can prove the Assumption of your Syllogisme or not If you can give I pray you a specimen of your Acumen and tergiverse no longer If ye cannot then professe ingenuously as the truth is that ye have undertaken a work which ye cannot performe And it is no wonder that here you be at a Non-plus For if the Christian Religion revealed in Scripture hath grounds to prove it self to be the True Religion which none but a down right Infidell can deny then surely the Religion of PROTESTANTS wanteth not grounds to prove it self For the Religion of PROTESTANTS is the Christian Religion revealed in the holy Scriptures as I told you in the explication of the terms in my first Paper And consequently what ever solid grounds were brought either by these Ancient Apologists Iustin Martyr Tertullian Athenagoras Arnobius c. Or are held out in the moderne tractats of Morney Grotius Amyrald yea in your own Vives to prove the truth of the Christian Religion these also prove the truth of the Religion of PROTESTANTS Nay doe not you Romanists acknowledge the most of all our Positives So that the great question which remains is Whether you Papists have any evidence for your superadditions And is it not your concernment to shew this But when I think upon your Tautologizing way it calls to my minde the custome of children who when their memorie failes them in saying their lesson least they should seeme to say nothing they will needs ingeminate the last word Away then for shame with these childish unmanly and insipid repetitions You blot much paper needlesly with foure Synonima propositions But I might advertise you first that your discourse concerning them is wide from the purpose For it supposeth that I am now proving the Religion of PROTESTANTS to be the True Religion which is not at present my work But seeing ye have undertaken to impugne it my bussines is to cleat it from your cavills Secondly I doubt if ye can reconcile what ye have said of the Equipollencie of these foure Propositions with your Tridentine Faith For if it be the same thing for a Religion to be a True Religion and to be conforme to the Scriptures then it cannot be true which your Councill of Trent hath defined that Unwritten Traditions are to be received Pari pietatis affectu with equall devotion as the written Word of GOD. For if this Tridentin Canon be true the truth of Religion cannot stand adequatly in its conformity to the Scriptures but partly in its conformity with the Scriptures and partly in its conformity with unwritten traditions and consequently your fore-mentioned propositions cannot be adequatly Synomma's You may bethink your self whether ye or the Councill be in the Error But thirdly granting these propositions to be Synonima's that is to have an Objective identitie I pray by what Logick will ye prove that one of them cannot be brought to prove the other Is it not lawfull to argue á Definitione ad Definitum betwixt which there is an objective identity Doe not Logicians acknowledge an identity betwixt objective Premisses and the Conclusion And therefore though a True Religion be a Religion cōforme to the Scripturs yet there is no absurditie in proving the truth of Religiō by its cōformity to the Scripturs Even as to use your old example from which ye are fallen off as seems because it made so much against you An action to be honest and conforme to the Law are Synonima's and yet the best way of proving it to be honest is to prove its conformity to the Law By all this it appears that your plain Scots which ye are not ashamed againe to repeat is plaine Non-sense as I demonstrated in my last For the truth of Religion consisting in its conformity with the Scripture may be demonstrated by holding out its conformity with the Scripture An objective evidence of a Religion being nothing else but a ground whereby the truth of Religion may be demonstrated it is unconceivable how a Religion can have objective evidence and yet want a ground whereby to manifest it self to be a True Religion If here you but understood your own self I hope there would be no more controversie as to this betwixt us So that the matter is not obscured by my terms as you say but by your contradictory Non-sense As to your frivolous oft repeated cavill that a false Religion may pretend the like conformity and objective evidence it was confuted so fully in my last that I shall remit you to what was then said Though Anaxagoras and Hypochondriack Persons may mantaine Snow to be black Shall that make others who have their eyes in their head and the use of their Reason turne Sceptickes and question whether it be white or black Towards the close ye passe by many things as your coustome is which I hade said concerning the assistance of your Clergie men In actu primo to give the true sense of Scripture And ye only labour to extricat your self from that Contradiction wherein I shew you to be involved but all in vaine Nay ye involve your self the more by affirming That a proposition may have an universall obiect whereof it self is a part and yet that something may be affirmed of that universall object which cannot be affirmed of that part of the object A rare notion forsooth implying a manifest repugnancie But I am loath to digresse to a Philosophick debate with you Can any thing I pray you be affirmed of every man which cannot be affirmed of you and me As for that proposition of Davids All men are liars which you bring to illustrate your paradoxall notion How could you make use of it in your argueing with me untill first you proved your infallibility For if you may be beleeved I can take no sense of it from you untill you first prove your self infallible which I suppose you pretend not to But it is your ill luck to be still involved in contradictions Yet to speake more particularly of this example and not to take up time in enumerating the severall acceptions of this Syncategorematick particle All it may be evident that David did not take it Universally of all men in reference to all their sayings else he had not only convicted himself of a lie but also charged all the penne men of holy Scriptures as liars in all that they said Which I beleeve no rationall Person will affirme It must therefore be restricted to one of two Either to these who had said that DAVID should be King and if thus it was indeed an over-reaching and false assertion in DAVID For among these the Prophet Samuel was one And no wonder that DAVID did over-reach in this for he acknowledges he spake it in Festinatione in his haste Or secondly to which I rather encline it must be understood thus every meer man of his own nature is prone to lying and fallible as your Esthius and A Lapide upon Rom. 3.4 And many others doe
Ancient Church And to instance if you can One difference in essentialls betwixt the faith of the Ancient Church and our Religion else it must be held for confessed that our Religion which you so much reproach is The truely Ancient Christian Religion and yours but the tares which the envyous one did latly sow in the Lords field and that your pretence to Antiquity is no better then the Gibeonits mouldie bread Ies 9.5.12 Towards the Conelusion you are so discreet as to upbraid me as Altogether ignorant of the nature of supernatural faith Because foresooth I would not acknowledge That the assent of faith which is given to articles of Religion must be founded upon the foreknowledge of the infallible assistance of the propounders thereof I suppose you meane the Clergie of whome you spake in your former Papers But First were you not concemed if you had looked to your reputation before you had taken the boldnesse to reproach me for Ignorance in this matter first to have cleared your self from these Contradictions wherein I have demonstrated you to be involved from your former assertions concerning This infallible assistance of the Clergie Secondly were you so shallow as not to discerne that you intangle your self in a New contradiction by this your present discourse For if everie supernatura assent of faith to a divine truth must be founded upon The foreknowledge of the infallible assistance of the propounder thereof then the first assent to The necessity of the foreknowledge of this assistance in the Propounder must presuppose it as being according to you An Act of supernatural faith And yet it cannot presuppose it because it is the first assent which the person hath concerning that assistance And consequently if it did presuppose a former knowledge of that assistance it should be first and not first Is not this a goodly Religion which you have that you cannot move one step in mantainance thereof without intangling your self still in contradictions But Thirdly either This necessity of the foreknowledge of the infallible assistance of the propounder of divine truths which you make the foundation of all supernatural faith can be proven or not If not then all your faith is founded upon a fancie which cannot be proven If it can be proven why shunne you to doe it I haveing so often required it of you But now I will lay this Dilemma about you If it can be proven either it must be from Scripture or from some Unwriten Word to use your Romanists phrase Not from Scripture for according to you no sense of Scripture can be known unles first the Infallible assistance of the propounder thereof be known and therefore when one doubts of the infallible assistance of the proponer it is impossible according to your principles that this can be proven from Scripture Nor can you prove it by any Unwriten Word For you have asserted in your former Papers that a point of Religion To be true and to be conforme to the Writen Word of GOD are Synenima's and that the one of these cannot be proven before the other Therefore you cannot prove the truth of this point conceming the Clergies assistance meerly by an unwriten Word else it should be known to be true before its conformity to the writen Word were known which is the Contradictorie of your former assertion But besides to know the sense of a Decretal Canon of Councill or Tradition or what ever else you will runne to as distinct from the Scriptures of GOD there is as great necessitie of The foreknowledge of the assistance of the propounder thereof as for the knowing of the true sense of Scripture And therefore before I assent to the true sense of a Decretal Canon of Councill or Tradition by a supernatural Act of faith I must first know that the propounder is guided by an infallible assistance and consequently when one doubts of this infallible assistance of the propounder neither can it be proven by anie Vnwriten word Decretal Canon of Councill or Tradition Expede your self from this Dilemma if you can without destroying your own principles by which you are locked up in Contradictions Nay more I here freely offer will you or any prove to me either From Scripture or Vniversal Tradition That the foreknowledge of such infallible assistance of your Clergie is a necessarie prerequisite before I can give a supernatural assent of faith to an article of Religion and I will turne Romanist Can I make a fairer proffer to you Will you not have so much compassion upon me as to make me your Proselyte But I may divine here and not be a Propher you will as scone remove the Earth out of its place according to Archimedes bold undertakeing as to prove your Hypothesis from either of these forementioned grounds Fourthly when you talke so liberally of this Assistance of the Propounder of articles of faith ought you not to determine whome you meane by This Propounder I hope you extend it not to all the people nay nor to all who have received Orders It was 〈◊〉 pretended that everie one of these was infallible whether therefore is it the Pope or General Council or both that you meane If you cannot agree among your selves who this Infallible Propounder is doe you not reel as to the Foundation of your faith I therefore require you againe to determine to me if you can An Infallible Propounder of articles of faith agreed upon by you Romanists and to produce the evidences for this infallibity from Scripture or Vniversal Tradition or Canon of general Council You would make the world beleeve that you had an infallible Propounder of divine truths and yet you cannot agree who he is Nor have any of the parties into which you are broken in this matter Evidence from your Romish principles for the infallibility of him or them whom they would place in Appâ—llo's chaire Pitch therefore on whome you will as your Iufallible Interpreter and let us see if his Infallibilitie can abyd the Test. Who knowes not how impiouslie your Popes have erred and that both In cathedra and extra cathedram How Pope Liberius subscrived to to the Arrian confession of the Council of Sirmium and to the condemnation of Athanasius How Pope Honorius being consulted by Sergius of Constantinople gave out sentence for the Monethelite Heresie How Pope Iohn the twentysecond denyed the immortalitie of the Soul Yea not to insist further in takeing this Dung-hill your own Platina in the life of Stephanâ—s the sixth records that it is almost the constant custome of the succeeding Popes to infringe Or wholly abrogate the decrees of their Predecessors Are these the infallible propounders of divine truths upon which our faith must be built It were easie also to give an account of the errours and lapses of Councils though I should be loath to derogat in the least from their due esteeme I shall therefore at present but mind you of that luculent testimonie of Austin lib. 2.
