emptynesse of these Papers and more then so to render a reason of it viz the fate which they were under by a necessity of attending this Apologist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which yeilded them occasion of little variety unlesse they would extravagate Yet could he not resist the Reasons which charged it on him as a duty thus confidently to importune the Reader with the view of the whole matter as farre as it hath past between them setting downe that Answer to and this Vindication of his Lordships Arguments by Chapters and then not doe him the least injustice adding in the end of all the Answerers marginall Replyes and that concluding Sheet that even now was mentioned with a Rejoynder to that also By all this endeavouring to lay grounds for all men to judge how little truth there is in that so Epidemicall perswasion that there is no middle betwixt asserting an Infallible Judge and the falling headlong into all the Schismes and Haeresies of this present age My Conscience assuring me that the grounds on which the establish'd Church of England is founded are of so rare an excellent mixture that as none but intelligent truely Christian minds can sufficiently value the composition so there is no other in Europe so likely to preserve Peace and Unity if what prudent Lawes had so long agoe designed they now were able to uphold For want of which and which onely it is that at present the whole Fabricke lyes polluted in confusion and in blood and hopes not for any binding up of wounds for restauration of any thing that lookes like Christian till the faith of the reformed English have the happinesse to be weighed prudently and the military Sword being timely sheathed the Power and Lawes of Peace be returned into those hands which are ordained by GOD the Defenders of it H. H. Of the INFALLIBILITY of the CHURCH of ROME A Discourse written by the Lord Viscount FALKLAND Section 1 TO him that doubts whether the Church of Rome have any errors they answer that She hath none for She never can have any This being so much harder to believe than the first had need be proved by some certaine arguments if they expect that the belief of this one should draw on whatsoever else they please to propose Yet this is offered to be proved by no better wayes than those by which we offer to prove she hath erred Which are arguments from Scripture Reason and Antient Writers all which they say themselves are fallible for nothing is not so but the Church which if it be the onely infallible determination and that can never be believed upon its owne authority we can never infallibly know that the Church is infallible for these other waies of proof they say may deceive both them and us and so neither side is bound to believe them Section 2 If they say that an argument out of Scripture is sufficient ground of Divine faith why are they so offended with the Protestants for believing every part of their Religion upon that ground upon which they build all theirs at once and if following the same Rule with equall desire of finding the truth by it having neither of those qualities which Isidorus Pelusiota sayes are the causes of all Heresies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pride and prejudication why should God be more offended with the one than the other though they chance to erre Section 3 They say the Church is therefore made infallible by God that all men may have some certain Guide yet though it be infallible unlesse it both plainly appeare to be so for it is not certaine to whom it doth not appeare certaine and unlesse it be manifest which is the Church God hath not attained his end and it were to set a Ladder to Heaven and seem to have a great care of my going up whereas unlesse there be care taken that I may know this Ladder is here to that purpose it were as good for me it had never been set Section 4 If they say we may know it for that generall and constant Tradition instructs us in it I answer that ignorant people cannot know this and so it can be no Rule for them and if learned people mistake in this there can be no condemnation for them For suppose to know whether the Church of Rome may erre as a way which will conclude against her but not for her for if She hath erred certainly She may but though She hath not erred hitherto it followes not that She cannot erre I seeke whether She have erred and conceiving She hath contradicted her selfe conclude necessarily She hath erred I suppose it not damnable though I erre in my judgement because I trie the Church by one of those touch-stones her self appoints me which is Conformity with the Antient. For to say I am to believe the present Church that it differs not from the former though it seem to me to doe so is to send me to a Witnesse and bid me not believe it Section 5 Now to say the Church is provided for a Guide of faith but must be known by such marks as the ignorant cannot seek it by and the learned may chance not to find it by though seeking it with all diligence and without all prejudice can no way satisfie me Section 6 If they say God will reveal the truth to whosoever seeks it in these wayes sincerely this saying both sides will without meanes of being confuted make use of therefore it would be as good that neither did Section 7 When they have proved the Church to be infallible yet to my understanding they have proceeded nothing farther unlesse we can be sure which is it for it signifies onely that God will alwaies have a Church which shall not erre but not that such or such a Succession shall be alwaies in the right not that the Bishop of such a place and the Clergy that adheres to him shall alwaies continue in the true faith So that if they say the Greek Church is not the Church because by its owne confession it is not infallible I answer that it may be now the Church and may hereafter erre and so not be now infallible and yet the Church never erre because before their fall from truth others may arise to maintain it who then will be the Church and so the Church may still be infallible though not in respect of any set persons whom we may know at all times for our Guide Section 8 Then if they prove the Church of Rome to be the true Church and not the Greeke because their opinions are consonant either to Scripture or Antiquity they run into a circle proving their tenets to be true first because the Church holds them and then theirs to be the true Church because it holds the truth which last though it appeare to me the onely way yet it takes away it's being a Guide which we may follow without examination without which all they say besides is nothing Section
hath influence on mens opinions but then still what ever their case be for believing the verity of your Church they can no way from thence be obliged to believe your infallibility Section 8 You confesse there may farther reply be made to you that these principles of yours are also question'd but take no notice upon what grounds of reason or Scripture they are question'd and so thinke you can deale with so unarm'd an adversary as you please by telling him they may be certaine and evident though they be question'd and perhaps I shall confesse to you that if they were onely question'd and no reason that were not by you easily answered brought to justifie such questioning it were sufficient which you say that questioning doth not disprove certainty and yet if every man's conscience be the Judge as you acknowledge then unlesse you can make it evident that that man's questioning is against conscience you will have no way to keepe it from being certaine and evident to him but when there be arguments produc'd to backe that questioning which you have no way to answer but by saying they may be certaine and evident for all that he that disputes with you will be excus'd to thinke he hath more reason to say and that you say must be judge that it may be otherwise To the 6. 7. Sections Chap. 7. No doubt there can be but God will reveale his truth to all such as seeke it with sincerity of heart and though both sides as the Enquirer objecteth may make use of this for an exterior allegation yet not as of interior helpe and preparation and therefore this sincerity is not a disposition unprofitable though it be a proofe inefficacious and thus much we grant willingly neither doe we challenge it as an argument of truth We grant him also that before such time as we can believe the Church we are to acquire sufficient principles for informing us which is she and also before we can believe upon her determinations we must have principles of knowing she is infallible and all this we make profession we doe de facto know Neither doe we take this Church to be a Proteus that is to say sometimes of one shape sometimes of another but a conspicuous body constantly adorned with the robes of truth and annexed to a Succession of Pastours legitimate from one age to another C. 7. Ans to Chap. 7. Section 1 Your answer to the sixth Section is by giving a distinction to tell us now both sides make use of the pretence of seeking truth sincerely and concludes that sincerity is not a disposition unprofitable though it be a proofe inefficacious which because you are willing to grant I will containe my selfe from springing any game or recreation for the Reader at this time of which he that were playsomely disposed would finde aboundant matter in the review of your distinction here applied and give you present payment for your favour by acknowledging that that which you grant is all that is begg'd from you viz. that God's promise of revealing of truth to those who seeke it sincerely is not at all an argument that they that pretend to the benefit of that promise must have reall title to it or consequently that they that have no other arguments to prove their Churches Infallibility but that they seeke truth sincerely and yet after that sincere search are of that opinion are to be heeded in their pretensions This justifies his Lordships sixth paragraph as fully as if you had subscribed it without your distinction Section 2 His Lordships seventh Paragraph consists of two things First a resuming of a part of his former argument which had beene onely mentioned but not inforc'd before that supposing the Church were proved to be infallible yet were not that sufficient to give any man certaine knowledge which were it Secondly a solid proofe of this affirmation by plaine reason because the granting the Infallibility of the Church did onely conclude that God would alwaies have a Church that should not erre but not that this was appropriated to any particular Church to such a Succession to the Bishop and Clergy of such a place c. Thirdly by a lively instance of the Greeke Church which though it were now in the right might hereafter erre and so the Greeke Church be now fallible and yet at the time that that erred another Church might arise the Champion of truth and so still the Church be infallible Section 3 To these two parts of the Paragraph your dispatch is short and annext to the nothing that was replied to the former Section to the first a liberall Grant of that which no man thankes you for that it is as necessary to know which that infallible Church is as that the Church is so but then saying and professing that you doe de facto know which is the Church and that she is infallible which beside that it is your old beloved petitio principii to say you know it offer no proof for it but your profession and a Latine word when the very thing that his Lordship was just a proving was that you neither did nor could know it comes not at all home to his Lordship's matter of shewing that the acknowledgement of the Infallibility of the Church doth not evict which is she For if 't were acknowledged that you did know it yet might it be by some other meanes and not by proving or confessing the Church to be infallible Section 4 As for his Lordship's proofe and instance added to his proposition 't was so despicable a thing that 't was not worth taking notice of but instead of any such thing you give us a declaration of your owne opinion that the Infallible Church was not a Proteus but a conspicuous body constantly adorned with truth c. which is againe the meanest begging of that which was just then denied and disprov'd and must so stand till you can annex reasons to your opinion and answers to his Lordships reasons To the 8. Section Chap. 8. We never goe about to prove our Church to be the true therefore because it holdeth with the truth or teacheth true doctrine as this Enquirer seemeth to suppose we doe but rather contrariwise because it is the true Church of Christ therefore we inferre it teacheth true doctrine but that it is the true Church we prove first of all and originally by reall revelations called in the Scripture Verba Signorum that is by signes ostensions or motives of credibility which motives for a great and sufficient part of them are the same by which we prove to Infidels the truth of Christianity it selfe For these same motives though when they are considered but in generall and as it were afarre off doe perswade Christianity but in generall without designing out in particular this or that Individuall Christianity yet neverthelesse the selfe-same being understood distinctly doe designe out a distinct and individuall Christianity and are applicable
by some collateral consideration Section 26 Next to this certaine and undoubted damning of all out of the Church of Rome which averseth me from it comes their putting all to death or at least paines that are so where they have power which is an effect though not a necessary one of the first opinion and that averseth me yet more for I doe not believe all to be damned whom they damne but I conceive all to be killed whom they kill I am sure if you look upon Constantine's Epistle written to perswade concord upon the first disagreement between Alexander Arrius you will find that he thought and if the Bishops of his time had at first thought otherwise he would have been sure better informed that neither side deserved either death or damnation and yet sure this question was as great as ever rose since For having spoken of the opinions as things so indifferent that the Reader might almost think they had been fallen out at Spurn-point or Ketle-pins he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For that which is necessary is one thing that all agree and keep the same faith about divine providence I am sure in the same Author Moses a man praised by him refusing to be made Bishop by Lucius because he was an Arrian and he answering That he did ill to refuse it before he knew what his faith was Answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The banishing of Bishops shews ENOUGH your faith So that it is plaine he thought punishing for opinions to be a marke which might serve him to know false opinions by Section 27 I believe throughout Antiquity you will find no putting any to death unlesse it be such as begin to kill first as the Circumcollians or such like I am sure Christian Religions chief glory being that it increased by being persecuted and having that advantage of the Mahumetan which came in by force me thinks especially since Synesius hath told us and reason told men so before Synesius that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every thing is destroyed by the contrary to what setled and composed it It should be to take ill care of Christianity to seek to hold it up by Turkish meanes at least it must breed doubts that if the Religion had alwaies remained the same it would not be defended by waies so contrary to those by which it was propagated Section 28 I desire recrimination may not be used for though it be true that Calvin hath done it and the Church of England a little which is a little too much for Negare manifesta non audeo excusare immodica non possum yet She confessing She may erre is not so chargeable with any fault as those which pretend they cannot and so will be sure never to mend it and besides I will be bound to defend no more than I have undertaken which is to give reasons why the Church of Rome is fallible Section 29 I confesse this opinion of damning so many and this custome of burning so many this breeding up those who know nothing else in any point of Religion yet to be in readiness to crie To the fire with him and To Hell with him as Polybius saith in a certaine furious Faction of an Army of severall Nations and consequently languages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All of them understood onely this word Throw at him this I say in my opinion was it chiefly which made so many so suddenly leave the Church of Rome that indeed to borrow the Authours phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They needed not perswasion to doe it but onely newes that others had begun For as this alone if believed makes all the rest be so too so one thing alone mis-liked overthrowes also all the rest Section 30 If it were granted that because it agrees not with the Goodnesse of God to let men want an infallible Guide therefore there must be one and that the Church of Rome were that one yet if that teach any thing to my understanding contrary to Gods Goodnesse I am not to receive her doctrine for the same cause for which they would have me receive it it being as good an argument This Guide teaches things contrary to Gods goodnesse therefore is not appointed by God as to say It is agreeable to his goodnesse there should be a Guide therefore there is one And sure it is lawfull to examine particular doctrines whether they agree with that principle which is their foundation and to that me thinks to damne him that neither with negligence nor prejudication searcheth what is Gods will though he misse of it is as contrary as the first can be supposed Section 31 I would know whether he that never heard of the Church of Rome shall yet be damned for not believing her infallible I have so good an opinion of them as to assure my self they will answer he shall not I will then aske whether he that hath searched what Religions they are and finds hers to be one and her infallibility to be part of it if his reason will not assent to that shall he be damned for being inquisitive after truth for he hath committed no other fault greater then the other and Whether such an ignorance I mean after impartiall search be not of all other the most invincible Section 32 Nay grant the Church to be infallible yet me thinks he that denies it and imployes his reason to seeke if it be true should be in as good case as he that believes it and searcheth not at all the truth of the proposition he receives for I cannot see why he should be saved because by reason of his parents beliefe or the Religion of the Country or some such accident the truth was offered to his understanding when had the contrary been offered he would have received that and the other damned that beleeves falshood upon as good ground as the other doth truth unlesse the Church be like a Conjurers circle that will keep a man from the Devill though he came into it by chance Section 33 They grant that no man is an Heretique that believes not his Heresie obstinately and if he be no Heretique he may sure be saved It is not then certain damnation for any man to deny the infallibility of the Roman Church but for him onely that denies it obstinately and then I am safe for I am sure I doe not Section 34 Neither can they say I shall be damned for Schisme though not for Heresie for he is as well no Schismatique though in Schisme that is willing to joyne in communion with the true Church when it appeares to be so to him as he is no Heretique though he hold Hereticall opinions that holds them not obstinately that is as I suppose with a desire to be informed if he be in the wrong Section 35 Why if it be not necessary alwayes to believe the truth so one believe in generall what the Church would have believed for so they excuse great men
