providence and goodnesse which Saint Augustine affirmes for his opinion directly in his Booke de vtil cred. cap. 16. saying if divine providence does preside over our humane affairs it is not to be doubted but that there is some authority constituted by the same God upon which going as upon certain steps we are carried to God Nor can it bee said hee meant the Scripture onely by these steps since experience shewes us by the continuall altercation about the right sense of severall of the most important places of it that what is contained there cannot be a competent rule to mankind which consisteth more of simple then learned men and besides the Scripture must have supposed to have beene kept in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of them which being no other then the Church of all ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved the Scripture free from all corruption then that it hath maintained it selfe in a continuaâ—◠〈…〉 isibility which Saint Augustine concludeth to be a marke of the true Church in these words in his booke contra Cecill 104. The true Church hath this certain signe that it cannot bee hid therefore it must bee knowne to all Nations but that part of the Protestant Donatist is unknown to many therefore cannot bee the true No inference can be stronger then from hence that the concealment of a Church disproves the truth of it Lastly not to insist upon the allegation of the sense of all the Fathers of the Church in severall ages which seemed to mee most cleere that which in this cause weighed much with mee was the Confession and Testimony of the approved Doctors themselves of the Protestant Church as Hooker in his booke of Eccles. Pol. pag. 126. God always had and must have some visible Church upon earth And Doctor Field the first of Eccle. cap. 10. It cannot bee but those that are the true Church must be knowne by the Profession and further the same Doctor saies how should the Church bee in the World and no body professe openly the saving truth of God And Doctor White in his defence of the way cap. 4. pag. 790. The providence of God hath left monuments and stories for the confirmation of our Faith and I confesse truly that our Religion is false if a continuall descent of it cannot be demonstrated by these monuments downe from Christs time this appeareth unto mee a direct submission of themselves to produce those apparent testimonies of the publique profession of their faith as the Catholikes demand but this I could never read nor know of any that performed For D. White himself for want of proof of this is fain to say in another place in his way to the Church p. 520. The Doctors of our faith have had a coÌ„tinual succession though not visible to the world so that he flies from his undertaking of a conspicuous demonstration of the monuments of his faith to an invisible subterfuge or a beleefe without appearance for hee saith in the same Book in an other place pag. 4. All the externall government of the Church may faile so as a locall and personall succession of Pastors may be interrupted and pag. 40â— We doe not contest for an externall succession it suffiseth â—hat they succeed in the Doctrine of the Apostles and faithfull who in all ages did embrace the same truth so as here hee removeth absolutely all externall proofes of succession which before hee consented to be guided by I cannot say I have verbally cited these Authors because I have translated these places though the Originall be in English yet I am sure their sense is no way injured and I have chosen to alleadge Doctor Whites authority because he is an Orthodox professor of the Protestant Church the reflection of the state of this question wherein I found the Protestants defend themselves onely by flying out of sight by confessing a long invisibility in their Church in apparence of Pastors and Doctors left mee much loosened from the fastnesse of my professed Religion but had not yet transported me to the Catholike Church for I had an opinion that our Divines might yet fill up this vacuitie with some more substantiall matter then I could meet with so I came back into England with a purpose of seeking nothing so intentively as this satisfaction and to this purpose I did covertly under another mans name send this my scruple to one in whose learning sufficiencie I had much affiance in these termes Whether there was no visible succession to be proved in the Protestant Church since the Apostles time downe to Luther and what was to be answered to that objection Besides the confession of invisibilitie for so many ages to this I could get no other answer but that the point had been largely and learnedly handled by Doctor White and many others of our Church upon this I resolved to informe my selfe in some other points which seemed to mee unwarrantable and superstitious in the Ceremónies of the Church of Rome since I had such an inducement so little satisfaction in a point which seemed to mee so essentiall and in all these scruples I found mine owne mistake in the belief of the Tenets of the Roman Church gave me the onely occasion of scandall not the practice of their doctrine and to confirme mee in the satisfaction of all them I found the practice and authority of most of the ancient Fathers and in the Protestant Refutation of these Doctrines the Recusation of their Authorities as men that might erre so that the question seemed then to me whether I would rather hazard the erring with them then with the later Reformers which consequently might erre also in