every one is obliged not to believe the contrary of any one point known to be testified by God For that were in fact to affirme that God could be deceived or would deceive which were to overthrow the whole certainty of our faith wherein the thing most principall is not the point which we believe which Divines call the Materiall Object but the chiefest is the Motive for which we believe to wit Almighty Gods infallible revelation or authority which they terme the Formall Object of our faith In two senses therefore and with a double relation points of faith may be called fundamentall and necessary to salvation The one is taken with reference to the Affirmative Precept when the points are of such quality that there is obligation to know and believe them explicitely and severally In this sense we grant that there is difference betwixt points of faith which D. Potter to no purpose laboureth to prove against his Adversary who in expresse words doth grant and explicate it But the Doctor thought good to dissemble the matter and not to say one pertinent word in defence of his distinction as it was impugned by Charity Mistaken and as it is wont to be applied by Protestants The other sense according to which points of faith may be called Fundamentall and necessary to salvation with reference to the Negative precept of faith is such that we cannot without grievous sinne and forfeiture of salvation disbelieve any one point sufficiently propounded as revealed by Almighty God And in this sense we avouch that there is no distinction in points of faith as if to reject some must bee damnable and to reject others equally proposed as Gods word might stand with salvation Yea the obligation of the Negative precept is farre more strict then is that of the Affirmative which God freely imposed and may freely release But it is impossible that he can dispense or give leave to disbelieue or deny what he affirmeth in this sense sin damnation are more inseparable from error in points not fundamentall then from ignorance in Articles fundamentall All this I shew by an example which I wish to be particularly noted for the present and for divers other occasions hereafter The Creed of the Apostles containes divers fundamentall points of faith as the Deity Trinity of Persons Incarnation Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour Christ c. It containes also some points for their matter and nature in themselves not fundamentall as under what Iudge our Saviour suffered that he was buried the circumstance of the time of his Resurrection the third day c. But yet neverthelesse whosoever once knowes that these points are contained in the Apostles Creed the deniall of them is damnable and is in that sense a fundamentall error and this is the precise point of the present question 3 And all that hitherto hath been said is so manifestly true that no Protestant or Christian if he doe but understand the termes and state of the Question can possibly deny it In so much as I am amazed that men who otherwise are endued with excellent wits should so enslave themselves to their Predecessors in Protestantismeâ— as still to harp on this distinction and never regard how impertinently untruly it was implied by them at first to make all Protestants seem to be of one fayth because forsooth they agree in fundamentall points For the difference among Protestants consists not in that some believe some points of which others are ignorant or not bound expressely to know as the distinction ought to be applied but that some of them disbelieve and directly wittingly and willingly oppose what others doe believe to be testified by the word of God wherein there is no difference between points fundamentall and not fundamentall Because till points fundamentall be sufficiently proposed as revealed by God it is not against faith to reject them or rather without sufficient proposition it is not possible prudently to believe them and the like is of points not fundamentall which assoone as they come to be sufficiently propounded as divine Truths they can no more be denyed then points fundamentall propounded after the same manner Neither will it avayle them to their other end that for preservation of the Church in being it is sufficient that she doe not erre in points fundamentall Foâ— if in the mean time she maintain any one Errour against Gods revelation be the thing in it selfe never so small her Errour is damnable and destructive of salvation 4 But D. Potter forgetting to what purpose Protestants make use of their distinction doth finally overthrow it and yields to as much as we can desire For speaking of that measure Quantity of faith without which none can be saved he sayth It is enough to believe some things by a vertuall faith or by a generall and as it were a negative faith whereby they are not denyed or contradicted Now our question is in case that divine truths although not fundamentall be denied and contradicted aad therefore even according to him all such deniall excludes salvation After he speaks more plainly It is true saith he whatsoever is revealed in Scripture or propoundid by the Church out of Scripture is in some sense fundamentall in regard of the divine authority of God and his word by which it is recommended that is such as may not be deâ—ied or contradicted without Infidelity such as every Christian is bound with humility and reverence to believe whensoever the knowledge thereof is offered to him And further Where the revealed will or word of God is sufficiently propounded there he that opposeth is convinced of error and he who is thus convinced is an Heretique and Heresie is a work of the flesh which excludeth from heaven Gal. 5. 20. 21. And hence it followeth that it is FVNDAMENTALL 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 Can any thing be spoken more clearly or directly for us that it is a Fundamentall error to deny any one point though never so small if once it be sufficiently propounded as a divine truth and that there is in this sense no distinction betwixt points fundamentall and not fundamentall And if any should chance to imagine that it is against the foundation of faith not to believe points Fundamentall although they be not sufficiently propounded D. Potter doth not admit of this difference betwixt points fundamentall and not fundamentall For he teacheth that sufficient proposition of revealed truth is required before a man can be convinced and for want of sufficient conviction he excuseth the Disciples from heresy although they believed not our Saviours Resurrection which is a very fundamentall point of faith Thus then I argue out of D. Potters own confession No error is damnable unlesse the contrary truth be sufficiently propounded as revealed by God Every error is
the main Question in this businesse is not what divine Revelations are necessary to be believed or not rejected when they are sufficiently proposed for all without exception all without question are so But what Revelations are simply and absolutely necessary to be proposed to the beliefe of Christians so that that Society which does propose and indeed believe them hath for matter of Faith the essence of a true Church that which does not has not Now to this question though not to yours D. Potter's assertion if it be true is apparently very pertinent And though not a full and totall satisfaction to it yet very effectuall and of great moment towards it For the main question being what points are necessary to Salvation and points necessary to Salvation being of two sorts some of simple belief some of Practise and obedience he that gives you a sufficient summary of the first sort of necessary points hath brought you halfe way towards your journies end And therefore that which he does is no more to be slighted as vain and impertinent then an Architects work is to be thought impertinent towards the making of a house because he does it not all himselfe Sure I am if his assertion be true as I believe it is a corollary may presently be deduced from it which if it were imbraced cannot in all reason but doe infinite service both to the truth of Christ and the peace of Christendome For seeing falsehood and errour could not long stand against the power of truth were they not supported by tyranny and worldly advantages he that could assert Christians to that liberty which Christ and his Apostles left them must needs doe Truth a most Heroicall service And seeing the over-valuing of the differences among Christians is one of the greatest maintainers of the Schisme of Christendome he that could demonstrate that only these points of Beliefe are simply necessary to salvation wherein Christians generally agree should he not lay a very faire and firme foundation of the peace of Christendome Now the Corollary which I conceive would produce these good effects and which flowes naturally from D. Potters Assertion is this That what Man or Church soever beleeves the Creed and all the evident consequences of it sincerely and heartily cannot possibly if also he beleeve the Scripture be in any Errour of simple beleife which is offensiue to God nor therefore deserve for any such Errour to be deprived of his life or to be cut off from the Churches Communion and the hope of Salvation And the production of this againe would be this which highly concernes the Church of Rome to think of That whatsoever Man or Church does for any errour of simple beleife depriue any man so qualified as aboue either of his temporall life or liuelyhood or liberty or of the Churches Communion and hope of salvation is for the first uniust cruell and tyrannous Schismaticall presumptuous and uncharitable for the second 13 Neither yet is this as you pretend to take away the necessity of beleeving those verities of 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 beleeving all things written in Scripture when once they know them to be there written For he that beleeves not all knowne Divine Revelations to be true how does he believe in God Vnlesse 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 beleeving 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 meere Faith yet no man pretends that it containes the Rules of obedience but for them all men are referred to Scripture Besides he that pretends to believe in God obligeth himselfe to beleeve it necessary to obey that which reason assures him to be the Will of God Now reason will assure him that beleeves the Creed that it is the Will of God he should beleeve the Scripture even the very same Reason which moves him to beleeve the Creed Vniversall and never failing Tradition having given this Testimony both to Creed and Scripture that they both by the works of God were sealed testified to be the words of God And thus much be spoken in Answere to your first Argument the length whereof will be the more excusable If I oblige my self to say but little to the Rest. 14 I come then to your second And in Answer to it denie flatly as a thing destructive of it self that any Errour can be damnable unlesse it be repugnant immediatly or mediatly directly or indirectly of it self or by accident to some Truth for the matter of it fundamentall And to your example of Pontius Pilat's being Iudge of Christ I say the deniall of it in him that knowes it to be revealed by God is manifestly destructive of this fundamentall truth that all Divine Revelations are true Neither will you find any errour so much as by accident damnable but the rejecting of it will be necessarily laid upon us by a reall beleif of all Fundamentals and simply necessary Truths And I desire you would reconcile with this that which you have said § 15. Every Fundamentall Errour must have a contrary Fundamentall Truth because of two Contradictory propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true c. 15 To the Third I Answer That the certainty I have of the Creed That it was from the Apostles and containes the principles of Faith I ground it not upon Scripture and yet not upon the Infallibility of any present much lesse 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 16 To the Fourth I Answer plainly thus That you finde 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 speciall senses of men upon the generall words of God and laying them upon mens consciences together under the equall penaltie of death and damnation this Vaine conceit that we can speak of the things of God better then in the word of God This Deifying our owne 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 Apostles
thus of it how could he have called it A brief comprehension of the faith and a summe of all things to be believed and as it were a signe or cognizance whereby Christians are to be differenced and distinguished from the impious and misbelievers who professe either no faith or not the right If Huntly had been of this mind how could he have said of it with any congruity That the rule of faith is expressely contained in it and all the prime foundations of faith And that the Apostles were not so forgetfull as to omit any prime principall foundation of faith in that Creed which they delivered to be believed by all Christians The words of Filiucius are pregnant to the same purpose There cannot bee a fitter Rule from whence Christians may learn what they are explicitly to belieue then that which is contained in the Creed Which words cannot be justified if all points necessary to be believed explicitely be not comprised in it To this end saith Putean was the Creed compos'd by the Apostles that Christians might haue a forme whereby they might professe themselues Catholiques But certainly the Apostles did this in vain If a man might professe this and yet for matter of faith be not a Catholique 26 The words of Cardinal Richelieu exact this sense and refuse your glosse as much as any of the former The Apostles Creed is the Summary and Abridgment of that faith which is necessary for a Christian These holy persons being by the Commandement of Iesus Christ to disperse themselves over the world and in all parts by preaching the Gospell to plant the faith esteemed it very necessary to reduce into a short summe all that which Christians ought to know to the end that being dispersed into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing in a short for me that it might be the easier remembred For this effect they called this Abridgment a Symbole which signifies a mark or signe which might serue to distinguish true Christians which imbraced it from Infidels which rejected it Now I would fain know how the composition of the Creed could serue for this end and secure the Preachers of it that they should preach the same thing if there were other necessary Articles not compriz'd in it Or how could it be a signe to distinguish true Christians from others if a man might belieue it all and for want of believing something else not be a true Christian 27 The words of the Author of the consideration of foure heads propounded King Iames require the same sense and utterly renounce your qualification The Symbole is a briefe yet entire Methodicall summe of Christian Doctrine including all points of faith either to bee preached by the Apostles or to be believed by their Disciples Delivered both for a direction unto them what they were to preach and others to belieue as also to discern and put a difference betwixt all faithfull Christians and misbelieving Infidels 28 Lastly Gregory of Valence affirmes our Assertion even in termes The Articles of faith contained in the Creed are as it were the first principles of the Christian faith in which is contained the summe of Evangelicall doctrine which all men are bound explicitely to belieue 29 To these Testimonies of your own Doctors I should haue added the concurrent suffrages of the ancient Fathers but the full and free acknowledgment of the same Valentia in the place aboue quoted will make this labour unnecessary So iudge saith hee the holy Fathers affirming that his Symbole of faith was composed by the Apostles that all might haue a short summe of those things which are to be belieued and are dispersedly contain'd in Scripture 30 Neither is there any discord between this Assertion of your Doctors and their holding themselues oblig'd to belieue all the points which the Councell of Trent defines For Protestants Papists may both hold that all points of beliefe necessary to be known belieued are summ'd up in the Creed and yet both the one the other think themselues bound to belieue whatsoever other points they either know or belieue to be revealed by God For the Articles which are necessary to be known that they are revealed by God may bee very few and yet those which are necessary to be believed when they are revealed and known to be so may be very many 31 But Summaries and Abstracts are not intended to specifie all the particulars of the science or subiect to which they belong Yes if they bee intended for perfect Summaries they must not omit any necessary doctrine of that Science whereof they are Summaries though the Illustration and Reasons of it they may omit If this were not so a man might set down forty or fifty of the Principall definitions and divisions and rules of Logick and call it a Summary or Abstract of Logick But sure this were no more a Summary then that were the picture of a man in little that wanted any of the parts of a man or that a totall summe wherein all the particulars were not cast up Now the Apostles Creed you here intimate that it was intended for a Summary otherwise why talk you here of Summaries and tell us that they need not contain all the particulars of their science And of what I pray may it be a Summary but of the Fundamentals of Christian faith Now you haue already told us That it is most full and compleat to that purpose for which it was intended Lay all this together and I belieue the product will be That the Apostles Creed is a perfect Summary of the Fundamentalls of the Christian faith and what the duty of a perfect Summary is I haue already told you 32 Whereas therefore to disproue this Assertion in divers particles of this Chapter but especially the fourteenth you muster up whole armies of doctrines which you pretend are necessary and not contain'd in the Creed I answer very briefly thus That the doctrines you mention are either concerning matters of practise and not simple beliefe or else they are such doctrines wherein God has not so plainly revealed himselfe but that honest and good men true Lovers of God and of Truth those that desire aboue all things to know his will and doe it may erre and yet commit no sinne at all or only a sinne of infirmity and not destructiue of salvation or lastly they are such Doctrines which God hath plainly revealed and so are necessary to be belieued when they are known to be divine but not necessary to be known believed not necessary to be known for divine that they may be believed Now all these sorts of doctrines are impertinent to the present Question For D. Potter never affirmed either that the necessary duties of a Christian or that all Truths piously credible but not necessary to be believed or that all Truths necessary to bee believed upon the supposall of divine Revelation were specified in the
Creed For this he affirmes only of such speculatiue divine veriries which God hath commanded particularly to be preached to all and believed by all Now let the doctrines objected by you be well considered and let all those that are reducible to the three former heads be discarded and then of all these Instances against D. Potters Assertion there will not remain so much as one 33 First the Questions touching the conditions to bee performed by us to obtaine remission of sinnes the Sacraments the Commandements and the possibility of keeping them the necessity of imploring the Assistance of Gods Grace and Spirit for the keeping of them how farre 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 Fundamentalls is profitable but not fundamentall He that belieues all Fundamentals cannot bee damned for any errour in faith though he belieue more or lesse to bee fundamental then is so That also of the procession of the holy Ghost from the Father and the Sonne of Purgatory of the Churches Visibility of the Books of the new Testament which were doubted of by a considerable part of the Primitiue Church untill I see better reason for the contrary then 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 bookes 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 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 woman is bound under pain of damnation particularly to know thē 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 aboue mentioned which were never pretended to haue place in the Creed There remaines one only point of all that Army you mustred together reducible to none of these heads that is that God is and is a Remunerator which you say is questioned by the deniall of merit But if there were such a necessary indissoluble coherence between this point and the doctrine of merit mee thinks 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 Besides when Protestants deny the doctrine of Merits you know right well for so they haue declared themselues a thousand times that they mean nothing else but with David that their well doing extendeth not is not truly beneficiall to God with our Saviour when they haue done all which they are commanded they haue done their duty only and no curtesie And lastly with S. Paul that all which they can suffer for God and yet suffering is more then doing is not worthy to bee 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 himselfe Nay you must either grant their deniall of true Merit just 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 equall unto and well worthy of eternall glory which is prepar'd for them As for the inconvenience which you so much feare That the deniall of Merit makes God a Giver only not a Rewarder I tell you good Sir you feare where no feare is and that it is both most true on the one side that you in holding good Works meritorious of eternall glory make God a rewarder only not a giver contrary to plain Scripture affirming that The gift of God is eternall 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 giues not Heaven but to those which doe something for it and so his gift is also a Reward but withall that whatsoever they doe is due unto God before hand 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 meanes of a Cardinall would you not not only in humility but in sincerity haue professed that you had not merited such a Reward And yet the Pope is neither your Creatour nor Redeemer nor Preserver nor perhaps your very great Benefactour 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 haue done him hath been really advantagious to him and lastly not altogether unproportionable to the fore-mentioned Reward And therefore if by the same work you will pretend that either you haue or hope to haue deserved immortall happinesse I beseech you consider well whether this be not to set a higher value upon a Cardinal's cap then a Crowne of immortall glory and with that Cardinall to prefer a part in Paris before a part in Paradise 37 In the next Paragraph you beat the ayre again and fight manfully with your own shadow The point you should haue spoken to was this That there are some points of simple beliefe necessary to bee explicitely believed which yet are not contained in the Creed Insteed hereof you trouble your selfe in vain to demonstrate That many important points of faith are not contained in it which yet D. Potter had freely granted and you your selfe take particular notice of his granting of it All this paines therefore you have imployed to no purpose saving that to some negligent Reader you may seem to have spoken to the very point because that which you speak to at the first hearing sounds somewhat neere it But such a one I must intreat to remember there be many more points of faith then there be Articles of Simple belief necessary to be explicitly believed And that though all of the former sort are not contained in the Creed yet all of the latter sort may be As for your distinction between Heresies that have been and Heresies that are and Heresies that may be I have already proved it vaine and that whatsoever may be an Heresie that is so and whatsoever is so
them the argument which S. Augustine opposed to the Manicheans in these words I would not believe the Gospell unlesse the authority of the Church did move me Them therefore whom I obeyeâ— saying Believe the Gospell why should I not obey saying to me Doe not believe Manichaeus Luther Calvin c. Choose what thou pleasest If thou shalt say believe the Catholiques They warne me not to give any credit to you If therefore I believe them I cannot believe thee If thou say Do not believe the Catholiques thou shalt not doe well in forcing me to the faith of Manichaeus because by the preaching of Catholiques I believed the Gospell it selfe If thou say you did well to believe them Catholiques commending the Gospell but you did not well to believe them discommending Manichaeus Dost 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 And doe not Protestants perfectly resemble these men to whom S. Augustine spake when they will have men to believe the Roman Church delivering Scripture but not to believe her condemning Luther and the rest Against whom when they first opposed themselves to the Roman Church S. Augustine may seem to have spoken no lesse prophetically then doctrinally when he said Why should I not most diligently inâ—uire what Christ coÌ„manded of them before all others by whose authority I was moved to believe that Christ commanded any good thing Canst thou 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 thee to mee This therefore I believed by fame strengthned with celebrity consent Antiquity But every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving authority What madnesse is this Believe them Catholiques that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said Why I beseech thee Surely if they Catholiques were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily perswade my selfe that I were not to believe Christ then that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other then them by whom I believed him If therefore we receive the knowledge of Christ and Scriptures from the Church from her also must we take his doctrine and the interpretation thereof 19 But besides all this the Scriptures cannot be Iudge of Controversies who ought to be such as that to him not only the learned or Veterans but also the unlearned and Novices may have recourse for these being capable of salvation and endued with faith of the same nature with that of the learned there must be some universall Iudge which the ignorant may understand and to whom the greatest Clerks must submit Such is the Church and the Scripture is not such 20 Now the inconveniences which follow by referring all Controversies to Scripture alone are very clear For by this principle all is finally in very deed and truth reduced to the internall private Spirit because there is really no middle way betwixt a publiquâ— externall and a private internall voyce and whosoever refuseth the one must of necessity adhere to the other 21 This Tenet also of Protestants by taking the office of Iudicature from the Church comes to conferre it upon every particular man who being driven from submission to the Church cannot be blamed if he trust himselfe as farre as any other his conscience dictating that wittingly he meanes not to cozen himself as others malitiously may doe Which inference is so manifest that it hath extorted from divers Protestants the open Confession of so vast an absurdity Hear Luther The Governours of Churches and Pastors of Christs sheep have indeed power to teach but the sheep ought to give judgement whether they propound the voice of Christ or of Aliens Lubertus saith As we have demonstrated that all publique Iudges may be deceived in interpreting so we affirme that they may erre in judging All faithfull men are private Iudges and they also have power to judge of doctrines and interpretations Whitaker even of the unlearned saith They ought to have recourse unto the more learned but in the meane time we must be carefull not to attribute to them over-much but so that still we retaine our owne freedome Bilson also affirmeth that The people must be discerners and Iudges of that which is taught This same pernicious doctrine is delivered by Brentius Zanchius Cartwright and others exactly cited by Brerely and nothing is more common in every Protestants mouth then that he admits of Fathers Councells Church c. as farre as they agree with Scripture which upon the matter is himselfe Thus Heresy ever fals upon extreames It pretends to have Scripture alone for judge of Controversies and in the meane time sets up as many Iudges as there are men and women in the Christian world What good Statesmen would they be who should ideate or fancy such a CoÌ„mon wealth as these men haue framed to themselues a Church They verifie what S. Augustine objecteth against certaine Heretiques You see that you goe about to overthrow all authority of Scripture and that every mans minde may be to himselfe a Rule what he is to allow or disallow in every Sâ—â—ipture 22 Moreover what confusion to the Church what danger to the Common wealth this deniall of the authority of the Church may bring I leaue to the consideration of any judicious indifferent man I will only set down some words of D. Potter who speaking of the Proposition of revealed Truths sufficient to proue him that gain-saith them to be an Heretique saith thus This Proposition of revealed truths is not by the infallible determination of Pope or Church Pope Church being excluded let us heare what more secure rule he will prescribe but by whatsoever meanes a man may be convinced in conscience of divine revelation If a Preacher doe clear any point of faith to his Hearers if a private Christian doe make it appeare to his Neighbour that any conclusion or point of faith is delivered by divine revelation of Gods word if a man himselfe without any Teacher by reading the Scriptures or hearing them read be convinced of the truth of any such conclusion this is a sufficient proposition to proue him that gainsaith any such proofe to be an Heretique and obstinate opposer of the faith Behold what goodly safe Propounders of faith arise in place of Gods universall visible Church which must yeeld to a single Preacher a Neighbour a man himselfe if he can read or at least haue eares to heare Scripture read Verily I doe not see but that every well-governed Civill Commonwealth ought to concurre towards the exterminating of this doctrine whereby the Interpretation of Scripture is taken from the Church and conferred upon every man who whatsoever is pretended to the contrary may be a passionate seditious creature 23 Moreover
doubtfull whether they be spoken of the Church of Christ if they be whether they mean as you pretend You say the Church saies so which is infallible Yea but that is the Question and therefore not to be begg'd but proved Neither is it so evident as to need no proofe otherwise why brought you this Text to proue it Nor is it of such a strange quality aboue all other Propositions as to bee able to proue it selfe What then remaines but that you say Reasons drawn out of the Circumstances of the Text will evince that this is the sense of it Perhaps they will But Reasons cannot convince mee unlesse I judge of them by my Reason and for every man or woman to relye on that in the choice of their Religion and in the interpreting of Scripture you say is a horrible absurditie and therefore must neither make use of your own in this matter nor desire mee to make use of it 119 But Vniversall Tradition you say and so doe I too is of it selfe credible and that has in all ages taught the Churches infallibility with full consent If it haue I am ready to belieue it But that it has I hope you would not haue me take upon your word for that were to build my selfe upon the Church and the Church upon You. Let then the Tradition appeare for a secret Tradition is somewhat like a silent Thunder You will perhaps produce for the confirmation of it some sayings of some Fathers who in every Age taught this Doctrine as Gualterius in his Chronologie undertakes to doe but with so ill successe that I heard an able Man of your Religion professe that in the first three Centuries there was not one Authority pertinent but how will you warrant that none of them teach the contrary Again how shall I be assured that the places haue indeed this sense in them Seeing there is not one Father for 500. yeares after Christ that does say in plain termes The Church of Rome is infallible What shall wee belieue your Church that this is their meaning But this will be again to goe into the Circle which made us giddy before To proue the Church Infallible because Tradition saies so Tradition to say so because the Fathers say so The Fathers to say so because the Church saies so which is infallible Yea but reason will shew this to be the meaning of them Yes if we may use our Reason and rely upon it Otherwise as light shewes nothing to the blinde or to him that uses not his eyes so reason cannot proue any thing to him that either has not or uses not his reason to judge of them 120 Thus you haue excluded your selfe from all proofe of your Churches infallibility from Scripture or Tradition And if you flye lastly to Reason it selfe for succour may not it justly say to you as Iephte said to his Brethren Yee haue cast me out and banished me and doe you now come to me for succour But if there be no certainty in Reason how shall I be assured of the certainty of those which you alleage for this purpose Either I may judge of them or not if not why doe you propose them If I may why doe you say I may not and make it such a monstrous absurdity That men in the choyce of their Religion should make use of their Reason which yet without all question none but unreasonable men can deny to haue been the chiefest ende why Reason was given them 122 Ad § 22. An Heretique he is saith D. Potter who opposeth any truth which to be a divine revelation he is convinced in conscience by any meanes whatsoever Be it by a Preacher or Lay-man be it by reading Scripture or hearing them read And from hence you infer that he makes all these safe propounders of Faith A most strange and illogicall deduction For may not a private man by evident reason convince another man that such or such a Doctrine is divine revelation and yet though he be a true propounder in this point yet propound another thing falsely and without proofe and consequently not be a safe propounder in every point Your Preachers in their Sermons do they not propose to men divine Revelations and doe they not sometimes convince men in conscience by evident proofe from Scripture that the things they speak are Divine revelations And whosoever being thus convinc'd should oppose this Divine revelation should hee not be an Heretique according to your own grounds for calling Gods own Truth into question And would you think your selfe well dealt with if I should collect from hence that you make every Preacher a safe that is an infallible Propounder of Faith Be the meanes of Proposall what it will sufficient or insufficient worthy of credit or not worthy though it were if it were possible the barking of a Dog or the chirping of a Bird or were it the discourse of the Divell himselfe yet if I be I will not say convinc'd but persuaded though falsly that it is a Divine revelation and shall deny to belieue it I shall be a formall though not a materiall Heretique For he that believes though falsly any thing to be Divine revelation yet will not believe it to be true must of necessity believe God to be false which according to your own Doctrine is the formality of an Heretique 123 And how it can be any way advantagious to Civill government that men without warrant from God should usurpe a tyranny over other mens consciences and prescribe unto them without reason and sometimes against reason what they shall believe you must shew us plainer if you desire we should believe For to say Verily I doe not see but that it must be so is no good demonstration For whereas you say that a man may be a passionate seditious creature from whence you would have us inferre that he may make use of his interpretation to satisfie his passion and raise sedition There were some colour in this consequence if we as you doe made private men infallible interpreters for others for then indeed they might lead Disciples after them and use them as instruments for their vile purposes But when we say they can only interpret for themselves what harme they can doe by their passionate or seditious interpretations but only endanger both their temporall and eternall happinesse I cannot imagine For though we deny the Pope or Church of Rome to be an infallible Iudge yet we doe not deny but that there are Iudges which may proceed with certainty enough against all seditious Persons such as draw men to disobedience either against Church or State as well as against Rebells and Traytors and Theeves and Murderers 124 Ad § 23. The next § in the begining argues thus For many ages there was no Scripture in the World and for many more there was none in many places of the world yet men wanted not then and then some certain direction what to believe
truth 164 To the Argument wherewith you conclude I Answere That though the visible Church shall alwaies without faile 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 adde to this revelation things superfluous nay hurtfull nay in themselves damnable though not unpardonable and sometimes take from it things very expedient and profitable and therefore it is possible without siâ—ne to resist in some things the Visible Church of Christ. But you presse 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 usuall 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 inferre 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 unlesse it be that she is poor and oppressed by the Turk and you are in glory and splendor 165 Neither is it so easy to be determined as you pretend That Luther and other Protestants opposed the whole visible Church in matters of Faith neither is it so evident that the Visible Church may not fall into such a state wherein she may be justly opposed And lastly for calling the distinction of points into Fundamentall and not Fundamentall an evasion I believe you will find it easier to call it so then to prove it so But that shall be the issue of the Controversy in the next Chapter CHAP. III. That the distinction of points fundamentall and not fundamentall is neither pertinent nor true in our present Controversie And that the Catholike Visible Church cannot erre in either kinde of the said points THIS distinction is abused by Protestants to many purposes of theirs and therefore if it be either untrue or impertinent as they understand and apply it the whole edifice built thereon must be ruinous and false For if you object their bitter and continued discords in matters of faith without any means of agreement they instantly tell you as Charity mistaken plainly shewes that they differ only in pâ—ints not fundamentall If you convince them even by their own Confessions that the ancient Fathers taught divers points held by the Roman Church against Protestants they reply that those Fathers may neverthelesse be saved because those errours were not fundamentall If you will them to remember that Christ must alwaies haue a visible Church on earth with administration of Sacraments and succession of Paâ—stors and that when Luther appeared there was no Church distinct from the Roman whose Communion and doctrine Luther then forâ—ook and for that cause must be guilty of Schisme and Herosie they haue an Answer such as it is that the Catholike Church cannot perish yet may erre in points not fundamentall and therefore Luther and other Protestants were obliged to forsake her for such errors under paine of Damnation as if forsooth it were Damnable to hold an error not Fundamentall nor Damnable If you wonder how they can teach that both Catholiques and Protestants may be saved in their severall professions they salve this contradiction by saying that we both agree in all fundamentall points of faith which is enough for salvation And yet which is prodigiously strange they could never be induced to give a Catalogue what points in particular be fundamentall but only by some generall description or by referring us to the Apostles Creed without determining what points therein be fundamentall or not fundamentall for the matter and in what sense they be or be not such and yet concerning the meaning of divers points contained or reduced to the Creed they differ both from us and among themselves And indeed it being impossible for them to exhibit any such Catalogue the said distinction of points although it were pertinent and true cannot serve them to any purpose but still they must remaine uncertaine whether or not they disagree from one another from the ancient Fathers and from the Catholique Church in points fundamentall which is to say they have no certainty whether they enjoy the substance of Christian Faith without which they cannot hope to be saved But of this more heerafter 2 And to the end that what shall be said concerning this distinction may be better understood wee are to observe that there be two precepts which concerne the vertue of faith or our obligation to believe divine truths The one is by Divines called Affirmative whereby we are obliged to have a positive explicite belief of some chief Articles of Christian faith The other is â—ermed Negative which strictly binds us not not to disbelieve that is not to believe the contrary of any one point sufficiently represented to our understanding as revealed or spoken by Almighty God The said Affirmative Precept according to the nature of such commands injoynes some act to be performed but not at all times nor doth it equally bind all sorts of persons in respect of all objects to be believed For objects we grant that some are more necessary to be explicitely and severall believed then other either because they are in themselves more great and weighty or els in regard they instruct us in some necessary Christian duty towards God our selves or our Neighbour For persons no doubt but some are obliged to know distinctly more then others by reason of their office vocation capacity or the like For times we are not obliged to be still in act of exercising acts of faith but according as severall occasions permit or require The second kind of precept called Negative doth according to the nature of all such commands oblige universally all persons in respect of all objects and at all times seâ—per pro semper as Divines speak This generall doctrine will be more cleere by examples I am not obliged to be alwaies helping my Neighbour because the Affirmative precept of Charity bindeth only in some particular cases But I am alwaies bound by a Negative precept never to doe him any hurt or wrong I am not alwaies bound to utter what I know to be true yet I am obliged never to speak any one least untruth against my knowledge And to come to our present purpose there is no Affirmative precept commanding us to be at all times actually believing any one or all Articles of faith But we are obliged never to exercise any act against any one truth known to be revealed All sorts of persons are not bound explicitely and distinctly to know all things testified by God either in Scripture or otherwise but
