selfe same time they could be within and without the Catholique Church as proportionably I discoursed in the next precedent Chapter concerning the communicating of moderate Protestants with those who maintaine that Heresy of the Latency and Invisibility of Gods Church where I brought a place of S. Cyprian to this purpose which the Reader may be pleased to review in the fift Chapter and 17. Number 22 But besides this defect in the personall Succession of Protestant Bishops there is another of great moment which is that they want the right Forme of ordaining Bishops and Priests because the manner which they use is so much different from that of the Roman Church at least according to the common opinion of Divines that it cannot be sufficient for the Essence of Ordination as I could demonstrate if this were the proper place of such a Treatise and will not faile to doe if D. Potter give me occasion In the mean time the Reader may be pleased to read the Author cited here in the margent and then compare the forme of our Ordination with that of Protestants and to remember that if the forme which they use either in Consecrating Bishops or in ordaining Priests be at least doubtfull they can neither have undoubted Priests nor Bishops For Priests cannot be ordained but by true Bishops nor can any be a true Bishop unlesse he first be Priest I say their Ordination is at least doubtfull because that sufficeth for my present purpose For Bishops and Priests whose Ordination is notoriously known to be but doubtfull are not to be esteemed Bishops or Priests and no man without Sacriledge can receive Sacraments from them all which they administer unlawfully And if we except Baptisme with manifest danger of invalidity and with obligation to be at least conditionally repeated so Protestants must remain doubtfull of Remission of sinnes of their Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy and may not pretend to be a true Church which cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests not without due administration of Sacraments which according to Protestants is an essentiall note of the true Church And it is a world to observe the proceeding of English Protestants in this point of their Ordinations For first Ann. 3. Edw. 6. cap. 2. when he was a Child about twelve yeares of age It was enacted that such forme of making and consecrating of Bishops and Priests as by sixe Prelates and sixe other to be appointed by the King should be devised marke this word devised and set forth under the great Seale should be used and none other But after this Act was repealed 1. Mar. Sess. 2. in so much as that when afterward An. 6. 7 Reg. Eliz. Bishop Bonner being endicted upon a certificate made by D. Horne a Protestant Bishop of Winchester for his refusall of the Oath of Supremacy and he excepting against the endictment because D Horne was no Bishop all the Iudges resolved that his exception was good if indeed D. Horne was not Bishop and they were all at a stand till An. 8. Eliz cap. 1. the act of Edw. 6. was renewed and confirmed with a particular proviso that no man should be impeached or molested by meanes of any certificate by any Bishop or Archbishop made before this last Act. Whereby it is cleere that they made some doubt of their own ordination and that there is nothing but uncertainty in the whole businesse of their Ordination which forsooth must depend upon sixe Prelats the great Seale Acts of Parliaments being contrary one to another and the like 23 But though they want Personall Succession yet at least they have Succession of doctrine as they say and pretend to prove because they believe as the Apostles believed This is to begg the Question and to take what they may be sure will never be granted For if they want Personall Succession and sleight Ecclesiasticall Tradition how will they perswade any man that they agree with the doctrine of the Apostles We have heard Tertullian saying I will prescribe against all Heretiques that there is no meanes to prove what the Apostles preached but by the same Churches which they founded And S. Irenaeus tels us that We may behold the Tradition of the Apostles in every Church if men be desirous to hear the truth and we can number them who were made Bishops by the Apostles in Churches and their Successors even to us And the same Father in another place saith We ought to obey those Priests who are in the Church who have Succession from the Apostles and who together with Succession in their Bishopricks have received the certain gift of truth S. Austine saith I am kept in the Church by the succession of Priests from the very Sea of Peter the Apostle to whom our Saviour after his Resurrection committed his sheep to be fed even to the present Bishop Origen to this purpose giveth us a good and wholsome Rule happy if himselfe had followed the same in these excellent words Since there be many who think they believe the things which are of Câ—rist and some are of different opinion from those who went before them let the preaching of the Church be kept which is delivered by the Apostles by order of Succession and remaines in the Church to this very day that only is to be believed for truth which in nothing disagrees from the Tradition of the Church In vain then doe these men brag of the doctrine of the Apostles unles first they can demonstrate that they enjoyed a continued succession of Bishops from the Apostles and can shew us a Church which according to S. Austine is deduced by undoubted SVCCESSION from the Sea of the Apostles even to the present Bishops 23 But yet neverthelesse suppose it were granted that they agreed with the doctrine of the Apostles this were not sufficient to prove a Succession in Doctrine For Succession besides agreement or similitude doth also require a never-interrupted conveying of such doctrine from the time of the Apostles till the daies of those persons who challenge such a Succession And so S. Augustine saith We are to believe that Gospell which from the time of the Apostles the Church hath brought downe to our daies by a never-interrupted course of times and by undoubted succession of connection Now that the Reformation begunne by Luther was interrupted for divers ages before him is manifest out of History and by his endeavouring a Reformation which must presuppose abuses He cannot therefore pretend a continued Succession of that Doctrine which he fought to revive and reduce to the knowledge and practice of men And they ought not to prove that they have Succession of doctrine because they agree with the doctrine of the Apostles but contrarily we must inferre that they agree not with the Apostles because they cannot pretend a never-interrupted succession of doctrine from the times of the Apostles till Luther And here it is not amisse to note
direct contradictions viz. that conformity to the Roman Church was necessary in all points and not necessary in this or else so horribly impious as believing this doctrine of the Roman Church true and her power to receive Appeales derived from divine Authority notwithstanding to oppose and condemne it and to Anathematize all those Africans of what condition soever that should appeale unto it I say of what condition soever For it is evident that they concluded in their determination Bishops as well as the inferior Clergy and Laity And Cardinall Perrons pretence of the contrary is a shamelesse falshood repugnant to the plaine words of the Remonstrance of the African Bishops to Celestine Bishop of Rome 34 Your allegation of Tertullian is a manifest conviction of your want of syncerity For you produce with great ostentation what he saies of the Church of Rome but you and your fellowes alwaies conceale and dissemble that immediatly before these words he attributes as much for point of direction to any other Apostolique Church and that as he sends them to Rome who lived neare Italy so those neare Achaia hee sends to Corinth those about Macedonia to Philippi and Thessalonica those of Asia to Ephesus His words are Goe to now thou that wilt better imploy thy curiosity in the businesse of thy salvation run over the Apostolicall Churches wherein the Chaires of the Apostles are yet sate upon in their places wherein their Authentique Epistles are recited sounding out the voyce and representing the face of of every one Is Achaia neere thee there thou hast Corinth If thou art not farre from Macedonia thou hast Philippi thou hast Thessalonica If thou canst goe into Asia there thou hast Ephesus If thou be adjacent to Italy thou hast Rome whose Authority is neere at hand to us in Africk A happy Church into which the Apostles powred forth all their Doctrine together with their blood c. Now I pray Sir tell me if you can for blushing why this place might not have been urg'd by a Corinthian or Philippian or Thessalonian or an Ephesian to shew that in the judgment of Tertullian separation from any of their Churches is a certain mark of Heresie as iustly and rationally as you alleadge it to vindicate this priviledge to the Roman Church only Certainly if you will stand to Tertullians judgment you must either grant the authority of the Roman Church though at that time a good Topicall Argument and perhaps a better then any the Heretiques had especially in conjunction with other Apostolique Churches yet I say you must grant it perforce but a fallible Guide as well as that of Ephesus and Thessalonica and Philippi and Corinth or you must maintain the Authority of every one of these infallible as well as the Roman For though he make a Panegyrick of the Roman Church in particular and of the rest only in generall yet as I have said for point of direction he makes them all equall and therefore makes them choose you whether either all fallible or all infallible Now you will and must acknowledge that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Churches of Ephesus or Corinth or if he did that as experience shewes he erred in doing so and what can hinder but then we may say also that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Roman Church or if he did that he erred in doing so 35 From the saying of S. Basil certainly nothing can be gathered but only that the Bishop of Rome may discerne betweene that which is counterfeit and that which is lawfull and pure and without any diminution may preach the faith of our Ancestours Which certainly he might doe if ambition and covetousnesse did not hinder him or else I should never condemne him for doing otherwise But is there no difference betweene may and must Beleeve hee may doe so and he cannot but doe so Or doth it follow because he may doe so therefore he alwayes shall or will doe so In my opinion rather the contrary should follow For he that saith you may doe thus implies according to the ordinary sense of words that if he will he may doe otherwise You certainly may if you please leave abusing the world with such Sophistry as this but whether you will or no of that I have no assurance 36 Your next Witnesse I would willingly have examined but it seemes you are unwilling he should be found otherwise you would have givē us your direction where we might have him Of that Maximianus who succeeded Nestorius I can find no such thing in the Councels Neither can I beleeve that any Patriarch of Constantinople twelve hundred yeares agoe was so base a parasite of the Sea of Rome 37 Your last Witnesse Iohn of Constantinople I confesse speaks home and advanceth the Roman sea even to heaven But I feare it is that his owne may goe up with it which hee there professes to bee all one sea with the sea of Rome and therefore his Testimony as speaking in his own case is not much to be regarded But besides I have litle reason to be confident that this Epistle is not a forgery for certainly Binius hath obtruded upon us many a hundred such This though written by a Graecian is not extant in Greek but in Latine only Lastly it comes out of a suspicious place an old book of the Vatican Library which Library the world knowes to have been the Mint of very many impostures 38 Ad § 20. 21. 22. 23. The summe of your discourse in the 4. next Sections if it be pertinent to the Question in agitation must be this Want of succession of Bishops and Pastours holding alwayes the same doctrine and of the formes of ordaining Bishops and Priests which are in use in the Roman Church is a certain mark of Heresie But Protestants want all these things Therefore they are Heretiques To which I Answer That nothing but want of truth and holding errour can make or prove any man or Church hereticall For if he be a true Aristotelian or Platonist or Pyrrhoniā or Epicurean who holds the doctrine of Aristotle or Plato or Pirrho or Epicurus although he cannot assigne any that held it before him for many Ages together why should I not be made a true and orthodox Christian by beleeving all the doctrine of Christ though I cannot derive my descent from a perpetuall Successiō that beleev'd it before me By this reason you should say as well that no man can be a good Bishop or Pastour or King or Magistrate or Father that succeeds a bad one For if I may conforme my will and actions to the Commandements of God why may I not embrace his doctrine with my understanding although my predecessour doe not so You have aboue in this Chapter defin'd Faith a free Infallible obscure supernaturall assent to divine Truths because they are revealed by God sufficiently propounded This definition is very phantasticall but for the present I
