affirmative in your accusation yet you neither doe nor can produce any proof or presumption for it but forgeting your selfe as it is Gods will oftimes that slanderers should doe have let fall some passages which being well weighed will make considering men apt to believe that you did not believe your selfe For how is it possible you should believe that I deserted your Religion for ends against the light of my conscience out of a desire of preferment and yet out of scruple of conscience should refuse which also you impute to me to subscribe the 39 Articles that is refuse to enter at the only common dore which here in England leads to preferment Again how incredible is it that you should believe that I forsooke the profession of your Religion as not suting with my desires and designes which yet reconciles the enjoying of the pleasures and profits of sinne here with the hope of happinesse hereafter and proposes as great hope of great temporall advancements to the capable servants of it as any nay more then any Religion in the world and instead of this should choose Socinianisme a Doctrine which howsoever erroneous in explicating the mysteries of Religion and allowing greater liberty of opinion in speculative matters then any other Company of Christians doth or they should doe yet certainly which you I am sure will pretend and maintaine to explicate the Lawes of Christ with more rigor and lesse indulgence and condescendence to the desires of flesh and blood then your Doctrine doth And besides such a Doctrine by which no man in his right mind can hope for any honour or preferment either in this Church or State or any other All which cleerely demonstrates that this foule and false aspersion which you have cast upon mee proceeds from no other fountaine but a heart abounding with the gall and bitternesse of uncharitablenesse and even blinded with malice towards me or else from a perverse zeale to your superstition which secretly suggests this perswasion to you That for the Catholique cause nothing is unlawfull but that you may make use of such indirect and crooked arts as these to blast my reputation and to possesse mens minds with disaffection to my person least otherwise peradventure they might with some indifference hear reason from me God I hope which bringeth light out of darknesse will turne your counsells to foolishnesse and give all good men grace to perceive how weak and ruinous that Religion must be which needs supportance from such tricks and devices So I call them because they deserve no better name For what are all these Personall matters which hitherto you have spoke of to the businesse in hand If it could be prov'd that Cardinall Bellarmine was indeed a Iew or that Cardinall Perron was an Atheist yet I presume you would not accept of this for an answer to all their writings in defence of your Religion Let then my actions and intentions and opinions be what they will yet I hope truth is neverthelesse truth nor reason ever the lesse Reason because I speak it And therefore the Christian Reader knowing that his Salvation or damnation depends upon his impartiall and sincere judgment of these things will guard himself I hope from these impostures and regard not the person but the cause and the reasons of it not who speakes but what is spoken Which is all the favour I desire of him as knowing that I am desirous not to perswade him unlesse it be truth whereunto I perswade him 30 The third and laât part of my Accusation was that I answer ouâ of Principles which Protestants themselves will professe to detest which indeed were to the purpose if it could be justified But besides that it is confuted by my whole Book and made ridiculous by the Approbations premis'd unto it it is very easy for mee out of your own mouth and words to prove it a most injurious calumny For what one conclusion is there is the whole fabrick of my discourse that is not naturally deducible out of this one Principle That all things necessary to salvation are evidently contain'd in Scripture Or what one Conclusion almost of importance is there in your Book which is not by this one cleerly confutable Grant this and it will presently follow in opposition to your first Conclusion and the argument of your first Ch that amongst men of different opinions touching the obscure and controverted Questions of ReligioÌ such as may with probability be disputed on both Sides and such as are the disputes of Protestants Good men and lovers of truth of all Sides may bee sav'd because all necessary things being suppos'd evident concerning them with men so qualified there will be no difference There being no more certain signe that a Point is not evident then that honest and understanding and indifferent men and such as give themselves liberty of judgment after a mature consideration of the matter differ about it 31 Grant this and it will appear Secondly that the means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our understanding and which are to determine all Controversies in Faith necessary to be determined may be for any thing you have said to the contrary not a Church but the Scripture which contradicts the Doctrine of your Second Chapter 32 Grant this and the distinction of points Fundamentall and not Fundamentall will appear very good and pertinent For those truths will be fundamentall which are evidently delivered in Scripture and commanded to be preach't to all men Those not fundamentall which are obscure And nothing will hinder but that the Catholique Church may erre in the latter kind of the said points because Truths not necessary to the Salvation cannot be necessary to the being of a Church and because it is not absolutely necessary that God should assist his Church any farther then to bring her to Salvation neither will there be any necessity at all of any infallible Guide either to consigne unwritten Traditions or to declare the obscurities of the faith Not for the former end because this Principle being granted true nothing unwritten can be necessary to be consign'd Nor for the latter because nothing that is obcsure can be necessary to be understood or not mistaken And so the discourse of your whole Third Chap will presently vanish 33 Fourthly for the Creed's containing the Fundamentals of simple belief though I see not how it may be deduc'd from this principle yet the granting of this plainly renders the whole dispute touching the Creed unnecessary For if all necessary things of all sorts whether of simple belief or practice be confess'd to bee cleerly contain'd in Scripture what imports it whether those of one sort bee contain'd in the Creed 34 Fiftly let this be granted and the immediate Corollary in opsition to your fift Ch will be and must be That not Protestants for rejecting but the Church of Rome for imposing upon the Faith of Christians Doctrines unwritten and unnecessary
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 tââe 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 iââhe 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
that alwaies hath been so ever since the publication of the Gospell of Christ. The doctrine of your Church may like a snow-ball increase with rowling and again if you please melt away and decrease But as Christ Iesus so his Gospell is yesterday and to day and the same for ever 38 Our Saviour sending his Apostles to preach gave them no other commission then this Goe teach all nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father the Sonne and the Holy-Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you These were the bounds of their commission If your Church have any larger or if she have a commission at large to teach what she pleases and call it the Gospell of Christ let her produce her Letters-patents from heaven for it But if this be all you have then must you give me leave to esteeme it both great sacriledge in you to forbid any thing be it never so small or ceremonious which Christ hath commanded as the receiving of the Communion in both kindes and as high a degree of presumption to enjoyne men to believe that there are or can be any other fundamentall Articles of the Gospell of Christ then what Christ himselfe commanded his Apostles to teach all men or any damnable Heresies but such as are plainly repugnant to these prime Verities 39 Ad § 16. 17. The saying of the most learned Prelate and excellent man the Arch-Bishop of Armach is only related by D. Potter p. 155. and not applauded though the truth is both the Man deserves as much applause as any man and his saying as much as any saying it being as great and as good a truth and as necessary for these miserable times as possibly can be uttered For this is most certain and I believe you will easily grant it that to reduce Christians to unity of Communion there are but two waies that may be conceived probable The one by taking away diversity of opinions touching matters of Religion The other by shewing that the diversity of opinions which is among the severall Sects of Christians ought to be no hinderance to their Vnity in Communion 40 Now the former of these is not to be hoped for without a miracle unlesse that could be done which is impossible to be performed though it be often pretended that is unlesse it could be made evident to all men that God hath appointed some visible Iudge of Controversies to whose judgement all men are to submit themselves What then remaines but that the other way must be taken and Christians must be taught to ser a higher value upon these high points of faith and obedience wherein they agree then upon these matters of lesse moment wherein they differ and understand that agreement in those ought to be more effectuall to joyne them in one Communion then their difference in other things of lesse moment to divide them When I say in one Communion I mean in a common Profession of those articles of faith wherein all consent A joynt worship of God after such a way as all esteem lawfull and a mutuall performance of all those works of charity which Christians own one to another And to such a Communion what better inducement could be thought of then to demonstrate that what was universally believed of all Christians if it were joyned with a love of truth and with holy obedience was sufficient to bring men to heaven For why should men be more rigid then God Why should any errour exclude any man from the Churches Communion which will not deprive him of eternall salvation Now that Christians doe generally agree in all those points of doctrine which are necessary to Salvation it is apparent because they agree with one accord in believing all those Bookes of the Old and New Testament which in the Church were never doubted of to be the undoubted word of God And it is so certain that in all these Bookes all necessary doctrines are evidently contained that of all the four Evangelists this is very probable but of S. Luke most apparent that in every one of their Bookes they have comprehended the whole substance of the Gospell of Christ. For what reason can be imagined that any of them should leave out any thing which he knew to be necessary and yet as apparently all of them have done put in many things which they knew to be only profitable and not necessary What wise and honest man that were now to write the Gospell of Christ would doe so great a work of God after such a negligent âashon Suppose Xaverius had been to write the Gospell of Christ for the Indians think you he would have left out any Fundamentall doctrine of it If not I must beseech you to conceive as well of S. Mathew and S. Marke and S. Luke and S. Iohn as you doe of Xaverius Besides if every one of them have not in them all necessary doctrines how have they complied with their own designe which was as the titles of their Bookes shew to write the Gospell of Christ and not a part of it Or how have thy not deceived us in giving them such titles By the whole Gospell of Christ I understand not the whole History of Christ but all that makes up the Covenant between God and man Now if this be wholly contained in the Gospell of S. Marke and S. Iohn I believe every considering man will bee inclinable to believe that then without doubt it is contained with the advantage of many other very profitable things in the larger Gospells of S. Matthew and S. Luke And that S. Markes Gospell wants no necessary Article of this Covenant I presume you will not deny if you believe Irenaeus when he saies Mathew to the Hebrewes in their tongue published the Scripture of the Gospell When Peter and Paul did preach the Gospell and found the Church or a Church at Rome or of Rome and after their departure Mark the scholler of Peter delivered to us in writing those things which had been preached by Peter and Luke the follwer of Paul compiled in a book the Gospell which was preached by him And afterwards Iohn residing in Asia in the Citty of Ephesus did himselfe also set forth a Gospell 41 In which words of Irenaeus it is remarkable that they are spoken by him against some Heretiques that pretended as you know who doe now adaies that some necessary Doctrines of the Gospell were unwritten and that out of the Scriptures truth he must mean sufficient truth cannot be found by those which know not Tradition Against whom to say that part of the Gospell which was preached by Peter was written by S. Marke and some other necessary parts of it omitted had been to speak impertinently and rather to confirme then confute their errour It is plain therefore that he must mean as I pretend that all the necessary doctrine of the Gospell which was preached by S. Peter was written by S. Marke Now you will
because we stand only upon Fundamentall Articles which cannot make up the whole fabrick of the faith no more then the foundation of a house alone can be a house 52 But I hope Sir you will not be difficult in granting that that is a house which hath all the necessary parts belonging to a house Now by Fundamentall Articles we mean all those which are necesry And you your selfe in the very leafe after this take notice that D. Potter does so Where to this Question How shall I know in particular which points be and which be not Fundamentall You scurrilously bring him in making this ridiculous answer Read my Answer to a late Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken c. There you shall find that Fundamentall doctrines are such Catholique Verities as principally and essentially pertain to the faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved All which wordes he us'd not to tell you what points be fundamentall as you dishonestly impose upon him but to explain what he meant by the word Fundamentall May it please you therefore now at last to take notice that by Fundamentall we mean all and only that which is necessary and then I hope you will grant that we may safely expect salvation in a Church which hath all things fundamentall to Salvation Vnlesse you will say that more is necessary then that which is necessary 53 This long discourse so full of un-ingenious dealing with your adversary perhaps would have done reasonably in a Faire or a Comedy I doubt not but you have made your selfe your courteous Readers good sport with it But if D. Potter or I had been by when you wrote it we should have stopt your carere at the first starting have put you in mind of these old Schoole Proverbs Exfalso supposito sequitur quodlibet and Vno absurdo dato seqâuntur mille For whereas you suppose first that to a man desirous to save his soul and requiring whose direction he might rely upon the Doctors answer would be Vpon the truly Catholique Church I suppose upon better reason because I know his mind that he would advise him to call no man Master on Earth but according to Christs command to rely upon the direction of God himselfe If he should enquire where he should find this direction He would answer him In his word contained in Scripture If he should enquire what assurance he might have that the Scripture is the word of God He would answer him that the doctrine it selfe is very fit and worthy to be thought to come from God nec vox hominem sonat and that they which wrote and delivered it confirmed it to be the word of God by doing such works as could not be done but by power from God himselfe For assurance of the Truth hereof he would advise him to rely upon that which all wise men in all matters of belief rely upon and that is the Consent of Ancient Records and Vniversall Tradition And that he might not instruct him as partiall in this advise he might farther tell him that a gentleman that would be namelesse that has written a book against him called Charity maintained by Catholiques though in many things he differ from him yet agrees with him in this that Tradition is such a principle as may be rested in and which requires no other proof As indeed no wise man doubts but there was such a man as Iulius Caesar or Cicero that there are such Citties as Rome or Constantinople though he have no other assurance for the one or the other but only the speech of people This tradition therefore he would counsell him to rely upon and to believe that the book which we call Scripture was confirmed abundantly by the workes of God to be the word of God Believing it the word of God he must of necessity believe it true and if he believe it true he must believe it containes all necessary directions unto eternall happinesse because it affirmes it selfe to doe so Nay he might tell him that so farre is the whole book from wanting any necessary direction to his eternall Salvation that one only Author that hath writ but two little bookes of it S. Luke by name in the begining of his Gospell and in the begining of his Story shewes plainly that he alone hath written at least so much as is necessary And what they wrote they wrote by Gods direction for the direction of the world not only for the Learned but for all that would doe their true endeavour to know the will of God and to doe it therefore you cannot but conceive that writing to all and for all they wrote so as that in things necessary they might be understood by all Besides that here he should finde that God himselfe has engaged himselfe by promise that if he would loue him and keep his Commandements and pray earnestly for his spirit and bee willing to be directed by it he should undoubtedly receiue it even the Spirit of Truth which shall lead him into all truth that is certainly into all necessary Truths and suffer him to fall into no pernicious errour The summe of his whole direction to him briefly would be this Believe the Scripture to be the word of God use your true endeavour to finde the true sense of it and to liue according to it and then you may rest securely that you are in the true way to eternall happinesse This is the substance of that Answer which the Doctor would make to any man in this case and this is a way so plain that fooles unlesse they will cannot erre from it Because not knowing absolutely all truth nay not all profitable truth and not being free from errour but endeavoring to know the truth and obey it and endeavouring to be free from errour is by this way made the onely condition of salvation As for your supposition That he would advise such a man to rely upon the Catholique Church for the finding out the doctrine of Christ hee utterly disclaimes it and truly very justly There being no certaine way to know that any company is a true Church but only by their professing the true doctrine of Christ. And therefore as it is impossible I should know such a company of Philosophers are Peripateticks or Stoicks unlesse I first know what was the doctrine of the Peripateticks and Stoicks so is it impossible that I should certainly know any company to be the Church of Christ before I know what is the doctrine of Christ the Profession whereof constitutes the visible Church the Beliefe and Obedience the invisible And therefore whereas you would have him be directed by the Catholique Church to the doctrine of Christ the contrary rather is most certaine and necessary that by the foreknowledge of the doctrine of Christ he must be directed to a certaine assurance which is if he meane not to choose at
of a more powerfull principality there is a necessity that all the Churches that is all the faithfull round about should resort in which the Apostolique Tradition hath been alwaies observed by those who were round about If any man say I have been too bold a Critick in substituting observata instead of conseruata I desire him to know that the conjecture is not mine and therefore as I expect no praise for it so I hope I shall be farre from censure But I would intreat him to consider whether it be not likely that the same greek word signifying observo and conservo the Translater of Irenaeus who could hardly speak Latine might not easily mistake and translate ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã conservata est instead of observata est Or whether it be not likely that those men which ancienly wrote Books and understood them nor might not easily commit such an error Or whether the sense of the place can be salved any other way if it can in Gods name let it if not I hope he is not to be condemned who with such a little alteration hath made that sense which he found non sense 30 But whether you will have it Observata or Conservata the new sumpsimus or the old mumpsimus possibly it may be something to Irenaus but to us or our cause it is no way materiall For if the rest be rightly translated neither will Conservata afford you any argument against us nor Observata helpe us to any evasion For though at the first hearing the glorious attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome the confounding Heretiques with her tradition and saying it is necessary for all Churches to resort to her may sound like Arguments for you yet hee that is attentive I hope will easily discover that it might be good and rationall in Irenaeus having to doe with Heretiques who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholiques declining a tryall by Scripture as not contayning the Truth of Christ perfectly and not fit to decide Controversies without recourse to Tradition I say he will easily perceive that it might be rationall in Iraeneus to urge them with any Tradition of more credit then their own especially a Tradition consonant to Scripture and even contain'd in it and yet that it may be irrationall in you to urge us who doe not decline Scripture but appeale to it as a perfect rule of faith with a Tradition which we pretend is many wayes repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition far more generall then it self which gives Testimony to Scripture and lastly repugnant to it self as giving attestation both to Scripture and to Doctrines plainly contrary to Scripture Secondly that the Authority of the Roman Church was then a far greater Argument of the Truth of her Tradition when it was Vnited with all other Apostolique Churches then now when it is divided from them according to that of Tertullian Had the Churches erred they would have varied but that which is the same in all cannot be errour but Tradition and therefore though Irenaeus his Argument may be very probable yet yours may be worth nothing Thirdly that foureteen hundred yeares may have made a great deale of alteration in the Roman Church as Rivers though neere the fountain they may retaine their native and unmixt syncerity yet in long progresse cannot but take in much mixture that came not from the fountain And therefore the Roman Tradition though then pure may now be corrupt and impure and so this Argument being one of those things which are the worse for wearing might in Irenaeus his time be strong and vigorous and after declining and decaying may long since have fallen to nothing Especially considering that Irenaeus plaies the Historian only and not the Prophet and saies only that the Apostolique Tradition had been alwayes there as in other Apostolique Churches conserved or observed choose you whether but that it should be alwayes so he saies not neither had he any warrant He knew well enough that there was foretold a great falling away of the Churches of Christ to Anti-christ that the Roman Church in particular was forewarned that she also nay the whole Church of the Gentiles might fall if they look not to their standing and therefore to secure her that she should stand for ever he had no reason nor Authority Fourthly that it appeares manifestly out of this book of Irenaeus quoted by you that the doctrine of the Chiliasts was in his judgment Apostolique Tradition as also it was esteemed for ought appeares to the contrary by all the Doctors and Saints and Martyrs of or about his time for all that speak of it or whose judgments in the point are any way recorded are for it and Iustine Martyr professeth that all good and Orthodoxe Christians of his time beleeved it and those that did not he reckons amongst Heretiques Now I demand was this Tradition one of those that was conserved and observed in the Church of Rome or was it not If not had Irenaeus known so much he must have retracted this commendation of that Church If it was then the Tradition of the present Church of Rome contradicts the Ancient and accounts it Hereticall and then sure it can be no certain note of Heresie to depart from them who have departed from themselves and prove themselves subject unto Errour by holding contradictions Fiftly and lastly that out of the Story of the Church it is as manifest as the light at noone that though Irenaeus did esteem the Roman Tradition a great Argument of the doctrine which he there delivers and defends against the Heretiques of his time viz that there was one God yet he was very far from thinking that Church was and ever should be a safe keeper and an infallible witnesse of Tradition in generall Inasmuch as in his own life his action proclaim'd the contrary For when Victor Bishop of Rome obtruded the Roman Tradition touching the time of Easter upon the Asian Bishops under the pain of Excommunication and damnation Irenaeus and all the other Western Bishops though agreeing with him in his observation yet sharply reprehended him for excommunicating the Asian Bishops for their disagreeing plainly shewing that they esteemed that not a necessary doctrine and a sufficient ground of excommunication which the Bishop of Rome and his adherents did so account of For otherwise how could they have reprehended him for excommunicating them had they conceived the cause of his excommunication just and sufficient And besides evidently declaring that they esteemed not separation from the Roman Church a certain mark of Heresie seeing they esteemed not them Heretiques though separated and cut off from the Roman Church Cardinall Perron to avoyd the stroak of this conuincing argument raiseth a cloud of eloquent words which because you borrow them of him in your Second part I will here insert and with short censures dispell and let his Idolaters see that Truth is
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 maâk 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
convince that I ought to believe it For reason will convince any man unlesse he be of a perverse mind that the Scripture is the word of God And then no reason can be greater then this God sayes so therefore it is true 63 Following your Church I must hold many things which to any mans judgment that will give himself the liberty of judgment will seem much more plainly contradicted by Scripture then the infallibility of your Church appeares to be confirm'd by it and consequently must be so foolish as to believe your Church exempted from error upon lesse evidence rather then subject to the common condition of mankind upon greater evidence Now if I take the Scripture only for my Guide I shall not need to doe any thing so unreasonable 64 If I will follow your Church I must believe impossibilities and that with an absolute certainty upon motives which are confess'd to be but only Prudentiall and probable That is with a weak foundation I must firmly support a heavy a monstrous heavy building Now following the Scripture I shall have no necessity to undergoe any such difficulties 65 Following your Church I must be servant of Christ and a Subject of the King but only Ad placitum Papae I must bee prepar'd in mind to renounce my allegiance to the King when the Pope shall declare him an Heretique and command me not to obey him And I must be prepar'd in mind to esteem Vertue Vice and Vice Vertue if the Pope shall so determine Indeed you say it is impossible he should doe the latter but that you know is a great question neither is it fit my obedience to God and the King should depend upon a questionable foundation And howsoever you must grant that if by an impossible supposition the Popes commands should be contrary to the law of Christ that they of your Religion must resolve to obey rather the commands of the Pope then the law of Christ. Whereas if I follow the Scripture I may nay I must obey my Soveraign in lawfull things though an Heretique though a Tyrant and though I doe not say the Pope but the Apostles themselves nay an Angell from heaven should teach any thing against the Gospell of Christ I may nay I must denounce Anathemâ to him 66 Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion which being contrary to flesh and blood without any assistance from worldly power wit or policy nay against all the power and policy of the world prevail'd and enlarg'd it self in a very short time all the world over Whereas it is too too apparent that your Church hath got and still maintaines her authority over mens consciences by counterfeiting false miracles forging falle stories by obtruding on the world suppositious writings by corrupting the monuments of former times and defacing out of them all which any way makes against you by warres by persecutions by Massacres by Treasons by Rebellions in short by all manner of carnall meanes whether violent or fraudulent 67 Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion the first Preachers and Professors whereof it is most certain they could have no worldly ends upon the world that they could not project to themselves by it any of the profits or honours or pleasures of this world but rather were to expect the contrary even all the miseries which the world could lay upon them On the other side the Head of your Church the pretended Successor of the Apostles and Guide of faith it is even palpable that he makes your Religion the instrument of his ambition by it seekes to entitle himselfe directly or indirectly to the Monarchy of the world And besides it is evident to any man that has but halfe an eye that most of those Doctrines which you adde to the Scripture doe make one way or other for the honour or temporall profit of the Teachers of them 68 Following the Scripture only I shall embrace a Religion of admirable simplicity consisting in a manner wholly in the worship of God in spirit and truth Whereas your Church and Doctrine is even loaded with an infinity of weak childish ridiculous unsavoury superstitions and ceremonies and full of that righteousnesse for which Christ shall judge the world 69 Following the Scripture I shall believe that which Vniversall never-failing Tradition assures me that it was by the admirable supernaturall worke of God confirm'd to be the word of God whereas never any miracle was wrought never so much as a lame horse cur'd in confirmation of your Churches authority and infallibility And if any strange things have been done which may seeme to give attestation to some parts of your doctrine yet this proves nothing but the truth of the Scripture which foretold that Gods providence permitting it and the wickednesse of the world deserving it strange signes and wonders should be wrought to confirme false doctrine that they which love not the truth may be given over to strange delusions Neither does it seeme to me any strange thing that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude them who have forged so many to deceive the world 70 If I follow the Scripture I must not promise my selfe Salvation without effectuall dereliction and mortification of all vices and the effectuall practice of all Christian vertues But your Church opens an easier and a broader way to Heaven and though I continue all my life long in a course of sinne and without the practice of any vertue yet gives me assurance that I may be let in to heaven at a posterne gate even by any act of Attrition at the houre of death if it be joyn'd with confession or by an act of Contrition without confession 71 Admirable are the Precepts of piety and humility of innocence and patience of liberality frugality temperance sobriety justice meeknesse fortitude constancy and gravity contempt of the world love of God and the love of man kind In a word of all vertues and against all vice which the Scriptures impose upon us to be obeyed under pain of damnation The summe whereof is in manner compriz'd in our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount recorded in the 5. 6. and 7. of S. Matthew which if they were generally obeyed could not but make the world generally happy and the goodnesse of them alone were sufficient to make any wise and good man believe that this Religion rather then any other came from God the Fountain of all goodnesse And that they may be generally obeyed our Saviour hath ratified them all in the close of his Sermon with these universall Sanctions Not every one that sayeth Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdome but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven and again whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them not shall be likned unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the ruine descended and the stood came and the winds blew and it fell and great was the fall
