if you will needs comprehend all those Churches which want succession you must confess that your Church doth not only communicate with Schismatical and Heretical Churches but is also compounded of such Churches and your selves cannot avoid the note of Schismatiques or Heretiques if it were but for participating with such heretical Churches For it is impossible to retain Communion with the true Catholique Church and yet agree with them who are divided from her by Schism or Heresie because that were to affirm that for the self same time they could be within and without the Catholique Church as proportionably I discoursed in the next precedent Chapter concerning the communicating of moderate Protestants with those who maintain that Heresie of the Latency and Invisibility of Gods Church where I brought a place of S. Cyprian to this purpose which the Reader may be pleased to review in the fifth Chapter and 17 Number 22 But besides this defect in the personal Succession of Protestant Bishops there is another of great moment which is that they want the right Form of ordaining Bishops and Priests because the manner which they use is so much different from that of the Roman Church at least according to the common opinion of Divines that it cannot be sufficient for the Essence of Ordination as I could demonstrate if this were the proper place of such a Treatâ—fe and will not faâ—l to do if D. Potter give me occasion In the mean time the Reader may be pleased to read the Author (z) See Adam Tannerum tom 4. disp 7. quaest 2. dub 3. 4. cited here in the margent and the compare the form of our Ordination with that of Protestants and to remember that if the form which they use either in consecrating Bishops or in ordaining Priests be at least doubtful they can neither have undoubted Priests nor Bishops For Priests cannot be ordained but by true Bishops nor can any be a true Bishop unless he first be Priest I say their Ordination is at least doubtful because that sufficeth for my present purpose For Bishops and Priests whose Ordination is notoriously known to be but doubtful are not to be esteemed Bishops or Priests and no man without Sacriledge can receive Sacraments from them all which they administer unlawfully And if we except Baptism with manifest danger of invalidity and with obligation to be at least conditionally repeated so Protestants must remain doubtful of Remission of sins of their Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and may not pretend to be a true Church which cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests nor without due administration of Sacraments which according to Protestants is an essential note of the true Church And it is a world to observe the proceeding of English Protestants in this point of their Ordinations For first An 3. Edw. 6. cap. 2. when he was a Child about 12. years of age It was enacted that such (a) Dyer fol. 234. term Mich. 6 7. Eliz. form of making and consecrating of Bishops and Priests as by six Prelates and six other to be appointed by the King should be divised mark this word devised and set forth under the great Seal should be used and none other But after this Act was repealed 1. Mar. Sess 2. in so much as that when afterward An. 6. 7. Reg. Eliz. Bishop Bonner being endicted upon a certificate made by D. Horn a Protestant Bishop of Winchester for his refusal of the Oath of Supremacy and he excepting against the indictment because D. Horn was no Bishop all the Judges resolved that his exception was good if indeed D. Horn was not Bishop and they were all at a stand till An S. Eliz. cap. 1. the Act of Edw 6. was renewed and confirmed with a particular proviso that no man should be impeached or molested by means of any certificate by any Bishop or Archbishop made before this last Act. Whereby it is clear that they made some doubt of their own ordination and that there is nothing but uncertainty in the whole business of their Ordination which forsooth must depend upon Six Prelates the great Seal Acts of Parliament being contrary one to another and the like 23 But though they want Personal Succession yet at least they have succession of Doctrin as they say and pretend to prove because they believe as the Apostles believed This is to beg the Question and to take what they may be sure will never be granted For if they want Personal Succession and slight Ecclesiastical Tradition how will they perswade any man that they agree with the doctrin of the Apostles We have heard Tertullian saying I will prescribe (b) Sup. c. 5. against all Heretiques that there is no means to prove what the Apustles preached but by the same Churches which they founded And S. Irenaeus tells us that We may (c) L. 3. c. 5. behold the Tradition of the Apostles in every Church if men be desirous to hear the truth and we can number them who were made Bishops by the Apostles in Churches and their Successors even to us And the same Father in another place saith We ought to obey (d) L. 4. c. 43. those Priests who are in the Church who have Succession from the Apostles and who together with Succession in their Bishopricks have received the certain gift of truth S. Augustine saith I am kept in the Church (e) Contâ— epist Fundam c. 4. by the succession of Priests from the very Sea of Peter the Apostle to whom our Saviour after his Resurrection committed his sheep to be fed even to the present Bishop Origen to this purpose giveth us a good and wholsome Rule happy if himself had followed the same in these excellent words Since there be many who think (f) Praef. ad lib. Periarchon they believe the things which are of Christ and some are of different opinion from those who went before them let the preaching of the Church be kept which is delivered by the Apostles by order of Succession and remains in the Church to this very day that only is to be believed for truth which in nothing disagrees from the Tradition of the Church In vain then do these men brag of the doctrin of the Apostles unless first they can demonstrate that they enjoyed a continued succession of Bishops from the Apostles and can shew us a Church which according to S. Austin is deduced by undoubted SUCCESSION from the Sea (g) Cont. Faust cap. 2. of the Apostles even to the present Bishops 24 But yet nevertheless suppose it were granted that they agreed with the doctrin of the Apostles this were not sufficient to prove a Succession in Doctrine For Succession besides agreement or similitude doth also require a never-interrupted conveying of such doctrine from the time of the Apostles till the dayes of those persons who challenge such a Succession And so S Augustine saith we are to believe that Gospel which from the time
God or grounded upon Scripture but only by the Church and therefore alterable at the Churches pleasure i This is falsely translated Convenire ad Romanam Ecclesiam every body knows signifies no more but to resort or come to the Roman Church which then there was a necessity that men should do because that the affairs of the Empire were transacted in that place But yet Irenaeus sayes not so of every Church simply which had not been true but only of the Adjacent Churches for so he expounds himself in saying To this Church it is necessary that every Church that is all the faithful round about should resort With much more reason therefore we return the Argument thus Had Irenaeus thought that all Churches must of necessity agree with the Roman how could he and all other Bishops have then pronounc'd that to be no matter of Faith no sufficient ground of Excommunication which Victor his adherents thought to be so And how then could they have reprehended Victor so much for the ill use of his power as Cardinal Perron confesses they did seeing if that was true which is pretended in this also as well as other things it was necessary for them to agree with the Church of Rome Some there are that say but more wittily than truly that all Cardinal Bellarmines works are so consonant to themselves as if he had written them in two hours Had Cardinal Perron wrote his Book in two hours sure he would not have done that here in the middle of the Book which he condemns in the beginning of it For here he urgeth a Consequence drawn from the mistaken words of Irenaeus against his lively and actual practice which Proceeding there he justly condemns of evident injustice His words are * In his Letter to Casaubon towards the end For who knows not that it is too great an injustice to alleage consequences from passages and even those ill interpreted and misunderstood and in whose Illation there is always some Paralogism hid against the express words and the lively and actual practise of the same Fathers from whom they are collected and that it may be good to take the Fathers for Adversaries and to accuse them for want of sense or memory but not to take them for Judges and to submit themselves to the observation of what they have believ'd and practised k This is nothing to the purpose he might choose these examples not as of greater force and authority in themselves but as fitter to be imployed against Victor as domestique examples are fitter and more effectual than forrain and for his omitting to press him with his own example and others to what purpose had it been to use them seeing their Letters sent to Victor from all parts wherein they reprehend his presumption shewed him sufficiently that their example was against him But besides he that reads Irenaeus his Letter shall see that in the matter of the Lent-Fast and the great variety about the celebration of it which he parallels with this of Easter he presseth Victor with the example of himself and others not Bishops of Rome Both they saith he speaking of other Bishops notwithstanding this difference retained peace among themselves and we also among our selves retain it inferring from his example that Victor also ought to do so l If the Pope's proceeding was just then the Churches of Asia were indeed and in the sight of God excommunicate and out of the state of Salvation which Irenaeus and all the other ancient Bishops never thought And if they were so why do you account them Saints and Martyrs But the truth is that these Councels did no way shew the Pope's proceedings just but rather the contrary For though they setled an uniformity in this matter yet they setled it as a matter formerly indifferent and not as a matrer of faith or necessity as it is evident out of * In ep ad Episcopos in Africa Where he clearly shews that this question was not a question was not a question of faith by saying The Council of Nice was celebrated by occasion of the Arrian Heresie and the difference about Easter In so much as they in Syria and Cilicia and Mesopotamia did differ herein from us and kept this Feast on the same day with the Jews But thanks be to God an agreement was made as concerning the Faith so also concerning this holy Feast Athanasius and consequently they rather declare Victor's proceeding unjust who excommunicated so many Churches for differing from him in an indifferent matter m It seems then Polycrates might be a Saint and a Martyr and yet think the commands of the Roman Church enjoyned upon pain of damnation contrary to the commandements of God Besides S. Peter himself the head of the Church the Vicar of Christ as you pretend made this very answer to the high Priest yet I hope you will not say he was his inferior and obliged to obey him Lastly who sees not that when the Pope commands us any thing unjust as to communicate Lay-men in one kind to use the Latin Service c. we may very fitly say to him It is better to obey God than men and yet never think of any authority he hath over us n Between requesting and summoning me-thinks there should be some difference and Polycrates says no more but he was requested by the Church of Rome to call them and did so Here then as very often the Cardinal is fain to help the dice with a false translation and his pretence being false every one must see that that which he pretends to be insinuated by it is clearly inconsequent o Polycrates was deceived if he believed it to be against Gods Commandement and the Pope deceived as much in thinking it to be Gods commandement for it was neither one nor the other but an indifferent matter wherein God had not interposed his Authority Neither did the Councel of Nice embrace the Censure of Victor by acknowledging his Excommunication to be just and well grounded for which the Cardinal neither doth pretend nor can produce any proof any way comparable to the fore-alledged words of Athanasius testifying the contrary though perventure having setled the observation and reduced it to an uniformity they might excommunicate those who afterward should trouble the Churches peace for an indifferent matter And thus much for Irenaeus 31 I come now to S. Austin and to the first place out of him where he seems to say that the Succession in the Sea of Peter was the Rock which our Saviour meant when he said Upon this Rock c. I answer first we have no reason to be confident of the truth hereof because S. Austin himself was not but retracts it as uncertain and leaves to the Reader whether he will think that or another more probable Retr l. 1. c. 26. Secondly What he says of the Succession in the Roman Church in this place he says it elsewhere of all the Successions in all other