back reiected it as the Protestant Writers Hospinianus and Lavatherus witnesse The translation set forth by Oecolampadius and the Divines of Basil is reproved by Beza who affirmeth that the Basil Translation is in many places wicked and altogether differing from the mind of the Holy Ghost The translation of Castalio is condemned by Beza as being sacrilegious wicked and Ethnicall As concerning Calvins translation that learned Protestant Writer Carolus Molineus saith thereof Calvin in his Harmony maketh the text of the Gospell to leap up and down he useth violence to the letter of the Gospell and besides this addeth to the Text. As touching Bezas translation to omit the dislike had thereof by Selneccerus the German Protestant of the Vniversity of Iena the foresaid Molinaeus saith of him de facto mutat textum he actually changeth the text and giveth farther sundry instances of his corruptions as also Castalio that learned Calvinist and most learned in the tongues reprehendeth Beza in a whole book of this matter and saith that to note all his errours in translation would require a great volume And M. Parkes saith As for the Geneva Bibles it is to be wished that either they may be purged from those manifold errors which are both in the text and in the margent or else utterly prohibited All which confirmeth your Maiesties grave and learned Censure in your thinking the Geneva translation to be worst of all and that in the Marginall notes annexed to the Geneva translation some are very partiall untrue seditious c. Lastly concerning the English Translation the Puritans say Our translation of the Psalmes comprized in our Book of Common Prayer doth in addition subtraction and alteration differ from the Truth of the Hebrew in two hundred places at the least In so much as they doe therefore professe to rest doubtfull whether a man with a safe conscience may subscribe thereunto And M. Carlile saith of the English Translators that they have depraved the sense obscured the truth and deceived the ignorant that in many places they doe detort the Scriptures from the right sense And that they shew themselves to love darknesse more then light falshood more then truth And the Ministers of Lincolne Diocesse give their publike testimony terming the English Translation A Translation that taketh away from the Text that addeth to the Text and that sometime to the changing or obscuring of the meaning of the Holy Ghost Not without cause therefore did your Majesty affirme that you could never yet see a Bible well translated into English Thus farre the Author of the Protestants Apology c. And I cannot forbear to mention in particular that famous corruption of Luther who in the Text where it is said Rom. 3. v. 28. We accompt a man to be justified by faith without the works of the Law in favour of Iustification by faith alone translateth Iustified by faith ALONE As likewise the falsification of Zuinglius is no lesse notorious who in the Gospels of S. Matthew Mark and Luke and in S. Paul in place of This is my Body This is my Blood translates This signifies my Body This signifies my bloâ—d And here let Prorestants consider duely of these points Salvation cannot be hoped for without true faith Faith according to them relies upon Scripture alone Scripture must be delivered to most of them by the Translations Translations depend on the skill and honesty of men in whom nothing is more certain then a most certain possibility to erre and no greater evidence of truth then that it is evident some of them imbrace falshood by reason of their contrary translations What then remaineth but that truth faith salvation and all must in them rely upon a fallible and uncertain ground How many poore soules are lamentably seduced while from preaching Ministers they admire a multitude of Texts of divine Scripture but are indeed the false translations and corruptions of erring men Let them therefore if they will be assured of true Scriptures fly to the alwaies visible Catholique Church against which the gates of hell can never so farre prevaile as that she shall be permitted to deceive the Christian world with false Scriptures And Luther himselfe by unfortunate experience was at length forced to confesse thus much saying If the world last longer it will be again necessary to receive the decrees of Councels and to have recourse to them by reason of divers interpretations of Scripture which now raigne On the contrary side the Translation approved by the Roman Church is commended even by our adversaries and D. Covel in particular saith that it was used in the Church one thousand three hundred yeares agoe and doubteth not to prefer that Translation before others In so much that whereas the English translations be many and among themselves disagreeing he concludeth that of all those the approved translation authorized by the Church of England is that which commeth nearest to the vulgar and is commonly called the Bishops Bible So that the truth of that translation which we use must be the rule to judge of the goodnesse of their Bibles and therefore they are obliged to maintain our Translation if it were but for their own sake 17 But doth indeed the source of their manifold uncertainties stop here No The chiefest difficulty remaines concerning the true meaning of Scripture for attaining whereof if Protestants had any certainty they could not disagree so hugely as they doe Hence M. Hooker saith We are right sure of this that Nature Scripture and Experience have all taught the world to seek for the ending of contentions by submitting it selfe unto some iudiciall and definitive sentence whereunto neither part that contendeth may under any pretence refuse to stand D. Fields words are remarkable to this purpose Seeing saith he the controversies of Religion in our times are grown in number so many and in nature so intricate that few have time and leasure fewer strength of understanding to examine them what remaineth for men desirous of satisfaction in things of such consequence but diligently to search out which among all the societies in the world is that blessed company of holy ones that houshold of Faith that Spouse of Christ and Church of the living God which is the Pillar and ground of Truth that so they may imbrace her communion follow her directions and rest in her iudgement 18 And now that the true Interpretation of Scripture ought to be received from the Church it is also proved by what we have already demonstrated that she it is who must declare what Bookes be true Scripture wherein if she be assisted by the Holy Ghost why should we not believe her to be infallibly directed concerning the true meaning of them Let Protestants therefore either bring some proofe out of Scripture that the Church is guided by the Holy Ghost in discerning true Scripture and not in delivering the true sense thereof Or else give us leave to apply against
because it is written The Priests lips shall preserve knowledg The Scribes and Pharises sit in Moses chaire c. To any Preacher of the Gospell to any Pastor or Doctor for to every one of them Christ hath promised he will be with them alwaies even to the end of the world of every one of them it is said He that heareth you heareth me c. To any Bishop or Prelate for it is written Obey your Prelates and againe he hath given Pastors and Doctors c. least we should be carried about with every wind of doctrine To any particular Church of Christians seeing it is a particular Church which is called The house of God a Pillar ground of Truth and seeing of any Particular Church it is written He that heareth not the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen or a Publicâ—d We might referre it to any man that prayes for Gods spirit for it is written Every one that asketh receiveth and again If any man want wisdome let him aske of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not Lastly we might referre it to the Iewes for without all doubt of them it is written my spirit that is in thee c. All these meanes of agreement whereof not any one but hath as much probability from Scripture as that which you obtrude upon us offer themselves upon a suddain to me happily many more might be thought on if we had time but these are enough to shew that would we make use of voluntary and devised meanes to determine differences we had them in great abundance And if you say these would faile us and contradict themselves so as we pretend have yours There have been Popes against Popes Councells against Councells Councells confirmed by Popes against Councells confirmed by Popes Lastly the Church of some Ages against the Church of other Ages 9 Lastly whereas you find fault That Protestants upbraided with their discords answer that they differ only in points not Fundamentall I desire you tell me whether they doe so or doe not so If they doe so I hope you will not find fault with the Answer If you say they doe not so but in points Fundamentall also then they are not members of the same Church one with another no more then with you And therefore why should you object to any of them their differences from each other any more then to your selves their more and greater differences from you 10 But they are convinc'd sometimes even by their own confessions that the Ancient Fathers taught divers points of Popery and then they reply those Fathers may neverthelesse be saved because those errors were not Fundamentall And may not you also be convinc'd by the confessions of your own men that the Fathers taught divers points held by Protestants against the Church of Rome and divers against Protestants and the Church of Rome Doe not your Purging Indexes clip the tongues and seal up the lips of a great many for such confessions And is not the above cited confession of your Doway Divines plain and full to the same purpose And doe not you also as freely as we charge the Fathers with errors yet say they were saved Now what else doe we understand by an unfundamentall error but such a one with which a man may possibly be saved So that still you proceed in condemning others for your own faults and urging arguments against us which returne more strongly upon your selves 11 But your will is we should remember that Christ must alwaies have a visible Church Ans. Your pleasure shall be obeyed on condition you will not forget that there is a difference between perpetuall Visibility and perpetuall Purity As for the answere which you make for us true it is we believe the Catholique Church cannot perish yet that she may and did erre in points not Fundamentall and that Protestants were oblig'd to forsake these errors of the Church as they did though not the Church for her errors for that they did not but continued still members of the Church For it is not all one though you perpetually confound them to forsake the errors of the Church and to forsake the Church or to forsake the Church in her Errors and simply to forsake the Church No more then it is for me to renounce my Brothers or my Friends Vices or Errors and to renounce my Brother or my Friend The Former then was done by Protestants the latter was not done Nay not only not from the Catholique but not so much as from the Roman did they seperate per omnia but only in those practises which they conceived superstitious or impious If you would at this time propose a forme of Liturgy which both Sides hold lawfull and then they would not joyne with you in this Liturgy you might have some colour then to say they renounce your communion absolutely But as things are now ordered they cannot joyne with you in prayers but they must partake with you in unlawfull practises and for this reason they not absolutely but thus farre separate from your communion And this I say they were obliged to doe under pain of damnation Not as if it were damnable to hold an error not damnable but because it is damnable outwardly to professe maintaine it and to joyn with others in the practise of it when inwardly they did not hold it Now had they continued in your communion that they must have done vid. have professed to believe and externally practis'd your Errors whereof they were convinced that they were Errors which though the matters of the Errors had been not necessary but only profitable whether it had not been damnable dissimulation and hypocrisy I leave it to you to judge You your selfe tell us within two pages after this that you are obliged never to speak any one least lye against your knowledge § 2. now what is this but to live in a perpetuall lye 12 As for that which in the next place you seeme so to wonder at That both Catholiques and Protestants according to the opinion of Protestants may bee saved in their severall professions because forsooth we both agree in all Fundamentall points I Anwere this proposition so crudely set down as you have here set it down I know no Protestant will justify For you seeme to make them teach that it is an indifferent thing for the attainment of salvation whether a man believe the Truth or the Falshood and that they care not in whether of these Religions a man live or dye so he dye in either of them whereas all that they say is this That those amongst you which want meanes to find the Truth and so dye in error or use the best meanes they can with industry and without partiality to find the truth and yet dye in error these men thus qualified notwithstanding these errors may be saved Secondly for those that have meanes to find the
