party the most Visible Catholick Church was theirs who yet had no part in it because they were not Christians as denying that which is essentiall to Christ the object of the Christian faith and therefore none of the Church and therefore though most visible and numerous yet not the visible Church And the Church which to others was as wheat hidden in this chaffe or rather a few ears among so many rares was yet Visible to it self in its Truth of faith and visible to its Enemies in its Profession and assemblies though in number far below them So also in some places it may be Latent through persecution the paucity of believers when in other places it is more Patent And its Degrees of soundness being various are accordingly variously visible One part may be really and visibly more strong and another more weak in the faith One part much more corrupt then others and other parts retain their purity And the same Countries increase or decrease in that purity as is apparent in the case of the Churches of Galatia Corinth the seven Asian Churches Rev. 2. and 3. c. Lastly note that it is only that part of the Church which is on earth whose visibility we assert though that in Heaven be also a true part of the Body of Christ. Nor is it in the same Individuals that the Church continueth Visible but in successive Matter So much for explication of the terms Thes. The Church of which the Protestants are Members hath been Visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth Arg. 1. The Body of Christians on earth subjected to Christ their Head hath been in its parts Visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth But the Body of Christians on earth subjected to Christ their Head is the Church of which the Protestants are Members Therefore the Church of which the Protestants are Members hath been visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth I have not sagacity enough to conjecture what any Papist can say against the Major proposition The Minor is proved by our own Professions As the profession of Popery proveth a man a Papist so the profession of Christianity as much proveth us to be Christians α Those that profess the true Christian Religion in all its essentials are Members of that Church which is the Body of Christians on earth subjected to Christ the Head But the Protestants profess the true Christian Religion in all its essentialls therefore the Protestants are Members of that Church which is the Body of Christians on earth subjected to Christ the Head The Major is undeniable The Minor is thus proved 1. Those that profess so much as God hath promised salvation upon in the Covenant of Grace do profess the Christian Religion in all its Essentials For God promiseth salvation in that Covenant to none but Christians But the Protestants profess so much as God hath promised salvation upon in the Covenant of Grace Therefore the Protestants do profess the Christian Religion in all its essentials The Minor is thus proved All that profess faith in God the Father Son and holy Ghost our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and love to him and absolute obedience to all his Laws of Nature and holy Scripture with willingness and diligence to know the true meaning of all these Laws as far as they are able and with Repentance for all known sin do profess so much as God hath promised salvation upon Ioh. 3.16 17. Mark 16.16 Heb. 5.9 Rom. 8.28 1. Act 26.18 But so do the Protestants Therefore the Protestants profess so much as God hath promised salvation on 2. Those that profess as much and much more of the Christian faith and Religion as the Catechumens were ordinarily taught in the ancient Churches and the Competentes at Baptism did profess do profess the true Christian Religion in all its essentials But so do the Protestants Therefore c. 3. Those that explicitely profess the Belief of all that was contained in the Churches Symbols or Creeds for six hundred years after Christ and much more holy truth and implicitly to believe all that is contained in the holy Scriptures and to be willing and diligent for the explicite knowledge of all the rest with a Resolution to obey all the will of God which they know do profess the true Christian Religion in all its Essentials But so do the Protestants Therefore c. Ad hominem I confirm the Major and most that went before from the Testimonies of some most eminent Papists Bellarmine saith de Verbo Dei lib. 4. c. 11. In the Christian doctrine both of faith and manners some things are simply necessary to salvation to all as the knowledge of the Articles of the Apostles Creed of the ten Commandments and of some Sacraments The rest are not so necessary that a man cannot be saved without the explicite knowledge belief and profession of them These things that are simply necessary and are profitable to all the Apostles preached to all All things are written by the Apostles which are Necessary to all and which they openly preacht to all Costerus Enchirid. c. 1. p. 49. We deny not that those chief heads of Belief which are necessary to all Christians to be known to salvation are perspicuously enough comprehended in the writings of the Apostles But all this the Protestants profess to believe ◠If sincere Protestants are Members of the true Church as intrinsecally informed or as Bellarmine speaks Living Members then professed Protestants are Members of the true Church as extrinsecally denominated or as it is Visible consisting of Professors But the Antecedent is true Therefore so is the Consequent The Reason of the Consequence is because it is the same thing that is professed by all Professors and existent in all true Believers and that as to Profession is necessary to Visibility of Membership and as to sincere inexistence is necessary to salvation The Antecedent or Minor I thus prove All that by saith in Christ are brought to the unfeigned Love of God above all and speciall Love to his servants and unfeigned willingness to obey him are Members of the true Church as intrinsecally informed But such are all sincere Protestants Therefore all sincere Protestants are Members of the true Church as intrinsecally informed The Major is granted by the Papists who affirm charity to be the form of Grace and all that have it to be justified And the promises of Scripture prove it to our Comfort The Minor 1. Is proved to others by our Professions If this be in our Profession then the sincere are such indeed But this is in our Profession Therefore c. 2. It s certainly known to our selves by the inward knowledge and sense of our souls I know that I Love God and his servants and am willing to obey him Therefore all the Papists Sophisms shall never make me not know what I do know and not feel what I do feel They reason in vain with me when
â—irst sense is either spoken of one that professing the rest denyeth some one or more essential Articles of the Faith or parts of Christianity or one that only denyeth not what is necessary to the Being but to the Integrality or sober and better-being of a Christian. 3. Hereticks are either convict and condemned or such as never were tryed and judged 4. Hereticks condemned are either condemned by their proper Pastors or by others 5. If by others either by Usurpers or by meer equal neighbour consociate Pastors 6. They are condemned either jâ—stly clâ—ve non errante or unjustly clave errante 7. They are either judged to be materially as to the quality of their errour Hereticks or also formally as obstinate impenitent and habitually stated Hereticks Upon these necessary distinctions I answer your Question in these Propositions Prop. 1. As the word Hereticks signifieth Schismaticks as such so Hereticks with drawing from some parts of the universal Church only may yet be parts of the whoâ—e even with those parts from which they separate If they say You are no parts and therefore we disown you and will have no Communion with you this maketh neither cease to be parts and while both own the Head and the Body as such they have an union in tertio and so a communion in the principal respects while they peevishly disclaim it in other respects Besides that the local or particular Communion is it that is proper to members of a particular Church and therefore the renouncing it only separates him from that Church But it is the general Communion that belongs to us as members of the Church Universal which may be still continued But should any renounce the Body of Christ as such and separate not from this or that Church but from the whole or from the Church Universal as such this man would be no member of the Church Prop. 2. As the word Heretick is taken for one that denyeth any thing essential to Christianity so an Heretick if latent is out of the Church Deo judice as to the invisible part or soul of the Church as Bellarmine calls it as a latent Infidel is but he may be if latent in the outward communion or as Bellarmine calls him a dead member that properly is none as the straw and chaffe are in the corn-field Prop. 3. Such an Heretick convict and judged by the Pastors of that particular Church of which he is a subject-member is accordingly to be avoided and in foro illius Ecclesiae is so far cast out of that Church as the sentence importeth Prop. 4. Such an Heretick if he be a Pastor of one Church and be convict and condemned by the consociate co-equal Pastors of the neighbour Churches is accordingly cast out from communion of all the Churches of which they are Pastors Prop. 5. So far as any Christians through the world have sufficient proof or cognisance of the said conviction and condemnation they are all bound accordingly to esteem the condemned Heretick and avoid him Prop 6. If Heresie be taken for the obstinate impenitent resisting or rejecting of any point of Faith that is of Divine Revelation which is made so plain to the person that nothing but a wicked will could cause such resistance or rejection such persons being justly convicted and condemned as aforesaid are to be taken as persons condemned for obstinacy and impenitency in any other sin and are out of the Church as far as a man condemned for impenitency in drunkenness or fornication is Prop. 7. Heresie taken in this softer sense for the denyal of a truth of Divine revelation not essential to the Christian Religion or necessary to the Being of a Christian excludeth no man from the Church of it self unless they are legally convict of wicked Impenitency and obstinacy in defending it Prop. 8. A sentence passed in alieno foro by an Usurper that hath no true Authority thereto proveth no man an Heretick Prop. 9. A sentence passed by an Authorized Pastor or by many if it be notoriously unjust clave errante proveth no man an Heretick or out of the Universal Church Prop. 10. A sentence passed by one Church or many consociate binds none to take the condemned person to be an Heretick and out of the Universal Church but those that have sufficient notice of the Authority of the Judges and validity of the Evidence or a ground of violent presumption as it s called that the sentence is just Prop. 11. He that is sentenced an Heretick or Impenitent by the Pastors of some Churches and acquit by the equally-authorized Pastors of other Churches is not eo nomine to be condemned or acquit by a third Church but used as the evidence requireth Prop. 12. There is an actual excommunication pro medelâ and pro tempore due for an actual willful defence of error or for other willful sin which statedly puts not a man out of the Church as there is an excommunication à statu Relatione which is due for stated habitual or obstinate impenitency in that or other great or known sin Having thus distinctly told you my judgement how far Hereticks are or are not in or out of the universal Church I add in order to the application 1. That this whole debate is nothing to the great difference between you and us it being not de fide in your own account but a dogma theologicum which you differ about among your selves Bellarmine tells you Alphonsus a Castro maintaineth that Hereticks are in the Church de Eccles. l. 3. c. 4. And he himself saith that haeretici pertinent ad Ecclesiam ut oves ad ovile unde confugerunt ibid. c. 4. so that they are oves still and if it be but ovile particulare veluti Romanum that they fly from and not the Vniversal that proves them not out of the Vniversal Church And Bellarmine saith of the Catechumen Excommunicatis that they are de anima et si non de corpore Ecclesiae ib. c. 2. and may be saved cap. 6. And the anima Ecclesiae is not incorporated in the world without All that have that soul are of that Church which Christ that animateth his members is the head of Which made Melchior Canus fatente Bellarmino de Eccl. l. 3. c. 3. confess the being of that which indeed is the true Catholike Church saying of the Vnbaptized Believers that sunt de Ecclesia quae comprehendit omnes fideles ab Abel usque ad consummationem mundi 2. Many Popes have been condemned for Hereticks even by General Councils as not only Henorius by two or three but Eugenius by the Council of Basil when yet he kept his place and the rest come in as his successors And your writers frequently confess that a Pope may be an Heretick as Pope Adrian himself affirmeth Now if these are not of the Church then they are not Heads of the Church and then being essential parts of your Church it followeth that your Church is heretical
