first it must be declared whether you mean the Catholick Church or a true part of the Catholick Church For there is not the like reason of these to error Against the Catholick Church Hell Gates shall not prevail against particular when Christ doth remove the Candlestick out of his place they do Witness the Churches of Africk sometimes most Catholick And thus it seems you must take this term since your doubt was Whether the Church of England be of the true Church or no. Besides I must desire to know what manner of Errors you mean whether even the least or only deadly and such as bar from salvation which the Apostle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heresies of perdition 2 Pet. 2.1 Take now your own choice for if you speak of every errour the Proposition is false even of the Catholick Church much more of any particular Church Yea I add further not only of the Catholick Church by denomination from the greatest part or by representation as the Pastors or Prelates thereof met in a Council which is still the mixt Church but even that which is Christs true body whereof he is the Saviour and which shall be with him for ever As for deadly and damnable errors this true and properly called Church both in the whole and every part of the mixt Church is yet priviledged from them finally For it is kept by the power of God to salvation it is not possible the Elect should thus be seduced Truth it is That by such errors particular visible Assemblies universally and obstinately defending them become falsly called Churches from which we are to separate our selves Example in the Synagogue and in Churches of the Arians Now let us see your Assumption But the Church of England Head and Members King Clergy and People yea a whole Council of Protestants may err by your own grant I answer The Church of England that is the Elect in the Church of England which only are truly called the Church can never deadly err This no Protestant will grant ye The mixt Church of England Head Members King Clergy and the residue of the people and a whole Council of Protestants may err damnably and therefore much more fall into lesser errors This they grant And if they shall so err obstinately they shall deservedly lose the name of a trâ—e Church But they deny they do thus err yea they deny that they err de facto at all What follows in Conclusion Ergo No true Church This shortness in suppressing the Verb would make a Man think you meant to cover the fault of your Discourse And indeed you might by that means easily beguile another but I cannot be perswaded you would willingly beguile your self Sure you were beguiled if you meant it thus Ergo it is no true Church See your Argument in the like A faithful Witness cannot lye But Socrates or Aristides may lye by his own grant Ergo no faithful Witness He that stands upright cannot fall But you Mr. Waddesworth by your own grant may fall Ergo stand not upright Perhaps your meaning was Ergo it may become no â—rue Church to wit when it shall so err damnably But then it follows not There is now no salvation in it and therefore come out of it now When you shew that I shall account â—ou have done wisely to go out of it Shew â—â—at in any one Point and take me with â—ou In the mean while for my part I shall sooner trust that Chapman that shall say to me Lo here is a perfect Yard I will measure as truly as I can and when I have done take the Yard and measure it your self than him that shall say here is thus much ye shall not need to measure it but take it on my Word Yea though one of his Apprentices should stand by and say he could not deceive me though he would as Benedictus à Benedictis tells the present Pope Volens nolens errare non potâ—s Where you relate your endeavour to defend the Church of England and tell of the Puritans rejecting those Arguments you could use from the Authority of the Church and of the ancient â—octors interpreting Scriptures against them flying to their own arrogant Spirit I cannot excuse them for the former nor subscribe to your accusation in the latter Perhaps you have met with some more fanatical Brownists or Anabaptists whom here you call Puritans But these that are commonly so called which differ from the Church of England about Church Government and Ceremonies only give indeed too little to the Authority of Men how holy learned or ancient soever Which is their fault and their great fault especially in matters of this nature yet they fly not to their own Spirit as you charge them That which you add That you perceived the most Protestants did frame the like evasions when you came to answer the Arguments against them on the other side When you shall shew this in particulars I shall believe it In the mean while I believe you thought so for commonly mediocrities are aggravated with the hatred and slandered with the names of both extreams But in the question between the Popish faction and us you might easily have discerned why the Argument from bare Authority is not of such validity For Ceremonies and matters of order may be ordered by wise Men and are not the worse but the better if they be ancient yea if they be common to us with Rome which Puritans will by no means allow In Doctrine if holy Men yea if an Angel from Heaven shall innovate any thing we are not to admit it Now the Controversies between the Romanists and us are most about Doctrine and they exceed as much in extolling the authority of the Ancients in their private Opinions and incommodious and strained speeches as the Puritans in depressing them We hold the mean and give as much to the Authority and Testimonies of the Fathers as may stand with the truth of Holy Scriptures and as themselves defer to the writing of others or require to be given to their own Next you tell of your following their Opinion who would make the Church of England and the Church of Rome still to be all one in Essential Points and the differences to be accidental Confessing the Church of Rome to be a true Church though sick or corrupted and the Protestants to be derived from it and reformed This Opinion is not only as you write favoured of many great Scholars in England but is the common Opinion of all the best Divines of the reformed Churches that are or have been in the World as I shewed in part of another Work which as I remember you had a sight of Wherein yet I fear you mistake the term accidental which doth not import that our differences are but slight and of small consideration but that all those Opinions and Abuses which we reform and cut off are not of the Faith but superfluous and foreign yea
will persist in them And yet further if there be any doubt he must manifest unto me which is the Catholick Church Thirdly to make it full Apostasie he should have convinced me to have swarved and backslidden as you know the Greek Word signifies like Iulian renouncing his Baptism and forsaken totally all Christian Religion a horrible imputation though false nor so easily proved as declaimed But I thank God daily that I am become Catholick as all our Ancestors were till of late years and as the most of Christendome still be at this present day with whom I had rather be miscalled a Papist a Traytor an Apostata or Idolater or what he will than to remain a Protestant with him still For in Protestant Religion I could never find Uniformity of a settled Faith and so no quietness of Conscience especially for three or four years before my coming away although by reading studying praying and conferring I did most carefully and diligently labour to find it among them But your contrariety of Sects and Opinions of Lutherans Zwinglians Calvinists â—rotestants Puritans Cartwrightists and Brownists some of them damning each other many of them avouching their Positions to be matters of Faith for if they made them but School Questions of Opinion only they should not so much have disquieted me and all these being so contrary yet every one pretending Scriptures and arrogating the Holy Ghost in his favour And above all which did most of all trouble me about the deciding of these and all other Controversies which might arise I could not find among all these Sects any certain humane external Iudge so infallibly to interpret Scriptures and by them and by the assistance of the Holy Ghost so undoubtedly to define questions of Faith that I could assure my self and my Soul This Iudge is infallible and to him thou oughtest in Conscience to obey and yield thy understanding in all his determinations of Faith for he cannot erre in those Points And note that I speak now of an external humane infallible Iudge For I know the Holy Ghost is the Divine internal and principal Iudge and the Scriptures be the Law or Rule by which that humane external Judge must proceed But the Holy Scriptures being often the Matter of Controversie and sometime questioned which be Scriptures and which be not they alone of themselves cannot be Judges And for the Holy Ghost likewise every one pretending him to be his Patron how should I certainly know by whom he speaketh or not For to Men we must go to learn and not to Angels nor to God himself immediately The Head of your Church was the Queen an excellent notable Prince but a Woman not to speak much less to be Iudge in the Church and since a learned King like King Henry the Eighth who was the first temporal Prince that ever made himself Ex Regio jure Head of the Church in Spiritual matters a new strange Doctrine and therefore justly condemned by Calvin for monstrous But suppose he were such a Head yet you all confess that he may erre in matters of Faith And so you acknowledge may your Archbishops and Bishops and your whole Clergy in their Convocation-House even making Articles and Decrees yea though a Council of all your Lutherans Calvinists Protestants c. of Germany France England c. were all joyned together and should agree all which they never will do to compound and determine the differences among