tradition of the Church to be necessary for believing the Scriptures we do not thereby understand the particular Tradition of any particular Church whose judgement they must rely on but the Vniversal Tradition of all Christians though this must be first made known in some particular Society by the means of some particular persons though their authority doth not oblige us to believe but only are the means whereby men come acquainted with that Vniversal Tradition And therefore your following discourse concerning the knowing the true Church by its motives is superseded for we mean no other Church than the Community of Christians in this Controversie and if you ask me By what motives I come to be certain which is a Community of Christians and which of Mahumetans and how one should be known from another I can soon resolve you But we are so far from making it necessary to know which particular society
she enquired after some Church which without danger of errour might direct her in all doctrinal points of Faith doth she not thereby imply that some other Church might bring her into danger of errour under pretence of directing her in matters of Faith and if this be some particular fallible Church the other must be some particular infallible Church And is it possible to conceive some Church that may erre in directing and some other that may not erre without some particular Church being taken in opposition to some other Church But you would fain perswade us that the force of his Lordships Argument rests wholly upon the importance of the particle a or an which cannot be applyed but to particulars which you very learnedly disprove whereas the main strength of what his Lordship says depends upon the nature of the question and the manner of proposing it For the Lady enquiring after such a Church whose judgement she might relye on as to the matters in dispute in the Christian world must mean such a Church whose communion must be known as distinct from other Churches which are not infallible for otherwise she might be deceived still And if you give a pertinent answer to her question you must shew her some such Church as an Infallible Guide which can be no other in this case but some particular Church considered as distinct from others For a general answer concerning the Infallibility of the Catholick Church without shewing how the Infallible judgement of that Church may be known can by no means reach the case in hand which doth not meerly respect an Infallibility in the subject but such an infallibility as may be a sufficient guide in all doctrinal points of Faith When you say therefore she meant no other then the Vniversal visible Church of Christ you must tell us how the Vniversal visible Church can become such an Infallible guide in the matters in Controversie between those Churches which yet are members of that Vniversal visible Church For the notion of the Vniversal Church not being in its nature confined to any one of these parties but all of them concurring to the making of it up can no more be an Infallible guide in the matters in difference then the common notion of Animal can direct us in judging what Beings are sensitive and what rational Therefore though you would fain deceive the world under a pretence of the Catholick Church yet nothing can be more evident then that in the question what Church must be a guide in Doctrinal points of Faith it must be understood of some Church as distinct from other Churches which ought not to be relyed on as infallible guides But the subtilty of this is that when you challenge Infallibility to your Church we should not apprehend her as a particular Church but as the true Catholick Church which is a thing so every way absurd and unreasonable that you had need use the greatest Artifice's to disguise it which yet can deceive none but such as are resolved to be deceived by them For any one who had his eyes in his head might discern without a Perspective as you speak that Churches of several and distinct Communions from each other were placed in competition for Infallibility For Mr. Fisher's next words are The Question was Which was that Church Do you think he means Which was that Vniversal visible Church Certainly not for the nature of the Question supposes several Churches now I think you do not believe there are several Vniversal visible Churches And it immediately follows A Friend of the Ladies would needs defend that not only the Roman but the Greek Church was right to which Mr. Fisher answers That the Greek Church had erred in matter of doctrine Can any thing be more plain then that this Question doth relate to Churches considered severally and as under distinct Communions and Denominations And therefore notwithstanding your pittiful pretences to the contrary this Question can be no otherwise understood then as his Lordship said of some particular Infallible Church in opposition to some other particular Church which is not Infallible And if you judge this an affected mistake as you call it your discerning faculty will be as lyable to Question as your Churches Infallibility That you might seem to avoid the better the force of his Lordships following discourse against Bellarmine about the Infallibility of the particular Church of Rome you first tell us That it is sufficient for a Catholick to believe that there is an Infallibility in the Church without further obligation to examine whether the particular Church of Rome be infallible or no. Which is an egregious piece of Sophistry For put case a man believes the Catholick Church of all Ages Infallible but not of any one particular Age since the Apostles times suppose a man believe the Catholick Church of the present Age Infallible but not of any one particular Communion but as it takes in those common truths wherein they are all agreed will you say this is sufficient for a Catholick to believe without obligation to examine further If you will speak it out and I dare say you shall not have much thanks at Rome when you have done it But the mysterie is If a man believes the Roman Church only to be the Catholick Church it is no matter whether he enquires whether the Catholick Church be only at Rome or no. It is not the place but the communion of the Roman Church which is now enquired after in the question of Infallibility although I cannot see but those places out of the Fathers which are produced to prove the Roman Church Infallible will hold for the continuance of that Infallibility in that particular place of Rome For St. Cyprian saith expresly of the Romans that they are such to whom Perfidia what ever be meant by it cannot have access St. Jerome saith The Roman Faith admits no deceits into it Gregory Nazianzene that Rome retains the ancient Faith Not that I think any of these places do in the least import the Infallibility of the Roman Church as will be shewed in its proper place but that on supposition that Infallibility were implyed in them they would hold for the Infallibility of the particular Roman Church And therefore Bellarmin understood what he did when he produced these places to that purpose especially the Apostolical See remaining at Rome as he supposeth himself in this part of the Question which he there discusseth Either therefore you must assert that which his Lordship learnedly proves viz. That no such thing as Infallibility is intended by any of these Citations or else that it must extend to the particular Roman Church And when you deny this to be an Article of Faith among Catholicks that the particular Roman Church the Apostolical See remaining there is Infallible prove at your leasure from any of these Citations that the Church within the Roman Communion is Infallible and not the particular
judgement or not sufficiently versed in the Scriptures as at present to make them acknowledge the places are not so clear as they imagined them to be yet they being alwaies otherwise interpreted by the Catholick Church or the Christian Societies of all ages layes this potent prejudice against all such attempts as not to believe such interpretations true till they give a just account why if the belief of these Doctrines were not necessary the Christians of all ages from the Apostles times did so unanimously agree in them that when any began first to oppose them they were declared and condemned for Hereticks for their pains So that the Church of England doth very piously declare her consent with the Ancient Catholick Church in not admitting any thing to be delivered as the sense of Scripture which is contrary to the consent of the Catholick Church in the four first ages Not as though the sense of the Catholick Church were pretended to be any infallible Rule of interpreting Scripture in all things which concern the Rule of Faith but that it is a sufficient Prescription against any thing which can be alledged out of Scripture that if it appear contrary to the sense of the Catholick Church from the beginning it ought not to be looked on as the true meaning of the Scripture All this security is built upon this strong presumption that nothing contrary to the necessary Articles of Faith should he held by the Catholick Church whose very being depends upon the belief of those things which are necessary to Salvation As long therefore as the Church might appear to be truly Catholick by those correspondencies which were maintained between the several parts of it that what was refused by one was so by all so long this unanimous and uncontradicted sense of the Catholick Church ought to have a great sway upon the minds of such who yet profess themselves members of the Catholick Church From whence it follows that such Doctrines may well be judged destructive to the Rule of Faith which were so unanimously condemned by the Catholick Church within that time And thus much may suffice for the first Inquiry viz. What things are to be esteemed necessary either in order to Salvation or in order to Ecclesiastical Communion 2. Whether any thing which was not necessary to Salvation may by any means whatsoever afterwards become necessary so that the not believing it becomes damnable and unrepented destroyes Salvation We suppose the Question to proceed on such things as could not antecedently to such an act whereby they now become necessary be esteemed to be so either from the matter or from any express command For you in terms assert a necessity of believing distinct from the matter and absolute command and hath the Churches Definition for its formal object which makes the necessity of our Faith continually to depend upon the Churches Definition but this strange kind of Ambulatory Faith I shall now shew to be repugnant to the design of Christ and his Apostles in making known Christian Religion and to all evidence of Reason and directly contrary to the plain and uncontradicted sense of the Primitive and Catholick Church 1. It is contrary to the design of Christ and his Apostles in making known the Christian Religion to the world For if the design of Christ was to declare whatever was necessary to the Salvation of mankind if the Apostles were sent abroad for this very end then either they were very unfaithful in discharge of their trust or else they taught all things necessary for their Salvation and if they did so how can any thing become necessary which they did never teach Was it not the great Promise concerning the Messias that at his coming the Earth should be full of the Knowledge of the Lord as the Waters cover the Sea that then they shall all be taught of God Was not this the just expectation of the people concerning him That when he came he would tell them all things Doth not he tell his Disciples That all things I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you And for all this is there something still remaining necessary to Salvation which neither he nor his Disciples did ever make known to the world Doth not he promise Life and Salvation to all such as believe and obey his Doctrine And can any thing be necessary for eternal life which he never declared or did he only promise it to the men of that Age and Generation and leave others to the mercy of the Churches Definitions If this be so we have sad cause to lament our condition upon whom these heavy loyns of the Church are fallen how happy had we been if we had lived in Christs or the Apostles times for then we might have been saved though we had never believed the Pope's Supremacy or Transubstantiation or Invocation of Saints or Worshipping Images but now the case is altered these Milstones are now hung about our necks and how we shall swim to Heaven with them who knows How strangely mistaken was our Saviour when he said Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed For much more blessed certainly were they who did see him and believe in him for then he would undertake for their Salvation but now it seems we are out of his reach and turned over to the Merciless Infallibility of the present Church When Christ told his Disciples His yoke was easie and burden light he little thought what Power he had left in the Church to lay on so much load as might cripple mens belief were it not for a good reserve in a corner call'd Implicit Faith When he sent the Apostles to teach all that he commanded them he must be understood so that the Church hath power to teach more if she pleases and though the Apostles poor men were bound up by this commission and S. Peter himself too yet his Infallible Successors have a Paramount Priviledge beyond them all Though the Spirit was promised to the Apostles to lead them into all Truth yet there must be no incongruity in saying They understood not some necessary Truths for how should they when never revealed as Transubstantiation Supremacy c. Because though they never dreamt of such things yet the Infallible Church hath done it since for them and to say truth though the Apostles names were put into the promise yet they were but Feoffees in trust for the Church and the benefit comes to the Church by them For they were only Tutors to the Church in its minority teaching it some poor Rudiments of Christ and Heaven of Faith and Obedience c. But the great and Divine Mysteries of the seven Sacraments Indulgences Worship of Images Sacrifice of the Mass c. were not fit to be made known till the Church were at age her self and knew how to declare her own mind When S. Paul speaks so much of the great Mysteries hidden from Ages and Generations but
That the external accidents might remain where the substance was changed Now therefore when the Assurance of Christian Religion came from the judgement of the Senses of those who were Eye-witnesses of the Miracles and the Resurrection of Christ if the Senses of men may be so grosly deceived in the proper Objects of them in the case of Transubstantiation what assurance could they themselves have who were Eye-witnesses of them and how much less assurance can we have who have all our Evidence from the certainty of their report So that it appears upon the whole that take away the certainty of the judgement of Sense you destroy all Certainty in Religion for Tradition only conveys to us now what was originally grounded upon the judgement of Sense and delivers to us in an undoubted manner that which the Apostles saw and heard And do not you then give a very good account of Religion by the Infallibility of your Church when if I believe your Church to be infallible I must by vertue of that Infallibility believe something to be true which if it be true there can be no certainty at all of the Truth of Christian Religion 2. Another principle is That we can have no certainty of any of the grounds of Faith but from the Infallibility of your present Church Whereby you do these two things 1. Destroy the obligation to Faith which ariseth from the rational evidence of Christian Religion 2. Put the whole stress of the truth of Christianity upon the proofs of your Churches Infallibility by which things any one may easily see what tendency your doctrine of resolving Faith hath and how much it designs the overthrow of Christianity 1. You destroy the obligation to Faith from the rational evidence of Christian Religion by telling men as you do expresly in the very Title of your next Chapter That there can be no unquestionable assurance of Apostolical Tradition but for the infallible authority of the present Church If so then men cannot have any unquestionable assurance that there was such a Person as Christ in the world that he wrought such great miracles for confirmation of his Doctrine that he dyed and rose again it seems we can have no assurance of these things if the present Church be not Infallible And if we can have no assurance of them what obligation can lye upon us to believe them for assurance of the matters of fact which are the foundations of Faith is necessary in order to the obligation to believe I mean such an assurance as matters of fact are capable of for no higher can be required then the nature of things will bear And what a strange assertion then is this that matters of fact cannot be conveyed to us in an unquestionable manner unless the present Church stamp her Infallibility upon them Cannot we have an unquestionable assurance that there were such persons as Caesar and Pompey and that they did such and such things without some infallible testimony if we may in such things why not in other matters of fact which infinitely more concern the world to know then whatever Caesar or Pompey did But this will be more at large examined afterwards I only now take notice of the consequence of this principle and how fairly it destroyes all rational evidence of the truth of our Religion which whosoever takes away will be by force of reason a Sceptick in the first place and an Infidel in the second Neither is the danger meerly in destroying the rational evidence of Religion but 2. In putting the whole weight of Religion upon the proofs of the present Churches infallibility which whosoever considers how silly and weak they are cannot sufficiently wonder at the design of those men who put the most excellent Religion in the world and which is built upon the highest and truest reason to such a strange kind of Ordeal tryal that if she pass not through this St. Winifreds needle her innocency must be suspected and her truth condemned So that whosoever questions the truth of this kind of Purgation will have a greater suspition of a juggle and imposture if she be acquitted then if she had never submitted to such a tryal And when we come to examine the proofs brought for this Infallibility it will then further appear what uncertainty in Religion men are betrayed to under this confident pretext of Infallibility Thus we see what Scepticism in Religion the principles owned upon the account of Infallibility do bring men to 3. When you have brought men to this that the only sure ground of Faith is the Infallibility of your Church you are not able to give them any satisfactory account at all concerning it but plunge them into greater uncertainties then ever they were in before For you can neither satisfie them what that Church is which you suppose Infallible what in that Church is the proper subject of this Infallibility what kind of Infallibility this is nor how we should know when the Church doth decide Infallibly and when not and yet every one of these questions is no less then absolutely necessary to be resolved in order to the satisfaction of mens minds as to the foundation of their Faith 1. You cannot satisfie men What that Church is which you suppose to be Infallible Certainly if you had a design to give men a certain foundation for their Faith you would not be so shy of discovering what it is you understand by that Church which you would have Infallible if you had meant honestly the first thing you should have done was to have prevented all mistakes concerning the meaning of the Church when you know what various significations it hath not only in Scripture but among your selves Whether you mean the Church essential representative or vertual for every one of these upon occasion you make use of and it was never more necessary to have explained them then in this place and yet you with wonderful care and industry avoid any intimation of what you mean by that Church which you would prove Infallible When you plead so earnestly for the Churches Infallibility I pray tell us what you mean by the Church do you intend the truly Catholick and Vniversal Church which comprehends in it all such as own and profess the Doctrine of Christ in which sense it was well said by Abulensis Ecclesia universalis nunquam errat quia nunquam tota errat The universal Church never erres because the whole Church is never deceived Or do you mean by your Catholick Church some particular part of it to which you apply the name of Catholick not for Vniversality of extent but soundness of Doctrine then it will be necessary yet further to shew what part of the Church that is by what right and title that hath engrossed the name of Catholick so as to exclude other Societies of Christians from it and whether you must not first prove the absolute integrity and soundness of her Doctrine before