have been accomplished in and by the Catholicke Roman Religion and the Professors of it and not by Protestant Religion and the Professors of it 6 Because the doctrine of the Church of Rome is conformable and the doctrine of Protestants contrary to the doctrine of the Fathers of the Primitive Church even by the confession of Protestants themselves I meane those fathers who lived within the compasse of the first 600. years to whom Protestants themselves doe very frequently and very confidently appeale 7 Because the first pretended Reformers had neither extraordinary Commission from God nor ordinary Mission from the Church to preach Protestant Doctrine 8 Because Luther to preach against the Masse which containes the most materiall points now in controversy was perswaded by reasons suggested to him by the Divell himselfe disputing with him So himselfe professeth in his Book de Missa Privata That all men might take heed of following him who professeth himselfe to follow the Divell 9 Because the Protestant cause is now and hath been from the begining maintained with grosse falsifications and Calumnies whereof their prime Controversy writers are notoriously and in high degree guilty 10 Because by denying all humane authority either of Pope or Councells or Church to determine Controversies of Faith they have abolished all possible meanes of suppressing Heresy or restoring unity to the Church These are the Motives now my Answers to them follow brieâly and in order 43 To the first God hath neither decreed nor foretold that his true Doctrine should de facto be alwaies visibly prfessed without any mixture of falshood To the second God hath neither decreed nor foretold that there shall be alwaies a visible company of men free from all error in it selfe damnable Neither is it alwaies of necessity Schismaticall to separate from the externall communion of a Church though wanting nothing necessary For if this Church suppos'd to want nothing necessary require me to professe against my conscience that I believe some error though never so small and innocent which I doe not believe and will not allow me her communion but upon this condition In this case the Church for requiring this condition is Schismaticall and not I for separating from the Church To the third If any credit may be given to Records farre more creditable then these the Doctrine of Protestants that is the Bible hath been confirm'd and the Doctrine of Papists which is in many points plainly opposite to it confounded with supernaturall and divine Miracles which for number and glory outshine Popish pretended Miracles as much as the Sunne doth an Ignis fatuus those I mean which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles Now this book by the confession of all sides confirm'd by innumerous Miracles foretels me plainly that in after ages great signes and wonders shall be wrought in confirmation of false doctrine and that I am not to believe any doctrine which seemes to my understanding repugnant to the first though an Angell from Heaven should teach it which were certainly as great a Miracle as any that was ever wrought in attestation of any part of the doctrine of the Church of Rome But that true doctrine should in all ages have the testimony of Miracles that I am no where taught So that I have more reason to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signes of false doctrine then much to regard them as certain arguments of the truth Besides setting aside the Bible the Tradition of it there is as good story for Miracles wrought by those who lived and died in opposition to the Doctrine of the Roman Church as by S. Cyprian Colmannus Columbanus Aidanus and others as there is for those that are pretended to be wrought by the members of that Church Lastly it seemes to me no strange thing that God in his Iustice should permit some true Miracles to be wrought to delude them who have forged so many as apparently the professors of the Roman Doctrine have to abuse the World To the fourth All those were not Heretiques which by Philastrius Epiphanius or S. Austine were put in the Catalogue of Heretiques To the fift Kings and Nations have been and may be converted by men of contrary Religions To the sixt The Doctrine of Papists is confess'd by Papists contrary to the Fathers in many points To the seaventh The Pastors of a Church cannot but have authority from it to preach against the abuses of it whether in Doctrine or practice if there be any in it Neither can any Christian want an ordinary commission from God to doe a necessary work of Charity after a peaceable manner when there is no body else that can or will doe it In extraordinary cases extraordinary courses are not to be disallowed If some Christian Lay-man should come into a country of Infidels had ability to perswade them to Christianity who would say he might not use it for want of Commission To the eighth Luthers conference with the Divell might be for ought I know nothing but a melancholy dreame If it were reall the Divell might perswade Luther from the Masse hoping by doing so to keep him constant to it Or that others would make his diswasion from it an Argument for it as we see Papists doe and be afraid of following Luther as confessing himselfe to have been perswaded by the Divell To the ninth Illiacos intra muros peccatur extra Papists are more guilty of this fault then Protestants Even this very author in this very Pamphlet hath not so many leaves as falsifications and calumnies To the tenth Let all men believe the Scripture and that only and endeavour to believe it in the true sense and require no more of others and they shall finde this not only a better but the only meanes to suppresse Heresy and restore Unity For he that believes the Scripture sincerely and endeavours to believe it in the true sense cannot possibly be an Heretique And if no more then this were requir'd of any man to make him capable of the Churches Communion then all men so qualified though they were different in opinion yet notwithstanding any such difference must be of necessity one in Communion The Preface to the READER GIVE me leave good Reader to informe thee by way of Preface of three points The first concernes D. Potters Answere to Charity Mistaken The second relates to this Reply of mine And the third containes some Premonitions or Prescriptions in case D. Potter or any in his behalfe thinke fit to rejoyne 2. For the first point concerning D. Potters Answere I say in generall reserving particulars to their proper places that in his whole Booke he hath not so much as once truly and really fallen upon the point in question which was Whether both Catholiques and Protestants can be saved in their severall professions And therefore Charity Mistaken judiciously pressing those particulars wherein the difficulty doth precisely consist proves in generall
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 râle 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
you in some and with you against Luther in others And I also demand upon what infallible ground you hold your Canon agree neither with us nor Luther For sure your differing from us both is of it selfe no more apparently reasonable then our agreeing with you in part and in part with Luther If you say your Churches infallibility is your ground I demand againe some infallible ground both for the Churches infallibility and for this that Yours is the Church and shall never cease multiplying demands upon demands untill you settle me upon a Rock I mean giue such an Answer whose Truth is so evident that it needs no further evidence If you say This is Vniversall Tradition I reply your Churches infallibility is not built upon it and that the Canon of Scripture as we receiue it is For wee doe not professe our selues so absolutely and and undoubtedly certain neither doe we urge others to be so of those Books which haue been doubted as of those that never haue 46 The Conclusion of your Tenth § is That the Divinity of a writing cannot be known from it selfe alone but by some extrinsecall authority Which you need not proue for no wise man denies it But then this authority is that of Vniversall Tradition not of your Church For to me it is altogether as ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that the Gospell of Saint Mathew is the word of God as that all which your Church saies is true 47 That Believers of the Scripture by considering the divine matter the excellent precepts the glorious promises contained in it may be confirmed in their faith of the Scriptures divine Authority that among other inducements and inforcements hereunto internall arguments haue their place and force certainly no man of understanding can deny For my part I professe if the doctrine of the Scripture were not as good and as fit to come from the fountain of goodnesse as the Miracles by which it was confirm'd were great I should want one main pillar of my faith and for want of it I feare should be much stagger'd in it Now this and nothing else did the Doctor mean in saying The Belieuer sees by that glorious beam of divine light which shines in Scripture and by many internall Arguments that the Scripture is of Divine Authority By this saith he he sees it that is hee is moved to and strengthned in his beliefe of it and by this partly not wholly by this not alone but with the concurrence of other Arguments He that will quarrell with him for saying so must finde fault with the Master of the Sentences and all his Schollers for they all say the same The rest of this Paragraph I am as willing it should be trueâ as you are to haue it and so let it passe as a discourse wherein we are wholy unconcern'd You might haue met with an Answerer that would not haue suffred you to haue said so much Truth together but to me it is sufficient that it is nothing to the purpose 48 In the next Division out of your liberality you will suppose that Scripture like to a corporall light is by it selfe alone able to determine and moue our understanding to assent yet notwithstanding this supposall Faith still you say must goe before Scripture because as the light is visible only to those that haue eyes so the Scripture onely to those that haue the Eye of Faith But to my understanding if Scripture doe moue and determine our Vnderstanding to assent then the Scripture and its moving must be before this assent as the cause must bee before its own effect now this very assent is nothing else but Faith and Faith nothing else then the Vnderstanding's assent And therefore upon this supposall Faith doth and must originally proceed from Scripture as the effect from its proper cause and the influence and efficacy of Scripture is to be presuppos'd before the assent of faith unto which it moues and determines and consequently if this supposition of yours were true there should need no other meanes precedent to Scripture to beget Faith Scripture it selfe being able as here you suppose to determine and moue the understanding to assent that is to belieue them and the Verities contained in them Neither is this to say that the eyes with which we see are made by the light by which we see For you are mistaken much if you conceiue that in this comparison Faith answers to the Eye But if you will not pervert it the Analogie must stand thusâ Scripture must answer to light The eye of the soule that is the Vnderstanding or the faculty of assenting to the bodily eye And lastly assenting or believing to the act of seeing As therefore the light determining the Eye to see though it presupposes the Eye which it determines as every Action doth the object on which it is imployed yet it selfe is presuppos'd and antecedent to the act of seeing as the cause is alwaies to its effect So if you will suppose that Scripture like light moues the understanding to assent The Vnderstanding that 's the eye and object on which it works must bee before this influence upon it But the Assent that is the beliefe whereto the Scripture moues and the understanding is mov'd which answers to the act of seeing must come after For if it did assent already to what purpose should the Scripture doe that which was done before Nay indeed how were it possible it should be so any more then a Father can beget a Sonne that he hath already Or an Architect build an house that is built already Or then this very world can bee made againe before it be unmade Transubstantiation indeed is fruitfull of such Monsters But they that haue not sworne themselues to the defence of Errour will easily perceiue that I am factum facere and Factum infectum facere are equally impossible But I digresse 49 The close of this Paragraph is a fit cover for such a dish There you tell us That if there must be some other meanes precedent to Scripture to beget faith this can be no other then the Church By the Church we know you doe and must understand the Roman Church so that in effect you say no man can haue faith but he must bee mou'd to it by your Churches Authority And that is to say that the King and all other Protestants to whom you write though they verily think they are Christians belieue the Gospell because they assent to the truth of it and would willingly dye for it yet indeed are Infidels and belieue nothing The Scripture tells us The heart of man knoweth no man but the spirit of man which is in him And who are you to take upon you to make us belieue that we doe not belieue what we know we doe But if I may think verily that I belieue the Scripture and yet not belieue it how know you that you belieue the Roman Church I am as verily and as
strongly perswaded that I belieue the Scripture as you are that you belieue the Church And if I may be deceived why may not you Againe what more ridiculous and against sense and experience then to affirme That there are not millions amongst you and us that belieue upon no other reason then their education and the authority of their Parents and Teachers and the opinion they haue of them The tendernesse of the subject and aptnesse to receiue impressions supplying the defect and imperfection of the Agent And will you proscribe from heaven all those believers of your own Creed who doe indeed lay the foundation of their Faith for I cannot call it by any other name no deeper then upon the Authority of their Father or Master or parish Priest Certainly if these haue no true faith your Church is very full of Infidels Suppose Xaverius by the holynesse of his life had converted some Indians to Christianity who could for so I will suppose haue no knowledge of your Church but from him and therefore must last of all build their Faith of the Church upon their Opinion of Xaverius Doe these remain as very Pagans after their conversion as they were before Are they brought to assent in their soules and obey in their liues the Gospell of Christ only to be Tantaliz'd and not saved and not benefited but deluded by it because forsooth it is a man and not the Church that begets faith in them What if their motiue to beleeue be not in reason sufficient Doe they therefore not belieue what they doe belieue because they doe it upon insufficient motiues They choose the Faith imprudently perhaps but yet they doe choose it Vnlesse you will haue us belieue that that which is done is not done because it is not done upoÌ good reason which is to say that never any man living ever did a foolish action But yet I know not why the Authority of one holy man which apparently has no ends upon me joyn'd with the goodnesse of the Christian faith might not be a far greater and more rationall motiue to me to imbrace Christianity then any I can haue to continue in Paganisme And therefore for shame if not for loue of Truth you must recant this fancie when you write again and suffer true faith to be many times where your Churches infallibility has no hand in the begetting of it And be content to tell us hereafter that we belieue not enough and not goe about to perswade us we belieue nothing for feare with telling us what we know to be manifestly false you should gain only this Not to be believed when you speak truth Some pretty sophismes you may happily bring us to make us belieue we belieue nothing but wise men know that Reason against Experience is alwaies Sophisticall And therefore as he that could not answer Zenoe's subtilities against the existence of Motion could yet confute them by doing that which he pretended could not be done So if you should giue me a hundred Arguments to perswade me because I doe not belieue Transubstantiation I doe not believe in God and the Knots of them I could not untie yet I should cut them in peeces with doing that and knowing that I doe so which you pretend I cannot doe 50 In the thirteenth division we haue again much adoe about nothing A great deal of stirre you keep in confuting some that pretend to know Canonicall Scripture to be such by the Titles of the Books But these men you doe not name which makes me suspect you cannot Yet it is possible there may be some such men in the world for Gusman de Alfarache hath taught us that the Fooles hospitall is a large place 51 In the fourteenth § we haue very artificiall jugling D. Potter had said That the Scripture hee desires to bee understood of those books wherein all Christians agree is a principle and needs not be proved among Christians His reason was because that needs no farther proofe which is believed already Now by this you say he meanes either that the Scripture is one of these first Principles and most known in all sciences which cannot be proved which is to suppose it cannot be proved by the Church and that is to suppose the Question Or hee meanes That it is not the most known in Christianity then it may be prov'd Where we see plainly That two most different things Most known in all Sciences Most known in Christianity are captiously confounded As if the Scripture might not be the first and most knowne Principle in Christianity and yet not the most knowne in all Sciences Or as if to be a First Principle in Christianity and in all Sciences were all one That Scripture is a Principle among Christians that is so received by all that it need not be proved in any emergent Controversie to any Christian but may be taken for granted I think few will deny You your selues are of this a sufficient Testimony for urging against us many texts of Scripture you offer no proofe of the truth of them presuming we will not question it Yet this is not to deny that Tradition is a Principle more knowne then Scripture But to say it is a principle not in Christianity but in Reason nor proper to Christians but common to all men 52 But it is repugnant to our practice to hold Scripture a Principle because we are wont to affirme that one part of Scripture may be knowne to be Canonicall and may be interpreted by another Where the former device is againe put in practice For to be known to be Canonicall and to be interpreted is not all one That Scripture may be interpreted by Scripture that Protestants grant and Papists doe not deny neither does that any way hinder but that this assertion Scripture is the word of God may be among Christians a common Principle But the first âThat one part of Scripture may proue another part Canonicall and need no proofe of its own being so for that you haue produc'd divers Protestants that deny it but who they are that affirme it nondum Constat 53 It is superfluous for you to proue out of S. Athanasius S. Austine that we must receiue the sacred Canon upon the credit of Gods Church Vnderstanding by Church as here you explaine your selfe The credit of Tradition And that not the Tradition of the Present Church which we pretend may deviate from the Ancient but such a Tradition which involues an evidence of Fact and from hand to hand from age to age bringing us up to the times and persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himselfe commeth to be confirm'd by all these Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinc'd their doctrine to be true Thus you Now proue the Canon of Scripture which you receive by such Tradition and we will allow it Proue your whole doctrine or the infallibility of your Church by such a Tradition we will yeeld to you in all
his 7. Sect. he pretendeth then he may be sure that whensoever he meetes with such points in Scripture in them it is infallibly true although it might erre in others and not only true but cleere because Protestants teach that in matters necessary to Salvation the Scripture is so cleere that all such necessary truths are either manifestly contained therein or may be cleerely deduced from it Which Doctrines being put together to wit That Scriptures cannot erre in points fundamentall that they cleerely containe all such points and that they can tell what points in particular be such I mean fundamentall it is manifest that it is sufficient for Salvation that Scripture be infallible only in points fundamentall For supposing these doctrines of theirs to be true they may be sure to find in Scripture all points necessary to Salvation although it were fallible in other points of lesse moment Neyther will they be able to avoid this impiety against holy Scripture till they renounce their other doctrines and in particular till they believe that Christs promise to his Church are not limited to points fundamentall 16 Besides from the fallibility of Christs Catholique Church in some points it followeth that no true Protestant earned or unlearned doth or can with assurance believe the universall Church in any one point of doctrine Not in points of lesser moment which they call not fundamentall because they believe that in such points she may erre Not in fundamentalls because they must know what points be fundamentall before they goe to learn of her least otherwise they be rather deluded then instructed in regard that her certain and infallible direction extends only to points fundamentall Now if before they addresse themselves to the Church they must know what points are fundamentall they learn not of her but will be as fit to teach as to be taught by her How then are all Christians so often so seriously upon so dreadfull menaces by Fathers Scriptures and our blessed Saviour himselfe counselled and commanded to seeke to hear to obey the Church S. Austine was of a very different mind from Protestants If saith he the Church through the whole world practise any of these things to dispute whether that ought to be so done is a most insolent madnesse And in another place he saith That which the whole Church holds and is not ordained by Councels but hath alwaies been kept is most rightly believed to be delivered by Apostolicall authority The same holy Father teacheth that the custome of baptizing children cannot be proved by Scripture alone and yet that it is to be believed as derived from the Apostles The custome of our Mother the Church saith he in baptizing infants iâ in no wise to be contemned nor to be accounted superfluous nor is it at all to be believed unlesse it were an Apostolicall Tradition And elsewhere Christ is of profit to Children baptized Is he therefore of profit to persons not believing But God forbid that I should say infants doe not believe I have already said he believes in another who finned in another It is said be believes and it is of force and he is reckoned among the faithfull that are baptized This the authority of our Mother the Church hath against this strength against this invincible wall whosoever rusheth shall be crushed in pieces To this argument the Protestants in the Conference at Ratishon gaue this round answer Nos ab Augustino hac in parte libere dissentimas In this we plainly disagree from Augustine Now if this doctrine of baptizing Infants be not fundamentall in D. Potters sense then according to S. Augustine the infallibility of the Church extends to points not fundamentall But if on the other side it be a fundamentall point then according to the same holy Doctour we must rely on the authority of the Church for some fundamentall point not contained in Scripture but delivered by Tradition The like argument I frame out of the same Father about the not rebaptizing of those who were baptized by Heretiques whereof he excellently to our present purpose speaketh in this manner Wee follow indeed in this matter even the most certaine authority of Canonicall all Scriptures But how Consider his words Although verily there be brought no example for this point out of the Canonicall Scriptures yet even in this point the truth of the same Scriptures is held by us while we doe that which the authority of Scriptures doth recommend that so because the holy Scripture cannot deceaue us whosoever is afraid to be deceaved by the obscurity of this question must haue recourse to the same Church concerning it which without any ambiguity the holy Scripture doth demonstrate to us Among many other points in the aforesaid words we are to obserue that according to this holy Father when we prove some points not particularly contained in Scripture by the authority of the Church even in that case we ought not to be said to belieue such points without Scripture because Scripture it selfe recommends the Church and therefore relying on her we relye on Scripture without danger of being deceaved by the obscurity of any question defined by the Church And elsewhere he faithi Seeing this is written in no Scripture we must belieue the testimony of the Church which Christ declareth to speak the truth But it seemes D. Potter is of opinion that this doctrine about not rebaptizing such as were baptized by Heretiques is no necessary point of faith nor the contrary an heresie wherein he contradicteth S. Augustine from whom we haue now heard that what the Church teacheth is truly said to be taught by Scripture and consequently to deny this particular point delivered by the Church is to oppose Scripture it selfe Yet if he will needs hold that this point is not fundamentall we must conclude out of S. Augustine as we did concerning the baptizing of Children that the infallibility of the Church reacheth to points not fundamentall The same Father in another place concerning this very question of the validity of Baptisme conferred by Heretiques saith The Apostles indeed haue prescribed nothing of this but this Custome ought to be believed to be originally taken from their tradition as there are many things that the universall Church observeth which are therefore with good reason believed to haue been commanded by the Apostles although they be not written No lesse cleer is S. Chrysoslome for the infallibility of the Traditions of the Church For treating these words 2. Thess. 2. Stand hold the Traditions which you haue learned whether by speech or by Epistle saith Hence it is manifest that they delivered not all things by letter but many things also without writing and these also are worthy of beliefe Let us therefore account the tradition of the Church to be worthy of beliefe It is a Tradition Seek no more Which words are so plainly against Protestants that Whitaker is as plaine with S. Chrysostome
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 wâereof 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