every one Is Achaia near thee there thou hast Corinth If thou art not far from Macedonia thou hast Philippi thou hast Thessalonica If thou canst go into Asia there thou hast Ephesus If thou be adjacent to Italy thou hast Rome whose Authority is neer at hand to us in Africk A happy Church into which the Apostles powred forth all their Doctrin together with their blood c. Now I pray you Sir tell me if you can for blushing why this place might not have been urg'd by a Corinthian or Philippian or Thessalonian or an Ephesian to shew that in the judgment of Tertullian separation from any of their Churches is a certain mark of Heresie as justly and rationally as you alledge it to vindicate this priviledge to the Roman Church only Certainly if you will stand to Tertullian's judgment you must either grant the authority of the Roman Church though at that time a good Topical Argument and perhaps a better than any the Heretiques had especially in conjunction with other Apostolique Churches yet I say you must grant it perforce but a fallible Guide as well as that of Ephesus and Thessalonica and Philippi and Corinth or you must maintain the Authority of every one of these infallible as well as the Roman For though he make a Panegyrick of the Roman Church in particular and of the rest only in general yet as I have said for point of direction he makes them all equal and therefore makes them chuse you whether either all fallible or all infallible Now you will and must acknowledge that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Churches of Ephesus or Corinth or if he did that as experience shews he erred in doing so and what can hinder but then we may say also that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Roman Church or if he did that he erred in doing so 35 From the saying of S. Basil certainly nothing can be gathered but only that the Bishop of Rome may discern between that which is counterfeit and that which is lawful and pure and without any diminution may preach the faith of our Ancestors Which certainly he might do if ambition and covetousness did not hinder him or else I should never condemn him for doing otherwise But is there no difference between may and must Between he may do so and he cannot but do so Or doth it follow because he may do so therefore he always shall or will do so In my opinion rather the contrary should follow For he that saith you may do thus implies according to the ordinary sense of words that if he will he may do otherwise You certainly may if you please leave abusing the world with such Sophistry as this but whether you will or no of that I have no assurance 36 Your next Witness I would willingly have examined but it seems you are unwilling he should be found otherwise you would have given us your direction where we might have him Of that Maximianus who succeeded Nestorius I can find no such thing in the Councels Neither can I believe that any Patriarch of Constantinople twelve hundred years ago was so base a parasite of the Sea of Rome 37 Your last Witness John of Constantinople I confess speaks home and advanceth the Roman Sea even to heaven But I fear it is that his own may go up with it which he there professes to be all one sea with the sea of Rome and therefore his Testimony as speaking in his own case is not much to be regarded But besides I have little reason to be confident that this Epistle is not a forgery for certainly Binius hath obtruded upon us many a hundred such This though written by a Grecian is not extant in Greek but in Latin only Lastly it comes out of a supicious place an old book of the Vatican Library which Library the world knows to have been the Mint of very many Impostures 38 Ad § 20 21 22 23. The sum of your discourse in the four next Sections if it be pertinent to the Question in agitation must be this Want of succession of Bishops and Pastors holding always the same doctrin and of the forms of ordaining Bishops and Priests which are in use in the Roman Church is a certain mark of Heresie but Protestants want all these things Therefore they are Heretiques To which I answer that nothing but want of truth and holding error can make or prove any man or Church heretical For if he be a true Aristotelian or Platonist or Pyrrhonian or Epicurean who holds the doctrin of Aristotle or Plato or Pirrho or Epicurus although he cannot assign any that held it before him for many ages together why should I not be made a true and orthodox Christian by believing all the doctrin of Christ though I cannot derive my descent from a perpetual Succession that believ'd it before me By this reason you should say as well that no man can be a good Bishop or Pastor or King or Magistrate or Father that succeeds a bad one For if I may conform my will and actions to the Commandments of God why may I not embrace his doctrin with my understanding although my predecessor do not so You have above in this Chapter defin'd Faith A free Infallible obscure supernatural assent to divine Truths because they are revealed by God and sufficiently propounded This definition is very phanrastical but for the present I will let it pass and desire you to give me some piece or shadow of reason why I may not do all this without a perpetual Succession of Bishops and Pastors that have done so before me You may judge as uncharitably and speak as malitiously of me as your blind zeal to your Superstition shall direct you but certainly I know and with all your Sophistry you cannot make me doubt of what I know that I do believe the Gospel of Christ as it is delivered in the undoubted books of Canonical Scripture as verily as that it is now day that I see the light that I am now writing and I believe it upon this Motive because I conceive it sufficiently abundantly superabundantly proved to be divine Revelation and yet in this I do not depend upon any Succession of men that have alwayes believed it without any mixture of Errour nay I am fully perswaded there hath been no succession and yet do not find my self any way weakned in my faith by the want of it but so fully assured of the truth of it that not only though your Divels at Lowden do tricks against it but though an Angel from heaven should gainsay it or any part of it I perswade my self that I should not be moved This I say and this I am sure is true and if you will be so hypersceptical as to perswade me that I am not sure that I do believe all this I desire you to tell me how are you sure that you believe the Church of Rome For if
well as the Cardinals do the Pope Whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the government in their hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonical exception Whether the Doctrin that the King is Supreme Head of the Church of England as the Kings of Judah and the first Christian Emperours were of the Jewish and Christian Church be any new found doctrin Whether it may not be true that Bishops being made Bishops have their authority immediatly from Christ though this or that man be not made Bishop without the King's authority as well as you say the Pope being Pope has authority immediately from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the authority of the Cardinals Whether you do well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more authority in ordering the affairs of the Church than the great Turk or the Pagan Emperors Whether the King may not give authority to a Bishop to exercise his function in some part of his Kingdom and yet not be capable of doing it himself as well as a Bishop may give authority to a Physician to practise Physick in his Diocess which the Bishop cannot do himself Whether if Nero the Emperour would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to preach the Gospel of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have question'd his Authority to do so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited King JAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his Injunction upon them to do any thing that is lawful Whether a casual irregularity may not be lawfully dispens'd with Whether the Pope's irregularities if he should chance to incur any be indispensable And if not who is he or who are they whom the Pope is so subject unto that they may dispense with him Whether that be certain which you take for granted That your Ordination imprints a character and ours doth not Whether the power of consecrating and ordaining by imposition of hands may not reside in the Bishops and be derived unto them not from the King but God and yet the King have authority to command them to apply this power to such a fit person whom he shall commend unto them As well as if some Architects only had the faculty of architecture and had it immediatly by infusion from God himself yet if they were the King's subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a Fortress for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himself yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his subjects that has this power to ordain any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it do not follow that whensoever the King commands an house to be built a message to be delivered or a murtherer to be executed that all these things are presently done without intervention of the Archirect messenger or executioner As well as that they are ipso facto ordain'd and consecrated who by the King's authority are commended to the Bishops to be ordained and consecrated Especially seeing the King will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to do what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should do so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himself nor any body else would esteem the person Bishop upon the King's designation Whether many Popes though they were not consecrated Bishops by any temporal Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopal function in this or that place And whether the Emperours had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants do indeed pretend that their Reformation is universal Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you do not forget your self and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of divine institution be Schismatical and Heretical for thinking so Whether your form of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essential to the constitution of a true Church Whether the forms of the Church of England differ essentially from your forms Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other man Lastly Whether any one kind of these external forms and orders and government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives whatsoever it be All these questions will be necessary to be discussed for the clearing of the truth of the Minor proposition of your former Syllogism and your proofs of it and I will promise to debate them fairly with you if first you will bring some better proof of the Major That want of Succession is a certain note of Heresie which for the present remains both unprov'd and unprobable 40 Ad § 23. The Fathers you say assign Succession as one mark of the true Church I confess they did urge Tradition as an Argument of the truth of their doctrin and of the falshood of the contrary and thus far they agree with you But now see the difference They urg'd it not against all Heretiques that ever should be but against them who rejected a great part of the Scripture for no other reason but because it was repugnant to their doctrin and corrupted other parts with their additions and detractions and perverted the remainder with divers absurd interpretations So Tertullian not a leaf before the words by you cited Nay they urg'd it against them who when they were confuted out of Scripture fell to accuse the Scriptures themselves as if they were not right and came not from good authority as if they were various one from another and as if truth could not be found out of them by those who know not Tradition for that it was not delivered in writing they did mean wholly but by word of mouth And that thereupon Paul also said we speak wisdom amongst the perfect So Irenaeus
