be so his Lordship was not content to affirme and so is himselfe farre enough from giving you example of begging the question but proves it by this argument because with you nothing is not fallible but the Church This may be dissolved into an hypotheticall syllogisme whereof you must deny one proposition or else the conclusion is forfeited If with you the Church be the only infallible then with you any other reasons by which you prove the infallibility of the Church are not infallible but with you the Church is the only infallible therefore with you any other reasons by which you prove the infallibility of the Church are not infallible Now if you look over your answer againe you shall find that your only exception commeth not home to any part of this syllogisme for you doe not so much as say that any thing is infallible but the Church Or if now you will see your want and make additions to your answer then say distinctly is any other thing beside the Church infallible or no If it be let it be named if it be not the conclusion is granted us And till this addition be thus made i. e. for this present answer of yours 't is I conceive manifest that you have said no syllable to the prime part of his Lordship's first Section Section 6 As for your instances of Phylosophy and Law suites they can prove nothing against his Lordship unlesse you can name some sect of Phylosophy that hath not only truth but infallibility and tell us which it is and prove that by arguments which are confest to be infallible till you have done that your instance is not pertinent and if ever you shall doe it 't will not be concluding against us unlesse you produce the like arguments for the infallibility of your Church against us which must be some other then are yet proposed Section 7 As for Lawsuits that they are determined to one side by the Judge doth not prove that that Judge is infallible which is the only matter of debate and if the contenders are bound to stand to his award it is because the Law and supreme Magistrate have commanded them to doe so and because this is evident and infallible that they have done so by the commission which the Judge hath from them And when the like is produced for your Church I hope all your Subjects will submit to it but then it must be moreover proved that all Christians are such Subjects or else we hope we shall not be involved under that obligation Section 8 As for your long deduction from whence you conclude that either wee are deceived or you and that it is not necessary that both should we grant it and professe our opinions that though both you and we are fallible yet only you are or can be deceived in this particular which we conceive is cleare because only you pretend Infallibility which we not pretending but affirming that we are not so cannot in this be deceived unlesse we be infallible but see not what it concludes against his Lordship whose argument depends not on any such assertion that both parties are deceived but only that your pretended Infallibility is by you proved by no other arguments then those which you confesse are fallible Section 9 What you adde by way of triumph and scoffe I must not answer but by yeilding you free leave thus to please your selfe and if this recreation tend at all to your health to advise you to do so still and whensoever it may be for your divertisement to reckon up the names of London Great Tue and the two Vniversities Section 10 After the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sang you at length bethinke your selfe that his Lordship had affirmed that Scripture Reason and Fathers are by you maintained to be all fallible and to this you answer by a distinction of universally speaking and in some cases onely and acknowledge that you affirme them all to be fallible onely in some cases Now first you ought to have given answer to his Lordship's proofe for what he said which was this that you affirme that onely the Church is infallible from whence it is a conclusion that therefore Reason and Scripture and Fathers are by you affirmed to be fallible whereas you letting the premises alone apply answer to the conclusion which is as much against Logicke as to deny it without denying the premises or shewing the falsenesse of them But then Secondly that which is fallible in some cases onely is by that acknowledged to be fallible and by that is proved unsufficient to prove another thing to be infallible in all things for if it be fallible in any case it may be fallible in this that it pronounces that other to be infallible and till there be some infallible argument produced that it is infallible in that particular pronouncing its Infallibility in other things will availe nothing or if it doe it may availe also for us to prove what we offer to prove from it that your Church hath erred Section 11 There is no possible avoiding of this but by saying and proveing it infallible in inducing your conclusion and false aswell as fallible in inducing ours for if it be true though it be fallible it will serve our turne but it must be both or will not serve yours you being obliged to prove the Infallibility of your Church by something which is it selfe infallible because it must be matter of faith with you which nothing is but what is infallibly induced but it is sufficient for us to beleive you and your Church fallible though we should make it no matter of faith that you are so which because you endeavour not to doe in this place it will be impertinent to examine the truth of what else you adde concerning the cases wherein you affirme Reason and Scripture and Fathers to be infallible any farther then thus that by your owne explication of the distinction and enumeration of cases I shall conclude that Reason doth not prove infallibly that your Church is infallible because the Infallibility of your Church is not an evident verity Scripture doth not prove it so because it is not certainly expounded to that probation Fathers doe not prove it so because it was not a doctrine held in their time and affirmed by them to be so Each of which negations of mine though they were as sufficient proofe as what you have offered to the contrary yet I shall undertake to make good against you if you shall thinke fit to call me to it by setting downe your reasons to the contrary Section 12 And so if on your supposition his Lordship 's three maine props were fallen to the ground which is another boast that had no more relation to the present matter then ground in truth and therefore I beseech you leave out such excesses hereafter yet your supposition being not so much as endeavoured to be proved the props stand as firmly as is desired To the
be infallible and moreover affirme that if it be it cannot be infallibly knowne to be so how can you thinke that we shall ever yeild without any offer of proofe that there is sufficient instruction to be had for any man in this point besides for you to say that every Man 's not acknowledging this proceeds either from Weaknesse or Passion what is that but uncharitablenesse first and then shortnesse of discourse when the case was on supposition that there was no fault of which his search was guilty and Petitio principii againe To the 32. Section Chap. 20. Whosoever admits of truth upon no better grounds than others doe admit of falshood doth not receive it rightly solidly and as he ought but after a way defective and infirme Againe whosoever searches and is loath to finde and would not see it when he might this Man refuseth truth as badly and weakly as the other doth receive it and as the truth will not benefit the one so the enquiry will not advantage or excuse the other As for such as are bred up in a true Religion and which without particular examination they accept it were rash judgement to say all these received truths upon no better grounds then others did falshood for first according to this account the greatest portion of Christian men on all sides would be in a hard condition amongst whom the simple and illiterate who are not able to read Evagrius either in Greeke or Latine nor yet the Bible either in Hebrew or Greeke or otherwise to make any strict search into antiquity for their making discoveries which faith was the Antient and Apostolique But though they be unable to doe this yet doe they not therefore take up their Religion at randome and by chance or consult passion about it and not reason but contrariwise doe finde their reason satisfied each one according to their severall models or measure of capacity by the present view of the majesty and divine perfections of the Catholique Church and faith therein professed together with the assurances from publique fame and creditable relations By meanes of which the divine providence and veracity shewes them infallibly what wayes they are to take and what doctrines to receive as revealed from above And thus regularly speaking amongst orthodox Believers where Religion may appeare like it selfe every Man of capacity though illiterate may see sufficient to resolve him which satisfaction from any false Religion he could not receive for though to a heedlesse eye and before a diligent exquiry made some grand falshoods may seeme more probable than truths and that as Aristotle teacheth multa falsa sunt probabiliora veris many falshoods are more probable than truths yet not to a diligent Enquirer after the search is made and especially in businesses of great concernment because God and nature have laid these kinde of truths more open to our view and set markes upon them by which they might be knowne and discerned from falshood Wherefore in the law of nature it was more credible even to the illiterate that there was a God then that there was none and now Judaisme is not so probable as Christianity is though sometimes it hath been nor Mahumetisme at any time so perswasible as Christian Religion or Heresy so credible and satisfactory as orthodoxall Christianity or the Greeke schisme as the Greeke unity wherefore though the Parents beliefe and the Religion prevalent in the Countrey have great influence into the minds of Man and are great and powerfull Perswaders yea oftentimes Seducers also and those very dangerous yet neverthelesse in those places where truth is taught they doe not hinder Men from the right apprehension of it and from making true judgements about it but rather like a prosperous gale of winde to Vessels under sayle cause them to move towards the Port desired more swiftly than otherwise they would And thus much may suffice for taking off the slander and scandall which this Enquirer and after him Chillingworth with great acerbity have almost in the very same tearmes labour'd to cast upon right believing Christians therewith to disparage their faith as if forsooth they beleived truths invalidly and upon no better reasons then others beleive falshood Thus have both these conspired against the truth for both indeed are but one Author in effect one the Text and the other the Commentary wherefore the Publisher of this small worke hath shewed us all the well head to which Chillingworth went to draw which Well before was unknowne to the most part of Men and so might have still remained had it not been for this Publishers unseasonable diligence Chap. 20. Answ to Ch. 20. Section 1 Your mistake is very remarkable in this Paragraph and your paines very prodigally mispent in disproving of that which is by his Lordship mentioned onely on supposition of somewhat else affirmed by you and by that meanes demonstrated to be infirme Section 2 His Lordship's present reasoning is that supposing your infallibility true yet he that denies it and withall uses his best reason to seeke if it be true will sure be in as safe a condition as he that believes it and searches not And this he proves because the one believes that supposed falshood on as good grounds as the other doth that supposed truth Which is so fully concluded from those premises and so needs no farther proofe that indeed these premises are able to conclude more viz that in that case that Man believes that supposed falshood on better grounds viz upon impartiall search then the other believes that supposed truth and then 't were unreasonable to thinke that God that rewards mens actions and not their fates their choices and not their starres should condemne the one more ingenuous and guiltlesse and reward the other meaner and more criminall part of the parallel Section 3 All this you in a manner confirme by saying that he that thus admits of truth admits it not solidly rightly and as he ought but after a defective and infirme way Which being borrowed from you out of this Chapter the rest will appeare to belong very nothing to his Lordship's argument and therefore I choose not to insist on any reply to it For of those which doe finde their reason satisfied in your infallibillity of which you speake a while his Lordship speakes not and for the truths that God and nature have laid so open to our view of which you speake againe sure this of infallibillity is none Section 4 As for your displeasure expressed againe without any new occasion against the unseasonable Publisher which if you and some others of your Friends were meere Students and Votaries to pray for and study the peace of Hierusalem and not too active Infusers and Enterprizers in these troubled waters might indeed be acknowledged lesse seasonable it is the very thing you said before and then was sufficiently proved to be unseasonable To the 33 34. Sections Chap. 21. That the Enquirer did not
emptynesse of these Papers and more then so to render a reason of it viz the fate which they were under by a necessity of attending this Apologist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which yeilded them occasion of little variety unlesse they would extravagate Yet could he not resist the Reasons which charged it on him as a duty thus confidently to importune the Reader with the view of the whole matter as farre as it hath past between them setting downe that Answer to and this Vindication of his Lordships Arguments by Chapters and then not doe him the least injustice adding in the end of all the Answerers marginall Replyes and that concluding Sheet that even now was mentioned with a Rejoynder to that also By all this endeavouring to lay grounds for all men to judge how little truth there is in that so Epidemicall perswasion that there is no middle betwixt asserting an Infallible Judge and the falling headlong into all the Schismes and Haeresies of this present age My Conscience assuring me that the grounds on which the establish'd Church of England is founded are of so rare an excellent mixture that as none but intelligent truely Christian minds can sufficiently value the composition so there is no other in Europe so likely to preserve Peace and Unity if what prudent Lawes had so long agoe designed they now were able to uphold For want of which and which onely it is that at present the whole Fabricke lyes polluted in confusion and in blood and hopes not for any binding up of wounds for restauration of any thing that lookes like Christian till the faith of the reformed English have the happinesse to be weighed prudently and the military Sword being timely sheathed the Power and Lawes of Peace be returned into those hands which are ordained by GOD the Defenders of it H. H. Of the INFALLIBILITY of the CHURCH of ROME A Discourse written by the Lord Viscount FALKLAND Section 1 TO him that doubts whether the Church of Rome have any errors they answer that She hath none for She never can have any This being so much harder to believe than the first had need be proved by some certaine arguments if they expect that the belief of this one should draw on whatsoever else they please to propose Yet this is offered to be proved by no better wayes than those by which we offer to prove she hath erred Which are arguments from Scripture Reason and Antient Writers all which they say themselves are fallible for nothing is not so but the Church which if it be the onely infallible determination and that can never be believed upon its owne authority we can never infallibly know that the Church is infallible for these other waies of proof they say may deceive both them and us and so neither side is bound to believe them Section 2 If they say that an argument out of Scripture is sufficient ground of Divine faith why are they so offended with the Protestants for believing every part of their Religion upon that ground upon which they build all theirs at once and if following the same Rule with equall desire of finding the truth by it having neither of those qualities which Isidorus Pelusiota sayes are the causes of all Heresies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pride and prejudication why should God be more offended with the one than the other though they chance to erre Section 3 They say the Church is therefore made infallible by God that all men may have some certain Guide yet though it be infallible unlesse it both plainly appeare to be so for it is not certaine to whom it doth not appeare certaine and unlesse it be manifest which is the Church God hath not attained his end and it were to set a Ladder to Heaven and seem to have a great care of my going up whereas unlesse there be care taken that I may know this Ladder is here to that purpose it were as good for me it had never been set Section 4 If they say we may know it for that generall and constant Tradition instructs us in it I answer that ignorant people cannot know this and so it can be no Rule for them and if learned people mistake in this there can be no condemnation for them For suppose to know whether the Church of Rome may erre as a way which will conclude against her but not for her for if She hath erred certainly She may but though She hath not erred hitherto it followes not that She cannot erre I seeke whether She have erred and conceiving She hath contradicted her selfe conclude necessarily She hath erred I suppose it not damnable though I erre in my judgement because I trie the Church by one of those touch-stones her self appoints me which is Conformity with the Antient. For to say I am to believe the present Church that it differs not from the former though it seem to me to doe so is to send me to a Witnesse and bid me not believe it Section 5 Now to say the Church is provided for a Guide of faith but must be known by such marks as the ignorant cannot seek it by and the learned may chance not to find it by though seeking it with all diligence and without all prejudice can no way satisfie me Section 6 If they say God will reveal the truth to whosoever seeks it in these wayes sincerely this saying both sides will without meanes of being confuted make use of therefore it would be as good that neither did Section 7 When they have proved the Church to be infallible yet to my understanding they have proceeded nothing farther unlesse we can be sure which is it for it signifies onely that God will alwaies have a Church which shall not erre but not that such or such a Succession shall be alwaies in the right not that the Bishop of such a place and the Clergy that adheres to him shall alwaies continue in the true faith So that if they say the Greek Church is not the Church because by its owne confession it is not infallible I answer that it may be now the Church and may hereafter erre and so not be now infallible and yet the Church never erre because before their fall from truth others may arise to maintain it who then will be the Church and so the Church may still be infallible though not in respect of any set persons whom we may know at all times for our Guide Section 8 Then if they prove the Church of Rome to be the true Church and not the Greeke because their opinions are consonant either to Scripture or Antiquity they run into a circle proving their tenets to be true first because the Church holds them and then theirs to be the true Church because it holds the truth which last though it appeare to me the onely way yet it takes away it's being a Guide which we may follow without examination without which all they say besides is nothing Section