erre from the true and intended sense of some nay of many obscure or ambiguous texts of Scripture yet we may be sure enough that we erre not damnably because if we doe indeed desire and endeavour to finde the Truth we may be sure we doe so and as sure that it cannot consist with the revealed goodnesse of God to damne him for error that desires and indeavours to find the Truth 15 Ad § 2. The effect of this Paragraph for as much as concernes 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 affirmes that to be Truth which he either knowes to be not a Truth or which he doth not know to be a Truth and therefore without all controversy this is a damnable sinne To this I subscribe with hand and heart adding withall that not only he which knowes 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 sinne of derogation from Gods most perfect and pure Veracity 16 Ad § 3. I said purposely known by himselfe and belieues himselfe For as without any disparagement of a mans honesty I may believe something to be false which he affirmes 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 eternall 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 17 Seeing therefore the crime of calling Gods veracity into question and consequently according to your grounds of erring Fundamentally is chargeable upon those only that believe the contrary of any one point known not by others but themselves to be testified by God I cannot but fear though I hope otherwise that your heart condemned you of a great calumny and egregious sophistry in imputing fundamentall and damnable error to disagreeing Protestans Because forsooth some of them disbelieve and directly wittingly and willingly oppose what others doe believe to be testified by the word of God The sophistry of your discourse will be apparent if it be contrived into a syllogisme Thus therefore in effect you argue Whosoever disbelieves any thing known by himselfe to be revealed by God imputes falshood to God and therefore errs fundamentally But Some Protestants disbelieve these things which Others believe to be testified by God Therefore they impute falshood to God and erre Fundamentally Neither can you with any colour pretend that in these words known to be testified by God you meant not by himselfe but by any other Seeing he only in fact affirmes that God does deceive or is deceived who denyes some things which himselfe knowes or believes to be revealed by God as before I have demonstrated For otherwise if I should deny beleefe to some which God had revealed secretly to such a man as I had never heard of I should be guilty of calling Gods veracity into Question which is euidently false Besides how can it be avoided but the Iesuits and Dominicans the Dominicans and Franciscans must upon this ground differ Fundamentally and one of them erre damnably seeing the one of them disbelieves and willingly opposes what the others believe to be the word of God 18 Whereas you say that the difference among Protestants consists not in this that some believe some points of which others are ignorant or not bound expresly to know I would gladly know whether you speak of Protestants differing in profession only or in opinion also If the first why doe you say presently after that some disbelieve what others of them believe If they differ in opinion then sure they are ignorant of the truth of each other's opinions it being impossible and contradictious that a man should know one thing to be true and believe the contrary or know it and not believe it And if they doe not know the truth of each others opinions then I hope you will grant they are ignorant of it If your meaning were they were not ignorant that each other held these Opinions or of the sense of the opinions which they held I Answere this is nothing to the convincing of their understandings of the truth of them and these remaining unconvinced of the truth of them they are excusable if they doe not believe 9 But ignorance of what we are expresly bound to know is it selfe 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 yeeld that one side must of necessity be in a mortall crime But for want of proofe of this you content your selfe 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 deniall 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 syllogisme 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 haue over even excellent understandings wee may well imagine that many truths which in themselues 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 judgement with us for those things which all things considered were unavoidable 20 But till Fundamentalls 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 belieue them And points unfundamentall being thus sufficiently proposed as divine Truths may not be denied Therefore you conclude there is no difference between them Ans. A Circumstantiall point may by accident become Fundamentall because it may bee so proposed that the deniall of it will draw after it
the deniall of this Fundamentall truth that all which God saies is true Notwithstanding in themselues there is a main difference between them Points fundamentall being those onely which are revealed by God and commanded to bee preacht to all and believed by all Points circumstantiall being such as though God hath revealed them yet the Pastors of the Church are not bound under paine of damnation particularly to teach them unto all men every where and the people may be securely ignorant of them 21 You say Not erring in points Fundamentall is not sufficient for the preservation of the Church because any Errour 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 doe so for ipso Facto in doing it it were a Church no longer But if you mean against some Revelation which the Church by errour thinks to bee no Revelation it is false The Church may ignorantly disbelieue such a Revelation and yet continue a Church which thus I proue That the Gospell was to be preached to all Nations was a Truth revealed before our Saviours Ascention in these words Goe 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 untill the conversion of Cornelius and yet was still a Church Therefore to disbelieue 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 plaine Revelation of God that the Sacrament of the Eucharist should be administred in both kindes and that the publique Hymnes 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 veile before their eyes their Churches supposed infallibility I hope the deniall of them shall not be laid to their charge no otherwise then as building hay and stubble on the Foundations not overthrowing the Foundation it selfe 22 Ad § 2. In the beginning of this Paragraph wee haue this Argument against this Distinction It is enough by D. Potters confession to belieue some things negatiuely i. e. not to deny them Therefore all deniall of any divine truth excludes Salvation As if you should say One Horse is enough for a man to goe a journey Therefore without a horse no man can goe a journey As if some Divine Truthes viâ— Those which are plainly revealed might not be such as of necessity were not to be denied and others for want of sufficient declaration deniable without danger Indeed if D. Potter had said there had been no divine Truth declared sufficiently or not declared but must upon pain of damnation be believed or at least not denied then might you justly haue concluded as you doe but now that some may not be denied and that some may be denied without damnation why they may not both stand together I doe not yet understand 23 In the Remainder you in ferre out of D. Potters words That all errours are alike damnable if the manner of propounding the contrary Truths be not different which for ought I know all Protestants and all that haue sense must grant Yet I deny your illation from hence That the distinction of points into fundamentall and unfundamentall is vaine and uneffectuall for the purpose of Protestants For though being alike propos'd as divine truths they are by accident alike necessary yet the reall difference still remaines between them that they are not alike necessary to be proposed 24 Ad § 5. The next Paragraph if it be brought out of the clouds will I belieue haue 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 haue different Faiths but from the Motive to it 3. This Motiue is Gods Revelation 4. This Revelation is alike for all obiects 5. Protestants disagree in things equally revealed by God Therefore they forsake the formall motiue of faith and therefore haue no faith nor unity therein Which is truly a very proper and convenient argument to close up â— weak discourse wherein both the Propositions are false for matter confused and disordered for the forme and the conclusion utterly inconsequent First for the second Proposition who knowes not that the Essence of all Habits therefore of Faith among the rest is taken from their Act and their Object If the Habit be generall from the Act and Object in generall if the Habit be speciall from the Act and Object in speciall Then for the motiue to a thing that it cannot be of the Essence of the thing to which it moues who can doubt that knows that a motiue is an efficient cause and that the efficient is alwaies extrinsecall 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 equall Motive to induce us to belieue 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 Witnesse 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 themselues 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 enclined to belieue such a sense of Scripture others to belieue another which to say that God will not take into his consideration in judging mens opinions is to disparage his goodnesse 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 baptiz'd for the dead and this He shall bee saved yet so as by fire and a thousand others is equally revealed to you and to another interpreter that is certainly to neither Hee now conceiues one sense of them and you another and would it not be an excellent inference if I should conclude now as you doe That you forsake the formall motiue of faith which is Gods revelation and consequently loose all faith and unity therein So likewise the Iesuites and Dominicans the Franciscans and Dominicans disagree about things equaâ—ly revealed by Almighty God and seeing they doe so I beseech you let me understand
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 wisemen have the ordering of the building they will make it much a surer thing that the foundation shall not fail the building then 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 then the adherence of the structure to it Now the Apostles Prophets and Canonicall 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 then the Churches which is built upon them Again a dependent Infallibility especially if the dependance 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 as the streightnesse of the thing regulated upon the streightnesse of the Rule and besides this dependance 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 errour Therefore the Churches infallibility is not so certain as that of the Apostles 31 Lastly Quid verba audiam cum fact a videam If you be so Infallible as the Apostles were shew it as the Apostles did They went forth saith S. Marke and Preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming their words with Signes following It is impossible that God should lye and that the eternall Truth should set his hand and seale to the confirmation of a falshood or of such Doctrine as is partly true and partly false The Apostles Doctrine 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 Atteâ—tation 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 errour 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 expresse warrant injunction to goe and Preach to all Nations yet untill 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 unlawfull for them to goe or preach the Gospell to any but the Iewes 32 And for those things which they professe to deliver as the dictates of humane 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 doe so and not contradict the Apostles and God himselfe Therefore when S. Paul saies in the 1. Epist. to the Cor. 7. 12. To the rest speak I not the Lord And again concerning Virgins I have no commandement of the Lord but I deliver my Iudgement If we will pretend that the Lord did certainly speak what S. Paul spake and that his judgement was Gods commandement 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 judgement touching some things which God had not particularly revealed unto him And if D. Potter did speak to this purpose that the Apostles were Infallible only in these things which they spake of certain knowledge I cannot see what danger there were in saying so Yet the truth is you wrong D. Potter It is not he but D. Stapleton in him that speakes the words you cavill at D. Stapleton saith he p. 140. is full and punctuall to this purpose then sets down the effect of his discourse l. 8. Princ. Doct. 4. c. 15. and in that the words you cavill at and then p. 150. he shuts up this paragraph with these words thus D. Stapleton So that if either the Doctrine or the reason be not good D. Stapleton not D. Potter is to answer for it 33 Neither doe D. Potter's ensuing words limit the Apostles infalbilitie to truths absolutely necessary to salvation if you read them with any candor for it is evident he grants the Church infallible in Truths absolutely necessary and as evident that he ascribes to the Apostles the spirits guidance and consequently infallibility in a more high and absolute manner then any since them From whence thus I argue Hee that grants the Church infallible in Fundamentals and ascribes to the Apostles the infallible guidance of the Spirit in a more high and absolute manner then to any since them limits not the Apostles infallibility to Fundamentals But D. Potter grants to the Church such a limited infallibility and ascribes to the Apostles The Spirits infallible guidance in a more high and absolute manner therefore hee limits not the Apostles infallibility to Fundamentals I once knew a man out of curtesie help a lame dog over a stile and he for requitall bit him by the fingers Iust so you serue D. Potter He out of curtesie grants you that those words The Spirit shall lead you into all Truth and shall abide with you ever though in their high and most absolute sense they agree only to the Apostles yet in a conditionall limited moderate secundary sense they may be understood of the Church But saies that if they be understood of the Church All must not be simply all No nor so large an All as the Apostles All but all necessary to salvation And you to requite his curtesie in granting you thus much cavill at him as if hee had prescribed these bounds to the Apostles also as well as the present Church Whereas he hath explained himselfe to the contrary both in the clause fore-mentioned The Apostles who had the spirits guidance in a more high and absolute manner then any since them and in these words ensuing whereof the Church is simply ignorant and againe wâ—erewith the Church is not acquainted But most clearly in those which being most incompatible to the Apostles you with an c I cannot but feare craftily haue conceal'd How many obscure Texts of Scripture which she understands not How many Schoole Questions which she hath not happily cannot determine And for matters of fact it is apparent that the Church may erre and then concludes That we must understand by All truths not simply All But if you conceiue the words as spoken of the Church All Truth absolutely necessary to salvation And yet beyond all this the negative part of his answer agrees very well to the Apostles themselues for
of S. Austin of them diversorum locorum diversis moribus innumerabiliter variantur and apparent because the stream of them was grown so violent that he durst not opopose it liberiùs improbare non audeâ— I dare not freely speak against them So that to say the Catholique Church tolerated all this and for fear of offence durst not abrogate or condemne it is to say if we judge rightly of it that the Church with silence and connivence generally tolerated Christians to worship God in vain Now how this tolerating of Vniversall superstition in the Church can consist with the assistance and direction of Gods omnipotent spirit to guard it from superstition with the accomplishment of that pretended prophecy of the Church I have set watchmen upon thy walls O Ierusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor night besides how these superstitions being thus noutished cherished and strengthened by the practise of the most and urged with great violence upon others as the commandements of God and but fearfully opposed or contradicted by any might in time take such deepe roote and spread their branches so farre as to passe for universall Customes of the Church he that does not see sees nothing Especially considering the catching and contagious nature of this sinne and how fast ill weeds spread and how true and experimented that rule is of the Historian Exempla non consistunt ubi incipiunt sed quamlibâ—t in tenuem recepta tramitem latissimè evagandi sibi faciunt potestatem Nay that some such superstition had not already even in S. Austins time prevailed so farre as to be Consâ—etudine universae Ecclesiae roboratum who can doubt that considers that the practise of Communicating Infants had even then got the credit and authority not only of an uniuersall Custome but also of an Apostolique Tradition 48 But you will say notwithstanding all this S. Austin here warrants us that the Church can never either approue or dissemble or practise any thing against faith or goodlife and so long you may rest securely upon it Yea but the same S. Austine tels us in the same place that the Church may tolerate humane presumptions and vain superstitions and those urg'd more severely then the Commandements of God And whether superstition be a sinne or no I appeal to our Saviours words before cited and to the consent of your Schoolmen Besides if we consider it rightly we shall finde that the Church is not truly said only to tolerate these things but rather that a part and farre the lesser tolerated and dissembled them in silence and a part a farre greater publiquely vowed and practis'd them and urg'd them upon others with great violence and that continued still a part of the Church Now why the whole Church might not continue the Church and yet doe so as well as a part of the Church might continue a part of it and yet doe so I desire you to inform me 49 But now after all this adoe what if S. Austine saies not this which is pretended of the Church viz. That she neither approues nor dissembles nor practises any thing against Faith or good life but onely of good men in the Church Certainly though some Copies read as you would haue it yet you should not haue dissembled that others read the place otherwise viz. Ecclesia multa tolerat tamen quae sunt contra Fidem bonam vitam nec bonus approbat c. The Church tolerates many things and yet what is against faith or good life a good man will neither approue nor dissemble nor practise 50 Ad § 17. That Abraham begat Isaac is a point very far from being Fundamentall and yet I hope you will grant that Protestants believing Scripture to be the word of God may bee certain enough of the truth and certainty of it For what if they say that the Catholique Church and much more themselues may possibly erre in some unfundamentall points is it therefore consequent they can be certaine of none such What if a wiser man then I may mistake the sense of some obscure place of Aristotle may I not therefore without any arrogance or inconsequence conceiue my selfe certain that I understand him in some plain places which carry their sense before them And then for points Fundamentall to what purpose doe you say That we must first know what they be before we can be assured that wee cannot erre in understanding the Scripture when we pretend not at all to any assurance that we cannot erre but only to a sufficient certainty that we doe not erre but rightly understand those things that are plain whether Fundamentall or not Fundamentall That God is and is a rewarder of them that seek him That there is no salvation but by faith in Christ That by repentance and faith in Christ Remission of sinnes may be obtained That there shall be a Resurrection of the Body These wee conceive both true because the Scripture saies so and Truths Fundamentall because they are necessary parts of the Gospell whereof our Saviour saies Qui non crediderit damnabitur All which we either learne from Scripture immediately or learne of those that learne it of Scripture so that neither Learned nor Vnlearned pretend to know these things independently of Scripture And therefore in imputing this to us you cannot excuse your selfe from having done us a palpable injury 51 Ad § 18. And I urge you as mainly as you urge D. Potter other Protestants that you tell us that all the Traditions and all the Definitions of the Church are FundameÌ„tal points we cannot wrest from you a list in particular of all such Traditions and Definitions without which no man can tell whether or no he erre in points fundamentall and be capable of salvation For I hope erring in our fundamentals is no more exclusiue of salvation theÌ„ erring in yours And which is most lamentable insteed of giving us such a Catalogue you also fall to wrangle among your selues about the making of it Some of you as I haue said aboue holding somethings to be matters of Faith which others deny to be so 52 Ad § 19. I answ That these differences between Protestants concerning Errours damnable and not damnable Truths fundamentall and not fundamentall may be easily reconcil'd For either the Errour they speak of may be purely and simply involuntary or it may be in respect of the cause of it voluntary If the cause of it be some voluntary and avoidable fault the Errour is it selfe sinfull and consequently in its own nature damnable As if by negligence in seeking the Truth by unwillingnesse to finde it by pride by obstinacy by desiring that Religion should be true which sutes best with my ends by feare of mens ill opinion or any other worldly feare or any other worldly hope I betray my selfe to any error contrary to any divine revealed Truth that Errour may be justly stiled a sinne and consequently of it selfe to
of faith was needlesse since we grant it in manner aforesaid But Doctor Potter cannot in his conscience believe that Catholique Divines or the Councell of Trent and the holy Fathers did intend that all points in particular which we are obliged to believe are contained explicitely in the Creed he knowing well enough that all Catholiques hold themselves obliged to believe all those points which the said Councell defines to be believed under an Anathema and that all Christians believe the commandements Sacraments c. which are not expressed in the Creed 11. Neither must this seeme strange For who is ignorant that Summaries Epitomes and the like briefe Abstracts are not intended to specifie all particulars of that Science or Subject to which they belong For as the Creed is said to containe all points of Faith so the Decalogue comprehends all Articles as I may terme them which concerne Charity and good life and yet this cannot be so understood as if we were disobliged froÌ„ performance of any duty or the eschewing of any vice unlesse it be expressed in the ten Commandements For to omit the precepts of receaving Sacraments which belong to practise or manners and yet are not contained in the Decalogue there are many sinnes even against the law of nature and light of reason which are not contained in the tenne Commandements except only by similitude analogy reduction or some such way For example we find not expressed in the Decalogue either divers sinnes as Gluttony Drunkennesse Pride Sloth Covetousnesse in desiring either things superfluous or with too much greedinesse or diuers of our chiefe obligations as Obedience to Princes and all Superiours not only Ecclesiasticall but also Civill whose lawes Luther Melancthon Calvin and some other Protestants doe dangerously affirme not to oblige â—n conscience and yet these men thinke they know the ten Commandements as likewise divers Protestants defend Vsury to be lawfull and the many Treatises of Civilians Canonists and Casuists are witnesses that divers sinnes against the light of reason and Law of nature are not distinctly expressed in the ten Commandements although when by other diligences they are found to be unlawfull they may be reduced to some of the Commandements and yet not so evidently and particularly but that divers doe it in divers manners 12. My third Observation is That our present question being whether or no the Creed containe so fully all fundamentall points of faith that whosoever doe not agree in all and every one of those fundamentall Articles cannot have the same substance of faith nor hope of Salvation if I can produce one or more points not contained in the Creed in vvhich if two doe not agree both of them cannot expect to be saved I shall have performed as much as I intend and D. Potter must seeke our some other Catalogue for points fundamentall then the Creed Neither is it materiall to the said purpose whether such fundamentall points rest only in knowledge and speculation or beliefe or else be farther referred to work and practise For the habit or vertue of Faith which inclineth and enableth us to believe both speculative and practicall verities is of one and the selfe same nature and essence For example by the same Faith whereby I speculatively believe there is a God I likewise believe that he is to be adored served and loved which belong to practise The reason is because the Formall Object or motive for which I yeild assent to those different sorts of materiall objects is the saiâ—â— in both to wit the revelation or word of God Where by the way I note that if the Vnity or Distinction and nature of faith were to be taken from the diversity of things revealed by one faith I should believe speculative verities and by another such as tend to practise which I doubt whether D. Potter himselfe will admit 13 Hence it followeth that whosoever denieth any one main practicall revealed truth is no lesse an Heretique then if he should deny a Point resting in belief alone So that when D. Potter to avoid our argument that all fundamentall points are not contained in the Creed because in it there is no mention of the Sacraments which yet are points of so main importance that Protestants make the due administration of them to be necessary and essentiall to constitute a Church answereth that the Sacraments are to be reckoned rather among the Agenda of the Church then the Credenda they are rather divine rites and ceremonies then Doctrines he either grants what we affirme or in effect saies Of two kinds of revealed truths which are necessary to be believed the Creed containes one sort only ergo it containes all kind of revealed truths necessary to be believed Our question is not de nomine but re not what be called points of faith or of practise but what points indeed be necessarily to be believed whether they be termed Agenda or Credenda especially the chiefest part of Christian perfection consisting more in Action then in barren Speculation in good works then bare belief in doing then knowing And there are no lesse contentions concerning practicall then speculative truths as Sacraments obtaining remission of sinne Invocation of Saints Prayers for dead Adoration of Christ in the Sacrament and many other all which doe so much the more import as on them beside righâ— belief doth also depend our practise and the ordering of our life Though D. Potter could therefore give us as he will never be able to doe a minute and exact Catalogue of all truths to be believed that would not make me able enough to know whether or no I have faith sufficient for salvation till he also did bring in a particular List of all believed truths which tend to practise declaring which of them be fundamentall which not that so every man might know whether he be not in some Damnable Errour for some Article of faith which farther might give influence into Damnable works 14 These Observations being premised I come to prove that the Creed doth not contain all points of Faith necessary to be known and believed And to omit that in generall it doth noâ— tell us what points be fundamentall or not fundamentall which in the way of Protestants is most necessary to be known in particular there is no mention of the greatest evills from which mans calamity proceeded I mean the sinne of the Angels of Adam and of Originall sinne in us nor of the greatest good from which we expect all good to wit the necessity of Grace for all works tending to piety Nay there is no mention of Angels good or bad The meaning of that most generall head Oporter accedentem c. It behoves him that comes to God to believe that he is and is a remunerator is questioned by the deniall of Merit which makes God a Giver but not a Rewarder It is not expressed whether the Article of Remission of sinnes be understood by faith alone or else
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 saies is this It is very probable that according to the judgement of the Roman Doctors and the Ancient Fathers the Apostles Creed is to be esteemed a sufficient summary of all those doctrines which being meerely 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 selfe true Your Reasons to prove it impertinent put into forme and divested of impertinencies are these 1. Because the question was not what points were necessary to be explicitly believed but what points were necessary not to be disbelieved after sufficient proposall And therefore to give a Catalogue of points necessary to be explicitly believed is impertinent 7 Secondly because errours may be damnable though the contrary truths be not of themselves fundamentall as that Pontius Pilate was our Saviours Iudge is not in it selfe a Fundamentall truth â—et to believe the contrary were a damnable errour And therefore to give a Catalogue of Truths in themselves fundamentall is no pertinent satisfaction to this demand what errors are damnable 8 Thirdly because if the Church be not Vniversally infallible wee cannot ground any certainty upon the Creed which we must receive upon the Credit of the Church and if the Church be Vniversally 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 containes all Fundamentalls without specifying in what sense the Articles of it are Fundamentall 10 Fiftly because the Apostles Creed as D. Potter himselfe confesses was not a sufficient Catalogue till it was explained by the first Councell nor then untill 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 Fundamentalls 11 Now to the first of these objections I say Frist that your distinction between points necessary to be believed and necessary not to be disbelieved is more subtill then 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 that many points which are not necessary to be believed absolutely are yet necessary to be believed upon a supposition that they are known to be revealed by God that is become then necessary to be believed when they are known to be Divine Revelations But then I must needs say you doe very strangely in saying that the question was what points might lawfully be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition that they are divine Revelations You affirme that none may and so does D. Potter and with him all Protestants and all Christians And how then is this the question Who ever said or thought that of Divine Revelations known to be so some might safely and lawfully be rejected and disbelieved under pretence that they are not Fundamentall Which of us ever taught that it was not damnable either to deny or so much as doubt of the Truth of any thing whereof we either know or believe that God hath revealed it What Protestant ever taught that it was not damnable either to give God the lye or to call his Veracity into question Yet you say The demand of Charity mistaken was it was most reasonable that a list of FundameÌ„talls should be given the denyall whereof destroies Salvation whereas the deniall of other points may stand with Salvation although both kinds be equally proposed as revealed by God 12 Let the Reader peruse Charity Mistaken he shall find that this qualification although both kinds of points be equally proposed as revealed by God is your addition and no part of the demand And if it had it had been most unreasonable seeing he and you know well enough that though we doe not presently without examination fall down and worship all your Churches proposals as divine Revelations yet we make no such distinction of known divine Revelations as if some only of them were necessary to be believed and the rest might safely be rejected So that to demand a particular minute Catalogue of all points that may not be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition is indeed to demaund a Catalogue of all points that are or may be in as much as none may be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition that it is a divine Revelation At least it is to desire us First to transcribe into this catalogue every Text of the whole Bible Secondly to set down distinctly those innumerous millions of negative and positive consequences which may be evidently deduced from it For these we say God hath revealed And indeed you are not ashamed in plain tearmes to require this of us For having first told us that the demand was what points were necessary not to be disbelieved after sufficient proposition that they are Divine Truths you come to say Certainly the Creed containes not all these And this you prove by asking how many Truths are thero in holy Scripture not contained in the Creed which we are not bound to know and believe but are bound under pain of damnation not to reject as soon as we come to know that they are found in holy Scripture So that in requiring a particular Catalogue of all points not to be disbelieved after sufficient Proposall you require us to set you down all points contained in Scripture or evidently deducible from it And yet this you are pleas'd to call a reasonable nay a most reasonable Demand whereas having ingaged your selfe to give a Catalogue of your Fundamentalls you conceive your ingagement very well satisfyed by saying all is Fundamentall which the Church proposes without going about to give us an endlesse Inventory of her Proposalls And therefore from us in stead of a perfect particular of Divine Revelations of all sorts of which with a lesse hyperbole then S. Iohn useth we might say If they were to be written the world would not hold the books that must be written me thinkes you should accept of this generall All Divine Revelations are true and to be believed 13 The very truth is
way or other but also to disbelieve that is to believe the contrary of that which Faith proposeth as the examples of innumerable Arch-heretiques can beare witnesse This obscurity of faith we learne from holy Scripture according to those words of the Apostle Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for the argument of things not appearing And We see by a glasse in a dark manner but then face to face And accordingly S. Peter saith Which you doe well attending unto as to a Candle shining in a dark place 3 Faith being then obscure whereby it differeth from naturall Sciences and yet being most certain and infallible wherein it surpasseth humane Opinion it must relie upon some motive and ground which may be able to give it certainty and yet not release it from obscurity For if this motive ground or formall Object of Faith were any thing evidently presented to our understanding and if also we did evidently know that it had a necessary connection with the Articles which we believe our assent to such Articles could not be obscure but evident which as we said is against the nature of our Faith If likewise the motive or ground of our faith were obscurely propounded to us but were not in it selfe infallible it would leave our assent in obscurity but could not endue it with certainty We must therefore for the ground of our Faith find out a motive obscure to us but most certain in it selfe that the act of faith may remaine both obscure and certain Such a motive as this can be no other but the divine authority of almighty God revealing or speaking those truths which our faith believes For it is manifest that God's infallible testimony may transfuse Certainty to our faith and yet not draw it out of obscurity because no humane discourse or demonstration can evince that God revealeth any supernaturall Truth since God had beene no lesse perfect then he is although he had never revealed any of those objects which we now believe 4 Neverthelesse because Almighty God out of his infinite wisdome and sweetnesse doth concurre with his Creatures in such sort as may be fit the temper exigence of their natures and because Man is a Creature endued with reason God doth not exact of his Will or Vnderstanding any other then as the Apostle saith rationabile obsâ—â—uium an Obedience sweetned with good reason which could not so appeare if our Vnderstanding were summoned to believe with certainty things no way represented as infallible and certain And therâ—fore Almighty God obliging us under paine of eternall damnation to believe with greatest certainty divers verities not knowne by the light of naturall reason cannot saylâ— to furnish our Vnderstanding with such inducements motives and arguments as may sufficiently perswade any mind which is not partiall or passionate that the objects which we believe proceed from an Authority so Wise that it cannot be deceived so Good that it cannot deceive according to the words of David Thy Testimonies are made credible exceedingly These inducements are by Divines called argumeÌ„ta credibilitatis arguments of credibility which though they cannot make us evidently see what we believe yet they evidently convince that in true wisdome prudence the objects of â—aith deserve credit ought to be accepted as things revealed by God For without such reasons inducemeÌ„ts our judgment of faith could not be conceived prudent holy Scripture telling us that he who soone believes is light of heart By these arguments and inducements our Vnderstanding is both satisfied with evidence of credibility and the objects of faith retaine their obscurity because it is a different thing to bee evidently credible and evidently true as those who were present at the Miracles wroughâ— by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles did not evidently see their doctrine to be true for then it had not been Faith but Science and all had been necessitated to believe which we see fell out otherwise but they were evidently convinced that the things confirmed by such Miracles were most credible and worthy to be imbraced as truths revealed by God 5. These evident Arguments of Credibility are in great abundance found in the Visible Church of Christ perpetually existing on earth For that there hath been a company of men professing such and such doctrines we have from our next Predecessours and these from theirs upward till we come to the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour which gradation is knowne by evidence of sense by reading bookes or hearing what one man delivers to another And it is evident that there was neither cause nor possibility that men so distant in place so different in temper so repugnant in private ends did or could agree to tell one and the selfe same thing if it had been but a fiction invented by themselves as ancient Tertullian well saith How is it likely that so many and so great Churches should erre in one faith Among many events there is not one issue the error of the Churches must needs have varied But that which among many is found to be One is not mistaken but delivered Dare then any body say that they erred who delivered it With this never interrupted existence of the Church are joyned the many and great miracles wrought by men of that Congregation or Church the sanctity of the persons the renowned victories over so many persecutions both of all sorts of men and of the infernall spirits and lastly the perpetuall existence of so holy a Church being brought up to the Apostles themselves she comes to partake of the same assurance of truth which They by so many powerfull wayes did communicate to their Doctrine and to the Church of their times together with the divine Certainty which they received from our Blessed Saviour himselfe revealing to Man-kind what he heard from his Fatheâ— and so we conclude with Tertullian We receive it from the Churches the Churches from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from his Father And if we once interrupt this line of succession most certainly made knowne by meanes of holy Tradition we cannot conjoyn the present Church and doctrine with the Church and doctrine of the Apostles but must invent some new meanes and arguments sufficient of themselves to find out and prove a true Church and faith independently of the preaching and writing of the Apostles neither of which can be knowne but by Tradition as is truely observed by Tertullian saying I will prescribe that there is no meanes to prove what the Apostles preached but by the same Church which they founded 6 Thus then we are to proceed By evidence of manifest and incorrupt Tradition I know that there hath alwaies been a never-interrupted Succession of men from the Apostles time believing professing and practising such and such doctrines By evident arguments of credibility as Miracles Sancâ—â—ty Vnity c. and by all those wayes whereby the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour
himselfe confirmed their doctrine we are assured that what the said never-interrupted Church proposeth doth deserve to be accepted and acknowledged as a divine truth By evidence of Sense we see that the same Church proposeth such and such doctrines as divine truths that is as revealed and testified by Almighty God By this divine Testimony we are infallibly assured of what we believe and so the last period ground motive and formall obiect of our Faith is the infâ—llible testimony of that supreme Verity which neither can deceive nor be deceived 7 By this orderly deduction our Faith commeth to be endued with these qualities which we said were â—equisite thereto namely Certainty Obscurity and Prudence Certainty proceeds from the infallible Testimony of God propounded and conveyed to our understanding by such a meane as iâ— infallible in it selfe and to us is evidently knowne that it proposeth this point or that and which can manifestly declare in what sense it proposeth them which meanes we have proved to be only the visible Church of Christ. Obscurity from the manner in which God speakes to Mankind which ordinarily is such that it doth not manifestly shew the person who speakes nor the truth of the thing spoken Prudence is not wanting because our faith is accompanyed with so many arguments of Credibility that every well disposed Vnderstanding may and ought to judge that the doctrines so confirmed deserve to be believed as proceeding from divine Authority 8. And thus from what hath been said we may easily gather the particular nature or definition of Faith For it is a voluntary or free infallible obscure assent to some truth because it is testifed by God and is sufficiently propounded to us for such which proposall is ordinarily made by the Visible Church of Christ. I say Sufficiently proposed by the Church not that I purpose to dispute whether the proposall of the Church enter into the â—ormall Obiect or motiâ—â— of Faith or whether an error be any heresie formally and precisely because it is against the proposition of the Church as if such proposall were the formall Object of Faith which D. Potter to no purpose aâ— all labours so very hard to disprove But I only affirme that when the Church propounds any Truth as revealed by God we are assured that it is such indeed and so it instantly growes to be a fit Object for Christian faith which enclines and enables us to beleeve whatsoever is dâ—ely presented as a thing revealed by Almighty God And in the same manner we are sure that whosoever opposeth any doctrine proposed by the Church doth thereby contradict a truth which is testified by God As when any lawfull Superiour notifies his will by the meanes and as it were proposall of some faithfull messenger the subject of such a Superiour in performing or neglecting what is delivered by the Messenger is said to obey or disobey his owne lawfull Superiour And therefore because the testimony of God is notified by the Church we may and we doe most truely say that not to beleeve what the Church proposeth is to deny God's holy word or testimony signified to us by the Church according to that saying of S. Irenaeâ—s We need not goe to any other to seek the truth which we may easily receive from the Church 9. From this definition of faith we may also know what Heresie is by taking the contrary termes as Heresie is contrary to Faith and saying Heresie is a voluntary error against that which God hath revealed and the Church hath proposed for such Neither doth it import whether the error concerne points in themselves great or small fundamentall or not fundamentall For more being required to an act of Vertue then of Vice if any truth though neuer so small may be believed by Faith as soone as we know it to be testified by divine revelation much more will it be a formall Heresie to deny any least point sufficiently propounded as a thing witnessed by God 10. This divine Faith is divided into Actuall and Habituall Actuall faith or faith actuated is when we are in act of consideration and belife of some mystery of Faith for example that our Saviour Christ is true God and Man c. Habituall faith is that from which we are denominated Faithfull or Believers as by Actuall faith they are stiled Believing This Habit of faith is a Quality enabling us most firmly to believe Objects above humane discourse and it remaineth permanently in our Soule even when we are sleeping or not thinking of any Mystery of Faith This is the first among the three Theologicall Vertues For Charity unites us to God as he is infinitely Good in himselfe Hope tyes us to him as he is unspeakably Good to us Faith joynes us to him as he is the Supreame immoveable Verity Charity relies on his Goodnesse Hope on his Power Faith on his divine Wisdome From hence it followeth that Faith being one of the Vertues which Divines terme Infused that is which cannot be acquired by human wit or industry but are in their Nature and Essence supernaturall it hath this property that it is not destroyed by little and little contrarily to the Habits called acquisiti that is gotten by human endeâ—vour which as they are successiuely produced so also are they lost successiuely or by little and little but it must either be conserved entire or wholly destroyed And since it cannot stand entire with any one act which is directly contrary it must be totally overthrowne and as it were demolished and razed by every such act Wherefore as Charity or the Love of God is expelled from our soule by any one act of Hatred or any other mortall sinne against his divine Majesty and as Hope is destroyed by any one act of voluntary Desperation so Faith must perish by any one act of Heresy because every such act is directly and formally opposite therevnto I know that some sinnes which as Divines speak are exgenere suo in their kind grievous and mortall may be much lessened and fall to be veniall ob levitatem materiae because they may happen to be exercised in a matter of small consideration as for example to steale a penny is veniall although Theft in his kind be a deadly sinne But it is likewise true that this Rule is not generall for all sorts of sinnes there being some so inexcusably wicked of their owne nature that no smalnesse of matter not paucity in number can defend them from being deadly sinnes For to give an instance what Blasphemy against God or voluntary false Oath is not a deadly sinne Certainly none at all although the salvation of the whole world should depend upon swearing such a falshood The liâ—e hapneth in our present case of Heresie the iniquity whereof redounding to the injury of God's supreme wisdome and Goodnesse is alwayes great and enormous They were no precious stones which David picket out of the water to encounter Goliâ—â— yet if a man
they must of necessity affirme heretically with the Donatists that the true unspotted Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O Blasphemy anharlot By which words it seemes you are resolute perpetually to confound True and Vnspotted and to put no difference between a corrupted Church and none at all But what is this but to make no difference betwen a diseased and a dead man Nay what is it but to contradict your selves who cannot deny but that sinnes are as great staines and spots and deformities in the sight of God as errors and confesse 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 sinne You proceed 19 But say you The same heresy followes out of D. Potter and other Protestants that the Church may erre in points not fundamentall because we have shewed that every error against any revealed truth is Heresy and Damnable whether the matter be great or small And how can the Church more truly be said to perish then when she is permitted to maintaine damnable Heresy Besides we will hereafter prove that by every act of Heresy all divine faith is lost to maintaine a true Church without any faith is to fansy a living man without life Ans. what you have said before hath been answered before and what you shall say hereafter shall be confuted hereafter But if it be such a certain ground that every error against any one revealed truth is a damnable Heresy Then I hope I shall have your leave to subsume That the Dominicans in your account must hold a damnable heresy who hold an error against the immaculate Conception which you must needs esteeme a revealed truth or otherwise why are you so urgent and importunate to have it defined seeing your rule is nothing may be defined unlesse it be first revealed But without your leave I will make bold to conclude that if either that or the contrary assertion be a revealed truth you or they choose you whether must without contradiction hold a damnable Heresy if this ground be true that every contradiction of a revealed Truth is such And now I dare say for fear of inconvenience you will beginne to temper the crudenesse of your former assertion and tell us that neither of you are Heretiques because the Truth against which you erre though revealed is not sufficiently propounded And so say I neither is your Doctrine which Protestants contradict sufficiently propounded For though it be plain enough that your Church proposeth it yet still methinkes it is as plain that your Churche's proposition is not sufficient and I desire you would not say but prove the contrary Lastly to your Question How can the Church more truly be said to perish then when she is permitted to maintaine a damnable Heresy I Answer she may be more truly said to perish when she is not only permitted to doe so but defacto doth maintaine a damnable Heresy Again she may be more truly said to perish when she falls into an Heresy which is not only damnable in it selfe and ex natura rei as you speak but such an Heresy the belief of whose contrary Truth is necessary not only necessitate praecepti but medii and therefore the heresy so absolutely and indispensably destructive of salvation that no ignorance can excuse it nor any generall repentance without a dereliction of it can begge a pardon for it Such an heresy if the Church should fall into it might be more truly said to perish then if it fell only into some heresy 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 would not cannot upon any good ground hope for Salvation yet without question it might send many soules to heaven who would gladly have embrac'd the truth but that they wanted means to discover it Thirdly and lastly shee may yet more truly bee said to perish when shee Apostates from Christ absolutely or rejects even those Truths out of which her Heresies may bee reformed as if shee should directly deny Iesus to be the Christ or the Scripture to be the Word of God Towards which state of Perdition it may well be feared that the Church of Rome doth somewhat incline by her superinducing upon the rest of her errors the Doctrine of her own infallibility whereby her errors are made incurable and by her pretending that the Scripture is to be interpreted according to her doctrine and not her doctrine to be judg'd of by Scripture whereby she makes the Scripture uneffectuall for her Reformation 20 Ad § 18. I was very glad when I heard you say The Holy Scripture and ancient Fathers doe assigne Separation from the visible Church as a mark of Heresie for I was in good hope that no Christian would so bely the Scripture as to say so of it unlesse hee could have produced some one Text at least wherein this was plainly affirmed or from whence it might be undoubtedly and undeniably collected For assure your selfe good Sir it is a very haynous crime to say thus saith the Lord when the Lord doth not say so I expected therefore some Scripture should haue been alleaged wherein it should haue beene said whosoever separates from the Roman Church is an Heretique or the Roman Church is infallible or the Guide of faith or at least There shall be alwaies some visible Church infallible in matters of faith Some such direction as this I hoped for And I pray consider whether I had not reason The Evangelists and Apostles who wrote the New Testament we all suppose were good men and very desirous to direct us the surest and plainest way to heaven wee suppose them likewise very sufficiently instructed by the Spirit of God in all the necessary points of the Christian faith and therefore certainly not ignorant of this Vnum Necessarium this most necessary point of all others without which as you pretend and teach all faith is no Faith that is that the Church of Rome was designed by God the Guide of Faith Wee suppose thē lastly wise men especially being assisted by the spirit of wisdome and such as knew that a doubtfull questionable Guide was for mens direction as good as none at all And after all these suppositions which I presume no good Christian will call into question is it possible that any Christian heart can believe that not One amongst them all should ad rei memoriam write this necessary doctrine plainly so much as once Certainly in all reason they had provided much better for the good of Christians if they had wrote this though they had writ nothing else Me thinks the Evangelists undertaking to write the Gospell of Christ could not possibly haue omitted any One of them this most necessary point of
to Pappus who has collected out of Bellar their contradictions and set them down in his own words to the number of 237. to Flacius de Sect is controversiis Religionis Papisticae you making the very same use of M. Breerely against Protestants yet jeere and scorne D. Potter as if he offer'd you for a proofe the bare authority of Pappus and Flacius and tell him which is all the answer you vouchsafe him It is pretty that he brings Pappus and Flacius flat Heretiques to prove your many contradictions As if he had proved this with the bare authority the bare judgement of these men which sure he does not but with the formall words of Bellarmine faithfully collected by Pappus And why then might not we say to you Is it not pretty that you bring Breerly as flat an Heretique as Pappus or Flacius to prove the contradictions of Protestants Yet had he been so vain as to presse you with the meere authority of Protestant Divines in any point me thinkes for your own sake you should have pardon'd him who here and in many other places urge us with the judgement of your Divines as with weighty arguments Yet if the authority of your Divines were even Canonicall certainly nothing could be concluded from it in this matter there being not one of them who delivers for true doctrine this position of yours thus nakedly set down That any error against any one revealed truth destroies all divine faith For they all require not your selfe excepted that this truth must not only be revealed but revealed publiquely and all things considered sufficiently propounded to the erring Party to be one of those which God under pain of damnation commands all men to believe And therefore the contradiction of Protestants though this vaine doctrine of your Divines were supposed true is but a weak argument That any of them have no divine Faith seeing you neither have not ever can prove without begging the Question of your Churches infallibility that the truthes about which they differ are of this quality and condition But though out of curtesy wee may suppose this doctrine true yet we have no reason to grant it nor to think it any thing but a vain and groundlesse fancy and that this very weak and inartificiall argument from the authority of your Divines is the strongest pillar which it hath to support it Two reasons you alleage for it out of Thomas Aquinas the first whereof vainly supposeth against reason and experience that by the commission of any deadly sinne the habit of Charity is quite extirpated And for the second though you cry it up for an Achilles and think like the Gorgons head it will turne us all into stone and in confidence of it insult upon D. Potter as if he durst not come near it yet in very truth having considered it well I finde it a serious grave prolixe and profound nothing I could answer it in a word by telling you that it beggs without all proofe or colour of proofe the main question between us that the infallibility of your Church is either the formall motive or rule or a necessary condition of faith which you know we flatly deny and therefore all that is built upon it has nothing but wind for a foundation But to this answer I will adde a large confutation of this vain fancy out of one of the most rationall and profound Doctors of your own Church I mean Estius who upon the third of the Sent. the 23. dist the 13. § writes thus It is disputed saith he whether in him who believes some of the Articles of our faith and disbelieves others or perhaps someone there be faith properly so called in respect of that which he does believe In which question we must before all carefully distinguish between those who retaining a generall readinesse to believe whatsoever the Church believes yet erre by ignorance in some doctrine of faith because it is not as yet sufficiently declared to them that the Church does so believe and those who after sufficient manifestation of the Churches doctrine doe yet choose to dissent from it either by doubting of it or affirming the contrary For of the former the answer is easy but of these that is of Heretiques retaining some part of wholsome doctrine the question is more difficult and on both sides by the Doctors probably disputed For that there is in them true faith of the Articles wherein they doe not erre first experience seemes to convince For many at this day denying for example sake Purgatory or Invocation of Saints neverthelesse firmely hold as by divine revelation that God is Three and One that the Sonne of God was incarnate and suffered and other like things â—As anciently the Novatians excepting their peculiar error of denying reconciliation to those that fell in persecution held other things in common with Catholiques So that they assisted them very much against the Arrians as Socrates relates in his Eccl. Hist. Moreover the same thing is proved by the example of the Apostles who in the time of Christs passion being scandaliz'd lost their faith in him as also Christ after his resurrection upbraids them with their incredulity and calls Thomas incredulous for denying the Resurrection Ioh. 20. Whereupon S. Austine also in his preface upon the 96. Ps. saith That after the Resurrection of Christ the faith of those that fell was restored again And yet we must not say that the Apostles then lost the faith of the Trinity of the Creation of the world of Eternall life and such like other Articles Besides the Iewes before Christs comming held the faith of one God the Creator of Heaven and Earth who although they lost the true faith of the Messias by not receiving Christ yet we cannot say that they lost the faith of one God but still retained this Article as firmely as they did before Adde hereunto that neither Iewes nor Heretiques seeme to lye in saying they believe either the books of the Prophets or the four Gospels It being apparent enough that they acknowledge in them Divine Authority though they hold not the true sense of them to which purpose is that in the Acts. c. 20. Believest thou the Prophets I know that thou believest Lastly it is manifest that many gifts of God are found even in bad men and such as are out of the Church therefore nothing hinders but that Iewes and Heretiques though they erre in many things yet in other things may be so divinely illuminated as to believe aright So S. Austin seemes to teach in his book De Vnico Baptismo contra Peâ—ilianum c. 3. in these words When a Iew comes to us to be made a Christian we destroy not in him Gods good things but his own ill That he believes one God is to be worshipped that he hopes for eternall life that he doubts not of the Resurrection we approve and commend him we acknowledge that as he did believe these things so he
you shew in quarrelling with him for descending to the particular disputes here mentioned by you For to say nothing that many of these Questions are immediatly and directly pertinent to the businesse in hand as the 1. 2. 3. 5. 6. and all of them fall in of themselves into the stream of his discourse and are not drawn in by him and besides are touched for the most part rather then handled to say nothing of all this you know right well if he conclude you erroneous in any one of all these be it but in the Communion in one kind or the Language of your service the infallibility of your Church is evidently overthrown And this being done I hope there will be no such necessity of hearkning to her in all things It will be very possible to seperate from her communion in some things without schisme and from her doctrine so farre as it is erroneous without heresy Then all that she proposes will not be eo ipso fundamentall because shee proposes it and so presently all Charity Mistaken will vanish into smoak and clouds and nothing 5 You say he was loath to affirme plainly that generally both Catholiques Protestants may be saved which yet is manifest he doth affirme plainly of Protestants throughout his book of erring Papists that have syncerely sought the Truth and failed of it and dye with a generall repentance p. 77. 78. And yet you deceive your selfe if you conceive he had any other necessity to doe so but only that he thought it true For we may and doe 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 meanes 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 loue of truth that we are thus charitable to you 6 Neither is it materiall that these particulars he speakes against are not fundamentall errours for though they be not destructiue of salvation yet the convincing of them may be and is destructiue enough of his Adversaries assertion and if you be the man I take you for you will not deny they are so For certainly no Consequence can be more palpable then this The Church of Rome doth erre in this or that therefore it is not infallible And this perhaps you perceiu'd your selfe therefore demanded not Since they be not fundamentall what imports it whether we hold them or no simply But for as much as concernes our possibility to be saved As if we were not bound by the loue of God the loue 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 without being so affected and resolv'd Our Saviour himselfe having assur'd us That hee that shall breake one of his least Commandements some whereof you pretend are concerning veniall sinnes and consequently the keeping of them not necessary to salvation and shall so teach men shall be called the least in the kingdome of Heaven 7 But then it imports very much though not for the possibilitie that you may be saved yet for the probabilitie that you will be so because the holding of these errours though it did not merit might yet occasion damnation As the doctrine of Indulgences may take away the feare of Purgatory and the doctrine of Purgatorie the feare of Hell as you well knowe it does too frequently So that though a godly man might be saved with these errours yet by meanes of them many are made vicious and so damn'd By them I say though not for them No godly Lay-man who is verily perswaded that there is neither impietie nor superstition in the use of your Latine service shall be damn'd 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 haue been saved Besides though the matter of an Errour may bee onely something profitable not necessary yet the neglect of it may be a damnable sinne As not to regard veniall sinnes is in the doctrine of your Schooles mortall Lastly as veniall sinnes you say dispose men to mortall so the erring from some profitable though lesser truth may dispose a man to errour in greater matters As for example The Beleife of the Popes infallibility is I hope not unpardonably damnable to every one that holds it yet if it be a falsehood as most certainely it is it puts a man into a very congruous disposition to beleiue Antichrist if he should chance to get into that See 8 To the Third In his distinctions of points fundamentall and not fundamentall he may seeme you say to haue touched the point but does not so indeed Because though he saies there are some points so fundamentall as that all are oblig'd to belieue them explicitely yet he tells you not whether a man may disbeleiue any other points of faith which are sufficiently presented to his understanding as Truths revealed by Almighty God Touching which matter of Sufficient Proposall I beseech you to come out of the Clouds and tell us roundly and plainely what you meane by Points of faith sufficiently propounded to a mans understanding as Truths revealed by God Perhaps you meane such as the person to whom they are propos'd understands sufficiently to be truths revealed by God But how then can he possibly choose but belieue them Or how is it not an apparent contradiction that a man should disbelieue what himselfe understands to be a Truth or any Christian what he understands or but belieues to be testified by God Dr Potter might well thinke it superfluous to tell you This is damnable because indeed it is impossible And yet one may very well think by your saying as you doe hereafter That the impietie of heresie consists in calling Gods truth in question that this should be your meaning Or doe you esteeme all those things sufficiently presented to his understanding as Divine truths which by you or any other man or any company of men whatsoever are declared to him to be so I hope you will not say so For this were to oblige a man to belieue all the Churches and all the men in the world whensoever they pretend to propose divine Revelations D. Potter I assure you from him would never haue told you this neither Or doe you meane by
sufficiently propounded as Divine Truths all that your Church propounds for such That you may not neither For the Question betweene us is this Whether your Churches Proposition be a sufficient Proposition And therefore to suppose this is to suppose the question which you knowe in Reasoning is alwaies a fault Or Lastly doe you mean for I knowe not else what possibly you can meane by sufficiently presented to his vnderstanding as revealed by God that which all things considered is so propos'd to him that he might and should and would belieue it to be true and revealed by God were it not for some voluntary and avoidable fault of his owne that interposeth it selfe betweene his understanding and the truth presented to it This is the best construction that I can make of your words and if you speake of truths thus propos'd and rejected let it be as damnable as you please to deny or disbelieue them But then I cannot but be amaz'd to heare you say That D. Potter never tells you whether there be any other points of faith besides those which we are bound to belieue explicitely which a man may deny or disbelieue though they be sufficiently presented to his understanding as truths revealed or testified by Almighty God seeing the light it selfe is not more cleare then D. Potters Declaration of himselfe for the Negatiue in this Question p. 245. 246. 247. 248. 249. 250. of his Book Where he entreats at large of this very Argument beginning his discourse thus It seemes fundamentall to the faith and for the salvation of every member of the Church that he acknowledge and belieue all such points of faith as whereof he may be convinced that they belong to the doctrine of Iesus Christ. To this conviction he requires three things Cleare Revelation Sufficient Proposition and Capacity understanding in the hearer For want of cleare Revelation he frees the Church before Christ the Disciples of Christ from any damnable errour 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 themselues 2. So forcibly as may serue to remoue reasonable doubts to the contrary and to satisfie a teachable minde concerning it against the principles in which he hath been bred to the contrary This Proposition he saies is not limited to the Pope or Church but extended to all meanes 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 beare witnesse to the truth but when it would doe 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 him that knowingly gainesaieth the Truth The third thing he requires is Capacity and Abilitie to apprehend the Proposall and the Reasons of it the want whereof excuseth fooles and madmen c. But where there is no such impediment and the will of God is sufficiently propounded there saith hee hee that opposeth is convinced of errour and he who is thus convinced is an Heretique and heresie is a work of the Flesh which excludeth from salvation he meanes without Repentance And hence it followeth that it is fundamentall to a Christians faith and necessary for his salvation that he belieue all revealed truths of God whereof he may be convinced that they are from God This is the Conclusion of Dr Potters discourse many passages whereof you take notice of in your subsequent disputations and make your advantage of them And therefore I cannot but say againe that it amazeth me to heare you say that he declines this Question and never tells you whether or no there bee any other points of faith which being sufficiently propounded as divine Revelations may be denied and disbelieved Hee tells you plainely there are none such and therefore you cannot say that he tels you not whether there be any such Againe it is almost as strange to mee why you should say this was the only thing in question Whether a man may deny or disbelieue 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 me thinks at the first hearing of the words imports that it is by some affirm'd and deni'd by others Now you affirme I grant but what Protestant ever denied that it was a sinne to giue God the lye Which is the first and most obvious sense of these words Or which of them ever doubted that to disbelieue is then a fault when the matter is so proposed to a man that he might and should and were it not for his owne fault would beleiue it Certainly he that questions either of these justly deserues to haue his wits call'd in question Produce any one Protestant that ever did so and I will giue you leaue 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 cleane different from this postulate For though it be alwaies a fault to deny what either I doe know or should knowe 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 knowne or sufficiently proposed is so farre from being certainely 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 oblig'd to beleiue 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 appeare to me is to me all one If I had not come and spoken unto you saith our Saviour you had had no sinne 10 As little necessitie is there for that which followes 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 declare himselfe or not so fully and clearely as to oblige all men to hold one way and yet be so overvalued by the parties in variance as to bee esteemed a matter of faith and one of those things of which our Saviour saies He that beleiveth not shall be damn'd Who sees not that it is possible two Churches may excommunicate and damne each other for keeping Christmasse tenne daies sooner or later as well as Victor excommunicated the
errours which were not damnable I answere All that we forfake in you is only the beliefe and practice and profession of your Errors Hereupon you cast us out of your Communion And then with a strange and contradictious and ridiculous hypocrisy complain that we forsake it As if a man should thrust his friend out of doores and then be offended at his departure But for us not to forsake the beliefe of your Errors having discovered them to be Errors was impossible and therefore to doe so could not be damnable believing them to be Errors Not to forsake the practice and profession of them had been damnable hypocrisie supposing that which you vainly runne away with and take for graunted those errors in themselves were not damnable Now to doe so and as matters now stand not to forsake your Communion is apparently contradictious seeing the condition of your Communion is that we must professe 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 forsooke 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 doe that which both in your account and as you think 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 errour whatsoever damnable and not damnable or whether you will or no you must free us from Schisme For schisme there cannot be in leaving your communion unlesse 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 eternall truth neither can nor will obliege us to believe any the least and the most innocent falshood to be a divine truth that is to erre nor to professe a known errour which is to lye So that if you require the belief of any errour among the conditions of your Communion our obligation to communicate with you ceaseth and so the imputation of schisme to us vanisheth into nothing but lies heavy upon you for making our seperation from you just and necessary by requiring unnecessary and unlawfull conditions of your Communion Hereafter therefore I intreat you let not your demand be how could we forsake your Communion without Schisme seeing you err'd not damnably But how we could doe so without Schisme seeing you err'd not at all which if either you doe prove or we cannot disprove it we will I at least will for my part returne to your Communion or subscribe my selfe Schismatique In the mean time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 23 Yet notwitstanding all your Errors we doe not renounce your Communion totally and absolutely but only leave Communicating with you in the practise and profession of your Errors The tryall whereof will be to propose some forme of worshipping God taken wholly out of Scripture and herein if we refuse to joyn with you then and not till then may you justly say we have utterly and absolutely abandoned your Communion 24 To the sixteenth Your sixt demand I have already satisfied in my answeres to the Second and the Fourth and in my reply Ad § 2. toward the end And though you say your repeating must be excused yet I dare not be so confident and therefore forbear it 25 To the seaventeenth To the seaventh Whether errour against any one truth sufficiently propounded as testified by God destroy not the Nature and Vnity of Faith or at least is not a grievous offence excluding salvation I answere if you suppose as you seem to doe the proposition so sufficient that the party to whom it is made is convinc'd that it is from God so that the denyall of it involves also with it the denyall of Gods veracity any such errour destroyes both faith and salvation But if the Proposall be only so sufficient not that the party to whom it is made is convinc'd but only that he should and but for his own fault would have been convinc'd of the divine verity of the doctrine proposed The crime then is not so great for the beliefe of Gods veracity may well consist with such an Errour Yet a fault I confesse it is and without Repentance damnable if all circumstances considered the proposall be sufficient But then I must tell you that the proposall 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 proposalls being so darkned and even extinguished with a cloud of contradiction from Scripture Reason and the Ancient Church 26 To the Eighteenth To the eight How of disagreeing Protestants both parts may hope for salvation seeing some of them must needs erre against some Truth testified by God I answere 1. The most disagreeing Protestants that are yet thus farre 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 erre 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 beleive the Scripture in the true sense and to live according to it This if they performe as I hope many on all Sides doe truly and syncerely 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 syncere obedience why should they not expect that God will performe his promise and give them salvation For as for other things which lye without the Covenant and are therefore lesse 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 unavoidable prejudices whereby mens understandings are variously form'd and fashion'd they doe embrace severall Opinions whereof some must be erroneous to say that God will damne them for such errors who are lovers of him and lovers of truth is to rob man of his comfort and God of his goodnesse it is to make Man