instruction acquaint the universall Church with my particular scruples You say the Prelates of Gods Church meeting in a lawfull generall Councel may erre damnably It remaines then that for my necessary instruction I must repaire to every particular member of the universall Church spread over the face of the earth and yet you teach that the promises which our Lord hath made unto his Church for his assistance are intended not to any particular persons or Churches but only to the Church Catholique with which as I said it is impossible for me to confer Alas O most uncomfortable Ghostly Father you driue me to desperation How shall I confer with every Christian soule man and woman by sea and by land close prisoner or at liberty c. Yet upon supposall of this miraculous Pilgrimage for Faith before I haue the faith of Miracles how shall I proceed at our meeting Or how shall I know the man on whom I may securely rely Procure will you say to knew whether he belieue all fundamentall points of faith For if he doe his faith for point of beliefe is sufficient for salvation though he erre in a hundred things of lesse moment But how shall I know whether hee hold all fundamentall points or no For till you tell me this I cannot know whether or no his beliefe be sound in all fundamentall points Can you say the Creed Yes And so can many damnable Heretiques But why doe you aske me this question Because the Creed containes all fundamentall points of faith Are you sure of that not sure I hold it very probable Shall I hazard my soule on probabilities or even wagers This yeelds a new cause of despaire But what doth the Creed contain all points necessary to be believed whether they rest in the understanding or else doe further extend to practise No. It was composed to deliver Credenda not Agenda to us Faith not Practise How then shall I know what points of beliefe which direct my practise be necessary to salvation Sâll you chalk our new paths for Desperation Well are all Articles of the Creed for their nature and matter fundamentall I cannot say so How then shall I know which in particular be and which be not fundamentall Read my Answer to a late Popish Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken c. there you shall finde that fundamentall doctrines are such Catholique Verities as principally and essentially pertain to the Faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved They are those grand and capitall doctrines which make up our Faith in Christ that is that common faith which is alike precious in all being one and the same in the highest Apostle and the meanest believer which the Apostle else-where cals the first principles of the oracles of God the forme of sound words But how shall I apply these generall definitions or descriptions or to say the truth these only varied words and phrases for I understand the word fundamentall as well as the words principall essentiall grand and capitall doctrines c. to the particular Articles of the Creed in such sort as that I may be able precisely exactly particularly to distinguish fundamentall Articles from points of lesse moment You labour to tell us what fundamentall points be but not which they be and yet unlesse you doe this your Doctrine serues only either to make men despaire or else to haue recourse to those whom you call Papists and which giue one certain Rule that all points defined by Christs visible Church belong to the foundation of Faith in such sense as that to deny any one cannot stand with salvation And seeing your selfe acknowledges that these men doe not erre in points fundamentall I cannot but hold it most safe for me to joyn with them for the securing of my soule and the avoiding of desperation into which this your doctrine must cast all them who understand and belieue it For the whole discourse and inferences which here I haue made are either your own direct Assertions or evident consequences cleerly deduced from them 20 But now let us answer some few Objections of D. Potters against that which wee haue said before to avoid our argument That the Scripture is not so much as mentioned in the Creed he saith The Creed is an abstract of such necessary Doctrines as are delivered in Scripture or collected out of it and therefore needs not expresse the authority of that which it supposes 21 This answer makes for us For by giving a reason why it was needlesse that Scripture should be expressed in the Creed you grant as much as we desire namely that the Apostles judged it needlesse to expresse all necessary points of faith in their Creed Neither doth the Creed suppose or depend on Scripture in such sort as that we can by any probable consequence infer from the Articles of the Creed that there is any Canonicall Scripture at all and much lesse that such Books in particular be Canonicall Yea the Creed might haue been the same although holy Scripture had never been written and which is more the Creed even in priority of time was before all the Scripture of the new Testament except the Gospell of S. Mathew And so according to this reason of his the Scripture should not mention Articles contained in the Creed And I note in a word how little connexion D. Potters arguments haue while he tells us that the Creed is an Abstraââ of such necessary doctrines as are delivered in Scripture or collected out of it therefore needs not expresse the authority of that which it supposes it doth not follow The Articles of the Creed are delivered in Scripture therefore the Creed supposeth Scripture For two distinct writings may well deliver the same truths and yet one of them not suppose the other unlesse D. Potter be of opinion that two Doctors cannot at one time speak the same truth 22 And notwithstanding that D. Potter hath now told us it was needlesse that the Creed should expresse Scripture whose Authority it supposes he comes at length to say that the Nicene Fathers in their Creed confessing that the holy Ghost spake by the Prophets doth thereby sufficiently avow the divine Authority of all Canonicall Scripture But I would ask him whether the Nicene Creed be not also an Abstract of Doctrines delivered in Scripture as he said of the Apostles Creed and thence did infer that it was needlesse to expresse Scripture whose authority it supposes Besides we doe not only belieue in generall that Canonicall Scripture is of divine authority but we are also bound under pain of damnation to belieue that such and such particular Booksâ not mentioned in the Nicene Creed are Canonicall And lastly D. Potter in this Answer grants as much as we desire which is that all points of faith are not contained in the Apostles Creed even as it
Which answer is directly against himselfe and manifestly proues that Baptisme is an Article of faith and yet is not contained in the Apostles Creed neither explicitely nor by any necessary consequence from other Articles expressed therein If to make it an Article of faith be sufficient that it is contained in the Nicene Councell he will finde that Protestants maintain many errours against faith as being repugnant to definitions of Generall Councels as in particular that the very Councell of Nice which saith M. Whitgift is of all wise and learned men reverenced esteemed and imbraced next unto the Scriptures themselues decreed that to those who were chosen to the Ministry unmarried it was not lawfull to take any wife afterward is affirmed by Protestants And your grand Reformer Luther lib. de Conciliis part prima saith that he understand not the Holy Ghost in that Councell For in one Canon it saith that those who haue gelded themselues are not fit to be made Priests in another it forbids them to haue wiues Hath saith he the Holy Ghost nothing to doe in Councells but to binde and load his Ministers with impossible dangerous and unnecessary lawes I forbeare to shew that this very Article I confesse one Baptisme for the Remission of sinnes will be understood by Protestants in a far different sense from Catholiques yea Protestants among themselues doe not agree how Baptisme forgiues sinnes nor what grace it conferres Only concerning the Vnity of Baptisme against rebaptization of such as were once baptized which I noted as a point not contained in the Apostles Creed I cannot omit an excellent place of S. Augustine where speaking of the Donatists he hath these words They are so bold as to rebaptize Catholiques wherein they shew themselues to be the greater Heretiques since it hath pleased the universall Catholique Church not to make Baptisme void even in the very Heretiques themselues In which few words this holy Father delivereth against the Donatists these points which doe also make against Protestants That to make an Heresie or an Heretique known for such it is sufficient to oppose the definition of Gods Church That a proposition may be Hereticall though it be not repugnant to any Texts of Scripture For S. Augustine teacheth that the doctrine of rebaptization is hereticall and yet acknowledgeth it cannot be convinced for such out of Scripture And that neither the Heresie of rebaptization of those who were baptized by Heretiques nor the contrary Catholique truth being expressed in the Apostles Creed it followeth that it doth not contain all points of faith necessary to salvation And so we must conclude that to belieue the Creed is not sufficient for Vnitie of faith and Spirit in the same Church unlesse there be also a totall agreement both in beliefe of other points of faith and in externall profession and Communion also whereof we are to speak in the next Chapter according to the saying of S. Augustine You are with us in Baptisme and in the Creed but in the Spirit of Vnity and bond of peace and lastly in the Catholique Church you are not with us THE ANSVVER TO THE FOVRTH CHAPTER Wherein is shewed that the Creed containes all necessary points of meere belief 1 AD § 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Concerning the Creeds containing the Fundamentalls of Christianity this is D. Potters assertion delivered in the 207. p. of his book The Creed of the Apostles as it is explained in the latter Creeds of the Catholique Church is esteemed a sufficient summary or Catalogue of Fundamentalls by the best learned Romanists and by Antiquity 2 By Fundamentalls he understands not the Fundamentall rules of good life and action though every one of these is to be believed to come from God therefore vertually includes an Article of Faith but the Fundamentall doctrines of Faith such as though they have influence upon our lives as every essentiall doctrine of Christianity hath yet we are commanded to believe them and not to doe them The assent of our understandings is required to them but no obedience from our wills 3 But these speculative Doctrines again he distinguishes out of Aquinas Occham and Canus and others into two kinds of the first are those which are the obiects of Faith in and for themselves which by their own nature and Gods prime intention are essentiall parts of that Gospell such as the teachers in the Church cannot without Mortall sinne omit to teach the learners such as are intrinsecall to the Covenant between God and man and not only plainly revealed by God and so certain truths but also commanded to be preacht to all men and to be believed distinctly by all and so necessary truths Of the second sort are Accidentall Circumstantiall Occasionall objects of faith millioÌs whereof there are in holy Scripture such as are to be believed not for themselves but because they are joyned with others that are necessary to be believed and delivered by the same Authority which delivered these Such as we are not bound to know to bee divine Revelations for without any fault we may be ignorant hereof nay believe the contrary such as we are not bound to examine whether or no they be divine Revelations such as Pastors are not bound to teach their Flock nor their Flock bound to know and remember no nor the Pastors themselves to know them or believe them or not to disbelieve them absolutely and alwaies but then only when they doe see and know them to be delivered in Scripture as divine Revelations 4 I say when they doe so and not only when they may doe For to lay an obligation upon us of believing or not disbelieving any Verity sufficient Revelation on Gods part is not sufficient For then seeing all the expresse Verities of Scripture are either to all men or at least to all learned men sufficiently revealed by God it should be a damnable sinne in any learned man actually to disbelieve any one particular Historicall verity contained in Scripture or to believe the contradiction of it though he knew it not to be there contained For though he did not yet he might have known it it being plainly revealed by God and this revelation being extant in such a Book wherein he might have found it recorded if with diligence he had perused it To make therefore any points necessary to be believed it is requisite that either we actually know them to be divine Revelations and these though they be not Articles of faith nor necessary to be believed in and for themselves yet indirectly and by accident and by consequence they are so The necessity of believing them being inforced upon us by a necessity of believing this Essentiall and Fundamentall article of Faith That all Divine Revelations are true which to disbelieve or not to believe is for any Christian not only impious but impossible Or else it is requisite that they be First actually revealed by God Secondly commanded under pain of damnation to
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 theÌ 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
a venture but desire to have certaine direction to it This supposition therefore being the hinge whereon your whole discourse turnes is the Minerva of your owne Brayne and therefore were it but for this have we not great reason to accuse you of strange immodesty in saying as you doe That The whole discourse inferences which here you have made are either D. Potters own direct assertions or evident consequences cleerely deduced froÌ them Especially seeing your proceeding in it is so consonant to this ill beginning that it is in a manner wholly made up not of D. Potters assertions but your owne fictions obtruded on him 54 Ad § 19. To the next Question Cannot Generall Councels erre You pretend he answers § 19. They may erre damnably Let the Reader see the place and he shall finde damnably is your addition To the third demand Must I consult about my difficulties with every particular person of the Catholique Church You answer for him that which is most false that it seemes so by his words The whole militant Church that is all the members of it cannot possibly erre either in the whole faith or any necessary Article of it Which is very certaine for should it doe so it should be the Church no longer But what sense is there that you should collect out of these words that every member of the militant Church must be consulted with By like reason if he had said that all men in the world cannot erre If he had said that God in his own person or his Angels could not erre in these matters you might haue gathered from hence that he laid a necessity upon men in doubt to consult with Angels or with God in his own person or with all men in the world Is it not evident to all sober men that to make any man or men fit to be consulted with besides the understanding of the matter it is absolutely requisite that they may bee spoken with And is it not apparently impossible that any man should speak with all the members of the Militant Church Or if hee had spoken with them all know that he had done so Nay does not D. Potter say as much in plain termes Nay more doe not you take notice that hee does so in the very next words before these where you say he affirmes that the Catholique Church cannot be told of private injuries unlesse you will perswade us there is a difference between the Catholique Church and the whole Militant Church For whereas you make him deny this of the Catholique Church united and affirm it of the Militant Church dispersed into particulars The truth is he speaks neither of united nor dispersed but affirmes simply as appeares to your shame by your own quotations that the Catholique Church cannot bee told of private iniuries and then that the whole Militant Church cannot erre But then besides that the united Church cannot be consulted and the dispersed may what a wild imagination is it and what a strange injustice was it in you to father it upon him I beseech you Sir to consider seriously how far blinde zeal to your superstition hath transported you beyond all bounds of honesty and discretion made you carelesse of speaking either truth or sense so you speak against D. Potter 55 Again you make him say The Prelates of Gods Church meeting in a lawfull Councell may erre damnably and from this collect It remaines then for your necessary instruction you must repaire to every particular member of the Vniversall Church spread over the face of the earth And this is also Pergulapictoris veri nihil omnia ficta The Antecedent false not for the matter of it but that D. Potter saies it And the consequence as far from it as Gades from Gange and as coherent as a rope of sand A generall Councell may erre therefore you must travell all the world over and consult with every particular Christian As if there were nothing else to be consulted with nay as if according to the doctrine of Protestants for so you must say there were nothing to be consulted with but only a Generall Councell or all the world Haue you never heard that Protestants say That men for their direction must consult with Scripture Nay doth not D. Potter say it often in this very Book which you are confuting Nay more in this very page out of which you take this peece of your Cento A Generall Councell may erre damnably are there not these plain words In searches of Truth the Scripture With what conscience then or modesty can you impose upon him this unreasonable consequence yet pretend that your whole discourse is either his own direct assertion or evident consequences cleerely deduc'd from them You adde that yet he teaches as if he contradicted himselfe that the promises of God made to the Church for his assistance are not intended to particular persons but only to the Catholique Church which sure agrees very well with any thing said by D. Potter If it be repugnant to what you said for him falsely what is that to him 56 Neither yet is this to drive any man to desperation unlesse it be such a one as hath such a strong affection to this word Church that he will not goe to heaven unlesse he hath a Church to lead him thither For what though a Councell may erre and the whole Church cannot be consulted with yet this is not to send you on the Fooles Pilgrimage for faith and bid you goe and conferre with every Christian soul man and woman by Sea and by Land close prisoner or at liberty as you dilate the matter But to tell you very briefly that Vniversall Tradition directs you to the word of God and the word of God directs you to Heaven And therefore here is no cause of desperatioÌ no cause for you to be so vain and tragicall as here you would seeeme Yet upon supposall you say of this miraculous pilgrimage for faith before I have the faith of Miracles how shall I proceed at our meeting Or how shall I know the man on whom I may securely rely And hereunto you frame this answere for the Doctor Procure to know whether he believe all Fundamentall points of faith Whereas in all the Doctors book there is no such answer to any such question or any like it Neither doe you as your custome is note any page where it may be found which makes mee suspect that sure you have some priuate licence to use Heretiques as you call them at your pleasure and make them answer any thing to anything 57 Wherein I am yet more confirmed by the answer you put in his mouth to your next demand How shall I know whether he hold all Fundamentall points or no For whereas hereunto D. Potter hauing given one Answer fully satisfactory to it which is If he truly believe the undoubted bookes of Canonicall Scriptâre he cannot but believe all Fundamentalls and another which is but somethings
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 âoever 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 contââstated 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 meâs 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 aÌgreeth 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
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
THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS A SAFE VVAY TO SALVATION OR AN ANSVVER TO A BOOKE ENTITLED MERCY AND TRVTH Or Charity maintain'd by Catholiques Which pretends to prove the Contrary By WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH Master of Arts of the Vniversity of OXFORD Isaac Casaubon in Epist. ad Card. Perron Regis IACOBI nomine scriptâ Rex arbitratur rerum absolutè necessariarum ad salutem non magnum esse numerum Quare existimat ejus Majestâs nullam ad ineundam concordiam breviorem viam fore quà m si diligentèr sepatentur necessaria à non necessariis ut de necessariis conveniat omnis opera insumatur in non necessariis libertati Christianae locus detur Simpliciâer necessaria Rex appellat quae vel expresse verbum Dei praecipit credenda faciendave vel ex verbo Dei necessariâ consequentiâ vetus Ecclesia elicuit Si ad decidendas hodiernas Controversias haec distinctio adhiberetur jus divinum à positivo sen Ecclesiastico candidè separaretur non videtur de iius quae sunt absolutè necessaria inter pios moderatos viros longa aut acris contentio futura Nam paucailla sunt ut modò dicebamus fere ex aequo omnibus probantur qui se Christianos dici postulant Atque istam distinctionem Sereniss Rex tanti putat esse momenti ad minuendas Controversias quae hodie Ecclesiam Dei tantopere exercent ut omnium pacis studiosorum judicet officium esse diligentissimè hanc explicare docere urgere OXFORD Printed by LEONARD LICHFIELD and are to be sold by Iohn Clarke under St Peters Church in Corn-hill Anno Salutis M.DC.XXXVIII TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY PRINCE CHARLES By the Grace of God KING of great Britaine France Ireland Defendor of the Faith c. May it please your most excellent Majesty I Present with all humility to Your most sacred hands a Defence of that Cause which is ought to be infinitely dearer to you then all the world Not doubting but upon this Dedication I shall be censur'd for a double boldnesse both for undertaking so great a Work so far beyond my weak abilities and againe for presenting it to such a Parton whose judgement I ought to fear more then any Adversary But for the first it is a satisfaction to my selfe and may be to others that I was not drawn to it out of any vain opinion of my selfe whose personall defects are the only thing which I presume to know but undertook it in obedience to Him who said Tu conversus confirma fratres not to S. Peter only but to all men being encouraged also to it by the goodnesse of the Cause which is able to make a weak man strong To the belief hereof I was not led partially or by chance as many are by the preiudice and prepossession of their Country Education and such like inducements which if they lead to truth in one place perhaps lead to error in a hundred but having with the greatest equality and indifferency made enquiry and search into the grounds on both Sides I was willing to impart to others that satisfaction which was given to my selfe For my inscribing to it your Maiesties sacred Name I should labour much in my excuse of it from high presumption had it not some appearance of Title to your Maiesties Patronage protection as being a Defence of that Book which by special order from your Maty was written some years since chiefly for the generall good but peradventure not without some aime at the recovery of One of your meanest Subiects from a dangerous deviation so due unto your Maty as the fruit of your own High humility and most Royall Charity Besides it is in a manner nothing else but a pursuance of and a superstruction upon that blessed Doctrine where With I have adorn'd arm'd the Frontispice of my Book which was so earnestly recommended by your Royall Father of happy memory to all the lovers of Truth Peace that is to all that were like himselfe as the only hopefull meanes of healing the breaches of Christendome whereof the Enemy of soules makes such pestilent advantage The lustre of this blessed Doctrine I have here endeavoured to uncloud and unveile and to free it from those mists and fumes which have been rais'd to obscure it by that Order which envenomes even poison it selfe and makes the Roman Religion much more malignant and trubulent then otherwise it would be whose very Rule and Doctrine obliges them to make all men as much as lies in them subjects unto Kings and servants unto Christ no farther then it shall please the Pope So that whether Your Maiesty be considered either as a Pious Sonne towards your Royall Father K. IAMES or as a tender hearted compassionate Sonne towards your distressed Mother the Catholique Church or as a King of your Subiects or as a Servant unto Christ this worke to which I can give no other commendation but that it was intended to doe you service in all these capacities may pretend not unreasonably to your Gracious acceptance Lastly being a defence of that whole Church and Religion you professe it could not be so proper to any Patron as to the great Defendor of it which stile your Maiesty hath ever so exactly made good both in securing it from all dangers and in vindicating it by the well ordering and rectifying this Church from all the foule as persions both of Domestick Forraine enemies of which they can have no ground but their own malice and want of Charity But it is an argument of a despairing lost cause to support it selfe with these impetuous out-cries and clamors the faint refuges of those that want better arguments like that Stoick in Lucian that cried ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã O damn'd villaine when he could say nothing else Neither is it credible the wiser sort of them should believe this their own horrid assertion That a God of goodnesse should damne to eternall torments those that love him and love truth for errors which they fall into through humane frailty But this they must say otherwise their only great argument from their daÌning us our not being so peremptory in damning them because we hope unaffected Ignorance may excuse theÌ would be lost therefore they are engag'd to act on this Tragicall part only to fright the simple and ignorant as we doe litle children by telling them that bites which we would not have them meddle with And truely that herein they doe but act a part and know themselves to doe so and deale with us here as they doe with the King of Spain at Rome whom they accurse and Excommunicate for fashion sake on Maundy-Thursday for detaining part of S. Peters Patrimony and absolve him without satisfaction on Good-Friday methinkes their faltring and inconstancy herein makes it very apparent For though for the most part they speak nothing but thunder and lightning to us damne us all without
event was what effect was wrought in me by the perusall and consideration of it To deal truly and ingenuously with you I fell somewhat in my good opinion both of your sufficiency syncerity but was exceedingly confirm'd in my ill opinion of the cause maintained by you I found every where snares that might entrap and colours that might deceive the simple but nothing that might perswade and very little that might move an understanding man and one that can discerne between discourse and sophistry In short I was verily perswaded that I plainly saw and could make it appear to all dis-passionate and unprejudicate Iudges ãâã a vein of sophistry and calumny did run clean through it from ãâã begining to the end And letting some friends understand so much ãâã my selfe to be perswaded by them that it would not be either unproper for me nor un-acceptable to God nor peradventure altogether unserviceable to his Church nor justly offensive to you if you indeed were a lover of Truth and not a maintainer of a Faction if setting aside the second Part which was in a manner wholly employed in particular disputes repetitions and references and in wranglings with D. Potter about the sense of some super-numerary quotations and whereon the main question no way depends I would make a faire and ingenuous Answer to the first wherein the substance of the present Controversy is confessedly contained and which if it were clearly answered no man would desire any other answer to the second This therefore I undertook with a full resolution to be an adversary to your errors but a friend and servant to your person and so much the more a friend to your person by how much the severer and more rigid adversary I was to your errors 4 In this work my conscience beares me witnesse that I have according to your advice proceeded alwayes with this consideration that I am to give a most strict account of every line and word that passeth under my pen and therefore have been precisely carefull for the matter of my book to defend truth only and only by Truth And then scrupulously fearefull of scandalizing you or any man with the manner of handling it From this rule sure I am I have not willingly swerved in either part of it and that I might not doe it ignorantly I have not only my self examined mine owne work perhaps with more severity then I have done yours as conceiving it a base and unchristian thing to goe about to satisfie others with what I my self am not fully satisfied But have also made it passe the fiery tryall of the exact censures of many understanding judges alwaies heartily wishing that you your selfe had been of the Quorum But they who did undergoe this burthen as they wanted not sufficiencie to discover any heterodoxe doctrine so I am sure they have been very carefull to let nothing flip dissonant from truth or from the authorized doctrine of the Church of England and therefore whatsoever causelesse and groundlesse jealousy any man may entertain concerning my Person yet my book I presume in reason and common equity should be free from them wherein I hope that little or nothing hath escap'd so many eyes which being weighed in the ballance of the Sanctuary will be found too light And in this hope I am much confirm'd by your strange carriage of your selfe in this whole businesse For though by some crooked and sinister arts you have got my Answer into your hands now a yeare since and upwards as I have been assured by some that know it and those of your own party though you could not want every day faire opportunityes of sending to me and acquainting me with any exceptions which you conceived might be justly taken to it or any part of it then which nothing could have been more welcome to me yet hitherto you have not been pleased to acquaint mee with any one Nay more though you have been at sundry times and by severall waies entreated and sollicited nay press'd and importun'd by me to joyne with me in a private discussion of the Controversy between us before the publication of my Answer because I was extremely unwilling to publish any thing which had not passed all manner of tryals as desiring not that I or my Side but that truth might overcome on which Side soever it was though I have protâsted to you and set it under my hand which protestation by Gods help I would have made good if you or any other would undertake your cause would give me a faire meeting and choose out of your whole Book any one argument wherof you were most confident and by which you would be content the rest should be judged of and make it appeare that I had not or could not answer it that I would desist from the work which I had undertaken and answer none at all though by all the Arts which possibly I could devise I have provoked you to such a tryall in particular by assuring you that if you refus'd it the world should be inform'd of your tergiversation notwithstanding all this you have perpetually and obstinately declined it which to my understanding is a very evident signe that there is not any truth in your cause nor which is impossible there should bee strength in your arguments especially considering what our Saviour hath told us every one that doth evill hateth the light neither commeth to the light least his deeds should be reproved but he that doth truth commeth to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God 5 In the meane while though you despaired of compassing your desire this honest way yet you have not omitted to tempt me by base and unworthy considerations to desert the cause which I had undertaken letting me understand from you by an acquaintance common to us both how that in case my work should come to light my inconstancy in religion so you miscall my constancy in following that way to heaven which for the present seemes to me the most probable should bee to my great shame painted to the life that my owne writings should be producâd against my selfe that I should bee urged to answer my owne motives against Protestantisme and that such things should be published to the world touching my beliefe for my painter I must expect should have great skill in perspective of the doctrine of the Trinity the Deity of our Saviour and all supernaturall verities as should endanger all my benefices present or future that this warning was given me not out of feare of what I could say for that Catholiques if they might wish any ill would beg the Publication of my booke for respects obvious enough but out of a meer charitable desire of my good and reputation and that all this was said upon a supposition that I was answering or had a minde to answer Charity maintained If not no harme was done To which coââââus premonition as I remember I desired