by some collateral consideration Section 26 Next to this certaine and undoubted damning of all out of the Church of Rome which averseth me from it comes their putting all to death or at least paines that are so where they have power which is an effect though not a necessary one of the first opinion and that averseth me yet more for I doe not believe all to be damned whom they damne but I conceive all to be killed whom they kill I am sure if you look upon Constantine's Epistle written to perswade concord upon the first disagreement between Alexander Arrius you will find that he thought and if the Bishops of his time had at first thought otherwise he would have been sure better informed that neither side deserved either death or damnation and yet sure this question was as great as ever rose since For having spoken of the opinions as things so indifferent that the Reader might almost think they had been fallen out at Spurn-point or Ketle-pins he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For that which is necessary is one thing that all agree and keep the same faith about divine providence I am sure in the same Author Moses a man praised by him refusing to be made Bishop by Lucius because he was an Arrian and he answering That he did ill to refuse it before he knew what his faith was Answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The banishing of Bishops shews ENOUGH your faith So that it is plaine he thought punishing for opinions to be a marke which might serve him to know false opinions by Section 27 I believe throughout Antiquity you will find no putting any to death unlesse it be such as begin to kill first as the Circumcollians or such like I am sure Christian Religions chief glory being that it increased by being persecuted and having that advantage of the Mahumetan which came in by force me thinks especially since Synesius hath told us and reason told men so before Synesius that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every thing is destroyed by the contrary to what setled and composed it It should be to take ill care of Christianity to seek to hold it up by Turkish meanes at least it must breed doubts that if the Religion had alwaies remained the same it would not be defended by waies so contrary to those by which it was propagated Section 28 I desire recrimination may not be used for though it be true that Calvin hath done it and the Church of England a little which is a little too much for Negare manifesta non audeo excusare immodica non possum yet She confessing She may erre is not so chargeable with any fault as those which pretend they cannot and so will be sure never to mend it and besides I will be bound to defend no more than I have undertaken which is to give reasons why the Church of Rome is fallible Section 29 I confesse this opinion of damning so many and this custome of burning so many this breeding up those who know nothing else in any point of Religion yet to be in readiness to crie To the fire with him and To Hell with him as Polybius saith in a certaine furious Faction of an Army of severall Nations and consequently languages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All of them understood onely this word Throw at him this I say in my opinion was it chiefly which made so many so suddenly leave the Church of Rome that indeed to borrow the Authours phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They needed not perswasion to doe it but onely newes that others had begun For as this alone if believed makes all the rest be so too so one thing alone mis-liked overthrowes also all the rest Section 30 If it were granted that because it agrees not with the Goodnesse of God to let men want an infallible Guide therefore there must be one and that the Church of Rome were that one yet if that teach any thing to my understanding contrary to Gods Goodnesse I am not to receive her doctrine for the same cause for which they would have me receive it it being as good an argument This Guide teaches things contrary to Gods goodnesse therefore is not appointed by God as to say It is agreeable to his goodnesse there should be a Guide therefore there is one And sure it is lawfull to examine particular doctrines whether they agree with that principle which is their foundation and to that me thinks to damne him that neither with negligence nor prejudication searcheth what is Gods will though he misse of it is as contrary as the first can be supposed Section 31 I would know whether he that never heard of the Church of Rome shall yet be damned for not believing her infallible I have so good an opinion of them as to assure my self they will answer he shall not I will then aske whether he that hath searched what Religions they are and finds hers to be one and her infallibility to be part of it if his reason will not assent to that shall he be damned for being inquisitive after truth for he hath committed no other fault greater then the other and Whether such an ignorance I mean after impartiall search be not of all other the most invincible Section 32 Nay grant the Church to be infallible yet me thinks he that denies it and imployes his reason to seeke if it be true should be in as good case as he that believes it and searcheth not at all the truth of the proposition he receives for I cannot see why he should be saved because by reason of his parents beliefe or the Religion of the Country or some such accident the truth was offered to his understanding when had the contrary been offered he would have received that and the other damned that beleeves falshood upon as good ground as the other doth truth unlesse the Church be like a Conjurers circle that will keep a man from the Devill though he came into it by chance Section 33 They grant that no man is an Heretique that believes not his Heresie obstinately and if he be no Heretique he may sure be saved It is not then certain damnation for any man to deny the infallibility of the Roman Church but for him onely that denies it obstinately and then I am safe for I am sure I doe not Section 34 Neither can they say I shall be damned for Schisme though not for Heresie for he is as well no Schismatique though in Schisme that is willing to joyne in communion with the true Church when it appeares to be so to him as he is no Heretique though he hold Hereticall opinions that holds them not obstinately that is as I suppose with a desire to be informed if he be in the wrong Section 35 Why if it be not necessary alwayes to believe the truth so one believe in generall what the Church would have believed for so they excuse great men
beleive whatever we conceive to be truth is a great uncharitablenesse and a cause or occasion of more the adding to the necessary truths ordinarily being a forerunner of the abatement of the inventory of the necessary performances I meane of those which are indispensably required of us under Christ These last few lines I confesse to be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I hoped might not be unwelcome to you If they be I am sorry you were troubled with it the seeing that there was nothing more in your Chapter which wanted answer gave me temptation and liberty for it To the third Section Chap. 4. The third Section is all true but concerns us nothing because amongst ours there is care enough taken for shewing which Church it is that is the true and infallible and on the other side much negligence and partiality in the enquirers after it in many of them at least though not in every one C. 4. Answ To the fourth Chap. Section 1 In your fourth Chapter though you are just in acknowledging the perfect truth of his Lordships third paragraph yet must you not be beleived on your bare word that you are not concern'd in it For I conceive it cleare that you are because that argument from Reason for such is that which is mentioned there as in the second paragraph the argument from Scripture and in the fourth the argument from Fathers or tradition which you use to prove the Infallibility of your Church viz. that it is therefore so made by God or that it is reasonable to thinke that God therefore so made it that all men may have some certaine Guide can never be able to conclude any thing unlesse it be made knowne by God as certainly or so offered by God to our knowledge that 't is our fault if we know it not both that there is such an infallible Church and which it is Now that God hath so made knowne these two it being impossible for reason to assure us any otherwise then by shewing us some sure word of prophecy I meane some revelation from God with sufficient evidence that it is revelation and this being not by you pretended to be shewed it availes little that you tell us that among yours there is care enough taken to shew which Church it is that is the true and infallible for if by shewing you meane demonstrating any way that it is so this you know we deny and saying it againe without proofe is petitio principii but if by shewing you meane the pointing us out that for the true and infallible of which you are a member we have little obligation or encouragement to beleive you say true being a witnesse in your owne cause I am sure no evidence that if you speake according to your judgement you are Infallible in that shewing or telling For if we had we must be supposed to have that evidence of your infallibility without because before your shewing and so to stand in little need of it To the fourth Section Chap. 5. The answer is that people illiterate may have evidence sufficient whereby to resolve and satisfie themselves without making any search into Histories Fathers or Scripture and therefore this Enquirers supposition is false and indeed it were a hard case if no man might be able to understand what he was to beleive without looking into all these and yet as hard as it is doth this Enquirer impose it upon all if not in expresse tearmes yet by the consequence of his doctrine As for our selves alone what need can we have for seeking out the true sence of Scripture and a conformity of doctrine with the Ancient more then other Christians have Surely according to this method of his all true religion whether in our Church or any other would be impossible to be learned by the illiterate and very hardly by any other men But what evidence can the illiterate have or rather from whence Out of the present face condition and visible practice of religion in the Church out of the antient monuments yet remaining that give in their depositions out of common fame and unsuspected testimonies out of the manifest perfections and excellencies both of the Church and Religion out of all which as from so many cleare signatures and characterismes of truth ariseth an evidence of credibility that this Church and this Religion are the true and whatsoever is once so creditable cannot possibly be false because for the verity of that the veracity of God doth stand engaged as Ric. Victorinus hath long since declared For it is a cleare case that all such things be true which God makes evidently credible and worthy of acceptance by the publique acts of his owne providence for otherwise that providence should publiquely entangle and deceive us by obliging us or at least publiquely and potently inducing and perswading us to believe that which were false and so by following that way which God hath signed out for us we should goe astray which thing can neither be done nor yet permitted to be done without imposture as all the antient Schoolemen doe observe By this meanes then are prudent publique motives able to make a certainty though not by their owne vertue yet at least by the vertue of the Supreame veracity which goes annexed with them Moreover this measure of evidence perceptible by the illiterate and weake though it be not so ample as others have or stand in need to have yet is it sufficient to sway their understanding and to call in the divine assistance for the supplying of whatsoever by reason of ignorance or incapacity is wanting in them Cum simplicibus est sermocinatio mea saith the Wiseman Therefore it is false and injurious to say as this Enquirer seemes to doe namely That such men as these doe assent to truth upon no better grounds then others doe to falshood The Enquirer's inference against the Church is this We thinke she hath erred therefore she may The Inference is good but the Antecedent is infirme and ought not to have beene made because he cannot have so great reason to judge she hath erred as on the contrary that she hath not in regard that it is farre more likely he himselfe erred in making that judgement of the Church then that the Church erred in making that judgement of the truth or that she hath contradicted her selfe it being farre more probable that a private man should be deceived then a whole Church Wherefore it is a great act of presumption and temerity in any single man though never so intelligent to judge the whole Church hath erred rather then himselfe The Enquirer saith that he tries the Church by her conformity with the Antients as she her selfe appoints But what then Doubtlesse she is not that way to be câ—nvinced forasmuch as every intelligent man will suppose that no particular man is able to examine that so well at she her selfe hath done before him and therefore may be pleased
as sinnes and that I hope belongs to all Christians for we are not under the Law but under grace Ib. C. And why so Answ I had before given you the reason viz because your discourse hath tended to inferre the one and not the other C. 14. Answ to C. 14. A. No man can binde another under paine of Anathema to beleive as he defines unlesse his definition be certaine Answ There was here very little occasion for this note For the businesse of Anathema's I had sufficiently restrained First by limiting them onely to excommunications as an act of Ecclesiasticall discipline upon the refractary and therefore Secondly not for matter of simple beleiving or disbeleiving but Thirdly for matter of disobedience to our lawfull Superiours and that disobedience againe not in refusing to submit our understandings but our wils and our consequent actions and Fourthly all this with stubbornenesse and perversenesse after the using of all milder courses And with these and the like limitations there will be no more difficulty to say an Ecclesiasticall Magistrate may excommunicate a disobedient refractary perverse Gain-sayer without undertaking to be infallible then to say a civill Magistrate may punish a Malefactour without being inerrable And therefore when you talke of binding to believe under paine of Anathema there is some mistake in that or if there were not yet Truth if it were on grounds of Scripture believed to be so would be as sufficient a foundation of so doing as the infallibâ—lity of the Judge For not onely every truth is in it selfe as certaine as that which is infallible every matter of fact that is so is as certainly true as any demonstration in Euclide and he that speakes it speakes as certainly true as if he did demonstrate yet is not in other things infallible for all that but he that beleives it with a full assent hath as little doubt of that truth as if it were before his eyes yet doth it not fide cui non potest subesse falsum on any supposition of its infallibility by which meanes though he pretends not to infallibility yet having no degree of doubt he hath that on which he will confidently build any action and even lay downe his life for such truths if they be of weight which if it be not ground enough to proceed on to an Ecclesiasticall censure against the stubborn and perverse you are very mercifully disposed and I will not provoke you out of it but rather give you my suffrage that no man be thus censured for matter of opinion but upon that light which is clearely deducible from the Scripture or universall tradition and then I shall confesse my sense that to anathematize men for any matter of doctrine of any lower alloy is though not formally yet interpretativè a kinde of pretending to infallibility usurping as much as if men were infallible which they that have the spirit but by measure should have so much humility in themselves and charity toward others as not to be guiltie of Ibid B. The sword preserves not inward unity nor satisfies the minde Answ I had no occasion to say it did I was speaking as your answer called me to it of discipline and unity or such unity as discipline produced