do not therefore wonder at your sharpness and severity in your censures of all out of your Church when upon your Principles the denying your Churches Infallibility must needs be an offence of as high a nature as if one denied the Infallibility of the Sacred Scriptures But lest you should not think these any Absurdities at all we must come yet closer to the examination of your Proofs For which we must enquire into these two things 1. Whether the same Motives of Credibility belong to your Church by which Moses and the Prophets Christ and his Apostles shewed their Testimony to be infallible 2. Whether on supposition you had the same Motives there were the same reason to believe the Testimony of your Church Infallible as there was to believe Them to be so 1. Whether the same Motives of Credibility belong to your Church or no. And here again these things offer themselves to consideration 1. By what means their Testimony was proved infallible 2. Whether your Churches Testimony can be proved by the same Motives or no. For the first you are pleased to give us this account Why Moses was accounted infallible for the Israelites seeing Moses to be a person very devout mild charitable and chaste and endowed with the gift of working miracles were upon that ground obliged to receive him for a true Prophet and to believe him infallible by acknowledging as true and certain whatever he proposed to them from God All which I acknowledge to be very true but am much to seek how you will apply it to the proving your Churches Infallibility What kind of Miracles those are which your Church pretends to will be examined afterwards the other Motives of Credibility mentioned are Devotion Mildness Charity and Chastity and these I suppose you look on as those Motives which must induce men to believe the Infallibility of your Church But do you really think that every person who is devout mild charitable and chast is therefore infallible If not to what purpose do you produce them here if you do some out of your Church may be as infallible as those in it Especially if your superstitious Ceremonies be the greatest part of your devotion and your burning of Hereticks the Argument of your mildness and your damning all out of your Church be the best evidence of your Charity and the lives of your Popes the most pregnant Instances of your Churches Chastity The rest of your discourse wherein you endeavour after your way to prove tha there were sufficient Motives of Credibility to believe the Testimony of Christ and his Apostles I suppose no Christian will deny and that the Miracles wrought by them were Proofs that their Testimony was infallible I am so far from questioning that all your other Motives signifie nothing without them Which because it hath so great an influence on the present dispute I think it necessary to be a little further cleared than it is by you and chiefly for this end to let you see how much you have befooled your self in attempting to prove the Infallibility of your Church in the same manner that Christ and his Apostles Infallibility was proved in and yet insisting on that of Miracles as the great evidence of their Infallibility which your Church cannot with any face pretend to I acknowledge it then as a great Truth that it was necessary that the Testimony of all such who pretend to be infallible must be confirmed by such Miracles as Christ and his Apostles wrought Nay that it is impossible without such Evidence to prove any Testimony infallible where that Infallibility is pretended to independently upon Scripture as it is in your present case Which will be thus made evident Absolute Infallibility is not consistent with the shortness of the Humane Vnderstanding for such an Infallibility must suppose an infinity of Knowledge for where there is a defect in the Apprehension there is a possibility of deception therefore only an Infinite Being can be absolutely infallible Now man's Vnderstanding being so finite and limited in its Conceptions it is on that account apt to be imposed upon and to form false Notions of things so that supposing no Being in the world of greater Perfections than man is there never could be any such thing as Infallibility among men For though some mens Vnderstandings might outstrip others in the quickness of Conception and solidity of Judgement yet the Nature of Man being thus finite that presumption would lye against all pretence of Infallibility It being then impossible that mans understanding should be in it self infallible we must consider whether there be a possibility it should receive any Infallibility from that Infinite Being which is above it This then must be taken for granted that as an Infinite Vnderstanding cannot be deceived so Infinite Goodness cannot deceive And therefore whatever doth immediately proceed from a Being infinitely Wise and Good cannot but be infallibly True And there is no repugnancy at all in the nature of the thing but that this Infinite Being may in a way certain but imperceptible by us communicate to the Minds of Men such Notions of things which are the effects of his own Wisdom and Counsel and this is that we call Divine Inspiration But then we are still to consider That the understanding of a finite Creature cannot be any further infallible than as it receives those Notions which are imprinted upon it by the Infinite and Supreme Intellect of the world and such a person is no further infallible in what he speaks than as he delivers to the world those very Conceptions which are thus formed in his mind And this is that which the Apostle means when he sayes That Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost And so far as they were thus moved so far they were infallible and no further But this Infallibility being not intended meerly for the satisfaction of the mind of him that hath it but for the general good of the world it is necessary that there be some way whereby men may come to understand who are infallibly assisted and who not For otherwise the world would be more exposed to delusions under this pretext of Infallibility than if there were never any such thing in the world Either therefore every man must be infallibly assured in his mind that such a person is infallible in what he is to deliver which is a needless piece of Enthusiasm or else such external Evidences of it are to be used which may induce all rational and considerative persons to the belief of it Which is the way that God in his infinite Wisdom hath made choice of by making those very persons whose understandings are thus assisted by him to be the Instruments of doing some things above the power of nature And nothing can be more reasonable than to believe their Testimony True who are imployed as such immediate Instruments of Divine Power and if their Testimony be believed True
you believe the Revelation made by Christ to be Divine Your Answer must be either that your Churches Testimony gives you infallible Assurance of it and then the former Argument returns or else that Christ manifested his Testimony to be infallible and therefore his Revelation Divine because of the Motives of Credibility which accompanied his preaching If this be your Answer as it must be by your former discourse then by the same reason I prove your Churches Testimony to be the Formal Object of Faith because you have endeavoured to prove the Churches Infallibility by the same Motives of Credibility that Moses and Christ proved theirs Either therefore retract all your former discourse or else confess that by the same reason that the Divine Revelation made by Christ is the Formal Object of Faith the infallible Testimony of your Church must be so too For according to your own supposition there are equal Motives of Credibility and therefore equal obligation to believe the Infallibility of one as of the other 3. If the only reason which makes any thing be the Formal Object agrees to the Testimony of your Church then that Testimony must be the Formal Object of Faith to them that believe it Now that which is the only reason which makes any thing to be the Formal Object of Faith is the Supposition that it is infallible For why do you resolve your Faith finally into Divine Revelation Is it not because you suppose God to be infallible in all Revelations of himself and therefore if your Church be infallible as you say it is by the same reason that must be the Formal Object of Faith as if it were by the revelation of God himself But here you think to obviate this objection by some strange distinctions concerning your Infallibility You tell us therefore The Churches Infallibility is not absolutely and simply Divine or that God speaks immediately by her Definitions but only that she is supernaturally infallible by the assistance of the Holy Ghost preserving her from all errour in defining any thing as a point of Christian Faith that is as a Truth revealed from God which is not truly and really so revealed A rare Distinction this You say afterwards The Churches Definition is absolutely infallible but yet this Infallibility is not absolutely and simply Divine I pray tell us What is it then You say It is Supernatural but not Divine and this Supernatural Infallibility by the Assistance of the Holy Ghost securing from all errour but yet not absolutely and precisely Divine I pray tell us What kind of Infallibility that was which the Apostles had in delivering the Doctrine of Christ was that any more than such a Supernatural Infallibility as you fondly arrogate to your Church viz. such a one as might secure them from all errour in defining any thing as a point of Christian Faith which was not so that is as a Truth revealed from God which was not truly and really so revealed And yet I suppose you will not deny but those who lived in the Apostles times might resolve their Faith into that Infallibility which they had as its Formal Object and therefore why not as well into your Churches Infallibility since you pretend to as great Infallibility in your Church as ever was in the Apostles Thus I hope I have shewn it impossible for you not to make the Churches Testimony the Formal Object of Faith since you make it infallible as you do 2. We come now to consider the little evasions and distinctions whereby you hope to get out of this Labyrinth But having so manifestly proved that it follows from your Principles That the Churches Testimony is the Formal Object of Faith all your distinctions fall of themselves for thereby it appears that your Churches Testimony is not meerly a necessary Condition of believing but is the Formal Cause and Reason of it therefore your instance of approximation in natural Causes is nothing to the purpose No more is that of a Commonwealth's practising the same Laws being an Argument that those were its primitive Laws Unless you suppose it impossible 1. That a Common-wealth should ever alter its Laws Or 2. That it should practise contrary to its primitive Laws Or 3. That it should be supernaturally Infallible in judging which are primitive Laws and which not without these Suppositions I say That Instance signifies nothing to the business in hand and when you have proved these true I will give you a further Answer Your Answer to Aristotles Text or rather to that undoubted Maxim of Reason with which the citation of Aristotle concurred hath been considered already Your Answer to the Testimony of Canus is like the rest of your discourse trivial and not to the purpose for Canus doth not only deny the Churches Testimony to be the Formal Object of Faith but the necessity of believing its Testimony to be infallible Non intelligitur necessariò quod credo docenti Ecclesiae tanquam testi infallibili are the very words of the Testimony cited in the Margin of his Lordships Books Your next Section affords us some more words but not one drachm more of reason For How do you prove that the Churches Authority is more known to us than the Scriptures or How can you make it appear that there is any Authority but what is relative to us and therefore the distinction is in it self silly of Authority in se quoad nos For whatever hath Authority hath thereby a respect to some it hath its Authority over And Can any thing be a ground of Faith simply and in it self which is not so towards us For the Formal Object of Faith is that for whose sake we believe and therefore if Divine Revelation be as you say the Formal Object of Faith then it must be more known to us than the Testimony of the Church For that must be more known to us which is the main cause of Believing But if all your meaning be that we must first know what the Church delivers for Scripture before we can judge whether it were divinely revealed or no I grant it to be true but what is this to your Infallibility Will you prove the Infallibility of your Church to be more known to us than that of the Scriptures and on supposition that were true can you then prove that the Scriptures should still retain their prerogative above the Church What your Authors distinguish concerning objective and subjective Certainty pertains not to this place for the worth and dignity of the Scriptures may exceed that of Tradition yet when the knowledge of that worth relyes on that Tradition your esteem of the one must be according to your esteem of the other I will not here enquire Whether the adhesion of the Will can exceed the clearness of the Vnderstanding nor Whether Aristotle was unacquainted with subjective Certainty nor Whether our adhesion to Articles of Faith be stronger than to any Principles evident to natural
Scriptures do convey to them We own therefore the Apostles as Gods immediate Embassadours whose miracles did attest their commission from Heaven to all they came to and no persons could pretend ignorance that this is Gods hand and Seal but all other Pastors of the Church we look on only as Agents settled to hold correspondency between God and Vs but no extraordinary Embassadours who must be looked on as immediately transacting by the Infallible Commission of Heaven When therefore the Pastor or Pastors of your Church shall bring new Credentials from Heaven attested with the same Broad-seal of Heaven which the Apostles had viz. Miracles we shall then receive them in the same capacity as Apostles viz. acting by an Infallible Commission but not till then By which I have given a sufficient Answer to what follows concerning the credit which is given to Christ's Legats as to himself for hereby it appears they are to have no greater authority than their Commission gives them Produce therefore an Infallible Commission for your Pastors Infallibility either apart or conjunctly and we shall receive it but not else Whether A.C. in the words following doth in terms attribute Divine and Infallible authority to the Church supposing it infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost is very little material for Whether he owns it or no it is sufficient that it necessarily follows from his Doctrine of Infallibility For How can the Church be infallible by virtue of those Promises wherein Divine Infallibility you say is promised and by virtue of which the Apostles had Divine Infallibility and yet the Church not to be divinely Infallible The remainder of this Chapter which concerns the sense of the Fathers in this Controversie will particularly be considered in the next which is purposely designed for it CHAP. IX The Sense of the Fathers in this Controversie The Judgement of Antiquity enquired into especially of the three first Centuries and the reasons for it The several Testimonies of Justin Martyr Athenagoras Tatianus Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and all the Fathers who writ in vindication of Christian Religion manifested to concurr fully with our way of resolving Faith C's Answers to Vincentius Lyrinensis à Gandavo and the Fathers produced by his Lordship pitifully weak The particulars of his 9th Chapter examined S. Augustine's Testimony vindicated C's nauseous Repetitions sent as Vagrants to their several homes His Lordships Considerations found too heavy for C's Answers In what sense the Scripture may be called a Praecognitum What way the Jews resolved their Faith This Controversie and the first Part concluded HAving thus largely considered whatever you could pretend to for the advantage of your own cause or the prejudice of ours from Reason and Scripture nothing can be supposed to remain considerable but the judgement of the Primitive Church in this present Controversie And next to Scripture and Reason I attribute so much to the sense of the Christian Church in the ages next succeeding the Apostles that it is no mean confirmation to me of the truth of the Protestant Way of resolving Faith and of the falsity of yours that I see the one so exactly concurring and the other so apparently contrary to the unanimous Consent of Antiquity For though you love to make a great noise with Antiquity among persons meanly conversant in it yet those who do seriously and impartially enquire into the sense of the Primitive Church and not guess at it by the shreds of Citations to your hands in your own writers which is generally your way will scarce in any thing more palpably discern your jugling and impostures then in your pretence to Antiquity I shall not here enquire into the corruptions crept into your Church under that disguise but as occasion is ministred to me in the following discourse shall endeavour to pluck it off but shall keep close to the matter in question Three things then I design in this Chapter 1. To shew the concurrence of Antiquity with us in the resolution of Faith 2. Examine what you produce from thence either to assert your own way or enervate ours 3. Consider what remains of this Controversie in your Book 1. For the manifesting the concurrence of Antiquity with us I shall confine my present discourse to the most pure and genuine Antiquity keeping within the compass of the three first Centuries or at least of those who have purposely writ in vindication of the Christian Faith Not that I do in the least distrust the consent of the succeeding Writers of the Primitive Church but upon these Reasons 1. Because it would be too large a task at present to undertake since no necessity from what you object but only my desire to clear the Truth and rectifie the mistakes of such who are led blindfold under the pretence of Antiquity hath led me to this discourse 2. Because in reason they could not but understand best the waies and methods used by the Apostles for the perswading men to the Christian Faith and if they had mentioned any such thing as an Infallibility alwaies to continue in the Charch those Pastors certainly who received the care of the Church from the Apostles hands could not but have heard of it And were strangely to blame if they did not discover and make use of it Whatever therefore of truly Apostolical Tradition is to be relyed on in such cases must be conveyed to us from those persons who were the Apostles immediate Successors and if it can be made manifest that they heard not of any such thing in that when occasion was offered they are so far from mentioning it that they take such different waies of satisfying men which do manifestly suppose that they did not believe it I know some of the greatest Patrons of the Church of Rome and such who know best how to manage things with best advantage for the interest of that Church have made little account of the three first ages and confined themselves within the compass of the four first Councils upon this pretence because the Books and Writers are so rare before and that those persons who lived then had no occasion to write of the matters in Controversie between them and us But if the ground why those other things which are not determined in Scripture are to be believed by us and practised as necessary be that they were Apostolical Traditions Who can be more competent Judges what was so and what not then those who lived nearest the Apostolical times and those certainly if they writ of any thing could not write of any thing of more concernment to the Christian world than the knowledge of such things would be or at least we cannot imagine but that we should find express intimations of them where so many so wise and learned persons do industriously give an account of themselves and their solemn actions to their Heathen persecutors But however silent they may be in other things which they neither heard nor thought of as in the