out of Principles received by them are all peremptory that though novelty be a certain note of falshood yet no antiquity lesse then Apostolicall is a certain note of truth Yet this I say not as if I did acknowledge what you pretend that Protestants did confesse the Fathers against them in this point For the point here issuable is not whether S. Peter were head of the Church Nor whether the Bishop of Rome had any priority in the Church Nor whether he had authority over it given him by the Church But whether by Divine right and by Christs appointment he were Head of the Catholique Church Now having perused Brerely I cannot find any one Protestant confessing any one Father to haue concurred in opinion with you in this point And the Reader hath reason to suspect that you also out of all the Fathers could not finde any one authority pertinent to this purpose for otherwise you were much to blame citing so few to make choice of such as are impertinent For let the understanding Reader peruse the 55. Epist. of S. Cyprian with any ordinary attention out of which you take your first place and I am confident hee shall finde that he meanes nothing else by the words quoted by you But that in one particular Church at one time there ought to bee but one Bishop and that he should be obeyed in all things lawfull The non-performance whereof was one of the most ordinary causes of heresies against the Faith and Schisme from the Communion of the Church Vniversall He shall finde secondly and that by many convincing Arguments that though he write to Cornelius Bishop of Rome yet hee speaks not of him but of himselfe then Bishop of Carthage against whom a faction of Schismatiques had then set up another And therefore here your ingenuitie is to bee commended aboue many of your side For whereas they ordinarily abuse this place to prove that in the whole Church there ought to be but one Priest and one Iudge you seem somewhat diffident hereof and thereupon say that these words plainly condemne Luther whether he will understand them as spoken of the Vniversall or of every particular Church But whether they condemne Luther is another Question The question here is whether they plainly proue the Popes Supremacy over al other Bishops which certainly they are as far from proving as from proving the supremacy of any other Bishop seeing it is evident they were intended not of one Bishop over the whole Catholique Church but of one Bishop in one particular Church 99 And no lesse impertinent is your saying out of Optatus if it be well lookt into though at the first sight it may seem otherwise because Optatus his scene happened to be Rome whereas S. Cyprians was Carthage The truth is the Donatists had set up at Rome a Bishop of their faction not with intent to make him Bishop of the whole Church but of that Church in particular Now Optatus going upon S. Cyprians aboue mentioned ground of one Bishop in one Church proves them Schismatiques for so doing and he proves it by this Argument S. Peter was first Bishop of Rome neither did the Apostles attribute to themselves each one his particular Chaire understand in that Citty for in other places others I hope had Chaires besides S. Peter and therefore he is a Schismatique who against that one single Chaire erects another understand as before in that place making another Bishop of that Diocesse besides him who was lawfully elected to it 100 But yet by the way he stiles S. Peter head of the Apostles and saies that from thence he was called Cephas Ans. Perhaps he was abused into this opinion by thinking Cephas derived from the greeke word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a head whereas it is a Syriack word and signifies a stone Besides S. Peter might be head of the Apostles that is first in order and honour among them and not have supreme Authority over them And indeed that S. Peter should have authority overall the Apostles and yet exercise no one act of Authority over any one of them and that they should shew to him no signe of subjection me thinkes is as strange as that a King of England for twenty five yeares should doe no Act of Regality nor receive any one acknowledgement of it As strange me thinks it is that you so many ages after should know this so certainly as you pretend to doe and that the Apostles after that those words were spoken in their hearing by vertue whereof S. Peter is pretended to have been made their head should still be so ignorant of it as to question which of them should be the greatest yet more strange that our Saviour should not bring them out of their error by telling them S. Peter was the man but rather confirme it by saying the Kings of the Gentiles exercise authority over them but it should not be so among them No lesse a wonder was it that S. Paul should so farre forget S. Peter and himselfe as that first mentioning him often he should doe it without any title of Honour Secondly speaking of the severall degrees of men in the Church he should not give S. Peter the highest but place him in equipage with the rest of the Apostles and say God hath appointed not first Peter then the rest of the Apostles but first Apostles secondly Prophets Certainly if the Apostles were all first to me it is very probable that no one of them was before the rest For by First all men understand either that which is before all or that before which is nothing Now in the former sense the Apostles could not be all first for then every one of them must have been before every one of the rest And therefore they must be First in the other sense And therefore No man and therefore not S. Peter must be before any of them Thirdly and Lastly that speaking of himselfe in particular and perhaps comparing himselfe with S. Peter in particular rather then any other he should say in plain termes I am in nothing inferior to the very chiefest Apostles But besides all this Though we should grant against all these probabilities and many more that Optatus meant that S. Peter was head of the Apostles not in our but in your sense and that S. Peter indeed was so yet still you are very farre from shewing that in the judgement of Optatus the Bishop of Rome was to be at all much lesse by divine right successor to S. Peter in this his Headship Authority For what incōgruity is there if we say that he might succeed S. Peter in that part of his care the government of that particular Church as sure he did even while S. Peter was living and yet that neither he nor any man was to succeed him in his Apostleship nor in his government of the Church Vniversall Especially seeing S. Peter and the rest of the Apostles by laying the foundations of the
such Authorities as these and think you selves at liberty from them and that you should account them Fathers when they are for you and Children when they are against you Yet I would not you should interpret this as if I had not great assurance that it is not possible for you ever to gain this cause at the tribunall of the Fathers nay not of the Fathers whose sentences are here alleaged Let us consider them in order and I doubt not to make it appear that farre the greater part of them nay all of them that are any way considerable fall short of your purpose 23 S. Hierome you say writing to Pope Damasus saith I am in the Communion of the Chaire of Peter c. But then I pray consider he saith it to Pope Damasus and this will much weaken the Authority with them who know how great over-truths men usually write to one another in letters Consider againe that he saies only that he was then in Communion with the Chaire of Peter Nott hat he alwayes would or of necessity must be so for his resolution to the contrary is too evident out of that which he saith elswhere which shall be produced hereafter He saies that the Church at that present was built upon that Rock but not that only Nor that alwayes Nay his judgment as shall appeare is expresse to the contrary And so likewise the rest of his expressions if we meane to reconcile Hierome with Hierome must bee conceived as intended by him of that Bishop and Sea of Rome at that present time and in the present State and in respect of that doctrine which he there intreats of For otherwise had he conceiu'd it necessary for him and all men to conform their judgments in matters of faith to the judgment of the Bishop Church of Rome how came it to passe that he chose rather to believe the Epistle to the Hebrewes Canonicall upō the Authority of the Easterne Church then to reject it from the Canon upon the Authority of the Roman How comes it to passe that he dissented from the Authority of that Church touching the Canon of the Old Testament For if you say that the Church then consented with S. Hierome I feare you will loose your Fort by maintaining your Out-works and by avoyding this runne into a greater danger of being forc'd to confesse the present Roman Church opposite herein to the Ancient How was it possible that he should ever beleeue that Liberius Bishop of Rome either was or could haue been wrought over by the sollicitation of Fortunatianus Bishop of Aquileia and brought after two years banishment to subscribe Heresie Which Act of Liberius though some fondly question being so vain as to expect we should rather believe them that lived but yesterday thirteen hundred years almost after the thing is said to be done and speaking for themselves in their own Cause rather then the dis-interessed time-fellowes or immediate Successors of Liberius himselfe yet I hope they will not proceed to such a degree of immodesty as once to question whether S. Hierome thought so And if this cannot be denyed I demand then if he had lived in Liberius his time could he or would he have written so to Liberius as he does to Damasus would he have said to him I am in the Communion of the Chair of Peter I know that the Church is built upon this Rock Whosoever gathereth not with thee scattereth Would he then have said the Roman faith and the Catholique were the same or that the Roman faith received no delusions no not from an Angell I suppose he could not have said so with any coherence to his own beleif and therefore conceive it undeniable that what he said then to Damasus he said it though perhaps he streyned too high only of Damasus and never conceiv'd that his words would have been extended to all his Predecessors and all his Successors 24 The same Answer I make to the first place of S. Ambrose viz. that no more can be certainly concluded from it but that the Catholique Bishops and the Roman Church were then at unity so that whosoever agreed with the latter could not then but agree with the former But that this Rule was perpetuall and that no man could ever agree with the Catholique Bishops but he must agree with the Roman Church this he saies not nor gives you any ground to conclude from him Athanasius when he was excommunicated by Liberius agreed very ill with the Roman Church and yet you will not gainsay but he agreed well enough with the Catholique Bishops The second I am uncertain what the sense of it is and what truth is in it but most certain that it makes nothing to your present purpose For it neither affirmes nor imports that separation from the Roman Church is a certain marke of Heresy For the Rights of Communion whatsoever it signifies might be said to flow from it if that Church were by Ecclesiasticall Law the head of all other Churches But unlesse it were made so by divine Authority and that absolutely Separation from it could not be a marke of Heresy 25 For S. Cyprian all the world knowes that he resolutely opposed a Decree of the Roman Bishop and all that adhered to him in the point of Re. baptizing which that Church at that time delivered as a necessary Tradition So necessary that by the Bishop of Rome Firmilianus and other Bishops of Cappadocia Cilicia and Galatia and generally all who persisted in the contrary opinion were therefore deprived of the Churches Communion which excōmunication could not but involve S. Cyprian who defended the same opinion as resolutely as Firmilianus though Cardinall Perron magisterially and without all colour of proofe affirme the contrary and Cyprian in particular so farre cast off as for it to be pronounc'd by Stephen a false Christ. Again so necessary that the Bishops which were sent by Cyprian from Africk to Rome were not admitted to the Communion of ordinary conference But all men who were subject to the Bishop of Romes Authority were cōmanded by him not only to deny them the Churches peace Communion but even lodging and entertainment manifestly declaring that they reckoned them among those whom S. Iohn forbids to receive to house or to say God speed to them All these terrors notwithstanding S. Cyprian holdes still his former opinion though out of respect to the Churches peace he judged no man nor cut off any man from the right of Communion for thinking otherwise then he held yet he conceived Stephen his adherents to hold a pernitious error And S. Austin though disputing with the Donatists he useth some Tergiversatiō in the point yet confesseth elsewhere that it is not found that Cyprian did ever change his opinion And so farre was he from conceiving any necessity of doing so in submitting to the judgement of the Bishop and Church of Rome that he plainly professeth that