circumstance is the office rather of Prudence then of Faith 4 Thus we allow Protestants as much Charity as D. Potter spares us for whom in the words above mentioned and else where he makes Ignorance the best hope of salvation Much lesse comfort can we expect from the fierce dâ—â—trine of those chiefe Protestants who teach that for many ages before Luther Christ had no visible Church upon earth Not these men alone or such as they but even the 39. Articles to which the English Protestant Clergy subscribes censure our beliefe so deeply that Ignorance can scarce or rather not at all excuse us from damnation Our doctrine of Transubstantiation is affirmed to be repugnant to the plaine words of Scripture our Masses to be blasphemous Fables with much more to be seen in the Articles themselves In a certaine Confession of the Christian faith at the end of their books of Psalmes collected into Meeter and printed Cum privilegio Regis Regali they call us Idolaters and limmes of Antichrist and having set downe a Catalogue of our doctrines they conclude that for them we shall after the Generall Resurrection be damned to unquenchable fire 5 But yet least any man should flatter himselfe with our charitable Mitigations and thereby wax carelesse in search of the true Church we desire him to read the Conclusion of the Second Part where this matter is more explained 6 And because we cannot determine what Iudgment may be esteemed rash or prudent except by weighing the reasons upon which it is grounded we will heere under one aspect present a Summary of those Principles from which we infer that Protestancy in it selfe unrepented destroyes Salvation intending afterward to prove the truth of every one of the grounds till by a concatenation of sequels we fall upon the Conclusion for which we are charged with Wanâ— of Charity 7 Now this is our gradation of reasons Almighty God having ordained Mankind to a supernaturall End of eternall felicity hath in his holy Providence setled competent and convenient Meanes whereby that end may be attained The universall grand Origen of all such means is the Incarnation and Death of our Blessed Saviour whereby he merited internall grace for us and founded an externall visible Church provided and stored with all those helps which might be necessary for Salvation From hence it followeth that in this Church amongst other advantages there must be some effectuall meanes to beget and conserve faith to maintaine Vnity to discover and condemne Heresies to appease and reduce Schismes and to determine all Controversies in Religion For without such meanes the Church should not be furnished with helps sufficient to salvation nor God afford sufficient meanes to attayne that End to which himselfe ordained Mankind This meanes to decide Controversies in faith and Religion whether it should be the holy Scripture or whatsoever else must be indued with an Vniversall Infallibility in whatsoever it propoundeth for a divine truth that is as revealed spoken or testifyed by Almighty God whether the matter of its nature be great or small For if it were subject to errour in any one thing we could not in any other yield it infallible assent because we might with good reason doubt whether it chanced not to erre in that particular 8 Thus farre all must agree to what wee have said unlesse they have a mind to reduce Faith to Opinion And even out of these grounds alone without further proceeding it undenyably followes that of two men dissenting in matters of faith great or small few or many the one connot be saved without repentance unlesse Ignorance accidentally may in some particular person plead excuse For in that case of contrary beliefe one must of necessity be held to oppose Gods word or Revelation sufficiently represented to his understanding by an infallible Propounder which opposition to the Testimony of God is undoubtedly a damnable sin whether otherwise the thing so testified be in it selfe great or small And thus wee have already made good what was promised in the argument of this Chapter that amongst men of different Religions one is only capable of being saved 9 Neverthelesse to the end that men may know in particular what is the said infallible meanes upon which we are to rely in all things concerning Fayth and accordingly may be able to judge in what safety or danger more or lesse they live and because D. Potter descendeth to divers particulars about Scriptures and the Church c. we will goe forward and prove that although Scripture be in it selfe most sacred infallible and divine yet it alone cannot be to us a Rule or Iudge fit an able to end all doubts and debates emergent in matters of Religion but that there must be some externall visible publique living Iudge to whom all sorts of persons both learned and unlearned may without danger of errour have recourse and in whose Iudgment they may rest for the interpreting and propounding of Gods Word or Revelation And this living Iudge we will most evidently prove to be no other but that Holy Catholique Apostolique and Visible Church which our Saviour purchased with the effusion of his most precious bloud 10 If once therefore it be granted that the Church is that means which God hath left for deciding all Controversies in faith it manifestly will follow that shee must be infallible in all her determinations whether the matters of themselves be great or small because as we said above it must be agreed on all sides that if that meanes which God hath left to determine Controversies were not infallible in all things proposed by it as truths revealed by Almighty God it could not settle in our minds a firme and infallible beliefe of any one 11 From this Vniversall infallibility of Gods Church it followeth that whosoever wittingly denyeth any one point proposed by her as revealed by God is injurious to his divine Majesty as if he could either deceive or be deceived in what he testifieth The averring whereof were not a fundamentall error but would overthrow the very foundation of all fundamentall points and therefore without repentance could 〈◊〉 possibly stand with salvation 12 Out of these grounds we will shew that although the distinction of points fundamentall and not fundamentall be good and usefull as it is delivered and applied by Catholique Divines to teach what principall Articles of faith Christians are obliged explicitely to believe yet that it is impertinent to the present purpose of excusing any man from grievous sinne who knowingly disbelieves that is believes the contrary of that which Gods Church proposeth as divine Truth For it is one thing not to know explicitly some thing testifyed by God another positively to oppose what we know he hath restified The former may often be excused from sin but never the latter which only is the case in Question 13 In the same manner shall be demonstrated that to alleadge the Creed as containing all Articles of
sav'd If you will doe so this Controversie is ended No man will hereafter charge you with want of Charity This is as much as either we give you or expect of you while you remaine in your Religion But then you must leave abusing silly people with telling them as your fashion is that Protestants confesse Papists may be saved but Papists confesse not so much of Protestants therefore yours is the safer way and in Wisdome and Charity to our owne soules we are bound to follow it For granting this you grant as much hope of salvation to Protestants as Protestants doe to you If you will not but will still affirme as C. M. does that Protectants not dissemblers but believers without a particular repentance of their Religion cannot be saved This I say is a want of Charity into the society whereof D. Potter cannot bee drawn but with palpable and transparent Sophistrie For I pray Sir what dependance is there between these Propositions We that hold Protestant Religion false should be damned if we should professe it Therefore they also shall be damned that hold it true Iust as if you should conclude Because hee that doubts is damned if he eat Therefore he that does not doubt is damn'd also if he eat And therefore though your Religion to us or ours to you if professed against Conscience would be damnable yet may it well be uncharitable to define it shall be so to them that professe either this or that according to Conscience This recrimination therefore upon D. Potter wherewith you begin is a plain Fallacie And I feare your proceedings will be answerable to these beginings 2 Ad § 2. In this Paragraph Protestants are thus farre comforted that they are not sent to Hell without Company which the Poet tells us is the miserable comfort of miserable Men. Then we in England are requested not to be offended with the name of Protestants Which is a favour I shall easily grant if by it be understood those that Protest not against Imperiall Edicts but against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome 3 Ad § 3. 4 5 6. That you give us not â—ver to reprobation That you pray and hope for our salvation if it be a Charity is such a one as is common to Turkes and Iewes and Pagans with us But that which followes is extraordinary Neither doe I know any man that requires more of you then there you pretend to For there you tell us That when any man esteem'd a Protestant dies you doe not instantly avouch that he is lodg'd in Hell Where the word esteem'd is ambiguous For it may signifie esteem'd truly and esteemd falsely Hee may be esteem'd a Protestant that is so And he may be esteem'd a Protestant that is not so And therefore I should have had just occasion to have laid to your charge the transgression of your own chief prescription which you say truth exacts at our hands that is to speake clearely or distinctly and not to walk in darknesse but that your following words to my understanding declare sufficiently that you speake of both sorts For there you tell us that the Reasons why you damne not any man that dies with the esteem of a Protestant are 1. Because you are not alwaies acquainted with what sufficiency of means he was furnished for instruction You must mean touching the falshood of his own Religion and the truth of yours Which reason is proper to those that are Protestants in truth and not only in estimation 2. Because you doe not penetrate his capacitie to understand his Cateohist which is also peculiar to those who for want of capacitie as you conceive remaine Protestants indeed and are not only so accounted 3. Because you have no Revelation what light might clear his errors which belongs to those which were esteem'd Protestants but indeed were not so 4. Because you have no Revelation what Contrition might have retracted his sinnes which reason being distinct from the former and divided from it by the disjunctive particle Or insinuates unto us that though no light did clear the errors of a dying Protestant yet Contrition might for ought you know retract his sinnes which appropriates this reason also to Protestants truly so esteem'd I wish with all my heart that in obedience to your own prescription you had expressed your selfe in this matter more fully and plainly Yet that which you say doth plainly enough afford us these corollaries 1 That whatsoever Protestant wanteth capacity or having it wanteth sufficient meanes of instruction to convince his Conscience of the falshood of his own and the truth of the Roman Religion by the confession of his most rigid Adversaries may be saved notwithstanding any error in his Religion 2 That nothing hinders but that a Protestant dying a Protestant may dye with contrition for all his sinnes 3 That if he doe dye with Contrition he may and shall be saved 4 All these acknowledgements we have from you while you are as you say stateing but as I conceive granting the very point in question which was as I have already prov'd out of C. M. whether without uncharitablenesse you may pronounce that Protestants dying in the belief of their Religion and without particular repentance and dereliction of it cannot possibly be saved Which C. M. affirmes universally and without any of your limitations But this presumption of his you thus qualify by saying that this sentence cannot be pronounced truly and therefore sure not charitably neither of those Protestants that want meanes sufficient to instruct and convince them of the truth of your Religion and the falshood of their own Nor of those who though they have neglected the meanes they might have had dyed with contrition that is with a sorrow for all their sinnes proceeding from the love of God So that according to your doctrine it shall remain upon such only as either were or but for their own fault might have been sufficiently convinced of the truth of your Religion and the falshood of their own and yet dye in it without contrition Which doctrine if you would stand to and not pull down and pull back with one hand what you give and build with the other this controversy were ended and I should willingly acknowledge that which followes in your fourth paragraph That you allow Protestants as much Charity as D. Potter allowes you But then I must intreat you to alter the argument of this Chapter and not to goe about to give us reasons why amongst men of different Religions one side only can be saved absolutely which your Reasons drive at But you must temper the crudenes of your Assertion by saying One side only can be saved unlesse want of Conviction or else Repentance excuse the other Besides you must not only abstaine from damning any Protestant in particular but from affirming in generall that Protestants dying in their Religion cannot be saved for you must alwaies remember to adde this caution unlesse they were excusably
so much as in my most secret consideration to devest you of these so needfull qualifications But whensoever your errors superstitions and impieties come into my mind and besides the generall 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 selfe my only comfort is amidst these agonies that the Doctrine and practise 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 fellowes and not be so stout as to refuse either Gods pardon or the Kings 6 But for the present Protestancy is called to the barre and though not sentenc'd by you to death without mercy yet arraigned of so much naturall malignity if not corrected by ignorance or contrition as to be in it selfe destructive of Salvation Which controversy I am content to dispute with you tying my selfe to follow the Rules prescribed by you in your Preface Only I am to remember you that the adding of this limitation in it selfe hath made this a new Question and that this is not the conclusion for which you were charged with want of Charity But that whereas according to the grounds of your own Religion Protestants may dye in their supposed errors either with excusable ignorance or with Contrition and if they doe so may be saved you still are peremptory in pronouncing them damn'd Which position supposing your Doctrine true and ours false as it is farre from Charity whose essential character it is to judge and hope the best so I beleeve that I shall cleerly evince this new but more moderate assertion of yours to be farre from verity that it is Popery and not Protestancy which in it selfe destroies Salvation 7 Ad § 7. 8. In your gradation I shall rise so farre with you as to grant that Christ founded a visible Church stored with all helps necessary to salvation particularly with sufficient meanes to beget and conserve faith to maintain unity and compose schismes to discover and condemne haeresies and to determine all controversies in Religion which were necessary to be determin'd For all these purposes he gave at the begining as we may see in the Ep. to the Ephesians Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctours who by word of mouth taught their comtemporaries and by writings wrot indeed by some but approved by all of them taught their Christian posterity to the worlds end how all these ends and that which is the end of all these ends Salvation is to be archieved And these meanes the Providence of God hath still preserved and so preserved that they are sufficient for all these intents I say sufficient though through the malice of men not alwaies effectuall for that the same meanes may be sufficient for the compassing an end and not effectuall you must not deny who hold that God gives to all men sufficient meanes of Salvation and yet that all are not sav'd I said also sufficient to determine all controversies which were necessary to be determin'd For if some controversies may for many ages be undetermined and yet in the mean while men be sav'd why should or how can the Churches being furnisht with effectuall meanes to determine all Controversies in Religion be necessary to Salvation the end it selfe to which these meanes are ordained being as experience shewes not necessary Plain sense will teach every man that the necessity of the meanes must alwaies be measured by and can never exceed the necessity of the end As if eating be necessary only that I may live then certainly if I have no necessity to live I have no necessity to eat If I have no need to be at London I have no need of a horse to carry me thither If I have no need to fly I have no need of wings Answer me then I pray directly and categorically Is it necessary that all Controversies in Religion should be determin'd or is it not If it be why is the question of Predetermination of the immaculate conception of the Popes indirect power in temporalties so long undetermined if not what is it but hypocrisy to pretend such great necessity of such effectuall meanes for the atchieving that end which is it selfe not necessary Christians therefore have and shall have means sufficient though not alwaies effectuall to determine not all controversies but all necessary to be determined I proceed on farther with you and grant that this meanes to decide controversies in Faith Religion must be indued with an Vniversall infallibility in whatsoever it propoundeth for a divine truth For if it may be false in any one thing of this nature in any thing which God requires men to believe we can yeeld unto it but a wavering and fearfull assent in any thing These grounds therefore I grant very readily and give you free leave to make your best advantage of them And yet to deal truly I doe not perceive how from the denyall of any of them it would follow that Faith is Opinion or from the granting them that it is not so But for my part whatsoever clamour you have raised against me I think no otherwise of the Nature of Faith I mean Historicall Faith then generally both Protestants and Papists doe for I conceive it an assent to divine Revelations upon the authority of the revealer Which though in many things it differ from opinion as commonly the word opinion is understood yet in some things I doubt not but you will confesse that it agrees with it As first that as Opinion is an Assent so is faith also Secondly that as Opinion so Faith is alwaies built upon lesse evidence then that of sense or science Which assertion you not only grant but mainly contend for in your sixt Ch. Thirdly and lastly that as Opinion so Faith admits degrees and that as there may be a strong and weak Opinion so there may be a strong and weak Faith These things if you wil grant as sure if you be in your right mind you will not deny any of them I am well contented that this illâ—sounding word Opinion should be discarded and that among the Intellectuall habits you should seek out some other Genus for Faith For I will never contend with any man about words who grants my meaning 8 But though the essence of Faith exclude not all weaknesse and imperfection yet may it be enquired whether any certainty of Faith under the highest degree may be sufficient to please God and attain salvation Whereunto I answer that though men are unreasonable God requires not any thing but Reason They will not be pleas'd without a down weight but God is contented if the scale be turn'd They pretend that heavenly things cannot be seen to any purpose but by the mid-day light But God will be satisfied if we receive any degree of
connection between these Propositions I belieue will be able to finde good coherence between the deafe Plaintiffe's accusation in the Greek Epigram and the deafe Defendants Answer and the deafe Iudges sentence And to contriue them all into a formall Categoricall Syllogisme 11 Indeed if the matter in agitation were plainely decided by this infallible meanes of deciding Controversies and the Parties in variance knew it to be so and yet would stand out in their dissention this were in one of them direct opposition to the Testimonie of God and undoubtedly a damnable sinne But if you take the liberty to suppose what you please you may very easily conclude what you list For who is so foolish as to grant you these unreasonable Postulates that every emergent Controversie of Faith is plainly decided by the means of decision which God hath appointed and that of the Parties lititigant one is alwaies such a convicted Recusant as you pretend Certainly if you say so having no better warrant then you haue or can haue for it this is more proper and formall uncharitablenesse then ever was charg'd upon you Me thinks with much more Reason and much more Charity you might suppose that many of these Controversies which are now disputed among Christians all which professe themselues lovers of Christ and truly desirous to knowe his will and doe it are either not decidable by that meanes which God hath provided and so not necessary to be decided Or if they be yet not so plainly and evidently as to oblige all men to hold one way or Lastly if decidable and evidently decided yet you may hope that the erring part by reason of some veile before his eyes some excusable ignorance or unavoidable preiudice does not see the Question to be decided against him and so opposes not that which He doth know to be the word of God but only that which You know to be so and which hee might know were he void of prejudice Which is a fault I confesse but a fault which is incident even to good and honest men very often and not of such a gigantique disposition as you make it to fly directly upon God Almighty and to giue him the lye to his face 12 Ad § 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. In all this long discourse you only tell us what you will doe but doe nothing Many Positions there are but proofes of them you offer none but reserue them to the Chapters following and there in their proper places they shall be examined The summe of all your Assumpts collected by your selfe § 16 is this That the infallible meanes of determining Controversies is the visible Church That he distinction of points Fundamentall and not Fundamentall 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 Schisme and Heresie That in regard of the Precept of Charity towards ones selfe Protestants are in state of sinne while they remaine divided from the Romane Church To all these Assertions I will content my selfe 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 himselfe desires it should be yet the corollary which you deduce from it would be utterly inconsequent That whosoever denies any point propos'd by the Church is iniurious to Gods Divine Maiestie as if He could deceiue or be deceived For though your Church were indeed as Infallible a Propounder of Divine Truths as it pretends to be yet if it appear'd not to me to be so I might very well belieue God most true your Church most false As though the Gospell of S. Mathew be the word of God yet if I neither knew it to be so nor believed it I might belieue in God and yet think that Gospell 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 deceiues them or is deceived himselfe For as I may deny something which you upō your knowledge have affirm'd yet never disparage your honesty if I never knew that you affirm'd it So I may bee undoubtedly certaine of Gods Omniscience and Veracitie yet doubt of something which he hath revealed provided I doe not knowe nor belieue that he hath revealed it So that though your Church be the appointed witnesse of Gods Revelations yet untill you know that we know she is so you cannot without foule calumnie 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 erre which is directed by God in all her proposalls True if we knew it to be directed by him otherwise not much lesse if we belieue and know the contrary But then if it were consequent from our opinion haue you so little Charitie as to say that men are iustly chargeable with all the consequences of their Opinions Such Consequences I mean as they doe not owne but disclaim and if there were a necessity of doing either would much rather forsake their Opinion then imbrace these Consequences What opinion is there that draws after it such a train of portentous blasphemies as that of the Dominicans by the judgement of the best Writers of your own Order And will you say now that the Dominicans are justly chargable with all these blasphemies If not seeing our case take it at the worst is but the same why should not your judgement of us be the same I appeale to all those Protestants that haue gone over to your side whether when they were most averse from it they did ever deny or doubt of Gods omniscience or Veracitie whether they did ever belieue or were taught that God did deceiue them or was deceiued himselfe Nay I provoke to you your selfe desire you to deale truly to tell Us whether you doe in your heart belieue that we doe indeed not belieue the eternall Veracitie of the eternall Verity And if you judge so strangely of us having no better ground for it then you haue or can haue wee shall not need any farther proofe of your uncharitablenes towards us this being the extremity of true uncharitablenesse If not then I hope having no other ground but this which sure is none at all to pronounce us damnable Heretiques you will cease to doe so and hereafter as if your ground be true you may doe with more truth
of the New Testament they giue a farre different rule saying All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we doe receiue and account them Canonicall This I say is a rule much different from the former Of whose authority was NEVER any doubt in the Church For some Books might be said to be Commonly received although they were sometime doubted of by some If to be Commonly received passe for a good rule to know the Canon of the New Testament why not of the Old Aboue all we desire to know upon what infallible ground in some Bookes they agree with us against Luther and divers principall Lutherans and in others jump with Luther against us But seeing they disagree among themselues it is evident that they haue no certaine rule to know the Canon of Scripture in assigning whereof some of them must of necessity erre because of contradictory propositions both cannot be true 10 Moreover the letters syllables words phrase or matter contained in holy Scripture haue no necessary or naturall connection with divine Revelation or Inspiration and therefore by seeing reading or understanding them we cannot inferre that they proceed from God or be confirmed by divine authoritie as because Creatures involve a necessary relation connection and dependance on their Creator Philosophers may by the light of naturall reason demonstrate the existence of one prime cause of all things In Holy Wrâ—â— there are innumerable truths not surpassing the spheare of humane wit which are or may be delivered by Pagan Writers in the selfe same words and phrase as they are in Scripture And as for some truths peculiar to Christians for Example the mystery of the blessed Trinitie c. The only setting them down in Writing is not enough to be assured that such a Writing is the undoubted word of God otherwise some sayings of Plato Trisâ—egistus Sybils Ovid c. must be esteemed Canonicall Scripture because they fall upon some truths proper to Christian Religion The internall light and inspiration which directed and moved the Authors of Canonicall Scriptures is a hidden Qualitie infused into their understanding and will and hath no such particular sensible influence into the externall Writing that in it we can discover or from it demonstrate any such secret light and inspiration and therefore to be assured that such a Writing is divine we cannot know from it selfe alone but by some other extrinsecall authority 11 And here we appeale to any man of judgement whether it be not a vaine brag of some Protestants to tell us that they wot full well what is Scripture by the light of Scripture it selfe or as D. Potter words it by that glorious beame of divine light which shines therein even as our eye distinguisheth light from darknesse without any other help then light it selfe and as our eare knowes a voice by the voice it selfe alone But this vanity is refuted by what we said even now that the externall Scripture hath no apparent or necessary connection with divine inspiration or revelation Will D. Poiter hold all his Bretheren for blinde men for not seeing that glorious beam of divine light which shines in Scripture about which they cannot agree Corporall light may be discerned by it selfe alone as being evident proportionate and connaturall to our faculty of seeing That Scripture is Divine and inspired by God is a truth exceeding the naturall capacity and compasse of mans understanding to us obscure and to be believed by divine faith which according to the Apostle is argumentum non apparentium an argument or conviction of things not evident and therefore no wonder if Scripture doe not manifest it selfe by it selfe alone but must require some other meanes for applying it to our understanding Neverthelesse their own similitudes and instances make against themselues For suppose a man had never read or heard of Sunne Moone Fire Candle c. and should bee brought to behold a light yet in such sort as that the Agent or Cause efficient from which it proceeded were kept hidden from him could such a one by only beholding the light certainly know whether it were produced by the Sunne or Moone c. Or if one heare a voice and had never known the speaker could he know from whom in particular that voice proceeded They who look upon Scripture may well see that some one wrote it but that it was written by divine inspiration how shall they know Nay they cannot so much as know who wrote it unlesse they first know the writer and what hand he writes as likewise I cannot know whose voice it is which I heare unlesse I first both know the person who speakes and with what voice he useth to speak and yet even all this supposed I may perhaps be deceaved For there may be voices so like and Hand so counterfeited that men may be deceaved by them as birds were by the grapes of that skilfull Painter Now since Protestants affirme knowledge concerning God as our supernaturall end must be taken from Scripture they cannot in Scripture alone discerne that it is his voice or writing because they cannot know from whom a writing or vioce proceeds unlesse first they know the person who speakeâ— ' or writeth Nay I say more By Scripture alone they cannot so much as know that any person doth in it or by it speak any thing at all because one may write without intent to signifie or affirme any thing but onely to set downe or as it were paint such characters syllables and words as men are wont to set copies not caring what the signification of the words imports or as one transcribes a writing which himselfe understands not or when one writes what another dictates and in other such cases wherein it is cleare that the writer speakes or signifies nothing in such his writing and therefore by it we cannot heare or understand his voice With what certainty then can any man affirme that by Scripture it selfe they can see that the writers did intend to signifie any thing at all that they were Apostles or other Canonicall Authors that they wrote their own sense and not what was dictated by some other man and finally and especially that they wrote by the infallible direction of the Holy Ghost 12 But let us be liberall and for the present suppose not grant that Scripture is like to corporall light by it selfe alone able to determine and moue our understanding to assent yet the similitude proues against themselues For light is not visible except to such as haue eyes which are not made by the light but must be presupposed as produced by some other cause And therefore to hold the similitude Scripture can be cleare onely to those who are endued with the eye of faith or as D. Potter aboue cited saith to all that haue eyes to discerne the shining beames thereof that is to the believer as immediatly after he speaketh Faith then must not originally proceed from Scripture but
retractation of it for both cannot possibly stand together For if you will stand to what you have granted That Scripture is as perfect a rule of Faith as a writing can be you must then grant it both so Compleat that it needs no addition and so evident that it needs no interpretation For both these properties are requisite to a perfect rule and a writing is capable of both these properties 6 That both these Properties are requisite to a perfect rule it is apparent Because that is not perfect in any kind which wants some parts belonging to its integrity As he is not a perfect man that wants any part appertaining to the Integrity of a Man and therefore that which wants any accession to make it a perfect rule of it selfe is not a perfect Rule And then the end of a râ—le is to regulate and direct Now every instrument is more or lesse perfect in its kinde as it is more or lesse fit to attain the end for which it is ordained But nothing obscure or unevident while it is so is fit to regulate and direct them to whom it is so Therefore it is requisite also to a rule so farre as it is a Rule to be evident otherwise indeed it is no rule because it cannot serve for direction I conclude therefore that both these properties are required to a perfect Rule both to be so compleat as to need no Addition and to be so evident as to need no Interpretation 7 Now that a writing is capable of both these perfections it is so plain that I am even ashamed to prove it For he that denies it must say That something may be spoken which cannot be written For if such a compleat and evident rule of faith may be delivered by word of mouth as you pretend it may and is and whatsoever is delivered by word of mouth may also be written then such a compleat and evident rule of faith may also be written If you will have more light added to the Sunne answer me then to these Questions Whether your Church can set down in writing all these which she pretends to be divine unwritten Traditions and adde them to the verities already written And whether she can set us down such interpretations of all obscurities in the Faith as shall need no farther interpretations If shee cannot then she hath not that power which you pretend she hath of being an Infallible teacher of all divine verities and an infallible interpreter of obscurities in the faith for she cannot teach us all divine verities if she cannot write them down neither is that an interpretation which needs again to be interpreted If she can Let her doe it and then we shall have a writing not only capable of but actually endowed with both these perfections of being both so compleat as to need no Addition and so evident as to need no Interpretation Lastly whatsoever your Church can doe or not doe no man can without Blasphemy deny that Christ Iesus if he had pleas'd could have writ us a rule of Faith so plaine and perfect as that it should have wanted neither any part to make up its integrity nor any cleerenesse to make it sufficiently intelligible And if Christ could have done this then the thing might have been done a writing there might have been indowed with both these properties Thus therefore I conclude a writing may be so perfect a Rule as to need neither Addition nor Interpretation But the Scripture you acknowledge a perfect Rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule therefore it needs neither Addition nor Interpretation 8 You will say that though a writing be never so perfect a Rule of Faith yet it must be beholding to Tradition to give it this Testimony that it is a Rule of Faith and the Word of God I answere First there is no absolute necessity of this For God might if he thought good give it the attestation of perpetuall miracles Secondly that it is one thing to be a perfect Rule of Faith another to be proved so unto us And thus though a writing could not be proved to us to be a perfect rule of Faith by its own saying so for nothing is prov'd true by being said or written in a book but only by Tradition which is a thing credible of it selfe yet it may be so in it selfe and containe all the materiall objects all the particular articles of our Faith without any dependance upon Tradition even this also not excepted that this writing doth containe the rule of Faith Now when Protestants affirme against Papists that Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith their meaning is not that by Scripture all things absolutely may be proved which are to be believed For it can never be prov'd by Scripture to a gainsayer that there is a God or that the book called Scripture is the word of God For he that will deny these Assertions when they are spoken will believe them never a whit the more because you can shew them written But their meaning is that the Scripture to them which presuppose it Divine and a Rule of Faith as Papists and Protestants doe containes all the materiall objects of Faith is a compleat and totall and not only an imperfect and a partiall Rule 9 But every Book and Chapter and Text of Scripture is infallible and wants no due perfection and yet excludes not the Addition of other bookes of Scripture Therefore the perfection of the whole Scripture excludes not the Addition of unwritten Tradition I answere Every Text of Scripture though it have the perfection belonging to a Text of Scripture yet it hath not the perfection requisite to a perfect Rule of Faith and that only is the perfection which is the subject of our discourse So that this is to abuse your Reader with the ambiguity of the word Perfect In effect as if you should say A text of Scripture may be a perfect Text though there be others beside it therefore the whole Scripture may be a perfect Rule of Faith though there be other parts of this Rule besides the Scripture and though the Scripture be but a part of it 10 The next Argument to the same purpose is for Sophistry cosen german to the former When the first bookes of Scripture were written they did not exclude unwritten Tradition Therefore now also that all the bookes of Scripture are written Traditions are not excluded The sense of which argument if it have any must be this When only a part of the Scripture was written then a part of the divine doctrine was unwritten Therefore now when all the Scripture is written yet some part of the divine doctrine is yet unwritten If you say your conclusion is not that it is so but without disparagement to Scripture may be so without disparagement to the truth of Scripture I grant it but without disparagement to the Scriptures being a perfect Rule I deny it And now the Question is not
of the Truth but the perfection of it which are very different things though you would faine confound them For Scripture might very well be all true though it containe not all necessary Divine Truth But unlesse it doe so it cannot be a perfect Rule of Faith for that which wants any thing is not perfect For I hope you doe not imagine that we conceive any antipathy between Gods word written and unwritten but that both might very well stand together All that we say is this that we have reason to believe that God de Facto hath ordered the matter so that all the Gospell of Christ the whole covenant between God and man is now written Whereas if he had pleas'd he might so have disposed it that part might have been written and part unwritten but then he would have taken order to whom we should have had recourse for that part of it which was not written which seeing he hath not done as the progresse shall demonstrate it is evident he hath left no part of it unwritten We know no man therefore that saies It were any injury to the written Word to be joyn'd with the unwritten if there were any wherewith it might be joyn'd but that we deny The fidelity of a Keeper may very well consist with the authority of the thing committed to his custody But we know no one â—ociety of Christians that is such a faithfull Keeper as you pretend The Scripture it selfe was not kept so faithfully by you but that you suffered infinite variety of Readings to creep into it all which could not possibly be divine and yet in severall parts of your Church all of them untill the last Age were so esteem'd The interpretations of obscure places of Scripture which without Question the Apostles taught the Primitive Christians are wholy lost there remaines no certainty scarce of any one Those Worlds of Miracles which our Saviour did which were not written for want of writing are vanished out of the memory of men And many profitable things which the Apostles taught and writ not as that which S. Paul glances at in his second Epistle to the Thessalon of the cause of the hindrance of the comming of Antichrist are wholly lost and extinguished So unfaithfull or negligent hath been this keeper of Divine verities whose eyes like the keepers of Israell you say have never flumbred nor slept Lastly we deny not but a Iudge and a Law might well stand together but we deny that there is any such Iudge of Gods appointment Had he intended any such Iudge he would have nam'd him least otherwise as now it is our Iudge of controversies should be our greatest controversy 11 Ad § 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. In your second Paragraph you summe up those arguments wherewith you intend to prove that Scripture alone cannot be Iudge in controversies Wherein I professe unto you before hand that you will fight without an Adversary For though Protestants being warranted by some of the Fathers have called Scripture the Iudge of Controversies and you in saying here That Scripture alone cannot be Iudge imply that it may be called in some sense a Iudge though not alone Yet to speak properly as men should speak when they write of Controversies in Religion the Scripture is not a Iudge of Controversies but a Rule only and the only Rule for Christians to judge them by Every man is to judge for himselfe with the Iudgement of Discretion and to choose either his Religion first and then his Church as we say or as you his Church first and then his Religion But by the consent of both sides every man is to judge and choose and the Rule whereby he is to guide his choyce if he be a naturall man is Reason if he be already a Christian Scripture which we say is the Rule to judge controversies by Yet not all simply but all the Controversies of Christians of those that are already agreed upon This first Principle that the Scripture is the word of God But that there is any man or any company of men appointed to be judge for all men that we deny and that I believe you will never prove The very truth is we say no more in this matter then evidence of Truth hath made you confesse in plain termes in the beginning of this chapter viz. That Scripture is a perfect Rule of faith for as much as a writing can be a rule So that all your reasons whereby you labour to dethrone the Scripture from this office of Iudgeing we might let passe as impertinent to the conclusion which we maintaine and you have already granted yet out of curtesy we will consider them 12 Your first is this a Iudge must be a person fit to end controversies but the Scripture is not a person nor fit to end controversies no more then the Law would be without the Iudges therefore though it may be a Rule it cannot be a Iudge Which conclusion I have already granted Only my request is that you will permit Scripture to have the properties of a Rule that is to be fit to direct every one that will make the best use of it to that end for which it was ordained And that is as much as we need desire For as if I were to goe a journey and had a guide which could not erre I needed not to know my way so on the other side if I know my way or have a plain rule to know it by I shall need no guide Grant therefore Scripture to be such a Rule and it will quickly take away all necessity of having an infallible guide But without a living Iudge it will be no fitter you say to end Controversies then the Law alone to end suits I answere if the Law were plain and perfect and men honest and desirous to understand aright and obey it he that saies it were not fit to end controversies must either want understanding himself or think the world wants it Now the Scripture we pretend in things necessary is plain perfect and men we say are oblig'd under pain of Damnation to seek the true sense of it and not to wrest it to their preconceived Phansies Such a law therefore to such men cannot but be very fit to end all controversies necessary to be ended For others that are not so they will end when the world ends and that is time enough 12 Your next encounter is with them who acknowledging the Scripture a Rule only and not a Iudge make the holy Ghost speaking in Scripture the judge of Controversies Which you disprove by saying That the holy Ghost speaking only in Scripture is no more intelligible to us then the Scripture in which he speakes But by this reason neither the Pope nor a Councell can be a Iudge neither For first denying the Scriptures the writings of the Holy Ghost to be judges you will not I hope offer to pretend that their decrees the writings of men are more capable of