speak of him vz. That he hath not so much as once truly and really fallen upon the point in question being a most unjust and immodest imputation 2 For first the point in question was not that which you pretend Whether both Papists and Protestants can be saved in their severall Professions But Whether you may without uncharitablenesse affirme that Protestancy unrepented destroyes Salvation And that this is the very question is most apparent and unquestionable both from the title of Charity Mistaken and from the Arguments of the three first Chapters of it and from the title of your own Reply And therefore if D. Potter had joyned issue with his Adversary only thus farre and not medling at all with Papists but leaving them to stand or fall to their own master had prou'd Protestants living and dying so capable of Salvation I cannot see how it could justly be charged upon him that he had not once truly and really fallen upon the point in Question Neither may it be said that your Question here and mine are in effect the same seeing it is very possible that the true Answere to the one might have been Affirmative and to the other Negative For there is no incongruity but it may be true That You and We cannot both be saved And yet as true That without uncharitablenesse you cannot pronounce us damned For all ungrounded and unwarrantable sentencing mento damnation is either in a propriety of speech uncharitable or else which for my purpose is all one it is that which Protestants mean when they say Papists for damning them are uncharitable And therefore though the Author of C. M. had prov'd as strongly as he hath done weakly that one Heaven could not receive Protestants and Papists both yet certainly it was very hastily and unwarrantably therefore uncharitably concluded that Protestants were the part that was to be excluded As though Iewes and Christians cannot both be saved yet a Iew cannot justly and therefore not charitably pronounce a Christian damned 3 But then secondly to shew your dealing with him very injurious I say he doth speak to this very Question very largely and very effectually as by confronting his worke and Charity Mist. together will presently appear Charity M. proves you say in generall That there is but one Church D. Potter tels him His labour is lost in proving the unity of the Catholique Church whereof there is no doubt or controversy herein I hope you will grant he answeres right to the purpose C. M. proves you say secondly That all Christians are obliged to harken to the Church D. Potter answeres It is true yet not absolutely in all things but only when she commands those things which God doth not countermand And this also I hope is to his purpose though not to yours C. M. proves you say thirdly That the Church must be ever visible and infallible For her Visibility D. Potter denyes it not and as for her Infallibility he grants it in Fundamentalls but not in Superstructures C. M. proves you say fourthly That to separate ones selfe from the Churches Communion is schisme D. Potter grants it with this exception unlesse there be necessary cause to doe so unlesse the conditions of her Communion be apparently unlawfull C. M. proves you say lastly That to dissent from her doctrine is heresy though it be in points never so few and never so small and therefore that the distinction of points fundamentall and unfundamentall as it is applyed by Protestants is wholy vaine This D. Potter denyes shewes the Reasons brought for it weak and unconcluding proves the contrary by reasons unanswerable and therefore that The distinction of points into fundamentall and not fundamentall as it is applied by Protestants is very good Vpon these grounds you say C. M. cleerely evinces That any least difference in faith cannot stand with salvation and therefore seeing Catholiques and Protestants disagree in very many points of faith they both cannot hope to be saved without Repentance you must mean without an explicit and particular repentance and dereliction of their errors for so C. M. hath declared himselfe p. 14. where he hath these words We may safely say that a man who lives in Protestancy and who is so farre from Repenting it as that he will not so much as acknowledge it to be a sinne though he be sufficiently enform'd thereof c. From whence it is evident that in his judgement there can be no repentance of an errour without acknowledging it to be a sinne And to this D. Potter justly opposes That both sides by the confession of both sides agree in more points then are simply and indispensably necessary to Salvation and differ only in such as are not precisely necessary That it is very possible a man may dye in errour and yet dye with Repentance as for all his sinnes of ignorance so in that number for the errours in which he dies with a repentance though not explicite and particular which is not simply required yet implicite and generall which is sufficient so that he cannot but hope considering the goodnesse of God that the truth 's retained on both sides especially those of the necessity of repentance from dead workes and faith in Iesus Christ if they be put in practise may be an antidote against the errors held on either side to such he meanes saies as being diligent in seeking truth and desirous to find it yet misse of it through humane frailty and dye in errour If you will but attentively consider compare the undertaking of C. M. and D. Potters performance in all these points I hope you will be so ingenuous as to acknowledge that you have injurd him much in imputing tergiversation to him and pretending that through his whole book he hath not once truly and really fallen upon the point in Question Neither may you or C. M. conclude him from hence as covertly you doe An enemy to soules by deceiving them with ungrounded false hopes of Salvation seeing the hope of salvation cannot be ungrounded which requires and supposes beliefe and practise of all things absolutely necessary unto salvation and repentance of those sinnes and errours which we fall into by humane frailty Nor a friend to indifferency in Religions seeing he gives them only hope of pardon of Errors who are desirous and according to the proportion of their opportunities and abilities industrious to find the truth or at least truly repentant that they have not been so Which doctrine is very fit to excite men to a constant and impartiall search of truth and very farre from teaching them that it is indifferent what Religion they are of and without all controversy very honourable to the goodnesse of God with which how it can consist not to be satisfied with his servants true endeavours to know his will and doe it without full and exact performance I leave it to you and all good men to judge 4 As little Iustice me thinkes
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
Churches of Asia for differing from him about Easter day And yet I beleiue you will confesse that God had not then declared himselfe about Easter nor hath now about Christmasse Anciently some good Catholique Bishops excommunicated and damned others for holding there were Antipodes and in this question I would faine know on which side was the sufficient proposall The contra-Remonstrants differ from the Remonstrants about the point of predetermination as a matter of faith I would knowe in this thing also which way God hath declar'd himselfe whether for Predetermination or against it Stephen Bishop of Rome held it as a matter of faith Apostolique tradition That Heretiques gaue true Baptisme Others there were and they as good Catholiques as hee that held that this was neither matter of Faith nor matter of Truth Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus held the doctrine of the Millenaries as a matter of faith and though Iustin Martyr deny it yet you I hope will affirme that some good Christians held the contrary St Augustine I am sure held the communicating of Infants as much Apostolique tradition as the Baptising of them whether the Bishop and the Church of Rome of his time held so too or held otherwise I desire you to determine But sure I am the Church of Rome at this present holds the contrary The same S. Austin held it no matter of faith that the Bishops of Rome were Iudges of Appeales from all parts of the Church Catholique no not in Major causes and Major Persons whether the Bishop or Church of Rome did then hold the contrary doe you resolve me but now I am resolv'd they doe so In all these differences the point in question is esteem'd and propos'd by one side at least as a matter of faith and by the other rejected as not so and either this is to disagree in matters of faith or you will have no meanes to shew that we doe disagree Now then to shew you how weak and sandy the foundation is on which the whole fabrick both of your Book and Church depends answer mee briefly to this Dilemma Eyther in these oppositions one of the opposite Parts err'd damnably and denyed Gods truth sufficiently propounded or they did not If they did then they which doe deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded may goe to heaven and then you are rash and uncharitable in excluding us though we were guilty of this fault If not then there is no such necessity that of two disagreeing about a matter of faith one should deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded And so the Major and Minor of your Argument are prov'd false Yet though they were as true as Gospell and as evident as Mathematicall Principles the conclusion so impertinent is it to the Premises might still be false For that which naturally issues from these propositions is not Therefore one only can be saved But Therefore one of them does something that is damnable But with what Logick or what Charity you can inferre either as the immediat production of the former premises or as a Corollary from this conclusion Therefore one only can be saved I doe not understand unlesse you will pretend that this consequence is good such a one doth something damnable therefore he shall certainly be damned which whether it be not to overthrow the Article of our Faith which promises remission of sinnes upon repentance and consequently to ruine the Gospell of Christ I leave it to the Pope and the Cardinalls to determine For if against this it be alleadged that no man can repent of the sinne wherein he dies This muche I have already stopped by shewing that if it be a sinne of Ignorance this is no way incongruous 11 To the fourth You proceed in sleighting and disgracing your Adversary Pretending his objections are mean and vulgar and such as have been answered a thousand times But if your cause were good these Arts would be needlesse For though some of his objections have been often shifted by men that make a profession of devising shifts and evasions to save themselves and their Religion from the pressure of truth by men that are resolv'd they will say something though they can say nothing to purpose yet I doubt not to make it appear that neither by others have they beene truly and really satisfied and that the best Answere you give them is to call them Mean and vulgar objections 12 To the Fift But this paines might have been spared For the substance of his discourse is in a Sermon of D. Vshers and confuted four yeares agoe by Paulus Veridicus It seemes then the substance of your Reply is in Paulus Veridicus and so your paines also might well have been spared But had there been no necessity to help and peece out your confuting his Arguments with disgracing his person which yet you cannot doe you would have considered that to them who compare D. Potters Book the Arch-Bishops Sermon this aspersion will presently appear a poore detraction not to be answered but scorn'd To say nothing that in D. Potter being to answere a book by expresse Command from Royall Authority to leave any thing materiall unsaid because it had been said before especially being spoken at large and without any relation to the Discourse which he was to Answere had been a ridiculous vanity and foule prevarication 13 To the sixt In your sixt parag I let all passe saving only this That a perswasion that men of different Religions you must mean or else you speak not to the point Christians of divers Opinions and Communions may be saved is a most pernitious heresy and even a ground of Atheisme What strange extractions Chymistry can make I know not but sure I am he that by reason would inferre this conclusion That there is no God from this ground That God will save men in different Religions must have a higher strain in Logick then you or I have hitherto made shew of In my apprehension the other part of the contradiction That there is a God should much rather follow from it And whether contradictions will flow from the same fountaine let the Learned judge Perhaps you will say you intended not to deliver here a positive and measur'd truth and which you expected to be call'd to account for but only a high and tragicall expression of your just detestation of the wicked doctrine against which you write If you mean so I shall let it passe only I am to advertize the lesse-wary Reader that passionate expressions and vehement asseverations are no arguments unlesse it be of the weaknesse of the cause that is defended by them or the man that defends it And to remember you of what Boethius saies of some such things as these Nubila mens est haec ubi regnant For my part I am not now in Passion neither will I speak one word which I think I cannot justify to the full and I say and will maintaine that to say That Christians of different Opinions
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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 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
faith necessary to be explicitely believed is not pertinent to free from sinne the voluntary deniall of any other point knowen to be defined by Gods Church And this were sufficient to overthrow all that D. Potter alleadgeth concerning the Creed though yet by way of Supererogation we will prove that there are divers important matters of Faith which are not mentioned at all in the Creed 14 From the aforesaid maine principle that God hath alwaies had and alwaies will have on earth a Church Visible within whose Communion Salvation must be hoped and infallible whose definitions we ought to believe we will prove that Luther Calvin and all other who continue the division in Communion or Faith from that Visible Church which at and before Luther's appearance was spread over the world cannot be excused from Schisme and Heresy although they opposed her faith but in one only point whereas it is manifest they dissent from her in many and weighty matters concerning as well beliefe as practise 15 To these reasons drawne from the vertue of Faith we will adde one other taken from Charitas propria the Vertue of Charity as it obligeth us not to expose our soule to hazard of perdition when we can put ourselves in a way much more secure as we will prove that of the Roman Catholiques to be 16 We are then to prove these points First that the infallible means to determine controversies in matters of faith is the visible Church of Christ. Secondly that the distinction of points fundamentall and not fundamentall maketh nothing to our present Question Thirdly that to say the Creed containes all fundamentall points of faith is neither pertinent nor true Fourthly that both Luther and all they who after him persist in division from the Communion and Faith of the Roman Church cannot be excused from Schisme Fiftly nor from Heresy Sixtly and lastly that in regard of the precept of Charity towards ones selfe Protestants be in state of sinne as long as they remaine divided from the Roman Church And these six points shall be severall Arguments for so many ensuing Chapters 17 Only I will here observe that it seemeth very strange that Protestants should charge us so deeply with Want of Charity for only teaching that both they and we cannot be saved seeing themselves must affirme the like of whosoever opposeth any least point delivered in Scripture which they hold to be the sole Rule of Faith Out of which ground they must be enforced to let all our former Inferences passe for good For is it not a grievous sinne to deny any one truth contained in holy Writ Is there in such deniall any distinction betwixt points fundamentall and not fundamentall sufficient to excuse from heresy Is it not impertinent to alleadge the Creed containing all fundamentall points of faith as if believing it alone we were at liberty to deny all other points of Scripture In a word According to Protestants Oppose not Scripture there is no Errour against faith Oppose it in any least point the error if Scripture be sufficiently proposed which proposition is also required before a man can be obliged to believe even fundamentall points must be damnable What is this but to say with us Of persons contrary in whatsoever point of beliefe one party only can be saved And D. Potter must not take it ill if Catholiques believe they may be saved in that Religion for which they suffer And if by occasion of this doctrine men will still be charging us with Want of Charity and be resolved to take scandall where none is given we must comfort our selves with that grave and true saying of S. Gregory If scandall be taken from declaring a truth it is better to permit scandall then forsake the truth But the solid grounds of our Assertion and the sincerity of our intention in uttering what wee think yield us confidence that all will hold for most reasonable the saying of Pope Gelasius to Anastasius the Emperour Farre âe it from the Roman Emperour that he should hold it for a wrong to have truth declared to him Let us therefore begin with that Point which is the first that can be controverted betwixt Protestants and us for as much as concernes the present Question and is contained in the Argument of the next ensuing Chapter THE ANSWER TO THE FIRST CHAPTER Shewing that the Adversary grants the Former Question and proposeth a New one And that there is no reason why among men of different opinions and Communions one Side only can be sav'd 1. TO the first § Your first onset is very violent D. Potter is charg'd with malice and indiscretion for being uncharitable to you while he is accusing you of uncharitablenesse Verily a great fault and folly if the accusation be just if unjust a great calumnie Let us see then how you make good your charge The effect of your discourse if I mistake not is this D. Potter chargeth the Roman Church with many and great errours judgeth reconciliation betweene her Doctrine and ours impossible and that for them who are convicted in Conscience of her Errors not to forsake her in them or to be reconcil'd unto her is damnable Therefore if Roman Catholiques be convicted in conscience of the Errours of Protestants they may and must judge a reconciliation with them damnable consequently to judge so is no more uncharitable in theÌ then it is in the Doctor to judge as he does All this I grant nor would any Protestant accuse you of want of Charity if you went no further if you judg'd the Religion of Protestants damnable to them only who professe it being convicted in conscience that it is erroneous For if a man judge some act of vertue to be a sinne in him it is a sinne indeed So you have taught us p. 19. So if you be convinc'd or rather to speake properly perswaded in conscience that our Religion is erroneous the profession of it though in it selfe most true to you would be damnable This therefore I subscribe very willingly and withall that if you said no more D. Potter and my selfe should not be to Papists only but even to Protestants as uncharitable as you are For I shall alwaies professe and glory in this uncharitablenesse of judging hypocrisie a damnable sinne Let Hypocrites then and Dissemblers on both sides passe It is not towards them but good Christians not to Protestant Professors but Believers that we require your Charity What think you of those that believe so verily the truth of our Religion that they are resolv'd to die in it and if occasion were to die for it What Charity have you for them What think yee of those that in the dayes of our Fathers laid down their lives for it are you content that they shall be saved or doe you hope they may be so Will you grant that notwithstanding their Errours there is good hope they might die with repentance and if they did so certainly they are
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 âver 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
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 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which wether they be true or false is to the Question disputed wholly impertinent Yet because you shall not complaine of tergiverâation 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
of his may informe you Non enim per alios c. we have received the disposition of our Salvation from no others but from them by whom the Gospell came unto us Which Gospell truly the Apostles first preached and after wards by the will of God delivered in writing to us to be the Pillar and Foundation of our faith Vpon which place Bellarmine's two observations and his acknowledgment ensuing upon them are very considerable and as I conceive as home to my purpose as I would wish them His first Notandum is That in the Christian Doctrine some things are simply necessary for the Salvation of all men as the knowledge of the Articles of the Apostles Creed and besides the knowledg of the ten Commandements and some of the Sacraments Other things not so necessary but that a man may be saved without the explicit knowledge and belief and profession of them His Second Note is That those things which were simply necessary the Apostles were wont to preach to all men But of other things not all to all but somethings to all to wit those things which were profitable for all other things only to Prelats and Priests These things premised he acknowledgeth That all those things were written by the Apostles which are necessary for all and which they were wont openly to preach to all But that other things were not all written And therefore when Irenaeus saies that the Apostles wrot what they Preach in the World it is true saith he and not against Traditions because they preached not to the People all things but only those things which were necessary or profitable for them 145 So that at the most you can inferre from hence but only a suppositive necessity of having an infallible Guide and that grounded upon a false supposition In case we had no Scripture but an absolute necessity hereof and to them who have and believe the Scripture which is your assumption cannot with any colour from hence be concluded but rather the contrary 146 Neither because as He saies it was then easy to receive the Truth from Gods Church then in the Age next after the Apostles Then when all the ancient and Apostolike Churches were at an agreement about the Fundamentalls of Faith Will it therefore follow that now 1600 yeares after when the ancient Churches are divided almost into as many Religions as they are Churches every one being the Church to it selfe and hereticall to all other that it is as easy but extremely difficult or rather impossible to find the Church first independently of the true Doctrine and then to find the truth by the Church 147 As for the last clause of the sentence it will not any whit advantage but rather prejudice your assertion Neither will I seek to avoid the pressure of it by saying that he speaks of small Questions and therefore not of Questions touching things necessary to Salvation which can hardly be called small Questions But I will favour you so farre as to suppose that saying this of small Questions it is probable he would have said it much more of the Great but I will answere that which is most certain and evident and which I am confident you your selfe were you as impudent as I believe you modest would not deny that the ancient Apostolique Churches are not now as they were in Irenaeus's time then they were all at unity about matters of faith which unity was a good assurance that what they so agreed in came from some one common Fountaine and they had no other then of Apostolike Preaching And this is the very ground of Tertullian's so often mistaken Prescription against Heretiques Variasse debuerat Error Ecclesiarum quod autem apud multos unum est non est erratum sed traditum If the Churches had erred they could not but have varied but that which is one among so many came not by Error but Tradition But now the case is altered and the mischiefe is that these ancient Churches are divided among themselves and if we have recourse to them one of them will say this is the way to heaven another that So that now in place of receiving from them certain and cleare truths we must expect nothing but certain and cleare contradictions 148 Neither will the Apostles depositing with the Church all things belonging to truth be any proof that the Church shall certainly keep this depositum entire and syncere without adding to it or taking from it for this whole depositum was committed to every particular Church nay to every particular man which the Apostles converted And yet no man I think will say that there was any certainty that it should be kept whole and inviolate by every man and every Church It is apparent out of Scripture it was committed to Timothy and by him consigned to other faithfull men and yet S. Paul thought it not superfluous earnestly to exhort him to the carefull keeping of it which exhortation you must grant had been vain and superfluous if the not keeping of it had been impossible And therefore though Irenaeus saies The Apostles fully deposited in the Church all truth yet he saies not neither can we inferre from what he saies that the Church should alwaies infallibly keep this depositum entire without the losse of any truth and syncere without the mixture of any falshood 149 Ad § 25. But you proceed and tell us That beside all this the Doctrine of Protestants is destructive of it selfe For either they have certain and Infallible meanes not to erre in interpreting or noâ If not Scripture to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible faith If they have and so cannot erre in interpreting Scripture then they are able with infallibility to heare and determine all controversies of faith and so they may be and are Iudges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own doctrine they constitute another Iudge of Controversies beside Scripture alone And may not we with as much reason substitute Church and Papists instead of Scripture and Protestants and say unto you Besides all this the doctrine of Papists is destructive of it selfe For either they have certain and infallible meanes not to erre in the choice of the Church and interpreting her decrees or they have not If not then the Church to them cannot be a sufficient but meerely a phantasticall ground for infallible faith nor a meet Iudge of Controversies For unlesse I be infallibly sure that the Church is Infallible how can I be upon her Authority infallibly sure that any thing she saies is Infallible If they have certain infallible meanes and so cannot erre in the choice of their Church and in interpreting her decrees then they are able with Infallibility to heare examine and determine all controversies of faith although they pretend to make the Church their Guide And thus against their own Doctrine they constitute another Iudge of controversies besides the Church alone Nay