nor any thing towards it Never any error was imputed to the Arrians for denying the Authority or the infallibility of the Bishop or Church of Rome Besides what Eusebius saies he saies out of Irenaeus Neither doth or can the Cardinall deny the story to be true therefore he goes about by indirect Arts to foyle it cast a blurre upon it Lastly whensoever Eusebius saies any thing which the Cardinall thinkes for the advantage of his side he cites him and then he is no Arrian or at least hee would not take that for an answer to the arguments he drawes out of him b That Ruffinus was enemy to the Roman Church is said but not proved neither can it be c Eusebius saies the same also of caeteri omnes Episcopi all the other Bishops that they advised Victor to keepe those things that belonged to peace and unity and that they sharpely reprehended Victor for having done otherwise d This is said but no offer made of any proofe of it The Cardinall thinks we must take every thing upon his word They to whom the Tradition was delivered Polyerates and the Asian Bishops knew no such matter nay professed the contrary And who is more likely to know the Truth they which lived within two ages of the fountain of it or the Cardinall who lived sixteen ages after it e How can it make against those that object it seeing it is evident from Irenaeus his Reprehension that he thought Victor and the Roman Church no infallible nor sufficient Iudge of what was necessary to be believed and done what not what was Vniversall Tradition what not what was a sufficient ground of Excommunication and what not and consequently that there was no such necessity as is pretended that all other Churches should in matters of faith conforme themselves to the Church of Rome f This is to suppose that Excommunication is an Act or Argument or signe of Power Authority in the party excommunicating over the party excommunicated whereas it is undeniably evident out of the Church Story that it was often used by Equalls upon Equalls and by Inferiors upon Superiors if the equalls or inferiors thought their equalls or superiors did any thing which deserved it g And what is this but to confesse that they thought that a small cause of excommunication and unsufficient which Victor and his adherents thought great and sufficient And consequently that Victor and his Part declared that to be a matter of faith and of necessity which they thought not so and where was then their conformity h True you have so expounded it but not proved nor offered any proofe of your exception This also we must take upon your Authority Irenaeus speaks not one word of any other power to which he compares or before which he preferres the power of the Roman Church And it is evident out of the Councell of Chalcedon that all the Principality which it had was given it not by God but by the Church in regard it was seated in the Imperiall City Whereupon when afterwards Constantinople was the Imperiall City they decreed that that Chuch should have equall Priviledges and dignity and preheminence with the Church of Rome All the Fathers agreed in this decree saving only the Legats of the Bishop of Rome shewing plainly that they never thought of any Supremacy given the Bishops of Rome by God or grounded upon Scripture but only by the Church and therefore alterable at the Churches pleasure i This is falsely translated Convenire ad Romanam Ecclesiam every body knowes signifies no more but to resort or come to the Roman Church which then there was a necessity that men should doe because that the affaires of the Empire were transacted in that place But yet Irenaeus saies not so of every Church simply which had not been true but only of the adjacent Churches for so he expounds himselfe in saying To this Church it is necessary that every Church that is all the faithfull round about should resort With much more reason therefore we returne the Argument thus Had Irenaeus thought that all Churches must of necessity agree with the RomaÌ„ how could he all other Bishops have then pronounc'd that to be no matter of Faith no sufficient ground of Excommunication which Victor and his adherents thought to be so And how then could they have reprehended Victor so much for the ill use of his power as Cardinall Perron confesses they did seeing if that was true which is pretended in this also as well as other things it was necessary for them to agree with the Church of Rome Some there are that say but more wittily then truly that all Cardinall Bellarmines works are so consonant to themselves as if he had written them in two houres Had Cardinall Perron wrote his book in two houres sure he would not have done that here in the middle of the Book which he condemns in the beginning of it For here he urgeth a consequence drawn from the mistaken words of Irenaeus against his lively and actuall practice which proceeding there he justly condemnes of evident injustice His words are For who knowes not that it is too great an injustice to alleage consequences from passages and even those ill interpreted and misunderstood and in whose illation there is alwaies some Paralogisme hid against the expresse words and the lively actuall practise of the same Fathers from whom they are collected and that may be good to take the Fathers for Adversaries and to accuse them for want of sense or memory but not to take them for Iudges and to submit themselves to the observation of what they have believ'd and practised k This is nothing to the purpose he might choose these examples not as of greater force and authority in themselves but as fitter to be imploied against Victor as domestique examples are fitter and more effectuall then forraine and for his omitting to presse him with his own example and others to what purpose had it been to use them seeing their Letters sent to Victor from all parts wherein they reprehend his presumption shewed him sufficiently that their example was against him But besides he that reads Irenaeus his Letter shall see that in the matter of the Lent Fast and the great variety about the celebration of it which he paralels with this of Easter he presseth Victor with the example of himselfe and others not Bishops of Rome both they saith hee speaking of other Bishops notwithstanding this difference retained peace among themselves and wee also among our selves retaine it inferring from his example that Victor also ought to doe so l If the Popes proceeding was just then the Churches of Asia were indeed and in the sight of God excommunicate and out of the state of Salvation which Irenaeus and all the other ancient Bishops never thought And if they were so why doe you accouâ—t them Saints and Martyrs But the truth is that these Councells did no way shew
the Popes proceedings just but rather the contrary For though they setled an uniformity in this matter yet they setled it as a matter formerly indifferent not as a matter of faith or necessity as it is evident out of Athanasius consequently they rather declare Victors proceeding unjust who excommunicated so many Churches for differing from him in an indifferent matter m It seemes then Polycrates might be a Saint and a Martyr and yet think the commands of the Roman Church enjoyned upon pain of damnation contrary to the commandements of God Besides S. Peter himselfe the head of the Church the Vicar of Christ as you pretend made this very answer to the High Priest yet I hope you will not say he was his inferior and obliged to obey him Lastly who sees not that when the Pope commandes us any thing unjust as to communicate Lay men in one kinde to use the Latine service we may very fitly say to him it is better to obey God then men and yet never think of any authority he hath over us n Between requesting and summoning methinkes there should be some difference and Polycrates saies no more but that hee was requested by the Church of Rome to call them and did so Here then as very often the Cardinall is faine to help the dice with a false translation and his pretence being false every one must see that that which he pretends to be insinuated by it is cleerely inconsequent o Polycrates was deceived if he believed it to be against Gods commandement and the Pope deceived as much in thinking it to be Gods commandement for it was neither the one nor the other but an indifferent matter wherein God had not interposed his Authority Neither did the Councell of Nice embrace the censure of Victor by acknowledging his Excommunication to be just and well grounded for which the Cardinall neither doth pretend nor can produce any proofe any way comparable to the fore-alleaged words of Athanasius testifying the contrary though peradventure having setled the observation and reduced it to an uniformity they might excommunicate those who afterward should trouble the Churches peace for an indifferent matter And thus much for Irenaeus 31 I come now to S. Austine and to the first place out of him where he seemes to say that the Succession in the Sea of Peter was the Rock which our Saviour meant when he said upon this Rock c. I answer first we have no reason to be confident of the truth hereof because S. Austine himselfe was not but retracts it as uncertain leaves to the Reader whether he will think that or another more probable Retr l. 1. c. 26. Secondly what he saies of the Succession in the Roman Church in this place he saies it else where of all the Successions in all other Apostolique Churches Thirdly that as in this place he urgeth the Donatists with separation from the Roman Church as an argument of their Error So elsewhere he presseth them with their Separation from other Apostolique Churches nay more from these then from that because in Rome the Donatists had a Bishop though not a perpetuall Succession of them but in other Apostolique Churches they wanted both These scatter'd men saith he of the Donatists Epist. 165. read in the holy bookes the Churches to which the Apostles wrote and have no Bishop in them But what is more perverse and mad then to the Lectors reading these Epistles to say Peace with you and to separate from the peace of these Churches to which these Epistles were written So Optatus having done you as it might seeme great service in upbraiding the Donatists as Schismatiques because they had not Communion with the Church of Rome overthrowes and undoes it all againe and as it were with a spunge wipes out all that he had said for you by adding after that they were Schismatiques because They had not the fellowship of Cōmunion with the seven Churches of Asia to which S. Iohn writes whereof he pronounces confidently though I know not upon what ground 〈◊〉 septem Ecclesias quicquid for is est alienum est Now I pray tell me doe you esteeme the Authority of these Fathers a sufficient assurance that separation from these other Apostolique Churches was a certain marke of Heresy or not If so then your Church hath been for many Ages hereticall If not how is their authority a greater argument for the Roman then for the other Churches If you say they conceived separation from these Churches a note of Schisme only when they were united to the Roman so also they might conceive of the Roman only when it was united to them If you say they urg'd this only as a probable and not as a certain Argument so also they might doe that In a word whatsoever answer you can devise to shew that these Fathers made not separation from these other Churches a mark of Heresy apply that to your own Argument and it will be satisfied 32 The other place is evidently impertinent to the present question nor is there in it any thing but this That Caecilian might contemne the multitude of his adversaries because those that were united with him were more and of more account then those that were against him Had he preferr'd the Roman Church alone before Caecilians enemies this had been litle but something but when other Countries from which the Gospell came first into Africa are joyned in this Patent with the Church of Rome how she can build any singular priviledge upon it I am yet to learne Neither doe I see what can be concluded from it but that in the Roman Church was the Principality of an Apostolique Sea which no man doubts or that the Roman Church was not the Mother Church because the Gospell came first into Africa not from her but from other Churches 33 Thus you see his wordes make very litle or indeed nothing for you But now his Action which according to Cardinall Perrons rule is much more to be regarded then his words as not being so obnoxious to misinterpretatiō I mean his famous opposition of three Bishops of Rome in succession touching the great question of Appeales wherein he and the rest of the African Bishops proceeded so farre in the first or second Milevitan Councell as to decree any African Excommunicate that should appeale to any man out of Africk and therein continued resolute unto death I say this famous Action of his makes cleerely and evidently and infinitely against you For had Boniface and the rest of the African Bishops a great part whereof were Saints and Martyrs believed as an Article of faith that Vnion and Conformity with the doctrine of the Roman Church in all things which she held necessary was a certain note of a good Catholique and by Gods command necessary to Salvation how was it possible they should have opposed it in this Vnlesse you will say they were all so foolish as to believe at once
his sword to his Prefect with this commission that if he governed well he should use it for him if ill against him Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to preach against her corruptions in manners And if so why not against her errors in doctrine if she had any Whether she gave them not authority to preach the whole Gospell of Christ and consequently against her doctrine if it should contradict any part of the Gospell of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawfull in the Church of Rome for any Lay man or woman that has ability to perswade others by word or by writing from error and unto truth And why this liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other commission or vocation then that of a Christian to doe a work of charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of Charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without an unnecessary disturbance of order to perswade men out of a false unto a true way of eternall happinesse Especially the Apostle having assur'd us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soule from death and shall hide a multitude of sinnes Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain Others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not consecrate a Metropolitan of England as well as the Cardinalls doe the Pope Whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the government in their hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonicall exception Whether the Doctrine that the King is supream head of the Church of England as the Kings of Iudah the first Christian Emperors were of the Iewish and Christian Church be any new found doctrine Whether it may not be true that Bishops being made Bishops have their authority immediatly from Christ though this or that man be not made Bishop without the Kings authority as well as you say the Pope being Pope has authority immediatly from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the authority of the Cardinalls Whether you doe well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more authority in ordering the affaires of the Church then the great Turk or the Pagan Emperors Whether the King may not give authority to a Bishop to exercise his function in some part of his Kingdome and yet not be capable of doing it himselfe as well as a Bishop may give authority to a Physitian to practise