that these controversies about Scripture are not decidable by Scripture and have shewed that your deduction from it that therefore they are to be determin'd by the authority of some present Church is irrationall and inconsequent I might well forbeare to tire my selfe with an exact and punctuall examination of your premises 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which wether they be true or false is to the Question disputed wholly impertinent Yet because you shall not complaine of tergiverâ—ation I will runne over them and let nothing that is materiall and considerable passe without some stricture or animadversion 30 You pretend that M. Hooker acknowledgeth that That whereon we must rest our assurance that the Scripture is Gods word is the Church and for this acknowledgement you referre us to l. 3. Sect. 8. Let the Reader consult the place and he shall finde that he and M. Hooker have been much abused both by you here and by M. Breerly and others before you and that M. Hooker hath not one syllable to your pretended purpose but very much directly to the contrary There he tells us indeed that ordinarily the first introduction and probable motive to the belief of the verity is the Authority of the Church but that it is the last Foundation whereon our belief hereof is rationally grounded that in the same place he plainly denies His words are Scripture teacheth us that saving Truth which God hath discovered unto the world by Revelation and it presumeth us taught otherwise that it selfe is divine and sacred The Question then being by what meanes we are taught this some answere that to learne it we have no other way then tradition As namely that so we believe because we from our Predecessors and they from theirs have so received But is this enough That which all mens experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denied and by experience we all know that the first outward motive leading men to esteeme of the Scripture is the Authority of Gods Church For when we know the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture we judge it at the first an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary minde without cause Afterwards the more we bestow our labour upon reading or hearing the mysteries thereof the more we find that the thing it self doth answer our received opinion concerning it so that the former inducement prevailing somewhat with us before doth now much more prevaile when the very thing hath ministred farther reason If Infidels or Atheists chance at any time to call it in question this giveth us occasion to sift what reason there is whereby the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture and our own perswasion which Scripture it selfe hath setled may be proved a truth infallible In which case the ancient Fathers being often constrained to shew what warrant they had so much to rely upon the Scriptures endeavoured still to maintaine the Authority of the bookes of God by arguments such as the unbelievers themselves must needs think reasonable if they judge thereof as they should Neither is it a thing impossible or greatly hard even by such kinde of proofes so to manifest and cleare that point that no man living shall be able to deny it without denying some apparent principle such as all men acknowledge to be true By this time I hope the reader sees sufficient proofe of what I said in my Reply to your Preface that M. Breerelies great ostentation of exactnesse is no very certain argument of his fidelity 31 But seeing the beliefe of the Scripture is a necessary thing and cannot be prov'd by Scripture how can the Church of England teach as she doth Art 6. That all things necessary are contain'd 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 materiall objects of our faith whereof the Scripture is none but only the meanes of conveying them unto us which we believe not finally and for it selfe 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 there 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 aimes at is the beliefe of the Gospell the covenant between God and man the Scripture he hath provided as a meanes 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 finall and ultimate objects of it and not the meanes and instrumentall objects and then there will be no repugnance between what they say and that which Hooker and D. Covell and D. Whitaker and Luther here say 33 But Protestants agree not in assigning the Canon of holy Scripture Luther and Illyricus reject the Epistle of S. Iames. Kemnitius and other Luth. the second of Peter the second and third of Iohn The Epist. to the Heb. the Epist. of Iames of Iude and the Apocalyps Therefore without the Authority of the Church no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonicall 34 So also the Ancient Fathers and not only Fathers but whole Churches differed about the certainty of the authority of the very same bookes and by their difference shewed they knew no necessity of conforming themselves herein to the judgement 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 Canonicall or had they not If they had not it seemes there is no such great harme or danger in not having such a certainty whether some books be Canonicall or no as you require If they had why may not Protestants notwithstanding their differences have sufficient certainty hereof as well as the Ancient Fathers and Churches notwithstanding theirs 35 You proceed And whereas the Protestants of England in the 6. Art have these words In the name of the Holy Scripture we doe vnderstand those Bookes of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church you demaund what they meane by them Whether that by the Churches consent they are assured what Scriptures be Canonicall I Answer for them Yes they are so And whereas you inferre from hence This is to make the Church Iudge I haue told you already That of this Controversie we make the Church the Iudge but not the present Church much lesse the present Roman Church but the consent and testimony of the
that there is no falshood at all but only want of divine testification in which case D. Potter must either grant that it is a fundamentall error to apply divine revelation to any point not revealed or else must yeeld that the Church may erre in her Proposition or Custody of the Canon of Scripture And so we cannot be sure whether she have not been deceived already in Bookes recommended by her and accepted by Christians And thus we shall have no certainty of Scripture if the Church want certainty in all her definitions And it is worthy to be observed that some Bookes of Scripture which were not alwaies known to be Canonicall have been afterward received for such but never any one book or syllable defined by the Church to be Canonicall was afterward questioned or rejected for Apocryphall A signe that Gods Church is infallibly assisted by the holy Ghost never to propose as divine truth any thing not revealed by God and that Oâ—ission to define points not sufficiently discussed is laudable but Commission in propounding things not revealed inexcusable into which precipitation our Saviour Christ never hath nor never will permit his Church to fall 13 Nay to limit the generall promises of our Saviour Christ made to his Church to points only fundamentall namely that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her and that the holy Ghost shall lead her into all truth c. is to destroy all faith For we may by that doctrine and manner of interpreting the Scripture limit the Infallibility of the Apostles words preaching only to Points fundamentall and whatsoever generall Texts of Scripture shall be alleadged for their infallibility they may by D. Potter example be explicated and restrained to points fundamentall By the same reason it may be farther affirmed that the Apostles and other writers of Canonicall Scripture were endued with infallibility only in setting down points fundamentall For if it be urged that all Scripture is divinely inspired that it is the word of God c. D. Potter hath afforded you a ready answer to say that Scripture is inspired c. only in those parts or parcels wherein it delivereth fundamentall points In this manner D. Fotherby saith The Apostle twice in one Chapter professed that this he speaketh and not the Lord He is very well content that where he lacks the warrant of the expresse word of God that part of his writings should be esteemed as the word of man D. Potter also speaks very dangerously towards this purpose Sect. 5. where he endeavoureth to prove that the infallibility of the Church is limited to points fundamentall because as Nature so God is neither defective in necessaries nor lavish in supersâ—uities Which reason doth likewise prove that the infallibility of Scripture and of the Apostles must be restrained to points necessary to salvation that so God be not accused as defective in necessaries or lavish in supersâ—uities In the same place he hath a discourse much tending to this purpose where speaking of these words The Spirit shall lead you into all truth and shall abide with you for ever he saith Though that promise was directly and primarily made to the Apostles who had the Spirits guidance in a more high and absolute manner then any since them yet it was made to themfor the behoof of the Church and is verified in the Church Vniversall But all truth is not simply all but all of some kind To be led into all truths is to know and believe them And who is so simple as to be ignorant that there are many millions of truths in Nature History Divinity whereof the Church is simply ignorant How many truths lye unrevealea in the infinite treasury of Gods wisdome wherewith the Church is not acquainted c. so then the truth it selfe enforceth us to understand by all truths not simply all not all which God can possibly reveal but all pertaining to the substance of faith all truth absolutely necessary to salvation Mark what he saith That promise The spirit shall lead you into all truth was made directly to the Apostles and is verified in the universall Church but by all truth is not understood simply all but all apperraining to the substance of faith and absolutely necessary to salvation Doth it not hence follow that the promise made to the Apostles of being led into all truth is to be understood only of all truth absolutely necessary to salvation and consequently their preaching and writing were not infallible in points not fundamentall or if the Apostles were infallible in all things which they proposed as divine truth the like must be affirmed of the Church because D. Potter teacheth the said promise to be verified in the Church And as he limits the aforesaid words to points fundamentall so may he restrain what other text soever that can be brought for the universall infallibility of the Apostles or Scriptures So he may and so he must least otherwise he receive this answer of his own from himselfe How many truths lye unrevealed in the infinite treasurie of Gods wisdome wherewith the Church is not acquainted And therefore to verify such generall sayings they must be understood of truths absolutely necessary to Salvation Are not these fearfull consequences And yet D. Potter will never be able to avoid them till he come to acknowledge the infallibility of the Church in all points by her proposed as divine truths and thus it is universally true that she is lead into all truth in regard that our Saviour never permits her to define or teach any falshood 14 All that with any colour may be replied to this argument is That if once we call any one Book or parcell of Scripture in question although for the matter it contain no fundamentall error yet it is of great importance and fundamentall by reason of the consequence because if once we doubt of one Book received for Canonicall the whole canon is made doubtfull and uncertain and therefore the infallibility of Scripture must be universall and not confined within compasse of points fundamentall 15 I answere For the thing it selfe it is very true that if I doubt of any one parcell of Scripture received for such I may doubt of all and thence by the same parity I inferre that if we did doubt of the Churches infallibility in some points we could not believe her in any one and consequently not in propounding Canonicall Bookes of any other points fundamentall or not fundamentall which thing being most absurd and withall most impious we must take away the ground thereof and believe that she cannot erre in any point great or small and so this reply doth much more strengthen what we intend to prove Yet I adde that Protestants cannot make use of this reply with any good coherence to this their distinction and some other doctrines which they defend Por if D. Potter can tell what points in particular be fundamentall as in
the totall deniall of Christ will not exclude one from being a member of the true Church S. Hilary maketh it of equall necessity for Salvation that we believe our Saviour to be true God and true Man saying This manner of Confession we are to hold that we remember him to be the Sonne of God and the Sonne of Man because the one without the other can giue no hope of Salvatioâ— And yet D. Potter saith of the aforesaid doctrine of Hooker and Morton The Reader may be pleased to approue or reject it as he shall finde cause And in another place he sheweth so much good liking of this doctrine that he explicateth and proveth the Churches perpetuall Visibility by it And in the second Edition of his book he is carefull to declare and illustrate it more at large then he had done before howsoever this sufficiently sheweth that they haue no certainty what points be fundamentall As for the Arians in particular the Author whom D. Potter cites for a moderate Catholique but â—s indeed a plain Heretique or rather Atheist Lucian like jesting at all Religion placeth Arianisme among fundamentall Errours But contrarily an English Protestant Divine masked under the name of Irenaeus Philalethes in a little Book in Latine intituled Dissertatio de pace concordia Ecclesiae endeavoureth to proue that even the deniall of the blessed Trinity may stand with salvation Divers Protestants haue taught that the Roman Church erreth in fundamentall points But D. Potter and others teach the contrary which could not happen if they could agree what be fundamentall points You brand the Donatists with the note of an Errour in the matter and the nature of it properly hereticall because they taught that the Church remained only with them in the part of Donatâ—â— And yet many Protestants are so farre from holding that Doctrine to be a fundamentall errour that themselves goe further and say that for divers ages before Luther there was no â—rue Visible Church at all It is then too too apparent that you haue no agreement in specifying what be fundamentall points neither haue you any meanes to determine what they be for if you have any such meanes why doe you not agree You tell us the Creed containes all points fundamentallâ— which although it were true yet you see it serves not to bring you to a particular knowledge agreement in such points And no wonder For besides what I haue said already in the begining of this Chapter and am to deliver more at large in the next after so much labour and spent paper to prove that the Creed containes all fundamentall points you conclude It remaines very probable that the Creed is the perfect Summary of those fundamentall truths whereof consists the Vâ—â—ty of faith and of the Catholique Church Very probable Then according to all good Logick the contrary may remain very probable and so all remain as full of uncertainty as before The whole Rule say you the sole Iudge of your faith must be Scripture Scripture doth indeed deliver divine Truths but seldome doth qualify them or declare whether they be or be not absolutely necessary to salvation You fall heavy upon Charity Mistaken because he demands a particular Catalogue of fundamentall points which yet you are obliged in conscience to doe if you be able For without such a Catalogue no man can be assured whether or no he haue faith sufficient to Salvation And therefore take it not in ill part if we againe and againe demand such a Catalogue And that you may see we proceed fairely I will performe on our behalfe what we request of you and doe here deliver a Catalogue wherein are comprized all points by us taught to be necessary to Salvation in these words We are obliged under paine of damnation to believe whatsoever the Catholique visible Church of Christ proposeth as revealed by Almighty God If any be of another minde all Catholiques denounce him to be no Catholique But enough of this And I go forward with the Infallibility of the Church in all points 20 For euen out of your own doctrine that the Church cannot erre in points necessary to salvation any wise man will inferre that it behoves all who haue care of their soules not to forsake her in any one point 1. Because they are assured that although her doctrine proved not to be true in some point yet even according to D. Potter the errour cannot be fundamentall nor destructiue of faith and salvation neither can they be accused of any least imprudence in erring if it were possible with the universall Church Secondly since she is under paine of eternall damnation to be believed and obeyed in some things wherein confessedly she is endued with infallibilitie I cannot in wisedome suspect her credit in matters of lesse moment For who would trust another in matters of highest consequence and be affraid to rely on him in things of lesse moment Thirdly since as I said we are undoubtedly obliged not to forsake her in the chiefest or fundamentall points and that there is no Rule to know precisely what and how many those fundamentall points be I cannot without hazard of my soule leaue her in any one point least perhaps that point or points wherein I forsake her proue indeed to be fundamentall and necessary to salvation Fourthly that visible Church which cannot erre in points fundamentall doth without distinction propound all her Definitions concerning matters of faith to be believed under Anathema's or Curses esteeming all those who resist to be deservedly cast out of her Communion and holding it a point necessary to salvation that we believe she cannot erre wherein if she speak true then to deny any one point in particular which she defineth or to affirm in generall that she may erre puts a man into state of damnation Whereas to belieue her in such points as are not necessary to salvation cannot endanger salvation and likewise to remain in her Communion can bring no great harme because she cannot maintain any damnable errour or practise but to be divided from her she being Christs Catholique Church is most certainly damnable Fifthly the true Church being in lawfull and certain possession of Superiority and Power to command and require Obedience from all Christians in some things I cannot without grievous sinne withdraw my obedience in any one unlesse I evidently know that the thing commanded comes not within the compasse of those things to which her Power extendeth And who can better inform me how far God's Church can proceed then Gods Church her selfe Or to what Doctour can the Children and Schollers with greater reason and more security fly for direction then to the Mother and appointed Teacher of all Christians In following her I shall sooner be excused then incleaving to any particular Sâ—ct or Person teaching or applying Scriptures against her doctrine or interpretation Sixtly the fearfull examples of innumerable persons who forsaking the
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 doe 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 Bookes which were not alwaies known to be Canonicall have been afterwards received for such But never any book or syllable defined for Canonicall was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphall I demand touching the first sort whether they were commended to the Church by the Apostles as Canonicall 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 Canonicall 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 CanoÌ„ of Scripture which hath suffered some Bookes of Canonicall Scripture to be lost others to loose for a long time their being Canonicall at least the necessity of being so esteemed and afterwards as it were by the law of Post liminium hath restored their Authority and Canonicalnesse 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 19 And then for the other part of it that never any book or syllable defined for Canonicall was afterwards question'd or rejected for Apocryphall Certainly it is a bold asseveration but extreamly false For I demand The Book of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdome the Epistle of Saint Iames and to the Heb. were they by the Apostles appoved for Canonicall or no If not with what face dare you approve them and yet pretend that all your doctrine is Apostolicall Especially seeing it is evident that this point is not deducible by rationall 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 doe so then I shall be bold to aske you what bookes you meant in saying before Some bookes which were not alwaies known to be Canonicall have been afterwards received Then for the book of Macchabes I hope you will say it was defin'd for Canonicall before S. Gregories time and yet he lib. 19. Moral c. 13. citing a testimony out of it prefaceth to it after this manner Concerning which matter we doe not amisse if we produce a testimony out of Bookes although not Canonicall 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 Canonicall is without question at least to question it Moreover because you are so punctuall as to talk of words and syllables I would know whether before Sixtus Quint us 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 yeares 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 question'd by Sixtus If different from both then was it question'd 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 Canonicall had been received and that never any after receiving had been questioned How had this been a signe 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 signes as these are is to me a great signe that you labour with penury of better arguments and that thus to catch at shadowes and bulâ—ushes is a shrewd signe of a sinking cause 30 Ad § 13. We are told here That the generall promises of Infallibility to the Church must not be restrained only to points fundamentall Because then the Apostles words and writings may also be so restrained The Argument put in forme and made compleat by supply of the concealed Proposition runs thus The Infallibility promised to the present Church of any age is as absolute and unlimited as that promised to the Apostles in their Preaching and Writings But the Apostles Infallibility is not to be limited to Fundamentalls Therefore neither is the Churches Infallibility thus to be limited Or thus The Apostles Infallibility in their Preaching and writing may be limited to Fundamentalls as well as the Infallibility of the present Church But that is not to be done Therefore this also is not to be done Now to this Argument I answere that if by may be as well in the major Proposition be understood may be as possibly it is true but impertinent If by it we understand may be as iustly and rightly It is very pertinent but very false So that as D. Potter limits the infallibility of the Present Church unto Fundamentalls so another may limit the Apostles unto them also He may doe it de facto but de iure he cannot that may be done and done lawfully this also may be done but not lawfully That may be done and if it be done cannot be confuted 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 Controversy 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
that All which they were led into was not simply All otherwise S. Paul erred in saying we know in part but such an All as was requisite to make them the Churches Foundations Now such they could not be without freedome from errour in all those things which they delivered constantly as certaine revealed Truths For if we once suppose they may haue erred in some things of this nature it will be utterly undiscernable what they haue erred in what they haue not Whereas though wee suppose the Church hath err'd in somethings yet we haue meanes to know what she hath err'd in and what she hath not I mean by comparing the Doctrine of the present Church with the doctrine of the Primitiue Church delivered in Scripture But then last of all suppose the Doctor had said which I know he never intended that this promise in this place made to the Apostles was to bee understood only of a Truth absolutely necessary to salvation Is it consequent that he makes their Preaching and Writing not Infallible in points not fundamentall Doe you not blush for shame at this Sophistry The Dr saies no more was promised in this place Therefore he saies no more was promised Are there not other places besides this And may not that be promised in other places which is not promised in this 34 But if the Apostles were Infallible in all things propos'd by them as Divine Truths the like must be affirm'd of the Church because Doctor Potter teacheth the said promise to be verified in the Church True hee does so but not in so absolute a manner Now what is oppos'd to Absolute but limited or restrained To the Apostles then it was made to them only yet the words are true of the Church And this very promise might haue been made to it though here it is not They agree to the Apostles in a higher to the Church in a lower sense to the Apostles in a 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 farre 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 Starre and the Wisemen The Starre was directed by the finger of God and could not but goe right to the place where Christ was But the Wise men were led by the Starre 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 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 Starre or as a Traveller is directed by a Mercuriall statue or as a Pilot by his Card and Compasse 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 freewill in believing it follows that the whole aggregate has freewill in believing And if any man say that at least it is morally impossible that of so many wâ—ereof all may belieue aright not any should doe so I answer It is true if they did all giue themselues any liberty of judgement But if all as the case is here captivate their understandings to one of them all are as likely to erre as that one And he more likely to erre then any other because hee may erre and thinks he cannot because he conceiues the Spirit absolutly promis'd to the succession of Bishops of which many haue been notoriously and confessedly wicked men Men of the World whereas this Spirit is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receiue because he seeth him not neither knoweth him Besides let us suppose that neither in this nor in any other place God had promised any more unto them but to lead them into all Truth necessary for their own other mens salvation Does it therefore follow that they were de facto led no farther God indeed is oblig'd by his Veracity to doe all that hee has promised but is there any thing that binds him to doe no more May not he be better then his word but you will quarrell at him May not his Bounty exceed his Promise And may not we haue certainty enough that oftimes it does so God did not promise to Solomon in his vision at Gibeon any more then what he askt which was wisdome to govern his people and that he gaue him But yet I hope you will not deny that we haue certainty enough that he gaue him something which neither God had promised nor he had asked If you doe you contradict God himselfe For Behold saith God because thou hast asked this thing I haue done according to thy word Loe I haue given thee a Wise and an Vnderstanding heart so that there was none like thee before thee neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee And I haue also given thee that which thou hast not asked both riches and honour so that there shall not be any among the Kings like unto thee in all thy dayes God for ought appeares never oblig'd himselfe by promise to shew S. Paul those Vnspeakable mysteries which in the third Heaven he shewed unto him and yet I hope we haue certainty enough that he did so God promises to those that seek his Kingdome and the righteousnesse thereof that all things necessary shall be added vnto them and in rigour by his promise he is obliged to doe no more and if hee giue them necessaries he hath discharged his obligation Shall we therefore be so injurious to his bounty towards us as to say it is determined by the narrow bounds of meere necessity So though God had obliged himselfe by promise to giue his Apostles infallibility onely in things necessary to salvation neverthelesse it is utterly inconsequent that he gaue them no more then by the rigour of his promise he was engaged to doe or that we can haue no assurance of any farther assistance that he gaue them especially when he himselfe both by his word and by his works hath assured us that he did assist them farther You see by this time that your chaine of feareful consequences as you call them is turned to a rope of sand and may easily bee avoided without any flying to your imaginary infallibility of the Church in all her proposalls 35 Ad § 14. 15. Doubting of a Book receaved for Canonicall may signifie either doubting whether it be Canonicall or supposing
it to be Canonicall whether it be True If the former sense were yours I must then againe distinguish of the terme received For it may signify either received by some particular Church or by the present Church Vniversall or the Church of all Ages If you meant the word in either of the former senses that which you say is not tâ—â—e A man may justly and reasonably doubt of some Texts or some Book received by some particular Church or by the Vniversall Church of this present time whether it be Canonicall or no and yet haue just reason to belieue no reason to doubt but that other Books are Canonicall As Eusebius perhaps had reason to doubt of the Epistle of S. Iames the Church of Rome in Hierom's time of the Epistle to the Hebr. And yet they did not doubt of all the Books of the Canon nor had reason to doe so If by Received you meant Received by the Church of all Ages I grant he that doubts of any one such Book has as much reason to doubt of all But yet here again I tell you that it is possible a man may doubt of one such book and yet not of all because it is possible men may doe not according to reason If you meant your words in the latter sense then I confesse he that belieues such a Book to be Canonicall i. e. the word of God and yet to make an impossible supposition believes it not to be true if he will doe according to reason must doubt of all the rest and belieue none For there being no greater reason to believe any thing true then because God hath said it nor no other reason to belieue the Scripture to be true but only because it is Gods word hee that doubts of the Truth of any thing said by God hath as much reason to belieue nothing that he saies and therefore if he will doe according to reason neither must nor can believe any thing he saies And upon this ground you conclude rightly that the infallibility of true Scripture must be Vniversall and not confin'd to points fundamentall 36 And this Reason why we should not refuse to beleiue any part of Scripture upon pretence that the matter of it is not Fundamentall you confesse to be convincing But the same reason you say is as convincing for the Vniversall infallibility of the Church For say you unlesse shee be Infallible in all things we cannot belieue her in any one But by this reason your Proselytes knowing you are not Infallible in all things must not nor cannot belieue you in any thing Nay you your selfe must not belieue your selfe in any thing because you know that you are not Infallible in all things Indeed if you had said wee could not rationally belieue her for her own sake and upon her own word and authority in any thing I should willingly grant the consequence For an authority subject to errour can be no firm or stable foundation of my beliefe in any thing and if it were in any thing then this authority being one the same in all proposalls I should haue the same reason to belieue all that I haue to belieue one and therefore must either doe unreasonably in believing any one thing upon the sole warrant of this authority or unreasonably in not believing all things equally warranted by it Let this therefore be granted and what will come of it Why then you say we cannot belieue her in propounding Canonicall Books If you mean still as you must doe unlesse you play the Sophister not upon her own Authority I grant it For we belieue Canonicall Books not upon the Authority of the present Church but upon Vniversall Tradition If you mean Not at all and that with reason we cannot believe these Books to be Canonicall which the Church proposes I deny it There is no more consequence iâ—â—he Argument then in this The Divell is not infallible therefore if he saies there is one God I cannot believe him No Geometritian is Infallible in all things therefore not in these things which the domonstrates M. Knot is not Infallible in all things therefore he may not believe that he wrote a Book entituled Charity Maintained 37 But though the reply be good Protestants cannot make use of it with any good coherence to this distinction and some other Doctrine of theirs because they pretend to be able to tell what points are Fundamentall and what not and therefore though they should believe Scripture erroneous in others yet they might be sure it err'd not in these To this I answer That if without dependance on Scripture they did know what were Fundamentall and what not they might possibly believe the Scripture true in Fundamentalls and erroneous in other things But seeing they ground their beliefe that such and such things only are Fundamentalls only upon Scripture and goe about to prove their assertion true only by Scripture then must they suppose the Scripture true absolutely and in all things or else the Scripture could not be a sufficient warrant to them to believe this thing that these only points are Fundamentall For who would not laugh at them if they should argue thus The Scripture is true in something the Scripture saies that these points only are Fundamentall therefore this is true that these only are so For every Fresh-man in Logick knowes that from meer particulars nothing can be certainly concluded But on the other side this reason is firme and demonstrative The Scripture is true in all things But the Scripture saies that these only points are the Fundamentalls of Christian Religion therefore it is true that these only are so So that the knowledge of Fundamentalls being it selfe drawen from Scripture is so farre from warranting us to believe the Scripture is or may be in part True and in part False that it selfe can have no foundation but the Vniversall truth of Scripture For to be a Fundamentall truth presupposes to be a truth now I cannot know any Doctrine to be a divine and supernaturall Truth on a true part of Christianity but only because the Scripture saies so which is all true Therefore much more can I not know it to be a Fundamentall truth 33 Ad § 16. To this Parag. I answer Though the Church being not Infallible I cannot believe her in every thing she saies yet I can and must believe her in every thing she proves either by Scripture Reason or universall Tradition be it Fundamentall or be it not Fundamentall This you say we cannot in points not Fundamentall because in such we believe she may erre But this I know we can because though she may erre in some things yet she does not erre in what she proves though it be not Fundamentall Again you say we cannot doe it in Fundamentalls because we must know what points be Fundamentall before we goe to learn of her Not so but I must learn of the Church or of some part of the Church or I