one Visible Church free from errours and corruptions What if we should say in our own times What if in elder times For that which is possible to be may be supposed actually in any time If it be possible for one particular Church to fall into errours and corruptions Why is it not for another unless some particular priviledge of Infallibility be pretended but that is not our present Question if it be possible for every particular Church to fall into errour Why may not that possibility come into act in one Age as well as several Is there any promise that there shall be a succession and course of erring in Churches that one Church must erre for one age and another for the next but that it shall never fall out that by any means whatsoever they shall erre together If there be no such promise to the contrary the reason of the thing will hold that they may all erre at the same time No say you for then it would follow that the Catholick Church might erre To that I answer 1. Either you mean by that that all societies in the Christian world may concurr in the same errour or else that several of them may have several errours and this latter is it only which you prove for you do not suppose that the Romanists Hussites Albigenses c. were all guilty of the same errours but that these several societies were guilty of several errours and therefore from hence it follows not that they may all concurr in the same errour which is the only way to prove that the Church as Catholick may erre for otherwise you only prove that the several particular Churches which make up the Catholick may fall into errour 2. Supposing all these Churches should agree in one errour which is more than you have proved or it may be can have you proved that they concurr in such an errour which destroies the Being of the Catholick Church For you would do well to evince that the Church is secured from any but such errours which destroy its Being for the means of proving That the Catholick Church cannot erre are built on the promises of its perpetuity now those can only prove that the Church is secured from Fundamental errours for those are such only which destroy its Being And so his Lordship tells you That the whole Church cannot universally erre in the Doctrine of Faith is most true and granted by divers Protestants so you will but understand it s not erring in absolute Fundamental Doctrines and this he proves from that promise of Christ That the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it So that the Catholick Churche's not erring and the perpetuity of the Catholick Church do with us mean the same thing For his Lordship grants That she may erre in superstructures and deductions and other By and Vnnecessary truths if her curiosity or other weakness carry her beyond or cause her to fall short of her Rule There is then a great difference between saying That the Catholick Church cannot erre which is no more than to say That there shall be alwaies a Catholick Church and saying That there must be alwaies some one Visible Church which must be free from all errour and corruption For this we deny and you produce no reason at all to prove it Granting that all particular Churches whether of Romanists Greeks or others are subject to errours and corruptions we assert no more of them than you grant your selves that any particular Church is subject to for the only ground why you would have your Church exempt from errour is the supposing her not to be a particular but the Catholick Church which implies that if she were only a particular Church as she is no more she might be subject to errours as well as other Churches And what incongruity then there is in asserting that there may be no one Visible Church of any particular denomination free from all errour and corruption I cannot understand But further you say If there were no one Visible Church then free from errour it follows not only for some time but for many ages before Luther yea even up to the Apostles times there was no one Visible Church untainted throughout the whole world Not to meddle with the truth of the thing Whether there were so or no the consequence is that we are now to examine that if it were so in Luthers time it must be so even up to the Apostles times The proof of which depends upon the impossibility of a Churches degeneracy in Faith or Manners and so supposeth the thing in question that there must be some one Visible Church absolutely exempt from all impossibility of errour For otherwise that might be true in one age which might not in another For although we say that particular Churches may erre and be corrupt we do not say that it is necessary they should alwaies be so For in some ages particular Churches may be free from errour and corruption and yet in another age be overspread with them And thus we assert it to have been with the Roman Church for his Lordship saith In the prime times it was a most right and orthodox Church but in the immediate times before Luther or in some ages before that it was a corrupt and tainted Church And so in those times in which it was right those might be heretical who did not communicate with it not meerly because they did not communicate with it but because in not communicating with a right and orthodox Church they shewed themselves guilty of some errour or corruption We see then there is no connexion in the world in the parts of your consequence That if it were so at one time it must be so alwaies if in the time of Luther it must be so even up to the Apostles times 3. From hence you say it will follow That it will be necessary to separate from the external communion of the whole Church I answer there can be no separation from the whole Church but in such things wherein the Vnity of the whole Church lyes for separation is a violation of some Vnion now when men separate from the errours of all particular Churches they do not separate from the whole because those things which one separates from those particular Churches for are not such as make all them put together to be the whole or Catholick Church This must be somewhat further explained There are two things considerable in all particular Churches those things which belong to it as a Church and those things which belong to it as a particular Church Those things which belong to it as a Church are the common ligaments or grounds of union between all particular Churches which taken together make up the Catholick Church Those things which belong to it as a particular Church are such as it may retain the essence of a Church without Now I say Whosoever separates from any particular Church much more from
formal guilt of Schism it being impossible any person should have just cause to disown the Churches Communion for any thing whose belief is necessary to salvation And whosoever doth so thereby makes himself no member of the Church because the Church subsists on the belief of Fundamental truths But in all such cases wherein a division may be made and yet the several persons divided retain the essentials of a Christian Church the separation which may be among any such must be determined according to the causes of it For it being possible of one side that men may out of capricious humours and fancies renounce the Communion of a Church which requires nothing but what is just and reasonable and it being possible on the other side that a Church calling her self Catholick may so far degenerate in Faith and practise as not only to be guilty of great errours and corruptions but to impose them as conditions of Communion with her it is necessary where there is a manifest separation to enquire into the reasons and grounds of it and to determine the nature of it according to the justice of the cause which is pleaded for it And this I hope may help you a little better to understand what is meant by such who say There can be no just cause of Schism and how little this makes for your purpose But you go on and I must follow And to his calling for truth c. I Answer What Hereticks ever yet forsook the Church of God but pretended truth and complain'd they were thrust out and hardly dealt with meerly because they call'd for truth and redress of abuses And I pray what Church was ever so guilty of errours and corruptions but would call those Hereticks and Schismaticks who found fault with her Doctrine or separated from her Communion It is true Hereticks pretend truth and Schismaticks abuses but is it possible there should be errours and corruptions in a Churches Communion or is it not if not prove but that of your Church and the cause is at an end if it be we are to examine whether the charge be true or no. For although Hereticks may pretend truth and others be deceived in judging of it yet doubtless there is a real difference between truth and errour If you would never have men quarrel with any Doctrine of your Church because Hereticks have pretended truth would not the same reason hold why men should never enquire after Truth Reason or Religion because men have pretended to them all which have not had them It is therefore a most senseless cavil to say we have no reason to call for truth because Hereticks have done so and on the same grounds you must not be call'd Catholicks because Hereticks have been call'd so But those who have been Hereticks were first proved to be so by making it appear that was a certain truth which they denyed do you the same by us prove those which we call errours in your Church to be part of the Catholick and Apostolick Faith prove those we account corruptions to be parts of Divine worship and we will give you leave to call us Hereticks and Schismaticks but not before But say you He should have reflected that the Church of God is stiled a City of Truth by the Prophet and so it may be and yet your Church be a fortress of Errour And a pillar and foundation of Truth by the Apostle but what is this to the Church of Romes being so And by the Fathers a rich depository or Treasury of all Divine and Heavenly Doctrines so it was in the sense the Fathers took the Church in for the truly Catholick Christian Church And we may use the same expressions still of the Church as the Prophets Apostles and Fathers did and nevertheless charge your Church justly with the want of truth and opposition to the preaching of it and on that ground justly forsake her Communion which is so far from being inexcusable impiety and presumption that it was only the performance of a necessary Christian duty And therefore that Woe of scandal his Lordship mentioned still returns upon your party who gave such just cause of offence to the Christian world and making it necessary for all such as aimed at the purity of the Christian Church to leave your Communion when it could not be enjoyed without making shipwrack both of Faith and a good Conscience And this is so clear and undeniable to follow you still in your own language that we dare appeal for a tryal of our cause to any Assembly of learned Divines or what Judge and Jury you please provided they be not some of the parties accused and because you are so willing to have Learned Divines I hope you will believe the last Pope Innocent so far as not to mention the Pope and Cardinals What follows in Vindication of A. C. from enterfeiring and shuffling in his words because timorous and tender consciences think they can never speak with caution enough for fear of telling a lye will have the force of a demonstration being spoken of and by a Jesuite among all those who know what mortal haters they are of any thing that looks like a lye or aequivocation And what reason there is that of all persons in the world they should be judged men of timorous and tender consciences But whatever the words were which passed you justifie A. C. in saying That the Protestants did depart from the Church of Rome and got the Name of Protestants by protesting against her For this say you is so apparent that the whole world acknowledgeth it If you mean that the Communion of Protestants is distinct from yours Whoever made scruple of confessing it But because in those terms of departing leaving forsaking your Communion you would seem to imply that it was a voluntary act and done without any necessary cause enforcing it therefore his Lordship denyes that Protestants did depart for saith he departure is voluntary so was not theirs But because it is so hard a matter to explain the nature of that separation between your Church and Ours especially in the beginning of it without using those terms or some like them as when his Lordship saith that Luther made a breach from it It is sufficient that we declare that by none of these expressions we mean any causeless separation but only such acts as were necessarily consequential to the imposing your errours and corruptions as conditions of Communion with your Church To the latter part his Lordship answers That the Protestants did not get that name by Protesting against the Church of Rome but by Protesting and that when nothing else would serve against her errours and superstitions Do you but remove them from the Church of Rome our Protestation is ended and our Separation too This you think will be answered with our old put off That it is the common pretext of all Hereticks when they sever themselves from the Roman Catholick
the stage in the Questions of the Pope's Authority and Infallibility of General Councils I come to your following Chapter in which you enter upon the Vindication of the Roman Churches Authority 2. That which his Lordship hath long insisted on and evidently proved is The Right which particular Churches have to reform themselves when the General Church cannot for impediments or will not for negligence do it And your Answers to his proofs have had their weakness sufficiently laid open the only thing here objected further is Whether in so doing particular Churches do not condemn others of Errours in Faith To which his Lordship answers That to reform themselves and to condemn others are two different works unless it fall out so that by reforming themselves they do by consequence condemn any other that is guilty in that point in which they reform themselves and so far to judge and condemn others is not only lawful but necessary A man that lives Religiously doth not by and by sit in judgement and condemn with his mouth all prophane livers but yet while he is silent his very life condemns them To what end his Lordship produceth this Instance any one may easily understand but you abuse it as though his Lordship had said That Protestants only by their Religious lives do condemn your Church and upon this run out into a strange declamation about Who the men are that live so Religiously They who to propagate the Gospel the better marry wives contrary to the Canons and bring Scripture for it Yes surely much more then they who to propagate your Church enjoy Concubines for which if they can bring some Canons of your Church I am sure they can bring no Scripture for it They who pull down Monasteries both of Religious men and women I see you are still as loth to part them as they are to be parted themselves but if all their lives be no more Religious then the most of them have been the pulling of them down might be a greater act of Religion then living in them They who cast Altars to the ground More certainly then they who worshipped them They who partly banish Priests and partly put them to death Or they who commit treasons and do things worthy of death But you are doubtless very Religious and tender-hearted men whose consciences would never suffer you to banish or put any to death for the sake of Religion no not in Queen Maries time here in England They who deface the very Tombs of Saints and will not permit them to rest even when they are dead Or they who profess to worship dead Saints and martyr living ones with Fire and Faggot If this be your religious living none who know what Religion means will be much taken with it I shall easily grant that you stick close to the Pope but are therein far enough from the Doctrine or life of St. Peter If any of you have endured Sequestrations Imprisonments Death it self I am sure it was not for any good you did not for the Catholick Faith but if you will for some Catholick Treasons such as would have enwrapt a whole Nation in misery If this be your suffering persecution for righteousness sake you will have little cause to rejoyce in your Fellow-sufferers But if you had not a mind to calumniate us and provoke us to speak sad truths of you all this might have been spared for his Lordship only chose this Instance to shew that a Church or person may be condemned consequentially which was not intentionally But you say Our Church hath formally condemned yours by publick and solemn censures in the 39. Articles Doth his Lordship deny that our Church in order to our own reformation hath condemned many things which your Church holds No but that our Churches main intention was to reform it self but considering the corruption and degeneracy of your Church she could not do it without consequentially condemning yours and that she did justly in so doing we are ready on all occasions to justifie But his Lordship asks If one particular Church may not judge or condemn another What must then be done where particulars need reformation To which his Adversary gives a plain Answer That particular Churches must in that case as Irenaeus intimateth have recourse to the Church of Rome which hath more powerful principality and to her Bishop who is the chief Pastour of the whole Church as being St. Peters Successour c. This is the rise and occasion of the present Controversie To this his Lordship Answers That it is most true indeed the Church of Rome hath had and hath yet more powerful Principality then any other particular Church But she hath not this power from Christ. The Roman Patriarch by Ecclesiastical constitutions might perhaps have a Primacy of order but for principality of power the Patriarchs were as even as equal as the Apostles were before them The truth is this more powerful Principality the Roman Bishops got under the Emperours after they became Christian and they used the matter so that they grew big enough to oppose nay to depose the Emperours by the same power which they had given them And after this other particular Churches especially here in the West submitted themselves to them for Succour and Protections sake And this was one main cause that swel'd Rome into this more powerful Principality and not any right given by Christ to make that Prelate Pastour of the whole Church To this you Answer That to say that the Roman Churches Principality is not from Christ is contrary to St. Austin and the whole Milevitan Council who in their Epistle to Innocent the first profess that the Popes Authority is grounded upon Scripture and consequently proceeds from Christ. But whoever seriously reads and throughly considers that Epistle will find no such thing as that you aim at there For the scope of the Epistle is to perswade Pope Innocent to appear against Coelestius and Pelagius to that end they give first an account of their Doctrine shewing how pernicious and contrary to Scripture it was after which they tell him that Pelagius being at Jerusalem was like to do a great deal of mischief there but that many of the Brethren opposed him and especially St. Hierom. But we say they do suppose that through the mercy of our Lord Christ assisting you those which hold such perverse and pernicious principles may more easily yield by your Authority drawn out of Scripture Where they do not in the least dream of his Authority as Vniversal Pastor being grounded on Scripture but of his appearing against the Pelagians with his Authority drawn out of Scripture that is to that Authority which he had in the Church by the reputation of the Roman See the Authority of the Scripture being added which was so clear against the Pelagians or both these going together were the most probable way to suppress their Doctrine And it hath been sufficiently proved