which is outward unity as opposed to division and Shisme and yet let me tell you it were not unpossible to extend my speech to inward unity and satisfying of the minde For suppose a particular Church to have sufficient meanes to worke in the hearts of her sonnes this inward unity viz. by setting up the authority of Scripture as it is interpreted by the Fathers and receiving with due respect and obedience all Apostolicall Traditions These if duely revered by all Sonnes and Subjects would be able to keepe all of one minde in all matters of Faith and for lower points some kinde of liberty being allowed would preserve Charity as well and then while that Church were in this happie temper you may farther suppose the sword of violence to come in and disturbe all wresting out of her hands the use and exercise of those meanes and beating downe the authoritie and taking away the reputation of them And then in the case thus set you will surely grant that the rightfull sword if it might be so prosperous as to vanquish the disturber and restore what was thus violently taken away may prove no improbable meanes of preserving even inward unity in this sence and if you marke it we spake it not in any other And yet once more if we had we might have beene justified perhaps in our saying For Heresie being a piece of carnality in the Apostles judgement 't is possible that the outward smart that comes from the exercise of the power of the sword i. e. from temporall punishments may cure that disease and perswade them who instead of pleasure from their heresie reap nothing but paine and sorrow to make better provision for their owne flesh and blood and thinke of hearing that reason to which other honest mens eares are open and then that may produce inward unity also and these mens minds may be sufficiently satisfied with that truth coming thus to them tempore congruo at a fit season of working which at another time had beene rejected You see how little reason you had for that annotation C. 15. Answ to C. 15. A. Chillingworth saith it in termes and him also I desired to answer Answ Can you thinke this faire dealing His Lordship I made appeare from his words said it not And you cannot say he did But I hil say you did say it What is that to his Lordship or to me who undertake onely to vindicate his Lordship and had not that rich harvest of leasure to thinke fit to be retained any more in other mens causes on such joylesse termes as these in which rather then I would adventure to be engaged I should be content to be thought to have no degree of kindnesse to him especially hearing that you had three great volumes prepared against Master Chill But then I pray what is the meaning of him also I desired to answer Can you thinke fit to impose a thing on his Lordship which was said onely by Master Chillingworth and when you were disproved thinke you had still confuted Master Chillingworth also when you had only falsified not confuted his Lordship Sure Sir this is not faire Ib. B. I know very well this was objected by both of them and this I desired to answer whether it were in their bookes or no. Answ Here is more of the same streine But I did conceive by your title that you had confuted his Lordships tract that was published not any unwritten discourses which we have no way of knowing whether they past or no I am sure were not undertaken by me to be vindicated I never resolved to justifie all that you could say either of them said and I might be forced to be uncivill with you if I should enter any
reason will tell him this Answ This is the very thing which is disproved in that place and then the bare repeating it over againe will be but a meane kinde of vindication Be pleased to looke over the place againe and if you will still thinke that there was any place for this annotation I shall be sorry I have beene thus troublesome to you Ibid. B. I have shewed the reason why Answ When an argument is framed on a double supposition without disputing the truth of either 't is not to be allowed the respondent to answer by denying the truth of either of the things supposed for they are supposed in that dispute but not disputed of As for example if the question were Whether supposing Adam were not falne and Christ were come the coming of Christ could be for the sinne of Adam doe you thinke 't would be tolerable for the respondent to avoid some argument brought against him by saying that it was absolutely false to say that Adam was not falne whereas 't was true that Christ was come This would certainly be so grosse and impossible to be justified that I should suspect any mans fidelity that should tell me he had rendred a satisfying reason why this should be And this is your case at this time Ibid. C. Whether she be infallible or no she is like to be wiser than any private man And this point cannot be in controversie with a wise man and therefore here is no petitio principii Answ This is a rare way of replying when a discourse hath been proved guilty of a petitio principii to say 't is impossible it should and when a thing is denied to say it cannot be in controversie But Sir I shall yeild you the Church may be wiser than any private man yet not conceive it to follow unlesse she be also infallible that when a private man and the Church differ she must alwaies be in the right He that is much wiser than another may yet in some particular be mistaken when that other is in the right yea and may be advised and reformed in such a particular by one that is not so wise as he This you may apply to the matter in hand not so farre as to preferre the authority of any one man before the Church in generall but onely so as not to pronounce it infallible I might tell you farther that a member of the Church of England assenting fully to the doctrine of that Church and so discharging the duty of a private man in preferring the judgement of the Church whereof he is a member before his owne judgement may yet doubt of some things affirmed by the Church of Rome and not make the comparison between a private mans judgement and the judgement of the Church but onely betwixt one particular Church and another But after all this I might have spared any or all these Answers and doe now onely desire you to looke back upon the place and you will soone see what no ground is to be found there of your Annotation Ibid. D. If you have no evidence that 't is Gods pleasure that your Church should be infallible nor can have you say true but this latter is denied Answ 'T is easie to deny conclusions still But if you will either answer the arguments which have proved there is none or produce any such evidence that it is infallible you shall be victorious indeed Ib. E. This argument which the Inquirer impugnes is an argument of his owne making and none of ours yet for all that the argument is not like a Ballad as good backward as forward as M. Chillingworth putting it a little differently from the Inquirer would have it Answ If you had pleased to disclaime and not defend this argument at the first you might have saved us some paines and if you will yet promise me that no man shall out of M. Knots Book make use of this argument any more I will be very well content that argument shall be no longer insisted on yet must tell you my opinion from my owne expresse knowledge that they which read that Book before 't was confuted by M. Chillingworth did verily believe that that argument to prove an infallible judge taken from the topick of Gods goodnesse was M. Knots master-piece and the founation on which the maine weight of his structure was supported C. 19. Answ to C. 19. A. In a Respondent there can be no such thing as Petitio principii Answ We have shewed you that a Respondent may so ill behave himself that there may As for example when a man hath used Arguments to prove that you have been guilty of begging the Question For you to despise and not take notice of the arguments and to say onely that there can be no such thing is the very thing called Petitio principii Ib. B. But we againe deny it is Petitio principii and the contrary ought to be proved Answ It is clearly proved in the place and not to consider the proofs but to deny the conclusion is another guilt of that sophism C. 20. Answ to C. 20. A. If the Enquirers meaning be as you put it it makes nothing at all against us nor needs any Answer But Chillingworth goes farther and saies that many of the simpler sort amongst us believe Truth upon no better grounds than others believe Falshood and yet our simpler sort believe Truths upon all the motives that yours doe and somewhat more Answ That that is his Lordships meaning is plaine viz That he that denies your infallibility and yet uses his best reason to seeke if it be true will be in as safe a condition as he that believes it and searches not And if this be nothing against you I shall hope this quarrell is nearer an end then ever I had thought to see it And then sure many of us shall be capable of that charity which you bestow upon your owne for I am confident what we doe we doe upon search and use of our best reason and yet that we deny your infallibility you are sufficiently assured C. 21. Answ to C. 21. A. He might be secretly obstinate and yet both he and we conceive the contrary Answ 'T is true he might But yet sure you that believe he was not obstinate cannot believe that the punishment of obstinacy should belong to him but must either thinke God unjust or else believe him safe in the same degree that you think him not obstinate And this is all I required from you C. 22. Answ to C. 22. A. Every implicite assent must be resolved lastly into an explicite or else there will be an infinite regression for every implicite presupposes something in which it is involved or implicite Answ I beseech you observe the nature of this Annotation of yours You say in your Apology that one implicite Faith doth not containe another I proved that false by this instance that supposing I believed by an implicite Faith that you
that the cause why none of these three can prove our Churches infallibility is not any want of infallibility in them as the Enquirer contended it was but some other different such namely as you here assigne and so the Enquirers argument is at an end even at the very beginning of it and my taske is done yet in my respects to you I will goe on farther Section 7 To your first I answer that though reason cannot it selfe alone prove our Churches infallibility yet as you acutely note Sest 3. reason can assure us by shewing us some words of prophecie or revelation from God with sufficient evidence that it is a revelation and thus reason can prove a verity be it never so inevident After this manner it is that we say reason proves our Church against which proof the inevidence of it as we see can be no impediment Section 8 To your second I answer by denying that scripture hath not beene so certainly expounded to that purpose for we say it hath been shewed by our authors at large as for example by Bellarmine Valentia Petavius Veron and others Section 9 To your 3. I answer first that 1. Irenaeus 2. Augustinus 3. Lactantius and 4 Facundus Hermanensis doe absolutely teach the Church to be infallible Secondly I deny that the Fathers teach not the Romane Church to be the true Church and contrary to your tenet I affirme that they hold that Church to be the true Christian Church as the forenamed authors have declared out of them as also Card. Perone and Coâ—ffeteau have exâ—ellently shewed Also I my selfe have endeavoured it elsewhere out of the severall Testimonies of Antiquity not to be in this place repeated Section 10 The businesse touching the motives of Faith which I with Irenaeus called Ostensions their place use and efficacity needs only explanation and ought to be admitted by every Christian and therefore begging your patience I will tarry longer upon it Section 11 We doe not goe about to prove our Church to be the true therefore because she holdeth with the truth but because we conceive we have good solid reasons to perswade us that she hath the truth These reasons have been often rendred by our Authors to whom if the Inquirer had replyed we also had endeavoured to defend them Concordance with the Scriptures and fathers we doe marshall amongst them not in the first place indeed in order of Doctrine but yet in the first in order of dignity Neither doe we aime to prove our Church by the gallantry of Demonstration or any other way then Christianity sooner or later is to be perswaded unto Infidels for we are now dealing not about a parcell but the whole frame of Christianity from the top to the foundation and the laying of the first stone which first stone we hold to be those actes of God which Psal 104.27 are called verba signotum and fitly may be tearmed signa realia that is to say sings and ostensions which be the acts of Gods omnipotence and soveraigne Government and by a morall certainty and rationall way are shewed for humane institution and instruction This sort of signes is by order of nature to have the precedence before all artificiall signes or vocall expressions of the divine will and therefore as Raymund Sebund observeth liber factorum is to be perused before liber dictorum By these signes as by the apparentiae or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Astronomy we are to get the first notions of these celestiall revolutions or resolutions of faith and though these be sure yet are they not demonstrative because no way intrinsecall neither to the revelations which they assure nor to the objects revealed which are assured by the revelations as being no causes nor effects of either nor signes inherent of those objects Section 12 Seeing then the true Catholique Religion is but the true Christianity they both of them are to be learned by the same Apparences or Ostensions more or lesse expresly understood Now while we draw nearer unto these signes and learne them more and more expresly amongst other things we may discover as good characterismes and signatures of revealed truth the Concordance of our Faith with holy Writ and venerable Antiquity which two signes without the preceding could have little force to perswade beliefe For say I were to convert an Indian I would not seeke to doe it by telling him first of all of these two Concordances mentioned which 't is like would move him but a little for though I could shew him the Bible was antient and Godly and the Fathers wise yet this would not be enough to perswade him and therefore I should hold it fit First to represent unto him some other motives as namely Propheticall predictions authorized by event miracles and miraculous operations and effects creditably recorded from age to age both in the Evangelists and other sequent Histories of whose faith a man rationally cannot doubt at least in the summe of them or the chiefe bulke I speake not here of fabulous Narrations or suspected Histories but Authours of credit and esteeme Secondly the excellency of our Faith it selfe and manner of propagation of it Thirdly the perfection of life and heroicke actions of such as doe professe it and all this after a manner not interrupted but continued from age to age and conveyed downe to us by the prime Ecclesiasticall succession not of persons onely but of Pastours in the chiefe seate and other inferiour prized so highly by Irenaeus and held a most sure note of truth and a way to confound all that doe gainsay it Lastly a consonance with Reason Scripture and Antiquity These and such like be our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these our Ostensions these be the received notices and signatures of revealed truth by these God invites us and induces us to believe and by these engages his owne veracity to warrant the act of our assent it being repugnant to the high perfection of his truth to lay upon man a rationall obligation and then desert him and to permit that the publique acts of his providence should be a snare not a direction not an introduction to truth but a seduction from it Though therefore these motives make our faith but credible in an eminent and a high degree yet the veracity of God is at hand to supply seale and confirme all and with the authority thereof to make the assurance absolute This method of resolving and reducing faith was signified by Irenaeus when as he said Post tot Ostensiones factas non oportet adhuc quaerere apud alios veritatem quam facile est ab Ecclesia sumere This way designed by Saint Augustin this is conformable to the Analytique principles delivered by Aristotle in his Organon this the beaten path of all Divines and no new invention or exotique stuffe This method we are ready to maintaine as strong and solid not permitting the believer to sit downe with a slender Socinian certainty
