to have disagreed from you in many things Which I am so certain of that I will venture my Credit and my Life upon it 20. Ad 13. § To the Third Whether seeing there cannot be assigned any Visible true Church distinct from the Roman it follows not that She Erred not Fundamentally I say in our sense of the word Fundamental it does follow For if it be true that there was then no Church distinct from the Roman then it must be either because there was no Church at all which we deny Or because the Roman Church was the whole Church which we also deny Or because She was a Part of the Whole which we grant And if She were a true Part of the Church than She retained those truths which were simply necessary to Salvation and held no Errors which were inevitably and unpardonably destructive of it For this is precisely necessary to constitute any man or any Church a member of the Church Catholick In our sense therefore of the Word Fundamental I hope She erred not Fundamentally but in your sense of the word I fear she did That is She held something to be Divine Revelation which was not something not to be which was 21. Ad 14. § To the Fourth How it could be damnable to maintain her Errors if they were not Fundamental I answer 1. Though it were not damnable yet if it were a fault it was not to be done For a Venial sin with you is not damnable yet you say it is not to be committed for the procuring any good Non est faciendum malum vel minimum ut eveniat bonum vel maximum 2. It is damnable to maintain an error against Conscience though the error in it self and to him that believes it be not damnable Nay the profession not only of an error but even of a truth if not believed when you think on it again I believe you will confess to be a mortal sin unless you will say Hypocrisie and Simulation in Religion is not so 3. Though we say the Errors of the Roman Church were not destructive of Salvation but pardonable even to them that Dyed in them upon a general repentance yet we deny not but in themselves they were damnable Nay the very saying they were pardonable implies they needed pardon and therefore in themselves were damnable damnable meritoriously though not effectually As a poyson may be deadly in it self and yet not kill him that together with the Poyson takes an Antidote or as Fellony may deserve Death and yet not bring it on him that obtains the Kings Pardon 22. Ad 15. § To the Fifth How they can be excused from Schism who forsook her Communion upon pretence of Errors which were not damnable I answer All that we forsake in you is only the Belief and Practice and profession of your Errors Hereupon you cast us out of your Communion And then with a strange and contradictious and ridiculous Hypocrisie complain that we forsake it As if a man should thrust his friend out of doors and then be offended at his departure But for us not to forsake the belief of your Errors having discovered them to be Errors was impossible and therefore to do so could not be damnable believing them to be Errors Not to forsake the practice and profession of them had been damnable Heresie supposing that which you vainly run away with and take for granted those Errors in themselves were not damnable Now to do so and as matters now stand not to forsake your Communion is apparently contradictious seeing the condition of your Communion is that we must profess to believe all your Doctrines not only not to be damnable Errors which will not content you but also to be certain and necessary and revealed truths So that to demand why we forsake your Communion upon pretence of Errors which were not damnable is in effect to demand why we forsook it upon our forsaking it For to pretend that there are Errors in your Church though not damnable is ipso facto to forsake your Communion and to do that which both in your account and as you thinâ— in Gods account puts him as does so out of your Communion So that either you must free your Church from requiring the belief of any Error whatsoever damnable and not damnable or whether you will or no you must free us from Schism For Schism there cannot be in leaving your Communion unless we were obliged to continue in it Man cannot be obliged by Man but to what either formally or virtually he is obliged by God for all just power is from God God the Eternal truth neither can nor will oblige us to believe any the least and the most innocent falshood to be a Divine truth that is to Err nor to profess a known Error which is to lie So that if you require the belief of any Error among the conditions of your Communion our obligation to communicate with you ceaseth and so the imputation of Schism to us vanisheth into nothing but lies heavy upon you for making our separation from you just and necessary by requiring unnecessary and unlawful conditions of your Communion Hereafter therefore I intreat you let not your demand be how could we forsake your Communion without Schism seeing you Erred not damnably But how we could do so without Schism seeing you Erred not at all which if either you do prove or we cannot disprove it we will I at least will for my part return to your Communion or subscribe my self Schismatick In the mean time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we continue where we are 23. Yet notwithstanding all your Errors we do not renounce your Communion totally and absolutely but only leave Communicating with you in the practice and profession of your Errors The tryal whereof will be to propose some form of worshiping God taken wholly out of Scripture and herein if we refuse to joyn with you then and not till then may we justly say we have utterly and absolutely abandoned your Communion 25. Ad 17. § To the Seventh Whether Error against any one truth sufficiently propounded as testified by God destroy not the Nature and Unity of Faith or at least is not a grievous â—ffence excluding Salvation I answer if you suppose as you seem to do the proposition so sufficient that the party to whom it is made is convinced that it is from God so that the denyal of it involves also with it the denial of Gods veracity any such Error destroys both Faith and Salvation But if the Proposal be only so sufficient not that the party to whom it is made is convinced but only that he should and but for his own fault would have been convinced of the Divine verity of the Doctrine proposed The crime then is not so great for the belief of Gods veracity may well consist with such an Error Yet a fault I confess it is and without Repentance damnable if all circumstances considered the proposal
over all other Churches That the African Churches in S. Austins time should be ignorant that the Pope was Head of the Church and Judge of Appeals jure divino and that there was a necessity of Conformity with the Church in this and all other points of Doctrin Nay that the Popes themselves should be so ignorant of the true ground of this their Authority as to pretend to it not upon Scripture or universal Tradition but upon an imaginary pretended none-such Canon of the Council of Nice That Vincentius Lirinensis seeking for a guide of his Faith and a preservative from Heresie should be ignorant of this so ready one The Infallibility of the Church of Rome All these things and many more are very strange to me if the Infallibility of the Roman Church be indeed and were always by Christians acknowledged the foundation of our Faith And therefore I beseech you pardon me if I choose to build mine upon one that is much firmer and safer and lies open to none of these objections which is Scripture and universal Tradition and if one that is of this Faith may have leave to do so I will subscribe with hand and heart Your very loving and true Friend W. C. A TABLE OF Contents Note that the first Figure refers to the Chapter the other to the divisions of each Chapter A. PRotestants agree in more things than they differ in by believing the Scripture chap. 4. div 49.50 We have as many rational means of Agreement as the Papists c. 3.7 8. Papists pretend to means of agreement and do not agree c. 3.3 4 5 6. Not necessary to find a Church agreeing with Protestants in all points Ans pref 19. c. 5.27 Antiquity vainly pleaded for Romish Doctrins and Practices since many Errors are more ancient than some of their Doctrins c. 5.91 The Apostolick Church an Infallible Guide to which we may resort being present to us by her Writings c. 3.69 80. That the Church has power to make new Articles of Faith asserted by the Romish Doctors c. 4.18 This one Article I believe the Roman Catholick Church to be Infallible if their Doctrin were true would secure against heresie more than the whole Creed c. 4.77 78 79 83. Christs assistance promised to the Church to lead her into more than necessary truths c. 5.61 62. Atheism and irreligion springs easily from some Romish Doctrins and Practices Pref. 7 8. S. Austins saying Evangelio non crederem c. how to be understood c. 2.54 97 98 99. S. Austins Testimony against the Donatists not cogent against Protestants c. 2.163 S. Austins words No necessity to divide unity explained c. 5.10 The Authors vindication from suspition of Heresiâ— Pref. 28. The Authors motives to turn a Papist with answerâ— to them Pref. 42.43 B. The Bible which is the Religion of Protestants to be preferred before the way of Romish Religion shewed at large c. 6. from 56. to 72. Inclusive C. The Calvinists rigid Doctrin of Predetermination unjustly reproached by Papists who communicate with those that hold the same c. 7.30 To give a Catalogue of our Fundamentals not necessary nor possible Ans Pref. 27. c. 3.13 53. Want of such a Catalogue leaves us not uncertain in our Faith c. 3.14 Papists as much bound to give a Catalogue of the Churches proposals which are their Fundamentals and yet do it not c. 3.53 Our general Catalogue of Fundamentals as good as theirs c. 4.12 c. 7.35 Moral certainty a sufficient Foundation of Faith c. 2.154 A Protestant may have certainty though disagreeing Protestants all pretend to like certainty c. 7.13 What Charity Papists allow to us Protestants and we to them c. 1.1 3 4 5. A Charitable judgment should be made of such as err but lead good lives c. 7.33 Protestant Charity to Ignorant Papists no comfort to them that will not see their errors c. 5.76 The Church how furnished with means to determin Controversies c. 1.7 11. Commands in Scripture to hear the Church and obey it suppose it not infallible c. 3.41 We may be a true Church though deriving Ordination and receiving Scripture from a false one c. 6.54 Common truths believed may preserve them good that otherwise err c. 7.33 Conscience in some cases will justifie separation though every pretence of it will not c. 5.108 Concord in damned errors worse than disagreement in controverted points c. 5.72 The Consequences of mens Opinions may be unjustly charged upon them c. 1.12 c. 7.30 What Contradictions Papists believe who hold Transubstantiation c. 4.46 All Controversies in Religion not necessary to be determined c. 1.7 156. c. 3.88 How Controversies about Scripture it self are to be decided c. 2.27 Controversies not necessary to be decided by a Judicial sentence without any appeal c. 2.85 That the Creed contains all necessary points and how to be understood c. 4.23 73 74. Not necessary that our Creed should be larger than that of the Apostles c. 4.67 70 71 72. Whether it be contrary to the Creed to say the Church may fail c. 5.31 D. S Dennis of Alexandria's saying explained about not dividing the Church c. 5.12 To deny a Truth witnessed by God whether always damnable Ans Pref. 9. The Apostles depositing Truth with the Church no argument that she should always keep it sincere and intire c. 2.148 Of Disagreeing Protestants though one side must err yet both may hope for salvation Ans Pref. 22. c. 1.10 13 17. Two may disagree in a matter of faith and yet neither be chargeable with denying a declared Truth of Gods Ans Pref. 10. Differences among Protestants vainly objected against them c. 3.2 3 5. c. 5.72 No reason to reproach them for their differences about necessary Truths and damuable Errors c. 3.52 What is requisite to convince a man that a Doctrin comes from God Ans Pref. 8. Believing the Doctrin of Scripture a man may be saved though he did not believe it to be the word of God c. 2.159 The Donatists error about the Catholick Church what it was and was not c. 3.64 The Donatists case and ours not alike c. 5.103 The Roman Church guilty of the Donatists Error in perswading men as good not to be Christians as not Roman Catholicks c. 3.64 Papists liker to the Donatists than we by their uncharitable denying salvation out of their Church c. 7.21 22 27. E. English Divines vindicated from inclining to Popery and for want of skill in School-Divinity Pref. 19. How Errors may be damnable Ans Pref. 22. In what case Errors damnable may not damn those that hold them c. 5.58 c. 6.14 In what case Errors not damnable may be damnable to those that hold them c. 5.66 No man to be reproached for quitting his Errors c. 5.103 Though we may pardon the Roman Church for her Errors yet we may not sin with it c. 5.70 Errors of the Roman Church that endanger salvation to be forsaken though they are not destructive of it c. 7.6
exception against a Physitian that himself was sometimes in and recovered himself from that Disease which he undertakes to cure or against a Guide in a way that at first before he had experience himself mistook it and afterwards found his error and amended it That noble writer Michael de Montai'gne was surely of a far different mind for he will hardly allow any Physitian competent but only for such Diseases as himself had passed through And a far greater than Montai'gne even he that said Tu conversus confirma fratres when thou art converted strengthen by Brethren gives us sufficiently to understand that they which have themselves been in such a state as to need Conversion are not thereby made incapable of but rather engaged and obliged unto and qualified for this Charitable Function 41. The Motives then hitherto not answered were these 42. I. Because perpetual visible profession which could never be wanting to the Religion of Christ nor any part of it is apparently wanting to Protestant Religion so far as concerns the points in contestation II. Because Luther and his followers separating from the Church of Rome separated also from all Churches pure or impure true or false then being in the world upon which ground I conclude that either Gods promises did fail of performance if there were then no Church in the World which held all things necessary and nothing repugnant to Salvation or else that Luther and his Sectaries separating from all Churches then in the World and so from the true if there were any true were damnable Schismaticks III. Because if any credit may be given to as credible records as any are extant the Doctrine of Catholicks hath been frequently confirmed and the opposite Doctrine of Protestants confounded with supernatural and Divine Miracles IV. Because many points of Protestant Doctrine are the damned Opinions of Hereticks condemned by the Primitive Church V. Because the Prophecies of the Old Testament touching the Couversion of Kings and Nations to the true Religion of Christ have been accomplished in and by the Catholick Roman Religion and the Professors of it and not by Protestant Religion and the Professors of it VI. Because the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is conformable and the Doctrine of Protestants contrary to the Doctrine of the Fathers of the Primitive Church even by the Confession of Protestants themselves I mean those Fathers who lived within the compass of the first 600. years to whom Protestants themselves do very frequently and very confidently appeal VII Because the first pretended Reformers had neither extraordinary Commission from God nor ordinary Mission from the Church to Preach Protestant Doctrine VIII Because Luther to Preach against the Mass which contains the most material points now in controversie was persuaded by reasons suggested to him by the Devil himself disputing with him So himself professeth in his Book de Missa Privata That all men might take heed of following him who professeth himself to follow the Devil IX Because the Protestant cause is now and hath been from the beginning maintained with grosse falsifications and Calumnies whereof their prime Controversie writers are notoriously and in high degree guilty X. Because by denying all humane Authority either of Pope or Councils or Church to determine Controversies of Faith they have abolished all possible means of suppressing Heresie or restoring Unity to the Church These are the Motives now my Answers to them follow briefly and in order 43. To the first God hath neither drecreed nor foretold that his true Doctrine should de facto be alwaies visibly professed without any mixture of falshood To the second God hath neither decreed nor foretold that there shall be alwaies a visible Company of Men free from all Error in it self Damnable Neither is it alwaies of necessity Schismatical to separate from the external Communion of a Church though wanting nothing necessary For if this Church supposed to want nothing necessary require me to profess against my Conscience that I believe some Error tho never so small and innocent which I do not believe and will not allow me Her Communion but upon this condition In this case the Church for requiring this condition is Schismatical and not I for separating from the Church To the third If any credit may be given to Records far more creditable than these the Doctrine of Protestants that is the Bible hath been confirmed and the Doctrine of Papists which is in many points plainly opposite to it confounded with Supernatural and Divine Miracles which for number and Glory out-shine Popish pretended Miracles as much as the Sun doth an Ignis fatuus those I mean which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles Now this Book by the Confession of all sides confirmed by innumerous Miracles foretels me plainly that in after Ages great Signs and Wonders shall be wrought in confirmation of false Doctrine and that I am not to believe any Doctrine which seems to my understanding repugnant to the first though an Angel from Heaven should teach it which were certainly as great a Miracle as any that was ever wrought in attestation of any part of the Doctrine of the Church of Rome But that true Doctrine should in all Ages have the testimony of Miracles that I am no where taught So that I have more reason to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signs of false Doctrine then much to regard them as certain arguments of the truth Besides setting aside the Bible and the Tradition of it there is as good story for Miracles wrought by those who lived and died in opposition to the Doctrine of the Roman Church as by S. Cyprian Colmannus Columbanus Aidanus and others as there is for those that are pretended to be wrought by the Members of that Church Lastly it seems to me no strange thing that God in his Justice should permit some true Miracles to be wrought to delude them who have forged so many as apparently the Professors of the Roman Doctrine have to abuse the World To the Fourth All those were not a See this acknowledged by Bellar de Scrip Eccles in Philastrio by Petavius Animad in Epiph de inscrip operis By S. Austin Lib. de Haeres Haer. 80. Hereticks which by Philastrius Epiphanius or S. Austine were put in the Catalogue of Hereticks To the Fifth Kings and Nations have been and may be Converted by Men of contrary Religions To the Sixth The Doctrine of Papists is confessed by Papists contrary to the Fathers in many points To the Seventh The Pastors of a Church cannot but have Authority from it to Preach against the abuses of it whether in Doctrine or Practice if there be any in it Neither can any Christian want an ordinary commission from God to do a necessary work of Charity after a peacable manner when there is no body else that can or will do it In extraordinary cases extraordinary courses are not to be disallowed If some
Christian Lay-man should come into a Country of Infidels and had ability to persuade them to Christianity who would say he might not use it for want of Commission To the Eighth Luthers conference with the Devil might be for ought I know nothing but a Melancholy Dream If it were real the Devil might persuade Luther from the Mass hoping by doing so to keep him constant to it Or that others would make his dissuasion from it an argument for it as we see Papists do and be afraid of following Luther as confessing himself to have been persuaded by the Devil To the Ninth Illiacos intra muros peccatur extra Papists are more guilty of this fault than Protestants Even this very Author in this very Pamphlet hath not so many leaves as falsifications and Calumnies To the Tenth Let all Men believe the Scripture and that only and endeavour to believe it in the true sense and require no more of others and they shall find this not only a better but the only means to suppress Heresie and restore Unity For he that believes the Scripture sincerely and endeavours to believe it in the true sense cannot possibly be an Heretick And if no more than this were required of any Man to make him capable of the Churches Communion then all Men so qualified though they were different in opinion yet notwithstanding any such difference must be of necessity one in Communion THE ANSWER TO THE PREFACE TO the First and Second § If beginnings be ominous as they say they are D. Potter hath cause to look for great store of uningenuous dealing from you the very first words you speak of him viz. That he hath not so much as once truly and really fallen upon the point in question being a most unjust and immodest imputation 2. For the point in question was not that which you pretend Whether both Papists and Protestants can be saved in their several Professions But whether you may without uncharitableness affirm that Protestancy unrepented destroys Salvation For there is no incongruity but that it may be true That you and we connot both be Saved and yet as Ttrue That without uncharitableness you cannot pronounce us Damned And therefore though the Author of Charity Mistaken had proved as strongly as he hath done weakly that one Heaven could not receive Protestants and Papists both yet certainly it was very hastily and unwarrantably and therefore uncharitably concluded that Protestants were the part that was to be excluded As though Jews and Christians cannot both be saved yet a Jew cannot justly and therefore not charitably pronounce a Christian Damned 3. Neither may you or C. M. conclude him from hence as covertly you do an Enemy to Souls by deceiving them with ungrounded false hopes of Salvation seeing the hope of Salvation cannot be ungrounded which requires and supposes belief and practise of all things absolutely necessary to Salvation and repentance of those Sins and Errors which we fall into by humane frailty Nor a friend to indifferency in Religions seeing he gives them only hope of pardon of Errors who are desirous and according to the proportion of their opportunities and abilities industrious to find the truth or at least truly repentant that they have not been so Which Doctrine is very fit to excite men to a constant and impartial search of truth and very far from teaching them that it is indifferent what Religion they are of and without all controversie very honourable to the goodness of God with which how it can consist not to be satisfied with his Servants true endeavours to know his will and do it without full and exact performance I leave it to you and all good men to judge 5. You say he was loth to affirm plainly that generally both Catholicks and Protestants may be saved which yet is manifest he doth affirm plainly of Protestants throughout his Book and of Erring Papists that have sincerely sought the truth and failed of it and Die with a generalrepentance p. 77.78 And yet you deceive your self if you conveive he had any other necessity to do so but only that he thought it true For we may and do pretend that before Luther there were many true Churches besides the Roman which agreed not with her in particular The Greek Church So that what you say is evidently true is indeed evidently false Besides if he had had any necessity to make use of you in this matter he needed not for this end to say that now in your Church Salvation may be had but onely that before Luthers time it might be Then when your means of knowing the truth were not so great and when your ignorance might be more invincible and therefore more excusable So that you may see if you please it is not for ends but for the love of truth that we are thus charitable to you 6. Neither is it material what you alledge that they are not Fundamental Errors and then what imports it whether we hold them or no forasmuch as concerns cur possibility to be Saved As if we were not bound by the Love of God and the love of truth to be zealous in the defence of all Truths that are any way profitable though not simply necessary to Salvation Or as if any good man could satisfie his Conscience with being so affected and resolved Our Saviour himself having assured us a That he that shall break one of his least Commandments some whereof you pretend are concerning venial sins and consequently the keeping of them not necessary to Salvation and shall so teach men shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven 7. But then it imports very much though not for the possibility that you may be saved yet for the probability that you will be so because the holding of these Errors though it did not merit migh yet occasion Damnation As the Doctrine of Indulgences may take away the fear of Purgatory and the Doctrine of Purgatory the fear of Hell as you well know it does too frequently So that though a godly man might be saved with these Errors yet by means of them many are made vicious and so damned By them I say though not for them No godly Lay-man who is verily persuaded that there is neither impiety nor superstition in the use of your Latin Service shall be Damned I hope for being present at it yet the want of that Devotion which the frequent hearing the Offices understood might happily beget in them the want of that instruction and edification which it might afford them may very probably hinder the Salvation of many which otherwise might have been saved Besides though the matter of an Error may be only something profitable not necessary yet the neglect of it may be a damnable Sin As not to regard Venial Sins is in the Doctrine of your Schools mortal Lastly as Venial Sins you say dispose men to mortal so the erring from some profitable though lesser truth may dispose a
Predetermination or against it Stephen Bishop of Rome held it as a matter of Faith and Apostolick tradition That Hereticks gave true Baptism Others there were and they as good Catholicks as he that held that this was neither matter of Faith nor matter of Truth Justin Martyr and Irenaeus held the Doctrine of the Millenaries as a matter of Faith and though Justin Martyr deny it yet you I hope will affirm that some good Christians held the contrary S. Augustine I am sure held the communicating of Infants as much Apostolick tradition as the Baptising of them whether the Bishop and the Church of Rome of his time held so too or held otherwise I desire you to determine But sure I am the Church of Rome at this present holds the contrary The same S. Austin held it no matter of Faith that the Bishops of Rome were Judges of Appeals from all parts of the Church Catholick no not in Major Causes and Major Persons whether the Bishop or Church of Rome did then hold the contrary do you resolve me but now I am resolved they do so In all these differences the point in question is esteemed and proposed by one side at least as a matter of Faith and by the other rejected as not so and either this is to disagree in matters of Faith or you will have no means to shew that we do disagree Now then to shew you how weak and sandy the Foundation is on which the whole Fabrick both of your Book and Church depends answer me briefly to this Dilemma Either in these oppositions one of the opposite Parts erred damnably and denied Gods truth sufficiently propounded or they did not If they did than they which do deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded may go to heaven and then you are rash and uncharitable in excluding us though we were guilty of this fault If not then there is no such necessity that of two disagreeing about a matter of Faith one should deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded And so the Major and Minor of your Argument are proved false Yet though they were as true as Gospel and as evident as Mathematical Principles the conclusion so impertinent is it to the Premises might still be false For that which naturally issues from these propositions is not Therefore one only can be saved But Therefore one of them does something that is damnable But with what Logick or what Charity you can infer either as the immediate production of the former premises or as a Corollary from this conclusion Therefore one only can be saved I do not understand unless you will pretend that this consequence is good such a one doth something damnable therefore he shall certainly be damned which whether it be not to overthrow the Article of our Faith which promises remission of sins upon repentance and consequently to ruin the Gospel of Christ I leave it to the Pope and the Cardinals to determine For if against this it be alledged that no man can repent of the sin wherein he Dies This muce I have already stopped by shewing that if it be a sin of Ignorance this is no way incongruous 13. Ad 6. § In your sixth Parag. I let all pass saving only this That a persuasion that men of different Religions you must mean Christians of different Opinions or Communions may be saved is a most pernicious Heresie and even a ground of Atheism What strange extractions Chymistry can make I know not but sure I am he that by reason would infer this Conclusion That there is no God from this ground That God will save men in different Religions must have a higher strain of Logick than you or I have hitherto made shew of In my apprehension the other part of the contradiction That there is a God should much rather follow from it and I say and will maintain that to say That Christians of different Opinions and Communions such I mean who hold all those things that are simply necessary to Salvation may not obtain Pardon for the Errors wherein they Die ignorantly by a general Repentance is so far from being a ground of Atheism that to say the contrary is to cross in Diameter a main Article of our Creed and to overthrow the Gospel of Christ 14. Ad 7. § To what you say of some Protestants that hold it necessary to be able to prove a perpetual Visible Church distinct from Yours I answer Some perhaps undertake to do so as a matter of courtesie but I believe you will be much to seek for any one that holds it necessary For though you say that Christ hath promised there shall be a Perpetual Visible Church yet you your selves do not pretend that he hath promised there shall be Histories and Records always extant of the Professors of it in all Ages nor that he hath any where enjoyned us to read those Histories that we may be able to shew them 17. To your ensuing demands though some of them be very captious and ensnaring yet I will give you as clear and plain and Ingenuous Answers as possibly I can 18. Ad 11. § To the First then about the Perpetuity of the visible Church my Answer is That I believe our Saviour ever since his Ascension hath had in some place or other a Visible true Church on Earth I mean a Company of Men that professed at least so much truth as was absolutely necessary for their Salvation And I believe that there will be somewhere or other such a Church to the Worlds end But the contrary Doctrine I do at no hand believe to be a damnable Heresie 19. Ad 12. § To the Second what Visible Church there was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman I answer that before Luther there were many Visible Churches in many things disagreeing from the Roman But not that the whole Catholick Church disagreed from Her because She her self was a Part of the Whole though much corrupted And to undertake to name a Catholick Church disagreeing from Her is to make her no Part of it which we do not nor need not pretend And for men agreeing with Protestants in all points we will then produce them when you shall either prove it necessary to be done which you know we absolutely deny or when you shall produce a perpetual succession of Professors which in all points have agreed with you and disagreed from you in nothing But this my promise to deal plainly with you I conceive and so intended it to be very like his who undertook to drink up the Sea upon condition that he to whom the promise was made should first stop the Rivers from runing in For this unreasonable request which you make to us is to your selves so impossible that in the very next Age after the Apostles you will never be able to name a Man whom you can prove to have agreed with you in all things nay if you speak of such whose Works are extant and unquestioned whom we cannot prove
be sufficient But then I must tell you that the proposal of the present Roman Church is only pretended to be sufficient for this purpose but is not so especially all the Rayes of the Divinity which they pretend to shine so conspicuously in her proposals being so darkned and even extinguished with a cloud of contradiction from Scripture Reason and the Ancient Church 26. Ad 18. § To the Eighth How of disagreeing Protestants both parts may hope for Salvation seeing some of them must needs Err against some Truth testified by God I answer 1. The most disagreeing Protestants that are yet thus far agree that these Books of Scripture which were never doubted of in the Church are the undoubted Word of God and a perfect rule of Faith 2. That the sense of them which God intended whatsoever it is is certainly true So that they believe implicitely even those very truths against which they Err and why an implicit Faith in Christ and his Word should not suffice as well as an implicit Faith in your Church I have desired to be resolved by many of your Side but never could 3. That they are to use their best endeavours to believe the Scripture in the true sense and to live according to it This if they perform as I hope many on all Sides do truly and sincerely it is impossible but that they should believe aright in all things necessary to Salvation that is in all those things which appertain to the Covenant between God and man in Christ for so much is not only plainly but frequently contained in Scripture And believing aright touching the Covenant if they for their parts perform the condition required of them which is sincere obedience why should they not expect that God will perform his promise and give them Salvation For as for other things which lie without the Covenant and are therefore less necessary if by reason of the seeming conflict which is oftentimes between Scripture and Reason and Authority on the one side and Scripture Reason and Authority on the other if by reason of the variety of tempers Abilities Educations and unavoidable prejudices whereby mens understandings are variously formed and fashioned they do embrace several Opinions whereof some must be erroneous to say that God will Damn them for such Errors who are lovers of him and lovers of truth is to rob man of his comfort and God of his goodness it is to make Man desperate and God a Tyrant But they deny Truths testified by God and therefore shall be Damned Yes if they knew them to be thus testified by him and yet would deny them that were to give God the lie and questionless damnable But if you should deny a truth which God had testified but only to a Man in the Indies as I said before and this testification you had never heard of or at least had no sufficient reason to believe that God had so testified would not you think it a hard case to be Damned for such a denial Yet consider I pray a little more attentively the difference between them and you will presently acknowledge the question between them is not at any time or in any thing Whether God says true or no or whether he says this or no But supposing he says this and says true whether he means this or no As for example between Lutherans Calvinists and Zwinglians it is agreed that Christ spake these Words This is my Body and that whatsoever he meant in saying so is true But what he meant and how he is to be understood that 's the question So that though some of them deny a truth by God intended yet you can with no reason or justice accuse them of denying the truth of Gods Testimony unless you can plainly shew that God hath declared and that plainly and clearly what was his meaning in these Words I say plainly and clearly For he that speaks obscurely and ambiguously and no where declares himself plainly sure he hath no reason to be much offended if he be mistaken When therefore you can shew that in this and all other their Controversies God hath interposed his Testimony on one side or other so that either they do see it and will not or were it not for their own voluntary and avoidable fault might and should see it and do not let all such Errors be as damnable as you please to make them In the mean while if they suffer themselves neither to be betraid into their Errors nor kept in them by any sin of their will if they do their best endeavour to free themselves from all Errors and yet fail of it through humane frailty so well am I persuaded of the goodness of God that if in me alone should meet a confluence of all such Errors of all the Protestants in the World that were thus qualified I should not be so much afraid of them all as I should be to ask pardon for them For whereas that which you affright us with of calling Gods Veracity in Question is but a Panick fear a fault that no man thus qualified is or can be guilty of to ask pardon of simple and purely involuntary errors is tacitely to imply that God is angry with us for them and that to impute to him the strange Tyranny of requiring Brick when he gives no Straw of expecting to gather where he strewed not to reap where he sowed not of being offended with us for not doing what he knows we cannot do This I say upon a supposition that they do their best endeavours to know Gods will and do it which he that denys to be possible knows not what he says for he says in effect that Men cannot do what they can do for to do what a Man can do is to do his best endeavour But because this supposition though certainly possible is very rare and admirable I say secondly that I am verily persuaded that God will not impute Errors to them as sins who use such a measure of industry in finding truth as humane prudence and ordinary discretion their abilities and opportunities their distractions and hindrances and all other things considered shall advise them unto in a matter of such consequence But if herein also we fail then our Errors begin to be malignant and justly imputable as offences against God and that love of his truth which he requires in us You will say then that for those Erring Protestants which are in this case which evidently are far the greater part they sin damnably in Erring and therefore there is little hope of their Salvation To which I answer that the consequence of this Reason is somewhat strong against a Protestant but much weakned by coming out of the Mouth of a Papist For all Sins with you are not damnable But yet out of courtesie to you we will remove this rubb out of your way and for the present suppose them mortal Sins and is there then no hope of Salvation for him that
so careless of preserving the integrity of the Copies of her Translation as to suffer infinite variety of Readings to come in to them without keeping any one perfect Copy which might have been as the Standard and Polycletus his Canon to correct the rest by So that which was the true reading and which the false it was utterly undiscernable but only by comparing them with the Originals which also she pretends to be corrupted 84. Ad 17. § In this Division you charge us with great uncertainty concerning the true meaning of Scripture Which hath been answered already by saying That if you speak of plain places and in such all things necessary are contained we are sufficiently certain of the meaning of them neither need they any Interpreter If of obscure and difficult places we confess we are uncertain of the sense of many of them But then we say there is no necessity we should be certain For if Gods Will had been we should have understood him more certainly he would have spoken more plainly And we say besides that as we are uncertain so are You too which he that doubts of let him read your Commentators upon the Bible and observe their various and dissonant Interpretations and he shall in this point need no further satisfaction 85. Obj. But seeing there are contentions among us we are taught by nature and Scripture and experience so you tell us out of M. Hooker to seek for the ending of them by submiting unto some Judicical sentence whereunto neither part may refuse to stand Answ This is very true Neither should you need to persuade us to seek such a means of ending all our Controversies if we could tell where to find it But this we know that none is fit to pronounce for all the World a judicial definitive obliging Sentence in Controversies of Religion but only such a Man or such a society of Men as is authorized thereto by God And besides we are able to demonstrate that it hath not been the pleasure of God to give to any Man or Society of Men any such authority And therefore though we wish heartily that all Controversies were ended as we do that all sin were abolisht yet we have little hope of the one or the other till the World be ended And in the mean while think it best to content our selves with and to persuade others unto an Unity of Charity and mutual Toleration seeing God hath authorized no man to force all men to Unity of Opinion Neither do we think it fit to argue thus To us it seems convenient there should be one Judge of all Controversies for the whole World therefore God has appointed one But more modest and more reasonable to collect thus God hath appointed no such Judge of Controversies therefore though it seems to us convenient there should be one yet it is not so Or though it were convenient for us to have one yet it hath pleased God for Reasons best known to himself not to allow us this convenience 87. Ad 18. § That the true Interpretation of the Scripture ought to be received from the Church you need not prove for it is very easily granted by them who profess themselves very ready to receive all Truths much more the true sense of Scripture not only from the Church but from any Society of men nay from any man whatsoever 88. That the Churches Interpretation of Scripture is always true that is it which you would have said and that in some sense may be also admitted viz. If you speak of that Church which before you speak of in the 14. § that is of the Church of all Ages since the Apostles Upon the Tradition of which Church you there told us We were to receive the Scripture and to believe it to be the Word of God For there you teach us that our Faith of Scripture depends on a Principle which requires no other proof And that such is Tradition which from Hand to Hand and Age to Age bring us up to the Times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrine to be true Wherefore the Ancient Fathers avouch that we must receive the Sacred Scripture upon the Tradition of this Church The Tradition then of this Church you say must teach us what is Scripture and we are willing to believe it And now if you make it good unto us that the same Tradition down from the Apostles hath delivered from Age to Age and from Hand to Hand any Interpretation of any Scripture we are ready to embrace that also But now if you will argue thus The Church in one sense tells us what is Scripture and we believe therefore if the Church taken in another sense tell us this or that is the meaning of the Scripture we are to believe that also this is too transparent Sophistry to take any but those that are willing to be taken 89. If there be any Traditive Interpretation of Scripture produce it and prove it to be so and we embrace it But the Tradition of all Ages is one thing and the authority of the present Church much more of the Roman Church which is but a Part and a corrupted Part of the Catholick Church is another And therefore though we are ready to receive both Scripture and the sense of Scripture upon the authority of Original Tradition yet we receive neither the one nor the other upon the Authority of your Church 90. First for the Scripture how can we receive them upon the Authority of your Church who hold now those Books to be Canonical which formerly you rejected from the Canon I instance in the Book of Macchabees and the Epistle to the Hebrews The first of these you held not to be Canonical in S. Gregories time or else he was no member of your Church for it is apparent a See Greg. Mor. l. 19. c. 13. He held otherwise The second you rejected from the Canon in S. Hieroms time as it is evident out of b Thus he testifies Com. in Esa c. 6. in these words Vnde Paulus Apost in Epist ad Heb. quam Latina consuetudo non recipit and again in c. 8. in these In Ep. quae ad Hebraeos scribitur â—licet eam â—aâ—ina Consuetudo inter Canonicas Scripturas non recipiat c. many places of his Works 91. If you say which is all you can that Hierom spake this of the particular Roman Church not of the Roman Catholick Church I answer there was none such in his time None that was called so Secondly what he spake of the Roman Church must be true of all other Churches if your Doctrine of the necessity of the Conformity of all other Churches to that Church were then Catholick Doctrine Now then choose whether you will either that the particular Roman Church was not then believed to be the Mistris of all other Churches
not go about this noble work presently If he should not How shall we know that the calling of the Council of Trent was not upon his own voluntary motion or upon humane importunity and suggestion and not upon the motion of the Holy Ghost And consequently how shall we know whether he were assistant to it or no seeing he assists none but what he himself moves to And whether he did move the Pope to call this Council is a secret thing which we cannot possibly know nor perhaps the Pope himself 96. If you say your meaning is only That the Church shall be infallibly guarded from giving any false sense of any Scripture and not infalliblyassisted positively to give the true sense of all Scripture I put to you your own Question why should we believe the Holy Ghost will stay there Or why may we not as well think he will stay at the first thing that is in teaching the Church what Books be true Scripture For if the Holy Ghosts assistance be promised to all things profitable then will he be with them infallibly not only to guard them from all Errors but to guide them to all profitable truths such as the true senses of all Scripture would be Neither could he stay there but defend them irresistibly from all Vices Nor there neither but infuse into them irresistibly all Vertues for all these things would be much for the benefit of Christians If you say he cannot do this without taking away their free-will in living I say neither can he necessitate men to believe aright without taking away their free-will in believing and in professing their belief 97. Obj. To the place of S. Austin I would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Church did move me Contr. ep Fund c. 5. Answ I answer That not the Authority of the present Church much less of a Part of it as the Roman Church is was that which alone moved Saint Austin to believe the Gospel but the perpetual Tradition of the Church of all Ages Which you your self have taught us to be the only Principle by which the Scripture is proved and which it self needs no proof and to which you have referred this very saying of S. Austin Ego vero Evangelio non crederem nisi c. p. 55. And in the next place which you cite out of his Book De Util. Cred. c. 14. he shews that his motives to believe were Fame Celebrity Consent Antiquity And seeing this Tradition this Consent this Antiquity did as fully and powerfully move him not to believe Manichaeus as to believe the Gospel the Christian Tradition being as full against Manichaeus as it was for the Gospel therefore he did well to conclude upon these grounds that he had as much reason to disbelieve Manichaeus as to believe the Gospel Now if you can truly say that the same Fame Celebrity Consent Antiquity that the same Universal and Original Tradition lies against Luther and Calvin as did against Manichaeus you may do well to apply the Argument against them otherwise it will be to little purpose to substitute their names instead of Manichaeus unless you can shew the things agrees to them as well as him 98. If you say that S. Austin speaks here of the Authority of the Present Church abstracting from consent with the Ancient and therefore you seeing you have the present Church on your side against Luther and Calvin as S. Austin against Manichaeus may urge the same words against them which S. Austin did against him 99. I answer First that it is a vain presumption of yours that the Catholick Church is of your side Secondly that if S. Austin speak here of that present Church which moved him to believe the Gospel without consideration of the Antiquity of it and its both Personal and Doctrinal succession from the Apostles His Argument will be like a Buskin that will serve any leg It will serve to keep an Arrian or a Grecian from being a Roman Catholick as well as a Catholick from being an Arrian or a Grecian In as much as the Arrians and Grecians did pretend to the Title of Catholicks and the Church as much as the Papists now do If then you should have come to an Ancient Goth or Vandal whom the Arrians converted to Christianity and should have moved him to your Religion might he not say the very same words to you as S. Austin to the Manichaeans I would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Church did move me Them therefore whom I obeyed saying believe the Gospel why should I not obey saying to me do not believe the Homoousians Choose what thou pleasest If thou shalt say believe the Arrians they warn me not to give any Credit to you If therefore I believe them I cannot believe thee If thou say do not believe the Arrians thou shalt not do well to force me to the Faith of the Homoousians because by the Preaching of the Arrians I believed the Gospel it self If you say you did well to believe them commending the Gospel but you did not well to believe them discommending the Homoousians Doest thou think me so very foolish that without any reason at all I should believe what thou wilt and not believe what thou wilt not It were easie to put these words into the mouth of a Grecian Abyssine Georgian or any other of any Religion And I pray bethink your selves what you would say to such a one in such a case and imagine that we say the very same to you 101. And whereas you say S. Austin may seem to have spoken Prophetically against Protestants when he said Why should I not most diligently inquire what Christ commanded of them before all others by whose Authority I was moved to believe that Christ Commanded any good thing Answ I answer Until you can shew that Protestants believe that Christ commanded any good thing that is That they believe the truth of Christian Religion upon the Authority of the Church of Rome this place must be wholly impertinent to your purpose which is to make Protestants believe your Church to be the infallible expounder of Scriptures and judge of Controversies nay rather is it not directly against your purpose For why may not a member of the Church of England who received his Baptism Education and Faith from the Ministry of this Church say just so to you as S. Austin here to the Manichees Why should I not most diligently inquire what Christ commanded of them the Church of England before all others by whose authority I was moved to believe that Christ commandded any good thing Can you F. or K. or whosoever you are better declare to me what he said whom I would not have thought to have been or to be if the belief thereof had been recommended by you to me This therefore that Christ Jesus did those miracles and taught that Doctrine which is contained evidently in the undoubted Books of the New
either your Church or Pope in as much as there is no more repugnance between the Scriptures existence and our infallibility than there is between theirs 138. Obj. But if Protestants will have the Scripture alone for their Judge let them first produce some Scripture affirming that by the entrance thereof infallibility went out of the Church Ans This Argument put in form runs thus No Scripture affirms that by the entring thereof infallibility went out of the Church Therefore there is an infallible Church and therefore the Scripture alone is not Judge that is the Rule to judge by But as no Scripture affirms that by the entring of it Infallibility went out of the Church so neither do we neither have we any need to do so But we say that it continued in the Church even together with the Scriptures so long as Christ and his Apostles were living and then departed God in his providence having provided a plain and infallible Rule to supply the defect of living and infallible Guides 141. But the Jewish Church retained Infallibility in her self and therefore it is unjust to deprive the Church of Christ of it Ans That the Jews had sometimes an infallible miraculous direction from God in some cases of moment he doth affirm and had good warrant but that the Synagogue was absolutely Infallible he no where affirms and therefore it is unjustly and unworthily done of you to obtrude it upon him And indeed how can the Infallibility of the Synagogue be conceived but only by setling it in the High Priest and the company adhering and subordinate unto him And whether the High Priest was Infallible when he believed not Christ to be the Messias but condemned and excommunicated them that so professed and caused him to be crucified for saying so I leave it to Christians to judge But then suppose God had been so pleased to do as he did not to appoint the Synagouge an infallible guide Could you by your rules of Logick constrain him to appoint such a one to Christians also or say unto him that in wisdom he could not do otherwise Vain man that will be thus always tying God to your imaginations It is well for us that he leaves us not without directions to him but if he will do this sometime by living Guides sometime by written Rules what is that to you may not he do what he will with his own 144. Ad § 24. Neither is this Discourse if you mean your Conclusion that Your Church is the infallible Judge in Controversies confirmed by Irenaeus at all Iren. l. 3. c. 3. For neither has Irenaeus one syllable to this purpose neither can it be deduced out of what he says with any colour of consequence For first in saying What if the Apostles had not left Scripture ought we not to have followed the Order of Tradition And in saying That to this Order many Nations yield assent who believe in Christ having Salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit of God without Letters or Ink and diligently keeping ancient Tradition Doth he not plainly shew that the Tradition he speaks of is nothing else but the very same that is written nothing but to believe in Christ To which whether Scripture alone to them that believe it be not a sufficient guide I leave it to you to judge And are not his words just as if a man should say If God had not given us the light of the Sun we must have made use of Candles and Torches If we had had no Eyes we must have felt out our way If we had no Leggs we must have used Crutches And doth not this in effect import that while we have the Sun we need no Candles While we have our Eyes we need not feel out our way While we enjoy our Leggs we need not Crutches And by like reason Irenaeus in saying If we had no Scripture we must have followed Tradition and they that have none do well to do so doth he not plainly import that to them that have Scripture and believe it Tradition is unnecessary which could not be if the Scripture did not contain evidently the whole tradion Which whether Irenaeus believed or no these words of his may inform you Non enim per alios c. we have received the disposition of our Salvation from no others but from them by whom the Gospel came unto us Which Gospel truly the Apostles first preached and afterwards by the will of God delivered in writing to us to be the Pillar and Foundation of our Faith Bellarm. de verbo Dei l. 4 c. 11. Upon which place Bellarmine's two observations and his acknowledgment ensuing upon them are very considerable and as I conceive as home to my purpose as I would wish them His first Notandum is That in the Christian Doctrin some things are simply necessary for the Salvation of all men as the knowledge of the Articles of the Apostles Creed and besides the knowledge of the ten Commandments and some of the Sacraments Other things not so necessary but that a man may be saved without the explicit knowledge and belief and profession of them His Second Note is That those things which were simply necessary the Apostles were wont to preach to all men But of other things not all to all but something to all to wit those things which were profitable for all other things only to Prelats and Priests These things premised he acknowledgeth That all those things were written by the Apostles which are necessary for all and which they were wont openly to preach to all But that other things were not all written And therefore when Irenaeus says that the Apostles wrote what they Preach in the World it is true saith he and not against Traditions because they preached not to the People all things but only those things which were necessary or profitable for them 145. So that at the most you can infer from hence but only a suppositive necessity of having an infallible Guide and that grounded upon a false supposition In case we had no Scripture but an absolute necessity hereof and to them who have and believe the Scripture which is your assumption cannot with any colour from hence be concluded but rather the contrary 146. Neither because as he says it was then easie to receive the Truth from Gods Church then in the Age next after the Apostles Then when all the ancient and Apostolick Churches were at an agreement about the Fundamentals of Faith Will it therefore follow that now 1600 years after when the ancient Churches are divided almost into as many Religions as they are Churches every one being the Church to it self and heretical to all other that it is as easie but extremely difficult or rather impossible to find the Church first independently of the true Doctrin and then to find the truth by the Church 148. Neither will the Apostles depositing with the Church all things belonging to truth be any proof