their Doctrine must be Infallible for the greatest part of their Testimony is this That they deliver not their Doctrines from themselves but immediately from God And consequently their Testimony must be owned as infallible in whatever they deliver as from God it being very unreasonable to think that God would favour such persons with so extraordinary a Power who should falsifie their message and deceive the world Thus you see That whatever Motives of Credibility you would blind the world with there can be no Motive independent on Scripture which is sufficient to prove Infallibility but such a power of working Miracles which Moses and the Prophets and Christ and his Apostles had which last as you truly say received their Commission from Christ to preach every where and to confirm their words with signs that followed by which signs all their hearers were bound to submit themselves unto them and to acknowledge their words for infallible Oracles of Truth Now What reasonable man could otherwise expect but that after you had so solemnly promised to prove the Infallibility of your Church in the very same manner that Moses with other Prophets Christ and his Apostles were first proved to be infallible which are twice your words and your at large shewing That the main ground why they were believed infallible was because of the Miracles wrought by them whence they needed not the Testimony of Scripture You should have shewed us what kind of parallel Miracles are wrought in your Church to prove its infallibility But instead of that when you come to the purpose you shuffle us off in a most ridiculous and impertinent manner For you tell us That as therefore Moses our blessed Saviour and his Apostles were proved infallible by their works signs and miracles without Scripture so is the Church without help of the same sufficiently proved to be infallible by the Motives of Credibility Well but what and where are these Motives of Credibility Are they of the same kind and nature with the signs and miracles wrought by them or not If not How can the way and manner be the same which you promised to prove the Churches Infallibility If not What assurance can you give us that those will prove Infallibility as well as their works and miracles This should have been demonstrated and those motives produced to the view of the world if you had designed any other than jugling with your Readers Instead of this you tell us That Hereticks though they have the Scripture yet being out of the true Church they do wholly want these signs of Infallibility of which see Bellarmine and other Catholick Authors discoursing more at large de notis Ecclesiae 'T is sufficient for the present to have declared how Catholicks fall not into a Circle as his Lordship pretends they do These are excellent waies of proof and fit only for a Church that pretends to be infallible and then most of all when her Infallibility was to be proved What did you lead us this long dance for if you never intended to prove your Church infallible Could you not have referred us to Bellarmine at first as well as at last Nay and now you do turn us off to him you bid us go seek the Notes of the Church and not the Proofs of Infallibility which sure are different things unless you suppose no Church True but what is Infallible But however you are sure not to miss the Hereticks they must have a blow at parting They are out of the Church and do wholly want these signs of Infallibility What signs of Infallibility speak out and tell us What they are and where they lye and how they may be known for otherwise we may mistake in the Physiognomy of your Church and instead of signs of Infallibility we may see shrewd signs of imposture and delusion in her And it is the more suspicious because you are so afraid of producing them after so solemn a promise to do it However you tell us 'T is sufficient for the present to have declared how Catholicks fall not into a Circle Well I see though we miss of of the Coals S. Laurence was broyled on we shall have a Feather from the wing of a Seraphim Though you fail of your promise we shall have something as good and as great a feat of activity as that had been viz. to let us see How the Papists dance in a round and yet make no Circle Your demonstrations are so good in this kind it is pity you do not imploy your excellent wit in squaring Mathematical Circles as well as this and I shall as soon hope to see you perform the one as the other But Can you without smiling at our simplicity tell us after such a wide-mouthed promise as you made in the page foregoing But because we have often promised to prove the Infallibility of the Church it will be necessary to insist somewhat longer upon this Point and declare the matter at large That it is enough to vindicate your selves from the Circle Was this the thing you promised or the proofs of your Churches Infallibility I confess Quid feret hic tanto dignum promissor hiatu came into my mind at first reading those words and it proves accordingly You really meant no such thing as proving your Church infallible and you are very excusable in it though you had promised it for no Promise can bind to impossibilities But it may be yet though these Proofs do not come after the Promise they may have gone before it For I find before a large Catalogue mentioned of such signs and motives which may prove the Churches Infallibility as sanctity of life miracles efficacy purity and excellency of doctrine fulfilling of Prophecies succession of lawfully sent Pastors Vnity Antiquity and the very name of Catholick c. Number enough if that would do it But we shall see what force these Motives are of by these following Queries 1. Is it all one with you To know a Church to be true and to make it infallible These you call the Motives of Credibility for your Churches Infallibility were wont to be esteemed only the Notes of Distinction of the True Church from all others The Question I suppose concerning these had this rise There being after the Reformation several distinct Societies of men pretending to be the True Christian Church to which every Christian ought to associate himself there was a necessity of pitching on some way whereby the True Christian Church might be distinguished from other Communions which begat a new Controversie What were the proper Notes of this Society Those of your party as Bellarmine tells you differed much in the number of them Some of which are those by you mentioned but whether they be the True Notes of the Church or no which hath been largely examined by others What are these to the proof of Infallibility setting aside that of Miracles Is it not possible that there should be a
wrought to attest this Infallibility For as long as you require such an assent to the present Churches Infallibility it is necessary on your own grounds that the present Church should alwayes work miracles in order to the proving this Infallibility 2. We desire such miracles as may sufficiently convince the Infidels as to this point of your Infallibility For that was alwayes the way used in Scripture The intention of miracles was to perswade those who did not believe Would Pharaoh or the Aegyptians have believed Moses if all his miracles had been wrought in a corner where none but Israelites had been present Would the Jews have believed in Christ if he had not come in publick among them and wrought such frequent publick and uncontrouled miracles that his greatest enemies durst not deny them If you would then have us believe your present Churches Infallibility let your Pope or at least your Priests come and do such kind of miracles among us which may bear the examination of inquisitive men and then try whether we will not believe your Infallibility but till then excuse us Think not we are of such easie Faith that the pretended growing out of a Leg in Spain or any of your famous miracles wrought by your Priests in Italy will perswade us to believe your Church Infallible It is alwayes observed your miracles are most talked on where people are most ignorant and therefore most apt to be deceived Your Priests like the Devils in the Primitive times can do no feats when their opposers are by It is an easie thing for a stump to grow a Leg in its passage from Spain hither for Fama crescit eundo such things are most believed where circumstances are least capable of examination And the juglings and impostures of your Priests have been so notorious in this kind that their pretences to miracles have made more Infidels then Catholicks by making men more apt to question whether ever there were any real miracles done then believe the truth of yours Very likely then it is that you should perswade the world your Church is Infallible because of the miracles wrought in it 3. What discrimination do you put between those lying wonders which you are foretold shall be wrought at the coming of Antichrist and those pretended miracles which are wrought among you Convince us by sufficient evidence that the things which seem most confirmed by your miracles viz. Invocation of Saints is a thing consonant to the doctrine established by the undoubted miracles of Christ and his Apostles If it be contrary to it either you must prove that doctrine false or if you admit it true you prove your miracles to be false because contrary to a doctrine established by miracles undoubtedly Divine And God can never be supposed to attest with miracles the truth of doctrines contrary to each other And thence the wisest of your Church are so far from insisting on this of miracles for a motive of credibility concerning your Churches Infallibility that they leave it out from being a note of the Church because Hereticks as they say may as to all outward appearance work as great miracles as the best Catholicks And therefore Bellarmin saith No man can have an absolute certainty concerning the truth of miracles because the Devil though he cannot work true miracles can work as to appearance the greatest Therefore since the confirmation of Christian Religion by miracles undoubtedly Divine there can be no relyance on the tryal of miracles for the truth of any doctrine for those very miracles and doctrine must be judged according to that rule of Faith which was confirmed by Divine miracles Thus we have examined those motives which seem most to prove Infallibility and shewn how little they agree to the present Churches Infallibility 3. As to the other motives what evidence do you produce That where-ever they are the Church is Infallible and that these do infallibly belong to your Church for both these must be made evident or you do nothing Now these motives are Sanctity of life Succession Vnity Antiquity and the very name of Catholick c. How hard is it to conceive the connexion between these and infallibility Nay they are so far from it that it hath been abundantly proved against your party that these are no certain notes of the true Church which is a Controversie I shall not now discuss And if the Church cannot be proved to be true by them much less certainly will it be proved to be Infallible But suppose all this is your Church so remarkable for Sanctity of life that it should be a motive for your Infallibility Have your Popes been indeed such Holy men that we may not question but they were moved by the Holy Ghost when they spake Certainly you have some other way to know it then all Histories both of friends and enemies and the constant fame of the world which hath then much abused us with stories quite of another nature Or is the state of your Church so pure and holy that it must shew it self Infallible by that But whom will you be judged by in this case I desire you not to stand to the verdict of your Adversaries Will you believe men of your own Communion pray read what sad complaints are made of the degenerate state of your Church by Petrarch Mantuan Clemangis Espencaeus Erasmus Cassander and several others and judge you whether we have not reason to cry up the Sanctity of your Church But these it may be you will say were discontented persons Will you believe then your Cardinals And if ever you will believe them it should certainly be when they meet to advise concerning the state of your Church and was not this the expression of the Colledge of chosen Cardinals for reformation of the Church under Paul 3. Per nos inquimus per nos nomen Christi blasphematur apud gentes Is not this a great evidence of your Sanctity If you will not believe the Cardinals you will not certainly question the judgement of him whom you would fain have to be Infallible the Pope himself And these are the words of Adrian 6. in his Instructions to his Legat at the diet of Norimberg A. D. 1522. Scimus in hâc Sede aliquot jam annis multa abominanda fuisse abusus in Spiritualibus excessus in mandatis omnia denique in perversum mutata If ever Pope was Infallible he was in saying so and he could not but be in Cathedrâ when he said it You see then what evidence you have from your selves concerning that Sanctity of life which is in your Church But it may be still you do not mean real Sanctity but that the doctrine of your Church tends more to promote it then that of any other Church I heartily wish the quite contrary could not be too truly said of it and it is well known that one of your great Artifices whereby you perswade great Persons to your Religion is
the Question and suppose that already to be which you are proving the existence of Now that Infallibility in us doth suppose the existence of God appears most evidently because mans understanding being of it self fallible it cannot be supposed in any thing infallible without the supernatural Assistance of a being Infallible which can be nothing else but God But if you think you have infallible proofs produce them and convince the world of Atheists by them We acknowledge we have as great evidence and certainty as humane nature is capable of of a Being of such a Nature as God is from the consideration of his works but all this still is moral Certainty for the grounds are neither Mathematically demonstrative nor supernaturally infallible What folly and madness then is it for your party to cry out so much against moral Certainty in Religion when the Foundation of all Religion is capable of no more And may not this justly increase our suspicion that under moral Certainty you strike at the Foundation of all Religion 2. Suppose God gives the most infallible evidence of any Religion it is not possible but that some who are bound to believe that Religion can have any more than moral Certainty of it And for all that I know the greatest Physical Certainty is as liable to question as moral there being as great a possibility of Deception in that as a suspicion of doubt in this and oft-times greater What advantage then had those who stood by and saw the miracles of Moses and Christ above those who did not but had the report of them conveyed to them in an unquestionable manner Besides it is apparent God's great aim in any Religion is most at the good of those who can have only a moral Certainty of the great evidences of the Truth of that Religion because it being God's intention that the Religion delivered by Him should be not meerly for the benefit of those very few persons who could be present at such things but for the advantage of those incomparably greater numbers who by reason of distance of place and age could not be present it would argue a strange want of provision for mens Faith unless moral Certainty were sufficient Only you indeed will suppose that which God himself never thought necessary viz. an infallible Testimony of the present Church but to what good purposes you have introduced this hath largely appeared already 3. Moral Certainty yields us sufficient Assurance that Christian Religion is infallibly true And that I prove because moral Certainty may evidently shew us the Credibility of the Christian Religion which you deny not nor any else and that from the Credibility of it the infallible Truth of it may be proved will appear by these two things 1. That where there is evident Credibility in the matter propounded there doth arise upon men an obligation to believe And that is proved both by your own confession as to the Churches Infallibility being believed on the Motives of Credibility and from Gods intention in giving such Motives which was to perswade them to believe as appears by multitudes of places of Scripture and withall though the meer Credibility of the Motives might at first suppose some doubts concerning the Infallibility of the Doctrine yet it is not consistent with any doubt as to the Infallibility of the obligation to believe because there can be no other reason assigned of these Motives of Credibility than the inducing on men an obligation to Faith 2. That where there is such an obligation to believe we have the greatest assurance that the matter to be believed is infallibly True Which depends upon this manifest proof That God cannot oblige men to believe a lye it being repugnant to all our conceptions of the Veracity and Goodness of God to imagine that God should require from men on the pain of eternal damnation for not believing to believe something as infallibly True which is really false Thus you see what a clear and pregnant demonstration we have of the infallible Truth of Christian Religion from moral Certainty How injurious then have those of your party been who have charged this opinion of believing upon moral Certainty with betraying Religion and denying Christian Religion to be infallibly True Thus much for this grand Objection I now come to the last Question considerable in the Resolution 3. On what account do I believe these particular Books of Scripture to be Gods Word Which may admit of a double sense 1. On what account I do believe the Doctrine contained in these Books to be Gods Word 2. On what account I do believe the Books containing this Doctrine to be Gods Word As to the first I have answered already viz. Upon the same rational evidence which God gave that the Testimony of those who delivered was a Divine and infallible Testimony To the second I answer in these two Propositions 1. That the last Resolution of Faith is not into the Infallibility of the Instrument of conveyance but into the Infallibility of that Doctrine which is thereby conveyed to us For the writing of this Doctrine is only the condition by which this Revelation is made manifest to us it being evident from the nature of the thing that the writing of a Divine Revelation is not necessary for the ground and reason of Faith as to that Revelation because men may believe a Divine Revelation without it as is not only evident in the case of the Patriarchs but of all those who in the time of Christ and the Apostles did believe the truth of the Doctrin of Christ before it was written If therefore the writing be only the condition of the manifestation of the Object in a certain way to us the ground and reason of Faith is not to be resolved into that which is only the mode of our knowledge of the Object to be believed but into that which is properly the ground and reason why we believe that Doctrine or Revelation to be Divine which is contained in those Books And this is still the case of all illiterate persons who cannot resolve their Faith properly into the Scripture but into the Doctrine delivered them out of Scripture Hence we may discern the difference between the Formal Object and the Rule of Faith the Formal Object is that evidence which is given of the Infallibility of the Testimony of those who delivered the Doctrine the infallible Rule of Faith to us is the Scripture viz. that which limits and bounds the material Objects of Faith which we are bound to believe and this doth therefore discover to us what those things are which on the account of the Formal Object we are obliged to believe 2. Those who believe the Doctrine of Scripture to be Divine have no reason to question the infallible conveyance of that Doctrine to us in those Books we call the Scripture Therefore whatever things we are to believe in order to salvation we have as great evidence as we
