be obscure in points not necessarie to salvation by what means can they ever think to convince the Roman Church of errour in these points of difference betwixt them and her Quest 19. Seeing also that every point of faith is a divine truth proceeding from the Revelation of God and to be believed as I suppose for the present with the common consent of Protestants with an infallible assent of faith if the universall visible Church may erre and the Scriptures may be obscure as is generally affirmed by our adversaries in points of faith not fundamentall how shall such points as are in controversie betwixt us and are accounted by Protestants not fundamentall or not necessarie to salvation be discerned to be points of faith or how agreed this modern Protestant doctrine of no difference betwixt us in points necessary to salvation with that of their beginners and more ancient Predecessours who taught that the Scriptures were clear only in all points necessary to salvation and upon that pretext both affirmed that our doctrin's against them were clearly convinced of falshood by the authority of sole Scripture and allowed all lay people promiscuously to read them as being clear to them in all the points controversed betwixt us for this manifestly supses that they were held by those beginners to be points of faith necessary to salvation or fundamentalls or what means is there to believe them as points of faith seeing they can never be believed infallibly upon the Churches authoritie by reason of her pretended fallibilitie in them nor expresly for the authoritie of Scripture by reason of its obscurity in the delivery of them according to the principles of Protestants Quest 20. I demand further if the whole visible Church may erre in the definition of any point of faith whatsoever that errour must either proceed from ignorance want of light or from malice and want of vertue or goodness not the second for then the whole visible Church of Christ should not be Sancta Holy as it is believed to be in our Creed and described in the Scriptures but should become a Harlot abominable willfull deceiver of the world and a seducer of Nations in teaching contrarie to the known truth not the first for if she could erre out of ignorance to what purpose do Protestants appeal to her determination in a lawfull generall Councell in any of the points in difference betwixt them and those of the Roman Church seeing she may through ignorance erre in the determination of them as being not fundamentall according to them Neither can it be said that notwithstanding the whole visible Churches fallibility in points not fundamentall nay though it should actually erre and that errour should be evidently discovered yet even those who had thus evidently discovered the said errours were to conform themselves to those erroneous definitions of a generall Councell For if this conformity be understood of an internall conformity in judgement it is wholly impossible seeing that were to judge the same thing to be true and not true at the same time and to judge against an evident knowledge and if it be understood of an externall conformity and profession only it were manifestly impious and high hipocrisie in resisting the known truth and professing to believe that as a divine Truth revealed by Almighty God which they evidently know to be a most false errour in faith Secondly if one were to subscribe externally to conform himself to the definitions of lawfull generall Councells which one perswades himself he evidently knows to be erroneous till another Councell be assembled to correct them why did not Protestants afford this externall conformity to the definitions of the Generall Councell of Florence of Lateran and to the second Councell of Nice to omit others till some other lawfull generall Councell came to correct their pretended errours they having no other reason to reject the authority of the said Councells then that they define many things against the Protestant doctrine Thirdly seeing it was never yet seen nor can be ever made manifest that any lawfull generall Councell revoked any definition in matter of faith of any former lawfull generall Councell what hope is there that they shall now begin to do what was never done before them Fourthly if it were supposed that any such revocatorie definition should issue from them that party whose doctrine should be condemned by such revocations would accuse that Councell of errour as much as the contrary party accused the former Councell of errour in defining against them and so the controversie would remain as indetermined as it was before neither would it be possible ever to determine it fully by a generall Councell for the party condemned would still expect another Councell to revoke that definition which seems to him evidently erroneous and so there would be no end of new determinations and revocations in infinitum Yet further seeing lawfull generall Councells do not only oblige even under pain of Anathema or being accursed and excommunicated all Christians to believe and profess the doctrine which they teach them not only to be true and free from errour but to be divine Truth revealed by God himself if they should erre in any such definition they must make God the Authour of errour and untruth which quite destroyes the veracity of God and consequently overthrows the main and primary foundation of Christian faith and therefore must necessarily be held to include a fundamentall errour so impossible and implicatorie a thing it is for them to erre in matter of faith and not to erre fundamentally For either that erring Councell must define some positive errour or that which God never revealed to be revealed from God or that some true revelation of God is an errour both which contain no less malice then this to make God a lyar Quest 21. Seeing S. Paul Ephes. 4. v. 14. affirms that our Saviour had appointed Pastours and Teachers till the day of judgement as a means to preserve Christian people from being carried about with every wind of doctrine these words every wind of doctrine cannot be understood disjunctively for then if those Pastours preserved them from being seduced in one only point of Christian doctrine it would not be true that they preserved them from being carried about with every wind of doctrine but they must be understood conjunctively that is that they preserve them from being carried away with any wind of doctrine whatsoever which should chance to be buzzed into their ears by false Teachers Now seeing such winds of erroneous doctrine are raised as well in points which Protestants account not fundamentall as in fundamentalls the meaning of the Apostle must be that by means of those Pastours Christians be preserved from following any errour in faith whither it be fundamentall or not fundamentall and consequently that they can assâ—redly direct them to eschew all errours in faith which they could not do if they themselves were subject to teach them