from the Act and Object in general if the Habit be special from the Act and Object in special Then for the motive to a thing that it cannot be of the Essence of the thing to which it moves who can doubt that knows that a motive is an efficient cause and that the efficient is always extrinsecal to the effect For the fourth that Gods Revelation is alike for all Objects It is ambiguous and if the sense of it be that his Revelation is an equal Motive to induce us to believe all objects revealed by him it is true but impertinent If the sense of it be that all objects revealed by God are alike that is alike plainly and undoubtedly revealed by him it is pertinent but most untrue Witness the great diversity of Texts of Scripture whereof some are so plain and evident that no man of ordinary sense can mistake the sense of them Some are so obscure and ambiguous that to say this or this is the certain sense of them were high presumption For the 5. Protestants disagree in things equally revealed by God! In themselves perhaps but not equally to them whose understandings by reason of their different Educations are fashioned and shaped for the entertainment of various Opinions and consequently some of them more inclined to believe such a sense of Scripture others to believe another which to say that God will not take into his consideration in judging mens Opinions is to disparage his goodness But to what purpose is it that these things are equally revealed to both as the light is equally revealed to all blind men if they be not fully revealed to either The sense of this Scripture Why are they then baptized for the dead and this He shall be saved yet so as by fire and a thousand others is equally revealed to you and to another interpreter that is certainly to neither He now conceives one sense of them and you another and would it not be an excellent inference if I should conclude now as you do That you forsake the formal motive of Faith which is Gods Revelation and consequently lose all faith and unity therein So likewise the Jesuits and Dominicans the Franciscans and Dominicans disagree about things equally revealed by Almighty God and seeing they do so I beseech you let me understand why this reason will not exclude them as well as Protestants from all faith and unity therein Thus you have failed of your undertaking in your first part of your Title and that is a very ill omen especially in points of so streight mutual dependance that we shall have but slender performance in your second assumpt Which is That the Church is Infallible in all her Definitions whether concerning points Fundamental or not Fundamental 26. Ad § 9.10 11. I grant that the Church cannot without damnable sin either deny any thing to be true which she knows to be Gods truth or propose any thing as his truth which she knows not to be so But that she may not do this by ignorance or mistake and so without damnable sin that you should have proved but have not But say you this excuse cannot serve for if the Church be assisted only for points fundamental she cannot but know that she may err in points not fundamental Ans It does not follow unless you suppose that the Church knows that she is assisted no farther But if being assisted only so far she yet did conceive by error her assistance absolute and unlimited or if knowing her assistance restrained to fundamentals she yet conceived by error that she should be guarded from proposing any thing but what was fundamental then the consequence is apparently false But at least she cannot be certain that she cannot err and therefore cannot be excused from headlong and pernicious temerity in proposing points not fundamental to be believed by Christians as matters of Faith Ans Neither is this destruction worth any thing unless it be understood of such fundamental points as she is not warranted to propose by evident Text of Scripture Indeed if she propose such as matters of Faith certainly true she may well be questioned Quo Warranto She builds without a foundation and says thus saith the Lord when the Lord doth not say so which cannot be excused from rashness and high presumption such a presumption as an Embassador should commit who should say in his Masters name that for which he hath no commission Of the same nature I say but of a higher strain as much as the King of Heaven is greater than any earthly King But though she may err in some points not fundamental yet may she have certainty enough in proposing others as for example these That Abraham begat Isaac that S. Paul had a Cloak that Timothy was sick because these though not fundamental i. e. no essential parts of Christianity yet are evidently and undeniably set down in Scripture and consequently may be without all rashness proposed by the Church as certain divine Revelations Neither is your Argument concluding when you say If in such things she may be deceived she must be always uncertain of all such things For my sense may sometimes possibly deceive me yet I am certain enough that I see what I see and feel what I feel Our Judges are not infallible in their judgments yet are they certain enough that they judge aright and that they proceed according to the evidence that is given when they condemn a Thief or a Murderer to the Gallows A Travelleris not always certain of his way but often mistaken and does it therefore follow that he can have no assurance that Charing-Cross is his right way from the Temple to White-Hall The ground of your error here is your not distinguishing between actual certainty and absolute infallibillty Geometricians are not infallible in their own Science yet they are very certain of those things which they see demonstrated And Carpenters are not infallible yet certain of the straightness of those things which agree with their Rule and Square So though the Church be not infallibly certain that in all her definitions whereof some are about disputable and ambiguous matters she shall proceed according to her Rule yet being certain of the infallibility of her Rule and that in this or that thing she doth manifestly proceed according to it she may be certain of the Truth of some particular Decrees and yet not certain that she shall never decree but what is true 27. Ad § 12. Obj. But if the Church may err in points not fundamental she may err in proposing Scripture and so we cannot be assured whether she have not been deceived already Ans The Church may err in her proposition or custody of the Canon of Scripture if you understand by the Church any present Church of one denomination for example the Roman the Greek or so Yet have we sufficient certainty of Scripture not from the bare testimony of any present Church but from Universal
the Evidence of the Revelation was all in all But here we must err with you in small things for fear of loosing your direction in greater and for fear of departing too far from you not go from you at all even where we see plainly that you have departed from the Truth 57. Beyond all this I say that this which you say in wisdom we are to do is not only unlawful but if we will proceed according to reason impossible I mean to adhere to you in all things having no other ground for it but because you are as we will now suppose Infallible in some things that is in Fundamentals For whether by skill in Architecture a large structure may be supported by a narrow foundation I know not but sure I am in reason no conclusion can be larger than the Principles on which it is founded And therefore if I consider what I do and be perswaded that your infallibility is but limited and particular and partial my adherence upon this ground cannot possibly be Absolute and Universal and Total I am confident that should I meet with such a man amongst you as I am well assur'd there be many that would grant your Church Infallible only in Fundamentals which what they are he knows not and therefore upon this only reason adheres to you in all things I say that I am confident that it may be demonstrated that such a man adheres to you with a fiducial and certain assent in nothing To make this clear because at the first hearing it may seem strange give me leave good Sir to suppose you the man and to propose to you a few questions and to give for you such answers to them as upon this ground you must of necessity give were you present with me First supposing you hold your Church Infallible in Fundamentals obnoxious to Error in other things and that you know not what points are Fundamental I demand C. Why do you believe the Doctrin of Transubstantiation K. because the Church hath taught it which is Infallible C. What Infallible in all things or only in Fundamentals K. in Fundamentals only C. Then in other points she may err K. she may C. and do you know what Points are Fundamental what not K. No and therefore I believe her in all things least I should disbelieve her in fundamentals C. How know you then whether this be a fundamental point or no K. I know not C. It may be then for ought you know an unfundamental point K. yes it may be so C. And in these you said the Church may err K. yes I did so C. Then possibly it may err in this K. It may do so C. Then what certainty have you that it does not err in it K. None at all but upon this supposition that this is a Fundamental C. And this supposition you are uncertain of K. Yes I told you so before C. And therefore you can have no certainty of that which depends upon this uncertainty saving only a suppositive certainty if it be a Fundamental truth which is in plain English to say you are certain it is true if it be both true and necessary Verily Sir if you have no better Faith than this you are no Catholick K. good words I pray I am so and God willing will be so C. You mean in outward profession and practice but in belief you are not no more than a Protestant is a Catholick For every Protestant yields such a kind of assent to all the proposals of the Church for surely they believe them true if they be Fundamental Truths And therefore you must either believe the Church Infallible in all her proposals be they foundations or be they superstructions or else you must believe all Fundamental which she proposes or else you are no Catholick K. But I have been taught that seeing I believed the Church Infallible in points necessary in wisdom I was to believe her in every thing C. That was a pretty plausible inducement to bring you hither but now you are here you must go farther and believe her Infallible in all things or else you were as good go back again which will be a great disparagement to you and draw upon you both the bitter and implacable hatred of our part and even with your own the imputation of rashness and levity You see I hope by this time that though a man did believe your Church Infallible in Fundamentals yet he has no reason to do you the courtesie of believing all her proposals nay if he be ignorant what these Fundamentals are he has no certain ground to believe her upon her Authority in any thing And whereas you say it can be no imprudence to err with the Church I say it may be very great imprudence if the question be Whether we should err with the present Church or hold true with God Almighty 60. Whereas you add That that visible Church which cannot err in Fundamental propounds all her definitions without distinction to be believed under Anathema's Ans Again you beg the question supposing untruly that there is any that Visible Church I mean any Visible Church of one Denomination which cannot err in points Fundamental Secondly proposing definitions to be believed under Anathema's is no good argument that the Propounders conceive themselves infallible but only that they conceive the Doctrine they condemn is evidently damnable A plain proof hereof is this that particular Councils nay particular men have been very liberal of their Anathema's which yet were never conceived infallible either by others or themselves If any man should now deny Christ to be the Saviour of the world or deny the Resurrection I should make no great scruple of Anathematizing his Doctrine and yet am very far from dreaming of Infallibility 62. The effect of the next Argument is this I cannot without grievous sin disobey the Church unless I know she commands those things which are not in her power to command and how far this power extends none can better inform me than the Church Therefore I am to obey so far as the Church requires my obedience I Answer First That neither hath the Catholick Church but only a corrupt part of it declared her self nor required our obedience in the points contested among us This therefore is falsely and vainly supposed here by you being one of the greatest questions amongst us Then Secondly That God can better inform us what are the limits of the Churches power than the Church her self that is than the Roman Clergy who being men subject to the same passions with other men why they should be thought the best Judges in their own cause I do not well understand But yet we oppose against them no human decisive Judges not any Sect or Person but only God and his Word And therefore it is in vain to say That in following her you shall be sooner excused than in following any Sect or Man applying Scriptures against her Doctrine In as much
is increase contentions rather than end them Just so it would have been if God had appointed a Church to be Judge of Controversies and had not told us which was that Church Seeing therefore God does nothing in vain and seeing it had been in vain to appoint a Judge of Controversies and not to tell us plainly who it is and seeing lastly he hath not told us plainly no not at all who it is is it not evident he hath appointed none Obj. But you will say perhaps if it be granted once that some Church of one denomination is the Infallible guide of Faith it will be no difficult thing to prove that yours is the Church seeing no other Church pretends to be so Ans Yes the Primitive and the Apostolick Church pretends to be so That assures us that the spirit was promised and given to them to lead them into all saving truth that they might lead others Obj. But that Church is not now in the world and how then can it pretend to be the guide of Faith Ans It is now in the world sufficiently to be our guide not by the persons of those men that were members of it but by their Writings which do plainly teach us what truth they were led into and so lead us into the same truth Obj. But these Writings were the Writings of some particular men and not of the Church of those times how then doth that Church guide us by these Writings Now these places shew that a Church is to be our guide therefore they cannot be so avoided Ans If you regard the conception and production of these Writings they were the Writings of particular men But if you regard the reception and approbation of them they may be well called the Writings of the Church as having the attestation of the Church to have been written by those that were inspired and directed by God As a Statute though penned by some one man yet being ratified by the Parliament is called the Act not of that man but of the Parliament Obj. But the words seem clearly enough to prove that the Church the present Church of every Age is Universally infallible Ans For my part I know I am as willing and desirous that the Bishop or Church of Rome should be Infallible provided I might know it as they are to be so esteemed But he that would not be deceived must take heed that he take not his desire that a thing should be so for a reason that it is so For if you look upon Scripture through such Spectacles as these they will appear to you of what colour pleases your fancies best and will seem to say not what they do say but what you would have them As some say the Manna wherewith the Israelites were fed in the Wilderness had in every mans mouth that very tast which was most agreeable to his palate For my part I profess I have considered them a thousand times and have looked upon them as they say on both sides and yet to me they seem to say no such matter 70. Not the First Mat. 16.18 For the Church may err and yet the gates of Hell not prevail against her It may err and yet continue still a true Church and bring forth Children unto God and send Souls to Heaven And therefore this can do you no service without the plain begging of the point in Question Viz. That every Error is one of the gates of Hell Which we absolutely deny and therefore you are not to suppose but to prove it Neither is our denial without reason For seeing you do and must grant that a particular Church may hold some error and yet be still a true member of the Church why may not the Universal Church hold the same error and yet remain the true Universal 71. Not the Second or Third John 14.16 17. John 16.13 For the spirit of Truth may be with a Man or a Church for ever and teach him all Truth And yet he may fall into some error if this all be not simply all but all of some kind Secondly he may fall into some Error even contrary to the truth which is taught him if it be taught him only sufficiently and not irresistibly so that he may learn it if he will not so that he must and shall whether he will or no. Now who can assertain me that the Spirits teaching is not of this nature Or how can you possibly reconcile it with your Doctrine of free-will in believing if it be not of this nature Besides the word in the Original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to be a guide and director only not to compel or necessitate Who knows not that a guide may set you in the right way and you may either negligently mistake or willingly leave it And to what purpose doth God conplain so often and so earnestly of some that had eyes to see and would not see that stopped their Ears and closed their Eyes lest they should hear and see Of others that would not understand lest they should do good that the Light shined and the Darkness comprehended it not That he came unto his own and his own received him not That light came into the World and Men loved Darkness more than Light To what purpose should he wonder so few believed his report and that to so few his Arm was revealed And that when he comes he should find no Faith upon Earth If his outward teaching were not of this nature that it might be followed and might be resisted And if it be then God may teach and the Church not learn God may lead and the Church be refractory and not follow And indeed who can doubt that hath not his Eyes vailed with prejudice that God hath taught the Church of Rome plain enough in the Epistle to the Corinthians that all things in the Church are to be done for edification and that in any publick Prayers or Thanks-givings or Hymns or Lessons of instruction to use a Language which the assistants generally understand not is not for edification Though the Church of Rome will not learn this for fear of confessing an Error and so overthrowing her Authority yet the time will come when it shall appear that not only by scripture they were taught this sufficiently and commanded to believe but by reason and common sense And so for the Communion in both kinds who can deny but they are taught it by our Saviour John 6. in these Words according to most of your own expositions Unless you Eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and Drink his Blood you have no Life in you If our Saviour speak there of the Sacrament as to them he does because they conceive he does so Though they may pretend that receiving in one kind they receive the Blood together with the Body yet they can with no Face pretend that they drink it And so obey not our Saviours injunction according to the letter which yet
savour wherewith shall it be Salted it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast forth and to be trodden under Foot So the Church may be by Duty the Pillar and Ground that is the Teacher of Truth of all truth not only necessary but profitable to Salvation and yet she may neglect and violate this Duty and be in fact the teacher of some Error 78. Fourthly and lastly if we deal most liberally with you and grant that the Apostle here speaks of the Catholick Church calls it the Pillar and ground of Truth and that not only because it should but because it always shall and will be so yet after all this you have done nothing your Bridge is too short to bring you to the Bank where you would be unless you can shew that by truth here is certainly meant not only all necessary to Salvation but all that is profitable absolutely and simply All. For that the true Church alwaies shall be the maintainer and teacher of all necessary truth you know we grant and must grant for it is of the essence of the Church to be so and any company of Men were no more a Church without it than any thing can be a Man and not be reasonable But as a Man may be still a Man though he want a Hand or an Eye which yet are profitable parts so the Church may be still a Church though it be defective in some profitable truth And as a Man may be a Man that has some Boyls and Botches on his Body so the Church may be the Church though it have many corruptions both in Doctrine and practice 79. And thus you see we are at liberty from the former places having shewed that the sense of them either must or may be such as will do your Cause no service But the last you suppose will be a Gordian knot and ties us fast enough The words are Eph. 4.11 12 13. He gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. to the consummation of Saints to the work of the Ministry c. Until we all meet into the Unity of Faith c. That we be not hereafter Children wavering and carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine Out of which words this is the only argument which you collect or I can collect for you There is no means to conserve unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrine unless it be a Church universally Infallible But it is impious to say there is no means to conserve unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrine Therefore there must be a Church universally Infallible Whereunto I answer that your major is so far from being confirmed that it is plainly confuted by the place alledged For that tells us of another means for this purpose to wit the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascension and that their consummating the Saints doing the work of the Ministry and Edifying the body of Christ was the means to bring those which are there spoken of be they who they will to the unity of Faith and to perfection in Christ that they might not be wavering and carried about with every wind of false Doctrine Now the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors are not the present Church therefore the Church is not the only means for this end nor that which is here spoken of 80. Peradventure by he gave you conceive is to be understood he promised that he would give unto the worlds end But what reason have you for this conceit Can you shew that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath this signification in other places and that it must have it in this place Or will not this interpretation drive you presently to this blasphemous absurdity that God hath not performed his promise Unless you will say which for shame I think you will not that you have now and in all Ages since Christ have had Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists for as for Pastors and Doctors alone they will not serve the turn For if God promised to give all these then you must say he hath given all or else that he hath broke his promise Neither may you pretend that the Pastors and Doctors were the same with the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and therefore having Pastors and Doctors you have all For it is apparent that by these names are denoted several Oâ—ders of men clearly distinguished and diversified by the Original Text but much more plainly by your own Translations for so you read it some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Doctors and yet more plainly in the parallel place 1 Cor. 12. to which we are referred by your Vulgar Translation God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers therefore this subterfuge is stopped against you Obj. But how can they which died in the first Age keep us in Unity and guard us from Error that live now perhaps in the last This seems to be all one as if a Man should say that Alexander or Julius Caesar should quiet a mutiny in the King of Spains Army Ans I hope you will grant that Hippocrates and Galen and Euclid and Aristotle and Salust and Caesar and Livie were dead many Ages since and yet that we are now preserved from Error by them in a great part of Physick of Geometry of Logick of the Roman story But what if these men had writ by divine Inspiration and writ compleat bodies of the Sciences they professed and writ them plainly and perspicuously You would then have granted I believe that their works had been sufficient to keep us from error and from dissention in these matters And why then should it be incongruous to say that the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascension by their writings which some of them writ but all approved are even now sufficient means to conserve us in Unity of Faith and guard us from Error Especially seeing these writings are by the confession of all parts true and divine and as we pretend and are ready to prove contain a plain and perfect Rule of Faith and as the * Perron Chiefest of you acknowledge contain immediatly all the Principal and Fundamental points of Christianity referring us to the Church and Tradition only for some minute particularities But tell me I pray the Bishops that composed the Decrees of the Council of Trent and the Pope that confirmed them are they means to conserve you in Unity and keep you from Error or are they not Peradventure you will say their Decrees are but not their Persons but you will not deny I hope that you owe your unity and freedom from Error to the Persons that made these Decrees neither will you deny that the writings which they have left behind them are sufficient for this purpose And why may not then the Apostles
Creed without the former can be possibly guarded from falling into them and continuing obstinate in them Nay so far is this Creed from guarding them from these mischiefs that it is more likely to ensnare them into them by seeming and yet not being a full comprehension of all necessary points of Faith which is apt as experience shews to misguide men into this pernitious error That believing the Creed they believe all necessary points of faith whereas indeed they do not so Now upon these grounds I thus conclude That Creed which hath great commodities and no danger would certainly be better then that which hath great danger and wants many of these great commodities But the former short Creed proposed by me I believe the Roman Church to be Infallible if your doctrin be true is of the former condition and the latter that is the Apostles Creed is of the latter Therefore the former if your doctrin be true would without controversie be better than the latter 83. Whereas you say If the Apostles had exprest no Article but that of the Catholick Church she must have taught us the other Articles in particular by Creeds or other means This is very true but no way repugnant to the truth of this which follows that the Apostles if your doctrin be true had done better service to the Church though they had never made this Creed of theirs which now we have if instead thereof they had commanded in plain terms that for mens perpetual direction in the faith this short Creed should be taught all men I believe the Roman Church shall be for ever Infallible Yet you must not so mistake me as if I meant that they had done better not to have taught the Church the substance of Christian Religion for then the Church not having learnt it of them could not have taught it us This therefore I do not say but supposing they had written these Scriptures as they have written wherein all the Articles of their Creed are plainly delivered and preached that Doctrin which they did preach and done all other things as they have done besides the composing their Symbol I say if your doctrin were true they had done a work infinitely more beneficial to the Church of Christ if they had never composed their Symbol which is but an imperfect comprehension of the necessary points of simple belief and no distinctive mark as a Symbole should be between those that are good Christians and those that are not so but instead thereof had delivered this one Proposition which would have been certainly effectual for all the aforesaid good intents and purposes The Roman Church shall be forever Infallible in all things which she proposes as matters of Faith 84. Whereas you say If we will believe we have all in the Creed when we have not all it is not the Apostles fault but our own I tell you plainly if it be a fault I know not whose it should be but theirs For sure it can be no fault in me to follow such Guides whether soever they lead me Now I say they have led me into this perswasion because they have given me great reason to believe it and none to the contrary The reason they have given me to believe it is because it is apparent and confest they did propose to themselves in composing it some good end or ends As that Christians might have a form by which for matter of Faith they might profess themselves Catholicks So Putean out of Thomas Aquinas That the faithful might know what the Christian people is to believe explicitly So Vincent Filiucius That being separated into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing And that that might serve as a mark to distinguish true Christians from Infidels So Cardinal Richlieu Now for all these and for any other good intent I say it will be plainly uneffectual unless it contain at least all points of simple belief which are in ordinary course necessary to be explicitly known by all men So that if it be a fault in me to believe this it must be my fault to believe the Apostles wise and good men which I cannot do if I believe not this And therefore what Richardus de sancto Victore says of God himself I make no scruple at all to apply to the Apostles and to say Si error est quod credo à vobis deceptus sum If it be an Error which I believe it is you and my reverend esteem of you and your actions that hath led me into it For as for your suspicion That we are led into this perswasion out of a hope that we may the better maintain by it some opinions of our own It is plainly uncharitable I know no opinion I have which I would not as willingly forsake as keep if I could see sufficient reason to induce me to believe that it is the will of God I should forsake it Neither do I know any opinion I hold against the Church of Rome but I have more evident grounds than this whereupon to build it For let but these Truths be granted That the authority of the Scripture is independent on your Church and dependent only in respect of us upon universal Tradition That Scripture is the only Rule of Faith That all things necessary to salvation are plainly delivered in Scripture Let I say these most certain and divine Truths be laid for foundations and let our superstructions be consequent and coherent to them and I am confident Peace would be restored and Truth maintained against you though the Apostles Creed were not in the world CHAP. V. The ANSWER to the Fifth CHAPTER Shewing that the separation of Protestants from the Roman Church being upon just and necessary causes is not any way guilty of Schism 1. AD § 1.2 3 4 5 6 7. In the seven first Sections of this Chapter there be many things said and many things supposed by you which are untrue and deserve a censure As 2. First That Schism could not be a Division from the Church or that a Division from the Church could not happen unless there always had been and should be a visible Church Which Assertion is a manifest falsehood For although there never had been any Church Visible or Invisible before this age nor should be ever after yet this could not hinder but that a Schism might now be and be a Division from the present Visible Church As though in France there never had been until now a lawful Monarch nor after him ever should be yet this hinders not but that now there might be a Rebellion and that Rebellion might be an Insurrection against Sovereign Authority 3. That it is a point to be granted by all Christians that in all ages there hath been a visible Congregation of faithful people Which Proposition howsoever you understand it is not absolutely certain But if you mean by Faithful as it is plain you do free from all error in faith then
the Word is Preached and the Sacraments are administred They make the Church Visible to whom themselves are visible but not to others As where your Sacraments are administred and your Doctrine Preached it is visible that there is a Popish Church But this may perhaps be visible to them only who are present at these performances and to others as secret as if they had never been performed 20. Obj. But S. Austin saith it is an impudent abominable detestible speech c. to say the Church hath Perished Answ 1. All that S. Austin says is not true 2. Though this were true it were nothing to your purpose unless you will conceive it all one not to be and not to be conspicuously visible 3. This very speech that the Church Perished might be false and impudent in the Donatists and yet not so in the Protestants For there is no incongruity that what hath lived 500. Years may perish in 1600. 21. Obj. While Protestants deny the perpetuity of a visible Church they destroy their own present Church Answ I do not see how the Truth of any present Church depends upon the perpetual Visibility nay nor upon the perpetuity of that which is past or future For what sense is there that it should not be in the power of God Almighty to restore to a flourishing Estate a Church which oppression hath made Invisible to repair that which is ruined to reform that which was corrupted or to revive that which was dead Nay what reason is there but that by ordinary means this may be done so long as the Scriptures by Divine Providence are preserved in their integrity and Authority As a Common-wealth though never so far collapsed and overrun with disorders is yet in possibility of being reduced unto its Original State so long as the Ancient Laws and Fundamental Constitutions are extant and remain inviolate from whence men may be directed how to make such a Reformation But S. Austin urges this very Argument against the Donatists and therefore it is good I answer that I doubt much of the Consequence and my Reason is because you your selves acknowledge that even general Councils and therefore much more particular Doctors though Infallible in their determinations are yet in their Reasons and Arguments whereupon they ground them subject to like Passions and Errors with other men 22. Obj. Lastly whereas you say That all Divines define Schism a Division from the true Church and from thence collect That there must be a known Church from which it is possible for men to depart Answer I might very justly question your Antecedent and desire you to consider whether Schism be not rather or at least be not as well a division of the Church as from it A separation not of a part from the whole but of some parts from the other And if you liked not this definition I might desire you to inform me in those many Schisms which have happened in the Church of Rome which of the parts was the Church and which was divided from it But to let this pass certainly your consequence is most unreasonable For though whensoever there is a Schism it must necessarily suppose a Church existent there yet sure we may define a Schism that is declare what the word signifies for Defining is no more though at this present there were neither Schism nor Church in the World Unless you will say that we cannot tell wat a Rose is or what the word Rose signifies but only in the Summer when we have Roses or that in the World to come when men shall not Marry it is impossible to know what it is to Marry or that the Plague is not a Disease but only when some Body is infected or that Adultery is not a sin unless there be Adulterers or that before Adam had a Child he knew not and God could not have told him what it was to be a Father Certainly Sir you have forgot your Metaphysicks which you so much glory in if you know not that the connexions of essentiall predicates with their subjects are Eternal and depend not at all upon the actual existence in the thing defined This Definition therefore of Schism concludes not the existence of a Church even when it is defined much less the perpetual continuance of it and least of all the continuance of it in perpetual visibility and purity which is the only thing that we deny and you are to prove 23. Ad § 12.47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55. The remainder of this Chapter offers Arguments to convince Luther and all that follow him to be Schismaticks 24. First then to prove us Schismaticks you urge from the nature of Schism thus Whosoever leave the external Communion of the visible Church are Schismaticks But Luther and his followers left the external Communion of the visible Church of Christ Therefore they are Schismaticks The Minor or second Proposition of this Argument you prove by two other The first is this They which forsook the external Communion of all Visible Churches must needs forsake the external Communion of the true visible Church of Christ But Luther and his followers forsook the external Communion of all Visible Churches Therefore they forsook the external Communion of the true visible Church The Second Argument stands thus The Roman Church when the separation was made by Luther c. was the true Visible Church of Christ But Luther c. forsook the external Communion of the Roman Church Therefore they forsook the external Communion of the true Visible Church of Christ The Proposition you confirm by these Reasons 1. The Roman Church had the Notes of the Church assigned by Protestants viz. The true Preaching of the Word and due administration of Sacraments Therefore she was the true Church 2. Either the Roman Church was the true visible Church or Protestants can name and prove some other disagreeing from the Roman and agreeing with Protestants in their particular Doctrine or else they must say there was no visible Church But they will not say there was no Church They cannot name and prove any other disagreeing from the Roman and agreeing with the Protestants in their particular Doctrines because this cannot be the Greek Church nor that of the Waldenses Wicklifites Hussites nor that of the Muscovites Armenians Georgians Aethiopians which you confirm by several Arguments Therefore they must grant that the Roman Church was the true Visible Church 25. Now to all this I briefly answer thus That you have played the unwise builder and erected a stately structure upon a false Foundation For whereas you take for granted as an undoubted Truth That whosoever leave the external Communion of the visible Church are Schismatical I tell you Sir you presume too much upon us and would have us grant that which is the main point in Question For either you suppose the external Communion of the Church corrupted and that there was a necessity for them that would Communicate with this
Church to Communicate in her corruptions Or you suppose her Communion uncorrupted If the former and yet will take for granted that all are Schismaticks that leave her Communion though it be corrupted you beg the Question in your proposition If the latter you beg the Question in your supposition for Protestants you know are Peremptory and Unanimous in the Denial of both these things Both that the Communion of the Visible Church was then uncorrupted And that they are truly Schismaticks who leave the Communion of the Visible Church if corrupted especially if the case be so and Luthers was so that they must either leave her Communion or of necessity Communicate with her in her corruptions 26. Besides although it were granted Schism to leave the external Communion of the Visible Church in what state or case so ever it be and that Luther and his followers were Schismaticks for leaving the external Communion of all Visible Churches yet you fail exceedingly of clearing the other necessary point undertaken by you That the Roman Church was then the Visible Church For neither do Protestants as you mistake make the true preaching of the Word and due administration of the Sacraments the notes of the Visible Church but only of a Visible Church now these you know are very different things the former signifying the Church Catholick or the whole Church the latter a Particular Church or a part of the Catholick And therefore suppose out of courtesie we should grant what by argument you can never evince that your Church had these notes yet would it by no means follow that your Church were the Visible Church but only a Visible Church not the whole Catholick but only a part of it 27. Lastly whereas you say that Protestants must either grant that your Church then was the Visible Church or name some other disagreeing from yours and agreeing with Protestants in their particular doctrin or acknowledge there was no Visible Church It is all one as if to use S. Pauls similitude the head should say to the foot either you must grant that I am the whole body or name some other member that is so or confess that there is no body To which the foot might answer I acknowledge there is a body and yet that no member beside you is this body nor yet that you are it but only a part of it And in like manner say we We acknowledge a Church there was corrupted indeed universally but yet such a one as we hope by Gods gracious acceptance was still a Church We pretend not to name any one Society that was this Church and yet we see no reason that can enforce us to confess that yours was the Church but only a part of it and that one of the worst then extant in the World In vain therefore have you troubled your self in proving that we cannot pretend that either the Greeks Waldenses Wickliffites Hussites Muscovites Armenians Georgians Abyssines were then the Visible Church For all this discourse proceeds from a false vain supposition and begs another point in Question between us which is that some Church of one denomination and one Communion as the Roman the Greek c. must be always exclusively to all other Communions the whole Visible Church And though perhaps some weak Protestant having this false principle setled in him that there was to be always some Visible Church of one denomination pure from all error in doctrin might be wrought upon and prevailed with by it to forsake the Church of Protestants yet why it should induce him to go to yours rather than the Greek Church or any other which pretends to perpetual succession as well as yours that I do not understand unless it be for the reason which Aeneas Sylvius gave why more held the Pope above a Council than a Council above the Pope which was because Popes did give Bishopricks and Archbishopricks but Councils gave none and therefore suing in Forma Pauperis were not like to have their cause very well maintained For put the case I should grant of meer favour that there must be always some Church of one Denomination and Communion free from all errors in doctrin and that Protestants had not always such a Church it would follow indeed from thence that I must not be a Protestant But that I must be a Papist certainly it would follow by no better consequence than this if you will leave England you must of necessity go to Rome And yet with this wretched fallacy have I been sometimes abused my self and known many other poor souls seduced not only from their own Church and Religion but unto yours I beseech God to open the eyes of all that love the truth that they may not always be held captive under such miserable delusions 28. Let us come now to the Arguments which you build upon D. Potters own words out of which you promise unanswerable reasons to convince Protestants of Schism 29. But these reasons will easily be answered if the Reader will take along with him these three short Memorandums 30. First That not every separation but only a causeless separation from the external Communion of any Church is the Sin of Schism 31. Secondly That imposing upon men under pain of Excommunication a necessity of professing known errors and practising known corruptions is a sufficient and necessary cause of separation and that this is the cause the Protestants alledge to justifie their separation from which Church of Rome 32. Thirdly That to leave the Church and to leave the external Communion of a Church is not the same thing That being done by ceasing to be a member of it by ceasing to have those requisites which constitute a man a member of it as faith and obedience This by refusing to communicate with any Church in her Liturgies and publick worship of God This Armour if it be rightly placed will repel all those Batteries which you threaten us with all 33. Ad § 13.14 15. The first is a sentence of S. Austin against Donatus applied to Luther thus If the Church perished what Church brought forth Donatus you say Luther If she could not perish what madness moved the sect of Donatus to separate upon pretence to avoid the Communion of bad men Whereunto one fair answer to let pass many others is obvious out of the second observation That this sentence though it were Gospel as it is not is impertinently applied to Luther and Lutherans Whose pretence of separation be it true or be it false was not as that of the Donatists only to avoid the Communion of bad men but to free themselves from a necessity which but by separating was unavoidable of joyning with bad men in their impieties 34. Ad § 16. Your second onset drives only at those Protestants who hold the true Church was invisible for many ages Which Doctrin if by the true Church be understood the pure Church as you do understand it is a certain truth it
as because you impose them and will allow your Communion to none but to those that will hold them with you and have so ordered your Communion that either we must communicate with you in these things or nothing And for this very reason though it were granted that these Protestants held this Doctrin which you impute to them And though this Error were as damnable and as much against the Creed as you pretend Yet after all this this disparity between you and them might make it more lawful for us to communicate with them than you because what they hold they hold to themselves and refuse not as you do to communicate with them that hold the contrary 41. Thus we may answer your Argument though both your former Suppositions were granted But then for a second answer I am to tell you that there is no necessity of granting either of them For neither do these Protestants hold the failing of the Church from its being but only from its visibility which if you conceive all one then must you conceive that the Stars fail every day and the Sun every night Neither is it certain that the Doctrin of the Churches failing is repugnant to the Creed For as the truth of the Article of the Remission of sins depends not upon the actual remission of any mans sins but upon Gods readiness and resolution to forgive the sins of all that believe and repent so that although unbelief or impenitence should be universal and the Faithful should absolutely fail from the children of men and the son of man should find no faith on the earth yet should the Article still continue true that God would forgive the sins of all that repent In like manner it is not certain that the truth of the Article of the Catholick Church depends upon the actual existence of a Catholick Church but rather upon the right that the Church of Christ or rather to speak properly the Gospel of Christ hath to be universally believed And therefore the Article may be true though there were no Church in the world In regard this notwithstanding it remains still true that there ought to be a Church and this Church ought to be Catholick For as of these two Propositions There is a Church in America and There should be a Church in America The truth of the latter depends not upon the truth of the former so neither does it in these two There is a Church diffused all the world over and There should be a Church diffused all the world over 44. Ad § 17. The next Section in three long leaves delivers us this short sense That those Protestants which say they have not left the Churches external Communion but only her corruptions pretend to do that which is impossible Because these corruptions were inherent in the Churches external Communion and therefore he that forsakes them cannot but forsake this 45. Ans But who are they that pretend they forsook the Churches corruptions and not her external communion Some there be that say they have not left the Church that is not ceased to be members of the Church but only left her corruptions some that they have not left the communion but the corruptions of it meaning the internal communion of it and conjunction with it by faith and obedience which disagree from the former only in the manner of speaking for he that is in the Church is in this kind of communion with it and he that is not in this internal communion is not in the Church Some perhaps that they left not your external communion in all things meaning that they left it not voluntarily being not fugitivi but fugati Casaubon in Ep. ad Card. Perron as being willing to joyn with you in any act of piety but were by you necessitated constrained to do so because you would not suffer them to do well with you unless they would do ill with you Now to do ill that you may do well is against the will of God which to every good man is a high degree of necessity But for such Protestants as pretend that de facto they forsook your corruptions only and not your external communion that is such as pretend to communicate with you in your Confessions and Liturgies and participation of Sacraments I cannot but doubt very much that neither you nor I have ever met with any of this condition And if perhaps you were led into error by thinking that to leave the Church and to leave the external communion of it was all one in sense and signification I hope by this time you are disabused and begin to understand that as a man may leave any fashion or custom of a Colledge and yet remain still a member of the Colledge so a man may possibly leave some opinion or practice of a Church formerly common to himself and others and continue still a member of that Church Provided that what he forsakes be not one of those things wherein the essence of the Church consists Whereas peradventure this practice may be so involved with the external communion of this Church that it may be simply impossible for him to leave this practice and not to leave the Churches external communion 46. You will reply perhaps That the difficulty lies as well against those who pretend to forsake the Churches corruptions and not the Church as against those who say they forsook the Churches corruptions and not her external communion And that the reason is still the same because these supposed corruptions were inherent in the whole Church and therefore by like reason with the former could not be forsaken but if the whole Church were forsaken 47. Ans A pretty Sophism and very fit to perswade men that it is impossible for them to forsake any Error they hold or any Vice they are subject to either peculiar to themselves or in common with others Because forsooth they cannot forsake themselves and Vices and Errors are things inherent in themselves The deceit lies in not distinguishing between a Local and a Moral forsaking of any thing For as it were an absurdity fit for the maintainers of Transubstantiation to defend that a man may locally and properly depart from the accidents of a subject and not from the subject it self So is it also against reason to deny that a man may by an usual phrase of speech forsake any custom or quality good or bad either proper to himself or common to himself with any company and yet never truly or properly forsake either his company or himself Thus if all the Jesuites in the Society were given to write Sophistically yet you might leave this ill custome and yet not leave your Society If all the Citizens of a City were addicted to any vanity they might either all or some of them forsake it and yet not forsake the City If all the parts of a mans Body were dirty or filthy nothing hinders but that all or some of them might
will and encounter with human probabilities being backed with the strength of flesh and blood and therefore conclude that it was farther necessary that this supernatural knowledge should be most certain and infallible To this I answer that I do heartily acknowledge and believe the Articles of our Faith be in themselves Truths as certain and infallible as the very common Principles of Geometry and Metaphysicks But that there is required of us a knowledge of them and an adherence to them as certain as that of sense or science that such a certainty is required of us under pain of damnation so that no man can hope to be in the state of salvation but he that finds in himself such a degree of faith such a strength of adherence This I have already demonstrated to be a great error and of dangerous and pernitious consequence And because I am more and more confirmed in my perswasion that the Truth which I there delivered is of great and singular use I will here confirm it with more reasons And to satisfie you that this is no singularity of my own my Margent presents you with a a M. Hooker in his answer to Travers his supplication I have taught that the assurance of things which we believe by the word is not so certain as of that we perceive by sence And is it as certain Yea I taught that the things which God doth promise in his word are surer unto us than any thing we touch handle or see But are we so sure and certain of them If we be why doth God so often prove his promises unto us as he doth by arguments taken from our sensible experience We must be surer of the proof than the thing proved otherwise it is no proof How is it that if ten men do all look upon the Moon every one of them knows it as certainly to be the Moon as another but many believing one and the same promises all have not one and the same fulness of perswasion How falleth it out that men being assured of any thing by sence can be no surer of it than they are whereas the strongest in faith that liveth upon the earth had always need to labour and strive and pray that his assurance concerning heavenly and spiritual things may grow increase and be augmented Protestant Divine of great authority and no way singular in his opinions who hath long since preached and justified the same doctrin 4. I say that every Text of Scripture which makes mention of any that were weak or of any that were strong in faith of any that were of little or any that were of great faith of any that abounded or any that were rich in saith of encreasing growing rooting grounding establishing confirming in faith Every such Text is a demonstrative refutation of this vain fancy proving that faith even true and saving faith is not a thing consisting in such an indivisible point of perfection as you make it but capable of augmentation and diminution Every Prayer you make to God to encrease your faith or if you conceive such a prayer derogatory from the perfection of your faith The Apostles praying to Christ to encrease their Faith is a convincing argument of the same conclusion Moreover if this doctrin of yours were true then seeing not any the least doubting can consist with a most infallible certainty it will follow that every least doubting in any matter of faith though resisted and involuntary is a damnable sin absolutely destructive so long as it lasts of all true and saving faith which you are so far from granting that you make it no sin at all but only an occasion of merit and if you should esteem it a sin then must you acknowledge contrary to your own Principles that there are Actual sins meerly involuntary The same is furthermore invincibly confirmed by every deliberate sin that any Christian commits by any progress in Charity that he makes For seeing as S. John assures us our faith is the victory which overcomes the world certainly if the faith of all true Believers were perfect and if true faith be capable of no imperfection if all faith be a knowledge most certain and infallible all faith must be perfect for the most imperfect that is according to your doctrin if it be true must be most certain and sure the most perfect that is cannot be more than most certain then certainly their victory over the World and therefore over the flesh and therefore over sin must of necessity be perfect and so it should be impossible for any true believer to commit any deliberate sin and therefore he that commits any sin must not think himself a true believer Besides seeing Faith worketh by Charity and Charity is the effect of Faith certainly if the cause were perfect the effect would be perfect and consequently as you make no degrees in Faith so there would be none in Charity and so no man could possibly make any progress in it but all true believers should be equally in Charity as in Faith you make them equal and from thence it would follow unavoidably that whosoever finds in himself any true Faith must presently persuade himself that he is perfect in Charity and whosoever on the other side discovers in his Charity any imperfection must not believe that he hath any true Faith These you see are strange and portentous consequences and yet the deduction of them from your Doctrine is clear and apparent which shews this Doctrine of yours which you would fain have true that there might be some necessity of your Churches Infallibility to be indeed plainly repugnant not only to Truth but even to all Religion and Piety and fit for nothing but to make men negligent of making any Progress in Faith or Charity 5. As for that one single reason which you produce to confirm it it will appear upon examination to be resolved finally into a groundless Assertion of your own contrary to all Truth and experience and that is That no degree of Faith less than a most certain and infallible knowledge can be able sufficiently to overbear our will and encounter with humane probabilities being backt with the strength of Flesh and Blood For who sees not that many Millions in the World forgoe many times their present ease and pleasure undergo great and toilsom labours encounter great difficulties adventure upon great dangers and all this not upon any certain expectation but upon a probable hope of some future gain and commodity and that not infinite and Eternal but finite and temporal Who sees not that many men abstain from many things they exceedingly desire not upon any certain assurance but a probable fear of danger that may come after What man ever was there so madly in love with a present penny but that he would willingly spend it upon any little hope that by doing so he might gain an hundred thousand pound And I would fain know what gay probabilities you could
is properly an Heresie But the preaching of the Gospel at the beginning was not Universal therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie For as he whose Reformation is but particular may yet not deny the Resurrection so may he also not deny the Churches Universality And as the Apostles who preached the Gospel in the beginning did believe the Church Universal though their preaching at the beginning was not so So Luther also might and did believe the Church Universal though his Reformation were but particular I say he did believe it Universal even in your own sense that is Universal de jure though not de facto And as for universality in fact he believed the Church much more Universal than his Reformation For he did conceive as appears by your own Allegations out of him that only the Part reformed was the true Church but also that they were Part of it who needed reformation Neither did he ever pretend to make a new Church but to reform the old one Thirdly and lastly to the first proposition of this unsyllogistical syllogism I answer That to say the true Church is not always de facto universal is so far from being an Heresie that it is a certain Truth known to all those that know the world and what Religions possess far the greater part of it Donatus therefore was not to blame for saying that the Church might possibly be confined to Africk but for saying without ground that then it was so And S. Austin as he was in the right in thinking that the Church was then extended farther than Africk so was he in the wrong if he thought that of necessity it always must be so but most palpably mistaken in conceiving that it was then spread over the whole earth and known to all nations which if passion did not trouble you and make you forget how lately almost half the world was discovered and in what estate it was then found you would very easily see and confess 16. The Donatists might do ill in calling the Chair of Rome the Chair of Pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot and yet the state of the Church being altered Protestants might do well to do so and therefore though S. Austin might perhaps have reason to persecute the Donatists for detracting from the Church and calling her Harlot when she was not so yet you may have none to threaten D. Potter that you would persecute him as the Application of this place intimates you would if it were in your power plainly shewing that you are a curst Cow though your horns be short seeing the Roman Church is not now what it was in S. Austins time And hereof the conclusion of your own book affords us a very pregnant testimony where you tell us out of Saint Austin that one grand impediment which among many kept the seduced followers of the faction of Donatus from the Churches Communion was a visible calumny raised against the Catholicks that they did set some strange thing upon their Altar To how many saith Saint Austin did the reports of ill Tongues shut up the way to enter who said that we put I know not what upon the Altar Out of detestation of the calumny and just indignation against it he would not so much as name the impiety wherewith they were charged and therefore by a Rhetorical figure calls it I know not what But compare with him Optatus writing of the same matter and you shall plainly perceive that this I know not what pretended to be set upon the Altar was indeed a picture which the Donatists knowing how detestable a thing it was to all Christians at that time to set up any pictures in a Church to worship them as your new fashion is bruited abroad to be done in the Churches of the Catholick Church But what answer do S. Austin and Optatus make to this accusation Do they confess and maintain it Do they say as you would now It is true we do set Pictures upon our Altar and that not only for ornament or memory but for worship also but we do well to do so and this ought not to trouble you or affright you from our Communion What other answer your Church could now make to such an objection is very hard to imagine And therefore were your Doctrin the same with the Doctrin of the Fathers in this point they must have answered so likewise But they to the contrary not only deny the crime but abhor and detest it To little purpose therefore do you hunt after these poor shadows of resemblances between us and the Donatists unless you could shew an exact resemblance between the present Church of Rome and the Ancient which seeing by this and many other particulars it is demonstrated to be impossible that Church which was then a Virgin may be now a Harlot and that which was detraction in the Donatists may be in Protestants a just accusation 18. But the main point you say is that since Luthers Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was in the Apostles time they must of necessity affirm heretically with the Donatists that the true unspotted Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O Blasphemy an Harlot By which words it seems you are resolute perpetually to confound True and Unspotted and to put no difference between a corrupted Church and none at all But what is this but to make no difference between a diseased and a dead man Nay what is it but to contradict your selves who cannot deny but that sins are as great stains and spots and deformities in the sight of God as errors and confess your Church to be a Congregation of men whereof every particular not one excepted and consequently the generality which is nothing but a collection of them is polluted and defiled with sin 19. You ask How can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain a damnable Heresie I Answer she may be more truly said to perish when she is not only permitted to do so but de facto doth maintain a damnable Heresie Again she may be more truly said to perish when she falls into an Heresie which is not only damnable in it self and ex natura rei as you speak but such an Heresie the belief of whose contrary Truth is necessary not only necessitate praecepti but medii and therefore the Heresie so absolutely and indispensably destructive of salvation that no ignorance can excuse it nor any general repentance without a dereliction of it can beg a pardon for it Such an heresie if the Church should fall into it might be more truly said to perish than if it fell only into some heresie of its own nature damnable For in that state all the members of it without exception all without mercy must needs perish for ever In this although those that might see the truth and would not cannot upon any good ground