Physick in his Diocesse which the Bishop cannot doe himselfe Whether if Ner◠the Emperour would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to preach the Gospell of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have question'd his Authority to doe so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited K. IAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his injunction upon them to doe any thing that is lawfull Whether a casuall irregularity may not be lawfully dispenc'd with Whether the Popes irregularities if he should chance to incurre any be indispensable And if not who is he or who are they whom the Pope is so subject unto that they may dispense with him Whether that be certain which you take for granted That your Ordination imprints a character and ours doth not Whether the power of consecrating and ordaining by imposition of hands may not reside in the Bishops and be derived unto them not from the King but God and yet the King have authority to command them to apply this power to such a fit person whom he shall commend unto them As well as if some Architects only had the faculty of architecture and had it immediatly by infusion from God himselfe yet if they were the Kings subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a fortresse for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himselfe yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his subjects that has this power to ordaine any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it doe not follow that whensoever the King commands an house to be built a message to be delivered or a murtherer to be executed that all these things are presently done without intervention of the Architect messenger or executioner As well as that they are ipsofacto ordain'd and consecrated who by the Kings authority are commended to the Bishops to be ordained and consecrated Especially seeing the King will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to doe what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should doe so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himselfe nor any body else would esteeme the person Bishop upon the Kings designation Whether many Popes though they were not consecrated Bishops by any temporall Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopall function in this or that place And whether the Emperors had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants doe indeed pretend that their Reformation is universall Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you doe not forget your selfe and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of divine institution be Schismaticall and Hereticall for thinking so Whether your forme of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essentiall to the constitution of a true Church Whether the formes of the Church of England differ essentially from your formes Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other mans Lastly whether any one kind of these externall formes and orders and government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may not be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives
wisdome to forsake ancient errours for more ancient Truths One God is rather to be follow'd then innumerable worlds of men And therefore it might be great wisdome either for the whole Visible Church nay for all the men in the world having wandred from the way of Truth to return unto it or for a part of it nay for one man to doe so although all the world besides were madly resolute to doe the contrary It might be great wisdome to forsake the errors though of the only Visible Church much more the Roman which in conceiving her self the whole Uisible Church does somewhat like the Frog in the Fable which thought the ditch he liv'd in to be all the world 54 You demand again What wisdome was it to forsake a Church acknowledg'd to want nothing necessary to Salvation indued with Succession of Bishops c usque ad Election or Choice I answer Yet might it be great wisdome to forsake a Church not acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation but accused and convicted of many damnable errors certainly damnable to them who were convicted of them had they still persisted in them after their conviction though perhaps pardonable which is all that is acknowledg'd to such as ignorantly continued in them A Church vainly arrogating without possibility of proof a perpetuall Succession of Bishops holding alwaies the same doctrine and with a ridiculous impudence pretending perpetuall possession of all the world whereas the world knows that a litle before Luthers arising your Church was confined to a part of a part of it Lastly a Church vainly glorying in the dependance of other Churches upon her which yet she supports no more then those crouching Anticks which seeme in great buildings to labour under the weight they beare doe indeed support the Fabrick For a corrupted and false Church may give authority to preach the truth and consequently against her own falshoods and corruptions Besides a false Church may preserve the Scripture true as now the Old Testament is preserved by the Iewes either not being arriv'd to that height of impiety as to attempt the corruption of it or not able to effect it or not perceiving or not regarding the opposition of it to her corruptions And so we might receive from you lawfull Ordination and true Scriptures though you were a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need wee aske your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church is enough to make us a true one As for a Succession of men that held with us in all points of Doctrine it is a thing we need not and you have as litle as we So that if we acknowledge that your Church before Luther was a true Church it is not for any ends for any dependance that we have upon you but because we conceive that in a charitable construction you may passe for a true Church Such a Church and no better as you doe sometimes acknowledge Protestants to be that is a Company of men wherein some ignorant soules may be saved So that in this ballancing of Religion against Religion and Church against Church it seemes you have nothing of weight and moment to put into your scale nothing but smoak and winde vaine shadowes and phantasticall pretences Yet if Protestants on the other side had nothing to put in their Scale but those negative commendations which you are pleas'd to afford them nothing but no unity nor meanes to procure it no farther extent when Luther arose then Luthers body no Vniversality of time or place no visibility or being except only in your Church no Succession of persons or doctrine no leader but Luther in a quarrell begun upon no ground but passion no Church no Ordination no Scriptures but such as they receiv'd from you if all this were true and this were all that could be pleaded for Protestants possibly with an allowance of three graines of partiality your Scale might seem to turne But then if it may appear that part of these objections are falsely made against them the rest vainely that whatsoever of truth is in these imputations is impertinent to this triall and whatsoever is pertinent is untrue and besides that plenty of good matter may be alleaged for Protestants which is here dissembled Then I hope our cause may be good notwithstanding these pretences 55 I say then that want of Vniversality of time place The invisibility or not existence of the professors of Protestant Doctrine before Luther Luthers being alone when he first opposed your Church Our having our Church Ordination Scriptures personall and yet not doctrinall Succession from you are vain and impertinent allegations against the truth of our Doctrine and Church That the entire truth of Christ without any mixture of error should be professed or believed in all places at any time or in any place at all times is not a thing evident in reason neither have we any Revelation for it And therefore in relying so confidently on it you build your house upon the sand And what obligation we had either to be so peevish as to take nothing of yours or so foolish as to take all I doe not understand For whereas you say that this is to be choosers and therefore Heretiques I tell you that though all Heretiques are choosers yet all choosers are not Heretiques otherwise they also which choose your Religion must be Heretiques As for our wanting Vnity and Meanes of proving it Luthers opposing your Church upon meere passion our following private men rather then the Catholique Church the first and last are meere untruths for we want not Vnity nor Meanes to procure it in things necessary Plain places of Scripture and such as need no interpreter are our meanes to obtaine it Neither doe we follow any private men but only the Scripture the word of God as our rule and reason which is also the gift of God given to direct us in all our actions in the use of this rule And then for Luthers opposing your Church upon meere passion it is a thing I will not deny because I know not his heart and for the same reason you should not have affirmed it Sure I am whether he opposed your Church upon reason or no he had reason enough to oppose it And therefore if he did it upon passion we will follow him only in his action and not in his passion in his opposion not in the manner of it and then I presume you will have no reason to condemne us unlesse you will say that a good action cannot be done with reason because some body before us hath done it upon passion You see then how imprudent you have been in the choice of your arguments to prove Protestants unwise in the choice of their Religion 56 It remaines now that I should shew that many reasons of moment may bee alleaged for the justification of
Churches of Asia for differing from him about Easter day And yet I beleiue you will confesse that God had not then declared himselfe about Easter nor hath now about Christmasse Anciently some good Catholique Bishops excommunicated and damned others for holding there were Antipodes and in this question I would faine know on which side was the sufficient proposall The contra-Remonstrants differ from the Remonstrants about the point of predetermination as a matter of faith I would knowe in this thing also which way God hath declar'd himselfe whether for Predetermination or against it Stephen Bishop of Rome held it as a matter of faith Apostolique tradition That Heretiques gaue true Baptisme Others there were and they as good Catholiques as hee that held that this was neither matter of Faith nor matter of Truth Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus held the doctrine of the Millenaries as a matter of faith and though Iustin Martyr deny it yet you I hope will affirme that some good Christians held the contrary St Augustine I am sure held the communicating of Infants as much Apostolique tradition as the Baptising of them whether the Bishop and the Church of Rome of his time held so too or held otherwise I desire you to determine But sure I am the Church of Rome at this present holds the contrary The same S. Austin held it no matter of faith that the Bishops of Rome were Iudges of Appeales from all parts of the Church Catholique no not in Major causes and Major Persons whether the Bishop or Church of Rome did then hold the contrary doe you resolve me but now I am resolv'd they doe so In all these differences the point in question is esteem'd and propos'd by one side at least as a matter of faith and by the other rejected as not so and either this is to disagree in matters of faith or you will have no meanes to shew that we doe disagree Now then to shew you how weak and sandy the foundation is on which the whole fabrick both of your Book and Church depends answer mee briefly to this Dilemma Eyther in these oppositions one of the opposite Parts err'd damnably and denyed Gods truth sufficiently propounded or they did not If they did then they which doe deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded may goe to heaven and then you are rash and uncharitable in excluding us though we were guilty of this fault If not then there is no such necessity that of two disagreeing about a matter of faith one should deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded And so the Major and Minor of your Argument are prov'd false Yet though they were as true as Gospell and as evident as Mathematicall Principles the conclusion so impertinent is it to the Premises might still be false For that which naturally issues from these propositions is not Therefore one only can be saved But Therefore one of them does something that is damnable But with what Logick or what Charity you can inferre either as the immediat production of the former premises or as a Corollary from this conclusion Therefore one only can be saved I doe not understand unlesse you will pretend that this consequence is good such a one doth something damnable therefore he shall certainly be damned which whether it be not to overthrow the Article of our Faith which promises remission of sinnes upon repentance and consequently to ruine the Gospell of Christ I leave it to the Pope and the Cardinalls to determine For if against this it be alleadged that no man can repent of the sinne wherein he dies This muche I have already stopped by shewing that if it be a sinne of Ignorance this is no way incongruous 11 To the fourth You proceed in sleighting and disgracing your Adversary Pretending his objections are mean and vulgar and such as have been answered a thousand times But if your cause were good these Arts would be needlesse For though some of his objections have been often shifted by men that make a profession of devising shifts and evasions to save themselves and their Religion from the pressure of truth by men that are resolv'd they will say something though they can say nothing to purpose yet I doubt not to make it appear that neither by others have they beene truly and really satisfied and