be so his Lordship was not content to affirme and so is himselfe farre enough from giving you example of begging the question but proves it by this argument because with you nothing is not fallible but the Church This may be dissolved into an hypotheticall syllogisme whereof you must deny one proposition or else the conclusion is forfeited If with you the Church be the only infallible then with you any other reasons by which you prove the infallibility of the Church are not infallible but with you the Church is the only infallible therefore with you any other reasons by which you prove the infallibility of the Church are not infallible Now if you look over your answer againe you shall find that your only exception commeth not home to any part of this syllogisme for you doe not so much as say that any thing is infallible but the Church Or if now you will see your want and make additions to your answer then say distinctly is any other thing beside the Church infallible or no If it be let it be named if it be not the conclusion is granted us And till this addition be thus made i. e. for this present answer of yours 't is I conceive manifest that you have said no syllable to the prime part of his Lordship's first Section Section 6 As for your instances of Phylosophy and Law suites they can prove nothing against his Lordship unlesse you can name some sect of Phylosophy that hath not only truth but infallibility and tell us which it is and prove that by arguments which are confest to be infallible till you have done that your instance is not pertinent and if ever you shall doe it 't will not be concluding against us unlesse you produce the like arguments for the infallibility of your Church against us which must be some other then are yet proposed Section 7 As for Lawsuits that they are determined to one side by the Judge doth not prove that that Judge is infallible which is the only matter of debate and if the contenders are bound to stand to his award it is because the Law and supreme Magistrate have commanded them to doe so and because this is evident and infallible that they have done so by the commission which the Judge hath from them And when the like is produced for your Church I hope all your Subjects will submit to it but then it must be moreover proved that all Christians are such Subjects or else we hope we shall not be involved under that obligation Section 8 As for your long deduction from whence you conclude that either wee are deceived or you and that it is not necessary that both should we grant it and professe our opinions that though both you and we are fallible yet only you are or can be deceived in this particular which we conceive is cleare because only you pretend Infallibility which we not pretending but affirming that we are not so cannot in this be deceived unlesse we be infallible but see not what it concludes against his Lordship whose argument depends not on any such assertion that both parties are deceived but only that your pretended Infallibility is by you proved by no other arguments then those which you confesse are fallible Section 9 What you adde by way of triumph and scoffe I must not answer but by yeilding you free leave thus to please your selfe and if this recreation tend at all to your health to advise you to do so still and whensoever it may be for your divertisement to reckon up the names of London Great Tue and the two Vniversities Section 10 After the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sang you at length bethinke your selfe that his Lordship had affirmed that Scripture Reason and Fathers are by you maintained to be all fallible and to this you answer by a distinction of universally speaking and in some cases onely and acknowledge that you affirme them all to be fallible onely in some cases Now first you ought to have given answer to his Lordship's proofe for what he said which was this that you affirme that onely the Church is infallible from whence it is a conclusion that therefore Reason and Scripture and Fathers are by you affirmed to be fallible whereas you letting the premises alone apply answer to the conclusion which is as much against Logicke as to deny it without denying the premises or shewing the falsenesse of them But then Secondly that which is fallible in some cases onely is by that acknowledged to be fallible and by that is proved unsufficient to prove another thing to be infallible in all things for if it be fallible in any case it may be fallible in this that it pronounces that other to be infallible and till there be some infallible argument produced that it is infallible in that particular pronouncing its Infallibility in other things will availe nothing or if it doe it may availe also for us to prove what we offer to prove from it that your Church hath erred Section 11 There is no possible avoiding of this but by saying and proveing it infallible in inducing your conclusion and false aswell as fallible in inducing ours for if it be true though it be fallible it will serve our turne but it must be both or will not serve yours you being obliged to prove the Infallibility of your Church by something which is it selfe infallible because it must be matter of faith with you which nothing is but what is infallibly induced but it is sufficient for us to beleive you and your Church fallible though we should make it no matter of faith that you are so which because you endeavour not to doe in this place it will be impertinent to examine the truth of what else you adde concerning the cases wherein you affirme Reason and Scripture and Fathers to be infallible any farther then thus that by your owne explication of the distinction and enumeration of cases I shall conclude that Reason doth not prove infallibly that your Church is infallible because the Infallibility of your Church is not an evident verity Scripture doth not prove it so because it is not certainly expounded to that probation Fathers doe not prove it so because it was not a doctrine held in their time and affirmed by them to be so Each of which negations of mine though they were as sufficient proofe as what you have offered to the contrary yet I shall undertake to make good against you if you shall thinke fit to call me to it by setting downe your reasons to the contrary Section 12 And so if on your supposition his Lordship 's three maine props were fallen to the ground which is another boast that had no more relation to the present matter then ground in truth and therefore I beseech you leave out such excesses hereafter yet your supposition being not so much as endeavoured to be proved the props stand as firmly as is desired To the
beleive whatever we conceive to be truth is a great uncharitablenesse and a cause or occasion of more the adding to the necessary truths ordinarily being a forerunner of the abatement of the inventory of the necessary performances I meane of those which are indispensably required of us under Christ These last few lines I confesse to be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I hoped might not be unwelcome to you If they be I am sorry you were troubled with it the seeing that there was nothing more in your Chapter which wanted answer gave me temptation and liberty for it To the third Section Chap. 4. The third Section is all true but concerns us nothing because amongst ours there is care enough taken for shewing which Church it is that is the true and infallible and on the other side much negligence and partiality in the enquirers after it in many of them at least though not in every one C. 4. Answ To the fourth Chap. Section 1 In your fourth Chapter though you are just in acknowledging the perfect truth of his Lordships third paragraph yet must you not be beleived on your bare word that you are not concern'd in it For I conceive it cleare that you are because that argument from Reason for such is that which is mentioned there as in the second paragraph the argument from Scripture and in the fourth the argument from Fathers or tradition which you use to prove the Infallibility of your Church viz. that it is therefore so made by God or that it is reasonable to thinke that God therefore so made it that all men may have some certaine Guide can never be able to conclude any thing unlesse it be made knowne by God as certainly or so offered by God to our knowledge that 't is our fault if we know it not both that there is such an infallible Church and which it is Now that God hath so made knowne these two it being impossible for reason to assure us any otherwise then by shewing us some sure word of prophecy I meane some revelation from God with sufficient evidence that it is revelation and this being not by you pretended to be shewed it availes little that you tell us that among yours there is care enough taken to shew which Church it is that is the true and infallible for if by shewing you meane demonstrating any way that it is so this you know we deny and saying it againe without proofe is petitio principii but if by shewing you meane the pointing us out that for the true and infallible of which you are a member we have little obligation or encouragement to beleive you say true being a witnesse in your owne cause I am sure no evidence that if you speake according to your judgement you are Infallible in that shewing or telling For if we had we must be supposed to have that evidence of your infallibility without because before your shewing and so to stand in little need of it To the fourth Section Chap. 5. The answer is that people illiterate may have evidence sufficient whereby to resolve and satisfie themselves without making any search into Histories Fathers or Scripture and therefore this Enquirers supposition is false and indeed it were a hard case if no man might be able to understand what he was to beleive without looking into all these and yet as hard as it is doth this Enquirer impose it upon all if not in expresse tearmes yet by the consequence of his doctrine As for our selves alone what need can we have for seeking out the true sence of Scripture and a conformity of doctrine with the Ancient more then other Christians have Surely according to this method of his all true religion whether in our Church or any other would be impossible to be learned by the illiterate and very hardly by any other men But what evidence can the illiterate have or rather from whence Out of the present face condition and visible practice of religion in the Church out of the antient monuments yet remaining that give in their depositions out of common fame and unsuspected testimonies out of the manifest perfections and excellencies both of the Church and Religion out of all which as from so many cleare signatures and characterismes of truth ariseth an evidence of credibility that this Church and this Religion are the true and whatsoever is once so creditable cannot possibly be false because for the verity of that the veracity of God doth stand engaged as Ric. Victorinus hath long since declared For it is a cleare case that all such things be true which God makes evidently credible and worthy of acceptance by the publique acts of his owne providence for otherwise that providence should publiquely entangle and deceive us by obliging us or at least publiquely and potently inducing and perswading us to believe that which were false and so by following that way which God hath signed out for us we should goe astray which thing can neither be done nor yet permitted to be done without imposture as all the antient Schoolemen doe observe By this meanes then are prudent publique motives able to make a certainty though not by their owne vertue yet at least by the vertue of the Supreame veracity which goes annexed with them Moreover this measure of evidence perceptible by the illiterate and weake though it be not so ample as others have or stand in need to have yet is it sufficient to sway their understanding and to call in the divine assistance for the supplying of whatsoever by reason of ignorance or incapacity is wanting in them Cum simplicibus est sermocinatio mea saith the Wiseman Therefore it is false and injurious to say as this Enquirer seemes to doe namely That such men as these doe assent to truth upon no better grounds then others doe to falshood The Enquirer's inference against the Church is this We thinke she hath erred therefore she may The Inference is good but the Antecedent is infirme and ought not to have beene made because he cannot have so great reason to judge she hath erred as on the contrary that she hath not in regard that it is farre more likely he himselfe erred in making that judgement of the Church then that the Church erred in making that judgement of the truth or that she hath contradicted her selfe it being farre more probable that a private man should be deceived then a whole Church Wherefore it is a great act of presumption and temerity in any single man though never so intelligent to judge the whole Church hath erred rather then himselfe The Enquirer saith that he tries the Church by her conformity with the Antients as she her selfe appoints But what then Doubtlesse she is not that way to be câ—nvinced forasmuch as every intelligent man will suppose that no particular man is able to examine that so well at she her selfe hath done before him and therefore may be pleased
of Ric Victorinus if applied to your purpose that whatsoever is once so creditable as you have there made the Infallibility of your Church can never be false Which beside other falsities must inferre other things to be infallible beside that onely infallible for 't is sure that other things may by you be made so creditable and as sure that what ever else cannot be false God's veracity standing engaged for it is infallible also and not to mention your proofes of that Divinity such is your assertion that the Enquirer's inference against the Church is we thinke she hath erred therefore she may erre for his inference is onely this if she hath erred certainly she may which I should say is another great injustice by changing his Lordship's words but that it is repaired and expiated with another act of more kindnesse to us though of as little force of reason that the iâ—ference is good but the antecedent is infirme whereas in tâ—uth the Inference had beene nought but the Antecedent either tâ—ue or onely in the power of the Searcher of thoughts to disprove in him so againe that the discovering the non-conformity of your Church with the Antients may justly be thought impossible when if we had not actually done it yet hereafter we might and when in the present businesse we affirme and you goe not about to disprove that your pretending to the Infallibility of your Church is inconformable to the Antients because they did not so pretend and surely such is your affirmation that to send one to a witnesse and yet bid him not believe himselfe in what he conceives that witnesse tels him is not as bad as to send him in like manner and bid him not believe the witnesse there being no possibility of believing what the Witnesse saith but by believing himselfe affirming that that Witnesse said it For if you say it be by believing of you i. e. another Witnesse that that Witnesse said it I answer that that will include a believing himselfe also viz himselfe affirming that you testified that the other Witnesse said it Section 12 I shall trouble you with no more at once lest you count me uncivill one thing onely more I shall let you know I take notice of that in the compasse of very few words you cast off much of the respect due to Antiquity by saying that it is sufficient if we can by any sure way come to the knowledge of truth mentioning at that time onely the conspicuous body of the present Church for such without taking care whether it be conforme to the Antients or no c. By which as you acknowledge your preferring the conspicuous body of the present Church for the finding out of truth before Antiquity which is the strangest speech I could have look'd for from a defender of Tradition so I confesse I see the reason why a Section that undertooke to prove that Antiquity was no infallible proofe of your Churches Infallibility had in a long Chapter of answer to it never a word said in confutation of it and so I very friendly take leave of it To the fifth Section Chap. 6. Out of that which hitherto hath beene said it appeares plainly how the conclusion which the Enquirer would inferre in this fifth Section is no way applicable to our manner of probation of the Churches Infallibility for we doe not as he surmiseth maintaine that our Church the Guide of Faith is to be knowne by such markes by which the ignorant cannot seeke it and the Learned may chance to misse although with all diligence and without prejudice they enquire after it for we affirme that our first principles of probation are certaine and manifest and out of them we with certainty though not with evidence evict the Church By which manner of proceeding it is cleare that our probations are Logicall and conformable to the rules prescribed for the hunting out of truth by Aristotle in his Analytiques and the Philosophers in generall Some peradventure will deny our Churches verity to be evidently credible If any doe it the matter must be remitted to an equall triall betweene us But say you who must be the Judge I am no Socinian nor inclining to that sort of mis-believers yet neverthelesse I say right reason must be he and every man 's owne conscience and of these Judges I hope all men will allow and it is reasonable sure they ought to doe so because reason is in all questions the last and the interior Judge without whose assent and approbation no exterior is sufficient and compleat For exterior Judges be as spectacles to the eies and as spectacles be they never so good cannot see without eies so cannot revelation be it never so manifest give the last sentence about any doctrine nor be sufficient without reason It may be further replied that these principles of ours are also question'd Admit they be yet neverthelesse may they be certaine and evident otherwise we should grant nothing to be certaine for there is no one thing so evident which is not question'd by some or other C. 6. Answer to the 6. Chap. Section 1 That which you say to the fifth Section is in effect the denying the conclusion when the premises are either not deny'd or not confuted for that which his Lordship saith in that Section you acknowledge to be a conclusion and is so indeed of all that went before all directly tending to this That the Church provided for the guide of faith it offered by you to be knowne by such markes as the ignorant cannot seeke it by and the Learned though never so honest in his search may chance not to finde it by This then being the conclusion of all the discourse you professe to deny upon no other proofe but by affirming that your principles of probation are certaine and manifest i. e. by saying the direct contrary to his conclusion but not thinking needfull to prove it And so beside that other absurdity in Logick there is petitio principii againe Section 2 In doing this you were I conceive very much resisted by your owne spirit for the satisfying of which you are faine to say this strange thing that your principles of probation are certaine and manifest and out of them you evict the Church with certainty though not with evidence where either you must affirme to thinke that evident and manifest are not all one or else that the conclusion is not evident when the premises are either of which you shall have free liberty to take the choyce of and maintaine in your reply And when you have shewed your skill in so doing you then shall have leave to boast that your probations are Logicall and conformable to the rules of Aristotle in his Analitiques and the Philosophers in generall but till then 't was to no more purpose to say that of your selfe then 't will be to the edification of any that I have repeated it to you Section 3 Having thus confim'd the