will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to do what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should do so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himself nor any Body else would esteem the person Bishop upon the Kings designation Whether many Popes though they were not Consecrated Bishops by any temporal Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopal function in this or that place And whether the Emperors had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants do indeed pretend that their Reformation is Universal Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you do not forget your self and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of Divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of Government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of Divine institution be Schismatical and Heretical for thinking so Whether your form of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essential to the constitution of a true Church Whether the forms of the Church of England differ essentially from your forms Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other mans Lastly whether any one kind of these external Forms and Orders and Government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may not be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives whatsoever it be All these Questions will be necessary to be discussed for the clearing of the truth of the Minor proposition of your former Syllogism and your proofs of it and I will promise to debate them fairly with you if first you will bring some better proof of the Major That want of Succession is a certain note of Heresie which for the present remains both unproved and unprobable 40. Obj. You say The Fathers assign Succession as one mark of the true Church Answ I confess they did urge Tradition as an Argument of the Truth of their Doctrine and of the falshood of the contrary and thus far they agree with you But now see the difference They urged it not against all Hereticks that ever should be but against them who rejected a great part of the Scripture for no other reason but because it was repugnant to their Doctrine and corrupted other parts with their additions and detractions and perverted the remainder with divers absurd interpretations So Tertullian not a leaf before the words by you cited Nay they urged it against them who when they were confuted out of Scripture fell to accuse the Scriptures themselves as if they were not right and came not from good authority as if they were various one from another and as if truth could not be found out of them by those who know not Tradition for that it was not delivered in writing they did mean wholly but by word of mouth And that thereupon Paul also said we speak wisdom amongst the perfect So Irenaeus in the very next Chapter before that which you alledge Against these men being thus necessitated to do so they did urge Tradition but what or whose Tradition was it Certainly no other but the joynt Tradition of all the Apostolick Churches with one Mouth and one Voice teaching the same Doctrine Or if for brevity sake they produce the Tradition of any one Church yet is it apparent that that one was then in conjunction with all the rest Irenaeus Tertullian Origen testifie as much in the words cited and S. Austin in the place before alledged by me This Tradition they did urge against these men and in a time in comparison of ours almost contiguous to the Apostles So near that one them Irenaeus was Scholar to one who was Scholar to S. John the Apostle Tertullian and Origen were not an Age removed from him and the last of them all little more than an Age from them Yet after all this they urged it not as a demonstration but only as a very probable argument far greater than any their Adversaries could oppose against it So Tertullian in the place above quoted § 5. How is it likely that so many and so great Churches should Err in one Faith it should be should have Erred into one Faith And this was the condition of this Argument as the Fathers urged it Now if you having to deal with us who question no Book of Scripture which was not Anciently questioned by some whom you your selves esteem good Catholicks nay who refuse not to be tried by your own Canons your own Translations who in interpreting Scriptures are content to allow of all those rules which you propose only except that we will not allow you to be our Judges if you will come fifteen hundred years after the Apostles a fair time for the purest Church to gather much dross and corruptions and for the mystery af iniquity to bring its work to some perfection which in the Apostles time began to work If I say you will come thus long after and urge us with the single Tradition of one of these Churches being now Catholick to it self alone and Heretical to all the rest nay not only with her Ancient Original Traditions but also with her post-nate and introduced Definitions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and Ancient Tradition and all this to decline an indifferent Trial by Scripture under pretence wherein also you agree with the calumny of the Old Hereticks that all necessary truth cannot be found in them without recourse to Tradition If I say notwithstanding all these differences you will still be urging us with this argument as the very same and of the same force with that wherewith the fore-mentioned Fathers urged the Old Hereticks certainly this must needs proceed from a confidence you have not only that we have no School-Divinity nor Metaphysicks but no Logick or common sense that we are but Pictures of men and have the definition of rational creatures given us in vain 41. But now suppose I should be liberal to you and grant what you cannot prove that the Fathers make Succession a certain and perpetual mark of the true Church I beseech you what will come of it What that want of Succession is a certain sign of an Heretical company Truly
yet our own Brethren the Century writers acknowledge that in the times of Cyprian and Tertullian private Confession even of thoughts was used and that it was then commanded and thought necessary and then our Ordination you say is very doubtful and all that depends upon it Answer I also omit to answer 1. That your Brother Rhenanus acknowledges the contrary and assures us that the Confession then required and in use was publick and before the Church and that your auricular Confession was not then in the World for which his Mouth is stopped by your Index Expurgatorius 2. That your Brother Arcudius acknowledges that the Eucharist was in Cyprians time given to Infants and esteemed necessary or at least profitable for them and the giving it shews no less and now I would know whether you will acknowledg your Church bound to give it and to esteem so of it 3. That it might be then commanded and being commanded be thought necessary and yet be but a Church Constitution Neither will I deny if the present Church could and would so order it that the abuses of it might be prevented and conceiving it profitable should enjoyn the use of it but that being commanded it would be necessary 4. Concerning our Ordinations besides that I have proved it impossible that they should be so doubtful as yours according to your own principles I answer that experience shews them certainly sufficient to bring men to Faith and Repentance and consequently to Salvation and that if there were any secret defect of any thing necessary which we cannot help God will certainly supply it 19. It is remarkable against what you say § 7. That any small Error in Faith destroys all Faith that S. Austin whose authority is here stood upon thought otherwise He conceived the Donatists to hold some Error in Faith and yet not to have no Faith His words of them to this purpose are most pregnant and evident you are with us saith he to the Donatist Ep. 48. in Baptism in the Creed in the other Sacraments And again Super gestis cum emerit Thou hast proved to me that thou hast Faith prove to me likewise that thou hast Charity Lib. 5. prope initium Parallel to which words are these of Optatus Amongst us and you is one Ecclesiastical conversation common lessons the same Faith the same Sacraments Where by the way we may observe that in the judgments of these Fathers even the Donatists though Hereticks and Schismaticks gave true Ordination the true Sacrament of Matrimony true Sacramental Absolution Confirmation the true Sacrament of the Eucharist true extream Unction or else choose you whether some of these were not then esteemed Sacraments But for Ordination whether he held it a Sacrament or no certainly he held that it remained with them entire for so he says in express terms in his Book against Parmenianus his Epistle Which Doctrine if you can reconcile with the present Doctrine of the Roman Church Eris mihi magnus Apollo 20. Ad § 8. Obj. You say there is un inevitable necessity for us either to grant Salvation to your Church or to entail certain damnation upon our own because ours can have no being till Luther unless yours be supposed to have been the true Church I answer this cause is no cause For first as Luther had no being before Luther and yet he was when he was though he was not before so there is no repugnance in the terms but that there might be a true Church after Luther though there were none for some Ages before as since Columbus his time there have been Christians in America though before there were none for many Ages For neither do you shew neither does it appear that the generation of Churches is Univocal that nothing but a Church can possibly beget a Church nor that the present being of a true Church depends necessarily upon the perpetuity of a Church in all Ages any more than the present being of Peripateticks or Stoicks depends upon a perpetual pedigree of them For though I at no hand deny the Churches perpetuity yet I see nothing in your Book to make me understand that the truth of the present depends upon it nor any thing that can hinder but that a false Church Gods providence over-watching and over-ruling it may preserve the means of confuting their own Heresies and reducing men to truth and so raising a true Church I mean the integrity and the Authority of the word of God with men Thus the Jews preserve means to make men Christians and Papists preserve means to make men Protestants and Protestants which you say are a false Church do as you pretend preserve means to make men Papists that is their own Bibles out of which you pretend to be able to prove that they are to be Papists Secondly you shew not nor does it appear that the perpetuity of the Church depends on the truth of yours For though you talk vainly as if you were the only men in the World before Luther yet the World knows that this is but talk and that there were other Christians besides you which might have perpetuated the Church though you had not been Lastly you shew not neither doth it appear that your being acknowledged in some sense a true Church doth necessarily import that we must grant Salvation to it unless by it you understand the ignorant members of it which is a very unusual Synechdoche 21. Whereas you say that Catholicks never granted that the Donatists had a true Church or might be saved I answ S. Austin himself granted that those among them who sought the Truth being ready when they found it to correct their Error were not Hereticks and therefore notwithstanding their Error might be saved And this is all the Charity that Protestants allow to Papists Therefore the Argument of the Donatists is as good as that of the Papists against Protestants For the Donatists argued thus speaking to the Catholicks Your selves confess our Baptism Sacraments and Faith good and available We deny yours to be so and say there is no Church no Salvation amongst you Therefore it is safest for all to joyn with us 22. S. Austins words are cont lit petil l. 2. c. 108. Petilianus dixit venite ad Ecclesiam populi aufugite Traditores Cont. lit Petil l. 2. c. 108. si perire non vultis Petilian saith come to the Church ye People and fly from the Traditours if ye will not be damned for that ye may know that they being guilty esteem well of our Faith behold I Baptize these whom they have infected but they receive those whom we have Baptized Where it is plain that Petilian by his words makes the Donatists the Church and excludes the Catholicks from salvation absolutely And whereas you say the Catholicks never yielded that among the Donatists there was a true Church and hope of Salvation I say it appears by what I have alledged out of S. Austin that they
be made unnecessary by being so accounted nor an unnecessary point be made necessary by being overvalued But as the ancient Philosophers whose different opinions about the soul of man you may read in Aristotle de Anima and Cicero's Tusculan Questions notwithstanding their divers opinions touching the nature of the soul yet all of them had souls and souls of the same nature Or as those Physicians who dispute whether the brain or heart be the principal part of a man yet all of them have brains and have hearts and herein agree sufficiently So likewise though some Protestants esteem that Doctrin the soul of the Church which others do not so highly value yet this hinders not but that which is indeed the soul of the Church may be in both sorts of them and though one account that a necessary truth which others account neither necessary nor perhaps true yet this notwithstanding in those Truths which are truly and really necessary they may all agree For no Argument can be more sophistical than this They differ in some points which they esteem necessary Therefore they differ in some that indeed and in truth are so 35. Now as concerning the other inference That they cannot agree what points are fundamental I have said and proved formerly that there is no such necessity as you imagin or pretend that men should certainly know what is and what is not fundamental They that believe all things plainly delivered in Scripture believe all things fundamental and are at sufficient Unity in matters of Faith though they cannot precisely and exactly distinguish between what is fundamental and what is profitable nay though by error they mistake some vain or perhaps hurtful opinions for necessary and fundamental Truths Cap. 3. §. 53. alibt Besides I have shewed above that as Protestants do not agree for you over-reach in saying they cannot touching what points are fundamental so neither do you agree what points are defined and so to be accounted and what are not nay nor concerning the subject in which God hath placed this pretended Authority of defining some of you setling it in the Pope himself though alone without a Council Others in a Council though divided from the Pope Others only in the conjunction of Council and Pope Others not in this neither but in the acceptation of the present Church Universal Lastly others not attributing it to this neither but only to the perpetual Succession of the Church of all Ages of which divided Company it is very evident and undeniable that every former may be and are obliged to hold many things defined and therefore necessary which the latter according to their own grounds have no obligation to do nay cannot do so upon any firm and sure and infallible foundation FINIS OUT OF Mr. Chillingworth's Manuscript A LETTER TO Mr. LEWGAR CONCERNING THE Church of Romes Being the Guide of Faith and Judge of Controversies Good Mr. LEWGAR THough I am resolved not to be much afflicted for the loss of that which is not in my power to keep yet I cannot deny but the loss of a friend goes very near unto my heart and by this name of a friend I did presume till of late that I might have called you because though perhaps for want of power and opportunity I have done you no good office yet I have been always willing and ready to do you the best service I could and therefore I cannot but admire at that affected strangeness which in your last Letter to me you seem to take upon you renouncing in a manner all relation to me and tacitly excommunicating me from all interest in you the Superscription of your Letter is to Mr. William Chillingworth and your Subscription John Lewgar as if you either disdained or made a conscience of stiling me your friend or your self mine If this proceed from passion and weakness I pray mend it if from reason I pray shew it If you think me one of those to whom Saint John forbids you to say God save you then you are to think and prove me one of those Deceivers which deny Christ Jesus to be come in the flesh If you think me an Heretick and therefore to be avoided you must prove me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condemned by my own judgment which I know I cannot and therefore I think you cannot If you say I do not hear the Church and therefore am to be esteemed an Heathen or Publican you are to prove that by the Church there is meant the Church of Rome and yet when you have done so I hope Christians are not forbidden to shew humanity and civility even to Pagans for Gods sake Mr. Lewgar free your self from this blind zeal at least for a little space and consider with reason and moderation what strange crime you can charge me with that should deferve this strange usage especially from you Is it a crime to endeavour with all my understanding to find your Religion true and to make my self a believer of it and not be able to do so Is it a crime to imploy all my reason upon the justification of the Infallibility of the Roman Church and to find it impossible to be justified I will call God to witness who knows my heart better than you do that I have evened the scale of my judgment as much as possibly I could and have not willingly allowed any one grain of worldly motives on either side but have weighed the Reasons for your Religion and against with such indifference as if there were nothing in the world but God and my self and is it my fault that that scale goes down which hath the most weight in it that that building falls which has a false foundation have you such power over your understanding that you can believe what you please though you see no reason or that you can suspend your belief when you do see reason If you have I pray for our old friendships sake teach me that trick but until I have learnt it I pray blame me not for going the ordinary way I mean for believing or not believing as I see reason If you can convince me of wilful opposition against the known truth of negligence in seeking it of unwillingness to find it of preferring temporal respects before it or of any other fault which is in my power to amend that is indeed a fault if I amend it not be as angry with me as you please But to impute to me involuntary errors or that I do not see that which I would see but cannot or that I will not profess that which I do not believe certainly this is far more unreasonable error than any which you can justly charge me with for let me tell you the imputing Socinianism to me whosoever was the author of it was a wicked and groundless slander Perhaps you will say for this is the usual song on that side that pride is a voluntary fault and with this I am justly
Erring persons that lead good lives should be judged of charitably c. 7.33 A man may learn of the Church to confute its Errors c. 3.40 We did well to forsake the Roman Church for her Errors though we afterwards may err out of it c. 5.63 64 65 67 87 92. We must not adhere to a Church in professing the least Errors lest we should not profess with her necessary Doctrin c. 3.56 The Examples of those that forsaking Popish Errors have denied necessary Truths no Argument against Protestants c. 3.63 External Communion of a Church may be left without leaving a Church c. 5.32 45 47. F. Whether Faith be destroyed by denying a Truth testified by God Ans Pref. 25. c. 6.49 c. 7.19 The Objects of Faith of two sorts essential and occasional c. 4.3 Certainty of Faith less than the highest degree may please God and save a man c. 1.8 6.3 4 5. Faith less than infallibly certain may resist temptations difficulties c. 6.5 There may be Faith where the Church and its infallibility begets it not c. 2.49 Faith does not go before Scripture but follows its efficacy c. 2.48 Protestants have sufficient means to know the certainty of their Faith c. 2.152 In the Roman Church the last resolution of Faith is into Motives of Credibility c. 2.154 The Fathers declared their Judgment of Articles but did not require their declarations to be received under Anathema c. 4.18 Protestants did not forsake the Church though they forksook its errors c. 3.11 Sufficient Foundation for faith without infallible certainty c. 6.6 45. What Protestants mean by Fundamental Doctrins c. 4.52 In what sense the Church of Rome errs not Fundamentally Ans Pref. 20. To be unerring in Fundamentals can be said of no Church of one denomination c. 3.55 To say that there shall be always a Church not erring in Fundamentals is to say that there shall be always a Church c. 3.55 A Church is not safe though retaining Fundamentals when it builds hay and stubble on the foundation and neglects to reform her Errors c. 5.61 Ignorance of what points in particular are fundamental does not make it uncertain whether we do not err fundamentally or differ in fundamentals among our selves c. 7.14 G. The four Gospels contain all necessary Doctrins c. 4.40 41 42 43. An Infallible Guide not necessary for avoiding Heresie c. 2.127 The Apostolick Church an Infallible Guide to which we may resort c. 3.69 The Church may not be an Infallible Guide in fundamentals though it be infallible in fundamentals c. 3.39 That the Roman Church should be the only infallible Guide of Faith and the Scriptures say nothing concerning it is incredible c. 6.20 H. The difference betwixt Heresie and Schism c. 5.51 There are no New Heresies no more than new Articles of Faith c. 4.18 37 38. Separation from the Church of Rome no mark of Heresie by the Fathers whose Citations are answered c. 6.22 23 24 25 26 27 2â— 30 31 33 34. No mark of Heresie to want succession of Bishops holding the same Doctrin c. 6.18 41. We are not Hereticks for opposing things propounded by the Church of Rome for divine Truth c. 6.11 12. Whether Protestants Schismatically cut off the Roman Church from hopes of salvation c. 5.38 I. The Jewish Church had no Infallibility annexed to it and if it had there is no necessity that the Christian Church should have it c. 2.141 The Imposing a necessity of professing known errors and practising known corruptions is a just cause of separating from a Church c. 5.31 36 40 50 59 60 68 69. Indifferency to all Religions falsely charged upon Protestants Ans Pref. 3. c. 3.12 The belief of the Churches Infallibility makes way for Heresie Pref. 10. An Infallible Guide not needful for avoiding Heresies c. 2.127 The Churches Infallibility has not the same Evidence as there is for the Scriptures c. 3.30 31. The Churches Infallibility can no way be better assured to us than the Scriptures incorruption c. 2.25 c. 3.27 The Churches Infallibility is not proved from the promise that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it c. 3.70 Nor from the promise of the Spirits leading into all Truth which was made onely to the Apostles c. 3.71 72. The Churches infallibility not proved from Ephes c. 11 12 13. He gave some Apostles c. till we all come in the Vnity of the Faith c. c. 3.79 80. That God has appointed an Infallible Judge of Controversies because such a one is desirable and useful is a weak conclusion c. 2. from 128. to 136. inclusive Infallibility in fundamentals no warrant to adhere to a Church in all that she proposes c. 3.57 Infallible interpretations of Scripture vainly boasted of by the Roman Church c. 2.93 94 95. Whether the denial of the Churches Infallibility leaves men to their private spirit reason and discourse and what is the harm of it Pref. 12.13 c. 2.110 Traditional Interpretations of Scripture how ill preserved c. 2.10 Interprecations of Scripture which private men make for themselves not pretending to prescribe their sense to others though false or seditious endanger only themselves c. 2.122 Allow the Pope or Roman Church to be a decisive Interpreter of Christs Laws and she can evacuate them and make what Laws she pleases Pref. 10.11 c. 2.1 S. Irenaeus's account of Tradition favours not Popery c. 2.144 145 146. His saying that no Reformation can countervail the danger of a Schism explained c. 5.11 A living Judge to end Controversies about the sense of Scripture not necessary c. 2.12 13. If Christ had intended such a Judge in Religion he would have named him which he has not done c. 2.23 c. 3.69 c. 6.20 Though a living Judge be necessary to determin Civil causes yet not necessary for Religious causes c. 2. from 14. to 22. inclus If there be a Judge of Controversies no necessity it should be the Roman Church c. 3.69 Roman Catholicks set up as many Judges in Religion as Protestants c. 2.116 118 153. A Judgment of discretion must be allowed to every man for himself about Religion c. 2.11 The Protestant Doctrin of Justification taken altogether not a licentious doctrin c. 7.30 When they say they are justified by faith alone yet they make good works necessary to salvation c. 7.30 K. Our obligation to know any divine truth arises from Gods manifest revealing it c. 3.19 L. How we are assured in what Language the Scripture is uncorrupted c. 2.55 56 57. To leave a Church and to leave the external Communion of a Church is not the same thing c. 5.32 45 47. Luthers separation not like that of the Donatists and why c. 5.33.101 Luther and his followers did not divide from the whole Church being a part of it but onely reformed themselves forsaking the corrupt part c. 5.56 Luthers opposing himself to all in his reformation no objection against him c. 5.89 90. We are not bound to justifie all that Luther said
and did no more than Papists are bound to justifie what several Popes have said and done c. 5.112 M. They may be members of the Catholick Church that are not united in external Communion c. 5.9 The Protestant Doctrin of Merit explained c. 4.35 36. The Authors Motives to change his Religions with Answers to them Pref. 42.43 The Faith of Papists resolved at last into the Motives of Credibility c. 2.154 The Mischiefs that followed the Reformation not imputable to it c. 5.92 N. What make points necessary to be believed c. 4.4 11. No more is necessary to be believed by us than by the Apostles c. 4.67 70 71 72. Papists make many things necessary to salvation which God never made so c. 7.7 All necessary points of Faith are contained in the Creed c. 4.73 74. Why some points not so necessary were put into the Creed c. 4.75 76. Protestants may agree in necessary points though they may overvalue some things they hold c. 7.34 To impose a necessity of professing known errors and practising known corruptions is a just cause of separation c. 5.31 36 40 50 59 60 68 69. O. A blind obedience is not due to Ecclesiastical decisions though our practise must be determined by the sentence of superiours in doubtful cases c. 5.110 A probable opinion may be followed according to the Roman Doctors though it be not the safest way for avoiding sin c. 7 8. Optatus's saying impertinently urged against Protestants c. 5.99 100. Though we receive Ordination and Scripture from a false Church yet we may be a true Church c. 6.54 P. Whether Papists or Protestants most hazard their souls on probabilities c. 4.57 What we believe concerning the Perpetuity of the Visible Church Ans Pref. 18. Whether 1 Tim. 3.15 The Pillar and ground of Truth belong to Timothy or to the Church c. 3.76 If those words belong to the Church whether they may not signifie her duty and yet that she may err in neglecting it c. 3.77 A possibility of being deceived argues not an uncertainty in all we believe c. 3.26 50 c. 5.107 c. 6.47 By joyning in the Prayers of the Roman Church we must joyn in her unlawful practices c. 3.11 Preaching of the Word and administring the Sacrament how they are inseparable notes of the Church and how they make it visible c. 5.19 Private Spirit how we are to understand it c. 2.110 Private Spirit is not appealed to i. e. to dictates pretending to come from Gods spirit when Controversies are referred to Scripture c. 2.110 Whether one is left to his private spirit reason and discourse by denying the Churches infallibility and the harm of it Pref. 12 13. c. 2.110 A mans private judgment may be opposed to the publick when Reason and Scripture warrant him c. 5.109 A probable opinion according to the Roman Doctors may be followed though it is not the safest way for avoiding sin c. 7.8 It 's hard for Papists to resolve what is a sufficient proposal of the Church c. 3.54 Protestants are on the surer side for avoiding sin and Papists on the more dangerous side to commit sin shewed in instances c. 7.9 R. Every man by Reason must judge both of Scripture and the Church c. 2.111 112 113 118 120 122. Reason and judgment of discretion is not to be reproached for the private spirit c. 2.110 If men must not follow their Reason what they are to follow c. 2.114 115. Some kind of Reformation may be so necessary as to justifie separation from a corrupt Church though every pretence of reformation will not c. 5.53 Nothing is more against Religion than using violence to introduce it c. 5.96 The Religion of Protestants which is the belief of the Bible a wiser and safer way than that of the Roman Church shewed at large c. 6. from 56. to 72. Inclus All Protestants require Repentance to remission of sins and remission of sins to Justification c. 7.31 No Revelations known to be so may be rejected as not Fundamental c. 4.11 A Divine revelation may be ignorantly disbelieved by a Church and yet it may continue a Church c. 3.20 Things equally revealed may not be so to several persons c. 3.24 Papists cannot have Reverence for the Scripture whilst they advance so many things contrary to it c. 2.1 No argument of their reverence to it that they have preserved it intire c. 2.2 The Roman Church when Luther separated was not the visible Church though a visible Church and part of the Catholick c. 5.26 27. The present Roman Church has lost all Authority to recommend what we are to believe in Religion c. 2.101 The properties of a perfect Rule c. 2.5.6 7. Whether the Popish Rule of Fundamentals or ours is the safest c. 4.63 S. Right administration of Sacraments uncertain in the Roman Church c. 2. from 63. to 68. inclusive In what sense Salvation may be had in the Roman Church Ans Pref. 5 7. Salvation depends upon great uncertainties in the Roman Church c. 2. from 63. to 73. inclus Schisms whence they chiefly arise and what continues them c. 4.17 Schism may be a Division of the Church as well as from it c. 5.22 He may be no Schismatick that forsakes a Church for Errors not damnable Ans Pref. 2. No Schism to leave a corrupted Church when otherwise we must communicate in her corruptions c. 5.25 Not every separation from the external Communion of the Church but a causeless one is the sin of Schism c. 5.30 They may not be Schismaticks that continue the separation from Rome though Luther that began it had been a Schismatick c. 5.4 c. 6.14 The Scripture cannot be duly reverenced by Papists c. 2. n. 1. The Scripture how proved to be the word of God c. 4.53 The Divine Authority of the Scripture may be certain though it be not self-evidently certain that it is Gods word c. 6.51 Books of Scripture now held for Canonical which the Roman Church formerly rejected c. 2.90 91. Whether some Books of Scripture defined for Canonical were not afterward rejected c. 3.29 The Scripture in things necessary is intelligible to learned and unlearned c. 2.104 105 106. Some Books of Scripture questioned by the Fathers as well as by Protestants c. 2.34 The Scripture has great Authority from internal Arguments c. 2.47 The Truth of Scripture inspiration depends not on the authority of the Roman Church Pref. 14. c. 6.45 If the Scriptures contain all necessary truths Popery is confuted Pref. 30. to 38. inclusive The true meaning of Scripture not uncertain in necessary points c. 2.84 A determinate sense of obscure places of Scripture is not needful c. 2.127 150. The sense of plain places of Scripture may be known by the same means by which the Papists know the sence of those places that prove the Church c. 2.150 151. God may give means to the Church to know the true sense of Scripture yet it is not necessary it should have that sense c. 2.93 It
necessary to the Church to be so then it was impossible the Church should acquire this Essence or this property afterwards and therefore impossible it should have it at the time of Luthers rising Necessarium est quod non aliquando inest aliquando non inest alicui inest alicui non inest sed quod semper omni Arist Post Analyt Again every Sophister knows that of Particulars nothing can be concluded and therefore he that will shew that the Church of Rome and the adherents of it was the Catholick Church at Luthers rising He must argue thus It was always so therefore then it was so Now this Antecedent is overthrown by any Instance to the contrary and so the first Antecedent being proved false the first consequent cannot but be false for what Reason can be imagined that the Church of Rome and the Adherents of it was not the whole Catholick Church at S. Cyprians time and was at Luthers rising If you grant as I think you cannot deny that a Church divided from the Communion of the Roman may be still in truth and in Gods account a part of the Catholick which is the thing we speak of then I hope Mr. Lewgars Argument from Unity of Communion is fallen to the ground and it will be no good Plea to say Some one Church not consisting of divers Communions was the Catholick Church at Luthers rising No one Church can be named to be the Catholick Church but the Roman Therefore the Roman Church was the Catholick at Luthers rising For Mr. Lewgar hath not nor cannot prove the Major of this syllogism certainly true but to the contrary I have proved that it cannot be certainly true by shewing divers instances wherein divers divided Communions have made up the Catholick Church and therefore not the dividing of the Communions but the cause and ground of it is to be regarded whether it be just and sufficient or unjust and insufficient Neither is the Bishop or Church of Rome with the Adherents of it an infallible Judge thereof for it is evident both he and it have erred herein divers times which I have evinced already by divers examples which I will not repeat but add to them one confessed by Mr. Lewgar himself in his discourse upon the Article of the Catholick Church pag. 84. S. Athanasius being excommunicated though by the a How by the whole Church when himself was part of it and communicated still with divers other parts of it whole Church yet might remain a member of Christs body not visible for that is impossible b What not to them who know and believe him to be unjustly Excommunicated that a person cut off from visible Communion though unjustly should be a visible member of the Church but by invisible Communion by reason of the invalidity of the sentence which being unjust is valid enough to visible excision but not farther II. A Discourse against the Infallibility of the Roman Church with an Answer to all those Texts of Scripture that are alledged to prove it THE Condition of Communion with the Church of Rome without the performance whereof no man can be received into it is this That he believe firmly and without doubting whatsoever that Church requires him to believe It is impossible that any man should certainly believe any thing unless that thing be either evident of it self as that twice two are four that every whole is greater than a part of it self or unless he have some certain reason at least some supposed certain reason and infallible guide for his belief thereof The Doctrins which the Church of Rome requireth to be believed are not evident of themselves for then every one would grant them at first hearing without any further proof He therefore that will believe them must have some certain and infallible ground whereupon to build his belief of them There is no other ground for a mans belief of them especially in many points but only an assurance of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome Now this point of that Churches Infallibility is not evident of it self for then no man could chuse but in his heart believe it without farther proof Secondly it were in vain to bring any proof of it as vain as to light a Candle to shew men the Sun Thirdly it were impossible to bring any proof of it seeing nothing can be more evident than that which of it self is evident and nothing can be brought in proof of any thing which is not more evident than that matter to be proved But now experience teacheth that millions there are which have heard talk of the Infallibility of the Roman Church and yet do not believe that the defenders of it do not think it either vain or impossible to go about to prove it and from hence it follows plainly that this point is not evident of it self Neither is there any other certain ground for any mans belief of it or if there be I desire it may be produced as who am ready and most willing to submit my judgment to it fully perswaded that none can be produced that will endure a severe and impartial examination If it be said The Roman Church is to be believed infallible because the Scripture says it is so 1. I demand how shall I be assured of the Texts that be alledged that they are indeed Scripture that is the Word of God And the answer to this must be either because the Church tells me so or some other if any other be given then all is not finally resolved into and built upon that Churches Authority and this answer then I hope a Protestant may have leave to make use of when he is put to that perillous Question How know you the Scripture to be the Scripture If the answer be because the Church tells me so my reply is ready that to believe that Church is infallible because the Scriptures say so and that the Scripture is the word of God because the same Church says so is nothing else but to believe the Church is infallible because the Church says so which is infallible 2. I could never yet from the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Apocalypse find it written so much as once in express terms or equivalently that the Church in subordination to the Sea of Rome shall be always infallible 3. If it be said that this is drawn from good consequence from Scripture truly interpreted I demand what certain ground have I to warrant me that this consequence is good and this interpretation true and if answer be made that reason will tell me so I reply 1. That this is to build all upon my own reason and private interpretation 2. I have great reason to fear that reason assures no man that the infallibility of the Church of Rome may be deduced from Scripture by good and firm consequence 4. If it be said that a Consent of Fathers do so interpret the Scripture I answer 1. That
requiring men upon only probable and Prudential motives to yield a most certain assent unto things in humane reason impossible and telling them as you do too often that they were as good not believe at all as believe with any lower degree of Faith be not a likely way to make considering men scorn your Religion and consequently all if they know no other as requiring things contradictory and impossible to be performed Lastly Whether your pretence that there is no good ground to believe Scripture but your Churches infallibility joyn'd with your pretending no ground for this but some Texts of Scripture be not a fair way to make them that understand themselves believe neither Church nor Scripture 9. Your Calumnies against Protestants in general are set down in these words Chap. 2. § 2. The very doctrine of Protestants if it be followed closely and with coherence to it self must of necessity induce Socinianism This I say confidently and evidently prove by instancing in one Error which may well be termed the Capital and Mother-heresie from which all other must follow at ease I mean their Heresie in affirming that the perpetual visible Church of Christ descended by a never interrupted Succession from our Saviour to this day is not infallible in all that it proposeth to be believed as revealed truths For if the Infallibility of such a publick Authority be once impeached what remains but that every man is given over to his own wit and discourse and talk not here of holy Scripture for if the true Church may err in defining what Scriptures be Canonical or in delivering the sense and meaning thereof we are still devolved either upon the private Spirit a foolery now exploded out of England which finally leaving every man to his own conceits ends in Socinianism or else epon natural wit and judgment for examining and determining what Scriptures contain true or false Doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected And indeed take away the authority of Gods Church no man can be assured that any one Book or parcel of Scripture was written by Divine Inspiration or that all the Contents are infallibly true which are the direct Errors of Socinians If it were but for this reason alone no man who regards the eternal salvation of his Soul would live or die in Protestancy from which so vast absurdities as these of the Socinians must inevitably follow And it ought to be an unspeakable comfort to all us Catholicks while we consider that none can deny the infallible authority of our Church but jointly he must be left to his own wit and ways and must abandon all infused Faith and true Religion if he do but understand himself aright In all which Discourse the only true word you speak is This I say confidently As for proving evidently that I believe you reserved for some other opportunity for the present I am sure you have been very sparing of it 10. You say indeed confidently enough that the denyal of the Churches infallibility is the Mother-heresie from which all other must follow at ease which is so far from being a necessary truth as you make it that it is indeed a manifest falshood Neither is it possible for the wit of man by any good or so much as probable consequence from the denialaof the Churches Infallibility to deduce any one of the ancient Heresies or any one Error of the Socinians which are the Heresies here entreated of For who would not laugh at him that should argue thus Neither the Church of Rome nor any other Church is infallible Ergo The Doctrine of Arrius Pelagius Eutyches Nestorius Photinus Manichaeus was true Doctrine On the other side it may be truly said and justified by very good and effectual reason that he that affirms with you the Popes Infallibility puts himself into his hands and power to be led by him at his ease and pleasure into all Heresie and even to Hell it self and cannot with reason say so long as he is constant to his grounds Domine cur it a facis Sir Why do you thus but must believe white to be black and black to be white vertue to be vice and vice to be vertue nay which is a horrible but a most certain truth Christ to be Antichrist and Antichrist to be Christ if it be possible for the Pope to say so Which I say and will maintain howsoever you daub and disguise it is indeed to make men apostate from Christ to his pretended Vicar but real Enemy For that name and no better if we may speak truth without offence I presume he deserves who under pretence of interpreting the Law of Christ which Authority without any word of express warrant he hath taken upon himself doth in many parts evacuate and dissolve it So dethroning Christ from his dominion over mens consciences and instead of Christ setting up himself In as much as he that requires that his Interpretations of any Law should be obeyed as true and genuine seem they to mens understandings never so dissonant and discordant from it as the Bishop of Rome does requires indeed that his Interpretations should be the Laws and he that is firmly prepared in mind to believe and receive all such Interpretations without judging of them and though to his private judgment they seem unreasonable is indeed congruously disposed to hold Adultery a venial sin and Fornication no sin whensoever the Pope and his adherents shall so declare And whatsoever he may plead yet either wittingly or ignorantly he makes the Law and the Law-maker both stales and obeys only the Interpreter As if I should submit to the Laws of the King of England but should indeed resolve to obey them in that sence which the King of France should put upon them whatsoever it were I presume every understanding man would say that I did indeed obey the King of France and not the King of England If I should pretend to believe the Bible but that I would understand it accordingly to the sense which the chief Mufty should put upon it who would not say that I were a Christian in pretence only but indeed a Mahumetan 11. Nor will it be to purpose for you to pretend that the precepts of Christ are so plain that it cannot be feared that any Pope should ever go about to dissolve them and pretend to be a Christian For not to say that you now pretend the contrary to wit that the Law of Christ is obscure even in things necessary to be believed and done and by saying so have made a fair way for any foul interpretation of any part of it certainly that which the Church of Rome hath already done in this kind is an evident argument that if she once had this Power unquestioned and made expedite and ready for use by being contracted to the Pope she may do what she pleaseth with it Who that had lived in the Primative Church would not have thought it as utterly improbable
if it could be justified But besides that it is confuted by my whole Book and made ridiculous by the Approbations premised unto it it is very easie for me out of your own Mouth and Words to prove it a most injurious calumny For what one Conclusion is there in the whole Fabrick of my Discourse that is not naturally deducible out of this one Principle That all things necessary to Salvation are evidently contained in Scripture Or what one Conclusion almost of importance is there in your Book which is not by this one clearly confutable Grant this and it will presently follow in opposition to your first Conclusion and the argument of your first Ch that amongst men of different opinions touching the obscure and controverted Questions of Religion such as may with probability be disputed on both Sides and such as are the disputes of Protestants Good men and lovers of truth of all Sides may be saved because all necessary things being supposed evident concerning them with men so qualified there will be no difference There being no more certain sign that a Point is not evident than that honest and understanding and indifferent men and such as give themselves liberty of judgment after a mature consideration of the matter differ about it 31. Grant this and it will appear Secondly that the means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our understanding and which are to determine all Controversies in Faith necessary to be determined may be for any thing you have said to the contrary not a Church but the Scripture which contradicts the Doctrine of your Second Chapter 32. Grant this and the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental will appear very good and pertinent For those truths will be Fundamental which are evidently delivered in Scripture and commanded to be Preached to all men Those not Fundamental which are obscure And nothing will hinder but that the Catholick Church may Err in the latter kind of the said points because Truths not necessary to the Salvation cannot be necessary to the being of a Church and because it is not absolutely necessary that God should assist his Church any farther than to bring Her to Salvation neither will there be any necessity at all of any Infallible Guide either to consign unwritten Traditions or to declare the obscurities of the Faith Not for the former end be cause this Principle being granted true nothing unwritten can be necessary to be consigned Nor for the latter because nothing that is obscure can be necessary to be understood or not mistaken And so the discourse of your whole Third Chap will presently vanish 33. Fourthly for the Creed's containing the Fundamentals of simple belief though I see not how it may be deduced from this principle yet the granting of this plainly renders the whole dispute touching the Creed necessary For if all necessary things of all sorts whether of simple belief or practice be confessed to be clearly contained in Scripture what imports it whether those of one sort be contained in the Creed 34. Fifthly let this be granted and the immediate Corollary in opposition to your Fifth Chap. will be and must be That not Protestants for rejecting but the Church of Rome for imposing upon the Faith of Christians Doctrines unwritten and unnecessary and for disturbing the Churches Peace and dividing Unity for such matters is in a high degree presumptuous and Schismatical 35. Grant this sixthly and it will follow unavoidably that Protestants cannot possibly be Hereticks seeing they believe all things evidently contained in Scripture which are supposed to be all that is necessary to be believed and so your Sixth Chapter is clearly confuted 36. Grant this Lastly and it will be undoubtedly consequent in contradiction of your Seventh Chapter that no Man can shew more Charity to himself than by continuing a Protestant seeing Protestants are supposed to believe and therefore may accordingly practice at least by their Religion are not hindered from practising and performing all things necessary to Salvation 37. So that the position of this one Principle is the direct overthrow of your whole Book and therefore I needed not nor indeed have I made use of any other Now this principle which is not only the Corner-stone or chief Pillar but even the base and adequate Foundation of my Answer and which while it stands firm and unmovable cannot but be the supporter of my Book and the certain ruin of yours is so far from being according to your pretence detested by all Protestants that all Protestants whatsoever as you may see in their Harmony of Confessions unanimously profess and maintain it And you your self C. 6. § 30. plainly confess as much in saying The whole Edifice of the Faith of Protestants is setled on these two Principles These particular Books are Canonical Scripture And the sense and meaning of them is plain and evident at least in all points necessary to Salvation 38. And thus your Venom against me is in a manner spent saving only that there remain two little impertinences whereby you would disable me from being a fit advocate for the cause of Protestants The first because I refuse to subscribe the Artic. of the Ch. of England The second because I have set down in writing motives which sometime induced me to forsake Protestantism and hitherto have not answered them 39. By the former of which objections it should seem that either you conceive the 39 Articles the common Doctrine of all Protestants and if they be why have you so often upbraided them with-their many and great differences Or else that it is the peculiar defence of the Church of England and not the common cause of all Protestants which is here undertaken by me which are certainly very gross mistakes And yet why he who makes scruple of subscribing the truth of one or two Propositions may not yet be fit enough to maintain that those who do subscribe them are in a saveable condition I do not understand Now though I hold not the Doctrine of all Protestants absolutely true which with reason cannot be required of me while they hold contradictions yet I hold it free from all impiety and from all Error destructive of Salvation or in it self damnable And this I think in reason may sufficiently qualifie me for a maintainer of this assertion that Protestancy destroys not Salvation For the Church of England I am persuaded that the constant Doctrine of it is so pure and Orthodox that whosoever believes it and lives according to it undoubtedly he shall be saved and that there is no Error in it which may necessitate or warrant any Man to disturb the peace or renounce the Communion of it This in my opinion is all intended by Subscription and thus much if you conceive me not ready to subscribe your Charity I assure you is much mistaken 40. Your other Objection is yet more impertinent and frivolous than the former Unless perhaps it be a just
man to Error in greater matters As for example The Belief of the Popes Infallibility is I hope not unpardonably damnable to every one that holds it yet if it be a falshood as most certainly it is it puts a man into a very congruous disposition to believe Antichrist if he should chance to get into that See 8. To the third § In his distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental he may seem you say to have touched the point but does not so indeed Because though he saies there are some points so Fundamental as that all are obliged to believe them explicitely yet he tells you not whether a man may disbelieve any other points of Faith which are sufficiently presented to his understanding as Truths revealed by Almighty God Touching this matter of Sufficient Proposal if you mean by sufficiently presented to his understanding as revealed by God that which all things considered is so proposed to him that he might and should and would believe it to be true and revealed by God were it not for some voluntary and avoidable fault of his that interposeth it self between his understanding and the truth presented to it if you speak of truths thus proposed and rejected let it be as damnable as you please to deny or disbelieve them But it amazes me to hear you say that Dr. Potter declines this Question seeing the Light it self is not more clear then Dr. Potters Declaration of himself p. 245 246. c. of his Book beginning his discourse thus It seems Fundamental to the Faith and for the Salvation of every member of the Church that he acknowledge and believe all such points of Faith as whereof he may be convinced that they belong to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ To this conviction he requires three things Clear Revelation Sufficient Proposition and Capacity and understanding in the hearer For want of clear Revelation he frees the Church before Christ and the Disciples of Christ from any damnable Error though they believed not those things which he that should now deny were no Christian To sufficient Proposition he requires two things 1. That the points be perspicuously laid open in themselves 2. So forcibly as may serve to remove reasonable doubts to the contrary and to satisfie a teachable mind concerning it against the Principles in which he hath been bred to the contrary This Proposition he says is not limited to the Pope or Church but extended to all means whatsoever by which a man may be convinced in Conscience that the matter proposed is Divine Revelation which he professes to be done sufficiently not only when his Conscience doth expresly bear witness to the truth but when it would do so if it were not choaked and blinded by some unruly and unmortified lust in the will The difference being not great between him that is wilfully blind and him that knowingly gainsaieth the Truth The 3 thing he requires is Capacity and Ability to apprehend the Proposal and the Reasons of it the want whereof excuseth Fools and Madmen c. But where there is no such impediment and the will of God is sufficiently propounded there saith he he that opposeth is convinced of Error and he who is thus convinced is an Heretick and Heresie is a work of the Flesh which excludeth from Salvation he means without Repentance And hence it followeth that it is Fundamental to a Christians Faith and necessary for his Salvation that he believe all revealed truths of God whereof he may be convinced that they are from God Again it is almost as strange to me why you should say this was the only thing in question Whether a Man may deny or disbelieve any point of Faith sufficiently presented to his understanding as a truth revealed by God For to say that any thing is a thing in question methinks at the first hearing of the words imports that it is by some affirmed and denied by others Now you affirm I grant but what Protestant ever denied that it was a sin to give God the lie Which is the first and most obvious sense of these Words Or which of them ever doubted that to disbelieve is then a fault when the matter is so proposed to a Man that he might and should and were it not for his own fault would believe it Certainly he that questions either of these justly deserves to have his wits called in question Produce any one Protestant that ever did so and I will give you leave to say it is the only thing in question But then I must tell you that your ensuing Argument viz To deny a truth witnessed by God is damnable But of two that disagree one must of necessity deny some such truth Therefore one only can be saved is built upon a ground clean different from this postulate For though it be always a fault to deny what either I do know or should know to be testified by God yet that which by a cleanly conveyance you put in the place hereof To deny a Truth witnessed by God simply without the circumstance of being known or sufficienly proposed is so far from being certainly Damnable that it may be many times done without any the least fault at all As if God should testifie something to a man in the Indies I that had no assurance of this testification should not be obliged to believe it For in such cases the Rule of the Law has place Idem est non esse non apparere not to be at all and not to appear to me is to me all one If I had not come and spoken unto you saith our Saviour you had had no sin 10. As little necessity is there for that which follows That of two disagreeing in a matter of Faith one must deny some such truth Whether by such you understand Testified at all by God or testified and sufficiently propounded For it is very possible the matter in controversie may be such a thing wherein God hath not at all declared himself or not so fully and clearly as to oblige all Men to hold one way and yet be so overvalued by the parties in variance as to be esteemed a matter of Faith and one of those things of which our Saviour says He that believeth not shall be Damned Who sees not that it is possible two Churches may excommunicate and Damn each other for keeping Christmas Ten days sooner or later as well as Victor excommunicated the Churches of Asia for differing from him about Easter-Day And yet I believe you will confess that God had not then declared himself about Easter nor hath now about Christmas Anciently some good Catholick Bishops excommunicated and Damned others for holding there were Antipodes and in this questiom I would fain know on which side was the sufficient proposal The contra-Remonstrants differ from the Remonstrants about the points of Predetermination as a matter of Faith I would know in this thing also which way God hath declared himself whether for