themselves yet by the ordinary Doctrine of most Protestants they might in such a Council err and it were possible in their Decrees to be deceived But if they may err how should I know and be sure when and wherein they did or did not err for though on the one side Aposse ad esse non valet semper consequentia yet aliquanâ—o valet and on the other side frustra dicitur potentia quae nunquam ducitur in actum So that if neither in general nor in particular in publick nor private in Head nor Members joyntly nor severally you have no visible external humane infallible Iudge who cannot err and to whom I might have recourse for decision of doubts in matters of Faith I pray let Mr. Hall tell me Where should I have fixed my foot for God is my Witness my Soul was like Noah's Dove a long time hovering and desirous to discover Land but seeing nothing but moveable and troublesome deceivable Water I could find no quiet center for my Conscience nor any firm Foundation for my Faith in Protestant Religion Wherefore hearing a sound of Harmony and Consent That the Catholick Church could not err and that only in the Catholick Church as in Noah's Ark was infallibility and possibility of salvation I was so occasioned and I think had important reason like Noah's Dove to seek out and to enter into this Ark of Noah Hereupon I was occasioned to doubt Whether the Church of England were the true Church or not For by consent of all the true Church cannot err but the Church of England Head and Members King Clergy and People as before is said yea a whole Council of Protestants by their own grant may err ergo no true Church If no true Church no salvation in it therefore come out of it but that I was loth to do Rather I laboured mightily to defend it both against the Puritans and against the Catholicks But the best Arguments I could use against the Puritans from the Authority of the Church and of the ancient Doctors interpreting Scriptures against them when they could not answer them they would reject them for Popish and flye to their own arrogant spirit by which forsooth they must control others This I found on the one side most absurd and to breed an Anarchy of confusion and yet when I came to answer the Catholick Arguments on the other side against Protestants urging the like Authority and Vniformity of the Church I perceived the most Protestants did frame evasions in effect like those of the Puritans inclining to their private Spirit and other uncertainties Next therefore I applyed my self to follow their Opinion who would make the Church of England and the Church of Rome still to be all one in essental Points and the differences to be accidential confessing the Church of Rome to be a true Church though sick or corrupted and the Protestants to be derived from it and reformed and to this end I laboured much to reconcile most of our particular controversies But in truth I found such contrarieties not only between Catholicks and Protestants but even among Protestants themselves that I could never settle my self fully in this Opinion of some reconciliation which I know many great Scholars in England did favour For considering so many opposite great Points for which they did excommunicate and put to death each other and making the Pope to be Antichrist proper or improper it could never sink into my Brain how these two could be descendent or Members sound nor unsound
not drawn from any thing à parte rei as what the true Church is what it teacheth or such â—â—ke but from opinion and testimony What Men say of that of Rome and of the reformed Churches c. Now Opinions are no certain grounds of Truth no not in natural and civil matters much less in Religion So this Argument at the most is but Topical and probable Let us see the parts of it And first that ground The testimony of our selves and of our contraries is much more sufficient and certain than to justifie our selves alone Surely neither the one nor the other is sufficient or certain It is true that if other proof fail and we will follow conjectures he is in probability an honester Man that others beside himself say well of than he that alone testifieth of himself And yet according to truth this latter may be a right honest Man and dwell as we say by ill neighbours or where he is not known or requires not the testimony of other Men Whereas the other being indeed a knave is either cunning to conceal it or hath suborned other like himself to say for him or dwels by honest Men that judge and say the best And in this very kind our Saviour attributes so little to testimony as he pronounces a woe to them that all Men speak well of So in our case it is more probable I grant if there were no other Argument to clear it but Opinion and most Voices that you have the true Church and are in the way of salvation than we because we give you a better testimony than you do us But it is possible we are both deceived in our Opinions each of other we through too much charity and you and others through ignorance or malice Herein undoubtedly we have the advantage of you and the rest and do take that course which is more safe and sure to avoid sin that if we do fail of the truth yet we be deceived with the error of Love which as the Apostle saith hopeth all things and is not puffed up We avoid at the least that gulph of rash judgment which me thinks if the case be not too too clear we should all fear With what judgment you judge you shall be judged Thou that judgest another condemnest thy self But that you may a little better consider the weakness of this discourse if the testimony of our selves and our contraries were sufficient and certain to make truth and ever more safe and secure to follow that side which hath that testimony it had been better to have become a Jewish Proâ—elyte in the Apostles times than a Christian For the Christians acknowledged the Jews to be the people of God heirs of the promises and of Christ and stiled them Brethren notwithstanding their zeal to the Ceremonies and Traditions of their Fathers excused their ignorance bare with them laboured to give them content in all things Whereas they to the contrary called those that professed Christ Hereticks and Sectaries accursed them drew them out of their Synagogues scourged them cast them in Prison compelled them to blaspheme As you do now Protestants to abjure though in other cruelties I confess you go far beyond them By like reason a Pagan in S. Augustine's time should rather have made himself a Christian among the Donatists than with the Catholicks For the Catholicks granted the Donatists Baptism to be true accounted them Brethren The Donatists to the contrary renounced their Brother-hood and Baptism both re-baptized such as fell to their side used these forms to their Friends Save thy Soul become a Christian like to those used by your Reconcilers at this day Lastly consider if this ground of the testimony of our contraries for our part and their lack of ours for theirs be sure you have justified the cause of the Protestants in the main Question Which is the better Religion For whatsoever a Protestant holds as of Faith you cannot deny to be good and Catholick nor any Christian Man else For he binds him to his Creed to the Holy Scriptures and goes no further And in these he hath your testimony for him But he denies many things which you believe and accounts them foreign yea repugnant to Faith as the Popes infallibility Transubstantiation Purgatory worshipping of Images invocation of Saints In all these you speak only for your selves in some of these you have not us only but all other Christians your opposites to say nothing of the Jews and Turks whom I might as well chock you withal as you do the Protestants with Anabaptists So by this reason our Profession is more safe and secure and questionless is more Catholick than yours Neither have we in this discourse the Argument only as you see very appliable and favourable to us but which I would entreat you by the way to observe the conclusion it self often granted by moderate and sober Men of your own side viz. That our course is in sundry things more safe than yours As in making no Image of God In trusting only in the merits of Christ. In worshipping none but the Trinity In directing our Prayers to our Lord Jesus Christ alone In allowing Ministers to marry In diverse other Points also many of your side say the same with the Protestants and defend us from the imputations which others of you lay upon us as is shewed in the Catholick Apology by the reverend Bishop of Chester This to the proposition Let us come to the Assumption where you mince too much the Protestants Opinion touching the Church of Rome when you make them say It is peradventure faulty in some things Nay without peradventure they say It is corrupt in Doctrine superstitious and Idolatrous in Religion tyrannical in government defiled in manners from the crown of the Head to the soal of the Foot no soundness in it as the Prophet saith of another like it yet the vital parts not perished ready to dye yet not dead A true Church though neither the Catholick Church nor yet a sound member of the same That also is false in the assumption that the Puritans deny the Church of England to be a true Church Unless the Puritans and Brownists be with you all one which you have made diverse Sects above and then are you to blame as to multiply names whereof I have told you before so now again to consound them What is now the Conclusion It would be more safe and secure to become a Roman Catholick But the Proposition will not infer thus much simply but only in this respect For Topical arguments as you know hold only caeteris paribus We must then inquire if there be no other intrinsical arguments by which it may be discerned whether cause be the better whether pretence to the Church and Truth more just more evident Whether it may be warranted to return to Babel because God hath some people there when as he commands those that are there to come out