prohibited All which confirmeth your Majesties grave and learned Censure in your thinking the Geneva translation to be warst of all and that in the Marginal notes annexed to the Geneva translation some are very partial untrue seditious c. Lastly concerning the English translation the Puritans say Our translation of the Psalms comprized in our Book of Common-Prayer doth in addition substraction and alteration differ from the truth of the Hebrew in two hundred places at the least In so much as they do therefore profess to rest doubtful 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 do detort the Scriptures from the right sense And that they shew themselves to love darkness more than light falshood more than truth And the Ministers of Lincoln-Diocess give their publique 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 affirm that you could never see a Bible well Translated into English Thus farr the Author of the Protestants Apologie 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 account a man to be justified by faith without the works of the Law in favour of Justification by faith alone translateth justified by faith ALONE As likewise the falsification of Zuinglius is no less notorious who in the Gospels of S. Matthew Marke and Luke and in S. Paul in place of This is my Body this is my Bloud translates This signifies my Body this signifies my Bloud And here let Protestants 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 than a most certain possibility to err and no greater evidence of truth than that it is evident some of them embrace 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 poor souls 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 flye to the alwayes visible Catholique Church against which the gates of hell can never so farr prevail as that she shall be permitted to deceive the Christian world with false Scriptures And Luther himself by unfortunate experience was at length forced to confess thus much saying If the Å¿ Li. cont Zuing. de verit corp Christ in Eucha 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 raign On the contrary side the Translation approved by the Roman-Church is commended even by our Adversaries and D. Covell in particular saith that it was used in the Church one thousand t In his answer unto M. Joha Burges pag. 94. three hundred years ago and doubteth not to prefer u Ibid. that Translation before othâ—rs 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 cometh 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 goodness 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 remains concerning the true meaning of Scripture for attaining whereof if Protestants had any certainty they could not disagree so hugely as they do Hence Mr. Hooker saith We are w In his Preface to his Books of Eccl. Politie Sect. 6.26 right sure of this that Nature Scripture and Experience have all taught the woâ—ld to seek for the ending of contentions by submitting it self unto some judicial and definiâ—ive sentence whereunto neither part that contendeth may under any pretence refuse to stand Doctor Fields words are remarkable to this purpose Seeing saith he the Controversies x In his Treatise of the Church in his Epistle dedicatory to the L. Archbishop of Religion in our timâ—s are grown in number so many and in nature to intricate that few have time and leisure 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 Judgement 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 Books 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 proof 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 them the argument which S. Augustine opposed to the Manicheans in these words I would not y Con. Ep. Fund cap. 5. believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Church did move me Them therefore whom I obeyed saying Believe the Gospel why should I not obey saying to me Do not believe Manicheus Luther Calvin c. Choose what thou pleasest If thou shalt say Believe the Catholiques They warn me not to give any credit to you If therefore I believe them I cannot believe thee If thou say Do not believe the Catholiques thou shalt not do well in forcing me to the faith of Manicheus because by the Preaching of Catholiques I believed the Gospel it self If thou say You did well to believe them Catholiques commending the Gospel buâ— you did not well to believe them discommending Manicheus Dost thou think me so very foolish that without any reason at all I should believe what thou wilt and not believe what thou wilt not And do not Protestants perfectly resemble these men to whom
Allegiance others as learned and honest as they that it is against Faith and unlawful to refuse it and allow the refusing of it Why do some of you hold that it is de Fide that the Pope is Head of the Church by divine Law others the contrary Some hold it de Fide that the blessed Virgin was free from Actual sin others that it is not so Some that the Popes Indirect power over Princes in Temporalties is de Fide Others the contrary Some that it is Universal Tradition and conséquently de Fide that the Virgin Mary was conceived in original sin Others the contrary 6. But what shall we say now if you be not agreed touching your pretended means of Agreement how then can you pretend to Unity either Actual or Potential more than Protestants may Some of you say the Pope alone without a Councel may determine all Controversies But others deny it Some that a general Councel without a Pope may do so Others deny this Some Both in conjunction are infallible determiners Others again deny this Lastly some among you hold the Acceptation of the Decrees of Councels by the Universal Church to be the only way to decide Controversies which others deny by denying the Church to be Infallible And indeed what way of ending Controversies can this be when either part may pretend that they are part of the Church and they receive not the Decree therefore the whole Church hath not received it 7. Again Means of agreeing differences are either rational and well-grounded and of Gods appointment or voluntary and taken up at the pleasure of men Means of the former nature we say you have as little as we For where hath God appointed that the Pope or a Councel or a Councel confirmed by the Pope or that Society of Christians which adhere to him shall be the Infallible Judge of Controversies I desire you to shew any one of these Assertions plainly set down in Scripture as in all reason a thing of this nature should be or at least delivered with a full consent of Fathers or at least taught in plain tearms by any one Father for four hundred yeers after Christ And if you cannot do this as I am sure you cannot and yet will still be obtruding your selves upon us for our Judges Who will not cry out perîsse frontem de rebus 8. But then for means of the other kind such as yours are we have great abundance of them For besides all the ways which you have devised which we may make use of when we please we have a great many more which you yet have never thought of for which we have as good colour out of Scripture as you have for yours For first we could if we would try it by Lots whose Doctrine is true and whose false And you know it is written (a) Pro. 16 33 The Lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposition of it is from the Lord. 2. We could referre them to the King and you know it is written (b) Pro. 16.10 A Divine sentence is in the lips of the King his mouth transgresseth not in judgement (c) Prov. 21 1. The Heart of the King is in the hand of the Lord. We could referre the matter to any Assembly of Christians assemled in the Name of Christ seeing it is written (d) Mat. 18.20 Where two or three are gathered together in my Name there am I in the midst of them We may refer it to any Priest because it is written (e) Mal. 2.7 The Priests lips shall preserve knowledge (f) Mat. 25.2 The Scribes and Pharises sit in Moses chair c. To any Preacher of the Gospel to any Pastor or Doctor for to every one of them Christ hath promised (g) Mat. 28.20 He will be with them alwaies even to the end of the world and of every one of them it is said (h) Luk. 10.16 He that heareth you heareth me c. To any Bishop or Prelate for it is written (i) Heb. 13.17 Obey your Prelates and again (k) Eph. 4.11 He hath given Pastors and Doctors c lest we should be carryed about with every wind of Doctrin To any particular Church of Christians seeing it is a particular Church which is called (l) 1 Tim. 3.15 The house of God the Pillar and Ground of Truth and seeing of any particular Church it is written (m) Mat. 18.17 He that heareth not the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen or Publican We might refer it to any man that prayes for Gods Spirit for it is written (n) Mat. 7.8 Every one that asketh receiveth and again (o) Jam. 1.5 If any man want wisdom let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not Lastly we might refer it to the Jews for without all doubt of them it is written (p) Isa 59.21 My Spirit that is in thee c. All these means of agreement whereof not any one but hath as much probability from Scripture as that which you obtrude upon us offer themselves upon a sudden to me haply 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 means to determine differences we had them in great abundance And if you say These would fail us and contradict themselves So as we pretend have yours There have been Popes against Popes Councels against Councels Councels confirmed by Popes against Councels 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 Fundamental I desire you tell me Whether they do so or do not so If they do so I hope you will not find fault with the Answer If you say they do not so but in Points Fundamental also then they are not members of the same Church one with another no more than with you And therefore why should you object to any of them their differences from each other any more than to your selves their more and greater differences from you 10. But they are convinced 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 convinced 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 Do 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 do not you also as freely as we charge the Fathers with errors and yet say they were saved Now what else do we understand
of the Catholique Church Now having perused Breely I cannot find any one Protestant confessing any one Father to have 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 find 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 he shall find that he means nothing else by the words quoted by you But that in one particular Church at one time there ought to be but one Bishop and that he should be obeyed in all things lawful The non-performance whereof was one of the most ordinary causes of Heresies against the Faith and Schism from the Communion of the Church Universal He shall find secondly and that by many convincing Arguments that though he write to Cornelius Bishop of Rome yet he speaks not of him but of himself then Bishop of Carthage against whom a faction of Schismatiques had then set up another And therefore here your ingenuity is to be commended above 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 one Judge you seem somwhat diffident hereof and thereupon say That these words plainly condemn Luther whether he will understand them as spoken of the Universal or of every Particular Church But whether they condemn Luther is another question The question here is Whether they plainly prove the Pope's Supremacy over all 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 less 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 above-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 Chair understand in that City for in other places others I hope had Chairs besides S. Peter and therefore he is a Schismatique who against that one single Chair erects another understand as before in that place making another Bishop of that Diocess besides him who was lawfully elected to it 100. But yet by the way he styles S. Peter head of the Apostles and says that from thence he was called Cephas Ans Perhaps he was abused into this opinion by thinking Cephas derived from the Greek 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 over all the Apostles and yet exercise no one act of Authority over any one of them and that they should shew to him no sign of subjection me-thinks is as strange as that a King of England for twenty five years together should do no Act of Regality nor receive any one acknowledgement of it As strange methinks it is that you so many ages after should know this so certainly as you pretend to do 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 confirm it by saying the Kings of the Gentiles exercise authority over them but it should not be so among them No less a wonder was it that S. Paul should so far forget S. Peter and himself as that first mentioning of him often he should do it without any title of Honour Secondly speaking of the several 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 himself in particular and perhaps comparing himself with S. Peter in particular rather than any other he should say in plain terms 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 farr from shewing that in the judgement of Optatus the Bishop of Rome was to be at all much less by divine right successor to S. Peter in this his Headship and Authority For what incongruity 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 Universal Especially seeing S. Peter and the rest of the Apostles by laying the foundations of the Church were to be the Foundations of it and accordingly are so called in Scripture And therefore as in a Building it is incongruous that Foundations should succeed Foundations So it may be in the Church that any other Apostles should succeed the first 101. Ad § 37. The next Paragraph I might well pass over as having no Argument in it For there is nothing in it but two sayings of S. Austin which I have great reason to esteem no Argument untill you will promise me to grant whatsoever I shall prove by two sayings of S. Austin But moreover the second of these sentences