But until then as he said in the Comedy Quid verba audiam cum facta videam so may I say to you Quid verba audiam cum facta non videam To what purpose should you give us Charitable Words which presently you retract again by denying us your Charitable Actions And as these things you must do if you will stand to and make good this pretended Charity so must I tell you again and again that one thing you must not doe I mean you must not affright poor People out of their Religion with telling them that by the Confession of both sides your way is safe but in your judgment ours undoubtedly damnable Seeing neither you deny Salvation to Protestants Dying with repentance nor we promise it to you if ye Die without it For to deal plainly with you I know no Protestant that hath any other hope of your Salvation but upon these grounds that unaffected ignorance may excuse you or true repentance obtain pardon for you neither do the heavy censures which Protestants you say pass upon your Errors any way hinder but they may hope as well of you upon repentance as I do For the fierce Doctrine which God knows who teaches that Christ for many Ages before Luther had no visible Church upon Earth will be mild enough if you conceive them to mean as perhaps they do by no visible Church none pure and free from corruptions which in your judgment is all one with no Church But the truth is the corruption of the Church and the destruction of it is not all one For if a particular man or Church may as you confess they may hold some particular Errors and yet be a member of the Church Universal why may not the Church hold some Universal Error and yet be still the Church especially seeing you say it is nothing but opposing the Doctrine of the Church that makes an Error damnable and it is impossible that the Church should oppose the Church I mean that the present Church should oppose it self And then for the English Protestants though they censure your Errors deeply yet by your favour with their deepest censures it may well consist that invincible ignorance may excuse you from damnation for them For you your self confess that ignorance may excuse Errors even in Fundamental Articles of Faith so that a man so erring shall not offend at all in such his ignorance or Error they are your own words p. 19. And again with their heaviest censures it may well consist that your Errors though in themselves damanble yet may prove not damning to you if you Die with true repentance for all your sins known and unknown 5. Thus much Charity therefore if you stand to what you have said is interchangeably granted by each Side to the other that Neither Religion is so fatally destructive but that by ignorance or repentance Salvation may be had on both Sides though with a difference that keeps Papists still on the more uncharitable Side For whereas we conceive a lower degree of repentance that which they call Attrition if it be true and effectual and convert the Heart of the Penitent will serve in them They pretend even this Author which is most charitable towards us that without Contrition there is no hope for us But though Protestants may not obtain this purchase at so easie a rate as Papists yet even Papists being Judges they may obtain it and though there is no entrance for them but at the only door of Contrition yet they may enter Heaven is not inaccessible to them Their Errors are no such impenetrable Istmus's between them and Salvation but that Contrition may make a way through them All their Schism and Heresie is no such fatal Poyson but that if a man joyn with it the Antidote of a general repentance he may Die in it and live for ever Thus much then being acknowledged I appeal to any indifferent reader whether C. M. be not by his Hyperaspist forsaken in the plain Field and the point in question granted to D. Potter viz. That Protestancy even without a particular repentance is not destructive of Salvation so that all the Controversie remaining now is not simply whether Protestancy unrepented destroys Salvation as it was at first proposed but Whether Protestancy in it self that is abstracting from ignorance and contrition destroys Salvation So that as a foolish Fellow who gave a Knight the Lie desiring withal leave of him to set his Knighthood aside was answered by him that he would not suffer any thing to be set aside that belonged unto him So might we justly take it amiss that conceiving as you do Ignorance and Repentance such necessary things for us you are not more willing to consider us with them than without them For my part such is my Charity to you that considering what great necessity You have as much as any Christian Society in the World that these Sanctuaries of Ignorance and Repentance should always stand open I can very hardly persuade my self so much as in my most secret consideration to devest you of these so needful qualifications But whensoever your Errors superstitions and impieties come into my mind and besides the general bonds of humanity and Christianity my own particular Obligations to many of you such and so great that you cannot perish without a part of my self my only comfort is amidst these Agonies that the Doctrine and Practice too of Repentance is yet remaining in your Church And that though you put on a Face of confidence of your Innocence in point of Doctrine yet you will be glad to stand in the Eye of Mercy as well as your fellows and not be so stout as to refuse either Gods pardon or the Kings 6. But for the present Protestancy is called to the Barr and though not sentenced by you to Death without Mercy yet arraigned of so much natural malignity if not corrected by Ignorance or Contrition as to be in it self destructive of Salvation Which controversie I am content to dispute with you only remembring you that the adding of this limitation in it self hath made this a new Question and that this is not the conclusion for which you were charged with want of Charity 7. Ad 7. and 8. § C. M. Now this is our gradatio nof reasons Almighty God having ordained mankind to a supernatural end of Eternal Felicity hath in his providence setled competent Means c. I HIL In your gradation I shall rise so far with you as to grant that Christ founded a visible Church stored with all helps necessary to Salvation particularly with sufficient means to beget and conserve Faith to maintain Unity and compose Schisms to discover and condemn Heresies and to determine all controversies in Religion which were necessary to be determined For all these purposes he gave at the beginning as we may see in the Ep. to the Ephesians Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctors who by word of mouth taught their
your self § 16. is this That the Infallible means of determining Controversies is the Visible Church That the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental maketh nothing to the present Question That to say the Creed containeth all Fundamentals is neither pertinent nor true That whosoever persist in Division from the Communion and Faith of the Roman Church are guilty of Schism and Heresie That in regard of the Precept of Charity towards one self Protestants are in state of Sin while they remain divided from the Roman Chruch To all these Assertions I will content my self for the present to oppose this one That not one of them all is true Only I may not omit to tell you that if the first of them were as true as the Pope himself desires it should be yet the Corollary which you deduce from it would be utterly inconsequent That whosoever denys any point proposed by the Church is injurious to Gods Divine Majesty as if he could deceive or be deceived For though your Church were indeed as Infallible a Propounder of Divine Truths as it pretends to be yet if it appeared not to me to be so I might very well believe God most true and your Church most false As though the Gospel of S. Matthew be the Word of God yet if I neither knew it to be so nor believed it I might believe in God and yet think that Gospel a Fable Hereafter therefore I must entreat you to remember that our being guilty of this impiety depends not only upon your being but upon our knowing that you are so Neither must you argue thus The Church of Rome is the Infallible Propounder of Divine Verities therefore he that opposes Her calls Gods Truth in Question But thus rather The Church of Rome is so and Protestants know it to be so therefore in opposing Her they impute to God that either he deceives them or is deceived himself For as I may deny something which you upon your knowledg have affirmed and yet never disparage your honesty if I never knew that you affirmed it So I may be undoubtedly certain of Gods Omniscience and Veracity and yet doubt of something which he hath revealed provided I do not know nor believe that he hath revealed it So that though your Church be the appointed witness of Gods Revelations yet until you know that we know she is so you cannot without foul Calumny impute to us That we charge God blasphemously with deceiving or being deceived You will say perhaps That this is directly consequent from our Doctrine That the Church may Err which is directed by God in all Her proposals True if we knew it to be directed by him otherwise not much less if we believe and know the contrary But then if it were consequent from our Opinion have you so little Charity as to say that men are justly chargeable with all the consequences of their Opinions Such consequences I mean as they do not own but disclaim and if there were a necessity of doing either would much rather forsake their Opinion than embrace these Consequences What Opinion is there that draws after it such a Train of portentous Blasphemies as that of the Dominicans by the judgment of the best Writers of your own Order And will you say now that the Dominicans are justly chargeable with all these Blasphemies If not seeing our case take it at the worst is but the same why should not your judgment of us be the same I appeal to all those Protestants that have gone over to your Side whether when they were most averse from it they did ever deny or doubt of Gods omniscience or veracity whether they did ever believe or were taught that God did deceive them or was deceived himself Nay I provoke to you your self and desire you to deal truly and to tell Us whether you do in your Heart believe that we do indeed not believe the Eternal Veracity of the Eternal Verity And if you judge so strangely of us having no better ground for it than you have or can have we shall not need any farther proof of your uncharitableness towards us this being the extremity of true uncharitableness If not then I hope having no other ground but this which sure is none at all to pronounce us damnable Hereticks you will cease to do so and hereafter as if your ground be true you may do with more truth and Charity Collect thus They only Err damnably who oppose what they know God hath testified But Protestants sure do not oppose what they know God hath testified at least we cannot with Charity say they do Therefore they either do not Err damnably or with Charity we cannot say they do so 13. Ad 17. § Protestants you say according to their own grounds must hold that of Persons contrary in whatsoever point of belief one part only can be saved therefore it is strangely done of them to charge Papists with want of Charity for holding the same The consequence I acknowledg but wonder much what it should be that lays upon Protestants any necessity to do so You tell us it is their holding Scripture the sole Rule of Faith for this you say obligeth them to pronounce them damned that oppose any least point delivered in Scripture This I grant If they oppose it after sufficient declaration so that either they know it to be contained in Scripture or have no just probable Reason and which may move an honest man to doubt whether or no it be there contained For to oppose in the first Case in a man that believes the Scripture to be the Word of God is to give God the Lie To oppose in the second is to be obstinate against Reason and therefore a sin though not so great as the former But then this is nothing to the purpose of the necessity of damning all those that are of contrary belief and that for these Reasons First because the contrary belief may be touching a point not at all mentioned in Scripture and such points though indeed they be not matters of Faith yet by men in variance are often over-valued and esteemed to be so So that though it were damnable to oppose any point contained in Scripture yet Persons of a contrary belief as Victor and Polycrates S. Cyprian and Stephen might both be saved because their contrary belief was not touching any point contained in Scripture Secondly because the contrary belief may be about the sense of some place of Scripture which is ambiguous and with probability capable of diverse Senses and in such Cases it is no marvel and sure no Sin if several men go several ways Thirdly because the contrary belief may be concerning points wherein Scripture may with so great probability be alledged on both sides which is a sure note of a point not necessary that men of honest and upright Hearts true lovers of God and of truth such as desire above all things to know Gods Will and to do
say that a whole House is supported by the Foundation and yet never mean to exclude the Foundation from being a part of the House or to say that it is supported by it self Or as you your selves use to say that the Bishop of Rome is head of the whole Church and yet would think us but Captious Sophisters should we infer from hence that either you made him no part of the whole or else made him head of himself Your negative conclusion therefore that these Questions touching Scripture are not decidable by Scripture you needed not have cited any Authorities nor urged any reason to prove it it is evident of it self and I grant it without more ado But your Corollary from it which you would insinuate to your unwary reader that therefore they are to be decided by your or any Visible Church is a meer inconsequence and very like his collection who because Pamphilus was not to have Glycerium for his Wife presently concluded that he must have her as if there had been no more men in the World but Pamphilus and himself For so you as if there were nothing in the World capable of this Office but the Scripture or the present Church having concluded against Scripture you conceive but too hastily that you have concluded for the Church But the truth is neither the one nor the other have any thing to do with this matter For first the Question whether such or such a Book be Canonical Scripture though it may be decided negatively out of Scripture by shewing apparent and irreconcilable contradictions between it and some other Book confessedly Canonical yet affirmatively it cannot but only by the Testimonies of the ancient Churches any Book being to be received as undoubtedly Canonical or to be doubted of as uncertain or rejected as Apocryphal according as it was received or doubted of or rejected by them Then for the Question of various readings which is the true it is inreason evident and confessed by your own Pope that there is no possible determination of it but only by comparison with ancient Copies And lastly for Controversies about different Translations of Scripture the Learned have the same means to satisfie themselves in it as in the Questions which happen about the Translation of any other Author that is skill in the Language of the Original and comparing Translations with it In which way if there be no certainty I would know what certainty you have that your Doway Old and Rhemish New Testament are true Translations And then for the unlearned those on your Side are subject to as much nay the very same uncertainty with those on ours Neither is there any reason imaginable why an ignorant English Protestant may not be as secure of the Translation of our Church that it is free from Error if not absolutely yet in matters of moment as an ignorant English Papist can be of his Rhemish Testament or Doway Bible The best direction I can give them is to compare both together where there is no real difference as in the Translation of controverted places I believe there is very little there to be confident that they are right where they differ therefore to be prudent in the choice of the guides they follow Which way of proceeding if it be subject to some possible Error is it the best that either we or you have and it is not required that we use any better than the best we have 28. You will say Dependance on your Churches infallibility is a better I answer it would be so if we could be infallibly certain that your Church is infallible that is if it were either evident of it self and seen by its own light or could be reduced unto and setled upon some Principle that is so But seeing you your selves do not so much as pretend to enforce us to the belief hereof by any proofs infallible and convincing but only to induce us to it by such as are by your confession only probable and prudential motives certainly it will be to very little purpose to put off your uncertainty for the first turn and to fall upon it at the second to please your selves in building your House upon an imaginary Rock when you your selves see and confess that this very Rock stands it self at the best but upon a frame of Timber I answer secondly that this cannot be a better way because we are infallibly certain that your Church is not infallible and indeed hath not the real prescription of this priviledge but only pleaseth her self with a false imagination and vain presumption of it as I shall hereafter demonstrate by may unanswerable arguments 31. But seeing the belief of the Scripture is a necessary thing and cannot be proved by Scripture how can the Church of England teach as she doth Art 6. That all things necessary are contained in Scripture 32. I have answered this already And here again I say That all but Cavillers will easily understand the meaning of the Article to be That all the Divine Verities which Christ revealed to his Apostles and the Apostles taught the Churches are contained in Scripture That is all the material Objects of our Faith whereof the Scripture is none but only the means of conveying them unto us which we believe not finally and for it self but for the matter contained in it So that if men did believe the Doctrine contained in Scripture it should no way hinder their Salvation not to know whether their were any Scripture or no. Those Barbarous Nations Irenaeus speaks of were in this case and yet no doubt but they might be saved The end that God aims at is the belief of the Gospel the Covenant between God and Man the Scripture he hath provided as a means for this end and this also we are to believe but not as the last Object of our Faith but as the instrument of it When therefore we subscribe to the 6. Art you must understand that by Articles of Faith they mean the final and ultimate Objects of it and not the means and instrumental Objects 33. But Protestants agree not in assigning the Canon of Holy Scripture Luther and Illyricus reject the Epistle of S. James Kemnitius and other Luth. the second of Peter the second and third of John The Epistle to the Heb. the Epistle of James of Jude and the Apocalyps Therefore without the Authority of the Church no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonical 34. So also the Ancient Fathers and not only Fathers but whole Churches differed about the certainty of the Authority of the very same Books and by their difference shewed they knew no necessity of conforming themselves herein to the judgment of your or any Church For had they done so they must have agreed all with that Church and consequently among themselves Now I pray tell me plainly Had they sufficient certainty what Scripture was Canonical or had they not If they had not it seems there is no
by Have you been trained up in Schools of subtilty and cannot you see a great difference between these two We receive the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received and we receive those that are commonly received because they are so To say this were indeed to make being commonly received a Rule or Reason to know the Canon by But to say the former doth no more make it a Rule than you should make the Church of England the rule of your receiving them if you should say as you may The Books of the New Testament we receive for Canonical as they are received by the Church of England 45. You demand upon what infallible ground we agree with Luther against you in some and with you against Luther in others And I also demand upon what infallible ground you hold your Canon and agree neither with us nor Luther For sure your differing from us both is of it self no more apparently reasonable than our agreeing with you in part and in part with Luther If you say your Churches Infallibility is your ground I demand again some Infallible ground both for the Churches Infallibility and for this that Yours is the Church and shall never cease multiplying demands upon demands until you settle me upon a Rock I mean give such an answer whose Truth is so evident that it needs no further evidence If you say This is Universal Tradition I reply your Churches Infallibility is not built upon it and that the Canon of Scripture as we receive it is For we do not profess our selves so absolutely and undoubtedly certain neither do we urge others to be so of those Books which have been doubted as of those that never have 46. The Conclusion of your Tenth § is That the Divinity of a writing cannot be known from it self alone but by some extrinsecal Authority Which you need not prove for no Wise Man denies it But then this authority is that of Universal Tradition not of your Church For to me it is altogether as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Gospel of Saint Matthew is the Word of God as that all which your Church says is true 47. That Believers of the Scripture by considering the Divine matter the excellent precepts the glorious promises contained in it may be confirmed in their Faith of the Scriptures Divine Authority and that among other inducements and inforcements hereunto internal arguments have their place and force certainly no man of understandeng can deny For my part I profess if the Doctrine of the Scripture were not as good and as fit to come from the Fountain of goodness as the Miracles by which it was confirmed were great I should want one main pillar of my Faith and for want of it I fear should be much staggered in it Now this and nothing else did the Doctor mean in saying The Believer sees by that glorious beam of Divine light which shines in Scripture and by many internal Arguments that the Scripture is of Divine Authority By this saith he he sees it that is he is moved to and strengthened in his belief of it and by this partly not wholly by this not alone but with the concurrence of other Arguments He that will quarrel with him for saying so must find fault with the Master of the Sentences and all his Scholars for they all say the same 48. In the next Division out of your liberality you will suppose that Scripture like to a corporal light is by it self alone able to determine and move our understanding to assent yet notwithstanding this supposal Faith still you say must go before Scripture because as the light is visible only to those that have eyes so the Scripture only to those that have the Eye of Faith But to my understanding if Scripture do move and determine our Understanding to assent then the Scripture and its moving must be before this assent as the cause must be before its own effect now this very assent is nothing else but Faith and Faith nothing else than the Understandings assent And therefore upon this supposal Faith doth and must originally proceed from Scripture as the effect from its proper cause and the influence and efficacy of Scripture is to be presupposed before the assent of Faith unto which it moves and determines and consequently if this supposition of yours were true there should need no other means precedent to Scripture to beget Faith Scripture it self being able as here you suppose to determine and move the understanding to assent that is to believe them and the Verities contained in them Neither is this to say that the Eyes with which we see are made by the light by which we see For you are mistaken much if you conceive that in this comparison Faith answers to the Eye But if you will not pervert it the Analogy must stand thus Scripture must answer to light The Eye of the Soul that is the Understanding or the faculty of assenting to the bodily Eye And lastly assenting or believing to the Act of seeing As therefore the light determining the Eye to see though it presupposes the Eye which it determines as every Action doth the Object on which it is imployed yet it self is presupposed and antecedent to the Act of seeing as the cause is always to its effect So if you will suppose that Scripture like light moves the understanding to assent The Understanding that 's the Eye and Objection which it works must be before this influence upon it But the Assent that is the belief whereof the Scripture moves and the understanding is moved which answers to the Act of seeing must come after For if it did assent already to what purpose should the Scripture do that which was done before Nay indeed how were it possible it should be so any more than a Father can beget a Son that he hath already Or an Architect build an House that is built already Or than this very world can be made again before it be unmade Transubstantiation indeed is fruitful of such Monsters But they that have not sworn themselves to the defence of Error will easily perceive that Jam factum facere and Factum infectum facere are equally impossible But I digress 49. The close of this Paragraph is a fit cover for such a Dish There you tell us That if there must be some other means precedent to Scripture to beget Faith this can be no other than the Church By the Church we know you do and must understand the Roman Church so that in effect you say no man can have Faith but he must be moved to it by your Churches Authority And that is to say that the King and all other Protestants to whom you write though they verily think they are Christians and believe the Gospel because they assent to the truth of it and would willingly Die for it yet indeed are Infidels and believe nothing The Scripture tells us The Heart of man
true Priest he cannot possibly escape damnation Such a man for his comfort you tell first you that will have mens Salvation depend upon no uncertainties that though he verily believe that his sorrow for sins is a true sorrow and his purpose of amendment a true purpose yet he may deceive himself perhaps it is not and if it be not he must be damned Yet you bid him hope well But Spes est rei incertae nomen You tell him secondly that though the party he confesses to seem to be a true Priest yet for ought he knows or for ought himself knows by reason of some secret undiscernable invalidity in his Baptism or Ordination he may be none and if he be none he can do nothing This is a hard saying but this is not the worst You tell him thirdly that he may may be in such a state that he cannot or if he can that he will not give the Sacrament with due Intention and if he does not all 's in vain Put case a man by these considerations should be cast into some agonies what advice what comfort would you give him Verily I know not what you could say to him but this that first for the Qualification required on his part he might know that he desired to have true sorrow and that that is sufficient But then if he should ask you why he might not know his sorrow to be a true sorrow as well as his desire to be sorrowful to be a true desire I believe you would be put to silence Then secondly to quiet his fears concerning the Priest and his intention you should tell him by my advice that Gods goodness which will not suffer him to damn men for not doing better than their best will supply all such defects as to humane endeavours were unavoidable And therefore though his Priest were indeed no Priest yet to him he should be as if he were one and if he gave Absolution without Intention yet in doing so he should hurt himself only and not his penitent This were some comfort indeed and this were to settle mens Salvation upon reasonable certain grounds But this I fear you will never say for this were to reverse many Doctrines established by your Church and besides to degrade your Priesthood from a great part of their honour by lessening the strict necessity of the Laities dependance upon them For it were to say that the Priests Intention is not necessary to the obtaining of absolution which is to say that it is not in the Parsons power to damn whom he will in his Parish because by this Rule God should supply the defect which his malice had caused And besides it were to say that Infants dying without Baptism might be saved God supplying the want of Baptism which to them is unavoidable But beyond all this it were to put into my mouth a full and satisfying answer to your Argument which I am now returning so that in answering my objection you should answer your own For then I should tell you that it were altogether as abhorrent from the goodness of God and as repugnant to it to suffer an ignorant Lay-mans Soul to perish meerly for being misled by an undiscernable false Translation which yet was commended to him by the Church which being of necessity to credit some in this matter he had reason to rely upon either above all other or as much as any other as it is to damn a penitent sinner for a secret defect in that desired Absolution which his Gostly Father perhaps was an Atheist and could not give him or was a villiain and would not This answer therefore which alone would serve to comfort your penitent in his perplexities and to assure him that he cannot fail of Salvation if he will not for fear of inconveniencies you must forbear And seeing you must I hope you will come down from the Pulpit and Preach no more against others for making mens Salvation depend upon fallible and uncertain grounds lest by judging others you make your selves and your own Church inexcusable who are strongly guilty of this fault above all the men and Churches of the World whereof I have already given you two very pregnant demonstrations drawn from your presumptions tying God and Salvation to your Sacraments And the efficacy of them to your Priests Qualifications and Intentions 69. Your making the Salvation of Infants depend on Baptism a Casual thing and in the power of man to confer or not confer would yield me a Third of the same nature And your suspending the same on the Baptizers intention a Fourth And lastly your making the Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist depend upon the casualties of the Consecrators true Priesthood and Intention and yet commanding men to believe it for certain that he is present and to adore the Sacrament which according to your Doctrine for ought they can possibly know may be nothing else but a piece of Bread so exposing them to the danger of Idolatry and consequently of Damnation doth offer me a Fisth demonstration of the same conclusion if I thought fit to insist upon them But I have no mind to draw any more out of this Fountain neither do I think it Charity to cloy the Reader with uniformity when the Subject affords variety 70. Sixthly therefore I return it thus The Faith of Papists relies alone upon their Churches infallibility That there is any Church infallible and that theirs is it they pretend not to believe but only upon prudential motives Dependance upon prudential motives they confess to be obnoxious to a possibility of erring What then remaineth but Truth Faith Salvation and all must in them rely upon a fallible and uncertain ground 71. Seventhly The Faith of Papists relies upon the Church alone The Doctrine of the Church is delivered to most of them by their Parish Priest or Ghostly Father or at least by a company of Priests who for the most part sure are men and not Angels in whom nothing is more certain than a most certain possibility to Err. What then remaineth but that Truth Faith Salvation and all must in them rely upon a fallible and uncertain ground 72. Eighthly thus It is apparent and undeniable that many Thousands there are who believe your Religion upon no better grounds than a man may have for the belief almost of any Religion As some believe it because their Forefathers did so and they were good People Some because they were Christened and brought up in it Some because it is the Religion of their Country where all other Religions are persecuted and profcribed Some because Protestants cannot shew a perpetual succession of Professors of all their Doctrine Some because the service of your Church is more stately and pompous and magnificent Some because they find comfort in it Some because your Religion is farther spread and hath more Professors of it than the Religion of Protestants Some because your Priests compass Sea and Land to gain
notwithstanding Ad hanc Ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est omnes qui sunt undique fideles which Card. Perron and his Translatress so often translates false Or if you say she was you will run into a greater inconvenience and be forced to say that all the Churches of that time rejected from the Canon the Epistle to the Hebrews together with the Roman Church And consequently that the Catholick Church may Err in rejecting from the Canon Scriptures truly Canonical 92. Secondly How can we receive the Scripture upon the authority of the Roman Church which hath delivered at several times Scriptures in many places different and repugnant for Authentical and Canonical which is most evident out of the place of Malacby which is so quoted for the Sacrifice of the Mass that either all the Ancient Fathers had false Bibles or yours is false Most evident likewise from the comparing of the story of Jacob in Genesis with that which is cited out of it in the Epistle to the Hebrews according to the vulgar Edition But above all to any one who shall compare the Bibles of Sixtus and Clement so evident that the wit of man cannot disguise it 93. Thus you see what reason we have to believe your Antecedent That your Church it is which must declare what Books be true Scripture Now for the consequence that certainly is as liable to exception as the Antecedent For if it were true that God had promised to assist you for the delivering of true Scripture would this oblige him or would it follow from hence that He had obliged himself to teach you not only sufficiently but effectually and irrisistably the true sense of Scripture God is not defective in things necessary neither will he leave himself without witness nor the World without means of knowing his will and doing it And therefore it was necessary that by his Providence he should preserve the Scripture from any undiscernable corruption in those things which he would have known otherwise it is apparent it had not been his will that these things should be known the only means of continuing the knowledg of them being perished But now neither is God lavish in superfluities and therefore having given us means sufficient for our direction and power sufficient to make use of these means he will not constrain or necessitate us to make use of these means For that were to cross the end of our Creation which was to be glorified by our free obedience whereas necessity and freedom cannot stand together That were to reverse the Law which he hath prescribed to himself in his dealing with men and that is to set Life and Death before him and to leave him in the hands of his own Counsel God gave the Wisemen a Star to lead them to Christ but he did not necessitate them to follow the guidance of this Star that was left to their liberty God gave the Children of Israel a Fire to lead them by Night and a Pillar of Cloud by Day but he constrained no man to follow them that was left to their liberty So he gives the Church the Scripture which in those things which are to be believed or done are plain and easie to be followed like the Wisemens Star Now that which he desires of us on our part is the Obedience of Faith and love of the Truth and desire to find the true sense of it and industry in searching it and humility in following and Constancy in professing it all which if he should work in us by an absolute irresistible necessity he could no more require of us as our duty than he can of the Sun to shine of the Sea to Ebb and Flow and of all other Creatures to do those things which by meer necessity they must do and cannot choose Besides what an impudence is it to pretend that your Church is infallibly directed concerning the true meaning of the Scripture whereas there are Thousands of places of Scripture which you do not pretend certainly to understand and about the Interpretation whereof your own Doctors differ among themselves If your Church be infallibly directed concerning the true meaning of Scripture why do not your Doctors follow her infallible direction And if they do how comes such difference among them in their Interpretations 94. Again why does your Church thus put her Candle under a Bushel and keep her Talent of interpreting Scripture infallibly thus long wrapt up in Napkins Why sets she not forth Infallible Commentaries or Expositions upon all the Bible Is it because this would not be profitable for Christians that Scripture should be Interpreted Is it blasphemous to say so The Scripture it self tells us All Scripture is profitable And the Scripture is not so much the Words as the Sense And if it be not profitable why does she imploy particular Doctors to interpret Scriptures fallibly unless we must think that fallible Interpretations of Scripture are profitable and infallible Interpretations would not be so 95. If you say the Holy Ghost which assists the Church in interpreting will move the Church to interpret when he shall think fit and that the Church will do it when the Holy Ghost shall move her to do it I demand whether the Holy Ghosts moving of the Church to such works as these be resistible by the Church or irresistible If resistible then the Holy Ghost may move and the Church may not be moved As certainly the Holy Ghost doth always move to an Action when he shews us plainly that it would be for the good of men and Honour of God As he that hath any sense will acknowledge that an infallible exposition of Scripture could not but be and there is no conceivable reason why such a work should be put off a day but only because you are conscious to your selves you cannot do it and therefore make excuses But if the moving of the Holy Ghost be irresistible and you are not yet so moved to go about this work then I confess you are excused But then I would know whether those Popes which so long deferred the calling of a Council for the Reformation of your Church at length pretended to be effected by the Council of Trent whether they may excuse themselves for that they were not moved by the Holy Ghost to do it I would know likewise as this motion is irresistible when it comes so whether it be so simply necessary to the moving of your Church to any such publick Action that it cannot possibly move without it That is whether the Pope now could not if he would seat himself in Cathedra and fall to writing expositions upon the Bible for the directions of Christians to the true sense of it If you say he cannot you will make your self ridiculous If he can then I would know whether he should be infallibly directed in these expositions or no If he should then what need he to stay for irresistible motion Why does he
that the Learned cannot agree about the sense of them And then they are written all in such Languages which the ignorant understand not and therefore must of necessity rely herein upon the uncertain and fallible authority of some particular men who inform them that there is such a Decree And if the Decrees were Translated into Vulgar Languages why the Translators should not be as fallible as you say the Translators of Scripture are who can possibly imagine 109. Lastly how shall an unlearned man or indeed any man be assured of the certainty of that Decree the certainty whereof depends upon suppositions which are impossible to be known whether they be true or no For it is not the Decree of a Council unless it be confirmed by a true Pope Now the Pope cannot be a true Pope if he came in by Simony which whether he did or no who can answer me He cannot be a true Pope unless he were Baptized and Baptized he was not unless the Minister had due Intention So likewise he cannot be a true Pope unless he were rightly ordained Priest and that again depends upon the Ordainers secret Intention and also upon his having the Episcopal Character All which things as I have formerly proved depend upon so many uncertain suppositions that no humane judgment can possibly be resolved in them I conclude therefore that not the learnedst man amongst you all no not the Pope himself can according to the grounds you go upon have any certainty that any Decree of any Council is good and valid and consequently not any assurance that it is indeed the Decree of a Council 110. Ad § 20. C. M. By referring Controversies to Scripture alone all is finally reduced to the internal private Spirit I HIL If by a private Spirit you mean a particular persuasion that a Doctrine is true which some men pretend but cannot prove to come from the Spirit of God I say to refer Controversies to the Scripture is not to refer them to this kind of private Spirit For is there not a manifest difference between saying the Spirit of God tells me that this is the meaning of such a Text which no man can possibly know to be true it being a secret thing and between saying these and these Reasons I have to shew that this or that is true Doctrine or that this or that is the meaning of such a Scripture Reason being a publick and certain thing and exposed to all mens Trial and Examination But now if by private Spirit you understand every Mans particular Reason then your first and second inconvenience will presently be reduced to one and shortly to none at all 111. Ad § 21. C. M. By taking the Office of Judicature from the Church it is Conferred upon every particular Man I HIL And does not also giving the Office of Judicature to the Church come to confer it upon every particular Man For before any man believes the Church Infallible must he not have reason to induce him to believe it to be so and must he not judge of those reasons whether they be indeed good and firm or Captious and Sophistical Or would you have all men believe all your Doctrine upon the Churches Infallibility and the Churches Infallibility they know not why 112. Secondly supposing they are to be guided by the Church they must use their own particular reason to find out which is the Church And to that purpose you your selves give a great many Notes which you pretend first to be Certain Notes of the Church and then to be peculiar to your Church and agreeable to none else but you do not so much as pretend that either of those pretences is evident of it self and therefore you go about to prove them both by reasons and those reasons I hope every particular man is to judge of whether they do indeed conclude and convince that which they are alledged for that is that these marks are indeed certain Notes of the Church and then that your Church hath them and no other 113. One of these Notes indeed the only Note of a true and uncorrupted Church is conformity with Antiquity I mean the most Ancient Church of all that is the Primitive and Apostolick Now how is it possible any man should examine your Church by this Note but he must by his own particular judgment find out what was the Doctrine of the Primitive Church and what is the Doctrine of the present Church and be able to answer all these Arguments which are brought to prove repugnance between them otherwise he shall but pretend to make use of this Note for the finding the true Church but indeed make no use of it but receive the Church at a venture as the most of you do not one in a Hundred being able to give any tolerable reason for it So that instead of reducing Men to particular reason you reduce them to none at all but to chance and passion and prejudice and such other ways which if they lead one to the Truth they lead Hundreds nay Thousands to Falshood But it is a pretty thing to consider how these men can blow Hot and Cold out of the same mouth to serve several purposes Is there hope of gaining a Proselyte Then they will tell you God hath given every every man Reason to follow and if the Blind lead the Blind both shall fall into the Ditch That it is no good reason for a mans Religion that he was Born and brought up in it For then a Turk should have as much reason to be a Turk as a Christian to be a Christian That every man hath a judgment of Discretion which if they will make use of they shall easily find that the true Church hath always such and such marks and that their Church has them and no other but theirs But then if any of theirs be persuaded to a sincere and sufficient Trial of their Church even by their own Notes of it and to try whether they be indeed so conformable to Antiquity as they pretend then their Note is changed you must not use your own reason nor your judgment but refer all to the Church and believe her to be conformable to Antiquity though they have no reason for it nay though they have evident reason to the contrary For my part I am certain that God hath given us our Reason to discern between Truth and Falshood and he that makes not this use of it but believes things he knows not why I say it is by chance that he believes the Truth and not by choice and that I cannot but fear that God will not accept of this Sacrifice of Fools 114. But you that would not have men follow their Reason what would you have them to follow their Passion Or pluck out their eyes and go blindfold No you say you would have them follow Authority On Gods name let them we also would have them follow Authority for it is upon the
that the Church shall certainly keep this depositum entire and sincere without adding to it or taking from it for this whole depositum was committed to every particular Church nay to every particular Man which the Apostles converted And yet no man I think will say that there was any certainty that it should be kept whole and inviolate by every man and every Church It is apparent out of Scripture it was committed to Timothy and by him consigned to other faithful men and yet S. Paul thought it not superfluous earnestly to exhort him to the careful keeping of it which exhortation you must grant had been vain and superfluous if the not keeping of it had been impossible And therefore though Irenaeus says The Apostles fully deposited in the Church all truth yet he says not neither can we infer from what he says that the Church should always infallibly keep this depositum entire without the loss of any truth and sincere without the mixture of any falshood 149. Ad § 25. C. M. proceeds and tells us That beside all this the Doctrine of Protestants is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to Err in interpreting or not If not Scripture to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible Faith If they have and so cannot Err in interpreting Scripture then they are able with infallibility to hear and determine all Controversies of Faith and so they may be and are Judges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own Doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides Scripture alone C. H. And may not we with as much reason substitute Church and Papists instead of Scripture and Protestants and say unto you Besides all this the Doctrine of Papists is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to Err in the choice of the Church and interpreting her decrees or they have not If not then the Church to them cannot be a sufficient but meerly a phantastical ground for infallible Faith nor a meet Judge of Controversies For unless I be infallibly sure that the Church is infallible how can I be upon her Authority infallibly sure that any thing she says is infallible If they have certain infallible means and so cannot Err in the choice of their Church and in interpreting her decrees then they are able with Infallibility to hear examine and determine all Controversies of Faith although they pretend to make the Church their Guide And thus against their own Doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides the Church alone Nay every one makes himself a chooser of his own Religion and of his own sense of the Churches decrees which very thing in Protestants they so highly condemn and so in judging others condemn themselves 150. Neither in saying thus have I only cried quittance with you but that you may see how much you are in my debt I will shew unto you that for your Sophism against our way I have given you a Demonstration against yours First I say your Argument against us is a transparent fallacy The first part of it lies thus Protestants have no means to interpret without Error obscure and ambiguous places of Scripture therefore plain places of Scripture cannot be to them a sufficient ground of Faith But though we pretend not to certain means of not Erring in interpreting all Scripture particularly such places as are obscure and ambiguous yet this methinks should be no impediment but that we may have certainmeans of not Erring in and about the sense of those places which are so plain and clear that they need no Interpreters and in such we say our Faith is contained If you ask me how I can be sure that I know the true â—â—aning of these places I ask you again can you be 〈◊〉 that you understand what I or any man else says They that heard our Saviour and the Apostles Preach could they have sufficient assurance that they understood at any time what they would have them do if not to what end did they hear them If they could why may we not be as well assured that we understand sufficiently what we conceive plain in their writings 151. Again I pray tell us whether you do certainly know the sense of these Scriptures with which you pretend you are led to the knowledg of your Church If you do not how know you that there is any Church Infallible and that these are the Notes of it and that this is the Church that hath these Notes If you do then give us leave to have the same means and the same abilities to know other plain places which you have to know these For if all Scripture be obscure how come you to know the sense of these places If some places of it be plain why should we stay here 152. And now to come to the other part of your dilemma in saying If they have certain means and so cannot Err methinks you forget your self very much and seem to make no difference between having certain means to do a thing and the actual doing of it As if you should conclude because all men have certain means of Salvation therefore all men certainly must be saved and cannot do otherwise as if whosoever had a Horse must presently get up and Ride Whosoever had means to find out a way could not neglect those means and so mistake it God be thanked that we have sufficient means to be certain enough of the truth of our Faith But the Priviledge of not being in possibility of Erring that we challenge not because we have as little reason as you to do so and you have none at all If you ask seeing we may possibly Err how can we be assured we do not I ask you again seeing your Eye-sight may deceive you how can you be sure you see the Sun when you do see it Perhaps you may be in a dream and perhaps you and all the men in the World have been so when they thought they were awake and then only awake when they thought they Dreamt But this I am sure of as sure as that God is good that he will require no impossibilities of us not an Infallible nor a certainly unerring belief unless he hath given us certain means to avoid Error and if we use those which we have will never require of us that we use that which we have not 153. Now from this mistaken ground that it is all one to have means of avoiding Error and to be in no danger nor possibility of Error You infer upon us as an absurd conclusion That we make our selves able to determine Controversies of Faith with Infallibility and Judges of Controversies For the latter part of this inference we acknowledge and embrace it We do make our selves Judges of Controversies that is we do make use of our own understanding in the choice of our Religion But this if it be
nothing unwritten which can go in upon half so fair Cards for the Title of Apostolick Tradition as these things which by the confession of both Sides are not so I mean the Doctrine of the Millinaries and of the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants 156. Yet when we say the Scripture is the only Rule to Judge all Controversies by methinks you should easily conceive that we would be understood of all those that are possible to be Judged by Scripture and of those that arise among such as believe the Scripture For if I had a Controversie with an Atheist whether there were a God or no I would not say that the Scripture were a Rule to judge this by seeing that doubting whether there be a God or no he must needs doubt whether the Scripture be the Word of God or if he does not he grants the Question and is not the man we speak of So likewise if I had a Controversie about the Truth of Christ with a Jew it would be vainly done of me should I press him with the Authority of the New Testament which he believes not until out of some Principles common to us both I had persuaded him that it is the Word of God The New Testament therefore while he remains a Jew would not be a fit Rule to decide this Controversie In as much as that which is doubted of it self is not fit to determine other doubts So likewise if there were any that believed Christian Religion and yet believed not the Bible to be the Word of God though they believed the matter of it to be true which is no impossible supposition for I may believe a Book of S. Austines to contain nothing but the Truth of God and yet not to have been inspired by God himself against such men therefore there were no disputing out of the Bible because nothing in question can be a proof to it self When therefore we say the Scripture is a sufficient means to determine all Controversies we say not this either to Atheists Jews Turks or such Christians if there be any such as believe not Scripture to be the Word of God But among such men only as are already agreed upon this That the Scripture is the Word of God we say all Controversies that arise about Faith are either not at all decidable and consequently not necessary to be believed one way or other or they may be determined by Scripture In a Word That all things necessary to be believed are evidently contained in Scripture and what is not there evidently contained cannot be necessary to be believed And our reason hereof is convincing because nothing can Challenge our belief but what hath descended to us from Christ by Original and Universal Tradition Now nothing but Scripture hath thus descended to us Therefore nothing but Scripture can Challenge our belief Now then to come up closer to you and to answer to your Question not as you put it but as you should have put it I say That this position Scripture alone is the Rule whereby they which believe it to be Gods Word are to judge all Controversies in Faith is no fundamental point Though not for your Reasons For your first and strongest reason you see is plainly voided and cut off by my stating of the Question as I have done and supposing in it that the parties at variance are agreed about this That the Scripture is the Word of God and consequently that this is none of their Controversies To your second That Controversies cannot be ended without some living Authority We have said already that necessary Controversies may be and are decided And if they be not ended this is not through defect of the Rule but through the default of Men. And for these that cannot thus be ended it is not necessary they should be ended For if God did require the ending of them he would have provided some certain means for the ending of them And to your Third I say that your pretence of using these means is but hypocrital for you use them with prejudice and with a setled resolution not to believe any thing which these means happily may suggest into you if it any way cross your pre-conceived perswasion of your Churches infallibility You give not your selves liberty of judgment in the use of them nor suffer your selves to be led by them to the Truth to which they would lead you would you but be as willing to believe this consequence Our Church doth oppose Scripture therefore it doth err therefore it is not Infallible as you are resolute to believe this The Church is Infallible therefore it doth not err and therefore it doth not oppose Scripture though it seem to do so never so plainly 157. You pray but it is not that God would bring you to the true Religion but that he would confirm you in your own You confer places but it is that you may confirm or colour over with plausible disguises your erroneous doctrine not that you may judge of them and forsake them if there be reason for it You consult the Originals but you regard them not when they make against your Doctrin or Translation 159. Notwithstanding though not for these reasons yet for others I conceive this Doctrin not Fundamental Because if a man should believe Christian Religion wholly and entirely and live according to it such a man though he should not know or not believe the Scripture to be a Rule of Faith no nor to be the Word of God my opinion is he may be saved and my reason is because he performs the entire condition of the new Covenant which is that we believe the matter of the Gospel and not that it is contained in these or these Books So that the Books of Scripture are not so much the objects of our Faith as the instruments of conveying it to our understanding and not so much of the being of the Christian Doctrin as requisite to the well-being of it Iraeneus tells us as M. K. acknowledgeth of some barbarous Nations that believed the Doctrin of Christ and yet believed not the Scripture to be the Word of God for they never heard of it and Faith comes by hearing But these barbarous people might be saved therefore men might be saved without believing the Scripture to be the Word of God much more without believing it to be a Rule and a perfect Rule of Faith Neither doubt I but if the Books of Scripture had been proposed to them by the other parts of the Church where they had been before received and had been doubted of or even rejected by those barbarous Nations but still by the bare belief and practice of Christianity they might be saved God requiring of us under pain of damnation only to believe the verities therein contained and not the divine Authority of the Books wherein they are contained Not but that it were now very strange and unreasonable if a man should believe the matter of these
Books and not the Authority of the Books and therefore if a man should profess the not believing of these I should have reason to fear he did not believe that But there is not always an equal necessity for the belief of those things for the belief whereof there is an equal reason We have I believe as great reason to believe there was such a man as Henry the VIII King of England as that Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate yet this is necessary to be believed and that is not so So that if any man should doubt of or disbelieve that it were most unreasonably done of him yet it were no mortal sin nor no sin at all God having no where commanded men under pain of damnation to believe all which reason induceth them to believe Therefore as an Executor that should perform the whole Will of the dead should fully satisfie the Law though he did not believe that Parchment to be his written Will which indeed is so So I believe that he who believes all the particular doctrines which integrate Christianity and lives according to them should be saved though he neither believed nor knew that the Gospels were written by the Evangelists or the Epistles by the Apostles 160. This discourse whether it be rational and concluding or no I submit to better judgment But sure I am that the corollary which you draw from this position that this point is not Fundamental is very inconsequent that is that we are uncertain of the truth of it because we say the whole Church much more particular Churches and private men may err in points not Fundamental A pretty Sophism depending upon this Principle that whosoever possibly may err he cannot be certain that he doth not err And upon this ground what shall hinder me from concluding that seeing you also hold that neither particular Churches nor private men are Infallible even in Fundamentals that even the Fundamentals of Christianity remain to you uncertain A Judge may possibly err in judgment can he therefore never have assurance that he hath judged right A Traveller may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtful whether I am in the right way from my Hall to my Chamber Or can our London Carrier have no certainty in the middle of the day when he is sober and in his wits that he is in the way to London These you see are right worthy consequences and yet they are as like your own as an Egg to an Egg or Milk to Milk 163. Ad § 27. C. M. S. Austin plainly affirms that to oppose the Churches definitions is to resist God himself speaking of the Controversie of Rebaptization de Unit. Eccl. cap. 22. where he saith that Christ bears witness to his Church and whosoever refuseth to follow the practice of the Church doth resist our Saviour himself who by his testimony recommends the Church c. I HIL I Answer First that in many things you will not be tried by S. Augustines judgment nor submit to his authority not concerning Appeals to Rome not concerning Transubstantiation not touching the use and worshiping of Images not concerning the State of Saints souls before the day of judgment not touching the Virgin Maries freedom from actual and original sin not touching the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants not touching the damning Infants to Hell that die without Baptism not touching the knowledge of Saints departed not touching Purgatory not touching the fallibility of Councils even general Councils not touching perfection and perspicuity of Scripture in matters necessary to Salvation not touching Auricular Confession not touching the half Communion not touching Prayers in an unknown tongue In these things I say you will not stand to S. Austines judgment and therefore can with no reason or equity require us to do so in this matter 2. To S. Augustine in heat of disputation against the Donatists and ransacking all places for arguments against them we oppose S. Austine out of this heat delivering the doctrine of Christianity calmly and moderately where he says In iis quae apertè posita sunt in sacris Scriptur is omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent fidem moresque vivendi 3. We say he speaks not of the Roman but the Catholick Church of far greater extent and therefore of far greater credit and authority than the Roman Church 4 He speaks of a point not expressed but yet not contradicted by Scripture whereas the errors we charge you with are contradicted by Scripture 5. He says not that Christ has recommended the Church to us for an Infallible definer of all emergent controversies but for a credible witness of Ancient Tradition Whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practice of the Church understand of all places and ages though he be thought to resist our Saviour what is that to us who cast off no practiecs of the Church but such as are evidently post-nate to the time of the Apostles and plainly contrary to the practice of former and purer times Lastly it is evident and even to impudence it self undeniable that upon this ground of believing all things taught by the present Church as taught by Christ Error was held for example the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants and that in S. Austines time and that by S. Austine himself and therefore without controversie this is no certain ground for truth which may support falshood as well as truth 164. To the Argument wherewith you conclude I Answer That though the visible Church shall always without fail propose so much of Gods revelation as is sufficient to bring men to Heaven for otherwise it will not be the visible Church yet it may sometimes add to this revelation things superfluous nay hurtful nay in themselves damnable though not unpardonable and sometimes take from it things very expedient and profitable and therefore it is possible without sin to resist in some things the Visible Church of Christ But you press us farther and demand what Visible Church was extant when Luther began whether it were the Roman or Protestant Church As if it must of necessity either be Protestant or Roman or Roman of necessity if it were not Protestant yet this is the most usual fallacy of all your disputers by some specious Arguments to perswade weak men that the Church of Protestants cannot be the true Church and thence to infer that without doubt it must be the Roman But why may not the Roman be content to be a part of it and the Grecian another And if one must be the whole why not the Greek Church as well as the Roman there being not one Note of your Church which agrees not to her as well as to your own unless it be that she is poor and oppressed by the Turk and you are in glory and splendor CHAP. III. The ANSWER to the Third CHAPTER Wherein it is maintained That the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental is in this present Controversie