Tradition Now nothing but Scripture hath thus descended to us Therefore nothing but Scripture can challenge our beliefe Now then to come up closer to you and to answer to your Question not as you put it but as you should haue put it I say That this position Scripture alone is the rule whereby they which belieue it to be Gods Word are to judge all Controversies in Faith is no fundameÌtall point Though not for your Reasons For your first and strongest reason you see is plainly voided and cut off by my stating of the Question as I haue done and supposing in it that the parties at variance are agreed about this That the Scripture is the word of God and consequently that this is none of their Controversies To your second That Controversies cannot be ended without some living Authority We haue said already that necessary Controversies may be are decided And if they be not ended this is not through defect of the Rule but through the default of Men. And for these that cannot thus be ended it is not necessary they should be ended For if God did require the ending of them he would have provided some certain meanes for the ending of them And to your Third I say that your pretence of using these meanes is but hypocriticall for you use them with prejudice and with a setled resolution not to believe any thing which these meanes happily may suggest into you if it any way crosse your pre-conceav'd persuasion of your Churches infallibility You give not your selves liberty of judgement in the use of them nor suffer your selves to bee led by them to the Truth to which they would lead you would you but be as willing to believe this consequence Our Church doth oppose Scripture therefore it doth erre therefore it is not Infallible as you are resolute to believe this The Church is infallible therefore it doth not erre and therefore it doth not oppose Scripture though it seem to doe so never so plainly 157 You pray but it is not that God would bring you to the true Religion but that he would confirm you in your own You conferre places but it is that you may confirm or colour over with plausible disguises your erroneous doctrine not that you may judge of them forsake them if there be reason for it You consult the Originalls but you regard them not when they make against your Doctrine or Translation 158 You adde not only the Authority but the Infallibility not of Gods Church but of the Roman a very corrupt and degenerous part of it whereof D. Potter never confessed that it cannot erre damnably And which being a company made up of particular men can afford you no help but the industry learning and wit of private men and that these helps may not help you out of your errour tell you that you must make use of none of all these to discover any errour in the Church but only to maintaine her impossibility or erring And lastly D. Potter assures himselfe that your Doctrine and practises are damnable enough in themselves Only he hopes and spes est rei incertae nomen he hopes I say that the Truths which you retain especially the necessity of repentance and faith in Christ will bee as an antidote to you against the errours which you maintain and that your superstructions may burne yet they amongst you Qui sequun tur Absalonem in simplicitate cor dis may be saved yet so as by fire Yet his thinking so is no reason for you or me to think so unlesse you suppose him infallible and if you doe why doe you write against him 159 Notwithstanding though not for these reasons yet for others I conceive this Doctrine not Fundamentall Because if a man should believe Christian Religion wholly and entirely and live according to it such a man though he should not know or not believe the Scripture to be a Rule of Faith no nor to be the word of God my opinion is he may be saved and my reason is because he performes the entire condition of the new Covenant which is that we believe the matter of the Gospell and not that it is contained in these or these Bookes So that the Bookes of Scripture are not so much the objects of our faith as the instruments of conveying it to our understanding and not so much of the being of the Christian Doctrine as requisite to the well being of it Irenaeus tels us as M. K. acknowledgeth of some barbarous Nations that believed the Doctrine of Christ and yet believed not the Scripture to be the word of God for they never heard of it and Faith comes by hearing But these barbarous people might be saved therefore men might be saved without believing the Scripture to be the word of God much more without believing it to be a Rule and a perfect Rule of Faith Neither doubt I but if the bookes of Scripture had been proposed to them by the other parts of the Church where they had been before received and had been doubted of or even rejected by those barbarous nations but still by the bare beliefe and practise of Christianity they might be saved God requiring of us under pain of damnation only to believe the verities therein contained and not the divine Authority of the bookes wherein they are contained Not but that it were now very strange and unreasonable if a man should belieue the matter of these bookes and not the Authority of the bookes and therefore if a man should professe the not believing of these I should have reason to fear he did not believe that But there is not alwaies an equall necessity for the belief of those things for the belief whereof there is an equall reason We have I believe as great reason to believe there was such a man as Henry the eight K. of England as that Iesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilaââ yet this is necessary to be believed and that is not so So that if any man should doubt of or disbelieve that it were most unreasonably done of of him yet it were no mortall sinne nor no sinne at all God having no where commanded men under pain of damnation to believe all which reason induceth them to believe Therefore as an Executor that should performe the whole will of the dead should fully satisfy the Law though he did not believe that Parchment to be his written Will which indeed is so So I believe that he who believes all the particular doctrines which integrate Christianity and lives according to them should be saved though he neither believed nor knew that the Gospels were written by the Evangelists or the Epistles by the Apostles 160 This discourse whether it be rationall and concluding or no I submit to better judgement But sure I am that the corollary which you draw from this position that this point is not Fundamentaâ is very inconsequent that is that we are uncertain of the truth
damnable if the contrary truth be sufficiently propounded as revealed by God Therefore all errors are alike for the generall effect of damnation if the difference arise not from the manner of being propounded And what now is become of their distinction 5 I will therefore conclude with this Argument According to all Philosophy and Divinity the Vnity and distinction of every thing followeth the Nature and Essence thereof and therefore if the Nature and being of faith be not taken from the matter which a man believes but from the motive for which he believes which is Gods word or Revelation we must likewise affirme that the Vnity and Diversity of faith must be measured by Gods revelation which is alike for all objects and not by the smalnesse or greatnesse of the matter which we believe Now that the nature of faith is not taken from the greatnesse or smalnesse of the things believed is manifest because otherwise one who believes only fundamentall points and another who together with them doth also believe points not fundamentall should have faith of different natures yea there should be as many differences of faith as there are different points which men believe according to different capacities or instruction c. all which consequences are absurd and therefore we must say that Vnity in Faith doth not depend upon points fundamentall or not fundamentall but upon Gods revelation equally or unequally proposed and Protestants pretending an Vnity only by reason of their agreement in fundamentall points doe indeed induce as great a multiplicity of faith as there is multitude of different objects which are believed by them and since they disagree in things Equally revealed by Almighty God it is evident that they forsake the very Formall motive of faith which is Gods revelanon and consequently loose all Faith and Vnity therein 6 The first part of the Title of this Chapter That the distinction of points fundamentall and not fundamentall in the sense of Protestants is both impertinent and untrue being demonstrated let us now come to the second That the Church is infallible in all her definitions whether they concerne points fundamentall or not fundamentall And this I prove by these reasons 7 It hath been shewed in the precedent Chapter that the Church is Iudge of Controversies which she could not be if she could erre in any one point as Doctor Potter would not deny if he were once perswaded that she is Iudge Because if the could erre in some points we could not rely upon her Authority and Iudgment in any one thing 8 This same is proved by the reason we alleadged before that seeing the Church was infallible in all her definitions ere Scripture was written unlesse we will take away all certainty of faith for that time we cannot with any shew of reason affirme that shee hath been deprived thereof by the adjoyned confort and helpe of sacred writ 9 Moreover to say that the Catholique Church may propose any false doctrine maketh her lyable to damnable sinne and error and yet D. Potter teacheth that the Church cannot erre damnably For if in that kind of Oath which Divines call Assertorium wherein God is called to witnesse every falshood is a deadly sinne in any private person whatsoever although the thing be of it selfe neither materiall nor prejudiciall to any because the quantity or greatnesse of that sinne is not measured so much by the thing which is affirmed as by the manner and authority whereby it is avouched and by the injury that is offered to Almighty God in applying his testimony to a falshood in which respect it is the unanimous consent of all Divines that in such kind of Oathes no levitas materiae that is smallnes of matter can excuse from a morall sacriledge against the morall vertue of Religion which respects worship due to God If I say every least falshood be deadly sinne in the foresaid kind of Oath much more pernicious a sinne must it be in the publique person of the Catholique Church to propound untrue Articles of faith thereby fastning Gods prime Verity to falshood and inducing and obliging the world to doe the same Besides according to teh doctrine of all Divines it is not only injurious to Gods Eternall Verity to disbelieve things by him revealed but also to propose as revealed truths things not revealed as in common wealths it is a haynous offence to coyne either by counterfeiting the metall or the stamp or to apply the Kings seale to a writing counterfeit although the contents were supposed to be true And whereas to shew the detestable sinne of such pernitious fictions the Church doth most exemplarly punish all broachers of fained revelations visions miracles prophecies c. as in particular appeareth in the Councell of Lateran excommunicating such persons if the Church her selfe could propose false revelations she herselfe should have been the first chiefest deserver to have been censured and as it were excommunicated by herselfe For as the holy Ghost saith in Iob doth God need your lye that for him you may speak deceipts And that of the Apocalyps is most truly verified in fictitious revelations If any shall adde to these things God will adde unto him the plagues which are written in this book and D. Potter saith to adde to it speaking of the Creed is high presumption almost as great as to detract from it And therefore to say the Church may addefalse Revelations is to accuse her of high presumption and of pernitious errour excluding salvation 10 Perhaps some will here reply that although the Church may erre yet it is not imputed to her for sinne by reason shee doth not erre upon malice or wittingly but by ignorance or mistake 11 But it is easily demonstrated that this excuse cannot serve For if the Church be assisted only for points fundamentall she cannot but know that she may erre in points not fundamentall at least she cannot be certain that she cannot erre and therefore cannot be excused from headlong and pernitious temerity in proposing points not fundamentall to be believed by Christians as matters of faith wherein she can have no certainty yea which alwaies imply a falshood For although the thing might chance to be true and perhaps also revealed yet for the matter she for her part doth alwaies expose her selfe to danger of falshood and error and in fact doth alwaies erre in the âanner in which she doth propound any matter not fundamentall because shee proposeth it as a point of faith certainly true which yet is alwaies uncertain if she in such things may be deceived 12 Besides if the Church may erre in points not fundamentall she may erre in proposing some Scripture for Canonicall which is not such or else not erre in keeping and conserving from corruptions such Scriptures as are already believed to be Canonicall For I will suppose that in such Apocryphaââ Scripture as she delivers there is no fundamentall error against faith or
because it is written The Priests lips shall preserve knowledg The Scribes and Pharises sit in Moses chaire c. To any Preacher of the Gospell to any Pastor or Doctor for to every one of them Christ hath promised he will be with them alwaies even to the end of the world of every one of them it is said He that heareth you heareth me c. To any Bishop or Prelate for it is written Obey your Prelates and againe he hath given Pastors and Doctors c. least we should be carried about with every wind of doctrine To any particular Church of Christians seeing it is a particular Church which is called The house of God a Pillar ground of Truth and seeing of any Particular Church it is written He that heareth not the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen or a Publicâd We might referre it to any man that prayes for Gods spirit for it is written Every one that asketh receiveth and again If any man want wisdome let him aske of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not Lastly we might referre it to the Iewes for without all doubt of them it is written my spirit that is in thee c. All these meanes of agreement whereof not any one but hath as much probability from Scripture as that which you obtrude upon us offer themselves upon a suddain to me happily many more might be thought on if we had time but these are enough to shew that would we make use of voluntary and devised meanes to determine differences we had them in great abundance And if you say these would faile us and contradict themselves so as we pretend have yours There have been Popes against Popes Councells against Councells Councells confirmed by Popes against Councells confirmed by Popes Lastly the Church of some Ages against the Church of other Ages 9 Lastly whereas you find fault That Protestants upbraided with their discords answer that they differ only in points not Fundamentall I desire you tell me whether they doe so or doe not so If they doe so I hope you will not find fault with the Answer If you say they doe not so but in points Fundamentall also then they are not members of the same Church one with another no more then with you And therefore why should you object to any of them their differences from each other any more then to your selves their more and greater differences from you 10 But they are convinc'd sometimes even by their own confessions that the Ancient Fathers taught divers points of Popery and then they reply those Fathers may neverthelesse be saved because those errors were not Fundamentall And may not you also be convinc'd by the confessions of your own men that the Fathers taught divers points held by Protestants against the Church of Rome and divers against Protestants and the Church of Rome Doe not your Purging Indexes clip the tongues and seal up the lips of a great many for such confessions And is not the above cited confession of your Doway Divines plain and full to the same purpose And doe not you also as freely as we charge the Fathers with errors yet say they were saved Now what else doe we understand by an unfundamentall error but such a one with which a man may possibly be saved So that still you proceed in condemning others for your own faults and urging arguments against us which returne more strongly upon your selves 11 But your will is we should remember that Christ must alwaies have a visible Church Ans. Your pleasure shall be obeyed on condition you will not forget that there is a difference between perpetuall Visibility and perpetuall Purity As for the answere which you make for us true it is we believe the Catholique Church cannot perish yet that she may and did erre in points not Fundamentall and that Protestants were oblig'd to forsake these errors of the Church as they did though not the Church for her errors for that they did not but continued still members of the Church For it is not all one though you perpetually confound them to forsake the errors of the Church and to forsake the Church or to forsake the Church in her Errors and simply to forsake the Church No more then it is for me to renounce my Brothers or my Friends Vices or Errors and to renounce my Brother or my Friend The Former then was done by Protestants the latter was not done Nay not only not from the Catholique but not so much as from the Roman did they seperate per omnia but only in those practises which they conceived superstitious or impious If you would at this time propose a forme of Liturgy which both Sides hold lawfull and then they would not joyne with you in this Liturgy you might have some colour then to say they renounce your communion absolutely But as things are now ordered they cannot joyne with you in prayers but they must partake with you in unlawfull practises and for this reason they not absolutely but thus farre separate from your communion And this I say they were obliged to doe under pain of damnation Not as if it were damnable to hold an error not damnable but because it is damnable outwardly to professe maintaine it and to joyn with others in the practise of it when inwardly they did not hold it Now had they continued in your communion that they must have done vid. have professed to believe and externally practis'd your Errors whereof they were convinced that they were Errors which though the matters of the Errors had been not necessary but only profitable whether it had not been damnable dissimulation and hypocrisy I leave it to you to judge You your selfe tell us within two pages after this that you are obliged never to speak any one least lye against your knowledge § 2. now what is this but to live in a perpetuall lye 12 As for that which in the next place you seeme so to wonder at That both Catholiques and Protestants according to the opinion of Protestants may bee saved in their severall professions because forsooth we both agree in all Fundamentall points I Anwere this proposition so crudely set down as you have here set it down I know no Protestant will justify For you seeme to make them teach that it is an indifferent thing for the attainment of salvation whether a man believe the Truth or the Falshood and that they care not in whether of these Religions a man live or dye so he dye in either of them whereas all that they say is this That those amongst you which want meanes to find the Truth and so dye in error or use the best meanes they can with industry and without partiality to find the truth and yet dye in error these men thus qualified notwithstanding these errors may be saved Secondly for those that have meanes to find the
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 Atteâtation 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 wâerewith 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
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
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
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 ân 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 saiââ 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
left them is and hath been the only fountaine of all the Schismes of the Church and that which makes them continue the common incendiary of Christendome and that which as I said before teares into pieces not the coat but the bowels and members of Christ Ridente Turcâ nec dolente Iudaeâ Take away these Wals of separation and all will quickly be one Take away this Persecuting Burning Cursing Damning of men for not subscribing to the words of men as the words of God Require of Christians only to believe Christ and to call no man master but him only Let those leave claiming Infallibility that have no title to it and let them that in their words disclaime it disclaime it likewise in their actions In a word take away tyranny which is the Divels instrument to support errours and superstitions and impieties in the severall parts of the world which could not otherwise long withstand the power of Truth I say take away tyranny and restore Christians to their just and full liberty of captivating their understanding to Scripture only and as Rivers when they have a free passage runne all to the Ocean so it may well be hoped by Gods blessing that Vniversall Liberty thus moderated may quickly reduce Christendome to Truth and Vnitie These thoughts of peace I am perswaded may come from the God of peace and to his blessing I commend them and proceed 18 Your fift and last obiection stands upon a false and dangerous supposition That new Heresies may arise For an Heresie being in it selfe nothing else but a Doctrine Repugnant to some Article of the Christian Faith to say that new Heresies may arise is to say that new Articles of Faith may arise and so some great ones among you stick not to professe in plaine tearmes who yet at the same time are not ashamed to pretend that your whole Doctrine is Catholique and Apostolique So Salmeron Non omnibus omnia dedit Deus ut quaelibetaetas suis gaudeat veritatibus quas prior aetas ignoravit God hath not given all things to All So that every age hath its proper verities which the former age was ignorant of Disp. 57. In Ep. ad Rom And againe in the Margent Habet Vnumquodque saeculum peculiares revelationes divinas Every age hath its peculiar Divine Revelations Where that he speaks of such Revelations as are or may by the Church be made matters of Faith no man can doubt that reads him an example whereof he gives us a little before in these words Vnius Augustini doctrina Assumptionis B. Deiparae cultum in Ecclesiam introduxit The Doctrine of Augustine only hath brought in to the Church the Worship of the Assumption of the Mother of God c. Others againe mince and palliate the matter with this pretence that your Church undertakes not to coyne new Articles of faith but only to declare those that want sufficient declaration But if sufficient declaration be necessary to make any doctrine an Article of Faith then this doctrine which before wanted it was not before an Article of faith and your Church by giving it the Essentiall forme and last complement of an Article of faith makes it though not a Truth yet certainly an Article of faith But I would faine know whether Christ and his Apostles knew this Doctrine which you pretend hath the matter but wants the forme of an Article of faith that is sufficient declaration whether they knew it to be a necessary Article of the faith or no! If they knew it not to be so then either they taught what they knew not which were very strange or else they taught it not and if not I would gladly be informed seeing you pretend to no new Revelations from whom you learn't it If they knew it then either they conceal'd or declar'd it To say they conceal'd any necessary part of the Gospell is to charge them with farre greater sacriledge then what was punished in Ananias and Saphira It is to charge these glorious Stewards and dispensers of the Mysteries of Christ with want of the great vertue requisite in a Steward which is Fidelity It is to charge them with presumption for denouncing Anathema's even to Angels in case they should teach any other doctrine then what they had received from theÌ which sure could not merit an Anathema if they left any necessary part of the Gospell untaught It is in a word in plaine tearmes to give them the lye seeing they professe plainly and frequently that they taught Christians the whole doctrine of Christ. If they did know and declare it then was it a full and formall Article of faith and the contrary a full and formall Heresie without any need of further declaration and then their Successours either continued the declaration of it or discontinued If they did the latter how are they such faithfull depositaries of Apostolique Doctrine as you pretend Or what assurance can you give us that they might not bring in new and false Articles as well as suffer the old and true ones to be lost If they did continue the declaration of it and deliver it to their Successours and they to theirs and so on perpetually then continued it still a full and formall Article of faith and the repugnant doctrine a full and formall Heresie without and before the definition or declaration of a Councell So that Councells as they cannot make that a truth or falshood which before was not so so neither can they make or declare that to be an Article of Faith or an Heresie which before was not so The supposition therefore on which this argument stands being false and runious whatsoever is built upon it must together with it fall to the ground This explication therefore and restriction of this doctrine whereof you make your advantage was to my understanding unnecessary The Fathers of the Church in after times might have just cause to declare their judgmeÌt touching the sense of some generall Articles of the Creed but to oblige others to receave their declarations under paine of damnation what warrant they had I know not He that can shew either that the Church of all Ages was to have this Authority or that it continued in the Church for some Ages and then expired He that can shew either of these things let him for my part I cannot Yet I willingly confesse the judgment of a Councell though not infallible is yet so farre directive and obliging that without apparent reason to the contrary it may be sinne to reject it at least not to afford it an outward submission for publique peace-sake 19 Ad § 7. 8. 9. Were I not peradventure more fearefull then I need to be of the imputation of tergiversation I might very easily rid my hands of the remainder of this Chapter For in the Question there discussed you grant for ought I see as much as D. Potter desires and D. Potter grants as much as you desire and therefore that I should
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