such a one damnable But if I be guilty of none of these faults but be desirous to know the Truth and diligent in seeking it and advise not at all with flesh bloud about the choice of my opinions but only with God that Reason that he hath given me if I be thus qualifi'd and yet through humane infirmity fall into errour that errour cannot be damnable Again the party erring may be conceived either to dye with contrition for all his sins known and unknown or without it If he dye without it this errour in it selfe damnable will bee likewise so unto him If he dye with contrition as his errour can bee no impediment but he may his errour though in it selfe damnable to him according to your doctrine will not proue so And therefore some of those Authors whom you quote speaking of Errours whereunto men were betrayed or wherein they were kept by their Fault or Vice or Passion as for the most part men are Others speaking of them as errours simply and purely involuntary and the effects of humane infirmity some as they were retracted by Contrition to use your own phrase others as they were not no marvell though they haue past upon them some a heavier some a milder some an absolving some a condemning sentence The best of all these errours which here you mention having malice enough too frequently mixed with it to sink a man deep enough into hell and the greatest of them all being according to your Principles either no fault at all or very Veniall where there is no malice of the will conjoyn'd with it And if it be yet as the most malignant poyson will not poison him that receives with it a more powerfull Antidote so I am confident your own Doctrine will force you to confesse that whosoever dies with Faith in Christ and Contrition for all sinnes known and unknown in which heap all his sinfull errours must be compriz'd can no more be hurt by any the most malignant and pestilent errour then S. Paul by the viper which he shook of into the fire Now touching the necessity of Repentance from dead works and Faith in Christ Iesus the Sonne of God and Saviour of the World they all agree and therefore you cannot deny but they agree about all that is simply necessary Moreover though if they should goe about to choose out of Scripture all these Propositions Doctrines which integrate and make up the body of Christian Religion peradventure there would not be so exact agreement amongst them as some say there was between the 70. Interpreters in translating the Old Testament yet thus far without controversie they doe all agree that in the Bible all these things are contained and therefore that whosoever does truly and sincerely believe the Scripture must of necessity either in hypothesi or at least in thesi either formally or at least virtually either explicitely or at least implicitely either in Act or at least in preparation of minde belieue all things Fundamentall It being not Fundamentall nor required of Almighty God to belieue the true sense of Scripture in all places but only that we should endeavour to doe so be prepar'd in minde to doe so whensoever it shall be sufficiently propounded to us Suppose a man in some disease were prescribed a medicine consisting of twenty ingredients and he advising with Physitians should finde them differing in opinion about it some of them telling him that all the ingredients were absolutely necessary some that only some of them were necessary the rest only profitable and requisite ad melius esse lastly some that some only were necessary some profitable and the rest superfluous yet not hurtfull Yet all with one accord agreeing in this That the whole receipt had in it all things necessary for the recovery of his health and that if hee made use of it hee should infallibly finde it successefull what wise man would not think they agreed sufficiently for his direction to the recovery of his health lust so these Protestant Doctors with whose discords you make such Tragedies agreeing in Thesi thus far that the Scripture evidently containes all things necessary to Salvation both for matter of Faith and of practise and that whosoever believes it and endeavours to finde the true sense of it and to conform his life unto it shall certainly performe all things necessary to salvation and undoubtedly be saved agreeing I say thus farre what matters it for the direction of men to salvation though they differ in opinion touching what points are absolutely necessary and what not What Errours absolutely repugnant to Salvation and what not Especially considering that although they differ about the Question of the necessity of these Truths yet for the most part they agree in this that Truths they are and profitable at least though not simply necessary And though they differ in the Question whether the contrary Errours be destructive of salvation or no yet in this they consent that Errours they are hurtful to Religion though not destructive of Salvation Now that which God requires of us is this That we should belieue the Doctrines of the Gospell to bee Truths not all necessary Truths for all are not so and consequently the repugnant Errours to be falshoods yet not all such falshoods as unavoidably draw with them damnation upon all that hold them for all doe not so 53 Yea but you say it is very requisite we should agree upon a particular Catalogue of Fundamentall points for without such a Catalogue no man can be assured whether or no he hath faith sufficient to salvation This I utterly deny as a thing evidently false and I wonder you should content your selfe magisterially to say so without offering any proof of it I might much more justly think it enough barely to deny it without refutation but I will not Thus therefore I argue against it Without being able to make a Catalogue of Fundamentals I may be assured of the Truth of this Assertion if it be true That the Scripture containes all necessary points of faith and know that I belieue explicitely all that is exprest in Scripture and implicitely all that is contained in them Now he that belieues all this must of necessity believe all things necessary Therefore without being able to make a Catalogue of Fundamentals I may be assured that I belieue all things necessary and consequently that my faith is sufficient I said of the truth of this Assertion if it be true Because I will not here enter into the Question of the truth of it it being sufficient for my present purpose that it may be true and may be believed without any dependance upon a Catalogue of Fundamentalls And therefore if this be all your reason to demand a particular Catalogue of Fundamentalls we cannot but think your demand unreasonable Especially having your selfe expressed the cause of the difficulty of it and that is Because Scripture doth deliver Divine Truths but
Reason then you foresee that you should be forced to grant that these are fit meanes to decide this Controversie and therefore may be as fit to decide others Therefore to avoid this you runne into a most ridiculous absurdity and tell us that this difference also whether the Church be infallible as well as others must be agreed by a submissiue acknowledgment of the Churches infallibility As if you should haue said My Brethren I perceiue this is a great contention amongst you whether the Roman Church be infallible If you will follow my advice I will shew you a ready meanes to end it you must first agree that the Roman Church is infallible and then your contention whether the Roman Church be infallible will quickly be at an end Verily a most excellent advice and most compendious way of ending all Controversies even without troubling the Church to determine them For why may not you say in all other differences as you haue done in this Agree that the Pope is supream head of the Church That the substance of Bread and Wine in the Sacrament is turned into the body bloud of Christ That the Communion is to be given to Lay-men but in one kind That Pictures may be worshipped That Saints are to bee invocated and so in the rest and then your differences about the Popes Supremacy Transubstantiation and all the rest will speedily be ended If you say the advice is good in this but not in other cases I must request you not to expect alwaies to be believed upon your word but to shew us some reason why any one thing namely the Churches infallibility is fit to prove it selfe and any other thing by name the Popes Supremacy or Transubstantiation is not as fit Or if for shame you will at length confesse that the Churches infallibility is not fit to decide this difference whether the Church be infallible then you must confesse it is not fit to decide all Vnlesse you will say it may be fit to decide all and yet not fit to decide this or pretend that this is not comprehended under all Besides if you grant that your Churches infallibilitie cannot possibly be well grounded upon or decided by it selfe then having professed before that there is no possible meanes besides this for us to agree hereupon I hope you will giue mee leaue to conclude that it is impossible upon good ground for us to agree that the Roman Church is infallible For certainly light it selfe is not more cleere then the evidence of this syllogisme If there be no other meanes to make men agree upon your Churches infallibility but only this and this be no meanes then it is simply impossible for men upon good grounds to agree that your Church is infallible But there is as you haue granted no other possible meanes to make men agree hereupon but only a submissive acknowledgment of her Infallibility And this is apparently no meanes Therefore it is simply impossible for men upon good grounds to agree that your Church is infallible 90 Lastly to the place of S. Austine wherein we are advis'd to follow the way of Catholique discipline which from Christ himselfe by the Apostles hath come down even to us and from us shall descend to all posterity I answer That the way which S. Austine spake of the way which you commend being divers waies in many things cleane contrary we cannot possibly follow them both and therefore for you to apply the same words to them is a vaine equivocation Shew us any way doe not say but proue it to haue come from Christ his Apostles down to us and we are ready to follow it Neither doe wee expect demonstration hereof but such reasons as may make this more probable then the contrary But if you bring in things into your now Catholique Discipline which Chistians in S. Austins time held abominable as the picturing of God which you must confesse to haue come into the Church seven hundred yeares after Christ if you will bring in things as you haue done the halfe Communion with a non obstante notwithstanding Christs Institution and the practise of the Primitive Church were to the contrary If you will doe such things as these and yet would haue us believe that your whole Religion came from Christ and his Apostles this we conceive a request too unreasonable for modest men to make or for wise men to grant CHAP. IIII. To say that the Creed containes all points necessarily to be believed is neither pertinent to the Question in hand nor in it selfe true I SAY neither pertinent nor true Not pertinent Because our Question is not what points are necessary to be explicitely believed but what points may be lawfully disbelieved or rejected after sufficient Proposition that they are divine Truths You say the Creed containes all points necessary to be believed Be it so But doth it likewise containe all points not to be disbelieved Certainly it doth not For how many truths are there in holy Scripture not contained in the Creed which we are not obliged distinctly and particularly to know and believe but are bound under paine of damnation not to reject as soone as we come to know that they are found in holy Scripture And we having already shewed that whatsoever is proposed by Gods Church as a point of faith is infallibly a truth revealed by God it followeth that whosoever denieth any such point opposeth Gods sacred testimony whether that point be contained in the Creed or no. In vaine then was your care imployed to prove that all points of faith necessary to be explicitely believed are contained in the Creed Neither was that the Catalogue which Charity Mistaken demanded His demand was and it was most reasonable that you would once give us a list of all fundamentals the deniall whereof destroyes Salvation whereas the deniall of other points not fundamentall may stand with salvation although both these kinds of points be equally proposed as revealed by God For if they be not equally proposed the difference will arise from diversity of the Proposall and not of the Matter fundamentall or not fundamentall This Catalogue only can shew how farre Protestants may disagree without breach of Vnity in faith and upon this many other matters depend according to the ground of Protestants But you will never adventure to publish such a Catalogue I say more You cannot assigne any one point so great or fundamentall that the deniall thereof will make a man an Heretique if it be not sufficiently propounded as a divine Truth Nor can you assigne any one point so small that it can without heresie be rejected if once it be sufficiently represented as revealed by God 2. Nay this your instance in the Creed is not only impertinent but directly against you For all points in the Creed are not of their own nature fundamentall as I shewed before And yet it is damnable to deny any one point contained in
the Creed So that it is cleere that to make an errour damnable it is not necessary that the matter be of it selfe fundamentall 3 Moreover you cannot ground any certainty upon the Creed it selfe unlesse first you presuppose that the authority of the Church is universally infallible and consequently that it is damnable to oppose her declarations whether they concerne matters great or small contayned or not contained in the Creed This is cleere Because we must receiue the Creed it self upon the credit of the Church without which we could not know that there was any such thing as that which we call the Apostles Creed and yet the arguments whereby you endeavour to prove that the Creed containes all fundamentall points are grounded upon supposition that the Creed was made either by the Apostles themselves or by the Church of their times from them which thing we could not certainly know if the succeeding and still continued Church may erre in her Traditions neither can we be assured whether all fundamentall Articles which you say were out of the Scriptures summed and contracted into the Apostles Creed were faithfully summed and contracted and not one pretermitted altered or mistaken unlesse we undoubtedly know that the Apostles composed the Creed and that they intended to contract all fundamentall points of faith into it or at least that the Church of their times for it seemeth you doubt whether indeed it were composed by the Apostles themselves did understand the Apostles aright and that the Church of their times did intend that the Creed should containe all fundamentall points For if the Church may erre in points not fundamentall may she not also erre in the particulers which I have specified Can you shew it to be a fundamentall point of faith that the Apostles intended to comprize all points of faith necessary to Salvation in the Creed Your self say no more then that it is very probable which is farre from reaching to a fundamentall point of faith Your prohability is grounded upon the Iudgment of Antiquity and even of the Roman Doctours as you say in the same place But if the Catholique Church may erre what certainty can you expect from Antiquity or Doctours Scripture is your totall Rule of faith Cite therefore some Text of Scripture to prove that the Apostles or the Church of their times composed the Creed and composed it with a purpose that it should containe all fundamentall points of faith Which being impossible to be done you must for the Creed it self rely upon the infallibility of the Church 4. Moreover the Creed consisteth not so much in the words as in their sense and meaning All such as pretend to the name of Christians recite the Creed and yet many have erred fundamentally as well against the Articles of the Creed as other points of faith It is then very frivolous to say the Creed containes all fundamentall points without specifying both in what sense the Articles of the Creed be true and also in what true sense they be fundamentall For both these taskes you are to performe who teach that all truth is not fundamentall and you doe but delude the ignorant when you say that the Creed taken in a Catholique sense comprehendeth all points fundamentall because with you all Catholique sense is not fundamentall for so it were necessary to salvation that all Christians should know the whole Scripture wherein every least point hath a Catholique sense Or if by Catholique sense you understand that sense which is so universally to be knowne and believed by all that whosoever failes therein cannot be saved you trifle and say no more then this All points of the Creed in a sense necessary to salvation are necessary to salvation Or All points fundamentall are fundamentall After this manner it were an easie thing to make many trve Prognostications by saying it will certainly raine when it raineth You say the Creed was opened and explained in some parts in the Creeds of Nice c. but how shall we understand the other parts not explained in those Creeds 5. For what Article in the Creed is more fundamentall or may seem more cleere then that wherein we believe IESVS CHRIST to be the Mediatour Redeemer and Saviour of mankind and the founder and foundation of a Catholique Church expressed in the Creed And yet about this Article how many different doctrines are there not only of old Heretiques as Arius Nestorius Eutiches c. but also of Protestants partly against Catholiques and partly against one another For the said maine Article of Christ's being the only Saviour of the world c. according to different senses of disagreeing Sects doth involve these and many other such questions That Faith in IESVS CHRIST doth justifie alone That Sacraments have no efficency in Iustification That Baptisme doth not availe Infants for salvation unlesse they have an Act of faith That there is no Sacerdotall Absolution from sinnes That good works proceeding from Gods grace are not meritorious That there can be no Satisfaction for the temporall punishment due to sinne after the guilt or offence is pardoned No Purgatory No prayers for the dead No Sacrifice of the Masse No Invocation No Mediation or intercession of Saints No inherent Iustice No supreme Pastor yea no Bishop by divine Ordinance No Reall presence no Transubstantiation with diverse others And why Because forsooth these Doctrines derogate from the Titles of Mediator Redeemer Advocate Foundation c. Yea and are against the truth of our Saviours humane nature if we believe diverse Protestants writing against Transubstantiation Let then any judicious man consider whether Doctour Potter or others doe really satisfie when they send men to the Creed for a perfect Catalogue to distinguish points fundamentall from those which they say are not fundamentall If he will speak indeed to some purpose let him say This Article is understood in this sense and in this sense it is fundamentall That other is to be understood in such a meaning yet according to that meaning it is not so fundamentall but that men may disagree and denie it without damnation But it were no policie for any Protestant to deale so plainly 6. But to what end should we use many arguments Even your selfe are forced to limit your owne Doctrine and come to say that the Creed is a perfect Catalogue of fundamentall points taken as it was further opened and explained in some parts by occasion of emergent Heresies in the other Catholique Creeds of Nice Constantinople Ephesus Chalcedon and Athanasius But this explication or restriction overthroweth you assertion For as the Apostles Creed was not to us a sufficient Catalogue till it was explained by the first Councell nor then till it was declared by another c. so now also as new Heresies may arise it will need particular explanation against such emergent errors and so it is not yet nor ever will be of it self alone a particular Catalogue sufficient
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 â—oever they lead me Now I say they haue led me into this perswasion because they haue given me great reason to belieue it and none to the contrary The reason they haue given me to belieue it is because it is apparent and confest they did propose to themselues in composing it some good end or ends As that Christians might haue a forme by which for matter of faith they might professe themselues Catholiques So Putean out of Th. Aquinas That the faithfull might know what the Christian people is to believe explicitely 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 Cardinall Richlieu Now for all these and for any other good intent I say it will be plainly uneffectuall unlesse it contain at least all points of simple beliefe which are in ordinary course necessary to be explicitely known by all men So that if it be fault in me to belieue this it must be my fault to belieue the Apostles wise and good men which I cannot doe if I belieue not this And therefore what Richardus de sancto Victore sayes of God himselfe 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 errour which I belieue it is you and my reverend esteem of you and your actions that hath led me into it For as for your suspition 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 haue which I would not as willingly forsake as keep if I could see sufficient reason to enduce me to believe that it is the will of God I should forsake it Neither doe I know any opinion I hold against the Church of Rome but I haue more evident grounds then this whereupon to build it For let but these Truths bee granted That the authority of the Scripture is independent on your Church dependent only in respect of us upon universall 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 bee 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. That Luther Calvin their Associates all who began or continue the separation from the externall Communion of the Roman Church are guilty of the proper and formall sinne of Schisme THE Searcher of all Hearts is witnesse with how unwilling minds we Catholiques are drawen to fasten the denomination of Schismatiques or Heretiques on them for whose soules if they imployed their best blood they judge that it could not be better spent If we rejoyce that they are contistated at such titles our joy riseth not from their trouble or griefe but as that of the Apostles did from the fountaine of Charity because they are contâ—â—stated to repentance that so after unpartiall examination they finding themselves to be what we say may by Gods holy grace begin to dislike what themselves are For our part we must remember that our obligation is to keep within the meane betwixt uncharitable bitternesse and pernicious flattery not yeelding to worldly respects nor offending Christian Modesty but uttering the substance of truth in so Charitable manner that not so much we as Truth and Charity may seeme to speak according to the wholesome advise of S. Gregory Nazianzen in these divine words We doe not affect peace with preiudice of the true doctrine that so we may get a name of being gentle and mild and yet we seek to conserue peace fighting in a lawfull manner and containing our selves within our compasse and the rule of Spirit And of these things my iudgment is and for my part I prescribe the same law to all that deale with soules and treat of true doctrine that neither they exasperate meâ—s minds by harshnesse nor make them haughty or insolent by submission but that in the cause of faith they behave themselves prudently and advisedly and doe not in either of these things exceed the meane With whom aÌ„greeth S. Leo saying It behoveth us in such causes to be most carefull that without noise of contentions both Charity be conserved and Truth maintained 2. For better Methode we will handle these points in order First we will set downe the nature and essence or as I may call it the Quality of Schisme In the second place the greatnesse and grievousnesse or so to tearme it the Quantity thereof For the Nature or Quality will tell us who may without injury be iudged Schismatiques and by the greatnesse or quantity such as finde themselves guilty thereof will remaine acquainted with the true state of their soule and and whether they may conceive any hope of salvation or no. And because Schisme will be found to be a division from the Church which could not happen unlesse there were alwaies a visible Church we will Thirdly prove or rather take it as a point to be granted by all Christians that in all ages there hath beene such a Visible Congregation of Faithfull People Fourthly we will demonstrate that Luther Calvin and the rest did separate themselves from the Communion of that alwaies visible Church of Christ and therefore were guilty of Schisme And fifthly we will make it evident that the visible true Church of Christ out of which Luther and his followers departed was no other but the Roman Church and consequently that both they and all others who persist in the same division are Schismatiques by reason of their separation from the Church of Rome 3 For the first point touching the Nature or Quality of Schisme As the naturall perfection of man consists in his being the Image of God his Creator by the powers of his soule so his supernaturall perfection is placed in fimilitude with God as his last End and Felicity and by having the said spirituall faculties his Vnderstanding and Will linked to him His Vnderstanding is united to God by Faith his Will by Charity The former relies upon his infallible Truth The latter carrieth us to his infinite Goodnesse Faith hath a deadly opposite Heresie Contrary to the Vnion or Vnity of Charity is Separation and Division Charity is twofold As it respects God his Opposite Vice is Hatred against God as it uniteth us to our Neighbour his contrary is Seperation or division of affections and will from our Neighbour Our Neighbour may be considered either as one private person
that those persons sinned mortally who accompanied without hope of issue Seaventhly they held all things done above the girdle by kissing touching words compression of the breasts c. to be done in Charity and not against Continency Eightly that neither Priest nor civill Magistrate being guilty of mortall sinne did enjoy their dignity or were to be obeyed Ninthly they condemned Princes and Iudges Tenthly they affirmed singing in the Church to be an hellish clamor Eleaventhly they taught that men might dissemble their Religion so accordingly they went to Catholique Churches dissembling their faith and made Offertories confessions and communions after a dissembling manner Waldo was so unlearned that saith Fox he gave rewards to certain learned men to translate the holy Scripture for him and being thus holpen did as the same Fox there reporteth confer the forme of religion in his time to the infallible word of God A goodly example for such as must needs have the Scripture in English to be read by every simple body with such fruit of Godly doctrine as we have seen in the foresaid grosse heresies of Waldo The followers of Waldo were like their Master so unlearned that some of them â—aith Fox expounded the words Ioan. 1. Sui eum non receperunt Swine did not receive him And to conclude they agreed in divers things with Catholiques against Protestants as may be seen in Brerely 51 Neither can it be pretended that these are slanders forged by Catholiques For for besides that the same things are testified by Protestant writers as Iâ—â—yricus Coâ—per and others our Authors cannot be suspected of partiality in disfavour of Protestants unlesse you will say perhaps that they were Prophets and some hundred yeares agoe did both foresee that there were to bee Protestants in the world and that such Protestants were to be like the Waldenses Besides from whence but from our Histories are Protestants come to know that there were any such men as the Waldenses and that in some points they agreed with the Protestants disagreed from them in others And upon what ground can they belieue our Authors for that part wherein the Waldenses were like to Protestants and imagine they lyed in the rest 52 Neither could Wiccliffe continue a Church never interrupted from the time of the Waldenses after whom he lived more then one hundred and fifty yeares to wit the yeare 1371. Hee agreed with Catholiques about the worshipping of Reliques and Images and about the Intercession of our blessed Lady the ever Immaculate Mother of God he went so far as to say It seemes to me impossible that we should be rewarded without the intercession of the Virgin Mary He held seaven Sacraments Purgatory and other points And against both Catholiques and Protestants he maintained sundry damnable doctrines as divers Protestant Writers relate As first If a Bishop or Priest be in deadly sinne he doth not indeed either giue Orders Consecrate or Baptize Secondly That Ecclesiasticall Ministers ought not to haue any temporall possessions nor propriety in any thing but should beg and yet he himselfe brake into heresie because he had been deprived by the Archbishop of Canterbury of a certain Benefice as all Schismes and heresies beginne upon passion which they seek to cover with the cloak of Reformation Thirdly he condemned lawfull Oathes like the Anabaptists Fourthly he taught that all things came to passe by absolute necessity Fiftly he defended human merits as the wicked Pelagians did namely as proceeding from naturall forces without the necessary help of God's grace Sixtly that no man is a Civill Magistrate while he is in mortall sinne and that the people may at their pleasure correct Princes when they offend by which doctrine he proues himselfe both an Heretique and a Traytour 53 As for Husse his chiefest Doctrines were That Lay people must receive in both kinders and That Civill Lords Prelates and Bishops loose all right and authority while they are in mortall sinne For other things he wholy agreed with Catholiques against Protestants and the Bohemians his followers being demanded in what points they disagreed from the Church of Rome propounded only these The necessity of Communion under both kinds That all Civill Dominion was forbidden to the Clergy That Preaching of the word was free for all men and in all places That open Crimes were in no wise to be permitted for avoiding of greater evill By these particulars it is apparant that Husse agreed with Protestants against us in one only point of both kindes â—hich according to Luther is a thing indifferent because he teacheth that Christ in this matter commanded nothing as necessary And he saith further If thou come to a place where one only kinde is administred use one kinde only as others doe Melancthon likewise holds it a thing indifferent and the same is the opinion of some other Protestants All which considered it is cleer that Protestants cannot challenge the Waldenses Wickliffe and Husse for members of their Church and although they could yet that would advantage them little towards the finding out a perpetuall visible Church of theirs for the reasons aboue specified 54 If D Potter would goe so farre off as to fetch the Muscovites Armenians Georgians Aethiopians or Abissines into his Church they would proue over deare bought For they either hold the damnable heresy of Euâ—iches or use Circumcision or agree with the Greek or Roman Church And it is most certaine that they have nothing to doe with the doctrine of the Protestants 55 It being therefore granted that Christ had a visible Church in all ages and that there can be none assigned but the Church of Rome it followes that she is the true Cath. Church and that those pretended Corruptions for which they forsook her are indeed divine truths delivered by the visible Catholique Church of Christ And that Luther and his followers departed from her and consequently are guilty of Schisme by dividing themselves from the Communion of the Roman Church Which is cleerly convinced out of D. Potter himself although the Roman Church were but a particular Church For he saith Whosoever professes himself to forsake the Communion of any one member of the body of Christ must confesse himself consequently to forsake the whole Since therefore in the same place he expressely acknowledges the Church of Rome to be a member of the body of Christ and that it is cleere they have forsaken her it evidently followes that they haue forsaken the whole and therefore are most properly Schismatiques 56 And lastly since the crime of Schisme is so grievous that according to the doctrine of holy Fathers rehearsed aboue no multitude of good works no morall honesty of life no cruel death endured even for the profession of some Article of faith can excuse any one who is guilty of that sinne from damnation I leaue it to be considered whether it be not true Charity to speak as wee believe and
For it is to require that they which believe some part of your Doctrine false should withall believe it all true Seeing therefore for any man to believe your Church in error and professe the contrary is damnable Hypocrisie to believe it and not believe it a manifest repugnancy and thirdly to professe it and to continue in your Communion as matters now stand a plain impossibility what remaines but that whosoever is supposed to have just reason to disbelieve any doctrine of your Church must of necessity forsake her Communion Vnlesse you would remit so farre from your present rigour as to allow them your Churches communion who publiquely professe that they doe not believe every article of her established Doctrine Indeed if you would doe so you might with some coherence suppose your Church in error and yet finde fault with men for abandoning her communion because they might continue in it and suppose her in error But to suppose your Church in error and to excommunicate all those that believe your own supposition and then to complain that they continue not in your communion is the most ridiculous incongruity that can be imagined And therefore though your corruptions in doctrine in themselves which yet is false did not yet your obliging us to professe your doctrine uncorrupted against knowledge and conscience may induce an obligation to depart from your communion As if there were any society of Christians that held there were no Antipodes notwithstanding this error I might communicate with them But if I could not doe so without professing my selfe of their beleefe in this matter then I suppose I should be excus'd from Schisme if I should forsake their communion rather then professe my selfe to believe that which I doe not believe Neither is there any contradiction or shadow of contradiction that it may be necessary for my Salvation to depart from this Churches communion And that this Church though erring in this matter wants nothing necessary to Salvation And yet this is that manifest contradiction which D. Potter you say will never be able to salve viz. That there might be necessary cause to depart from the Church of Rome in some Doctrines and practices though she wanted nothing necessary to Salvation 60 And your Reason wherewith you prove that there is in these words such a plain contradiction is very notable For say you if she wanted nothing necessary to Salvation how could it be necessary to Salvation to forsake her Truly Sir if this be a good manner of proving it is a very ready way to prove any thing for what is there that may not be proved if it be proofe enough to aske how it can be otherwise Me thinkes if you would convince D. Potter's words of manifest contradiction you should shew that he affirmes and denies the same of the same From which fault me thinkes he should be very innocent who saies only that that may be damnable to one which is not so to another and that may be necessary for one which is not necessary for another And this is all that D. Potter saies here viz. That the profession of a falsehood to him that believes it may be not damnable and yet damnable to him that believes the contrary Or that not to professe a falsehood in him that knowes it to be so is necessary to Salvation and yet not so in him that by error conceives it to be a truth The words by you cited and charged with unsalvable contradiction are in the 75. pag. But in the progresse of the same particular discourse in the next page but one he gives such evident reason of them which can hardly be done to prove implicancy true that whereas you say he will never be able to salve them from contradiction I believe any indifferent reader having considered the place will be very apt to think that you whatsoever you pretend were very able to have done this curtesy for him if your will had been answerable to your ability I will set down the words and leave the Reader to condemne or absolve them To forsake the errors of that Church and not to joyne with her in those practices which we account erroneous wee are enforced by necessity For though in the issue they are not damnable to them which belieue as they professe yet for us to professe avow by oath as the Church of Rome enioynes what we belieue not were without question damnable And they with their errours by the grace of God might goe to Heaven when we for our hypocrisie and dissimulation he might haue added and Perjury should certainly be condemned to Hell 61 Ad § 20. But a Church not erring in Fundamentalls though erring in other matters doth what our Saviour exacts at her hands doth as much as lies in her power to doe Therefore the Communion of such a Church is not upon pretence of Errour to be forsaken The consequence is manifest The Antecedent is proved because God by D. Potters confession hath promised his assistance no further nor is it in her power to doe more then God doth assist her to doe Ans. The promise of Divine Assistance is two fold Absolute or Conditionall That there shall be by Divine providence preseru'd in the world to the worlds end such a company of Christians who hold all things precisely and indispensably necessary to salvation and nothing inevitably destructive of it This and no more the Doctor affirmes that God hath promised absolutely Yet he neither doubts nor denies but that a farther assistance is conditionally promised us even such an assistance as shall lead us if we be not wanting to it and our selves into all not only necessary but very profitable truth and guard us from all not only destructive but also hurtfull Errours This I say he neither denies nor questions And should he haue done so hee might haue been confuted by evident and expresse Text of Scripture When therefore you say That a Church not erring in Fundamentalls doth as much as by Gods assistance lies in her power to doe 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 offered 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 erres shamefully and dangerously in other things very profitable This by no meanes 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 selfe too much for retaining Fundamentall truths while shee remaines so regardlesse of others For though the simple defect of some truths profitable onely and not simply necessary may consist with salvation Yet who is there that can giue her sufficient assurance that the neglect
Book Besides any private man who truly believes the Scripture and seriously endeavours to know the will of God and to doe it is as secure as the visible Church more secure then your Church from the danger of erring in fundamentalls for it is impossible that any man so qualified should fall into any error which to him will prove damnable For God requires no more of any man to his Salvation but his true endeavour to be saved Lastly abiding in your Churches Communion is so farre from securing me or any man from damnable error that if I should abide in it I am certain I could not be saved For abide in it I cannot without professing to believe your entire doctrine true professe this I cannot but I must lye perpetually and exulcerate my conscience And though your errors were not in themselves damnable yet to resist the known Truth and to continue in the profession of known errors and false hoods is certainly a capitall sinne and of great affinity with the sinne which shall never be forgiven 95 But neither is the Church of Protestants perfectly free from errors and corruptions so the Doctor confesses p. 69. which he can only excuse by saying they are not fundamentall as likewise those in the Roman Church are confessed not to be fundamentall And what man of Iudgement will be a Protestant since that Church is confessedly a corrupted one Ans. And yet you your selfe make large discourses in this very Chapter to perswade Protestants to continue in the Church of Rome though supposed to have some corruptions And why I pray may not a man of judgement continue in the Communion of a Church confessedly corrupted as well as in a Church supposed to be corrupted Especially when this Church supposed to be corrupted requires the beliefe and profession of her supposed corruptions as the condition of her Communion which this Church confessedly corrupted doth not What man of judgement will think it any disparagement to his judgement to preferre the better though not simply the best before that which is starke naught To preferre indifferent good health before a diseased and corrupted state of Body To preferre a field not perfectly weeded before a field that is quite over-runne with weeds and thornes And therefore though Protestants have some Errors yet seeing they are neither so great as yours nor impos'd with such tyranny nor maintained with such obstinacy he that conceives it any disparagement to his judgement to change your Communion for theirs though confessed to have some corruptions it may well be presum'd that he hath but little judgement For as for your pretence that yours are confessed not to be fundamentall it is an affected mistake as already I have often told you 66 Ad § 22. But D. Potter saies it is comfort enough for the Church that the Lord in mercy will secure her from all capitall dangers but she may not hope to triumph over all sinne and error till she be in heaven Now if it be comfort enough to be secur'd from all capitall dangers which can arise only from error in fundamentall points Why were not our first Reformers content with enough but would needs dismember the Church out of apernitious greedinesse of more then enough Ans. I have already shewed sufficiently how capitall danger may arise from errors though not fundamentall I adde now that what may be enough for men in ignorance may be to knowing men not enough according to that of the Gospell to whom much is given of him much shall be required That the same error may be not capitall to those who want meanes of finding the truth and capitall to others who have meanes and neglect to use them That to continue in the profession of error discovered to be so may be damnable though the error be not so These I presume are reasons enough and enough why the first Reformers might think and justly that not enough for themselves which yet to some of their Predecessors they hope might be enough This very Argument was objected to S. Cyprian upon another occasion and also by the British Quartodecimans to the maintainers of the Doctrine of your Church and by both this very answer was returned and therefore I cannot but hope that for their sakes you will approve it 67 But if as the Doctor saies no Church may hope to triumph over all error ti◠she be in heaven then we must either grant that errors not fundamentall cannot yeeld sufficient cause to forsake the Church or you must affirme that all Communities may and ought to be forsaken Answ. The Doctor does not say that no Church may hope to be free from all error either pernitious or any way noxious But that no Church may hope to be secure from all error simply for this were indeed truly totriumph over all But then we say not that the communion of any Church is to be forsaken for errors unfundamentall unlesse it exact withall either a dissimulation of the being noxious or a Profession of them against the dictate of conscience if they be meere errors This if the Church does as certainly yours doth then her communion is to be forsaken rather then the sinne of hypocrisy to be committed Whereas to forsake the Churches of Protestants for such errors there is no necessity because they erre to themselves doe not under pain of Excommunication exact the profession of their errors 68 But the Church may not be left by reason of sinne therefore neither by reason of errors not fundamentall in as much as both sinne and error are impossible to be avoided till she be in heaven Ans. The reason of the consequence does not appear to mee But I answer to the Antecedent Neither for sinne nor errors ought a Church to be forsaken if she does not impose and injoyne them but if she doe as the Roman does then we must forsake men rather then God leave the Churches communion rather then commit sinne or professe known errors to be divine truths For the Prophet EZechiel hath assured us that to say the Lord hath said so when the Lord hath not said so is a great sinne and a high presumption be the matter never so small 69 Ad § 23. 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 Fundamentall Not the number because the foundation is strong enough to support them Ans. Here againe you vainely 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 laies necessity on us either to forsake your company or to professe what we know to be false 70 Our Blessed Saviour hath declared his will that we