to have been ever in the Church by Christs instiution cannot be meant of any accidental thing but of a necessary unchangeable and essentiall thing in Christs true Church To which I Reply Either you see the gross fallacy of this defence or you do not If you do not then never more call for an exact Disputant nor look to be delivered from your errors by argumentation though never so convincing If you do then you are not faithfull to the truth In your Major proposition the words being many as you say you penetrated divers arguments together ambiguities were the easier hidden in the heap That which I told you is Accidental to the Church and that but to a corrupted part was the Acknowledging of the Papacy as of Christs Institution and therefore if it were granted that a thing of Christs Institution could not be Accidental yet the Acknowledgment that is the Opinion or asserting of it may If the Church by mistake should think that to be Essential to it which is not though it will not thence follow that its Essence is but an Accident yet it will follow that both the false opinion and the thing it self so falsly conceited to be essential are but accidents or not essential You say It cannot be meant of any Accidental thing But 1. That Meaning it self of theirs may be an Accident 2. And the question is not what they Mean that is Imagine or affirm it to be But what it is in deed and truth That may be an Accident which they think to be none 2. But that which you say all the world knows is a thing that all the world of Christians except your selves that ever I heard of do know or acknowledge to be false What! doth all the world know that Christ hath instituted in his Church nothing but what is essential to it I should hope that few in the Christian world would be so ignorant as ever to have such a thought if they had the means of knowledge that Protestants would have them have There is no natural body but hath natural Accidents as well as Essence Nor is there any other society under heaven Community or Policy that hath not its Accidents as well as Essence And yet hath Christ instituted a Church that hath nothing but Essence without Accidents Do you build upon such foundations What! upon the denyal of common principles and sence But if you did you should not have feigned all the world to do so too Were your asseriton true then every soul were cut off from the Church and so from salvation that wanted any thing of Christs Institution yea for a moment And then what would become of you You give me an instance in the Eucharist But 1. Will it follow that if the Eucharist be not Accidental or integral but Essential that therefore every thing Instituted by Christ is Essentiall surely no 2. The Question being not whether the Being of the Eucharist in the Church be Essential to the Universal Church But whether the Belief or Acknowledgment of it by All and every one of the members be Essential to the Members I would crave your answer but to this Question though it be nothing to my cause Was not a Baptized person in the primitive and ancient Churches a true Church-member presently upon Baptism And then tell me also Did not the ancient Fathers and Churches unanimously hide from their Catechumens even purposely hide the mysterie of the Eucharist as proper to the Church of understand and never opened it to the auditors till they were Baptized This is most undenyable in the concurrent vote of the ancients I think therefore that it follows that in the Judgement of the ancient Churches the Eucharist was but of the Integrity and not the Essence of a member of the Church and the acknowledgement of it by all the members a thing that never was existent Where you say your Major should have been granted or denyed without these distinctions I Reply 1. If you mean fairly and not to abuse the truth by Confusion such distinctions as you your self call Learned and substantial can do you no wrong They do but secure our true understanding of one another And a few lines in the beginning by way of distinction are not vain that may prevent much vain altercation afterwards When I once understand you I have done And I beseech you take it not for an injury to be understood As to your conclusion that you used no fallacy ex Accidente and that my instances are not apposite I Reply that 's the very life of the Controversie between us And our main Question is not so to be begged On the grounds I have shewed you I still averr that the holding of the Papacy is as Accidental to the universal Church as a Cancer in the breast is to a woman And though you say It is Essential and of Christs Institution that maketh it neither Essential nor of Christs Institution nor doth it make all his institutions to be essentialls Now of your second Syllogism 1. I shall never question the successive Visibility of the Church Whereas I told you out of your Fransc. Ã S. Clara that many or most of your own Schoolmen agree not to that which you say All Christians agree to you make no reply to it As to your Minor I have given you the Reasons of the necessity and harmlesness of my distinctions we need say no more to that a Congregation of Christians and a Church are Synonima But the word true was not added to your first term by you or me and therefore your instance here is delusory But to say whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church is all one as to say whatsoever Church of Christians is now the true Church When I know your meaning I have my end Though my syllogism say not that the Church of Rome acknowledgeth those things alwaies done and that by Christs institution it nevertheless explicateth the weakness of yours as to the fallacy accidentis For 1. The holding it alwaies done and that of Christs Institution may be either an Accident or but of the Integrity and ad bene esse yea possibly an errour 2. And I might as easily have given you Instances of that kind To your 3. Syllogism I Reply 1. When you say the Church had Pastors as you must speak of what existed and Universalls exist not of themselves so it is necessary that I tell you How far I grant your Minor and how far I deny it My argument from the Indians and others is not solved by you For 1. You can never prove that the Pope was preached to the Iberians by the Captive maid nor to the Indians by Frumentius 2. Thousands were made Christians and baptized by the Apostles without any preaching or profession of a papacy Act. 2. passim 3. The Indians now Converted in America by the English and Dutch hear nothing of the Pope nor thousands in Ethiopia 4. Your own do
all men judge that then only is any thing proved Theologically when they prove it from the words of the holy Scripture This is more then the former say For to extend the sufficiency and necessity of Scripture to all that 's Theologicall is more then to extend it to matter of faith No Protestant goeth higher then this that I know of And note that he makes this the very common conception and judgement of all men See then where our Religion and Church was before Luther even among all Christians Yet more fully he proceeds ibid. Hence it further appeareth that Principles of Theology thus taken that is which is acquired by Theologicall discourse are the very Truths themselves of the holy Canon because the ultimate Resolution of all Theologicall discourse doth stand or belong to them and all Theologicall conclusions are deduced first from them But distinguishing the Conclusions Theologicall from the Principles I say that all truths are not in themselves formally contained in the holy Scripture but of necessity following from those that are contained in them and this whether they are Articles of faith or not N B and whether they are knowable or known by another science or not and whether they are determined by the Church or not But of other Truths to wit not following from the words of the holy Scripture I say there is no Theologicall conclusion This is proved c. When I read over the Schoolmen and Divines of all sorts that wrote before the Reformers fell so closely upon the Pope and find how generally even the Papists themselves maintained the sufficiency of the holy Scripture just as the Protestants now do I am convinced 1. of the succession of the Protestants Religion in the Universal Visible Church and 2. that it was the Reformers Arguments from Scripture that forced the Papists to oppose this holy Rule as to its sufficiency and to invent the new doctrine of supplementall Tradition for conservative Ministeriall Tradition of the holy Scriptures we are for as much at least as they The words of Guil. Parisieâ—sis too large to be recited in extolling the fulness and perfection of the Scripture even for all sorts of men you may read de Legibus cap. 16. pag. 46. Bellarmine de Verbo Dei lib. 3. cap. 10. ad Arg. 15. saith We must know that a Proposition of faith is concluded in such a syllogism Whatsoever God hath revealed in Scripture is true But this God hath revealed in Scripture Therefore it is true Though he require another word of God by the Pope or Council to prove that this is revealed in Scripture But if so then Scripture containeth all that 's true in points of faith 2. And that all things that are revealed and which we ought to believe are not Essentiall to the Christian faith and therefore that all are of the Church that hold these Essentialls and that such a distinction must be maintained the Papists have still confessed till lately that disputing hath encreased their novelties and errours Bellarmines and Costerus confession I recited even now Guliel Parisiensis in Operum pag. 9 10 11 12. de fide industriously proveth the necessity of distinguishing the fundamentalls or essentialls from the rest of the points of faith and it is they that constitute the Catholick faith which he saith is therefore called Catholick or Universal because it is the common faith or the common foundation of Religion And he proves that hence it is that the Catholick faith is but One and found in all Catholicks these fundamentalls being found in all By many arguments he proveth this And that there are some points even these common Articles necessary to be known of all necessitati medii the Schoolmen commonly grant as Aquin. 22. q. 2. a. 5. c. Bannes in 22. q. 2. a. 8. c. Of these saith Espencaeus in 2. Ti. c. 3. dig 17. which are the objects of faith per se and not the secondary objects the adult must have an explicite faith and the Colliers faith at this time decantate by the Catholicks will not serve the turn And we have both the Scripture sufficiency to all points of faith even the lowest and also the foresaid distinction given us together by Tho. Aquinas 22. q. art 5. c. We must say that the object of faith per se is that by which man is made blessed But by accident and secondarily all things are the object of faith which are contained in the holy Scripture See the judgement of Occham Canus Tolet and many more cited by Dr. Potter and yet more for the sufficiency of the Symbole or Creed as the test of Christianity pag. 89 90 91 92 93. Where you have the sense of the Ancients upon the point and p. 102 103. I conclude therefore with the Jesuite Azorius par 1. lib. 8. c. 6. The substance of the Article in which we believe One holy Catholick Church is that no man can be saved out of the Congregation of men professing the reception of the faith and Religion of Christ and that salvation may be obtained within this same Congregation of godly and faithfull men And as to the Essence of the Christian faith and Church we say with Tertullian of the Symbole Fides in Regula posita est habes legem salutem ex observatione legis exercitatio autem in curiositate consistit habens gloriam solam ex peritiae studio Cedat curiositas fidei Cedat gloria saluti Corte aut non obstrepant aut quiescant adversus regulam Nihil ultra scire est omnia scire That is Faith lieth in the Rule Here you have the Law and salvation in the observation of that Law but it is exercise that consisteth in curiosity having only a name or glory by the study of skill Let curiosity give place to faith Let glory give place to salvation Let them not prate or let them be quiet against the Rule To know nothing further is to know all things De Praescript cap. 13 14. So cap. 8. Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum Iesum nec inquisitione post Evangelium Cum credimus nihil desideramus ultra credere hoc enim prius credimus non esse quod ultra credere debeamus That is As for us we need not curiosity after Jesus Christ nor inquisition after the Gospel When we believe we need to believe no further For we first believe this that there is nothing further that we ought to believe And here on the by for the right understanding of Tertullians Book de Praescript note 1. That the Rule of Essentialls extracted from the whole Scripture is the Churches ancient Creed 2. That the compleat Rule of all points of faith is the whole Scripture And that Tertullian had to do with Hereticks that denied the Essentials and desired the whole Scripture to dispute their case from both because they had questioned or rejected much of it and because it was a larger field to exercise their