Catholick Church in the Second or Third Centurie and argue thence as from a Principle especially when he hath to doe with an Adversarie who may admit the faith of the Ancient Church as a Test and will decline the Scriptures under pretext of obscarity or ambiguity Yea as I have said before A Divine may in such a case argue from the faith of one true Particular Church Suppose that an Original writ were either lost or blotted and blurred from which there hath been several Transumpts taken and that there were two persons pretending to have Transumpts but each of them questioning the fidelity of the others Transumpt This Question could not be decided by the Original it being supposed either to be lost or blotted utterly and blurred and neither of the two Parties willing yeeld to one another But there being found another Transump which both the Parties acknowledge to have been the First Copie that was taken from the Original Could there be any way so good for decyding the Question next to the compareing of both the Transumpts with the Original if it could be had or were clear as to compare the two controverted Copies with this uncontroverted Transumpt In this case would not he who shunned to bring his Copie to the tryall leave a strong presumption that his Paper were but a forged draught Now though all the authority which the unquestioned Transumpt hath was derived from its conformity with the Original yet in these circumstances it may have the place of a Test to distinguish betwixt true and adulterat Copies The application is obvious The Papists like old Hereticks accuse Scriptures as being blotted and blurred yea as in a manner lost The Originals if you may be beleeved being corrupted albeit indeed Scripture is clear and by the good hand of GOD preserved to this day Yet seeing you sometimes seeme to magnify Antiquity as if you did acknowledge the faith of the Ancient Church to be a faithful Transumpt from that authentick Original of the Scriptures what more condescension can we PROTESTANTS in this case show to you Then seeing you will not be judged by the Scriptures which are out Heavenly Fathers authentick Testament then I say to acquiesce that the cause betwixt us be tryed by that Transumpt which you seeme to acknowledge And when you decline this tryal also doth it not speake you out to be real Prevaricators and Cavillers But because some may wonder whence it is that you doe not onely decline a tryall by Scripture but also by Antiquity I will here open the Mysterie that lurkes under it Though you Romanists seeme somtimes to magnify Fathers Councils and Antiquity yet there are none who set them more at nought then you as if you put me to it I will make good by particular instances And therefore laying them aside it is onely your present Romish Church that is your sure Author-hold And by your present Church your Jesuited Partie meanes only the Pope I doe not stander you Hear your great Champion Gretser who comes in to succour Bellarmin at a dead lift Tom. 1. Defens cap. 10. lib. 3. Bellarmin De ver be Dei colum 1450. Quando Ecclesiam dicimus esse omnium controversiarum fidei juaicem intelligimus Pontisicem Romanum qui pre teâ—pore praesens naviculam militantis Ecclesiae moderatur When we affirme sayeth he the Church to be the judge of all controversies of faith by the Church we understand the Bishop of Rome who for the time being Governs the ship of the Militant Church So that there is no security for your unhappie Religion unlesse ye be made Chancelours in your own Assyze If it be asked how shall any know that the Romish Church is the True Church The answere must be because she that is her head the Pope sayes she is the True Church If it be againe asked how shall it be known that the Pope is the Head of the Church The answere must be because he sayes he is it But how shall it be known that he is Infallible in so saying The answere must be because he sayes this is his prerogative And how shall it be known that the Romish Religion is the onely True Religion The onely plaine answere is because the Pope whose grandour is mantained thereby sayes it is the True Religion And how shall it be known that the Religion of PROTESTANTS is a Wrong Religion Because forsooth the Pope whose triple Crown is shaken by the Religion of Protestants sayes that it is an heretical Religion Alace abcel that poore simple people should be so miserably cheaâ—ed and seduced GOD I trust will erre long open their eyes to see these damnable impostures You had asserted in your last That every supernatural act of faith must be founded on the foreknowledge of the infallible assistance of the Popounders of divine truths To which in my last I had Replyed many thing most of which according to your custome you never once touch I must therefore reminde you of the heads of them As First you were demanded who these Infallible Propounders are Whether you Romanists can agree upon them Whether you can produce grounds for their infallibility from Scripture or Universal Tradition I hope you will not pretend every one of your Shavelings to be infallible Yea I brought luculent evidence that both Popes and General Councils may erre and have erred Secondly I asked whereupon the Faith of these pretended Infallible Propounders was builded and wherein they differed from Enthusiasts Thirdly supposing Pope or Council or both had this Infalliblity yet seeing the people receive their sentence from the mouth of such fallible and fallacious persons as you how can they be assured that either you have not taken up the sense of their Decrees wrong or that for base ends you doe not falsifie them And Fourthly how it can be known who are your Clergie men that are gifted with this assistance seeing the efficacie of Sacraments of which Ordination with you is one dependeth on the secret intention of the Priest But none of these doe you once touch Are not you fitter to be a Trencher Chaplaine to a Biggotted and implicit Proselit then a Disputant I Might here also comit you with the late Patrons of your Traditionarie Way particularly with Master Cressy who in his Exomologesis Cap. 51. Sect. 4. Acknowledges That the pastors of the Church proceed not now as the Apostles did with a peculiar infallible direction of the holy Spirit but with prudential collection not alwayes necessarie and that to the Apostles such an infallible certainty of means was necessarie but not so now to the Church And in his chap. 40. Sect. 3. He acknowledges the unfortunatness of that word infallibility And said that he could find no such word in any Council and that there appeared no necessity to him that any PROTESTANT should ever have heard that word named let be pressed with so much earnestness and that Master Chillingworth hath combated that word
then apologize for me One Objection must needs be removed It may be asked how I doe charge the Iesuit as declyning to have the truth of Religion either examined by Scripture or Antiquity seeing he profers at lest to have one Controversie examined by Scripture Viz. concerning the number of Sacraments But let any rational person though a Romanist if he can but dispossesse his own mind of prejudice cognosce whether my Charge be just How disingenuous the Iesuit was in that seeming profer concerning the number of Sacraments is sufficiently discovered in my Reply to his tenth paper from page 236. to page 241. Now only let these few particulars be considered And 1. When did the Iesuit make this profer Only in his tenth or last paper imeÌ„diatly before his getting out of the nation Why did he it not sooner especially seeing we had been exchanging papers above a year before and he had been frequently appealed to a discusse of particular Controversies Did he not in former papers positively decline to have the truth of Religion examined either by Scripture or Antiquity By Scripture because as he affirmes paper 4. pag. 37. The letter of Scripture is capable of divers yea contrary senses and there is no Religion so false but pretends that the tenets of it are conforme to the letter of Scripture By Antiquity also because sayeth the Iesuit paper 5. page 61 This with as great reason may be assumed by any Christian false Religion Yea doth he not charge me as hatching a new Religion of my own because I appealed to the Fathers of the three first Centuries in his 9. paper page 178. Now what ingenuity or courage is manifested by such a seeming profer at such a time after so many declinaturs ingenuous Romanists may judge But secondly Had there not been weighty Controversies tabled before viz. Concerning the Infallibility of Popes and Councils the Perspicuity and Perfection of the Scriptures Transubstantiation Adoration of Images Communion under one kinde Papal indulgences Apocrypha bookes the Popes Supremacie over the whole Catholick Church and his Jurisdiction over Princes Yea had it not been shewed as the breviry of missives would permit that the Church of Rome doth grosly erre in all these Yet never did he offer to Reply to any of these Let Romanists therefore againe judge whether he who passes over in silence all Arguments both from Scripture and Antiquity to prove the present Romish Religion erronious in all the foresaid particulars and only starts a new Question about the number of Sacraments doeth shew a through willingnesse to have the Truth of Religion tryed either by Scripture or Antiquity Thirdly If there he any Controversie tossed betwixt Rom mists and us where a cavilling Sophister may wrap himself up under Logomachies is not this it which the Iesuit hath pitched upon coÌ„cerning the number of Sacraments Must it not be acknowledged on all hands that as the word Sacrament is taken in a larger or stricter sense a man may affirme that ther be more or fewer Sacraments But of this you may see more at length in the Aâ—swere to the Jesuits tenth paper page 238. and 239. Let it be then considered how willing the Jesuit was of a Scriptural tryal who dates not adventure on the examination of other Controversies and only betaks himself to this wherein the Adversarie may shut himself up in a thicker of Logomachies But fourthly Doth the Jesuit really profer to have that on Controversie concerning the number of Sacraments betwixt Papists and us decyded by Scripture Or doth he bring Arguments from Scripture to prove a precise Septenary of proper Sacraments neither more nor fewer which is the Doctrine of the Present Romish Church Nor at all What then Only that he might seeme to say something he desires me to prove from Scripture that there be only two Sacraments or that there be no more then two which is in very deed to require me to prove the Negative while he himself declynes to prove the Affirmative viz. That there is not only more then two but compleatly seven Though the Iesuits demand be irrational I hope I have satisfied it in its own proper place But what though I had succumbed in proving that there were no more but two proper Sacraments Yet the question betwixt Romanists and us concerning the number of Sacraments were not decyded except it be proven that there be precisely seven neither more nor fewer If there be not a precise septenary one Article of the Romish faith falls to the ground Consequently the Iesuit never submits the Question concerning the number of Sacraments to a Scriptural tryal untill he offer to prove by Scripture a precise sepetenary of proper Sacraments which as yet he hath not done nor I believe will adventure to doe He will find need of the supplement of his unwriten traditions here But neither I suppose will these serve his turne But Fifthly what are all these ensuing papers but a demonstration of the Iesuits tergiversing humor In his first paper he proposed foure postulata like so many Oracles I discovered an egregious fallacy in one of them But to this day he never once endeavoured to vindicat himself He proposed in that paper an informal Syllogisme but could never thereafter adventure on a second which was retorted in better forme against the Popish Religion more wayes then one but these Retortions to this houre remaine unexamined I denyed the Assumption of that long studied Syllogisme but he could never be induced to undertake the probation thereof In that Assumption the Iesuit had said that the PROTESTANT Religion had no grounds to prove its conformity with the letter of Scripture To repell that bold allegeance I appealed him to produce any solid ground of conformity with Scripture which either the True Christian Religion hath or that the Popish Religion can pretend to which the Religion of PROTESTANTS wants But he could never be moved to produce any Sometimes he hinted at the Infallibility of the Propounders of the Articles of Faith but he durst neither adventure to tell whom he meant by these Infallible Propounders or to prove the Infallibility of Romish Propounders or to answere Arguments against their Infallibility At length being outwearied with his tergiversing I produced positive Grounds for proving the conformity of our Religion to the Scriptures and the disconformity of theirs viz. The Perspicuity of the Scriptures in all things necessarie and Conformitie with the faith of the Ancient Church in the first three Centuries Hereupon he positively declyned both Scriptures and Fathers in these first three Centuries as a test to find out the Truth of Religion Therefore finding that still he shunned to come to particulars I pirched upon that much controverted Scripture which Romanists pretend to be as favourable to them as any viz Hoc est Corpus meum This is my Body and proved the sense which PROTESTANTS give thereof to be True and Genuine and the sense which Romanists impose to