dissenting from them since then my resolution of reconciling my selfe to the Roman Church is not lyable to any suspition of too forward or precipitate resignation of my selfe my judgment may perchance be censured of seducement my affection cannot bee of corruption Upon these Reasons I did soone after my returne last into England reconcile my selfe to the Roman Catholike Church in the belief and convincement of it to be the true ancient and Apostolicall Church by her externall marks and her internall objects of faith and doctrine and in her I resolve to live and die as the best way to salvation when I was in England I did not studie dissimulation so dexterously as if my fortune had read it to me nor doe I now professe it so desperatly as if it were my fortunes Legacie for I doe not believe it so dangerous but it may recover for I know the Kings wisdome is rightly informed that the Catholike Faith doth not tend to the alienation of the subject it rather super-infuseth a reverence and obedience to Monarchie and strengtheneth the bands of our obedience to our naturall Prince and his grace and goodnesse shall never finde any other occasion of diversion of them from the naturall and usuall exercise of themselves upon
contend no longer But wee renounce all men alike as inventors of Religion or any part of it but hold only the Apostolicall doctrine of the ancient Primitive and Catholike Church presume not to coine any new Creed Yet we are not unwilling to grant that Luther was one but not the first of many that restored the purity of the doctrine which had been long smothered by the Papacie our faith if you take in the whole is no other but what is exiconized in the Apostles Creed included in the Scriptures If you take it in a lower and straighter way for so much of it as is opposed to the corruption of popery you must remember that these points are neither the whole nor greatest points of faith there are not any points of our faith but we are able to shew they had mayntainers few or many in all ages since the Apostles time and every of these ages those substructures of Popery opposed some by one man some by an other I wonder therefore to see you carried away with that common and triviall calumny that Luther was the inventor of our faith and why say you that for the intervall of 800 yeers before there was no apparent profession of faith different from Rome and this you collect by historicall search of all the stories and Records Ecclesiasticall and Civill It seems Italy affords you no coppies of our Writers else might you see in them a list which they carry out through all these spaces and shew you that most of our tenents have had the suffrage of the learn'dst of Romes side and how many men in the decursion of time from the ancientest of Fathers have declared themselves and some of them apparently yee earnestly contended for the truth of our doctrine And where you object that Waldo Wickliff Hus had scarce any relation to the professed Protestancie if you meane because we disclaim those horrid opiniōs wch are put upon them how true God knows therein you say truly Neither they to us nor we to them have any relation but in the main points of doctrine touching faith and opposition of the superstitions and usurpation of the papacie wee have a joynt consent of all the best Writers Historians and Divines of both sides that they and we consent in one It is strange therefore to say that these and wee had no relation to the Protestant profession who for substance of Religion held as we doe their errours only we own not and the consent of times doe all agree that the Waldenses flew out against their corruptions 400 yeeres before Luther was borne nay saith Renerus Quidam dicunt quòd secta illa duraverie à tempore Silvestri alii quod à tempore Apostolorum deriving their fundamentall doctrine from the time of the Apostles nor were they few sed multiplicati super arenas maris nor plebeians only sed principum favore armati As the Kings of Arragon the Earles of Tholouse and many moe So that there are witnesses more then sufficient that there were many who opposed themselvs to the Papacie in the Protestants tenents long before Luther This is the first supposition failing I will now let you see the mistakes in the subsequent passages and open to you my self hoping yet that I may draw you againe to me You as you conceive having shewed a defect of visibilitie in our Church till Luthers time labour to prove a necessity of visibilitie to every true Church if it were granted that it were simply necessary to the essentiating of a Church to be able to demonstrate in all times both the visible number of professors of the truth as also a visible succession of Pastors we are able to demonstrate both these for our defence to bee as unquestionable in our Church as in the Church of Rome they that are otherwise minded will account this a bold undertaking but it is no hard matter to do Wherefore the vanitie of that question to aske where our Church was before Luther becomes not any man that hath read any thing of our Church monuments But you would seeme to mee to prove it two wayes first by the testimonie of our owne Divines Secondly by argument By testimonies of our Divines you would have Doctor Field Doctor White and Master Hookes to confesse needfulnesse of visibilitie and yet for their own Church fly to latencie For the second you instance Doctor Whitaker and Doctor White one of them to confesse our Church for many ages to have beene in a secret solitude and the other to let goe