conclusion with that great popular argument that prevailes with so many a bare confidence of affirming it it is very remarkable what your next attempt is why in stead of that hard taske which lay so heavy upon your shoulders to get an easier if 't were possible and therefore you foresee that some may peradventure deny your Churches verity to be evidently credible Good Sir what is this but to suborne a weaker adversary to challenge you that you may be excused from fighting with the stronger we desire plaine dealing that you will prove your principles of probation to be certaine and manifest which is the thing you affirm'd and not to thinke to put us off with more obscure and lesse containing tearmes of your Churches verity being evidently credible For first your Churches verity i. e. I conceive its being the true Church for I hope you speak not now of its Metaphysicall verity or its being truly a Church for so it may be and be very fallible and very corrupt is an equivocall phrase and in what ever sense is not so much as your Churches infallibility for it may be a true Church and not be infallible i. e. upon supposition that what ever now it taught were actually true 't were yet possible it might erre even when it doth not nay if its verity should signifie that it were a true Church as perhaps you meane exclusively to all others i. e. that the Catholique Church were the Roman Church and the Roman the Catholique yet speaking of the present state of the Church i. e. of the present Roman Church though it were supposed to be the present Catholique Church yet may that be fallible again because those that are now in the truth may fall into errour and others rise up as they fall to be defendors of the truth and so the promise of God of keeping his Church from finall or totall falling be made good still Section 4 As for that other largest notion of the Catholique Church under which we confesse it to be infallible that of the universall Church all the world over without any restriction I conceive it impossible that by your Church which is the Church with an eminent restriction you should meane that and upon that ground it was that I affirm'd that the verity of your Church in what ever sense is not so much as its infallibility Section 5 Then againe your phrase of evidently credible is not sure so much as certaine and manifest for though evidently credible sound strangely and if it have any sense in it hath also some obscurity yet I shall suppose you meane by it that which is credible or may be believed and of which it is evident that it may the words Grammatically can beare no other sense then this that it is evident that they are credible now certainly to be evident and certaine is much more then to be credible though it be never so evident that it is credible For suppose me actually to acknowledge that you have some probable arguments that your Church is the true Church nay suppose it is so evident that you have such arguments that every man that hath common understanding will be ready to acknowledge you have so doth it thence follow that I or all others doe and must acknowledge that you have demonstrated it this is to make no difference between the two sorts of Arguments in Logick Topicall and Demonstrative or in a word to conclude that to be infallible which you durst not say was any more then credible for as for the word evidently added to it it cannot have such an influence on the word credible as to make that quite another or higher sort of things then it was Credible in the clearest or highest degree is but credible still as the eminentest or excellentest man in the world is a man still and therefore in briefe if we should helpe you to fewer adversaries then you have and take off that suborn'd enemy of yours whom you suppose to deny your Churches verity to be eminently credible you would have gain'd by it but little peace from his Lordship who would still require you to make good your pretension of infallibility which will be a much harder theme to declaime for popularly I am sure Logically then the credibility of the verity of your Church Section 6 As for your way of answering that objection because the objection is not needfull for us to make Any reply or confutation of your answer will be as unnecessary I shall onely report to other men from your owne pen one notable decision of yours that in a triall of huge importance concerning the credibility of the verity of your Church I must be faine to use your phrase right reason and every man 's owne conscience must be the Judge which being so great an act of complyance and favour both to those which assert reason and to those that maintaine the private spirit to be the Judge of Controversies i. e. to two sorts of men which have hitherto beene believed opposite enough to your infallibility it will be but gratitude to reward so great a bounty with a favourable interpretation of a good meaning and he should be very rude and uncivill who would not grant upon such your demand that you are no Socinian nor inclining to that sort of mis-believers for sure he that makes right reason the Judge of his very principles must needs be so rationall and ingenuous that he can never be an Heretique though he say the very things that Heretiques doe Section 7 As for your very excellent similie of the eies and the spectacles I shall not have a word to say to it save onely this that although you have gotten the inclosure and monopoly of spectacles I meane of imposing of an exterior Judge upon us yet other men may be allowed to have eies as well as you i. e. to have reason and conscience to Judge of your Judge and then the issue according to your premises being granted to you will be this that they whose reason and conscience tels them that 't is not evidently credible that your Church should be the true Church exclusively to all others shall not be obliged to believe it is so for their owne reason say you and Conscience is to be judge that they whose reason c. tels them it is so credible may believe it if they please nay if they have no arguments as credible to the contrary and upon impartiall search can finde none it is very reasonable for them to believe what to their conscience is so credible but if they have such arguments to the contrary or if it be their fault that they have not they are sure no farther bound to believe it if they are not Subjects of your Church then those dictates of their conscience doe extend to oblige them or if they are Subjects yet no farther then the doctrine of obedience rightly stated which will be too long a worke for a parenthesis
thought knowes much better what doctrines be agreeable to the goodnesse of God then yours can doe what is against it and therefore your owne reason and understanding teaches you that the Churches understanding is to be preferred and that yours must submit and againe that this is the rationall way and not the other this the way of understanding and that of errour And so much in answer to this fallacy wherein I perceive both he and Master Chillingworth confide very much As for particular doctrines it is true as you say you may examine whether they agree with the Principle that is foundation yet neverthelesse cannot you from thence conclude any thing against the doctrines or Infallibility of the Church but rather for it and this for the reason before specified Neither doe we therefore send you to a witnesse and bid you not believe it but rather to believe it as farre as in right reason you are to believe it and not farther that is to say you are to trust to your owne particular discourses as to particular discourses and no farther but to the resolves of the Church as to the dictamens of a higher understanding by the light of which you are to judge and censure of the rest and by doing thus you are sure you doe wisely and safely and in fine so as although you should chance to erre you might answer the businesse at the latter day by saying I did in this case what I ought to doe for I followed what my reason taught me and more then this was not required at my hands But if I follow my owne judgement and in confidence of that doe adventure to condemne the Church In that I offend against my reason and true judgement and should not be able to make a good apology for my selfe or any way make it good that I followed my reason which faculty is the rule that God hath set mee For a conclusion of this dispute I answer in briefe that putting the Inquirers argument as he ought to have put it namely thus as followeth This guide to my understanding or to my seeming teaches things contrary to Gods goodnesse therefore it is not appointed by him for a guide putting I say the argument on this manner it is nothing so good or so concluding an argument as this other is videlicet This guide teaches such and such doctrines therefore they are not against the goodnesse of God and therefore againe my understanding was deceived in holding them to be so and therefore lastly notwithstanding all this she may be an infallible guide and appointed by God for such Note that we inferre hence she may be but not that she is as the Inquirer would impose upon us for we doe not say that the Church is appointed a guide therefore because it is agreeable with God's goodnesse to make her so but because we for other reasons know he hath so made her because we are not now to learne but that many things are agreeable to Gods goodnesse to be done which yet are not done nor peradventure ever will be Wherefore when we are to judge what is or will be we are to consider not what his goodnesse may admit but what his will determines shall have a being for of that lastly depends the existence of things and not of the other C. 18. Answ to C. 18. Section 1 In your report of his Lordship's argument Section 30. you leave out those words therefore there is one and so make nonsence of that period which in his Lordship's setting of it is excellent reason But I can believe that this was but a slip As for your answer to the parrallel cases wherein saith his Lordship Gods goodnesse is equally concerned doe you thinke you can ever satisfie any reasonable man in saying that the first thing he speaks of is onely contrary to Gods goodnesse in his Lordships understanding not absolutely but of the second he speaks not as it is in his understanding but as it is simply in it selfe from whence you conclude that he changes the tearmes Certainly Sir in despight of your exception argument is good Thus Section 2 If it be sufficient to conclude an infallible guide because it agrees not with Gods goodnesse to let men want one then any man that conceives that Church to teach any thing which he conceives against Gods goodnesse by the same reason is not to receive her doctrine The case is cleare because nothing concludes to any man any farther then it is conceived by him and that is not a proofe to me which I doe not conceive to be so which makes his Lordships arguing to be farre from fallacious For the matter of this paragraph is not whether it be really true that it agrees not with Gods goodnesse to let men want an infallible guide but supposing it to be so whether it will follow the Church is infallible or whether he whose understanding is convinced and perswaded of that truth that it is not agreeable to Gods goodnesse to let us want such a guide be enforced to confesse it infallible Section 3 This also his Lordship disputes not against but will willingly acknowledge the consequence supposing that the Antecedent were true onely by the same argument proves another thing that he that conceives the Church to teach any doctrine contrary to Gods goodnesse or that which is such to his understanding or he that supposes the Church to teach so must not believe that Churches doctrine So that if you marke the supposition is equall on both sides not taken for true one side and onely pretended on tother but one taken to be true by you that not to provide an Infallible guide is contrary to Gods goodnesse and tother taken to be true by his Lordship that Gods damning those that erre without either negligence or prejudication is contrary to his goodnesse also and if the Argument be of force on one side it must be so also on tother and for you to say that what you suppose is true but what his Lordship supposes is not so is a terrible petitio principii againe and no ground of a confutation against his Lordship The ridiculous arguments that you put in his Lordships paper without his privity will be matter of reproach to you who if you understood as I suppose you did were willing to deprave his discourses and not unto his Lordship Section 4 As for your way of satisfying his Lordships understanding that what the Church teaches is not contrary to the goodnesse of God because the Church knowes what is so better than he 't will sure prevaile little with any that is a disputing whether the Church is infallible or no as you see his Lordship now is for if she be fallible she may mistake in that judgment and that she doth not mistake there will be no assurance from her saying it as long as the controversy depends about her Infallibility which to affirme not to depend or to be no controversy is
a true Church will not pronounce you infallible your Church of Rome Primitive may have the truth and your Moderne Rome be filled with errors And therefore you may spare the paines of proving what we have no occasion at this time to deny that God engages his veracity to make good those things for which he gives us such rationall meanes of proofe to induce our assent For what ever else is your infallibility or your other errours for which we charge you are none of these things And if you mark it that which according to your discourse gives us such assurance of the truth of Christianity is the ostensions miracles publick acts of Gods providence not the Infallibility naturally inherent either in your Church or in any particular society of men nor the promise of God that any such society shall be infallible and visible to all that it is that infallible As for that which you covertly cast into the heape of the motives of Faith that 't was continued from age to age in the succession of Pastors in the chiefe seat that is no more a ground of the truth of Christanity then its succession in all other seats as I conceive you have your selfe let fall also The truth is the Preaching the Gospel over all the world and the reception in so great a part of it is an argument of the truth of Christianity among many others because it is the fulfilling of a Prophecy of their sounds going out into all Lands But this is farre from concluding the peculiar priviledge of infallibility of those who are under the Roman subjection By which 't is cleare that what you cite out of Irenaeus and Saint Aug. comes home no better to your point of infallibility then Aristotles Analytick principles which in the same place and elsewhere you cite also And therefore if all you say in that long Section were yeelded concerning the motives to Christianity and your way by bringing to the Church c. yet would you be as farre to seek as ever concerning your pretended infallibility To your 13. Sect. which is neerer indeed to your purpose I answere that being by your meanes brought to Christianity there is no need that I should find out any particular body of professors or Church of one denomination to which those motives to Christianity should so belong as to belong to no othey but that This sure I may better say without proofe then you have affirmed the contrary For doe you thinke it reasonable that Christianity being planted all the world over each man that is converted to it must finde out the Roman Bishop and those that are in subjection to him or not be accounted a Christian If he be borne at Jerusalem or converted there will it not serve his turne to communicate with that Church which hath given him Baptisme Was there any thing in his Creed could send him thither till the holy Catholick Roman Church was by mockery I conceive put in thither As for the line of succession of Ecclesiasticall Magistrates you must know that is to be found in other Christian Churches as well as in Rome and the Scriptures and Apostolicall verities descend downe to us in them also And what if in some passages of Antiquity the Sea of Rome should be found to be the Praetorian or Admirall in your stile i. e. the prime or principall Sea would this prove her infallible the Praetorian may spring a leake as well as any other and in case it should I doe not conceive that all other Ships of that fleet were bound to doe so too or else be counted fugitive because they are unwilling to run that unhappy fate of sinne or errour with her Sure if the Praetorian should casually or wilfully split upon a Rock you would not censure all others for Pyraticall that did not so too The reasons are visible why that Sea of Rome had the Primacy at some time and at other times other Seas put in their plea for it and if they obtained not yet was that an argument that it was never judged a matter of Faith because the Pretenders were not condemned for Haereticks even when it went not with them viz from the Imperiall Seat being placed in that City with which the Ecclesiasticall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might proportionably goe along just as your Praetorian is that ship where the Admirall resides or which peculiarly belongs to him But what is that to infallibility That honour which comes by sympathy with the Civill State is not like to be such a charme or amulet so to elevate above humane condition that it must presently set up for perfection Let your Church have all its due and customary respects but doe not so linke inerrablenesse with Principality unlesse you can bring some ground from Scripture for the union and because in all your Apology Annotations and Appendage you doe not so much as name any such I shall conceive you are too wise to claime by Tu es Petrus or any other so unconcluding an argument Believe me your prescription for some kinde of Principality from the possession of it continued to that Sea so many yeares is a better plea than any other and against that I am not now a disputing but onely adde that greatnesse saecular is no marke of infallibility As for your rule of judging by the Association with Rome which Assembly of Christians is legitimate which not that that is an infallible way of judging is not at all proved by your magnificent simile For first the fleet may be broken asunder by some tempest and so without any fault of any ship be divided from the Praetorian 2. The Praetorian may quarrell with all or any of the rest and by threats or bullets drive them from her and then if the cause be not just if it be for example upon no other crime but that the other ships judge it necessary to cast out some vessels or trumpery which they are resolved to be either uselesse or perhaps dangerous to the vessell and all the Passengers or againe because the rest of the ships are resolved to obey the commission that sent out the whole Fleet when the Praetorian was resolved to disobey it in this and the like cases 't is cleare that the Praetorian is the onely Schismatick Or if it be just yet the ships though confest guilty of that other crime or crimes which made that severity of the Praetorian just will yet not be guilty of a new crime of separation the reason is cleare because she is forced to that driven away and now ever since lies under it unwillingly 't is her infelicity not her crime her punishment not her fault Or if there be a fault in that viz That she doth not humbly confesse the fault and desire to be reconciled yet sure it will not be infinitely true that that is a fault when either she was guilty before of no fault but a pretended one