of the Woman shall crush his head The vulgar Edition leaving here the Hebrew the Seventy and Saint Hierome himself as appears by his questions upon Genesis translates Ipsa She shall bruise thy head So it stands now in the authentical Scripture of the Church of Rome and herein Sixtus and Clemens are of accord The Divines of Lovaine observe that two Manuscript Copies have Ipse That the Hebrew Chaldee and Greek have it so likewise Why then did not either Sixtus or Clemens or they themselves having Copies for it correct it and make it so in the authentical Text I will tell you by colour of this corruption the Devil envying Christs glory like an obstinate enemy rather yielding himself to any than his true Conqueror hath given this honour to the Virgin Mary To her it is attributed in that work which I think to be the most ungodly and blasphemous that ever saw the Sun The Ladies Psalter wherein that which is spoken of God by the Spirit of God is writhed to her In the 51. Psalm Quid gloriaris in malitia ô maligne Serpens e. Why boastest thou in malice ô thou malignant Serpent and infernal Dragon Submit thy head to the Woman by whose valour thou shalt be drowned in the deep Crush him ô Lady with the foot of thy valour arise and scatter his malice c. And in the 52. speaking to the same Serpent Noli extolli c. Be not lifted up for the fall of the Woman for a Woman shall crush thy head c So that in that Anthem Haec est mulier virtutis quae contrivit caput Serpentis Yea which I write with gief and shame to her doth good Bernard apply it Hom. 2. Super Missus est and which is more strange expounds it not of her bearing our Saviour but Ipsa proculdubio c. She doubtless crushed that poisonfull head which brought to naught all manner of suggestion of that wicked one both of temptation of the flesh and of pride of mind To her doth the learned and devout Chancellor of Paris apply it Has pestes universas dicimus membra Serpentis antiqui cujus caput ipsa virgo contrivit And what marvel in those times when the plain Text of the Scripture ran so in the feminine gender of a woman and few or none had any skill of the Greek or Hebrew Who should that SHEE be but she that is blessed among women Now although that thanks be to God it is known that this is a corrupt place out of the Fountains yea out of the Rivers also the testimonies of the Fathers referring this to Christ as Irenaeus Iustine Cyprian Clemens Alexandrinus Hierome yea Pope Leo himself yet because no error of the Church of Rome may be acknowledged how palpable soever they have cast how to shadow this corruption and set some colour upon it that howsoever this reading cannot be true yet it may be made like to truth Lo in the Interlinear-Bible set forth by the authority of King Philip the father of his Majesty that now Reigns with you the Hebrew Text is reformed according to the Latine IPSA There was some opportunity hereunto by reason that the Letters of the Text without pricks would bear both readings For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hu or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hiu And this self-same word for the Letters the base of reading is so pointed in this Chapter verse 19. and applyed to Eve She is the mother of all living And so elsewhere as Gen. 28.1 and 21. Hereunto perhaps was added that the pricks are a late invention of the Rabbines as many think and no part of the Hebrew Text. And that not only Leo Castro and such as accuse the present Hebrew Copies as faâ—sified but those that defend them also do many of them confess Hereupon it was resolved as it seems to point this place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hiu For it was not by mistaking but purposely done Franciscus Lucas in his Annotations upon the place doth assure us and saith it was Guido Fabricius his deed And indeed other things there be in that work which savour not of the learning and integrity of Arias Montanus as for example the Etymologie of Missa from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But as Boldness is not always as provident as Ignorance or Malice is bold these Correctors marked not that the gender of the Verb and the affix of the Noun following are both Masculine So although the Orthographie would be framed to consent yet the Syntax doth crie out against this Sacriledge And yet our Rhemists as I am informed in their lately set-forth Bible with a long note upon this place defend the applying of this Text to the blessed Virgin and the old reading Ipsa What should a man say Necessity makes men desperate and as the Apostle saith Evil men and deceivers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived These be frauds indeed in the strictest sense wilfully corrupting the Texts of good Authors wilfully maintaining them so corrupted not abstaining from the holy Scriptures themselves For as to that other kind depraving the sense retaining the words it were endless to cite examples Bellarmine alone as I believe passeth any two Protestants that ever set pen to paper perhaps all of them put together CHAP. VII Of the Armies of evident Witnesses for the Romanists WHere you add That you found the Catholicks had far greater and better Armies of evident Witnesses than the Protestants it might perhaps seem so to you as your mind was prepared when you had met with such cunning Muster-Masters as the Romanists are Who sometimes bring into the Field to make their number seem more after the old stratagem of War a sort of Pages and Lackies unworthy to hold any rank in the Host of God under the names of the Fathers Sometimes to confirm their part give out a Voice confidently that all the Forces which they see aloof in the Field are on their side whereas when it comes to the Battle they shall find that they will turn their Arms against them Sometimes they change the Quarrel it self in which case how easie is it to bring Armies as you say into the Field to fight against No-body and evident Witnesses to prove that which no Man denies For the purpose that the Bishop of Rome hath had a primacy of Honour and Authority when as the question is about a Monarchy and infallible Judgment an uncontrolable Jurisdiction Herein if you please see how Bellarmine alledges the Fathers Greek and Latine in the 15. and 16. Chapters of his First Book de Summo Pontifice So for proof of the verity of Christs Body and Blood in the Lords Supper he spends a whole Book only in citing the Testimonies of the Fathers To what purpose When the question is not of the truth of the Presence but of the manner whether it be to the Teeth and Belly
East in Asia now of the South in Africk And he was in as ill conceit with Cyprian for his breaking good order and communicating with Basilides and Martialis justly deprived in Spain as Saint Cyprian was with him when he stiled him a false Christ and a false Apostle But that holy Martyr was of a more patient and calm spirit than to be moved with such reproaches nay he took occasion as it should seem thereby to write of patience From this mildness it was that he so closely taxed the presumption of him that made himself Bishop of Bishops and by terror which what it was Firmilianus's Epistle shews threatning Excommunication would compel his Colleagues to his own opinion None of us saith he doth thus As the Apostle we preach not our selves we commend not our selves We are not as many that adulterate the Word of God c. Bellarmine takes the first kindly No marvel saith he for this is the Bishop of Rome's due But they go together he must be content to take both or leave both Such another place there is in Saint Augustine Epist. 86. the words are Petrus etiam inquit Apostolorum Caput coeli janitor Ecclesiae fundamentum Where in the Margent the Divines of Lovaine the overseers of Plantines edition set this note Petrus Ecclesiae fundamentum Why might they not The words ye will say of the Text. But these words of the text be not Saint Augustines whose opinion is well enough known That it is Christ confessed by Peter that is the foundation of the Church but they are the words of an undiscreet railer of the City of Rome against whom Saint Augustine in all that Epistle most vehemently inveighs This arrogant Author endeavours so to defend the Roman custome of fasting on the Saturday as he reproaches all other Churches that used otherwise And that we may see with what Spirit he was led he brings the same text that is brought in Pope Siricius and Innocentius's Epistles against the marriage of Clergy-men Qui in carne sunt Deo placere non possunt and many other Scriptures wrested and far from the purpose at last comes the authority of Peter and his tradition very Pope-like alledged Peter he saith the head of the Apostles porter of heaven and foundation of the Church having overcome Simon the Sorcerer who was a figure of the Devil not to be overcome but by fasting thus taught the Romans whose faith is famous in the whole world I remit you to Saint Augustine's answer to this tradition This I note that where your Censors do rase out of the Margents of former editions such notes as do express the very opinions of the Ancients and in their own words here they can allow and authorize such marginal notes as are directly contrary to their meaning Yea which are earnestly oppugned by them when they seem to make for the authority of the Pope Good sir examine well this dealing and judge if this be not wresting the Fathers and applying them clean from their purpose In fine you found your self you say evidently convinced Perswaded I believe rather than convinced Else if the force and evidence of the Arguments and not the pliableness of your mind were the cause of your yielding methinks they should work like effect in others no less seriously seeking for truth and setting all worldly respects aside earnestly minding their own salvation than your self Which I well know they do not