be false and absurd And offered to doe the like concerning other controverted Scriptures such as Luke 22.32 I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not Matthew 16.18 Upon this Rocke I will build my Church 1. Tim. 3.15 The pillar and ground of Truth c. This I did in the Answere to his seventh paper from page 126. to page 130. But all these he waves as tedious Digressions in his eight paper page 148. I resolved also to try his behaviour more particularly in reference to Antiquity and therefore in the Answere to the Iesuits eight paper from page 169. to page 173. I produced seven articles of the present Romish Religion which I briefly shew to be repugnant to the faith of the Ancient Romish Church viz. Their Adoration of Images Their Transubstantiation Their Communion under one kinde The Popes Supremacy Their mantaining the Apocryphal bookes to be Canonical Scriptures the Papes usurped Jurisdiction over Princes and their Indulgences for easing Soules under the paines of Purgatory But this is all the Answere which the tergiversing Jesuit makes to these particulars in his paper 9. page 176. What makes it to our purpose your digressions about Images about Transubstantiation about Communion under one kinde about the Popes supremacy about Apocryphal bookes about Indulgences Purgatory c. I gave likewise some account of their corrupting the Morals and Practicals of Christianity by their impious doctrine of Probables in the answere to his eight paper page 162. 163. c. But to this he answered Ne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quidem nothing at all The rest of his rergiversing Preteritions I must leave the Reader to collect by his own observation Did ever I pray an ill cause fall into the hands of a more unhappie Advocat Whether now my charge against the Iesuit as on that declynes to have the truth of Religion tryed either by Scripture or Antiquity be just let him who who ponders these particulars and peruseth all the Papers judge Had I tergiversed as the Iesuit hath done had I been left at such disadvantages as he would they not have made the World ring with it What ever answere shall be returned to me Our Popish Apostats will be ready to entertain it with Plaudire's as if the field were wone But I hope they who are judicious will hereafter lesse regard their clamours having such experience of their triumphing when their Champion had behaved himself in such a piteous fashion Our Romanists are pleased to boast that how soon these papers come abroad they shall have an Answere tripping upon their heels Indeed I have eased them of much labour by publishing all these papers Have they not had a good opportunity these six or seven moneths wherein they knew thir papers were at the Presse to prepare supplies for Mr. Dempsters omissions Have they not many hands and heads to furnish them materials little worke to divert them from scribling Yet they would take heed lest through preposterous hâ—ste they fall into Mr. Dempsters errour to leave the chiefe of their worke behind them My designe ever was rather to contend with them in solidity of reason then in Celerity of dispatch Diu apparandumest bellum ut vincas celerius If Romanists be as speedy in their Reply as they talke will it not discover that they apprehend some danger to their ill Cause from these papers If their speed be not answerable to their boasting will it not be an evidence that they are large as good at boasting as at argueing All the courtesie I crave from the ingenuous Reader is to allow me an equal hearing with the Adversary So as when he is to passe judgement betwixt us he consider an equal number of his papers and mine Here there be ten of either side presented If now Sentence should be past neither of us could complaine that we had not ben heard But if Romanists adde their eleventh paper then ought not any further sentence be suspended untill my Reply be heard The Iesuit having the first word doth not the last de jure appertaine to me Yet if the eleventh paper run in the same trifling and tautologizing strain with the former I plead no Suspension My heart bleeds for our straying Apostats some falling to rank Popish Idolatrie others to the delusions of Quakerism which if learned and judicious persons be not mistaken is but Popery under a disguise However O that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears to weep day and night over these deluded Soules under whatsoever Denomination they goe O that their eyes were opened to see the Sin the Scandal and Danger of their way It might be of some use to speak of the Causes of so great a Defection had not these Papers already swelled to such a bignes I shall therefore only transiently hint at a few And First There is alace an innate Principle of Levity and Instability in peoples hâ—arâ—s so that they are ready to be Tossed to and frolike Children with every wind of Doctrine Eph. 4.14 If the heart be not established by grace The 〈◊〉 siâ—eration of this should humble all and make us jealous our own hearts and watch unto Prayer lest we fall into temptation Secondly Seducers have usually a wonderfull insinuating faculty Rom 16.18 By good words and faire speeches they deceive the hearts of the simple By smooth words accommodated to the complexion of these with whom they deal they steal away their hearts as is said of Absolon Yet they in a manner fascinat and bewiâ—ch them as is the Apostles expression Gal. 3.1 And now these decenfull workers as they are termed 2 Cor. 11.13 have taken an unusuall boldness upon them to intrude into all companies where they have any hope of prevailing These therfore who would eschew their Contagion would shun their fellowship as they would shun Persons smitten with the Plague for the Words of Seducers doe eat as a Gangren 2. Tim. 2.17 The Apostle Iohn would not breath in the same aire with the Heretick Cerinthus but sprang out of the Bath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayeth Euseb lib. 3. hist Eccles cap. 25. How soon he perceived the Heretick to be there Thirdly As Hereticks are high and specious in their pretences so also bold and peremptory in their Asseverations The Romish Emissaries talk bigly of the Church as if none had an interest in the Catholick Church but these of their way The Quakers take us great a latitude to boast of the Light and Spirit God forbid that we should derogat from the necessity or efficacy of the Spirits working or from the due esteem to the Catholick Church nay I hope our hearers know we speak more to the just advantage of both then either Jesuit or Quaker But besides these vain and specious pretences these men are very confident in their Asseverations Though they cannot solidely prove any of their Erronious Positions yet they will affirme the truth of them boldly and be ready to Anathematize
SalvatioÌ„ from the faith of the most ancient primitive Church Seeing your Formula fidei contrived by Pope Pius the fourth hath made all the canons of the councill of Trent necessarie which I am sure neither you nor any man shall be able to show to have been the faith of the most Ancient and primitive Church Though this hath been put to you once and againe yet have you not dared to touch upon this string Yea Fifthly from this your imposing new necessary articles of faith whereas Regula fidei as Tertullian well sayed Lib. de velandis Virgin Una omnino est immobilis irrefomabilis many of our Divines have demonstrated your Church to be the most Schismaticall society that bears the name of a Church under Heaven For by this you have cut your selves off both from the ancient Church and from the greatest part of Christendome at this day Among many others who have convicted you of this greivous crime you may try how you can expede your self from that which hath been said to this purpose by Decter Morton in his booke intituled The Grand Imposture of the Church of Rome cap. 15. by Stilling fleet in his Vindicatione of the Bishop of Canterbury part 2. cap. 2. And Voetius in his Desperata causa Papatus lib. 3. From this it were easy to demonstrat that notwithstanding your great pretences to Catholicisme we not ye are the true Catholiks For we acknowledge coÌ„munion with the whole Church both ancient modern which keep the essentials fundameÌ„tals of Christianity But your Chuch by imposing new necessary articles of faith which neither the ancient Church nor yet the greatest part of the present Church did ever acknowledge have cut your selves off from the body I shall close this Section with this Dilemma Either the Scriptures doe containe all that is necessarie to Salvation or not if they doe then you are a perverse wrangling sophister in cavilling against this truth If not then instance one necessary truth not contained in Scriptures And this should have been your worke if you would have done any thing to purpose against this precious truth of the Scriptures being a compleet Canon to have showed some Necessary article of faith not contained therein And if you set to this worke remember that according to your own principles you must prove it by some infallible authority which you will find as hard a worke as to roll Sysiphi Saxum In place of your third objection you enquire What are the means for interpreting Scripture what is the due use of these means Whether a false Religion may not use the meane And whether people without preaching can duely use the means of interpretation and come to the knowledge of all things necessary And from the use of meane of interpretation you would conclude the Scriptures not to be perspicuous Behold now of a disputant you are become a Querist You have need I confesse in your old dayes to turne a Catechumen and if you would become a docile Disciple you might receive convincing instructions and find that you had no just cause to have turned a Runnagade from the Religion of PROTESTANTS unto which you were baptized But so long as your Queries proceed from a cavilling humor you deserve no other answere then the retortion of some puzling Queries as our Lord Christ sometimes confuted the insidious interrogaturs of his adversaries A remarkeable instance whereof you may find Luke 20. from verse 2. to verse 8 And therefore to pull down these Spider webs in which you seeme not a little to confide know First that the use of means of interpretation doth nothing derogat from the asserted Perspicuity of the Scriptures especially seeing the principall means of interpretation are to be fetched from the Scripture it self Suppose a man be in a darke Roome with his eyes shut because he must first open both eyes and windowes before he can see the Sun will you therefore accuse the Sun of obscurity Is not the Perspicuity of Scriptures luculently attested Psal 119. vers 105.2 Pet. 1.19 2. Cor. 4.3.4 Rom. 10.7.8 c. If Scriptures be not perspicuous in things necessary it must be either because GOD would not speake clearlie in them or because he could not It were too hard blasphemie to say he could not Who made mans mouth Exod. 4.11 Hence Laâ—tantius lib. 6. Institut cap. 21. Num Deus linguae mentit artifex lâ—â—uinâ—n potest Nor can you say because he would not seeing this is the verie end of Scripture to reveal unto us the way of Salvation Iohn 20.31 Rom. 15.4.2 Tim. 3.15 Dare you say that