9 Nay suppose they had evinced that some succession were infallible and so had proved to a learned man that the Roman Church must be this because none else pretends to it yet this can be no sufficient ground to the ignorant who cannot have any infallible foundation for their beliefe that the Church of Greece pretends not to the same and even to the Learned it is but an accidentall argument because if any other company had likewise claimed to be infallible it had overthrowne all so proved Section 10 Nay it is but an arbitrary Argument and depends upon the pleasure of the adversary for if any society of Christians would pretend to it the Church of Rome could make use of it no longer Section 11 The chiefest reason why they disallow of the Scripture for Judge is because when differences arise about the interpretation there is no way to end them and that it will not stand with the goodnesse of God to damne men for not following his will if he had assigned no infallible way how to find it I confesse this to be wonderfull true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and let them excuse themselves that think otherwise Yet this will be no argument against him who believes that to all who follow their reason in the interpretation of the Scriptures and search for Tradition God will either give his grace for assistance to find the truth or his pardon if they misse it and then this supposed necessity of an infallible Guide with this supposed damnation for want of it fall together to the ground Section 12 If they command us to believe infallibly the contrary to this they are to prove it false by some infallible way for the conclusion must be of the same nature and not conclude more then the premisses set downe now such a way Scripture and Reason or infused faith cannot be for they use to object the fallibility of them to those that build their Religion upon them nor the Authority of the Church for that is part of the question and must be it selfe first proved and that by none of the former waies for the former reasons Section 13 The Popes infallibility can be no infallible ground of faith being it selfe no necessary part of the faith we can be no surer of any thing proved then we are of that which proves it and if he be fallible no part is the more infallible for his sideing with them So if the Church be divided I have no way to know which is the true Church but by searching which agrees with Scripture and Antiquity and so judging accordingly But this is not to submit my selfe to her opinions as my guide which they tell us is necessary Which course if they approve not of as a fit one for a Learned man they are in a worse case for the ignorant who can take no course at all nor is the better at all for this Guide the Church whilest two parts dispute which is it and that by arguments he understands not Section 14 If I granted the Pope or a Counsell by him called to be infallible yet I conceive their Decrees can be no sufficient ground by their owne axiomes of Divine faith For first say the most No Councell is valid not approved by the Pope for thus they overthrow that held at Ariminum a Pope chosen by Symony is ipso facto no Pope I can then have no certainer ground for the infallibility of those Decrees and consequently for my beleife of them then I have that the choice of him was neither directly nor indirectly Symoniacall which to be certain of is absolutely impossible Section 15 Secondly suppose him Pope and to have confirmed the Decrees yet that these are the Decrees of a Councell or that he hath confirmed them I can have but an uncontradicted attestation of many men for if another Councell should declare these to have been the Acts of a former Councell I should need againe some certaine way of knowing how this declaration is a Councells which is no ground say they of faith I am sure not so good and generall a one as that Tradition by which we prove that the Scripture is Scripture which yet they will not allow any to be certaine of but from them Section 16 Thirdly for the sence of their Decrees I can have no better expounder to follow then Reason which if though I mistake I shall not be damned for following why shall I for mistaking the sence of Scripture Or why am I a lesse fit interpreter of one then of the other where both seeme equally cleare And where they seem so I meane equally cleare and yet contradictory shall I not as soon believe Scripture which is without doubt of at least as great authority Section 17 But I doubt whether Councells be fit deciders of Questions for such they cannot be if they beget more and men have cause to be in greater doubts afterwards none of the former being diminished then they were at first Section 18 Now I conceive there arise so many out of this way that the Learned cannot end all nor the Ignorant know all As besides the forenamed considerations Who is to call them the Pope or Kings Who are to have voices in them Bishops only or Priests also Whether the Pope or Councell be Superiour and the last need the approbation of the first debated among themselves Whether any Countries not being called or not being there as the Abissines to great a part of Christianity and not resolvedly condemned by them for Heretiques were absent at the Councell of Trent make it not generall Whether if it be one not every where received as when the Bishops sent from some places have exceeded their Commission as in the Councell of Florence it be yet of necessity to be subscribed to Whether there were any surreption used or force and Whether those disanull the Acts Whether the most voyces are to be held the Act of the Councell or those of all are required as Canus saith All the Councell cannot erre the most may which never yet agreed or Whether two parts will serve as in the Tridentine Synode a considerable doubt because Nicephorus Callistus relateing the resolution of a Councell at Rome against that of Ariminum makes them give three reasons One That the Bishop of Rome was not present The second That most did not agree to it Thirdly That others thither gathered were displeased at their resolutions which proves that in their opinions if either most not present agree not to it or all present be not pleased with it a Councell hath no power to bind All these doubts I say perswade me that whatsoever brings with it so many new questions can be no fit ender of the old Section 19 In those things in which before a Generall Councell have defined it is lawfull to hold either way and damnable to doe so after I desire to know how it agreeth with the Charity of the Church to define
any thing and so bestow upon the Devil one path more for us to walke in to him Section 20 If the infallibility of a Generall Councell be a point of faith I desire to know why it is so Scripture and Tradition seem to me not to say so But if they did so I suppose you will grant they do of this doctrine That the soules of the blessed shall see God before the day of judgment and not be kept in secret Receptacles For else the doctrine of prayer to Saints cannot stand and yet for denying this doth Bellarmine excuse Pope John 22. of which beliefe they know he was not alone because the Church he means I doubt not a Generall Councell had not then condemned it I desire to know why should not he be condemned as well without one as many Heretiques that are held so by their Church yet condemned by no Generall Councell which if he makes to be the rule of Heresie it had been happy to have lived before the Councell of Nice when no opinion had been damnable but some against the Apostles Councell at Hierusalem because there had yet been no Generall Councell Section 21 At least why shall not I be excused by the same reason though I believe not a Councell to be infallible since I never heard that any Councell hath decreed that they are so Neither if it have can we be bound by that Decree unlesse made certaine some other way that it selfe is so Section 22 If you say we must believe it because of Tradition I answer sometimes you will have the not believing any thing though not declared by a Councell to have power enough to damne that is when it makes against us at other times the Church hath not decreed unlesse a Councell have and their errour is pardonable and they good Catholiques Section 23 Next as I have asked before how shal an ignorant man know it for he in likelyhood can speak but with a few from whom he cannot know that all of the Church of Rome's part doe now and in past Ages have believed it to be Tradition so certainly as to make it a ground of Faith unlesse he have some revelation that those deceive him not Neither indeed can those that should enforme him of the opinions of former times be certainly enformed themselves for truly if as they would perswade us the relation of Papias could cosen so farre all the Prime Doctors of the Christian Church into the belief of the doctrine of the Millenaries so as that no one of those two first Ages opposed it which appears plain enough because those that after rose up against this opinion never quoted any for themselves before Dionys Alexandrinus who lived at least 250 yeares after Christ Nay if those first men did not onely believe it as probable but Justin Martyr saies he holds it and so do all that are in all parts Orthodox Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Irenaeus sets it down directly for a Tradition and relates the very words that Christ used when he taught this which is plainer than any other Tradition is proved or said to be out of Antiquity by them If I say these could be so deceived why might not other of the Antients as well be by others deceived in other points And then what certainty shall the Learned have when after much labour they thinke they can make it appeare that the Antients thought any thing Tradition that indeed it was so And that either the folly or the knavery of some Papias deceived them not I confesse it makes me think of some that Tully speaks of who arcem amittunt dum propugnacula defendunt lose the fort whilst they defend the out-works for whilst they answer this way the arguments of Tradition for the opinion of the Chiliasts they make unusefull to them the force of tradition to prove any thing else by For which cause it was rather wisely than honestly done of them who before Fevardentius set him forth left out that part of Irenaeus which we alledge though we need it not much for many of the Fathers take notice of this belief of his Yet he justifies himself for doing it by a worse blow to them than this it self which is saying that if they leave out all Errours in the Books they publish that is I suppose all opinions contrary to the Church of Rome bona pars Scriptorum Patrum Orthodoxorum evanesceret a good part of the writings of the Orthodox Fathers must vanish away Section 24 But the Tradition that can be found out of Ancients since their witnessing may deceive us hath much lesse strength when they argue onely thus Sure so many would not say this is true and joyne in opinions if there were no tradition for them I would have you remember they can deliver their opinion possibly but either before the controversie arise in the Church upon some chance or after If before it is confest that they write not cautiously enough and so they answer all they seem to say for Arius and Pelagius his faith before themselves and so consequently their controversie though it may be not their opinion arose If after then they answer often if any thing be by them at that time spoken against them that the heat of disputation brought it from them and their resolutions to oppose Heretiques enough I desire it may be lawfull for us to answer so too either one of these former wayes or that it is as often they say too some Hyperbole when you presse us in any thing with the opinions of Fathers At least I am sure if they may deceive us with saying a thing is a Tradition that is not we may be sooner deceived if we wil say and conclude it for a Tradition when they speake it onely as a Truth and for ought appeares their particular Opinion Section 25 For besides if when Salvian comparing the Arians with evill Livers and that after they were condemned by a Councell extenuates by reason of their beleiving themselves in the right with much instance the fault of the Arians and sayes How they shall be punisht for it in the day of Judgement none can know but the Judge If I say they confesse it to be his opinion they must also confesse the doctrine of their Church to be different from that of Salvian's times because he was allowed a Member of that for all this saying whereas he of the Church of Rome that should say so of us would be accounted Sesqui haereticus a Heretique and a half Or else they must say which they can only say and not prove that he was so earnest against ill men that for the aggravation of their crime he lessened that of the Heretiques and said what at another time he would not have said which if they doe will it not overthrow wholly the authority of the Fathers Since we can never infallibly know what they thought at all times frō what they were moved to say
difficulty or subtilty or profit in it either of which whensoever I can finde I professe I shall be most ready to enlarge upon it and now acknowledge it an obligation from the Author if he will point out to me where I shall have fail'd and in other particulars be more mercifull to the reader and my selfe To the 1. §. Chap. 2. Section 1 True it is and we grant it willingly that every proofe that is solid and good must be a notioribus and that every sure conclusion must also be deduced from no other premises or principles then such as be knowne and at least be as certaine as we desire the conclusion should be Neverthelesse we doe absolutely deny that this assertion of ours touching the Churches infallibility is by us offered to be proved by waies no better then our Adversaries offer to prove that she hath erred as this Inquirer pretends we doe for we affirme that our Churches infallibility is proved by reasons which are reall and true and that on the other side the adversary offers to prove the contrary onely by such as be no more then seeming and pretended Now true reason or authority is a way quite different from pretended and much better then it and therefore the Inquirers charge is false or at least light and ineffectuall Must all controversies in Philosophy be undecidable because both sides pretend reason or no suits of Law be judged because both sides pretend Law Certainly whatsoever both sides doe pretend yet there is but one side that hath it as namely but one side of Philosophers have true reason and but one side of contendents have true Law and so in like manner but one side of contending Christians have true reason for them Scripture or Tradition howsoever both may pretend it and therefore we doe not goe about to prove the Church is infallible by the selfe same wayes that you goe about to prove that she hath erred but by wayes that are quite different from them and the same but in name onely and no farther By which it followes that either you are deceived or we and it is not necessary that both And so much for this great and principall difficulty which troubled the Inquirer so much as he writ to London for the solution of it which thing surely was more then needed for it might have been done at Great Tue without consulting London about it or either of our two Vniversities We doe not maintaine as he falsely supposes that Reason Scripture and Fathers be all fallible universally speaking but in some cases only as namely reason is not fallible in such verities as be evident but in other that be not so it is Againe Scripture is a most certain rule whensoever it is certainly expounded otherwise it is not Lastly the Fathers be assured and undoubted witnesses of the Doctrines which were held in their time though not undoubted definers of them And by this answer all the three main propps of this Authors discourse are overthrown and fall unto the ground C. 2. Answ to the 2. Chap. Section 1 To the second Chapter I need only to put you in mind that when his Lordship saith the wayes of proofe that the Church of Rome can never have any errours are no better then those by which we offer to prove she hath erred and nameth three heads of Arguments from Scripture Reason and Ancient writers and proveth you to affirme all these are infallible because nothing is in your opinion infallible but the Church and from thence concludes that we can never infallibly know that the Church is infallible because all the meanes proposed to induce that knowledge being of necessity somewhat else beside that only infallible must needs be fallible it will be very unsufficient in you to reply that his Lordship hath not said true in the first particular upon no other ground of proofe but only because you affirme that the Churches infallibility is proved by Reasons which are really true and that the contrary is by us offered to be prov'd only by such as be only seeming and pretended for this very thing that you affirme viz. that those your reasons are reall and true is a part of the very question in hand and as much denyed by us as the infallibility of your Church and therefore by your own rule of proceeding à notioribus cannot be proper means to conclude that his Lordship erred to him that will farre more easily be brought to believe that your reasons are not reall then that his Lordship erred in this particular and that will as readily confesse he erres as that those reasons are reall Section 2 It appeared strange to me that you should begin with such a petitio principii untill by reading on I discerned that this one meane Sophisme hath run through most Paragraphs of your following Treatise which is a shrewd infirmity in a confutation to take that for a principle granted and so bestow no proofe upon it which is by you known to be denied by us and yet to conceive that this will be able to satisfy our other importunities Section 3 2dly You must observe that his Lordship had said only this that your Churches infallibility is offered to be proved by no better wayes than those by which we offer to prove she hath erred which is an undertaking of his Lordship and not a bare assertion and sure you cannot say he offers to prove it by reasons onely seeming for you as yet know not particularly what those reasons are any farther then that they are from the same heads by which you offer to prove the contrary Section 4 And Thirdly if the Arguments which he offers be only seeming on his side yet if you marke it they are so seeming to him and as long as they seem to him to conclude that the Church hath erred the very same arguments or those that are no more seeming cannot assure him that she is infallible for by your own confession every solid proofe must be ex notioribus i. e. not only by media which are more true but which are more known to him to whom this proofe is offered and if you marke that is it to which his Lordship's argument drives that the reasons by which you prove the infallibility of your Church are such as you confesse your selves to be fallible Marke not which you confesse to be false but fallible your confessing them fallible is enough to his Lordship's turne though they should have the luck to be true because the infallibility of your Church on which as on a foundation and principle you must build in many after difficulties had need be infallibly asserted and knowne or if it be but fallibly will it selfe be fallible no conclusion ascending higher then the premises have ascended and so though it were true yet not fit to commence a principle of all other truths Section 5 Now that these reasons or premises of yours are fallible and by you acknowledged to