can desire that they are infallibly conveyed to us 1. If the Doctrine of Christ be True and Divine then all the Promises be made were accomplished Now that was one of the greatest That his Spirit should lead his Apostles into all Truth Can we then reasonably think that if the Apostles had such an infallible Assistance of the Spirit of God with them in what they spake in a transitory way to them who heard them that they should want it in the delivering those Records to the Church which were to be the standing monuments of this Doctrine to all Ages and Generations If Christ's Doctrine therefore be True the Apostles had an infallible Assistance of God's Spirit if they had so in delivering the Doctrine of Christ by preaching nothing can be more unreasonable than to imagine such should want it who were employed to give an account to the world of the nature of this Doctrine and of the Miracles which accompanied Christ and his Apostles So that it will appear an absurd thing to assert that the Doctrine of Christ is Divine and to question whether we have the infallible Records of it It is not pertinent to our Question in what way the Spirit of God assisted them that wrote Whether by immediate suggestion of all such things which might be sufficiently known without it and whether in some things which were not of concernment it might not leave them to their own judgement as in that place When they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs when no doubt God's Spirit knew infallibly whether it was but thought not fit to reveal it whether in some lighter circumstances the Writers were subject to any inadvertencies the negative of which is more piously credible whether meer historical passages needed the same infallible Assistance that Prophetical and Doctrinal these things I say are not necessary to be resolved it being sufficient in order to Faith that the Doctrine we are to believe as it was infallibly delivered to the world by the preaching of Christ and his Apostles so it is infallibly conveyed to us in the Books of Scripture 2. Because these Books were owned for Divine by those Persons and Ages who were most competent Judges Whether they were so or no. For the Age of the Apostles was sufficiently able to judge whether those things which are said to be spoken by Christ or written by the Apostles were really so or no. And we can have no reason at all to question but what was delivered by them was infallibly true Now from that first Age we derive our knowledge concerning the Authority of these Books which being conveyed to us in the most unquestionable and universal Tradition we can have no reason in the world to doubt and therefore the greatest reason firmly to assent that the Books we call the Scripture are the infallible Records of the Word of God And thus much may suffice in general concerning the Protestant Way of resolving Faith I now return to the examination of what you give us by way of answer to his Lordship's discourse The first Assault you make upon his Lordship is for making Apostolical Tradition a ground of Faith but because your peculiar excellency lyes in the involving plain things the best service I can do is to lay things open as they are by which means we shall easily discern where the truth lyes I shall therefore first shew how far his Lordship makes Apostolical Tradition a ground of Faith and then consider what you have to object against it In that Section which your Margent referrs to all that he sayes of it is That the Voice and Tradition of that Church which included in it Apostles Disciples and such as had immediate Revelation from Heaven was Divine and the Word of God from them is of like validity written or delivered And as to this Tradition he saith there is abundance of Certainty in it self but how far it is evident to us shall after appear At the end of the next n. 21. he saith That there is double Authority and both Divine that confirms Scripture to be the Word of God Tradition of the Apostles delivering it and the internal worth and argument in the Scripture obvious to a soul prepared by the present Churches Tradition and Gods Grace But n. 23. he saith That this Apostolical Tradition is not the sole and only means to prove Scripture Divine but the moral perswasion reason and force of the present Church is ground enough for any one to read the Scripture and esteem reverently of it And this once done the Scripture hath then In and home-arguments enough to put a soul that hath but ordinary Grace out of doubt that the Scripture is the Word of God infallible and Divine I suppose his Lordships meaning may be comprized in these particulars 1. That to those who lived in the Apostolical times the Tradition of Scripture by those who had an infallible Testimony was a sufficient ground of their believing it infallibly true 2. That though the conveyance of that Tradition to us be not infallible yet it may be sufficient to raise in us a high esteem and veneration for the Scripture 3. That those who have this esteem for the Scripture by a through studying and consideration of it may undoubtedly believe that Scripture is the Divine and Infallible Word of God This I take to be the substance of his Lordships discourse We now come to examine what you object against him Your first demand is How comes Apostolical Primitive Tradition to work upon us if the present Church be fallible Which I shall answer by another How come the decrees of Councils to work upon you if the reporters of those Decrees be fallible If you say It is sufficient that the Decree it self be infallible but it is not necessary that the reporter of those Decrees should be so The same I say concerning the Apostolical Tradition of Scripture though it were infallible in their Testimony yet it is not necessary that the conveyance of it to us should be infallible And if you think your self bound to believe the Decrees of General Councils as infallible though fallibly conveyed to you Why may not we say the same concerning Apostolical Tradition Whereby you may see though Tradition be fallible yet the matter conveyed by it may have its proper effect upon us Your next Inquiry if I understand it is to this sense Whether Apostolical Tradition be not then as credible as the Scriptures I answer freely supposing it equally evident what was delivered by the Apostles to the Church by word or writing hath equal Credibility You attempt to prove That there is equal evidence because the Scripture is only known by the Tradition of the Church to be the same that was recommended by the Apostolical Church which you have likewise for Apostolical Tradition But 1. Do you mean the same Apostolical Tradition here or no which the Arch-Bishop
at Rome from St. Peter If then Traditions be so uncapable of falsification and corruption how came they to be so much to seek as to what the Apostolical Tradition was in the very next age succeeding the Apostles What Could not those who lived in St. Johns and St. Peters time know what they did Could they be deceived themselves or had they an intent to deceive their posterity If some of them did falsifie Tradition so soon we see what little certainty there is in the deriving a Tradition from the Apostles if neither falsified then it should seem there was no universal practise of the Apostles concerning it but they looked on it as a matter of indifferency and some might practise one way and some another If so then we are yet further to seek for an Vniversal Tradition of the Apostles binding succeeding Ages For can you possibly think the Apostles did intend to bind unalterably succeeding Ages in such things which they used a Liberty in themselves If then it be granted that in matters of an indifferent nature the Apostles might practise severally as they saw occasion How then can we be certain of the Apostles universal practise in matters of an indifferent nature If we cannot so we can have no evidence of an Vniversal Tradition of the Apostles but in some things which they judged necessary But whence shall we have this unquestionable evidence first that they did such things and secondly that they did them with an apprehension of the necessity of them and with an intention to oblige posterity by their actions By what rule or measure must we judge of this necessity By their Vniversal practise but that brings us into a plain Circle for we must judge of the necessity of it by their Vniversal practise and we must prove that Vniversal practise by the necessity of the thing For if the thing were not judged necessary the Apostles might differ in their practise from one another Whence then shall we prove any practise necessary unless built on some unalâ—erable ground of reason and then it is not formally an Apostolical Tradition but the use of that common reason and prudence in matters of a religious nature or else by some positive Law and Institution of theirs and this supposing it unwritten must be evidenced from something distinct from their practise or else you must assert that whatever the Apostles did they made an unalterable Law for or lastly you must quit all Vnwritten Traditions as Vniversal and must first inferr the necessity and then the Vniversality of their practise from some record extant in Scripture and then you can be no further certain of any Vniversal practise of the Apostles then you are of the Scriptures by which it will certainly appear that the Scripture is farr more evident and credible then any Vniversal unwritten Tradition A clear and evident Instance of the uncertainty of knowing Apostolical Traditions in things not defined in Scripture is one of those you instance in your self viz. that of Rebaptizing Hereticks which came to be so great a Controversie so soon after the Apostolical Age. For though this Controversie rose to its height in St. Cyprians time which was about A. D. 250. yet it was begun some competent time before that For St. Cyprian in his Epistle to Jubaianus where he gives an account of the General Council of the Provinces of Africa and Numidia consisting of seventy one Bishops endeavours to remove all suspicion of Novelty from their opinion For saith he it is no new or sudden thing among us to judge that those ought to be baptized who come to the Church from Hereticks for now many years are past and a long time since under Agrippinus the Bishops meeting together did determine it in Council and thousands of Hereticks have voluntarily submitted to it How far off could that be from the Apostolical times which was done so long before Cyprians And although S. Augustine as it was his interest so to do would make this to have been but a few years yet we have greater evidence both of the greater antiquity and larger spread of this Opinion Whereby we may see how little the judgement of Vincentius Lyrinensis is to relyed on as to Traditions who gives Agrippinus such hard words for being the first who against Scripture the Rule of the Vniversal Church the judgement of all his Fellow-Priests the custom of his Ancestors did assert the rebaptization of Hereticks How little Truth there is in what Vincentius here saies and consequently how little certainty in his way of finding out Traditions will appear from the words of Dionysius of Alexandria in his Epistle to Philemon and Dionysius concerning this subject For therein he asserts That long before that custom obtained in Africa the same was practised and decreed in the most famous Churches both at Iconium Synada and other places On which account this great person professeth that he durst not condemn their Opinion who held so Whether this Synod at Iconium were the same with that mentioned by Firmilian is not so certain but if it were that can be no argument against the Antiquity of it For although Firmilian say That we long ago meeting in Iconium from Galatia Cilicia and the neighbour Regions have confirmed the same viz. that Hereticks should be baptized yet as the learned Valesius observes the pronoune We is not to be understood of Firmilian's person but of his predecessors and therefore checks both Baronius and Binius for placing that Synod A. D. 258. We see therefore this Opinion was so largely spread that not only the Churches in Africa Numidia and Mauritania favoured it but almost all the Eastern Christians For Dionysius in an Epistle to Xystus who succeeded Stephanus at Rome wherein he pleads for Moderation as to this Controversie and desires him more throughly to consider the weight of the business and not proceed so rashly as Stephanus had done he tells him in conclusion that he writ not this of himself but at the request of the several Bishops of Antioch Caesarea Aelia Tyre Laodicea Tarsus c. Nay and as it appears by Firmilians Epistle they made no question but this custom of theirs descended from Christ and his Apostles For telling Cyprian that in such places where the other custom had been used they did well to oppose truth to custom But we saith he joyn truth and custom together and to the custom of the Romans we oppose the custom of truth holding that from the beginning which was delivered by Christ and his Apostles And therefore adds Neither do we remember when this practice began seeing it was alwaies observed among us And thence charges the Church of Rome in that Epistle with violating that and several other Traditions of the Apostles But Vincentius Lyrinensis still takes Stephens part and all that he hath to say is That that is the property of Christian modesty and gravity not to deliver
prove that any of the Fathers have denyed this place to extend to infallibility is a very unreasonable thing which you put the Bishop and his party upon because they only deliver what they conceive the meaning of places to be without reflections on any Heresies but such as were most prevalent in their own times And if your Church had in their time challenged Infallibility from such places you might have heard of their Negative which at present you put us unreasonably to prove Your answer to John 14.16 only is that it must be understood in some absolute sense and doth not his Lordship say so too viz. in regard of Consolation and Grace But if you say there can be no other absolute sense but an infallible assistance you would do well to prove it and not barely to suppose it and so likewise what follows as to John 16.13 which his Lordship justly restrains to the Apostles alone you tell us That you contend that in whatsoever sense all truth is to be understood in respect of each Apostle apart it is also to be understood in relation to their Successors assembled in a full Representative of the whole Church That you contend we grant but we say it is without sense or reason And therefore come to examine what you produce for it Your first reason Because the Representative of the Church in General Council and the Bishop of Rome as Pastor of the whole Church have equal power to oblige the Church to believe what they deliver as each Apostle had is utterly denied and must be more then barely supposed as it is here Your second which you call the Fundamental reason of this Exposition is in short That the preservation of the Church requires infallibility in future ages of the Church as well as in the Apostles times which is again utterly denied And the next time you write I pray prove your reasons well and think not your confident producing things you know are denied by us will serve for reasons against us Before you can sufficiently prove that any rite of the Church not mentioned in Scripture had the Holy Ghost for its Authour especially when contrary to a custome expressed in Scripture you must do more then produce a single testimony of St. Augustine for it who was apt to suppose the Holy Ghost might be pleased with such things which the Church though not therein infallible might consent in the practise of Which certainly is far from supposing the Church to have infallible assistance with it in delivering Doctrines of Faith because some things might be used in the Church which the Holy Ghost might be supposed not displeased with which is the utmost can be made of your citation out of St. Austin It seems you were aware of that disparity between the Apostles times and ours as to the pretence of Infallibility because the Apostles were first to deliver this Doctrine to the world and after to consign it by writing to future ages from whence it were easie to inferr there could not be that necessity of a Continual Infallible Assistance in the Church because the Doctrine infallibly delivered by them is preserved in the Church by the Infallible Records of it But to this your answer is considerable What wise man say you would go about to raise a stately building for many ages and satisfie himself with laying a Foundation to last but for a few years Our Saviour the wisest of Architects is not to be thought to have founded this incomparable building of the Church upon sand which must infallibly have happened had he not intended to afford his continual assistance also to the succeeding Pastors of the Church to lead them when assembled in a General Council into all those truths wherein he first setled the Apostles Whether you call this arguing for the Churches infallibility or libelling against our blessed Saviour if he hath not done what you would have him is hard to determine I am sure it is arguing ab absurdo with a witness for if he hath not done just as you fancy he should have done he must venture to be accounted an Ignoramus and Impostor before and here to do that which no wise man would have done viz. build a stately Fabrick the Church upon the Sands So it seems you account the Prophets and the Apostles for if the Apostle may be credited we are built on the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner-stone And this is it you must mean by being built on the sand for herein it is plain the Church is built on these viz. that Infallible doctrine which was delivered by them but here is not one word or the least intimation of an inherent infallibility in the Church which was to be its foundation so as to secure it from all errour And this you say must infallibly happen if there be not the same infallibility in General Councils which was in the Apostles for that I suppose must be the meaning of your last words if they be to the purpose But how groundless your pretence of the Infallibility of General Councils is will appear when we come to that subject but have you so little of common sense and reason with you as to suppose the Church presently notwithstanding the Divine Revelation of the Doctrine of Christianity in Scripture to be built on Sand if General Councils be not infallible Is there not sufficient ground to rely on the Doctrine of Christianity supposing there never had been any General Council in the world What was the Church built on before the Nicene Council only on Sand surely the Wind and Billows of persecutions would then have easily overturned it What if through civil combustions in the Empire there could never have been any Assembly's of the Bishops afterwards must the Church needs have fallen to the ground for want of General Councils But why I pray must the Infallibility of the Apostles be compared only to a foundation that can last but for few years Do you suppose that these Apostles never did commit their Doctrine infallibly to writing or that these writings of theirs did last but for a few years without one of these it is hard to find out your meaning by those expressions If you deny either of them I shall readily prove them but if you affirm both these as if you are heartily a Christian you must do with what face can you say that Christ in making the Apostles infallible did lay a Foundation but for a few years But thanks be to God although perverse and unreasonable men are alwaies quarrelling with the methods of Divine wisdom and goodness this Foundation of the Lord standeth sure still and as long as the Infallible Doctrine of the Gospel continues the Church will be built on a stedfast and unmoveable Rock which will prove a much surer Foundation than the seven Hills of Infallibility But this is your grand and fundamental
