collectivly taken or the Catholick Church cannot erre in Essentials if the faith of the Catholick Church in these ages can be found out in the undoubted writings of the Fathers in these times then Conformity with their Religion will irrefragably prove Our Religion to be the True Religion as to all Essentials Yea if from the writings of the Aâ—â—ients in these ages we can find what was the faith of any one true Particular Church we may solidly argue thence as to the Truth of Religion in essentials For though a true particular Church may erre yet so long as it is a True Church it retaines the essentials of faith else it were not a true Church This Distinction which I have proposed is not mine onely but of our PROTESTANT Writers in this question concerning The Churches infallibility As you may see in Whitaker De Ecclesia quaest 3. cap. 1. Doctor Field His way to the Church lib. 4. cap 2. And others So that it is no evasion I propound to you but the received Doctrine of the Reformed Churches and hence the rest of this your cavil on which you foolishly dilate may be cut off If we grant say you Any infallibility to the Church in these three Centuries how did that gift expyre in the fourth and after following ages It is easily Answered This infall blility which we grant to the Collective body of the Church as to the Essentials and Fundamentals of faith agrees to her in every age else the Church in some ages should be utterly lost But though we grant that the whole Catholick Church cannot erre in Fundamentals be not so foolish as to apply this to your Romish Church You might as well say that Italians are the collective body of mankind as that you Romanists are the collective body of the Catholick Church Remember Jeroms smart admonitioÌ„ In Aepistola ad Evagrium Orbis major est urbe Only this I adde that though the Catholick Church be exempted from error in Fundamentals in every age yet the Church in all ages is not blest with Equal purity and splendor For in some ages the Integrals may be much more vitiated then in others Yea some particular Churches may erre in Fundamentals and so cease to be True Churches and many of these who were eminent Lights in the Church may be smitten with these Fundamental errors and the sincere Professors of the truth may be reduced to a great Paucitie and through persecution be scattered into corners as in the dayes of Athanasius Quando totus orbis miratus est se factum Arianum Lest therefore you cavil further at the restricting of my argument to these First three Centuries you may remember the first occasion of it which was this as you will find in my Fourth Paper I was speaking of the Ancient Apologists in the first Three Centuries who pleaded the truth of the Christian Religion against Heathens And I appealed both to Their grounds and their Religion in these dayes that it might be tryed whether our Religion were not agreeable to theirs in all Essentials and whether the solid grounds which they brought for the truth of the Christian Religion did not agree to the Religion of PROTESTANTS This I say was the occasion of limiting the argument to these ages though it might have been extended further Yea and as then we told was extended further by Bishop Juel and Crakanthorp even to the Sixth Centurie so also is it by learned Whitaker Contra rarionem quintam Campiani Nay others have extended it to all ages Nor need you carp at the limiting of the argument to the first Three Centuries For the faith of the Catholick Church in these Three ages was the faith of the Catholick Church in all Ages For there is but one Faith and therefore if it be proven that our Religion was the Religion of these ages it doth consequently follow that it was the faith of the Catholick Church in all ages So that this is the most compendious way to try whether a Religion be the faith of the Church in all ages by ascending to the fountain I mean to these first three centuries concerning which there is least doubt made by any Party and which was lesse viriated by superstition or errors in integrals then was the Church in some after times I come now to your second Evasion wherein you pretend That conformity with the Ancient Church is at least no distinct ground from conformity with the Scriptures seeing the truth of the faith of the Ancient Church can onely be proven by its conformity with the Scripturs But the vanity of this subterfuge doth easily appeare For First whether it be a Distinct ground or not yet if it be a Real ground why decline you to be tryed thereby You must surely have an ill conscience and know your wares to be sophisticat that they cannot abide the light Secondly If these grounds be not distinct how doth your Melehior Canus In his booke of commone places distinguish them giveing the first place to the Seripturs of which he treats Lib. 2. only the Sixth to Ancient fathers of whome he discourseth Lib. 7 Or how doth Bellarmin and other your Controversists ordinarly distinguish their argumeÌ„â—s founded on Scripture from the arguments founded upon Antiquity But Thirdly wholly to remove this cavil I grant that the truth of Religion in any former age may be proven from its conformity with the Scriptures and therefore that conformity with the holy Scriptures is the onely Primarie ground of discerning a True Religion from a false whereupon I did put it in the first place Yet we may abstract Pro hîc nune from this way of procedour and argue from the faith of the Church in some ages without proceeding at the time to examine the truth of every point by the Scripture And the rather seeing in Scripture there are general promises of the perpetuity of the Church and consequently of preserving in her all fundamental truths If therefore we can have evidence that this was the faith of the Catholick Church I meane of the whole collective in any age then I may conclude this is the true faith and the True Religion and consequently what is agreeable thereto must also be the True Religion for nothing can be consonant to truth but truth From this it appeares that sisting in the Religion of the Catholick Church in the Second and Third Centurie as a Principle upon the general promise of the Churches perpetuity without a further progresse for the time to examine the truth of every particular it may become in some manner a Distinct ground of argueing from that according to which every point is severally reduced to Scripture-tryal Even as in Subalternas sciences the Conclusions of the Subalternant science are made use of as Principles without making a further progresse The Astronomer takes the Geometricians Conclusion as a Priuciple not seeking a Demonstration thereof So may the Divine in some cases take the faith of the
to these ages as not to goe further After we have gotten the verdict of the First three Centuries I shall not then declyne to trace you successively through all succeeding ages to this day And I am confident upon a through discusse it will appeare that Your present Romish Faith as to all its Essentials was never the faith of the Catholick Church in anie age let be in All. And upon the conttarie neither you nor any of your Adherents shall be able to prove that our Religion differs in Its Essentials from the faith of the Catholick Church in anie age Now in such an enquiry can we fall upon a more convenient Method then to beginne at the fountain I meane at the most pure Ancient and according to Egesippus Elogie Virgin Church in the First three Centuries If our ReligioÌ„ be found conforme thereto in all Its Essentials as I am coÌ„fident it shall then sure it is conforme to the True Catholick Religion in all ages If yours be found dissonant thereto as I doubt not but it will then sure it is dissonant to the Christian Religion in all ages For there is but one faith Eph. 4.5 and one True Religion But Secondly you have the boldnesse to upbraid me with Two contradictions Only before I propose them I must minde you that neither of these pretended Contradictions are in my Ninth Paper to which you now answere So glad it seemes you have been of any thing to fill up the roome wherein you should have answered that Ninth Paper If my Former Papers were guilty of these ContrÌ„adictions were you not very obtuse who did not discover them more timely Yet let the unpartiall Reader judge of these Contradictions The first alledged contradiction is That upon the one hand I should have affirmed Religion to be a complex of many truths which are to be severally tryed as the severall pieces of gold in a purse and that I would descend to the severall particulars yea and that all points necessary to salvation were contained perspicuously in Scripture Yet when you called me to give a list of all these particular points then I disclaimed my former example of a purse and alledged that I was not obliged to descend to particulars I see now I was in no mistake when I said that you walked by that Machiavillian principle Calumniare audacter c. Resume all my Papers and see if ever I refused to descend to a tryall of any particular Controversie betwixt you and us Yea have I not all this time been pressing you to this and you dared not to peep out of your lurking holes Have I not passed through many of the Controversies in particular to which you have not adventured to make any Reply Produce the page or leafe in any of my Papers where ever I disclaimed that forementioned example Of trying the severall peices of gold by the touch stone yea or one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that once I gave you under my hand But I shall ingenuoussy tell the truth of that which you so deceitfully misrepresent and when I have done contradict me if you can I said indeed That Religion is a complen of many truths and to prove them all as matters are now stated bemint us and you Remanists were to write a body of controversies But yet that I should never decline to examine any of those with you And I have further said that all the necessarie points af Christian Religion were contained perspicuously in the Scriptures But when you in stead of comeing to a discusse of parâ—â—cular points only started that old threed bare Cavill Concerning a precise catalogue of necessarie points I shew That it was but a meer tergiversing shift in you and demonstrated by many reasons which you was never able to answere That there was no necessitie lying upon me in order to the decision of the maine controversie at present betwixt us to determine a precise Catalogue of necessarie truths You may call in for your assistance the rest of your Society and try if you can find a reall Contradiction in all this Indeed if I had promised to give you a Catalogue of points necessarie to Salvation and hereafter had refused to give it oâ— if since I declared a readiness to debate with you any point in Controversie betwixt the Reformed Churches and the Church of Rome I had declined to performe my promise you might have accused me of Inconsistencie with my self Or if haveing â—ffiâ—med that all things necessarie to Salvation are clearly contained in Scripture I had denyed any article of faith necessarie to Salvation to be contained clearly in Scripture you might have charged me with a Contradiction But you and your Associats may canvase what I have said againe and againe and try if you can find either a Contradiction or that I have declyned any thing that is necessarie for the decision of the present Controve sie Cannot all the points in Controversie betwixt the Reformed Churches and Pomanists be particularly examined without Desyning a precise catalogue of truths simplie necessarie to Salvation Have I ever said that everie one of your Romish errors is Fundamentall Or that no points of truth are clearly revealed in Scripture but only Fundamentals or such the explicite belief whereof is absolutly necessarie to Salvation Nay I tell you that on maine reason why I did and doe forebear for the time to pitch upon such a Catalogue was because I stand now to justify the Religion of PROTESTANTS against your Cavills But the Reformed Churches in their Harmony of Confessions have not so farre as I have observed determined that Precise Catalogue of necessaries So that in pirching upon such a Catalogue at the time I should leave my worke to follow a tergiversing vagrant Yea some of our Divines particularly acuâ—e Chillingworth in his booke entituled The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation part 1. cap 3 § 13. Affirmes that more may be necessarie to the Salration of some then of others And therefore to call for a precise catalogue of points necessarie to the Salvation of every one were as if one should call for a Dyall to serve all Meridians or for a coat to serve the Moon in all her Changes You may likewise remember that I shew in my Sixth and Seventh Papers that Romanists are no lesse concerned to give a Catalogue of necessaries nor exposed to fewer difficulties in doing it then we and that in this matter your Authors have been often Non-plussed by PROTESTANT Divines For you have made points Necessarie which the Ancient and Catholick Church never held as Necessarie And so have separated your selves from the Catholick Church of IESUS CHRIST But to let you see that I am still ready to performe what ever I undertooke pitch you upon any point controverted betwixt the Reformed churches and You whether belonging to the Essentials or Integrals of Religion that is whether simply necessarie to Salvation or not and you shall find that I