all the rest are perhaps too much honoured R. B. Quest. 4. Why exclude you the chief Pastors that depend on none Mr. J. Answ. I exclude them not but include them as those of whom all the rest depend as St. Hierom does in his definition Ecclesia est plebs Episcopo unita Repl. ad Resp. ad Quest. 4. How unconstant are you among your selves in the use of terms How frequent is it with you to appropriate the name of the Church to the Clergy But remember hereafter when you tell us of the Determinations and Traditions of the Church that it is the people that you mean and not only the Pastors in Council much less the Pope alone Mr. J. Heresie Is an intellectual obstinate opposition against divine authority revealing when it is sufficiently propounded R. B. Of Heresie Is the opposition and obstinacy that makes Heresie in the Intellect or will Mr. J. In the will by an imperate Act restraining the understanding to that errour R. B. Reply Of Heresie Qu. 1. Reply 1. Still your descriptions signifie just nothing You describe Heresie to be An Intellectual obstinate Opposition and yet say that this is in the will And yet again you contradict your self by saying that it is an Imperate act No Imperate act is in the will though it be from the will It is voluntary but not in voluntate An Imperant act may be in the will but not Imperate All Imperate acts are in or immediately by the commanded faculties The Intelligere which is the Imperate act is in the Intellect though the Velle intelligere which is an Elicite act be in the will 2. From hence its plain that you cannot prove me or any man to be an Heretick that is unfeignedly willing to know the truth and is not obstinately willful in opposing it which are things that you cannot ordinarily discern and prove by others that are ready to be sworn that they would fain know the truth R. B. Qu. 2. Must it needs be against the Formal object of Faith is he no Heretick that denieth the matter revealed without opposing obstinately the Authority revealing Mr. J. Answ. Yes Nor is he a Formal but only a Material Heretick who opposes a revealed Truth which is not sufficiently propounded to him to be a Divine revelation R. B. Reply Qu. 2. Reply 2. Every man that believeth that there is a God indeed believeth that he is true For if he be not True he is not God If therefore no man be Formally an Heretick that doth not obstinately oppose the Veracity of God which is the formal object then as there are I hope but few Hereticks in the world so those few cannot by ordinary means be known to you unless they will say that they take God to be a lyar so that you make none Hereticks indeed but Atheists What if a man deny that there is a Christ a Heaven a Hell or a Resurrection and also deny the Revelation it self by which he should discern these truths and yet deny not the Veracity of God no nor of the Church is this no Heretick I would your party that have murdered so many thousands as Hereticks had so judged if a falshood may be wished as a thing permitted to have prevented such a mischief It is not Gods Veracity that is commonly denyed by Hereticks but the thing revealed and the Revelation of that thing And your Turnebul against Baronius hath told you that the Revelation is no part of the Formal object of faith but as it were the Copula or a condition sine qua non If he that obstinately refuseth to believe that the Godhead of Christ or the Holy Ghost is any where by God revealed and so denyeth it be no Heretick unless he also obstinately deny or resist the Veracity of God then there are few that you can prove Hereticks For forma dat nomen and he that is not a Heretick Formally but materially only is no Heretick at all Lastly many a truth is sinfully neglected by the members of the Church that have a proposal sufficient and yet not effectual through their own fault and yet they are no Hereticks Millions in your Church are ignorant of truths sufficiently proposed and therefore their ignorance is their sin but it followeth not that it is their Heresie But if it be then Hereticks constitute your Church and then your Church is a thing unknown because the Hereticks cannot be known the sufficiency of each mans revelation being much unknown to others R. B. Qu. 3. What mean you by a sufficient proposal Mr. J. Answ. I mean such a proposal as is sufficient in humanis to oblige one to take notice that a King or chief Magistrate have enacted such or such Laws c. that is a publick Testimony that such things are revealed by the infallible authority of those who are the highest Tribunal of Gods Church or by notorius and universal Tradition R. B. Reply Qu. 3. Reply 〈…〉 there lieth not so much at the stake as a mans salvation and man is not so able as God to make a truly sufficient revelation of his will to all and therefore the proportion holds not 2. But if it did either you think the sufficiency varieth according to the variety of advantages opportunities and capacities of the persons or else that it consisteth only in the act of common publication and so is the same to all the subjects If the first be your sense as I suppose it is then still you are uncertain who are Hereticks as being uncertain of mens various capacities and so of the sufficiency in question Unless you will conclude with me that thus you make all Hereticks as aforesaid because all men living are culpably ignorant of some truths which they had a revelation of that was thus far sufficient If the second be your sense then the same unhappy consequence will follow that all are Hereticks and moreover that some of obscure education are unavoidably Hereticks because they had no opportunity to know those things which as to the Majority are of publick testimony or universal Tradition Is not the Bible a publick Testimony and record and being universally received is an universal Tradition And yet abundance of truths in the holy Bible are unknown and therefore not actually believed by millions that are in your Church and are not taken by your selves for Hereticks Your befriending ignorance would else make very many Hereticks Mr. J. Pope By Pope I mean St. Peter or any of his lawful Successors in the See of Rome having authority by the Institution of Christ to govern all particular Christian Churches next under Christ. R. B. Of the Pope Qu. 1. I am never the nearer knowing the Pope by this till I know how Peters Successors may be known to me What personal qualification is necessary ad esse Mr. J. Answ. Such as is necessary ad esse for other Bishops which I suppose you know R. B. Reply Of the Pope Qu. 1.
judgement is in order to Ecclesiastical Communion or Excommunication And so it belongs to those with whom the person is in Communion in their several capacities The members of a particular Church are to be judged Authoritatively by the Pastors of that Church and by the people by a Private judgement of Discerning Pastors should associate for Communion of Churches and so in order to that Communion of Association it belongs to the several Associations to judge of the Members of the Society which yet is not by a publike Governing judgement For in Councils or Associations the Major Vote are not properly the Governors of the lesser part But those that are out of capacity of Communion have nothing to do to judge of the Aptitude of Pastors or Churches in order to Communion or non-Communion And for the Pope he hath nothing to do with us at such a distance whose persons and cases are wholly unknown to him he being neither our Governour nor our Associate But if we and our case were known to him he may judge of us so far as we may judge of him And other judgement what ever men may say to deceive there is none to decide our controversies but the final judgement of the Vniversal Iudge who is at the door A LETTER Written to Thomas Smith A Papist Concerning the Church of Rome LONDON Printed 1660. Reverend Sir THe noted sanctity admirable integrity and extraordinary charity so eminently appearing in your pious actions and as I have some cause to think the indelible characters of your sacred function hath animated me to make choice of your self rather then any of your coat to this present address hoping your candour and tenderness will bear with what may be by others less sensible of the value of immortal souls slighted interpreted according to the candid and true sense of your supplicant by you It hath pleased the great and terrible Iudge of heaven and earth to put me upon some thoughts more seriously then ordinary of my eternal estate and to be somewhat doubtful in the midst of external perturbations of those internal grounds which I have formerly relyed upon And truely Sir with all cordialness my desire is clearly to know the mind of my God which were I truely satisfied in I should soon wave all other interests to entertain and assuring my self according to what I have seen and read the Church of Rome to which I have long cleaved and adhered to be the pillar and ground of truth and that Catholike Church which the ancient Creed testifies we are to believe in My desire is to be as soon satisfied as may be of your thoughts whether it ever were a true Church which I suppose you will not deny when you consider the first verse of the Epistle to the Romans and if so when it made its defection The reason of my urging this is because I think all other questions to be but going about the bush and the true Church being proved all arguments else easily are answered I have heard Protestants aver the ancient maxime viz. Extra Ecclesiam non est salus Therefore I suppose it the only thing pertinent to my purpose and necessary to salvation to enquire after My occasions will suddenly draw me from these parts unless I hear from you speedily and doubt not Sir but I am one who freely will resign my self to hear truth impartially Therefore I beseech you to send something to me by way of satisfaction the next Saturday after which you shall be more particularly sensible who the person is that applies himself to you and in the interim subscribes himself Sir A thirsty troubled soul and yours to his power Tho. Smith Feb. 11. 1656. Direct your Letter to me if you please to Mr. John Smiths house next door to the sign of the Crown in the broad street Worcester Good Sir be private for the present otherwise it may be prejudicial to some temporal affairs agitating at this time Sir THat you can have such charitable thoughts of one that is not of the Roman subjection and of my function being not received from the Pope is so extraordinary yea and contrary to the judgement of your writers that I must needs entertain it with the more gratitude and some admiration And that you are so impartially willing to entertain the truth as you profess though it be no more then the truth deserves of you and your own wellfare doth require yet is the more aimiable in you by how much the more rare in those of your Profession so far as my acquaintance can inform me for most of them that I have met with understand not well their own Religion nor think themselves much concerned to understand it but refer me to others for a Reason of their hope For my part I do the more gladly entertain the occasion of this entercourse with you though unknown that I may learn what I know not and may be true to my own conscience in the use of all means that may conduce to my better information And therefore I shall plainly answer your Questions according to the measure of my understanding most solemnly professing to you that I will say nothing which comes not from my heart in plain simplicity and that I will with exceeding gladness and a thousand thanks come over to your way if I can finde by any thing that you shall make known to me that it is the mind of God that I should so do And therefore I am desirous that if what I write to you shall seem unsound you would not only afford me your own advice for the correction of it but also the advice of the most learned of your mind to whom you shall your self think meet to communicate it But on these conditions 1. That it be a person of a tender conscience that dare speak nothing but what he verily believes 2. That he will argue closly and not fly abroad or dilate Rhetorically And for any divulging of it to your danger or hurt you need not fear it For these two grounds of my following answers I shall here promise 1. That I am so far from persecuting bloody desires against those of your way that their own bloody principles and practices where they have power in Italy Spain c. hath done much to confirm me that the cause is not of God that must be so upheld and carried on 2. And I am so far from cruel uncharitable censures of any that unfeignedly love the Lord Jesus and his truth that it is the greatest motive to me of all other to dislike your Profession because it is so notoriously against Christian charity restraining the Catholike Church to your selves and outing and condemning the far greatest part of Christians in the world and that because they believe not in the Pope though they believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and all that the Primitive Church believed I am so Catholike that according to my present judgement I cannot