his defence of visible succession by flying to an invisible subterfuge of non-apparency if you had better perused the truth of those Writers they would have given you full satisfaction but you mistake both the persons and the points These made a demonstration of those 3 points First that neither the Churches obscurity is repugnant to the visibilitie of it Secondly nor the visibility of it such as excludes all latencie Nor yet the latencie of Orthodox Christians in the swaying time of Popery such as had not requisite lineaments of an accomptable visibilitie But you must know that visibilitie doth not alwayes carrie the same height but admits of degrees so that wee cannot say that that wants visibilitie which hath it in a lower degree The Sun compared with it selfe is in a degree visible though in a mist yet not so cleerly visible as when it shines out so it is with the state of the Church because her splendour is not in termino but such as receives degrees by augmentation or diminution like as the Sun is as truly visible under a cloud as in his brightnesse though not so cleerly visible though not to admit the Church to be visible except shee be glorious is an errour for there 's a variation of the Churches visibilitie in respect of her object the want of which consideration I believe is one cause why so many deceive themselves in this point secondly there is another diversity which ariseth from the visible object some may see and will not there the fault is not in the object but in the beholders Philosophers say Visibilia non sunt minus visibilia cum non videntur quam quando videntur The objects of sight remain still discernable when they are not discerned so it is with the Church there are strictures of visibility discernable in her obscure condition but it is possibile non visum which fals out when men will not open their eyes or they shut them on purpose which hapned in the prevailing times of popery when this notwithstanding yet there were lights which appeared by the defence of the truth and the discovery of errour in every age of the intervall But sure our men labour in vain to demonstrate that visibilitie whilst they of the Papacie are so dis-affected as not to acknowledge it upon any terms otherwise this controversie had long since been ended if they had been as well disposed to see as we
those that have had the honour to have been bred with approbation of fidelitie in his service nor can I feare that your Lordship should apprehend any change in my duty even your displeasure which I may apprehend upon this mis-interpreted occasion shall never give me any of the least recession from my duty in which profession I humbly aske your blessing as Your Lordships obedient Sonne W. Mountagu The Answer Walter YOur Letter sent from Paris tels mee how much debate you had with your selfe whether with silence to suspend my beliefe or by a cleere profession to assure mee what you feared to present mee but what was most satisfactory to the first dutie to GOD that you thought most justifiable to your derivative dutie to nature therefore resolved to give me an ingenuous accompt of the declaration you had made then had you asked my counsell before you signified the resolution it would have shewed more dutie in you and bred lesse discontent in me but think how welcome that Letter could bee that at once tels of the intention and signifies the resolution Say you could not expect from me so much Theologicall Learning as to satisfie your scruples yet it had beene a fair addresse of a sonne to a Father in a matter of that importance nor are you ignorant of my care I dare say knowledge studied for the settlement of my children in that true faith which their father professed and the Church of England hath established Therefore it would have beene your greater justification and my lesse sorrow so to have lost your selfe with love that I could not have held you in with religious reason Happily you will returne upon me the misconstruction of that speech If any man come to mee and hate not his father he cannot be my Disciple But I must tell you that by this post-dated duty you have trespassed upon loves duty for you have robbed mee of the meanes of helping you with mine advise which as it is the best part of a fathers portion to give so it is not the least testimonie of filiall duty to aske Now to lay such a blemish upon all the cares of your former education as not to think mee worthy to see the ayme untill you have set up your rest is such a neglect that without over-much fatherly candor cannot be forced into an excusable interpretation It makes me suspect that some politike respects or private seducements if not discontentments have wrought upon you Policie and Religion as they do well together so doe they as ill asunder the one being too cunning to be good the other being too simple to be safe But upon policie to change Religion there is no warrant for that lesse for discontentments or upon seducements When I looke upon your Letter which you termed an ingenuous account of your self it seemes to mee not an account of your new professed Religion but rather an exprobration of mine and so of ours of the Church of England Had I knowne the doubts before I might have beene an adviser but objecting them after you had resolved you call mee up now to be a Disputer although I be of his opinion who thought that truth did oftentimes suffer by too much altercation it being a common errour amongst great Clerks to contend more for victory than for veritie yet since you have