mistake to suppose a Church cannot continue without a vital inherent Principle of Infallibility in her self which must be discovered by Infallible Directions from the Head of it whereas we grant the necessity of an Infallible Foundation of Faith but cannot discern either from Scripture Reason or Antiquity that there must be a living and standing Infallible Judge which must deliver and interpret those Infallible Records to us We grant then Infallibility in the Foundation of Faith we assert the highest Certainty of the Infallibility of that Foundation we declare that the owning of that Infallible Foundation is that which makes men Christians the body of whom we call a Church we further grant that Christ hath left in his Church sufficient means for the preservation of it in Truth and Unity but we deny that ever he promised such an Infallibility to be constantly resident in that Church as was in the Prophets and Apostles and that neither any intention of Christ or any reason in the thing can be manifested why such an Infallibility should be so necessary for the Churches preservation that without it the Wisdom of Christ must be questioned and the Church built on a sandy Foundation Your citation of Vincentius Lyrinensis proves nothing but the Churches constancy in adhering to that Doctrine of Faith which was delivered from the beginning but how that should prove a Constant Infallibility I cannot understand unless it is impossible that there should be any Truth where there is no inherent Infallibility Thus we see what very little success you have in the attempt of proving the Churches continual Infallibility from Scripture From hence you proceed to the consideration of the way How Scripture and Tradition do mutually confirm each other His Lordship grants That they do mutually but not equally confirm the authority either of other For Scripture doth infallibly confirm the authority of Church-Traditions truly so called but Tradition doth but morally and probably confirm the authority of the Scripture This you say is apparently false but endeavour not to make it evident that it is so Only you say A. C. refused already to grant it Et quid tum postea Must every thing be false which A. C. refuses to grant But let us see whether his Similitude makes it out For saith he 't is as a Kings Embassadours word of mouth and his Kings Letters bear mutual witness to each other Just so indeed saith his Lordship For his Kings Letters of Credence under hand and Seal confirm the Embassadours authority infallibly to all that know his Seal and hand But the Embassadours word of mouth confirms his Kings Letters but only probably For else Why are they callâ—d Letters of Credence if they give not him more credit than he gives them To which you make a large Reply 1. That the Kings hand and Seal cannot confirm infallibly to a Forein King who neither knows hand nor Seal the Embassadours authority and therefore this reacheth not the business How we should know infallibly that the Scripture is Gods Word 2. That the primary reason Why the Embassadour is admitted is his own credit to which correspond the motives of Credibility of the Church by which the Letters of Credence are admitted 3. That none can give authority to the Letters of Credence or be infallibly certain of them but such as infallibly know that hand and Seal 4. That none can infallibly know that hand and Seal but such as are certain of the Embassadours sincerity But Doth all this disprove what his Lordship saith That though there be a mutual Testimony yet it is not equal for although the Letters of Credence might be the sooner read and admitted of on the Embassadours Reputation and Sincerity yet still those Letters themselves upon the delivery of them may further and in a higher degree confirm the Prince he is sent to of his authority to act as Embassadour Supposing then that there be a sufficient Testimony that these Letters were sealed by the Secretary of State who did manifest his Sincerity in the highest manner in the sealing of them though a Forein Prince might not know the hand and Seal yet upon such a creditable Testimony he may be assured that they were sealed by the Prince himself But then withall if the Embassadour to assure the Prince offers his own life to attest the truth of his Credentials and the Prince by reading the Letters find something in them which could not be written by any other than that Prince he then hath the highest certainty he can desire This is the case between Tradition and Scripture General Tradition at first makes way for the first admission of Scripture as the general repute of an Embassadours coming doth for his access to the Prince the particular Tradition of the Church is like the Embassadours affirming to the Prince that he hath Letters of Credence with him but then when he enquires into the Certainty of those Letters those Motives of Credibility not which relate to the person of the Embassadour but which evidently prove the sealing of those Letters as the constant Testimony of such who were present at it the Secretaries and Embassadours venturing their lives upon it must confirm him in that and lastly his own reading the Credentials give him the highest Confirmation i. e. The testimony of those who saw the miracles of Christ and his Apostles and confirmed the Truth of their Testimony by their dying for it are the highest inducement to our believing that the Scriptures were sealed by God himself in the miracles wrought and written by his own hand his Spirit infallibly assisting the Apostle but still after all this when in these very Scriptures we read such things as we cannot reasonably suppose could come from any but God himself this doth in the highest degree settle and confirm our Faith Therefore as to the main scope for which this Similitude was used by his Lordship it holds still but your mistake lyes in supposing that the Embassadours reception depended wholly on his own single Testimony and that was enough to make any Prince infallibly certain that his Letters of Credence are true which cannot be unless he knows before-hand that Embassadour to be infallibly true which is impossible to be supposed at his first reception Yet this is plainly your case that the Scriptures are to be infallibly believed on the single Testimony of the present Church which is to make the Embassadour himself give authority to his Letters of Credence and set hand and seal to them Whereas the contrary is most evident to be true But then supposing these Credentials admitted the Prince transacts with the Embassadour according to that power which is conveyed to him therein And thus it is in the present case Not as though a Prince treated every Envoy with equal respect to an Embassadour no more ought any Pastors of the Church be received but according to that power and authority which their Credentials viz. the
that you deny not the truth of what is therein contained for otherwise the want of Authority in themselves the ambiguity of them the impossibility of knowing the sense of them without Tradition are the very same arguments which with the greatest pomp and ostentation are produced by you against the Scriptures being the Rule whereby to judge of Controversies Which we have no more cause to wonder at than Irenaeus had in the Valentinians because from them we produce our greatest arguments against your fond opinions Now when the Valentinians pretended their great rule was on oral Tradition which was conveyed from the Apostles down to them to this Irenaeus opposeth the constant Tradition of the Apostolical Churches which in a continued succession was preserved from the Apostles times which was the same every where among all the Churches which every one who desired it might easily be satisfied about because they could number them who by the Apostles were appointed Bishops in Churches and their successors unto our own times who taught no such thing nor ever knew any such thing as they madly fancy to themselves We see then his appeal to Tradition was only in a matter of fact Whether ever any such thing as their opinion which was not contained in Scripture was delivered to them by the Apostles or no i. e. Whether the Apostles left any oral Traditions in the Churches which should be the rule to interpret Scriptures by or no And the whole design of Irenaeus is to prove the contrary by an appeal to all the Apostolical Churches and particularly by appealing to the Roman Church because of its due fame and celebrity in that Age wherein Irenaeus lived So that Irenaeus appealed to the then Roman Church even when he speaks highest in the honour of it for somewhat which is fundamentally contrary to the pretensions of the now Roman Church He then appealed to it for an evidence against such oral Traditions which were pretended to be left by the Apostles as a rule to understand Scripture by and were it not for this same pretence now what will become of the Authority of the present Roman Church After he hath thus manifested by recourse to the Apostolical Churches that there was no such Tradition left among them it was very reasonable to inferr that there was none such at all for they could not imagine if the Apostles had designed any such Tradition but they would have communicated it to those famous Churches which were planted by them and it was absurd to suppose that those Churches who could so easily derive their succession from the Apostles should in so short a time have lost the memory of so rich a treasure deposited with them as that was pretended to be from whence he sufficiently refutes that unreasonable imagination of the Valentinians Which having done he proceeds to settle those firm grounds on which the Christians believed in one God the Father and in one Lord Jesus Christ which he doth by removing the only Objection which the Adversaries had against them For when the Christians declared the main reason into which they resolved their Faith as to these principles was Because no other God or Christ were revealed in Scripture but them whom they believed the Valentinians answered this could not be a sufficient foundation for their Faith on this account because many things were delivered in Scripture not according to the truth of the things but the judgment and opinion of the persons they were spoken to This therefore being such a pretence as would destroy any firm resolution of Faith into Scripture and must necessarily place it in Tradition Irenaeus concerns himself much to demonstrate the contrary by an ostension as he calls it that Christ and the Apostles did all along speak according to truth and not according to the opinion of their auditours which is the entire subject of the fifth Chapter of his third Book Which he proves first of Christ because he was Truth it self and it would be very contrary to his nature to speak of things otherwise then they were when the very design of his coming was to direct men in the way of Truth The Apostles were persons who professed to declare truth to the world and as light cannot communicate with darkness so neither could truth be blended with so much falshood as that opinion supposeth in them And therefore neither our Lord nor his Apostles could be supposed to mean any other God or Christ then whom they declared For this saith he were rather to increase their ignorance and confirm them in it then to cure them of it and therefore that Law was true which pronounced a curse on every one who led a blind man out of his way And the Apostles being sent for the recovery of the lost sight of the blind cannot be supposed to speak to men according to their present opinion but according to the manifestation of truth For what Physitian intending to cure a Patient will do according to his Patients desire and not rather what will be best for him From whence he concludes Since the design of Christ and his Apostles was not to flatter but to cure mens souls it follows that they did not speak to them according to their former opinion but according to truth without all hypocrisie and dissimulation From whence it follows that if Christ and his Apostles did speak according to truth there is then need of no Oral Tradition for our understanding Scripture and consequently the resolution of our Faith as to God and Christ and proportionably as to other objects to be believed is not into any Tradition pretending to be derived from the Apostles but into the Scriptures themselves which by this discourse evidently appears to have been the judgement of Irenaeus The next which follows is Clemens of Alexandria who flourished A. D. 196. whom St. Hierome accounted the most learned of all the writers of the Church and therefore cannot be supposed ignorant in so necessary a part of the Christian Doctrine as the Resolution of Faith is And if his judgement may be taken the Scriptures are the only certain Foundation of Faith for in his Admonition to the Gentiles after he hath with a great deal of excellent learning derided the Heathen Superstitions when he comes to give an account of the Christians Faith he begins it with this pregnant Testimony to our purpose For saith he the Sacred Oracles affording us the most manifest grounds of Divine worship are the Foundation of Truth And so goes on in a high commendation of the Scripture as the most compendious directions for happiness the best Institutions for government of life the most free from all vain ornaments that they raise mens souls up out of wickedness yielding the most excellent remedies disswading from the greatest deceit and most clearly incouraging to a foreseen happiness with more of the same nature And when after he perswades men with so much Rhetorick and
man that he contended with 630. Bishops of the Council of Chalcedon about the Primacy of his See and whose Epistles breathe so much of self-denyal in all the contests he had about it And although Pope Agatho and the rest be of later standing when the Popes did begin a little more openly to take upon them yet Can the Protestants think that these men were byassed with their proper Interest Are not these weak pretences for them to reject their Authority upon For your part you say you could never understand this proceeding of Protestants The more a great deal is the pitty and if we could help your understanding and not endanger our own we would willingly do it Well but though Bellarmins pregnant reasons prove so abortive and though the Popes Authorities should not be taken yet his Lordship must needs wrong Bellarmin in saying That he doth upon the matter confess that there is not one Father in the Church disinteressed in the Cause who understands this Text as Bellarmin doth before Theophylact. And the reason is because though Bellarmin cite no more yet there might be more for all that for must he needs confcss there are no more Authours citable in any subject but what he cites himself As though Bellarmin were wont to leave out any authorities which made for his purpose especially in so weighty a subject as this Do you think he was so weak a person to run to Popes Authorities if he could have found any other and when he produces no more is it not a plain confession he found no more to his purpose But I am weary of such great Impertinencies and would fain meet with some thing of matter that might hold up the Readers patience as well as mine All that ever I can meet with that hath any thing of tendency that way is That this priviledge of the Indeficiency of St. Peters Faith doth not belong to him as an Apostle but rather as he was Prince of the Apostles and appointed to be Christs Vicar on earth after him Very handsomely begg'd again but where is the proof for all this Have you no Popes stand ready again to attest the truth of it For none else that have any reason would ever say it did St. Peter deny Christ as Prince of the Apostles Indeed it was then much for his honour that the Captain should fly from his colours first and Christs Vicar upon earth should the most need to have his Faith pray'd for that it should not fail I had thought St. Peter had been head of the Apostles and not Simon if Christ had spoke to him as his Vicar he would sure have call'd him Peter Peter and not Simon Simon But it seems he did not attend that Peter was the Rock on which his Church must be built or else he minded it so much that he thought that name improper when he mentions his falling You have therefore stoutly and unanswerably not proved but demonstrated that these words were spoken of St. Peter not as an Apostle but as Christs Vicar upon earth But suppose it were so what is this to those who pretend to be his Successours Yes very much For say you Whatever our Saviour intended should descend by vertue of that prayer of his did effectively so descend You might have put one of Bellarmins sine dubio's to this For Whoever was so sensless as to question that But you confess It is a very disputable question Whether every thing which Christ by his prayer intended and obtained for St. Peter was likewise intended by him to descend to St. Peters Successours Yet that some special priviledge was to descend to them is you say manifest by Bellarmins Authorities and Reasons If from nothing else I dare confidently say no man in his wits will believe it manifest And what that is neither you nor any one else can either prove or understand Yes say you it is that none of his Successours should ever so farr fall from the Faith as to teach Heresie in Pontificalibus or as you speak with Bellarmine any thing contrary to Faith tanquam Pontifex i. e. in vertue of that Authority which they were to have in the Church as St. Peters Successours Here then we fix a while to see this proved but our expectation is again frustrated For instead of proofs we meet with the old Mumpsimus of the Popes erring as private Doctor but not as Pastour of the Church A distinction so ridiculous that many among your selves deride it as will appear presently And therefore put in your tanquam Pontifex as long as you please you will gain no great matter by it When you can prove that Christ did intend in that one prayer some part of the Gift personally and absolutely to St. Peter and another part conditionally to his Successours I will grant it no absurdity to say that perhaps some part of the Gift did not belong to either of them But these are such strange fetches out of a plain Scripture that those may admire your subtilty who cannot be convinced by your reason Yet to let you see that these things are not so clear as you would have them I shall bring you some Arguments out of your own Writers against your interpretation of this place and I pray Answer them at your leasure Vigorius therefore proves that this place cannot be understood of St. Peter and his Successours that their Faith should not fail for then saith he 1. The Canons had decreed to no purpose that a Pope might be deposed in case of Heresie for those that suppose that he may fall into Heresie do doubtless suppose that his Faith fails Now here is a witness against you from your own Church and that out of your Canons too and that is better worth then twenty Testimonies of Popes for you 2. If this were understood of St. Peters Successours they who succeeded him at Antioch would enjoy this priviledge as well as those at Rome for they are saith he as well St. Peters Successours as the other And saith he if they understand this of one and not of the other totis faucibus se deridendos propinarent they expose themselves to contempt and laughter 3. If this were true of St. Peters Successours at Rome then the decrees of one Pope could not be revoked by the other because it is impossible they should erre in making those decrees But it is not Vigorius alone who hath shewed the weakness of your Arguments from this place for our learned Countryman Mr. White hath more fully and largely discovered the weakness of all your pretences from Scripture Fathers and Reason concerning the Popes succeeding St. Peter in his Infallibility And particularly as to this place he saith that either it concerns the present danger St. Peter was in or else doth represent what was to be afterwards in the Church and that it doth primarily and directly relate to St. Peters imminent tentation all the circumstances perswade us