promise of divine assistance which being not ordinarily irresistible but temper'd to the nature of the Receivers may be neglected and therefore withdrawn but by the Repugnance of any errour in this sense fundamentall to the essence and nature of a Church So that to speak properly not any set known company of men is secur'd that though they neglect the meanes of avoiding error yet certainly they shall not erre which were necessary for the constitution of an infallible guide of faith But rather they which know what is meant by a Church are secur'd or rather certain that a Church remaining a Church cannot fall into fundamentall error because when it does so it is no longer a Church As they are certain that men cannot become unreasonable creatures because when they doe so they are no longer men But for fundamentall errors of the former sort which yet I hope will warrant our departure from any Communion infected with them and requiring the Profession of them from such fundamentall errors we doe not teach so much as that the Church Catholique much lesse which only were for your purpose that your Church hath any protection or security but know for a certain that many errors of this nature had prevailed against you and that a vain presumption of an absolute divine assistance which yet is promised but upon conditions made both your present errors incurable and exposed you to the imminent danger of more greater This therefore is either to abuse what we say or to impose falsely upon us what we say not And to this you presently adde another manifest falsehood viz. that we say that no particular person or Church hath any promise of assistance in points fundamentall Whereas crosse to this in diameter there is no Protestant but holds and must hold that there is no particular Church no nor person but hath promise of divine assistance to lead them into all necessary truth if they seeke it as they should by the meanes which God hath appointed And should we say otherwise we should contrary plain Scripture which assures us plainly that every one that seeketh findeth and every one that asketh receiveth and that if we being evill can give good gifts to our children much more shall our heavenly Father give his spirit to them that aske it and that if any man want wisdome especially spirituall wisdome he is to aske of God who giveth to all men and upbraideth not 89 You obtrude upon us thirdly That when Luther began he being but one opposed himselfe to all as well Subjects as Superiors Ans. If he did so in the cause of God it was heroically done of him This had been without hyperbolizing Mundus contra Athanasium and Athanasius contra Mundum neither is it impossible that the whole world should so farre lye in wickednesse as S. Iohn speakes that it may be lawfull and noble for one man to oppose the world But yet were we put to our oathes we should surely not testify any such thing for you for how can we say properly and without streining that he opposed himselfe to All unlesse we could say also that All opposed themselves to him And how can we say so seeing the world can witnesse that so many thousands nay millions followed his standard as soone as it was advanced 90 But none that lived immediatly before him thought or spake as he did This is first nothing to the purpose The Church was then corrupted and sure it was no dishonour to him to beginne the Reformation In the Christian warfare every man ought to strive to be foremost Secondly it is more then you can justify For though no man before him lifted up his voice like a trumpet as Luther did yet who can assure us but that many before him both thought and spake in lower voice of petitions and remonstrances in many points as he did 91 Fourthly and lastly whereas you say that many chiefe learned Protestants are forced to confesse the Antiquity of your Doctrine and Practise I Answer of many Doctrines and Practises of yours this is not true not pretended to be true by those that have dealt in this Argument Search your storehouse M. Brerely who hath travailed as farre in this Northwest discovery as it was possible for humane industry and when you have done so I pray informe me what confessions of Protestants have you for the Antiquity of the Doctrine of the Communion in one kinde the lawfulnesse and expedience of the Latine service For the present use of Indulgences For the Popes power in Temporalties over Princes For the picturing of the Trinity For the lawfulnesse of the worship of Pictures For your Beades and Rosary and Ladies Psalter and in a word for your whole worship of the B. Virgin For your oblations by way of consumption therefore in the quality of Sacrifices to the Virgin Mary other Saints For your saying of Pater-nosters Creeds to the honour of Saints and of Ave-Maries to the honour of other Saints besides the Blessed Virgin For infallibility of the Bishop or Church of Rome For your prohibiting the Scripture to be read publikely in the Church in such languages as all may understand For your Doctrine of the Blessed Virgins immunity from actuall sinne and for your doctrine and worship of her immaculate conception For the necessity of Auricular Confession For the necessity of the Priests Intention to obtain benefit by any of your Sacraments And lastly not to trouble my selfe with finding out more for this very doctrine of Licentiousnesse That though a man live and dye without the practise of Christian vertues and with the habits of many damnable sinnes unmortified yet if he in the last moment of life have any sorrow for his sinnes and joyne confession with it certainly he shall be saved Secondly they that confesse some of your doctrines to have been the Doctrine of the Fathers may be mistaken being abused by may words and phrases of the Fathers which have the Roman sound when they are farre from the sense Some of them I am sure are so I will name Goulartius who in his Commentaries on S. Cyprian's 35. Ep. grants that the sentence Heresies haue sprung c. quoted by you § 36. of this Chapter was meant of Cornelius whereas it will be very plain to any attentive reader that S. Cyprian speaks there of himselfe Thirdly though some Protestants confesse some of your doctrine to be Ancient yet this is nothing so long as it is evident even by the confession of all sides that many errors I instance in that of the Millenaries and the communicating of Infants were more ancient Not any antiquity therefore unlesse it be absolute and primitive is a certain signe of true Doctrine For if the Church were obnoxious to corruption as we pretend it was who can possibly warrant us that part of this corruption might not get in and prevaile in the 5. or 4. or 3. or 2. age Especially seeing the A-Apostles
assure us that the mystery of iniquity was working though more secretly eveÌ„ in their times If any man aske how could it become universall in so short a time Let him tell me how the Error of the Millenaries and the communicating of Infants became so soone universall and then he shall acknowledge what was done in some was possible in others Lastly to cry quittance with you As there are Protestants who confesse the antiquity but alwaies post-naâ—e to Apostolique of some points of your Doctrine so there want not Papists who acknowledge as freely the novelty of many of them and the Antiquity of ours A collection of whose testimony we have without thankes to you in your Indices expurgatorij The divine Providence blessedly abusing for the readier manifestation of the Truth this engine intended by you for the subversion and suppression of it Here is no place to stand upon particulars onely one generall ingenuous confession of that great Erasmus may not be pass'd over in silence Non de sunt magni Theologi qui non verentur affirmare nihil esse in Luthero quin per probatos authores defendi possit There want not great Divines which stick not to affirme that there is nothing in Luther which may not be defended by good and allowed authors Whereas therefore you close up this Simile with consider these points and see whether your similitude doe not condemne your Progenitors of Schisme from Gods visible Church I assure you I have well considered them and doe plainly see that this is not D. Potters similitude but your owne and besides that it is wholly made up of mistakes and falsehoods and is at no hand a sufficient proofe of this great Accusation 92 Let us come now to the second similitude of your making in the entrance whereunto you tell us that from the Monastery D. Potter is fled to an Hospitall of persons Vniversally infected with some disease where he findes to be true what you supposed that after his departure from his Brethren he might fall into greater inconveniences and more infectious diseases then those for which he left them Thus you But to deale truly with you I finde nothing of all this nor how it is consequent from any thing said by you or done by D. Potter But this I finde that you haue composed this your similitude as you did the former of a heap of vaine suppositions pretended to be grounded on our confessions As first that your diseases which we for sook neither were nor could be mortall whereas we assure our selves and are ready to justifie that they are and were mortall in themselves and would haue been so to us if when light came to us we had loved darknesse more then light And D. Potter though he hope your Church wanted no necessary vitall part that is that some in your Church by ignorance might bee saved yet he nothing doubts but that it is full of ulcers without and diseases within and is so far from extenuating your errours as to make them only like the superfluous fingers of the gyant of Gath. Secondly that we had no hope to avoid other diseases like those for which wee forsook your company nor to be secure out of it from damnable errors whereas the hope hereof was the only motive our departure and we assure our selves that the meanes to be secured from damnable errour is not to be secure as you are but carefully to use those means of avoiding it to which God hath promised and will never fayle to giue a blessing Thirdly that those innumerable mischiefes which followed upon the departure of Protestants were caused by it as by a proper cause whereas their doctrine was no otherwise the occasion of them then the Gospell of Christ of the division of the world The only fountaine of all these mischiefes being indeed no other then your powring out a flood of persecutions against Protestants only because they would not sin be damn'd with you for company Vnlesse wee may adde the impatience of some Protestants who not enduring to be torne in peeces like sheep by a company of wolves without resistance chose rather to dye like souldiers then Martyrs 93 But you proceed and falling into a fit of admiration cry out say thus To what passe hath Heresie brought men who blush not to compare the beloved Spouse of the Lord the only Doue c. to a Monastery that must be forsaken to the gyant in Gath with superfluous fingers but this Spouse of Christ this onely Doue this purchase of our Saviours blood this Catholique Church which you thus almost deifie what is it but a Society of men whereof every particular and by consequence the whole company is or may be guilty of many sinnes daily committed against knowledge conscience Now I would faine understand why one errour in faith especially if not fundamentall should not consist with the holinesse of this Spouse this Dove this Church as well as many and great sinnes committed against knowledge and conscience If this be not to strain at gnats and swallow camels I would fain understand what it is And hereby the way I desire you to consider whether as it were with one stroke of a sponge you doe not wipe out all that you haue said to proue Protestants Schismatiques for separating from your Church though supposed to bee in some errours not fundamentall For if any such errour may make her deserue to be compared to a Monastery so disordered that it must be forsaken then if you suppose as here you doe your Church in such errours your Church is so disordered that it must and therefore without question may be forsaken I mean in those her disorders and corruptions and no farther 94 And yet you haue not done with those similitudes But must observe you say one thing and that is that as these Reformers of the Monastery and others who left the diseased company could not deny but that they left the said communities So Luther and the rest cannot pretend not to haue left the visible Church And that D. Potter speaks very strangely wheÌ„ he saies In a society of men vniversally infected with some disease they that should free themselves from the common disease could not be therefore said to separate from the society For if they doe not separate themselues from the society of the infected persons how doe they free themselues from the common disease To which I answer That indeed if you speak of the Reformers of a Monastery and of the Deserors of the diseased company as you put the cases that is of those which left these communities then is it as true as Gospell that they cannot deny but that they left the said communities But it appeares not to me how it will ensue hereupon that Luther and the rest cannot pretend not to haue left the visible Church For to my apprehension this Argument is very weak They which left some communities cannot truly deny but
reason is alike for all erres in many things are of necessity to forsake that Church in the Profession and practice of those errors 105 But to consider your exception to this speech of the Doctors somewhat more particularly I say your whole discourse against it is compounded of falsehoods and impertinencies The first falsehood is that he in these words avoucheth that no learned Catholiques can be saved Vnlesse you will suppose that all learned Catholiques are convinc'd in conscience that your Church erres in many things It may well be fear'd that many are so convinc'd and yet professe what they believe not Many more have been and have stifled their consciences by thinking it an act of humility to doe so Many more would have beene had they with liberty and indifference of judgement examined the grounds of the Religion which they professe But to think that all the Learned of your side are actually convinc'd of errors in your Church and yet will not forsake the profession of them this is so great an uncharitablenesse that I verily believe D. Potter abhorres it Your next falsehood is That the Doctor affirmes that you Catholiques want no meanes to Salvation and that he judges the Roman errors not to be in themselves fundamentall or damnable Which calumny I have very often confuted and in this very place it is confuted by D. Potter and confessed by your selfe For in the beginning of this Answer you tell us that the Doctor avouches of all Catholiques whom ignorance cannot excuse that they cannot be saved Certainly then he must needs esteeme them to want something necessary to Salvation And then in the Doctors saying it is remarkable that he confesses your errors to some men not damnable which cleerely imports that according to his judgement they were damnable in themselves though by accident to them who lived and died in invincible ignorance and with repentance they might prove not damnable A third is that these Assertions the Roman Errors are in themselves not damnable and yet it is damnable for me who know them to be errors to hold and confesse them are absolutely inconsistent which is false for be the matter what it will yet for a man to tell a lye especially in matter of Religion cannot but be damnable How much more then to goe on in a course of lying by professing to believe these things divine Truths which he verily believes to be falsehoods and fables A fourth is that if we erred in thinking that your Church holds errors this error or erroneous conscience might be rectifyed and deposed by judging those errors not damnable For what repugnance is there between these two suppositions that you doe hold some errors and that they are not damnable And if there be no repugnance between them how can the beleefe of the latter remove or destroy or if it be erroneous rectify the belief of the former Nay seeing there is a manifest consent between them how can it be avoided but the belief of the latter will maintaine and preserve the belief of the former For who can conjoyne in one braine not crackt pardon me if I speake to you in your own words these Assertions In the Roman Church there are errors not damnable and in the Roman Church there are no errors at all Or what sober understanding would ever think this a good collection I esteeme the errors of the Roman Church not damnable therefore I doe amisse to think that she erres at all If therefore you would have us alter our judgements that your Church is erroneous your only way is to shew your doctrine consonant at least not evidently repugnant to Scripture and Reason For as for this device this short cut of perswading our selves that you hold no errours because we believe your errors are not damnable assure your selfe it will never hold 106 A fift falsehood is That we daily doe this favour for Protestants you must mean if you speak consequently to judge they have no errors because we judge they have none damnable Which the world knowes to be most untrue And for our continuing in their communion notwithstanding their errors the justification hereof is not so much that their errors are not damnable as that they require not the beliefe and profession of these errors among the conditions of their communion Which puts a main difference between them and you because we may continue in their communion without professing to believe their opinions but in yours we cannot A sixt is that according to the Doctrine of all Divines there is any difference between a speculative perswasion of conscience of the unlawfulnesse of any thing and a practicall Dictamen that the same thing is unlawfull For these are but diverse words signifying the same thing neither is such a perswasion wholly speculative but tending to practice nor such a dictamē wholly practicall but grounded upon speculation A Seventh is That Protestants did only conceive in speculation that the Church of Rome erred in some doctrines and had not also a practicall dictamen that it was damnable for them to continue in the profession of these errors An eighth is that it is not lawfull to separate from any Churches communion for errors not appertaining to the substance of Faith which is not universally true but with this exception unlesse that Church requires the belief and profession of them The ninth is that D. Potter teacheth that Luther was bound to forsake the house of God for an unnecessary light Confuted manifestly by D. Potter in this very place for by the house of God you mean the Roman Church and of her the Doctor saies that a necessity did lye upon him even under pain of damnation to forsake the Church of Rome in her errors This sure is not to say that he was obliged to forsake her for an unnecessary light The tenth is covertly vented in your intimation that Luther and his followers were the proper cause of the Christian worlds combustion Whereas indeed the true cause of this lamentable effect was your violent persecution of them for serving God according to their conscience which if it be done to you you condemne of horrible impiety and therefore may not hope to be excused if you doe it to others 107 The eleaventh is that our first reformers ought to have doubted whether their opinions were certain Which is to say that they ought to have doubted of the certainty of Scripture which in formall and expresse termes containes many of these opinions And the reason of this assertion is very vaine for though they had not an absolute infallibility promised unto them yet may they be of some things infallibly certaine As Euclide sure was not infallible yet was he certain enough that twice two were foure and that every whole was greater then a part of that whole And so though Calvin Melancthō were not infallible in all things yet they might and did know well enough that your Latine Service was condemned by S.
yee offend against God by troubling his Church without iust and necessary cause Be it that there are some reasons inducing you to think hardly of our Lawes Are those Reasons demonstrative are they necessary or but meer probabilities only An argument necessary and demonstratiue is such as being proposed to any man and understood the minde cannot choose but inwardly assent Any one such reason dischargeth I grant the conscience and setteth it at ful liberty For the publique approbation given by the body of this whole Church unto those things which are established doth make it but probable that they are good And therefore unto a necessary proofe that they are not good it must giue place This plain declaration of his judgement in this matter this expresse limitation of his former resolution hee makes in the very same Section which affords your former quotation and therefore what Apology can bee made for you and your store-house M. Brerely for dissembling of it I cannot possibly imagine 111 D. Potter p. 131. saies That the errors of the Donatists and Novatians were not in themselves Heresies nor could be made so by the Churches determination But that the Churches intention was only to silence disputes and to settle peace and unity in her government which because they factiously opposed they were justly esteemed Schismatiques From hence you conclude that the same condemnation must passe against the first Reformers seeing they also opposed the commands of the Church imposed on them for silencing all disputes and setling Peace and Vnity in government But this collection is deceitfull and the reason is Because though the first Reformers as well as the Donatists and Novatians opposed herein the Commands of the Visible Church that is of a great part of it yet the Reformers had reason nay necessity to doe so the Church being then corrupted with damnable errors which was not true of the Church when it was opposed by the Novatians and Donatists And therefore though they and the Reformers did the same action yet doing it upon different grounds it might in these merit applause and in them condemnation 112 Ad § 43. The next § hath in it some objections against Luthers person but none against his cause which alone I have undertaken to justify therefore I passe it over Yet this I promise that when you or any of your side shall publish a good defence of all that your Popes have said done especially of them whom Bellarmin beleeves in such a long train to have gone to the Divell then you shall receive an ample Apology for all the actions and words of Luther In the mean time I hope all reasonable and equitable judges will esteeme it not unpardonable in the great and Heroicall spirit of Luther if being opposed and perpetually baited with a world of Furies hee were transported sometimes and made somewhat furious As for you I desire you to be quiet and to demand no more whether God be wont to send such Furies to preach the Gospell Vnlesse you desire to heare of your killing of Kings Massacring of Peoples Blowing up of Parliaments and have a minde to be ask't whether it bee probable that that should bee Gods cause which needs to bee maintained by such Divellish meanes 112 Ad § 44. 45. In the two next Particles which are all of this Chapter that remain unspoken to you spend a great deale of reading wit reason against some men who pretending to honour believe the Doctrine practice of the visible Church you mean your own and condemning their Forefathers who forsook her say they would not have done so yet remain divided from her Communion Which men in my judgement cannot be defended For if they believe the Doctrine of your Church then must they believe this doctrine that they are to returne to your Communion And therefore if they doe not so it cannot be avoided but they must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so I leave them only I am to remember you that these men cannot pretend to be Protestants because they pretend to believe your doctrine which is opposite in Diameter unto the doctrine of Protestants and therefore in a worke which you professe to have written meerly against Protestants all this might have been spared CHAP. VI. That Luther and the rest of Protestants have added Heresie unto Schisme BECAVSE Vice is best knowne by the contrary Vertue we cannot well determine what Heresie is nor who be Heretiques but by the opposite vertue of Faith whose Nature being once understood as farre as belongs to our present purpose we shall passe on with ease to the definition of Heresie and so be able to discerne who be Heretiques And this I intend to doe not by entring into such particular Questions as are controverted between Catholiques and Protestants but only by applying some generall grounds either already proved or else yeelded to on all sides 2 Almighty God having ordained Man to a supernaturall End of Beatitude by supernaturall meanes it was requisite that his Vnderstanding should be enabled to apprehend that End and meanes by a supernaturall knowledge And because if such a knowledge were no more then probable it could not be able sufficiently to overbeare our Will and encounter with human probabilities being backed with the strength of flesh and blood It was further necessary that this supernaturall knowledge should be most certaine and infallible and that Faith should beleeue nothing more certainly then that it self is a most certain Beliefe and so be able to beat downe all gâ—y probabilities of humane Opinion And because the aforesaid Means and end of Beatificall Vision do farre exceed the reach of naturall wit the certainty of faith could not alwaies be joyned with such evidence of reason as is wont to be found in the Principles or Conclusions of humane naturall Sciences that so all flesh might not glory in the arme of flesh but that he who glories should glory in our Lord Moreover it was expedient that our belief or assent to divine truths should not only be unknowne or inevident by any humane discourse but that absolutely also it should be obscure in it self and ordinarily speaking be void even of supernaturall evidence that so we might have occasion to actuate and testifie the obedience which we owe to our God noâ— only by submitting our Will to this Will and Commands but by subjecting also our Vnderstanding to this Wisdome and Words captivating as the Apostle speaks the same Vnderstanding to the Obedience of Faith Which occasion had been wanting if Almighty God had made â—â—â—ere to us the truths which now are certainly but not evidently presented to our minds For where Truth doth manifestly open it self not obedience but necessity commands our assent For this reason Divines teach that the Objects of Faith being not evident to humane reason it is in mans power not only to abstaine from believing by suspending our Iudgments or exercising no act one
what gay probabilities you could devise to disswade him from this Resolution And if you can devise none what reason then or sense is there but that a probable hope of infinite and eternall happinesse provided for all those that obey Christ Iesus and much more a firme faith though not so certain in some sort as sense or science may be able to sway our will to obedience and encounter with all those temptations which Flesh and Blood can suggest to avert us from it Men may therefore talke their pleasure of an absolute and most infallible certainty but did they generally believe that obedience to Christ were the only way to present and eternall felicity but as firmly and undoubtedly as that there is such a Citty as Constantinople nay but as much as Caesars Commentaries or the History of Salust I believe the liues of most men both Papists and Protestants would be better then they are Thus therefore out of your own words I argue against you He that requires to true faith an absolute and infallible certainty for this onely Reason because any lesse degree could not be able to overbeare our will c. imports that if a lesse degree of faith were able to doe this then a lesse degree of faith may be true and divine and saving Faith But experience shews and reason confirmes that a firm faith though not so certain as sense or science may be able to encounter and overcome our will and affections And therefore it followes from your own reason that faith which is not a most certain and infallible knowledge may be true and divine and saving faith 6 All these Reasons I haue imployed to shew that such a most certain and infallible faith as here you talk of is not so necessary but that without such a high degree of it it is possible to please God And therefore the Doctrines delivered by you § 25. are most presumptuous and uncharitable viz That such a most certain and infallible faith is necessary to salvation necessitate Finis or Medii so necessary that after a man is come to the use of reason no man ever was or can bee saved without it Wherein you boldly intrude into the judgement seat of God damne men for breaking Lawes not of God's but your own making But withall you cleerly contradict your selfe not only where you affirm That your faith depends finally upon the Tradition of Age to Age of Father to Sonne which cannot be a fit ground but onely for a Morall Assurance nor only where you pretend that not alone Hearing and Seeing but also Histories Letters Relations of many which certainly are things not certain and infallible are yet foundations good enough to support your faith Which Doctrine if it were good and allowable Protestants might then hope that their Histories and Letters and Relations might also passe for means sufficient of a sufficient Certainty and that they should not bee excluded from Salvation for want of such a Certainty But indeed the pressure of the present difficulty compell'd you to speak here what I believe you wil not justify and with a pretty tergiversation to shew D. Potter your means of morall certainty whereas the Objection was that you had no means or possibility of infallible certainty for which you are plainly at as great a losse and as far to seek as any of your Adversaries And therefore it concernes you highly not to damne others for want of it least you involue your selues in the same condemnation according to those terrible words of S. Paul Inexcusabilis es c. In this therefore you plainly contradict your selfe And lastly most plainly in saying as you doe here you contradict and retract your pretence of Charity to Protestants in the beginning of your Book For there you make profession that you haue no assurance but that Protestants dying Protestants may possibly dye with contrition and be saved And here you are very peremptory that they cannot but want a means absolutely necessary to salvation and wanting that cannot but be damned 7 The third Condition you require to faith is that our assent to divine Truths should not only be unknown and unevident by any humane discourse but that absolutely also it should be obscure in it selfe and ordinarily speaking be void even of supernaturall evidence Which words must have a very favourable constructiō or else they will not be sense For who can make any thing of these words taken properly that faith must be an unknown unevident assent or an assent absolutely obscure I had alwaies thought that known and unknown obscure and evident had been affections not of our Assent but the Object of it not of our beliefe but the thing believed For well may wee assent to a thing unknown obscure or unevident but that our assent it selfe should bee called therefore unknown or obscure seems to me as great an impropriety as if I should say your sight were green or blew because you see something that is so In other places therefore I answer your words but here I must answer your meaning which I conceive to be That it is necessary to faith that the Objects of it the points which we belieue should not be so evidently certain as to necessitate our understandings to an Assent that so there might be some merit in faith as you love to speak who will not receive no not from God himselfe but a penny-worth for a penny but as we some obedience in it which can hardly have place where there is no possibility of disobedience as there is not where the understanding does all and the will nothing Now seeing the Religion of Protestants though it be much more credible then yours yet is not pretended to haue the absolute evidence of sense or demonstration therefore I might let this doctrine passe without exception for any prejudice that can redound to us by it But yet I must not forbeare to tell you that your discourse proves indeed this condition requisite to the merit but yet not to the essence of faith without it faith were not an act of obedience but yet faith may bee faith without it and this you must confesse unlesse you will say either the Apostles believed not the whole Gospel which they preached or that they were not eye-witnesses of a great part of it unlesse you will question S. Iohn for saying that which we haue seen with our eyes and which our hands haue handled c. declare we unto you nay our Saviour himselfe for saying Thomas because thou seest thou be lievest Blessed are they which haue not seen and yet haue believed Yet if you will say that in respect of the things which they saw the Apostles assent was not pure proper and meer faith but somewhat more an assent containing faith but superadding to it I will not contend with you for it will bee a contention about words But then again I must crave leave to tell you that the requiring this
what a man is you should define him A Reasonable 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 Prophesy 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 eternall happinesse by this way rather then any other neither doe I think it any great difficulty that men of ordinary capacities if they would give their minde to it might quickly be enabled to doe so But should I affirme that all true Believers can doe so I suppose it would be as much against experience and modesty as it is against Truth and Charity to say as you doe that they which cannot doe so either are not at all or to no purpose true believers And thus wee see that the foundations you build upon are ruinous and deceitfull and so unfit to support your Fabrick that they destroy one another I come now to shew that your Arguments to prove Protestants Heretiques are all of the same quality with your former grounds which I will doe by opposing cleere and satisfying Answers in order to them 11 Ad § 13. To the first then delivered by you § 13. That Protestants must be Heretiques because they opposed divers Truths propounded for divine by the Visible Church I Answer It is not Heresy to oppose any Truth propounded by the Church but only such a Truth as is an essentiall part of the Gospell 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 tell us That every error against any doctrine revealed by God is damnable Heresy Now either Protestants or the Roman Church must erre against the word of God But the Roman Church we grant perforce doth not erre damnably neither can she because she is the Catholique Church which we you say confesse cannot erre damnably Therefore Protestants must erre against Gods word and consequently are guilty of formall Heresy Whereunto I answer plainly that there be in this argument almost as many falshoods as assertions For neither is every error against any Doctrine revealed by God a damnable Heresy unlesse it be revealed publiquely plainly with a command that all should beleeve 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 damne some men amongst you and this you your selfe confesse in divers places of your book where you tell us that he allowes 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 Catholique Church which without much favour can hardly passe for a part of it And againe that the Catholique Church cannot fall into any error of it selfe damnable for it may doe so and still be the Catholique 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 proofe of it from you that either Protestants or the Roman Church must erre against Gods word For if their contradiction be your only reason then also you or the Dominicans must be Heretiques 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 Iudge of Controversies and therefore infalliable from whence you suppose that it followes 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 Iudge of Controversies And indeed how can she be Iudge of them if she cannot decide them And how can she decide them if it be a question whether she be Iudge of them That which is question'd it selfe cannot with any sense be pretended to be fit to decide other questions and much lesse this question whether it have Authority to judge and decide all questions 2. If she were Iudge it would not follow that she were infallible for we have many Iudges in our Courts of Iudicature yet none infallible Nay you cannot with any modesty deny that every man in the world ought to judge for himselfe 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 lesse manifestly that to oppose her declaration is to oppose God unlesse 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. In stead of a fourth Argument this is presented to us That if Luther were an Heretique then they that agreed with him must be so And that Luther was a formall Heretique you endeavour to prove by this most formall Syllogisme To say the Visible Church is not Vniversall is properly an Heresy But Luthers Reformation was not Vniversall Therefore it cannot be excused from formall Heresy Whereunto I Answer first to the first part that it is no way impossible that Luther had he been the inventor and first broacher of a false Doctrine as he was not might have been a formall Heretique and yet that those who follow him may be only so materially and improperly and indeed no Heretiques Your own men out of S. Augustine distinguish between Haeretici Haereticorum sequaces And you your selfe though you pronounce the leaders among the Arrians formall Heretiques yet confesse that Salvian was at least doubtfull whether these Arrians who in simplicity followed their Teachers might not be excused by ignorance And about this suspension of his you also seeme suspended for you neither approve nor condemne it Secondly to the second part I say that had you not presumed upon our ignorance in Logick as well as Metaphysicks and Schoole Divinity you would never have obtruded upon us this rope of sand for a formall Syllogisme It is even Cosen German to this To denie the Resurrection is properly an Heresie But Luthers Reformation was not Vniversall Therefore it cannot be excused from