are members of the Universal Church though they never heard of a Pope at Rome before they are United to Pastors of their own The Proof of the Minor from Eph. 4. I grant as aforesaid The text proveth that Pastors the Church shall have I disclaim the vain objection of Conditionality in the promise which you mention But it proves not 1. That the Church shall have an Universal Monarch or Vice-Christ under Christ. 2. Nor that every member of the Universal Church shall certainly be a member of a particular Church or ever see the face of a Pastor or be subject to him You say next There remains only to prove the Minor of the second Syllogism viz. that no Congregation of Christians hath been alwaies visible but that which acknowledges c. This is the great point which all lyeth on The rest hath been all nothing but a cunning shooing horn to this Prove this and prove all Prove not this and you have lost your time You say The Minor I prove by obliging the answerers to nominate any Congregation of Christians which alwaies till this present time since Christ hath been visible save that only which acknowledges c. And have I waited all this while for this You prove it by obliging me to prove the contrary Ridiculous sed quo jure 1. Your undertaken form of arguing obligeth you to prove your Minor You cannot cast your Respondent upon proving and so arguing and doing the Opponents part 2. And in your Postscript you presently forbid it me You require me to hold to a Concedo Nego Distingno Omitto Transeat threatning that else you will take it for an Effugium And I pray you tell me in your next to which of these doth the nomination or proof of such a Church as you describe belong Plainly you first slip away when you should prove your Minor and then oblige me to prove the Contrary and then tell me if I attempt it you 'l take it for an Effugium A good cause needs not such dealing as this which me thinks you should be loth a learned man should hear of 3. Your interest also in the Matter as well as your office as Opponent doth oblige you to the proof For though you make a Negative of it you may put it in other terms at your pleasure It is your main work to prove that All the members of the Universal Church have in all ages held the Popes Soveraignty or Universal Head-ship Or the whole Visible Church hath held it Prove this and I will be a Papist you have my promise You affirm and you must prove Prove a Catholike Church at least that in the Major part was of that mind though that would be nothing to prove the condemnation of the rest If you are an impartial enquirer after truth fly not when you come to the setting too I give you this further evident reason why you cannot oblige me to what you here impose 1. Because you require me to prove the Visibility of a Church which held not your point of Papacy and so put an unreasonable task upon me about a Negative or else I must prove that they held the contrary before your opinion was started And it is the Catholike Church that we are disputing about so that I must prove this Negative of the Catholike Church 2. It is you that lay the great stress of Necessity on your Affirmative more then we do on the Negative you say that no man can be saved without your Affirmative that the Pope is the universal Head and Governor But we say not that no man can be saved that holdeth not our Negative that he is not the Vice-Christ For one that hath the plague or leprosie may live Therefore it is you that must prove that all the Catholike Church was still of your mind 3. And it is an Accident and but an Accident of a smallâ—r corrupted part of the Catholike Church that you would oblige me to prove the Negation of and therefore it is utterly needless to my proof of a Visible Catholike Church For I will without it prove to you a successive Visibility of the Catholike Church from the Visibility of its Essential or Constitutive parts of which your Pope is none I will prove a successive visible Church that hath still professed faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and been united to the Universal Head and had particular Pastors some fixed some unfixed and held all essential to a Christian. And proving this I have proved the Church of which I am a member To prove that England hath been so long a Kingdom requireth no more but to prove the two Essential parts King and Subjects to have so long continued united It requireth not that I prove that if ever either hâ—â—d or opposed a Vice-King This is our plain case If a man have a botch on one of his hands it is not needful in order to my proving him a man heretofore that I prove he was born and bred without it so be it I prove that he was born a man it sufficeth Nor is it needfull that I prove the other hand alwaies to have been free in order to prove it a member of the body It sufficeth that I prove it to have been still a hand I do therefore desire you to perform your work and prove that no Congregation hath been still visible but such as yours or that the whole Catholike Church hath ever since the ascention held a Humane Universal Governour under Christ or else I shall take it as a giving up your cause as indefensible And observe if you shall prove only that a part of the Catholike Church still held this which you can never do then 1. You will make the Contrary opinion as Consistent with salvation as yours For the rest of the Catholike Church is savable 2. And then you will allow me to turn your Argument against your self as much as it is against us and so cast it away e. g. what ever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ hath been alwaies Visible But no Congregation of Christians hath been alwaies Visible but that which quoad partem denyeth the Popes universal Headship therefore whatever Congregation of Christians is the true Church denyeth the Popes universal Headship Well! but for all this supposing you will do your part I will fail you in nothing that 's reasonable which I can perform A Catholike Church in all ages that was against the Pope in every member of it I hope I cannot shew you because I hope that you are members though corrupt But you shall have more then a particular Congregation or a hundred 1. At this present two or three parts of the Catholike Church is known to be against your Universal Monarchy The Greeks Armenians Ethiopians c. besides the Protestants 2. In the last age there were as many or more 3. In the former ages till An. D. 1000. there were neer as
Bishop of Rome which the Council of Chalcedon before mentioned plainly owned when writing to Pope Leo they say Thou Governest us as the head doth the members contributing thy good will by those which hold thy place Behold a Primacy not only of Precedency but of Government and Authority which Lerinensis confirms contr Haeres cap. 9. where speaking of Stephen Pope he saies Dignum ut opinor existimans si reliquos omnes tantum fidei devotione quantum locī authoritate superabat esteeming it as I think a thing worthy of himself if he overcame all others as much in the devotion of faith as he did in the Authority of his place And to confirm what this universal Authority was he affirms that he sent a Law Decree or Command into Africa Sanxit That in matter of rebaptization or Hereticks nothing should be innovated which was a manifest argument of his Spiritual Authority over those of Africa and à paritate rationis over all others I will shut up all with that which was publickly pronounced and no way contradicted and consequently assented to in the Council of Ephesus one of the four first general Councils in this matter Tom. 2. Concil pag. 327. Act. 1. where Philip Priest and Legate of Pope Celestine sayes thus Gratias agimus sanctae venerandaeque synodo quod literis sancti beatique Papae nostri vobis recitatis sanctas chartas sanctis vestris vocibus sancto capiti vestro sanctis vestris exclamationibus exhibueritis Non enim ignorat vestra beatitudo totius fidei vel etiam Apostolorum caput esse beatum Apostolum Petrum And the same Philip Act. 3. p. 330. proceeds in this manner Nulli dubium imo saeculis omnibus notum est quod sanctus beatissimusque Petrus Apostolorum Princeps caput Fideique columna Ecclesiae Catholicae Fundamentum à Domino nostro Jesu Christo Salvatore generis humani ac redemptore nostro claves regni accepit solvendique ac ligandi peccata potestas ipsi data est qui ad hoc usque tempus ac semper in suis successoribus vivit judicium exercet Hujus itaque secundum ordinem successor locum-tenens sanctus beatissimusque Papa noster Celestinus nos ipsius praesentiam supplentes huc misit And Arcadius another of the Popes Legats enveighing against the Heretick Nestorius accuses him though he was Patriarch of Constantinople which this Council requires to be next in dignity after Rome as of a great crime that he contemned the command of the Apostolick See that is of Pope Celestine Now had Pope Celestine had no power to command him and by the like reason to command all other Bishops he had committed no fault in transgressing and contemning his command By these testimonies it will appear that what you are pleased to say That the most part of the Catholike Church hath been against us to this day and all for many hundred of years is far from truth seeing in the time of the holy Oecumenical Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon the universal consent of the whole Catholike Church was for us in this point As to what you say of Congregation of Christians in the beginning I answer I took the word Christians in a large sense comprehending in it all those as it is vulgarly taken who are Baptized and profess to believe in Christ and are distinguished from Jews Mahumetans and Heathens under the denomination of Christians What you often say of an universal Monarch c. if you take Monarch for an Imperious sole Commander as temporal Kings are we acknowledge no such Monarch in the Church if only for one who hath received power from Christ in meekness charity and humility to govern all the rest for their own eternal good as brethren or children we grant it What also you often repeat of a Vice-Christ we much dislike that title as proud and insolent and utterly disclaim from it neither was it ever given by any sufficient Authority to our Popes or did they ever accept of it As to the Council of Constance they never questioned the Supremacy of the Pope as ordinary chief Governour of all Bishops and people in the whole Church nay they expresly give it to Martinus Quintus when he was chosen But in extraordinary cases especially when it is doubtful who is true Pope as it was in the beginning of this Council till Martinus Quintus was chosen Whether any extraordinary power be in a general Council above that ordinary power of the Pope which is a question disputed by some amongst our selves but touches not the matter in hand which proceeds only of the ordinary and constant Supream Pastor of all Christians abstracting from extraordinary tribunals and powers which are seldom found in the Church and collected only occasionally and upon extraordinary accidents Thus honoured Sir I have as much as my occasions would permit me hastened a reply to your answer and if more be requisite it shall not be denyed Only please to give me leave to tell you that I cannot conceive my Argument yet answered by all you have said to it William Iohnson Feb. 3. 1658. Sir It was the 21. of January before your Answer came to my hands and though my Reply was made ready by me the third instant yet I have found so great difficulties to get it transcribed that it was not possible to transmit it to you before now But I hope hereafter I shall find Scribes more at leasure I must desire you to excuse what errors you find in the Copy which I send As also that being unwilling to make a farther delay I am enforced to send a Copy which hath in it more interlineations then would otherwise become me to send to a person of your worth Yet I cannot doubt but your Candor will pass by all things of this nature I am Sir Your very humble servant William Iohnson Feb. 15. 1658. Worthy Sir I have now expected neer three moneths for your rejoynder to the Reply which I made to that answer which you were pleased to send and return to my Argument concerning the Church of Christ but as yet nothing hath appeared I must confess I have wondered at it considering the earnestness which appeared in you at the first to proceed with speed in a business of this nature what the impediment hath been I am only left to guess but certainly truth is strong and it will not be found an easie thing to oppose her while we keep close to form I am now necessitated to go out of London so that if your Papers come in my absence I shall hope you will have the patience to expect untill they can be sent from London to me and my Answers returned by the way of London but I do engage not to make a delay longer then the circumstances of the place and times shall enforce Sir I do highly honour and esteem your parts and person and shall be very glad to bring that business to an handsome