And the oppression of the Church of Rome he further adds is the great cause of all the errours in that part of the Church which is under the Roman Jurisdiction And for the Protestants they have made no separation from the General Church properly so called but their Separation is only from the Church of Rome and such other Churches as by adhering to her have hazarded themselves and do now miscall themselves the whole Catholick Church Nay even here the Protestants have not left the Church of Rome in her essence but in her errours not in the things which constitute a Church but only in such abuses and corruptions as work towards the dissolution of a Church Let now any indifferent Reader be judge Whether his Lordship or A. C. be the more guilty in begging the Question For all the Answer you can give is That his Lordship begs it in saying that the Roman Church is not the whole Catholick Church and that the Roman Catholick Church may be in an errour but the former we have proved already and I doubt not but the latter will be as evident as the other before our task be ended But as though it were not possible for you to be guilty of begging the Question after you have said that the Roman Church cannot erre you give this as the reason for it Because she is the unshaken Rock of Truth and that she hath the sole continual succession of lawfully-sent Pastors and Teachers who have taught the same unchanged Doctrine and shall infallibly continue so teaching it to the worlds end Now Who dares call this Begging the Question No it must not be called so in you it shall be only Taking it for granted Which we have seen hath been your practice all along especially when we charge your Church with errourâ— for then you cry out presently What your Church erre No you defie the language What the Spouse of Christ the Catholick Church erre that is impossible What the unshaken Rock of Truth to sink into errours the Infallible Church be deceived she that hath never taught any thing but Truth be charged with falshood she that not only never did erre but it is impossible nay utterly impossible nay so impossible that it cannot be imagined that ever she should erre This is the summ of all your arguments which no doubt sound high to all such who know not what confident begging the Question means or out of modesty are loath to charge you with it Much to the same purpose do you go on to prove that Protestants have separated not from the errours but the essence of your Church And if that be true which you say That those things which we call Errours are essential to your Church we are the more sorry for it for we are sure and when you please will prove it that they are not cannot be essential to a true Church and if they be to yours the case is so much the worse with you when your distempers are in your vitals and your errours essential to your Churches Constitution What other things you have here are the bare repetitions of what we have often had before in the Chapters you refer us to And here we may thank you for some ease you give us in the far greatest remaining part of this Chapter which consists of tedious repetitions of such things which have been largely discussed in the First part where they were purposely and designedly handled as that concerning Traditions chap. 6. that concerning necessaries to salvation chap. 2 3 4. that concerning the Scriptures being an Infallible Rule throughout the Controversie of Resolution of Faith and that which concerns the Infallibility of General Councils we shall have occasion at large to handle afterwards and if there be any thing material here which you omit there it shall be fully considered But I know no obligation lying upon me to answer things as often as you repeat them especially since your gift is so good that way It is sufficient that I know not of any material passage which hath not received an Answer in its proper place That which is most pertinent to our present purpose is that which concerns the necessity of a Living Judge besides the Scriptures for ending Controversies of Faith As to which his Lordship saith That supposing there were such a one and the Pope were he yet that is not sufficient against the malice of the Devil and impious men to keep the Church at all times from renting even in the Doctrine of Faith or to soder the Rents which are made For oportet esse Haereses 1 Cor. 11.19 Heresies there will be and Heresies there properly cannot be but in the Doctrine of Faith To this you answer That Heresies are not within but without the Church and the Rents which stand in need of sodering are not found among the true members of the Church who continue still united in the Faith and due obedience to their Head but in those who have deserted the true Church and either made or adhered to Schismatical and Heretical Congregations A most excellent Answer His Lordship sayes If Christ had appointed an Infallible Judge besides the Scripture certainly it should have been for preventing Heresies and sodering the Rents of the Church So it is say you for if there be any Heresies it is nothing to him they are out of the Church and if there be any Schisms they are among those who are divided from him That is he is an Infallible Judge only thus far in condemning all such for Hereticks and Schismaticks who do not own him And his only way of preventing Heresies and Schisms is the making this the only tryal of them that whatever questions his Authority is Heresie and whatever separation be made from him is Schism Just as Absalom pretended that there was no Judge appointed to hear and determine causes and that the Laws were not sufficient without one and therefore he would do it himself so doth the Pope by Christ he pretends that he hath not taken care sufficient for deciding Controversies in Faith therefore there is a necessity in order to the Churches Vnity he should take it upon himself But now if we suppose in the former case of Absalom that he had pretended he could infallibly end all the Controversies in Israel and keep all in peace and unity and yet abundance of Controversies to arise among them by what right and power he took that office upon him and many of them cry out upon it as an Vsurpation and a disparagement to the Laws and Government of his Father David and upon this some of the wiser Israelites should have asked him Whether this were the way to end all Controversies and keep the Nation in peace Would it not have been a satisfactory Answer for him to have said Yes no doubt it is the only way For only they that acknowledge my power are the Kings lawful subjects and all
this way If you say that experience shews Christ never intended this by the errours of particular men in all ages To the same purpose we answer you as to Councils that large experience shews that when Bishops have solemnly met in Council they have been grosly deceived as you confess in all the Arrian Councils If your argument would have ever held from the power and goodness of Christ Would it not have held at that time when so great a matter of Faith was under debate If Christ therefore suffered so many Bishops so grosly to erre in a matter of such importance wherein the Church was so highly concerned How can you inferr from his power and goodness that he will never suffer General Councils to erre If you answer That these erred for not observing the conditions requisite in order to Christs hearing them viz. that they were not met in the name of Christ did not come without prejudice nor rely on Divine Assistance I pray take the same Answer as to all other Councils that we cannot know that Christ hears them or that they are Infallible till we are assured of their performance of the conditions requisite in order to that Infallibility And when you can assure us that such a Council met together in the name of Christ and came meerly with a desire to find out truth and relyed wholly on his assistance for it we do not so much distrust the power and goodness of Christ as to think he will suffer them to be deceived For we know upon those conditions he will not suffer any good man to erre much less an Assembly of them met in a General Council But here you have the hardest task of all lying upon you which is to prove that a General Council hath observed all these conditions without which nothing can be inferred from this place as to Christs being in any sense in the midst of them The last place mentioned for the Infallibility of General Councils is that Act. 15.28 Where the Apostles say of themselves and the Council held by them It seems good to the Holy Ghost and to us And saith his Lordship they might well say it For they had infallibly the assistance of the Holy Ghost and kept close to his direction But there is a great deal of difference between them and succeeding Councils who never arrogated this to their definitions though they presumed of the assistance of the Holy Ghost and though that form might be used yet they did not assume such an Infallibility to themselves as the Apostles had And therefore it is little less than blasphemy in Stapleton to say That the Decrees of Councils are the very Oracles of the Holy Ghost And that all Councils are not so Infallible as was this of the Apostles nor the causes handled in them as there they were is manifest by the ingenuous confession of Ferus to that purpose This is the substance of his Lordships Answer to this place Which you think to take off by saying That there 's no essential difference between the certainty of the things determined by the Apostles and those decided by a General Council confirmed by the Roman Bishop and though after-Councils use not the same expression in terms yet they do it in effect by enjoyning the belief of their decisions under the pain of Anathema If this be the meaning of the Anathema's of Councils there had need indeed be no great difference between the Apostles Decrees and theirs But this had need be very well proved and so it is by you for you produce several expressions of Cyril Athanasius Austin Leo Gregory and some others out of Bellarmin in which they magnifie the Decrees of General Councils calling them a Divine Oracle a Sentence inspired by the Holy Ghost not to be retracted and some others to the same purpose by which you vindicate Stapleton and tell us he said no more than the Fathers had done before him Yet all this is far from any vindication of Stapleton or proving your assertion as to the equal certainty of the Decrees of Councils and of the Apostles For the ground of all those expressions and several others of the same nature was not the supposition of any inherent Infallibility in the Decrees of General Councils but their great assurance of the truth of that Doctrine which was determined by those first General Councils For although I am far enough from believing the Council of Trent Infallible yet if that had determined the same points of Faith which were determined in the first four General Councils and nothing else I might have said That the Decree of that Council was a Holy and Divine Oracle a Sentence inspired by the Holy Ghost c. not that I thought the Council in the least Infallible in determining these things but that they were of themselves Divine Truths which the Council determined And in this sense Athanasius might well term the definition of the Nicene-Council against Arius the word of our Lord which endureth for ever and Constantine stile it a coelestial mandate and Gregory might reverence the four first Councils as the four Gospels though Bellarmin tells you that expression must be taken in a qualified sense yet all these and any other of a like nature I say import no more than that they were fully assured the matters decreed by them were revealed by God in his Word and not that they believed that they became such holy and divine Oracles meerly by the Councils definition For the contrary might be abundantly manifested by many expressions in them quite to another purpose and if instead of all the rest you will but read Athanasius and Hilary concerning Councils you will find your self strangely deceived if you believed they ever thought them Infallible What you add afterwards that it is sufficient that there be a real Infallibility though not like to that of the Apostles will not be sufficient for me till you can shew me the degrees of Infallibility for I will promise you if you can once prove that Councils are really Infallible I shall not stick to say That they are alike Infallible with the Apostles As for your discarding Ferus as a prohibited Authour it only shews the great integrity of the man who spoke too much truth to be born by the tender ears of the Roman Inquisition Before I had proceeded any further I had thought because of a former promise to have looked back to the place where you speak in vindication of the decretal Epistles but because you only referr to Turrianus his defence of them I shall only return you an equal courtesie and referr you to the abundantly sufficient Answer to him by David Blondel One would have thought you should have been ashamed of so notorious an imposture as those decretal Epistles are but we see what shifts a bad cause puts you upon that such men as Ferus Cassander Erasmus are under an Index Expurgatorius but the
Church all the rest moulders as not being able to stand without them But that is still your way if any thing be said of the Catholick Church we must presently understand it of yours so that it cannot be said in any sense that the Church is without spot or wrinkle but by you it must be understood presently of the Doctrine of the Roman Catholick Church universally received as a matter of Faith but till you prove not only your two former assertions but that St. Austin understood those words ever in that sense your vindication of that place in him concerning it will appear utterly impertinent to your purpose And his Lordships assertion may still stand good That the Church on earth is not any freer from wrinkles in Doctrine and Discipline then she is from spots in life and Conversation Having thus vindicated his Lordships way from the objections you raised against it we must now consider how well you vindicate your own from the unreasonableness he charges it with in several particulars 1. That if we suppose a General Council Infallible and it prove not so but that an errour in Faith be concluded the same erring opinion which makes it think it self Infallible makes the errour of it irrevocable and so leaves the Church without remedy To this you Answer Grant false antecedents and false premises enow and what absurdities will not be consequent and fill up the conclusion But you clearly mistake the present business which is not Whether Councils be Infallible or no but Whether opinion be lyable to greater Inconveniencies that which asserts that they may or that they cannot err Will you have your supposition of the Infallibility of Councils taken for a first principle or a thing as true as the Scriptures So you would seem indeed by the supposing the Scriptures not to be Gods Word which you subjoyn as the parallel to the supposing General Councils fallible But will you say the one is as evident and built on as good reason and as much agreed on among Christians as the other is I suppose you will not and therefore it was very absurd unreasonable to say Supposing the Word of God were not so errours would be irrevocable as if General Councils were supposed Infallible and proved not so But this is a Question you grant to be disputable among Christians and will you not give us leave to make a supposition that it may prove not so You must consider we are now enquiring into the conveniencies of these two opinions and in that case it is necessary to make such suppositions And let any reasonable man judge what opinion can be more pernicious to the Church then yours is supposing it not to be true for then it will be necessary for men to assent to the grossest errours as the most Divine and Infallible truths and there can be no remedy imagin'd for the redress of them If then the Inconvenience of admitting it be so great men had need look well to the grounds on which it is built And I cannot see any reason men can have to admit any Infallible proponent in matters of Faith to the Church but on as great and as clear evidence as the Prophets and Apostles had that they were sent from God For the danger may be as great to believe that to be Infallible which is not as not to believe that to be Infallible which is for the believing an errour to be a Divine truth may be as dangerous to the souls of men as the not believing something which is really revealed by God But to be sure those who see no reason to believe a General Council to be Infallible cannot be obliged to assent to errours propounded by it but such who believe it Infallible must what ever the errours be swallow them down without questioning the truth of them And it argues how conscious you are of the falseness of your principles that you are so loath to have them examined or so much as a supposition made that they should not prove true Whereas truth alwayes invites men to the most accurate search into it We see the Apostles bid men search whether the things they spake were true or no and those are most commended who did it most and I hope men were as much bound to believe them Infallible as General Councils But we see how unreasonable you are you would obtrude such things upon mens Faith which must lead them into unavoidable errours if false and yet not allow men the liberty of examination whether they be true or no. But such proceedings are so far from advancing your cause that nothing can more prejudice it among rational and inquisitive men His Lordship for the clearing this proceeds to an Instance of an errour defined by one of your General Councils viz. Communion in one kind but that we shall reserve the discussion of to the ensuing Chapter which is purposely allotted for the discovery of those errours which have been defined by such as you call General Councils Therefore I proceed 2. His Lordship saith Your opinion is yet more unreasonable because no Body-collective whensoever it assembled it self did ever give more power to the representing body of it then a binding power upon it self and all particulars nor ever did it give this power otherwise then with this reservation in nature that it would call again and reform and if need were abrogate any Law or ordinance upon just cause made evident that the representing Body had failed in trust or truth And this power no Body-collective ecclesiastical or civil can put out of it self or give away to a Parliament or Council or call it what you will that represents it To this again you Answer This is only to suppose and take for granted that a General Council hath no Authority but what is meerly delegate from the Church Vniversal which it represents I grant this is supposed in it and this is all which the nature of a representative body doth imply if you say there is more then that you are bound to prove it Yes say you We maintain its Authority to be of Divine Institution and when lawfully assembled to act by Divine right and not meerly by deputation and consent of the Church But if all the proof you have for it be only that which you refer us to in the precedent Chapter the palpable weakness of it for any such purpose hath been there fully laid open His Lordship saith That the power which a Council hath to order settle and define differences arising concerning Faith it hath not by any Immediate Institution from Christ but it was prudently taken up by the Church from the Apostles example So that to hold Councils to this end is apparent Apostolical Tradition written but the power which Councils have is from the whole Catholick Church whose members they are and the Churches power from God You say True it is the calling such