of Ric Victorinus if applied to your purpose that whatsoever is once so creditable as you have there made the Infallibility of your Church can never be false Which beside other falsities must inferre other things to be infallible beside that onely infallible for 't is sure that other things may by you be made so creditable and as sure that what ever else cannot be false God's veracity standing engaged for it is infallible also and not to mention your proofes of that Divinity such is your assertion that the Enquirer's inference against the Church is we thinke she hath erred therefore she may erre for his inference is onely this if she hath erred certainly she may which I should say is another great injustice by changing his Lordship's words but that it is repaired and expiated with another act of more kindnesse to us though of as little force of reason that the iâ—ference is good but the antecedent is infirme whereas in tâ—uth the Inference had beene nought but the Antecedent either tâ—ue or onely in the power of the Searcher of thoughts to disprove in him so againe that the discovering the non-conformity of your Church with the Antients may justly be thought impossible when if we had not actually done it yet hereafter we might and when in the present businesse we affirme and you goe not about to disprove that your pretending to the Infallibility of your Church is inconformable to the Antients because they did not so pretend and surely such is your affirmation that to send one to a witnesse and yet bid him not believe himselfe in what he conceives that witnesse tels him is not as bad as to send him in like manner and bid him not believe the witnesse there being no possibility of believing what the Witnesse saith but by believing himselfe affirming that that Witnesse said it For if you say it be by believing of you i. e. another Witnesse that that Witnesse said it I answer that that will include a believing himselfe also viz himselfe affirming that you testified that the other Witnesse said it Section 12 I shall trouble you with no more at once lest you count me uncivill one thing onely more I shall let you know I take notice of that in the compasse of very few words you cast off much of the respect due to Antiquity by saying that it is sufficient if we can by any sure way come to the knowledge of truth mentioning at that time onely the conspicuous body of the present Church for such without taking care whether it be conforme to the Antients or no c. By which as you acknowledge your preferring the conspicuous body of the present Church for the finding out of truth before Antiquity which is the strangest speech I could have look'd for from a defender of Tradition so I confesse I see the reason why a Section that undertooke to prove that Antiquity was no infallible proofe of your Churches Infallibility had in a long Chapter of answer to it never a word said in confutation of it and so I very friendly take leave of it To the fifth Section Chap. 6. Out of that which hitherto hath beene said it appeares plainly how the conclusion which the Enquirer would inferre in this fifth Section is no way applicable to our manner of probation of the Churches Infallibility for we doe not as he surmiseth maintaine that our Church the Guide of Faith is to be knowne by such markes by which the ignorant cannot seeke it and the Learned may chance to misse although with all diligence and without prejudice they enquire after it for we affirme that our first principles of probation are certaine and manifest and out of them we with certainty though not with evidence evict the Church By which manner of proceeding it is cleare that our probations are Logicall and conformable to the rules prescribed for the hunting out of truth by Aristotle in his Analytiques and the Philosophers in generall Some peradventure will deny our Churches verity to be evidently credible If any doe it the matter must be remitted to an equall triall betweene us But say you who must be the Judge I am no Socinian nor inclining to that sort of mis-believers yet neverthelesse I say right reason must be he and every man 's owne conscience and of these Judges I hope all men will allow and it is reasonable sure they ought to doe so because reason is in all questions the last and the interior Judge without whose assent and approbation no exterior is sufficient and compleat For exterior Judges be as spectacles to the eies and as spectacles be they never so good cannot see without eies so cannot revelation be it never so manifest give the last sentence about any doctrine nor be sufficient without reason It may be further replied that these principles of ours are also question'd Admit they be yet neverthelesse may they be certaine and evident otherwise we should grant nothing to be certaine for there is no one thing so evident which is not question'd by some or other C. 6. Answer to the 6. Chap. Section 1 That which you say to the fifth Section is in effect the denying the conclusion when the premises are either not deny'd or not confuted for that which his Lordship saith in that Section you acknowledge to be a conclusion and is so indeed of all that went before all directly tending to this That the Church provided for the guide of faith it offered by you to be knowne by such markes as the ignorant cannot seeke it by and the Learned though never so honest in his search may chance not to finde it by This then being the conclusion of all the discourse you professe to deny upon no other proofe but by affirming that your principles of probation are certaine and manifest i. e. by saying the direct contrary to his conclusion but not thinking needfull to prove it And so beside that other absurdity in Logick there is petitio principii againe Section 2 In doing this you were I conceive very much resisted by your owne spirit for the satisfying of which you are faine to say this strange thing that your principles of probation are certaine and manifest and out of them you evict the Church with certainty though not with evidence where either you must affirme to thinke that evident and manifest are not all one or else that the conclusion is not evident when the premises are either of which you shall have free liberty to take the choyce of and maintaine in your reply And when you have shewed your skill in so doing you then shall have leave to boast that your probations are Logicall and conformable to the rules of Aristotle in his Analitiques and the Philosophers in generall but till then 't was to no more purpose to say that of your selfe then 't will be to the edification of any that I have repeated it to you Section 3 Having thus confim'd the
hath influence on mens opinions but then still what ever their case be for believing the verity of your Church they can no way from thence be obliged to believe your infallibility Section 8 You confesse there may farther reply be made to you that these principles of yours are also question'd but take no notice upon what grounds of reason or Scripture they are question'd and so thinke you can deale with so unarm'd an adversary as you please by telling him they may be certaine and evident though they be question'd and perhaps I shall confesse to you that if they were onely question'd and no reason that were not by you easily answered brought to justifie such questioning it were sufficient which you say that questioning doth not disprove certainty and yet if every man's conscience be the Judge as you acknowledge then unlesse you can make it evident that that man's questioning is against conscience you will have no way to keepe it from being certaine and evident to him but when there be arguments produc'd to backe that questioning which you have no way to answer but by saying they may be certaine and evident for all that he that disputes with you will be excus'd to thinke he hath more reason to say and that you say must be judge that it may be otherwise To the 6. 7. Sections Chap. 7. No doubt there can be but God will reveale his truth to all such as seeke it with sincerity of heart and though both sides as the Enquirer objecteth may make use of this for an exterior allegation yet not as of interior helpe and preparation and therefore this sincerity is not a disposition unprofitable though it be a proofe inefficacious and thus much we grant willingly neither doe we challenge it as an argument of truth We grant him also that before such time as we can believe the Church we are to acquire sufficient principles for informing us which is she and also before we can believe upon her determinations we must have principles of knowing she is infallible and all this we make profession we doe de facto know Neither doe we take this Church to be a Proteus that is to say sometimes of one shape sometimes of another but a conspicuous body constantly adorned with the robes of truth and annexed to a Succession of Pastours legitimate from one age to another C. 7. Ans to Chap. 7. Section 1 Your answer to the sixth Section is by giving a distinction to tell us now both sides make use of the pretence of seeking truth sincerely and concludes that sincerity is not a disposition unprofitable though it be a proofe inefficacious which because you are willing to grant I will containe my selfe from springing any game or recreation for the Reader at this time of which he that were playsomely disposed would finde aboundant matter in the review of your distinction here applied and give you present payment for your favour by acknowledging that that which you grant is all that is begg'd from you viz. that God's promise of revealing of truth to those who seeke it sincerely is not at all an argument that they that pretend to the benefit of that promise must have reall title to it or consequently that they that have no other arguments to prove their Churches Infallibility but that they seeke truth sincerely and yet after that sincere search are of that opinion are to be heeded in their pretensions This justifies his Lordships sixth paragraph as fully as if you had subscribed it without your distinction Section 2 His Lordships seventh Paragraph consists of two things First a resuming of a part of his former argument which had beene onely mentioned but not inforc'd before that supposing the Church were proved to be infallible yet were not that sufficient to give any man certaine knowledge which were it Secondly a solid proofe of this affirmation by plaine reason because the granting the Infallibility of the Church did onely conclude that God would alwaies have a Church that should not erre but not that this was appropriated to any particular Church to such a Succession to the Bishop and Clergy of such a place c. Thirdly by a lively instance of the Greeke Church which though it were now in the right might hereafter erre and so the Greeke Church be now fallible and yet at the time that that erred another Church might arise the Champion of truth and so still the Church be infallible Section 3 To these two parts of the Paragraph your dispatch is short and annext to the nothing that was replied to the former Section to the first a liberall Grant of that which no man thankes you for that it is as necessary to know which that infallible Church is as that the Church is so but then saying and professing that you doe de facto know which is the Church and that she is infallible which beside that it is your old beloved petitio principii to say you know it offer no proof for it but your profession and a Latine word when the very thing that his Lordship was just a proving was that you neither did nor could know it comes not at all home to his Lordship's matter of shewing that the acknowledgement of the Infallibility of the Church doth not evict which is she For if 't were acknowledged that you did know it yet might it be by some other meanes and not by proving or confessing the Church to be infallible Section 4 As for his Lordship's proofe and instance added to his proposition 't was so despicable a thing that 't was not worth taking notice of but instead of any such thing you give us a declaration of your owne opinion that the Infallible Church was not a Proteus but a conspicuous body constantly adorned with truth c. which is againe the meanest begging of that which was just then denied and disprov'd and must so stand till you can annex reasons to your opinion and answers to his Lordships reasons To the 8. Section Chap. 8. We never goe about to prove our Church to be the true therefore because it holdeth with the truth or teacheth true doctrine as this Enquirer seemeth to suppose we doe but rather contrariwise because it is the true Church of Christ therefore we inferre it teacheth true doctrine but that it is the true Church we prove first of all and originally by reall revelations called in the Scripture Verba Signorum that is by signes ostensions or motives of credibility which motives for a great and sufficient part of them are the same by which we prove to Infidels the truth of Christianity it selfe For these same motives though when they are considered but in generall and as it were afarre off doe perswade Christianity but in generall without designing out in particular this or that Individuall Christianity yet neverthelesse the selfe-same being understood distinctly doe designe out a distinct and individuall Christianity and are applicable
Ch. 9. Answ to Chap. 9. Section 1 Your answer to the 9. and 10. Sections signifies a great deale viz that you were so put to it by the conviction of his Lordships argument that to dis-intangle your selfe you have ventured to vent a peice of very severe divinity which my charity to you makes me hope you will not justifie and if you will yet your no argument produced gives me nothing to answer nor otherwise to reply then by denying as mercifully and obligingly to the world as you doe cruelly affirme viz that without succession sufficient from Saint Peter there is no succession sufficient to prove a Church or a succession of Pastours Ecclesiasticall and this is so strange a newes to our eares who were confident that what ever you deeme of the other two parts of three of the Christian world at this present you had allowed liberty to Apostles to ordaine Churches as well as and without succession from Saint Peter and indeed that that which in the second and eighth line of your Chapter you call the Greeke Church might have beene acknowledged to be a Church in the seventh that had you not said it in the most evident tearmes None beside Rome can pretend this and without this one none can be sufficient to prove a Church c. had there been any way imaginable but this to answer his Lordship's argument I should never have thought this had beene your meaning till I see you againe owne this severe doctrine I shall not take paines to confute it and when I see that I must say that his Lordship presumed you had not been so bloudily minded when he proposed to you the argument in those two Sections Section 2 And yet after all this I doubt not but with a little change his Lordships argument will still hold against you even after you have ventured on such strange practices to secure your self from it Thus suppose you had evinced that the succession from S. Peter were infallible and so proved the Roman Church to be so because none else pretended to succeed S. Peter yet this can be no sufficient ground of belief to the ignorant who cannot have any infallible foundation of belief that the Greek Church doth not pretend from S. Peter whether by S. Mark at Alexandria who might be ordained by S. Peter whose right hand they say he was in the penning of the Gospell or by Evodius at Antioch where S. Peter was Bishop seven yeares as your owne Baronius or by any other or to the ignorant it matters not by no other known way and even to the learned it is but an accidentall argument because if any other company had likewise claimed Succession from Saint Peter as they of Antioch do it had overthrown all that probation nay it is but an arbitrary argument which the adversary can confute by but denying for if any society of Christians so called would pretend to be from Saint Peter some other way then by succeeding him at Rome or submitting to his government your Church could make use of it no longer Section 3 As for that which you adde in a word of answer to the 10 Sect. that what ever Churches claime unto succession shall be alleadged it can no way evacuate that of Rome if it be applied to his Lordship's argument it is absolutely false for if Rome's claime to Infallibility together and to succession to Saint Peter be to be proved by this because none else pretends to it which is the argument which his Lordship here confutes then sure any other Churches claime or pretending to it will evacuate that claime or title that by that argument is pretended and contrary to this there is yet nothing shewed To the 11. Section Chap. 10. What mercy God will use in pardoning the errorurs of those men who doe seeke sincerely and yet misse makes nothing at all against the ordinary provision and necessity of a guide because those misses or mistakings be cases extraordinary Besides I would know why any pardon should need for such innocent errours which be defects involuntary and so can be no crimes wherefore me thinks the discourse of our Enquirer in this Section is not coherent C. 10. Answ To the Chap. 10. Section 1 His Lordship's argument Sect. 11. is very strong against the collecting a necessity of an Infallible guide for the interpreting of Scripture from the topick of God's goodnesse by proposing another way of reconciling God's providence with his goodnesse in this matter which if it may be done concludes that other unnecessary viz. by mentioning a doctrine of more Evangelicall oeconomy in which errours may be reconcileable with mercy when God doth give grace to the diligent seeker to finde out truth or by this dilemma that without such an infallible guide upon the use of Reason in the interpretation of Scripture and search for tradition God will either give grace to finde what is so sought or pardon if he misse and so though it stand not with Gods goodnesse to damne him for every errour to whom he hath assigned no infallible way to finde out all truth yet to him that is confident that God will not damne any man upon such tearmes as the servant laid to his charge when he told him he was an austere man c. to him that teaches not such legall bloudy doctrine against God this argument of the Romanists will not be pressing at all this expedient of the Gospell-grace or Gospell-mercy being as fit for the turne of infirme soules as an infallible guide would be as indeed the state of imperfection wherein we are placed is as fit for our turnes when the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Gospell is revealed and proportioned to it as Adam's Paradise of Supernaturall all-sufficient strength and innocence would be Section 2 To all which all that you returne is only this that all this is nothing against the ordinary provision and necessity of a guide because those misses or mistakings are cases extraordinary To which I answer First that if it were supposed that against the ordinary provision of a guide the argument were not of force yet sure it might against the necessity of it and then that is all that is pretended to by his Lordship and that which alone is destructive to you and therefore 't is strange you should couple them together as so sociall things which are so distant and separable for sure though Evangelicall grace and mercy doe not exclude an ordinary provision of an infallible way but leave it in medio that God may if he will make that ordinary provision yet notwithstanding this it followes not that such a provision is required or nenessary There is a wide distance betwixt possible if God please and necessary to the vindicating of God's goodnesse now against the latter onely it is that his Lordship argues and is not at all concern'd in th' other and therefore I shall not need to examine whether the first be