that the best Answere you give them is to call them Mean and vulgar objections 12 To the Fift But this paines might have been spared For the substance of his discourse is in a Sermon of D. Vshers and confuted four yeares agoe by Paulus Veridicus It seemes then the substance of your Reply is in Paulus Veridicus and so your paines also might well have been spared But had there been no necessity to help and peece out your confuting his Arguments with disgracing his person which yet you cannot doe you would have considered that to them who compare D. Potters Book the Arch-Bishops Sermon this aspersion will presently appear a poore detraction not to be answered but scorn'd To say nothing that in D. Potter being to answere a book by expresse Command from Royall Authority to leave any thing materiall unsaid because it had been said before especially being spoken at large and without any relation to the Discourse which he was to Answere had been a ridiculous vanity and foule prevarication 13 To the sixt In your sixt parag I let all passe saving only this That a perswasion that men of different Religions you must mean or else you speak not to the point Christians of divers Opinions and Communions may be saved is a most pernitious heresy and even a ground of Atheisme What strange extractions Chymistry can make I know not but sure I am he that by reason would inferre this conclusion That there is no God from this ground That God will save men in different Religions must have a higher strain in Logick then you or I have hitherto made shew of In my apprehension the other part of the contradiction That there is a God should much rather follow from it And whether contradictions will flow from the same fountaine let the Learned judge Perhaps you will say you intended not to deliver here a positive and measur'd truth and which you expected to be call'd to account for but only a high and tragicall expression of your just detestation of the wicked doctrine against which you write If you mean so I shall let it passe only I am to advertize the lesse-wary Reader that passionate expressions and vehement asseverations are no arguments unlesse it be of the weaknesse of the cause that is defended by them or the man that defends it And to remember you of what Boethius saies of some such things as these Nubila mens est haec ubi regnant For my part I am not now in Passion neither will I speak one word which I think I cannot justify to the full and I say and will maintaine that to say That Christians of different Opinions
that All which they were led into was not simply All otherwise S. Paul erred in saying we know in part but such an All as was requisite to make them the Churches Foundations Now such they could not be without freedome from errour in all those things which they delivered constantly as certaine revealed Truths For if we once suppose they may haue erred in some things of this nature it will be utterly undiscernable what they haue erred in what they haue not Whereas though wee suppose the Church hath err'd in somethings yet we haue meanes to know what she hath err'd in and what she hath not I mean by comparing the Doctrine of the present Church with the doctrine of the Primitiue Church delivered in Scripture But then last of all suppose the Doctor had said which I know he never intended that this promise in this place made to the Apostles was to bee understood only of a Truth absolutely necessary to salvation Is it consequent that he makes their Preaching and Writing not Infallible in points not fundamentall Doe you not blush for shame at this Sophistry The Dr saies no more was promised in this place Therefore he saies no more was promised Are there not other places besides this And may not that be promised in other places which is not promised in this 34 But if the Apostles were Infallible in all things propos'd by them as Divine Truths the like must be affirm'd of the Church because Doctor Potter teacheth the said promise to be verified in the Church True hee does so but not in so absolute a manner Now what is oppos'd to Absolute but limited or restrained To the Apostles then it was made to them only yet the words are true of the Church And this very promise might haue been made to it though here it is not They agree to the Apostles in a higher to the Church in a lower sense to the Apostles in a more absolute to the Church in a more limited sense To the Apostles absolutely for the Churches direction to the Church Conditionally by adherence to that direction and so farre as she doth adhere to it In a word the Apostles were led into all Truths by the Spirit efficaciter The Church is led also into all truth by the Apostles writings sufficienter So that the Apostles and the Church may be fitly compared to the Starre and the Wisemen The Starre was directed by the finger of God and could not but goe right to the place where Christ was But the Wise men were led by the Starre to Christ led by it I say not efficaciter or irresistibiliter but sufficienter so that if they would they might follow it if they would not they might choose So was it between the Apostles writing Scriptures the Church They in their writing were Infallibly assisted to propose nothing as a divine Truth but what was so The Church is also led into all Truth but it is by the intervening of the Apostles writings But it is as the Wisemen were led by the Starre or as a Traveller is directed by a Mercuriall statue or as a Pilot by his Card and Compasse led sufficiently but not irresistibly led so that she may follow not so that she must For seeing the Church is a society of men whereof every one according to the Doctrine of the Romish Church hath freewill in believing it follows that the whole aggregate has freewill in believing And if any man say that at least it is morally impossible that of so many wâ—ereof all may belieue aright not any should doe so I answer It is true if they did all giue themselues any liberty of judgement But if all as the case is here captivate their understandings to one of them all are as likely to erre as that one And he more likely to erre then any other because hee may erre and thinks he cannot because he conceiues the Spirit absolutly promis'd to the succession of Bishops of which many haue been notoriously and confessedly wicked men Men of the World whereas this Spirit is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receiue because he seeth him not neither knoweth him Besides let us suppose that neither in this nor in any other place God had promised any more unto them but to lead them into all Truth necessary for their own other mens salvation Does it therefore follow that they were de facto led no farther God indeed is oblig'd by his Veracity to doe all that hee has promised but is there any thing that binds him to doe no more May not he be better then his word but you will quarrell at him May not his Bounty exceed his Promise And may not we haue certainty enough that oftimes it does so God did not promise to Solomon in his vision at Gibeon any more then what he askt which was wisdome to govern his people and that he gaue him But yet I hope you will not deny that we haue certainty enough that he gaue him something which neither God had promised nor he had asked If you doe you contradict God himselfe For Behold saith God because thou hast asked this thing I haue done according to thy word Loe I haue given thee a Wise and an Vnderstanding heart so that there was none like thee before thee neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee And I haue also given thee that which thou hast not asked both riches and honour so that there shall not be any among the Kings like unto thee in all thy dayes God for ought appeares never oblig'd himselfe by promise to shew S. Paul those Vnspeakable mysteries which in the third Heaven he shewed unto him and yet I hope we haue certainty enough that he did so God promises to those that seek his Kingdome and the righteousnesse thereof that all things necessary shall be added vnto them and in rigour by his promise he is obliged to doe no more and if hee giue them necessaries he hath discharged his obligation Shall we therefore be so injurious to his bounty towards us as to say it is determined by the narrow bounds of meere necessity So though God had obliged himselfe by promise to giue his Apostles infallibility onely in things necessary to salvation neverthelesse it is utterly inconsequent that he gaue them no more then by the rigour of his promise he was engaged to doe or that we can haue no assurance of any farther assistance that he gaue them especially when he himselfe both by his word and by his works hath assured us that he did assist them farther You see by this time that your chaine of feareful consequences as you call them is turned to a rope of sand and may easily bee avoided without any flying to your imaginary infallibility of the Church in all her proposalls 35 Ad § 14. 15. Doubting of a Book receaved for Canonicall may signifie either doubting whether it be Canonicall or supposing
the Creed So that it is cleere that to make an errour damnable it is not necessary that the matter be of it selfe fundamentall 3 Moreover you cannot ground any certainty upon the Creed it selfe unlesse first you presuppose that the authority of the Church is universally infallible and consequently that it is damnable to oppose her declarations whether they concerne matters great or small contayned or not contained in the Creed This is cleere Because we must receiue the Creed it self upon the credit of the Church without which we could not know that there was any such thing as that which we call the Apostles Creed and yet the arguments whereby you endeavour to prove that the Creed containes all fundamentall points are grounded upon supposition that the Creed was made either by the Apostles themselves or by the Church of their times from them which thing we could not certainly know if the succeeding and still continued Church may erre in her Traditions neither can we be assured whether all fundamentall Articles which you say were out of the Scriptures summed and contracted into the Apostles Creed were faithfully summed and contracted and not one pretermitted altered or mistaken unlesse we undoubtedly know that the Apostles composed the Creed and that they intended to contract all fundamentall points of faith into it or at least that the Church of their times for it seemeth you doubt whether indeed it were composed by the Apostles themselves did understand the Apostles aright and that the Church of their times did intend that the Creed should containe all fundamentall points For if the Church may erre in points not fundamentall may she not also erre in the particulers which I have specified Can you shew it to be a fundamentall point of faith that the Apostles intended to comprize all points of faith necessary to Salvation in the Creed Your self say no more then that it is very probable which is farre from reaching to a fundamentall point of faith Your prohability is grounded upon the Iudgment of Antiquity and even of the Roman Doctours as you say in the same place But if the Catholique Church may erre what certainty can you expect from Antiquity or Doctours Scripture is your totall Rule of faith Cite therefore some Text of Scripture to prove that the Apostles or the Church of their times composed the Creed and composed it with a purpose that it should containe all fundamentall points of faith Which being impossible to be done you must for the Creed it self rely upon the infallibility of the Church 4. Moreover the Creed consisteth not so much in the words as in their sense and meaning All such as pretend to the name of Christians recite the Creed and yet many have erred fundamentally as well against the Articles of the Creed as other points of faith It is then very frivolous to say the Creed containes all fundamentall points without specifying both in what sense the Articles of the Creed be true and also in what true sense they be fundamentall For both these taskes you are to performe who teach that all truth is not fundamentall and you doe but delude the ignorant when you say that the Creed taken in a Catholique sense comprehendeth all points fundamentall because with you all Catholique sense is not fundamentall for so it were necessary to salvation that all Christians should know the whole Scripture wherein every least point hath a Catholique sense Or if by Catholique sense you understand that sense which is so universally to be knowne and believed by all that whosoever failes therein cannot be saved you trifle and say no more then this All points of the Creed in a sense necessary to salvation are necessary to salvation Or All points fundamentall are fundamentall After this manner it were an easie thing to make many trve Prognostications by saying it will certainly raine when it raineth You say the Creed was opened and explained in some parts in the Creeds of Nice c. but how shall we understand the other parts not explained in those Creeds 5. For what Article in the Creed is more fundamentall or may seem more cleere then that wherein we believe IESVS CHRIST to be the Mediatour Redeemer and Saviour of mankind and the founder and foundation of a Catholique Church expressed in the Creed And yet about this Article how many different doctrines are there not only of old Heretiques as Arius Nestorius Eutiches c. but also of Protestants partly against Catholiques and partly against one another For the said maine Article of Christ's being the only Saviour of the world c. according to different senses of disagreeing Sects doth involve these and many other such questions That Faith in IESVS CHRIST doth justifie alone That Sacraments have no efficency in Iustification That Baptisme doth not availe Infants for salvation unlesse they have an Act of faith That there is no Sacerdotall Absolution from sinnes That good works proceeding from Gods grace are not meritorious That there can be no Satisfaction for the temporall punishment due to sinne after the guilt or offence is pardoned No Purgatory No prayers for the dead No Sacrifice of the Masse No Invocation No Mediation or intercession of Saints No inherent Iustice No supreme Pastor yea no Bishop by divine Ordinance No Reall presence no Transubstantiation with diverse others And why Because forsooth these Doctrines derogate from the Titles of Mediator Redeemer Advocate Foundation c. Yea and are against the truth of our Saviours humane nature if we believe diverse Protestants writing against Transubstantiation Let then any judicious man consider whether Doctour Potter or others doe really satisfie when they send men to the Creed for a perfect Catalogue to distinguish points fundamentall from those which they say are not fundamentall If he will speak indeed to some purpose let him say This Article is understood in this sense and in this sense it is fundamentall That other is to be understood in such a meaning yet according to that meaning it is not so fundamentall but that men may disagree and denie it without damnation But it were no policie for any Protestant to deale so plainly 6. But to what end should we use many arguments Even your selfe are forced to limit your owne Doctrine and come to say that the Creed is a perfect Catalogue of fundamentall points taken as it was further opened and explained in some parts by occasion of emergent Heresies in the other Catholique Creeds of Nice Constantinople Ephesus Chalcedon and Athanasius But this explication or restriction overthroweth you assertion For as the Apostles Creed was not to us a sufficient Catalogue till it was explained by the first Councell nor then till it was declared by another c. so now also as new Heresies may arise it will need particular explanation against such emergent errors and so it is not yet nor ever will be of it self alone a particular Catalogue sufficient