A view of some EXCEPTIONS Which have been made BY A ROMANIST TO The L D Viscount FALKLAND'S DISCOURSE Of the INFALLIBILITY of the CHVRCH of ROME Submitted to the Censure of all sober Christians Together with The Discourse it self of Infallibility prefixt to it The second Edition newly corrected LONDON Printed by J. G. for R. Royston at the Angel in Ivie-lane M.DC.L To the READER THE Length and quality of this insuing trouble will seem to have been given the Reader somewhat impertinently if a brief account be not first rendred of the occasion thereof The sad effects of the present differences and divisions of this broken Kingdome having made peace and unity and infallibility such pretious desireable things that if there were but one wish offered to each man among us it would certainly with a full consent be laid out on this one treasure the setting up some Catholick Umpire or Daies-man some visible infallible Definer of Controversies the Pretenders to that Infallibility having the luck to be alone in that pretension have been lookt on with some reverence and by those who knew nothing of their grounds or arguments acknowledged to speake if not true yet seasonably and having so great an advantage upon their Auditors their inclinations and their wishes to finde themselves overcome going along with every argument that should be brought them and so a faire probable entrance by that inlet of their affections to their minds they began to redouble their industry and their hopes and instead of the many particulars of the Romish doctrine which they were wont to offer proofe for in the retaile now to set all their strength upon this one in grosse and by the compendiousnesse of that course to expect a more easie reception then formerly they had met with the very gaines and conveniences that attend this doctrine of theirs if it were true being to flesh and blood which all men have not the skill of putting off mighty Topicks of probability that it is so To discover the danger of this sweet potion or rather to shew how farre it is from being what it it pretends and so to exchange the specious for the sound the made-dish for the substantiall food allowing the Universall Church the authority of an irrefragable testimony and the present age of the Romish Church as much of our beliefe as it hath of conformity with the universall of all ages but not a priviledge of not being able to say false whatsoever it saith and so to set us in the safer though longer way thereby to whet our industry in the chase of truth in stead of assuring our selves that we cannot erre which is not a vertue but an excellency not a grace to be crown'd but a great part of the crowne it selfe reserv'd for another world a felicity but not a duty this Discourse of the Lord Viscount Falkland's was long since designed as also to remove the great scandals and obstacles which have obstructed all way of hope to that universall aime of all true Christians that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Catholick harmony which Iamblicus talkes of in the spheares above but would found better in this vault this arch to beare up those spheares the Church below the Universall peace of Christendome for to this nothing is more unreconcileably contrary than pretensions to Infallibility in any part of it all such making it unlawfull either for themselves to mend or others to be endured shutting out all possibility either of compliance or charity or reformation in their owne or mercy to other mens errours What was thus by his Lordship designed in all justice was by an intire lover of peace and truth published in all charity to resist and check a threatning tempest which rising from out present evils was apt if it did not begin to shake some The Printing of this Tract presently provoked an Assertor of that Infallibility to take upon him the answering of it and to complaine that an Answer which had been by the same hand given it formerly was not permitted to attend it into publick This then being a second Care was probably to have arrived to a higher degree of perfection and indeed among the Favourers of that peâ—swasion was cried up for so satisfactory a piece that it was delivered to a Member of the Church of England as unanswerable From him it came to those hands which returned it to the Authour with this ensuing Rejoynder withall intimating that since in his he seemed to wish the same freedome of the Presse which his Lordship had found both the Answer and the Reply should be recommended thither if he pleased After he had detained the Reply some weeks he was pleased to returne it with a protestation That he neither intended nor would permit his to become publicke pretending that I may give you his owne words his Treatise to have been no finish'd worke but onely a first draught or inchoation ventured abroad to explore the judgements op one of two intelligent Adversaries that so the Authour by his second he might have said third thoughts might be better able to understand what was to be altered in it what added or what taken a way either as superfluous or offensive and till that act was done and withall till an approbation and license given by those to whom it belonged neither the worke nor any line of it is to be acknowledged or vouched by the Authour And so both were returned with some few alterations and additions in his Answer and marginall Notes on the Reply and one sheet at the end of them containing a new Scheme of probation of the pretended Infallibility and a preloquium to it wherein the passage just now mentioned is interminis recited This the Replicant to avoid all appearance of severity was content to accept for sad earnest and therefore freely exprest his willignesse to give the Authour leave to provide a new Answer to his Lordships-Treatise which he might be willing to owne in publicke which when he should doe promise was made to prepare a speedy Answer thereunto and on those termes to be content to lay aside the former That this should be done was affirmed on one part and on the other expected some months with patience till at length the Answerers pleasure was made knowne that that resolution was put off and that in stead of so meane a combat either with his Lordship or this Replicant he was pleased now to designe a full discourse on that Subject without taking notice of either any farther than he should thinke fit to take in his way any thing by them objected against his position and that this should be printed beyond the Seas When this will be performed I cannot tell Onely this is now discerned somewhat contrary to expectation that what hath been disclaimed by him is extolled by others and the weaknesse of the Replicant sufficiently despised Wherein though he hath not much temptation to thinke himself injured being ready to acknowledge the
9 Nay suppose they had evinced that some succession were infallible and so had proved to a learned man that the Roman Church must be this because none else pretends to it yet this can be no sufficient ground to the ignorant who cannot have any infallible foundation for their beliefe that the Church of Greece pretends not to the same and even to the Learned it is but an accidentall argument because if any other company had likewise claimed to be infallible it had overthrowne all so proved Section 10 Nay it is but an arbitrary Argument and depends upon the pleasure of the adversary for if any society of Christians would pretend to it the Church of Rome could make use of it no longer Section 11 The chiefest reason why they disallow of the Scripture for Judge is because when differences arise about the interpretation there is no way to end them and that it will not stand with the goodnesse of God to damne men for not following his will if he had assigned no infallible way how to find it I confesse this to be wonderfull true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and let them excuse themselves that think otherwise Yet this will be no argument against him who believes that to all who follow their reason in the interpretation of the Scriptures and search for Tradition God will either give his grace for assistance to find the truth or his pardon if they misse it and then this supposed necessity of an infallible Guide with this supposed damnation for want of it fall together to the ground Section 12 If they command us to believe infallibly the contrary to this they are to prove it false by some infallible way for the conclusion must be of the same nature and not conclude more then the premisses set downe now such a way Scripture and Reason or infused faith cannot be for they use to object the fallibility of them to those that build their Religion upon them nor the Authority of the Church for that is part of the question and must be it selfe first proved and that by none of the former waies for the former reasons Section 13 The Popes infallibility can be no infallible ground of faith being it selfe no necessary part of the faith we can be no surer of any thing proved then we are of that which proves it and if he be fallible no part is the more infallible for his sideing with them So if the Church be divided I have no way to know which is the true Church but by searching which agrees with Scripture and Antiquity and so judging accordingly But this is not to submit my selfe to her opinions as my guide which they tell us is necessary Which course if they approve not of as a fit one for a Learned man they are in a worse case for the ignorant who can take no course at all nor is the better at all for this Guide the Church whilest two parts dispute which is it and that by arguments he understands not Section 14 If I granted the Pope or a Counsell by him called to be infallible yet I conceive their Decrees can be no sufficient ground by their owne axiomes of Divine faith For first say the most No Councell is valid not approved by the Pope for thus they overthrow that held at Ariminum a Pope chosen by Symony is ipso facto no Pope I can then have no certainer ground for the infallibility of those Decrees and consequently for my beleife of them then I have that the choice of him was neither directly nor indirectly Symoniacall which to be certain of is absolutely impossible Section 15 Secondly suppose him Pope and to have confirmed the Decrees yet that these are the Decrees of a Councell or that he hath confirmed them I can have but an uncontradicted attestation of many men for if another Councell should declare these to have been the Acts of a former Councell I should need againe some certaine way of knowing how this declaration is a Councells which is no ground say they of faith I am sure not so good and generall a one as that Tradition by which we prove that the Scripture is Scripture which yet they will not allow any to be certaine of but from them Section 16 Thirdly for the sence of their Decrees I can have no better expounder to follow then Reason which if though I mistake I shall not be damned for following why shall I for mistaking the sence of Scripture Or why am I a lesse fit interpreter of one then of the other where both seeme equally cleare And where they seem so I meane equally cleare and yet contradictory shall I not as soon believe Scripture which is without doubt of at least as great authority Section 17 But I doubt whether Councells be fit deciders of Questions for such they cannot be if they beget more and men have cause to be in greater doubts afterwards none of the former being diminished then they were at first Section 18 Now I conceive there arise so many out of this way that the Learned cannot end all nor the Ignorant know all As besides the forenamed considerations Who is to call them the Pope or Kings Who are to have voices in them Bishops only or Priests also Whether the Pope or Councell be Superiour and the last need the approbation of the first debated among themselves Whether any Countries not being called or not being there as the Abissines to great a part of Christianity and not resolvedly condemned by them for Heretiques were absent at the Councell of Trent make it not generall Whether if it be one not every where received as when the Bishops sent from some places have exceeded their Commission as in the Councell of Florence it be yet of necessity to be subscribed to Whether there were any surreption used or force and Whether those disanull the Acts Whether the most voyces are to be held the Act of the Councell or those of all are required as Canus saith All the Councell cannot erre the most may which never yet agreed or Whether two parts will serve as in the Tridentine Synode a considerable doubt because Nicephorus Callistus relateing the resolution of a Councell at Rome against that of Ariminum makes them give three reasons One That the Bishop of Rome was not present The second That most did not agree to it Thirdly That others thither gathered were displeased at their resolutions which proves that in their opinions if either most not present agree not to it or all present be not pleased with it a Councell hath no power to bind All these doubts I say perswade me that whatsoever brings with it so many new questions can be no fit ender of the old Section 19 In those things in which before a Generall Councell have defined it is lawfull to hold either way and damnable to doe so after I desire to know how it agreeth with the Charity of the Church to define
that meane no more by the Roman Church then that which is so governed shall assoone beleive the Roman Church to be infallible as the Catholique under your notion of it Section 4 The short of it is we shall never agree upon any thing till the equivocall tearmes be explicated and one single sence of this as of all other phrases agreed on betwixt both parties Tell us then plainly that by the Catholique Church you meane the Vniversall all the world over without any kind of restriction and not that onely which is governed by the Pope of Rome which is a great restriction of the word Catholique and must be not onely affirmed but proved by you to be none And then I shall thus farre consent with you Section 5 First that the Vniversall Church is in fundamentals infallible not from any thing inherent in it selfe but by a prerogative acquired i. e. by the promise of Christ that his spirit shall leade them into all truth and that he will be with them to the end of the world and the like but then this Infallibility must signifie no more or be no farther extended then that Christ doth and will so defend his Church that there shall be for ever till the end of the world a Church Christian on the Earth i. e. that the whole Church shall not at once make an universall defection erre from the foundation or doe any thing by which there shall cease to be a Church on earth Section 6 But then 2dly I say that this very Vniversall Church though it be in the sense infallible in fundamentals is not yet a rule or Canon or guide or Judge infallible even in fundamentals visible it is infallible it is but 't is not a visible judge or rule infallible And the reason of this assertion is this that its Infallibility explained as we have explain'd it is all that can be certainly inferred from Christ's words and that belongs not at all to judicature and so any other Infallibility that shall be pretended to belong to judicature must be inferred from some other tenure or else it will not be inferred Section 7 If you cannot be thus liberall to us and tell us that by Catholique in this question you meane that Catholique without restriction Tell us then Secondly that you meane a representation of that Catholique i. e. a Councell Generall Oecumenicall and then I shall acknowledge many priviledges to belong to that An humble though not an absolute obedience and in a word that nothing is to be preferred before it but the Word of God or the Church truly Vniversall Yet after all this that it is not infallible or inerrable I have the judgement of Panormitan and shall adde his reason also to back it Because saith he the Generall Councell is not truly but onely by representation the Vniversall Church and supposing such a Councell to erre it would not yet follow that the Vniversall Church or multitude of all Christians doe erre because 't is possible that some out of the Councell doe not erre yea and in the Councell too though a major part overcome the better In this I have the concurrence of Occam dial p. 3. tr 1. l. 3. c. 5. Cardin. Cameracensis c. 1. Waldensis Doctrin fid l. 2. artic 3. c. 26. quest vesp arg 3. ad lit O. Antoninus to 1. de sacram l. 2. c. 19. Card. Cusanus in summarum par 3. tit 23. de concil general c. 2. sect 6. l. 2. Concord Cathol c. 4. Et Nic. de Clemangis Collat. 2. p. 64 73. with this farther confirmation of it from the opinion of the Ancient Fathers evidenced by their practice In that saith he it was solemnly accustomed by them at the beginning of such a Councell by fasting and praying to implore the assistance of the spirit which had beene a piece of uselesse diligence if they had been before assured that they could not be deceived or faile in those things for which they were assembled Which argument if it doe not infallibly induce the conclusion to those that pray for those things which they are sure of yet is it an evidence that they that use it are of the opinion which they inferre by it and will be of force to those that from the mention of some of the Ancients praying for the dead conclude them to be in a mutable state as I conceive some of your freinds are wont to doe To this assertion of ours I might also cite the Concordance of the Jesuits generally who that they may fasten all Infallibility in the Pope alone attribute nothing at all to a Councell but this that the errour of a Councell cannot be confirmed by the Pope which is in effect no more then that Councells begin to be infallible when the Pope confirmes them i. e. when the Councell is at an end which kind of Infallibility they will afford I presume to every Heretique and to me while I thus write that my errour cannot be confirmed by the Pope unlesse they will be so bountifull to adde also that such a Councell cannot erre if it follow the instructions of the Pope which will also be acknowledged true of any the meanest Lutheran or Calvinist as well as of that Councell Section 8 If neither of these two be it you meane then be ingenuous and tell us you either mean the Pope of Rome as the Jesuits doe or else that you meane those parts of the Catholique that are governed by him and then as we shall tell you that it is the very thing which we learn't from you to meane by the Roman Church so you that affirme that to be the notion of the Catholique Church must acknowledge to affirme the same thing to be Infallible which we say you doe affirme when we propose the Question of the Roman Churches Infallibility and in this there is no matter of deceit or difficulty but that that Church under the government of the Pope which we affirme to be fallible even in the highest degree fallible in fundamentals you undertake and contest to be infallible 'T is true this we call the Roman Church conceiving it to be your Dialect and if you say it is not we will consent to you and in obedience to your example call it so no more on condition you will be but as reasonable and give it some other title whether that of the Westerne Church which were a good large Province and yet of that Saint Basil complaines in no lower stile then this That they neither know nor endure the unity of Faith or any other title besides that of the Catholique Church which we are sure cannot properly be allow'd it unlesse it appear First that all Christians ought to be govern'd by the Bishop of Rome and Secondly that all they which are not so governed are no longer members of the Catholique Church and if you affirme both these we professe to deny them and then that must be the
to understand that this pretended non-conformity of hers ought to be discovered very clearly and perfectly before he adventure to condemne her and this great discovery having yet not beene made and manifested to the world may justly be thought an act impossible and be judged in such as make pretensions of it a worke rather of a strong apprehension then of any solid judgement If then our Enquirer in this case should be rejected let him not complaine of us as if we sent him to a witnesse and after bid him not believe it but rather bid him not believe himselfe and his owne judgement more then the Churches that is to say more then he ought nor suffer himselfe to be misled by the testimony of a witnesse to whom we did not send him I meane himselfe in hearkning unto whom self-love too much inclines him and made him over credulous as to their great griefe it hath made very man Now for the better understanding this point of conformity with the Antients of which this Enquirer and Chillingworth his confederate doe talke so much and seeke to urge against us the reader may please to know that they themselves are bound to solve this knot as well as we for it will be both as necessary and as hard for them to finde out the conformity of their doctrines with the Antients as it is for us to finde out ours and againe the conformity of this moderne Scripture with the Antient and these present copies of the Greeke and Hebrew with the Originall or Archetype of the same languages as it is to finde out a conformity of this Church and her Doctrines with the Antients and so these Authors have made a rodde wherewith to whip themselves as commonly wrangling people doe Secondly That there be other notes of truth besides this conformity and therefore the enquiry after it is not necessary for any man Thirdly That we may know this conformity by the truth a great deale easier than the truth by conformity because truth may be knowne by the present notes and such as are before our eyes but conformity must a great way off and through a thick mist of many Ages if it be sought after by examination of particulars Fourthly That the enquiry after conformity by examining the Antient rites and the innumerable darke passages and decisions of Antiquity cannot be a generall method for the instruction of all or of the greater part of Men for it is a long businesse and so cannot be ready at all times but rather after divers years it is also so difficult that few have learning or ability to go through with it for the passages of Antiquity be very intricate and require a great light of understanding for their discovery You see the Enquirer Sect. 37. confesseth he was much vext with the harsh Greek of Evagrius and the hard Latine of Irenaeus and with distinguishing between different sences and various lections c. If this learned Gentleman found so much difficulty in the search what must become of the greater part of Men if there were no way but this for in comparison of the rest few have so much wit as he or so much leisure few understand Greek or Latine either whether harsh or pleasant few so painfull Must no man that is not acquainted with Evagrius or Irenaeus come to the knowledge