so punctually led me into it though it be contrary to my first resolution of silence else you had heard from me sooner and finding that the Letter you sent mee had a farther reach then to give me satisfaction else the copies of it would have not beene divulged before I came to receive it and uses made of it to my discomfort I therefore thought my selfe tied to give you an answer lest those of your new profession should think as some of them say that a new lapsorian was more able by a few days discipline to oppose our Religion then an old Father and long professor was able to defend it Having this tie upon me I hope on the one side our learned Divines will pardon mee if for my sonnes sake I dip my pen in their inke and you on the other side will lay mine arguments more to heart as proceeding from the bowels of a Father then if they had been framed by the brains of a learned Divine In this case also I have some advantage of other men who though they might write more learnedly yet cannot doe it so feelingly for mine interest is not only in the cause but in the person for whom I might give an account if there be fayling in my part to reduce him to truth A person whose Letter I take into mine hands as he did the Urne of his sonnes ashes to shed over it veras lachrymas as arguments of the truth both which I hope shall perswade forceably if there be any of that bloud left in you that I gave you It is true affection is not to rule Religion yet in this way nature may co-operate with grace Your Letter sayes truly the greatest part of your life capable of distinctions of Religions hath beene in places and conversant with persons opposite to the faith I bred you in therefore you say it had beene strange if naturall curiositie without any spirituall provocation had not invited you with desire of looking upon the foundation I trode on rather then holding fast blind-fold by your education to be alwayes carried away after it In your education God knows my first care was to season you with true Religion wherein from a boy you attained unto such knowledge as Spaine will witnesse when you were but a youth how strong a champion you were for the Protestant profession The Court of France nor yet all the Princes Courts of Christendome most of which you have visited could never till now taint your faith but always rendred you sound in the Religion which you carried with you hence But now Italy hath turned you because England hath discontented you In the last journey into Italy as you said you applyed all your leisure to confirme your judgement in the doctrine introduced by your education which if you had done seriously you could not so soon nor would not at all upon so weake motives have let goe your hold for of all other their tenents the two you mentioned are the weakest and have received cleerest satisfaction whereby it appeares that you were resolved to give up the cause before you came at it and what you would not hold blind-fold to give up blind-fold which is worst Could that be a motive to your desertion of our Church as perswaded that Luther was the Father of our faith your selfe cannot forget but how that wee build our faith upon Christ not upon Luther upon the doctrine of the Scriptures not upon the inventions of men Could it be proved against us that Luther or any other man how gray-headed soever were the inventor of our faith there needed no more to be said we would
ready to shew our visibility in this question men are to consider that there is a double splendor of the Church which makes way for the visibilitie of it The proper splendour of a Church consists in puritie of doctrine The common splendour of a Church consists in the outward accommodations which appertain not to the being but the well being of the Church as temporall peace multitude of professors locall succession of Pastors yet persecution may interrupt this succession of Pastors it may cut off the multitude of professors heresie may so far prevail as to make the Orthodox Church pull in her head witnesse the time of Arianisme when few but godly Athanasius and some with him were faine to keepe in corners and of this our Divines are to be understood when they speake of our latencie that for this outward splendour it suffered a great obscuritie for divers hundred yeeres yet when it was at the lowest the doctrine was visible and some professors still in the eye of the World I would wish you well to consider the things which I shall tell you The state of the Church is so ordered by our great Master Christ that she is to expect her times of obscurity as well as her times of splendor hee hath made her estate militant and appointed her to a passive condition as well as an active designed her to vicissitudes of obscurity as well as luster and shews her no lesse glorious in her obscurity then in her triumph as Tertullian saith of vertue Extruitur duritia destruitur mollitia 2 This visibilitie represented by an innumerous multitude locall Succession Secular estate these were not considered in the first times when the Church stood sound nor in the later times when she got some recovery only in the intermediate when she lay under the crosse and were these the probats of Faith it had bin ill with the Israelites Church in the time of Elias worse with the Apostolicall Church when the Scribes and Pharisies sate in Moses Chaire worst in the time of Arianisme and in times of Antichristianisme which shall come as most Writers say 3 This glorious succession which Rome so much brags of is a deceitfull medium