not deny I presume that S. Peter preached all therefore you must not deny that S. Marke wrote all 42 Our next inquiry let it be touching S. Iohns intent in writing his Gospell whether it were to deliver so much truth as being believed and obeyed would certainly bring men to eternall life or only part of it and to leave part unwritten A great man there is but much lesse then the Apostle who saith that writing last he purposed to supply the defects of the other Evangelists that had wrote before him which if it were true would sufficiently justify what I have undertaken that at least all the four Evangelists have in them all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ. Neither will I deny but S. Iohns secondary intent might be to supply the defects of the former three Gospels in some things very profitable But he that pretends that any necessary doctrine is in S. Iohn which is in none of the other Evangelists hath not so well considered them as he should doe before he pronounce sentence of so weighty a matter And for his prime intent in writing his Gospell what that was certainly no Father in the world understood it better then himselfe Therefore let us hear him speak Many other signes saith he also did Iesus in the sight of his Disciples which are not written in this Book But these are written that you may believe that Iesus is Christ the sonne of God and that believing you may have life in his name By these are written may be understood either these things are written or these signes are written Take it which way you will this conclusion will certainly follow That either all that which S. Iohn wrote in his Gospell or lesse then all and therefore all much more was sufficient to make them believe that which being believed with lively faith would certainly bring them to eternall life 43 This which hath been spoken I hope is enough to justify my undertaking to the full that it is very probable that every one of the foure Evangelists has in his book the whole substance all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ. But for S. Luke that he hath written such a perfect Gospell in my judgement it ought to be with them that believe him no manner of question Consider first the introduction to his Gospell where he declares what he intends to write in these words For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us even as they delivered unto us which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of things from the first to write to thee in order most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed Adde to this place the entrāce to his History of the Acts of the Apostles The former treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Iesus began both to doe and teach untill the day in which he was taken up Weigh well these two places and then answer me freely and ingenuously to these demands 1. Whether S. Luke does not undertake the very same thing which he saies many had taken in hand 2. Whether this were not to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst Christians 3. Whether the whole Gospell of Christ and every necessary doctrine of it were not surely believed among Christians 4. Whether they which were Eye-witnesses and ministers of the word from the begining delivered not the whole Gospell of Christ 5. Whether he does not undertake to write in order these things whereof he had perfect understanding from the first 6. Whether he had not perfect understanding of the whole Gospell of Christ 7. Whether he doth not undertake to write to Theophilus of all those things wherein he had been instructed 8. And whether he had not been instructed in all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ 9. Whether in the other Text All things which Iesus began to doe and teach must not at least imply all the Principall and necessary things 10. Whether this be not the very interpretation of your Rhemish Doctors in their Annotation upon this place 11. Whether all these Articles of the Christian faith without the belief whereof no man can be saved be not the Principall and most necessary things which Iesus taught 12. And lastly whether many things which S. Luke has wrote in his Gospell be not lesse principall and lesse necessary then all and every one of these When you have well considered these proposalls I believe you will be very apt to think if S. Luke be of credit with you That all things necessary to salvation are certainly contained in his writings alone And from hence you will not choose but conclude that seeing all the Christians in the world agree in the belief of what S. Luke hath written and not only so but in all other Books of Canonicall Scripture which were never doubted of in and by the Church the Learned Arch-Bishop had very just and certain ground to say That in these Propositiōs which without Controversy are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting Salvation and that we have no cause to doubt but that as many as walk according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable Heresy thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and upon the Israel of God 44 Against this you object two things The one that by this Rule seeing the Doctrine of the Trinity is not received universally among Christians the deniall of it shall not exclude Salvation The other that the Bishop contradicts himselfe in supposing a man may belieue all necessary Truths and yet superinduce some damnable Heresies 45 To the first I answere what I conceive he would whose words I here justify that he hath declared plainly in this very place that he meant not an absolute but a limited Vniversality and speaks not of propositions universally believed by all Professions of Christianity that are but only by all those severall Professions of Christiany that have any large spread in any part of the world By which words he excludes from the universality here spoken of the denyers of the Doctrine of the Trinity as being but a handfull of men in respect of all nay in respect of any of these professions which maintain it And therefore it was a great fault in you either willingly to conceal these words which evacuate your objection or else negligently to oversee them Especially seeing your friend to whom you are so much beholding Paulus Veridicus in his scurrilous and sophisticall Pamphlet against B. Vshers Sermon
hath so kindly offered to lead you by the hand to the observation of them in these words To consider of your Coinopista or communitèr Credenda Articles as you call them universally believed of all these severall Professions of Cristianity which have any large spread in the World These Articles for example may be the Vnity of the Godhead the Trinity of persons the immortality of the Soule c. Where you see that your friend whom you so much magnify hath plainly confessed that notwithstanding the Bishops words the denyall of the doctrine of the Trinity may exclude Salvation and therefore in approving and applauding his Answer to the Bishops Sermon you have unawares allowed this Answer of mine to your own greatest objection 46 Now for the foule contradiction which you say the Doctor might easily haue espied in the Bishops saying he desires your pardon for his oversight for Paulus Veridicus his sake who though he set him selfe to finde faults with the Bishops Sermon yet it seemes this hee could not finde or else questionlesse wee should haue heard of it from him And therefore if D. Potter being the Bishops friend haue not been more sharp-sighted then his enemies this he hopes to indifferent judges will seem no unpardonable offence Yet this I say not as if there were any contradiction at all much lesse any foul contradiction in the Bishops words but as Antipherons picture which he thought he saw in the ayre before him was not in the ayre but in his disturb'd phansie◠so all the contradiction which here you descant upon is not indeed in the Bishops saying but in your imagination For wherein I pray lies this foule contradiction In supposing say you a man may believe all Truths necessary to salvation and yet superinduce a damnable Heresie I answer It is not certain that his words doe suppose this neither if they doe does he contradict himselfe I say it is not certain that his words import any such matter For ordinarily men use to speake and write so as here he does when they intend not to limit or restrain but only to repeat and presse illustrate what they haue said before And I wonder why with your Eagles eyes you did not espy another foule contradiction in his words as well as this and say that he supposes a man may walk according to the rule of holy obedience and yet vitiate his holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation Certainly a lewd conversation is altogether as contradictious to holy obedience as a damnable heresie to necessary truth What then was the reason that you espied not this foule contradiction in his words as well as that Was it because according to the spirit and Genius of your Church your zeal is greater to that which you conceive true doctrine then holy obedience and think simple errour a more capitall crime then sins committed against knowledge and conscience Or was it because your Reason told you that herein he meant onely to repeat and not to limit what he said before And why then had you not so much candour to conceave that he might haue the same meaning in the former part of the disiunction and intend no more but this Whosoever walks according to this rule of believing all necessary Truths and holy obedience neither poisoning his faith of those Truths which he holds with the mixture of any damnable Heresie nor vitiating it with a wicked life Peace shall be upon him In which words what man of any ingenuity will not presently perceive that the words within the parenthesis are only a repetition of and no exception from those that are without S. Athanasius in his Creed tells us The Catholique Faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Vnity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance and why now doe you not tell him that he contradicts himselfe and supposes that we may worship a Trinity of Persons and one God in substance and yet confound the Persons or divide the substance which yet is impossible because Three remaining Three cannot be confounded and One remaining One cannot be divided If a man should say unto you he that keeps all the Commandements of God committing no sinne either against the loue of God or the loue of his neighbour is a perfect man Or thus he that will liue in constant health had need be exact in his diet neither eating too much nor too little Or thus hee that will come to London must goe on straight forward in such a way and neither turn to the right hand or to the left I verily belieue you would not finde any contradiction in his words but confesse them as coherent and consonant as any in your Book And certainly if you would look upon this saying of the Bishop with any indifference you would easily perceive it to be of the very same kinde capable of the very same construction And therefore one of the grounds of your accusation is uncertain Neither can you assure us that the Bishop supposes any such matter as you pretend Neither if he did suppose this as perhaps he did were this to contradict himselfe For though there can be no damnable Heresie unlesse it contradict some necessary Truth yet there is no contradiction but the same man may at once belieue this Heresie and this Truth because there is no contradiction that the same man at the same time should believe contradictions For first whatsoever a man believes true that he may and must believe But there haue been some who have believed and taught that contradictions might be true against whom Aristotle disputes in the third of his Metaphysicks Therefore it is not impossible that a man may belieue Contradictions Secondly they which believe there is no certainty in Reason must belieue that contradictions may be true For otherwise there will be certainty in this Reason This contradicts Truth therefore it is false But there be now divers in the world who believe there is no certainty in reason and whether you be of their minde or no I desire to be inform'd Therefore there be divers in the world who believe contradictions may be true Thirdly They which doe captivate their understandings to the beliefe of those things which to their understanding seem irreconcileable contradictions may as well belieue reall contradictions For the difficulty of believing arises not from their being repugnant but from their seeming to be so But you doe captivate your understandings to the beliefe of those things which seem to your understandings irreconcileable contradictions Therefore it is as possible and easie for you to believe those that indeed are so Fourthly some men may be confuted in their errours and perswaded out of them but no mans errour can be confuted who together with his errour doth not believe and grant some true principle that contradicts his Errour for nothing can bee proved to him who grants nothing neither can there be as all men