our holy and gracious Lord did purposlle deliver the whole Scripture obscurely as Aristâ—tle did his Acromaticks and therefore said of them Edidi non edidi You might have learned a better lesson from Ierom on Psal 96. Where he makes this difference betwixt the writings of Plato and the Apostles Plato said he purposlie affected obscurity that few might understand but the Apostles wrote clearly that they might accommodat themselves to the capacities of all the people of GOD. But Secondly Are not you Romanists as much concerned as we in finding out the means for interpreting Scripture yea and besides to find out also means for interpreting the Decretalls Bulls and Breves of your Popes Are you not acquaint with the perplexed debates of your Authors and particularlie how Stapletons eleventh booke de Principiis fidei Doctrinalibus is wholly spent De mediis interpretandi Scripturam And when all is done you Jesuits can never think your Roman cause sufficiently secured except your Pope be made the onely Infallible Interpreter of Scriptures and therefore Gregorius de Valentia lib. 7. De analysi fidei cap. 1. Proposes this assertion as that which he would prove throughout the whole booke Pontifex ipse Romanus est in quo authoritas illa residet quae in Ecclesia extat ad judicandum de omnibus omnino fidei controversiis And though in his Lib. 8. he mentions diverse rules in determining controversies of faith yet at last he concludes in Cap. 10. That the Pope may use these according to his discretion and that he is not tyed to take advice of Cardinals or other Doctors but according to his pleasure and that he may desyne as Infallibly without them as with them So that till the Scripture have no libertie to speake any thing but what sense your Popes are pleased to put upon it you can never secure either your Pope or Papal Religion from Scriptural Anathema's Were it not easie for me here to give you and the World a Specimen of goodlie expositions of these your infallible interpreters I meane your Popes such as Syricius Innocent the third Boniface the eight c. They who can expound Statuimus by Abrogamus and Pasee â—ues meas of deposing and killing of Princes what Glosses can they not put on scriptures By this it may appeare that this your Querie like all
praesenti that the object thereof doe exist in that article of time wherein the Copula of the proposition is pronounced But according to you Christ Body is not under the accidents of bread when the Copula of the proposition is pronounced for according to you Christs Body is not in the Sacrament till all the Words be ended Therefore the proposition according to your Glosse cannot be true And yet it must be true as being the word of him who is truth it self And consequently it must be Ture and Not True Your Schoolmen have perplexed themselves with these Aenigma's but could never extricat themselves out of this labyrinth in so much that what one of them affirmes the other confutes As these hints prove the falshood of your Romish glosse so the truth of the sense given by PROTESTANTS is manifest from the Series of the context For if by the pronowne Hoc or This Christ meaned the bread then the sense of the proposition must be figurative But by the pronowne This he surely understood the bread Ergo c. The Major is clear because disparats cannot be predicated of one another but Figuratively The Minor is easily proven Because what he tooke blessed and did breake of that he said This is my Body as is clear from the Series of the context But undoubtedly he tooke blessed and brake the bread therefore it was the bread which he did demonstrate by the pronowne This. And consequently the sense must be Figurative Neither is this a late invention of PROTESTANTS Said not Austin Contra Adimantum cap. 12. The Lord doubted not to say This is my Body Cum daret signum Corporis sui That is when he gave the signe and figura of his Body And long before him Tertullian Lib. 4. Adversus Martionem cap. 40. Acceptum panem distributum Corpus suum fecit hoc est Corpus meum dicendo ad est figura Corporis mei Could Calvin or Beza have more luculently affirmed the meaning of Christs proposition to be Figurative I know your two Cardinals Bellarmin and Perron have scrued up a multitude of wrested testimonies of Antiquity as if the Ancient Church had favoured your monstrous sigment of Transubstantiation But Spalatensis Lib. 5. De Rep. Eccles cap. 6. à num 22. Ad numerum 164. not to mention other Authors hath copiously examined and fully vindicated all these testimonies and clearly demonstrated that the Church in the first Eight Centuries was in the same judgement as to the Sacrament of the Eucharist with the Reformed Churches By this touch the judicious Reader may discerne whether our exposition of that rext be not built upon solid grounds The like might be shewed if our expositions and yours were compared of other much tossed Scripturs such as Luke 22.32 I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not Matth. 16.18 Upon this rock I will build my Church 1. Tim. 3.15 The pillar and ground of truth Iob. 21.16 Feed my sheep c. And this were the most compendions way to try whether your expositioÌ„ or ours were the more genuine This also was the advice of Augustine of old Lib. 3. Contra Maximin Arianum cap. 14. Nec ego Nicaenum nec tu debes Arâ—minense tanquam prajudisaturus proferre Concilium Nec ego hujus authoritate nec tu illus detineris Seripturarum authoritatibus non quorumcunque proprys sed utrisque communâ—bus testibus res cum re causa cum causa ratic cum ratione concertes It is true throogh prejudice interest or blindnes men may oppose the most luculent truth after all these meanes But then the whole defect is as we have often advertised you Ex parts subjecti on the part of the subject And so much of your three frivolous cavils against the Scripturs perspicuity in al things necessarie to Salvation In your next section as you declined a tryal by Scripture so likewise you shun to have your Religion tryed by Antiquity and you pretend two noble shifts The first is that according to us al these in the first three Centuries were fallible and therefore though our Religion were conforme to theirs it will not follow that it is the True Religion I doubt if ever any had to doe with such a shamelesse tergiversing fellow For First suppose it were true that our Divines did say that all these of the three first Centuries were Fallible yet if you grant their Religion to be the True Religion and I admit their Religion as to all essentials to be a Test whether ours be true or not with what face can you decline it Know you not that Maxim of Law Testem quem quis inducit pre se tenetur recipere contrase Secondly how could you say That we affirme that all these of the first three Centuries were fallible seeing in these centuries were the Apostles whome we acknowledge to have been Infallible in their Doctrine But Thirdly by saying That we mantains that all in these ages even excepting the Apostles and pen-men of holy writ were fallible and subject to errors you discover your self to be either grosly ignorant of the judgement of PROTESTANTS or to be a base scurvie sophister which will appeare by distinguishing two words in your assertion For First the particle All may be taken either Collectively or Distributively And Secondly Errors of Religion are of two sorts Some in points fundamental and essential some in points which are not of such indispensable necessity This being premised I propose this Distinction If you meane that we mantaine that All in these ages Collectively taken that is the whole Catholick Church may erre in Fundamentals and Essentials it is a most absurd falshood for PROTESTANTS mantaine no such thing We acknowledge the promises for the perpetuity of the Church Isa 59. ver 21. Matth. 28 ver 20. c. But if the whole Catholick Church collectively taken did err in Fundamentals in any age then the Church for that time should utterly cease to be upon earth It is True sundrie of your Writers either through Ignorance or through their calumniating Genius have charged this on PROTESTANTS that they mantaine that the Church may utterly fail But this is so impudent a slander that Bellarmin himself is ashamed of it Lib. 3. De Ecclesia Militants cap. 13. Notandum sayeth he Multos ex nostris tempus terere dum probant absolute Ecclesiam non posse desicere nam Calvinus cateri Heretici id concedunt If therefore this be your meaning you charge PROTESTANTS falsly But if you onely meane that All in these ages taken Distributively remember that now we speake not of Apostles or of pen-meÌ„ of holy writ or of these who had an extraordinatie Prophetick spirit might erre in things not Fundamental this is granted Yet this hinders not but that the truth of our Religion may be proven by its conformity with the faith of the Ancient Church For though every one Distributively taken may erre in Integrals yet seeing Al
collectivly taken or the Catholick Church cannot erre in Essentials if the faith of the Catholick Church in these ages can be found out in the undoubted writings of the Fathers in these times then Conformity with their Religion will irrefragably prove Our Religion to be the True Religion as to all Essentials Yea if from the writings of the Aâ—â—ients in these ages we can find what was the faith of any one true Particular Church we may solidly argue thence as to the Truth of Religion in essentials For though a true particular Church may erre yet so long as it is a True Church it retaines the essentials of faith else it were not a true Church This Distinction which I have proposed is not mine onely but of our PROTESTANT Writers in this question concerning The Churches infallibility As you may see in Whitaker De Ecclesia quaest 3. cap. 1. Doctor Field His way to the Church lib. 4. cap 2. And others So that it is no evasion I propound to you but the received Doctrine of the Reformed Churches and hence the rest of this your cavil on which you foolishly dilate may be cut off If we grant say you Any infallibility to the Church in these three Centuries how did that gift expyre in the fourth and after following ages It is easily Answered This infall blility which we grant to the Collective body of the Church as to the Essentials and Fundamentals of faith agrees to her in every age else the Church in some ages should be utterly lost But though we grant that the whole Catholick Church cannot erre in Fundamentals be not so foolish as to apply this to your Romish Church You might as well say that Italians are the collective body of mankind as that you Romanists are the collective body of the Catholick Church Remember Jeroms smart admonitioÌ„ In Aepistola ad Evagrium Orbis major est urbe Only this I adde that though the Catholick Church be exempted from error in Fundamentals in every age yet the Church in all ages is not blest with Equal purity and splendor For in some ages the Integrals may be much more vitiated then in others Yea some particular Churches may erre in Fundamentals and so cease to be True Churches and many of these who were eminent Lights in the Church may be smitten with these Fundamental errors and the sincere Professors of the truth may be reduced to a great Paucitie and through persecution be scattered into corners as in the dayes of Athanasius Quando totus orbis miratus est se factum Arianum Lest therefore you cavil further at the restricting of my argument to these First three Centuries you may remember the first occasion of it which was this as you will find in my Fourth Paper I was speaking of the Ancient Apologists in the first Three Centuries who pleaded the truth of the Christian Religion against Heathens And I appealed both to Their grounds and their Religion in these dayes that it might be tryed whether our Religion were not agreeable to theirs in all Essentials and whether the solid grounds which they brought for the truth of the Christian Religion did not agree to the Religion of PROTESTANTS This I say was the occasion of limiting the argument to these ages though it might have been extended further Yea and as then we told was extended further by Bishop Juel and Crakanthorp even to the Sixth Centurie so also is it by learned Whitaker Contra rarionem quintam Campiani Nay others have extended it to all ages Nor need you carp at the limiting of the argument to the first Three Centuries For the faith of the Catholick Church in these Three ages was the faith of the