then apologize for me One Objection must needs be removed It may be asked how I doe charge the Iesuit as declyning to have the truth of Religion either examined by Scripture or Antiquity seeing he profers at lest to have one Controversie examined by Scripture Viz. concerning the number of Sacraments But let any rational person though a Romanist if he can but dispossesse his own mind of prejudice cognosce whether my Charge be just How disingenuous the Iesuit was in that seeming profer concerning the number of Sacraments is sufficiently discovered in my Reply to his tenth paper from page 236. to page 241. Now only let these few particulars be considered And 1. When did the Iesuit make this profer Only in his tenth or last paper imeÌ„diatly before his getting out of the nation Why did he it not sooner especially seeing we had been exchanging papers above a year before and he had been frequently appealed to a discusse of particular Controversies Did he not in former papers positively decline to have the truth of Religion examined either by Scripture or Antiquity By Scripture because as he affirmes paper 4. pag. 37. The letter of Scripture is capable of divers yea contrary senses and there is no Religion so false but pretends that the tenets of it are conforme to the letter of Scripture By Antiquity also because sayeth the Iesuit paper 5. page 61 This with as great reason may be assumed by any Christian false Religion Yea doth he not charge me as hatching a new Religion of my own because I appealed to the Fathers of the three first Centuries in his 9. paper page 178. Now what ingenuity or courage is manifested by such a seeming profer at such a time after so many declinaturs ingenuous Romanists may judge But secondly Had there not been weighty Controversies tabled before viz. Concerning the Infallibility of Popes and Councils the Perspicuity and Perfection of the Scriptures Transubstantiation Adoration of Images Communion under one kinde Papal indulgences Apocrypha bookes the Popes Supremacie over the whole Catholick Church and his Jurisdiction over Princes Yea had it not been shewed as the breviry of missives would permit that the Church of Rome doth grosly erre in all these Yet never did he offer to Reply to any of these Let Romanists therefore againe judge whether he who passes over in silence all Arguments both from Scripture and Antiquity to prove the present Romish Religion erronious in all the foresaid particulars and only starts a new Question about the number of Sacraments doeth shew a through willingnesse to have the Truth of Religion tryed either by Scripture or Antiquity Thirdly If there he any Controversie tossed betwixt Rom mists and us where a cavilling Sophister may wrap himself up under Logomachies is not this it which the Iesuit hath pitched upon coÌ„cerning the number of Sacraments Must it not be acknowledged on all hands that as the word Sacrament is taken in a larger or stricter sense a man may affirme that ther be more or fewer Sacraments But of this you may see more at length in the Aâ—swere to the Jesuits tenth paper page 238. and 239. Let it be then considered how willing the Jesuit was of a Scriptural tryal who dates not adventure on the examination of other Controversies and only betaks himself to this wherein the Adversarie may shut himself up in a thicker of Logomachies But fourthly Doth the Jesuit really profer to have that on Controversie concerning the number of Sacraments betwixt Papists and us decyded by Scripture Or doth he bring Arguments from Scripture to prove a precise Septenary of proper Sacraments neither more nor fewer which is the Doctrine of the Present Romish Church Nor at all What then Only that he might seeme to say something he desires me to prove from Scripture that there be only two Sacraments or that there be no more then two which is in very deed to require me to prove the Negative while he himself declynes to prove the Affirmative viz. That there is not only more then two but compleatly seven Though the Iesuits demand be irrational I hope I have satisfied it in its own proper place But what though I had succumbed in proving that there were no more but two proper Sacraments Yet the question betwixt Romanists and us concerning the number of Sacraments were not decyded except it be proven that there be precisely seven neither more nor fewer If there be not a precise septenary one Article of the Romish faith falls to the ground Consequently the Iesuit never submits the Question concerning the number of Sacraments to a Scriptural tryal untill he offer to prove by Scripture a precise sepetenary of proper Sacraments which as yet he hath not done nor I believe will adventure to doe He will find need of the supplement of his unwriten traditions here But neither I suppose will these serve his turne But Fifthly what are all these ensuing papers but a demonstration of the Iesuits tergiversing humor In his first paper he proposed foure postulata like so many Oracles I discovered an egregious fallacy in one of them But to this day he never once endeavoured to vindicat himself He proposed in that paper an informal Syllogisme but could never thereafter adventure on a second which was retorted in better forme against the Popish Religion more wayes then one but these Retortions to this houre remaine unexamined I denyed the Assumption of that long studied Syllogisme but he could never be induced to undertake the probation thereof In that Assumption the Iesuit had said that the PROTESTANT Religion had no grounds to prove its conformity with the letter of Scripture To repell that bold allegeance I appealed him to produce any solid ground of conformity with Scripture which either the True Christian Religion hath or that the Popish Religion can pretend to which the Religion of PROTESTANTS wants But he could never be moved to produce any Sometimes he hinted at the Infallibility of the Propounders of the Articles of Faith but he durst neither adventure to tell whom he meant by these Infallible Propounders or to prove the Infallibility of Romish Propounders or to answere Arguments against their Infallibility At length being outwearied with his tergiversing I produced positive Grounds for proving the conformity of our Religion to the Scriptures and the disconformity of theirs viz. The Perspicuity of the Scriptures in all things necessarie and Conformitie with the faith of the Ancient Church in the first three Centuries Hereupon he positively declyned both Scriptures and Fathers in these first three Centuries as a test to find out the Truth of Religion Therefore finding that still he shunned to come to particulars I pirched upon that much controverted Scripture which Romanists pretend to be as favourable to them as any viz Hoc est Corpus meum This is my Body and proved the sense which PROTESTANTS give thereof to be True and Genuine and the sense which Romanists impose to
be false and absurd And offered to doe the like concerning other controverted Scriptures such as Luke 22.32 I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not Matthew 16.18 Upon this Rocke I will build my Church 1. Tim. 3.15 The pillar and ground of Truth c. This I did in the Answere to his seventh paper from page 126. to page 130. But all these he waves as tedious Digressions in his eight paper page 148. I resolved also to try his behaviour more particularly in reference to Antiquity and therefore in the Answere to the Iesuits eight paper from page 169. to page 173. I produced seven articles of the present Romish Religion which I briefly shew to be repugnant to the faith of the Ancient Romish Church viz. Their Adoration of Images Their Transubstantiation Their Communion under one kinde The Popes Supremacy Their mantaining the Apocryphal bookes to be Canonical Scriptures the Papes usurped Jurisdiction over Princes and their Indulgences for easing Soules under the paines of Purgatory But this is all the Answere which the tergiversing Jesuit makes to these particulars in his paper 9. page 176. What makes it to our purpose your digressions about Images about Transubstantiation about Communion under one kinde about the Popes supremacy about Apocryphal bookes about Indulgences Purgatory c. I gave likewise some account of their corrupting the Morals and Practicals of Christianity by their impious doctrine of Probables in the answere to his eight paper page 162. 163. c. But to this he answered Ne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quidem nothing at all The rest of his rergiversing Preteritions I must leave the Reader to collect by his own observation Did ever I pray an ill cause fall into the hands of a more unhappie Advocat Whether now my charge against the Iesuit as on that declynes to have the truth of Religion tryed either by Scripture or Antiquity be just let him who who ponders these particulars and peruseth all the Papers judge Had I tergiversed as the Iesuit hath done had I been left at such disadvantages as he would they not have made the World ring with it What ever answere shall be returned to me Our Popish Apostats will be ready to entertain it with Plaudire's as if the field were wone But I hope they who are judicious will hereafter lesse regard their clamours having such experience of their triumphing when their Champion had behaved himself in such a piteous fashion Our Romanists are pleased to boast that how soon these papers come abroad they shall have an Answere tripping upon their heels Indeed I have eased them of much labour by publishing all these papers Have they not had a good opportunity these six or seven moneths wherein they knew thir papers were at the Presse to prepare supplies for Mr. Dempsters omissions Have they not many hands and heads to furnish them materials little worke to divert them from scribling Yet they would take heed lest through preposterous hâ—ste they fall into Mr. Dempsters errour to leave the chiefe of their worke behind them My designe ever was rather to contend with them in solidity of reason then in Celerity of dispatch Diu apparandumest bellum ut vincas celerius If Romanists be as speedy in their Reply as they talke will it not discover that they apprehend some danger to their ill Cause from these papers If their speed be not answerable to their boasting will it not be an evidence that they are large as good at boasting as at argueing All the courtesie I crave from the ingenuous Reader is to allow me an equal hearing with the Adversary So as when he is to passe judgement betwixt us he consider an equal number of his papers and mine Here there be ten of either side presented If now Sentence should be past neither of us could complaine that we had not ben heard But if Romanists adde their eleventh paper then ought not any further sentence be suspended untill my Reply be heard The Iesuit having the first word doth not the last de jure appertaine to me Yet if the eleventh paper run in the same trifling and tautologizing strain with the former I plead no Suspension My heart bleeds for our straying Apostats some falling to rank Popish Idolatrie others to the delusions of Quakerism which if learned and judicious persons be not mistaken is but Popery under a disguise However O that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears to weep day and night over these deluded Soules under whatsoever Denomination they goe O that their eyes were opened to see the Sin the Scandal and Danger of their way It might be of some use to speak of the Causes of so great a Defection had not these Papers already swelled to such a bignes I shall therefore only transiently hint at a few And First There is alace an innate Principle of Levity and Instability in peoples hâ—arâ—s so that they are ready to be Tossed to and frolike Children with every wind of Doctrine Eph. 4.14 If the heart be not established by grace The 〈◊〉 siâ—eration of this should humble all and make us jealous our own hearts and watch unto Prayer lest we fall into temptation Secondly Seducers have usually a wonderfull insinuating faculty Rom 16.18 By good words and faire speeches they deceive the hearts of the simple By smooth words accommodated to the complexion of these with whom they deal they steal away their hearts as is said of Absolon Yet they in a manner fascinat and bewiâ—ch them as is the Apostles expression Gal. 3.1 And now these decenfull workers as they are termed 2 Cor. 11.13 have taken an unusuall boldness upon them to intrude into all companies where they have any hope of prevailing These therfore who would eschew their Contagion would shun their fellowship as they would shun Persons smitten with the Plague for the Words of Seducers doe eat as a Gangren 2. Tim. 2.17 The Apostle Iohn would not breath in the same aire with the Heretick Cerinthus but sprang out of the Bath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayeth Euseb lib. 3. hist Eccles cap. 25. How soon he perceived the Heretick to be there Thirdly As Hereticks are high and specious in their pretences so also bold and peremptory in their Asseverations The Romish Emissaries talk bigly of the Church as if none had an interest in the Catholick Church but these of their way The Quakers take us great a latitude to boast of the Light and Spirit God forbid that we should derogat from the necessity or efficacy of the Spirits working or from the due esteem to the Catholick Church nay I hope our hearers know we speak more to the just advantage of both then either Jesuit or Quaker But besides these vain and specious pretences these men are very confident in their Asseverations Though they cannot solidely prove any of their Erronious Positions yet they will affirme the truth of them boldly and be ready to Anathematize