agree with the Roman Church this he sayes 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 affirms nor imports that separation from the Roman Church is a certain mark of Heresie For the Rights of Communion whatsoever it signifies might be said to flow from it if that Church were by Ecclesiastical Law the head of all other Churches But unless it were made so by divine Authority and that absolutely Separation from it could not be a mark of Heresie 25. For S. Cyprian all the world knows that he (b) It is confâ—ssed by Baronius Anno 238. N. 41. By Bellar. l 4. de R Pont. c. 7. Sect. Tertia ratio resolutely opposed a Decree of the Roman Bishop and all that adhered to him in the point of Rebaptizing 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 (c) Confessed by Baronius An 258. N. 14. 15. By Card. Perron Repl. l. 1. c. 25. were therefore deprived of the Churches Communion which Excommunication could not but involve S. Cyprian who defended the same opinion as resolutely as Firmilianus though Cardinal Perron magisterially and without all colour of proof affirm the contrary and Cyprian in particular so far cast off as for it to be pronounc'd by Stephen A false Christ (d) â—bid 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 commanded by him not only to deny them the Churches peace and Communion but even lodging and entertainment manifestly declaring that they reckoned them among those whom S. John forbids to receive to house or to say God speed to them All these terrors notwithstanding S. Cyprian holds still his former opinion And though our of respect to the Churches peace (d) Vide Conc. Carth. apud sur To 1. he judged no man nor cut off any man from the right of Communion for thinking otherwise then he held yet he conceived Stephen and his adherents (e) Bell l. 2. de Con. c 5. Aug. ep 48. l. 1. de Bap. c. 18. to hold a pernitious error And S. Austin though disputing with the Donatists he useth some Tergiversation in the point yet confesseth elsewhere that it is not found that Cyprian did ever change his opinion And so farr was he from conceiving any necessity of doing so by submitting to the judgment of the Bishop and Church of Rome that he plainly professeth that no other Bishop but our Lord Jesus only had power to judg with authority of his judgement and as plainly intimates that Stephen for usurping such a power and making himself a judg over Bishops was little better than a Tyrant and as heavily almost he censures him and peremptorily opposes him as obstinate in error in that very place where he delivers that famous saying How can he have God for his Father who hath not the Church for his Moâ—her little doubting it seems but a man might have the Church for his Mother who stood in opposition to the Church of Rome and being farr from thinking what you fondly obtrude upon him that to be united to the Roman Church and to the Church was all one and that separation from S. Peter's Chair was a mark I mean a certain mark either of Schism or Heresie If after all this you will catch at a phrase or a complement of S. Cyprians and with that hope to perswade Protestants who know this story as well as their own name that S. Cyprian did believe that falshood could not have access to the Roman Church and that opposition to it was the brand of an Heretique may we not well expect that you will the next time you write vouch Luther and Calvin also for Abettors of this Phansie and make us poor men believe not only as you say that we have no Metaphysicks but that we have no sense And when you have done so it will be no great difficulty for you to assure us that we read no such thing in Bellarmine Bell. l. 2. de Con. c. 5. Sect. 1. Canâ—sius in Initio Gatech e Spt. die 14. as that Cyprian was always accounted in the number of Catholicks nor in Canisius that he was a most excellent Doctor and a glorious Martyr nor in your Calender that he is a Saint and a Martyr but that all these are deceptions of our sight and that you ever esteemed him a very Schismatique and an Heretique as having on him the Mark of the Beast opposition to the Chair of Peter Nay that he what ever he pretended knew believed himself to be so in as much as he knew as you pretend and esteemed this opposition to be the Mark of Heresie and knew himself to stand and stand out in such an opposition 26. But we need not seek so farr for matter to refute the vanity of this pretence Let the reader but peruse this very Epistle out of which this sentence is alleaged and he shall need no farther satisfaction against it For he shall find first that you have helped the dice a little with a false or at least with a very bold and streined Translation for S. Cyprian saith not to whom falsehood cannot have access by which many of your favourable Readers I doubt understood that Cyprian had exempted that Church from a possibility of error but to whom perfidiousness cannot have access meaning by perfidiousness in the abstract according to a common figure of speech those perfidious Schismatiques whom he there complains of and of these by a Rhetorical insinuation he says that with such good Christians as the Romans were it was not possible they should find favourable entertainment Not that he conceived it any way impossible they should do so for the very writing this Epistle and many passages in it plainly shew the contrary but because he was confident or at least would seem to be confident they never would and so by his good opinion and confidence in the Romans lay an obligation upon them to do as he presum'd they would do as also in the end of his Epistle he says even of the people of the Church of Rome that being defended by the providence of their Bishop nay by their own Vigilance sufficiently guarded they could not be taken nor deceived with the poysons of Heretiques Not that indeed he thought either this or the former any way impossible For to what
adhere For you abuse the world and them if you pretend that they hold the first of your two principles That these particular Books are the word of God for so I think you mean either to be in it selfe evidently certain or of it self and being devested of the motives of credibility evidently credible For they are not so fond as to conceive nor so vain as to pretend that all men do assent to it which they would if it were evidently certain nor so ridiculous as to imagine that if an Indian that never heard of Christ or Scripture should by chance find a Bible in his owne Language and were able to read it that upon the reading it he would certainly without a miracle believe it to be the word of God which he could not chuse if it were evidently credible What then do they affirm of it Certainly no more than this that whatsoever man that is not of a perverse minde shall weigh with serious and mature deliberation those great moments of reason which may incline him to believe the Divine authority of Scripture and compare them with the leight objections that in prudence can be made against it he shall not chuse but finde sufficient nay abundant inducements to yeeld unto it firm faith and sincere obedience Let that learned man Hugo Grotius speak for all the rest in his Book of the truth of Christian Religion which Book whosoever attentively peruses shall find that a man may have great reason to be a Christian without dependance upon your Church for any part of it and that your Religion is no foundation of but rather a scandal and an objection against Christianity He then in the last Chapter of his second Book hath these excellent words If any be not satisfied with these arguments above-said but desires more forcible reasons for confirmation of the excellency of Christian Religion let such know that as there are variety of things which be true so are there divers wayes of proving or manifesting the truth Thus is there one way in Mathematicks another in Physicks a third in Ethicks and lastly another kind when a matter of fact is in question wherein verily we must rest content with such testimonies as are free from all suspicion of untruth otherwise down goes all the frame and use of history and a great part of the Art of Physick together with all dutifulness that ought to be between parents and children for matters of practice can no way else be known but by such testimonies Now it is the pleasure of Almighty God that those things which he would have us to believe so that the very belief thereof may be imputed to us for obedience should not so evidently appear as those things which are apprehended by sense and plain demonstration but only be so farre forth revealed as may beget faith and a perswasion thereof in the hearts and minds of such as are not obstinate That so the Gospel may be as a touch-stone for triall of mens judgements whether they be sound or unsound For seeing these arguments whereof we have spoken have induced so many honest godly and wise men to approve of this Religion it is thereby plain enough that the fault of other mens infidelity is not for want of sufficient testimony but because they would not have that to be had and embraced for truth which is contrary to their wilful desires it being a hard matter for them to relinquish their honors and set at naught other commodities which thing they know they ought to do if they admit of Christ's doctrin and obey what he hath commanded And this is the rather to be noted of them for that many other historical narrations are approved by them to be true which notwithstanding are only manifest by authority and not by any such strong proofs and perswasions or tokens as do declare the history of Christ to be true 52. And now you see I hope that Protestants neither do need nor protend to any such evidence in the doctrin they believe as cannot well consist both with the essence and the obedience of faith Let us come now to the last Nullity which you impute to the faith of Protestants and that is want of Prudence Touching which point as I have already demonstrated that wisdome is not essential to faith but that a man may truly believe truth though upon insufficient motives So I doubt not but I shall make good that if prudence were necessary to faith we have better title to it than you and that if a wiser then Solomon were here he should have better reason to believe the Religion of Protestants than Papists the Bible rather than the Councel of Trent But let us hear what you can say 53. Ad § 31. You demand then first of all What wisdome was it to forsake a Church confessedly very ancient and besides which there could be demonstrated no other Visible Church of Christ upon earth I answer Against God and truth there lies no Prescription and therefore certainly it might be great wisdome to forsake ancient errors for more ancient Truths One God is rather to be follow'd then innumerable worlds of men And therefore it might be great wisdome either for the whole Visible Church nay for all the men in the world having wandred from the way of Truth to return unto it or for a part of it nay for one man to do so although all the world besides were madly resolute to do the contrary It might be great wisdome to forsake the errors though of the only Visible Church much more of the Roman which in conceiving her self the whole Visible Church does somwhat like the Frog in the Fable which thought the ditch he liv'd in to be all the world 54. You demand again What wisdome was it to forsake a Church acknowledg'd to want nothing necessary to Salvation indued with Succession of Bishops c. usque ad Election or Choice I answer Yet might it be great wisdome to forsake a Church not acknowledged to want nothing necessary to salvation but accused and convicted of Many damnable errors certainly damnable to them who were convicted of them had they still persisted in them after their conviction though perhaps pardonable which is all that is acknowledg'd to such as ignorantly continued in them A Church vainly arrogating without possibility of proof a perpetual Succession of Bishops holding alwaies the same doctrin and with a ridiculous impudence pretending perpetual possession of all the world whereas the world knowes that a little before Luther's arising your Church was confined to a part of a part of it Lastly a Church vainly glorying in the dependance of other Churches upon her which yet she supports no more than those crouching Anticks which seem in great buildings to labour under the weight they bear do indeed support the Fabrick For a corrupted and salfe Church may give authority to preach the truth and consequently against her own falshoods and corruptions Besides a