Protestants are chief Members is clearly proved And the Papists exceptions against it confuted LONDON Printed in the year 1660. Qu. Whether the Church of which the Protestants are Members have been Visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth Aff. THe terms explained 1. The Church sometime signifieth a particular Congregation actually met or associated for such personal meeting for Communion in Gods worship 2. Sometime it signifieth an Association of Churches and that either of sewer or of more as they have opportunity of Communion or correspondency by their Pastors and also the Assemblies of the Pastors of the particular Churches so associated Scripture useth it in the first sense and Later custome whether Scripture also I omit in the later 3. Both Scripture and Custome have used the word to signifie the Church Universal of which all particular Churches are Members This is the Church that we speak of in the Question Defin. The Universal Church of which the Protestants profess themselves Members is The Kingdome of Iesus Christ or The whole company of Believers or true Christians upon earth subjected to Iesus Christ their Head The constitutive parts or the Relate and Correlate are as in every Politick Body the Pars Imperans and Pars subdita which is Christ and Christians The form consisteth in the mutuall Relation The End is the common good of the Church and the glory of the Head and the accomplishment of the will of God 2. The Protestants Defin. Protestants are Christians protesting against or disowning Popery The word Protestant expresseth not the essence of our Religion And therefore it must not denominate the Universal Church of which we are Members we are not to call it A Protestant Universal Church Nor doth it signifie an inseparable proper accident For when the Catholick Church had no Popery there was none to protest against and therefore there could be no Protestants And Ethiopia India and other Nations that never had Popery or those Nations that never heard of it have no occasion to protest against it Nor doth it signifie any Positive part directly of our Religion but only the Negation or Rejection of Popery Even as when a man is called Homo purgatus sanatus liberatus à leprâ peste tabe c. a man purged healed freed from the leprosie plague consumption c. it is no positive part nor inseparable proper accident much less any essential part of the man that is signified by the word Healed Purged c. Nor is it necessary in order to the proving him a man or a healthfull man to prove that he was ever a purged or healed man We undertake not therefore to prove that there have been alwayes Protestants that is men Protesting against Popery Nor have we any need in order to the proof of our Thesis to prove that the Catholick Church hath all been free from Popery in all ages or in any age since the Apostles no more then that it hath been free from Pride Ambition or Contention But yet we shall do it ex abundanti The Religion then of a Protestant is Christianity and he knoweth and owneth no other Which is called the Protestant Religion as cleansed from Popery Members that is true integral parts Of which are By Profession We profess our selves to be of no other Church And before men a man is to be taken to be of that Religion and Church of which he professeth himself to be till he be proved false in that Profession If a Papist affirm himself a member of the Roman Church in disputing with him we will take it for granted that he is so every man being best acquainted with his own mind and fittest to describe the Religion which he owns So that two things I here include 1. It is only such a Catholick Church that hath been still visible that Protestants own 2. And only such that really they are of their Profession being valid Note also that it is not directly the inexistency by internal invisible faith that is in question among us or that I mean but the inexistency by external Visible Profession Bellarmine thinks the bare Professors that are wicked are best termed Dead members and the true Professors Living members we will not stick needlesly on words We take the Living members only to be in strict propriety members but Sincerity and Hypocrisie being known only to God and the possessors we speak of Professors as Professors abstractively from their Sincerity or Hypocrisie Hath been Visible 1. Not visible to man in its Internal faith but in its external Profession 2. Not Visible at once to any one man for no man can see all the Christian world at once But Visible in its parts both in Congregations and individual persons 3. Not Visible in the soundness of its professed faith unto Infidels and Hereticks For they cannot see that faith to be sound which they take to be fabulous and false But Visible in the soundness of its professed faith to themselves that know the soundness of faith 4. Not Visible in the excellent degree of soundness in the better parts unto the corrupter or infirmer parts For though de facto they may know what Doctrine the better part do hold as Infidels know what Doctrine the Church holdeth yet they know it not to be true and sound in the points wherein they differ And note again that it is not the Visibility of every accident of the Church nor of every Truth or duty that is but of the Integrity of Religion and necessary only ad melius esse Ecclesiae to the Better being of the Church but it is the Visibility of the Church that we speak of Lastly it is the Body and not the Head whose Visibility is in Question by us Though the Head also is truly Visible in Heaven and Visus or seen to the most excellent Triumphant part of his Body who are fittest to be his Courtiers and in his presence and as much seen on earth as the Pope is to most of the Church which is not at all Ever since the dayes of Christ on earth 1. But not still in one and the same place on earth It might be in one age much of it in Iudea at Ephesus Sardis Laodicaea Colosse Philippi and other parts of Asia and in other ages removed thence either wholly or for the most part It might be in one age in Tenduâ— Nâ—bia and other great Kingdoms where it shall afâ—er cease to be But in some part or other of the earth it hath been still 2. Not equally visible in all Times and Places of the earth In some Times as in the Arrians prevalency it was so oppressed and obscured that the world groaned to find it self turn'd Arrian and the Arrians in General Councils and number of Bishops to whom the true Christians were very few did seem to carry away the Name and glory of the Catholick Church so that in their eyes and in the eyes of slanders by that were of neither
they reason against the knowledge and experience of my soul. Your scope is to prove me in a state of damnation You confess that if I have charity I am in a state of salvation I know and feel that I have charity Therefore I know that your Reasonings are deceit Arg. 2. The Church whose faith is contained in the holy Scriptures as its Rule in all points necessary to salvation hath been Visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth But the Church whose faith is contained in the holy Scriptures as its Rule in all points necessary to salvation is it of which the Protestants are Members Therefore the Church of which the Protestants are Members hath been visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth That the Catholick Church which hath been Visible till now hath received the Holy Scriptures which we receive is confessed by all Papists that ever I heard or read making mention of it And no wonder for it cannot be denied That this Church hath taken these Scriptures for the Rule of faith in all points necessary to salvation allowing Church-Governours to make Canons about the circumstantials of Government and worship which in the Universal Law are not determined but left to humane prudence to determine 1. I have proved in my third Dispute of the safe Religion already 2. It is confessed by the Papists the forecited passages of Bellarmine and Costerus are sufficient But in the great Council at Basil Orat. Ragus Bin. p. 299. it is most plainly and with fuller authority asserted The holy Scripture in the Literal sense soundly and well understood is the infallible and Most sufficient Rule of faith See my vindication of this Testimony in my Catholick Key and the like from Card. Richlieu Gerson saith de exam doctr p. 2. cont 1. Nihil audendum dicere de divinis nisi quae nobis à sacra Scriptura tradita sunt Durandus in his Preface is wholly for the excellency and sufficiency of the Scriptures Three wayes he saith God revealeth himself and other things to man The lowest way is by the book of the creatures so heathens may know him The highest is by manifest Vision as in heaven and the middle way is in the Book of holy Scripture without which there is no coming to the highest way And going on to extoll the Scripture he citeth Ieromes words ad Paulinum Let us learn on earth the knowledge of those things which will abide with us in heaven But this is only saith he in the holy Scripture And after ex Hierom ad Marcell If Reason be brought against the authority of the Scriptures how acute soever it is it cannot be true And after We must speak of the mysterie of Christ and universally of those things that meerly concern faith conformably to what the holy Scripture delivereth So Christ Iohn 5. Search the Scriptures It is they that testifie of me If any observe not this he speaks not of the mysterie of Christ and of other things directly touching faith as he ought but falls into that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 8. If any man think he knoweth any thing he yet knoweth nothing as he ought to know For the measure is not to exceed the measure of faith of which the Apostle bids us Rom. 12. Not to be wiser then we ought to be but to be wise to sobriety and as God hath divided to every man the measure of faith Which Measure consisteth in two things to wit that we subtract not from faith that which is of faith nor N.B. attribute that to faith which is not of faith For by either of these wayes the measure of faith is exceeded and men deviate from the continence of the sacred Scripture which expresseth the measure of faith That is from the full sufficiency of the Scripture measure And this measure by Gods assistance we will hold that we may write or teach nothing dissonant to the holy Scripture But if by ignorance or inadvertency we should write any thing dissonant let it be taken ipso facto as not written This is a confession of the Religion of the Protestants And though he adjoyn a submission to the Roman Church because he was bred in it it is only as to an interpreter of doubtfull Texts of Scripture So that the sufficiency of our Rule and measure of faith is granted by him and zealously asserted and that without Bellarmine and Costerus limitation to points necessary to the salvation of all he extendeth it to all the faith Aquin. 22. q. 1. a. 10. ad 1. saith That in the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles the truth of the faith is sufficiently explicated even when he is pleading for the Popes power to make new Creeds to obviate errours And in his sum de Verit. disp de fide q. 10. ad 11. he saith That all the means by which the faith cometh to us are free from suspicion The Prophets and Apostles we believe for this reason because God bore them witness by working Miracles as Mar. 16. confirming their speech with following signs But their successors we believe not but so far as they declare to us those things which they have left us in the Scripture This is the Religion of the Protestants Scotus in Prolog in sent 1. makes it his second Question Whether supernaturall knowledge necessary to us in the Way be sufficiently delivered in the holy Scâ—ipture which he proveth having first given ten arguments to prove the Truth of Scripture And first he shews it containeth the Doctrine of the End and 2. of the things necessary to that end and the sufficiency of them summarily in the Decalogue explained in the other Scriptures as to matter of faith hope and practice and so concludes that the holy Scripture sufficiently containeth the doctrine necessary viatori to us in the way And he answereth the objection of Difficulties in it without flying to the Church that no science explaineth all things to be known but those things from which the rest may conveniently be gathered and so many needfull truths are not expressed in Scripture though they are virtually there contained as conclusions in the Principles about the investigation whereof the labour of Expositors and Doctors hath been profitable This is his doctrine out of Origen Gregor Ariminensis in Prol. q. 1. act 2. Resp. ad act fol. 3. 4. saith A discourse properly Theologicall is that which consisteth of words or propositions contained in the holy Scripture or of those that are deduced from them or at least from one of these This is proved 1. by the forealledged authority of Dionys. For he will have it that there can be no leading of that man to Theologicall science that assenteth not to the sayings of the holy Scripture It follows therefore that no discourse that proceedeth not from the words of holy Scripture or of that which is deduced from them is Theologicall 2. The same is proved from the common conception of all men For