period to this controversie I had condescended to mention to you Grounds of the truth of the Religion of PROTESTANTS which are not really competible to any false Religion however they may be pretended too It is hard to me to tell whether in your enumeration of them or in your ludicrous way of confutation you manifest more Childish weaknesse and folly And first in the enumeration of the grounds of Religion you number up five more indeed then ever I gave you For the first two namly the Intrinsick objective evidence of Religion and The conformity thereof to the word of GOD were never mentioned by me as two distinct grounds yea your self in your third Paper reckoned these as Synonima's and therefore you but play the child in reckoning them as distinct Neither is the fifth ground which you mention concerning The perspicuity of the Scriptures to be adequatly distinguished from these But your cheife prevarication is in that which you mention as the Third ground of the truth of our Religion namly that Religion being a complex of many divine truth cannot be all proven at once but by compating each of these truths with the word of GOD. I could not have expected that a man who was not in a perfect Delirinm could have bewrayed such stupidity for this was never laid down by me as a Ground of our Religion Nay a Child might have discerned by the very terms that this was onely brought as a reason why in such a short Paper I could not be tyed to give you the grounds of our Religion For it were to tye me as matters are now stated to writ a whole bodie of controversies What an impudent cheat then is this you would put upon your Reader to substitute that as a Ground of the truth of our Religion assigned by me which in very deed was brought by me as a reason why I was not tyed at this time to give you any grounds Henceforth therefore when you goe to impugne any thing in my Papers propose it in my own terms else I must say to you in the words of the Poet. Quem recitas meus est O Fidentine libellus Sed malè dum recitas incipit esse tuus You discover no lesse weaknesse in your trifling confutation of these grounds of Religion for all ye say to every one of them which five times you doe repeat is that a false Religion may alleage all these grounds But herein you play the silly Sophister Ab ignoratione elenchi for the question is not whether the PROTESTANT or true Religion hath grounds which a false Religion may not alleage or pretend but whether the PROTESTANT Religion hath grounds which cannot be verified of a false Religion I freely grant that a false Religion may lay claime to the grounds of the true Religion as the mad man of Athens laid claime to all the Ships that came into the Harbout as his own though none of them were his But the Grounds of the true Religion can never be verified of a false Religion It was not enough then for you to say that a false Religion may lay claime to those Grounds nay nor was it to the purpose unlesse you could also have shewed that the Ground of the PROTESTANT Religion namely Conformity with the Scripture might be verified of a false Religion This you ought to have showen if you had intended a real confutation of my grounds But this you will find as impossible for you as to remove the Earth from its Axis If you looke againe to my last Paper you will finde that in stead of these Five grounds of your mustering I gave only these Two grounds from which indeed the truth of the Religion of PROTESTANTS and the falshood of the present Romish Religion may be discovered The first was The perspicuity of the Scripture in all things necessarie to Salvation which I did confirme by luculent Authorities which you have not once dared to examine The other was From our Agreement in essentials with the faith of the purest and most Ancient primitive Church in the first three Centuries And with all from this I deduced a demonstration of the falshood of your now Romish Church and Religion from the discrepancy thereof in essentials from the faith of the Catholick Church in the first three Centuries which I confirmed from your Formula Fidei or Popish Creed contrived by Pope Pius the fourth which differs in its essentials from the faith of the Church in the first three Centuries Had you been willing that imparriall search should be made whether the truth stood on your side or on ours Had you not here matter enough to work upon both from Scripture and Antiquity But dissembling all my arguments from these principles you onely give this snifling Answere that they who have a false Religion may also pretend that their Religion is also contained in Scripture and is conforme to the Religion of the primitive Church To which I Reply first that these forementioned grounds doe not cease to be grounds for proving the True Religion because Hereticks pretend an interest in them Nay on the contrary Hereticks laying claime to them is a strong persumption that they are the induitable grounds of the true Religion as a Rogues pretending conformity with the Law is so farr from proving that the Law is no discriminating Test betwixt Honestie and Roguery that it is rather a vehement presumption of the con-ratie Secondly Had you resolved to goe to the borrome of the busines you should have proved that either these grounds assigned by me are not proper grounds for the discerning the True Religion from a false or that these grounds doeth really agree to a false Religion that is That a false Religion is perspicuously contained in Scripture and doth agree in its essentials with the Religion of the primitive Church in the first three Centuries or that these grounds doe not agree to the Religion of PROTESTANTS But none of these doe you once attempt to performe Nay over againe you are put to prove any of these which if you doe Tu Phillida solus habeto But thirdly I demonstrate on the contratie that these are sure grounds by which the truth of Religion may be discerned Thus if Scripture be not a sufficient ground and Test to distinguish a true Religion from a false then it must be either because it doth not containe All things necessary to Salvation or because it doth not hold out Perspicuously all these things for there is no other impediment imaginable unlesse with the Infidell you should question the Authority of Scriptures But when we say that the Scripture is the indubitable Test for discerning the True Religion from a false it is to be understood among Christians who acknowledge the divine Authoritie of Scriptures Consequently if the Scriptures be Perspicuous in all things necessary to Savlation as our Divines have often demonstrated and I cleared in my last by irrefragable testimonies both of Ancients and of
the scop of your first Paper and Syllogisme was to hold out That the true Religion hath grounds to prove it self to be conformâ— to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. But this were impossible if all Religion and consequently what ever is necessarie to Salvation were not contained in the writen Word of God And therefor in my answere to your First Paper I concluded from that Syllogisme that you had overturned your Vnwriten traditions So that now you are not in Bonâ fide to object against the Perfection of Scriptures as containing all things necessary to Salvation without contradicting your self But this hath been a fatalitie which hath attended you throughout all this debate Secondly this your demand Of drawing up a Lift and Catalogue of necessaries is an old cavill of your Romanists which our Divines have often canvased and therefore â—s I told you that you would be served when you renewed old Refuâ—ed Cavills Itemit you to see what hath been said to this purpose By Master Chillingwerth in his Defence of Petter part 1. capp 3.4 And by Stilling-sleet In his Vindication of the Bishop of Canterbury against T. C. part 1. cap. 4. And Crakantliorp in his ' Defens Ecclesia Anglicana cap. 47. Thirdly you falslie affirme that the Scripture doth pur no distinction betwixt divine truthes of absolute necessitie to Salvation and others the beleef whereof is not so indispensably necessarie Sayeth not the Scriptore Heb. 11.6 He that cometh unto GOD must beleeve 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Is the like Character of necessitie put upon everie truth Is there I pray as great necssiâ—tie to beleeve that Paul left a Clok at Treat 2. Tim. 4.13 As to beleeve there is a GOD Know you not that of Austin lib. 1. Contra Iulianum cap. 6. Alia sunt in quibus inter se aliquande etiam doctissimi atê™ optimi regulae Catholicae defensores salva fidei compage non consonant alius alio de una re melius aliquid dicit verius hoc autens unde nunc agimus ad ipsa pertinet sidei fundamenta Where the Father acknowledges there are some Foundation truths in Christianitie absolutly necessarie and others not so You may see this larglie proven by Master Baxter in his Key for Catholiks part 1. cap. 16. And Crakanthorp loco citato no to mention others Fourthly I absolutlie denie that it was incumbent to me at this time to draw up a Lift of truths simply necessarie to Salvation and it was a tergiversing Shift in you to demand it that so you might keep off the eximination of that which is mainlie in controversie betwixt us For though I with reformed Divines doe affirme that all things necessarie to Salvation are contained in Scripture Yet neither they nor I affirme that it is necessary to Salvation to have a precise Catalogue of things necessarie containing neither more not lesse Did I pray you Chryfostome draw up a Catalogue of necessaries when he said Hom. 3. In epist 2. Ad Thess That all things necessarie are clear and manifest in the Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Augustin when he said Lib. 2. De doct Christ cap. 9. that In â—is quae aperte posita sunt in these things which are plainly laid down in the Scripturs Inveniuntur amnia are found all which belong to faith or maners Or Tertullian when he said Scripturae plenitudinem adero Cannot this generall be proven that all things necessarie are contained in the Scriptures unlesse a precise Catalogue be drawne Is there no way to prove an Universall conclusion but by an induction and enumeration of all particulars Cannot I conclude that all the dead shall rise at the last day unlesse I can draw up a list of all the race of Mankind Or that all the Reprobat shall be eternally shut up in hell unlesse I can give you a catalogue and definit number of that generation of GODS wrath Can I not conclude that all Jesuits are devoted Slaves to the Pope unlesse I can give a catalogue and a definit number of these locusts Is not the generall which we affirme abundantly proven by these Scriptures in which the sufficiencie of the Scripture to bring men to Salvation is held forth As 2. Tim. 3.15.16.17 John 20.31 Gal. 1.8.9 c. In so much that Tertullian was bold to say Contra Hermogenens cap. 22. Doceat Hermogenes Scriptures esse si non est Scriptum timeat illud vae adjicientibus ant detrahentibus destinatum Yea what if it should be added that the explicite beleef of more truths may be necessarie to the Salvation of one then of another Said nor the Lord Christ Luke 12.48 Unto whome much is given much shall be required Whereupon a great Divine spared not to say That to call for a precise catalogue of necessarie truths is as unreasonable as if one should desire us to make a coat to fit the Moon in all her Changes or a garment to fit all statures or a dyall to serve all Meridians or to designe particularly what provision may serve aâ— Army for a year whereas there may be an Arâ—â—ie of a thousand and an Army of an hundreth thousand whose provision therefore cannot be alike But what ever be of this let it suffice to have given you this generall character of necessarie truths that no truth of Religion is further to be accounted necessary then Scripture puts a character of necessity upon it And here by the way I might let you see what a fool you wer in medling with my example Of trying pieces of gold severally by the Tonchstone For in the present case it can import no more but that before any truth be concluded necessarie it must first be found that the Scriptures hath put a character of necessity upon it and consequently all necessarie truths must be contained in Scripture Quod erat demonstrandum You would therefore not medle with my weapons lest they cut your hands But Fifthly and lastly I adde that you Romanists are as much concerned to draw up a list and catalogue of necessaries as we and I am sure in so doing you shall find greater difficulty especially if with your late Champions you say that all that and onely that is necessarie which your Church hath defined For first can ye agree among your selves to tell me what you mean by the Church Or secondly can you enumerat a precise catalogue of all that the Church hath defined Or how can you ascertaine any of the true sense of these Definitions Or Thirdly can you show me who hath impowered the Church since the dayes of the Apostles to put a Character of necessity to Salvation upon a truth which had it not before And Fourthly did not I from this demonstrate your Religion to be a false Religion because it differs in its essentials and in these things which to you are necessary to