Catholick Church in all Ages For there is but one Faith and therefore if it be proven that our Religion was the Religion of these ages it doth consequently follow that it was the faith of the Catholick Church in all ages So that this is the most compendious way to try whether a Religion be the faith of the Church in all ages by ascending to the fountain I mean to these first three centuries concerning which there is least doubt made by any Party and which was lesse viriated by superstition or errors in integrals then was the Church in some after times I come now to your second Evasion wherein you pretend That conformity with the Ancient Church is at least no distinct ground from conformity with the Scriptures seeing the truth of the faith of the Ancient Church can onely be proven by its conformity with the Scripturs But the vanity of this subterfuge doth easily appeare For First whether it be a Distinct ground or not yet if it be a Real ground why decline you to be tryed thereby You must surely have an ill conscience and know your wares to be sophisticat that they cannot abide the light Secondly If these grounds be not distinct how doth your Melehior Canus In his booke of commone places distinguish them giveing the first place to the Seripturs of which he treats Lib. 2. only the Sixth to Ancient fathers of whome he discourseth Lib. 7 Or how doth Bellarmin and other your Controversists ordinarly distinguish their argumeÌ„â—s founded on Scripture from the arguments founded upon Antiquity But Thirdly wholly to remove this cavil I grant that the truth of Religion in any former age may be proven from its conformity with the Scriptures and therefore that conformity with the holy Scriptures is the onely Primarie ground of discerning a True Religion from a false whereupon I did put it in the first place Yet we may abstract Pro hîc nune from this way of procedour and argue from the faith of the Church in some ages without proceeding at the time to examine the truth of every point by the Scripture And the rather seeing in Scripture there are general promises of the perpetuity of the Church and consequently of preserving in her all fundamental truths If therefore we can have evidence that this was the faith of the Catholick Church I meane of the whole collective in any age then I may conclude this is the true faith and the True Religion and consequently what is agreeable thereto must also be the True Religion for nothing can be consonant to truth but truth From this it appeares that sisting in the Religion of the Catholick Church in the Second and Third Centurie as a Principle upon the general promise of the Churches perpetuity without a further progresse for the time to examine the truth of every particular it may become in some manner a Distinct ground of argueing from that according to which every point is severally reduced to Scripture-tryal Even as in Subalternas sciences the Conclusions of the Subalternant science are made use of as Principles without making a further progresse The Astronomer takes the Geometricians Conclusion as a Priuciple not seeking a Demonstration thereof So may the Divine in some cases take the faith of the
all who dissent from them Now it can hardly be told what influence bold Assertions from persons of reputed gravity especially joined with high pretences and some plausible Sophisms will have upon credulous apprehensive or melancholy persons yea upon most of people who are not well grounded in Religion and some way studyed in the Controversies But fourthly Both Romish Seducers and Quakers joyne issue in this that the persons they intend to prey upon may have nothing to guard them against their Seduction they reflect heavily upon the holy Scriptures and Faithful Ministers The Scripture say they is but a dead letter Ambiguous Obscure capable of diverse yea contrary interpretations and insufficient to terminat controversies in Religion They reproach Ministers as Hyrelings they load them with calumnies and the trespasses of some few they charge upon the whole function by which meanes they so abuse poor people that they despaire of good by consulting either with the Scriptures or Ministers These Seducers deale with poor people as the Wolves in Demosthenes his Apologue to the Senat of Athens who offered to make peace with the Sheep if they would put away their Dogs but the Wolves intended to prey upon the poor Sheep when once their Guardians were gone They therefore who would not betray their own Soules to these Imposters would bring every thing to the Scriptures as to a test Isaiah 8.20 and would consult with their Spiritual guides I meane the Ministers of GODS Word Mal. 2.7 The serious consideration of these few overly hints may be useful through the LORDS blessing against the growing defection of these times Let it with-all be thought upon what heavy Characters the Scripture sets upon Apostacy and Seducers I commend to this end the reading of these Scriptures Heb. 10.38 2. Pet. 2.1.2.3.2 Thess 2.9.10.11.12 1. Ioh. 2.19 Matth. 24.24.25 2. Cor. 11.13.14.15 And in particular there be most dreadful threatnings against Complyers with Romish Babylon which may make the eares of all that hear to tingle I mention but one at the time Revel 14.9.10.11 If any man worship the beast and his Image and receive his marke in his fore-head or in his hand the same shall drinke of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out with out mixtur into the cup of his indignation and he shall be termented with fire and brimstone and the smoke of their terment ascendeth up for ever and ever Shall not then these who are ensnared by Romish Impostors hearken to the call Revel 18.4 Come out of Babylon my people that ye be not partakers of her fins and that ye receive not of her plagues I know Romanists turn these things off as not concerning them But if a common Whore can as Solomon sayeth Pro. 30.20 Wip her mouth as if she had done no wickednesse is it any wonder that the Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth Revel 17.5 endeavour to palliat her Villanies with floorishes of words School-distinctions especially having so many thousand Iesuits and other Ianisary's under pay for that effect Will Antichrist when so ever he appeares proclaime himself to be the Antichrist Will he not dissemble the matter Why else is his worke tearmed a Mysterie of iniquity 2. Thess 2.7 Why is it said that the Beast Revel 13.11 Hath two hornslike a Lamb why hath the great Where upon her fore-head writen Mysterie And if great Authours doe not misinforme us the same is writen upon the Popes Mitre Have not Learned PROTESTANTS in their debates on this subject made it more then Probable that the Papal faction is that Antichristian state spoken of in Scripture I shall only now remember you of the Reply which Sir Francis Bacon gave to King James when he asked at him whether the Pope were the Antichrist If said Sir Francts a hus and cry were made after the Antichrist and I should apprehend the Pope I would make him clear himself of the markes of the Antichrist before I would let him goe Perhaps this warning shall not have much influence upon them who have already devoted or rather mancipated themselves to the Popish or Quaker interest For Heresy is a pertinacious disease Sin is never so dangerous as when it is covered with the mantle of Truth or Duety It was the ingenuous confession of a good man Error meus erat Deus meus That once his Errours were his Idols and then it seemed as hard for him to forsake them as to renounce his GOD. O how piteous is the case of deluded Soules who esteeme their Apostacy from Truth their Blaspemyes and Idâ—latry acceptable service to GOD Yet though Israel play the Harlet let not Judah offend Hos 4 15. Let me therefore obrest these who through Mercy are preserved from the contagion of Popery and Quakerisme as they regard the Eternal Salvarion of their Soules that they would hearken to the peremptory Scripture-caveats against Apostacy 2. Pet 3.17 Beware lest ye also being led away with the errour of the wicked fall from your stedfastnesse Revel 3.11 Behold I come quickly hold fast that which thou hast that no man take thy Crown 1. Cor. 10.12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he slandeth take heed lest he fall Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling Jud. 24.25 And to present you faultlesse before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to the only wise God our Saviour be glory and Majesty Dominion and Power both now and ever AMEN Cicero Tantam semper potentiâ—ns veritas habuit ut nullis machinis aut cuâ—usquam hominis ingenio aut arte subverti potuerit licetâ— in 〈◊〉 nullun Patronum aut defensorem obtineat tamen per scâ—ipsa defenditur A faithfull Copie of the Papers exchanged betwixt Master IOHN MENZEIS Professor of Divinty in the Mareshall Colledge of ABERDENE and Master Francis Dempster Jesuit otherwise Sir-named Rinne or Logan The Jesuits first Paper For Master IOHN MENZEIS whose Answere is civilly required according to his promise 1. GOD Almightie who is supreame Lord hath decreed for man eternall happinesse after this life and howbeit he might have decreed to give it him absolutely without any condition yet de facto he hath tyed the obtaining of it to certaine conditions to be fulfilled upon our part whereby Christs blood and passion is applyed to us and amongst these conditions one is that we be of one true faith and one true religion 2. Since that by Gods decree eternall happines and salvation is tyed to one true religion this true religion must be sufficiently furnished with grounds and principles whereby it may prove it self to be a true religion which grounds and principles are so determinat to trueth that they cannot serve to prove a false religion to be a true religion 3. It is to be supposed that all parties agrees in this conditionall proposition that they would submit their judgements and belief with all firmnes to any thing if they knew certainly that God had spoken
any proofe as if a Religion which you your selves gives out for a false Religion did not with as great reasone pretend all this for themselves The third is that Religion is not an individuall truth but a complex of many truths which cannot be proven altogether but one after another As a man who hath a hundred pices of Gold and would prove whether they be upright Gold or not this proofe cannot be done but by bringing every one of them to the Touch-stone But this likewise may be assumed with as great reasone by a false Religion or assigne wherefore they may not use this shift as well as you when they are required to give some ground for the truth of their Religion The fourth is that the grounds which Tertullian and the holy Fathers brings to prove the truth of Christian Religion against Pagâ—nes proves likewise the truth of your Protestant Religion But this with as great reason may be assumed by any Christian false Religion or show wherefore not The fifth that you adde in this Paper now is this that the perspicuity of Scripture in all things necessarie to Salvation is a ground to prove the truth of the Protestant Religion But though this were true what makes it more for the truth of your Religion nor for the truth of a false Religion since they with as great reason as you may and does pretend that the tenets which they hold as necessar to Salvation are clearly contained in Scripture Likewise you have been often pressed to produce grounds whereby might be showen that your Clergie hath In actu primo some peculiar assistance to give In actu secundo the true sense of texts of Scripture which doeth not prove the like assistance to the Clergie of a false Religion So that in handling of Scripture you are all one with them having no more assistance to handle it rightly then they have As to that which you adde now in this Paper that this sense which is given by a Doctor to a text of Scripture may be the true sense though neither he nor others reflect or know any thing of the habilitie that he hath In actu primo to give this true seuse for Spiritus ubi vult spirat But though this answer wer to the purpose may it not be assumed with as gryt reasone in favour of a false Religion Next you force me to discover the shallownesse of the discourse that you make here because it seems you onely intend to induce a plausable and glittering scroofe upon things to dazle the eyes of simple people not earing what stuffely under For the question is not