of the truth nor any man be able to know the Creation of the World and the Old law without he can read in Hebrew or learn the New law without reading the New Testament in Greek These were very hard conditions and certainly such at God never imposed upon us Doubtlesse we are not obliged to find out the Originall Copies of Scriptures and Fathers of which sort as I suppose there be none extant nor trouble our spirits with judging about various lections we are not bound to impossibilities for our instruction and salvation but have a ready way assigned us which is the conspicuous body of the present Church which body is like a City built upon a hill and that hill is a rock not to be undermined It will be therefore sufficient that we can any sure way come to the knowledge of the truth without taking care whether it be conforme unto the Ancients or no for sure we are all truth is conforme to that it should be abstracting from the consideration either of Antient or New and this alone may be sufficient to content any Man Yet if he would know conformity I will shew him a readier way than examination of places let him but take the voluntary confession of the Magdeburgians in their severall Centuries and he need seek no further for they acknowledge all that we desire and this acknowledgement of theirs cannot but satisfie for they make it neither out of ignorance of the truth nor out of affection to us C. 5. Answ To the fifth Chapter Section 1 Your fifth Chapter is a very long one and by that length and the contents of it puts me in mind of him that owing his Fellow Sixpence being not able to pay him offered him a hundred Counters one after another in a sudden motion of his hand in hope that at length his eyes might dazle and take some one of them for coyne or if not yet rather chuse to lose his Sixpence than to venture so many cheats by awaiting that payment For I am perswaded that when I have but repeated to you his Lordships Argument in the fourth Paragraph you will spare me the paines of shewing that you have not answer'd it by confessing you have not said one word to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rationall importance of it Section 2 The intent of the Paragraph is to prove that tradition or Authority of the Antients is not a proper meanes to prove the Infallibility of the Church The meanes of inferring the conclusion are First the division of men to whom this Argument is supposed to be brought into ignorant and learned Secondly the insisting on the proposition in relation to each of them to the ignorant because they cannot know to the learned because they cannot infallibly know that tradition doth prove this Infallibility Section 3 First To the ignorant proving that tradition cannot prove the Infallibility to them because the ignorant cannot know what is the voice of generall and constant tradition Which if it be true is an infallible argument to induce the conclusion for that tradition cannot prove another thing till it self be proved which it is not to him at least who neither doth nor can know it and that it is not true you doe not so much as pretend but rather help to prove it more plainly than his Lordship thought necessary to doe And this is all that you doe returne to the first part of the proofe save only by pretending that this knowledge or triall of tradition cannot be necessary to the ignorant which as it is true so is it nothing against his Lordship who had no use
to none else as for example the same species which shew me a man in generall afarre off the selfe-same afterwards when he comes nearer being distinctly perceived doe shew me that man is this individuall as Plato for example and no other For reall species doe not represent unto us Entia rationis or Individua vaga but determinate Individuals namely as often as those species are distinctly and compleatly understood As for the Circles into which both this Enquirer and Chillingworth would cast us and make us dance within them whether we will or no they are but Chymaericall conceptions of fidling and trifling dispositions which love to have toyes wherewith to entertaine themselves and in this point of resolution as we have declared it already have no semblance of reality C. 8. Ans to the 8. Chap. Section 1 His Lordship supposing in charity that you had attempted to prove the Roman Church to be the true Church by its agreement with Scripture and Antiquity which is in effect by holding the truth You plainely tell him he is mistaken in you It seemes you defie such meane waies of proving yours to be the Church as accordance with Scripture or Truth you must have it by some more noble way of demonstration and if you would stand to this peice of gallantry and never urge Scripture or Fathers to prove your opinions but content your selfe with your being the true Church to prove all after it As I confesse I should not charge on you that Circle which his Lordship doth in this particular supposing as he thought favourably to you that you had proved the truth of the Church by the truth and consonancy to Scriptures and Fathers of your doctrines so I should have two quarrels more against you in stead of that one composed First that you would disclaime Scriptures and fly to miracles for such are your reall revelations as you interpret them by the verba signorum in the Psalme the signes being there interpreted by the wonders that follow that you would fly to Gods extraordinary providence when I presume you conceive his ordinary would have served your turne for sure if at another time a man should have asked you is not your accordance with the Scriptures and Fathers a prime proofe that you are the true Church I doubt not but you would be so well natured as to confesse it and why now should the Devils infirmity the feare of a Circle make you so cowardly as not to dare to owne so popular an argument especially when your fire comes downe slowly or your bath Col the voice from Heaven which is the onely proper notion that I know of a reall revelation is not very audible to us that are afarre off nor if we were to be put upon the racke doe we know or can confesse at this day that we or any of our Fathers ever heard that 't was so ever revealed that the Roman Church is the true or the infallible Church And besides when you know we Protestants are a little hard of beliefe and dare not credit your owne report that you have such ostensions and revelations and signes when you neither produce witnesse nor tell us when or what they were but give us farther ground of jealousie by an odde phrase let fall by you that those reall revelations of yours are motives no more then of credibility when as true miracles acknowledged to be such are grounds of Faith and he is an Infidell that believes them not and to be but a motive of credibility is but a petty thing that every topicall argument will take place of probable being more then credible in the ordinary notion of the words Section 2 The second quarrell that your words have brought upon you is your telling us without proofe that it is so but onely by giving a similitude to shew it may be so and so in your phrase to be a motive of no more then credibility which in him that concludes it is so is petitio principii againe that the same motives you use to prove the truth of Christianity against Infidels will prove yours to be the true Church which being confidently said we are so vile in your eies as not to be vouchsafed so much as the mention what they are unlesse by your former words we conclude you meane miracles much lesse any evidence concerning them And yet by the way the miracles by which we prove the truth of Christianity to Infidels must be those which we meet with in Scripture and not those other in your Legends and upon a strict survey and recollecting of all them and so comming as neare to them as can be I must professe I cannot see your Churches being the true Church in those miracles neare so clearly and distinctly as I can see the man afarre off to be one of my acquaintance when he comes neare me which you undertooke I should and made me try and therefore I hope will recompence me for the losse of my labour by giving me your reasons next time for your assertion that I may try againe whether your proofes are more lucky then your experiments Section 3 But then I cannot see why you should be scurrilous upon both his Lordship and Master Chillingworth for thinking you were in danger of the Circle in which sure Baron had deprehended your Friend Turnbull and in which you had beene engaged infallibly if you had but gone about to prove your Church the true Church by the truth or consonancy to Scriptures and Fathers of your opinions which way of proving me thinkes 't is possible you may stand in need of before you come to the end of your answer In the meane as the calling downe Hercules upon the Stage was wont to be a Character of a Tragicke Poet i. e. of a fabulous wonderfull undertaker Cum fabulae exitum explicare non potuerit so to fetch us in miracles and ostensions to prove that divine truth that you confesse must not be proved by the Scripture will passe for a peice of Poetry I feare instead of a motive of credibility and those that are chearfully disposed will be apt to tell you that you were faine to conjure hard and doe or pretend miracles or else you had beene enclosed in that Circle To the 9. and 10. Sections Chap. 9. To these I answer in a word that neither the Greeke nor any other Church can pretend the Primacy or Principall succession of Pastours that is to say from the President of the Apostle Saint Peter none I say besides Rome can pretend this and without this one noâ—e can be authenticall or sufficient to prove a Church or a succession of Pastours Ecclesiasticall and so the Enquirers starting-hole in the Greeke Church into which he alwaies makes his retreat is prevented and shut up against him By this also is the 10. Section answered for whatsoever Churches claime unto succession shall be alleadged it can no way evacuate that of Rome as hath before beene shewed
Ch. 9. Answ to Chap. 9. Section 1 Your answer to the 9. and 10. Sections signifies a great deale viz that you were so put to it by the conviction of his Lordships argument that to dis-intangle your selfe you have ventured to vent a peice of very severe divinity which my charity to you makes me hope you will not justifie and if you will yet your no argument produced gives me nothing to answer nor otherwise to reply then by denying as mercifully and obligingly to the world as you doe cruelly affirme viz that without succession sufficient from Saint Peter there is no succession sufficient to prove a Church or a succession of Pastours Ecclesiasticall and this is so strange a newes to our eares who were confident that what ever you deeme of the other two parts of three of the Christian world at this present you had allowed liberty to Apostles to ordaine Churches as well as and without succession from Saint Peter and indeed that that which in the second and eighth line of your Chapter you call the Greeke Church might have beene acknowledged to be a Church in the seventh that had you not said it in the most evident tearmes None beside Rome can pretend this and without this one none can be sufficient to prove a Church c. had there been any way imaginable but this to answer his Lordship's argument I should never have thought this had beene your meaning till I see you againe owne this severe doctrine I shall not take paines to confute it and when I see that I must say that his Lordship presumed you had not been so bloudily minded when he proposed to you the argument in those two Sections Section 2 And yet after all this I doubt not but with a little change his Lordships argument will still hold against you even after you have ventured on such strange practices to secure your self from it Thus suppose you had evinced that the succession from S. Peter were infallible and so proved the Roman Church to be so because none else pretended to succeed S. Peter yet this can be no sufficient ground of belief to the ignorant who cannot have any infallible foundation of belief that the Greek Church doth not pretend from S. Peter whether by S. Mark at Alexandria who might be ordained by S. Peter whose right hand they say he was in the penning of the Gospell or by Evodius at Antioch where S. Peter was Bishop seven yeares as your owne Baronius or by any other or to the ignorant it matters not by no other known way and even to the learned it is but an accidentall argument because if any other company had likewise claimed Succession from Saint Peter as they of Antioch do it had overthrown all that probation nay it is but an arbitrary argument which the adversary can confute by but denying for if any society of Christians so called would pretend to be from Saint Peter some other way then by succeeding him at Rome or submitting to his government your Church could make use of it no longer Section 3 As for that which you adde in a word of answer to the 10 Sect. that what ever Churches claime unto succession shall be alleadged it can no way evacuate that of Rome if it be applied to his Lordship's argument it is absolutely false for if Rome's claime to Infallibility together and to succession to Saint Peter be to be proved by this because none else pretends to it which is the argument which his Lordship here confutes then sure any other Churches claime or pretending to it will evacuate that claime or title that by that argument is pretended and contrary to this there is yet nothing shewed To the 11. Section Chap. 10. What mercy God will use in pardoning the errorurs of those men who doe seeke sincerely and yet misse makes nothing at all against the ordinary provision and necessity of a guide because those misses or mistakings be cases extraordinary Besides I would know why any pardon should need for such innocent errours which be defects involuntary and so can be no crimes wherefore me thinks the discourse of our Enquirer in this Section is not coherent C. 10. Answ To the Chap. 10. Section 1 His Lordship's argument Sect. 11. is very strong against the collecting a necessity of an Infallible guide for the interpreting of Scripture from the topick of God's goodnesse by proposing another way of reconciling God's providence with his goodnesse in this matter which if it may be done concludes that other unnecessary viz. by mentioning a doctrine of more Evangelicall oeconomy in which errours may be reconcileable with mercy when God doth give grace to the diligent seeker to finde out truth or by this dilemma that without such an infallible guide upon the use of Reason in the interpretation of Scripture and search for tradition God will either give grace to finde what is so sought or pardon if he misse and so though it stand not with Gods goodnesse to damne him for every errour to whom he hath assigned no infallible way to finde out all truth yet to him that is confident that God will not damne any man upon such tearmes as the servant laid to his charge when he told him he was an austere man c. to him that teaches not such legall bloudy doctrine against God this argument of the Romanists will not be pressing at all this expedient of the Gospell-grace or Gospell-mercy being as fit for the turne of infirme soules as an infallible guide would be as indeed the state of imperfection wherein we are placed is as fit for our turnes when the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Gospell is revealed and proportioned to it as Adam's Paradise of Supernaturall all-sufficient strength and innocence would be Section 2 To all which all that you returne is only this that all this is nothing against the ordinary provision and necessity of a guide because those misses or mistakings are cases extraordinary To which I answer First that if it were supposed that against the ordinary provision of a guide the argument were not of force yet sure it might against the necessity of it and then that is all that is pretended to by his Lordship and that which alone is destructive to you and therefore 't is strange you should couple them together as so sociall things which are so distant and separable for sure though Evangelicall grace and mercy doe not exclude an ordinary provision of an infallible way but leave it in medio that God may if he will make that ordinary provision yet notwithstanding this it followes not that such a provision is required or nenessary There is a wide distance betwixt possible if God please and necessary to the vindicating of God's goodnesse now against the latter onely it is that his Lordship argues and is not at all concern'd in th' other and therefore I shall not need to examine whether the first be
religion it destructive of all others and that amongst us it is a maine principle or maxime that all other are to be invaded and destroyed by us and this it affirmed confidently though against all probability and experience It cannot indeed be denyed but truth is destructive of falshood by the owne power as light is of darknesse and one contrary of another but for externall coaction or violence we leave that to the Accusers and doe not owne it By this it is not hard to make a judgement who have been the encroachers and who have propogated and maintained themselves by violence you or we And who are the destructive party and live by the spoiles and oppression of others let not those who possesse other mens goods cry out of wrongs or make any brags of just dealing for neither of these can come well out of their mouthes This Enquirer confesseth both sides are in fault but we in more and for this assertion of his brings in some light sophistry because forsooth Protestants hold that they may erre but we maintaine we cannot and so will be sure never to mend That Protestants may erre is granted him and needs no other probation then experience whereby we finde thy have filled all this Kingdome with dissentions and these dissentions with civill warres so that by this that you have erred we know you may But so frequent possibility of erring doth not extenuate but aggravate your crime For if you may erre so foulely how dare you undertake to tutour others how prescribe Lawes with what face Persecute If your rule be so weak as it cannot containe you all in one body but lets you disperse into multitude of Sects and fall in pieces as now you doe why doe you not forsake it and seeke a better for it or else have none at all if you can finde out a surer why doe you not learne wit by experience but wallow on still in the same mire If this Enquirer speake so ill for his Clients we will not entertaine him for our Advocate The Protestants side sets downe for a rule of religion every ones private judgment in the interpretation of Scripture and so doth Master Chillingworth the disciple of Volkelius We doe all that yet we doe not please them nay more we must be punished by them for the result what is this but to bid us doe a thing and then punish us for doing it Is not this extreame perversity certainly if the rule they give be a sufficient warrant for their receding from the faith of their Ancestours and for their breaking off from the Church and standing in defiance of her then doubtlesse much more may it warrant us to continue on and to keep off from any new doctrines either of the Protestants or any other Innovatours whatsoever and sure this is great reason and cannot be gainsayed Besides if we were to yeild to whom were it to be done There is a world of distracted Sectaries now in this Kingdome all sprung from the same roll or from the rule of faith which it common to you all of which one sort imagines there is no Papacy and these were the first ring-leaders of all the rout another that there is no Episcopacy a third that there is no Clergy but that Lay-Elders is all in all and must rule the roast a fourth that there is no Church nor Church-government at all but that the Church is like a Schoole of Philosophers where every man may believe and doe what he pleases without being accountable to another or any obligation of conformity and peradventure the Inquirer was one of this number together with his confederate M. Chillingworth a fifth sort that there is no Trinity a sixth that there is no Sacrament or at least none necessary or effectuall Is it not fit thinke you that these divided Christians should come and write Lawes to others or punish any man for non-conformity nothing more improbable It is a Comedy to see D. Featly a Protestant and Page a Puritan make Catâ—logues of Heretiques and when they have done can finde no way whereby to exempt themselves nor give a reason why they themselves should not be of the number as much Sectaries as any other of the Catalogue The Inquirer charges us that because we pretend to be infallible we have lesse reason to prescribe to others but on the contrary me thinkes we should have more for as he who is really infallible is fittest to guide and governe others so he that thinkes himselfe to be is at least in his own judgement more fit than he that does not He addes that this pretence of infallibility makes us sure never to mend or as his Schollar Chillingworth speaketh makes us incorrigible True if it were a meere pretended one but that is not yet proved either by him or any although he say here in this 28. Section he undertakes to give reasons why the Church of Rome is fallible But if on the other side it be a reality and that the Inquirers reasons are but pretended then surely will not this infallibility keep us from mending but contrariwise from erring or having any thing to mend or which is all one from any errours to correct And thus we see that our Religion is maintained by the selfe same arts that bred it that is to say not by force or violence but by reason and revelation and spirituall industries contrary to the surmises of this Inquirer C. 16. Answ to Chap 16. Your doctrine of damning all that are out of the Church of Rome you have enlarged much above the occasion that invited you to it for all that his Lordship had said on that theme was onely this that your certaine and undoubted damning of all out of the Church of Rome averseth him from it Which if it be true you cannot blame him for sure they that heare the punishment of judging Mat. 7. being judged of the Lord will have little love to that piece of sensuality or consequently to the religion that requires them to runne upon this danger And that the charge is true of you you doe at first acknowledge by labouring to prove that there is no uncharitablenesse in it Secondly that it is necessary for you to maintaine or that otherwise you must fall into some great absurdity particularly this that there is any Church but that which is governed by the See Apostolique which is a rare petitio principii againe and saves us the paines of saying one word more in defence of the truth and justice of those true words of his Lordship For indeed that enclosure of the Church Christianity and Salvation to those that are under the Roman submission is the uncharitablenesse that you are charged of The envy of which it seemes after all your confidence you are willing to remove from you and therefore adde an handsome lenitive to keepe any from thinking that your doctrine is rigorous or harsh And truly if you might be taken at your