neither those which hitherto have been examined nor those which yet remain to be considered in the rereward CHAP. VIII Of the Invisibility of the Church said to be an evasion of Protestants THE first whereof is the dislike of the Protestants evasion as you call it by the invisibility of their Church Give me leave here to tell you plainly ye seem to me not to understand the Protestants doctrine in this point Else ye would have spared all that The Catholick Church must ever be visible as a City set on a hill otherwise how should she teach her children convert Pagans dispense Sacraments All this is yielded with both hands The Congregations of which the Catholick Church doth consist are visible But the promise made to this Church of victory against the gates of Hell the titles of the house of God the base and pillar of Truth an allusion as I take it to the bases and pillars that held up the veil or curtains in the Tabernacle the body of Christ his Dove his undefiled are not verified of this Church in the whole visible bulk of it but in those that are called according to Gods purpose given to Christ and kept by him to be raised up to life at the last day This doctrine is Saint Augustine's in many places which it would be too tedious to set down at large In his third book De doctrina Christiana among the rules of Tychonius there is one which he corrects a little for the terms De Domini corpore bipartito which he saith ought not to have been called so for in truth that is not the Lords body which shall not be with him for ever but he should have said of the Lords true body and mixt or true and feigned or some such thing Because not only for ever but even now hypocrites are not to be said to be with him though they seem to be in his Church Consider those resemblances taken out of the holy Scripture wherein that godly Father is frequent of chaff and wheat in the Lords floor of good and bad fishes in the net of spots and light in the Moon Of the Church carnal and spiritual of the wicked multitudes of the Church yet not to be accounted in the Church Of the Lilly and the Thorns those that are marked which mourn for the sins of Gods people and the rest which perish which yet bear his Sacraments Consider the last Chapter of the book De Vnitate Ecclesiae and that large Treatise which he hath of that matter Epist. 48. The place is long which deserves to be read for the objection of the Universality of Arianisme like to that of Papisme in these last ages which Saint Augustine answers in the fifth book De Baptismo contra Donatistas cap. 27. That number of the just who are called according to Gods purpose of whom it is said The Lord knoweth who are his is the inclosed garden the sealed fountain the well of living waters the orchard with Apples c. The like he hath l. 5. c. 3. 23. he concludes that because such are built upon the Rock as hear the Word of God and do it and the rest upon the sand now the Church is built upon the Rock all therefore that hear the Word of God and do it not are out of question without the Church In the seventh book cap. 51. Quibus omnibus consideratis Read and mark the whole Chapter Out of these and many more like places which I forbear to mention it appears that albeit
quietly carried was made when the same Inquisition should have been put upon Millaine sixteen years after Yet these people were neither Geuses nor Calvinists Another great means to alienate the Minds of the people of the Low-Countries from the obedience of the Catholick Majesty hath been the severity of his Deputies there one of which leaving the Government after he had in a few years put to death 8000 persons it is reported to have been said The Country was lost with too much lenity This Speech Meursius concludes his Belgick History withal And as for France the first broils there were not for Religion but for preferring the House of Guise and disgracing the Princes of the Blood True it is that each side advantaged themselves by the colour of Religion and under pretence of zeal to the Roman the Guisians murthered the Protestants being in the exercise of their Religion assembled together against the Kings Edict against all Laws and common Humanity And tell me in good sooth Mr. Waddesworth do you approve such barbarous Cruelty Do you allow the Butchery at Paris Do you think Subjects are bound to give their Throats to be cut by their fellow Subjects or to offer them without either humble Remonstrance or flight to their Princes at their meeâ— wills againsts their own Laws and Edicts You would know quo jure the Protestants Wars in France and Holland are justified I interpose not my own Judgment not being throughly acquainted with the Laws and Customes of those Countries but I tell you what both they and the Papists also both in France and Italy have in such Cases alledged First the Law of Nature which they say not only alloweth but inclineth and enforceth every living thing to defend it self from violence Secondly that of Nations which permitteth those that are in the protection of others to whom they owe no more but an honourable acknowledgment in case they go about to make themselves absolute Soveraigns and usurp their Liberty to resist and stand for the same And if a lawful Prince which is not yet Lord of his Subjects Lives and Goods shall attempt to despoil them of the same under colour of reducing them to his own Religion after all humble Remonstrances they may they say stand upon their own guard and being assailed repel Force with Force as did the Macchabees under Antiochus In which case notwithstanding the person of the Prince himself ought always to be sacred and inviolable as was Sauls to David Lastly if the inraged Minister of a lawful Prince will abuse his Authority against the fundamental Laws of the Country they say it is no rebellion to defend themselves against Force reserving still their Obedience to their Soveraign inviolate These are the Rules of which the Protestants that have born Arms in France and Flanders and the Papists also both there and elsewhere as in Naples that have stood for the defence of their Liberties have served themselves How truly I esteem it hard for you and me to determine unless we were more throughly acquainted with the Laws and Customes of those Countries than I for my part am For the Low-Countries the World knows that the Dukes of Burgundy were not Kings or absolute Lords of them which are holden partly of the Crown of France and partly of the Empire And of Holland in particular they were but Earls And whether that Title carries with it such a Soveraignty as to be able to give new Laws without their consents to impose Tributes to bring in Garisons of Strangers to build Forts to assubject their Honours and Lives to the dangerous trial of a new Court proceeding without form or figure of Iustice any reasonable Man may well doubt themselves do utterly deny it Yet you say boldly they are Rebels and ask why we did support them It seems to some that his Catholick Majesty doth absolve them in the Treaty of the Truce An. 1608. of all imputation of Rebellion And if they were Rebels especially for Heresie why did the most Christian King support them As for Queen Elizabeth if she were alive she would answer your question with another Why did Spain concur in Practice and promise Aid to that detestable Conspiracy that was plotted against her by Pius V. as you may see at large in his Life written by Girolamo Catena It is you say an easie matter to pretend Priviledges But it is no hard matter to discern pretended Priviledges from true and Treason from Reason of State and old Corruptions from old Religion But to take Arms to change the Laws by the whole Estate established is Treason whatsoever the cause or colour be and therefore it was Treason in the Rebels of Lincolnshire and York-shire in King Henry's days and in the Earls of the North in Queen Elizabeths though they pretended their old Religion and the same must be said of all Assassinates attempted against the Persons of Princes as Parryes Somervilles Squires against Queen Elizabeth and the late Powder-Plot the eternal Shame of Popery against King James To your Argument therefore in form admitting that it is no true Church which is founded and begun in Malice Disobedience Passion Blood and Rebellion no nor yet a true Reformation of a Church for in truth the Protestants pretend not to have founded any The Assumption is denied in every part of it And here I must needs say you have not done unwisely to leave out the Church of England as against which you had no pretence all things having been carried orderly and by publick Counsel But you have wronged those which you name and either lightly believed or unjustly surmised your self touching Luther Calvin Knox the French and the Hollanders when you make them the raisers of Rebellion and shedders of Blood Whose Blood hath been shed like Water in all parts of those Countries against all Laws of God and Man against the Edicts and publick Faith till necessity as they plead enforced them to stand for their Lives Yet you presume that all this is evident to the World whereas it is so false and improbable yea in some parts impossible as I wonder how your heart could assure your hand to write it Give me here leave to set down by occasion of this your motive that which I profess next to the evidence of those Corruptions which the Court and Faction of Rome maintains hath long moved my self And thus I would enlarge your Proposition That Monarchy as now without lisping it calls it self which was founded supported enlarged and is yet maintained by Pride Ambition Rebellion Treason murthering of Princes Wars dispensing with Perjury and incestuous Marriages Spoils and Robbery of Churches and Kingdoms worldly Policy Force and Falshood Forgery Lying and Hypocrisie is not the Church of Christ and his Kingdom but the Tyranny of Antichrist The Papacy falsely calling it self the Church of Rome is such Ergo. The Assumption shall be proved in every part of it and in truth is already