SalvatioÌ„ from the faith of the most ancient primitive Church Seeing your Formula fidei contrived by Pope Pius the fourth hath made all the canons of the councill of Trent necessarie which I am sure neither you nor any man shall be able to show to have been the faith of the most Ancient and primitive Church Though this hath been put to you once and againe yet have you not dared to touch upon this string Yea Fifthly from this your imposing new necessary articles of faith whereas Regula fidei as Tertullian well sayed Lib. de velandis Virgin Una omnino est immobilis irrefomabilis many of our Divines have demonstrated your Church to be the most Schismaticall society that bears the name of a Church under Heaven For by this you have cut your selves off both from the ancient Church and from the greatest part of Christendome at this day Among many others who have convicted you of this greivous crime you may try how you can expede your self from that which hath been said to this purpose by Decter Morton in his booke intituled The Grand Imposture of the Church of Rome cap. 15. by Stilling fleet in his Vindicatione of the Bishop of Canterbury part 2. cap. 2. And Voetius in his Desperata causa Papatus lib. 3. From this it were easy to demonstrat that notwithstanding your great pretences to Catholicisme we not ye are the true Catholiks For we acknowledge coÌ„munion with the whole Church both ancient modern which keep the essentials fundameÌ„tals of Christianity But your Chuch by imposing new necessary articles of faith which neither the ancient Church nor yet the greatest part of the present Church did ever acknowledge have cut your selves off from the body I shall close this Section with this Dilemma Either the Scriptures doe containe all that is necessarie to Salvation or not if they doe then you are a perverse wrangling sophister in cavilling against this truth If not then instance one necessary truth not contained in Scriptures And this should have been your worke if you would have done any thing to purpose against this precious truth of the Scriptures being a compleet Canon to have showed some Necessary article of faith not contained therein And if you set to this worke remember that according to your own principles you must prove it by some infallible authority which you will find as hard a worke as to roll Sysiphi Saxum In place of your third objection you enquire What are the means for interpreting Scripture what is the due use of these means Whether a false Religion may not use the meane And whether people without preaching can duely use the means of interpretation and come to the knowledge of all things necessary And from the use of meane of interpretation you would conclude the Scriptures not to be perspicuous Behold now of a disputant you are become a Querist You have need I confesse in your old dayes to turne a Catechumen and if you would become a docile Disciple you might receive convincing instructions and find that you had no just cause to have turned a Runnagade from the Religion of PROTESTANTS unto which you were baptized But so long as your Queries proceed from a cavilling humor you deserve no other answere then the retortion of some puzling Queries as our Lord Christ sometimes confuted the insidious interrogaturs of his adversaries A remarkeable instance whereof you may find Luke 20. from verse 2. to verse 8 And therefore to pull down these Spider webs in which you seeme not a little to confide know First that the use of means of interpretation doth nothing derogat from the asserted Perspicuity of the Scriptures especially seeing the principall means of interpretation are to be fetched from the Scripture it self Suppose a man be in a darke Roome with his eyes shut because he must first open both eyes and windowes before he can see the Sun will you therefore accuse the Sun of obscurity Is not the Perspicuity of Scriptures luculently attested Psal 119. vers 105.2 Pet. 1.19 2. Cor. 4.3.4 Rom. 10.7.8 c. If Scriptures be not perspicuous in things necessary it must be either because GOD would not speake clearlie in them or because he could not It were too hard blasphemie to say he could not Who made mans mouth Exod. 4.11 Hence Laâ—tantius lib. 6. Institut cap. 21. Num Deus linguae mentit artifex lâ—â—uinâ—n potest Nor can you say because he would not seeing this is the verie end of Scripture to reveal unto us the way of Salvation Iohn 20.31 Rom. 15.4.2 Tim. 3.15 Dare you say that our holy and gracious Lord did purposlle deliver the whole Scripture obscurely as Aristâ—tle did his Acromaticks and therefore said of them Edidi non edidi You might have learned a better lesson from Ierom on Psal 96. Where he makes this difference betwixt the writings of Plato and the Apostles Plato said he purposlie affected obscurity that few might understand but the Apostles wrote clearly that they might accommodat themselves to the capacities of all the people of GOD. But Secondly Are not you Romanists as much concerned as we in finding out the means for interpreting Scripture yea and besides to find out also means for interpreting the Decretalls Bulls and Breves of your Popes Are you not acquaint with the perplexed debates of your Authors and particularlie how Stapletons eleventh booke de Principiis fidei Doctrinalibus is wholly spent De mediis interpretandi Scripturam And when all is done you Jesuits can never think your Roman cause sufficiently secured except your Pope be made the onely Infallible Interpreter of Scriptures and therefore Gregorius de Valentia lib. 7. De analysi fidei cap. 1. Proposes this assertion as that which he would prove throughout the whole booke Pontifex ipse Romanus est in quo authoritas illa residet quae in Ecclesia extat ad judicandum de omnibus omnino fidei controversiis And though in his Lib. 8. he mentions diverse rules in determining controversies of faith yet at last he concludes in Cap. 10. That the Pope may use these according to his discretion and that he is not tyed to take advice of Cardinals or other Doctors but according to his pleasure and that he may desyne as Infallibly without them as with them So that till the Scripture have no libertie to speake any thing but what sense your Popes are pleased to put upon it you can never secure either your Pope or Papal Religion from Scriptural Anathema's Were it not easie for me here to give you and the World a Specimen of goodlie expositions of these your infallible interpreters I meane your Popes such as Syricius Innocent the third Boniface the eight c. They who can expound Statuimus by Abrogamus and Pasee â—ues meas of deposing and killing of Princes what Glosses can they not put on scriptures By this it may appeare that this your Querie like all
praesenti that the object thereof doe exist in that article of time wherein the Copula of the proposition is pronounced But according to you Christ Body is not under the accidents of bread when the Copula of the proposition is pronounced for according to you Christs Body is not in the Sacrament till all the Words be ended Therefore the proposition according to your Glosse cannot be true And yet it must be true as being the word of him who is truth it self And consequently it must be Ture and Not True Your Schoolmen have perplexed themselves with these Aenigma's but could never extricat themselves out of this labyrinth in so much that what one of them affirmes the other confutes As these hints prove the falshood of your Romish glosse so the truth of the sense given by PROTESTANTS is manifest from the Series of the context For if by the pronowne Hoc or This Christ meaned the bread then the sense of the proposition must be figurative But by the pronowne This he surely understood the bread Ergo c. The Major is clear because disparats cannot be predicated of one another but Figuratively The Minor is easily proven Because what he tooke blessed and did breake of that he said This is my Body as is clear from the Series of the context But undoubtedly he tooke blessed and brake the bread therefore it was the bread which he did demonstrate by the pronowne This. And consequently the sense must be Figurative Neither is this a late invention of PROTESTANTS Said not Austin Contra Adimantum cap. 12. The Lord doubted not to say This is my Body Cum daret signum Corporis sui That is when he gave the signe and figura of his Body And long before him Tertullian Lib. 4. Adversus Martionem cap. 40. Acceptum panem distributum Corpus suum fecit hoc est Corpus meum dicendo ad est figura Corporis mei Could Calvin or Beza have more luculently affirmed the meaning of Christs proposition to be Figurative I know your two Cardinals Bellarmin and Perron have scrued up a multitude of wrested testimonies of Antiquity as if the Ancient Church had favoured your monstrous sigment of Transubstantiation But Spalatensis Lib. 5. De Rep. Eccles cap. 6. à num 22. Ad numerum 164. not to mention other Authors hath copiously examined and fully vindicated all these testimonies and clearly demonstrated that the Church in the first Eight Centuries was in the same judgement as to the Sacrament of the Eucharist with the Reformed Churches By this touch the judicious Reader may discerne whether our exposition of that rext be not built upon solid grounds The like might be shewed if our expositions and yours were compared of other much tossed Scripturs such as Luke 22.32 I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not Matth. 16.18 Upon this rock I will build my Church 1. Tim. 3.15 The pillar and ground of truth Iob. 21.16 Feed my sheep c. And this were the most compendions way to try whether your expositioÌ„ or ours were the more genuine This also was the advice of Augustine of old Lib. 3. Contra Maximin Arianum cap. 14. Nec ego Nicaenum nec tu debes Arâ—minense tanquam prajudisaturus proferre Concilium Nec ego hujus authoritate nec tu illus detineris Seripturarum authoritatibus non quorumcunque proprys sed utrisque communâ—bus testibus res cum re causa cum causa ratic cum ratione concertes It is true throogh prejudice interest or blindnes men may oppose the most luculent truth after all these meanes But then the whole defect is as we have often advertised you Ex parts subjecti on the part of the subject And so much of your three frivolous cavils against the Scripturs perspicuity in al things necessarie to Salvation In your next section as you declined a tryal by Scripture so likewise you shun to have your Religion tryed by Antiquity and you pretend two noble shifts The first is that according to us al these in the first three Centuries were fallible and therefore though our Religion were conforme to theirs it will not follow that it is the True Religion I doubt if ever any had to doe with such a shamelesse tergiversing fellow For First suppose it were true that our Divines did say that all these of the three first Centuries were Fallible yet if you grant their Religion to be the True Religion and I admit their Religion as to all essentials to be a Test whether ours be true or not with what face can you decline it Know you not that Maxim of Law Testem quem quis inducit pre se tenetur recipere contrase Secondly how could you say That we affirme that all these of the first three Centuries were fallible seeing in these centuries were the Apostles whome we acknowledge to have been Infallible in their Doctrine But Thirdly by saying That we mantains that all in these ages even excepting the Apostles and pen-men of holy writ were fallible and subject to errors you discover your self to be either grosly ignorant of the judgement of PROTESTANTS or to be a base scurvie sophister which will appeare by distinguishing two words in your assertion For First the particle All may be taken either Collectively or Distributively And Secondly Errors of Religion are of two sorts Some in points fundamental and essential some in points which are not of such indispensable necessity This being premised I propose this Distinction If you meane that we mantaine that All in these ages Collectively taken that is the whole Catholick Church may erre in Fundamentals and Essentials it is a most absurd falshood for PROTESTANTS mantaine no such thing We acknowledge the promises for the perpetuity of the Church Isa 59. ver 21. Matth. 28 ver 20. c. But if the whole Catholick Church collectively taken did err in Fundamentals in any age then the Church for that time should utterly cease to be upon earth It is True sundrie of your Writers either through Ignorance or through their calumniating Genius have charged this on PROTESTANTS that they mantaine that the Church may utterly fail But this is so impudent a slander that Bellarmin himself is ashamed of it Lib. 3. De Ecclesia Militants cap. 13. Notandum sayeth he Multos ex nostris tempus terere dum probant absolute Ecclesiam non posse desicere nam Calvinus cateri Heretici id concedunt If therefore this be your meaning you charge PROTESTANTS falsly But if you onely meane that All in these ages taken Distributively remember that now we speake not of Apostles or of pen-meÌ„ of holy writ or of these who had an extraordinatie Prophetick spirit might erre in things not Fundamental this is granted Yet this hinders not but that the truth of our Religion may be proven by its conformity with the faith of the Ancient Church For though every one Distributively taken may erre in Integrals yet seeing Al