whereby to measure the truth of a Church because a Church may be a true Church without it and be also a false Church with it Non colligitur ibi necessariò esse Ecclesiam ubi est successio saith Bellarmine though Stapleton be of another minde Alexandria challengeth succession as well as Rome the Church of Constantinople takes her pedigree from Saint Andrew the Apostle and brings it down to our times A false Church may have succession and a true Church may want it otherwise you will grant that Rome is no true Church the Church of Rome hath sometimes lyen empty sometimes it hath carried double and both of them have bin deposed these broken links marre the chaine of that succession But because this rather concernes the persons not the thing It is otherwise to be cleerly shewed that it may be a true Church that hath not this uninterrupted succession for else no Church at all could be true in her first plantation For successions are by descent descents have no place in first originals whereas the orthodox faith doth the very first day put her in possession of Apostolical succession as Tertullian well saith That Churches wch have not their original descent from the Apostles are Apostolicall propter consanguinitatem doctrinae The place which you cite out of the fourth to the Ephesians proves cleerly the necessity of orthodox Pastors not of locall Succession you may hereby see how in the informing of your selfe in this particular you are overtaken this thing also much troubles me that your Letters said that when you last came back out of Italy you sought nothing so attentively as satisfaction in these points of controversie especially that touching the visibilitie of our Church in all ages but could receive none Could you never in all the while of your last being in England find the time to acquaint me with your desire doubtles I must say you did in this time study the dissimulation of your intention otherwise I must have known it I was heretofore more indulgent towards you for God knows it Walter the sonne of my bodie was never so deare unto me as the salvation of my sonne Walters soule your yonger yeers can witnesse how I shewed you the way which I my selfe took to settle mine own salvation for though it was my happinesse to be derived from vertuous and religious parents yet I tooke not my Religion meerly by discent but studied and examined the ground on which I was to found my faith I read both Papists and Protestants I found both confident and contradictory Et quoties palpitavit mihi tremulum cor before I setled either way sometimes thinking safest to mean well and to keep unsetled either way yet I saw a necessity laid on mee to be one of the two Churches but how to find out which of them was the true Church whereof I must be a member if I would secure my salvation hic labor hoc opus est I easily resolved there was not two Churches whereof a man might chuse which to be of and after long study I found cleerly that to be the true Church which constantly held the common faith which faith had the Scripture for the rule this known and resolved which is undoubted then I was not scared with that fearfull censure of the Roman Church which pronounced all damned that are not of that Church But how much am I distasted to finde severall arguments made in the Letter all to insinuate that the Scriptures are not a competent rule of faith and first varietie of interpretation secondly obscuritie of some places thirdly inauthentiquences of themselves fourthly their authoritie dependent on the Church fiftly the puritie of them warranted by the visibility of the Church sixtly made Authentike by the Churches authoritie strange assertions as if the true Church were not to be tried by the true faith but the true faith by the Church I know my self bound to believe the authoritie of that Church which makes Scripture the rule of faith but as for the act of any Church though it be a fit Ministry to shew me the way yet it is not of authority sufficient of it selfe to secure me of my salvation from true faith the true Church is inferr'd and which is the true Church when all is done must be tried by the Scripture but it is now with us as it was in the time of Chrysostome when there was so much question which was the true Church and men were of so many different opinions about it as none could tell what Church to bee of or what Religion was safest to trust to so saith the Father of the Scriptures which in matters of faith necessary to salvation speak so truly so fully so plainly as it is but a shift for a man
all the rest and not onely so to us but to all men whereas this though granted necessarie determin'd to his wish would indeed conclude against us but not for them since the Greek Church would put in as good plea upon the title of visibilitie as that of Rome and hee would be to begin anew with them when he had ended with us Fourthly He gives his reason If Luther could be evicted to be the Innovator his Religion was then evicted of not being the true Ancient and Apostolicall To this I answer by confessing the consequence but hee might be the Renovator and not the Innovator and then no such consequence follows Fifthly He saith we are bound to find an existence of some Professors of the Reformed Religion before Luther which requiry is grounded upon his supposition of the necessity of a continuall succession of a visible and no wayes erroneous Church Now I will first examine the sence of his tearmes By the first I conceive by a place hee cites out of Saint Augustine that he means