will let it passe and desire you to give me some peece or shadow of reason why I may not doe all this without a perpetuall Succession of Bishops and Pastours that have done so before me You may judge as uncharitably and speak as maliciously of me as your blind zeale to your Superstition shall direct you but certainly I know and with all your Sophistry you cannot make me doubt of what I know that I doe beleeve the Gospell of Christ as it is delivered in the undoubted books of Canonicall Scripture as verily as that it is now day that I see the light that I am now writing and I beleeve it upon this Motive because I conceive it sufficiently abundantly superabundantly proved to be divine Revelation And yet in this I doe not depend upon any Succession of men that have alwayes beleeved it without any mixture of Errour nay I am fully perswaded there hath been no such Succession aud yet doe not find my self any way weakned in my faith by the want of it but so fully assured of the truth of it that not only though your divels at Lowden doe tricks against it but though an Angell from heaven should gainsay it or any part of it I perswade my self that I should not be moved This I say and this I am sure is true and if you will be so hyperscepticall as to perswade me that I am not sure that I doe beleeve all this I desire you to tell me how are you sure that you beleeve the Church of Rome For if a man may perswade himself he doth beleeve what he doth not beleeve then may you think you beleeve the Church of Rome and yet not beleeve it But if no man can erre concerning what he beleeves then you must give me leave to assure my selfe that I doe beleeve and consequently that any man may beleeve the foresaid truths upon the foresaid motives without any dependance upon any Succession that hath beleeved it alwayes And as from your definition of faith so from your definition of Heresy this phancy may be refuted For questionlesse no man can be an Heretique but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary Errour therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretique whether he will or no by want of such a thing that is not in his power to have But that there should have been a perpetuall Succession of Beleevers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in your power therefore our being or not being Heretiques depends not on it Besides what is more certain then that he may make a streight line who hath a Rule to make it by though never man in the world had made any before and why then may not he that beleeves the Scripture to be the word of God and the Rule of faith regulate his faith by it and consequently beleeve aright without much regarding what other men either will doe or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his words beleeved he by his Providence must take order that either by succession of men or by some other meanes naturall or supernaturall it be preserv'd and delivered and sufficiently notified to bee his word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no errour against it certainly there is no more necessity then that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sinne against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgresse it certainly they may also preserve directions for their faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Barre doe find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined of times make against themselves This they doe ignorantly it being in their power to suppresse or perhaps to alter them And why then should any man conceive it strange that an erroneous and corrupted Church should preserve and deliver the Scriptures uncorrupted when indeed for many reasons which I have formerly alleaged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetuall Succession of men orthodoxe in all points certainly there is no necessity at all of any such neither can the want of it prove any man or any Church Hereticall 39 When therefore you have produced some proofe of this which was your Major in your former Syllogisme That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresy you shall then receive a full answer to your Minor We shall then consider whether your indelible Character be any reality or whether it be a creature of your own making a fancy of your own imagination And if it be a thing and not only a word whether our Bishops and Priests have it not as well as yours whether some mens perswasion that there is no such thing can hinder them from having it or prove that they have it not if there be any such thing Any more then a mans perswasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will marke him not to have taken it if hee has or hinder the operation of it And whether Tertullian in the place quoted by you speak of a Priest made a Lay-man by just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some make upon Heretiques that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferr'd on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Pope's right or an usurpation If it were his right whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiasticall And if by Ecclesiasticall only whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to loose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to loose it those that deprived him of it had power to take it from him Or if not whether they had power to suspend him from the use of it untill good caution were put in and good assurance given that if he had it again he would not abuse it as he had formerly done Whether in case they had done unlawfully that took his power from him it may not things being now setled and the present government established be as unlawfull to goe about to restore it Whether it be not a Fallacy to conclude because we believe the Pope hath no power in England now when the King and State and Church hath deprived him upon just grounds of it therefore wee cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schisme a man may not withdraw obediēce from an usurp'd Authority commanding unlawfull things Whether the Roman Church might not give authority to Bishops and Priests to oppose her errors as well as a King gives Authority to a Iudge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Traian gave
whatsoever it be All these Questions will be necessary to be discussed for the clearing of the truth of the Minor proposition of your former Syllogisme and your proofs of it and I will promise to debate them fairly with you if first you will bring some better proof of the Maior That want of Succession is a certain note of Heresy which for the present remaines both unprov'd and unprobable 40 Ad § 23. The Fathers you say assigne Succession as one mark of the true Church I confesse they did urge Tradition as an argument of the truth of their doctrine and of the falsehood of the contrary and thus farre they agree with you But now see the difference They urg'd it not against all Heretiques that ever should be but against them who rejected a great part of the Scripture for no other reason but because it was repugnant to their doctrine and corrupted other parts with their additions and detractions and perverted the remainder with divers absurd interpretations So Tertullian not a leafe before the words by you cited Nay they urg'd it against them who when they were confuted out of Scripture fell to accuse the Scriptures themselves as if they were not right and came not from good authority as if they were various one from another and as if truth could not bee found out of them by those who know not Tradition for that it was not delivered in writing they did meane wholly but by word of mouth And that thereupon Paul also said wee speak wisdome amongst the perfect So Irenaeus in the very next Chapter before that which you alleage Against these men being thus necessitated to doe so they did urge Tradition but what or whose Tradition was it Certainly no other but the joint Tradition of all the Apostolique Churches with one mouth and one voice teaching the same doctrine Or if for brevity sake they produce the Tradition of any one Church yet is it apparent that that one was then in conjunction with all the rest Irenaeus Tertullian Origen testifie as much in the words cited and S. Austin in the place before alleaged by mee This Tradition they did urge against these men and in a time in comparison of ours almost contiguous to the Apostles So neare that one of them Irenaeus was Scholar to one who was Scholar to S. Iohn the Apostle Tertullian and Origen were not an age remov'd from him and the last of them all litle more then an age from them Yet after all this they urg'd it not as a demonstration but only as a very probable argument far greater then any their Adversaries could oppose against it So Tertullian in the place above quoted § 5. How is it likely that so many and so great Churches should erre in one faith it should be should have erred into on faith And this was the condition of this argument as the Fathers urg'd it Now if you having to deale with us who question no Booke of Scripture which was not anciently questioned by some whom you your selves esteem good Catholiques nay who refuse not to be tryed by your owne Canons your own Translations who in interpreting Scriptures are content to allow of all those rules which you propose only except that we will not allow you to be our Iudges if you will come fifteen hundred years after the Apostles a fair time for the purest Church to gather much drosse and corruption and for the mystery of iniquity to bring its work to some perfection which in the Apostles time began to work If I say you will come thus long after and urge us with the single Tradition of one of these Churches being now Catholique to it selfe alone and Hereticall to all the rest nay not only with her ancient and originall Traditions but also with her post-nate and introduc'd Definitions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and ancient Tradition and all this to decline an indifferent tryall by Scripture under pretence wherein also you agree with the calumnie of the old Heretiques that all necessary truth cannot be found in them without recourse to Tradition If I say notwithstanding all these differences you will still be urging us with this argument as the very same and of the same force with that wherewith the fore-mentioned Fathers urg'd the old Heretiques certainly this must needs proceed from a confidence you have not only that we have no School-Divinity nor Metaphysicks but no Logick or common sense that we are but pictures of men and have the definition of rational creatures given us in vain 41 But now suppose I should be liberall to you and grant what you cannot prove that the Fathers make Succession a certain and perpetuall maâ—k of the true Church I beseech you what will come of it What that want of Succession is a certain signe of an Hereticall company Truly if you say so either you want Logick which is a certain signe of an ill disputer or are not pleas'd to use it which is a worse For speech is a certain signe of a living man yet want of speech is no sure argument that he is dead for he may be dumb and yet living still and we may have other evident tokens that hee is so as eating drinking breathing moving So though the constant and universall delivery of any doctrine by the Apostolique Churches ever since the Apostles be a very great argument of the truth of it yet there is no certainty but that truth even Divine truth may through mens wickednesse be contracted from its universality and interrupted in its perpetuity and so loose this argument and yet not want others to iustifie and support it self For it may be one of those principles which God hath written in all mens hearts or a conclusion evidently arising from them It may be either contain'd in Scripture in expresse terms or deducible from it by apparent consequence If therefore you intend to prove want of a perpetuall Succession of Professors a certain note of Heresie you must not content your self to shew that having it is one signe of truth but you must shew it to be the only signe of it and inseparable from it But this if you be well advis'd you will never undertake First because it is an impossible attempt and then because if you doe it you will marre all for by proving this an inseparable signe of Catholique doctrine you will prove your own which apparently wants it in many points not to be Catholique For whereas you say this Succession requires two things agreement with the Apostles doctrine and an uninterrupted conveyance of it down to them that challenge it It will be prov'd against you that you fail in both points and that some things wherein you agree with the Apostles have not been held alwaies as your condemning the doctrine of the Chiliasts and holding the Eucharist not necessary for Infants and that in many other things you agree not with them nor with the Church for many