your Ordination there is no Word said And as little there is in Scripture of your Sacrifice which makes Christ not to be a Priest after the order of Melchisedeck c. with much more to this purpose Where my Defence for your Ministry hath been this That the Form Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins ye remit they are remitted c. doth sufficiently comprehend the Authority of preaching the Gospel Use you the same equity towards us and tell those hot Spirits among you that stand so much upon formalities of Words That to be a Dispenser of the Word of God and his holy Sacraments is all the duty of Priesthood And to you I add further that if you consider well the Words of the Master of the Sentences which I vouched before how that which is consecrated of the Priest is called a Sacrifice and Oblation because it is a Memorial and Representation of the true Sacrifice and holy Offering made on the Altar of the Cross and joyn thereto that of the Apostle that by that one Offering Christ hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified and as he saith in another place through that Blood of his Cross reconciled unto God all things whether in Earth or in Heaven you shall perceive that we do offer Sacrifice for the Quick and Dead remembring representing and mystically offering that sole Sacrifice for the Quick and Dead by the which all their sins are meritoriously expiated and desiring that by the same we and all the Church may obtain remission of sins and all other Benefits of Christs Passion To the Epilogue therefore of this your last Motive I say in short Sith we have no need of Subdeaconship more than the Churches in the Apostles times and in truth those whom we call Clerks and Sextons perform what is necessary in this behalf Sith we have Canonical Bishops and lawful Succession Sith we neither want due intention to depute Men to Ecclesiastical Functions nor matter or Form in giving Priesthood deriving from no Man or Woman the Authority of Ordination but from Christ the Head of the Church you have alledged no sufficient Cause why we should not have true Pastors and consequently a true Church in England CHAP. XII Of the Conclusion Mr. Waddesworth's Agonies and Protestation c. YEt by these you say and many other Arguments you were resolved in your understanding to the contrary It may well be that your Understanding out of its own heedless hast as that of our first Parents while it was at the perfectest was induced into error by resolving too soon out of seeming Arguments and granting too forward assent For surely these which you have mentioned could not convince it if it would have taken the pains to examine them throughly or had the patience to give unpartial hearing to the Motives on the other side But as if you triumphed in your own conquest and captivity you add that which passeth yet all that hitherto you have set down viz. That the Church of Rome was and is the only true Church because it alone is Antient Catholick and Apostolick having Succession Vnity and Visibility in all Ages and Places Is it only antient To omit Ierusalem are not that of Antioch where the Disciples were first called Christians and Alexandria Ephesus Corinth and the rest mentioned in the Scriptures antient also and of Antioch antienter than Rome Is it Catholick and Apostolick only Do not these and many more hold the Catholick Faith received from the Apostles as well as the Church of Rome For that it should be the Vniversal Church is all one as ye would say the part is the whole one City the World Hath it only succession where to set aside the enquiry of Doctrine so many Simoniacks and Intruders have ruled as about fifty of your Popes together were by your own Mens Confession Apostatical rather than Apostolical Or Unity where there have been thirty Schisms and one of them which endured fifty years long and at last grew into three Heads as if they would share among them the triple Crown And as for dissentions in Doctrine I remit you to Master Doctor Halls peace of Rome wherein he scores above three hundred mentioned in Bellarmine alone above three-score in one only head of Penance out of Navarrus As to that addition in all Ages and places I know not what to make of it nor where to refer it Consider I beseech you with your wonted moderation what you say for sure unless you were beguiled I had almost said bewitched you could never have resolved to believe and profess that which all the World knows to be as false I had well nigh said as God is true touching the extent of the Romish Church to all Ages and places Concerning the agonies you passed I will say only thus much if being resolved though erroneously that was truth you were withholden from professing it with worldly respects you did well to break through them all But if besides these there were doubt of the contrary as methinks needs must be unless you could satisfie your self touching those many and known Exceptions against the Court of Rome which you could not be ignorant of take heed lest the rest insuing these agonies were not like Sampsons sleeping on Dalilahs knees while the Locks of his Strength were shaven whereupon the Lord departing from him he was taken by the Philistins had his Eyes put out and was made to grind in the Prison But I do not despair but your former resolutions shall grow again And as I do believe your religious asseveration that for very fear of damnation you forsook us which makes me to have the better hope and opinion of you for that I see you do so seriously mind that which is the end of our whole life so I desire from my Heart the good hope of salvation you have in your present way may be as happy as your fear I am perswaded was causeless For my part I call God to record against mine own Soul that both before my going into Italy and since I have still endeavoured to find and follow the truth in the Points controverted between us without any earthly respect in the World Neither wanted I fair opportunity had I seen it on that side easily and with hope of good entertainment to have adjoyned my self to the Church of Rome after your example But to use your words as I shall answer at the dreadful day of judgement I never saw heard or read any thing which did convince me nay which did not finally confirm me daily more and more in the perswasion that in these differences it rests on our part Wherein I have not followlowed humane conjectures from foreign and outward things as by your leave methinks you do in these your motives whereby I protest to you in the sight of God I am also much comforted and assured in the possession of the truth but the undoubted Voice of God in his Word which is more
I the worse if I were still a lover of those studies If he could have had leisure to tend upon any thing besides that Fathers Pacquets he might have seen most of the renowned and holy Fathers of the Church eminent in that Profession for which I am scorned amongst many others Tertullian Lactantius Nazianzen Prudentius Fulgentius Apollinarius Nonnus Hilarius Prosper and now in the upshot devout Bernard and why should their honour be my disgrace But the truth is these were the recreations of my Minority nunc oblita mihi And if Poetry were of the deadly sins of their Casuists I could smart for it in my 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is this a fit scandal to rake up from so far What my proficiency hath been in serious studies if the University and Church hath pleased to testifie What need I stand at the mercy of a fugitive But if any of his Masters should undertake me in the cause of God he should find I had studied Prose As for these vain flourishes of mine if he had not taken a veny in them and found it smart he had not strook again so churlishly Was it my Letter that is accused of Poetry there is neither Number nor Rhyme nor fiction in it Would the great Schoolman have had me to have packt up a Letter of Syllogisms which of the Fathers whose high steps I have desired to tread in have given that example what were to be expected of a Monitory Epistle which intended only the occasion if he had pleased of a future Discourse We Islanders list not learn to write Letters from beyond the Pyrenees Howsoever I am not sorry that his scorn hath cast him upon an Adversary more able to convince him I am allowed only a looker on therefore I will neither ward nor strike his hands are too full of you my only wish is That you could beat him sound again whereof I fear there is little hope There was never Adversary that gave more advantage He might have served in these Coleworts nearer home I profess I do heartily pity him and so if it please you let him know from me What Apostasie which is the only hard word I can be charged with I impute to the Roman Church I have professed to the World in the first Chapter of my Roma irreconciliabilis if I offend not in too much charity there is no fear say what you will for me I have done and will only pray for him that answers me with contempt farewell and commend me to Mr. Sotheby and your other loving and Reverend Society and know me ever Your truly loving Friend and fellow Labourer Jos. Hall Waltam Ian. 10. 