Paragraphs than convincing Reasons against your Infallibility is so easily rejected or forgotten by you that now you cannot acknowledge ever to have heard any such on that Theme And then I shall not attempt to hope to have so much either Logicke or Rhetorick as to make that impression on you Section 3 Onely let me desire you to consider the ground of your last period but one that certainly it is better to be perswaded though falsely of an Infallibility then to be sure to have none Section 4 Where first you must if you speake intelligibly intimate that your errour is better not onely than another errour but than truth for the Infallibility you suppose to be an errour when you so speake but the no-infallibility you doe not suppose to be no-truth Section 5 But then Secondly I am so farre from this opinion of yours that I conceive it hard to imagine any errour that could doe so much harme as this of the pretended Infallibility supposing it as now you doe to be an errour for that which brings a certaine possibility if no more of all errours after it and leaves no one falsity out of the Creed that 't is possible for all temptations to perswade your Church is certainly a complicated errour and may well be called Legion for nothing else can be so numerous as this I 'me sure not the believing you fallible though you were not so For that would be but one errour and no other necessarily consequent to it it being very possible for him that hath that opinion of you to thinke every thing else that you thinke to thinke you actually in the truth although it be possible you may be in the wrong Not to mention the great injury that that Infallibility if it did belong to you would in one respect be apt to doe you I meane to deprive your Church of all reward for any truths you preach there being no matter of reward where there is no possibility of doing otherwise nor capacity of a crown where for want of a pâ—ssibility of being overcome there is also an impossibility of obtaining victory Section 6 Thus have I given you an impartiall account how much or rather how little your Papers have wrought upon my understanding and truly as the end of my writing any thing was that I might satisfie your judgment so the maine end of my enlarging to so many particulars and as you may see by the expressions of my then-present-intentions at the end of the first Chapter to a length which I had resolved against by examining almost every period in your seven shâ—ets was to satisfie your desire signifiâ—d in putting your Papers into so many hands that to tell you truâ— after I had read them over and declined the having any thing to doe with them once then within few daies after found another way to come to my hands againe so that it had not beene civility toward you to have put you to any more trouble or farther to have tempted you to thinke your selfe victorious To fortifie you the better against that temptation I have beene perhaps more plaine and punctuall sometimes then would otherwise have beene necessary and if when you have read it over you finde any such plainnesse to have beene without cause upon your signification of your seâ—ce of any such my offence I will promise to aske your pardon meane while I shall not trouble you with any farther thoughts of continuing this Controversie peace and unity and amiâ—y of pennes and hearts being much a more lovely thing but desire that if any thing in your Paper as farre as it presses his Lordship be in your opinion unsatisfied it may in few words without such a large trouble as this be mentioned by you and then friendly debated betwixt us at any time of meeting of which whensoever by the meanes that this came to my hands you shall signifie to me your pleasure I shall not faile to serve you being indeed resolved never to be thus injurious to my Reader againe in civility to any man From my Study Sept. 23. 1645. An Appendix or Answer to what was returned by the Apologist TO this Reply of mine what was by the Apologist returned in the Margent of my Paper shall be now distinctly set downe as the Preface promised with a direction by some Letter of the Alphabet to that part of any Chapter of the discourse to which each of his Annotations were applied and affixed And for Answer to them I shall not need enlarging In the Introduction at the letter A this Annotation was set in the Margent I know of neither Scoffes nor Triumphs Answ That there are such the Reader will give credit to his owne eyes if he review the latter part of your first Chapter as also the close of the 8 and of the 15 Chapter And that you ought to know them i. e. acknowledge and reform them as being contrary the former to that Charity the latter to that Meeknesse which our Saviour left in charge with those that would be called by his name I hope you will discerne and confesse with me C. 2. B. the Annotation is I doe not treat here what is done by some but what in propriety of speech ought to have beene done To this I answer first That it being true as this Reply confesses that some Romanists used that stile of Catholique Roman Church though this Apologist did not This is fully sufficient to justifie his Lordships title because he was not bound to foresee that this Apologist would reforme the stile of others And secondly though it be not propriety of speech yet was that no argument neither because his Lordship that holds that Church fallible in greater matters might conceive it possible for them to be so in matter of propriety of speech nay was confident that so they were being not able to disbelieve his eyes and eares that of this they were guilty as improper as it is But then thirdly the matter is yet more cleare against the Apologist for though his Lordships title did not presage yet I which had read that Answer could see that he himselfe said that the Church Catholique was the Roman and the Roman the Catholique and that is the thing which I affirm'd from his owne words in that place to which that Annotation is prefixt And therefore for him to say that in propriety of speech this ought not to be done as it is an accusation of himselfe who was guilty of that impropriety so is it not a confutation of me who onely said he was so Ib. C. We speak here according to the rules of formall predication not for reprehension of the Enquirer but for rectifying the manner of speaking and stating the Question rightly Answ 'T is not imaginable how this note could advantage the Writers cause In the very place to which this note is affixt I am a proving by rules of formall predication that by what is said by the Romanists and
please to give over this course of denying conclusions and not considering premises I will soone obey your advise and resolve to leave off contending Ibid. B. Our Authours have proved all that we in defending doe affirme and if the Enquirer had impugned their proofes we then would have tryed to defend wherefore that which we affirme and declare doth not rest upon a bare affirmation although I prove them not in this place as being here a meere Defendant and not an Arguer Answ This annotation being upon the same occasion and in substance the same with the former is already answered Onely I shall adde that if you affirme ought which your Authours in other Bookes bring proofe for this will not excuse you from a necessity of answering his Lordships arguments against that conclusion of your Authors or if it doe you must not passe for a Defendant His part it is to ward the Adversaries blowes and if he make a thrust himselfe he then turnes Offendent or Arguer and when he doth so he must take care his weapon have some edge I meane his affirmations some proofes annext or else they will wound no body As for the Enquirer i. e. his Lordship it was not his present taske to descend to an enumeration and impugning of all your Authours arguments though yet those which he could thinke of as your chiefe he hath insisted on and were he alive he would from your dealing here have little encouragement to seek out for others his intention was to frame arguments against your conclusion and if you had denied or answered them you needed not to have troubled your self to affirme any thing or if out of designe or ex abundanti you will you must be content to be call'd upon to prove it For call your selfe what you please you must be an Arguer when you so affirme Ibid. C. Yes sure by consequence it is Answ I am forced to aske your pardon if I know not certainly to what part of my discourse this Annotation belongs whether to the end of one period or the beginning of the other Yet it falls out luckily that which soever it is it is againe the denying the conclusion which you are very subject to for the end of the former period is the mention of a conclusion deduced from grounds immediately before specified And the beginning of the second period is a negation of mine with proofe immediately following it and before I come to the proofe For though c. you presently interpose your Yes sure by consequence it is but will not consider me so much as after my example to give the least proofe for what you say or take notice of that proof of mine C. 7. Answ to C. 7. A. I make no distinction here but suppose it made and also manifest Answ I only said you had given a distinction not made it and that supposed it made also and I then conteined my selfe from taking any exceptions to it onely I told you the applying of it to that place would have afforded some game if I had been so sportingly disposed And to that I pray consider how pertinent your Annotation hath proved I will not be provoked to adde more Ibid. B. Your part was to have confuted what I say and not so often and to no purpose repeat this Petitio Principii Answ If it be a sufficient confutation of any Sophister to finde out and tell him of his sophisme which ipso facto is worth nothing when 't is discovered as the title of Aristotles Booke of Elenchs supposes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being defined by Varinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a discovery of that which was hid and 't is manifest by comparing 1 Cor. 14.24 with v. 25. Eph. 5.13 then have I obeyed you in confuting what you say though I take not your advice for the way of it And indeed if it should be in any Duellers power to prescribe to his Adversary when he is in his danger that he shall not wound him this way but some other or if it were regular for you to forbid me to tell you of a Petitio principii when you are clearly guilty of it and when to evidence that against you is not onely the shortest but most logicall most expedite and most clear way of redargution your Adversary might be weary of playing out the prize though he were sure to conquer in it I shewed you that an Answerer might so carry the matter as to be guilty of Petitio principii and 't was but passion in you to check or tell me 't was to no purpose that I said you were so C. 8. Answ to C. 8. A. We have done it and doe it continually when occasion requires Answ I beseech you read over those lines of mine to which your Annotation is affixt and speak your conscience whether you think 't was fitly noted If you can be so partiall to your own creature I will not contend with you but onely tell you that as I conceive it impertinent so I see apparently that 't is contrary to that other speech of yours which within three lines I there recited from you For if you doe it continually i. e. prove the Roman Church to be the true by its agreement with Scripture c. as here your Annotation saith you doe how could you say his Lordship was mistaken in supposing you did so I wish you had first read out to the end of the period and then I suppose you would have fitted your Annotation to it the better Ibid. B. I doe not disclaime Scripture though I doe not hold it to be the first or formost proof either of the Church or of Christian Religion and would know how you your selfe would convert an Infidell or Atheist by Scripture beginning with that proof Answ You must againe remember what my last Answer mentions that in that place when his Lordship had supposed you to prove the Roman Church to be the true Church by its agreement with Scriptures and antiquity which is in effect by holding the truth you plainly tell him he is mistaken in you On this ground I must conclude and thinke it proved by that confession that you doe disclaime Scripture as farre as I said you did i. e. not to all purposes but to that of which the discourse was viz to prove your Church to be the true Church And 't is not enough to say that you doe not hold it to be the first or formost proofe c. For if it be used by you as any proofe at all that will also be a very probable meanes besides that it makes it evident that his Lordship was not mistaken in supposing it so to bring you into the circle which you were so carefull to avoid You see I am cleare from your Animadversion and so have no occasion to enter into that new controversie whether the Scripture be the formost proof either of the Church or of the Christian Religion though sure it may be
one without being the other it may be the formost proofe of evidencing which is the true Church to them that are supposed Believers and none else will be fit for that enquiry yet not be the first meanes to prove Christian Religion to Unbelievers And yet I shall not be over-coy nor make much scruple to tell you my opinion of this also that I would not begin with an Infidel with that proofe to either purpose as supposing he did believe it or that it would of its owne accord attract his beliefe infallibly but for Christianity it selfe I should first labour to win somewhat upon his affections by converse and by shewing him the excellency of the Christian precepts and the power of them in my life bring him to thinke my discourse worth heeding then when I had gotten that advantage I would relate the rem gestam of Christianity where all the acts and miracles and passages of Christs life would come in then if he doubted of the truth of it tell him the authority by which it comes downe to us in a continued undistributed undenied tradition from those that were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oculate Witnesses of Christ and the whole matter and to as good an advantage as I could compound the severall motives of Faith together which if you please you may view at leisure in Grotius de verit Chr. Rel. and when by these meanes I had converted him I should then by Scripture and antiquity which would now be of some authority with him and not by miracles attempt to manifest to him which were the true Church To which end it may be worth your remembring that your Apostle of the Indies Xaverius thought fit for their use to compile a double Gospel one of Christ another of S. Peter by the authority of one of them to teach them Christianity of the other the supremacy and infallibility of S. Peters chaire But I shall not give my self liberty to enlarge on this Ib. C. I deliver the method and how it may be I also affirme or declare that it is I was not in this place to prove but to defend against the Enquirers arguments and no other and therefore those two quarrels needed not Answ The designe of most of your Notes is to save your selfe from the necessity of proving any thing that you affirme whereas it might be but an act of a little supererogating charity if you would sometimes prove your assertions even when by strict law you were not bound to it But Sir I will not require your almes but onely your justice and though that will not oblige you to prove when you onely defend i. e. when you onely deny the premises of his Lordships arguments c. or when you are strictly an Answerer yet when instead of that you confront any affirmation of yours to his Lordships conclusion as here you doe and in all places when we charge petitio principii upon you I must then be pardoned to put you in mind of your duty which is that of Arguers then and not of Respondents either to prove what you so say or not to think you have convinced any man They that cannot answer one argument produced against them may yet think fit to make use of some argument for them hoping that may prove as convincing on their sides as that against them and so by divertisement put off the heat of the impression and this you have been proved to be often guilty of and 't will satisfie no man to say that you neither are nor because Defendant can be guilty of so doing Ibid. D. Sure he hath not for Turnbull hath vindicated himselfe Answ If every reply were a Vindication then you may have affirmed truth and then these few marginall notes of yours such as they are would be your Vindication also and then I suppose you will give your free consent that they be printed But the task would be too long to disprove what you have now said for it would require the examination of all those writings betwixt the two Combatants and when that were done you would think perhaps that Turnbull were vindicated and I that he were not I shall onely tell you that you had beene so concluded in a circle infallibly if you had asserted that method which his Lordship there disproves which is enough to vindicate his Lordship against those that doe assert that method as sure some Romanists doe and against them he there argues and not against you or any in that place which renounce that method Ibid. E. If our Church be the true Church it must be proved firstly as Christianity is first proved that is to say by motives of credibility and supernaturall ostensions or acts not of naturall and ordinary but supernaturall and extraordinary providence and he that will not prove Christianity by this way will not prove it at all After this done Scriptures and Fathers doe come but not before and this way is not new but the way of the Antients Answ I have here no necessity of re-examining of the means of proving Christianity to an Infidell it will suffice to remember that those meanes which are necessary to that may be unnecessary to prove which is the true Church because now to him that is converted as he that will judge betwixt true and hereticall is supposed to be other meanes may suffiently supply the place such are Scripture and Antiquity which to an Heathen are of no authority but to a Christian or suppositâ fide are and being so as I conceive you will not think fit to deny may well be made the umpire betwixt us who are I hope allowed to be Christians still by the consent of parties or if we are not our pretensions to miracles wil hardly gain any credit with them that have that prejudice against us Mean while I must remember you that motives of credibility as you call them are but weake premises to induce a conclusion of such weight as the choice of religion is I will tell you what I should have said instead of it Motives of excessive probability of the same or greater force then those on which I ground and build the most considerable actions of my life and which as formerly I told you if I will dis-believe I have as good reason to mistrust the wholesomenesse of every dish of meat I taste on which 't is physically possible may poison me but yet none but Hypocondriackes think it will or phansie it so strongly as to abstâ—ine the security of any title of estate I purchase or possesse the truth of any matter of fact in the most acknowledged history or tradition among men that I daily talk of All which though they produce not nor are apta nata to doe so a science or infallible certainty cui non potest subesse falsum yet doe they or are very sufficient to doe so a Faith or fiduciall assent cui non subest dubium of which I doubt no more