account then had not Rome those priviledges from the Apostles and consequently the whole Catholike Church was without them But the Antecedent is affirmed by that fourth great approved Council In Act. 16. Bin. p. 134. We everywhere following the definitions of the holy Fathers and the Canon and the things that have been now read of the hundred and fifty Bishops most beloved to God that were congregate under the Emperour Theodosius the great of pious memory in the Royal City of Constantinople new Rome we also knowing them have defined the same things concerning the priviledges of the same most holy Church of Constantinople new Rome For to the seat of old Rome because of the Empire of that City the Fathers consequently gave the priviledges And the hundred and fifty Bishops most beloved of God being moved with the same intention have given equal priviledges to the most holy seat of new Rome reasonably judging that the City adorned with the Empire and Senate shall enjoy equal priviledges with old Regal Rome Here we have the Testimony of one of the greatest general Councils of the humane original of Romes priviledges Bellarmine hath nothing to say but that they spoke falsly and that this clause was not confirmed by the Pope which are fully answered by me elsewhere But this is nothing to our present business It is a matter of fact that I use their Testimony for And if all the Bishops in two of the most approved general Councils called the Representative Catholike Church were not competent witnesses in such a case to tell us what was done and what was not done in those times then we have none The Papists can pretend to no higher testimony on their part The Church it self therefore hath here decided the controversie And yet note that even these priviledges of Rome were none of his pretended universal Government It s in vain to talk of the Testimonies of particular Doctors if the most renowned general Councils cannot be believed Yet I will add an Argument from them as conjunct Arg. 2. Had the Roman universal Soveraignty as essential to the Catholike Church been known in the daies of Tertullian Cyprian Athanasius Nazianzen Nyssen Basil Optatus Augustine and the other Doctors that confounded the Heresies or Schisms of those times e. g. the Novatians Donatists Arrians c. the said Doctors would have plainly and frequently insisted on it for the conviction of those Hereticks and Schismaticks But this they do not therefore it was not known in those times The consequence of the Major is evident hence The Doctors of the Church were men at least of common wit and prudence in the matters which they did debate therefore they would have insisted on this argument if then it had been known The reason of the consequence is because it had been most obvious easie and potent to dispatch their controversies 1. When the Arrians and many other Hereticks denied Christs eternal Godhead had it not been the shortest expeditious course to have cited them to the barr of the Judge of controversies the infallible Soveraign Head of the Church and convinced them that they were to stand to his judgement 2. Had not this Argument been at hand to have confounded all Heresies at once That which agreeth not with the Belief of the Roman Pope and Church is false But such is your opinion therefore 2. So for the Donatists when they disputed for so many years against the Catholikes which was the true Church had it not been Augustins shortest surest way to have argued thus That only is the true Church that is subject to the Pope of Rome and adhereth to him But so do not you therefore Either the Arrians Donatists and such others did believe the Papal Soveraignty and Vicarship or not If they did 1. How is it possible they should actually reject both the Doctrine and Communion of the Pope and Roman Church 2. And why did not the Fathers rebuke them for sinning against conscience and their own profession herein But if they did not believe the Papal Soveraignty then 2. How came it to pass that the Fathers did labour no more to convince them of that now supposed fundamentall Errour when 1. It is supposed as hainous a sin as many of the rest 2. And was the maintainer of the rest Had they but first demonstrated to them that the Pope was their Governour and Judge and that his Headship being essentiall to the Church it must needs be of his faith all Heresies might have been confuted the people satisfied and the controversies dispatched in a few words 3. Either Arrians Donatists Novatians and such like were before their defection acquainted with the Roman Soveraignty or not If they were not then it is a sign it was not commonly then received in the Church and that there were multitudes of Christians that were no Papists If they were then why did not the Fathers 1. Urge them with this as a granted truth till they had renounced it 2. And then why did they not charge this defection from the Pope upon them among their hainous crimes why did they not tell them that they were subjected to him as soon as they were made Christians and therefore they should not perfidiously revolt from him How is it that we find not this point disputed by them on both sides yea and as copiously as the rest when it would have ended all And for the Minor that the Fathers have not thus dealt with Hereticks the whole Books of Tertullian Nazianzen Nyssen Basil Optatus Hierom Augustine and others are open certain witnesses They use no such Argument but fill their Books with others most imprudently and vainly if they had known of this and had believed it Otherwise the Papists would never have been put to gather up a few impertinent scraps to make a shew with We see by experience here among us that this point is Voluminously debated and if we differ in other matters the Papists call us to the Roman bar and bring in this as the principall difference And why would it not have been so then between the Fathers and the Donatists Arrians and such like if the Fathers had believed this It s clear hence that the Papall Vicarship was then unknown to the Church of Christ. Arg. 3. The Tradition witnessed by the greater part of the Universal Church saith that the Papal Vicarship or Soveraignty is an innovation and usurpation and that the Catholick Church was many hundred years without it Therefore there was then no such Papal Church This is not a single testimony nor of ten thousand or ten millions but of the Major Vote of the whole Church and in Councils the Major Vote stands for the whole If this witness therefore be refused we cannot expect that the words of a few Doctors should be credited Nor may they expect that we credit any witness of theirs that is not more credible And that the Antecedent is true is known to the world as
like of the Ordinary Glosses of the Bible which yet seem of greater authority then Aquinas The sixth example is of some not Canonized Saints as Anselm Cantuar. Hugo de Sancto Victore and others as authentick as S. Thomas And say they his Canonization hindereth not which some pretend as of great colour To say that S. Tho. in some part of his doctrine erred in faith derogates not from his Canonization nor from the approbation of his Theologicall doctrine even as to say this of other Saints and chief Doctors derogateth not from their Canonization or approbation For as the Church by Canonizing one a Saint doth not thereby approve all his Deeds so in approving his doctrine it doth not hereby approve all his sayings or writings but only that which is not retracted by himself or corrected by another or deservedly to be corrected as contrary to truth And now when Fathers even the chief and your Saints and highest Doctors have this Testimony from the famous University of Paris to have somewhat hereticall or erroneous in the faith and so who among you is free I leave it to modesty to judge whether the Greeks Armenians c. and we are not of one Faith Religion and Catholick Church for all our differences in some points Have you had all these Nations man by man before your bar and convinced them of pertinaciousness in heresie If not call them not Hereticks till you are willing to be called such your selves and that by your selves And thus I have evinced 1. That the Church of which the Protestants are Members hath been Visible since the dayes of Christ on earth 2. And ex abundanti that the Papal Church as Papal hath not been visible and that Christian Churches without Papal Soveraignty have been Visible since Gregories dayes and the whole Catholick Church was such before And you see both in the Essentialls and in the freedom from the Romish Vice-Christ where our Church hath been before Luther even since Christ. Sir I have performed this task on this supposed condition that you will now do the like as to your own Church and send me in solid Arguments your proof of this Thesis The Church of which the Subjects of the Pope are Members hath been Visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth Where note that it is not the Visibility of your Church as Christian United in Christ the Head that is in Question We grant as Christians all of you are of the true Christian Church that destroy not your Christianity But it is your new Church form as Papal that we question and renounce Protestants are of no Church but the Christian united in Christ The name Protestant signifieth not any essentiall of their Church but their Rejection of your Church as Headed by the Pope You are therefore to prove that your Catholick Church as Headed by the Pope hath been visible in all ages And here I must in Justice expect that you give us such a Definition as you will stand to through the dispute 1. Of the Church 2. Of the Pope and 3. Of the Subjects of the Pope or Papists The term Roman Catholicks would but divert and elude For it is not as Romane that we oppose you that is as inhabitants of Rome or as subject to him as a Bishop of Rome Nor is it as Catholicks that is as of the Universal Christian Church but as Papists that is subjects of the Pope as universal Soveraign or Bishop To dispute of terms not agreed on is lost labour Define first or you do nothing I find of your Writers some by the Church mean the Pope as Gretser Defens cap. 10. lib. 3. de Verbo Dei pag. 1450 1451. By the Church saith he we mean the Pope of Rome and per Ecclesiam Papam interpretantur Non abnuo Some by the Church mean a Council and what they mean by a Council I know not well And some mean the Roman Clergy i. e. of that Diocess And some mean all the Clergy under the Pope And some mean all the people that are his subjects I have given you the Reason of my doubting of your meaning in these terms in a Book come out of the Press since your last to me where I have answered most of yours 2. Let me desire of you such proofs as in your own judgement are cogent I suppose as I have there told you Key pag. 41. cap. 12. that none of you will take either Sense Reason Scripture the Tradition or judgement of most of the Church for a sufficient proof but yet we will accept of them when you argue but ad hominem for we renounce them not I think what ever you say that is not the Determination of the Pope or a Council by him approved which is all one you will give us leave to judge that you are uncertain your selves whether you say true in it if de fide Saith Skul Revius Apol. pro Bellâ—rm c. 6. p. 255. The Popes Power is as the hinge the foundation and that I may comprehend all in a word the summ of the Christian faith Greg. Valent. Anal. fid l. 8. c. 7. The Authority that resideth in the Pope alone is called the Authority of the Church and Councils Bellâ—r de Rom. Pont. l. 4. c. 3. It is apparent that the whole firmness or strength of Councils is from the Pope not partly of the Pope and partly of the Council Binnius Vol. 2. p. 515. saith Every Council hath just so much strength and authority as the Apostolike seat bestoweth on it But I leave you to give us your own judgement Your Testimonies from Fathers can seem of no great weight to us while you so slight them your selves as commonly you do with what lies or Errors or other incompetency you charge Iustin Mart. Irenaeus Tertullian Origen Victorinus Cyprian Eusebius Epiphanius Prudentius Hierom Lactantius Augustine Procopius Theodoret Isidore Euthymius Sozomen Oecumenius Bernard and all the Fathers see Dr. Iames Corrupt of Fath. Part. 4. p. 2 3. Tell us therefore how far you credit them Sir if you refuse thus first to explain your terms and then prove the Visibility of your Church as Papal successively as I have proved the Visibility of the Church that I am of I shall be forced to conclude that you love not the light but at once give up your cause and the reputation of your impartial Love of truth Addenda Miscellanea COncil Ephes. 1. in Epistola ad Nestor Tom. 1 fol. 315. ed. Pet. Crab. Petrus Iohannes aequalis sunt ad alterutrum dignitatis Comment in epist Synodal Basil. p. 31. p. 40. Impress Colon. 1613. saith that The Provinces subject to the four great Patriarchs from the beginning of the Christian Church did know no other supream but their own Patriarcks And if the Pope be a Patriarck it is by the Church If he be Head of all Churches it is by the Church And whereas we have said that it is expressed in the
followeth Queries of R. B. on these definitions with Mr. Iohnsons Answer and my Reply Mr. J. The Catholick Church of Christ. THE Catholick Church of Christ is all those visible Assemblies Congregations or Communities of Christians who live in unity of true faith and external communion one with another and in dependance of their lawful Pastors R. B. Of the Church Qu. 1. Whether you exclude not all those converted among Infidels that never had external Communion with nor were members of any particular visible Church of which you mâ—ke the Catholick to be constituted Mr. J. Answ. It is sufficient that such be subject to the supream Pastor and in voto quantum in se est resolved to be of that particular Church actually which shall or may be assigned for them by that Pastor to be included in my definition R. B. Reply Q 1. Repl. ad 1 m 1. You see then that your Definitions signifie nothing no man can know your meaning by them First you make the Catholick Church to consist only of visible Assemblies and after you allow such to be members of the Church that are of no visible Assemblies 2. You now mention subjection to the supream Pastor as sufficient which in your description or definition you did not 3. If to be only in voto resolved to be of a particular Church will serve then inexistence is not necessary To be only in voto of the Catholick Church proves no man a member of the Catholick Church but proves the contrary because it is Terminus diminuens Seeing then by your own confession inexistence in a particular Church is not of necessity to inexistence in the Catholike Church why do you not only mention it in your definition but confine the Church to such will you say you meant in voto who then can understand you when you say they must be of visible Assemblies and mean they need not be of any but only to wish desire or purpose it 4. But yet you say nothing to my case in its latitude Many a one may be converted to Christ by a solitary Preacher or by two or three that neâ—er tell him that there is any supream Pastor in the world How then can he be subject to that supposed Pastor that never heard of him The English and Dutch convert many Indians to the faith of Christ that never hear of a supream Pastor 5. If it be necessary that a particular Church must