1615. Good Mr. Bedell this Letter hath lain thus long by me for want of carriage I now hear you are setled at Horningsherth whereof I wish you much joy I am appointed to attend the Ambassadour into France whither I pray you follow me with your Prayers May 15. To my Reverend and worthy Friend Mr. Dr. Hall at Waltam deliver this Salutem in Christo. Good Mr. Dr. THis Letter of yours since my receipt of it hath been a Traveller further than you or I which being some Months since returned into England I return to you that it may relate what entertainment it hath found in Foreign parts It is now a Year and more that I received a Letter from Mr. Waddesworth challenging an old debt of me an answer to his Letters which occasioned this of yours I wrote back and among other things enclosed this your Letter which he hath censured as you see His answer by reason of the sickness of the Gentleman that brought it first at Paris and after at Brussels came not to me till the latter end of May and now lately another I received from him wherein he desires a Copy both of your Text and his Gloss as he calls it as having reserved none for hast I have not yet sent him my Answer to his Motives which hath long lain by me for lack of leisure to copy it out and means safely to convey it being well towards a quire of Paper My ancient fault tediousness But the Gentleman that brought me his former Letter hath undertaken ere long to consign it into his Hands Therein I endeavour to use him with the best respect I can devise only oppugning the Papacy and Court of Rome Now Sir that which I would entreat of you is this You know the Precept of the Apostle touching them that are fallen lend me your Hand to set him in joynt again And be pleased not only not to reflect upon the weakness of his Gloss but not so much as upon the strength of his Stomach Though that be also weakness as S. Augustine well calls it infirmitas animositatis Write a Letter to him in the Character 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which shall either go with mine or be sent shortly after Who can tell what God may work Surely at least we shall heap Coals of Fire upon his Head Although if all be true that I hear it is not to be despaired but he may be delivered out of the snare of errour the rather because he hath not that reward or contentment which he expected He lives now at Madrid with the Persian Ambassadour Sir Robert Sherley and hath good maintenance from him being as his Steward or Agent The kind usage of his ancient Friends may perhaps bring him in love with his Country again c. This for that business Now c. October 2. 1620. To the Worshipful my very good Friend Mr. James Waddesworth at Madrid deliver this Salutem in Christo Jesu Sir I Received by Mr. Fiston your Letters of the eighth of June and as I hope ere this time you understand the former which I mention in them To which I wrote in answer and delivered the same to Mr. Aston the fifteenth of the same Month. Doctor Hall's Letter with your Marginal Notes which in your last you require I send you herein enclosed Though if I may perswade or intreat you both neither should the Text nor Gloss make you multiply any more words thereabout Vpon the receipt of your Letter I spake with Mr. Aston who told me That he held his resolution for Spain whereupon I resolved also to send by him mine answer to your first as thinking it better to do it more safely though a little later than sooner with less safety And here Sir at length you have it Wherein as to my moderation for the manner I hope you shall perceive that setting aside our difference in Opinion I am the same to you that I was when we were either Scholars together in Emmanuel Colledge or Ministers in Suffolk For the substance I do endeavour still to write to the purpose omitting nothing material in your Letters If sometimes I seem overlong and perhaps to digress somewhat from the principal Point more than was necessary I hope you will pardon it
from which we dissented much more I held as you may perceive that neither amongst our selves nor from our predecessors we disagree in any truth necessary to salvation He makes me to say our dissentions are about Moon-shine and de umbrâ asini de lanâ caprinâ and trifles and matters of no consequence To return to you good Mr. Waddesworth let Men avouch as confidently as they will touching their own Positions Est de Fide Nihil certius apud Catholicos and of their contraries cry out They are Hereticks renew ancient Heresies race the Foundation deny the Articles of the Creed Gods Omnipotency c. all because themselves by Discourse can as they think fasten such things upon them A sober Christian must not give heed to all that is said in this kind These things must be examined with right judgment and ever with much charity and patience remembring that our selves know in part and prophesie in part In a Word this should not have so much disquieted you Nor yet that which you add That every one pretends Scripture Best of all saith S. Chrysostome For if we should say we believe humane reasons thou mightest with good reason be troubled but when as we receive the Scriptures and they be simple and true it will be an easie thing for thee to judge c. And to what purpose indeed serves the faculty of Reason perfected and polished with learning wherefore the supernatural light of Faith wherefore the gift of God in us Ministers conferred by the imposition of Hands but to try which side handles the Word of God deceitfully which sincerely But here again Each side arrogates the Holy Ghost in his favour What then If we our selves have the anointing we shall be able as we are bidden to try the Spirits whether they be of God or no For we will not believe them because they say they have the Spirit or cannot be deceived but because their Doctrine is consonant to the Principles of Heavenly Truth which by the Writings inspired by himself the Holy Ghost hath graven in our Hearts Which Writings are well acknowledged by you to be the Law and Rule according whereunto in judgment of Religion we must proceed CHAP. III. Of the want of an Humane External Infallible Iudge and Interpreter AS to that you say did above all trouble you the want of a certain humane external infallible Iudge to interpret Scripture and define Questions of Faith without error What if you found not an external humane Judge if you had an internal divine one And having an infallible Rule by which your humane Judge should proceed why should you trust another Mans applying it rather than your own in a matter concerning your own salvation But if God have left us no such external Judge if Antiquity knew none if Religion need none it was no just motive to leave us that you could find none amongst all those Sects which you mention and how much less if you have not a whit amended your self where you are which we shall consider by and by I say then first That to make this your motive of any moment it must be shewed that God hath appointed such a Judge in his Church Let that appear out of some passage of Holy Scripture For your conceit or desire that such a Judge there should be to whom you might in Conscience obey and yield your self because he could not err doth not prove it You would know the truth only by the Authority and sole pronouncing of the Judges Mouth A short and easie way which to most Men is plausible because it spares the pains of Study and Discourse To such especially as either out of weakness dare not trust their own Judgment or account it shall have the merit of humility to be led by their Teachers But what now if God will have you call no Man your Father upon Earth If he will send you to his Word and after you have received the Faith by the Churches Testimony out of the easie and plain places thereof bid you Search the Scriptures to find the Truth in the remnant and pick it out by your own industry The rich Man being in Hell-Torments in whose Words I doubt not but our Saviour doth impersonate and represent the conceits of many Men living in this World presumes that if one were sent from the Dead his Kinsmen would hearken to him but he is remitted to Moses and the Prophets The Iews as I perceived by Speech with some of them at Venice make it one of their Motives that our Lord Jesus is not the Christ. He should not say they have come in such a fashion to leave his own Nation in doubt and suspence and scandalize so many thousands but so as all Men might know him to be what he was Miserable Men that will give Laws to God Of which fault be you aware also good Mr. Waddesworth and be content to take not to prescribe the means by which you will be brought unto the knowledge of the Truth To use what he hath given not to conjecture and divine what he must give But God fails not his Church in such means as be necessary Let us therefore consider the necessity of this Judge Where I beseech you consider for I am sure you cannot but know it that all things necessary to salvation are evidently set down in Holy Scripture This both the Scriptures themselves do teach and the Fathers avouch namely S. Augustine and S. Chrysostome and others I forbear to set down their Words or further to confirm this Lemma which I proved at large against another Adversary and shall at all times make good if it be questioned Besides these Points there are a great many other though not of such necessity yet evidently laid down also in the same Scriptures by occasion of them Many by just Discourse may be cleared from these and the former If any thing yet remain in suspence and unknown yea or if you will erred in so it be not wilfully and obstinately yet shall it be ever without peril of damnation to him that receiveth what the Holy Ghost hath plainly delivered What necessity then of your imaginary Judge Yes for Unity is a goodly thing not only in matters necessary but universally in all Controversies must not be endless But how comes it to pass then that your Judge whosoever he be doth not all this while decide the Question touching the conception of the Blessed Virgin that is between the Dominicans and Franciscans nor that between the Dominicans and Iesuites touching Grace and Free-will and all other the Points that are controverted in the Schools to spare contention and time a precious Commodity among wise Men and give this honour to Divinity alone that in it all doubts should be reduced to certainties Or if it seem no wisdom to be hasty in deciding such Questions wherein Witty and Learned Men are ingaged lest in stead of changing their Opinions they should