then of the demonstrated probleme before me a certainty of adherence of which the believer is as fully possest and from it receives as strong motives to doe any thing proportionable to that belief as if the certitude of evidence were allowed him And this I conceive is a degree prettily advanced above motives of credibility for such is every the lowest probability nay almost possibility and non-repugnance whatsoever is possible to be being in it self and in case the opposite ballance be not otherwise weighed down credible i. e. possible to be believed also But this by the way and ex abundanti C. 9. Answ to C. 9. A. Why cannot the simple know this viz. that the Greek Church doth not pretend from Saint Peter as surely as they know the whole Christian Church pretends from Christ and from no other Answ Sir you are a little too hasty in your annotation for if you had but read on to the next lines you had received the answer to your question so far as my discourse is concerned in it viz. a specifying of divers wayes by which 't is possible the Greek Church might and one whereby one part of it doth pretend succession to S. Peter And then that which so manifestly may be and is will not I hope be so easie for ignorant men to know surely that it is not or so surely as that the Christian Church pretends from Christ and from no other Which yet if it have any difficulty in it not intelligible to some ignorant men I take no pleasure in frighting any with an apprehension that God wil ever damne those ignorants for not being sure of what is so difficult so their lives be believing and Christian and agreeable to what they doe know of Christ. C. 10. Answ to C. 10. A. No sure not against the ordinary necessity Answ The thing I say in that place is that his Lordships argument might be I shall adde is of force against the necessity of a guide meaning thereby an infallible one for such only is to our purpose and that that will serve his Lordships turne and destroy you I there farther prove by a full explication of the whole matter And therefore you must give me favour to leave out your epithete of Ordinary which you would have me interpose when my discourse in order to its end hath no need of it And if you tell me you put it in in your answer to his Lordship and that therefore I have not vindicated his Lordship from that answer unlesse I take it in also I must then confesse to you that I did not so understand your words all this is nothing against the ordinary provision and necessity of a guide that the word ordinary was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be repeated to the word necessity but onely that it belonged to provision And now that I know your pleasure I shall more clearly returne my answer that his Lordship supposes some men and I confesse my selfe to be one of them to believe that to all who follow their reason in the interpretation of Scripture and search for tradition i. e. the constant interpretation of the Catholique Church concerning any difficulty God will either give his grace of assistance to find the truth or his pardon if they misse it To which purpose you may please to compare Justin Mart. quest ◠ad Orthod and to omit many more Facundus Hermian in def 3. capit ad Just l. 11. p. 491. p. 496. l. 12. pag. 513. Now to them that so believe the argument which you fetch from Gods providence to conclude an infallible guide will not saith his Lordship be sufficient to prove it because he still will be able to say that where imperfection is accepted meanes of perfection are not necessary if God will pardon weaknesses he need not give such a measure of strength as excludes all weaknesses if sincerity though with some mixture of sinne will serve turne here in viâ we need not expect from God that integrity of faculties which either was bestowed in paradise or will be in heaven to give us an unsinning innocence And if you will still interpose that this is nothing against the ordinary necessity because these are cases extraordinary I answer that this is a great mistake For under the Gospell or Evangelicall State under which all men have beene since the promise of Christ upon Adams fall there is no ordinary necessity of never missing or mistaking our naturall state being an estate of weaknesse is advanced by Christ into such a condition not wherein all weaknesse is excluded but wherein sincerity with mixtures of slips and errours shall be accepted and this as infallibly as innocence had beene rewarded under the first covenant made with Adam in the first state To the first Covenant which is stricti juris such pardon for slips might be extraordinary but to this second whereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or gentlenesse is as much apart as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or strict justice was before this pardon for invincible infirmities is as ordinary as obligation to punishment for every slip had beene before this being a prime ingredient in that Covenant and not extraordinarii but ordinarii juris that under it such slips shall not be remembred In like manner as in this Kingdome Chancery though it be opposed to Common Law in one sence as that signifies strict law yet it is a part of our common law as that signifies the Municipall law or totall body of lawes by which this Kingdome is ruled Equity though perhaps it came in later and to repaire defects or excesses in the strict law being now as much every Subjects right and Writs out of that Court as legally required and granted and the whole processe in Chancery as clearely sec jura consuetudines Angliae and so as much Ordinary or secundum Ordinem as any thing that passes in the Common Pleas. And so much for your nice interposition of the word Ordinary to your pretended necessity of a guide where yet I might farther tell you that infallibility is not essentiall to or inseparable from a guide and therefore though the Guide were granted to be ordinarily necessary to the finding out of truth yet this would not come home to infallibility The antecedent I could make good at large if it were now seasonable Ibid. B. They i. e. misses and mistakings are called extraordinary because happening accidentally besides the provision of the law and not because they happen seldome Answ That misses and mistakings infirmities and ignorances doe happen besides the provision of the second or the Evangelicall Covenant is a mistake as was intimated then within few lines after those whereon your annotation was fastened and now at large proved in my last answer to your former annotation and I shall not need repeate it but onely tell you there is a law of Faith aswell as of workes and that in that law there is provision for errours aswell
as sinnes and that I hope belongs to all Christians for we are not under the Law but under grace Ib. C. And why so Answ I had before given you the reason viz because your discourse hath tended to inferre the one and not the other C. 14. Answ to C. 14. A. No man can binde another under paine of Anathema to beleive as he defines unlesse his definition be certaine Answ There was here very little occasion for this note For the businesse of Anathema's I had sufficiently restrained First by limiting them onely to excommunications as an act of Ecclesiasticall discipline upon the refractary and therefore Secondly not for matter of simple beleiving or disbeleiving but Thirdly for matter of disobedience to our lawfull Superiours and that disobedience againe not in refusing to submit our understandings but our wils and our consequent actions and Fourthly all this with stubbornenesse and perversenesse after the using of all milder courses And with these and the like limitations there will be no more difficulty to say an Ecclesiasticall Magistrate may excommunicate a disobedient refractary perverse Gain-sayer without undertaking to be infallible then to say a civill Magistrate may punish a Malefactour without being inerrable And therefore when you talke of binding to believe under paine of Anathema there is some mistake in that or if there were not yet Truth if it were on grounds of Scripture believed to be so would be as sufficient a foundation of so doing as the infallibâ—lity of the Judge For not onely every truth is in it selfe as certaine as that which is infallible every matter of fact that is so is as certainly true as any demonstration in Euclide and he that speakes it speakes as certainly true as if he did demonstrate yet is not in other things infallible for all that but he that beleives it with a full assent hath as little doubt of that truth as if it were before his eyes yet doth it not fide cui non potest subesse falsum on any supposition of its infallibility by which meanes though he pretends not to infallibility yet having no degree of doubt he hath that on which he will confidently build any action and even lay downe his life for such truths if they be of weight which if it be not ground enough to proceed on to an Ecclesiasticall censure against the stubborn and perverse you are very mercifully disposed and I will not provoke you out of it but rather give you my suffrage that no man be thus censured for matter of opinion but upon that light which is clearely deducible from the Scripture or universall tradition and then I shall confesse my sense that to anathematize men for any matter of doctrine of any lower alloy is though not formally yet interpretativè a kinde of pretending to infallibility usurping as much as if men were infallible which they that have the spirit but by measure should have so much humility in themselves and charity toward others as not to be guiltie of Ibid B. The sword preserves not inward unity nor satisfies the minde Answ I had no occasion to say it did I was speaking as your answer called me to it of discipline and unity or such unity as discipline produced which is outward unity as opposed to division and Shisme and yet let me tell you it were not unpossible to extend my speech to inward unity and satisfying of the minde For suppose a particular Church to have sufficient meanes to worke in the hearts of her sonnes this inward unity viz. by setting up the authority of Scripture as it is interpreted by the Fathers and receiving with due respect and obedience all Apostolicall Traditions These if duely revered by all Sonnes and Subjects would be able to keepe all of one minde in all matters of Faith and for lower points some kinde of liberty being allowed would preserve Charity as well and then while that Church were in this happie temper you may farther suppose the sword of violence to come in and disturbe all wresting out of her hands the use and exercise of those meanes and beating downe the authoritie and taking away the reputation of them And then in the case thus set you will surely grant that the rightfull sword if it might be so prosperous as to vanquish the disturber and restore what was thus violently taken away may prove no improbable meanes of preserving even inward unity in this sence and if you marke it we spake it not in any other And yet once more if we had we might have beene justified perhaps in our saying For Heresie being a piece of carnality in the Apostles judgement 't is possible that the outward smart that comes from the exercise of the power of the sword i. e. from temporall punishments may cure that disease and perswade them who instead of pleasure from their heresie reap nothing but paine and sorrow to make better provision for their owne flesh and blood and thinke of hearing that reason to which other honest mens eares are open and then that may produce inward unity also and these mens minds may be sufficiently satisfied with that truth coming thus to them tempore congruo at a fit season of working which at another time had beene rejected You see how little reason you had for that annotation C. 15. Answ to C. 15. A. Chillingworth saith it in termes and him also I desired to answer Answ Can you thinke this faire dealing His Lordship I made appeare from his words said it not And you cannot say he did But I hil say you did say it What is that to his Lordship or to me who undertake onely to vindicate his Lordship and had not that rich harvest of leasure to thinke fit to be retained any more in other mens causes on such joylesse termes as these in which rather then I would adventure to be engaged I should be content to be thought to have no degree of kindnesse to him especially hearing that you had three great volumes prepared against Master Chill But then I pray what is the meaning of him also I desired to answer Can you thinke fit to impose a thing on his Lordship which was said onely by Master Chillingworth and when you were disproved thinke you had still confuted Master Chillingworth also when you had only falsified not confuted his Lordship Sure Sir this is not faire Ib. B. I know very well this was objected by both of them and this I desired to answer whether it were in their bookes or no. Answ Here is more of the same streine But I did conceive by your title that you had confuted his Lordships tract that was published not any unwritten discourses which we have no way of knowing whether they past or no I am sure were not undertaken by me to be vindicated I never resolved to justifie all that you could say either of them said and I might be forced to be uncivill with you if I should enter any
were an honest man this might containe in it an implicite beliefe of every Proposition by you asserted and farther by putting his Lordships affirmation by you denied into a downe right Syllogisme you after your wont answer no proofs but prove against the conclusion And truely your proof is a strange one every implicite assent must be resolved lastly into an explicite Ergo One implicite faith doth not containe another As if you should say Every subordinate cause must be resolved lastly into a first cause Ergò One subordinate cause doth not containe another the Genealogie of Abraham must at last be reduced to God therefore Abraham's Grandfather was not Father to Abraham's Father what sound of reason is there in this arguing The antecedent is the onely thing which you goe about to prove and the consequence that which we deny and therefore I shall need say no more to this Annotation C. 24. Answ to C. 24. A. We meane the fire of this world and that fire we are sure is not in all Countries appointed to burne such as doe dissent from us Answ What not to burne such as dissent in matters of faith Is there any matter of faith which is not required sub poenâ ignis I meane also with you the fire of this world If there be speake out But you have by your next Annotation in effect confest there is not and so by that confuted this for so you adde Ib. B. I make no such distinction Answ i. e. No such distinction that of matters of faith some are required sub periculo ignis some not which is in effect that in respect of that penalty all matters of faith are of the same nature Which is absolutely contrary to that former unlesse in that your meaning were that fire was not in all Countries appointed to burne Dissenters from you i. e. not in those Countries where you had not the power And that wil be but a slender obligation from you if it be acknowledged Ib. C. If you could make that appeare we were satisfied Answ It is made appeare as much as your like Assertion of your selves i. e. by our affirming it But if you will have patience to read on in that place you shall see the point stated and as much of it proved as we have need to assert in this matter Ib. D. In some places we doe make use of the Argument from Mutuall Dissentions but in this it is brought against us Answ This is clearly false for in the 40. Sect. his Lordship there mentions it as an Argument of yours and in that place becomes Respondent gives an Answer to that Argument and that is the ground of the present debate Ib. E. Our Criterion or rule of Faith keeps off dissentions when it is followed yours does not Lutherans and Calvinists follow the same rule and yet dissent and condemne one another ours doe not so but remit the differences to be decided to one and the same judge both exterior and interior Answ I was a proving by the antient Catalogues of Hereticks that there were good store of Hereticks in the world before the Reformation from which it followes that either your infallible Judge was not then in fashion or else that it is not such a soveraigne meanes or antidote against Hereticks you seem to distinguish that your rule keeps off dissentions not alwaies but when it is followed and prove that farther because you remit the differences to be decided to one and the same Judge I might answer that our rule the word of God doth so too at least in matters of faith and that any such dissention at least uncharitable censuring of Dissenters is absolutely against that rule But I conceive that is not the thing that commends a rule as a means to prevent dissentions that they that follow it dissent not for the rule if it be but one rule what ever it is will doe that but that it is able apt to keep men obedient and to restrain them from excesses not following of it Now this is an excellence that these many Catalogues of Heresies proved that you had no right to pretend to and if we have not so neither we are but Partners in this piece of humane infelicity to which as long as we carry flesh about us it will be incident for there must be Heresies among you As for your instance of the Lutherans and Calvinists dissentions and condemning one the other I must tell you that this little concernes the Church of England which alwayes disclaimed the being called by the names or owning the dissentions of Lutheran and Calvinist and professeth only the maintaining of the Primitive Catholike faith and to have no father on earth to impute their faith to I might adde more even for those Lutherans and Calvinists that if they did really follow I say not only professe but follow the same rule they would certainly agree also Ibid. F. I doe not excuse all the Jesuits from the doctrine of resisting Magistrats under colour of Religion killing Kings opposing the Order of Bishops c. nor ought you to have accused all For neither all the Jesuites nor neare all be of that mind but of the quite contrary Bellarmine Valentia Petavius and other Jesuits have written for the Order of Bishops against Salmasius and others but none at all have written against it Neither was the controversie between the Saeculars about that point as it is most evident Answ I have already obeyed your commands and indeed had no necessity to accuse all of that Order in all places It was sufficient to prove the point in hand dissentions among your selves that any considerable number were of those opinions which are the worst that are to be found among our Sâ—ctaries And it seems you cannot in your owne heart excuse all as kinde as you are to them If others in a matter of such moment are of a contrary mind this is an argument not against but for the truth of what is laid to you dissentions after all your infallible judgements For the Jesuites opinion of Bishops I appeale no farther then the disputations in the Councell of Trent and the generall pretensions of that Order to an Independency and absolutenesse from any but their owne superiour and the Pope and this though it allow Bishops over other men yet is sufficiently contrary to the Apostolick institution and practice of having all the Churches and Presbyters in them subjected to them You adde that the controversie of the Saeculars I suppose you mean and Regulars was not about that point i. e. of Episcopacy I did not say it was any farther then thus as the necessity of Confirmation is all one with the necessity of Episcopacy which truely to me seemes to be very neare it and I am sure the businesse was whether the Catholicks in England should have an Ordinary here resident or no and that Ordinary was a Bishop so that though it was not of Episcopacy in