evidence and let me tell you this is the difference betwixt beliefe and knowledge the latter onely is inferr'd demonstratively or by premises that cannot be otherwise the former being content with probable arguments so they be strongly probable and such as have not any the like or of as considerable weight to be ballanced against them And this sure is the reason that Faith is by God thought fit to be rewarded as being an act of the Believers choyce and knowledge not because it is necessarily and irregably induced and yet such as that it will be all obstinacy and perversnesse to resist when it comes well provided with arguments extreamly probable Section 8 For if you marke it the most weighty actions of our lives and those which we doe most constantly and most confidently are founded no deeper then on probabilities We eate and drinke for the strengthening and refreshing of our bodies and yet conceive not our selves to have any certainty of evidence or demonstration that every bit we eate or drop we drinke may not choake or poyson us yet having probabilities on which to ground a beliefe that they are wholsome and no strong contrary probability that our table shall become a snare or death unto us we doubt not to feed as securely as if Euclid had beene our surety by one of his Demonstrations Section 9 So in every piece of land I buy or estate I enjoy from my Ancestors 't is possible and the contrary not demonstrable or certaine in that sense that there may be some flaw which may undoe me and yet when I have searcht my evidences and have the opinion of wise men upon the matter I sit downe and trade and live securely and all this but upon probabilities without the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or full armour of infallibility or demonstration Section 10 And so in all matters of fact which we see or heare not with our owne eies or eares but as with perspectives and otacoustickes I meane where we are faine to trust the relations of others be it that there was a Julius Caesar or a Henry the eight the ground of our beliefe is but a probability viz. the topick ab authoritate the argument taken from the authority of the relators which though it be never so strengthened by the universall concurrence and non-dissenting of all witnesses cannot yet ascend higher then to be extreamly probable and yet sure is as firmely believed of us and although it may possibly be otherwise the contrary implying no repugnance or contradiction in nature and he that should be so mad to affirme it being not confutable either by rationall or ocular demonstration yet as little doubted of by any man in his right wits and as little lyable to any scruple or matter of doubt as what is most visible before our eies Section 11 This I have said perhaps ex abundanti yet shall not repent of it because it is usefull to be considered in order to other difficulties to shew you the falsnesse and inconsequence of that argument that unlesse the Church were presumed infallible before its determinations it could never be believed in any For hereby it hath appeared that that may be believed nay cannot sometimes without pertinacy and sinne be not believed as in case the arguments though but probable be excessively so which brings not with it demonstration or any thing of equall power or force with it and such is infallibility Section 12 And from thence you will easily discerne how possible it may be for us Protestants to believe the universall Church in all things wherein the testimony appeares to be universall nay to believe the Church of Rome in many things wherein the arguments produced by her doe actually perswade with us such are her consonancy with antiquity and the like and yet to remaine constant to our present undertakings that she is not infallible Section 13 But it now appeares that I might have spared this paines in pressing these inconveniences on that first answer of yours For it seemes by what followes that all that answer was needlesse For now upon better consideration 't is true with a distinction that the Councell doth virtually and in actu exercito define its owne infallibility and that you prove First because it pronounceth anathema's against those that submit not Secondly it doth it by saying Visum est Spiritui Sancto c. Section 14 Not to examine your phrase of actus exercitus as 't is here applyed To your arguments we answer First that our Councels denounce anathema's too yet you know doe not pretend to infallibility Section 15 That forme I conceive signifies not that all are damned that believe not what we believe but that all they that shall dis-believe may be excommunicated if they be refractory and that againe onely in reference to those that are under dominion but not that all others that are not under us should by us be so handled or that those that are not excommunicate are in that other danger or if these are yet not for the sinne of dis-believing an infallible doctrine but for not believing our lawfull superiours which may be a damning sinne though they be not infallible their being in the truth when they make such constitutions is sufficient for that Secondly the forme of Visum est Spiritui Sancto is onely a forme transcribed from the Acts arguing it their opinion that use it that this particular is the dictate of the Holy Ghost not at all their beliefe that the Holy Ghost was bound to assist irresistibly which he must as well as assist to make the infallibility for otherwise when he assists we may possibly not make use of his assistance In plaine 't is an evidence that they thinke they are in the truth not that they cannot be in the wrong Section 16 To the 22. Section though you answer not a word yet you are as discreet as if you did you doe another thing in stead of it you aske a question and harangue upon it at large the Question is pertinent enough though not to this Section yet to the businesse in grosse and we answer it in a word that the Word of God must regulate our beliefe and reason in the use of all the meanes that you will commend to us and you have given us a pledge already that you will not quarrell with us for this answer as for discipline and keeping in unity we had blessed be God meanes very sufficient to that end till the sword wrested them as all other our lawfull possessions out of our hands and I believe the Infallibility of the Church is not weapon-proofe or able to keepe Resisters in obedience or Schismatiques in unity Section 17 As for your uncharitable judgement that want of an Infallible Church which must be but want of that insolence to undertake our selves to be Infallible is that and no other the cause of all our present miseries and his Lordships doctrine in this Book
unhappy for any ingenuous man to make any confession to you who from his Lordship's acknowledgment that the Church of England is a little too blame in this point conclude that in confessing this he insinuates all This 't is to deale with men who cannot imagine it possible that a man's words and thoughts should be of the same latitude Should I by the same Logicke conclude that you by confessing that all invaders for Religion must be put to death doe intimate that all kinde of Protestants must be executed I hope you would say you had wrong done you And yet to tell you truth the subtlety of your next distinction would give any man that observed it great temptation so to conclude of you For after your citation of S. Th. of Aquine and the Schoolemen you are pleased to communicate to us a notable Mystery that you doe use reasons to perswade and plant your faith and truly the telling us you cannot erre and upon that bottome building all your most irrationall conclusions is no speciall exercise of the reasonable faculty and onely fence it exteriourly and afarre off with statutes of temporall severity against invaders which say you is another thing from defending it interiourly by that meanes i. e. from justifying the right and truth of religion by them Section 24 I should never have beene so uncivill as to have affixt such a sence to your distinction had you not beene your owne interpreter It is as if you had said you are not to be accused for planting religion by armes because your swords doe onely force men to be of your minds doe not give them any reasons why they should And truly I have not heard any man say that your armes did fence religion interiourly being the unaptest thing in the world to justifie the right and truth of religion and therefore you need not disavow that so providently the great Turke could send a letter to your Pope and answer and confute his bull of inciting the Princes of Christendome to take up armes against him for crucifying their god and tell him that as 't was a great falsity to charge on him what was proper to the Jewes the crucifying of Christ the Turke being descended from the Trojans and therefore desiring the Popes aide against the Grecians to avenge their murther of the Trojan Hector a kinde of god of theirs so if the Pope were truly a worshipper of Christ he would never invade any nation upon quarrell of religion so farre is this kinde of fighting in the knowledge of all even of Turkes themselves from justifying of the truth that if is a very great argument of the falsenesse of any sect of Christian religion a plaine demonstration that they doe not obey the Christ whom they worship Section 25 The using the sword as an exteriour meanes of propagating your religion is all that is laid to your charge and that it seemes you are content to yeild us Though within a page or two more you have forgotten your selfe againe and say that for publique coaction or violence you doe not owne it I wish you did not Section 26 And that you may for the time to come deale clearely and never have minde to sucke in your words and owne it againe I shall in passing mention to you a narration concerning an honest Philosopher in Valens his time It was Themistius who before his death turn'd from Aristotelian to Christian but I conceive was not yet converted when this story is related of him Valens in Antioch saith the Historian had vehemently persecuted the Christians that were not of his opinion had not a booke of Themistius the Philosopher recall'd him in which he perswaded him that he ought not to be cruell to any for a difference of Ecclesiasticall opinions seeing among the Pagans themselves there were more than 300 sects differing all from one another And perhaps this might be wore acceptable at least more pardonable before God because God is not easily knowne and is glorified in different manners on purpose that every man may feare the more the more he wants of the integrity and perfection of that knowledge of him either how he is or how qualified or how great he is By the reasons of Themistius saith he mitior factus est Imperator the Emperour became more mild It may not be unfit for your friends to consider the example and doe so too Section 27 As for your challenge to us that if we will restore all we have taken from Papists in Europe you will restore what you have taken from us it is a good safe boast you know that it is not in any replyers power to strike the bargaine Yet if all the pecuniary mulcts under the reigne of the three last Princes in this Kingdome be price enough to ransome and fetch backe the bloud shed by you in Queene Maries daies I doubt not but I shall be as forward as you to accept that challenge Section 28 Meane while for the justification of our severest lawes in this point you cannot but confesse that in most Kingdomes strong presumptions have beene thought sufficient to make lyable to punishment In the Canon law the proving of nudus cum nudâ that such a man and woman were taken naked together is presumption enough to bring the punishment of adultery on any And when our Queene had run so many dangers by Priests and thereupon Capitall lawes were made that no such should come into the Kingdome or if they did they should be presumed traiterously disposed and punished accordingly and this Statute thus legally made conveyed to the knowledge of all such it hath been a very rationall presumption against any that should be so found Though as 't is possible that nudus cum nudâ may be no adulterer so such a Priest may have no traiterous purpose And yet if you marke it unlesse since these times of troubles very few of you have suffered among us by this Statute Section 29 Sir you had great leasure when you could enlarge so to triumph over us for acknowledging our Church fallible and professe to discharge his Lordship from being your Advocate if he speake so ill for his Client This you might have done long since and unlesse your favour may be had upon some other tearmes then undertaking the Infallibility of meere creatures we must all be content to be discarded by you Section 30 Yet after all your turning away and slighting we shall never be so provoked as to punish you for the result of what we prescribe you If your best use of reason in the interpretation of Scripture and not any prejudice or passion or fault of yours have sincerely brought you to your opinions and no light that is offer'd hath beene neglected and yet all prove unsufficient to convince you I shall never severely pronounce against you and if you will say and make good as much to me our affections may meet though not our braines
petitio principii againe Section 5 As for your Conclusion of this dispute wherein you set the comparison betwixt two Arguments and say yours is much the better I shall not need debate that with you because they are not the two Arguments betwixt which his Lordship makes the comparison The first I confesse you have rightly set downe This Guide to my understanding teaches things contrary to Gods goodnesse therefore it is not the Guide and this will be as good an argument as this other 'T is to my understanding contrary to the goodnesse of God that the Roman Church should not be an infallible Guide or that there should be no infallible Guide where there is none but the Roman Church therefore the Roman Church is so In this comparison the consequences are equally true and built upon the same ground that that which is against Gods goodnesse cannot be and the Antecedents equally affirmed according to severall understandings and then whether the other Argument which you bring be comparable to either it matters not Section 6 But when at last you give us a note that the argument from God's goodnesse doth not conclude that your Church is infallible but onely that it may be so I confesse you make me repent of all this unprofitable attendance I have paid you in following your argument thus farre when your selfe have given me directions to a shorter cut of answering viz by granting that it may be infallible that is that nothing in nature resists but that if God's pleasure were so it might be infallible but say we we have no evidence from God that it is his pleasure it should and therefore we conclude it may be deceived or may be fallible betwixt which two though there may be some difference as there is betwixt falli and fallibilem esse yet unlesse some evidence can be brought against one which cannot against the other they will be both equally true as farre as respects our knowledge or debate of them Section 7 And when you adde that 't is from other reasons that you conclude she is infallible and not from this of Gods goodnesse I answer that 't is cleare that his Lordship was now disputing onely against that reason taken from Gods goodnesse which it seemes you confesse was no reason and for your other reasons they are either confuted in other paragraphs of his Lordships Treatise or when you produce them shall be To the 31. Sect. Chap. 19. This Section is spent in the enquiring whether a man shall be damned for making a diligent and impartiall enquiry after the true religion of which he finds the infallibility of the Church to be a part supposing that his reason when all is done will not assent This is his Quaere and the same may be made concerning any other verity or point of doctrine as namely of the holy Scripture whether or no it be the word of God and what shall become of that man whose reason after an impartiall search made will not assent or againe about the truth of Christian Religion unto which after such a search made his reason will not condescend I answer first that it is a mockery to aske whether or no any Man shall be damned for making a good enquiry without successe and in effect it is the same as to enquire whether a Man shall be damned for doing a deed that 's commendable and good For this Question