hereticks they confess that they have now no other means to save their visible succession but by acknowledging that they succeed to the Church of Rome and other Churches joyning with her against them in all the points of difference betwixt them and her and so are enforced to acknowledge her and all those who are united to her to be true Churches of Christ and consequently to hold no fundamentall errour at all consequent to this to acknowledge that their first Authours Churches both in England and other countries wronged the Church of Rome and those others insufferably first in condemning them of Superstition Idolatrie Antichristianisme c. which are fundamentall errours in Religion and destructive of Salvation Secondly upon this pretext in destroying burning and alienating to secular uses so many thousands of their Churches Monasteries Towns Citties Castles Villages Thirdly in massacring and putting to cruell torments and death so many Priests and Professours of the Roman religion Fourthly in depriving their Bishops and Clergie-men of their respective Church-governments dignities Seas Benefices and Churches and setting up others they yet living in their places Fifthly in making it no less then high Treason which is yet in force either to be Priests or to communicate with them in many spirituall Church offices and Sacraments Sixthly in continuing to this day in a violent detaining of their Churches benefices dignities and spirituall functions from all those of the Roman Profession and holding them in their own hands and all this because they maintain certain pretended errours which they now confess not to be fundamentall nor destructive of Salvation consequently that those of the Roman Church have suffered and still suffer all these intollerable injuries for that which even these modern Authors acknowledge to be no more then a veniall or small sin for if it were mortall it would destroy Salvation so long as one willfully continues in it which they affirm it does not Further by this acknowledgement these modern Protestant Authours must confess that their former writers who were of a contrarie mind in charging the Church of Rome and the rest with her of superstition and Idolatrie c. and all those who then joyned with them and all their modern Churches and Protesters both without and within England who at this day hold it as a point of their faith to accuse the Church of Rome in the same manner erre damnably against Christian Truth and consequently are no true Churches of Christ For it cannot be lesse then a damnable errour to make it a point of their faith and religion to condemne any one much more all the visible Churches of the West nay and of the East too and so of whole Christendom for nine hundred years together of grievous superstition when upon better examination the Doctours of the same Protestant Church are compelled by force of Truth to confess that those Churches neither are nor ever were guilty of any of those horrid errours and at the most erre only venially and lightly which hinder them not either to be 1 a true Church of Christ or to obtain Salvation even while they most constantly and immoveably maintain them and accurse all who willfully contradict them or condemne them as erroneous And hence also it follows that seing those modern Protestant Authours and their partie communicate in prayer and Sacraments with the Presbyterians and Calvinists who accuse the Church of Rome of Idolatrie c. and so put it in fundamentall errour and acknowledge themselves to make one Church with them must be guilty of deadly schisme by that communion and acknowledgement and consequently so long as they continue in that communion are uncapable of Salvation Quest 12. Whether it be not a great argument of securitie to those who either are of the Roman Church or convert themselves to it that her very adversaries after so many condemnations of her to hold most grievous and damnable errours dare not now accuse her to hold any errour destructive of salvation so that the belief of her doctrine in every point their obedience to all her commands the exercise of all her practises their praying to Saints reverencing of holy Images adoring of Christ as really and naturally present in the Sacrament c. consist with salvation And though some say though they destroy not salvation yet they are dangerous points and practises weakning the foundation and endangering the destruction of it in continuance of time yet who sees not that it is more secure to hold a religion which makes the foundation only weak by their adversaries confession then to hold theirs which the contrarie party most constantly affirms to destroy quite raise the foundation of religion and to make salvation not only hard in danger but utterly impossible till it be deserted Quest 13. Whither it be a likely thing that the chiefest of the pretended errours in the Roman religion contain any danger of loosing salvation in maintaining them seeing for this thousand years by the common confession of Protestants themselves they have been universally believed and practised as matters belonging to Christian faith and dutie both by the Latin and Greek Church and so the belief and practise of them was the common way wherein Christians were saved which if it were dangerous what other safe way was there wherein Christians might be saved yet certainlie there was alwayes a safe way to Heaven And what likelyhood is there that the safe way should be wholly unknown and unpractised for so many hundred years together and the common known way according to the full belief setled perswasion of all the visible Churches of Christendom should be dangerous and unsafe or what reason can be given that the Professours of the doctrine of the Roman Church should be in an unsafe or dangerous way before Protestants begun seeing they had none in those times to shew them that they were in danger Quest 14 Whither it have any shew of probabilitie that the said pretended errours though they raise not the foundation of Christian faith as the late Protestants confess yet they may in time endanger the raising and destruction of it as they argue seeing that after the universall belief of them for a thousand years together the foundation remains yet undestroyed and entire For if a thousand years continuance of them hath stood with the integritie of the foundation what appearance is there that they will ever cause or induce the destruction of it Quest 15. Further concerning this Protestant distinction of errours in faith fundamentall and not fundamentall I demand first what they understand by fundamentall errours for if they mean any nicetie in speculation or Theologicall discourse it belongs not to the knowledge of the unlearned either therefore they must understand by a fundamentall errour such an errour in faith as destroyes salvation howsoever that comes to pass or they say nothing to the present purpose This therefore supposed to be