not deny I presume that S. Peter preached all therefore you must not deny that S. Marke wrote all 42 Our next inquiry let it be touching S. Iohns intent in writing his Gospell whether it were to deliver so much truth as being believed and obeyed would certainly bring men to eternall life or only part of it and to leave part unwritten A great man there is but much lesse then the Apostle who saith that writing last he purposed to supply the defects of the other Evangelists that had wrote before him which if it were true would sufficiently justify what I have undertaken that at least all the four Evangelists have in them all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ. Neither will I deny but S. Iohns secondary intent might be to supply the defects of the former three Gospels in some things very profitable But he that pretends that any necessary doctrine is in S. Iohn which is in none of the other Evangelists hath not so well considered them as he should doe before he pronounce sentence of so weighty a matter And for his prime intent in writing his Gospell what that was certainly no Father in the world understood it better then himselfe Therefore let us hear him speak Many other signes saith he also did Iesus in the sight of his Disciples which are not written in this Book But these are written that you may believe that Iesus is Christ the sonne of God and that believing you may have life in his name By these are written may be understood either these things are written or these signes are written Take it which way you will this conclusion will certainly follow That either all that which S. Iohn wrote in his Gospell or lesse then all and therefore all much more was sufficient to make them believe that which being believed with lively faith would certainly bring them to eternall life 43 This which hath been spoken I hope is enough to justify my undertaking to the full that it is very probable that every one of the foure Evangelists has in his book the whole substance all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ. But for S. Luke that he hath written such a perfect Gospell in my judgement it ought to be with them that believe him no manner of question Consider first the introduction to his Gospell where he declares what he intends to write in these words For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us even as they delivered unto us which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of things from the first to write to thee in order most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed Adde to this place the entraÌce to his History of the Acts of the Apostles The former treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Iesus began both to doe and teach untill the day in which he was taken up Weigh well these two places and then answer me freely and ingenuously to these demands 1. Whether S. Luke does not undertake the very same thing which he saies many had taken in hand 2. Whether this were not to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst Christians 3. Whether the whole Gospell of Christ and every necessary doctrine of it were not surely believed among Christians 4. Whether they which were Eye-witnesses and ministers of the word from the begining delivered not the whole Gospell of Christ 5. Whether he does not undertake to write in order these things whereof he had perfect understanding from the first 6. Whether he had not perfect understanding of the whole Gospell of Christ 7. Whether he doth not undertake to write to Theophilus of all those things wherein he had been instructed 8. And whether he had not been instructed in all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ 9. Whether in the other Text All things which Iesus began to doe and teach must not at least imply all the Principall and necessary things 10. Whether this be not the very interpretation of your Rhemish Doctors in their Annotation upon this place 11. Whether all these Articles of the Christian faith without the belief whereof no man can be saved be not the Principall and most necessary things which Iesus taught 12. And lastly whether many things which S. Luke has wrote in his Gospell be not lesse principall and lesse necessary then all and every one of these When you have well considered these proposalls I believe you will be very apt to think if S. Luke be of credit with you That all things necessary to salvation are certainly contained in his writings alone And from hence you will not choose but conclude that seeing all the Christians in the world agree in the belief of what S. Luke hath written and not only so but in all other Books of Canonicall Scripture which were never doubted of in and by the Church the Learned Arch-Bishop had very just and certain ground to say That in these PropositioÌs which without Controversy are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting Salvation and that we have no cause to doubt but that as many as walk according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable Heresy thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and upon the Israel of God 44 Against this you object two things The one that by this Rule seeing the Doctrine of the Trinity is not received universally among Christians the deniall of it shall not exclude Salvation The other that the Bishop contradicts himselfe in supposing a man may belieue all necessary Truths and yet superinduce some damnable Heresies 45 To the first I answere what I conceive he would whose words I here justify that he hath declared plainly in this very place that he meant not an absolute but a limited Vniversality and speaks not of propositions universally believed by all Professions of Christianity that are but only by all those severall Professions of Christiany that have any large spread in any part of the world By which words he excludes from the universality here spoken of the denyers of the Doctrine of the Trinity as being but a handfull of men in respect of all nay in respect of any of these professions which maintain it And therefore it was a great fault in you either willingly to conceal these words which evacuate your objection or else negligently to oversee them Especially seeing your friend to whom you are so much beholding Paulus Veridicus in his scurrilous and sophisticall Pamphlet against B. Vshers Sermon
be what can it be but curiosity to desire to know it Neither may you think to mend your selfe herein one whit by having recourse to them whom we call Papists for they are as farre to seek as wee in this point which of the Articles of the Creed are for their nature and matter fundamentall and which are not Particularly you will scarce meet with any amongst their Doctors so adventurous as to tell you for a certain whether or no the conception of Christ by the Holy Ghost his being born of a Virgin his Buriall his descent into Hell and the Communion of Saints be points of their own nature and matter fundamentall Such I mean as without the distinct and explicite knowledge of them no man can be saved 63 But you will say at least they give this certain rule that all points defined by Christs visible Church belong to the foundation of faith in such sense as to deny any such cannot stand with Salvation So also Protestants give you this more certain rule That whosoever believes heartily those books of Scripture which all the Christian Churches in the world acknowledge to be Canonicall and submits himselfe indeed to this as to the rule of his belief must of necessity believe all things fundamentall and if he live according to his faith cannot fail of Salvation But besides what certainty have you that that rule of Papists is so certain By the visible Church it is plain they mean only their own and why their own only should be the Visible Church I doe not understand and as little why all points defined by this Church should belong to the foundation of faith These things you had need see well and substantially proved before you rely upon them otherwise you expose your selfe to danger of imbracing damnable errors instead of Fundamentall truth's But you will say D. Potter himselfe acknowledges that we doe not erre in Fundamentalls If he did so yet me thinkes you have no reason to rest upon his acknowledgement with any security whom you condemne of errour in many other matters Perhaps excesse of Charity to your persons may make him censure your errors more favourably then he should doe But the truth is and so I have often told you though the Doctor hope that your errors are not so unpardonably destructive but that some men who ignorantly hold them may be saved yet in themselves he professes and proclaimes them damnable and such as he feares will be certainly destructive to such as you are that is to all those who have eyes to see and will not see them 64 Ad § 20. 21. 22. 23. In the Remainder of this Chapter you promise to answer D. Potters Arguments against that which you said before But presently forgetting your selfe in stead of answering his Arguments you fall a confuting his Answers to your own The arguments objected by you which here you vindicate were two 1. The Scripture is not so much as mentioned in the Creed therefore the Creed containes not all things necessary to be believed 2. Baptisme is not contained in the Creed therefore not all things necessary To both which Arguments my Answer shortly is this that they prove something but it is that which no man here denies For D. Potter as you have also confessed never said not undertook to shew that the Apostles intended to comprize in the Creed all points absolutely which we are bound to believe or after sufficient proposall not to disbelieve which yet here and every where you are obtruding upon him But only that they purposed to comprize in it all such doctrines purely speculative all such matters of simple belief as are in ordinary course necessary to be distinctly and explicitly believed by all men Neither of these objections doe any way infringe or impeach the truth of this Assertion Not the first because according to your own doctrine all men are not bound to know explicitely what books of Scripture are Canonicall Nor the second because Baptisme is not a matter of Faith but practise not so much to be believed as to be given and received And against these Answers whether you have brought any considerable new matter let the indifferent Reader judge As for the other things which D. Potter rather glanceth at then builâs upon in answering these objections as the Creed's being collected out of Scripture and supposing the Authority of it which Gregory of Valentia in the place above cited seemes to me to confesse to have been the Iudgement of the Ancient Fathers and the Nicene Creed's intimating the authority of Canonicall Scripture and making mention of Baptisme These things were said ex abundanti and therefore I conceive it superfluous to examine your exceptions against them Prove that D. Potter did affirme that the Creed containes all things necessary to be believed of all sorts and then these objections will be pertinent and deserve an answer Or produce some point of simple belief necessary to be explicitly believed which is not contained either in termes or by consequence in the Creed and then I will either answer your Reasons or confesse I cannot But all this while you doe but trifle and are so farre from hitting the marke that you rove quite beside the But. 65 Ad § 23. 24. 25. Potterâemands âemands How it can be necessary for any Christian to have more in his Creed then the Apostles had and the Church of their times You Answer That he trifles not distinguishing between the Apostles belief and that abridgement of some Articles of faith which we call the Apostles Creed I reply that it is you which trifle affectedly confounding what D. Potter hath plainly distinguished the Apostles belief of the whole Religion of Christ as it comprehends both what we are to doe and what we are to believe with their belief of that part of it which containes not duties of obedience but only the necessary Articles of siâple âaith Now though the Apostles Beleife be in the former sense a larger thing then that which we call the Apostles Creed yet in the latter sense of the word the Creed I say is a full comprehension of their belief which you your selfe have formerly confessed though somewhat fearfully and inconstantly and here again unwillingnesse to speak the truth makes you speak that which is hardly sense and call it an abridgement of some Articles of Faith For I demand these some Articles which you speak of which are they Those that are out of the Creed or those that are in it Those that are in it it comprehends at large and therefore it is not an abridgement of them Those that are out of it it comprehends not at all and therefore it is not an abridgement of them If you would call it now an abridgement of the Faith this would be sense and signify thus much That all the necessary Articles of the Christian faith are compriz'd in it For this is the proper duty of abridgements to leave out nothing
they cannot lawfully excercise 7. In the judgement of the holy Fathers Schisme is a most grievous offence S. Chrisostome compares these Schismaticall dividers of Christs mysticall body to those who sacrilegiously pietced his naturall body saying Nothing doth so much incense God as that the Church should be divided Although we should do innumerable good works if we divide the full Ecclesiastical Congregation we shall be punished no lesse then they who tore his naturall body For that was done to the gaine of the whole world although not with that intention but this hath no profit at all but there ariseth from it most great harme These things are spoken not only to those who beare office but also to those who are governed by them Behold how neither a morall good life which conceit deceiveth many nor authority of Magistrates nor any necessity of Obeying Superiours can excuse Schisme from being a most haynous offence Optatus Milevitanus cals Schisme Ingeâs stagitium a huge crime And speaking to the Donatists saith that Schisme is evill in the highest degree even you are not able to deny No lesse patheticall is S. Augustine upon this subject He reckons Schismatiques amongst Pagans Heretiques and Iewes saying Religion is to be sought neither in the conâusion of Pagans nor in the filth of Heretiques nor in the languishing of Schismatiques nor in the Age of the Iewes but amongst those alone who are called Christian Catholiques or Orthodox that is lovers of Vnity in the whole body and followers of truth Nay he esteemes them worse then Infidels and Idolaters saying Those whom the Donatists heale from the wound of Infidelity and Idolatry they hurt more grievously with the wound of Schisme Let there those men who are pleased untruely to call us Idolaters reflect upon themselves and consider that this holy Father judgeth Schismatiques as they are to be worse then Idolaters which they absurdly call us And this he proveth by the example of Core and Dathan Abiron and other rebellious Schismatiques of the old Testament who were convayed alive downe into Hell and punished more openly then Idolaters No doubt saith this holy Father but that was committed most wickedly which was punished most severaly In another place he yoaketh Schisme with Heresy saying upon the Eight Beatitude Many Heretiques under the name of Christians deceiving mens soules doe suffer many such things but therefore they are excluded from this reward because it is not only said Happy are they who suffer persecution but there is added for Iustice. But where there is not sound faith there cannot be justice Neither can Schismatiques promise to themselves any part of this reward because likewise where there is no Charity there cannot be justice And in another place yet more effectually he saith Being out of the Church and divided from the heape of Vnity and the bond of Charity thou shouldest be punished with eternall death though thou shouldest he burned alive for the name of Christ. And in another place he hath these words If he heare not the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen or Publican which is more grievous then if he were smitten with the sword consumed with flames or cast to wild beasts And else where Out of the Catholique Church saith he one may have Faith Sacraments Orders and in summe all things except Salvation With S. Augustine his Countreyman and second selfe in sympathy of spirit S. Fulgentius agreeth saying Believe this stedfastly without doubting that every Heretique or Schismatique baptized in the name of the Father the Sonne and the Holy Ghost if before the end of his life he be not reconciled to the Catholique Church what Almes soever he give yea though he should shed his bloud for the name of Christ he cannot obtaine Salvation Marke againe how no morall honesty of life no good deeds no Martyrdome can without repentance availe any schismatique for salvation Let us also adde that D. Potter saith Schisme is no lesse damnable then Heresy 8. But ô you Holy Learned Zealous Fathers and Doctours of Gods Church out of these premises of the grievousnesse of schisme and of the certain damnation which it bringeth if unrepented what conclusion draw you for the instruction of Christians S. Augustine maketh this wholesome inference There is no iust necessity to divide Vnity S. Irenaeus concludeth They cannot make any so important reformation as the evill of the Schisme is pernicious S. Denis of Alexandria saith Certainly all things should rather be indured then to consent to the division of the Church of God those Martyrs being no lesse glorious that expose themselves to hinder the dismembring of the Church then those that suffer rather then they will offer sacrifice to Idols Would to God all those who divided themselves from that visible Church of Christ which was upon earth when Luther appeared would rightly consider of these things and thâs much of the second Point 9 We have just and necessary occasion eternally to blesse almighty God who hath vouchsafed to make us members of the Catholique Romaâ Church from which while men fall they precipitate themselves into so vast absurdities or rather sacrilegious blasphemies as is implyed in the doctrine of the totall deficiency of the visible Church which yet is maintained by divers chief Protestants as may at large be seen in Brerely and others out of whom I will here name Iewell saying The truth was unknown at that time and unheard of when Martin Luther and Vlderick Zuinglius first came unto the knowledge and preaching of the Gospell Perkins saith We say that before the daies of Luther for the space of many hundred yeares an universall Apostacy overspread the whole face of the earth and that our Protestant Church was not then visible to the world Napper upon the Revelations teacheth that from the yeare of Christ three hundred and sixteen the Antichristian and Papisticall raigne hath begun raigning universally and without any debatable contradiction one thousand two hundred sixty yeares that is till Luthers time And that from the yeare of Christ three hundred and sixteen God hath withdrawn his visible Church from open Assemblies to the hearts of particular godly men c. during the space of one thousand two hundred three score yeares And that the Pope and Clergy have possessed the outward visible Church of Christians even one thousand two hundred three score yeares And that the true Church abode latent and invisible And Brocard upon the Revelations professeth to joyne in opinion with Napper Fulke affirmeth that in the time of Boniface the third which was the year 607. the Church was invisible and fled into the wildernesse there to remain a long season Luther saith Priââ solus eram At the first I was alone Iacob Hailâronerus one of the Disputants for the Protestant Party in the conference at Ratisbone affirmeth that
From the selfe same ground of the infallibility of the Church in all fundamentall points I argue after this manner The visible Church cannot be forsaken without damnation upon pretence that it is damnable to remain in her Communion by reason of corruption in doctrine as long as for the truth of her Faith and beliefe she performeth the duty which she dweth to God and her Neighbour As long as she performeth what our Saviour exacts at her hands as long as she doth as much as lies in her power to doe But even according to D. Potters Assertions the Church performeth all these things as long as she erreth not in points fundamentall although she were supposed to erre in other points not fundamentall Therefore the Communion of the visible Church cannot be forsaken without damnation upon pretence that it is damnable to remain in her Communion by reason of corruption in doctrine The Major or first Proposition of it selfe is evident The Minor or second Proposition doâh necessarily follow out of D. Potters own doctrine above-rehearsed that the promises of our Lord made to his Church for his assistance are to be extended only to points of faith or fundamentall Let me note here by the way that by his Or he seemes to exclude from Faith all points which are not fundamentall and so we may deny innumerable Texts of Scripture That It is comfort enough for the Church that the Lord in mercy will secure her from all capitall dangers c. but she may not hope to triumph over all sinne and errour till she be in heaven For it is evident that the Church for as much as concernes the truth of her doctrines and beliefe owes no more duty to God and her Neighbour neither doth our Saviour exact more at her hands nor is it in her power to doe more then God doth assist her to doe which assistance is promised only for points fundamentall and conâequently as long as she teacheth no fundamentall error her communion cannot without damnation be forsaken And we may fitly apply against D. Potter a Concionatory declamation which he makes against us where he saith May the Church of after Ages make the narrow way to heaven narrower then our Saviour left it c since he himselfe obligeth men under pain of damnation to forsake the Church by reason of errours against which our Saviour thought it needlesse to promise his assistance and for which he neither demeth his grace in this life or glory in the next Will D. Potter oblige the Church to doe more then she may even hope for or to performe on earth that which is proper to heaven alone 21 And as from your own doctrine concerning the infallibility of the Church in fundamentall points we have proved that it was a grievous sinne to forsake her so doe we take a strong argâment from the fallibility of any who dare pretend to reforme the Church which any man in his wits will believe to be indued with at least as much infallibility as private men can challeng D. Potter expresly affirmeth that Christs promises of his assistance are not intended to any particular persons or Churches therefore to leave the Church by reason of errours was at best hand bât to flit from one erring company to another without any new hope of triumphing over errours and without necessity or utility to forsake that Communion of which S. Augustine saith There is no just necessity to divide Vnity Which will appear to be much more evident if we consider that though the Church had maintained some false doctrines yet to leave her Communion to remedy the old were but to adde a new increase of errors arising from the innumerable disagreements of Sectaries which must needs bring with it a mighty masse of falshoods because the truth is but one and indivisible And this reason is yet stronger if we still remember that even according to D. Potter the visible Church hath a blessing not to erre in points fundamentall in which any private Reformer may faile and therefore they could not pretend any necessity to forsake that Church out of whose communion they were exposed to danger of falling into many more and even into damnable errors Remember I pray you what your selfe affirmes pag. 69. where speaking of our Church and yours you say All the difference is from the weeds which remain there and here are taken away Yet neither here perfectly nor every where alike Behold a fair confession of corruptions still remaining in your Church which you can only excuse by saying they are not fundamentall as likewise those in the Roman Church are confessed to be not fundamentall What man of judgement will be a Protestant since that Church is confessedly a corrupt one 22 I still proceed to impugne you expresly upon your own grounds You say that 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 errour till she be in heaven Now if it be comfort enough to be secured from all capitall dangers which can arise only from error in fundamentall points why were not your first reformers content with enough but would needs dismember the Church out of a pernitious greedinesse of more then enough For this enough which according to you is attained by not erring in points fundamentall was enjoyed before Luthers reformation unlesse you will now against your selfe affirme that long before Luther there was no Church free from error in fundamentall points Moreover if as you say no Church may hope to triumph over all errour till she be in heaven You must either grant that errors not fundamentall cannot yeeld sufficient cause to forsake the Church or else you must affirme that all community may and ought to be forsaken so there will be no end of Schismes or rather indeed there can be no such thing as Schisâe because according to you all communities are subject to errors not fundamentall for which if they may be lawfully forsaken it followeth cleerely that it is not Schisme to forsake them Lastly since it is not lawfull to leave the Communion of the Church for abuses in life and manners because such miseries cannot be avoided in this world of temptation and since according to your Assertion no Church may hope to triumph over all sinne and error You must grant that as she ought not to be left by reason of sinne so neither by reason of errors not fundamentall because both sinne and errour are according to you impossible to be avoided till she be in heaven 23 Furthermore I aske whether it be the Qâantity or Number or Quality and Greatnesse of doctrinall errors that may yeild sufficient cause to relinquish the Churches Communion I prove that neither Not the Quality which is supposed to be beneath the degree of points fundamentall or necessary to salvation Not the Quantity or Number for
malice If these mens conceits were true the Church might come to be wholly divided by wicked Schismes and yet after some space of time none could be accused of Schisme nor be obliged to returne to the visible Church of Christ and so there should remaine no One true visible Church Let therefore these men who pretend to honour reverence and believe the Doctrine and practise of the visible Church and to condemne their forefathers who forsooke her and say they would not have done so if they had lived in the daies of their Fathers and yet follow their example in remaining divided from her Communion consider how truly these words of our Saviour fall upon them Woe be to you because you build the Prophets sepulchers and garnish the monuments of just men and say If we had been in our Fathers daies we had not been their fellowes in the blood of the Prophets Therefore you are a testimony to your own selves that you are the sonnes of them that killed the Prophets and fill up the measure of your Fathers 46 And thus having demonstrated that Luther his Associates and all that continue in the Schisme by them begun are guilty of Schisme by departing from the visible true Church of Christ it remaineth that we examine what in particular was that Visible true Church from which they departed that so they may know to what Church in particular they ought to returne and then we shall have performed what was proposed to be handled in the fift Point 47 That the Roman Church I speak not for the present of the particular Diocesse of Rome but of all visible Churches dispersed throughout the whole world agreeing in Faith with the Chaire of Peter whether that Sea were supposed to be in the City of Rome or in any other place That I say the Church of Rome in this sense was the visible Catholique Church out of which Luther departed is proved by your own confession who assigne for notes of the Church the true Preaching of Gods word and due administration of Sacraments both which for the substance you cannot deny to the Roman Church since you confesse that she wanted nothing fundamentall or necessary to salvation and for that very cause you think to cleare your selfe from Schisme whose property as you say is to cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation the Church from which it separates Now that Luther and his fellowes were born and baptized in the Roman Church and that she was the Church out of which they departed is notoriously known and therefore you cannot cut her off from the Body of Christ and hope of Salvation unlesse you will acknowledge your selfe to deserve the just imputation of Schisme Neither can you deny her to be truly Catholique by reason of pretended corruptions not fundamentall For your selfe avouch and endeavour to prove that the true Catholique Church may erre in such points Moreover I hope you will not so much as goe about to prove that when Luther rose there was any other true visible Church disagreeing from the Roman and agreeing with Protestants in their particular doctrines and you cannot deny but that England in those daies agreed with Rome and other Nations with England And therefore either Christ had no visible Church upon Earth or else you must grant that it was the Church of Rome A truth so manifest that those Protestants who affirme the Roman Church to have lost the nature and being of a true Church doe by inevitable consequence grant that for divers ages Christ had no visible Church on earth from which error because D. Potter disclaimeth he must of necessity maintaine that the Roman Church is free from fundamentall and damnable error and that she is not cut off from the Body of Christ and the Hope of Salvation And if saith he any Zelots amongst us haue proceeded to heavier censures their zeale may be excused but their Charity and wisdome cannot be justified 48 And to touch particulars which perhaps some may object No man is ignorant that the Grecians even the Schismaticall Grecians doe in most points agree with Roman Catholiques and disagree from the Protestant Reformation They teach Transubstantiation which point D. Potter also confesseth Invocation of Saints and Angels veneration of Reliques and Images Auricular Confession enjoyned Satisfaction Confirmation with Chrisme Extream unction All the seaven Sacraments Prayer Sacrifice Almes for the dead Monachisme That Priests may not marry after their Ordination In which points that the Grecians agree with the Roman Church appeareth by a Treatise published by the Protestant Divines of Wittemberg intituled Acta Theologorum Wittembergensium Iâremiae Patriarchae Constantinop de Augustana confessione c. Wittembergae anno 1584. by the Protestant Crispinus and by Sir Edwin Sands in the Relation of the State of Religion of the West And I wonder with what colour of truth to say no worse D. Potter could affirme that the Doctrines debated between the Protestants and Rome are only the partiall and particular fancies of the Roman Church unlesse happily the opinion of Transubstantiation may be excepted wherein the latter Grecians seem to agree with the Romanists Beside the Protestant Authors already cited Petrus Arcudiâs a Grecian and a learned Catholique Writer hath published a large Volume the Argument and Title whereof is Of the agreement of the Roman and Greek Church in the seven Sacraments As for the Heresy of the Grecians that the Holy Ghost proceeds not from the Some I suppose that Protestants dissvow them in that error as we doe 49 D. Potter will not I think so much wrong his reputation as to tell us that the Waldenses Wiccliffe Husse or the like were Protestants because in some things they disagreed from Catholiques For he well knowes that the example of such men is subject to these manifest exceptions They were not of all Ages not in all Countries But confined to certain places and were interrupted in Time against the notion and nature of the word Catholique They had no Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy nor Succession of Bishops Priests and Pastors They differed among themselues and from Protestants also They agreed in divers things with us against Protestants They held doctrines manifestly absurd and damnable heresies 50 The Waldenses began not before the year 1218 so farre were they from Vniversality of all Ages For their doctrine first they denied all Iudgements which extended to the drawing of bloud and the Sabbath for which cause they were called In-sabbatists Secondly they taught that Lay men and women might consecrate the Sacrament and preach no doubt but by this meanes to make their Master Waldo a meere lay man capable of such functions Thirdly that Clergy men ought to have no possessions or proprieties Fourthly that there should be no division of Parishes nor Churches for a walled Church they reputed as a barne Fiftly that men ought not to take an oath in any case Sixtly