supposes that either the Enquirer or we were very simple Creatures and did not understand our selves or else that the Gentleman-demander was not in earnest but propounded it only for his recreation though at a time ill chosen and unseasonable and also in a matter about which there ought to be no jeasting I answer secondly that in a place where instruction and information may be had the case he puts is morally impossible to happen out for we deny that where the search is diligent impartiall and without prejudice and where againe information sufficient is to be had that there the reason shall not be able to assent and that wheresoever it cannot that same happens either through weaknesse or inhability of judgment and capacity or else by reason of some disordinate passion of the will by which the understanding is misled and darkened as in those who are refractary it for the most part falls out Which passion and prejudices arise sometimes from custome and education sometimes from vitious inclinations sometimes from a crookednesse and perversity of nature which doth refuse instruction Wherefore as it is no sufficient excuse for an Infidel to say I have searched diligently whether or no Christ be the true Messias or whether the Scripture be the word of God or no and after all endeavours used my reason will not assent so in like manner it is as little sufficient to alleage that after enquiry made about the true Church and her Infallibility your reason would not assent for in these cases we cannot grant any ignorance invincible or free that errour which possesses them from guilt Now what shall become of others who want instruction sufficient and have no crookednesse or backwardnesse in their will and die in ignorance is another point and different from this of ours and is to be resolved in the Question about the efficacy of Implicite faith to which I referre my Reader Chap. 19. Answ to Ch. 19. Section 1 In this Paragraph his Lordship askes a Question Whether supposing that he that never heard of the Church of Rome shall not be damned for not believing it infallible it can be thought that he that hath made diligent search and used honestly all meanes afforded him and yet doth not believe the Church infallible shall be damned for that not-believing this is the Question and to weigh it downe on one side that that latter shall not be damning when tother is not this reason is put in that in this matter all that that Man hath done in the second case more than in the former is onely the having diligently enquired which is presumed to be no damning sinne Section 2 In stead of the Question thus put you set another somewhat distant but I will suppose tending to the same effect whether a Man shall be damned for making a good enquiry without successe which you say is a mockery and so as I conceive ridiculous to affirme it and so Sir after all your descanting on his Lordship for asking this question it is apparent by our explication of it that upon the denying of that which you say 't is ridiculous not to deny it inevitably followes that that Man shal not be damned for denying the infallibility of your Church Section 3 And though you take paines to perswade that this case is morally impossible yet you must give us leave from your stating of the case wherein you say it is so viz when information sufficient is to be had to conclude your proofe a petitio principii againe for when wee deny your Church to
avoided Section 10 This being thus set betwixt us I shall not need to descend to a particular survey of the truth of what you say that these differences among you are in matters not de fide though in that there would be a large field to amplifie in also Section 11 To his Lordships argument That the Church ought to have resolved these questions if they desired conformity with the antient Church you answer that neither of these Doctrines hinder Conformity with the Antients in any thing wherein Conformity is required and confirme that by an implicite Assertion which you will never be able to prove viz that the Fathers did not deliver doctrines as well as reasons directly contrary to the Dominicans Whereas 't is cleare they did viz to that that physicall predeterminations can consist with freedome of will Which even now you thought good not to deny but to excuse by a dilemma that if this opposition were not discovered to the Dominicans it would doe no hurt if it were it would be relinquisht It seemes by this that if they are discovered and not relinquisht the danger would then be great and so that if they knew this conformity this conformity would be requisite also and so is requisite in it selfe though by the excuse of blamelesse ignorance it be capable of mercy Section 12 To the 42 Sect. you answer by granting againe and thus you say also Master Ch. is answered and truly so any Man will be content to be answered I would all his Lordships Treatise had been so answered it had been more ease to your selfe and advantage to somebody else To the 43 Sect. Chap. 25. We doe not formally inferre that because our rule breeds unity therefore all dissenting Parties ought to yeild to that but that dissenting Parties have no rule on which it is fit or safe to rely and againe that in place of it we ought to seeke out one which causes unity because no rule can be good without that quality Neverthelesse it followes also ours is the true rule because de facto none but ours either doth it or is apt to doe it and one such rule there must be we are sure Ours then is not therefore to be accepted because it breeds unity but because it alone doth breed it As for Nilus he is a pratling Greeke and besides that in his severall sayings he overthrowes himselfe and confirmes our Doctrines in this point no heed is to be taken to what he saith Chap. 25. Answ to Chap. 25. Section 1 In this Chapter you disclaime an Assertion by affirming it disclaime it in these words That you doe not inferre because your rule breeds Vnity therefore all dissenting Parties ought to yeild to it and affirme it in these That dissenting Parties have no rule that they ought to seeke out one that causes unity that yours is the true rule and none but yours your meaning is it seemes that you doe inferre it but you doe it not formally and sure it matters little for formality when the thing is so granted by you Section 2 For that you put in the word onely it matter 's little because any other company that should deny that infallibility and usurp it themselves would soone get the monopoly of it also especially from any that differed from them in any particular As for Nilus 't is farre cheaper and easier to call him pratling Greeke than to confute his saying which yet if you please to marke his words in this place is no more than you say in the very undertaking to answer this Treatise that your Church must by all be lookt on as infallible To the 44 45 46 47 Sections Chap. 26. In these foure Sections the Enquirer busily endeavours to perswade that errours might secretly creep into the Church by degrees as a Child waxes bigger and as the index of a Clock moves about Be it so as the Enquirer saith yet neverthelesse might all such creeping errours if there were any be espied at least when they had once got in if not while they were stealing thither Thus the growth of a Child is seene plainly though not the growing and the hand or shadow of a Diall is seene at what houre it is though the slow pace thither was not perceptible and Men may give a judgement whether it goe false or true Why then could not errours be espied as easily after they were once stolne in though by never so small degrees they made their approaches thither Thus were the errours of Arius Pelagius Wicliffe Socinus and others presently discovered notwithstanding all their Authours counterfeiting and slie manner of divulging them even as tares which were sown while Men slept as soon as grown up were seen and noted What then should hinder all other pretended errours of the Church from being seen and registred although crept in never so insensibly What matter is it that sundry Bookes are lost Are they more lost for those errours then for others or were these more invisible then all the rest It is strange with what improbable conjectures this Enquirer deludes himselfe He tells us afterwards of another slie way of breaking in that is to say under old names and titles altering the signification but not the words But I would know how the errours of the Church could by this art be concealed more than the errours of Calvin who sought with old appellations to palliate his new Doctrines But in conclusion his principall device is that if no precedent opposition were a note of the being taught from the beginning that then the doctrine of the Chiliasts would passe for right and Apostolicall because as he affirmeth it was not contradicted till two hundred yeares after the coming in But my answer is it is more than any Man can prove that it was contradicted no sooner nay it is more than probable that it was contradicted in the time of S. Justin as we have shewed before and also highly probable that it was opposed and rejected in the time of Dionysius the Arcopagite as also hath been noted before Besides it is no way necessary that every casuall or innocent opinion should be forthwith contradicted or noted as an errour against faith and of this sort was the errour of the Chiliasts during the time it was held but as an opinion without censuring or condemning others to which height assoone as it arrived it was cryed downe presently and rejected The 48 Sect. containes but a recapitulation of what was before propounded and therefore requires no new answer to it The last Sect. containes nothing that deserves not commendation or is unworthy of the Author but is rather to be extolled and imitated by all that make Enquiries after truth and his resolves there be such that if they be truly and sincerily put in execution by any no man can have reason to be offended with him in this world nor is it likely that God will be displeased with him in the next But whether the Enquirer was
then of the demonstrated probleme before me a certainty of adherence of which the believer is as fully possest and from it receives as strong motives to doe any thing proportionable to that belief as if the certitude of evidence were allowed him And this I conceive is a degree prettily advanced above motives of credibility for such is every the lowest probability nay almost possibility and non-repugnance whatsoever is possible to be being in it self and in case the opposite ballance be not otherwise weighed down credible i. e. possible to be believed also But this by the way and ex abundanti C. 9. Answ to C. 9. A. Why cannot the simple know this viz. that the Greek Church doth not pretend from Saint Peter as surely as they know the whole Christian Church pretends from Christ and from no other Answ Sir you are a little too hasty in your annotation for if you had but read on to the next lines you had received the answer to your question so far as my discourse is concerned in it viz. a specifying of divers wayes by which 't is possible the Greek Church might and one whereby one part of it doth pretend succession to S. Peter And then that which so manifestly may be and is will not I hope be so easie for ignorant men to know surely that it is not or so surely as that the Christian Church pretends from Christ and from no other Which yet if it have any difficulty in it not intelligible to some ignorant men I take no pleasure in frighting any with an apprehension that God wil ever damne those ignorants for not being sure of what is so difficult so their lives be believing and Christian and agreeable to what they doe know of Christ. C. 10. Answ to C. 10. A. No sure not against the ordinary necessity Answ The thing I say in that place is that his Lordships argument might be I shall adde is of force against the necessity of a guide meaning thereby an infallible one for such only is to our purpose and that that will serve his Lordships turne and destroy you I there farther prove by a full explication of the whole matter And therefore you must give me favour to leave out your epithete of Ordinary which you would have me interpose when my discourse in order to its end hath no need of it And if you tell me you put it in in your answer to his Lordship and that therefore I have not vindicated his Lordship from that answer unlesse I take it in also I must then confesse to you that I did not so understand your words all this is nothing against the ordinary provision and necessity of a guide that the word ordinary was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be repeated to the word necessity but onely that it belonged to provision And now that I know your pleasure I shall more clearly returne my answer that his Lordship supposes some men and I confesse my selfe to be one of them to believe that to all who follow their reason in the interpretation of Scripture and search for tradition i. e. the constant interpretation of the Catholique Church concerning any difficulty God will either give his grace of assistance to find the truth or his pardon if they misse it To which purpose you may please to compare Justin Mart. quest ◠ad Orthod and to omit many more Facundus Hermian in def 3. capit ad Just l. 11. p. 491. p. 496. l. 12. pag. 513. Now to them that so believe the argument which you fetch from Gods providence to conclude an infallible guide will not saith his Lordship be sufficient to prove it because he still will be able to say that where imperfection is accepted meanes of perfection are not necessary if God will pardon weaknesses he need not give such a measure of strength as excludes all weaknesses if sincerity though with some mixture of sinne will serve turne here in viâ we need not expect from God that integrity of faculties which either was bestowed in paradise or will be in heaven to give us an unsinning innocence And if you will still interpose that this is nothing against the ordinary necessity because these are cases extraordinary I answer that this is a great mistake For under the Gospell or Evangelicall State under which all men have beene since the promise of Christ upon Adams fall there is no ordinary necessity of never missing or mistaking our naturall state being an estate of weaknesse is advanced by Christ into such a condition not wherein all weaknesse is excluded but wherein sincerity with mixtures of slips and errours shall be accepted and this as infallibly as innocence had beene rewarded under the first covenant made with Adam in the first state To the first Covenant which is stricti juris such pardon for slips might be extraordinary but to this second whereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or gentlenesse is as much apart as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or strict justice was before this pardon for invincible infirmities is as ordinary as obligation to punishment for every slip had beene before this being a prime ingredient in that Covenant and not extraordinarii but ordinarii juris that under it such slips shall not be remembred In like manner as in this Kingdome Chancery though it be opposed to Common Law in one sence as that signifies strict law yet it is a part of our common law as that signifies the Municipall law or totall body of lawes by which this Kingdome is ruled Equity though perhaps it came in later and to repaire defects or excesses in the strict law being now as much every Subjects right and Writs out of that Court as legally required and granted and the whole processe in Chancery as clearely sec jura consuetudines Angliae and so as much Ordinary or secundum Ordinem as any thing that passes in the Common Pleas. And so much for your nice interposition of the word Ordinary to your pretended necessity of a guide where yet I might farther tell you that infallibility is not essentiall to or inseparable from a guide and therefore though the Guide were granted to be ordinarily necessary to the finding out of truth yet this would not come home to infallibility The antecedent I could make good at large if it were now seasonable Ibid. B. They i. e. misses and mistakings are called extraordinary because happening accidentally besides the provision of the law and not because they happen seldome Answ That misses and mistakings infirmities and ignorances doe happen besides the provision of the second or the Evangelicall Covenant is a mistake as was intimated then within few lines after those whereon your annotation was fastened and now at large proved in my last answer to your former annotation and I shall not need repeate it but onely tell you there is a law of Faith aswell as of workes and that in that law there is provision for errours aswell