whether a thing may be truelie such in it self though I doe not know it to be such nor knows any thing of the causes whereof the truth of it depends since things are such and such in themselves whether they be known or not known by us Neither is the question about matters of Science where objective evidence convicts the understanding to assent and that independently of all authority of the Proponer But the question is about matters of Faith where all the motive to induce one to beleeve a thing is reduced to the authority of the Speaker and according to the divers degrees that are found in the authority of these that speakes a thing so are the correspondent degrees of firmnes in the assents whereby the hearer beleeves such things and because the authority of GOD is a supreame authority and above all other authorities therefore the assent that is due to such authority when it speakes or reveals any thing must have a firmnes above the firmnes which other assents have and which we give to matters proponed onely by inferiour authorities Now I ask how can people be induced to exerce one Act of faith or to beleeve with that firmnes which is due onely when GOD speakes or reveals a thing if they be not first assured that GOD speakes by the mouth of such a man and consequently that such a man hath sufficient assistance and direction In actu primo that he cannot deceive nor speake one thing for another Now you are required to produce some speciall ground whereby the people may be assured that their Clergie who should instruct them in matters of faith hath this assistance In actu primo and which is necessar if they would beget superuaturall faith in their hearers that is to say Such a beleefe whereby the hearers doe adhere above all to the things that are proponed to them as revealed by GOD in such texts of Scripture otherwise it will follow that the assistance which you have does not exceed the assistance which the Clergie of a false Religion have and consequently that preach what you will and though you rune over the whole Bible you will never be able by your preaching to produce so much as an sol Act of supernaturall faith in your hearers Out of all this appears at what poor posture you have reduced the truth of your Religion notwithstanding that in the begining you did so bragingly undertake to mantaine the truth thereof before whomsoever against whomsoever and in whatsomever place And likewise to this effect have spent and blotted so much Paper since all ends in this that your Religion is indeed true but so that it cannot be shown wherein it differs from a false Religion as if one had taken in hand the defense of the honestie of a man and after long pleading at the barre and brought the matter to this passe that he were declared to be indeed an honest man but such an honest man that there were no seemable difference betwixt him and a knave Mr. JOHN MENZEIS his Answere to the Jesuits fifth Paper Which was not delivered to Mr. John Menzeis till June 15. 1666. Some Animadversions on the Iesuits fifth Paper HOW forcible are right words but what doth your arguing reprove Job 6.25 You are pleased to censure the Prolixity of my Papers but you might have known that of Seueca Epist 48. Longiore mora opus est ut solvas quaestionem quam ut proponas You take the boldnesse also to asperse these lines with Impertinencie But were not you afrayed whom I had so oft convicted of manifold Impertinencies to have it reponed to you Calvus calve calvitium ne objiciat Is not the true cryme whereof these poore lines are guilty because they have touched you in the quick so as you are not able to answere and therefore they must be endyted of Impertinencie though you could not particularize one impertinent line But I shall be suretie for them that they shall not decline to have their Pertinencie examined by your Romish Inquisitors though your Pope like another Rhadamanthus presided in the Court Onely your Fathers would remember that we PROTESTANTS are not besotted with an Implicit faith as if there charres were made of Irish timber which cannot bear a Spider Wherefore they had need to be more cautious then you have been and not to
period to this controversie I had condescended to mention to you Grounds of the truth of the Religion of PROTESTANTS which are not really competible to any false Religion however they may be pretended too It is hard to me to tell whether in your enumeration of them or in your ludicrous way of confutation you manifest more Childish weaknesse and folly And first in the enumeration of the grounds of Religion you number up five more indeed then ever I gave you For the first two namly the Intrinsick objective evidence of Religion and The conformity thereof to the word of GOD were never mentioned by me as two distinct grounds yea your self in your third Paper reckoned these as Synonima's and therefore you but play the child in reckoning them as distinct Neither is the fifth ground which you mention concerning The perspicuity of the Scriptures to be adequatly distinguished from these But your cheife prevarication is in that which you mention as the Third ground of the truth of our Religion namly that Religion being a complex of many divine truth cannot be all proven at once but by compating each of these truths with the word of GOD. I could not have expected that a man who was not in a perfect Delirinm could have bewrayed such stupidity for this was never laid down by me as a Ground of our Religion Nay a Child might have discerned by the very terms that this was onely brought as a reason why in such a short Paper I could not be tyed to give you the grounds of our Religion For it were to tye me as matters are now stated to writ a whole bodie of controversies What an impudent cheat then is this you would put upon your Reader to substitute that as a Ground of the truth of our Religion assigned by me which in very deed was brought by me as a reason why I was not tyed at this time to give you any grounds Henceforth therefore when you goe to impugne any thing in my Papers propose it in my own terms else I must say to you in the words of the Poet. Quem recitas meus est O Fidentine libellus Sed malè dum recitas incipit esse tuus You discover no lesse weaknesse in your trifling confutation of these grounds of Religion for all ye say to every one of them which five times you doe repeat is that a false Religion may alleage all these grounds But herein you play the silly Sophister Ab ignoratione elenchi for the question is not whether the PROTESTANT or true Religion hath grounds which a false Religion may not alleage or pretend but whether the PROTESTANT Religion hath grounds which cannot be verified of a false Religion I freely grant that a false Religion may lay claime to the grounds of the true Religion as the mad man of Athens laid claime to all the Ships that came into the Harbout as his own though none of them were his But the Grounds of the true Religion can never be verified of a false Religion It was not enough then for you to say that a false Religion may lay claime to those Grounds nay nor was it to the purpose unlesse you could also have shewed that the Ground of the PROTESTANT Religion namely Conformity with the Scripture might be verified of a false Religion This you ought to have showen if you had intended a real confutation of my grounds But this you will find as impossible for you as to remove the Earth from its Axis If you looke againe to my last Paper you will finde that in stead of these Five grounds of your mustering I gave only these Two grounds from which indeed the truth of the Religion of PROTESTANTS and the falshood of the present Romish Religion may be discovered The first was The perspicuity of the Scripture in all things necessarie to Salvation which I did confirme by luculent Authorities which you have not once dared to examine The other was From our Agreement in essentials with the faith of the purest and most Ancient primitive Church in the first three Centuries And with all from this I deduced a demonstration of the falshood of your now Romish Church and Religion from the discrepancy thereof in essentials from the faith of the Catholick Church in the first three Centuries which I confirmed from your Formula Fidei or Popish Creed contrived by Pope Pius the fourth which differs in its essentials from the faith of the Church in the first three Centuries Had you been willing that imparriall search should be made whether the truth stood on your side or on ours Had you not here matter enough to work upon both from Scripture and Antiquity But dissembling all my arguments from these principles you onely give this snifling Answere that they who have a false Religion may also pretend that their Religion is also contained in Scripture and is conforme to the Religion of the primitive Church To which I Reply first that these forementioned grounds doe not cease to be grounds for proving the True Religion because Hereticks pretend an interest in them Nay on the contrary Hereticks laying claime to them is a strong persumption that they are the induitable grounds of the true Religion as a Rogues pretending conformity with the Law is so farr from proving that the Law is no discriminating Test betwixt Honestie and Roguery that it is rather a vehement presumption of the con-ratie Secondly Had you resolved to goe to the borrome of the busines you should have proved that either these grounds assigned by me are not proper grounds for the discerning the True Religion from a false or that these grounds doeth really agree to a false Religion that is That a false Religion is perspicuously contained in Scripture and doth agree in its essentials with the Religion of the primitive Church in the first three Centuries or that these grounds doe not agree to the Religion of PROTESTANTS But none of these doe you once attempt to performe Nay over againe you are put to prove any of these which if you doe Tu Phillida solus habeto But thirdly I demonstrate on the contratie that these are sure grounds by which the truth of Religion may be discerned Thus if Scripture be not a sufficient ground and Test to distinguish a true Religion from a false then it must be either because it doth not containe All things necessary to Salvation or because it doth not hold out Perspicuously all these things for there is no other impediment imaginable unlesse with the Infidell you should question the Authority of Scriptures But when we say that the Scripture is the indubitable Test for discerning the True Religion from a false it is to be understood among Christians who acknowledge the divine Authoritie of Scriptures Consequently if the Scriptures be Perspicuous in all things necessary to Savlation as our Divines have often demonstrated and I cleared in my last by irrefragable testimonies both of Ancients and of