fall to challenge not only the infallibility but which were more dangerous the Authority of their Judge If it be thought better to leave scope to Opinions opposition it self profitably serving to the boulting out of the Truth If Unity in all things be as it seems despaired of by this your Gellius himself why are we not content with Vnity in things necessary to Salvation expresly set down in Holy Scripture And anciently thought to suffice reserving Infallibility as an honour proper to God speaking there Why should it not be thought to suffice that every Man having imbraced that necessary Truth which is the Rule of our Faith thereby try the Spirits whether they be of God or no. If he meet with any that hath not that Doctrine receive him not to House nor salute him If consenting to that but otherwise infirm or erring yet charitably bear with him This for every private Man As for the publick order and peace of the Church God hath given Pastors and Teachers that we should not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine and amongst them appointed Bishops to command that Men teach no other or foreign Doctrine which was the end of Timothy his leaving at Ephesus 1 Tim. 1.3 Then the Apostles themselves by their example have commended to the Church the wholesome use of Synods to determine of such controversies as cannot by the former means be composed but still by the Holy Scriptures the Law or Rule as you say well by which all these Iudges must proceed Which if they do not then may they be deceived themselves and deceive others as experience hath shewed yet never be able to extinguish the truth To come to Antiquity There is not any one thing belonging to Christian Religion if we consider well of more importance than how the purity of the whole may be maintained The Ancients that write of the rest of Christian Doctrine is it not a miracle had they known any such infallible Judge in whose Oracle the security of all with the perpetual tranquillity of the Church is contained they should say nothing of him There was never any Age wherein there have not been Heresies and Sects to which of them was it ever objected that they had no infallible Judge How soon would they have sought to amend that defect if it had been a currant Doctrine in those times that the true Church cannot be without such an Officer The Fathers that dealt with them why did they not lay aside all disputing and appeal them only to this Barr Unless perhaps that were the lett which Cardinal Bellarmine tells the Venetians hindred S. Paul from appealing to S. Peter Lest they should have made their Adversaries to laugh at them for their labour Well howsoever the Cardinal hath found out a merry reason for S. Paul's appealing to Caesars Judgment not Peter's lest he should expose himself to the laughter of Pagans what shall we say when the Fathers write professedly to instruct Catholick Men of the forepleadings and advantages to be used against Hereticks even without descending to tryal by Scriptures or of some certain general and ordinary way to discern the Truth of the Catholick Faith from the prophane novelties of Heresies Had they known of this infallible Judge should we not have heard of him in this so proper a place and as it were in a cause belonging to his own Court Nay doth not the writing it self of such Books shew that this matter was wholly unknown to Antiquity For had the Church been in possession of so easie and sure a course to discover and discard heresies they should not have needded to task themselves to find out any other But the truth is infallibility is and ever hath been accounted proper to Christs judgment And as hath been said all necessary Truth to Salvation he hath delivered us in his Word That Word himself tells us shall judge at the last day Yea in all true decisions of Faith that word even now judgeth Christ judgeth the Apostle sits Iudge Christ speaks in the Apostle Thus Antiquity Neither are they moved a whit with that Objection That the Scriptures are often the matter of Controversies For in that case the remedy was easie which S. Augustine shews to have recourse to the plain places and manifest such as should need no interpreter for such there be by which the other may be cleared The same may be said if sometimes it be questioned Which be Scriptures which not I think it was never heard of in the Church that there was an external infallible Judge who could determine that question Arguments may be brought from the consent or dissent with other Scriptures from the attestation of Antiquity and inherent signs of Divine Authority or humane infirmity but if the Auditor or Adversary yield not to these such parts of necessity must needs be laid aside If all Scripture be denied which is as it were exceptio in judicem ante litis contestationem Faith hath no place only reason remains To which I think it will scarce seem reasonable if you should say Though all Men are lyers yet this Iudge is infallible and to him thou oughtest in conscience to obey and yield thy understanding in all his Determinations for he cannot err No not if all Men in the World should say it Unless you first set down there is a God and stablish the authority of the Books of Holy Scripture as his voice and thence shew if you can the warrant of this priviledge Where you affirm The Scriptures to be the Law and the Rule but alone of themselves cannot be Iudges If you mean without being produced applied and heard you say truth Yet Nicodemus spake not amiss when he demanded Doth our Law judge any Man unless it hear him first he meant the same which S. Paul when he said of the High Priest thou sittest to judge me according to the Law and so do we when we say the same Neither do we send you to Angels or God himself immediately but speaking by his Spirit in the Scriptures and as I have right now said alledged and by discourse applyed to the matters in question As for Princes since it pleased you to make an excursion to them if we should make them infallible Judges or give them Authority to decree in Religion as they list as Gardiner did to King Henry the Eight it might well be condemned for monstrous as it was by Calvin As for the purpose Licere Regi interdicere populo usum calicis in Coena Quare Potestas n. summa est penes Regem quoth Gardiner This was to make the King as absolute a Tyrant in the Church as the Pope claimed to be But that Princes which obey the truth have commandment from God to command good things and forbid evil not only in matters pertaining to humane society but also the Religion of God This is no new strange Doctrine but Calvins and
the true Catholick Church is such as cannot be hid yet considering that it consists of two sorts of people the one which is the greater part who do not indeed properly belong to it the other the fewer truely and properly so called to whom all the glorious things spoken of the Church do agree The face therefore of the mixt Church may be over-run with scandals as in all times almost The greatest number may sometime be Idolaters as in the Kingdom of Israel under Achab. The principallest in authority may be false teachers as the Priests and Prophets in Ieremies time the sons of pestilence may sit in Moses Chair as they did in Christs time Yet still the Church is the ground and pillar of Truth in the Elect Ipsa est praedestinata columna firmamentum veritatis The Sheep hear not Seducers Iohn 10.8 to wit finally and in any damnable point Thus was it before Christ thus since thus in the Church of England before yea and since it was reformed Thus in that of Rome it self at this day There is a distinction of Thomas of those that be in the Church which rightly interpreted agrees fully herewith There are some De Ecclesia numero tantúm Some numero merito The former are such as have only fidem informem the latter formatam Now though the persons of such as be in the Church be visible yet the Faith and Charity of men we see not and to argue from the priviledges of the Church numero merito to the Church numero tantum is a perpetual but a palpable paralogisme of the Romish faction which is grosser yet when they argue to the Church representative and grossest of all when one man is made the Church and he as themselves grant may fall out a Devil incarnate CHAP. IX Of lack of Vniformity in matters of Faith in all Ages and Places ANd this self same Paralogism you were beguiled with in the next Point of Vniformity and Concord in matters of Faith The true Church ye say ever holds such Vniformity It is utterly false in the Visible and mixt Church both before Christ and since It is false in the Church of Rome it self whose new-coined Faith patched to the Creed by Pius the Fourth came in piece-meal out of private Opinions and corrupt usages nor ever was in any Age uniformly holden or taught as matter of Faith even in it as it is at this day So by your own Discourse it should be no true Church And taking matters of Faith so largely as it seems you do in opposition to such things as be Ceremonies or of Government it is untrue also of the Church of the Elect or properly so called For though the Faith in the Principles thereof be ever the same yet many Conclusions of Faith have sometimes lyen unsearched out and like some parts of the World unknown till by the industry of Gods Servants occasioned also by the importunity and opposition of Hereticks they were discovered Sundry common errors also there have been which in succeeding Ages have been cleared and reformed as the Chiliasts That Angels have Bodies That Children after they be baptized are to be communicated That Hereticks are to be rebaptized To the Assumption First The Protestants challenge not to themselves any Church as their own which I must advertise you of here because formerly also you do use this Phrase The Church is Christs both the visible and invisible Next taking matters of Faith for foundations or Articles of Faith necessary to Salvation the Church of Christ hath in all Ages had Uniform concord