hear you say that he declines this Question and never tells you whether or no there be any other points of faith which being sufficiently propounded as divine Revelations may be denied and dis-believed He tells you plainly there are none such and therefore you cannot say that he tells you not whether there be any such Again it is almost as strange to me why you should say this was the only thing in question Whether a man may deny or disbelieve any point of faith sufficiently presented to his understanding as a truth revealed by God For to say that any thing is a thing in question me-thinks at the first hearing of the words imports that it is by some affirmed and denied by others Now you affirm I grant but What Protestant ever denied that it was a sin to give God the lye Which is the first and most obvious sense of these words Or which of them ever doubted that to disbelieve is then a fault when the matter is so proposed to a man that he might and should and were it not for his own fault would believe it Certainly he that questions either of these justly deserves to have his wits called in question Produce any one Protestant that ever did so and I will give you leave to say It is the only thing in question But then I must tell you that your ensuing Argument viz. To deny a truth witnessed by God is damnable But of two that disagree one must of necessity deny some such truth Therefore one only can be saved is built upon a ground clean different from this postulate For though it be always a fault to deny what either I do know or should know to be testified by God yet that which by a cleanly conveyance you put in the place hereof To deny a truth witnessed by God simply without the circumstance of being known or sufficiently proposed is so far from being certainly damnable that it may be many times done without any the least fault at all As if God should testifie something to a man in the Indies I that had no assurance of this testification should not be oblig'd to believe it For in such cases the Rule of the Law hath place Idem est non esse non apparere not to be at all and not to appear to me is to me all one If I had not come and spoken unto you saith our Saviour you had had no sin 10. As little necessity is there for that which follows That of two disagreeing in a matter of faith one must deny some such truth Whether by such you understand Testified at all by God or testified and sufficiently propounded For it is very possible the matter in controversie may be such a thing wherein God hath not at all declared himself or not so fully and clearly as to oblige all men to hold one way and yet be so overvalued by the parties in variance as to be esteemed a matter of faith and one of those things of which our Savior says He that believeth not shall be damn'd Who sees not that it is possible two Churches may excommunicate and damn each other for keeping Christmass ten dayes sooner or later as well as Victor excommunicated the Churches of Asia for differing from him about Easter day And yet I believe you will confess that God had not then declared himself about Easter nor hath now about Christmass Anciently some good Catholique Bishops excommunicated and damned others for holding there were Antipodes and in this question I would fain know on which side was the sufficient proposal The contra-Remonstrants differ from the Remonstrants about the point of Predetermination as a matter of faith I would know in this thing also which way God hath declared himself whether for Predetermination or against it Stephen Bishop of Rome held it as a matter of faith and Apostolique Tradition That Heretiques gave true Baptism Others there were and they as good Catholiques as he that held that this was neither matter of Faith nor matter of Truth Justin Martyr and Irenaeus held the doctrine of the Millenaries as a matter of faith and though Justin Martyr deny it yet you I hope will affirm that some good Christians held the contrary S. Augustine I am sure held the communicating of Infants as much Apostolique tradition as the Baptizing of them whether the Bishop and the Church of Rome of his time held so too or held otherwise I desire you to determine But sure I am the Church of Rome at this present holds the contrary The same S. Austin held it no matter of faith that the Bishops of Rome were Judges of Appeals from all parts of the Church Catholique no not in Major Causes and Major Persons whether the Bishop or Church of Rome did then hold the contrary do you resolve me but now I am resolv'd they do so In all these differences the point in question is esteemed and proposed by one side at least as a matter of faith and by the other rejected as not so and either this is to disagree in matters of faith or you will have no means to shew that we do disagree Now then to shew you how weak and sandy the foundation is on which the whole fabrick both of your Book and Church depends answer me briefly to this Dilemma Either in these oppositions one of the opposite Parts erred damnably and denied God's truth sufficiently propounded or they did not If they did then they which do deny God's truth sufficiently propounded may go to heaven and then you are rash and uncharitable in excluding us though we were guilty of this fault If not then there is no such necessity that of two disagreeing about a matter of faith one should deny God's truth sufficiently propounded And so the Major and Minor of your Argument are proved false Yet though they were as true as Gospel and as evident as Mathematical Principles the Conclusion so impertinent is it to the Premises might still be false For that which naturally issues from these Propositions is not Therefore one only can be saved But Therefore one of them does something that is damnable But with what Logick or what Charity you can inferr either as the immediate production of the former premises or as a Corollary from this Conclusion Therefore one only can be saved I do not understand unless you will pretend that this consequence is good Such a one doth something damnable therefore he shall certainly be damned Which whether it be not to overthrow the Article of our Faith which promises remission of sins upon repentance and consequently to ruine the Gospel of Christ I leave it to the Pope and the Cardinals to determine For if against this it be alleaged that no man can repent of the sin wherein he dies This muce I have already stopped by shewing that if it be a sin of Ignorance this is no way incongruous 11. Ad § 4. You proceed in sleighting and disgracing your
that she must For seeing the Church is a Society of men whereof every one according to the Doctrin of the Romish Church hath freewill in believing it follows that the whole Aggregate hath freewill in believing And if any man say that at least it is morally impossible that of so many whereof all may believe aright not any should do so I answer It is true if they did all give themselves any liberty of judgment But if all as the case is here captivate their understandings to one of them all are as likely to err as that one And he more likely to err than any other because he may err and thinks he cannot and because he conceives the Spirit absolutely promised to that succession of Bishops of which many have been notoriously and confessedly wicked men Men of the World whereas this Spirit is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive 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 and other mens salvatition Doth it therefore follow that they were de facto led no farther God indeed is obliged by his Veracity to do all that he hath promised but is there any thing that binds him to do no more May not he be better than his word but you will quarrel at him May not his Bounty exceed his Promise And may not we have certainty enough that oft-times it doth so God at first did not promise to Solomon in his vision at Gibeon any more than what he askt which was wisdom to govern his people and that he gave him But yet I hope you will not deny that we have certainty enough that he gave him something which neither God had promised nor he had asked If you do you contradict God himself For Behold saith God because thou hast asked this thing I have done according to thy word Lo I have given thee a Wise and an Understanding heart so that there was none like thee before thee neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee And I have 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 days God for ought appears never obliged himself by promise to shew S. Paul those Unspeakable mysteries which in the third Heaven he shewed unto him and yet I hope we have certainty enough that he did so God promises to those that seek his Kingdom and the righteousness thereof that all things necessary shall be added unto them and in rigour by his promise he is obliged to do no more and if he give 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 meer Necessity So though God had obliged himself by promise to give his Apostles infallibility only in things necessary to salvation nevertheless it is utterly inconsequent that he gave them no more than by the rigour of his promise he was engaged to do or that we can have no assurance of any farther assistance that he gave them especially when he himself both by his word and by his works hath assured us that he did assist them farther You see by this time that your chain of fearful consequences as you call them is turned to a rope of sand and may easily be avoided without any flying to your imaginary infallibility of the Church in all her proposals 35. Ad § 14. 15 Doubting of a Book received for Canonical may signifie either doubting whether it be Canonical or supposing it to be Canonical whether it be True If the former sense were yours I must then again distinguish of the term Received For it may signifie either received by some particular Church or by the present Church Universal or the Church of all Ages If you meant the word in either of the former senses that which you say is not true A man may justly and reasonably doubt of some Texts or some Book received by some particular Church or by the Universal Church of this present time whether it be Canonical or no and yet have just reason to believe and no reason to doubt but that other Books are Canonical As Eusebius perhaps had reason to doubt of the Epistle of S. James the Church Rome in Hieromes time of the Epistle to the Hebrews And yet they did not doubt of all the Books of the Canon nor had reason to do so If by Received you mean Received by the Church of all Ages I grant he that doubts of any one such Book hath as much reason to doubt of all But yet here again I tell you that it is possible a man may doubt of one such Book and yet not of all because it is possible men may do not according to reason If you meant your words in the latter sense then I confess he that believes such a Book to be Canonical i. e. the word of God and yet to make an impossible Supposition believes it 〈◊〉 not to be true if he will do according to reason must doubt of all the rest and believe none For there being no greater reason to believe any thing true than because God hath said it nor no other reason to believe the Scripture to be true but only because it is Gods word he that doubts of the Truth of any thing said by God hath as much reason to believe nothing that he sayes and therefore if he will do according to reason neither must nor can believe any thing he sayes And upon this ground you conclude rightly that the infallibility of true Scripture must be Universal and not confined to Points Fundamental 36. And this Reason why we should not refuse to believe any part of Scripture upon pretence that the matter of it is not Fundamental you confess to be convincing But the same reason you say is as convincing for the Universal infallibility of the Church For say you unless She be infallible in all things we cannot believe her in any one But by this reason your Proselytes knowing you are not infallible in all things must not nor cannot believe you in any thing Nay you your self must not believe your self in any thing because you know that you are not infallible in all things Indeed if you had said We could not rationally believe her for her own sake and upon her own word and authority in any thing I should willingly grant the consequence For an authority subject to errour can be no firm or stable foundation of my belief in any thing and if it were in any thing then this authority being one and the same in all proposals I should have the same reason to believe all that I have to believe one and therefore must either do unreasonably in believing any