is the genuine sense of Scripture but onely the authority of the speaker Surely then nothing spoken by you or your fellow Jesuits and Friers can be received as a Divine truth for you pretend no Infallibility Nay your fallacies are become so notorious to the World that it hath past into a proverb A Fryar a liar But perhaps you meane your Popes or Councils by your Propounders Yet besides that your people doe not hear them immediatly and their sentences may be vitiated in the conveyances by the hands of fallible persons besides this I say must not your Popes and Councils have a reason that moved them to own rather this sense of Scripture then the opposite Or else they must be perfect Enthusiasts If they have a reasone why may not the same reasone that moved them move the people also when it is sufficiently proposed to them Let the indifferent Reader now observe to what fluctuating uncertaintes you expose your hearers wheÌ„ you say that their faith must be resolved upon the authority of the Speaker whether you meane Pope or Council or both for I suppose you cannot determinatly tell which of the three Now how many things are here to be cleared before the faith of the poor people can be at a stand As First that these whome you call Popes are true Popes and successours to Peter and your Councils true and legitimat General Councils Secondly that these Popes and Councils have an Infallible authority Thirdly That this which you give out is the true and genuine sense of the Popes or Councils All which while the World stands you will never be able solidly to prove And I doe appeale you if you can to doe it But I must here reveal another prodigious Mysterie of your Romanists Namely that what ever is proposed not onely by your Popes and Councils but also by your inferiour Clergie-Men though by your own Confession Fallible yet the poor People who cannot examine by themselves the truth or falshood of what is proposed ought not onely to beleeve upon the authority of the said Fallible Clergie-Men but also Doe merit by beleeving though the thing beleeved be Erronious and Heretical Hear this from your Great Casuist Cardinal Talet Lib. 4. De Instruct. Saterd cap. 3. Si rusticus sayeth he circa articulos credat suo Episcopo proponenti aliquod dogma haereticum meretur in credendo lieet sit error quia tenetur credere donce si constet esse contra Ecclesiam I will english it If a country man sayeth he beleeve his Bishop propounding some heretical doctrine about the articles he meriteth by beleeving though it be an error because he is bound to beleeve until it manifestly appeare that it is against the Church What a damnable Religion must this be according to which men merit Heaven by beleeving lies If this doctrine of Cardinal Tolet be true that people are bound to beleeve your Fallible Clergie-Men even speaking lies and may Merit thereby How dare you conclude that our Faith to unquestionable Divine truths is no Supernatural faith because our Preachers doe not arrogat an Infallibility to themselves Is it better for a Romanist to beleeve a lie then for a PROTESTANT to beleeve a Divine truth Think you still to abuse the World with such prodigious impostures As for your ludicrous Example of an Old Wife We bless God there are old Wiwes young Boyes and Girles amongst us who could instruct all old deceiver like you in the true grounds of ReligioÌ„ Did not Priscilla a poor Wife instruct Apolles in the mysteries of Christianity of whose Infallibility Apollos had no previous assurance Yet from the Scripture she convinced him Act. 18.26 So that from this your Example though brought in by you only as a foolish jeer all that you have said may be redargued If there may be a ground to assent to divine truths proposed by a Poor Wife such as Priscilla of whose Infallibility there is no previous assurance then it is a falshood which you affirme that the Faith of divine truths must only be founded upoÌ„ the Authority of the Speaker But the first appears to be true from the Case of Priscilla and Apolles A poor Priscilla may hold forth convincing and luculent grounds of what she asserts from the Scripture when a Priest A Iesuit a Cardinal a Pope an Annas or Cajaphas may obtrude on the consciences of others erronioâ—s and groundles fancyes To this purpose I might produce many testimonies from your own most famous Writers as of Gerson Panermitan c. But I shall at the time content my self with one from Ioannes Picus Mirandulanus De Ordine credendi Theor 16. Which though I have at the second hand the author not being by me yet have I it from so many good Writers that I doubt not of the truth of it Quin imo sayeth he simplici potius rustice infanti anicula quam Pontifiti Maxime mille Episcopis credenduÌ„ si contra Evangetium isti illi pro Erangelio verba facereut I Have been more copious in this Reply then your Scurvy Paper did deserve yet if in this I have superogated it is without the least tincture of Poperie You but play the fool in upbraiding me with boasting or gloriation upon the account of the frequent losses which you are left at For I reckon it no point of honour either to deale with or to vanquish such an insignificant persons as hitherto you have discovered your self by your Papers I have rather so far endeavoured to deny my self as to be at the paines to give a check to an arrogant but an emptie Caviller against the truth But because Cepious Answers doe oppresse your dry and steril braine therefore I have subjoined a Succinct answere confuting all your Seven Papers in two words And if you find not your self comperent to answere this Long Paper in all the particulars thereof without your usual Tergiversations you may deale with this Succinct One. In the meane time let this suffice Aberdene October 31. 1666. Iohn Menzeis POSTSCRIPT A Short Answere in two words to all Master Dempster the Iesuit alias Rind or Logan his seven Papers Nego Minorem Or Nego Conclusionem Aberdene October 31. 1666. Iohn Menzeis The Reason why the returne of this Paper hath been so long delayed it because how soone I read your Seventh Paper I found that it ranne upon the old trifling straine and therefore I threw it by me for sundry weeks For it was likesome to me to be still examining your Titivilitia and scurvie Tautologies Now therefore either come to the point and answere Categeries without your tergiversations or else get you gone for ever The Jesuits eight Paper Reply to a seventh Paper of Mr. IOHN MENZEIS wherein is showen that the pretended conformity of Protestant Religion with Scripture is a meer imaginary and groundles conformitie 6. November 1666. This Paper was not delivered to Master IOHN MENZEIS untill November 9. 1666. YOUR Seventh Paper
approbation of your Authorised Licencers to the eternal ignominy of your Church But Thirdly it appeared say you By the Conference betwixt us that we often propounded in Pulpit problematick points in stead of your Dogm's How so I pray you Was there nothing spoken of in that conference but of School-Problems Did I not conclude the impietie of your Romish Religion because it destroyes all certainty of divine faith from your Florentine and Tridentine Canons which suspend the efficacie of Sacraments from the intention of the Administrator For all certainty of divine faith according to you Is grounded upon the infallible assistance of your clergie But if Ordination which is one of your Romish Sacraments depend upon the intention of the Ordainer you can have no certainty of faith who are your Clergie men or who have this pretended Infallible assistance For how can you be certaine of other mens intētions To this you had not the confidence to make any Reply Can you say that this is a meer Problem Are the Canons of Councils problems with you Is it a Probleme among you whether that be an impious Religion which destroyes all certainty of faith But perhaps you will say There was another question tossed whether a man after he hath sinned be bound presently to repent I confesse and the sober Christian may judge how much that man differs from an Atheist who affirmes this to be a Problematick point Yet to put a stop to your lying misrepresentations concerning this particular I must crave leave to doe these two things I shall first give a true account how that Question concerning Repentance came to be moved at the Conference and in Order to this I must give a touch of the occasion of the Conference sit self Secondly I shall examine a little whether that point may justly be reckoned among Problems and how far it may be charged upon your Church of Rome You may readily exclaime on these discourses as Digressions but I am drawne to them by your Calumnies For the First the real occasion of that Conference and of moving that Question at the Conference was this In April last I received two challenges from a Gentle-Man of your profession The First was that I had wronged your Authors by affirming some dayes before in a Sermon concerning Repentance that many of your Doctors did mantaine That when people sinne they are not bound immediatly to repent Yea the Gentle-Man was so confident as to promise by the Messenger whome he sent to me that he would turne PROTESTANT if I would make good that my Assertion To whome I answered that I was sure of a convert if the Gentle-Man would stand to his promise and if he would come to my Studie his eyes should be judge whether my Assertion were true by reading their own Authors Some dayes after the Gentle-Man came to me not to have the truth of his former challeng examined but with a New provocation to me and to my Colegue Master MELDRVM who then was with me to debate at his Lodging with a Catholick scholer as his phrase was concerning the truth of the Religion of PROTESTANTS We told him we knew how conferences of that nature had been misrepresented by Papists and therefore to obviat such misrepresentations we condescended with him upon some Conditions of the meeting which you know were violated by your Party When we came after we had regrated the violation of promise made to us I told I had received the Two foresaid Challenges and desired you who there appeared as their Champion First to answere whether I had wronged your Authors in the forementioned Assertion concerning Repentance and then we should willingly disput the point of Religion not against you onely but against the whole Conclave of Rome if they had been there present To the First you refused to give an Answere and as to the Second you said You came onely to impugne the Religion of PROTESTANTS but not at all to answere arguments against your Romish Religion But it was Replyed to you that our Religion was not onely the truth of GOD but also was established by the Law of the Land and therefore we could not suffer it onely to be questioned in such a publick way But would you answere us Six arguments against Your Religion we should answere you other Six arguments against Ours Or would you answere us Two we should answere you other Two But you stifly denyed to answere at all till at length by the importunity of your friends you were moved to condescend to answere Yet as to the Matter of fact Concerning the Doctrine of Repentance you utterly refused to answere at al unlesse I would frame it in an Argument against Your Religion Wherefore to gaine time and to satisfie the Gentle-Man who had been my Accuser I framed an argument in more general termes concerning the Doctrine of Repentance then I had spoken thereof in Pulpit hoping to have had liberty thereafter to propound Other arguments of more general concernment against Your Religion The argument touching Repentance ran thus The religion which teacheth that a man when he hath sinned is not bound presently to repent is impious But the Popish religion teacheth that a man when he hath sinned is not bound presently to repent Ergo the Popish religion is impious You admitted the Minor and denyed the Major That it was an impious religion which so taught Whereupon I tooke all the Auditors to witnesse and in special the Gentle-Man who had been my Accuser that you admitted this to be the doctrine of the Romish Church That a man who hath sinned is not bound presently to repent And consequently that I had spoken truth when I affirmed from Pulpit that many of Your Romish Doctors taught this But now you being ashamed that you should have admitted such a Doctrine which all sober Persons are ready to cry down as impious to be the doctrine of the Church of Rome you have devysed this after-evasion to terme it a Problematick point Whether it ought to be looked upon as a probleme I may speake a little anone Now let the Reader observe This question concerning Repentance was onely moved by me to vindicat my self from the accusation of the Gentle-Man who had provoked me to the Disput hoping to have had occasion for Other Arguments afterwards And therefore when you had admitted the Assumption that is was the doctrine of Your Romish Church I would have left that argument as having obtained all by it which I intended Yea I did propound the argument in larger termes then I had spoken of that matter in the Pulpit onely to extort an Answere from you So that whether it be a Problematick point or not you could conclude nothing from it as to the ordinary straine of our preaching seeing you refused to speake to it in these termes wherein we delivered it in Pulpit Nay more whoever will terme this point a Probleme yet you are not In bonâ fide to doe it