be assigned for such members by the supream Pastor then they are yet little the better that never have any such assignation from him as few have R. B. Qu. 2. What is that faith in unity whereof all members of the Catholike Church do live is it the belief of all that God hath revealed to be believed or of part and what part Mr. J. Answ. Of all either explicitly or implicitly R. B. Reply Reply Ad 2m. Your second answer further proves that your definitions signifie just nothing They must live in unity of the faith that is either with faith or without it with a belief of what Goâ— hath revealed to be believed or without it For to believe any point implicitly in your ordinary sense is not to believe it but only to believe one of the Premises whence the conclusion must be inferred But why do you not tell me what you mean by an Implicite faith Faith is called Implicite in several senses 1. When several truths are actually understood and believed in confuso or in gross in some one proposition which containeth the substance of them all but not with accurate distinct conceptions nor such as are ripe for any fit expression This indistinct immature imperfect kind of apprehension may be called Implicite and the distinct and more digested conceptions Explicite 2. When a general proposition is believed as the matter of our faith but the particulars are not understood or not believed As to believe that omne animal vivit not knowing whether you are Animal or Cadaver Or to believe that all that is in the Scripture is the Word of God and true but not to know what is in the Scripture 3. When it is only the formal object of faith that is believed without understanding the material object The first sort of these I confess is Actual Belief though indistinct But I suppose you mean not this 1. Because it is not the ordinary sense of your party 2. Because else you damn either all the world or most of your own professed-party at least as no members of the Church for few or none have an Actual understanding and belief of all that ever God revealed to them because all men or most at least have been sinfully negligent in searching after and receiving truth and so are sinfully ignorant No man knoweth all that God hath revealed or that he ought to know 3. Because by this rule it is impossible for you or any man to know who is indeed a member of your Church for you cannot know mens confused knowledge or know that it extendeth to all revealed For if you speak of all revealed in general or in Scripture you still damn all or most in your own sense for none as I said understand it all to a word But if you speak of all which that particular man hath had sufficient means to know it is then impossible for you to make a judgement of any mans faith by this For you can never discern all the means internal or external that ever he had much less can you discern whether his faith be commensurate to the truth so far revealed So that by this course you make your Church invisible I pray tell me how you can avoid it 2. The second sort of Implicite Belief is no Belief of the particulars at all An Animal may live and yet it followeth not that you are alive or an animal If this were your meaning then either you mean that it is enough if all be believed Implicitly besides that general proposition or you mean that some must be believed explicitly that is actually and some Implicitly that is not at all If the former be your sense then Infidels or Heathens may be of your Church For a man may believe in general that the Bible is the Word of God and true and yet not know a word that 's in it and so not know that Christ is the Messias or that ever there was such a person But if somewhat must be explicitely that is Actually believed the Question that you should have answered was What is it For till that be known no man can know a Member of your Church by your description 3. If you take Implicite in the third sense then Implicite faith is either Divine or Humane Divine when the Divine Veracity is the formal Object Humane when mans Veracity is the formal Object Which may be Conjunct where the Testimonies are so conjunct as that we are sure it is God that speaks by man who is therefore credible because God infallibly
guideth or inspireth him This is at once to believe a Humane and Divine Veracity If any of this be your meaning the last questions remain still to be resolved by you A man may believe that God is true and that his Prophets or inspired messengers are true and yet not understand a word of the message so that still if this will serve a man may be of your Church that knoweth not that ever there was such a person as Jesus Christ or that ever he died for our sins or rose again or that we shall rise And are Infidels of your Church while you are arguing us out But if there be some truths besides the Veracity of God and his Messengers that must be believed you must shew what it is or your Church-members cannot be known Tell me therefore without tergiversation what are the revealed truths that must actually be believed or what is the faith materially in unity whereof all members of the Catholike Church do live I pray fly not but plainly tell me And if again you fly to uncertain points because of the diversity of means of information and say It must be so much to every man as he had means to know I again answer you 1. If a man had no means to know that there is a Christ it seems then he is one of your Church 2. You still damn all your own there being not a man that knoweth all that he had means to know because all have culpably neglected means And so you have no Church 3. Still you make your Church invisible if you had any For no man can tell as I said who knoweth in full proportion to his helps and means Do you not see now whither your Implicite faith hath brought you R. B. Qu. 3. Is it any lawful Pastors or All that must necessarily be depended on by every member and who are these Pastors Mr. J. Answ. Of all respectively to each subject that is that the authority of none of them mediate or immediate be rejected or contemned by him that is a true member of the Church R. B. Reply Ad Qu. 3. R. Reply 1. Here still you tell me that your descriptions signified nothing You told me that the members must live in dependance on their lawful Pastors And now you tell me that their authority must not be rejected or contemned And indeed is dependance and non-rejection all one The millions of heathens that never heard of the Pope or any of your Pastors reject them not nor contemn them Are they therefore fit matter for your Church 2. If you say that you mean it of such only as have a sufficient Revelation of the Authority of these Pastors I further reply 1. It seems then it is not only the Pope but every Priest respectively that is an essential member of your Church or to whom each member must be subject necessarily ad esse If so then every man that by falling out or prejudice doth culpably reject the authority of any one Pastor or Priest among a swarm is damned or none of the Church though he believe in the Pope and in twenty thousand Priests besides 2. And then have we not cause to pray God to bless us from the company of your Priests or at least that we may not have too many when among a multitude we may be in danger of rejecting some one and then we are cast out of the Church What if a Gentleman should find some such as Watson or Montaltus describe in bed with his wife or a Prince find a Garnet a Campion or a Parsons in a Treason and by such a temptation should be so weak as to contemn or reject the authority of that single Priest while he honoureth all the rest Is it certain that such a man is none of the Catholike Church for that How hard is it in France and Italy then to be a Catholike where Priests are so numerous that its ten to one but among the crowd the authority of some one may be rejected 3. But is it all the Priests that we never knew or knew not to be Priests that we must depend on or is it only those whose authority is manifested to us by sufficient evidence Doubtless you will confine our dependance to these only or else no man could be a Christian And if so you know we are never the nearer a resolution for your answer till you yet tell us how we must know our Pastors to have authority indeed What if they shew me the Bishops orders and I know that many have had forged Orders am I bound to believe in his authority what if I be utterly ignorant whether he that ordained him were himself ordained or had intentionem ordinandi how shall I then be sure of his authority that is ordained And how can the people be acquainted with the passages in Election and Ordination that are necessary to the knowledge of their authority especially of the Popes and prelates And what if you tell me your own opinion of the sufficient means by which I must be convinced of the Popes and Priests authority how shall I know that you are not deceived and that these are the sufficient means indeed unless a General Council have defined them to be sufficient And if they have if it were not as an Article of faith you 'l say I am not bound of necessity to believe their definition And what if I have sufficient means to know the authority of a thousand Priests but am culpably ignorant of it in some few through my neglect Doth it follow that therefore I am out of the Church Is my obedience to each Priest as necessary as my belief of every Article of my faith If so I know not whether your multiplying Articles or multiplying Priests doth fill hell faster if men must be judged by your laws But it is our Allegiance to our Soveraign that is the character of a Subject in the Common-wealth and not our Allegiance or duty to every inferiour Magistrate the rejection of one of them may stand with subjection though not with innocency It is not treason to reject a Constable why then should more be necessary to our Church-membership and salvation But still you make your Church invisible For as no man can know that liveth in the remote parts of the world whether your Popes themselves are truly Popes as being duly qualified and elected nor which is the true Pope when you have oft had more then one at once so you can never know concerning your members whether their dependance on their Pastors be extensively proportionate to the means that discovered their authority and whether their disobedience unchurch them or no I earnestly crave your answer to the thirty uncertainties which I have mentioned in my Safe Religion p. 93 to 104. And tell us how all our Pastours may be known And whether every particular sin unchurch men and if not why the contempt or rejection of a drunken Priest doth it while
the Christians in the world But when the Emperours became Christians their great favour and large endowments of the Church and the greatness and advantage of the Imperial City did give opportunity to the Bishop of Rome as having both riches and the Emperours and Commanders ears to do so many and great favours for most other Churches in preserving and vindicating them that it was very easie for the Bishop hereby to become the chief Patriarch which he was more beholden to the Emperour for then to any Title that he had from Christ or Peter And then the quarrel with Iohn of Constantinople occasioned the thoughts of an universal Headship which Gregory did disclaim and abominate but Boniface after him by the grant of a murdering trayterous Emperour did obtain But so as the See swelled before into a preparatory magnitude And if we could not tell you the time within two hundred years and more it were no great matter as long as we can prove that it was not so before For who knows not that even some Kings in Europe have come from being limited Monarchs to be absolute and that by such degrees that none can tell the certain time Nay I may give you a stranger instance The Parliaments of England have part in the legislative power And yet I do not think that any Lawyer in England is able to prove the just time yea or the age or within many ages when they first obtained it which yet in so narrow a spot of ground may be easilier done then the time of the Popes usurpation over all the world For it could not be all at once for one Country yeilded to his late claim in one age and another in another age and many a bloody battle was fought before he could bring the Germane Emperours and Christian Princes to submit to him fully 3. But let me tell you one thing more Though as to an arrogant claim the Pope is Head and Governour of all the Catholike Church and Rome their Mistris as the Pope makes Patriarchs of Antioch Alexandria and Hierusalem that never come near the place or people yet as to any possession or acknowledgement on the Churches part he was never universal Head nor Rome the Mistris to this day For the greater half of the Christians did never subject themselves to him at all nor come under his power So that the Pope even now in his greatest height is only the head of the universal Church by his own claim and naming himself so without any Title given by God or acknowledged by men and without having ever been possessed of what he claims The King of France doth scarce believe that the King of England was King of France for all that he put it into his title nor do the Swedes take the Pole for their King because he so calls himself I am sure if the Turkish Emperour call himself the Emperour of the world that doth not prove that he is so Rainerius the Popes Inquisitor in catal post lib. cont Waldens saith plainly That the Churches that were planted by the Apostles themselves such as the Abassines 〈◊〉 are not subject to the Pope Once he 〈◊〉 the Government of no Church in the world but Rome it self After that he grew to have the government of the Patriarchate of the West since that he hath got some more and claimed all but never got neer half the Churches into his hands to this day Do I need then to say any more to disprove his universal Headship and that Rome is not the Catholike Ruling Church But having gone thus far in opening my thoughts to you I shall forbear the adjoyning the proof of my Assertions till I hear again from you If I understand it The Question between you and me to be debated must be this Whether the Roman Church was in the Apostles dayes the Mistris or Ruling Church which all other Churches were bound to obey and from it were to be called the Roman Catholike Church This I deny and you must maintain or else you must be no Papist The motion that I make is that by the next you will send me your Arguments to prove it for it belongs to you to prove it if you affirm it To which I will return you if they change not my judgement both my Answers and my Arguments for the Negative And if you do indeed make good but this one Assertion I do 〈◊〉 promise you that I will joyfully and resolvedly turn Papist and if you cannot make it good I may expect that you should no longer adhere to Rome as the Ruling or Catholike Church and the Pillar and Ground of Truth though charity should allow it to be a Catholike Church that is a member of the Catholike Church which is indeed the Pillar and Ground of Truth wherein Rome may have a part as it is part of the Church But I would it were not a most dangerously diseased part I crave your reply with what speed you can and remain An unfeigned lover of Truth and the friends of Truth Rich. Baxter Feb. 12. 