direct contradictions viz. that conformity to the Roman Church was necessary in all points and not necessary in this or else so horribly impious as believing this doctrine of the Roman Church true and her power to receive Appeales derived from divine Authority notwithstanding to oppose and condemne it and to Anathematize all those Africans of what condition soever that should appeale unto it I say of what condition soever For it is evident that they concluded in their determination Bishops as well as the inferior Clergy and Laity And Cardinall Perrons pretence of the contrary is a shamelesse falshood repugnant to the plaine words of the Remonstrance of the African Bishops to Celestine Bishop of Rome 34 Your allegation of Tertullian is a manifest conviction of your want of syncerity For you produce with great ostentation what he saies of the Church of Rome but you and your fellowes alwaies conceale and dissemble that immediatly before these words he attributes as much for point of direction to any other Apostolique Church and that as he sends them to Rome who lived neare Italy so those neare Achaia hee sends to Corinth those about Macedonia to Philippi and Thessalonica those of Asia to Ephesus His words are Goe to now thou that wilt better imploy thy curiosity in the businesse of thy salvation run over the Apostolicall Churches wherein the Chaires of the Apostles are yet sate upon in their places wherein their Authentique Epistles are recited sounding out the voyce and representing the face of of every one Is Achaia neere thee there thou hast Corinth If thou art not farre from Macedonia thou hast Philippi thou hast Thessalonica If thou canst goe into Asia there thou hast Ephesus If thou be adjacent to Italy thou hast Rome whose Authority is neere at hand to us in Africk A happy Church into which the Apostles powred forth all their Doctrine together with their blood c. Now I pray Sir tell me if you can for blushing why this place might not have been urg'd by a Corinthian or Philippian or Thessalonian or an Ephesian to shew that in the judgment of Tertullian separation from any of their Churches is a certain mark of Heresie as iustly and rationally as you alleadge it to vindicate this priviledge to the Roman Church only Certainly if you will stand to Tertullians judgment you must either grant the authority of the Roman Church though at that time a good Topicall Argument and perhaps a better then any the Heretiques had especially in conjunction with other Apostolique Churches yet I say you must grant it perforce but a fallible Guide as well as that of Ephesus and Thessalonica and Philippi and Corinth or you must maintain the Authority of 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 generall yet as I have said for point of direction he makes them all equall 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 shewes 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 35 From the saying of S. Basil certainly nothing can be gathered but only that the Bishop of Rome may discerne betweene that which is counterfeit and that which is lawfull and pure and without any diminution may preach the faith of our Ancestours Which certainly he might doe if ambition and covetousnesse did not hinder him or else I should never condemne him for doing otherwise But is there no difference betweene may and must Beleeve hee may doe so and he cannot but doe so Or doth it follow because he may doe so therefore he alwayes shall or will doe so In my opinion rather the contrary should follow For he that saith you may doe thus implies according to the ordinary sense of words that if he will he may doe otherwise You certainly may if you please leave abusing the world with such Sophistry as this but whether you will or no of that I have no assurance 36 Your next Witnesse I would willingly have examined but it seemes you are unwilling he should be found otherwise you would have givē us your direction where we might have him Of that Maximianus who succeeded Nestorius I can find no such thing in the Councels Neither can I beleeve that any Patriarch of Constantinople twelve hundred yeares agoe was so base a parasite of the Sea of Rome 37 Your last Witnesse Iohn of Constantinople I confesse speaks home and advanceth the Roman sea even to heaven But I feare it is that his owne may goe up with it which hee there professes to bee all one sea with the sea of Rome and therefore his Testimony as speaking in his own case is not much to be regarded But besides I have litle reason to be confident that this Epistle is not a forgery for certainly Binius hath obtruded upon us many a hundred such This though written by a Graecian is not extant in Greek but in Latine only Lastly it comes out of a suspicious place an old book of the Vatican Library which Library the world knowes to have been the Mint of very many impostures 38 Ad § 20. 21. 22. 23. The summe of your discourse in the 4. next Sections if it be pertinent to the Question in agitation must be this Want of succession of Bishops and Pastours holding alwayes the same doctrine and of the formes 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 Heretiques To which I Answer That nothing but want of truth and holding errour can make or prove any man or Church hereticall For if he be a true Aristotelian or Platonist or Pyrrhoniā or Epicurean who holds the doctrine of Aristotle or Plato or Pirrho or Epicurus although he cannot assigne any that held it before him for many Ages together why should I not be made a true and orthodox Christian by beleeving all the doctrine of Christ though I cannot derive my descent from a perpetuall Successiō that beleev'd it before me By this reason you should say as well that no man can be a good Bishop or Pastour or King or Magistrate or Father that succeeds a bad one For if I may conforme my will and actions to the Commandements of God why may I not embrace his doctrine with my understanding although my predecessour doe not so You have aboue in this Chapter defin'd Faith a free Infallible obscure supernaturall assent to divine Truths because they are revealed by God sufficiently propounded This definition is very phantasticall but for the present I
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 Syllogisme 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 Maior That want of Succession is a certain note of Heresy which for the present remaines both unprov'd and unprobable 40 Ad § 23. The Fathers you say assigne Succession as one mark of the true Church I confesse they did urge Tradition as an argument of the truth of their doctrine and of the falsehood of the contrary and thus farre they agree with you But now see the difference They urg'd it not against all Heretiques 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 leafe before the words by you cited Nay they urg'd 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 bee found out of them by those who know not Tradition for that it was not delivered in writing they did meane wholly but by word of mouth And that thereupon Paul also said wee speak wisdome amongst the perfect So Irenaeus in the very next Chapter before that which you alleage Against these men being thus necessitated to doe so they did urge Tradition but what or whose Tradition was it Certainly no other but the joint Tradition of all the Apostolique 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 alleaged by mee This Tradition they did urge against these men and in a time in comparison of ours almost contiguous to the Apostles So neare that one of them Irenaeus was Scholar to one who was Scholar to S. Iohn the Apostle Tertullian and Origen were not an age remov'd from him and the last of them all litle more then an age from them Yet after all this they urg'd it not as a demonstration but only as a very probable argument far greater then 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 erre in one faith it should be should have erred into on faith And this was the condition of this argument as the Fathers urg'd it Now if you having to deale with us who question no Booke of Scripture which was not anciently questioned by some whom you your selves esteem good Catholiques nay who refuse not to be tryed by your owne 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 Iudges if you will come fifteen hundred years after the Apostles a fair time for the purest Church to gather much drosse and corruption and for the mystery of 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 Catholique to it selfe alone and Hereticall to all the rest nay not only with her ancient and originall Traditions but also with her post-nate and introduc'd Definitions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and ancient Tradition and all this to decline an indifferent tryall by Scripture under pretence wherein also you agree with the calumnie of the old Heretiques 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 urg'd the old Heretiques 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 liberall to you and grant what you cannot prove that the Fathers make Succession a certain and perpetuall maâ—k of the true Church I beseech you what will come of it What that want of Succession is a certain signe of an Hereticall company Truly if you say so either you want Logick which is a certain signe of an ill disputer or are not pleas'd to use it which is a worse For speech is a certain signe 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 hee is so as eating drinking breathing moving So though the constant and universall delivery of any doctrine by the Apostolique 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 wickednesse be contracted from its universality and interrupted in its perpetuity and so loose this argument and yet not want others to iustifie 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 contain'd in Scripture in expresse terms or deducible from it by apparent consequence If therefore you intend to prove want of a perpetuall Succession of Professors a certain note of Heresie you must not content your self to shew that having it is one signe of truth but you must shew it to be the only signe of it and inseparable from it But this if you be well advis'd you will never undertake First because it is an impossible attempt and then because if you doe it you will marre all for by proving this an inseparable signe of Catholique doctrine you will prove your own which apparently wants it in many points not to be Catholique 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 prov'd 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
wisdome to forsake ancient errours for more ancient Truths One God is rather to be follow'd then innumerable worlds of men And therefore it might be great wisdome 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 doe so although all the world besides were madly resolute to doe the contrary It might be great wisdome to forsake the errors though of the only Visible Church much more the Roman which in conceiving her self the whole Uisible Church does somewhat like the Frog in the Fable which thought the ditch he liv'd in to be all the world 54 You demand again What wisdome was it to forsake a Church acknowledg'd to want nothing necessary to Salvation indued with Succession of Bishops c usque ad Election or Choice I answer Yet might it be great wisdome 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 acknowledg'd to such as ignorantly continued in them A Church vainly arrogating without possibility of proof a perpetuall Succession of Bishops holding alwaies the same doctrine and with a ridiculous impudence pretending perpetuall possession of all the world whereas the world knows that a litle before Luthers arising your Church was confined to a part of a part of it Lastly a Church vainly glorying in the dependance of other Churches upon her which yet she supports no more then those crouching Anticks which seeme in great buildings to labour under the weight they beare doe 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 Iewes either not being arriv'd 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 lawfull 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 wee aske 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 litle as we So that if we acknowledge that your Church before Luther was a true Church it is not for any ends for any dependance that we have upon you but because we conceive that in a charitable construction you may passe for a true Church Such a Church and no better as you doe sometimes acknowledge Protestants to be that is a Company of men wherein some ignorant soules may be saved So that in this ballancing of Religion against Religion and Church against Church it seemes you have nothing of weight and moment to put into your scale nothing but smoak and winde vaine shadowes and phantasticall pretences Yet if Protestants on the other side had nothing to put in their Scale but those negative commendations which you are pleas'd to afford them nothing but no unity nor meanes to procure it no farther extent when Luther arose then Luthers body no Vniversality 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 quarrell begun upon no ground but passion no Church no Ordination no Scriptures but such as they receiv'd from you if all this were true and this were all that could be pleaded for Protestants possibly with an allowance of three graines of partiality your Scale might seem to turne But then if it may appear that part of these objections are falsely made against them the rest vainely that whatsoever of truth is in these imputations is impertinent to this triall and whatsoever is pertinent is untrue and besides that plenty of good matter may be alleaged for Protestants which is here dissembled Then I hope our cause may be good notwithstanding these pretences 55 I say then that want of Vniversality of time 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 Ordination Scriptures personall and yet not doctrinall 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 doe not understand For whereas you say that this is to be choosers and therefore Heretiques I tell you that though all Heretiques are choosers yet all choosers are not Heretiques otherwise they also which choose your Religion must be Heretiques As for our wanting Vnity and Meanes of proving it Luthers opposing your Church upon meere passion our following private men rather then the Catholique Church the first and last are meere untruths for we want not Vnity nor Meanes to procure it in things necessary Plain places of Scripture and such as need no interpreter are our meanes to obtaine it Neither doe 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 meere 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 opposion not in the manner of it and then I presume you will have no reason to condemne us unlesse 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 remaines now that I should shew that many reasons of moment may bee alleaged for the justification of
found or rather that Company is to be imbraced before all other in which all sides agree that salvation may be found We therefore must inferre that it is safest for you to seeke salvation among us You had good reason to conceal S. Augustins answer to the Donatists 10 You frame another argument in our behalf and make us speake thus If Protestants believe the Religion of Catholiques to be a safe way to Heaven why doe they not follow it which wise argument of your own you answer at large and confirm your answer by this instance The Iesuits and Dominicans hold different Opinions touching Predetermination and the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Yet so that the Iesuits hold the Dominicans way safe that is his error not damnable and the Dominicans hold the same of the Iesuits Yet neither of them with good Consequence can presse the other to believe his opinion because by his own Confession it is no damnable error 11 But what Catholique maketh such a wise demaund as you put into our mouths If our Religion be a safe way to heaven that is not damnable why doe you not follow it As if every thing that is good must be of necessity imbraced by every body But what think you of the Argument framed thus Our Religion is safe even by your Confession therefore you ought to grant that all may imbrace it And yet further thus Among different Religions and contrary waies to heaven one only can be safe But ours by your own Confession is safe whereas we hold that in yours there is no hope of salvation Therefore you may and ought to imbrace ours This is our Argument And if the Dominicans and Iesuits did say one to another as we say to you then one of them might with good consequence press the other to believe his opinion You have still the hard for tune to be beaten with your own weapon 12 It remaineth then that both in regard of Faith and Charity Protestants are obliged to unite themselves with the Church of Rome And I may adde also in regard of the Theologicall Vâ—â—tue of Hope without which none can hope to be saved and which you want either by exâ—â—sse of Confidence or defect by Despair not unlike to your Faith which I shewed to be either â—â—â—cient in Certainty or excessive in EvideÌ„ce as likewise according to the rigid Calvinists it is either so strong that once had it can never be lost or so more then weak and so much nothing that it can never be gotten For the trve Theologicall Hope of Christians is a Hope which keeps a mean between Presumption and Desperation which moves us to work our salvation with feare and trembling which conducts us to make sure our salvation by good works as holy Scripture adviseth But contrarily Protestants doe either exclude Hope by Despaire with the Doctrine that our Saviour died not for all and that such want grace sufficient to salvation or else by vaine Presumption grounded upon a fantasticall persuasion that they are Predestinate which Faith must exclude all feare and trembling Neither can they make their Calling certain by good works who doe certainly beleeve that before any good works they are justified and justified even by Faith alone and that by Faith whereby they certainly believe that they are justified Which points some Protestants doe expresly affirme to be the soule of the Church the principall Origen of salvation Of all other points of Doctrine the chiefest and weightiest as already I have noted Chap. 3. n. 19. And if some Protestants doe now relent from the rigour of the aforesaid doctrine we must affirme that at least some of them want the Theologicall Vertue of Hope yea that none of them can have trve Hope while they hope to be saved in the Communion of those who defend such doctrines as doe directly overthrow all true Christian Hope And for as much as concernes Faith we must also infer that they want Vnity therein and consequently have none at all by their disagreement about the soule of the Church the principall Origen of salvation of all other points of Doctrine the chiefest and weightiest And if you want trve Faith you must by consequence want Hope or if you hold that this point is not to be so indivisible on either side but that it hath latitude sufficient to imbrace all parties without prejudice to their salvation notwithstanding that your Brethren hold it to be the soule of the Church c. I must repeat what I have said heretofore that even by this Example it is cleer you cannot agree what points be fundamentall And so to whatsoever answer you fly I presse you in the same manner and say that haue no Certainty whether you agree in fundamentall points or Vnity and substance of Faith which cannot stand with difference in fundamentalls And so upon the whole matter I leave it to be considered whether Want of Charity can be iustly charged on us because we affirme that they cannot without repentance be saved who want of all other the most necessary meanes to salvation which are the three Theologicall Vertues FAITH HOPE and CHARITY 13 And now I end this first part having as I conceive complyed with my first designe in that measure which Time Commodity scarcity of Books and my own small Abilities could afford which was to shew that Amongst men of different Religions one side only can be saved For since there must be some infallible Meanes to decide all Controversies concerning Religion and to propound truth revealed by Almighty God and this Meanes can be no other but the Visible Church of Christ which at the time of Luthers appearance was only the Church of Rome and such as agreed with her We must conclude that whosoever opposeth himself to her definitions or forsaketh her Communion doth resist God himself whose Spouse she is and whose divine truth she propounds and therefore becoms guilty of Schisme and Heresie which since Luther his Associates and Protestants have done and still continue to doe it is not Want of Charity but abundance of evident cause that forceth us to declare this necessary Truth PROTESTANCIE VNREPENTED DESTROIES SALVATION THE ANSVVER TO THE SEAVENTH CHAPTER That Protestants are not bound by the Charity which they owe to themselves to re-unite themselves to the Roman Church THE first foure Paragraphs of this Chapter are wholly spent in an un-necessary introduction unto a truth which I presume never was nor will be by any man in his right wits either denied or question'd and that is That every man in wisdome and charity to himselfe is to take the safest way to his eternall Salvation 2 The fift and sixt are nothing in a manner but references to discourses already answered by me and confuted in their proper places 3 The seaventh eight ninth tenth and eleventh have no other foundation but this false pretence That we confesse the Roman Church free from damnable error 4 In the
it and call it an argument of his own a wise argument a wise demand and then aske of him what he thinkes of it being fram'd thus Our Religion is safe even by your confession and therefore you ought to grant that all may embrace it And yet farther thus Among different Religions one only can be safe But yours by our own confession is safe where as you hold that in ours there is no hope of salvation therefore we ought to embrace yours Ans. I have advised with him am to tell you froÌ„ him that he thinks reasonable well of the arguments but very ill of him that makes them as affirming so often without shame and conscience what he cannot but know to be plainly false and his reason is because he is so farre from confessing or giving you any ground to pretend he does confesse that your Religion is safe for all that are of it from whence only it will follow that all may safely embrace it that in this very place from which you take these words he professeth plainly that it is extreamly dangerous if not certainly damnable to all such as professe it when either they doe or if their hearts were upright and not perversly obstinat might believe the contrary and that for us whâ— are convinc'd in conscience that she the Româ—â— Church erres in many things it lies upon us even under pain of damnation to forsake her in those errors And though here you take upon you a shew of great rigour and will seem to hold that in our way there is no hope of Salvation yet formerly you have been more liberall of your charity towards us and will needs vye and contend with D. Potter which of the two shall be more Charitable assuring us that you allow Protestants as much Charity as D. Potter spares you for whom he makes Ignorance the best hope of Salvation And now I appeale to any indifferent reader whether our disavowing to confesse you free from damnable error were not as I pretend a full confutation of all that you say in these five foregoing Paragraphs And as for you I wonder what answer what evasion what shift you can devise to cleere your selfe from dishonesty for imputing to him almost a hundred times this acknowledgment which he never makes but very often and that so plainly that you take notice of it professeth the contrary 29 The best defence that possibly can be made for you I conceive is this that you were led into this error by mistaking a supposition of a confession for a confession a Rhetoricall concession of the Doctors for a positive assertion He saies indeed of your errors Though of themselves they be not damnable to them which believe as they professe yet for us to professe what we believe not were without question damnable But to say Though your errors be not damnable we may not professe them is not to say your errors are not damnable but only though they be not As if you shoul say though the Church erre in points not fundamentall yet you may not separate from it Or though we doe erre in believing Christ really present yet our error frees us from Idolatry Or as if a Protestant should say Though you doe not commit Idolatry in adoring the Host yet being uncertain of the Priests Intention to consecrate at least you expose yourselfe to the danger of it I presume you would not think it fairely done if any man should interpret either this last speech as an acknowledgemeÌ„t that you doe not commit Idolâ—try or the former as confessions that you doe erre in points not fundamentall that you doe erre in believing the reall presence And therefore you ought not so to have mistaken D. Potters words as if he had confessed the errors of your Church not damnable when he saies no more but this Though they be so or suppose or put the case they be so yet being errors we that know them may not professe them to be divine truths Yet this mistake might have been pardonable had not D. Potter in many places of his book by declaring his judgement touching the quality and malignity of your errors taken away from you all occasion of error But now that he saies plainly That your Church hath many waies played the Harlot and in that regard deserv'd a Bill of divorce from Christ and the detestation of Christians p. 11. That for that Masse of Errors and abuses in judgement and practice which is proper to her and wherein she differs from us we judge a reconciliation impossible and to us who are convicted in conscience of her corruptions damnable pag. 20. That Popery is the contagion or plague of the Church p. 60. That we cannot we dare not communicate with her in her publique Liturgy which is manifestly polluted with drosse of Superstition p. 68. That they who in former ages dyed in the Church of Rome died in many sinfull errors p. 78. That they that have understanding and means to discover their errors and neglect to use them he dares not flatter them with so easy a censure as to give them hope of salvation p. 79. That the way of the Roman Religion is not safe but very dangerous if not certainly damnable to such as professe it when they believe or if their hearts were upright and not perversely obstinate might believe the contrary p. 79. That your Church is but in some sense a true Church and your errors only to some men not damnable that we who are convinc'd in conscience that she erres in many things are under pain of damnation to forsake her in those errors Seeing I say he saies all this so plainly and so frequently certainly your charging him falsely with this acknowledgement and building a great part not only of your discourse in this Chapter but of your whole book upon it possibly it may be palliated with some excuse but it can no way be defended with any just apology Especially seeing you your selfe more then once or twice take notice of these his severer censures of your Church and the errors of it and make your advantage of them In the first number of your first Chapter you set down three of the former places and from thence inferre That as you affirme Protestancy unrepented destroies Salvation so D. Potter pronounces the like heavy doome against Roman Catholiques and again § 4. of the same Chap. We allow Protestants as much charity as D. Potter spareâ— us for whom he makes ignorance the best hope of salvation And c. 5. § 41. you have these words It is very strange that you iudge us extreamly uncharitable in saying Protestants cannot be saved while your selfe avouch the same of all Learned Catholiques whom Ignorance cannot excuse Thus out of the same mouth you blow hot and cold and one while when it is for your purpose you professe D. Potter censures your errors as heavily as you doe ours which is very true for he gives hope
Doctrine of these Protestants taken altogether is not a Doctrine of Liberty not a Doctrine that turnes hope into presumptioÌ„ and carnall security though it may justly be feared that many licentious persons taking it by halfes have made this wicked use of it For my part I doe heartily wish that by publique Authority it were so ordered that no man should ever preach or print this Doctrine that Faith alone justifies unlesse he joynes this together with it that universall obedience is necessary to salvation And besides that those Chapters of S. Paul which intreat of justification by faith without the works of the Law were never read in the Church but when the 13. Chap. of the 1. Epist. to the Corinth concerning the absolute necessity of Charity should be to prevent misprision read together with them 33 Whereas you say that some Protestants doe expresly affirme the former point to be the soule of the Church c. and that therefore they must want the Theologicall vertue of Hope and that none can have true hope while they hope to be saved in their Communion I Ans. They have great reason to believe the Doctrine of Iustification by faith only a Point of great weight and importance if it be rightly understood that is they have reason to esteeme it a principall and necessary duty of a Christian to place his hope of justification and salvation not in the perfection of his own righteousnesse which if it be imperfect will not justify but only in the mercies of God through Christs satisfaction and yet notwithstanding this nay the rather for this may preserve themselves in the right temper of good Christians which is a happy mixture and sweet composition of confidence and feare If this Doctrine be otherwise expounded then I have here expounded I will not undertake the justification of it only I will say that which I may doe truly that I never knew any Protestant such a soli-fidian but that he did believe these divine truths That he must make his calling certain by good workes That he must work out his salvation with Fear and Trembling and that while he does not so he can have no well-grounded hope of Salvation I say I never met with any who did not believe these divine Truths and that with a more firme and a more unshaken assent then he does that himselfe is predestinate and that he is justified by believing himselfe justified I never met with any such who if he saw there were a necessity 〈◊〉 doe either would not rather forgoe his beliefe of these Doctrines then the former these which he sees disputed and contradicted and opposed with a great multitude of very potent Arguments then those which being the expresse words of Scripture whosoever should call into question could not with any modesty pretend to the title of Christian. And therefore there is no reason but we may believe that their full assurance of the former Doctrines doth very well qualify their perswasion of the latter and that the former as also the lives of many of them doe sufficiently testify are more effectuall to temper their hope and to keep it at a stay of a filiall and modest assurance of Gods favour built upon the conscience of his love and fear then the latter can be to swell and puffe them up into vain confidence and ungrounded presumption This reason joyn'd with our experience of the honest and religious conversation of many men of this opinion is a sufficient ground for Charity to hope well of their hope and to assure our selves that it cannot be offensive but rather most acceptable to God if notwithstanding this diversity of opinion we embrace each other with the strict embraces of love communion To you and your Church we leave it to separate Christians from the Church and to proscribe them from heaven upon triviall and trifling causes As for our selves we conceive a charitable judgement of our Brethren and their errors though untrue much more pleasing to God then a true judgement if it be uncharitable and and therefore shall alwaies choose if we doe erre to erre on the milder and more mercifull part and rather to retain those in our Communion which deserve to be ejected then eject those that deserve to be retain'd 34 Lastly whereas you say that seeing Protestants differ about the point of Iustification you must needs inferre that they want Vnity in faith and consequently all faith and then that they cannot agree what points are fundamentall I Answer to the first of these inferences that as well might you inferre it upon Victor Bishop of Rome and Poliâ—rates upon Stephen Bishop of Rome and S. Cyprian in as much as it is indeniably evident that what one of those esteemed necessary to salvation the other esteemed not so But points of Doctrine as all other things are as they are and not as they are esteemed neither can a necessary point 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 soule of man you may read in Aristotle de Anima and Cicero's Tusculan Questions notwithstanding their divers opinions touching the nature of the soule yet all of them had soules and soules of the same nature Or as those Physitians who dispute whether the braine or heart be the principall part of a man yet all of them have braines and have hearts and herein agree sufficiently So likewise though some Protestants esteeme that Doctrine the soule of the Church which others doe not so highly value yet this hinders not but that which is indeed the soule of the Church may be in both 〈◊〉 of them and though one account that a necessary truth which 〈◊〉 account neither necessary nor perhaps true yet this notwithstanding in those truths which are truly really necessary they may all agree For no Argument can be more sophisticall then this They differ in some points which they esteeme necessary Therefore they differ in some that indeed and in truth are so â—35 Now as concerning the other inference That they cannot agree what points are fundamentall I have said and prov'd formerly that there is no such necessity as you imagin or pretend that men should certainly know what is and what is not fundamentall They that believe all things plainly delivered in Scripture believe all things fundamentall and are at sufficient Vnity in matters of faith though they cannot precisely and exactly distinguish between what is fundamentall and what is profitable nay though by error they mistake some vaine or perhaps hurtfull opinions for necessary and fundamentall Truths Besides I have shewed above that as Protestants doe not agree for you overreach in saying they cannot touching what points are fundamentall so neither doe you agree what points are defin'd so to be accounted and what are not nay nor concerning the subject in which God hath placed this pretended
of it because we say the whole Church much more particular Churches and privat men may erre in points not Fundamentall A pretty sophisme depending upon this Principle that whosoever possibly may erre he cannot be certain that he doth not erre 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 Fundamentalls that even the Fundamentalls of Christianity remain to you uncertain A Iudge may possibly erre in judgement can he therefore never have assurance that he hath judged right A travailer may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtfull 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 egge to an egge or milke to milke 161 And for the selfe same reason you say we are not certain that the Church is not Iudge of Controversies But now this selfe same appears to be no reason and therefore for all this we may be certain enough that the Church is no Iudge of Controversies The ground of this sophisme is very like the former viz. that we can be certain of the falshood of no propositions but these only which are damnable errors But I pray good Sir give me your opinion of these The Snow is black the Fire is cold that M. knot is Archbishop of Toledo that the whole is not greater then a part of the whole that twise two make not foure In your opinion good Sir are these damnable Haeresies or because they are not so have we no certainty of the falshood of them I beseech you Sir to consider seriously with what strange captions you have gone about to delude your King and your Country and if you be convinced they are so give glory to God and let the world know it by your deserting that Religion which stands upon such deceitfull foundations 162 Besides you say among publique conclusions defended in Oxford the yeare 1633. to the Questions Whether the Church have authority to determine controversies of Faith And to interpret holy Scripture The answere to both is affirmative But what now if I should tell you that in the year 1632. among publique Conclusions defended in Doway one was That God predeterminates men to all their Actions good bad and indifferent Will you think your selfe obliged to be of this opinion If you will say so If not doe as you would be done by Again me thinkes so subtil a man as you are should easily apprehend a wide difference between Authority to doe a thing and Infallibility in doing it againe between a conditionall infallibility an absolute The former the Doctor together with the Article of the Church of England attributeth to the Church nay to particular Churches and I subscribe to his opinion that is an Authority of determining controversies of faith according to plain and evident Scripture and Vniversall Tradition and Infallibility while they proceed according to this Rule As if there should arise an Heretique that should call in Question Christs Passion and Resurrection the Church had Authority to decide this Controversy and infallible direction how to doe it and to excommunicate this man if he should persist in errour I hope you will not deny but that the Iudges have Authority to determine criminall and Civill Controversies and yet I hope you will not say that they are absolutely Infallible in their determinations Infallible while they proceed according to Law and if they doe so but not infallibly certain that they shall ever doe so But that the Church should be infallibly assisted by Gods spirit to decide rightly all emergent Controversies even such as might be held diversly of divers men Salva compage fidei and that we might be absolutely certain that the Church should never faile to decree the truth whether she used meanes or no whether she proceed according to her Rule or not or lastly that we might be absolutely certain that she would never fail to proceed according to her Rule this the defender of these conclusions said not and therefore said no more to your purpose then you have all this while that is just nothing 163 Ad § 27. To the place of S. Austin alleaged in this paragraph I Answer First that in many things you will not bee tried by S. Augustines judgement 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 soules before the day of judgement not touching the Virgin Maries freedome from actuall and originall sinne not touching the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants not touching the damning Infants to hell that dye without Baptisme not touching the knowledge of Saints departed not touching Purgatory not touching the fallibility of Councells even generall Councells not touching perfection and perspicuity of Scripture in matters necessary to Salvation not touching Auricular Confession not touching the halfe Communion not touching Prayers in an unknown tongue In these things I say you will not stand to S. Austines judgement and therefore can with no reason or equity require us to doe 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 calmely and mode rately where he saies In iis quae apertè posita sunt in sacris Scripturis omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent â—idem mores'que vivendi 3 Wee say he speaks not of the Roman but the Catholique Church of farre greater extent and therefore of farre greater credit and authority then 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 saies not that Christ has recommended the Church to us for an Infallible definer of all emergent controversies but for a credible witnesse of Ancient Tradition Whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practise 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 practises of the Church but such as are evidently post-nate to the time of the Apostles and plainly contrary to the practise of former and purer times Lastly it is evident and even to impudence it selfe undeniable that upon this ground of beleiving 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 himselfe and therefore without controversy this is no certain ground for truth which may support falshood as well as