the justifying the right and truth of religion by them Which I then conceived to signifie that your swords doe onely force men to be of your minds doe not give them reasons why they should Yet if after all this you tell me in earnest that this was not your meaning I shall cry you mercy for the mistake but not now enter into a dispute with you of that new question now proposed by you Whether religion that must signifie your doctrines as they are distinguisht from or opposed to ours or else 't will not be pertinent to our purpose being planted and in quiet possession may because I cannot imagine what verbe that syllable may is the moode of Plant it cannot be for that which is in possession is already planted But what it should be I must not divine for you Only at an adventure I shall make a plaine state If your doctrines were in quiet possession here and you should know of any man that taught the contrary to them must your sword be drawne against him or no I beseech you answer out of the sence of your brethren that we may know what to expect from you For my own part I shall make no scruple to tell you that though the defender of the Faith have the power of the sword given him by God to that end to governe in godlinesse and quiet and may therefore draw it effectually against any that raise sedition to bring in some other religion against that which is by law establisht or that vent doctrines that are in themselves seditious yet ought he not onely in case of any single doctrine or difference in religion where none of the civill interests are concerned no violent assault made or feared from the dissenters to unsheath his slaughtering sword against any such dissenter provided alwayes that that doctrine be not blasphemous And they that consenting to this truth will yet tyrannize over mens soules in ordine ad temporalia as you and some others have done over mens bodies and estates in ordine ad spiritualia shall never be excused by me and of this opinion I conceive there might be vouched as learned and as primitive-tempered Christians as any that are more zealously and so more bloudily minded Ibid. H. Aspersions be easily cast but should not be admitted when there are strong presumptions to the contrary without evident proofe The Catholiques were knowne good Patriots under our former Kings and under this our most gracious Prince we have good testimony greater then which cannot be given Answ The case is not here of aspersions but of matters of fact or attempts of Priests whereby Queen Elizabeth was known to have beene in danger On which provocation the lawes forbidding all such to come into the Kingdome made it such a legall presumption that if they did they should incurre that suspicion and sentence of the law And so every man knowing what measure to expect from the lawes were farther to be presumed either traiterous or madde if on those tearmes he would adventure on such a forbidden journey As for evident proofe which you require it belongs little to this matter because the very being in the Kingdome was a demonstration of contemning the law and an evidence that they were the men that were under that legall presumption which is farre more then a prooflesse aspersion with evidence to the contrary As for the fidelity of your Patriots under our formost Kings when they were of their opinions I shall not question it neither in like manner your behaviour to our present Soveraigne but onely tell you that the Queen Elizabeth lawes might be just for all that which was all we had now in hand and for the execution of them in latter times I before gave you an account Ibid. I. We doe professe our best reason hath brought us to our religion not our passion and we have as much reason to be believed as any others can Answ 'T is possible you may not for if mens actions give in any testimony against their words there will not be so much reason to believe such as when there is a concordance of them But if upon serious shrift you are able to professe this sincerity I shall be so charitable to believe you and allow you any hope of mercy for your errours which you can wish but yet tell you that by making this profession in the plurall number you doe somewhat prejudge it no man being so privy to the hearts of his fellow professours as to be a fit voucher for them every man must stand or fall to his owne Master Ibid. K. I was to answer and not to prove and therefore might in right deny what the Enquirer falsely supposes without proofe It is the respondents right to affirme the very point in question or to deny it without caring whether it be granted or no so he himselfe be ready to defend it and so he that can exact this as his owne shall not need to begge any thing and if he doe he cannot begge more then what he hath and what he affirmes or denies already For example I deny against Copernicus that the earth moves or I affirme that it is quiet and I stand to maintaine my saying Certainly this is no begging but yet to say that it is so may be a begging or if I should say it stood still because it doth not move were a frivolous speech but yet for all that no begging of the question Answ This vindication of your beloved petitio principii that stands you in such stead and returnes so frequently upon you I have already examined and discovered the mistakings of it and must now tell you againe that when the question is by the opponent proved by any medium it must never be lawfull for the respondent to deny it againe any farther then by denying the proofe on which it was inferred for this would be the denying the conclusion and petitio principii againe The respondent in this case cannot exact the question as his own nor any otherwise defend it then by repelling the weapons brought against him As for your great simile of denying the motion of the earth and your standing to maintaine your saying if you doe this by any other meanes then by denying or answering the proofes produced against you this is not the respondents part but will when you have done what you can appeare to be that vulgar Sophisme It being certaine that when a thing is questioned betwixt two the affirming without proofe is begging it and it being not the respondents part to prove or if he doe he becomes opponent it followes necessarily that the respondent that in time of disputation affirmes must either cease to be respondent or else begge the question C. 18. Answ to C. 18. A. We are to consider here not what is conceived but what is to be conceived Now what is to be conceived I have shewed namely that the Church understands better then he doth for right
universum yet it came to a debate whether the having Bishops was necessary or no On which soever it is it is enough to prove dissentions C. 26. Answ to C. 26. A. At least they might have been discerned as well as other errours were and the Authors of them also Answ This note being reduced to intelligible sence will I conceive be that the now Romish errours might have been discerned c. To which I answer that though they might yet First 't is possible that they might not Secondly very possible that being favoured if not brought in by those in authority among them they would not be branded or recorded for errours and then all that we their posterity can see may be onely that the tares are sowne but not punctually at what point of the night or who the man was that sowed them Ibid. B. No more for these then for other errours Answ His Lordship had occasion onely to speake of these but will say the like of all others whose originall is not discernible Ibid. C. In all ages errours were censured and condemned Answ All kinde of errours were not thought to be of such weight as that such heavy censures and condemnations which you lay on us should be fastened on them And therefore in case ours be not errours or but in materia non gravi in disputable parts as if you please to descend to particulars we will undertake to prove them those severe censures of yours being more contrary to charity may prove more dangerous to you then we shall otherwise affirme your opinions to be Ibid. D. I judge one of these two by the event and the other by the semblance of his making a search in manner as he ought Answ This is a darke speech which I doe not clearly understand if the meaning be that you judge the ill successe of his Lordships searches by the event and the fault of them by the semblance c. I must then tell you that the first is a very ill grounded judgement for no event hath proved the ilnesse of that successe unlesse like those in the Gospel you count them the greatest Sinners on whom the Tower of Siloah fell or like him of late that being willing to passe his opinion on a learned mans choice of a side in the differences in the Low Countries said onely this Illud notum est partes quas secutus non est praevaluisse si quis infelicitati hoc tribuat ego prudentiam non probo minus felicem and Busbequius tels us somewhat like of the Turkes judgments of good and bad enterprizes but rather on your owne principles I have already proved that they must be good in the successe which were so happy in proposing But then what you meane by the semblance of his making a search in manner as he ought by which you judge the fault in his searches I must confesse I doe not at all understand and therefore must be faine to confesse my selfe overcome and mastered though not by the reason yet by the obscurity of your writing and if that be a victory I wish you much good of it To the Conclusion A. I here contend no more but that our Church may be infallible notwithstanding any thing the Enquirer hath objected That she is so hath in due place been proved by others Answ If you had performed the former I meane satisfied all his Lordships arguments I should not require at this time the latter from you i. e. proving your Church to be Infallible I must then onely aske you in earnest whether you doe believe that no one of his Lordships arguments against your Infallibility for any one will serve our turne remaines unanswered by your Apology and then whether all that I have said to vindicate his Lordship be effectually answered in your marginall Notes and whether you can justifie all them against his last Reply If you are of this opinion in each I am to crave your pardon for this so gainlesse trouble but referre the matter to God and impartiall men to judge between us Ibid. B. If you would doe it we then would thinke it more than possible Answ The meaning of this annotation if it be sence must be this that if we Protestants could or would finde place in you for Scripture and Reason to make impression you Papists would then thinke it more then possible you might be deceived Which if it be the meaning I must then onely reply by prayer that God would so soften your hearts that they might be capable of that impression But if the words be indeed no sence but yet mistaken for some other words which would be sence then the likeliest thing that I can imagine is that you would have said somewhat to this purpose If you Protestants could by Scripture or Reason disprove our Doctrines we then would thinke it more than possible for us to be deceived Which though it were no huge Concession yet I should be glad to have it from you for then in effect your grounding of Faith on your Infallibility would be laid aside and then there would be no more truth in any individuall Doctrine of your Church than Scripture or Reason would inferre abstracted from the Authority of your Church which is all that at this time we demand from you And in that we are a little importunate seeing we have you now in a seeming good humour First because there is so much danger in insisting on that priviledge of Infallibility even in any particular wherein men are in the right because he that really doth stand yet may and therefore ought to take heed lest he fall but most eminently when a man chances to be in the wrong He that mistakes first in a piece of Divinity and after in a perswasion that he cannot mistake sealeth up that errour obstructs all entrance all approach all possibility of Reformation is fortified impregnable against all assaults either of reason or even the spirit of truth and by that one errour hath a kind of propriety in all other that can by the same hand be represented to him Secondly because we cannot but observe the prudence of your fellow-Champions Master Knot c. now of late who have chosen to vary the method from insisting on the severall points of difference betwixt us and them proving themselves to be the onely true Church from the particular truths profest by them and by no others to this other more commodious way of putting off all together by whole-sale of concluding the truth of all their assertions from the unerrablenesse of the Asserter manifesting that they are in the right because 't is impossible they should be in the wrong using all skill to perswade this one point and then confident on good grounds that no other can be resisted These two things put together will advertise you how seasonable an admonition it is to you that you will bestow a little paines on your Brethren to perswade them they are mortall
be no Argument Section 4 This being premised I pray observe in the second place the no force of this Argument against us unlesse it may also appeare that our departing from you is the cause of these Dissentions For if they be but onely consequent to it accidentally this ought not in all reason to be laid to our charge any farther then thus that this accidentall consequent is a probable argument of one of these two things either that you have better rules for the restraining of such Dissentions than we or else that you are more carefull in executing the rules you have and if either of these be said by you I shall then tell you 1. That it seemes this Argument concludes but probably though the proposition were granted and I believe I could urge as probably on the other side and conclude the excellency of our Reformation from that old saying of Clemens by way of Answer to your Objection both of Jewes and Heathens against Christianity taken from the Dissentions of Christians in the Primitive Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The cause of them is because all things that are excellent are subject to the envy of Men and Devils and from thence to the sowing of seeds of Dissentions amongst them agreeably to that of our Saviour that as soon as the wheat was in the ground the envious sowed his tares Section 5 But then secondly for the preventing of such Dissentions I shall adde that though we have not pretence of infallibility and threats of fire to restraine Men from them yet we have other rules more agreeable to antient Church practice than either of these and though the weapon of our warfare are not carnall in your sence of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the taking away of life yet are they if they were executed mighty to bring downe or shut out Heresies For if you know it not I can tell you that Excommunication that soveraigne receipt of Christ and his Apostles the most perfect designe of charity to save and recover that which is lost to shame Men to reformation and upon contempt of that that secular rougher hand interposing the Writ de Excommunicato capiendo and the Statute of Abjuration are very strong restraints and if they have not been so diligently executed as they ought to be though I hope you will pardon this fault yet he that will not must charge it onely on the Persons of our Magistrates and not on our Religion or the state of our Reformation And then let me adde that even these lawes and this execution of them or the like whether among you or us can extend no farther then to outward restraints and that onely of those that will be so terrified or to punishment of them that will not but not to preventing of Heresies in the inward rise or growth or sometimes in the breaking out whensoever ambition of being Leader of a Sect c. are more prevailing than feare of punishments which cases must be lookt for in every Church Section 6 To which purpose you may please to reflect upon your selves and tell me whether there were not good store of Hereticks before the times of the Reformation If not I am sure Irenaeus Epiphanius and Saint Augustine and Philastrius have abused us in their Catalogues and I beseech you but to remember the ridiculous Heresies of Galatia which Saint Jerome mentions on occasion of Gal. 3.1 in respect of which he conceives the Apostle calls them such fooles and thinks they were bewitcht particularly those of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that would have Cheese mixt with the Bread in the Sacrament which with two others of the like stamp there mentioned came from Ancyra the Metropolis of Galatia And yet I believe you would not thinke the Argument of much force if it should from your example against us be made use of by us either against those Apostolicall Churches or against the Roman Church ever since that so many Heresies are gone out of it and yet that would be as reasonable in us as in you it is to charge all the Heresies which have been in the World since Luther upon the Reformation Section 7 For let me aske you is the fault that you object to us in this matter that Hereticks are gone out from us That which wee have said will satisfie you that that is no argument that we are not a true Church for if it be it will be of force against the Catholique Orthodox Church in all Ages Or is it that they that thus dissent from us are suffered to continue among us if that be it then first there are also Dissenters among you continuing with you Secondly our Lawes and Canons are for the casting them out if their dissentings be Hereticall and that is all that you can pretend of these and if we have been more indulgent than you would have us that is but an errour of tendernesse first and then that onely the fault of Persons Section 8 Having said thus much which I conceive full ground of satisfaction to what you have or can say in this matter I might now adde that if you looke no farther then the Church of England even in these which I suppose you will count the worst times of it you cannot finde any greater or more dangerous Heresies avowed by any considerable Party than are owned by some of the Jesuits among you Section 9 I shall first mention that popular doctrine you know what I meane of Bellarmine resumed and confirmed not long before his death with his most advised care in his Recognitions Secondly the doctrine and practice of resisting and deposing lawfull Magistrates under colour of religion that I set it no higher even to killing of Kings Thirdly the opposing the Order of Bishops as expresly contrary to the sole-power enstated by Christ on S. Peter And also Fourthly the affirming it lawfull that evill may be done so it be in order to a publique good and that I trouble you with no more and yet give you reason to thinke that it is in my power I beseech you to believe that I have read Watson's Quodlibets and I could without much difficulty make a parallel betwixt these whom you so much charge and those whom you defend your hatedst Enemies and your dearest Friends that Booke being so richly able to furnish me with hints that I have surveyed the Writings betwixt the Seculars and the Regulars with the late controversie among you about the Bishop of Calcedons being appointed Ordinary in this Kingdome produced and in them the difference about the necessity of Confirmation and the non even now mentioned in the Canon of the Councell as also the Symbolum Jesuiticum c. and if we have any greater divisions among us yet than these I beseech you to let me know it from you for I believe 't will be no easie discovery and I shall promise to doe and pray my utmost that they may be