their meaning I demand secondly a Catalogue precise number of the fundamentall errours in faith that is how many which are those errours in faith which destroy salvation for what helps it a Christian to know that there are such destructive and damnable errours unless he know whether he hold any such errour himself or no And how can he ever be certain of that so long as he is ignorant which are fundamentall errours which not If this Catalogue be refused I demand at least some evident means or marks to distinguish errours in faith destructive of salvation or damnable from others consistent with salvation or veniall which is neither to deny any of the Articles contained in the three Creeds as some Protestants have thought for one of them puts the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son the deniall of which they neither do nor can hold to be a fundamentall errour unless they affirm the Grecian Church to erre fundamentally so denie it to be a true Church of Christ which were quite against the said Protestants seeing they maintain the contrarie Nor is the Creed of the Apostles alone a sufficient rule to determine fully which are fundamentall points which not both because there are some things in it which by reason of the lightness of the matter they contain come not by far so near the radicall and primarie misteries of Christian faith as do many points controverted betwixt Protestants and those of the Roman Church and therefore cannot with any shew of truth be termed fundamentall by Protestants such as are the circumstances of time persons as that our Saviour suffered under Pontius Pilate and no other judge that hee rose the Third and no other day c. And because some points necessarie to the subsistence of Christian faith according to Protestants are not expresly defined in that Creed as that the Holy Scriptures are the divine word of God which is the precise number of the Books of Canonicall Scripture whither there is any written word of God or no or any Sacraments c. so that a Christian finds not all fundamentall points of faith set down expresly in the Apostles Creed Neither is the Scripture a sufficient rule to know which are which are not fundamentall points For there are a thousand nay a million of Truths expressed in Scriptures which touch not immediately the foundation of faith as Protestants term it and no small number of points according to them fundamentall which are not expressed in Scripture as the number of Canonicall Books the entire incorrupt puritie of the originall in any copie or copies which is come to the hands of Protestants c. which in their principles are such points of faith that true faith and consequently salvation cannot be obtained without them For if sole Scripture as they affirme be the rule of faith and all that is in Scripture is to be believed and nothing to be believed but what is in Scripture or evidently deduced from it seeing faith is necessarie to salvation the determinate belief of all that is true Scripture from which only they say the true points of faith are drawn must be necessarie to salvation and so a fundamentall point of faith Thirdly I demand how any Christian can affirm that the denyall of any point of faith whatsoever being sufficiently propounded as such is consistent with salvation seeing all such denyalls or disbeliefs include this damnable malice of attributing falsity to that which is revealed by God himself as all points of faith are how small so ever the matter be which is revealed in them which appears evidently in this example I suppose that this sentence of Scripture Tertiâ die resurget he shall rise again the third day is sufficiently propounded to any one as a point and article of Christian faith as well according to the substance resurget that our Saviour should rise again which Protestants grant to be a fundamentall point as the circumstance of time Tertia die the third day Now suppose that some Christian to whom this whole sentence of Scripture is sufficiently propounded should firmely believe the substance or mysterie of the resurrection because he esteems it to be a fundamentall point but should disbelieve the precise circumstance of time that it was only upon the third and no other day I demand seeing both the one and the other is propounded equally as expresly contained in that sentence of Holy Scripture whither he that disbelieves that the resurrection happened upon the third day and dyes in that belief can be saved Quest 16. I demand farther that seeing S. Paul Hebr. 11. v. 1. says that faith is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the substance or ground as the Protestant English Bible of Anno 1648. hath it of things hoped for and is reckoned up by the same Apostle Hebr. 6. v. 1. 2. amongst those things which are called by him basis the foundation one of them being Faith to God And the Apostle Ephes. 2. v. 20. sayes we are built {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets which now according to Protestants can be nothing else save the writings of the Prophets and Apostles in Holy Scripture I demand whither to say that some points of Faith are not fundamentall or belonging to the foundation be not as contrarie to common sense as to say that some stone in the foundation of a building belongs not to the foundation or is not fundamentall Quest 33. Further I demand that seeing S. Paul affirms in the fore cited place Hebrews the 6. vers. 2. that laying on of hands amongst many other points is the foundation how Protestants can deny that seeing the laying on of hands is disbelieved and rejected by them in the Sacrament of confirmation and by some in the Administration of Holy Orders as a Popish superstition that such Protestants differre fundamentally or in the foundation from those of the Roman Church or if the laying on of hands belong to the foundation as S. Paul here affirmed why anointing with oyle mentioned by S. Iames should not also be a fundamentall point or why laying on of hands being only as Protestants esteem it a ceremonie not Sacramentall should be here termed the foundatìon and the substance of the Eucharist which all hold to be Sacramentall and more then a meere ceremonie should not be fundamentall or lastly what reason there is to say that laying on of hands hath a nearer connexion to the radicall and prime mysteries of our faith then many other points controverted betwixt Protestants and those of the Roman Church It is yet further demanded seeing Protestants affirme that the whole visible Catholick Church may erre in the definition of points of faith not fundamentall and seeing they affirm that the points in difference betwixt us are not fundamentall and so not necessarie to salvation lastly Seeing they affirm also that the Scriptures may