answerable but already answered The memorandums I would commend to him are these 30 That not every separation but only a causelesse separation from the externall Communion of any Church is the Sinne of Schisme 31 That imposing upon men under pain of Excommunication a necessity of professing known errours and practising known corruptions is a sufficient and necessary cause of separation and that this is the cause which Protestants alleage to justifie their separation from the Church of Rome 32 That to leave the Church and to leave the externall Communion of a Church at least as D. Potter understands the words is not the same thing That being done by ceasing to be a member of it by ceasing to haue those requisites which constitute a man a member of it as faith and obedience This by refusing to communicate with any Church in her Liturgies and publike worship of God This little Armour if it be rightly placed I am perswaded will repell all those Batteries which you threaten shall be so furious 33 Ad § 13. 14. 15. The first is a sentence of S. Austine against Donatus applied to Luther thus If the Church perished what Church brought forth Donatus you say Luther If she could not perish what madnesse moved the sect of Donatus to separate upon pretence to avoid the Communion of bad men Whereunto one faire answer to let passe many others is obvious out of the second observation That this sentence though it were Gospell as it is not is impertinently applied to Luther and Lutherans Whose pretence of separation be it true or be it false was not as that of the Donatists only to avoid the Communion of bad men but to free themselves from a necessity which but by separating was unavoidable of joyning with bad men in their impieties And your not substituting Luther in stead of Donatus in the latter part of the Dilemma as well as in the former would make a suspicious man conjecture that you your selfe took notice of this exception of disparitie between Donatus and Luther 34 Ad § 16. Your second onset drives only at those Protestants who hold the true Church was invisible for many ages Which Doctrine if by the true Church be understood the pure Church as you doe understand it is a certain truth and it is easier for you to declaime as you doe then to dispute against it But these men you say must bee Heretiques because they separated from the Communion of the visible Church and therefore also from the Communion of that which they say was invisible In as much as the invisible Church communicated with the visible 35 Ans. I might very justly desire some proofe of that which so confidently you take for granted That there were no persecuted and oppressed maintainers of the Truth in the daies of our Fore-fathers but only such as dissembled their opinions lived in your Communion And truly if I should say there were many of this condition I suppose I could make my Affirmative much more probable then you can make your Negatiue We read in Scripture that Elias conceived There was none left besides himselfe in the whole kingdome of Israell who had not revolted from God and yet God himselfe assures us that he was deceived And if such a man a Prophet and one of the greatest erred in his judgement touching his own time and his own countrey why may not you who are certainly but a man and subject to the same passions as Elias was mistake in thinking that in former ages in some countrey or other there were not alwaies some good Christians which did not so much as externally bow their knees to your Baal But this answer I am content you shall take no notice of and thinke it sufficient to tell you that if it bee true that this supposed invisible Church did hypocritically communicate with the visible Church in her corruptions then Protestants had cause nay necessity to forsake their Communion also for otherwise they must haue joyn'd with theÌ in the practise of impieties and seeing they had such cause to separate they presume their separation cannot be schismaticall 36 Yes you reply to forsake the externall Communion of them with whom they agree in faith is the most formall proper sin of Schisme Ans. Very true but I would fain know wherein I would gladly be informed whether I bee bound for feare of Schisme to communicate with those that believe as I doe only in lawfull things or absolutely in every thing whether I am to joyn with them in superstition and Idolatry and not only in a common profession of the faith wherein we agree but in a common dissimulation or abjuration of it This is that which you would haue them do or else forsooth they must be Schismatiques But hereafter I pray remember that there is no necessity of communicating even with true Beleevers in wicked actions Nay that there is a necessity herein to separate from them And then I dare say even you being their judge the reasonablenesse of their cause to separate shall according to my first observation justifie their separation from being schismaticall 37 Arg But the property of Schisme according to D. Potter is to cut off from the hope of salvation the Church from which it separates And these Protestants haue this property Therefore they are Schismatiques 38 Ans. I deny the Syllogisme it is no better then this One Symptome of the Plague is a Feaver But such a man hath a Feaver Therefore he hath the Plague The true conclusioÌ which issues out of these Premisses should be this Therefore he hath one Symptome of the plague And so likewise in the former therefore they haue one property or one quality of Schismatiques And as in the former instance The man that hath one signe of the plague may by reason of the absence of other requisites not haue the plague So these Protestants may haue something of Schismatiques and yet not be Schismatiques A Tyrant sentencing a man to death for his pleasure and a just judge that condemnes a malefactor doe both sentence a man to death and so for the matter doe both the same thing yet the one does wickedly the other justly What 's the reason because the one hath cause the other hath not In like manner Schismatiques either alwaies or generally denounce damnation to them from whom they separate The same doe these Protestants yet are not Schismatiques The Reason because Schismatiques doe it and doe it without cause and Protestants haue cause for what they doe The impieties of your Church being generally speaking damnable unlesse where they are excus'd by ignorance and expiated at least by a generall repentance In fine though perhaps it may be true that all Schismatiques doe so yet universall affirmatiues are not converted and therefore it followes not by any good Logick that all that doe so when there is just cause for it must be Schismatiques The cause in this matter of separation is
all in all and that for ought I see you never think of But if these rigid Protestants haue iust cause to cut off your Church from the hope of salvation How can the milder sort allow hope of salvation to the Members of this Church Ans. Distinguish the quality of the Persons censur'd and this seeming repugance of their censures will vanish into nothing For your Church may be considered either in regard of those in whom either negligence or pride or worldly feare or hopes or some other voluntary sinne is the cause of their ignorance which I feare is the case of the generality of men amongst you or in regard of those who owe their Errours from Truth to want of capacity or default of instruction either in respect of those that might know the truth and will not or of those who would know the truth but all things considered cannot In respect of those that haue eyes to see and will not see or those that would gladly see but want eyes or light Consider the former sort of men which your more rigid censurers seem especially to reflect upon and the heaviest sentence will not be too heavy Consider the latter and the mildest will not be too milde So that here is no difference but in words only neither are you flattered by the one nor uncharitably censur'd by the other 39 Your next blow is directed against the milder sort of Protestants who you say involve themselves in the sinne of Schisme by communicating with those as you call them exterminating Spirits whom you conceiue your selfe to have proved Schismatiques And now load them further with the crime of Heresie For say you if you held your selves obliged under pain of damnation to forsake the Communion of the Roman Church by reason of her Errours which yet you confesse were not fundamentall shall it not be much more damnable to liue in confraternity with these who defend an Errour of the fayling of the Church which in the Donatists you confesse to haue been properly Hereticall 40 Answ You mistake in thinking that Protestants hold themselves obliged not to communicate with you onely or principally by reason of your Errours and Corruption For the true reason according to my third observation is not so much because you maintaine Errours and Corruptions as because you impose them and will allow your Communion to none but to those that will hold them with you and haue so ordered your Communion that either we must communicate with you in these things or nothing And for this very reason though it were granted that these Protestants held this doctrine which you impute to them And though this Errour were as damnable and as much against the Creed as you pretend Yet after all this this disparity between you and them might make it more lawfull for us to communicate with them then you because what they hold they hold to themselues and refuse not as you doe to communicate with them that hold the contrary 41 Thus we may answer your Argument though both your former Suppositions were granted But then for a second answer I am to tell you that there is no necessity of granting either of them For neither doe these Protestants hold the fayling of the Church from its being but only from its visibility which if you conceive all one then must you conceive that the starres fayle every day and the Sunne every night Neither is it certain that the doctrine of the Churches fayling is repugnant to the Creed For as the truth of the Article of the Remission of sinnes depends not upon the actuall remission of any mans sinnes but upon Gods readinesse and resolution to forgive the sins of all that believe and repent so that although unbeleef or impenitence should be universall and the Faithfull should absolutely fayle from the children of men and the sonne of man should finde no faith on the earth yet should the Article still continue true that God would forgive the sinnes of all that repent In like manner it is not certain that the truth of the Article of the Catholique Church depends upon the actuall existence of a Catholique Church but rather upon the right that the Church of Christ or rather to speak properly the Gospell of Christ hath to be universally believed And therefore the Article may bee true though there were no Church in the world In regard this notwithstanding it remaines still true that there ought to be a Church this Church ought to be Catholique For as of these two Propositions There is a Church in America and There should bee a Church in America The truth of the latter depends not upon the truth of the former so neither does it in these two There is a Church diffused all the world over and There should be a Church diffused all the world over 42 Thirdly if you understand by Errours not fundamentall such as are not damnable it is not true as I haue often told you that we confesse your errours not fundamentall 43 Lastly for your desire that I should here apply an authority of S. Cyprian alleaged in your next number I would haue done so very willingly but indeed I know not how to doe it for in my apprehensioÌ it hath no more to doe with your present businesse of proving it unlawfull to communicate with these men who hold the Church was not alwaies visible then In nova fert animus Besides I am here again to remember you that S. Cyprians words were they never so pertinent yet are by neither of the parts litigant esteemed any rule of faith And therefore the urging of them and such like authorities serves onely to make Books great and Controversies endlesse 44 Ad § 17. The next Section in three long leaues delivers us this short sense That those Protestants which say they have not left the Churches externall Communion but only her corruptions pretend to doe that which is impossible Because these corruptions were inherent in the Churches externall Communion and therefore he that forsakes them cannot but forsake this 45 Ans. But who are they that pretend they forsooke the Churches corruptions and not her externall communion Some there be that say they have not left the Church that is not ceased to be members of the Church but only left her corruptions some that they have not left the communion but the corruptions of it meaning the internall communion of it and conjunction with it by faith and obedience which disagree from the former only in the manner of speaking for he that is in the Church is in this kinde of communion with it and he that is not in this internall communion is not in the Church Some perhaps that they left not your externall communion in all things meaning that they left it not voluntarily being not fugitivi but fugati as being willing to joyne with you in any act of piety but were by you necessitated and constrained to doe so because you
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 tiâ 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
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-naâe 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
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 obsââuium 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 therâfore 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 argumeÌta 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 âaith deserve credit ought to be accepted as things revealed by God For without such reasons inducemeÌts 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 Sancââty 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 infâllible 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 âequisite 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 âormall Obiect or motiââ 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 dâely 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. Irenaeâs 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 endeâvour 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 liâe 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 Goliââ yet if a man
communicating with the Bishop of Rome to communicate with whom was ever taken by the Ancient Fathers as an assured signe of being a true Catholique They had also as S. Augustine ãâã a pretended Church in the house and territory of a Spanish Lady called Lucilla who went flying out of the Catholique Church because she had been justly checked by Caecilianus And the same Saint speaking of the conference he had with Fortunius the Donatist saithâ Here did he first attempt to affirme that his Communion was spread over the whole Earth c. but because the thing was evidently false they got out of this discourse by confusion of language whereby neverthelesse they sufficiently declared that they did not hold that the true Church ought necessarily to be confined to one place but only by meere necessity were forced to yield that it was so in fact because their Sect which they held to be the only true Church was not spread over the world In which point Fortunius and the rest were more modest then he who should affirme that Luther's reformation in the very beginning was spread over the whole Earth being at that time by many degrees not so farre diffused as the Sect of the Douâtists I have no desire to prosecute the similitude of Protestants with Donatists by remembring that the Sect of these men was begun and promoted by the passion of Lucilla and who is ignorant what influence two women the Mother and Daughter ministred to Protestancy in England Nor will I stand to observe their very likenes of phrase with the Donatists who called the Chaire of Rome the Chaire of pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot which is D. Potter's owne phrase wherein he is lesse excusable then they because he maintaineth her to be a true Church of Christ and therefore let him duely ponder these words of S. Augustine against the Dââatists If I persecute him iustly who detracts from his Neighbour why should I not persecute him who detracts from the Church of Christ and saith this is not she but this is an Harlot And least of all will I consider whether you may not be well compared to one Ticonius a Donatist who wrote against Pârmenianus likewise a Donatist who blasphemed that the Church of Christ had perished as you doe even in this your Book writ against some of your Protestant Brethren or as you call them Zeloâs among you who hold the very same or rather a worse Heresie and yet remained among them even after Parmenianus had excommunicated him as those your Zealous Brethren would proceed against you if it were in their power and yet like Ticonius you remain in their Communion and come not into that Church which is hath been and shall ever be universall For which very cause S. Augustin complaines of Ticonius that although he wrote against the Donatists yet he was of an hart so extreamly absurd as not to forsake them altogether And speaking of the same thing in another place he observes that although Tiâonius did manifestly confute them who affirmed that the Church had perished yet he saw not saith this holy Father that which in good consequence he should have seen that those Christians of Africa belonged to the Church spread over the whole world who remained vnited not with them who were divided from the communion and vnity of the same world but with such as did communicate with the whole world But Parmenianus and the rest of the Donatists saw that consequence and resolved rather to settle their mind in obstinacy against the most manifest truth which Ticoâus maintained then by yeelding thereto to be overcome by those Churches in Africa which enioyed the Communion of that vnity which Ticonius defended from which they had divided themselves How fitly these words agree to Catholiques in England in respect of the Protestants I desire the Reader to consider But thesâ and the like resemblances of Protestants to the Donatists I willingly let passe and only vrge the main point That since Luthers Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was because so forsooth they will needs have it in the Apostles time they must of necessity affirme heretically with the Donatists that the true and unspotted Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O bâasphemyâ ãâã Harlot Moreover the same heresy followes out of the doctrine of D. Potter and other Protestants that the Church may erre in points not fundamentall because we have shewed that every errour against any one revealed truth is Heresy and damnable whether the matter bee otherwise of it selfe great or small And how can the Church more truely be said to perish then when she is permitted to maintaine a damnable Heresy Besides we will hereafter prove that by any act of Heresy all divine faith is lost and to imagine a true Church of faithfull persons without any faith is as much as to fancy a living man without life It is therefore cleere that Donatist-like they hold that the Church of Christ perished yea they are worse then the Donatists who saâd that the Church remained at least in Africa whereas Protestants must of necessity be forced to grant that for along space before Luther she was no where at all But let us goe forward to other reasons 18 The holy Scripture and Ancient Fathers doe assigne Separation from the Visible Church as a mark of Heresie according to that of S. Iohâ They went out from us And Some who went out from us And Out of you shall arise men speaking perverse things And accordingly Vincentius Lyrinensis saith Who ever began heresies who did not first separate himself from the Vniversality Antiquity and Consent of the Catholique Church But it is manifest that when Luther appeared there was no visible Church distinct from the Roman out of which she could depart as it is likewise well knowne that Luther and his followers departed out of her Therefore she is no way lyable to this Mark of Heresie but Protestants cannot possibly avoid it To this purpose S. Prosper hath these pithy words A Christian communicating with the universall Church is a Catholique and he who is divided from her is an Heretique and Antichrist But Luther in his first Reformation could not communicate with the visible Catholique Church of those times because he began his Reformation by opposing the supposed Errors of the then visible Church we must therefore say with S. Prosper that he was an Heretique c. Which like-likewise is no lesse cleerely proved out of S. Cypriân saying Not we g departed from them but they from us and since Heresies and Schismes are bred afterwards while they make to themselves divers Conventicles they have forsakeâ the head and origen of Truth 19 And that we might not remain doubtfull what separation it is which is the marke of Heresy the ancient Fathers tell us more in particular that it
selfe same time they could be within and without the Catholique Church as proportionably I discoursed in the next precedent Chapter concerning the communicating of moderate Protestants with those who maintaine that Heresy of the Latency and Invisibility of Gods Church where I brought a place of S. Cyprian to this purpose which the Reader may be pleased to review in the fift Chapter and 17. Number 22 But besides this defect in the personall Succession of Protestant Bishops there is another of great moment which is that they want the right Forme of ordaining Bishops and Priests because the manner which they use is so much different from that of the Roman Church at least according to the common opinion of Divines that it cannot be sufficient for the Essence of Ordination as I could demonstrate if this were the proper place of such a Treatise and will not faile to doe if D. Potter give me occasion In the mean time the Reader may be pleased to read the Author cited here in the margent and then compare the forme of our Ordination with that of Protestants and to remember that if the forme which they use either in Consecrating Bishops or in ordaining Priests be at least doubtfull they can neither have undoubted Priests nor Bishops For Priests cannot be ordained but by true Bishops nor can any be a true Bishop unlesse he first be Priest I say their Ordination is at least doubtfull because that sufficeth for my present purpose For Bishops and Priests whose Ordination is notoriously known to be but doubtfull are not to be esteemed Bishops or Priests and no man without Sacriledge can receive Sacraments from them all which they administer unlawfully And if we except Baptisme with manifest danger of invalidity and with obligation to be at least conditionally repeated so Protestants must remain doubtfull of Remission of sinnes of their Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy and may not pretend to be a true Church which cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests not without due administration of Sacraments which according to Protestants is an essentiall note of the true Church And it is a world to observe the proceeding of English Protestants in this point of their Ordinations For first Ann. 3. Edw. 6. cap. 2. when he was a Child about twelve yeares of age It was enacted that such forme of making and consecrating of Bishops and Priests as by sixe Prelates and sixe other to be appointed by the King should be devised marke this word devised and set forth under the great Seale should be used and none other But after this Act was repealed 1. Mar. Sess. 2. in so much as that when afterward An. 6. 7 Reg. Eliz. Bishop Bonner being endicted upon a certificate made by D. Horne a Protestant Bishop of Winchester for his refusall of the Oath of Supremacy and he excepting against the endictment because D Horne was no Bishop all the Iudges resolved that his exception was good if indeed D. Horne was not Bishop and they were all at a stand till An. 8. Eliz cap. 1. the act of Edw. 6. was renewed and confirmed with a particular proviso that no man should be impeached or molested by meanes of any certificate by any Bishop or Archbishop made before this last Act. Whereby it is cleere that they made some doubt of their own ordination and that there is nothing but uncertainty in the whole businesse of their Ordination which forsooth must depend upon sixe Prelats the great Seale Acts of Parliaments being contrary one to another and the like 23 But though they want Personall Succession yet at least they have Succession of doctrine as they say and pretend to prove because they believe as the Apostles believed This is to begg the Question and to take what they may be sure will never be granted For if they want Personall Succession and sleight Ecclesiasticall Tradition how will they perswade any man that they agree with the doctrine of the Apostles We have heard Tertullian saying I will prescribe against all Heretiques that there is no meanes to prove what the Apostles preached but by the same Churches which they founded And S. Irenaeus tels us that We may behold the Tradition of the Apostles in every Church if men be desirous to hear the truth and we can number them who were made Bishops by the Apostles in Churches and their Successors even to us And the same Father in another place saith We ought to obey those Priests who are in the Church who have Succession from the Apostles and who together with Succession in their Bishopricks have received the certain gift of truth S. Austine saith I am kept in the Church by the succession of Priests from the very Sea of Peter the Apostle to whom our Saviour after his Resurrection committed his sheep to be fed even to the present Bishop Origen to this purpose giveth us a good and wholsome Rule happy if himselfe had followed the same in these excellent words Since there be many who think they believe the things which are of Cârist and some are of different opinion from those who went before them let the preaching of the Church be kept which is delivered by the Apostles by order of Succession and remaines in the Church to this very day that only is to be believed for truth which in nothing disagrees from the Tradition of the Church In vain then doe these men brag of the doctrine of the Apostles unles first they can demonstrate that they enjoyed a continued succession of Bishops from the Apostles and can shew us a Church which according to S. Austine is deduced by undoubted SVCCESSION from the Sea of the Apostles even to the present Bishops 23 But yet neverthelesse suppose it were granted that they agreed with the doctrine of the Apostles this were not sufficient to prove a Succession in Doctrine For Succession besides agreement or similitude doth also require a never-interrupted conveying of such doctrine from the time of the Apostles till the daies of those persons who challenge such a Succession And so S. Augustine saith We are to believe that Gospell which from the time of the Apostles the Church hath brought downe to our daies by a never-interrupted course of times and by undoubted succession of connection Now that the Reformation begunne by Luther was interrupted for divers ages before him is manifest out of History and by his endeavouring a Reformation which must presuppose abuses He cannot therefore pretend a continued Succession of that Doctrine which he fought to revive and reduce to the knowledge and practice of men And they ought not to prove that they have Succession of doctrine because they agree with the doctrine of the Apostles but contrarily we must inferre that they agree not with the Apostles because they cannot pretend a never-interrupted succession of doctrine from the times of the Apostles till Luther And here it is not amisse to note