though I was onely the Defendant yet being out-wearied by your Cowardlynesse Have I not demonstrated that in sundrie chief points of controversie such as the Perspicuity and perfection of Scripture the fallibility of Popes and Councils and in the matter of transubstantiation that the PROTESTANTS had the right and true sense of Scripture and that you Romanssts were in the trespasse But you as a Catholick Doctor have one Catholicon by which you coufute all that your Adversarie objects namely by calling it a Digression for with that Reply you have satisfied your self throughout all your Papers Onely as to the last Specimen which I gave you concerning Transubstantiation you think you come off with honour by saying That it savours of what I taught my Scholars this last year Are not you a brave Champion indeed who are as afraid of an Argument that hath beene handled in the Schools as you would be of a Crocodile What sport would your men have made had our Whitaker Iunius Chamier and Danaaus declined to examine Bellarmins arguments because he had handled them before in that Colledge where he was Professor But whereas you say That the Argument which I brought against your transubstantiation seems to have beene the summe of all that I taught in the School this last year you shall know that I have not been accustomed to such laziness as to drone whole years like you upon one Syllogisme As in these forementioned particulars I have demonstrated that PROTESTANTS have the true sense of Scripture and not you the same might be showen in all the rest of the points of controversie betwixt you and us and hath beene abundantly done by our Divines But to propose more Arguments to you is but Margaritas porco projicere For it would seeme you dare graple with none of them Fourthly I must advertise you of a Radical error which leades you into many more For you seeme still to suppose that who ever are a true Church must have one general ground from which the truth of all the points of Religion which such a society doe owne may be demonstrated without an examination of particulars And this if I mistake not is your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which leades you into all the rest of your errors And therefore you still wave the examination of particulars and call for such a general ground But in this you show extreame basenesse that you neither prove the necessity of such a Principle nor yet produce that Principle by which your and our Religion is to be examined Only you insist still upon one general false Hypothesis as if it were an undenyable Axiom and a Datum Whereas in very truth a true Church may mantaine the fundamentals of Christianity and yet alas have the Tares of some errors mingled with the Wheat as is largely demonstrated by our Divines in that Question Num Ecclesia possit errare And therfore there is not one General Ground to be expected proving that all the points of Religion mantained by such a society are truth without examining particulars And this may be strongly confirmed Ad Hominem against you For if there were any such Commone Ground it would be the Infallibility of your Propounders but not this as I have proven in my former Papers Nay I have so soundly cudgelled this your Romish principle in my Last that you durst not once mention it in this your Eight Paper How ever if there be any ground which you suppose to prove the truth of Religion as a Test which none can justly decline I appeale you to produce it and I undertake by the helpe of GOD to show that either it is a false ground or else that it agrees to the PROTESTANT Religion Fifthly this Assertion of yours That before we câ—in prove the truth of our Religion from Scripture we ought first to prove that we have the true sense of Scripture had need of a very favourable and benigne interpretation else it is perfect non-sense and a very contradiction For if you meane by our having the true sense of Scripture that our ReligioÌ„ is contained in Scripture as the true sense thereof intended by the holy Ghost then if we must prove that we have the true sense of Scripture before we prove that we have the True Religion we must prove we have the true ReligioÌ„ before we prove that we have the true Religion A noble stick of Romish non-sense Sixthly how easie were it to demonstrate against you Romanists that we PROTESTANTS have the true sense of Scripture seeing in most of all the Positives of our Religion you doe agree with us as that there is a GOD that he is to be adored and that there are three Persons c. Consequently The PROTESTANTS sense of Scripture must be the true sense else your Religion cannot be true You must either acknowledge that vve have the true sense of Scripture or condemne your ovvn Religion The chief controversie that remaines betvvixt you and us is concerning your Supernumerarie Additions as vvhether not onely GOD is to be adored but also Images and Crosses and not onely GOD is to be invocated but also Saincts and Angels c. That is vvhether there be so many more Supernumerarie senses of Scripture besides those vvhich PROTESTANTS mantaine and you Papists dare not deny Whether I say besides these there be other senâ—es of Scripture mantained by you Romanists and denyed by us Ought not you then to prove these your Supernumerarie senses And are not vve sufficiently vvarranted to adhere to the Negative except there be solid grounds for these Superadded sexses vvhich I beleeve neither you nor the vvhole sâ—lb of Jesuits shall be able to shovv though you get a superaddition of all Lucifers Acumen But Seventhly and Lastly Seeing nothing will satisfie you unlesse I though onely the Defendant doe also prove against you the Negative that is that not onely Our sense of Scripture is true but also that these Your superadded and supernumerarie senses are not true therefore to draw you if it be possible our of your lurking holes I will try you by this Argument The sense of Scripture given by your present Romish Church in many things contradicts the sense given by the Ancient Romish Church Ergo the sense put upon Scripture by your Present Romish Church in many things cannot be true The Sequel is cleare because two contradictories cannot be true If therefore you confesse that the Ancient Romish Church had the true sense of Scripture which ye must doe or else destroy the great foundation of your Religion namely the pretended Infallibility of the Church of Rome in all ages then wherein you contradict the Ancient Romish Church therein surely you deviat from the true sense of Scripture It remaines therefore onelie that I confirme the Antecedent which I doe by a few cleare Instances Instance first Your present Romish Church mantains that Images are to be adored Not so the Ancient Romish Church As appeares by the
of PROTESTANTS with the holy Scripture DID ever Nature produce such a ludibrious trifling tergiversing Caviller Is not the great controversie betwixt you and me whether the Religion of PROTESTANTS or your Popish Religion be the Christian ReligioÌ„ How then were you not ashamed when I had demonstrated the falshood of many of the chief articles of your Religion such as the Adoration of Images Transubstantiation Communion under one kind The Popes supremacâ—e the holding of Apâ—criphal books for canonical Scriptrue the Jurisdiction of Popes over Princes your Papal Indulgences as extended to Purgatorie and consequently that PROTESTANTS who contradict you in all these particulars have the truth on their side how then I say were you not ashamed to make no other Reply to all these things But onely to say What make these things to the purpose Is it nothing to the purpose to prove the Fundamentals of your Religion to be falshoods and that the truth of GOD is mantained by the PROTESTANTS against your Popish Church Is not your Religion so unhappie that if it be convicted of one Falshood the whole fabrick and systeme thereof is overturned The Infallibility of your Church being a Fundamental point with you and yet when the falshood of so many points of your Religion is demonstrated What is that to the purpose say you Doe not such Papers deserve as Hierome said Alversus Vigilantium Indignationem scribentis rather to be answered with contempt and disdaine then with any serious confutation Are you not as ludibrious in your next Period Did not I in my last expostulat sharpely with you that in stead of making a polemick Reply to my Seventh Paper to which you answered not one word you did substitut a Railing Digression concerning the occasion of this Debate and of our verball conterence and so did put upon me a necessity of confuting your Calumnies concerning that Matter of Fact How then have you a face to charge me as if I had of my own accord and free choise fallen upon that Digression But though conscience move you not to answere to the arguments proving the falshood of your Religion for perhaps an ill cause and your Ignorance stand as invincible impediments in your way yet ought you not in commone honestie to have vindicated your self from the Falshoods charged upon you in that Matter of Fact Is it enough for you to say To what purpose are these discourses and ought not the matter of that conference be left to the judgement of the Auditors Who if you may be credited did see my feeblenes Am I from the purpose when I confute the lies of your Paper If you judge it not to the purpose to vindicat your self from so many Falshoods let you be stigmatized for the man you are If you would have had the matter of that conference remirted onely to the judgement of the Auditors among whom you had a company of judicious proselyts of the female sex why did you fall upon a Calumnious representation of it in your Last Why were Diffamatorie pasquils stuffed with reproaches long agoe disseminated through the Countrey May it not seeme strange that a person who hath given such shamefull demonstrations of His feeblenesse in nyne Papers should have the confidence to reproach another with Feeblenesse Loripedem derideat rectus But what occasion gave you in that conference to try either the feeblenesse or gallantrie of any Was any thing heard from you And if it should have been heard what noble stuffe it should have contained these your Nine Papers may testifie We should have had an Informal Syllogisme repeated Ad nauseam without probation of Major or Minor or rectifying the Forme thereof Would such a formidable Achilles have affrighted a poor School Boy Was there not an Argument propounded to you concluding the impiety of your Religion because it destroyed all Certainty of faith which you dared not once to examine And when you declined to answere thereto was there not cause Ex justa indignatione which you may reproach as Feeblenesse to refuse to hear you And in that which you were drawne with much importunity to answere with what credit came you off either of your self or your Church I am content that such of the hearers as had capacity may judge How comoe it that you touch not at all the foule staine which I shaw your Doctors leave upon your Romish Church by their Impious Doctrine of Probables How is it that you doe not at least turne thiâ— off as you have done the rest with your usual tergiversing Querie To what purpose is all this discourse Are you utterly silent as to this matter because you had occasioned this discourse by challenging us for proposing before our Auditors your Problematick Doctrines But then you should have keeped silence concerning the former particulars also for to them likewise were we led by your impertinencies Or doth your silence proceed from the conviction of conscience that you know not how these impieties could be justifyed like a School Boy who skips over the word in his lesson which he cannot read If this be the account of your silence I should not blame you so much onely I could wish that in your old dayes you might learne the ingenuity of acknowledging error to be error when it is convi cingly demonstrated to you Yet notwithstading all these tergiversing shifts and silent transitions you have the confidence to avouch Your readines to answere whole Tomes It is not a strange thing to see a Thraso and a Thersites joyned in one persone Who will beleeve that you who have sucoumbed these Eight or Nine times in answering a poor sheet or two for in all of them you have tergiversed and to some not answered one word at all that you are in such a Capacity to deale with Volumes Looke backe on the Papers which you have received and take a view of the Fallacies charged upon you as also how many Chiefe articles of your Religion I have impugned and all to his houre unanswered When you have discharged your self of that worke which already lyes upon you you may purchase some more credit to your emptie brags But I must correct my self I confesse you have invented a compendious Method of confuting both sheets and volumes by your usuall Querie To what purpose are these discourses If you please you may cause adde this your invention to the next addition of Pancirolli nova reperta Yet whether that compendious confutation looke like the Reply of a Disputant or of that which you are not willing to hear your self may judge Your Last apologie for not examining my Papers taken from the Prolixity of them seemes now too slender and pellucid to your own self therfore you are pleased to strengthen it by accusing my Papers of Barrennesse and Superfluity how well these your Rhetorications cohere together others may judge if my Papers be guilty of Barrennesse then have they too little matter in them if of Superfluity