mans assenting to the sense of a Municipal Law given by a civil Iudge though he had no previous assurance of his Infallibility which example you strive to elude saying That assent was not supreame But I desire to know what you meane by a Supreame assent If you meane a Supernatural assent I acknowlege it is not Supernatural neither did I compare the assent which we give to the sense of a Municipal Law and the assent of Divine faith in that regard But if you meane that it is not a Firme and Certaine assent but fluctuating and doubting then you speake falslie and are confuted by mens daylie experience And herein onely made I the parallel betwixt these two assents That as we may give a firme and certaine assent Ordinis naturalis to the sense of a Municipal Law propounded by a Civil Iudge without a Previous assurance ordinis naturalis of the judges Infallibility so why may we not assent by a Supernatural Act of faith to divine truths propounded by a Minister though we have not an Antecedent supernatural assurance of his infallibility in actu primo And it is a grosse mistake in you to say That the assent which we give to the sense given by a civil Iudge is founded on his abilities and therefore that the degrees of our certainly is correspondent to the Stronger or Weaker persuasions that we have of his ability I say this is a grosse mistake for sometime an able Iudge may give a wrong sense of the Law and a weaker Iudge the right sense and the hearer considering the evidence which the wecker brings for his sense may give a firme assent to the sense propounded by the weaker Iudge Even so a weaker Divine like a Paphnutius may give at a time the true sense of Scripture when abler Doctors may give a wrong sense and the hearer may upon good ground subscrive to the sense given by the weaker And consequently it is the evidence which the Propounder brings for the sense which he give◠that is the ground of the assent of the hearer not the persuasion of the Propounders Ability Hence was that of Austin Epist 19. Fateor Charitati tuae solis eis Scripturarum libris qui jam Canonici appellantur didici hunc timorem honoremque deferre ut nullum eorum authorem scribendo aliquid errasse firmissime credam Alies autem ita lego ut quantâlibet sanctitate doctrinâque prapolleant non ideo verum putem quia ipsi ita senserunt sed quia mihi vel per illos authores canonicos vel probabili ratione quod à vere non abhorreat persuadere potuerunt From which is evident that Austin did not beleeve the sense given by any Doctor because of the Previous persuasion he had of his abilities or assistance but because of the evidence he brought for his sense Thus have I examined your whole Paper not misrepresenting your Assertions as you doe mine not setting up a man of straw and then fighting against him as your custome is nor dissembling any thing of seeming weight as you are not ashamed almost constantly to doe Therefore if you have a minde to insist in the debate let me once prevail with you to leave your Tergiversations and misrepresentations Propose first my words faithfully and then you shall have liberty to impugne them as hardly as you can and I promise to you the like measure If otherwise I must againe discharge with you for to exchange Papers with you in your scurvie straine will be but as if when an Asse kicks at a Man he should kick at the Asse againe As for that boundle of Revilings against not onely me but our Religion also wherewith you close your Paper I will not defyle my penne in resuming them I can as easily and with as little hurt throw them off as Paul did the Viper When I read them I smyled and remembred that of the Poet Claudicat ingenium delirat linguaque mensque Yet if you suppose that you have any advantage to your cause by this debate you shall have free liberty for me to transmit both your Papers and my Answers to Rome providing you doe it faithfully and let your masters there judge whether they owe you thanks for your service But I fear if all these Papers should come to an unpartial Consor he should remit them backe to you with this superscription Desperata causa Papatus and send you to the Hospital of the Desperati Thinke not strange that this Answere hath been delayed a while for I not onely have many returnes of duty upon my hand but also it was a doubt with me whether to make any further returne to you upon the ground mentioned in my last Yet at length I was moved to writ this Answere upon the consideration of that of Solomen Proverbs 26.5 Answere a fool in his folly lest he seeme wise in his own conceit Aberdene August 9. 1666. John Menzeis POSTSCRIPT Take in patience the blots and blutres of the Amanuensis I am truly sorry that it is not more nitidly writen The READER may perceive how faithful a transcript of these Papers is here presented to him when not so much as a word of Apology in a Postscript for a blot of the Amanuensis is omitted The Jesuits seventh Paper Answere to a sixth Paper of Mr. IOHN MENZEIS wherein he laboures to propt the truth of the Protestant Religion with two Shifts and Evasions 15. August 1666. I Received your sixth Paper of the ninth of August containing a masse and heap of digressions copied out of controversy bookes of misapplyed phrases of grosse mistakeings and of injurious and railing words where you are pleased to honour me with thir Titles Vir nequam a sycophant an effronted calumniator a man of a prostitute reputation a fool c. You have been often defired and are now desired againe to give a proofe of your valour and to show that you are able to put ten onely lines in Paper to the purpose observing three things which every one will judge to be rationally demanded of you First That you lay aside all Digressions that is to say that you omit all these things without nameing of the which the present controversie may be fully decided Secondly That you omit all base and histrionical expressions and contumelious words Thirdly That you omit all these things which cannot serve to prove the truth of your Religion but with this inconvenient that it is equallie applyable to prove a false Religion to be true But since this reasonable favour cannot be obtained of you you wil give me leave as I have often protested and protests of new that I wil take no notice but close misken all that is out of the way and out of this our first line The Protestant Religion cannot be the true Religion nor the Religion to the which GOD hath annexed the promises of supernatural happinesse and conscquentlie whosoever aimes at eternal happinesse after this life or intends
is the genuine sense of Scripture but onely the authority of the speaker Surely then nothing spoken by you or your fellow Jesuits and Friers can be received as a Divine truth for you pretend no Infallibility Nay your fallacies are become so notorious to the World that it hath past into a proverb A Fryar a liar But perhaps you meane your Popes or Councils by your Propounders Yet besides that your people doe not hear them immediatly and their sentences may be vitiated in the conveyances by the hands of fallible persons besides this I say must not your Popes and Councils have a reason that moved them to own rather this sense of Scripture then the opposite Or else they must be perfect Enthusiasts If they have a reasone why may not the same reasone that moved them move the people also when it is sufficiently proposed to them Let the indifferent Reader now observe to what fluctuating uncertaintes you expose your hearers wheÌ„ you say that their faith must be resolved upon the authority of the Speaker whether you meane Pope or Council or both for I suppose you cannot determinatly tell which of the three Now how many things are here to be cleared before the faith of the poor people can be at a stand As First that these whome you call Popes are true Popes and successours to Peter and your Councils true and legitimat General Councils Secondly that these Popes and Councils have an Infallible authority Thirdly That this which you give out is the true and genuine sense of the Popes or Councils All which while the World stands you will never be able solidly to prove And I doe appeale you if you can to doe it But I must here reveal another prodigious Mysterie of your Romanists Namely that what ever is proposed not onely by your Popes and Councils but also by your inferiour Clergie-Men though by your own Confession Fallible yet the poor People who cannot examine by themselves the truth or falshood of what is proposed ought not onely to beleeve upon the authority of the said Fallible Clergie-Men but also Doe merit by beleeving though the thing beleeved be Erronious and Heretical Hear this from your Great Casuist Cardinal Talet Lib. 4. De Instruct. Saterd cap. 3. Si rusticus sayeth he circa articulos credat suo Episcopo proponenti aliquod dogma haereticum meretur in credendo lieet sit error quia tenetur credere donce si constet esse contra Ecclesiam I will english it If a country man sayeth he beleeve his Bishop propounding some heretical doctrine about the articles he meriteth by beleeving though it be an error because he is bound to beleeve until it manifestly appeare that it is against the Church What a damnable Religion must this be according to which men merit Heaven by beleeving lies If this doctrine of Cardinal Tolet be true that people are bound to beleeve your Fallible Clergie-Men even speaking lies and may Merit thereby How dare you conclude that our Faith to unquestionable Divine truths is no Supernatural faith because our Preachers doe not arrogat an Infallibility to themselves Is it better for a Romanist to beleeve a lie then for a PROTESTANT to beleeve a Divine truth Think you still to abuse the World with such prodigious impostures As for your ludicrous Example of an Old Wife We bless God there are old Wiwes young Boyes and Girles amongst us who could instruct all old deceiver like you in the true grounds of ReligioÌ„ Did not Priscilla a poor Wife instruct Apolles in the mysteries of Christianity of whose Infallibility Apollos had no previous assurance Yet from the Scripture she convinced him Act. 18.26 So that from this your Example though brought in by you only as a foolish jeer all that you have said may be redargued If there may be a ground to assent to divine truths proposed by a Poor Wife such as Priscilla of whose Infallibility there is no previous assurance then it is a falshood which you affirme that the Faith of divine truths must only be founded upoÌ„ the Authority of the Speaker But the first appears to be true from the Case of Priscilla and Apolles A poor Priscilla may hold forth convincing and luculent grounds of what she asserts from the Scripture when a Priest A Iesuit a Cardinal a Pope an Annas or Cajaphas may obtrude on the consciences of others erronioâ—s and groundles fancyes To this purpose I might produce many testimonies from your own most famous Writers as of Gerson Panermitan c. But I shall at the time content my self with one from Ioannes Picus Mirandulanus De Ordine credendi Theor 16. Which though I have at the second hand the author not being by me yet have I it from so many good Writers that I doubt not of the truth of it Quin imo sayeth he simplici potius rustice infanti anicula quam Pontifiti Maxime mille Episcopis credenduÌ„ si contra Evangetium isti illi pro Erangelio verba facereut I Have been more copious in this Reply then your Scurvy Paper did deserve yet if in this I have superogated it is without the least tincture of Poperie You but play the fool in upbraiding me with boasting or gloriation upon the account of the frequent losses which you are left at For I reckon it no point of honour either to deale with or to vanquish such an insignificant persons as hitherto you have discovered your self by your Papers I have rather so far endeavoured to deny my self as to be at the paines to give a check to an arrogant but an emptie Caviller against the truth But because Cepious Answers doe oppresse your dry and steril braine therefore I have subjoined a Succinct answere confuting all your Seven Papers in two words And if you find not your self comperent to answere this Long Paper in all the particulars thereof without your usual Tergiversations you may deale with this Succinct One. In the meane time let this suffice Aberdene October 31. 1666. Iohn Menzeis POSTSCRIPT A Short Answere in two words to all Master Dempster the Iesuit alias Rind or Logan his seven Papers Nego Minorem Or Nego Conclusionem Aberdene October 31. 1666. Iohn Menzeis The Reason why the returne of this Paper hath been so long delayed it because how soone I read your Seventh Paper I found that it ranne upon the old trifling straine and therefore I threw it by me for sundry weeks For it was likesome to me to be still examining your Titivilitia and scurvie Tautologies Now therefore either come to the point and answere Categeries without your tergiversations or else get you gone for ever The Jesuits eight Paper Reply to a seventh Paper of Mr. IOHN MENZEIS wherein is showen that the pretended conformity of Protestant Religion with Scripture is a meer imaginary and groundles conformitie 6. November 1666. This Paper was not delivered to Master IOHN MENZEIS untill November 9. 1666. YOUR Seventh Paper