4.11 he hath given Pastors and Doctors c. lest we should be carried about with every wind of Doctrine To any particular Church of Christians seeing it is a particular Church which is called l 1 Tim. 3.15 The House of God a Pillar and ground of Truth and seeing of any particular Church it is written m Mat. 18.17 He that heareth not the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen or a Publican We might refer it to any man that prays for Gods Spirit for it is written n Mat. 7.8 Every one that asketh receiveth and again o Jam. 1.5 If any man want Wisdom let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not Lastly we might refer it to the Jews for without all doubt of them it is written p Isai 59.21 my Spirit that is in thee c. All these means of agreement whereof not any one but hath as much probability from Scripture d Mat. 18.20 as that which you obtrude upon us offer themselves upon a sudden to me happily many more might be thought on if we had time but these are enough to shew that would we make use of voluntary and devised means to determine differences we had them in great abundance And if you say these would fail us and contradict themselves so as we pretend have yours There have been Popes against Popes Councils against Councils Councils confirmed by Popes against Councils confirmed by Popes Lastly the Church of some Ages against the Church of other Ages 9. Lastly whereas you find fault That Protestants upbraided with their discords answer that they differ only in points not Fundamental I desire you tell me whether they do so or do not so If they do so I hope you will not find fault with the Answer If you say they do not so but in points Fundamental also then they are not members of the same Church one with another no more than with you And therefore why should you object to any of them their differences from each other any more than to your selves their more and greater differences from you 10. But they are convinced sometime even by their own confessions that the Ancient Fathers taught divers points of Popery and then they reply those Fathers may nevertheless be saved because those Errors were not Fundamental And may not you also be convinced by the confessions of your own men that the Fathers taught divers points held by Protestants against the Church of Rome and divers against Protestants and the Church of Rome Do not your Purging Indexes clip the Tongues and seal up the Lips of a great many for such confessions And is not the above cited confession of your Doway Divines plain and full to the same purpose And do not you also as freely as we charge the Fathers with Errors and yet say they were saved Now what else do we understand by an unfundamental Error but such a one with which a man may possibly be saved So that still you proceed in condemning others for your own faults and urging arguments against us which return more strongly upon your selves 11. But your will is we should remember that Christ must alwaies have a visible Church Answ Your pleasure shall be obeyed on condition you will not forget that there is a difference between perpetual Visibility and perpetual Purity As for the answer which you make for us true it is we believe the Catholick Church cannot perish yet that she may and did Err in points not Fundamental and that Protestants were obliged to forsake these Errors of the Church as they did though not the Church for her Errors for that they did not but continued still members of the Church For it is not all one though you perpetually confound them to forsake the Errors of the Church and to forsake the Church or to forsake the Church in her Errors and simply to forsake the Church No more than it is for me to renounce my Brothers or my Friends Vices or Errors and to renounce my Brother or my Friend The former then was done by Protestants the latter was not done Nay not only not from the Catholick but not so much as from the Roman did they separate per omnia but only in those practices which they conceived superstitious or impious If you would at this time propose a form of Liturgy which both Sides hold lawful and then they would not joyn with you in this Liturgy you might have some colour then to say they renounce your communion absolutely But as things are now ordered they cannot joyn with you in prayers but they must partake with you in unlawful practices and for this reason they not absolutely but thus far separate from your communion And this I say they were obliged to do under pain of damnation Not as if it were damnable to hold an Error not damnable but because it is damnable outwardly to profess and maintain it and to joyn with others in the practice of it when inwardly they did not hold it Now had they continued in your communion that they must have done vid. have professed to believe and externally practised your Errors whereof they were convinced that they were Errors which though the matters of the Errors had been not necessary but only profitable whether it had not been damnable dissimulation and Hypocrisie I leave it to you to Judge You your self tell us within two pages after this that you are obliged never to speak any one least lie against your knowledge § 2. now what is this but to live in a perpetual lie 12. As for that which in the next place you seem so to wonder at That both Catholicks and Protestants according to the opinion of Protestants may be saved in their several professions because forsooth we both agree in all Fundamental points I Answer this proposition so crudely set down as you have here set it down I know no Protestant will justifie For you seem to make them teach that it is an indifferent thing for the attainment of Salvation whether a man believe the Truth or the Falshood and that they care not in whether of these Religions a man live or die so he die in either of them whereas all that they say is this That those amongst you which want means to find the Truth and so die in Error or use the best means they can with industry and without partiality to find the Truth and yet die in Error these men thus qualified notwithstanding these Errors may be saved Secondly for those that have means to find the Truth and will not use them they conceive though their case be dangerous yet if they die with a general repentance for all their sins known and unknown their Salvation is not desperate The Truths which they hold of Faith in Christ and Repentance being as it were an Antidote against their Errors and their negligence in seeking the Truth Especially seeing by confession of
damn him for Error that desires and indeavours to find the Truth 15. Ad § 2. The effect of this Paragraph for as much as concerns us is this that for any man to deny belief to any one thing be it great or small known by him to be revealed by Almighty God for a truth is in effect to charge God with falshood for it is to say that God affirms that to be Truth which he either knows to be not a Truth or which he doth not know to be a Truth and therefore without all Controversie this is a damnable sin To this I subscribe with Hand and Heart adding withal that not only he which knows but he which believes nay though it be erroneously any thing to be revealed by God and yet will not believe it nor assent unto it is in the same case and commits the same sin of derogation from Gods most perfect and pure Veracity 16. Ad § 3. I said purposely known by himself and believes himself For as without any disparagement of a mans Honesty I may believe something to be false which he affirms of his certain knowledge to be true provided I neither know nor believe that he has so affirmed So without any the least dishonour to Gods Eternal never failing Veracity I may doubt of or deny some truth revealed by him if I neither know nor believe it to be revealed by him 19. But ignorance of what we are expresly bound to know is it self a fault and therefore cannot be an excuse and therefore if you could shew the Protestants differ in those points the truth whereof which can be but one they were bound expresly to know I should easily yield that one side must of necessity be in a mortal Crime But for want of proof of this you content your self only to say it and therefore I also might be contented only to deny it yet I will not but give a reason for my denial And my reason is because our obligation expresly to know any Divine Truth must arise from Gods manifest revealing of it and his revealing unto us that he has revealed it and that his will is we should believe it Now in the points controverted among Protestants he hath not so dealt with us therefore he hath not laid any such obligation upon us The major of this Syllogism is evident and therefore I will not stand to prove it The minor also will be evident to him that considers that in all the Controversies of Protestants there is a seeming conflict of Scripture with Scripture Reason with Reason Authority with Authority which how it can consist with the manifest revealing of the truth of either Side I cannot well understand Besides though we grant that Scripture Reason and Authority were all on one side and the apparences of the other side all answerable yet if we consider the strange power that education and prejudices instilled by it have over even excellent understandings we may well imagine that many truths which in themselves are revealed plainly enough are yet to such or such a man prepossest with contrary opinions not revealed plainly Neither doubt I but God who knows whereof we are made and what passions we are subject unto will compassionate such infirmities and not enter into judgment with us for those things which all things considered were unavoidable 20. Obj. But till Fundamentals say you be sufficiently proposed as revealed by God it is not against Faith to reject them or rather it is not possible prudently to believe them And points unfundamental being thus sufficiently proposed as divine Truths may not be denied Therefore you conclude there is no difference between them Answ A Circumstantial point may by accident become Fundamental because it may be so proposed that the denial of it will draw after it the denial of this Fundamental truth that all which God says is true Notwithstanding in themselves there is a main difference between them Points Fundamental being those only which are revealed by God and commanded to be Preach'd to all and believed by all Points circumstantial being such as though God hath revealed them yet the Pastors of the Church are not bound under pain of Damnation particularly to teach them unto all men every where and the People may be securely ig-norant of them 21. Obj. You say Not Erring in points Fundamental is not sufficient for the preservation of the Church because any Error maintained by it against Gods Revelation is destructive I answer If you mean against Gods Revelation known by the Church to be so it is true but impossible that the Church should do so for ipso Facto in doing it it were a Church no longer But if you mean against some Revelation which the Church by error thinks to be no Revelation it is false The Church may ignorantly disbelieve such a Revelation and yet continue a Church which thus I prove That the Gospel was to be preached to all Nations was a Truth revealed before our Saviours Ascension in these words Go and teach all Nations Mat. 29.19 Yet through prejudice or inadvertence or some other cause the Church disbelieved it as it is apparent out of the 11. and 12. Chap. of the Acts until the conversion of Cornelius and yet was still a Church Therefore to disbelieve some divine Revelation not knowing it to be so is not destructive of salvation or of the being of the Church Again It is a plain Revelation of God that a 1 Cor. 11 2◠the Sacrament of the Eucharist should be administred in both kinds and b 1 Cor. 14 15 16.26 that the publick Hymns and Prayers of the Church should be in such a language as is most for edification yet these Revelations the Church of Rome not seeing by reason of the veil before their eyes their Churches supposed infallibility I hope the denial of them shall not be laid to their charge no otherwise than as building hay and stubble on the Foundations not overthrowing the Foundation it self 24. Ad § 5. This Paragraph if it be brought out of the Clouds will I believe have in it these Propositions 1. Things are distinguished by their different natures 2. The Nature of Faith is taken not from the matter believed for then they that believed different matters should have different Faiths but from the Motive to it 3. This Motive is Gods Revelation 4. This Revelation is alike for all objects 5. Protestants disagree in things equally revealed by God Therefore they forsake the formal motive of Faith and therefore have no faith nor unity therein Which is truly a very proper and convenient argument to close up a weak discourse wherein both the Propositions are false for matter confused and disordered for the form and the conclusion utterly in consequent First for the second Proposition who knows not that the Essence of all Habits and therefore of Faith among the rest is taken from their Act and their Object If the Habit be general
Tradition of which the testimony of any present Church is but a little part So that here you fall into the Fallacy à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter For in effect this is the sense of your Argument Unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty of Scripture from the authority of the Church Therefore unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty hereof at all As if a man should say If the Vintage of France miscarry we can have no Wine from France Therefore if that Vintage miscarry we can have no Wine at all And for the incorruption of Scripture I know no other rational assurance we can have of it than such as we have of the incorruption of other ancient Books that is the consent of ancient Copies such I mean for the kind though it be far greater for the degree of it And if the Spirit of God give any man any other assurance hereof this is not rational and discursive but supernatural and infused An assurance it may be to himself but no argument to another As for the Infallibility of the Church it is so far from being a proof of the Scriptures incorruption that no proof can be pretended for it but incorrupted places of Scripture which yet are as subject to corruption as any other and more likely to have been corrupted if it had been possible than any other and made to speak as they do for the advantage of those men whose ambition it hath been a long time to bring all under their authority Now then if any man should prove the Scriptures uncorrupted because the Church says so which is infallible I would demand again touching this very thing that there is an infallible Church seeing it is not of it self evident how shall I be assured of it And what can he answer but that the Scripture says so in these and these places Hereupon I would ask him how shall I be assured that the Scriptures are incorrupted in those places seeing it is possible and not altogether improbable that these men which desire to be thought infallible when they had the government of all things in their own hands may have altered them for their purpose If to this he answer again that the Church is infallible and therefore cannot do so I hope it would be apparent that he runs round in a circle and proves the Scriptures incorruption by the Churches infallibility and the Churches infallibility by the Scriptures incorruption and that is in effect the Churches infallibility by the Churches infallibility and the Scriptures incorruption by the Scriptures incorruption 28. Now for your observation that some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received for such But never any book or syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal I demand touching the first sort whether they were commended to the Church by the Apostles as Canonical or not If not seeing the whole Faith was preached by the Apostles to the Church and seeing after the Apostles the Church pretends to no new Revelations how can it be an Article of Faith to believe them Canonical And how can you pretend that your Church which makes this an Article of Faith is so assisted as not to propose any thing as a divine Truth which is not revealed by God If they were how then is the Church an infallible keeper of the Canon of Scripture which hath suffered some Books of Canonical Scripture to be lost and others to lose for a long time their being Canonical at least the necessity of being so esteemed and afterwards as it were by the law of Postliminium hath restored their Authority and Canonicalness unto them If this was delivered by the Apostles to the Church the point was sufficiently discussed and therefore your Churches omission to teach it for some ages as an article of faith nay degrading it from the number of articles of faith and putting it among disputable problems was surely not very laudable If it were not revealed by God to the Apostles and by the Apostles to the Church then can it be no Revelation and therefore her presumption in proposing it as such is inexcusable 29. And then for the other part of it that never any book or syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal Certainly it is a bold asseveration but extreamly false For I demand The Book of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom the Epistle of S. James and to the Hebrews were they by the Apostles approved for Canonical or no If not with what face dare you approve them and yet pretend that all your doctrin is Apostolical Especially seeing it is evident that this point is not deducible by rational discourse from any other defined by them If they were approved by them this I hope was a sufficient definition and therefore you were best rub your forehead hard and say that these Books were never questioned But if you do so then I shall be bold to ask you what Books you meant in saying before Some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received Then for the Book of Macchabes I hope you will say it was defined for Canonical before S. Gregories time and yet he lib. 19. Moral c. 13. citing a testimony out of it prefaceth to it after this matter Concerning which matter we do not amiss if we produce a testimony out of Books although not Canonical yet set forth for the edification of the Church For Eleazar in the Book of Machabees c. Which if it be not to reject it from being Canonical is without question at least to question it Moreover because you are so punctual as to talk of words and syllables I would know whether before Sixtus Quintus his time your Church had a defined Canon of Scripture or not If not then was your Church surely a most vigilant keeper of Scripture that for 1500. years had not defined what was Scripture and what was not If it had then I demand was it that set forth by Sixtus or that set forth by Clement or a third different from both If it were that set forth by Sixtus then is it now condemned by Clement if that of Clement it was condemned I say but sure you will say contradicted and questioned by Sixtus If different from both then was it questioned and condemned by both and still lies under the condemnation But then lastly suppose it had been true That both some Book not known to be Canonical had been received and that never any after receiving had been questioned How had this been a sign that the Church is infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost In what mood or figure would this conclusion follow out of these Premises Certainly your flying to such poor signs as these are is to me a great sign that you labour with penury of better arguments and that thus to catch at shadows and bulrushes
is a shrewd sign of a sinking cause 30. Ad § 13. We are told here That the general promises of Infallibility to the Church must not be restrained only to points fundamental Because then the Apostles words and writings may also be so restrained Ans This also may be done but if it be done may easily be confuted It is done to our hand in this very Paragraph by five words taken out of Scripture All Scripture is divinely inspired Shew but as much for the Church Shew where it is written That all the decrees of the Church are divinely inspired and the Controversie will be at an end Besides there is not the same reason for the Churches absolute Infallibility as for the Apostles and Scriptures For if the Church fall into error it may be reformed by comparing it with the rule of the Apostles doctrine and Scripture But if the Apostles have erred in delivering the doctrine of Christianity to whom shall we have recourse for the discovering and correcting their error Again there is not so much strength required in the Edifice as in the Foundation and if but wise men have the ordering of the building they will make it much a surer thing that the foundation shall not fail the building than that the building shall not fall from the foundation And though the building be to be of Brick or Stone and perhaps of Wood yet if it may be possibly they will have a Rock for their foundation whose stability is a much more indubitable thing than the adherence of the structure to it Now the Apostles and Prophets and Canonical Writers are the foundation of the Church according to that of S. Paul built upon the foundation of Apostles and Prophets therefore their stability in reason ought to be greater than the Churches which is built upon them Again a dependent Infallibility especially if the dependence be voluntary cannot be so certain as that on which it depends But the Infallibility of the Church depends upon the Infallibility of the Apostles and the streightness of the thing regulated upon the streightness of the Rule and besides this dependence is voluntary for it is in the power of the Church to deviate from this Rule being nothing else but an aggregation of men of which every one has free will and is subject to passions and error Therefore the Churehes infallibility is not so certain as that of the Apostles 31. Lastly Quid verba audiam cum facta videam If you be so infallible as the Apostles were shew it as the Apostles did They went forth saith S. Mark and Preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming their words with Signs following It is impossible that God should lie and that the eternal Truth should set his hand and seal to the confirmation of a falshood or of such Doctrin as is partly true and partly false The Apostles Doctrin was thus confirmed therefore it was intirely true and in no part either false or uncertain I say in no part of that which they delivered constantly as a certain divine Truth and which had the Attestation of Divine Miracles For that the Apostles themselves even after the sending of the Holy Ghost were and through inadvertence or prejudice continued for a time in an error repugnant to a revealed Truth it is as I have already noted unanswerably evident from the story of the Acts of the Apostles For notwithstanding our Saviours express warrant and injunction to go and preach to all Nations yet until S. Peter was better informed by a vision from Heaven and by the conversion of Cornelius both he and the rest of the Church held it unlawful for them to go or preach the Gospel to any but the Jews 32. And for those things which they profess to deliver as the dictates of human reason and prudence and not as divine Revelations why we should take them to be divine revelations I see no reason nor how we can do so and not contradict the Apostles and God himself Therefore when S. Paul says in the first Epistle to the Corinth 7.12 To the rest speak I not the Lord And again concerning Virgins I have no commandment of the Lord but I deliver my Judgment If we will pretend that the Lord did certainly speak what S. Paul spake and that his judgment was Gods commandment shall we not plainly contradict S. Paul and that spirit by which he wrote which moved him to Write as in other places divine Revelations which he certainly knew to be such so in this place his own judgment touching some things which God had not particularly revealed unto him 34. Obj. But if the Apostles were Infallible in all things proposed by them as divine Truths the like must be affirmed of the Church because Protestants teach the promise of leading into all Truth to be verified in the Church Ans It 's true that to the Apostles the promise was made and to them only yet the words are true also of the Church But they agree to the Apostles in a higher to the Church in a lower sense to the Apostles in more absolute to the Church in a more limited sense To the Apostles absolutely for the Churches direction to the Church Conditionally by adherence to that direction and so far as she doth adhere to it In a word the Apostles were led into all Truths by the Spirit efficaciter The Church is led also into all Truth by the Apostles writings sufficienter So that the Apostles and the Church may be fitly compared to the Star and the Wisemen The Star was directed by the finger of God and could not but go right to the place where Christ was But the Wisemen were led by the Star to Christ led by it I say not efficaciter or irresistibiliter but sufficienter so that if they would they might follow it if they would not they might choose So was it between the Apostles writing Scriptures and the Church They in their writing were infallibly assisted to propose nothing as a divine Truth but what was so The Church is also led into all Truth but it is by the intervening of the Apostles writings But it is as the Wisemen were led by the Star or as a Traveller is directed by a Mercurial Statue or as a Pilot by his Card and Compass led sufficiently but not irresistibly led so that she may follow not so that she must For seeing the Church is a society of men whereof every one according to the Doctrine of the Romish Church hath free-will in believing it follows that the whole aggregate has free-will in believing And if any man say that at least it is morally impossible that of so many whereof all may believe aright not any should do so I answer It is true if they did all give themselves any liberty of judgment But if all as the case is here captivate their understandings to one of them all are as likely to err as that one
contrary Lastly why it is not sufficient for any mans Salvation to use the best means he can to inform his Conscience and to follow the direction of it To all these demands when you have given fair and ingenious answers you shall hear further from me 55. Ad § 20. At the first entrance into this Parag. from our own Doctrine That the Church cannot Err in Points necessary it is concluded if we are wise we must forsake it in nothing least we should forsake it in something necessary To which I answer First that the supposition as you understand it is falsly imposed upon us and as we understand it will do you no service For when we say that there shall be a Church alwaies somewhere or other unerring in Fundamentals our meaning is but this that there shall be alwaies a Church to the very being whereof it is repugnant that it should Err in Fundamentals for if it should do so it would want the very essence of a Church and therefore cease to be a Church But we never annexed this priviledg to any one Church of any one Denomination as the Greek or the Roman Church which if we had done and set up some setled certain Society of Christians distinguishable from all others by adhering to such a Bishop for our Guide in Fundamentals then indeed and then only might you with some colour though with no certainty have concluded that we could not in Wisdom forsake this Church in any point for fear of forsaking it in a necessary point But now that we say not this of any one determinate Church which alone can perform the Office of Guide or Director but indefinitely of the Church meaning no more but this That there shall be alwaies in some place or other some Church that Errs not in Fundamentals will you conclude from hence that we cannot in Wisdom forsake this or that the Roman or the Greek Church for fear of Erring in Fundamentals 56. Yea but you may say for I will make the best I can of all your Arguments That this Church thus unerring in Fundamentals when Luther arose was by our confession the Roman and therefore we ought not in Wisdom to have departed from it in any thing I answer First that we confess no such thing that the Church of Rome was then this Church but only a Part of it and that the most corrupted and most incorrigible Secondly that if by adhering to the Church we could have been thus far secured this Argument had some shew of reason But seeing we are not warranted thus much by any priviledg of that Church that she cannot Err Fundamentally but only from Scripture which assures us that she doth Err very heinously collect our hope that the Truths she retains and the practice of them may prove an Antidote to her against the Errors which she maintains in such Persons as in simplicity of Heart follow this Absalom we should then do against the light of our Conscience and so sin damnably if we should not abandon the profession of her Errors though not Fundamental Neither can we thus conclude we may safely hold with the Church of Rome in all her points for she cannot Err damnably For this is false she may though perhaps she does not But rather thus These points of Christianity which have in them the nature of Antidotes against the Poyson of all Sins and Errors the Church of Rome though otherwise much corrupted still retains therefore we hope she Errs not Fundamentally but still remains a Part of the Church But this can be no warrant to us to think with her in all things seeing the very same Scripture which puts us in hope she Errs not Fundamentally assures us that in many things and those of great moment she Errs very greviously And these Errors though to them that believe them we hope they will not be pernitious yet the professing of them against Conscience could not but bring us to certain damnation As for the fear of departing from some Fundamental Truths withal while we depart from her Errors Happily it might work upon us if adhering to her might secure us from it and if nothing else could But both these are false For first adhering to her in all things cannot secure us from erring in Fundamentals Because though de facto we hope she does not Err yet we know no priviledges she has but she may Err in them her self and therefore we had need have better security hereof than her bare Authority Then secondly without dependence on her at all we may be secured that we do not Err Fundamentally I mean by believing all those things plainly set down in Scripture wherein all things necessary and most things profitable are plainly delivered Suppose I were Travelling to London and knew two ways thither the one very safe and convenient the other very inconvenient and dangerous but yet a way to London and that I overtook a Passenger on the way who himself believed and would fain perswade me there was no other way but the worse and would perswade me to accompany him in it because I confessed his way though very inconvenient yet a way so that going that way we could not fail of our Journies end by the consent of both Parties but he believed my way to be none at all and therefore I might justly fear lest out of a desire of leaving the worst way I left the true and the only way If now I should not be more secure upon my own knowledge than frighted by this fallacity would you not beg me for a Fool Just so might you think of us if we would be frighted out of our own knowledge by this bugbear For the only and the main reason why we believe you not to Err in Fundamentals is your holding the Doctrines of Faith in Christ and Repentance which knowing we hold as well as you notwithstanding our departure from you we must needs know that we not Err in Fundamentals as well as we know that you do not Err in some Fundamentals and therefore cannot possibly fear the contrary Yet let us be more liberal to you and grant that which can never be proved that God had said in plain terms The Church of Rome shall never destroy the Foundation but withal had said that it might and would lay much Hay and Stubble upon it That you should never hold any Error destructive of Salvation but yet many that were prejudicial to Edification I demand might we have dispensed with our selves in the believing and professing these Errors in regard of the smalness of them Or had it not been a damnable sin to do so though the Errors in themselves were not damnable Had we not had as plain Direction to depart from you in some things profitable as to adhere to you in things necessary In the beginning of your Book when it was for your purpose to have it so the greatness or smalness of the matter was not considerable
as we never went about to arrogate to our selves that Infallibility or absolute Authority which we take away from you But if you would have spoken to the purpose you should have said that in following her you should sooner have been excused than in cleaving to the Scripture and to God himself 63. Whereas you say The fearful examples of innumerable persons who forsaking the Church upon pretence of her errors have failed even in fundamental points ought to deter all Christians from opposing her in any one doctrine or practice This is just as if you should say divers men have fallen into Scylla with going too far from Charybdis be sure therefore ye keep close to Charybdis divers leaving prodigality have fallen into covetousness therefore be you constant to prodigality many have fallen from worshipping God perversely and foolishly not to worship him at all from worshipping many Gods to worship none this therefore ought to deter men from leaving Superstition or Idolatry for fear of falling into Atheism and Impiety This is your counsel and Sophistry but God says clean contrary Take heed you swerve not either to the right hand or to the left you must not do evil that good may come thereon therefore neither that you may avoid a greater evil you must not be obstinate in a certain error for fear of an uncertain What if some forsaking the Church of Rome have forsaken Fundamental Truths Was this because they forsook the Church of Rome No sure this is non causa pro causa for else all that have forsaken that Church should have done so which we say they have not But because they went too far from her the golden mean the narrow way is hard to be found and hard to be kept hard but not impossible hard but yet you must not please your self out of it though you err on the right hand though you offend on the milder part for this is the only way that leads to life and few there be that find it It is true if we said there were no danger in being of the Roman Church and there were danger in leaving it it were madness to perswade any man to leave it But we protest and proclaim the contrary and that we have very little hope of their Salvation who either out of negligence in seeking the truth or unwillingness to find it live and die in the errors and impieties of that Church and therefore cannot but conceive those fears to be most foolish and ridiculous which perswade men to be constant in one way to hell lest happily if they leave it they should fall into another 64. Obj. Some Protestants pretending to reform the Church are come to affirm that she perished for many Ages which others cannot deny to be a Fundamental Error against the Article of the Creed I believe the Catholick Church and affirm the Donatists erred Fundamentally in confining it to Africa To this I Answer First that the error of the Donatists was not that they held it possible that some or many or most parts of Christendom might fall away from Christianity and that the Church may loose much of her amplitude and be contracted to a narrow compass in comparison of her former extent which is proved not only possible but certain by irrefragable experience For who knows not that Gentilism and Mahumetism mans wickedness deserving it and Gods providence permitting it have prevailed to the utter extirpation of Christianity upon far the greater part of the world And S. Austin when he was out of the heat of Disputation confesses the Militant Church to be like the Moon sometimes increasing and sometimes decreasing This therefore was no error in the Donatists that they held it possible that the Church from a larger extent might be contradicted to a lesser or that they held it possible to be reduced to Africa For why not to Africk then as well as within these few ages you pretend it was to Europe But their error was that they held de facto this was done when they had no just ground or reason to do so and so upon a vain pretence which they could not justify separated themselves from the communion of all other parts of the Church and that they required it as a necessary condition to make a man a member of the Church that he should be of their Communion and divide himself from all other Communions from which they were divided which was a condition both unnecessary and unlawful to be required and therefore the exacting of it was directly opposite to the Churches Catholicism in the very same nature with their Errors who required Circumcision and the keeping of the Law of Moses as necessary to salvation For whosoever requires harder or heavier conditions of men than God requires of them he it is that is properly an Enemy of the Churches Universality by hindring either Men or Countries from adjoyning themselves to it which were it not for these unnecessary and therefore unlawful conditions in probability would have made them members of it And seeing the present Church of Rome perswades men they were as good for any hope of Salvation they have not to be Christians as not to be Roman Catholicks believe nothing at all as not to believe all which they impose upon them Be absolutely out of the Churches Communion as be out of their Communion or be in any other whether they be not guilty of the same crime with the Donatists and those Zelots of the Mosaical Law I leave it to the judgment of those that understand reason This is sufficient to shew the vanity of this Argument But I add moreover that you neither have named those Protestants who held the Church to have perished for many ages who perhaps held not the destruction but the corruption of the Church not that the true Church but that the pure Church perished or rather that the Church perished not from its life and existence but from its purity and integrity or perhaps from its splendor and visibility Neither have you proved by any one reason but only affirmed it to be a fundamental Error to hold that the Church Militant may possibly be driven out of the world and abolished for a time from the face of the earth 69. Ad § 23. In all these Texts of Scripture which are here alledged in this last Section of this Chapter or in any one of them or in any other doth God say clearly and plainly The Bishop of Rome and that Society of Christians which adheres to him shall be ever the infallible guide of Faith You will confess I presume he doth not and will pretend it was not necessary Yet if the King should tell us the Lord-Keeper should judge such and such causes but should either not tell us at all or tell us but doubtfully who should be Lord-Keeper should we be any thing the nearer for him to an end of contentions Nay rather would not the dissentions about the Person who it
they profess it literally always to be obeyed unless some impiety or some absurdity force us to the contrary and they are not yet arrived to that impudence to pretend that either there is impiety or absurdity in receiving the Communion in both kinds This therefore they if not others are plainly taught by our Saviour in this place But by S. Paul all without exception when he says Let a man examine himself and so let him Eat of this Bread and Drink of this Chalice This a Man that is to examine himself is every man that can do it as is confessed on all hands And therefore it is all one as if he had said let every man examine himself and so let him Eat of this Bread and Drink of this Cup. They which acknowledg Saint Pauls Epistes and Saint Johns Gospel to be the Word of God one would think should not deny but that they are taught these two Doctrines plain enough Yet we see they neither do nor will learn them I conclude therefore that the Spirit may very well teach the Church and yet the Church fall into and continue in Error by not regarding what she is taught by the Spirit 72. But all this I have spoken upon a supposition only and shewed unto you that though these promises had been made unto the present Church of every Age I might have said though they had been to the Church of Rome by name yet no certainty of her Universal Infallibility could be built upon them But the plain truth is that these Promises are vainly arrogated by you and were never made to you but to the Apostles only I pray deal ingenuously and tell me who were they of whom our Saviour says These things have I spoken unto you being present with you c. 14.25 But the comforter shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have told you v. 26 Who are they to whom he says I go away and come again unto you and I have told you before it come to pass v. 28.29 You have been with me from the beginning c. 15. v. 27 And again these things I have told you that when the time shall come you may remember that I told you of them and these things I said not to you at the beginning because I was with you c. 16.4 And because I said these things unto you sorrow hath filled your Hearts v. 6 Lastly who are they of whom he saith v. 12. I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now Do not all these circumstances appropriate this whole discourse of our Saviour to his Disciples that were then with him and consequently restrain the Promises of the Spirit of truth which was to lead them into all truth to their Persons only And seeing it is so is it not an impertinent arrogance and presumption for you to lay claim unto them in the behalf of your Church Had Christ been present with your Church Did the Comforter bring these things to the Remembrance of your Church which Christ had before taught and she had forgotten Was Christ then departing from your Church And did he tell of his departure before it came to pass Was your Church with him from the beginning Was your Church filled with sorrow upon the mentioning of Christs departure Or lastly did he or could he have said to your Church which then was not extant I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now as he speaks in the 13. vers immediately before the words by you quoted And then goes on Howbeit when the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all Truth Is it not the same You he speaks to in the 13. vers and that he speaks to in the 14 And is it not apparent to any one that has but half an Eye that in the 13. he speaks only to them that then were with him Besides in the very Text by you alledged there are things promised which your Church cannot with any modesty pretend to For there it is said the Spirit of Truth not only will guide you into all Truth but also will shew you things to come Now your Church for ought I could ever understand does not so much as pretend to the Spirit of Prophesie and knowledge of future events And therefore hath as little cause to pretend to the former promise of being led by the Spirit into all truth And this is the Reason why both You in this place and generally your writers of Controversies when they entreat of this Argument cite this Text perpetually by halfs there being in the latter part of it a clear and convincing Demonstration that you have nothing to do with the former Unless you will say which which is most ridiculous that when our Saviour said He will teach you c. and he will shew you c. He meant one You in the former clause and another You in the latter 73. Obj. But this is to confine Gods Spirit to the Apostles only or to the Disciples that then were present with him which is directly contrary to many places of Scripture Ans I confess that to confine the Spirit of God to those that were then present with Christ is against Scripture But I hope it is easie to conceive a difference between confining the Spirit of God to them and confining the Promises made in this place to them God may do many things which he does not Promise at all much more which he does not promise in such or such a place 74. Obj. But it is promised in the 14. Chap. that this Spirit shall abide with them for ever Now they in their persons were not to abide for ever and therefore the Spirit could not abide with them in their Persons for ever seeing the coexistence of two things supposes of necessity the existence of either Therefore the promise was not made to them only in their Persons but by them to the Church which was to abide for ever Ans Your Conclusion is not to them only but your Reason concludes either nothing at all or that this Promise of abiding with them for ever was not made to their Persons at all or if it were that it was not performed Or if you will not say as I hope you will not that it was not performed nor that it was not made to their Persons at all then must you grant that the Word for ever is here used in a sense restrained and accommodated to the subject here entreated of and that it signifies not Eternally without end of time but perpetually without interruption for the time of their lives So that the force and sense of the Words is that they should never want the Spirits assistance in the performance of their function And that the Spirit would not as Chirst was to do stay with them for a time and afterwards leave them but would abide with them if they kept their
station unto the very end of their lives which is mans for ever Neither is this use of the word for ever any thing strange either in our ordinary speech wherein we use to say this is mine for ever this shall be yours for ever without ever dreaming of the Eternity either of the thing or Persons And then in Scripture it not only will bear but requires this sense very frequently as Exod. 21.6 Deut. 15.17 his Master shall bore his Ear through with an Awl and he shall serve him for ever Psal 52.9 I will praise thee for ever Psal 61.4 I will abide in thy Tahernacle for ever Psal 119.111 Thy Testimonies have I taken as mine Heritage for ever and lastly in the Epistle to Philemon He therefore departed from thee for a time that thou shouldest receive him for ever 75. And thus I presume I have shewed sufficiently that this for ever hinders not but that the promise may be appropriated to the Apostles as by many other circumstances I have evinced it must be But what now if the place produced by you as a main pillar of your Churches Infallibility prove upon Tryal an Engine to batter and overthrow it at least which is all one to my purpose to take away all possibility of our assurance of it This will seem strange news to you at first hearing and not far from a prodigy And I confess as you here in this place and generally all your Writers of Controversie by whom this Text is urged order the matter it is very much disabled to do any service against you in this question For with a bold sacriledg and horrible impiety somewhat like Procrustes his cruelty you perpetually cut off the Head and Foot the beginning and end of it and presenting to your confidents who usually read no more of the Bible than is alledged by you only these words I will ask my Father and he shall give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of Truth conceal in the mean time the words before and the words after that so the promise of Gods Spirit may seem to be absolute whereas it is indeed most clearly and expresly conditional being both in the words before restrained to those only that love God and keep his commandments and in the words after flatly denied to all whom the Scriptures stile by the name of the World that is as the very Antithesis give us plainly to understand to all wicked and worldly men Behold the place entire as it is set down in your own Bible If ye love me keep my Commandments and I will ask my Father and he shall give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever even the spirit of the Truth whom the. World cannot receive Now from the place there restored and vindicated from your mutilation thus I argue against your pretence We can have no certainty of the Infallibility of your Church but upon this suposition that your Popes are infallible in confirming the Decrees of General Councils we can have no certainty hereof but upon this supposition that the Spirit of truth is promised to him for his direction in this work And of this again we can have no certainty but upon supposal that he performs the condition whereunto the promise of the Spirit of truth is expresly limited viz. That he love God and keep his Commandments and of this finally not knowing the Popes Heart we can have no certainty at all therefore from the first to the last we can have no certainty at all of your Churches Infallibibility This is my first Argument From this place another follows which will charge you as home as the former If many of the Roman See were such men as could not receive the Spirit of Truth even men of the World that is Worldly Wicked Carnal Diabolical men then the Spirit of Truth is not here promised but flatly denied them and consequently we can have no certainty neither of the Decrees of Councils which these Popes confirm nor of the Churches Infallibility which is guided by these Decrees But many of the Roman See even by the confession of the most zealous Defenders of it were such men therefore the Spirit of truth is not here promised but denyed them and consequently we can have no certainty neither of the Decrees which they confirm nor of the Churches Infallibility which guides her self by these Decrees 76. You may take as much time as you think fit to answer these Arguments In the mean while I proceed to the consideration of the next Text alledged for this purpose by you out of S. Paul 1. Epistle to Timothy cap. 3.15 where he saith as you say the Church is the Pillar and ground of truth But the truth is you are somewhat to bold with S. Paul For he says not in formal terms what you make him say the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth neither is it certain that he means so for it is neither impessible nor improbable that the words the Pillar and Gonnd of truth may have reference not to the Church but to Timothy the sense of the place that thou maiest know how to behave thy self as a Pillar and ground of truth in the Church of God which is the house of the living God which exposition offers no violence at all to the words but only supposes an Ellipsis of the Particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek very ordinary Neither wants it some likelihood that S. Paul comparing the Church to a House should here exhort Timothy to carry himself as a Pillar in that House should do according as he had given other Principal men in the Church the name of Pillars rather than having called the Church a House to call it presently a Pillar which may seem somewhat heterogeneous Yet if you will needs have S. Paul refer this not to Timothy but the Church I will not contend about it any farther than to say possibly it may be otherwise But then secondly I am to put you in mind that the Church which S. Paul here speaks of was that in which Timothy conversed and that was a Particular Church and not the Roman and such you will not have to be Universally Infallible 77. Thirdly if we grant you out of Courtesie for nothing can enforce us to it that he both speaks of the Universal Church and says this of it then I am to remember you that many Attributes in Scripture are not Notes of Performance but of Duty and teach us not what the thing or Person is of necessity but what it should be Ye are the Salt of the Earth said our Saviour to his Disciples not that this quality was inseparable from their Persons but because it was their Office to be so For if they must have been so of necessity and could not have been otherwise in vain had he put them in fear of that which follows If the Salt hath lost his
writings be as fit for such a purpose as the Decrees of your Doctors Surely their intent in writing was to conserve us in unity of Faith and to keep us from Error and we are sure God spake in them but your Doctors from whence they are we are not so certain Was the Holy Ghost then unwilling or unable to direct them so that their writings should be fit and sufficient to attain that end they aimed at in writing For if he were both able and willing to do so then certainly he did do so And then their writings may be very sufficient means if we would use them as we should do to preserve us in unity in all necessary points of Faith and to guard us from all pernitious Error 81. If yet you be not satisfied but will still pretend that all these words by you cited seem clearly enough to prove that the Church is Universally infallible without which Unity of Faith could not be conserved against every wind of Doctrin I Ans That to you which will not understand that there can be any means to conserve the unity of Faith but only that which conserves your authority over the Faithful it is no marvel that these words seem to prove that the Church nay that your Church is universally Infallible But we that have no such end no such desires but are willing to leave all men to their liberty provided they will not improve it to a Tyranny over others we find it no difficulty to discern between dedit and promisit he gave at his Ascension and he promised to the Worlds end Besides though you whom it concerns may happily flatter your selves that you have not only Pastors and Doctors but Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists and those distinct from the former still in your Church yet we that are disinteressed persons cannot but smile at these strange imaginations Lastly though you are apt to think your selves such necessary instruments for all good purposes and that nothing can be well done unless you do it that no unity or constancy in Religion can be maintained but inevitably Christendom must fall to ruin and confusion unless you support it yet we that are indifferent and impartial and well content that God should give us his own favours by means of his own appointment not of our choosing can easily collect out of these very words that not the Infallibility of your or of any Church but the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists c. which Christ gave upon his Ascension were designed by him for the compassing all these excellent purposes by their preaching while they lived and by their writings for ever And if they fail hereof the Reason is not any insufficiency or invalidity in the means but the voluntary perversness of the Subjects they have to deal with who if they would be themselves and be content that others should be in the choice of their Religion the servants of God and not of men if they would allow that the way to Heaven is no narrower now than Christ left it his yoak no heavier than he made it that the belief of no more difficulties is required now to Salvation than was in the Primitive Church that no Error is in it self destructive and exclusive from Salvation now which was not then if instead of being zealous Papists earnest Calvinists rigid Lutherans they would become themselves and be content that others should be plain and honest Christians if all men would believe the Scripture and freeing themselves from prejudice and passion would sincerely endeavour to find the true sense of it and live according to it and require no more of others but to do so nor denying their Communion to any that do so would so order their publick service of God that all which do so may without scruple or hypocrisie or protestation against any part of it joyn with them in it who does not see that seeing as we suppose here and shall prove hereafter all necessary Truths are plainly and evidently set down in Scripture there would of necessity be among all men in all things necessary unity of Opinion And notwithstanding any other differences that are or could be unity of Communion and Charity and mutual Toleration By which means all Schism and Heresie would be banished the World and those wretched contentions which now rend and tear in pieces not the Coat but the Members and Bowels of Christ which mutual pride and Tyranny and cursing and killing and damning would fain make immortal should speedily receive a most blessed Catastrophe But of this hereafter when we shall come to the question of Schism wherein I perswade my self that I shall plainly shew that the most vehement accusers are the greatest offenders and that they are indeed at this time the greatest Schismaticks who make the way to Heaven narrower the yoak of Christ heavier the differences of Faith greater the conditions of Ecclesiastical Communion harder and stricter than they were made at the beginning by Christ and his Apostles they who talk of Unity but aim at Tyranny and will have peace with none but with Slaves and Vassals In the mean while though I have shewed how Unity of Faith and Unity of Charity too may be preserved without your Churches Infallibility yet seeing you modestly conclude from hence not that your Church is but only seems to be universally Infallible meaning to your self of which you are a better judge than I Therefore I willingly grant your conclusion and proceed 86. As for your pretence That to find the meaning of those places you confer divers Texts you consult Originals you examin Translations and use all the means by Protestants appointed I have told you before that all this is vain and hypocritical if as your manner and your doctrin is you give not your self liberty of judgment in the use of these means if you make not your selves Judges of but only Advocates for the doctrin of your Church refusing to see what these means shew you if it any way make against the doctrin of your Church though it be as clear as the light at noon Remove prejudice even the ballance and hold it even make it indifferent to you which way you go to heaven so you go the true which Religion be true so you be of it then use the means and pray for Gods assistance and as sure as God is true you shall be lead into all necessary Truth 88. Whereas you say that it were great impiety to imagin that God the lover of Souls hath left no certain infallible means to decide both this and all other differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion I desire you to take heed you commit not an impiety in making more impieties than Gods Commandments make Certainly God is no way obliged either by his promise or his love to give us all things that we may imagine would be convenient for us as formerly I have proved at large