Yea have not you of the Papal faction rent your selves from the Catholick Church Have not you revived the Schisme of the Donatists As they limited the Catholick Church to Africk doe not you limit it to the See of Rome Is not subjection to the Pope as universal Bishop an Essential of your Religion Was ever that an Essential of Religion in the Ancient Church Yea or in the Roman till of late especially in your Iesuit-sense as if the Pope had supreame jurisdiction on Earth even above Generall Councils Surely your Councils of Constance and Basile were of another opinion who not onely determined the Council to have jurisdiction over the Pope but also the Council of Basile Sess 45. in decreto 5. conclusionum is bold thus to affirm Nec unquam aliquis peritorum dubitavit Summum Pontificem in his quae fidem concernunt judicio ConcilioruÌ„ universalium esse subjectum And yet contrary to the judgement Peritorum omnium of all understanding Christians for the space of a thousand and foure hundred yeares after CHRIST if your Fathers of Basile be to be trusted your late Laterane Conventicle under Pope Leo the tenth Sess 11. hath defyned on the contrary the Pope to have jurisdiction above Generall Councils Doe you not by this your Schisme cut off your selves from the Body of the Catholick Church both of the Present and Former ages Doe you not oblige other Christian Churches to refuse Communion with you lest they should be involved in your Schisme and rent themselves with you from the Communion of all Christian Churches who acknowledge not the usurped supreamacie of your Pope If therefore you say that by the Church you meane onely the Particular Roman Church then why call you the Roman Church the Church as if there were no Church in the World but she Why doe you say that Luther did leap out of her Was he not driven out by Excommunication as learned Doctor Morton in his grand Imposture of the church of Rome cap. 15. Sect. 13. 14. 15. 16. hath copiously demonstrated in so much that your own Thuan as cited by the same Doctor Morton spares not to say Non defuerunt qui jam tum culpam in Leonem Papam rejicerent That there wanted not among your selves who laid the blame on Pope Leo the tenth But may not a man be a member of the Catholick Church though not of your Roman How often have PROTESTANTS declared that they onely refuse communion with you in so far as you reject the truth Imbrace the truth and lay by your supercilious Schisme and we are readie to joyne in communion with you But Fourthly why doe you not cite some Author for this Apocryphal prophesie which you impose on Luther That he would root out Poperie out of the World in two yeares Is it not observable that in all these your Nine Papers these two citations of Luther and Calvine are the first citations of any Authors that we have met with from you and you cite them at large without mentioning Booke Chapter or Page And I verily looke upon this which you alleage of Luther as an egregious calumny For I have some of Luthers workes by me and many grave Authors writing of him But that I neither find in his own Workes nor yet that is affirmed of him by any Credible Historian It is true your Bellarmine from whome it seemes you have borrowed this fiction In lib. 4. De Ecclesia Militante cap. 15. affirmes that your Lying Cochlaeus reported such a false prophesie of Luther But who knowes not that Bell â—rmine and other your Controversists are ready to scratch up the dirt which lying calumniating adversaries have thrown upon our Reformed Divines and that Cochlaeus in particular hath laboured to traduce Luther most calumniously even as that Runnagad Bolsecus hath most impudently reproached Master Calvine Who but an Ignorant or one possessed with Malice will give credit to Cochlaeus in this marter who is knowne to have been a most viruleut Adversarie of Luthers Am I the first who have given such a character of your Cochlaeus Hear what learned and modest Whitaker said of him when he is pondering the same allegeance of Bellarmine out of Cochlaeus Controvers de Ecclesia quaest 5. cap. 13. Respondeo sayeth he nullam fidem adhibendam esse Cochlaeo homini mendacissimo nec ullam habendam esse illius rationem fuit enim homo nullius fidei That is in English I answere that no faith is to be given to Cochlaeus a person exceedingly addicted to lying neither is any account to be made of his testimony for he was a man of no faith But I shall now onely remit you to a Lutheran Gerard in loc com loc de Eccles cap. 11. sect 12. § 290. where you will find both this Objection of Bellarmine and that Cochlaeanum mendacium as Gerard termes it that Lie of Cochlaeus concerning Luther copiously confuted But though it pleaseth GOD in the depth of his Judgements to permit your Papal usurpation to continue for a time as he hath permitted the Delusions and Usorpations of the Mahumetane faction Yet your Bellarmine acknowledges that Luther gave a blow to the Papacie which it never recovered Lib 3. De Romano Pontif. cap. 21. Ab eo tempore sayeth he quo per vos Papa Antichristus esse caepit non modo non crevit sed semper decrevit ejus imperium Hence this Distich was writen of him And againe Vir sine vi ferri vi verbi inermibus armis Vir sine re sine spe contudit orbis opes Lutherus decimum confecit strage Leonem De clava noli quaerere penna fuit And yet further Roma Orbem domuit Romam sibi Papa subegit Viribus illa suis fraudibus iste suis Quantum isto major Lutherus major illa Orbem urbemque uno qui domuit calamo As for predictions of Rom's overthrow I may remit you to more Canonick Prophesies thereof then that of Frederick You may if you will take one from Revel 14.8 Babylon is fallen is fallen that great citie because she made all Nations drinke of the wine of the wrath of her fornication You may take another from Revel 17.16 The ten hornes which thou saw upon the beast shall hate the whore and make her desolat and naked and eat her flâ—sh and burne her with fire You may adde a third from Revel 18.2 And the Angel cryed mighty lie with a strong voice Babylon the great is fallen is fallen and is become the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit and the cage of every uncleane and hatefull bird Goe not to say that these are but our Lutheran comments to expound Babylon by Rome Did not Hierome so expound it Epist. ad Algasiam quaest 11. epist ad Asellam And Austine lib. 18. de civit DEI cap. 22. and Tertull. lib. contra Indaeos cap. 9. and Eusebius lib. 2. hist eccles cap. 14 Yea there is such
nothing that is sufficient to distinguish your Religion from a false religion it remaines alwise in that state as hath been often told you that a man is in who is affirmed indeed to be an honest man but such an honest man that there is no difference betwixt him and a knave Likewise I omit here that long discourse whereby you disclaime Calvine as the author of your Religion and claimes to Iohn Hus and the Albigenses at last to be upon your side though the world knowes that theyâ— were not of your Religion Likewise I slight your long patrocinie that you make to defend your patriarch Luther that he did not leap out of the Catholick Church but only out of the Romish Church though if you had done compleatly this defence you should have shown what Visible Church was then in the World to the which he did adhâ—â—e and with which he did keep externall communion when he left the Roman Church Good Sir leaving all your Paterga's remember that the occasion of this debate was your continual railing in Pulpit against Catholick Dectrines and being desired to give some good solid ground for the truth of your own religion whereby both your own might be confirmed and others induced to imbrace it You did very stoutly undertake the bussines did bragingly protest that ye would mantaine the truth of the PROTESTANT Religion against whomsoever before whomesoever or in whatsoever place or time but when it came to the purpose and you were desired to produce your grounds and reasons whereby it might be mantained to be a true religion Your first refuge was that you as the Defendant was not obliged to produce any ground but all the burthen incumbed on me as the Opponent to prove that you had no grounds And in this you behaved your self just as if one should come as sent from the Council to impone upon the L. Provest and venerable Councill of Aberdene a charge to apprehend a persone as suspect of Disloyalty to his Prince and the L. Provest desiring to see his Commission he should reply that he was not obliged to show his Commission but that the Provest would prove that he had no Commission and that his Commission was sufficiently proven by this that there could not be produced reasons to show that he had no commission So you have undertaken to mantain the truth of the PROTESTANT Religion and being demanded that you show your grounds whereby the truth of it may be mantained you reply that you are not obliged to produce grounds but that another should prove that you have no grounds not considering that religion is a positive thing and a complex of positive dogm's and so cannot be mantained to be true but by producing of positive grounds and the shifting to produce them will make all to give sentence that it is destitute of solid grounds Your next refuge was that your Religion was proven to be true because it was conforme to Scripture that is to say to the true sense of the letter of Seripture Now this pretended conformity was proven to be meerly imaginary and groundlesse because as it is impossible that a thing can be conforme to a true sense except it be supponed that there is existent a true sense so it is impossible that a thing can be proven to be conforme to a true sense exceept it be proven that there is a true sense Now you were desired to lay aside your diffused Pulpit railing style and by a judicious and school way to produce some soild ground whereby mens understanding might be convinced that PROTESTANT Religion hath the true sense of the letter by the holy Ghost of the letter of Scripture To this you answered first that it makes a Non-sense to say that a Religion cannot be proven to be conforme to the true sense of the letter of scripture except it be proven that there is a true sense Now I ask you where lyes here a nonserse or point me out any thing here that is not most cleare Indeed you in place of this my proposition did substitute one of your own and with your own words and I willingly grant to you that yours makes a Non-sense Next you seeme to chasse because I taxt your discourse to be founded upon grosse ignorance both about the nature of Formall Precisions and about the nature of True Religion and to this you reply first that to speake to you of Formall Precisions is a Pedantick thing But is it possible that you who professeth your self to be a Divine should so slight Precisions since they are the very quintessence of all superiour sciences and Aristotle might teach you that there is no science of particulars but in so far as the are reduced to some commone abstraction or Precision and that every science hath his own particular abstraction whereby it is both constitute and distinguished from all other sciences Next you remit me to your School-Boyes who will teach me the nature of Formall Precisions I am glade that Scholers are so learned but if it be so they out-shut their Master and knowes more nor their Master at least showes to know as appeares in this same answere that you make here For I telling you That the objective grounds of precisions is separability and that this is to be sound betwixt truths revealed in Scripture and True Religion and that on both parts because True Religion is separable from conformity with Scripture Since there was true religion in the World before there was any Scripture writen And on the other part All the truths revealed in Scripture might be though they componed no Religion to wit If GOD had so revealed them that he had not imposed an Obligation upon us to beleeve them as he might have done or wherefore might he not have done it Now to impugne this you bring texts of Scripture to prove that De Facto this obligation to beleeve is not seperat I speake of Separability and what GOD might have done and you argue against Actuall separation as if I had said that De Facto there is no obligation to beleeve things revealed in Scripture Are you not ashamed of such ignorant mistaking Or were not well applyed to you those civill termes that your self use in this Paper to wit that you behoved to be drunke or dreaming when thir things escaped your penne Likewise how grosse mistaking is it to say That I granted that a Religion to be true and to be conforme to Scripture are Synonima's whereas I said only this Ad Hominem and to argue you out of your own principles who admits no rule of divine truth but the writen word And in this you imitat many other of your Champions who as I told you else where did cite for positive doctrine of Fathers and Scholasticks the objections they made against themselves Your second answere is that the sense which you give to the letter of Scripture is proven to be a true sense because it coincids