Creed were faithfully summed and contracted and not one pretermitted altered or mistaken unless we undoubtedly know that the Apostles composed the Creed and that they intended to contract all Fundamental 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 contain all Fundamental Points For if the Church may err in Points not Fundamental may she not also err in the particulars which I have specified Can you shew it to be a Fundamental Point of Faith that the Apostles intended to comprize all Points of Faith necessary to Salvation in the Creed Your self say no more than that it is very (c) Pag. 241. probable which is far from reaching to a Fundamental Point of Faith Your probability is grounded upon the Judgment of Antiquity and even of the Roman Doctors as you say in the same place But if the Catholique Church may err what certainty can you expect from Antiquity or Doctors Scripture is your total 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 contain all Fundamental Points of Faith Which being impossible to be done you must for the Creed it self relie 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 Fundamental Points without specifying both in what sense the Articles of the Creed be true and also in what true sense they be fundamental For both these taskes you are to perform who teach that all Truth is not Fundamental and you do but delude the ignorant when you say that the Creed (d) Pag. 216. taken in a Catholique e sense comprehendeth all Points Fundamental because with you all Catholique sense is not Fundamental 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 known and believed by all that whosoever fails therein cannot be saved you trifle and say no more than this All Points of the Creed in a sense necessary to Salvation are necessary to Salvation Or All Points Fundamental are Fundamental After this manner it were an easie thing to make many true Prognostications by saying it will certainly rain when it raineth You say the Creed (f) Pag. 216. was opened and explaind 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 Fundamental or may seem more clear than that wherein we believe JESUS CHRIST to be the Mediatour Redeemer and Saviour of Man-kind and the Founder and Foundation of a Catholique Church expressed in the Creed And yet about this Article how many different Doctrins are there not only of old Heretiques as Arius Nestorius Eutiches c. but also Protestants partly against Catholiques and partly against one another For the said main 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 JESUS CHRIST doth justifie alone that Sacraments have no efficiency in Justification That Baptism doth not avail Infants for Salvation unless they have an Act of Faith That there is no Sacerdotal Absolution from sinnes That good works proceeding from God's grace are not meritorious That there can be no Satisfaction for the temporal punishment due to sin 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 Justice No supream Pastor yea no Bishop by divine Ordinance No Real presence No Transubstantiation with divers others And why Because forsooth these Doctrins derogate from the Titles of Mediator Redeemer Advocate Foundation c. Yea and are against the truth of our Saviours humane nature if we believe divers Protestants writing against Transubstantiation Let then any judicious man consider whether D. Potter or others do really satisfie when they send men to the Creed for a perfect Catalogue to distinguish Points Fundamental from those which they say are not Fundamental If he will speak indeed to some purpose let him say This Article is understood in this sense and in this sense it is fundamental That other is to be understood in such a meaning yet according to that meaning it is not so fundamental but that men may disagree and deny it without damnation But it were no policie for any Protestant to deal so plainly 6. But to what end should we use many arguments Even your selfe are forced to limit your own Doctrin and come to say that the Creed is a perfect Catalogue of Fundamental 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 (g) Pag. 216. Ephesus Chalcedon and Athanasius But this explication or restriction overthroweth your assertion For as the Apostles Creed was not to us a sufficient Catalogue till it was explained by the first Councel 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 to distinguish betwixt fundamental and not fundamental points 7. I come to the second part That the Creed doth not contain all main and principal Points of Faith And to the end we may not strive about things either granted by us both or nothing concerning the point in question I must premise these Observations 8. First That it cannot be denyed but that the Creed is most full and complete to that purpose for which the holy Apostles inspired by God meant that it should serve and in that manner as they did intend it which was not to comprehend all particular Points of Faith but such general heads as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the Faith of Christ to Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred And therefore in respect of Gentiles the Creed doth mention God as Creator of all things and for both Jews and Gentiles the Trinity the Messias and Saviour his birth life death resurrection and glory from whom they were to hope remission of sinnes
necessary parts of it omitted had been to speak impertinently and rather to confirm than confute their error It is plain therefore that he must mean as I pretend that all the necessary Doctrine of the Gospel which was preached by S. Peter was written by S. Mark Now you will not deny I presume that S. Peter preached all therefore you must not deny that S. Mark wrote all 42. Our next inquiry let it be touching S. John's intent in writing his Gospel whether it were to deliver so much truth as being believed and obeyed would certainly bring men to eternal life or only part of it and to leave part unwritten A great man there is but much less than 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 justifie what I have undertaken that at least all the four Evangelists have in them all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ Neither will I deny but S. John's 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. John which is in none of the other Evangelists hath not so well considered them as he should do before he pronounce sentence of so weighty a matter And for his prime intent in writing his Gospel what that was certainly no Father in the world understood it better than himself Therefore let us hear him speak Many other signs saith he also did Jesus in the sight of his Disciples which are not written in this Book But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son 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 signs are written Take it which way you will this conclusion will certainly follow That either all that which S. John wrote in his Gospel or less 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 eternal life 43. This which hath been spoken I hope is enough to justifie my undertaking to the full that it is very probable that every one of the four Evangelists hath in his Book the whole substance all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ But for S. Luke that he hath written such a perfect Gospel in my judgment it ought to be with them that believe him no manner of question Consider first the introduction to his Gospel 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 Add to this place the entrance to his History of the Acts of the Apostles The former Treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until 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 doth not undertake the very same thing which he says 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 Gospel 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 beginning delivered not the whole Gospel of Christ 5. Whether he doth 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 Gospel 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 Gospel of Christ 9 Whether in the other Text All things which Jesus began to do and teach must not at least imply all the Principal 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 Princicipal and most necessary things which Jesus taught 12. And lastly Whether many things which S. Luke hath wrote in his Gospel be not less principal and less necessary than all and every one of these When you have well considered these proposals 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 chuse 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 Canonical 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 Propositions which without Controversie 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 Heresie 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 Doctrin of the Trinity is not received universally among Christians the denial of it shall not exclude Salvation The other that the Bishop contradicts himself in supposing a man may believe all necessary Truths and yet superinduce some damnable Heresies 45. To the first I answer what I conceive he would whose words I here justifie that he hath declared plainly in this very place that he meant not an absolute but a limited Universality and speaks not of propositions universally believed by all Professions of Christianity that are but only by all those several Professions of Christianity that have any large spread in any part of the world By which words be excludes from the universality here spoken of the deniers of the Doctrin of the Trinity as being but a handful 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 sophistical Pamphler against B. Usher's Sermon hath so kindly offered to lead you by the hand to the observation of them in these words To consider of your Coinopista or communiter Credenda Articles as you call them universally believed of all these several Professions of Christianity which have any large spread in the World These Articles for example may be the Unity of the Godhead the Trinity of Persons the immortality of the Soul c. Where you see that your friend whom you so much magnifie hath plainly confessed that notwithstanding the Bishop's words the denial of the Doctrin of the Trinity may exclude Salvation and therefore in approving and applauding his Answer to the Bishop's Sermon you have unawares allowed this Answer of mine to your own greatest Objection 46. Now for the foul contradiction which you say the Doctor might easily have espyed in the Bishop's saying he desires your pardon for his oversight sight for Paulus Veridicus his sake who though he set himself to find faults with the Bishop's Sermon yet it seems this he could not find or else questionless we should have heard of it from him And therefore if D. Potter being the Bishop's friend have not been more sharp-sighted than his enemies this he hopes to indifferent Judges will seem no unpardonable offence Yet this I say not as if there were any contradiction at all much less any foul contradiction in the Bishop's words but as Antipheron's picture which he thought he saw in the air before him was not in the air but in his disturbed phansie so all the contradiction which here you descant upon is not indeed in the Bishop's saying but in your imagination For wherein I pray lies this foul contradiction In supposing say you a man may believe all Truths necessary to salvation and yet superinduce a damnable Heresie I answer It is not certain that his words do suppose this neither if they do doth he contradict himself I say it is not certain that his words import any such matter For ordinarily men use to speak and write so as here he doth when they intend not to limit or restrain but only to repeat and press and illustrate what they have said before And I wonder why with your Eagles eyes you did not espy another foul contradiction in his words as well as this and say that he supposes a man may walk according to the rule of holy obedience and yet vitiate his holy Faith with a lewd and wicked Conversation Certainly a lewd Conversation is altogether as contradictious to holy Obedience as a damnable Heresie to necessary Truth What then was the reason that you espyed not this foul contradiction in his words as well as that Was it because according to the Spirit and Genius of your Church your zeal is greater to that which you conceive true doctrin than holy obedience and think simple error a more capital crime than sins committed against knowledge and conscience Or was it because your Reason told you that herein he meant only to repeat and not to limit what he said before And why then had you not so much candour to conceive that he might have the same meaning in the former part of the disjunction and intend no more but this Whosoever walks according to this rule of believing all necessary Truths and holy Obedience neither poysoning his