request too unreasonable for modest men to make or for wise Men to grant CHAP. IV. The ANSWER to the Fourth CHAPTER Wherein is shewed that the Creed contains all necessary points of meer Belief AD § 1 2 3 4 5 6. Concerning the Creeds containing the Fundamentals of Christiany this is D. Potters assertion delivered in the 207. p. of his Book The Creed of the Apostles as it is explained in the latter Creeds of the Catholick Church is esteemed a sufficient summary or Catalogue of Fundamentals by the best learned Romanists and by Antiquity 2. By Fundamentals he understands not the Fundamental rules of good Life and Action though every one of these is to be believed to come from God and therefore virtually includes an Article of Faith but the Fundamental Doctrines of Faith such as though they have influence upon our lives as every essential Doctrine of Christianinity hath yet we are commanded to believe them and not to do them The assent of our understandings is required to them but no obedience from our wills 3. But these speculative Doctrines again he distinguishes out of Aquinas Occham and Canus and others into two kinds of the first are those which are the Objects of Faith in and for themselves which by their own nature and Gods prime intention are essential parts of that Gospel such as the Teachers in the Church cannot without Mortal sin omit to teach the Learners such as are intrinsecal to the Covenant between God and Man and not only plainly revealed by God and so certain truths but also commanded to be preacht to all men and to be believed distinctly by all and so necessary truths Of the second sort are Accidental Circumstantial Occasional objects of Faith Millions whereof there are in Holy Scripture such as are to be believed not for themselves but because they are joyned with others that are necessary to be believed and delivered by the same Authority which delivered these Such as we are not bound to know to be Divine Revelations for without any fault we may be Ignorant hereof nay believe the contrary such as we are not bound to examine whether or no they be Divine Revelations such as Pastors are not bound to teach their Flock nor their Flock bound to know and remember no nor the Pastors themselves to know them or believe them or not to disbelieve them absolutely and always but then only when they do see and know them to be delivered in Scripture as Divine Revelations 4. I say when they do so and not only when they may do For to lay an obligation upon us of believing or not disbelieving any Verity sufficient Revelation on Gods part is not sufficient For then seeing all the express Verities of Scripture are either to all men or at least to all learned men sufficiently revealed by God it should be a damnable sin in any learned men actually to disbelieve any one particular Historical verity contained in Scripture or to believe the contradiction of it though he knew it not to be there contained For though he did not yet he might have known it it being plainly revealed by God and this revelation being extant in such a Book wherein he might have found it recorded if with dilligence he had perused it To make therefore any points necessary to be believed it is requisite that either we actually know them to be Divine Revelations and these though they be not Articles of Faith nor necessary to be believed in and for themselves yet indirectly and by accident and by consequence they are so The necessity of believing them being inforced upon us by a necessity of believing this Essential and Fundamental Article of Faith That all Divine Revelations are true which to disbelieve or not to believe is for any Christian not only impious but impossible Or else it is requisite that they be First actually revealed by God Secondly commanded under pain of damnation to be particularly known I mean known to be Divine Revelations and distinctly to be believed And of this latter sort of speculative Divine Verities D. Potter affirmed that the Apostles Creed was a sufficient summary yet he affirmed it not as his own opinion but as the Doctrine of the Ancient Fathers and your own Doctors And besides he affirmed it not as absolutely certain but very probable 5. In brief all that he says is this It is very probable that according to the judgment of the Roman Doctors and the Ancient Fathers the Apostles Creed is to be esteemed a sufficient summary of all those Doctrines which being meerly Credenda and not Agenda all men are ordinarily under pain of Damnation bound particularly to believe 6. Now this assertion you say is neither pertinent to the question in hand nor in it self true Your Reasons to prove it impertinent put into form and divested of impertinencies are these 1. Because the question was not what points were necessary to be explicitely believed but what points were necessary not to be disbelieeved after sufficient proposal And therefore to give a Catalogue of points necessary to be explicitely believed is impertinent 7. Secondly because Errors may be damnable though the contrary truths be not of themselves Fundamental as that Pontius Pilate was our Saviours Judge is not in it self a Fundamental truth yet to believe the contrary were a damnable Error And therefore to give a Catalogue of Truths in themselves Fundamental is no pertinent satisfaction to this demand what Errors are damnable 8. Thirdly because if the Church be not Universally infallible we cannot ground any certainty upon the Creed which we must receive upon the Credit of the Church and if the Church be Universally Infallible it is damnable to oppose her declaration in any thing though not contained in the Creed 9. Fourthly Because not to believe the Articles of the Creed in the true sense is damnable therefore it is frivolous to say the Creed contains all Fundamentals without specifying in what sense the Articles of it are Fundamental 10. Fifthly because the Apostles Creed as D. Potter himself confesses was not a sufficient Catalogue till it was explained by the first Council nor then until it was declared in the second c. by occasion of emergent Heresies Therefore now also as new Heresies may arise it will need particular explanation and so is not yet nor ever will be a compleat Catalogue of Fundamentals 11. Now to the first of these objections I say First that your distinction between points necessary to be believed and necessary not to be disbelieved is more subtil than sound a distinction without a difference There being no point necessary to be believed which is not necessary not to be disbelieved Nor no point to any man at any time in any circumstances necessary not to be disbelieved but it is to the same man at the same time in the same circumstances necessary to be believed Yet that which I believe you would have said I acknowledge true
Scripture which are not contained in the Creed when once we come to know that they are written in Scripture but rather to lay a necessity upon men of believing all things written in Scripture when once they know them to be there written For he that believes not all known Divine Revelations to be true how does he believe in God Unless you will say that the same man at the same time may not believe God and yet believe in him The greater difficulty is how it will not take away the necessity of believing Scripture to be the Word of God But that it will not neither For though the Creed be granted a sufficient summary of Articles of meer Faith yet no man pretends that it contains the Rules of Obedience but for them all men are referred to Scripture Besides he that pretends to believe in God obligeth himself to believe it necessary to obey that which reason assures him to be the Will of God Now reason will assure him that believes the Creed that it is the Will of God he should believe the Scripture even the very same Reason which moves him to believe the Creed Universal and never failing Tradition having given this Testimony both to Creed and Scripture that they both by the works of God were sealed and testified to be the words of God And thus much be spoken in Answer to your first Argument the length whereof will be the more excusable If I oblige my self to say but little to the rest 15. I come then to your second And in Answer to it deny flatly as a thing destructive of it self that any Error can be damnable unless it be repugnant immediatly or mediatly directly or indirectly of it self or by accident to some Truth for the matter of it fundamental And to your example of Pontius Pilat's being Judge of Christ I say the denial of it in him that knows it to be revealed by God is manifestly destructive of this Fundamental truth that all Divine Revelations are true Neither will you find any Error so much as by accident damnable but the rejecting of it will be necessarily laid upon us by a real belief of all Fundamentals and simply necessary Truths And I desire you would reconcile with this that which you have said § 15. Every Fundamental Error must have a contrary Fundamental Truth because of two Contradictory propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true c. 16. To the Third I Answer That the certainty I have of the Creed That it was from the Apostles and contains the principles of Faith I ground it not upon Scripture and yet not upon the Infallibility of any present much less of your Church but upon the Authority of the Ancient Church and written Tradition which as D. Potter hath proved gave this constant Testimony unto it Besides I tell you it is guilty of the same fault which D. Potter's Assertion is here accused of having perhaps some colour toward the proving it false but none at all to shew it impertinent 17. To the Fourth I Answer plainly thus That you find fault with D. Potter for his Vertues you are offended with him for not usurping the Authority which he hath not in a word for not playing the Pope Certainly if Protestants be faulty in this matter it is for doing it too much and not too little This presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the words of God the special senses of men upon the general words of God and laying them upon mens consciences together under the equal penalty of death and damnation this vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the word of God This Deifying our own Interpretations and Tyrannous inforcing them upon others This restraining of the word of God from that latitude and generality and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and the Apostles left them a This perswasion is no singularity of mine but the Doctrin which I have learnt from Divines of great learning and judgment Let the Reader be pleased to peruse the seaventh book of Acontius de Stratag Satanae And Zanchius his last Oration delivered by him after the composing of the discord between him and Amerbachius and he shall confess as much is and hath been the only fountain of all the Schisms of the Church and that which makes them immortal the common incendiary of Christendom and that which as I said before tears into pieces not the coat but the bowels and members of Christ Ridente Turcâ nec dolente Judaeo Take away these Walls of separation and all will quickly be one Take away this Persecuting Burning Cursing Damning of men for not subscribing to the words of Men as the words of God Require of Christians only to believe Christ and to call no man master but him only Let those leave claiming Infallibility that have no title to it and let them that in their words disclaim it disclaim it likewise in their actions In a word take away Tyranny which is the Devils instrument to support errors and superstitions and impieties in the several parts of the World which could not otherwise long withstand the power of Truth I say take away Tyranny and restore Christians to their just and full liberty of captivating their understanding to Scripture only and as Rivers when they have a free passage run all to the Ocean so it may well be hoped by Gods blessing that Universal Liberty thus moderated may quickly reduce Christendom to Truth and Unity These thoughts of peace I am perswaded may come from the God of peace and to his blessing I commend them and proceed 18. Your fifth and last objection stands upon a false and dangerous supposition That new Heresies may arise For an Heresie being in it self nothing else but a Doctrine Repugnant to some Article of the Christian Faith to say that new Heresies may arise is to say that new Articles of Faith may arise and so some great ones among you stick not to profess in plain terms who yet at the same time are not ashamed to pretend that your whole Doctrin is Catholick and Apostolick So Salmeron Non omnibus omnia dedit Deus ut quaelibet aetas suis gaudeat veritatibus quas prior aetas ignoravit God hath not given all things to All So that every age hath its proper Verities which the former age was ignorant of Disp 57. In Ep. ad Rom. And again in the Margent Habet Unumquodque saeculum peculiares Revelationes Divinas Every age hath its peculiar Divine Revelations Where that he speaks of such Revelations as are or may by the Church be made matters of Faith no man can doubt that reads him an example whereof he gives us a little before in these words Unius Augustini doctrina Assumptionis B. Deiparae cultum in Ecclesiam introduxit The Doctrin of Augustin only hath brought in to the Church the Worship of
the Assumption of the Mother of God c. Others again mince and palliate the matter with this pretence that your Church undertakes not to coyn new Articles of Faith but only to declare those that want sufficient declaration But if sufficient declaration be necessary to make any Doctrin an Article of Faith then this Doctrin which before wanted it was not before an Article of Faith and your Church by giving it the Essential form and last complement of an Article of Faith makes it though not a Truth yet certainly an Article of Faith But I would fain know whether Christ and his Apostles knew this Doctrin which you pretend hath the matter but wants the form of an Article of Faith that is sufficient declaration whether they knew it to be a necessary Article of the Faith or no! If they knew it not to be so then either they taught what they knew not which were very strange or else they taught it not and if not I would gladly be informed seeing you pretend to no new Revelations from whom you learnt it If they knew it then either they concealed or declared it To say they concealed any necessary part of the Gospel is to charge them with far greater Sacriledg than what was punished in Ananias and Saphira It is to charge these glorious Stewards and dispensers of the Mysteries of Christ with want of the great vertue requisite in a Steward which is Fidelity It is to charge them with presumption for denouncing Anathema's even to Angels in case they should teach any other doctrin than what they had received from them which sure could not merit an Anathema if they left any necessary part of the Gospel untaught It is in a word in plain terms to give them the lie seeing they profess plainly and frequently that they taught Christians the whole Doctrin of Christ If they did know and declare it then was it a full and formal Article of Faith and the contrary a full and formal Heresie without any need of further declaration and then their Successors either continued the declaration of it or discontinued If they did the latter how are they such faithful depositaries of Apostolick Doctrin as you pretend Or what assurance can you give us that they might not bring in new and false Articles as well as suffer the old and true ones to be lost If they did continue the declaration of it and deliver it to their Successors and they to theirs and so on perpetually then continued it still a full and formal Article of faith and the repugnant doctrin a full and formal Heresie without and before the definition or declaration of a Council So that Councils as they cannot make that a truth or falshood which before was not so so neither can they make or declare that to be an Article of Faith or an Heresie which before was not so The supposition therefore on which this argument stands being false and ruinous whatsoever is built upon it must together with it fall to the ground This explication therefore and restriction of this doctrin whereof you make your advantage was to my understanding unnecessary The Fathers of the Church in after times might have just cause to declare their judgment touching the sense of some general Articles of the Creed but to oblige others to receive their declarations under pain of damnation what warrant they had I know not He that can shew either that the Church of all Ages was to have this Authority or that it continued in the Church for some Ages and then expired He that can shew either of these things let him for my part I cannot Yet I willingly confess the judgment of a Council though not infallible is yet so far directive and obliging that without apparent reason to the contrary it may be sin to reject it at least not to afford it an outward submission for publick peace sake 20. Ad § 7.8 9. I come now to shew that you also have requited D. Potter with a mutual courteous acknowledgment of his assertion That the Creed is a sufficient summary of all the necessary Articles of Faith which are meerly Credenda 21. First then § 8. You have these words That it cannot be denied that the Creed is most full and compleat to that purpose for which the holy Apostles inspired by God meant that it should serve and in that manner as they did intend it which was not to comprehend all particular points of Faith but such general heads as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the Faith of Christ to Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learnt and remembred These words I say being fairly examined without putting them on the rack will amount to a full acknowledgment of D. Potters Assertion But before I put them to the question I must crave thus much right of you to grant me this most reasonable postulate that the doctrin of repentance from dead works which S. Paul saith was one of the two only things which he preacht and the doctrin of Charity without which the same S. Paul assures us that the knowledge of all mysteries and all faith is nothing were doctrins more necessary and requisite and therefore more fit to be preacht to Jews and Gentiles than these under what judge our Saviour suffered that he was buried and what time he rose again which you have taught us cap. 3. § 2. for their matter and nature in themselves not to be Fundamental 22. And upon this grant I will ask no leave to conclude that whereas you say the Apostles Creed was intended for a comprehension of such heads of faith as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the faith of Christ c. You are now for fear of too much debasing those high doctrines as Repentance and Charity to restrain your assertion as D. Potter does his and though you speak indefinitely to say you meant it only of those heads of faith which are meerly Credenda And then the meaning of it if it have any must be this That the Creed is full for the Apostles intent which was to comprehend all such general heads of faith which being points of simple belief were most fit and requisite to be preached to Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred Neither I nor you I believe can make any other sence of your words than this And upon this ground thus I subsume But all the points of belief which were necessary under pain of damnation for the Apostles to preach and for those to whom the Gospel was preached particularly to know and believe were most fit and requisite nay more than so necessary to be preached to all both Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easie learn'd and remembred therefore the Apostles intent by your confession was in this Creed to comprehend all such points And you say the
Commandments and the possibility of keeping them the necessity of imploring the Assistance of Gods Grace and Spirit for the keeping of them how far obedience is due to the Church Prayer for the Dead The cessation of the Old Law are all about Agenda and so cut off upon the first consideration 34. Secondly the Question touching Fundamentals is profitable but not Fundamental He that believes all Fundamentals cannot be damned for any Error in Faith though he believe more or less to be Fundamental than is so That also of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son of Purgatory of the Churches Visibility of the Books of the New Testament which were doubted of by a considerable part of the Primitive Church until I see better reason for the contrary than the bare authority of men I shall esteem of the same condition 35. Thirdly These Doctrines that Adam and the Angels sinned that there are Angels good and bad that those Books of Scripture which were never doubted of by any considerable part of the Church are the word of God that S. Peter had no such primacy as you pretend that the Scripture is a perfect rule of Faith aad consequently that no necessary Doctrine is unwritten that there is no one Society or succession of Christians absolutely Infallible These to my understanding are truths plainly revealed by God and necessary to be believed by them who know they are so But not so necessary that every Man and Woman is bound under pain of damnation particularly to know them to be Divine Revelations and explicitely to believe them And for this reason these with innumerable other points are to be referred to the third sort of Doctrines above mentioned which were never pretended to have place in the Creed There remains one only point of all that Army you Mustred together reducible to none of these Heads and that is that God is and is a Remunerator which you say is questioned by the denial of merit But if there were such a necessary indissoluble coherence between this point and the Doctrine of merit methinks with as much reason and more charity you might conclude That we hold merit because we hold this point Then that we deny this point because we deny merit Beside when Protestants deny the Doctrine of Merits you know right well for so they have declared themselves a thousand times that they mean nothing else but with David that their well doing extendeth not is not truly beneficial to God with our Saviour when they have done all which they are commanded they have done their duty only and no courtesie And lastly with S. Paul that all which they can suffer for God and yet suffering is more than doing is not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed So that you must either misunderstand their meaning in denying Merit or you must discharge their Doctrine of this odious consequence or you must charge it upon David and Paul and Christ himself Nay you must either grant their denial of true Merit just and reasonable or you must say that our good actions are really profitable to God that they are not debts already due to him but voluntary and undeserved Favours and that they are equal unto and well worthy of Eternal Glory which is prepared for them As for the inconvenience which you so much fear That the denial of Merit makes God a giver only and not a rewarder I tell you good Sir you fear where no fear is and that it is both most true on the one side that you in holding good Works meritorious of Eternal Glory make God a rewarder only and not a giver contrary to plain Scripture affirming that The gift of God is Eternal Life And that it is most false on the other side that the Doctrine of Protestants makes God a giver only and not a rewarder In as much as their Doctrine is That God gives not Heaven but to those which do something for it and so his gift is also a Reward but withal that whatsoever they do is due unto God beforehand and worth nothing to God and worth nothing in respect of Heaven and so Mans work is no Merit and Gods reward is still a Gift 36. Put the case the Pope for a reward of your Service done him in writing this Book had given you the Honour and means of a Cardinal would you not not only in humility but in sincerity have professed that you had not merited such a reward And yet the Pope is neither your Creator nor Redeemer nor Preserver nor perhaps your very great Benefactor sure I am not so great as God Almighty and therefore hath no such right and title to your Service as God hath in respect of precedent obligations Besides the work you have done him hath been really advantagious to him and lastly not altogether unproportionable to the forementioned reward And therefore if by the same work you will pretend that either you have or hope to have deserved immortal Happiness I beseech you consider well whether this be not to set a higher value upon a Cardinals Cap than a Crown of immortal Glory and with that Cardinal to prefer a part in Paris before a part in Paradise 37. As for your distinction between Heresies that have been and Heresies that are and Heresies that may be I have already proved it vain and that whatsoever may be an Heresie that is so and whatsoever is so that always hath been so ever since the publication of the Gospel of Christ The Doctrine of your Church may like a Snow-ball increase with rouling and again if you please melt away and decrease But as Christ Jesus so his Gospel is yesterday and to day and the same for ever 38. Our Saviour sending his Apostles to preach gave them no other Commission than this Go teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you These were the bounds of their Commission If your Church have any larger or if she have a Commission at large to teach what she pleases and call it the Gospel of Christ let her produce her Letters patents from Heaven for it But if this be all you have then must you give me leave to esteem it both great sacriledg in you to forbid any thing be it never so small or ceremonious which Christ hath commanded as the receiving of the Communion in both kinds and as high a degree of presumption to enjoyn men to believe that there are or can be any other Fundamental Articles of the Gospel of Christ than what Christ himself commanded his Apostles to teach all men or any damnable Heresies but such as are plainly repugnant to these prime Verities 39. Ad § 16 17. The saying of the most Learned Prelate and excellent man the Arch-Bishop of Armach which shall be set down at the end of N.
43. is as great and as good a Truth and as necessary for these miserable times as can possibly be uttered For this is most certain and I believe you will easily grant it that to reduce Christians to Unity of Communion there are but two ways that may be conceived probable The one by taking away diversity of opinions touching matters of Religion The other by shewing that the diversity of Opinions which is among the several Sects of Christians ought to be no hindrance to their Unity in Communion 40. Now the former of these is not to be hoped for without a miracle unless that could be done which is impossible to be performed though it be often pretended that is unless it could be made evident to all men that God hath appointed some visible Judge of Controversies to whose judgment all men are to submit themselves What then remains but that the other way must be taken and Christians must be taught to set a higher value upon these high points of Faith and obedience wherein they agree than upon these matters of less moment wherein they differ and understand that agreement in those ought to be more effectual to joyn them in one Communion than their difference in other things of less moment to divide them When I say in one Communion I mean in a common Profession of those articles of Faith wherein all consent A joynt worship of God after such a way as all esteem lawful and a mutual performance of all those works of Charity which Christians owe one to another And to such a Communion what better inducement could be thought of than to demonstrate that what was Universally believed of all Christians if it were joyned with a love of truth and with holy obedience was sufficient to bring men to Heaven For why should men be more rigid than God Why should any Error exclude any man from the Churches Communion which will not deprive him of Eternal Salvation Now that Christians do generally agree in all those points of Doctrine which are necessary to Salvation it is apparent because they agree with one accord in believing all those Books of the Old and New Testament which in the Church were never doubted of to be the undoubted Word of God And it is so certain that in all these Books all necessary Doctrines are evidently contained that of all the four Evangelists this is very probable but of S. Luke most apparent that in every one of their Books they have comprehended the whole substance of the Gospel of Christ For what reason can be imagined that any of them should leave out any thing which he knew to be necessary and yet as apparently all of them have done put in many things which they knew to be only profitable and not necessary What wise and honest man that were now to write the Gospel of Christ would do so great a work of God after such a negligent fashion Suppose Xaverius had been to write the Gospel of Christ for the Indians think you he would have left out any Fundamental Doctrine of it If not I must beseech you to conceive as well of S. Matthew and S. Mark and S. Luke and S. John as you do of Xaverius Besides if every one of them have not in them all necessary Doctrines how have they complied with their own design which was as the Titles of their Books shew to write the Gospel of Christ and not a part of it Or how have they not deceived us in giving them such Titles By the whole Gospel of Christ I understand not the whole History of Christ but all that makes up the Covenant between God and Man Now if this be wholly contained in the Gospel of Saint Mark and Saint John I believe every considering man will be inclinable to believe that then without doubt it is contained with the advantage of many other very profitable things in the larger Gospels of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke And that Saint Marks Gospel wants no necessary Article of this Covenant I presume you will not deny if you believe Irenaeus when he says Matthew to the Hebrews in their Tongue published the Scripture of the Gospel When Peter and Paul did Preach the Gospel and found the Church or a Church at Rome or of Rome and after their departure Mark the Scholar of Peter delivered to us in writing those things which had been Preached by Peter and Luke the follower of Paul compiled in a Book the Gospel which was Preached by him And afterwards John residing in Asia in the City of Ephseus did himself also set forth a Gospel 41. In which words of Irenaeus it is remarkable that they are spoken by him against some Hereticks Lib. 3. c. 2. that pretended as you know who do now adaies that some necessary Doctrines of the Gospel were unwritten and that out of the Scriptures truth he must mean sufficient truth cannot be found by those which know not Tradition Against whom to say that part of the Gospel which was Preached by S Peter was written by S Mark and so other necessary parts of it omitted had been to speak impertinently and rather to confirm than confute their Error It is plain therefore that he must mean as I pretend that all the necessary Doctrine of the Gospel which was Preached by Saint Peter was written by Saint Mark. Now you will not deny I presume that Saint Peter Preached all therefore you must not deny that S. Mark wrote all 42. Our next inquiry let it be touching S. Johns intent in writing his Gospel whether it were to deliver so much truth as being believed and obeyed would certainly bring men to Eternal Life or only part of it and to leave part unwritten A great man there is but much less than the Apostle who saith that writing last he purposed to supply the defects of the other Evangelists that had wrote before him which if it were true would sufficiently justifie what I have undertaken that at least all the four Evangelists have in them all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ Neither will I deny but S. Johns secondary intent might be to supply the defects of the former three Gospels in some things very profitable But he that pretends that any necessary Doctrine is in S. John which is in none of the other Evangelists hath not so well considered them as he should do before he pronounce sentence of so weighty a matter And for his prime intent in writing his Gospel what that was certainly no Father in the World understood it better than himself Therefore let us hear him speak Many other signs saith he also did Jesus in the sight of his Disciples which are not written in this Book But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is Christ the Son of God and that believing you may have Life in his name By these are written may be understood either these things are written or these signs are written
Take it which way you will this conclusion will certainly follow That either all that which S. John wrote in his Gospel or less than all and therefore all much more was sufficient to make them believe that which being believed with lively Faith would certainly bring them to Eternal Life 43. This which hath been spoken I hope is enough to justifie my undertaking to the full that it is very probable that every one of the four Evangelists has in his Book the whole substance all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ But for Saint Luke that he hath written such a perfect Gospel in my judgment it ought to be with them that believe him no manner of question Consider first the introduction to his Gospel where he declares what he intends to write in these Words For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a Declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us even as they delivered unto us which from the beginning were Eye-witnesses and Ministers of the Word it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of things from the first to write to thee in order most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast heen instructed Add to this place the entrance to his History of the Acts of the Apostles The former Treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up Weigh well these two places and then answer me freely and ingenuously to these demands 1. Whether S. Luke does not undertake the very same thing which he says many had taken in hand 2. Whether this were not to set forth in order a Declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst Christians 3. Whether the whole Gospel of Christ and every necessary Doctrine of it were not surely believed among Christians 4. Whether they which were Eye-witnesses and Ministers of the Word from the beginning delivered not the whole Gospel of Christ 5. Whether he does not undertake to write in order these things whereof he had perfect understanding from the first 6. Whether he had not perfect understanding of the whole Gospel of Christ 7. Whether he doth not undertake to write to Theophilus of all those things wherein he had been instructed 8. And whether he had not been instructed in all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ 9. Whether in the other Text All things which Jesus began to do and teach must not at least imply all the principal and necessary things 10. Whether this be not the very interpretation of your Rhemish Doctors in their Annotation upon this place 11. Whether all these Articles of the Christian Faith without the belief whereof no man can be saved be not the principal and most necessary things which Jesus taught 12. And lastly whether many things which S. Luke has wrote in his Gospel be not less principal and less necessary than all and every one of these When you have well considered these proposals I believe you will be very apt to think if S. Luke be of credit with you That all things necessary to salvation are certainly contained in his writings alone And from hence you will not choose but conclude that seeing all the Christians in the world agree in the belief of what S. Luke hath written and not only so but in all other Books of Canonical Scripture which were never doubted of in and by the Church the Learned Arch-Bishop had very just and certain ground to say That in these Propositions which without Controversie are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting Salvation and that we have no cause to doubt but that as many as walk according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable Heresie thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and upon the Israel of God 44. Against this you object two things The one that by this Rule seeing the Doctrin of the Trinity is not received universally among Christians the denial of it shall not exclude Salvation The other that the Bishop contradicts himself in supposing a man may believe all necessary Truths and yet superinduce some damnable Heresies 45. To the first I answer what I conceive he would whose words I here justify that he hath declared plainly in this very place that he meant not an absolute but a limited Universality and speaks not of propositions universally believed by all Professions of Christianity that are but only by all those several Professions of Christianity that have any large spread in any part of the world By which words he excludes from the universality here spoken of the denyers of the Doctrin of the Trinity as being but a handful of men in respect of all nay in respect of any of these professions which maintain it And therefore it was a great fault in you either willingly to conceal these words which evacuate your objection or else negligently to oversee them 46. Now for the foul Contradiction wherein I pray does it lie In supposing say you a man may believe all Truths necessary to salvation and yet superinduce a damnable Heresie I answer It is not certain that his words do suppose this neither if they do does he contradict himself I say it is not certain that his words import any such matter For ordinarily men use to speak and write so as here he does when they intend not to limit or restrain but only to repeat and press and illustrate what they have said before S. Athanasius in his Creed tells us The Catholick Faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance and why now do you not tell him that he contradicts himself and supposes that we may worship a Trinity of Persons and one God in substance and yet confound the Persons or divide the Substance which yet is impossible because Three remaining Three cannot be confounded and One remaining One cannot be divided If a man should say unto you he that keeps all the Commandments of God committing no sin either against the love of God or the love of his neighbour is a perfect man Or thus he that will live in constant health had need be exact in his diet neither eating too much nor too little Or thus he that will come to London must go on straight forward in such a way und neither turn to the right hand or to the left I verily believe you would not find any contradiction in his words but confess them as coherent and consonant as any in your Book And certainly if you would look upon this saying of the Bishop with any indifference you
Transubstantiation as is explained one where or other by your School-men Now I beseech you Sir to try your skill and if you can compose their repugnance and make peace between them Certainly none but you shall be Catholick Moderator But if you cannot do it and that after an intelligible manner then you must give me leave to believe that either you do not believe Transubstantiation or else that it is no contradiction that men should subjugate their understandings to the belief of contradictions 48. Ad § 18. This Paragraph consists of two immodest untruths obtruded upon us without shew or shadow of reason and an evident sophism grounded upon an affected mistake of the sense of the word Fundamental 49. The first untruth is that some Protestants make a Church of men scarcely agreeing in one point of faith of men concurring in some one or few Articles of belief and in the rest holding conceits plainly contradictory agreeing only in this one Article that Christ is our Saviour c. Ans This is a shameless Calumny because even these men to the constituting of the very essence of a Church in the lowest degree require not only Faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the World but also submission to his Doctrin in mind and will Now I beseech you Sir tell me ingenuously whether the Doctrin of Christ may be called without blasphemy scarcely one point of Faith Or whether it consists only of some-one or few Articles of belief Or whether there be nothing in it but only this Article That Christ is our Saviour Is it not manifest to all the world that Christians of all Professions do agree with one consent in the belief of all those Books of Scripture which were not doubted of in the ancient Church without danger of damnation Nay is it not apparent that no man at this time can without hypocrisie pretend to believe in Christ but of necessity he must do so Seeing he can have no reason to believe in Christ but he must have the same to believe the Scripture I pray then read over the Scripture once more or if that be too much labour the New Testament only and then say whether there be nothing there but scarcely one point of Faith But some one or two Articles of belief Nothing but this Article only that Christ is our Saviour Say whether there be not there an infinite number of Divine Verities Divine precepts Divine promises and those so plainly and undoubtedly delivered that if any sees them not it cannot be because he cannot but because he will not So plainly that whosoever submits sincerely to the Doctrin of Christ in mind and will cannot possibly but submit to these in act and performance And in the rest which it hath pleased God for reasons best known to himself to deliver obscurely or ambiguously yet thus far at least they agree that the sense of them intended by God is certainly true and that they are without passion or prejudice to endeavor to find it out The difference only is which is that true sense which God intended Neither would this long continue if the walls of separation whereby the Divel hopes to make their Divisions eternal were pulled down and Error were not supported against Truth by human advantages But for the present God forbid the matter should be so ill as you make it For whereas you looking upon their points of difference and agreement through I know not what strange glasses have made the first innumerable and the other scarce a number the Truth is clean contrary that those divine Verities Speculative and Practical wherein they universally agree which you will have to be but a few or but one or scarcely one amount to many millions 〈◊〉 if an exact account were taken of them And on the other side the Points in variance are in comparison but few and those not of such a quality but the Error in them may well consist with the belief and obedience of the entire Covenant ratified by Christ between God and man Yet I would not be so mistaken as if I thought the Errors even of some Protestants unconsiderable things and matters of no moment For the truth is I am very fearful that some of their opininions either as they are or as they are apt to be mistaken though not of themselves so damnable but that good and holy men may be saved with them yet are too frequent occasions of our remissness and slackness in running the race of Christian Perfection of our deferring Repentance and conversion to God of our frequent relapses into sin and not seldom of security in sinning and consequently though not certain causes yet too frequent occasions of many mens damnation and such I conceive all these Doctrines which either directly or obliquely put men in hope of Eternal happiness by any other means saving only the narrow way of sincere and Universal obedience grounded upon a true and lively Faith These Errors therefore I do not elevate or extenuate and on condition the ruptures made by them might be composed do heartily wish that the cement were made of my dearest Blood and only not to be an Anathema from Christ Only this I say that neither are their points of agreement so few nor their differences so many as you make them nor so great as to exclude the opposite Parties from being members of one Church Militant and Joynt Heirs of the Glory of the Church Triumphant 50. Your other palpable untruth is that Protestants are far more bold to disagree even in matters of Faith than Catholick Divines you mean your own in Questions meerly Philosophical or not determined by the Church For neither do they differ at all in matters of Faith if you take the word in the highest sense and mean by matters of Faith such Doctrines as are absolutely necessary to Salvation to be believed or not to be disbelieved And then in those wherein they do differ with what colâ—â—r or shadow of Argument can you make good that they are more bold to disagree than you are in Questions meerly Philosophical or not determined by the Church For is there not as great repugnancy between your assent and dissent your affirmation and negation your Est Est Non Non as there is between theirs You follow your Reason in those things which are not determined by your Church and they theirs in things not plainly determined in Scripture And wherein then consists their greater their far greater boldness And what if they in their contradictory opininions pretend both to rely upon the truth of God doth this make their contradictions ever a whit the more repugnant I had always thought that all contradictions had been equally contradictions and equally repugnant because the least of them are as far asunder as Est and Non Est can make them and the greatest are no farther But then you in your differences by name about Predetermination the Immaculate Conception the Popes
nullity in any decree that a Pope shall make or any Decree of a Council which he shall confirm Particularly it will be at least an even Wager that all the decrees of the Council of Trent are void because it is at most but very probable that the Pope which confirmed them was true Pope 62. Obj. But unless this Question be answered what points of the â—â—â—ed are and what are not Fundamentals the Proteâ—â—eâ—t Doctrine serves only either to make men despare or else to have recourse to those called Papists Answ It seems a little thing will make you despair if you be so sullen as to do so because men will not trouble themselves to satisfie your curious questions And I pray be not offended with me for so esteeming it because as before I told you if you will believe all the points of the Creed you cannot choose but believe all the points of it that are Fundamental though you be ignorant which are so and which are not so Now I believe your desire to know which are Fundamentals proceeds only from a desire to be assured that you do believe them which seeing you may be assured of without knowing which they be what can it be but curiosity to desire to know it Neither may you think to mend your self herein one whit by having recourse to them whom we call Papists for they are as far to seek as we in this point which of the Articles of the Creed are for their nature and matter Fundamental and which are not Particularly you will scarce meet with any amongst their Doctors so adventurous as to tell you for a certain whether or no the conception of Christ by the Holy Ghost his being born of a Virgin his Burial his descent into Hell and the Communion of Saints be points of their own nature and matter Fundamental Such I mean as without the distinct and explicite knowledge of them no man can be saved 63. Obj. We give this certain Rule that all points defined by Christs Visible Church belong to the Foundation of Faith in this sense that to deny any such cannot stand with Salvation Answ So also Protestants give you this more certain rule That whosoever believes heartily those Books of Scripture which all the Christian Churches in the World acknowledge to be Canonical and submits himself indeed to this as to the rule of his belief must of necessity believe all things Fundamental and if he live according to his Faith cannot fail of Salvation But besides what certainty have you that that rule of Papists is so certain By the visible Church it is plain they mean only their own and why their own only should be the Visible Church I do not understand and as little why all points defined by this Church should belong to the Foundation of Faith These things you had need see well and substantially proved before you rely upon them otherwise you expose your self to danger of imbracing damnable Errors instead of Fundamental Truths 67. Ad § 23 24 25. D. P. demands How it can be necessary for any Christian to have more in his Creed than the Apostles bad And this he enforces with many Arguments thus May the Church of after Ages make the narrow way to heaven narrower than our Saviour left it Shall it be a fault to straiten and encomber the Kings high way with publick nuisances and is it lawful by adding new Articles to the Faith to retrench any thing from the Latitude of the King of Heavens high way to Eternal happiness The Yoak of Christ which he said was easie may it be justly made heavier by the Governors of the Church in after Ages The Apostles profess they revealed to the Church the whole Counsel of God keeping back nothing needful for our Salvation What Tyranny then to impose any new unnecessary matters on the Faith of Christians especially as the late Popes have done under the high commanding form Qui non crediderit damnabitur He that believeth not shall be damned If this may be done why then did our Saviour reprehend the Pharisees so sharply for binding heavy burdens and laying them on mens shoulders And why did he teach them that in vain they worshiped God teaching for Doctrines mens Traditions And why did the Apostles call it tempting of God to lay those things upon the Necks of Christians that were not necessary 68. All which interrogations seem to me to contain so many plain and convincing Arguments of the premised Assertion and if you can devise no fair and satisfying answer to them then be so ingenuous as to grant the Conclusion That no more can be necessary for Christians to believe now than was in the Apostles time A conclusion of great importance for the deciding of many Controversies and the disburdening of the Faith of Christ from many incumbrances 70. The Doctor to make good this conclusion argues further thus S. Paul declared to the Ephesians the whole Counsel of God touching their Salvation Therefore that which S. Paul did not declare can be no part of the Counsel of God and therefore not necessary And again S. Paul kept back nothing from the Ephesians that was profitable Therefore he taught them all things necessary to Salvation 71. Neither is it material that these words were particularly directed by S. Paul to the Pastours of the Church For to say nothing that the point here issuable is not Whom he taught whether Priests or Laymen But how much he taught and whether all things necessary it appears plainly out of the Text and I wonder you should read it so negligently as not to observe it that though he speaks now to the Pastors yet he speaks of what he taught not only them but also the Laity as well as them I have kept back nothing says S. Paul that was profitable but have shewed and have taught you publickly and from House to House Testifying I pray observe both to the Jews and also to the Greeks Repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ And a little after I know that ye all among whom I have gone Preaching the Kingdom of God shall see my Face no more Wherefore I take you to record this day that I am Innocent from the Blood of all men for I have kept nothing back but have shewed you all the Counsel of God And again Remember that by the space of three Years I ceased not to warn every one Night and Day with Tears Certainly though he did all these things to the Pastors among the rest nay above the rest yet without Controversie they whom he taught publickly and from House to House The Jews and Greeks to whom he Testified i. e. Preached Faith and Repentance Those all amongst whom he went preaching the Kingdom of God Those Every one whom for three Years together he warned were not Bishops and Pastors only 72. Neither is this to say that the Apostles taught Christians nothing but their Creed nothing of the
is easier for you to declaim as you do than to dispute against it But these men you say must be Hereticks because they separated from the Communion of the Visible Church and therefore also from the Communion of that which they say was invisible In as much as the invisible Church communicated with the visible 35. Ans I might very justly desire some proof of that which so confidently you take for granted That there were no persecuted and oppressed maintainers of the Truth in the days of our Fore-fathers but only such as dissembled their opinions and lived in your Communion And truly if I should say there were many of this condition I suppose I could make my Affirmative much more probable than you can make your Negative We read in Scripture that Elias conceived there was none left besides himself in the whole Kingdom of Israel who had not revolted from God and yet God himself assures us that he was deceived And if such a man a Prophet and one of the greatest erred in his judgment touching his own time and his own Country why may not you who are certainly but a man and subject to the same passions as Elias was mistake in thinking that in former ages in some Countrey or other there were not always some good Christians which did not so much as externally bow their knees to your Baal But this answer I am content you shall take no notice of and think it sufficient to tell you that if it be true that this supposed invisible Church did hypocritically communicate with the visible Church in her corruptions then Protestants had cause nay necessity to forsake their Communion also for otherwise they must have joyned with them in the practice of impieties and seeing they had such cause to separate they presume their separation cannot be Schismatical 36. Yes you reply to forsake the external Communion of them with whom they agree in faith is the most formal and proper sin of Schism Answ Very true but I would fain know wherein I would gladly be informed whether I be bound for fear of Schism to communicate with those that believe as I do only in lawful things or absolutely in every thing whether I am to joyn with them in Superstition and Idolatry and not only in a common profession of the Faith wherein we agree but in a common dissimulation or abjuration of it This is that which you would have them do or else forsooth they must be Schismaticks But hereafter I pray remember that there is no necessity of communicating even with true Believers in wicked actions Nay that there is a necessity herein to separate from them And then I dare say even you being their judge the reasonableness of their cause to separate shall according to my first observation justifie their separation from being Schismatical 37. Arg. But the property of Schism according to D. Potter is to cut off from the hope of salvation the Church from which it separates And these Protestants have this property therefore they are Schismaticks 38. Ans I deny the Syllogism it is no better than this One Smptom of the Plague is a Feaver but such a man hath a Feaver therefore he hath the Plague The true conclusion which issues out of these Premisses should be this Therefore he hath one Symptom of the plague And so likewise in the former therefore they have one property or one quality of Schismaticks And as in the former instance The man that hath one sign of the plague may by reason of the absence of other requisites not have the plague So these Protestants may have something of Schismaticks and yet not be Schismaticks A Tyrant sentencing a man to death for his pleasure and a just judge that condemns a malefactor do both sentence a man to death and so for the matter do both the same thing yet the one does wickedly the other justly What 's the reason because the one hath cause the other hath not In like manner Schismaticks either always or generally denounce damnation to them from whom they separate The same do these Protestants yet are not Schismaticks The Reason because Schismaticks do it and do it without cause and Protestants have cause for what they do The impieties of your Church being generally speaking damnable unless where they are excused by ignorance and expiated at least by a general repentance In fine though perhaps it may be true that all Schismaticks do so yet universal affirmatives are not converted and therefore it follows not by any good Logick that all that do so when there is just cause for it must be Schismaticks The cause in this matter of separation is all in all and that for ought I see you never think of But if these rigid Protestants have just cause to cut off your Church from the hope of salvation How can the milder sort allow hope of salvation to the Members of this Church Ans Distinguish the quality of the Persons censured and this seeming repugnance of their censures will vanish into nothing For your Church may be considered either in regard of those in whom either negligence or pride or worldly fear or hopes or some other voluntary sin is the cause of their ignorance which I fear is the case of the generality of men amongst you or in regard of those who owe their Errors from Truth to want of capacity or default of instruction either in respect of those that might know the truth and will not or of those who would know the truth but all things considered cannot In respect of those that have eyes to see and will not see or those that would gladly see but want eyes or light Consider the former sort of men which your more rigid censures seem especially to reflect upon and the heaviest sentence will not be too heavy Consider the latter and the mildest will not be too mild So that here is no difference but in words only neither are you flattered by the one nor uncharitably censured by the other 39. Your next blow is directed against the milder sort of Protestants who you say involve themselves in the sin of Schism by communicating with those as you call them exterminating Spirits whom you conceive your self to have proved Schismaticks And now load them further with the crime of Heresie For say you if you held your selves obliged under pain of damnation to forsake the Communion of the Roman Church by reason of her Errors which yet you confess were not fundamental shall it not be much more damnable to live in confraternity with these who defend an Error of the failing of the Church which in the Donatists you confess to have been properly Heretical 40. Ans You mistake in thinking that Protestants hold themselves obliged not to communicate with you only or principally by reason of your Errors and Corruption For the true reason according to my third observation is not so much because you maintain Errors and Corruptions
all not only destructive but also hurtful Errors This I say he neither denies nor questions And should he have done so he might have been confuted by evident and express Texts of Scripture When therefore you say That a Church not Erring in Fundamentals doth as much as by Gods assistance lies in her power to do This is manifestly untrue For Gods assistance is alwaies ready to promote her farther It is ready I say but on condition the Church does implore it on condition that when it is offerred in the Divine directions of Scripture and reason the Church be not negligent to follow it If therefore there be any Church which retaining the foundation builds Hay and Stubble upon it which believing what is precisely necessary Errors shamefully and dangerously in other things very profitable This by no means argues defect of Divine assistance in God but neglect of this assistance in the Church Neither is there any reason why such a Church should please her self too much for retaining Fundamental truths while she remains so regardless of others For though the simple defect of some truths profitable only and not simply necessary may consist with Salvation Yet who is there that can give her sufficient assurance that the neglect of such truths is not damnable Besides who is there that can put her in sufficient caution that these Errors about profitable matters may not according to the usual fecundity of Error bring forth others of a higher quality such as are pernitious and pestilent and undermine by secret consequences the very foundations of Religion and Piety Lastly who can say that she hath sufficiently discharged her duty to God and man by avoiding only Fundamental Heresies if in the mean time she be negligent of others which though they do not plainly destroy Salvation yet obscure and hinder and only not block up the way to it Which though of themselves and immediately they damn no man yet are causes and occasions that many men run the race of Christian Piety more remisly than they should many defer their repentance many go on securely in their sins and so at length are damned by means and occasion of these Errors though not for them Such Errors as these though those of the Roman Church be much worse even in themselves damnable and by accident only pardonable yet I say such Errors as these if any Church should tolerate dissemble and suffer them to reign and neglect to reform them and not permit them to be freely yet peaceably opposed and impugned will any wise man say that she hath sufficiently discharged her duty to God and man That she hath with due fidelity dispensed the Gospel of Christ That she hath done what she could and what she ought What shall we say then if these Errors be taught by her and commanded to be taught What if she thunder out her curses against those that will not believe them What if she rave and rage against them and persecute them with Fire and Sword and all kinds of most exquisite torments Truly I do much fear that from such a Church though it hold no Error absolutely unconsistent with Salvation the Candlestick of God either is already removed or will be very shortly and because she is negligent of profitable truths that she will lose those that are Necessary and because she will not be led into all truths that in short time she shall be led into none And although this should not happen yet what mortal man can secure us that not only a probable unaffected ignorance nor only a meer neglect of profitable truths but also a wretchless supine negligence manifest contempt Dissimulation Opposition Oppression of them may consist with Salvation I truly for my part though I hope very well of all such as seeking all truth find that which is necessary who endeavouring to free themselves from all Errors any way contrary to the purity of Christianity yet fail of performance and remain in some yet if I did not find in my self a love and desire of all profitable truth If I did not put away idleness and prejudice and worldly affections and so examine to the bottom all my opinions of Divine matters being prepared in mind to follow God and God only which way soever he shall lead me If I did not hope that I either do or endeavour to do these things certainly I should have little hope of obtaining Salvation 62. Obj. But to oblige any man under pain of damnation to forsake a Church by reason of such Errors against which Christ thought it superfluous to promise his assistance and for which he neither denies his grace here nor his glory hereafter what is it but to make the narrow way to Heaven narrower than Christ left it Answ It is not for Christ himself hath obliged us hereunto He hath forbidden us under pain of damnation to profess what we believe not and consequently under the same penalty to leave that Communion in which we cannot remain without this hypocritical profession of those things which we are convinced to be erroneous But then besides it is here falsely supposed as hath been shewed already that Christ hath not promised assistance to those that seek it but only in matters simply necessary Neither is there any reason why any Church even in this World should despair of Victory over all Errors pernitious or noxious provided she humbly and earnestly implore Divine assistance depend wholly upon it and be not wanting to it Though a Triumph over all sin and Error that is security that she neither doth nor can Err be rather to be desired than hoped for on Earth being a felicity reserved for Heaven 63. Ad § 21. Obj. But at least the Roman Church is as infallible as Protestants and Protestants as fallible as the Roman Church therefore to forsake the Roman Church for Errors what is it but to flit from one Erring Society to another Ans The inconsequence of this Argument is too apparent Protestants may Err as well as the Church of Rome therefore they did so Boys in the Schools know that à Posse ad Esse the Argument follows not He is equally fallible that believes twise two to be four as he that believes them to be twenty yet in this he is not equally deceived and he may be certain that he is not so One Architect is no more infallible than another and yet he is more secure that his work is right and streight who hath made it by the level than he which hath made it by guess and by chance So he that forsakes the Errors of the Church of Rome and therefore renounceth her Communion that he may renounce the profession of her Errors though he knows himself fallible as well as those whom he hath forsaken yet he may be certain as certain as the nature of the thing will bear that he is not herein deceived because he may see the Doctrine forsaken by him repugnant to Scripture and