visible to all Nations but I pray hath his been always so I mean at least for many Centuries to those Nations which Columbus hath not long since discovered By the second tearm Church I suppose he means a company of Christians holding neither more or lesse then Christ taught for in a more large sence no man denies the Church to have bin always in some degrees visible and in this sence I not onely deny it necessary that it should always be visible but that it should alwayes be for I doubt whether there be or for a long while have bin any such Next that such a one as hee meanes appeares because when catalogues have been brought of some who in all ages have differed from them in things which wee hold his side would not accept of them because they agreed not with us in al things yet when Campian intends to prove all the Fathers to be his hee useth onely this course of instancing in some wherein they agree with him though sometimes not so much but rather the contrary ought to be inferred as in the instance of Polycarpus for comparing his words with the History it will appeare that he concluded him a Papist for not being perswaded by the Pope though they differed from them in many other as indeed all the notable Fathers doe in more then one point I will therefore say that if this be required to shewing that a Church hath been ever visible it is more then either part can doe and therefore I hope they will come upon better consideration to confesse that not necessary for us to doe which is impossible for themselves For let any man look into Antiquitie I will not say without all prejudice but without an absolute Resolution of seeing nothing in it that contradicts his present beliefe and if he find not some opinions of the Church of Rome as unknown to Antiquity as either hee or I as the Popes Indulgenges having power to deliver out of Purgatory confest by Bishop Fisher and Alphonsus de Castro where they treat of Indulgences if hee finde not others at first unknown after known but not held de fide which are yet so at Rome as prayer to Saints their enjoying the beatificall vision before the day of Judgment the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and her being free from all actuall sinne If he find not some wholly unknown absolutely condemned which wee condemne as the lawfulnesse of picturing of God the Father whereof the first is confest by Baronius in the margent to an Epistle of a Pope which sayes the same and the latter is to be found in many places of Saint Austine Lactantius and others nay if he find not that all the Doctors Saints and Martyrs of the two first ages I mean as many as are now extant and speak of it held something which both parties condemned as the opinion of the Chiliasts if I say he finde not this or I shew him not that he might have found it I professe I will be ready to spend my life for the Church against which I now employ my pen So that this will be the end neither of our Churches have been always visible onely this is the difference that we are troubled to shew our Church in the latter and more corrupt ages and they theirs in the first and purest that wee can least finde ours at night and they theirs at noon And whereas hee expects that D. White should stand to this to confess his Religion false if a continual descent of it could not be demonstrated if hee himselfe please to grant as much as he exacts if he but continue in this Resolution and in this search I doubt no more but that hee will soone leave to be a Papist then I should doubt if I saw him now receiving the Communion in the Kings Chappell that he had done it already Sixthly his reason for the necessitie of the visibility follows because the cōtrary were a derogation from Gods power or providence I answer to say he could not keep the truth exactly in mens beliefe were to derogate from Gods power to say he had not given sufficient means to finde the truth and yet damned men for error the first would be a derogation from his providence the second from his Justice but to say hee suffers men to erre who neglect the meanes of not erring and that he damnes none for a meere errour in which the will hath no part and consequently the man no fault derogates from none of the three but sayes hee this is repugnant to the maine reason why God hath a Church upon earth to be the conserver of the doctrine of Christ and to convey it from age to age I answer to conserve it is every mans duty but such as they may all fail in and is indeed rather the forme of the Church then the end of the Church an exact conservation making an exact Church as a lesse perfect conserving a lesse perfect Church As for conveyance of doctrine the whole Church conveyes none whereof many if his be it have had but little convey'd to them Particular Christians especially Pastors teach others which it is every mans duty to doe when he meets with them who want instruction which he can give and they are likely to receive yet is not the instruction of others every mans mayne end But I know Master Mountague perswades himself that some body of men are appointed to convey this doctrine which men are to receive onely because they deliver it and this I absolutely deny for we receive no doctrine from the Church upon the Churches authority because we know her not to be the Church till we have examined her doctrine and so receive rather her for it then it for her Neither for the conveyance of the Truth is it necessary that any company of men in all times hold it all because some may convey some truths and