faith of those Truths which he holds with the mixture of any damnable Heresie nor vitiating it with a wicked life Peace shall be upon him In which words what man of any ingenuity will not presently perceive that the words within the parenthesis are only a repetition of and no exception from those that are without S. Athanasius in his Creed tels us The Catholique Faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance and why now do you not tell him that he contradicts himself and supposes that we may worship a Trinity of Persons and one God in substance and yet confound the Persons or divide the substance which yet is impossible because Three remaining Three cannot be confounded and One remaining One cannot be divided If a man should say unto you he that keeps all the Commandments of God committing no sin either against the love of God or the love of his neighbour is a perfect man Or thus he that will live in constant health had need be exact in his dyet neither eating too much nor too little Or thus he that will come to London must go on straight forward in such a way and neither turn to the right hand or to the left I verily believe you would not find any contradiction in his words but confess them as coherent and confonant as any in your Book And certainly if you would look upon this saying of the Bishop with any indifference you would easily perceive it to be of the very same kind and capable of the very same construction And therefore one of the grounds of your accusation is uncertain Neither can you assure us that the Bishop supposes any such matter as you pretend Neither if he did suppose this as perhaps he did were this to contradict himself For though there can be no damnable Heresie unless it contradict some necessary Truth yet there is no contradiction but the same man may at once believe this Heresie and this Truth because there is no contradiction that the same man at the same time should believe contradictions For first whatsoever a man believes true that he may and must believe But there have been some who have believed and taught that contradictions might be true against whom Aristotle disputes in the third of his Metaphysicks Therefore it is not impossible that a man may believe Contradictions Secondly they which believe there is no certainty in Reason must believe that contradictions may be true For otherwise there will be certainty in this Reason This contradicts Truth therefore it is false But there be now divers in the world who believe there is no certainty in Reason and whether you be of their mind or no I desire to be informed Therefore there be divers in the world who believe contradictions may be true Thirdly They which do captivate their understandings to the belief of those things which to their understanding seem irreconcileable contradictions may as well believe real contradictions For the difficulty of believing arises not from their being repugnant but from their seeming to be so But you do captivate your understandings to the belief of those things which seem to your understandings irreconcileable contradictions Therefore it is as possible and easie for you to believe those that indeed are so Fourthly some men may
new Observations the first that the Pope having threatned the Bishops of Asia to excommunicate them Polycrates the Bishop of Ephesus and Metropolitan of Asia despised the Popes threats as it appears by the answer of the same Polycrates to Pope Victor Euseb hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 24. Hieron in Hieron in script Eccl. in Polyer which is inserted in the writings of Eusebius and of Saint JEROM and which JEROM seemeth to approve when he saith he reports it to shew the spirit and authority of the man And the second that when the Pope pronounced anciently his Excommunications he did no other thing but separate himself from the Communion of those that he excommunicated and did not thereby separate them from the universal communion of the Church To the first then we say that so farr is this Epistle of Polycrates from abating and diminishing the Popes authority that contrariwise it greatly magnifies and exalts it For although Polycrates blinded with the love of the custom of his Nation which he believed to be grounded upon the Word of God who had assigned the fourteenth of the Moneth of March for the observation of the Pasche and upon the example of S. JOHN'S tradition maintains it obstinately Nevertheless this that he answers speaking in his own Name Exod. 12. Hieronym ubi supra and in the name of the Council of the Bishops of Asia to whom he presided I fear not those that threeaten us for my Elders have said It is better to obey God than man Doth it not shew that had it not been that be believed the Pope's threat was against the express Word of God there had been cause to fear it and he had been obliged to obey him for m who knows not that this answer It is better to obey God than men is not to be made but to those whom we were obliged to obey if their commundements were not contrary to the commandements of God And that he adds that he had called the Bishops of Asia Euseb Hist Eccl l. 5. c. 23. to a National Council being n summoned to it by the Pope doth it not insinuate that the other Councils whereof Eusebius speaks that were holden about this matter through all the Provinces of the Earth and particularly that of Palestina Bâ—da in frag de Aequinociio veâ—â—aâ— which if you believe the act that Beda said came to his hands Theophilus Archbishop of Cesarea had called by the auctority of Victor were holden at the instance of the Pope and consequently that the Pope was the first mover of the Universal Church And that the Councils of Nicea of Constantinople of Ephesus embraced the Censure of Victor and excommunicated those that observed the custom of Polycrates that was deceived in believing that the Popes commandement was against Gods commandement And that S. JEROM himself celebrates the Paschal Homilies of Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria which followed the Order of Nicea concerning the Pasche doth it not justifie that when S. JEROM saith That he reports the Epistle of Polycrates to shew the spirit and authority of the man he intends by authority not authority of right but of fact that is to say the credit that Polycrates had amongst the Asians and other Quarto decimans These are the Cardinal's words the most material and considerable passages whereof to save the trouble of repetition I have noted with letters of reference whereunto my answers noted respectively with the same letters follow now in order a If Eusebius were an Arrian author it is nothing to the purpose what he writes there is no Arrianism 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 says he says out of Irenaeus Neither doth or can the Cardinal deny the story to be true and therefore he goes about by indirect Arts to foil it and cast a blurr upon it Lastly whensoever Eusebius says any thing which the Cardinal thinks for the advantage of his side he cites him and then he is no Arrian or at least he would not take that for an answer to the arguments he draws out of him b That Ruffinus was enemy to the Roman Church is said but not proved neither can it be c Eusebius says the same also of caeteri omnes Episcopi all the other Bishops That they advised Victor to keep those things that belonged to peace and unity and that they sharply reprehended Victor for having done otherwise d This is said but no offer made of any proof of it The Cardinal thinks we must take every thing upon his word They to whom the Tradition was delivered Polycrates 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 Cardinal 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 Judge of what was necessary to be believed and done what not what was universal 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 conform themselves to the Church of Rome f This is to suppose that Excommunication is an Act or Argument or sign of Power and 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 Equals upon Equals and by Inferiours upon Superiours if the Equals or Inferiours thought their Equals or Superiours did any thing which deserved it g And what is this but to confess 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 proof 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 preferrs the power of the Roman-Church And it is evident out of the Council of Chalcedon * Cant. 28. That all the Principality which it had was given it not by God but by the Church in regard it was seated in the Imperial City Whereupon when afterwards Constantinople was the Imperial City they decreed that that Church should have equal 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
a man may perswade himself he doth believe what he doth not believe then may you think you believe the Church of Rome and yet not believe it But if no man can err concerning what he believes then you must give me leave to assure my self that I do believe and consequently that any man may believe the foresaid truths upon the foresaid motives without any dependance upon any succession that hath believed it always And as from your definition of Faith so from your definition of Heresie this phancy may be refuted For questionless no man can be an Heretique but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary error therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretique whether he will or no by want of such a thing that is not in his power to have But that there should have been a perpetual Succession of Believers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in our own power therefore our being or not being Heretiques depends not on it Besides What is more certain than that he may make a straight line who hath a Rule to make it by though never man in the world had made any before and why then may not he that believes the Scripture to be the word of God and the Rule of faith regulate his faith by it and consequently believe aright without much regarding what other men will do or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his word believed he by his Providence must take order that either by succession of men or by some other means natural or supernatural it be preserv'd and delivered and sufficiently notified to be his word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no error against it certainly there is no more necessity than that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sin against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgress it certainly they may also preserve directions for their faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Bar do find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined of times make against themselves This they do ignorantly it being in their power to suppress or perhaps to alter them And why then should any man conceive it strange that an erroncous and corrupted Church should preserve and deliver the Scriptures uncorrupted when indeed for many reasons which I have formerly alledged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetual Succession of men otthodox in all points certainly there is no necessity at all of any such neither can the want of it prove any man or any Church Heretical 39 When therefore you have produced some proof of this which was your Major in your former Syllogism That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresie you shall then receive a full answer to your Minor We shall then consider whether your indelibe Character be any reality or whether it be a creature of your own making a fancy of your own imagination And if it be a thing and not only a word whether our Bishops and Priests have it not as well as yours and whether some mens perswasion that there is no such thing can hinder them from having it or prove that they have it not if there be any such thing Any more than a mans perswasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will make him not to have taken it if he has or hinder the operation of it And whether Tertullian in the place quoted by you speak of a Priest made a Layman by just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some mark upon Heretiques that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferr'd on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Pope's right or an usurpation If it were his right Whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiastical And if by Ecclesiastical only Whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to lose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to lose it those that deprived him of it had power to make it from him Or if not Whether they had power to suspend him from the use of it until good caution were put in and good assurance given that if he had it again he would not abuse it as he had formerly done Whether in case they had done unlawfully that took his power from him it may not things being now setled and the present Government established be as unlawful to go about to restore it Whether it be not a Fallacy to conclude Because we believe the Pope hath no power in England now when the King and State and Church hath deprived him upon just grounds of it therefore we cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schism a man may not withdraw obedience from an usurp'd Authority commanding unlawful things Whether the Roman Church might not give authority to Bishops and Priests to oppose her errors as well as a King gives Authority to a Judge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Trajan gave his sword to his Praefect with this Commission that If he governed well he should use it for him if ill against him Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to preach against her corruptions in manners And if so Why not against her errors in doctrin if she had any Whether she gave them not authority to preach the whole Gospel of Christ and consequently against her doctrin if it should contradict any part of the Gospel of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawful in the Church of Rome for any Lay-man or woman that has ability to perswade others by word or by writing from errour and unto truth And why this liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other commission or vocation than that of a Christian to do a work of charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without any unnecessary disturbance of order to perswade men out a false unto a true way of eternal happiness Especially the Apostle having assur'd us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain Others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not consecrate a Metropolitan of England as