or any way noxious But that no Church may hope to be secure from all Error simply for this were indeed truly to triumph over all But then we say not that the Communion of any Church is to be forsaken for Errors unfundamental unless it exact with all either a dissimulation of them being noxious or a Profession of them against the dictate of Conscience if they be meer Errors This if the Church does as certainly yours doth then her Communion is to be forsaken rather than the sin of Hypocrisie to be committed Whereas to forsake the Churches of Protestants for such Errors there is no necessity because they Err to themselves and do not under pain of Excommunication exact the profession of their Errors 68. Obj. But the Church may not be left by reason of sin therefore neither by reason of Errors not Fundamental in as much as both sin and Error are impossible to be avoided till she be in Heaven Answ The reason of the consequence does not appear to me But I answer to the Antecedent Neither for sin or Errors ought a Church to be forsaken if she does not impose and joyn them but if she do as the Roman does then we must forsake men rather than God leave the Churches Communion rather than commit sin or profess known Errors to be Divine truths For the Prophet Ezekiel hath assured us that to say the Lord hath said so when the Lord hath not said so is a great sin and a high presumption be the matter never so small 69. Ad § 23. Obj. But neither the Quality nor the number of your Churches Errors could warrant our forsaking of it Not the Quality because we suppose them not Fundamental Not the number because the Foundation is strong enough to support them Answ Here again you vainly suppose that we conceive your Errors in themselves not damnable Though we hope they are not absolutely unpardonable but to say they are pardonable is indeed to suppose them damnable Secondly though the Errors of your Church did not warrant our departure yet your Tyrannous imposition of them would be our sufficient justification For this lays necessity on us either to forsake your company or to profess what we know to be false 70. Obj. Our Blessed Saviour hath declared his Will that we forgive a private offender Seventy Seven times that is without limitation of quantity of time or quality of Trespasses and then how dare we alledge his command that we must not pardon his Church for Errors acknowledged to be not Fundamental Answ He that commands us to pardon our Brother sinning against us so often will not allow us for his sake to sin with him so much as once He will have us do any thing but sin rather than offend any man But his will is also that we offend all the World rather than sin in the least matter And therefore though his will were and it were in our power which yet is false to pardon the Errors of an Erring Church yet certainly it is not his will that we should Err with the Church or if we do not that we should against Conscience profess the Errors of it 71. Ad § 24. Obj. But Schismaticks from the Church of England or any other Church with this very Answer that they forsake not the Church but the Errors of it may cast off from themselves the imputation of Schism Answ True they may make the same Answer and the same defence as we do as a Murtherer can cry not guilty as well as an Innocent person but not so truly nor so justly The question is not what may be pretended but what can be proved by Schismaticks They may object Errors to other Churches as well as we do to yours but that they prove their accusation so strongly as we can that appears not To the Priests and Elders of the Jews imposing that sacred silence mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles S. Peter and S. John answered they must obey God rather than men The three Children to the King of Babylon gave in effect the same answer Give me now any factious Hypocrite who makes Religion the pretence and Cloke of his Rebellion and who sees not that such a one may answer for himself in those very formal words which the Holy Apostles and Martyrs made use of And yet I presume no Christian will deny but this answer was good in the mouth of the Apostles and Martyrs though it were obnoxious to be used by Traitors and Rebels Certainly therefore it is no good consequence to say Schismaticks may make use of this Answer therefore all that do make use of it are Schismaticks But moreover it is to be observed that the cheif part of our defence that you deny your Communion to all that deny or doubt of any part of your Doctrine cannot with any colour be imployed against Protestants who grant their Communion to all who hold with them not all things but things necessary that is such as are in Scripture plainly delivered 72. Obj. But the forsaking the Roman Church opens a way to innumerable Sects and Schisms and therefore it must not be forsaken Answ We must not do evil to avoid evil neither are all courses presently lawful by which inconveniencies may be avoided If all men would submit themselves to the chief Mufty of the Turks it is apparent there would be no divisions yet Unity is not to be purchased at so dear a rate It were a thing much to be desired that there were no divisions yet difference of opinions touching points controverted is rather to be chosen than unanimous concord in damned Errors As it is better for men to go to Heaven by diverse ways or rather by divers Paths of the same way than in the same path to go on peaceably to Hell Amica Pax magis amica Veritas Peace is dear to me but Truth is dearer 74. Ad § 26.27 Here you make D. Potter to say that Protestants did well to forsake the Church of Rome because they judged she retained all means necessary to Salvation Answ Who was ever so stupid as to give this ridiculous reason D. Potter Vindicates Protestants for Schism two ways The one is because they had just and great and necessary cause to separate which Schismaticks never have because they that have it are no Schismaticks For Schism is always a causeless separation The other is because they did not joyn with their separation an uncharitable damning of all those from whom they did divide themselves as the manner of Schismaticks is Now that which he intends for a circumstance of our separation you make him make the cause of it and the motive to it And whereas he says though we separate from you in some things yet we acknowledge your Church a member of the Body of Christ and therefore are not Schismaticks You make him say most absurdly we did well to forsake you because we judged you a member of the Body of Christ
Just as if a Brother should leave his Brothers company in some ill courses and should say to him Herein I forsake you yet I leave you not absolutely for I acknowledge you still to be my Brother and shall use you as a Brother And you perverting his speech should pretend that he had said I leave your company in these ill courses and I do well to do so because you are my Brother so making that the cause of his leaving him which indeed is the cause that he left him no farther 75. Obj. But you say The very reason for which he acquitteth himself for Schism is because he holds that the Church which they forsook is not cut off from the Body of Christ Ans This is true But can you not perceive a difference between justifying his separation from Schism by this reason and making this the reason of his separation If a man denying obedience in some unlawful matter to his lawful Sovereign should say to him herein I disobey you but yet I am no Rebel because I acknowledge you my Sovereign Lord and am ready to obey you in all things lawful should not he be an egregious Sycophant that should accuse him as if he had said I do well to disobey you because I acknowledge you my lawful Soveraign Certainly he that joyns this acknowledgment with his necessitated disobedience does well but he that makes this consideration the reason of his disobedience doth ill 76. Obj. It is an unspeakable comfort to Catholicks you say that we cannot clear our selves from Schism otherwise than by acknowledging that we do not nor cannot cut off your Church from the hope of salvation Ans I beseech you to take care that this false comfort cost you not too dear For why this good opinion of God Almighty that he will not damn men for error who were without their own fault ignorant of the truth should be any consolation to them who having the key of knowledge will neither use it themselves nor permit others to use it who have eyes to see and will not see who have ears to hear and will not hear this I assure you passeth my capacity to apprehend Neither is this to make our salvation depend on yours but only ours and yours not desperatly inconsistent Nor to say we must be damned unless you may be saved but that we assure our selves if our lives be answerable we shall be saved by our knowledge And that we hope and I tell you again Spes est rei incertae nomen that some of you may possibly be the rather saved by occasion of their unaffected Ignorance 80. Ad § 28.29 Whereas D. Potter says There is a great difference between a Schism from them and a Reformation of our selves this you say is a quaint subtilty by which all Schism and sin may be as well excused Ans It seems then in your judgment that Thieves and Adulterers and Murtherers and Traytors may say with as much probability as Protestants that they did no hurt to others but only reform themselves But then methinks it is very strange that all Protestants should agree with one consent in this defence of themselves from the imputation of Schism and that to this day never any Thief or Murtherer should have been heard of to make use of this Apology And then for Schismaticks I would know whether Victor Bishop of Rome who excommunicated the Churches of Asia for not conforming to his Church in keeping Easter whether Novatian that divided from Cornelius upon pretence that himself was elected Bishop of Rome when indeed he was not whether Felicissimus and his Crew that went out of the Church of Carthage and set up altar against altar because having fallen in persecution they might not be restored to the peace of the Church presently upon the intercession of the Confessors whether the Donatists who divided from and damned all the world because all the world would not excommunicate them who were accused only and not convicted to have been Traditors of the sacred Books whether they which for the slips and infirmity of others which they might and ought to tolerate or upon some difference in matters of Order and Ceremony or for some error in Doctrin neither pernitious nor hurtful to faith or piety separate themselves from others or others from themselves or lastly whether they that put themselves out of the Churches unity and obedience because their opinions are not approved there but reprehended and confuted or because being of impious conversation they are impatient of their Churches censure I would know I say whether all or any of these may with any face or without extream impudency put in this plea of Protestants and pretend with as much likelihood as they that they did not separate from others but only reform themselves But suppose they were so impudent as to say so in their own defence falsely doth it follow by any good Logick that therefore this Apology is not to be imployed by Protestants who may say so truly We make say they no Schism from you but only a reformation of our selves This you reply is no good justification because it may be pretended by any Schismatick Very true any Schismatick that can speak may say the same words as any Rebel that makes conscience the cloak of his impious disobedience may say with S. Peter and S. John we must obey God rather than men But then the question is whether any Schismatick may say so truly And to this question you say just nothing but conclude because this defence may be abused by some it must be used by none As if you should have said S. Peter and S. John did ill to make such an answer as they made because impious Hypocrites might make use of the same to palliate their disobedience and rebellion against the lawful commands of lawful Authority 81. Obj. But seeing their pretended Reformation consisted in forsaking the Churches corruptions their Reformation of themselves and their division from you falls out to be one and the same thing Ans Just as if two men having been a long while companions in drunkenness one of them should turn sober this Reformation of himself and disertion of his companion in this ill custom would be one and the same thing and yet there is no necessity that he should leave his love to him at all or his society in other things So Protestants forsaking their own former corruptions which were common to them with you could not choose but withal forsake you in the practice of these corruptions yet this they might and would have done without breach of Charity towards you and without a renunciation of your company in any act of piety and devotion confessedly lawful And therefore though both these were by accident joyned together yet this hinders not but that the end they aimed at was not a separation from you but a reformation of themselves 82. Neither doth their disagreement in the particulars of the
The only Fountain of all these mischiefs being indeed no other than your pouring out a Flood of persecutions against Protestants only because they would not sin be damned with you for company Unless we may add the impatience of some Protestants who not enduring to be Torn in peeces like Sheep by a company of Wolves without resistance chose rather to die like Soldiers than Martyrs 96. Obj. But-they endeavoured to force the Society whereof they were parts to be healed and reformed as they were and if it refused they did when they had power drive them away even their superiours both Spiritual and Temporal as is notorious The proofs hereof are wanting and therefore I might defer my answer until they were produced yet take this beforehand If they did so then herein in my opinion they did amiss for I have learnt from the Ancient Fathers of the Church that nothing is more against Religion than to force Religion and of S. Paul the Weapons of the Christian Warfare are not carnal And great reason For humane violence may make men counterfeit but cannot make them believe and is therefore fit for nothing but to breed form without and Atheism within Besides if this means of bringing men to embrace any Religion were generally used as if it may be justly used in any place by those that have power and think they have truth certainly they cannot with reason deny but that it may be used in every place by those that have powe◠as well as they and think they have truth as well as they what could follow but the maintainance perhaps of truth but perhaps only of the profession of it in one place and the oppression of it in a hundred What will follow from it but the preservation peradventure of Unity but peradventure only of uniformity in particular States and Churches but the immortallizing the greater and more lamentable divisions of Christendom and the World And therefore what can follow from it but perhaps in the judgment of carnal policy the temporal benefit and tranquillity of temporal States and kingdoms but the infinit prejudice if not the desolation of the kingdom of Christ And therefore it well becomes them who have their portions in this life who serve no higher State than that of England or Spain or France nor this neither any further than they may serve themselves by it who think of no other happiness but the preservation of their own fortunes and tranquillity in this World who think of no other means to preserve States but humane power and Machiavillian policy and believe no other Creed but this Regi aut Civitati imperium habenti nihil injustum quod utile that to a King or City that has Ruling Power nothing that is profitable is unjust Such men as these it may become to maintain by worldly power and violence their State-instrument Religion For if all be vain and false as in their judgment it is the present whatsoever is better than any because it is already setled and alteration of it may draw with it change of States and the change of State the subversion of their fortune But they that are indeed Servants and lovers of Christ of Truth of the Church and of Man-kind ought with all courage to oppose themselves against it as a common Enemy of all these They that know there is a King of Kings and Lord of Lords by whose will and pleasure Kings and Kingdoms stand and fall they know that to no King or State any thing can be profitable which is unjust and that nothing can be more evidently unjust than to force weak men by the profession of a Religion which they believe not to lose their own Eternal Happiness out of a vain and needless fear lest they may possibly disturb their temporal quietness There is no danger to any state from any mans opinion unless it be such an opinion by which disobedience to authority or impiety is taught or licenced which sort I confess may justly be punished as well as other faults or unless this sanguinary Doctrine be joyned with it that it is lawful for him by humane violence to enforce others to it Therefore if Protestants did offer violence to other Mens Consciences and compel them to embrace their Reformation I excuse them not much less if they did so to the sacred Persons of Kings and those that were in authority over them who ought to be so secured from violence that even thier unjust and Tyrannous violence though it may be avoided according to that of our Saviour When they persecute you in one Citty fly into another yet may it not be resisted by opposing violence against it Protestants therefore that were guilty of this crime are not to be excused and blessed had they been had they chosen rather to be Martyrs than Murtherers and to die for their Religion rather than to fight for it But of all the men in the World you are the most unfit to accuse them hereof against whom the Souls of Martyrs from under the Altar cry much louder than against all their other Persecutors together Who for these many Ages together have daily sacrificed Hecatombs of Innocent Christians under the name of Hereticks to your blind zeal and furious superstition Who teach plainly that you may propagate your Religion whensoever you have power by deposing of Kings and Invasion of Kingdoms and think when you kill the Adversaries of it you do God good service But for their departing corporally from them whom mentally they had forsaken For their forsaking the external Communion and company of that part of the unreformed part of the Church in their superstitions and impieties thus much of your accusation we embrace and glory in it And say though some Protestants might offend in the manner or the degree of their separation yet certainly their separation it self was not Schismatical but Innocent and not only so but just and necessary 99. Ad § 36. What you cite out of Optatus l. 2. cont Parm. Thou canst not deny but that thou knowest that in the City of Rome there was first an Episcopal Chair placed for Peter wherein Peter the head of the Apostles sate whereof also he was called Cephas in which one Chair Unity was to be kept by all lest the other Apostles might attribute to themselves each one his particular Chair and that he should be a Schismatick and sinner who against that one single Chair should erect another All this is impertinent if it be well lookt into The truth is the Donatists had set up at Rome a Bishop of their faction not with intent to make him Bishop of the whole Church but of that Church in particular Now Optatus going upon S. Cyprians ground of one Bishop in one Church proves them Schismatick for so doing by this Argument S. Peter was first Bishop of Rome neither did the Apostles attribute to themselves each one his particular Chair viz. in that City for in other places
creature that hath skill in Astronomy For as all Astronomers are men but all men are not Astronomers and therefore Astronomy ought not to be put into the definition of men where nothing should have place but what agrees to all men So though all that are truly wise that is wise for Eternity will believe aright yet many may believe aright which are not wise I could wish with all my Heart as Moses did that all the Lords People could Prophesie That all that believe the true Religion were able according to S. Peters injunction to give a reason of the hope that is in them a reason why they hope for Eternal Happiness by this way rather than any other neither do I think it any great difficulty that men of ordinary capacities if they would give their mind to it might quickly be enabled to do so But should I affirm that all true believers can do so I suppose it would be as much against experience and modesty as it is against Truth and Charity to say as you do that they which cannot do so either are not at all or to no purpose true believers And thus we see that the foundations you build upon are ruinous and deceitful and so unfit to support your Fabrick that they destroy one another I come now to shew that your Arguments to prove Protestants Hereticks are all of the same quality with your former grounds which I will do by opposing clear and satisfying Answers in order to them 11. Ad § 13. To the first then delivered by you § 13. That Protestants must be Hereticks because they opposed divers Truths propounded for Divine by the Visible Church I Answer It is not Heresie to oppose any Truth propounded by the Church but only such a Truth as is an essential part of the Gospel of Christ 2. The Doctrines which Protestants opposed were not Truths but plain and impious falshoods Neither thirdly were they propounded as Truths by the Visible Church but only by a Part of it and that a corrupted Part. 12. Ad § 14. The next Argument in the next Particle tells us That every error against any doctrin revealed by God is damnable Heresie Now either Protestants or the Roman Church must err against the word of God But the Roman Church we grant perforce doth not err damnably neither can she because she is the Catholick Church which we you say confess cannot err damnably Therefore Protestants must err against Gods word and consequently are guilty of formal Heresie Whereunto I answer plainly that there be in this argument almost as many falshoods as assertions For neither is every error against any Doctrin revealed by God a damnable Heresie unless it be revealed publickly and plainly with a command that all should believe it 2. D. Potter no where grants that the Errors of the Roman Church are not in themselves damnable though he hopes by accident they may not actually damn some men amongst you and this you your self confess in divers places of your book where you tell us that he allows no hope of Salvation to those amongst you whom ignorance cannot excuse 3. You beg the Question twice in taking for granted First that the Roman Church is the truly Catholick Church which without much favour can hardly pass for a part of it And again that the Catholick Church cannot fall into any error of it self damnable for it may do so and still be the Catholick Church if it retain those Truths which may be an antidote against the malignity of this error to those that held it out of a simple un-affected ignorance Lastly though the thing be true yet I might well require some proof of it from you that either Protestants or the Roman Church must err against Gods word For if their contradiction be your only reason then also you or the Dominicans must be Hereticks because you contradict one another as much as Protestants and Papists 13. Ad § 15. The third Argument pretends that you have shewed already that the Visible Church is Judge of Controversies and therefore Infallible from whence you suppose that it follows that to oppose her is to oppose God To which I answer that you have said onely and not shewed that the Visible Church is Judge of Controversies And indeed how can she be judge of them if she cannot decide them And how can she decide them if it be a question whether she be judge of them That which is questioned it self cannot with any sense be pretended to be fit to decide other questions and much less this question whether it have Authority to judge and decide all questions 2. If she were judge it would not follow that she were infallible for we have many Judges in our Courts of Judicature yet none infallible Nay you cannot with any modesty deny that every man in the world ought to judge for himself what Religion is truest and yet you will not say that every man is infallible 3. If the Church were supposed Infallible yet it would not follow at all much less manifestly that to oppose her declaration is to oppose God unless you suppose also that as she is infallible so by her opposers she is known or believed to be so Lastly If all this were true as it is all most false yet were it to little purpose seeing you have omitted to prove that the Visible Church is the Roman 14. Ad § 16. Instead of a fourth Argument this is presented to us That if Luther were an Heretick then they that agreed with him must be so And that Luther was a formal Heretick you endeavor to prove by this most formal Syllogism To say the Visible Church is not Universal is properly an Heresie but Luthers Reformation was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie Whereunto I Answer first to the first part that it is no way impossible that Luther had he been the inventer and first broacher of a false Doctrin as he was not might have been a formal Heretick and yet that those who follow him may be only so materially and improperly and indeed no Hereticks Your own men out of S. Augustin distinguish between Haeretici Haereticorum sequaces And you your self though you pronounce the leaders among the Arrians formal Hereticks yet confess that Salvian was at least doubtful whether these Arrians who in simplicity followed their Teachers might not be excused by ignorance And about this suspension of his you also seem suspended for you neither approve nor condemn it Secondly to the second part I say that had you not presumed upon our ignorance in Logick as well as Metaphysicks and School Divinity you would never have obtruded upon us this rope of sand for a formal Syllogism It is even Cousin-German to this To deny the Resurrection is properly an Heresie But Luthers Reformation was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie Or to this To say the Visible Church is not Universal
or ill Opinion do gather otherwise than they ought For to this Church for a more powerful Principality it is necessary that all Churches resort that is all faithful People undique of what place soever In which Roman Church the Tradition from the Apostles hath always been conserved from those who are undique every where Answ Though at the first hearing the Glorious Attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome the confounding Hereticks with her Tradition and saying it is necessary for all Churches to resort to her may sound like Arguments for you yet he that is attentive I hope will easily discover that it might be good and rational in Irenaeus having to do with Hereticks who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholicks declining a tryal by Scripture as not containing the Truth of Christ perfectly and not fit to decide Controversies without recourse to Tradition I say he will easily perceive that it might be rational in Irenaeus to urge them with any Tradition of more credit than their own especially a Tradition consonant to Scripture and even contained in it and yet that it may be irrational in you to urge us who do not decline Scripture but appeal to it as a perfect rule of Faith with a Tradition which we pretend is many ways repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition far more general than it self which gives testimony to Scripture and lastly repugnant to it self as giving attestation both to Scripture and to Doctrines plainly contrary to Scripture Secondly that the Authority of the Roman Church was then a far greater Argument of the Truth of her Tradition when it was United with all other Apostolick Churches than now when it is divided from them according to that of Tertullian Had the Churches Erred they would have varied but that which is the same in all cannot be Error but Tradition and therefore though Irenaeus his Argument may be very probable yet yours may be worth nothing Thirdly that fourteen hundred years may have made a great deal of alteration in the Roman Church as Rivers though near the Fountain they may retain their native and unmixt sincerity yet in long Progress cannot but take in much mixture that came not from the Fountain And therefore the Roman Tradition though then pure may now be corrupt and impure and so this Argument being one of those things which are the worse for wearing might in Irenaeus his time be strong and vigorous and after declining and decaying may long since have fallen to nothing Especially considering that Irenaeus plays the Historian only and not the Prophet and says only that the Apostolick Tradition had been always there as in other Apostolick Churches conserved or observed choose you whether but that it should be always so he says not neither had he any warrant He knew well enough that there was foretold a great falling away of the Churches of Christ to Antichrist that the Roman Church in particular was forewarned that she also nay the whole Church of the Gentiles might fall if they look not to their standing and therefore to secure her that she should stand for ever he had no reason nor Authority Fourthly that it appears manifestly out of this Book of Irenaeus quoted by you that the Doctrine of the Chiliasts was in his Judgment Apostolick Tradition as also it was esteemed for ought appears to the contrary by all the Doctors and Saints and Martyrs of or about his time for all that speak of it or whose judgments in the point are any way recorded are for it and Justin Martyr professeth that all good and Orthodox Christians of his time believed it and those that did not he reckons amongst Hereticks Now I demand was this Tradition one of those that was conserved and observed in the Church of Rome or was it not If not had Iraeneus known so much he must have retracted this commendation of that Church If it was then the Tradition of the present Church of Rome contradicts the Ancient and accounts it Heretical and then sure it can be no certain note of Heresie to depart from them who have departed from themselves and prove themselves subject unto error by holding contradictions Fifthly and lastly that out of the Story of the Church it is as manifest as the light at noon that though Iraeneus did esteem the Roman Tradition a great Argument of the Doctrin which he there delivers and defends against the Hereticks of his time viz. that there was one God yet he was very far from thinking that Church was and ever should be a safe keeper and an infallible witness of Tradition in general Inasmuch as in his own life his action proclaimed the contrary For when Victor Bishop of Rome obtruded the Roman Tradition touching the time of Easter upon the Asian Bishops under the pain of Excommunication and damnation Iraeneus and all the other Western Bishops though agreeing with him in his observation yet sharply reprehended him for Excommunicating the Asian Bishops for their disagreeing plainly shewing that they esteemed that not a necessary doctrin and a sufficient ground of excommunication which the Bishop of Rome and his adherents did so account of For otherwise how could they have reprehended him for excommunicating them had they conceived the cause of his excommunication just and sufficient And besides evidently declaring that they esteemed not separation from the Roman Church a certain mark of Heresie seeing they esteemed not them Hereticks though separated and cut off from the Roman Church 31. Obj. S. Austin saith in Psalm cont partem Donati It grieves us to see you so to lie cut off Number the Priests even from the Sea of Peter and consider in that order of Fathers who succeeded to whom she is the Rock which the proud gates of Hell do not overcome Where he seems to say that the Succession in the Sea of Peter was the Rock which our Saviour means when he said upon this Rock will I build my Church Ans I answer First We have no reason to be confident of the truth hereof because S. Austin himself was not but retracts it as uncertain and leaves to the Reader whether he will think that or another more probable Retr l. 1. c. 26. Secondly what he says of the Succession in the Roman Church in this place he says it elsewhere of all the Successions in all other Apostolick Churches Thirdly that as in this place he urgeth the Donatists with separation from the Roman Church as an argument of their Error So elsewhere he presseth them with their Separation from other Apostolick Churches nay more from these than from that because in Rome the Donatists had a Bishop though not a perpetual Succession of them but in other Apostolick Churches they wanted both These scattered men saith he of the Donatists Epist 165. read in the holy Books the Churches to which the Apostles wrote and have no Bishop in them But what is more perverse and
every one of these infallible as well as the Roman For though he make a Panegyrick of the Roman Church in particular and of the rest only in general yet as I have said for point of direction he makes them all equal and therefore makes them choose you whether either all fallible or all infallible Now you will and must acknowledge that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Churches of Ephesus or Corinth or if he did that as experience shews he Erred in doing so and what can hinder but then we may say also that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Roman Church or if he did that he Erred in doing so 38. Ad § 20 21 22 23. The sum of your discourse in these Sections if it be pertinent to the Question must be this Want of Succession of Bishops and Pastors holding always the same Doctrine and of the forms of ordaining Bishops and Priests which are in use in the Roman Church is a certain mark of Heresie But Protestants want all these things Therefore they are Hereticks To which I answer That nothing but wnat of truth and holding Error can make or prove any man or Church Heretical For if he be a true Aristotelian or Platonist or Pyrrhonian or Epicurean who holds the Doctrine of Aristotle or Plato or Pirrho or Epicurus although he cannot assign any that held it before him for many Ages together why should I not be made a true and Orthodox Christian by believing all the Doctrine of Christ though I cannot derive my descent from a perpetual Succession that believed it before me By this reason you should say as well that no man can be a good Bishop or Pastor or King or Magistrate or Father that succeeds a bad one For if I may conform my will and actions to the Commandments of God why may I not embrace his Doctrine with my understanding although my predecessor do not so You have above in this Chapter defined Faith a free Infallible obscure supernatural assent to Divine Truths because they are revealed by God and sufficiently propounded This definition is very phantastical but for the present I will let it pass and desire you to give me some piece of shadow or reason why I may not do all this without a perpetual Succession of Bishops and Pastors that have done so before me You may judge as uncharitably and speak as maliciously of me as your blind zeal to your Superstition shall direct you but certainly I know and with all your Sophistry you cannot make me doubt of what I know that I do believe the Gospel of Christ as it is delivered in the undoubted Books of Canonical Scripture as verily as that it is now day that I see the light that I am now writing and I believe it upon this Motive because I conceive it sufficiently abundantly superabundantly proved to be Divine Revelation And yet in this I do not depend upon any Succession of men that have always believed it without any mixture of Error nay I am fully persuaded there hath been no such Succession and yet do not find my self any way weakned in my Faith by the want of it but so fully assured of the truth of it that not only though your Devils at Lowden do tricks against it but though an Angel from Heaven should gainsay it or any part of it I persuade my self that I should not be moved This I say and this I am sure is true and if you will be so Hypersceptical as to persuade me that I am not sure that I believe all this I desire you to tell me how are you sure that you believe the Church of Rome For if a man may persuade himself he doth believe what he doth not believe then may you think you believe the Church of Rome and yet not believe it But if no man can Err concerning what he believes then you must give me leave to assure my self that I do believe and consequently that any man may believe the aforesaid truths upon the aforesaid motives without any dependence upon any Succession that hath believed it always And as from your definition of Faith so from your definition of Heresie this fancy may be refuted For questionless no man can be an Heretick but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary Error therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretick whether he will or no by want of such a thing that is not in his power to have But that there should have been a perpetual Succession of Believers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in your power therefore our being or not being Hereticks depends not on it Besides what is more certain than that he may make a streight line who hath a Rule to make it by though never man in the World had made any before and why then may not he that believes the Scripture to be the Word of God and the Rule of Faith regulate his Faith by it and consequently believe aright without much regarding what other men either will do or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his Words believed he by his Providence must take order that either by Succession of men or by some other means natural or supernatural it be preserved and delivered and sufficiently notified to be his Word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no Error against it certainly there is no more necessity than that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sin against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgress it certainly they may also preserve directions for their Faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Barr do find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined oftimes make against themselves This they do ignorantly it being in their power to suppress or perhaps to alter them And why then should any man conceive it strange that an erroneous and corrupted Church should preserve and deliver the Scriptures uncorrupted when indeed for many reasons which I have formally alleged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetual Succession of men Orthodox in all points certainly there is no necessity at all of any such neither can the want of it prove any man or any Church Heretical 39. When therefore you have produced some proof of this which was your Major in your former Syllogism That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresie you shall then receive a full answer to your Minor We shall then consider whether your indelible Character be any reality or whether it be a Creature of your own making a fancy of your own imagination And if it be a thing and not only a Word whether our Bishops and Priests have
it not as well as yours and whether some mens persuasion that there is no such thing can hinder them from having it or prove that they have it not if there be any such thing Any more than a mans persuasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will make him not to have taken it if he has or hinder the operation of it And whether Tertullian in the place quoted by you speak of a Priest made a Lay-man by a just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some mark upon Hereticks that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferred on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Popes right or an Usurpation If it were his right whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiastical And if by Ecclesiastical only whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to lose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to lose it those that deprived him of it had power to take it from him Or if not whether they had power to suspend him from the use of it until good caution were put in and good assurance given that if he had it again he would not abuse it as he had formerly done Whether in case they had done unlawfully that took his power from him it may not things being now setled and the present Government established be as unlawful to go about to restore it whether it be not a Fallacy to conclude because we believe the Pope hath no power in England now when the King and State and Church hath deprived him upon just grounds of it therefore we cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schism a man may not withdraw obedience from an Usurped Authority commanding unlawful things Whether the Roman Church might not give Authority to Bishops and Priests to oppose her Errors as well as a King gives Authority to a Judge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Trajan gave his Sword to his Prefect with this commission that if he Governed well he should use it for him if ill against Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to Preach against her corruptions in manners And if so why not against her Errors in Doctrine if she had any Whether she gave them not Authority to Preach the whole Gospel of Christ and consequently against her Doctrine if it should contradict any part of the Gospel of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawful in the Church of Rome for any Lay-man or Woman that has ability to persuade others by Word or by Writing from Error and unto truth And why this Liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other Commission or Vocation than that of a Christian to do a work of Charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of Charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without any unnecessary disturbance of order to persuade men out of a false unto a true way of Eternal happiness Especially the Apostle having assured us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the Error of his way shall save a Soul from Death and shall hide a multitude of Sins Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not Consecrate a Metropolitan of England as well as the Cardinals do the Pope whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the Government in their Hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonical exception Whether the Doctrine that the King is supream head of the Church of England as the Kings of Judah and the first Christian Emperors were of the Jewish and Christian Church be any new found Doctrine Whether it be not true that Bishops being made Bishops have their Authority immediately from Christ though this or that man be not made Bishop without the Kings Authority as well as you say the Pope being Pope has Authority immediately from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the Authority of the Cardinals Whether you do well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more Authority in ordering the affairs of the Church than the great Turk or the Pagan Emperors Whether the King may not give Authority to a Bishop to exercise his function in some part of his Kingdom and yet not be capable of doing it himself as well as a Bishop may give Authority to a Physician to practice Physick in his Diocess which the Bishop cannot do himself Whether if Nero the Emperor would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to Preach the Gospel of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have questioned his Authority to do so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited K. JAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his injunction upon them to do any thing that is lawful Whether a casual irregularity may not be lawfully dispenced with Whether the Popes irregularities if he should chance to incur any be indispensable And if not who is he or who are they whom the Pope is so subject unto that they may dispense with him Whether that be certain which you take for granted That your Ordination imprints a Character and ours doth not Whether the power of Consecrating and Ordaining by imposition of hands may not reside in the Bishops and be derived unto them not from the King but God and yet the King have Authority to command them to apply this power to such a fit person whom he shall commend unto them As well as if some Architects only had the faculty of Architecture and had it immediately by infusion from God himself yet if they were the Kings Subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a fortress for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himself yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his Subjects that has this power to ordain any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it do not follow that whensoever the King commands an House to be Built a Message to be delivered or a Murtherer to be Executed that all these things are presently done without intervention of the Architect Messenger or Executioner As well as that they are ipso facto Ordained and Consecrated who by the Kings Authority are commended to the Bishops to be Ordained and Consecrated Especially seeing the King
if you say so either you want Logick which is a certain sign of an ill disputer or are not pleased to use it which is a worse For speech is a certain sign of a living man yet want of speech is no sure argument that he is dead for he may be dumb and yet living still and we may have other evident tokens that he is so as Eating Drinking Breathing Moving So though the constant and Universal delivery of any Doctrine by the Apostolick Churches ever since the Apostles be a very great argument of the truth of it yet there is no certainty but that truth even Divine truth may through mens wickedness be contracted from its universality and interrupted in its perpetuity and so lose this argument and yet not want others to justifie and support it self For it may be one of those principles which God hath written in all mens Hearts or a conclusion evidently arising from them It may be either contained in Scripture in express terms or deducible from it by apparent consequence If therefore you intend to prove want of a perpetual Succession of Professors a certain note of Heresie you must not content your self to shew that having it is one sign of truth but you must shew it to be the only sign of it and inseparable from it But this if you be well advised you will never undertake First because it is an impossible attempt and then because if you do it you will marr all for by proving this an inseparable sign of Catholick Doctrine you will prove your own which apparently wants it in many points not to be Catholick For whereas you say this Succession requires two things agreement with the Apostles Doctrine and an uninterrupted conveyance of it down to them that challenge it It will be proved against you that you fail in both points and that some things wherein you agree with the Apostles have not been held alwaies as your condemning the Doctrine of the Chiliasts and holding the Eucharist not necessary for Infants and that in many other things you agree not with them nor with the Church for many Ages after For example In mutilation of the Communion in having your Service in such a Language as the Assistants generally understand not your offering to Saints your Picturing of God your worshiping of Pictures 42. Ad § 24. Obj. The true Church must have Universality of place which Protestants wanting cannot avoid the just note of Heresie Answ You have not set down clearly and univocally what you mean by it whether Universality of fact or of right and if of fact whether absolute or comparative and if comparative whether of the Church in comparison of any other Religion or only of Heretical Christians or if in comparison of these whether in comparison of all other Sects conjoyned or in comparison only of any one of them Nor have you proved it by any good argument in any sense to be a certain mark of Heresie For those places of S. Austin do not deserve the name And truly in my judgment you have done advisedly in proving it no better For as for Universality of right or a right to Universality all Religions claim it but only the true has it and which has it cannot be determined unless it first be determined which is the true An absolute Universality and diffusion through all the World if you should pretend to all the World would laugh at you If you should contend for latitude with any one Religion Mahumetism would carry the Victory from you If you should oppose your selves against all other Christians besides you it is certain you would be cast in this suit also If lastly being hard driven you should please your selves with being more than any one Sect of Christians it would presently be replied that it is uncertain whether now you are so but most certain that the time has been when you have not been so Then when the a Hierom. Cont. Luciferianos whole World wondered that it was become Arrian then when Athanasius opposed the World and the World Athanasius then when b In Theodoret. Hist 16. c. l. 2. your Liberius having the contemptible paucity of his adherents objected to him as a note of Error answered for himself There was a time when there were but three opposed the decree of the King and yet those three were in the right and the rest in the wrong then when the Professors of Error surpassed the number of the Professors of truth in proportion as the sands of the Sea do the Stars of the Heaven As c In ep 48. ad Vincentium S. Austin acknowledgeth then when d Commenitorii lib. 1. c. 4. Vincentius confesseth that the Poyson of the Arrians had contaminated not now some certain portion but almost the whole World then when the Author of Nazianzens Life testifies That d In vita Nazianz the Heresie of Arrius had possessed in a manner the whole extent of the World and when Nazianzen found cause to cry out f In Orat. Arian pro seipso Where are they who reproach us with our poverty who define the Church by the multitude and despise the little flock They have the People but we the Faith And lastly when Athanasius was so overborn with Sholes and Floods of Arrians that he was enforced to write a Treatise on purpose g Tom. 2. against those who judge of the truth only by plurality of adherents So that if you had proved want of Univesality even thus restrained to be an infallible note of Heresie there would have been no remedy but you must have confessed that the time was when you were Hereticks And besides I see not how you would have avoided this great inconvenience of laying grounds and storeing up arguments for Antichrist against he comes by which he may prove his Company the true Church For it is evident out of Scripture and confessed by you that though his time be not long his dominion shall be very large and that the true Church shall be then the woman driven into the wilderness 45. Ad § 25.26 You endeavor to prove that the Faith of Protestants is no Faith being destitute of its due qualifications Obj. First you say their belief wanteth certainty because they denying the Universal Infallibility of the Church can have no certain ground to know what Objects are revealed or testified by God Ans But if there be no other ground of certainty but your Churches infallibility upon what certain ground do you know that your Church is infallible Upon what certain ground do you know all those things which must be known before you can know that your Church is infallible As that there is a God that God hath promised his assistance to your Church in all her Decrees that the Scripture wherein this promise is extant is the word of God that those Texts of Scripture which you alledge for your infallibility are incorrupted that that which you
condition with ours And why then may not we be certain of an obscure thing as well as you 51. But then besides I am to tell you that you are here every where extreamly if not affectedly mistaken in the Doctrin of Protestants who though they acknowledge that the things which they believe are in themselves as certain as any demonstrable or sensible verities yet pretend not that their certainty of adherence is most perfect and absolute but such as may be perfected and increased as long as they walk by faith and not by sight And consonant hereunto is their doctrin touching the evidence of the objects whereunto they adhere For you abuse the world and them if you pretend that they hold the first of your two principles That these particular Books are the word of God for so I think you mean either to be in it self evidently certain or of it self and being devested of the motives of credibility evidently credible For they are not so fond as to be ignorant nor so vain as to pretend that all men do assent to it which they would if it were evidently certain nor so ridiculous as to imagine that if an Indian that never heard of Christ or Scripture should by chance find a Bible in his own Language and were able to read it that upon the reading it he would certainly without a miracle believe it to be the word of God which he could not chuse if it were evidently credible What then do they affirm of it Certainly no more than this that whatsoever man that is not of a perverse mind shall weigh with serious and mature deliberation those great moments of reason which may incline him to believe the Divine authority of Scripture and compare them with the light objections that in prudence can be made against it he shall not chuse but find sufficient nay abundant inducements to yield unto it firm faith and sincere obedience Let that learned man Hugo Grotius speak for all the rest in his Book of the Truth of Christian Religion which Book whosoever attentively peruses shall find that a man may have great reason to be a Christian without dependence upon your Church for any part of it and that your Religion is no foundation of but rather a scandal and an objection against Christianity He then in the last Chapter of his second Book hath these excellent words If any be not satisfied with these arguments abovesaid but desires more forcible reasons for confirmation of the excellency of Christian Religion let such know that as there are variety of things which be true so are there divers ways of proving or manifesting the truth Thus is there one way in Mathematicks another in Physicks a third in Ethicks and lastly another kind when a matter of fact is in question wherein verily we must rest content with such Testimonies as are free from all suspicion of untruth otherwise down goes all the frame and use of History and a great part of the art of Physick together with all dutifulness that ought to be between parents and children for matters of practice can no way else be known but by such Testimonies Now it is the pleasure of Almighty God that those things which he would have us to believe so that the very belief thereof may be imputed to us for obedience should not so evidently appear as those things which are apprehended by sense and plain demonstration but only be so far forth revealed as may beget faith and a perswasion thereof in the hearts and minds of such as are not obstinate That so the Gospel may be as a touchstone for tryal of mens judgments whether they be sound or unsound For seeing these arguments whereof we have spoken have induced so many honest godly and wise men to approve of this Religion it is thereby plain enough that the fault of other mens infidelity is not for want of sufficient testimony but because they would not have that to be had and embraced for truth which is contrary to their wilful desires it being a hard matter for them to relinquish their honours and set at naught other commodities which thing they know they ought to do if they admit of Christs Doctrin and obey what he hath commanded And this is the rather to be noted of them for that many other historical narrations are approved by them to be true which notwithstanding are only manifest by authority and not by any such strong proofs and perswasions or tokens as do declare the history of Christ to be true which are evident partly by the confession of those Jews that are yet alive and partly in those companies and congregations of Christians which are any where to be found whereof doubtless there was some cause Lastly seeing the long duration or continuance of Christian Religion and the large extent thereof can be ascribed to no human power therefore the same must be attributed to miracles or if any deny that it came to pass through a miraculous manner this very getting so great strength and power without a miracle may be thought to surpass any miracle 52. And now you see I hope that Protestants neither do nor need to pretend to any such evidence in the doctrin they believe as cannot well consist both with the essence and the obedience of faith Let us come now to the last nullity which you impute to the faith of Protestants and that it is want of prudence Touching which point as I have already demonstrated that wisdom is not essential to faith but that a man may truly believe truth though upon insufficient motives So I doubt not but I shall make good that if prudence were necessary to faith we have better title to it than you and that if a wiser than Solomon were here he should have better reason to believe the Religion of Protestants than Papists the Bible rather than the Council of Trent But let us hear what you can say 53. Ad § 31. You demand then first of all What wisdom was it to forsake a Church confessedly very ancient and besides which there could be demonstrated no other Visible Church of Christ upon earth I answer Against God and truth there lies no prescription and therefore certainly it might be great wisdom to forsake ancient Errors for more ancient Truths One God is rather to be followed than innumerable worlds of men And therefore it might be great wisdom either for the whole Visible Church nay for all the men in the world having wandred from the way of Truth to return unto it or for a part of it nay for one man to do so although all the world besides were madly resolute to do the contrary It might be great wisdom to forsake the Errors though of the only Visible Church much more the Roman which in conceiving her self the whole Visible Church does somewhat like the Frog in the Fable which thought the Ditch he lived in to be all the World 54. You demand again
What wisdom was it to forsake a Church acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation indued with Succession of Bishops c. usque ad Election or Choice I answer Yet might it be great wisdom to forsake a Church not acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation but accused and convicted of many damnable errors certainly damnable to them who were convicted of them had they still persisted in them after their conviction though perhaps pardonable which is all that is acknowledged to such as ignorantly continued in them A Church vainly arrogating without possibility of proof a perpetual Succession of Bishops holding always the same doctrine and with a ridiculous impudence pretending perpetual possession of all the world whereas the world knows that a little before Luthers arising your Church was confined to a part of a part of it Lastly a Church vainly glorying in the dependence of other Churches upon her which yet she supports no more than those crouching Anticks which seem in great buildings to labour under the weight they bear do indeed support the Fabrick For a corrupted and false Church may give authority to preach the Truth and consequently against her own falshoods and corruptions Besides a false Church may preserve the Scripture true as now the Old Testament is preserved by the Jews either not being arrived to that height of impiety as to attempt the corruption of it or not able to effect it or not perceiving or not regarding the opposition of it to her corruptions And so we might receive from you lawful Ordination and true Scriptures though you were a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need we ask your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need we ask your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church is enough to make us a true one As for a Succession of men that held with us in all points of Doctrine it is a thing we need not and you have as little as we So that if we acknowledge that your Church before Luther was a true Church it is not for any ends for any dependence that we have upon you but because we conceive that in a charitable construction you may pass for a true Church Such a Church and no better as you do sometimes acknowledge Protestants to be that is a Company of men wherein some ignorant Souls may be saved So that in this ballancing of Religion against Religion and Church against Church it seems you have nothing of weight and moment to put into your Scale nothing but Smoak and Wind vain shadows and phantastical pretences Yet if Protestants on the other side had nothing to put in their Seal but those negative commendations which you are pleased to afford them nothing but no Unity nor means to procure it no farther extent when Luther arose than Luthers Body no Universality of time or place no visibility or being except only in your Church no Succession of Persons or Doctrine no leader but Luther in a quarrel begun upon no ground but passion no Church no Ordination no Scriptures but such as they received from you if all this were true and this were all that could be pleaded for Protestants possibly with an allowance of three grains of partiality your Scale might seem to turn But then if it may appear that part of these objections are falsly made against them the rest vainly that whatsoever of truth is in these imputations is impertinent to this Tryal and whatsoever is pertinent is untrue and besides that plenty of good matter may be alledged for Protestants which is here dissembled then I hope our Cause may be good notwithstanding these pretences 55. I say then that want of Universality of time and place The invisibility or not existence of the professors of Protestant Doctrine before Luther Luthers being alone when he first opposed your Church Our having our Church Ordinations Scriptures personal and yet not Doctrinal Succession from you are vain and impertinent allegations against the truth of our Doctrine and Church That the entire truth of Christ without any mixture of Error should be professed or believed in all places at any time or in any place at all times is not a thing evident in reason neither have we any Revelation for it And therefore in relying so confidently on it you build your House upon the Sand. And what obligation we had either to be so peevish as to take nothing of yours or so foolish as to take all I do not understand For whereas you say that this is to be choosers and therefore Hereticks I tell you that though all Hereticks are choosers yet all choosers are not Hereticks otherwise they also which choose your Religion must be Hereticks As for our wanting Unity and Means of proving it Luthers opposing your Church upon meer passion our following private men rather than the Catholick Church the first and last are meer untruths for we want not Unity nor means to procure it in things necessary Plain places of Scripture and such as need no interpreter are our means to obtain it Neither do we follow any private men but only the Scripture the Word of God as our rule and reason which is also the gift of God given to direct us in all our actions in the use of this rule And then for Luthers opposing your Church upon meer passion it is a thing I will not deny because I know not his Heart and for the same reason you should not have affirmed it Sure I am whether he opposed your Church upon reason or no he had reason enough to oppose it And therefore if he did it upon passion we will follow him only in his action and not in his passion in his opposition not in the manner of it and then I presume you will have no reason to condemn us unless you will say that a good action cannot be done with reason because some Body before us hath done it upon passion You see then how imprudent you have been in the choice of your arguments to prove Protestants unwise in the choice of their Religion 56. It remains now that I should shew that many reasons of moment may be alledged for the justification of Protestants which are dissembled by you and not put into the Balance Know then Sir that when I say the Religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferred before yours as on the one side I do not understand by your Religion the Doctrine of Bellarmine or Baronius or any other private man amongst you nor the Doctrine of the Sorbon or of the Jesuits or of the Dominicans or of any other particular Company among you but that wherein you all agree or profess to agree the Doctrine of the