with the Protestants at this day in such matters as appeareth by the Common Rule of Faith the Creed and so hath also the Church under the Popes tyranny As to the Trent Additions they are foreign to the Faith as neither Principles nor Conclusions thereof Neither can your selves shew uniform consent and concord in them and namely in the 11. of them in any one Age especially as matters of Salvation as now they are canonized How much less can ye shew it in all other conclusions of Faith whereabout there have been among you as are now among us and ever will be differences of Opinions without any prejudice for all that unto the unity of the Faith of the Church and title to the name of it As for Wicliff Hus and the rest if they have any of them born record to the Truth and resisted any innovation of corrupt Teachers in their times even to Blood they are justly to be termed Martyrs yea albeit they saw not all corruptions but in some were themselves carried away with the stream of error Else if because they erred in some things they be no Martyrs or because we dissent from them in some things we are not of the same Church both you and we must quit all claim to S. Cyprian Iustin Martyr and many more whom we count our Antients and Predecessors and bereave them also of the honour of Martyrdom which so long they have enjoyed You see I hope by this time the weakness of your Argument CHAP. X. Of the Original of Reformation in Luther Calvin Scotland England c. IN your next Motive taken from the Original of Reformation before I come to answer your Argument shortly coucht in form I must endeavour to reform your judgment in sundry points of Story wherein partly you are mis-led and abused by Parsons and others of that Spirit partly you have mistaken some particulars and out of a false imagination framed a like discourse First for Luther it was not his rancor against the Dominicans that stirred him up against the Pope but the shameful merchandize of Indulgences set to sale in Germany to the advantage of Magdalen sister to Pope Leo the Tenth Believe herein if not Sleidan yet Guicciardine l. 13. And of all that mention those affairs it is acknowledged that at the first and for a good time he shewed all obedience and reverence to the Pope The new History of the Council of Trent written by an Italian a Subject and part of the Church of Rome as should appear by the Epistle Dedicatory of the Reverend and learned Archbishop of Spalato prefixed to his Majesty speaketh thus of the matter Questo diede occasione c. This gave occasion to Martin to pass from Indulgences to the Authority of the Pope which being by others proclaimed for the highest in the Church by him was made subject to a General Council lawfully celebrated Whereof he said that there was need in that instant and urgent necessity And as the heat of disputation continued by how much the more the Popes power was by others exalted so much the more was it by him abased yet so as Martin contained himself within the terms of speaking modestly of the person of Leo and saving sometimes his judgment Again after his departure from the presence of Cardinal Cajetan at Augusta he saith He wrote a Letter to the Cardinal confessing
Calvinists and these with Zuinglians who were of the first Protestants and differ little or nothing from those whom ye call Lutherans Whereof this may be a sensible proof that commonly their Adversaries and your self after call them by the same name The Protestant Churches in Germany France Holland and Geneva And Pope Leo the Tenth in his Condemnatory Bull and likewise Charles the Fifth in his Imperial Edict do reflect wholly upon Luther and his Followers without any mention of the other at all To conclude this matter as it is undoubtedly a sign of a good mind to dislike contention and diversities of Opinions and it may have pardon to apprehend sometime more than there is indeed like to the melancholick old Man in the Comedy whose suspicion makes him to multiply on this manner Qui mihi intromisisti in aedes quingentos coquos so to muster up empty names without any real difference as Puritans Cartwrightists Brownists to make differences in a few Opinions about Government or Sacraments Sects and Contrarieties hath not the character of ingenuous and sincere dealing which from you Mr. Waddesworth I did and do expect But some of these damn each other avouching their Positions to be matters of Faith not School Questions of Opinion only Here indeed there is fault on all sides in this Age that we cannot be content with the bounds which the ancient Church hath set but every private Opinion must be straightways an Article of Faith Every decision of a Pope every Decree of a Council And then as Men are easily enamoured of their own conceits and as Gerson wisely applies that of the Poet Qui amant sibi somnia fingunt as if the very marrow of Religion consisted in those Points those that think otherwise are Hereticks and in state of Damnation The Roman Faction goes further to Fire and Faggot and all exquisite Torments as if those things that make against the Papacy were more severely to be punished than the Blasphemies of the Jews or Mahometism it self I do not excuse the Reformers of this bitterness wherein after your departure out of England my nameless Adversary that undertook Mr. Alablasters quarrel giving me over in three of his demands ran riot in the first about this point of opposition among our selves and raked together all the vehement speeches of Luther and some of his Followers against those whom they call the Sacramentaries Why who will undertake to defend Luthers Speeches or all that falls from contentious Pens But even out of those Testimonies which himself brings for the worst that he could on the contrary part it appears this eagerness is not mutual And in truth both we in England and the Helvetians and French do maintain a brotherly affection towards them of Saxony how spitefully soever some of them write of us And even of those whom he calls Lutherans as I perceived while I was at Norimberg the moderater sort are alike affected towards us But as touching the avouching our Opinions to be matters of Faith which Exception is common to you with him that which I should have answered him if I had found in him any thing but spite and scorn I will say now to you Verily in some sort even the least conclusions in Divinity are matters of Faith For both Faith hath to do with them and they are fetched by Discourse from the first Principles holden by Faith whence our whole Religion is called by S. Iude The Faith once delivered to the Saints And the least error in them by consequence overthrows the same Principles whence they are deduced That makes some to move attention in their Readers to say The questions are not about small matters but of the principal Articles of Religion even about the Foundation As Curaeus whom he cites saith the question is of two Articles of Faith First of that which teacheth that in Christ two natures are united Secondly of the Article He ascended into Heaven Why do not both sides agree to these Yes But one side fetches Arguments against ubiquitie from these places and thereupon saith the question is about these Articles perhaps also chargeth the other to deny them He cites Pappus Writing thus Agitur inter nos de Omnipotentia Dei c. The controversie betwixt us is about the Omnipotency of God The personal Vnion of the two natures in Christ. The communication of Properties The glorious body of our Saviour c. Lo again every place of Argument or defence is made the matter of Controversie Out of these and such like Confessions on either side my nameless Adversary will needs inforce with great pomp and triumph What think ye That such sanctified Men this is his scoffing Language go not together by the Ears for Moon-shine in the Water Again That all those Myrmidonian Fights and bloody Encounters be not de lanâ Caprinâ aut de umbrâ Asini. Why who said they were I will set down here my Words that you may judge of the Conscience of this Man and have withal the substance of my Answer to this Objection And what if some outragious Spirits on each side transported with passion in their oppositions have used most bitter and unbeseeming speeches to their Adversaries and sometimes have shewed each other small humanity are you so simple as not to discern between the choler of some few opinionate Men and the consequence of their Opinions Have you forgotten S. Hierome and Ruffinus deadly fo-hood which was rung over the World or Epiphanius and Chrysostomes or Victors and the Greek Bishops which proceeded so far about a trifle that he excommunicated them which is little less I think than to condemn to the Pit of Hell And yet if I should put it to your judgment I am perswaded you would grant they held all truth necessary to salvation For you must remember Pope Boniface had not yet coyned the new Article of the Faith that I mentioned before What shall I speak of S. Paul and Barnabas which grew to such bitterness and that about a very little question of conveniency that though they were sent out together by the Holy Ghost they brake off company These be humane passions which wisdom would we should pity when they grow to such extremities upon so small cause rather than from their outrage to gather there is just cause to encrease Do we not see that even natural Brethren do sometimes defie one another and use each other with less respect than strangers Now from hence would you conclude they be not Brethren and hearten them on and say to the one that sith his half Brother is not so near to him as he with whom he is thus at odds he must fall out worse with him You should well so deserve the hate of God for a make-bate between brethren These were all my Words set down in answer to his objecting our own contentions and condemning each other to prove that therefore we could not hold continuity with the ancient Church of England