thou wilt and not belieue what thou wilt not Nay this holy Father is not content to call it Foolishnesse but meer Maânesse in these words Why should I not most diligently enquire what Christ commanded of those before all others by whose Authority I was moved to belieue that Christ commanded any good thing Canst thou better declare to me what he said whom I would not haue thought to haue been or to be if the Beliefe thereof had been recommended by thee to me Thâ therefore I believed by fame strengthned with Celebrity Consent Antiquitie But every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing which deserues Authority What MADNESSE is this Belieue them Catholiques that we ought to belieue Christ but learne of us what Christ said Why I beseech thee Surely if they Catholiques were not at all and could not teach mee any thing I would more easily perswade my selfe that I were not to belieue Christ then I should learne any thing concerning him from other then those by whom I believed him Lastly I aske what wisedome it could bee to leaue all visible Churches and consequently the true Catholique Church of Christ which you confesse cannot erre in points necessary to salvation and the Roman Church which you grant doth not erre in fundamentalls and follow private men who may erre even in points necessary to salvation Especially if we adde that when Luther rose there was no visible true Catholique Church besides that of Rome and them who agreed with her in which sense she was and is the only true Church of Christ and not capable of any Error in faith Nay even Luther who first opposed the Roman Church yet comming to dispute against other Heretiques he is forced to give the Lye both to his own words and deeds in saying We freely confesse that in the Papacy there are many good things worthy the name of Christian which have come from them to us Namely we confesse that in the Papacy there is true Scripture true Baptisme the true Sacrament of the Altar the true keys for remission of sinnes the true office of Preaching true Catechisme as our Lords Prayer Ten Commandements Articles of faith c. And afterward I avouch that under the Papacy there is true Christianity yea the Kernell and Marrow of Christianity and many pious and great Saints And again he affirmeth that the Church of Rome hath the true Spirit Gospells Faith Baptisme Sacraments the Keyes the Office of Preaching Prayer Holy Scripture and whatsoever Christianity ought to have And a little before I heare and see that they bring in Anabaptisme only to this end that they may spight the Pope as men that will receive nothing from Antichrist no otherwise then the Sacramentaries doe who therefore believe only Bread and Wine to be in the Sacrament meerely in hatred against the Bishop of Rome and they think that by this meanes they shall overcome the Papacy Verily these men rely upon a weak ground for by this meanes they must deny the whole Scripture and the Office of Preaching For we have all these things from the Pope otherwise we must goe make a new Scripture O Truth more forcible as S. Austine saies to wring out Confession then is any racke or torment And so we may truly say with Moyses Inimici nostri sunt Iudices Our very Enemies give sentence for us 32 Lastly since your faith wanteth Certainty and Prudence it is easy to inferre that it wants the fourth Condition Supernaturality For being but an Humane perswasion or Opinion it is not in nature or Essence Supernaturall And being imprudent and rash it cannot proceed from divine Motion and grace and therefore it is neither supernaturall in it selfe nor in the cause from which it proceedeth 33 Since therefore we have proved that whosoever erres against any one point of faith looseth all divine faith even concerning those other Articles wherein he doth not erre and that although he could still retaine true faith for some points yet any one errour in whatsoever other matter concerning faith is a grievous sinne it cleerely followes that when two or more hold different doctrines concerning faith and Religion there can be but one Part saved For declaring of which truth if Catholiques be charged with Want of Charity and Modesty and be accused of rashnesse ambition and fury as D. Potter is very free in this kind I desire every one to ponder the words of S. Chrysostome who teacheth that every least errour overthrowes all faith and whosoever is guilty thereof is in the Church like one who in the Common wealth forgeth false come Let them heare saith this holy Father what S. Paul saith Namely that they who brought in some small errour had overthrown the Gospell For to shew how a small thing ill mingled doth corrupt the whole he said that the Gospell was subverted For as he who clips a little of the stamp from the Kings mony makes the whole piece of no value so whosoever takes away the least particle of sound faith is wholly corrupted alwaies going from that beginning to worse things Where then are they who condemne us as contentious persons because we cannot agree with Heretiques and doe often say that there is no difference betwixt us and them but that our disagreement proceeds from Ambition to dominere And thus having shewed that Protestants want true Faith it remaineth that according to my first designe I examine whether they doe not also want Charity as it respects a mans selfe THE ANSVVER TO THE SIXTH CHAPTER That Protestants are not Heretiques HE that will accuse any one man much more any great multitude of men of any great and horrible crime should in all reason and justice take care that the greatnesse of his evidence doe equall if not exceed the quality of the crime And such an accusation you would here make shew of by pretending first to lay such grounds of it as are either already proved or else yeelded on all sides and after to raise a firme and stable structure of convincing arguments upon them But both these I find to be meere and vaine pretences and having considered this Chapter also without prejudice or passion as I did the former I am enforc'd by the light of Truth to pronounce your whole discourse a painted and ruinous Building upon a weak sandy Foundation 2 Ad § 2. 3. First for your grounds a great part of theÌ is falsely said to be either proved or granted It is true indeed that Man by his naturall wit or industry could never have attained to the knowledge of Gods will to give him a supernaturall and eternall happinesse nor of the meanes by which his pleasure was to bestow this happinesse upon him And therefore your first ground is good That it was requisite his understanding should be enabled to apprehend that end and meanes by a knowledge supernaturall I say this is good if you mean
by knowledge an apprehension or beliefe But if you take the word properly and exactly it is both false for faith is not knowledge no more then three is foure but eminently contained in it so that he that knowes believes and something more but he that believes many times doe not know nay if he doth barely and meerely believe he doth never know and besides it is retracted by your selfe presently where you require That the object of faith must be both naturally and supernaturally unknown And againe in the next page where you say Faith differs from science in regard of the objects obscurity For that science and knowledge properly taken are Synonimous termes and that a knowledge of a thing absolutely unknown is a plain implicancy I think are things so plain that you will not require any proofe of them 3 But then whereas you adde that if such a knowledge were no more then probable it could not be able sufficiently to over beare our will and encounter with humane probabilities being backed with the strength of flesh and bloud and therefore conclude that it was farther necessary that this supernaturall knowledge should be most certain and infallible To this I answere that I doe heartily acknowledge and believe the Articles of our faith be in themselves Truths as certain and infallible as the very common Principles of Geometry and Metaphysicks But that there is required of us a knowledge of them and an adherence to them as certain as that of sense or science that such a certainty is required of us under pain of damnation so that no man can hope to be in the state of Salvation but he that findes in himselfe such a degree of faith such a strength of adherence This I have already demonstrated to be a great errour and of dangerous and pernitious consequence And because I am more and more confirm'd in my perswasion that the truth which I there delivered is of great and singular use I will here confirme it with more reasons And to satisfy you that this is no singularity of my own my Margent presents you with a Protestant Divine of great authority and no way singular in his opinions who hath long since preached and justified the same doctrine 4 I say that every Text of Scripture which makes mention of any that were weake or of any that were strong in faith of any that were of litle or any that were of great faith of any that abounded or any that were rich in faith of encreasing growing rooting grounding establishing confirming in faith Every such Text is a demonstrative refutation of this vain fancy proving that faith even true and saving faith is not a thing consisting in such an indivisible point of perfection as you make it but capable of augmentation and diminution Every Praier you make to God to encrease your faith or if you conceive such a prayer derogatory from the perfection of your faith The Apostles praying to Christ to encrease their faith is a convincing argument of the same conclusion Moreover if this doctrine of yours were true then seeing not any the least doubting can consist with a most infallible certainty it will follow that every least doubting in any matter of faith though resisted and involuntary is a damnable sinne absolutely destructive so long as it lasts of all true and saving faith which you are so farre from granting that you make it no sinne at all but only an occasion of merit and if you should esteeme it a sinne then must you acknowledge contrary to your owne Principles that there are Actuall sinnes meerely involuntary The same is furthermore invincibly confirmed by every deliberate sinne that any Christian commits by any progresse in Charity that he makes For seeing as S. Iohn assures us our faith is the victory which overcomes the world certainly if the faith of all true Believers were perfect and if true faith be capable of no imperfection if all faith be a knowledge most certain and infallible all faith must be perfect for the most imperfect that is according to your doctrine if it be true must be most certain and sure the most perfect that is cannot be more then most certain then certainly their victory over the World and therefore over the flesh and therefore over sinne must of necessity be perfect and so it should be impossible for any true believer to commit any deliberate sinne and therefore he that commits any sinne must not think himselfe a true believer Besides seeing faith worketh by Charity and Charity is the effect of faith certainly if the cause were perfect the effect would be perfect and consequently as you make no degrees in faith so there would be none in charity and so no man could possibly make any progresse in it but all true believers should be equally in Charity as in faith you make them equall from thence it would follow unavoidably that whosoever findes in himselfe any true faith must presently perswade himselfe that he is perfect in Charity and whosoever on the other side discovers in his charity any imperfection must not believe that he hath any true faith These you see are strange and portentous consequences and yet the deduction of them from your doctrine is cleere and apparent which shewes this doctrine of yours which you would fain have true that there might be some necessity of your Churches infallibility to be indeed plainly repugnant not only to Truth but even to all Religion and Piety fit for nothing but to make men negligent of making any progresse in faith or Charity And therefore I must entreat and adjure you either to discover unto me which I take God to witnesse I cannot perceive some fallacy in my reasons against it or never hereafter to open your mouth in defence of it 5 As for that one single reason which you produce to confirm it it will appeare upon examination to be resolved finally into a groundlesse Assertion of your own contrary to all Truth and experience and that is That no degree of faith lesse then a most certaine and infallible knowledge can bee able sufficiently to overbeare our will and encovnter with humane probabilities being backt with the strength of Flesh and Blood For who sees not that many millions in the world forgoe many times their present ease and pleasure undergoe great and toylsome labours encounter great difficulties adventure vpon great dangers and all this not upon any certain expectation but upon a probable hope of some future gain and commodity and that not infinite and eternall but finite and temporall Who sees not that many men abstain from many things they exceedingly desire not upon any certain assurance but a probable feare of danger that may come after What man ever was there so madly in loue with a present penny but that hee would willingly spend it upon any litle hope that by doing so hee might gain an hundred thousand pound And I would fain know
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
formall Heresie Or to this To say the Visible Church is not Vniversall is properly an Heresie But the preaching of the Gospell at the beginning was not Vniversall therefore it cannot be excused from formall Heresie For as he whose Reformation is but particular may yet not denie the Resurrection so may he also not denie the Churches Vniversality And as the Apostles who preached the Gospell in the beginning did beleeve the Church Vniversall though their preaching at the beginning was not so So Luther also might and did beleeve the Church Universall though his Reformation were but particular I say he did beleeve it Vniversall even in your own sense that is Universall de iure though not defacto And as for Vniversality in fact he beleeved the Church much more Vniversall then his reformation For he did conceive as appeares by your own Allegations out of him that not only the Part reformed was the true Church but also that they were Part of it who needed reformation Neither did he ever pretend to make a new Church but to reform the old one Thirdly and lastly to the first proposition of this unsyllogisticall syllogisme I answer That to say the true Church is not alwaies defacto universall is so far from being an Heresy that it is a certaine truth knowne to all those that know the world and what Religions possesse farre the greater part of it Donatus therefore was not to blame for saying that the Church might possibly be confin'd to Africk but for saying without ground that then it was so And S. Austine as he was in the right in thinking that the Church was then extended farther then Africk so was he in the wrong if he thought that of necessity it alwaies must be so but most palpably mistakeÌ in conceiving that it was then spread over the whole earth known to all nations which if passion did not trouble you make you forget how lately almost halfe the world was discovered and in what estate it was then found you would very easily see and confesse 15 Ad § 17. In the next Section you pretend that you have no desire to prosecute the similitude of Protestants with the Donatists and yet you doe it with as much spight and malice as could well bee devised but in vaine For Lucilla might doe ill in promoting the Sect of the Donatists and yet the Mother and the Daughter whom you glance at might doe well in ministring influence as you phrase it to Protestants in England Vnlesse you will conclude because one woman did one thing ill therefore no woman can doe any thing well or because it was ill done to promote one Sect therefore it must bee ill done to maintaine any 16 The Donatists might doe ill in calling the Chaire of Rome the Chaire of Pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot and yet the state of the Church being altered Protestants might doe well to doe so and therefore though S. Austine might perhaps have reason to persecute the Donatists for detracting from the Church and calling her harlot when she was not so yet you may have none to threaten D. Potter that you would persecute him as the Application of this place intimates you would if it were in your power plainly shewing that you are a curst cow though your hornes be short seeing the Roman Church is not now what it was in S. Austines time And hereof the conclusion of your own book affords us a very pregnant testimony where you tell us out of Saint Austine that one grand-impediment which among many kept the seduced followers of the faction of Donatus from the Churches Communion was a vile calumny raised against the Catholiques that they did set some strange thing upon their Altar To how many saith S. Austine did the reports of ill tongues shut up the way to enter who said that we put I know not what upon the Altar Our of detestation of the calumny and just indignation against it he would not so much as name the impiety wherewith they were charged and therefore by a Rhetoricall figure calls it I know not what But compare with him Optatus writing of the same matter and you shall plainly perceive that this I know not what pretended to be set upon the Altar was indeed a picture which the Donatists knowing how detestable a thing it was to all Christians at that time to set up any Pictures in a Church to worship them as your new fashion is bruited abroad to be done in the Churches of the Catholique Church But what answer doe S. Austine and Optatus make to this accusation Doe they confesse and maintaine it Doe they say as you would now It is true we doe set Pictures upon our Altar and that not only for ornament or memory but for worship also but we doe well to doe so and this ought not to trouble you or affright you from our Communion What other answer your Church could now make to such an objection is very hard to imagine And therefore were your Doctrine the same with the Doctrine of the Fathers in this point they must have answered so likewise But they to the coÌtrary not only deny the crime but abhorre and detest it To litle purpose therefore doe you hunt after these poore shadowes of resemblances between us and the Donatists unlesse you could shew an exact resemblance between the present Church of Rome and the Ancient which seeing by this and many other particulars it is demonstrated to bee impossible that Church which was then a Virgin may be now a Harlot and that which was detraction in the Donatists may be in Protestants a just accusation 17 As ill successe have you in comparing D. Potter with Tyconius whom as S. Austin findes fault with for continuing in the Donatists separation having forsaken the ground of it the Doctrine of the Churches perishing so you condemne the Doctor for continuing in their Communion who hold as you say the very same Heresy But if this were indeed the Doctrine of the Donatists how is it that you say presently after that the Protestants who hold the Church of Christ perished were worse then Donatists who said that the Church remained at least in Africa These things me thinkes hang not well together But to let this passe The truth is this difference for which you would faine raise such a horrible dissention between D. Potter and his Brethren if it be well considered is only in words and the manner of expression They affirming only that the Church perished from its integrity and fell into many corruptions which he derlies not And the Doctor denying only that it fell from its essence and became no Church at all which they affirme not 18 These therefore are but velitations and you would seeme to make but small account of them But the main point you say is that since Luthers Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was in the Apostles time
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 giveÌ 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 PyrrhoniaÌ 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 SuccessioÌ 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
his sword to his Prefect with this commission that if he governed well he should use it for him if ill against him Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to preach against her corruptions in manners And if so why not against her errors in doctrine if she had any Whether she gave them not authority to preach the whole Gospell of Christ and consequently against her doctrine if it should contradict any part of the Gospell of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawfull in the Church of Rome for any Lay man or woman that has ability to perswade others by word or by writing from error and unto truth And why this liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other commission or vocation then that of a Christian to doe a work of charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of Charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without an unnecessary disturbance of order to perswade men out of a false unto a true way of eternall happinesse Especially the Apostle having assur'd us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soule from death and shall hide a multitude of sinnes Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain Others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not consecrate a Metropolitan of England as well as the Cardinalls doe the Pope Whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the government in their hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonicall exception Whether the Doctrine that the King is supream head of the Church of England as the Kings of Iudah the first Christian Emperors were of the Iewish and Christian Church be any new found doctrine Whether it may not be true that Bishops being made Bishops have their authority immediatly from Christ though this or that man be not made Bishop without the Kings authority as well as you say the Pope being Pope has authority immediatly from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the authority of the Cardinalls Whether you doe well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more authority in ordering the affaires of the Church then the great Turk or the Pagan Emperors Whether the King may not give authority to a Bishop to exercise his function in some part of his Kingdome and yet not be capable of doing it himselfe as well as a Bishop may give authority to a Physitian to practise Physick in his Diocesse which the Bishop cannot doe himselfe Whether if Nerâ the Emperour would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to preach the Gospell of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have question'd his Authority to doe so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited K. IAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his injunction upon them to doe any thing that is lawfull Whether a casuall irregularity may not be lawfully dispenc'd with Whether the Popes irregularities if he should chance to incurre any be indispensable And if not who is he or who are they whom the Pope is so subject unto that they may dispense with him Whether that be certain which you take for granted That your Ordination imprints a character and ours doth not Whether the power of consecrating and ordaining by imposition of hands may not reside in the Bishops and be derived unto them not from the King but God and yet the King have authority to command them to apply this power to such a fit person whom he shall commend unto them As well as if some Architects only had the faculty of architecture and had it immediatly by infusion from God himselfe yet if they were the Kings subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a fortresse for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himselfe yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his subjects that has this power to ordaine any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it doe not follow that whensoever the King commands an house to be built a message to be delivered or a murtherer to be executed that all these things are presently done without intervention of the Architect messenger or executioner As well as that they are ipsofacto ordain'd and consecrated who by the Kings authority are commended to the Bishops to be ordained and consecrated Especially seeing the King will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to doe what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should doe so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himselfe nor any body else would esteeme the person Bishop upon the Kings designation Whether many Popes though they were not consecrated Bishops by any temporall Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopall function in this or that place And whether the Emperors had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants doe indeed pretend that their Reformation is universall Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you doe not forget your selfe and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of divine institution be Schismaticall and Hereticall for thinking so Whether your forme of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essentiall to the constitution of a true Church Whether the formes of the Church of England differ essentially from your formes Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other mans Lastly whether any one kind of these externall formes and orders and government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may not be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives
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 âAs 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 Peâilianum 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
And whereas you say the Catholiques never yeelded that among the Donatists there was a true Church and hope of Salvation I say it appears by what I have alleaged out of S. Austine that they yeelded both these were among the Donatists as much as we yeeld them to be among the Papists As for D. Potters acknowledgement that they maintained an error in the matter nature of it Hereticall This proves them but Materiall Heretiques whom you doe not exclude from possibility of Salvation So that all things considered this argument must be much more forcible from the Donatists against the Catholiques then from Papists against Protestants in regard Protestants grant Papists no more hope of salvation then Papists grant Protestants whereas the Donatists excluded absolutely all but their own Part from hope of Salvation so farre as to account them no Christians that were not of it the Catholiques mean while accounting them Brethren and freeing those among them from the imputation of Heresy who being in error quaerebant cautâ sollicitudine veritatem corrigi parati cùm invenerint 23 Whereas you say That the Argument for the certainty of their Baptisme because it was confessed good by Catholiques whereas the Baptisme of Catholiques was not confessed by them to be good is not so good as yours touching the certainty of your Salvation grounded on the confession of Protestants because wee confesse there is no damnable error in the Doctrine or practice of the Roman Church I Ans. no we confesse no such matter and though you say so a hundred times no repetition will make it true We professe plainly that many damnable errors plainly repugnant to the precepts of Christ both Ceremoniall and Morall more plainly then this of Rebaptization and therefore more damnable are believed and professed by you And therefore seeing this is the only disparity you can devise and this is vanished it remaines that as good an answer as the Catholiques made touching the certainty of their Baptisme as good may we make and with much more evidence of Reason touching the security and certainty of our Salvation 24 By the way I desire to be inform'd seeing you affirme that Rebaptizing those whom Hereticks had baptized was a sacriledge and a profession of a damnable Heresie when it began to be so If from the beginning it were so then was Cyprian a sacrilegious professor of a damnable heresy and yet a Saint and a martyr If it were not so then did your Church excommunicate Firmilian and others and separate from them without sufficient ground of Excommunication or Separation which is Schismaticall You see what difficulties you runne into on both sides choose whether you will but certainly both can hardly be avoided 25 Whereas again in this § you obtrude upon us That we cannot but confesse that your doctrine containes no damnable error and that yours is so certainly a true Church that unlesse yours be true we cannot pretend any I answer there is in this neither truth nor modesty to outface us that we cannot but confesse what indeed we connot but deny For my part if I were upon the rack I perswade my selfe I should not confesse the one nor the other 26 Whereas again presently you adde that D. Potter grants we should be guilty of Schisme if we did cut off your Church from the body of Christ and the hope of Salvation I have shewed above that he grants no such matter He saies indeed that our not doing so frees us from the imputation of Schisme from hence you sophistically inferre that he must grant If we did so wee were Schismatiques and then make your Reader believe that this is D. Potters confession it being indeed your own false collection For as every one that is not a Papist is not a Iesuit and yet not every one that is a Papist is a Iesuit As whosoever comes not into England comes not to London and yet many may come to England and not come to London As whosoever is not a man is not a King and yet many are men that are not Kings So likewise it may be certain that whosoever does not so is free from Schisme and yet they that doe so if there be sufficient cause may be not guilty of it 27 Whereas you pretend to wonder that the Doctor did not answer the argument of the Donatists which he saies is all one with yours but referres you to S. Austine there to read it as if every one carried with him a Library or were able to examin the places in S. Austin I answer the parity of the Arguments was that which the Doctor was to declare whereto it was impertinent what the answer was But sufficient it was to shew that the Donatists argument which you would never grant good was yet as good ãâã yours and therefore yours could not be good Now to this purpose as the concealing the answer was no way advantagious so to produce it was not necessary and therefore he did you more service then he was bound to in referring you to S. Austin for an answer to it Whereas you say he had reason to conceale it because it makes directly against himselfe I say it is so farre from doing so that it will serve in proportion to the argument as fitly as if it had been made for it for as S. Austine saies that Catholiques approve the Doctrine of Donatists but abhorre their Heresy of Re-baptization so we say that we approve those fundamentall and simply necessary Truths which you retaine by which some good soules among you may be saved but abhorre your many Superstitions and Heresies And as he saies that as gold is good yet ought not to be sought for among a company of Theeves and Baptisme good but not to be sought for in the Conventicles of Donatists so say we that the Truths you retaine are good and as we hope sufficient to bring good ignorant soules among you to salvation yet are not to be sought for in the Conventicle of Papists who hold with them a mixture of many vanities and many impieties For as for our freeing you from damnable Heresy and yeelding you SalvatioÌ which stone here again you stumble at neither he nor any other Protestant is guilty of it and therefore you must confesse that this very answer will serve Protestants against this charme of Papists as well as S. Austine against the Donatists and that indeed it was not D. Potter but You that without a Sarcasme had reason to conceale this Answer 28 The last piece of D. Potters book which you are pleased to take notice of in this first Part of yours is an argument he makes in your behalfe p. 79. of his book where he makes you speak thus If Protestants believe the Religion of Papists to be a safe way to heaven why doe they not follow it This argument you like not because many things may be good and yet not necessary to be embraced by every body therefore scoffe at
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 ãâã 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 Poliârates 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 ãâã of them and though one account that a necessary truth which ãâã 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 â35 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
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 Oâission 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 supersâuities 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 supersâuities 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