Council of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelburg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherein they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect rule of their Faith and Actions that is The Bible The Bible I say The Bible only is the Religion of Protestants Whatsoever else they believe besides it and the plain irrefragable indubitable consequences of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves nor require the belief of it of others without most high and most Schismatical presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe and hope impartial search of the true way to Eternal Happiness do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my Foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councils against Councils some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one Age against a Consent of Fathers of another Age the Church of one Age against the Church of another Age. Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended but there are few or none to be found No Tradition but only of Scripture can derive it self from the Fountain but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in in such an Age after Christ or that in such an Age it was not in In a word there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to build upon This therefore and this only I have reason to believe This I will profess according to this I will live and for this if there be occasion I will not only willingly but even gladly lose my life though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me Propose me any thing out of this Book and require whether I believe it or no and seem it never so incomprehensible to humane reason I will subscribe it with Hand and Heart as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this God hath said so therefore it is true In other things I will take no mans liberty of judgment from him neither shall any man take mine from me I will think no man the worse man nor the worse Christian I will love no man the less for differing in opinion from me And what measure I mete to others I expect from them again I am fully assured that God does not and therefore that men ought not to require any more of any man than this To believe the Scripture to be Gods word to endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it 57. This is the Religion which I have chosen after a long deliberation and I am verily persuaded that I have chosen wisely much more wisely than if I had guided my self according to your Churches authority For the Scripture being all true I am secured by believing nothing else that I shall believe no falshood as matter of Faith And if I mistake the sense of Scripture and so fall into Error yet am I secure from any danger thereby if but your grounds be true because endeavouring to find the true sense of Scripture I cannot but hold my Error without pertinacy and be ready to forsake it when a more true and a more probable sense shall appear unto me And then all necessary truth being as I have proved plainly set down in Scripture I am certain by believing Scripture to believe all necessary Truth And he that does so if his life be answerable to his Faith how is it possible he should fail of Salvation 58. Besides whatsoever may be pretended to gain to your Church the credit of a Guide all that and much more may be said for the Scripture Hath your Church been Ancient The Scripture is more Ancient Is your Church a means to keep men at Unity So is the Scripture to keep those that believe it and will obey it in Unity of belief in matters necessary or very profitable and in Unity of Charity in points unnecessary Is your Church Universal for time or place Certainly the Scripture is more Universal For all the Christians in the World those I mean that in truth deserve this name do now and always have believed the Scripture to be the Word of God whereas only you say that you only are the Church of God and all Christians besides you deny it 59. Thirdly following the Scripture I follow that whereby you prove your Churches infallibility whereof were it not for Scripture what pretence could you have or what notion could we have and by so doing tacitely confess that your selves are surer of the Truth of the Scripture than of your Churches authority For we must be surer of the proof than of the thing proved otherwise it is no proof 60. Fourthly following the Scripture I follow that which must be true if your Church be true for your Church gives attestation to it Whereas if I follow your Church I must follow that which though Scripture be true may be false nay which if Scripture be true must be false because the Scripture testifies against it 61. Fifthly to follow the Scripture I have Gods express warrant and command and no colour of any prohibition But to believe your Church infallible I have no command at all much less an express command Nay I have reason to fear that I am prohibited to do so in these Words call no man Master on Earth They fell by infidelity Thou standest by Faith Be not high minded but fear The Spirit of truth The World cannot receive 62. Following your Church I must hold many things not only above reason but against it if any thing be against it whereas following the Scripture I shall believe many mysteries but no impossibilities many things above reason but nothing against it many things which had they not been revealed reason could never have discovered but nothing which by true reason may be confuted many things which reason cannot comprehend how they can be but nothing which reason can comprehend that it cannot be Nay I shall believe nothing which reason will not convince that I ought to believe it For reason will convince any man unless he be of a perverse mind that the Scripture is the Word of God And then no reason can be greater than this God says so therefore it is true 63. Following your Church I must hold many things which to any mans judgment that will give himself the liberty of judgment will seem much more plainly contradicted by Scripture than the infallibility of your Church appears to be confirmed by it and consequently must be so
foolish as to believe your Church exempted from Error upon less evidence rather than subject to the common condition of mankind upon greater evidence Now if I take the Scripture only for my Guide I shall not need to do any thing so unreasonable 64. If I will follow your Church I must believe impossibilities and that with an absolute certainty upon motives which are confessed to be but only Prudential and probable That is with a weak Foundation I must firmly support a heavy a monstrous heavy building Now following the Scripture I shall have no necessity to undergo any such difficulties 65. Following your Church I must be servant of Christ and a Subject of the King but only Ad placitum Papae I must be prepared in mind to renounce my allegiance to the King when the Pope shall declare him an Heretick and command me not to obey him And I must be prepared in mind to esteem Vertue Vice and Vice Vertue if the Pope shall so determine Indeed you say it is impossible he should do the latter but that you know is a great question neither is it fit my obedience to God and the King should depend upon a questionable Foundation And howsoever you must grant that if by an impossible supposition the Popes commands should be contrary to the law of Christ that they of your Religion must resolve to obey rather the commands of the Pope than the law of Christ Whereas if I follow the Scripture I may nay I must obey my Sovereign in lawful things though an Heretick though a Tyrant and though I do not say the Pope but the Apostles themselves nay an Angel from Heaven should teach any thing against the Gospel of Christ I may nay I must denounce Anathema to him 66. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion which being contrary to Flesh and Blood without any assistance from worldly power wit or policy nay against all the power and policy of the World prevailed and enlarged it self in a very short time all the World over Whereas it is too too apparent that your Church hath got and still maintains her authority over mens Consciences by counterfeiting false miracles forging false stories by obtruding on the World suppositious writings by corrupting the monuments of former times and defacing out of them all which any way makes against you by Wars by persecutions by Massacres by Treasons by Rebellions in short by all manner of Carnal means whether violent or fraudulent 67. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion the first Preachers of Professors whereof it is most certain they could have no worldly ends upon the World that they could not project to themselves by it any of the profits or honours or pleasures of this World but rather were to expect the contrary even all the miseries which the World could lay upon them On the other side the Head of your Church the pretended Successor of the Apostles and Guide of Faith it is even palpable that he makes your Religion the instrument of his ambition and by it seeks to entitle himself directly or indirectly to the Monarchy of the World And besides it is evident to any man that has but half an eye that most of those Doctrines which you add to the Scripture do make one way or other for the honour or temporal profit of the Teachers of them 68. Following the Scripture only I shall embrace a Religion of admirable simplicity consisting in a manner wholly in the worship of God in Spirit and Truth Whereas your Church and Doctrine is even loaded with an infinity of weak childish ridiculous unsavoury superstitions and ceremonies and full of that righteousness for which Christ shall Judge the World 69. Following the Scripture I shall believe that which Universal never-failing Tradition assures me that it was by the admirable supernatural Work of God confirmed to be the Word of God whereas never any miracle was wrought never so much as a lame Horse cured in confirmation of your Churches authority and infallibility And if any strange things have been done which may seem to give attestation to some parts of your Doctrine yet this proves nothing but the truth of the Scripture which foretold that Gods providence permitting it and the wickedness of the World deserving it strange signs and wonders should be wrought to confirm false Doctrine that they which love not the Truth may be given over to strange delusions Neither does it seem to me any strange thing that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude them who have forged so many to deceive the World 70. If I follow the Scripture I must not promise my self Salvation without effectual dereliction and mortification of all Vices and the effectual Practice of all Christian Vertues But your Church opens an easier and a broader way to Heaven and though I continue all my life long in a course of sin and without the Practice of any Vertue yet gives me assurance that I may be let into Heaven at a Postern-gate even by any Act of Attrition at the hour of Death if it be joyned with confession or by an Act of Contrition without confession 71. Admirable are the Precepts of piety and humility of innocence and patience of liberality frugality temperance sobriety justice meekness fortitude constancy and gravity contempt of the World love of God and the love of mankind In a Word of all Vertues and against all vice which the Scriptures impose upon us to be obeyed under pain of damnation The sum whereof is in manner comprised in our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount recorded in the 5 6 and 7. of S. Matthew which if they were generally obeyed could not but make the world generally happy and the goodness of them alone were sufficient to make any wise and good man believe that this Religion rather than any other came from God the fountain of all goodness And that they may be generally obeyed our Saviour hath ratified them all in the close of his Sermon with these universal Sanctions Not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven and again whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them not shall be likned unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rain descended and the flood came and the winds blew and it fell and great was the fall thereof Now your Church notwithstanding all this enervates and in a manner dissolves and abrogates many of these precepts teaching men that they are not Laws for all Christians but Counsels of perfection and matters of Supererrogation that a man shall do well if he do observe them but he shall not sin if he observe them not that they are for them who aim at high places in heaven who aspire with the two sons of Zebede to the right hand or to the left hand of Christ But if a man will be content
is easier to know the Scripture and its sense than for the ignorant in the Roman Church which is the Church and what are her decrees and the sense of them c. 2.107 108 109. In what Language the Scripture is incorrupted and the assurance of it c. 2.55 56 57. The Scripture is capable of the properties of a perfect Rule c. 2.7 In what sense we say the Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith c. 2.8 The Scripture not properly a judge of Controversies but a Rule to judge by c. 2.11 104 155. The Scriptures incorruption more secured by providence than the Roman Churches vigilancy c. 2.24 When Scripture is made the Rule of Controversies those that concern it self are to be excepted c. 2.8 27 156. The Scripture contains all necessary material objects of Faith of which the Scripture it self is none but the means of conveying them to us c. 2.32.159 The Scripture must determine some Controversies else those about the Church and its Notes are undeterminable c. 2.3 The Scripture unjustly charged with increasing Controversies and Contentions c. 2.4 The Scripture is a sufficient means for discovering Heresies c. 2.127 When Controversies are referred to Scripture it is not referring them to the private spirit understanding it of a perswasion pretending to come from the Spirit of God c. 2.110 Protestants that believe Scripture agree in more things than they differ in and their differences are not material c. 4.49 50. Private men if they interpret Scriptures amiss and to ill purposes endanger only themselves when they do not pretend to prescribe to others c. 2.122 The Protestants Security of the way to happiness c. 2.53 Want of Skill in School-Divinity foolishly objected against English Divines Pref. 19. The Principles of the Church of Englands separating from Rome will not serve to justifie Schismaticks c. 5.71 74 80 81 82 85 86. Socinianism and other Heresies countenanced by Romish Writers who have undermined the Doctrin of the Trinity Pref. 17.18 The promise of the Spirits leading into all truth proves not Infallibility c. 3.71 The promise of the Spirits abiding with them for ever may be personal c. 3.74 And it being a conditional promise cuts off the Roman Churches pretence to infallibility c. 3.75 Want of Succession of Bishops holding always the same Doctrin is not a mark of Heresie c. 6.38 41. In what sense Succession is by the Fathers made a mark of the true Church c. 6.40 Papists cannot prove a perpetual Succession of Professors of their Doctrin c. 6.41 T. Tradition proves the Books of Scripture to be Canonical not the Authority of the present Church c. 2.25 53 90 91 92. c. 3.27 Traditional Interpretations of Scripture how ill preserved by the Roman Church c. 2.10 c. 3.46 No Traditional Interpretations of Scripture though if there were any remaining we are ready to receive them c. 2.88 89 c. 3.46 The Traditions distinct from Scripture which Iraeneus mentions do not favour Popery c. 2.144 145 146. The asserting unwritten Traditions though not inconsistent with the truth of Scripture yet disparages it as a perfect Rule c. 2.10 Though our Translations of the Bible are subject to error yet our salvation is not thereby made uncertain c. 2.68 73. Different Translations of Scripture may as well be objected to the Ancient Church as to Protestants c. 2.58 59. The Vulgar Translation is not pure and uncorrupted c. 2.75 76 77 78 79 80. To believe Transubstantiation how many contradictions one must believe c. 4.46 The Doctrin of the Trinity undermined by Roman Doctors Pref. 17 18. The Church may tolerate many things which she does not allow c. 3.47 Gods Truth not questioned by Protestants though they deny points professed by the Church c. 1.12 Protestants question not Gods Truth though denying some truth revealed by him if they know it not to be so revealed c. 3.16 The Truth of the present Church depends not upon the visibility or perpetuity of the Church in all Ages c. 5.21 c. 7.20 The Apostles depositing Truth with the Church is no argument that she should always keep it intire and sincere c. 2.148 The promise of being led into all truth agrees not equally to the Apostles and to the Church c. 3.34 A Tryal of Religion by Scripture may well be refused by Papists c. 2 3. U. Violence and force to introduce Religion is against the nature of Religion and unjustly charged upon Protestants c. 5.96 What Visible Church was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman Ans Pref. 19. c. 5.27 That there should be always a visible unerring Church of one denomination is not necessary c. 5.27 The Visible Church may not cease though it may cease to be visible c. 5.13 14 41. The Church may not be Visible in the Popish sense and yet may not dissemble but profess her faith c. 5.18 The great uncertainties salvation in the Roman Church depends on c. 2.63 to 73. inclusive Their uncertainty of the right administration of Sacraments c. 2.63 to 68. inclusive The Churches Vnity by what means best preserved c. 3.81 c. 4.13 17 40. Pretence of Infallibility a ridiculous means to Vnity when that is the chief question to be determined c. 3.89 Vnity of Communion how to be obtained c. 4.39 40. Vnity of external Communion not necessary to the being a Member of the Catholick Church c. 5.9 Vniversality of a Doctrin no certain sign that it came from the Apostles c. 3.44 Want of Vniversality of place proves not Protestants to be Hereticks and may as well be objected against the Roman Church c. 6.42 55. We would receive unwritten Traditions derived from the Apostles if we knew what they were c. 3.46 The Vulgar Translation not pure and incorrupted c. 2.75 76 77 78 79 80. W. The whole Doctrin of Christ was taught by the Apostles and an Anathema denounced against any that should bring in new doctrins c. 4.18 The wisdom of Protestants justified in forsaking the errors of the Roman Church c. 6.53 54. The wisdom of Protestants shewed at large against the Papists in making the Bible their Religion c. 6. from 56. to 72. inclusive FINIS ADDITIONAL DISCOURSES OF Mr. Chillingworth NEVER BEFORE PRINTED Imprimatur Ex Aedib Lambeth Jun. 14. 1686. GUIL NEEDHAM RR. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. Ã Sacr. Domesticis LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1687. CONTENTS I. A Conference betwixt Mr. Chillingworth and Mr. Lewgar whether the Roman Church be the Catholick-Church and all out of her Communion Hereticks or Schismaticks p. 1. II. A Discourse against the Infallibility of the Roman Church with an Answer to all those Texts of Scripture that are alledged to prove it p. 26. III. A Conference concerning the Infallibility of the Roman Church proving that the present Church of Rome either errs in her worshiping the Blessed Virgin or that the Ancient Church did err in condemning the Collyridians as Hereticks p. 41. IV. An
he is present with them he commands every one what he will have done and there is no need as yet of making his last Will. So also Christ as long as he was present on Earth though neither now is he wanting for a time commanded his Apostles whatsoever was necessary But just as an Earthly Father when he feels his Death approaching fearing lest after his Death the Brothers should fall out and quarrel he calls in Witnesses and translates his Will from his dying Heart into Writing-Tables that will continue long after him Now if any controversie arises among the Brothers they do not go to his Tomb but consult his last Will and thus he whilst he rests in his Grave does speak to them in those silent Tables as if he were alive He whose Testament we have is in Heaven Therefore we are to enquire his pleasure in the Gospel as in his last Will and Testament It is plain from hence that he knew not of any living speaking audible Judge furnished with Authority and infallibility to decide this controversie had he known any such assisted with the Spirit of God for this purpose it had been horrible impiety against God and the Churches peace to say there was none such or the Spirit of God was not able by his assistance to keep this Judge from being hindred with partiality from seeing the Truth Had he thought the Bishop of Romes speaking ex Cathedra to be this Judge now had been the time to have said so but he says directly the contrary and therefore it is plain he knew of no such Authority he had Neither is there the like reason for a Judge finally and with Authority to determine controversies in Religion and civil differences For if the controversie be about Mine and Thine about Land or Money or any other thing it is impossible that both I should hold the possession of it and my adversary too and one of us must do injury to the other which is not fit it should be Eternal But in matters of Doctrine the case is clean contrary I may hold my opinion and do my Adversary no wrong and my Adversary may hold his and do me none Texts of Scripture alledged for Infallibility The Texts alledged for it by Cardinal Perron and Mr. Stratford are partly Prophecies of the Old Testament partly promises of the New 1. Esa 1.26 Thou shalt be called the City of Justice the faithful City 2. Esa 52.1 Through thee shall no more pass any that is uncircumcised or unclean 3. Esa 59.21 As for me this is my Covenant with them saith the Lord my spirit that is upon thee and my Words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed saith the Lord from henceforth and for ever 4. Esa 62.6 Upon thy Walls Hierusalem I have appointed Watchmen all the day and all the night for ever they shall not hold their peace 5. Jerem. 31.33 This shall be the Covenant which I will make with the House of Israel saith the Lord I will give my Law in their Bowels and in their Heart I will write it and I will be their God and they shall be my People 6. Ezek. 36.27 I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them 7. Ezek. 37.26 I will give my Sanctification in the midst of them for ever 8. Ose 2.19 20. I will dispouse thee to me for ever and I will dispouse thee to me in Justice and judgment and in mercy and commiserations I will Espouse thee to me in Faith and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. 9. Cant. 4.7 Thou art all fair my Love and there is no spot in thee Now before we proceed further let us reflect upon these places and make the most of them for the behoof of the Roman Church and I believe it will then appear to any one not veil'd with prejudice that not one of them reaches home to the conclusion intended which is That the Roman Church is infallible The first place perhaps would do something but that there are Three main exceptions against it 1. That here is no evidence not so much as that of probability that this is here spoken of the Church of Rome 2. That it is certain that it is not spoken of the Church of Rome but of the Nation of the Jews after their conversion as is apparent from that which follows Zion shall be redeemed with judgment and her converts with righteousness 3. That it is no way certain that whatsoever Society may be called the City of righteousness the faithful City must be infallible in all her Doctrine with a great deal more probability it might challenge from hence the priviledg of being Impeccable which yet Roman Catholicks I believe do not pretend to The Second place is liable to the same exceptions the Church of Rome is not spoken of in it but Zion and Hierusalem and it will serve as well nay better to prove Impeccability than Infallibility The third place is the Achilles for this opinion wherein every writer Triumphs but I wonder they should do so considering the Covenant here spoken of is made not with the Church of Rome but with Zion and them that turn from transgression in Jacob the words are And the Redeemer shall come out of Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord. As for me this is my Covenant with them saith the Lord My Spirit that is in thee and my Words c. Now if the Church of Rome be Zion and they that turn from iniquity in Jacob they may have Title to this Covenant if not they must forbear and leave it to the Jews after their Conversion to whom it is appropriated by a more Infallible Interpreter than the Pope I mean S. Paul Rom. 11.26 And it seems the Church of Rome also believes as much for otherwise why does she in the Margent of her Bible send us to that place of S. Paul for an exposition Read the 4th place and you shall find nothing can be made of it but this that the Watchmen of Hierusalem shall never cease importuning God for the sending of the Messias To this purpose speaks the Prophet in ver 1. For Zions sake I will not hold my peace and for Hierusalems sake I well not rest until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness But the words following these that are objected make it most evident which are ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence and give him no rest till he establish and till he make Hierusalem a praise in the Earth The 5th place had they set down entirely for very shame they could not have urged it for the Infallibility of the Roman Church The words are Behold the days come saith the Lord
or any other Creature for the object of their Devotion shews plainly that they gave it her for her Relation to Christ Answ The Collyridians could not say this as appears by what has been said before As it is a most shameless slander upon Gods Church and such as without repentance will lie heavy upon his Soul that uttered it that the Collyridians might as justly and truly have said all this for themselves as Papists for themselves Reply To this I reply four things 1. That to my last and most convincing reason you have answered as much as you could I believe but yet you have answered nothing and I am well content you should do so for where nothing is to be had the King himself must lose his right 2. That if I had thought or spoke better of the Collyridians than they deserved yet I cannot see how this had been to slander the Church of Rome 3. That I did not positively affirm that the Collyridians might do so but desired only it might be inquired into and examined whether for the reasons alledged they might not do so 4. And lastly upon a thorow examination of the matter I do now affirm what before I did not that the Collyridians for ought appears to the contrary might justly and truly have said for the justification of their practice as much nay the very same things that the Papists do for theirs For they might have said we are Christians and believe the Scripture and believe there is but one God We offer not to the Blessed Virgin as believing she is God but the Mother of God our worship of her is not absolute but relative not terminated in her but given to her for her Sons sake And if our practice may be allowed we are content to call our Oblation not a Sacrifice but a present neither is there any reason why it should be called a Sacrifice more than the Offering and Burning a Taper to the honour of the same Virgin All this the Collyridians might have said for themselves and therefore I believe you will have more cause to repent you for daubing over impiety with untempered Morter than I shall have for slandering the Roman Church with a matter of truth 9. Demand Whether therefore one of the two must not of necessity follow that either the Ancient Church Erred in condemning the Opinion and Practice of the Collyridians as Heretical or else that the Church of Rome Errs in approving the same opinion and the same practice in effect which in them was condemned That is whether the Church of Rome must not be Heretical with the Collyridians or else the Collyridians Catholicks with the Church of Rome Answ It appears by the former answers that neither did the Ancient Church Err in condemning the opinion and practice of the Collyridians as Heretical nor doth the Church of Rome approve the same opinion or the same practice Reply The Substance of the former answers is but this That the Papists offer to the Virgin Mary and other Saints Wax Tapers by way of gift or present not of Sacrifice and to her not as to a God but as the Mother of God but that the Collyridians offered to her by way of Sacrifice as to a Sovereign Power and Deity To this I have replied and proved that it no way appears that the Collyridians did believe the Blessed Virgin to be a Sovereign Power and Deity or that she was not subordinate to God Then that their offering might be called a gift as well as the Papists and the Papists a Sacrifice as well as theirs both of them being a Consumption of a Creature in honour of the Blessed Virgin and neither of them more than so and therefore either the Collyridians must stand with the Church of Rome or the Church of Rome fall with the Collyridians It had been perhaps sufficient for me thus to have vindicated my Assertion from contrary objections without taking on my self the burden of proving a Negative yet to free from all doubt the conformity of the Roman Church with the Collyridians in this point I think it will be necessary to shew and that by many very probable Arguments that Epiphanius did not impute to them the pretended Heresie of believing the Virgin Mary God for then that other Evasion that their oblation is a Sacrifice and the Papists is not together with this pretence will of it self fall to the ground Now an opinion may be imputed to a man two ways either because he holds and maintains it expresly and formally and in terms or because it may by a rational deduction be collected from some other opinion which he does hold In this latter sense I deny not but Epiphanius might impute this opinion we speak of to the Collyridians as a consequence upon their practice which practice they esteemed lawful But that they held it and owned it formally and in terms this I say Epiphanius does not impute to them which I think for these seven reasons My first Reason is because he could not justly do so and therefore without evident proof we may not say he did so for this were to be uncharitable to him in making him uncharitable to others Now I say he could not justly charge them with this opinion because he was not informed of any such opinion that they held but only of their practice and this practice was no sufficient proof that they held this opinion That his information reached no further than their Practice appears out of his own Words I have heard saith he Haeres 78. another thing with great astonishment that some being madly affected to the Blessed Virgin endeavour to bring her in in Gods place being mad and besides themselves For they report that certain Women in Arabia have devised this Vanity to have meetings and offer a Cake to the Blessed Virgin The same practice he sets down Haeres 79. But that he was informed of any such opinion that they held he has not a Word or Syllable to any such purpose and yet if he had been informed of any here had been the place to set it down which certainly writing his Book rather of Heretical opinions than practices he would not have omitted to do if there had been occasion his silence therefore is a sufficient Argument that he was not informed of any such opinion that they held Now that their practice was no assurance that they held this opinion it is manifest because they might ground it not upon this opinion that she was God but upon another as false though not altogether so impious That the Worship of Oblations was not proper to God alone And therefore though Epiphanius might think or fear that possibly they might ground their practice upon that other impious opinion and therefore out of abundant caution confute that also as he doth obliquely and in a word and once only in all his long discourse by telling them that our Saviour called her Woman yet he had no
thing provided you do not call it a sacrifice So again Haeres 79. besides his putting cunningly ipsa fuit which before we took notice of he makes no scruple to put in Dogma and Sacrificium wheresoever it may be for his purpose Epiphanius his title to this Heresie is Against the Collyridians who offer to Mary Petavius puts in Sacrifice Again in the same page before D. he puts in his own illo dogmate and whereas Epiphanius says in all this he makes it in all this Opinion Pag. 1061. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he translates this womanish Opinion whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though perhaps it may signifie a thought or act of thinking yet I believe it never signifies an Opinion which we hold Ibid. at B. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this he renders this Opinion Pag. 1064. at C. Nor that we should offer to her name simply and absolutely he makes it Nor that we should offer sacrifice to her name So many times is he fain to corrupt and translate him partially lest in condemning the Collyridians he might seem to have involved the practice of the Roman Church in the same Condemnation My Seventh and last Reason is this Had Epiphanius known that the Collyridians held the virgin Mary to be a Sovereign power and Deity then he could not have doubted whether this their offering was to her or to God for her whereof yet he seems doubtful and not fully resolved as his own words intimate Haeres 79. ad fin Quam multa c. How many things may be objected against this Heresie for idle Women either worshipping the Blessed Virgin offer unto her a Cake or else they take upon them to offer for her this foresaid ridiculous oblation Now both are foolish and from the Devil These Arguments I suppose do abundantly demonstrate to any man not viel'd with prejudice that Epiphanius imputed not to the Collyridians the Heresie of believing the Virgin Mary God and if they did not think her God there is then no reason imaginable why their oblation of a Cake should not be thought a Present as well as the Papists offering a Taper or that the Papists offering a Taper should not be thought a Sacrifice as well as their offering a Cake and seeing this was the difference pretended between them this being vanished there remains none at all So that my first Conclusion stands yet firm that either the Ancient Church erred in condemning the Collyridians or the present errs in approving and practising the same worship An ADVERTISEMENT The Reader when he meets with the Phrase Catholick Doctrin in the two following Discourses must remember that it does not signifie Articles of Faith determined in any General Councils which might be looked upon as the Faith of the whole Church but the Current and Common Opinion of the Age which obtained in it without any known opposition and contradiction Neither need this be wondred at since they are about matters far removed from the Common Faith of Christians and having no necessary influence upon good life and manners whatsoever necessity by mistake of some Scriptures might be put upon them IV. An Argument drawn from the admitting Infants to the Eucharist as without which they could not be saved against the Churches Infallibility THE Condition without the performance whereof no man can be admitted to the Communion of the Church of Rome is this that he believe firmly and without doubting whatsoever the Church requires him to believe More distinctly and particularly thus He must believe all that to be divine Revelation which that Church teaches to be such as the Doctrin of the Trinity the Hypostatical union of two natures in the person of Christ The procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son the Doctrin of Transubstantiation and such like Whatsoever that Church teaches to be necessary he must believe to be necessary As Baptism for Infants Faith in Christ for those that are Capable of Faith Penance for those that have committed mortal sin after Baptism c. Whatsoever that Church declares expedient and profitable he must believe to be expedient and profitable as Monastical Life Prayer to Saints Prayer for the Dead going on Pilgrimages The use of Pardons Veneration of holy Images and Reliques Latin Service where the people understand it not Communicating the Laity in one kind and such like Whatsoever that Church holdeth lawful he must believe lawful As to Marry to make distinction of Meats as if some were clean and others unclean to flie in time of Persecution for them that serve at the Altar to live by the Altar to testifie a truth by Oath when a lawful Magistrate shall require it to possess Riches c. Now is it impossible that any man should certainly believe any thing unless either it be evident of it self or he have some certain reason at least some supposed certain reason and infallible ground for his belief Now the Doctrins which the Church of Rome teacheth it is evident and undeniable that they are not evident of themselves neither evidently true nor evidently credible He therefore that will believe them must of necessity have some certain and infallible ground whereon to build his belief of them There is no other ground for a Mans belief of them especially in many points but only an assurance of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome No man can be assured that that Church is infallible and cannot err whereof he may be assured that she hath erred unless she had some new promise of divine assistance which might for the future secure her from danger of erring but the Church of Rome pretends to none such Nothing is more certain than that that Church hath erred which hath believed and taught irreconcileable Contradictions one whereof must of necessity be an Error That the Receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist is necessary for Infants and that the receiving thereof is not necessary for them That it is the will of God that the Church should administer the Sacrament to them and that it is not the will of God that the Church should do so are manifest and irreconcileable Contradictions Supposing only that which is most evident that the Eucharist is the same thing of the same vertue and efficacy now as it was in the primitive Church That Infants are the same things they were have as much need are capable of as much benefit by the Eucharist now as then As subject to irreverent carriages then as now And lastly that the present Church is as much bound to provide for the spiritual good of Infants as the Ancient Church was I say these things supposed the propositions before set down are plain and irreconcileable Contradictions whereof the present Roman Church doth hold the Negative and the Ancient Church of Rome did hold the Affirmative and therefore it is evident that either the present Church doth err in holding something not necessary which is so or that the Ancient Church did
pretend to derive from Apostolick Tradition Especially when the * Sess XIII Council of Constance the Patron of it confesses that Christs institution was under both kinds and that the faithful in the Primitive Church received it in both Licet Christ us c. Although Christ after his Supper instituted and administred this venerable Sacrament under both kinds Although in the Primitive Church this Sacrament were received by the faithful under both kinds Non obstante c. Yet all this notwithstanding this Custom for the avoiding of Scandals to which the Primitive Church was as obnoxious as the present is was upon just reason brought in that Laicks should receive only under one kind Brought in therefore it was and so is one of those Doctrines which Lerinensis calls inducta non tradita inventa non accepta c. therefore all the Doctrine of the Roman Church does not descend from Apostolick Tradition But if this Custom came not from the Apostles from what Original may we think that it descended Certaintainly from no other than from the belief of the substantial presence of whole Christ under either kind For this opinion being once setled in the Peoples minds that they had as much by one kind as by both both Priest and People quickly began to think it superfluous to do the same thing twice at the same time and thereupon being as I suppose the Custom required that the Bread should be received first having received that they were contented that the Priest should save the pains and the Parish the charge of unnecessary reiteration This is my Conjecture which I submit to better judgments but whether it be true or false one thing from hence is certain That immemorial Customs may by degrees prevail upon the Church such as have no known beginning nor Author of which yet this may be evidently known that their beginning whensoever it was was many years nay many Ages after the Apostles * S. Paul commands that nothing be done in the Church but for edification 1 Cor. 14.26 He says and if that be not enough he proves in the same place that it is not for edification that either Publick Prayers Thanksgiving and Hymns to God or Doctrine to the People should be in any Language which the Assistants generally understand not 27 28. and thereupon forbids any such practice though it were in a Language miraculously infused into the speaker by the Holy Ghost unless he himself or some other present could and would interpret He tells us that to do otherwise is to speak into the Air 9.11 That it is to play the Barbarians to one another That to such Blessings and Thanksgivings the ignorant for want of understanding cannot say Amen He clearly intimates that to think otherwise is to be Children in understanding Lastly in the end of the Chapter he tells all that were Prophets and Spiritual among the Corinthians That the things written by him are the Commandments of God Hereupon Lyranus upon the place acknowledgeth that in the Primitive Church Blessings and all other Services were done in the Vulgar Tongue Cardinal Cajeton likewise upon the place tells us that out of this Doctrine of S. Paul it is consequent That it were better for the Edification of the Church that the publick Prayers which are said in the Peoples hearing should be delivered in a Language common both to the Clergy and the People And I am confident that the Learnedst Antiquary in the Roman Church cannot nay that Baronius himself were he alive again could not produce so much as one example of any one Church one City one Parish in all the Christian World for five hundred years after Christ where the Sermons to the People were in one Language and the Service in another Now it is confest on all hands to be against sense and reason that Sermons should be made to the People in any Language not understood by them and therefore it follows of necessity that their Service likewise was in those Tongues which the People of the place understood But what talk we of 500. years after Christ when even the Lateran Council held in the year 1215. makes this Decree Quoniam in plerisque Because in many parts within the same City and Diocess People are mixed of divers Languages having under one Faith divers rites and fashions we strictly command that the Bishops of the said Cities or Dioceses provide fit and able men who according to the diversities of their Rites and Languages may celebrate Divine Services and administer the Sacraments of the Church instructing them both in word and example Now after all this if any man will still maintain that the Divine Service in unknown Tongues is a matter of Apostolick Tradition I must needs think the World is grown very impudent There are divers Doctrines in the Roman Church which have not yet arrived to the honour to be Donatae civitate to be received into the number of Articles of Faith which yet press very hard for it and through the importunity and multitude of their Attorneys that plead for them in process of time may very probably be admitted Of this rank are the Blessed Virgins Immaculate conception The Popes Infallibility in determining Controversies His superiority to Councils His indirect Power over Princes in Temporalties c. Now as these are not yet matters of Faith and Apostolick Traditions yet in after Ages in the days of our great Grandchildren may very probably become so so why should we not fear and suspect that many things now pass currantly as points of Faith which Ecclesia ab Apostolis Apostoli à Christo Christus à Deo recepit which perhaps in the days of our great Grandfathers had no such reputation Cardinal Perron teaches us two Rules whereby to know the Doctrine of the Church in any Age. The first is when the most eminent Fathers of any Age agree in the affirmation of any Doctrine and none of their Contemporaries oppose or condemn them that is to be accounted the Doctrine of the Church The second when one or more of these Eminent Fathers speak of any Doctrine not as Doctors but as witnesses and say not I think so or hold so but the Church holds and believes this to be Truth This is to be accounted the Doctrine of the Church Now if neither of these Rules be good and certain then are we destitute of all means to know what was the publick Doctrine of the Church in the days of our Fathers But on the other side if either of them be true we run into a worse inconvenience for then surely the Doctrine of the Millinaries must be acknowledged to have been the Doctrine of the Church in the very next Age after the Apostles For both the most eminent Fathers of that time and even all whose Monuments are extant or mention made of them viz. Justin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian Melito Sardensis agree in the affirmation of this point and none of their
believe would prove his intent had not the corruptions of the Roman Church possessed and infected even the publick Service of God among them in which their Communion was required and did not the Church of Rome require the Belief of all her Errors as the condition of her Communion But howsoever be his reasons conclusive or not conclusive certainly this was the profest opinion of him and divers others as by name Cassander and Baldwin who though they thought as ill of the Doctrine of the most prevailing part of the Church of Rome as Protestants do yet thought it their duty not to separate from her Communion And if there were any considerable number of considerable men thus minded as I know not why any man should think there was not then it is made not only a most difficult but even an impossible thing to know what was the Catholick Judgment of our Fathers in the points of controversie seeing they might be joyned in Communion and yet very far divided in opinion They might all live in obedience to the Pope and yet some think him head of the Church by Divine right others as a great part of the French Church at this day by Ecclesiastical constitution others by neither but by Practice and Usurpation wherein yet because he had Prescription of many Ages for him he might not justly be disturbed All might go to Confession and yet some only think it necessary others only profitable All might go to Mass and the other Services of the Church and some only like and approve the Language of it others only tolerate it and wish it altered if it might be without greater inconvenience All might receive the Sacrament and yet some believe it to be the Body and Blood of Christ others only a Sacrament of it Some that the Mass was a true and proper Sacrifice others only a Commemorative Sacrifice or the Commemoration of a Sacrifice Some that it was lawful for the Clergy to deny the Laiety the Sacramental Cup others that it was lawful for them to receive in one kind only seeing they could not in both Some might adore Christ as present there according to his Humanity others as present according to his Divine Nature only Some might pray for the Dead as believing them in Purgatory others upon no certain ground but only that they should rather have their Prayers and Charity which wanted them not than that they which did want them should not have them Some might pray to Saints upon a belief that they heard their Prayers and knew their Hearts others might pray to them meaning nothing but to pray by them that God for their sakes would grant their Prayers others thirdly might not pray to them at all as thinking it unnecessary others as fearing it unlawful yet because they were not fully resolved only forbearing it themselves and not condemning it in others Uncle I pray you then remember also what it is that Protestants do commonly taunt and check Catholicks with is it not that they believe Traditions It is a meer Calumny that Protestants condemn all kind of Traditions who subscribe very willingly to that of Vincentius Lerinensis That Christian Religion is res tradita non inventa a matter of Tradition not of mans invention is what the Church received from the Apostles and by consequence what the Apostles delivered to the Church and the Apostles from Christ and Christ from God Chemnitius in his Examen of the Council of Trent hath liberally granted seven sorts of Traditions and Protestants find no fault with him for it Prove therefore any Tradition to be Apostolick which is not written Shew that there is some known Word of God which we are commanded to believe that is not contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament and we shall quickly shew that we believe Gods Word because it is Gods and not because it is written If there were any thing not written which had come down to us with as full and Universal a Tradition as the unquestioned Books of Canonical Scripture That thing should I believe as well as the Scripture but I have long fought for some such thing and yet I am to seek Nay I am confident no one point in Controversie between Papists and Protestants can go in upon half so fair Cards for to gain the esteem of an Apostolick Tradition as those things which are now decried on all hands I mean the opinion of the Chiliasts and the Communicating Infants The latter by the confession of Cardinal Perron Maldonate and Binius was the Custom of the Church for 600 years at least It is expresly and in terms vouched by S. Austin for the Doctrine of the Church and an Apostolick Tradition it was never instituted by General Council but in the use of the Church as long before the First general Council as S. Cyprian before the Council There is no known Author of the beginning of it all which are the Catholick marks of an Apostolick Tradition and yet this you say is not so or if it be why have you abolisht it The former Lineally derives its pedigree from our Saviour to St. John from S. John to Papias from Papias to Just in Martyr Irenaeus Melito Sardensis Tertullian and others of the two first Ages who as they generally agree in the Affirmation of this Doctrine and are not contradicted by any of their Predecessors so some of them at least speak to the point not as Doctors but Witnesses and deliver it for the Doctrine of the Church and Apostolick Tradition and condemn the contrary as Heresie And therefore if there be any unwritten Traditions these certainly must be admitted first or if these which have so fair pretence to it must yet be rejected I hope then we shall have the like liberty to put back Purgatory and Indulgences and Transubstantiation and the Latin Service and the Communion in one kind c. none of which is of Age enough to be Page to either of the forenamed Doctrines especially the opinion of the Millenaries Uncle What think you means this word Tradition No other thing certainly but that we confute all our Adversaries by the Testimony of the former Church saying unto them this was the belief of our Fathers Thus were we taught by them and they by theirs without stop or stay till you come to Christ We confute our Adversaries by saying thus Truly a very easie confutation But saying and proving are two Mens Offices and therefore though you be excellent in the former I fear when it comes to the Tryal you will be found defective in the Latter Uncle And this no other but the Roman Church did or could ever pretend to which being in truth undeniable and they cannot choose but grant the thing Their last refuge is to laugh and say that both Fathers and Councils did Err because they were men as if Protestants themselves were more Is it not so as I tell you No indeed it is not by your
employ their time and wits and tongues and pens in the maintenance and propagation of it Thus Paul V. and Gregory XV. Yet this is not all For Thirdly You bind men by Oaths to defend the new opinion and to oppose the ancient So the University of Paris Yet still you proceed further For Fourthly By your General Councils confirmed by your Popes you have declared and defined that this new invention is agreeable and consequently that the ancient Doctrin is repugnant to the Catholick Faith to Reason to the Holy Scripture So the Council of Basil These things I entreat you weigh well in your Consideration and put not into the Scale above a just allowance not above three grains of partiality and then tell me whether you can with reason or with modesty suppose or desire that we should believe or think that you believe that all the points of Doctrin which you contest against us were delivered at first by Christ and his Apostles and have ever since by the Succession of Bishops and Pastors been preserved inviolate and propagated unto you The Patrons I confess of this new Invention set not much by the Decree of the Council of Basil for it but plead very hard for a full and final definition of it from the Sea Apostolick and finding the conspiring opposition of the ancient Fathers to be the main impediment of their purpose it is strange to see how confidently they ride over them First Says * Disp 51. in Epist ad Rom. Salmeron in the place forecited they press us with multitude of Doctors of whom we must not say that they err in a matter of such moment We answer says he out of †De moribus Eeclesia lib 1. cap. 2. S. Austin and the Doctrin of S. Thomas That the argument drawn from Authority is weak Then to that multitude of Doctros we oppose another multitude Thirdly We object to the contrary the efficacy of reasons which are more excellent than any Authority Some of them reckon two hundred Fathers other as Bandellus almost three hundred Cajetan fifteen but those as he says irrefragable But as a wise Shepheard said pauperis est numerare pecus Some of those whom they produce are of an exolete Authority and scarce worthy of memory Lastly Against this objected multitude we answer with the word of God * Exod. 23.2 Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil Neither shalt thou in judgment yield to the sentence of many to depart from the truth For when the Donatists gloried in the multitude of their Authors S. Austin answered it was a sign of a cause destitute of truth to rely only upon the Authority of many men which may err It falls out sometimes also that from some one Doctor especially if he be famous proceeds a multitude of followers of his Opinion and some taken with an humble and pious fear choose rather to follow the Opinion of another against their mind than to bring out of their own wit any thing new lest they should so bring any new thing into the Church Whose humility as it is to be praised so the confidence of others is not to be condemned who for the love of truth fear not to bring in better things Thus S. Hierome in his Sermon of the Assumption if it be his fears to affirm that the Virgin Mary is assumed into Heaven and thinks it rather to be piously desired than rashly defined But * In the Margint here he says The Doctrin of S. Austin alone hath brought into the Church the Worship of the blessed Virgins Assumption S. Austin more happily dared to affirm it and settle it with many argument by which adventure this the Church hath gained that perswaded by his reasons she hath believed it and celebrates it in her worship But they fetch their arguments from the Antiquity of the Doctors to which always greater honour was given than to Novelties But I answer old men are praisers of ancient times but we affirm the younger the Doctors are the more perspicacious Moreover we say that although they were ancient yet they were men and themselves held under the darkness of Original sin and might err But go to who are these Ancients are they Apostles are they Ambrose or Hierom or Austin but none of them discuss'd this Controversie on purpose Chrysostom is opposed in his Commentary on S. Matthew where he saith though Christ were not a sinner yet he has humane Nature from a sinner Understand says Salmeron from her who of her self and according to the condition of nature was a sinner Thomas says that Chrysostom speaks exorbitantly for he constitutes the Virgin under actual sin Or that the Commentaries which go up and down under his name ane not his Or that these passages are adjectitious Or if they be indeed his with the good leave and favour of so great a man they are to be rejected Neither ought any man to marvel that he Bernard and Thomas and Bonaventure and Alexander of Ales and Albert and Durand and Egidius and Lastly The greater part followed that opinion both because they were men and because in progress of time new mysteries are revealed which before were unknown For as holiness of life purgeth no man from sin so it frees no man from danger of error Every age finds out some verities proper to it self which the former ages were ignorant of and there in the Margin Every age hath its peculiar divine revelations Thus far Salmeron by whom we may see That Protestants are not the only men who say that the Fathers may err but that Roman Catholicks too can and dare valiantly break through and tread under their feet though perhaps with cap in hand and some shew of reverence and even ride over whole bands of Fathers when they stand in their way Another great Achilles for the same opinion is one Joannes Baptista Poza a Jesuite and Professor of Divinity at Complutum He in his fourth Book of his Elacidarium Deiparae pleads very earnestly to have it defined and labours very lustily to remove all exceptions to the contrary but above all those many ones That there is no Tradition for it That the stream of Ancient Tradition is against and therefore well and worthily may it be condemned for an Heresie but to be Canonized among the Articles of Faith it can with no reason expect To the Second exception he brings two answers which Salmeron it seems forgot in the prosecution whereof he hath many excellent passages which I have thought good to cull out of him to evidence the wonderful reverence and constant regard of the present Church of Rome to the Tradition of the Ancient The first That it is possible the Writings of the Fathers out of which these Testimonies against the Immaculate conception are taken may be corrupted But to shew it probable they are so in these places he speaks not one word of sense nor so much as any colourable reason