grounds to prove its conformity with the Scriptures but also to stop the mouth of a Caviller I declared to you what was that ground and I tooke it from Georgius Scholarius his Third Oration in the Councill of Florence and did appeale thereunto for the decision of all controversies betwixt us and you But you never once touched this ground How then could you imagine that you had confuted the conformity of the Religion of PROTESTANTS with Scripture Doeth the Devil abuse the imaginations of Jesuited Hereticks as somesay that he doeth the fancy 's of Witches making them imagine that they doe the thing of which they only dreamed Fourthly did I not give a Direct Answere to your Objection by a formall distinction If any thing should have been taken notice of ought not this Yet ye wholly overleap it A goodly Dispistant indeed Fifthly I refuted some new Cavils which you started to prove That the truth of Religion ought not to be tryed by its conformity with the faith of the Ancient Church in the first three Centuries But you found my Replyes thereto so thornie that you have not dared to meddle with them Only you have an impudent Calumny concerning that matter which I may afterwards touch Sixthly whereas as you had accused Calvine and our Reformers as contemners of Antiquity I shew not only that Calvine had confuted your Religion from Antiquity but also that Antiquity is more contemned by you Romanists then ever it was by the Reformed Churches I brought many Instances hereof from Bellarmine Maldonate Melchior Canus Brisacerius and Cornelius Mussus but all these you smother in silence Thus have I given an overly touch of some few of your Omissions Whoso will be at paines to compare my ninth Paper with your Tenth will find you guilty of many more Only now let me ask are these the Digressions the Parerga's and the Superfluities which you talk of in my Paper Doe not every one of those touch the Cause Have they not a genuine rise from Your Papers Who that regarded either truth or his own reputation would have overleaped all those You have made great haste to transmit your Papers to me but you have still left your worke behinde you I have gotten Ten Papers from you but not One Answere Take a view of your Omissions and you will find all My Papers unanswered Your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 your after thoughts have need to be set on worke to supplie your Omissions In the next place I shall gleane up some of your Vnfaithfull misrepresentations in doing whereof I shall not need to stand to the precise Method of your Rapsodick Paper And first you have such a shamelesse fore head as to say That I had recanted the confineing of my discourse concerning the conformitie of our Religion with the faith of the Ancient Church in the first three Centuries This is that Calumnie of yours at wich I was hinting in your Fifth Omission How could you hatch such a manifest unteach Let all the Iesuits in Europe play the Criticks on My Papers and see if I have recanted one Syllable that ever I avouched in any of them I told indeed in my Last that you like aâ— Dreamer â—haâ— substituted that Concerning conformitie with the Fathers of the first three Centuries as a Second Answere which I had given in my Eight Paper to your Cavil concerning the sense of Scripture whereas in all that Eight Paper of mine there was no expresse mention at all of the Fathers of the first three Centuries Is my discoverie of your Mistake a recanting of ought that ever I had said concerning the Fathers of the first three Centuries Doe you not behave your self like a Dreamer when you substitute Quid pro quo Any hint I had in my Eight Paper at that Matter was to challenge you that though in your Eight Paper you had been reduced Ad metam silentii in that point all the Cavils mentioned in your Seventh being so fully confuted that you had nothing to Reply in your Eight yet you durst not adventure to have the truth of Religion examined By its conformtie with the faith of the most Ancient Church In my Ninth I did expresly confute some New Cavils which upon further deliberation you had started in your Ninth against the tryall of Religion By the conformitie thereof with the faith of the Ancient Church in the first three Centuries So farre was I from recanting or refusing to admit that as a discretive Test for trying the truth of Religion Surely the first 300. years were the flower of the Primitive Church Hence is that testimony which Egesippus in Euseb lib. 3. hist Eccles cap. 29. gives to the Church in those dayes Ad ca tempora Virgo pura incorrupta mansit Ecclesia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Church then had continued a pure and a chast Virgin Shall you never have the ingenuity to Recant such impudent Calumnies But I nothing wonder that you cannot be induced to have the truth of Religion examined By its conformitie with the Church in these Centuries For as a Learned Divine hath observed In these ages most of your present Râ—mish tenets were unknown to the Wold Your Papal Indulgences were then unhatched Purgatorie fire was then unkindled to make your kitchin 's smoake The Masse was then uumoulded Transubstantiation unbaked The Treasurie of Merits was then unmiuted The Popes transcendent power was uncreated Ecclesiasticks were unexempted And deposing of Kings was then undreamed of The Lay People were not cozened then of the Cup Communion under one kinde onlie was not then in kind It was not then known that Liturgies and Prayers were publicklie made in an unknown tongue They did not then worship or adore any wooden or breaden God They worshiped that which they knew and that in Spirit and in truth Thus Simon Birkbeck in his Tractat entituled the Protestants Evidence Sect. 3. pag. 18. Edit 3. By which you may perceive That it is no new sect of my own that I am hatching when I appeale to the Religion of the Church in the Three first Centuries as you foolishly whisper in your Ninth Paper But because you use these invidious words of Confyning my discourse to the three first Centuries You may remember that in my Seventh Paper I cleared that the First Restriction of my Argument to the Three first Centuries for proving the truth of our Religion and the falshood of yours was occasioned by the discourse I was then upon concerning the Ancient Apologists in these Centuries And that my argument might have been extended further as in such like exigences it had been further extended by Juell Whitâ—ker Crakâ—nthorp and other learned PROTESTANTS Now only I tell you that if you have the confidence to try the truth or falshood of Religion By the consonancie thereof with or dissonancie to the faith of the Catholick Chruch in the first three Centuries you shall find that I never intended so to astrict my self
might have been revealed and no obligation laid upon us to believe them And in this you blame me That I only proved by the Scripture-instances which I brought that there is no actuall separation betwixt all the truths contained in Scripture and the true Religion but did not prove them insenarable But if you looke againe to my Paper you will find that your inadvertencie is onely to be blamed For I did prove the absolute inseparabilitie betwixt all the truths contained in Scripture and the true Religion Which againe I thus demonstrate according to the grounds laid downe in my Last If all the truths in Scripture cannot be without an obligation to believe them in order to the obtaining of Salvation then All the truths of Scripture cannot be except they compound a Religion But the first is true therefore also the last The Sequel of the Major is clear because this is the only pretence upon which you suppose that all Scripture Truths may be and yet compound no Religion because they may be and yet no obligation be laid upon us to believe them If therefore they cannot be except an obligation be laid on us to believe them then surely they cannot be except they compound a Religion It remaines therefore only that we prove the Assumption that they all cannot be revealed without an obligation to believe them and this is cleare from the Scriptures cited in my Last Paper because this is one of the Truths in those Scriptures that we are obliged to believe these Truths And I cited purposlie these Scripturs to prove this And therfore it is impossible that all Scripture truths can be and we not be obliged to believe them For this is one Scripture truth that we are obliged to believe the Truths revealed in Holy Scripture What now I have demonstrated more prolixlie I set downe clearly enough though more succinctly in my Last Albeit it seemes you have been so taken up with your Precifive airie Notions that you have not understood the Paper which was sent to you But to prevent your further mistake in this I thinke it fit to let you know that I distinguish betwixt these two I doe indeed confesse that a Religion may be though nothing be coÌ„mitted to Writing And this was the case of the Ancient Church before Moses But this concernes not our present debate But the thing I deny is That all the truths contained in Scripture way be and yet make no Religion at all And this I hope now I have demonstrated against you both in this and in the former Paper Though your Notional precisions have made either your sight or your judgement Preseind from the Paper which you should have examined and consequently from the purpose By these hints you may consider whether you have added any strength to your insignificant Objection Concerning the sense of Scripture But because you are still harping upon this Cavil About the sense of the Scriptures It would appear that you Looke upon Scripture as so obscure as not able to be a ground for decision of controversies in Religion unless there be some infallible visible-judge I shall desire you to consider how different you are in your apprehersions as to this matter from the Ancient Church in which the decision of Controversies in Religion was committed sometime to Secular persons yea sometime to Heathens which your self will confesse not to be Infallible Have you not read that writing which passeth under the name of Vigilius Bishop of Trent in which there is a dispute betwixt Sabellius Photinus and Arius upon the one side and Athanasius on the other concerning the Trinitie and Deitie of the Lord Jesus Christ and Probus a Heathen is constituted judge to determine betwixt them not according to his own fancy but according to the proofes which they should produce from the Scriptures and after hearing of both he gives sentence for the Truth This dispute you will find set forth among Cassanders works from Page 460. and the sentence of Probus the Judge page 506. c. I doe not say that this Conference was real for the Collocutors were not contemporarie Yet the Learned and Ancient Author of this Dialogue who by some is supposed to be Pope Galosius doth clearly insinuate that the most sublime Mysteries of Christianity are so luculently revealed in Scripture that a meer Pagane may finde out the true sense of Scripture concerning them Have you nor tâ—ad in Epiphanius haeres 66. how that Archelaus an Orthodox Bishop had a dispute against the pernicious Heretick Manet in Caschara a City of Mesopotamia and how by commone consent they â—â—bâ—â—icâ—ed unto Foure Heathen Judges to Marcipus a Phil sâ—ph to Claudius a Physitian to Aegialous a Gramariare and to Clerbâ—lus a Sophister who after hearing adjudged the Victorie to Archelaus And this was no fiction but a reall deed What should I tell you how Laurentius a secular person was Arbiter in a dispute betwixt Augustine and Pascortius an Arian as appeares by Austineâ— Aepist 178 Or how Marcellinus a Tribune did preside by the appointment of Honorius the Emperour at a conference betwixt the Orthodox and the Donatists as Augustine holds forth Tom. 7. in Brevic. Collat Doe not all these make it evident that the Ancient Church did not apprehend such impossibility of finding out the true sense of Scripture without the previous decision of an Infallible visible judge How did Christ command us to Search the Scriptures John 5.39 if their sense be unsearchable Is not this on controversie in Religion whether there be a necessity of an Infallible visible judge and Propounder and who he is And who I pray you shall determine this if not the Scriptures If you have an Infallible Propounder without whose decision the sense of Scripture cannot be attained how injurious is he to the Christian World who will not put forth a clear Comment upon the Whole Scriptures for the finall decision of all Controversies Why doth he not at least give a Decision concerning these inrestine debates among your selves as betwixt your Dominicans and Jesuits c. Are you so farre deluded as not to know that this Fable of Infallibility is the cunning imposture whereby men of your imployment have laboured of a long time to cheat the World But now these of the Traditionarie way among you beginne to perceive that the World is too wise to be still cheared by that one Trick therefore they are betaking themselves to another Method but as fallacious as the former You have a Querie which you expect that I should notice You desire to know When Luther leapt out of the Church of Rome as you phrase is if there was any Church on earth with whome he had visible Communion May ye not be ashamed to move such a Question to me I having convicted you of so many Falshoods and Foolries concerning your last discourse of Luthers separation from Rome and of a Lying Prophesie which you following Bellarmine and Cachlaeus imposed