universum yet it came to a debate whether the having Bishops was necessary or no On which soever it is it is enough to prove dissentions C. 26. Answ to C. 26. A. At least they might have been discerned as well as other errours were and the Authors of them also Answ This note being reduced to intelligible sence will I conceive be that the now Romish errours might have been discerned c. To which I answer that though they might yet First 't is possible that they might not Secondly very possible that being favoured if not brought in by those in authority among them they would not be branded or recorded for errours and then all that we their posterity can see may be onely that the tares are sowne but not punctually at what point of the night or who the man was that sowed them Ibid. B. No more for these then for other errours Answ His Lordship had occasion onely to speake of these but will say the like of all others whose originall is not discernible Ibid. C. In all ages errours were censured and condemned Answ All kinde of errours were not thought to be of such weight as that such heavy censures and condemnations which you lay on us should be fastened on them And therefore in case ours be not errours or but in materia non gravi in disputable parts as if you please to descend to particulars we will undertake to prove them those severe censures of yours being more contrary to charity may prove more dangerous to you then we shall otherwise affirme your opinions to be Ibid. D. I judge one of these two by the event and the other by the semblance of his making a search in manner as he ought Answ This is a darke speech which I doe not clearly understand if the meaning be that you judge the ill successe of his Lordships searches by the event and the fault of them by the semblance c. I must then tell you that the first is a very ill grounded judgement for no event hath proved the ilnesse of that successe unlesse like those in the Gospel you count them the greatest Sinners on whom the Tower of Siloah fell or like him of late that being willing to passe his opinion on a learned mans choice of a side in the differences in the Low Countries said onely this Illud notum est partes quas secutus non est praevaluisse si quis infelicitati hoc tribuat ego prudentiam non probo minus felicem and Busbequius tels us somewhat like of the Turkes judgments of good and bad enterprizes but rather on your owne principles I have already proved that they must be good in the successe which were so happy in proposing But then what you meane by the semblance of his making a search in manner as he ought by which you judge the fault in his searches I must confesse I doe not at all understand and therefore must be faine to confesse my selfe overcome and mastered though not by the reason yet by the obscurity of your writing and if that be a victory I wish you much good of it To the Conclusion A. I here contend no more but that our Church may be infallible notwithstanding any thing the Enquirer hath objected That she is so hath in due place been proved by others Answ If you had performed the former I meane satisfied all his Lordships arguments I should not require at this time the latter from you i. e. proving your Church to be Infallible I must then onely aske you in earnest whether you doe believe that no one of his Lordships arguments against your Infallibility for any one will serve our turne remaines unanswered by your Apology and then whether all that I have said to vindicate his Lordship be effectually answered in your marginall Notes and whether you can justifie all them against his last Reply If you are of this opinion in each I am to crave your pardon for this so gainlesse trouble but referre the matter to God and impartiall men to judge between us Ibid. B. If you would doe it we then would thinke it more than possible Answ The meaning of this annotation if it be sence must be this that if we Protestants could or would finde place in you for Scripture and Reason to make impression you Papists would then thinke it more then possible you might be deceived Which if it be the meaning I must then onely reply by prayer that God would so soften your hearts that they might be capable of that impression But if the words be indeed no sence but yet mistaken for some other words which would be sence then the likeliest thing that I can imagine is that you would have said somewhat to this purpose If you Protestants could by Scripture or Reason disprove our Doctrines we then would thinke it more than possible for us to be deceived Which though it were no huge Concession yet I should be glad to have it from you for then in effect your grounding of Faith on your Infallibility would be laid aside and then there would be no more truth in any individuall Doctrine of your Church than Scripture or Reason would inferre abstracted from the Authority of your Church which is all that at this time we demand from you And in that we are a little importunate seeing we have you now in a seeming good humour First because there is so much danger in insisting on that priviledge of Infallibility even in any particular wherein men are in the right because he that really doth stand yet may and therefore ought to take heed lest he fall but most eminently when a man chances to be in the wrong He that mistakes first in a piece of Divinity and after in a perswasion that he cannot mistake sealeth up that errour obstructs all entrance all approach all possibility of Reformation is fortified impregnable against all assaults either of reason or even the spirit of truth and by that one errour hath a kind of propriety in all other that can by the same hand be represented to him Secondly because we cannot but observe the prudence of your fellow-Champions Master Knot c. now of late who have chosen to vary the method from insisting on the severall points of difference betwixt us and them proving themselves to be the onely true Church from the particular truths profest by them and by no others to this other more commodious way of putting off all together by whole-sale of concluding the truth of all their assertions from the unerrablenesse of the Asserter manifesting that they are in the right because 't is impossible they should be in the wrong using all skill to perswade this one point and then confident on good grounds that no other can be resisted These two things put together will advertise you how seasonable an admonition it is to you that you will bestow a little paines on your Brethren to perswade them they are mortall
that the cause why none of these three can prove our Churches infallibility is not any want of infallibility in them as the Enquirer contended it was but some other different such namely as you here assigne and so the Enquirers argument is at an end even at the very beginning of it and my taske is done yet in my respects to you I will goe on farther Section 7 To your first I answer that though reason cannot it selfe alone prove our Churches infallibility yet as you acutely note Sest 3. reason can assure us by shewing us some words of prophecie or revelation from God with sufficient evidence that it is a revelation and thus reason can prove a verity be it never so inevident After this manner it is that we say reason proves our Church against which proof the inevidence of it as we see can be no impediment Section 8 To your second I answer by denying that scripture hath not beene so certainly expounded to that purpose for we say it hath been shewed by our authors at large as for example by Bellarmine Valentia Petavius Veron and others Section 9 To your 3. I answer first that 1. Irenaeus 2. Augustinus 3. Lactantius and 4 Facundus Hermanensis doe absolutely teach the Church to be infallible Secondly I deny that the Fathers teach not the Romane Church to be the true Church and contrary to your tenet I affirme that they hold that Church to be the true Christian Church as the forenamed authors have declared out of them as also Card. Perone and Coâ—ffeteau have exâ—ellently shewed Also I my selfe have endeavoured it elsewhere out of the severall Testimonies of Antiquity not to be in this place repeated Section 10 The businesse touching the motives of Faith which I with Irenaeus called Ostensions their place use and efficacity needs only explanation and ought to be admitted by every Christian and therefore begging your patience I will tarry longer upon it Section 11 We doe not goe about to prove our Church to be the true therefore because she holdeth with the truth but because we conceive we have good solid reasons to perswade us that she hath the truth These reasons have been often rendred by our Authors to whom if the Inquirer had replyed we also had endeavoured to defend them Concordance with the Scriptures and fathers we doe marshall amongst them not in the first place indeed in order of Doctrine but yet in the first in order of dignity Neither doe we aime to prove our Church by the gallantry of Demonstration or any other way then Christianity sooner or later is to be perswaded unto Infidels for we are now dealing not about a parcell but the whole frame of Christianity from the top to the foundation and the laying of the first stone which first stone we hold to be those actes of God which Psal 104.27 are called verba signotum and fitly may be tearmed signa realia that is to say sings and ostensions which be the acts of Gods omnipotence and soveraigne Government and by a morall certainty and rationall way are shewed for humane institution and instruction This sort of signes is by order of nature to have the precedence before all artificiall signes or vocall expressions of the divine will and therefore as Raymund Sebund observeth liber factorum is to be perused before liber dictorum By these signes as by the apparentiae or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Astronomy we are to get the first notions of these celestiall revolutions or resolutions of faith and though these be sure yet are they not demonstrative because no way intrinsecall neither to the revelations which they assure nor to the objects revealed which are assured by the revelations as being no causes nor effects of either nor signes inherent of those objects Section 12 Seeing then the true Catholique Religion is but the true Christianity they both of them are to be learned by the same Apparences or Ostensions more or lesse expresly understood Now while we draw nearer unto these signes and learne them more and more expresly amongst other things we may discover as good characterismes and signatures of revealed truth the Concordance of our Faith with holy Writ and venerable Antiquity which two signes without the preceding could have little force to perswade beliefe For say I were to convert an Indian I would not seeke to doe it by telling him first of all of these two Concordances mentioned which 't is like would move him but a little for though I could shew him the Bible was antient and Godly and the Fathers wise yet this would not be enough to perswade him and therefore I should hold it fit First to represent unto him some other motives as namely Propheticall predictions authorized by event miracles and miraculous operations and effects creditably recorded from age to age both in the Evangelists and other sequent Histories of whose faith a man rationally cannot doubt at least in the summe of them or the chiefe bulke I speake not here of fabulous Narrations or suspected Histories but Authours of credit and esteeme Secondly the excellency of our Faith it selfe and manner of propagation of it Thirdly the perfection of life and heroicke actions of such as doe professe it and all this after a manner not interrupted but continued from age to age and conveyed downe to us by the prime Ecclesiasticall succession not of persons onely but of Pastours in the chiefe seate and other inferiour prized so highly by Irenaeus and held a most sure note of truth and a way to confound all that doe gainsay it Lastly a consonance with Reason Scripture and Antiquity These and such like be our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these our Ostensions these be the received notices and signatures of revealed truth by these God invites us and induces us to believe and by these engages his owne veracity to warrant the act of our assent it being repugnant to the high perfection of his truth to lay upon man a rationall obligation and then desert him and to permit that the publique acts of his providence should be a snare not a direction not an introduction to truth but a seduction from it Though therefore these motives make our faith but credible in an eminent and a high degree yet the veracity of God is at hand to supply seale and confirme all and with the authority thereof to make the assurance absolute This method of resolving and reducing faith was signified by Irenaeus when as he said Post tot Ostensiones factas non oportet adhuc quaerere apud alios veritatem quam facile est ab Ecclesia sumere This way designed by Saint Augustin this is conformable to the Analytique principles delivered by Aristotle in his Organon this the beaten path of all Divines and no new invention or exotique stuffe This method we are ready to maintaine as strong and solid not permitting the believer to sit downe with a slender Socinian certainty
from you or if it should prove lesse splendid yet more tolerable to have beene ravisht from you then prostituted To the second Sect. I answer that you had said that before in annot to the concl A. And the answer there belongs to this Sect. and if you had made good what you say was your drift you should be pronounced conquerour To the third Sect. You have taken a good course to defend infallibility by setting up for it your selfe and affirming that no reply can be made to you in that matter because it depends onely upon your judgement which none can know but whom you tell it But good Sir your Authors do tell us that there is nothing infallible but the Church and when they have done so we may know your outward acts for such are your writings though your inward we pretend not to pry into To Sect. 4. I answer that one argument of his Lordships taken from your affirmed fallibility of Reason Scripture and Antiquity is most prodigiously by you call'd three pillars And how Sampson-like you have broken them downe the Reader must judge if you are so confident I have here exprest my selfe your servant by helping you to a publique tryall To Sect. 5. I acknowledge that from your owne confession I make those three arguments that neither Reason Scripture nor Antiquity can infallibly prove your Church to be infallible And To the Sect. 6. I say that the want of infallibility in those three mentioned Sect. 6. and by you confest is sufficient to prove his Lordships conclusion that they cannot infallibly prove your infallibility and this is the same that was meant by his Lordship though more explicated by me and brought home against you by way of retortion and Argument ad hominem upon your own confession And so your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was sung much too early and you must to your taske again if you will make an end of it To Sect. 7. I answer that if you had shewed the revelation on which reason inferres your infallibility your section had stood good but the totall want of that is your maine impediment To Sect. 8. Be you also pleased to produce your consent of Antiquity certainly expounding Scripture to inferre your infallibility and that shall be yielded you also but I conceive those writers of yours have not done it and whensoever you please I shall be ready to examine their testimonies with you To Sect. 9. I answer That we have allowed a sence wherein the Church universall may be stiled infallible and that to save my selfe the paines of examining your testimonies though some without examining I know to be ill cited I shall grant it in that sence to be so But then to your second proposition be it either I deny that they teach not or I affirme that it holds it matter 's little that the Roman Church is the true Church I answ That if there be emphasis in the particle the in the praedicate so that it signifie the Catholick Church in the former proposition 't is then absolutely false that the Fathers say any such thing And you are prudent to cite none to that ridiculous purpose But if you meane that the Roman Church is a true Church so you doe not meane that all it saith is true as we grant that so we challenge you to prove that ever the ancient Church thought any such particular Church of one denomination to be infallible When you please to produce your testimonies you shall receive answer to them To Sect. 10. Concerning the motives of Faith You might have spared that paines it being not at all concluded by you here or before that that infallibility is built on the same grounds with Christanity To Sect. 11. If you had never such solid reasons to perswade you that your Church had the truth as I should not need to deny were it not for your denying the cup to the Laity against Scripture and your keeping the Scripture in an unknowne tongue and some other such defects in faciendis but rather charge you that you have more then the truth viz. many errours mixt with the truth this would prove but a very weake probation that your Church is the true Church in the exclusive notion i. e. that no other is the Church but that for having the truth doth not signifie a Monopoly or inclosure of it or that no body else can have it And if by the true Church you meane no more but a true part you know we doe not question it nor affirme that your errors though many have turn'd you in non Ecclesiam into a no Church As for your Concordance with the Fathers which you say you have I answere that in those things wherein you and we consent we shall not be unwilling to grant it to you but yet must remember you that you would not allow that to be a proofe of your being infallible but in those other which we call errors in you we challenge you to produce an universall Concordance You goe on that you proue your Church by no other way then Christianity is perswaded unto Infidels I hope your meaning is that you prove your Church to be a true Church and that shall be granted you without your proofe but that it is the only true one or the infallible one I hope you have not miracles for that if you have you have trifled away a great deale of time in not telling us of them nor revelation from Heaven nor universall tradition to assure you what you affirme so confidently that the Infallibility of your Church is the whole frame of Christianity And therefore what you learnedly adde about the verba signorum or signa realia signes and ostensions c. by which you go about to prove Christianity I must professe to edifie me but little in point of the infallibility of your Church because that is so distant a thing from it To Sect. 12. Your affirmation that the true Catholique Religion is the true Christianity if that be the onely thing you aime at shall be willingly granted you all the question will be whether all your doctrines that of denying the cup to the Laity c. be that Catholique Religion And sure to him that questions that all the characterismes c. all your Propheticall predidictions will give but little satisfaction and no more will the excellency of Faith perfection of heroick actions of professors nor the conveyance from age to age by the Prime Ecclesiasticall succession of Pastors in the Sea of Rome because that of the sub unicâ specie c. which we quarrell at in you might as well be pretended to have testimonies out of the present Articles of our Church as out of these If there be any of these evidences or moreover of Reason Scripture Antiquity on your side for such controverted particulars I beseech you let them be produced or else you may be Christians but yet corrupt in these particulars your being