the Pope and others in the Pope and not in the Council and neither of them absolutely and formally in the Pope and Council together 2. I shall therefore more fully shew That those who make the Popes Confirmation necessary do really place the Infallibility in the Pope and not in the Council and that from these things 1. Because they in terms assert That though nothing be wanting to a Council but the Popes Confirmation it may erre if the Pope confirm it not And this we produced Bellarmins assertion for already giving that as the only reason why those Councils did erre which wanted nothing but that Nay he elsewhere asserts Not only that General Councils may erre though the Pope confirm them not but although the Popes Legats be present and consent with the Council yet if they do not follow the certain instruction of the Pope the Council may erre And Can any one then possibly conceive that the Infallibility lyes any where but in the Pope 2. You assert That all the Power and Infallibility which is in the Church is formally in the Pope and only finally in the Church because it is for the good of the Church this I suppose you have not forgot since you told us that S. Peter sustained the person of the Church historicè and not parabolicè and that the fulness of all Ecclesiastical Power was in him as Head of the Church If this be true as there you assert it confidently whatever you pretend here you are bound to defend that all the Infallibility in the Council comes wholly from the Pope for I know you will not place Infallibility in one and the fulness of Ecclesiastical Power in another 3. Because the main ground of the reprobating Councils lyes in the Popes dissent So that Councils which in all other particulars are accounted lawful and general yet if any thing passed displeasing in them to the Pope so far they are reprobated as the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon Constance and Basil in reference to the Popes do sufficiently testifie For although they were the same persons acting with equal freedom in those as in other things yet when they came to touch any thing of the Popes Interess then because the Pope doth not consent so far they were not Infallible By which it is plain that though the Council stands for a shew and blind to the world all the Infallibility lyes wholly in the Pope And by this means to be sure the Pope shall never receive any hurt by General Councils for if he pleases the Council shall either be approved or rejected or partly approved and partly rejected or neither approved nor rejected for of all these sorts Bellarmin tells us Councils are which in short is The Councils which make for the Popes turn are Infallible but none other And therefore Bellarmin very consonantly to his principles sayes expresly Totam firmitatem Conciliorum legitimorum esse à Pontifice non partim à Pontifice partim à Concilio The whole strength of lawful Councils depends wholly on the Pope and not partly on the Pope and partly on the Council And if their firmness doth their Infallibility must do so too This is not a meer private opinion of his but that which doth necessarily follow from the making the Popes Confirmation necessary to the Infallibility of General Councils Although therefore you would fain put off this as a matter of dispute among your selves yet it can be no matter of dispute any more than Whether the Decrees of Councils as confirmed by the Pope be Infallible or no And therefore all that his Lordship objects falls upon all such who assert this Whereof the first which you mention is That then the Council is called but only in effect to hear the Pope give his Sentence in more state To which you answer That the Objection hath the same force against the Council called in the Apostles time viz. that it was done only to hear S. Peter pronounce his Sentence in more state Neither had it been any more if the Infallibility of the Council had only depended on S. Peter's Sentence but I hope you will not deny the rest of the Apostles to have been as Infallible as S. Peter was But you answer 2. That the Pope being to use all means morally requisite to find out the truth the Council is called really to help and assist the Pope and the advice of the Council is a necessary Medium to his Holiness whereby to make a full inspection into the matters he is to define But all this only confirms what his Lordship saith That it is for his giving Sentence in more state for the Council is only a subservient means and contributes nothing at all to the Infallibility of the Sentence But you say They are a necessary Medium 1. Then the Pope cannot define any matter of Faith without a General Council Which all who assert that Opinion utterly deny for they say The Pope may define matters of Faith without a General Council and Bellarmin saith That the state of the Church without General Councils which was for three hundred years might have continued so to the worlds end and therefore it was necessary there should be a living Judge whose Infallibility should not depend upon any Council And elsewhere he sayes That if seven Heresies have been condemned by seven General Councils more than a hundred have been condemned without by the Pope and Provincial Councils 2. Though the Pope must use all moral means yet Why must a General Council be that necessary Medium Why may not a Provincial or lesser Council serve turn And so Bellarmin tells you it would he saith indeed some kind of Council is necessary magnum aut parvum unum vel plura prouâ—t ipse judicaverit great or little more or less as the Pope shall judge fitting so that still a General Council is but a piece of state for all moral means might be used without one 3. What use are these moral means for to enable him to pass a right judgement or no If they be then the Pope is bound to pronounce according to the Decree of the Council and so it will not be in his power not to confirm it if not What do these moral means signifie No more then the Crucifix Pope Innocent shewed to Monsieur de Saint-Amour Before which he told him he kneeled down to take at the feet thereof his resolution according to the inspiration given to him by the Holy Spirt whose assistance was promised to him and could not fail him We see the Pope understood his Infallibility better than to make use of such moral means as Councils are he knew his Infallibility came not that way and therefore he took the more likely course to receive his Inspiration from Heaven by taking his resolution at the feet of a Crucifix And this he called his Council in matters of Faith And yet if we
which supposing it never so great is not shewed to the Councils but to your Church For the reason of that Reverence cannot be resolved into the Councils but into that Church for whose sake you reverence them And thus it evidently appears That the cunning of this device is wholly your own and notwithstanding these miserable shifts you do finally resolve all Authorities of the Fathers Councils and Scriptures into the Authority of the present Roman-Church which was the thing to be proved The first Absurdity consequent from hence which the Arch-Bishop chargeth your party with is That by this means they ascribe as great Authority if not greater to a part of the Catholick Church as to the whole which we believe in our Creed and which is the Societie of all Christians And this is full of Absurdity in nature in reason in all things that any part should be of equal worth power credit or authority with the whole Here you deny the Consequence which you say depends upon his Lordships wilfully mistaken Notion of the Catholick Church which he saith Is the Church we believe in our Creed and is the Society of all Christians which you call a most desperate extension of the Church because thereby forsooth it will appear that a part is not so great as the whole viz. that the Roman-Church in her full latitude is but a piece or parcel of the Catholick Church believed in our Creed Is this all the desperate Absurdity which follows from his Lordships Answer I pray shew it to have any thing tending to an Absurdity in it And though you confidently tell us That the Roman-Church taken as comprizing all Christians that are in her Communion is the sole and whole Catholick Church yet I will contentedly put the whole issue of the cause upon the proof of this one Proposition that the Roman-Church in its largest sense is the sole and whole Catholick Church or that the present Roman-Church is a sound member of the Catholick Church Your evidence from Ecclesiastical History is such as I fear not to follow you in but I beseech you have a care of treading too near the Apostles heels That any were accounted Catholicks meerly for their Communion with the Roman-Church or that any were condemned for Heresie or Schism purely for their dissent from it prove it when you please I shall be ready God willing to attend your Motions But it is alwaies your faculty when a thing needs proving most to tell us what you could have done This you say You would have proved at large if his Lordship had any more than supposed the contrary But your Readers will think that his Supposition being grounded on such a Maxim of Reason as that mentioned by him it had been your present business to have proved it but I commend your prudence in adjourning it and I suppose you will do it as the Court of Areopagus used to do hard causes in diem longissimum It is apparent the Bishop speaks not of a part of the Church by representation of the whole which is an objection no body but your self would here have fancied and therefore your Instance of a Parliament is nothing to the purpose unless you will suppose that Councils in the Church do represent in such a manner as Parliaments in England do and that their decision is obligatory in the same way as Acts of Parliament are if you believe this to be good Doctrine I will be content to take the Objecters place and make the Application The next Absurdity laid to your charge is as you summe it up That in your Doctrine concerning the Infallibility of your Church your proceeding is most unreasonable in regard you will not have recourse to Texts of Scripture exposition of Fathers propriety of Language Conference of Places Antecedents and Consequents c. but argue that the Doctrine of the present Church of Rome is true and Catholick because she professeth it to be such which saith he is to prove idem per idem To this you answer That as to all those helps you use them with much more candour than Protestants do And why so Because of their manifold wrestings of Scriptures and Fathers Let the handling the Controversies of this Book be the evidence between us in this case and any indifferent Reader be the Judge You tell us You use all these helps but to what purpose do you use them Do you by them prove the Infallibility of your Church If not the same Absurdity lyes at your door still of proving idem per idem No that you do not you say But how doth it appear Thanks to these mute persons the good Motives of Credibility which come in again at a dead lift but do no more service than before I pray cure the wounds they have received already before you rally them again or else I assure you what strength they have left they will employ it against your selves You suppose no doubt your Coleworts good you give them us so often over but I neither like proving nor eating idem per idem But yet we have two Auxiliaries more in the field call'd Instances The design of your first Instance is to shew That if your Church be guilty of proving idem per idem the Apostolical Church was so too For you tell us That a Sectary might in the Apostles times have argued against the Apostolical Church by the very same method his Lordship here uses against the present Catholick Church For if you ask the Christians then Why they believe the whole Doctrine of the Apostles to be the sole true Catholick Faith their Answer is Because it is agreeable to the Doctrine of Christ. If you ask them How they know it to be so they will produce the words sentences and works of Christ who taught it But if you ask a third time By what means they are assured that those Testimonies do indeed make for them or their cause or are really the Testimonies and Doctrine of Christ they will not then have recourse to those Testimonies or Doctrine but their Answer is They know it to be so because the present Apostolick Church doth witness it And so by consequence prove idem per idem Thus the Sectary I know not whether your faculty be better at framing Questions or Answers to them I am sure it is extraordinary at both Is it not enough to be in a Circle your selves but you must needs bring the Apostles into it too at least if you may have the management of their Doctrine you would do it The short Answer to all this is That the ground why the Christians did assent to the Apostles Doctrine as true was because God gave sufficient evidence that their Testimony was infallible in such things where such Infallibility was requisite For you had told us before That the Apostles did confirm their words with signs that followed by which signs all their hearers were bound to submit themselves unto
them and to acknowledge their words for infallible Oracles of Truth Was not here then sufficient ground for assent in the Primitive Christians to the Apostles Doctrine Not as you weakly imagine because the Doctrine of the Apostles was suitable to the Doctrine of Christ for the ground why they assented to the Doctrine of Christ was because of the Testimony of the Apostles And therefore to say They believed the Doctrine of the Apostles because it was agreeable to the Doctrine of Christ and then that they believed the Doctrine of Christ because it was suitable to the Testimony of the Apostles is a Circle fit for none but your self and that silly person of your own moulding whom you call the Sectary It were worth considering too How the works of Christ could prove the Doctrine of the Apostles suitable to his own I had thought Christs works had proved his own Testimony to be true and not the Apostles Doctrine to be consonant to his The works of Christ shew us the reason why he was to be believed in what he delivered and did not the works of the Apostles do so too What need then any rational person enquire further why the Apostles Doctrine was to be believed Was it not on the same account that the Doctrine of Christ was to be believed But say you How should you know their Doctrine was the same What do you want an infallible Testimony for this too or do you believe that God can contradict himself or that Christ should send such to deliver his Doctrine to the world and attest it with miracles who should falsifie and corrupt it Now you will say I am come over to you and answer as you do that the Apostles Testimony was to be believed because of the pregnant and convincing Motives of Credibility This I grant but must be excused as to what follows That these same Motives moved the Primitive Christians and us in our respective times to believe the Church Prove but that and I yield the cause But till then I pray give us leave to believe that still you prove idem per idem and your Answers are like your Proofs for this we have had often already and have sufficiently examined before as likewise your other Coccysm about the Formal Object of Faith and certain inducements to accept the Churches Infallibility which I shall not think worth repeating till you think what I have said against it before worth answering Your second Instance is ad hominem whereby you would prove That if he acknowledge the Church infallible in Fundamentals he must prove idem per idem as much as you do For say you if he be demanded a reason why he believes such Points as he calls Fundamental his Answer is because they are agreeable to the Doctrine of Christ. If he be asked How he knows them to be so he will no doubt produce the words sentences and works of Christ who taught the said Fundamental Points But if he be asked a third time By what means he is assured that these Testimonies do make for him then he will not have recourse to the words themselves i. e. to the Bible but his final Answer will be He knows them to be so and that they do make for him because the present Church doth infallibly witness so much from Tradition and according to Tradition which is say you to prove idem per idem as much as we Things are not alwaies just as you would have them If we allow you to make both Objections and Answers for us no doubt you are guilty of no Absurdity so great but we shall be equally guilty of it But it is the nature both of your Religion and Arguments not to be able to stand a Tryal but however they must undergo it I say then that granting the Church infallible in the belief of Fundamentals it doth not follow that we must prove idem per idem as you do For when we ask you Why you believe your Doctrine to be the sole Catholick Faith your final Answer is because your Church is infallible which is answering by the very thing in Question for you have no other way to judge of the Catholick Faith but by the Infallibility of your Church but when you ask us Why we believe such an Article to be Fundamental as for Instance That Christ will give Eternal Life to them that obey him we answer not because the Church which is infallible in Fundamentals delivers it to be so which were answering idem per idem but we appeal to that common reason which is in mankind Whether if the Doctrine of Christ be true this can be other than a Fundamental Article of it it being that without which the whole design of Christian Religion comes to nothing Therefore you much mistake when you think we resolve our Faith of Fundamentals into the Church as the infallible Witness of them for though the Church may be infallible in the belief of all things Fundamental for otherwise it were not a Church if it did not believe them it doth not thence necessarily follow That the Church must infallibly witness what is Fundamental and what not It is sufficient that the Church doth deliver from the consent of universal Tradition that infallible Rule of Faith which to be sure contains all things Fundamental in it though she never meddle with the deciding what Points are Fundamental and what not If you therefore ask me Why I believe any Point supposed Fundamental I answer By all the evidence which assures me that the Doctrine containing that Point is of Divine Revelation If you aske me How I know that this Point is part of that Doctrine I appeal to the common sense and reason of the world as to things plainly Fundamental and therefore by this means your third Question is prevented How I know this to be the meaning of those words for I suppose no one that can tell that two and two make four can question but if the Doctrine of Christ be true the belief of it is necessary to Salvation which is it we mean by Fundamental Either therefore prove it necessary that the Church must infallibly witness what is Fundamental and what not and that we must rely on such a Testimony in the belief of Fundamentals or you prove nothing at all to your purpose no more than your convincing Motives of Credibility which were they made into a grand Sallad would know the way to the Table they are served so often up But I have found them so dry and insipid already I have no encouragement to venture on them any more But still you are deservedly afraid we should not think worthily enough of your Churches Infallibility You therefore tell us very wisely that this Infallibility is not a thing that is not infallible For say you Which Infallibility must come from the Holy Ghost and be more than humane or moral and therefore must be truly supernatural c. It