1656 7. The two following Letters with the Narrative are annexed only to shew the effect of the former Sir THough the business in agitation betwixt your self and me be the one thing necessary and so to be preferred to all obligations and businesses of what concernment soever yet a resolution formerly taken up hath diverted me somewhat from the present earnest prosecution thereof as it deserves Temporal credit though it should give way to things of eternal moment yet it often sways the minds even of good men to neglect very important opportunities which though I cannot excuse my self of yet I desire it may be candidly interpreted and that this may be accepted as a pledge to an answer of what you have inserted And I desire your next may be directed to me to London to one Mr. T. S. who is a kinsman of mine and no small admirer of your self My thanks in the interim I return for the pains you have taken which I hope through the mercy of God will not prove successeless for the future one way or other the truth is I have not divulged my self or intentions as yet to any of my own way which I know will be very troublesome and I know I shall be beset with enemies from the ignorant that way affected as I doubt not of help from the learned Yet as I told you in my former without any carnal interest respecting or outward troubles regarding or inbred enemies combating I resolve by the grace and assistance of God to be guided by truth impartially where I shall find it lye clearest and shalt make it my work to implore the throne of mercy that my understanding may be so enlightned as to discern truth from heresie I desire Sir if it may be no prejudice to your more earnest occasions that I may have two or three lines from you by way of advice to meet me at London at the place
aforesaid and assure your self however God shall direct the successe I shall rest Sir A thirsty desirer of truth and yours unfeignedly Tho. Smith Feb. 16. 1656. If what you write to me be first sent to Mr. John Smiths of Worcester as before it will be safely sent to me Good Sir think not I slight a business of so eternal consequence by my neglect for the present for none shall for the future be found more earnest to find out the mind of God and he assisting I hope as chearfully to close therewith Sir THe speed of your former applications to me by way of answer incites me to the confirmation of those thoughts of your worth which were at my first addresses to you harboured in my brest but the substance of your discourse is a stronger motive Although peradventure it may seem somewhat wonderful that I should so soon be brought over to the serious apprehensions of the weight of what you have written to me yet when you consult the divine providence and the Almighty direction which prompted me to the choise of your self above others upon grounds not altogether insufficiently established which will be further made good when I shall have the happiness of a personal entercourse of communion with you it will be certainly concluded upon by your self and whosoever it shall be communicated to that the truth which I have already seriously pondered was the full aim of my intentions which truth I shall impartially and joyfully entertain wheresoever I find it without any thoughts at all of temporal or external discouragements of which I have already contested with some and expect the Lord arm me against them far greater It is no small thing that I shall be lookt upon as an Apostate and so worthy of excommunication utterly but I conclude according to St. Augustine I guess that it is no shame to turn to the better and withal I add although I could insert some small exceptions I am to the main satisfied but yet in some doubtful suspence wherein I expect full satisfaction by your book which I received intimation from you is in the Press and quickly to be published If I might receive two or three lines from you in the interim by way of establishment it would be very gratefully accepted in relation to the comfortable taking off those obstacles which I am certain to meet with in my change of judgement I am very sorry that a person whom I know to be so tender of eternal souls in general should be so continually taken off your important business daily by particulars But being likewise sensible that you value a soul according to the worth of the same I am encouraged to think yea I verily believe these rude things proceeding from a soul that is to rise or fall according to what is now determining between us it will not be unacceptably received from Sir The admirer of your worth Tho. Smith March 24. 1656 7. A Narrative of the case of T. S. by his friend Reverend Sir Mr. Thomas Smith late of Martins Ludgate London was brought up in the Protestant Religion and for some years accounted an affectionate professor thereof by those who were acquainted with his diligence and pains in writing out at large the notes he took of Mr. Calamies and others pious Sermons but afterwards not living up to the knowledge he had he grew more remiss in his practice and in his company and became a great affliction to his Father in his life-time by reason thereof but a greater to his Mother after his Fathers death which I suppose Mr. Iacomb Mr. Fauller and others of her acquaintance cannot forget But when she understood the company he most frequented were Papists who did at length take the boldness to resort to her house she was very much perplexed fearing that they had prevailed with her son to turn Papist which she soon found as she told me to be so indeed I was not willing to believe her report but desired to satisfie my self by discoursing with himself hoping that I should not have found his judgement determined that way as I did to my great trouble find it to be especially in his justification of the Jurisdiction and Authority of the Pope and other tenets of the Church of Rome By this time he had wasted his Patrimony and had run himself into debt so far that he durst not walk up and down the streets as he had done he went a Voyage to the Barbadoes but returned thence in a worse condition then he went yet continued still in the opinion he had received notwithstanding the great offence and trouble it was to those from whom he expected relief and maintenance whose hearts and hands were in that particular somewhat shut up against him in so much that he was reduced to manifold extremities here Afterwards hopeless of any livelyhood here he went over to Ireland where he had a kinsman but meeting with disappointment there of what he expected he returned again into England and steered his course to Worcester where he had another kinsman lived during this Voyage I exchanged several letters with him being desirous to make him sensible of the hand of God eminently out against him hedging up his way with thorns everywhere which I desired might be in order to his return to God looking upon his condition to be manifestly desperate for ever if he should refuse to return and harden his heart against him At Worcester he fell sick which through Gods blessing brought him to a more serious consideration of his everlasting state which he apprehended to approach near And it wrought some kind of doubt in him touching the truth of some of the chief of those things which he had entertained as true about the Church of Rome as he informed me by his letter whereunto for his conviction and better satisfaction I did advise him to apply himself unto Mr. Baxter of Kederminster who I told him I did believe was a great lover of souls which he by letter did as he told me and that Mr. Baxter did return him an answer thereunto in writing with liberty to shew it to any the most learned of his way which when he came to London he shewed me acknowledging himself much convinced by it and the more taken for that so large and full an answer with that liberty should be dispatch't to him with so much expedition which as I remember he said he had the next day after he sent his Yet was he confident as he said that it would be answered and as he told me he had left it with one that had undertaken it He spake of its being shewn to Embassadors or an Embassador and that within fourteen days he should have an answer to it but enquiring after it I could never see any answer nor could he notwithstanding all his solicitations and provocations used prevail to have an answer which he seemed to be very much offended at and at length as he
are Eutychians and Jacobites and confesses that their Patriarch is in subjection to the Patriarch of Alexandria c. See more of the Chofti Jacobites Maronites c. p. 493 494. where he confesses that many of them are now subject to the Pope and have renounced their old errors See Nilus on this subject (a) (a) Liberatus in Brev. c. 16. (b (b Epist. praeambula Concil Chalcedon (c) (c) Concil Chalcedon Act. 1. (d) (d) Concil Chalcedon Act. 8. (e) (e) St. Cyprian Epist. 67. (f) (f) Concil Sard. cap. 4. cited by St. Athan. Apol. 2. pag. 753. (g) (g) St. Basil. Epist. 74. (h) (h) St. Chrysost. Epist. 2. ad Innocent (i) (i) Concil Ephes. p. 2. Act. 5. (k) (k) St. Athanas ad Solit. Epist. Julius in lit ad Arian ap Athan Apolog 1. pag. 753. Theodoret. lib. 2. cap. 4. Athanas Apol. 2. Zozom lib. 3. cap. 7. The Appeal of Theodoret from that Council as to his judge is so undeniable that Chamier is forced to acknowledge it Tom. 2. l. 13. c. g. p. 498. and the whole Council of Calcedon acknowledged the right of that Appeal restoring Theodoret to his Bishoprick by force of an order given upon that Appeal by Leo Pope to restore him Concerning Saint Athanasius being judged and righted by Iulius Pope Chamier cit p. 497. acknowledges the matter of fact to be so but against all antiquity pretends that judgment to have been unjust Which had it been so yet it shews a true power of judging in the Pope though then unduly executed otherwise Saint Athanasius would never have made use of it neither can it be condemned of injustice unless Saint Athanasius be also condemed as unjust in consenting to it Niceph. lib. 13. cap. 34. Chamier cit p. 498. sayes other Bishops restored those who were wrongfully deposed as well as the Pope Which though it were so yet never was there any single Bishop save the Pope who restored any who were out of their respective Diocess or Patriarchates but always collected together in a Synod by common voice and that in regard only of their neighbouring Bishops whereas the Bishop of Rome his sole and single authority restored Bishops wrongfully deposed all the Church over (m) (m) Concil Chalced. Action 1. (n) (n) Concil Chalced. Action 3. * * Which could not be by reason of the Sanctity and truth which was then in it for the Church of Milan and many others in France Africa and Greece were also then pure and holy and yet none have this title save the Church of Rome In the time of Iustinian the Emperour Agapet Pope even in Constantinople against the will both of the Emperour and Empress deposed Anthymus and ordained Mennas in his place Liberaâ— in Breviario cap. 21. Marcellinus Comes in Chronico Concil Constantin sub Menna act 4. And the same St. Greg. C. 7. Ep. 63. declares that both thâ— Emperour and Bishop of Constantinople acknowledged that the Church of Constantinople was subject to the See of Rome And l. 7. Ep. 37. Et alibi pronounces that in case of falling into offences he knew no Bishop which was not subject to the Bishop of Rome (o) (o) St. Augustin Tom 1 Epist. Rom. Pontif. post Epist. 2. ad Celestinum Epist. Concil ad I. con Pap. Act. 1. sequ For the age 600. See St. Gregory Pope l. 10. ep 30. where Hereticks and Shismaticks repenting were received then into the Church upon solemn promise and publike protestation that they would never any more separate from but alwaies remain in the unity of the Catholike Church and communion in all things with the Bishop of Rome