our Reformed Divines have often offered to disput against you Romanists the controversies of Religion out of the Fathers Did I not show you this before from Juel Whitaker and Crakanthorp And how often doth learned Calvine in his Institutions confute you Romanists from Antiquity as your transubstantiation Lib. 4. cap. 17. § 14. Your Communion under one kinde Ibid. § 47. 48. 49. 50. The necessity of Auricular confession Lib. 3. cap. 4. § 7. Your Papal Indulgences Lib. 3. cap. 5. § 3. 4. The Popes supreamacie over the whole Catholick Church Lib. 4. cap. 7. § 3. 4. 5. c. Yea and not to insist in reckoning out particulars when he is treating of Councils and their authoritie Lib. 4. cap. 9. § 1. Veneror Councilia sayeth he ex animo suoque in honore apud omnes esse cupio and a little after Sicuti ad plenam doctrinae nostrae approbationem totius Papismi eversionem abunde verbo DEI instructi sumus ut nihil praeterea requirere magnopere opus sit ita si res flagitet magna ex parte quod satis sit ad utrumque vetera Concilia nobis subministrant where Judicious Calvine affirmes that out of Ancient Councils both the Religion of PROTESTANTS may be confirmed the Papal superstition confuted From all this may it not appeare how ludibriously you say that I seeme to be hatching a New Religion of my own Am I not offering to defend the received Religion of PROTESTANTS and to have the truth thereof tryed By its conformity with the faith of the Ancient Primitive Church Is the Ancient Religion a New Religion Is the Religion both of Ancients and PROTESTANTS a Religion peculiar to me Will you not blush that such foolish Non-sense should have droped from you But you have another trifling Shift Before say you That conformity with the faith of the Ancient hurch in the first three Centuries be admitted as a Test by which the truth of Religion may be discerned it ought to be proven that all the necessaries of the Christian Religion are contained in their writings which are now extant But First may it not with better reason be resorted on you that before you had rejected it from being a Test you ought first to have proven that there were some necessaries and essentials of the Christian Religion no where to be found in any of the writings of these three ages If any be wanting produce them and your evidence of their absolute necessity If you can produce no necessarie article that is wanting why decline you the tryal But the truth is you Romanists mantaine such a desperat cause that if either Scripture or Antiquity be Umpyre you must surely be condemned There is no way to get a favourable Interloquitur for you but by setting up your Infallible Propounders that is your own selves to be Supreame judges to the whole World If such a Religion be not to be suspected let the World judge But Secondly doe not you Romanists boast bigly sometimes of Universal traditions And here by the way I tel you I shall never declyne to have all the Essentials of Religion tryed by the famous rule of Vincentius Lyrinensis in Commonitorio primo contra Haereses cap. 3. Quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus est creditum But if any of the necessaries or essentials of Christianity are not to be found in the writings of the Three first Centuries how shall we have a Perpetual and universal tradition for these seeing the current is supposed to be broken off at the fountain for three hundred yeares thereafter Must we take the voice of your Present Church as an Oracle to tell us what was beleeved by the Church so many ages agoe though there be no record left that such a thing was ever beleeved We must examine her Credentials before we become so implicite to her in matters of Fact But Thirdly If any of the Necessaries of Christian Religion be altogether wanting in the writings of Ancients of these ages how did your Gualterius the Jesuit undertake to prove the truth of your Religion by the testimonies of the Church in all ages It is true he was most unhappie in his undertaking in so much that Chillingworth in his Defence of Doctor Potter part 1. cap. 2. § 119. affirmes that he heard an able man of your Religion say That Gualterius had not produced one pertinet testimony in the first three Centuries The like may be said of Ioannes Andreas Coppenstenius a Predicant in his Historical supplement to Bellarmine who undertakes the like but with as little successe Yet doe not such undertakings suppose that all necessary and essential truths of Religion may be found in the writings of these times Sed laterem lavo I doe but lose my travell what wonder to see a Thief declyne the Court and jurie He knowes upon tryal he must be condemned I have pressed you to come to be examined either by Scripture or Antiquity or both or to produce any other solid way of discerning a true Religion from a false but you declyne all Have I not just cause therefore to discharge finally with such a babling Lucifuga After I had signed my last Paper that known Distich dropped from my pen in a Postscript Roma diu titubans variis erroribus acta Corruct mundi desinet esse caput At this you behoved to have a fling though you scarce said any thing to the controversall points of the Paper Bot sie say you yat yis your Prophesie be not lyk your Patriarche Lutheris Prophesie who when he lept out of the Churche did brage yat with tue yeiris Preaching he wold abolische and eliminat all Poprie out of the world sa yat ester yir tua yeiris yair wold be no mor in the world nather Pop nor Cardinalis nor Monkis nor Nunnes nor Mase nor Belis c. I have set down your own words with your own spelling that the Reader may discerne what a Famous Clerke you are But here I must Querie you in a few particulars and First how call you this my Prophesie Are they not the lines of a Germane Prince Were they not sent to Pope Gregorie the ninth by Frederick the second the Emperour who felt the heavie hand of your usurping Popes as other Princes have done Secondly how cal you Luther our Patriarch We indeed honor Luther and Calvine as precious servants of GOD. But we make neither of them Pope or Patriarch or Master of Sentences Non sumus jurati in verba Magistri Our faith is pinned to no mans slieve Though you be implicit Slaves to the Pope yet we to no man Thirdly what Church I pray you doe you mean when you say that Luther did leape out of the Church Is it the Catholick or universal Church But when I pray you did the Roman Church become the Catholick a part become the whole Are not the Grecian Russian abyssine c Churches parts of the Catholick
grounds to prove its conformity with the Scriptures but also to stop the mouth of a Caviller I declared to you what was that ground and I tooke it from Georgius Scholarius his Third Oration in the Councill of Florence and did appeale thereunto for the decision of all controversies betwixt us and you But you never once touched this ground How then could you imagine that you had confuted the conformity of the Religion of PROTESTANTS with Scripture Doeth the Devil abuse the imaginations of Jesuited Hereticks as somesay that he doeth the fancy 's of Witches making them imagine that they doe the thing of which they only dreamed Fourthly did I not give a Direct Answere to your Objection by a formall distinction If any thing should have been taken notice of ought not this Yet ye wholly overleap it A goodly Dispistant indeed Fifthly I refuted some new Cavils which you started to prove That the truth of Religion ought not to be tryed by its conformity with the faith of the Ancient Church in the first three Centuries But you found my Replyes thereto so thornie that you have not dared to meddle with them Only you have an impudent Calumny concerning that matter which I may afterwards touch Sixthly whereas as you had accused Calvine and our Reformers as contemners of Antiquity I shew not only that Calvine had confuted your Religion from Antiquity but also that Antiquity is more contemned by you Romanists then ever it was by the Reformed Churches I brought many Instances hereof from Bellarmine Maldonate Melchior Canus Brisacerius and Cornelius Mussus but all these you smother in silence Thus have I given an overly touch of some few of your Omissions Whoso will be at paines to compare my ninth Paper with your Tenth will find you guilty of many more Only now let me ask are these the Digressions the Parerga's and the Superfluities which you talk of in my Paper Doe not every one of those touch the Cause Have they not a genuine rise from Your Papers Who that regarded either truth or his own reputation would have overleaped all those You have made great haste to transmit your Papers to me but you have still left your worke behinde you I have gotten Ten Papers from you but not One Answere Take a view of your Omissions and you will find all My Papers unanswered Your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 your after thoughts have need to be set on worke to supplie your Omissions In the next place I shall gleane up some of your Vnfaithfull misrepresentations in doing whereof I shall not need to stand to the precise Method of your Rapsodick Paper And first you have such a shamelesse fore head as to say That I had recanted the confineing of my discourse concerning the conformitie of our Religion with the faith of the Ancient Church in the first three Centuries This is that Calumnie of yours at wich I was hinting in your Fifth Omission How could you hatch such a manifest unteach Let all the Iesuits in Europe play the Criticks on My Papers and see if I have recanted one Syllable that ever I avouched in any of them I told indeed in my Last that you like aâ— Dreamer â—haâ— substituted that Concerning conformitie with the Fathers of the first three Centuries as a Second Answere which I had given in my Eight Paper to your Cavil concerning the sense of Scripture whereas in all that Eight Paper of mine there was no expresse mention at all of the Fathers of the first three Centuries Is my discoverie of your Mistake a recanting of ought that ever I had said concerning the Fathers of the first three Centuries Doe you not behave your self like a Dreamer when you substitute Quid pro quo Any hint I had in my Eight Paper at that Matter was to challenge you that though in your Eight Paper you had been reduced Ad metam silentii in that point all the Cavils mentioned in your Seventh being so fully confuted that you had nothing to Reply in your Eight yet you durst not adventure to have the truth of Religion examined By its conformtie with the faith of the most Ancient Church In my Ninth I did expresly confute some New Cavils which upon further deliberation you had started in your Ninth against the tryall of Religion By the conformitie thereof with the faith of the Ancient Church in the first three Centuries So farre was I from recanting or refusing to admit that as a discretive Test for trying the truth of Religion Surely the first 300. years were the flower of the Primitive Church Hence is that testimony which Egesippus in Euseb lib. 3. hist Eccles cap. 29. gives to the Church in those dayes Ad ca tempora Virgo pura incorrupta mansit Ecclesia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Church then had continued a pure and a chast Virgin Shall you never have the ingenuity to Recant such impudent Calumnies But I nothing wonder that you cannot be induced to have the truth of Religion examined By its conformitie with the Church in these Centuries For as a Learned Divine hath observed In these ages most of your present Râ—mish tenets were unknown to the Wold Your Papal Indulgences were then unhatched Purgatorie fire was then unkindled to make your kitchin 's smoake The Masse was then uumoulded Transubstantiation unbaked The Treasurie of Merits was then unmiuted The Popes transcendent power was uncreated Ecclesiasticks were unexempted And deposing of Kings was then undreamed of The Lay People were not cozened then of the Cup Communion under one kinde onlie was not then in kind It was not then known that Liturgies and Prayers were publicklie made in an unknown tongue They did not then worship or adore any wooden or breaden God They worshiped that which they knew and that in Spirit and in truth Thus Simon Birkbeck in his Tractat entituled the Protestants Evidence Sect. 3. pag. 18. Edit 3. By which you may perceive That it is no new sect of my own that I am hatching when I appeale to the Religion of the Church in the Three first Centuries as you foolishly whisper in your Ninth Paper But because you use these invidious words of Confyning my discourse to the three first Centuries You may remember that in my Seventh Paper I cleared that the First Restriction of my Argument to the Three first Centuries for proving the truth of our Religion and the falshood of yours was occasioned by the discourse I was then upon concerning the Ancient Apologists in these Centuries And that my argument might have been extended further as in such like exigences it had been further extended by Juell Whitâ—ker Crakâ—nthorp and other learned PROTESTANTS Now only I tell you that if you have the confidence to try the truth or falshood of Religion By the consonancie thereof with or dissonancie to the faith of the Catholick Chruch in the first three Centuries you shall find that I never intended so to astrict my self