evident and therefore according to your doctrin no formal Heresie The third saies indeed that of the Professors of Christianity some shall arise that shall teach Heresie But not one of them all that says or intimates that whosoever separates from the Visible Church in what state soever is certainly an heretique Heretiques I confess do always do so But they that do so are are not always Heretiques for perhaps the state of the Church may make it necessary for them to do so as Rebels always disobey the command of their King yet they which disobey a King's command which perhaps may be unjust are not presently Rebels 21 Your Allegations out of Vincentius Prosper and Cyprian are liable to these exceptions 1. That they are the sayings of men not assisted by the Spirit of God and whose Authority your selves will not submit to in all things 2. That the first and last are meerly impertinent neither of them affirming or intimating that separation from the present Visible Church is a mark of Heresie and the former speaking plainly of separation from Universality Consent and Antiquity which if you will presume without proof that we did and you did not you beg the Question For you know we pretend that we separated only from that present Church which had separated from the doctrin of the Ancient and because she had done so and so far forth as she had done so no farther And lastly the latter part of Prospers words cannot be generally true according to your own grounds For you say a man may be divided from the Church upon meer Schism without any mixture of Heresie And a man may be justly excommunicated for many other sufficient causes besides Heresie Lastly a man may be divided by an unjust excommunication and be hoth before and after a very good Catholique and therefore you cannot maintain it Universally true That he who is divided from the Church is an Heretique and Antichrist 22. In the 19. § we have the Authority of eight Fathers urg'd to prove That the separation from the Church of Rome as it is the See of S. Peter I conceive you mean as it is that particular Church is the mark of Heresie Which kind of argument I might well refuse to answer unless you would first promise me that whensoever I should produce as plain sentences of as great a number of Fathers as ancient for any doctrin whatsoever that you will subscribe to it though it fall out to be contrary to the doctrin of the Roman Church For I conceive nothing in the world more unequal or unreasonable then that you should press us with such Authorities as these and think your 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 tribunal of the Fathers nay not of the Fathers whose sentences are here alleadged Let us consider them in order and I doubt not to make it appear that far the greater part of them nay al of them that are any way considerable fal short of your purpose 23. S. Hierome you say writing to Pope Damasus saith I am in the Communion of the Chair 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 again that he says only that he was then in Communion with the Chair of Peter Not that he alwayes would or of necessity must be so for his resolution to the contrary is too evident out of that which he saith elsewhere which shall be produced hereafter He says that the Church at that present was built upon that Rock but Not that only Nor that alwayes Nay his judgment as shall appear is express to the contrary And so likewise the rest of his expressions if we mean to reconcile Hierome with Hierome must be 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 doctrin which he there intreats of For otherwise had he conceiv'd it necessary for him and all men to conform their judgment in matters of faith to the judgment of the Bishop and Church of Rome how came it to pass that he chose rather to believe the Epistle to the Hebrews Canonical upon the authority of the Eastern Church than to reject it from the Canon upon the authority of the Roman How comes it to pass 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 fear you will lose your Fort by maintaining your Out-works and by avoiding this run into a greater danger of being forc'd to confess the present Roman Church opposite herein to the Ancient How was it possible that he should ever believe that Liberius Bishop of Rome either was or could have been brought over by the sollicitation of Fortunatianus Bishop of Aquileia Hierom. de scrip Eccl. tit Fortunatianus 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 1300 years almost after the thing is said to be done and speaking for themselves in their own Cause rather than the dis-interessed time-fellows or immediate-Successors of Liberius himself 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 Angel I suppose he could not have said so with any coherence to his own belief and therefore conceive it undeniable that what he said then to Damasus he said it though perhaps he streined 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 later could not then but agree with the former But that this Rule was perpetual and that no man could ever agree with the Catholique Bishops but he must
false Church may preserve the Scripture trure as now the old Testament is preserved by the Jewes either not being arriv'd to that height of impiety as to attempt the corruption of it or not able to effect it or not perceiving or not regarding the opposition of it to her corruptions And so we might receive from you lawful Ordination and true Scriptures though you were a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need we aske your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church is enough to make us a true one As for a Succession of men that held with us in all points of Doctrin it is a thing we need not and you have as little as we So that if we acknowledge that your Church before Luther was a true Church it is not for any ends for any dependance that we have upon you but because we conceive that in a charitable construction you may pass for a true Church Such a Church and no better as you do somtimes acknowledge Protestants to be that is a Company of men wherein some ignorant souls may be saved So that in this ballancing of Religion against Religion and Church against Church it seems you have nothing of weight and moment to put into your scale nothing but smoak and wind vain shadows and phantastical pretences Yet if Protestants on the other side had nothing to put in their Scale but those negative commendations which you are pleas'd to afford them nothing but No unity nor means to procure it no farther extent when Luther arose than Luthers body no Universality of time or place no Visibility or being except only in your Church no Succession of persons or doctrin no leader but Luther in a quarel begun upon no ground but passion no Church no Ordination no Scriptures but such as they receiv'd from you if all this were true and this were all that could be pleaded for Protestants possibly with an allowance of three grains of partiality your Scale might seem to turne But then if it may appear that part of these objections are falsely made against them the rest vainly that whatsoever of truth is in these imputations is impertinent to this trial and whatsoever is pertinent is untrue and besides that plenty of good matter may be alleadged for Protestants which is here dissembled Then I hope our cause may be good notwithstanding these pretences 55. I say then that want of Universality of time and place The invisibility or not existence of the professors of Protestant Doctrin before Luther Luther's being alone when he first opposed your Church Our having our Church Ordination Scriptures personal and yet not doctrinal Succession from you are vain and impertinent allegations against the truth of our Doctrin and Church That the entire truth of Christ without any mixture of error should be professed or believed in all places at any time or in any place at all times is not a thing evident in reason neither have we any Revelation for it And therefore in relying so confidently on it you build your house upon the sand And what obligation we had either to be so peevish as to take nothing of yours or so foolish as to take all I do not understand For whereas you say that this is to be choosers and therefore Heretiques I tell you that though all Heretiques are choosers yet all choosers are not Heretiques otherwise they also which choose your Religion must be Heretiques As for our wanting Unity and Means of proving it Luther 's opposing your Church upon meere passion Our following private men rather than the Catholique Church the first and last are meere untruths for we want not Unity nor Means to procure it in things necessary Plain places of Scripture and such as need no interpreter are our means to obtain it Neither do we follow any private men but only the Scripture the word of God as our rule and reason which is also the gift of God given to direct us in all our actions in the use of this rule And then for Luther's opposing your Church upon meere passion it is a thing I will not deny because I know not his heart and for the same reason you should not have affirmed it Sure I am whether he opposed your Church upon reason or no he had reason enough to oppose it And therefore if he did it upon passion we will follow him only in his action and not in his passion in his opposition not in the manner of it and then I presume you will have no reason to condemne us unless you will say that a good action cannot be done with reason because some body before us hath done it upon passion You see then how imprudent you have been in the choice of your arguments to prove Protestants unwise in the choice of their Religion 56. It remains now that I should shew that many reasons of moment may be alleaged for the justification of Protestants which are dissembled by you and not put into the ballance Know then Sir that when I say The Religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferr'd before yours as on the one side I do not understand by your Religion the doctrin of Bellarmin or Baronius or any other private man amongst you nor the Doctrin of the Sorbon or of the Jesuits or of the Dominicans or of any other particular Company among you but that wherein you all agree or profess to agree the Doctrin of the Councel of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrin of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelberg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherein they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect rule of their faith and actions that is The BIBLE The BIBLE I say The BIBLE only is the Religion of Protestants Whatsoever else they believe besides It and the plain irrefragable indubitable consequences of of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves nor require the belief of it of others without most high and most Schismatical presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe and hope impartial search of the true way to eternal hapiness do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councels against Councels some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one age against a Consent of Fathers of another age the Church of one age against the Church of