Pen and Fancy will be such as to eat or penetrate into every cleft of it and not onely break it into shivers but multiply them into heapes of Sand which being washed away by the Spring-tyde of his ingenious approaches and irresistible force of his argumentative assaults their building must needs fall and be carryed into an Abyss or Ocean which they can never fathome or sound the depth of Archbishop Cranmer in his Answer to Smith's Preface speakes not home enough to their purpose where he sayth Truth it is indeed that the Church doth never wholly erre for ever in most darkness God shineth unto his elect and in the midst of all iniquity he governeth them so with his holy word and spirit that the gates of Hell prevaile not against them This Church is the piller of truth because it resteth upon God's word which is the true and sure foundation and will not suffer it to erre and fall Pag. 405. 406. It is the invisible Church his Grace meanes for of the outward and visible he absolutely denies it and this proves I confess rather the perpetuity then infallibility of the Church Bishop Field recollects several acceptions of the Church Book 4. Ch. 2. First as it comprehendeth the whole number of believers that are and have been since Christ appeared in the flesh which Church he sayes is absolutely free from all errour and ignorance of Divine things that are to be known by revelation The second acception is as it comprehendeth only all those believers that are and have been since the Apostles time which in things that are of necessity to be expresly known by all that will be saved that it should erre is impossible And further thinkes it as impossible that any errour whatsoever should be found in all the Pastours and Guides of the Church thus generally taken Touching the Church as it comprehendeth onely the believers that now are in the world he sayes In things necessary to be known and believed expresly and distinctly it never is ignorant much less doth it erre yea in things that are not absolutely necessary to be known and believed expresly and distinctly it never is ignorant much less doth it erre yea in things that are not absolutely necessary to be so known and believed we constantly believe that this Church can never erre nor doubt pertinaciously c. But because I doubt whether our Princess made reflexion upon the Church in such a diffusive sense and supposing that she wanted such an Oracle of Infallibility as to which there could be access for imediate resolve of scruples and doubts upon all occasions which I fear had her H. lived longer to make triall would have been as much missing in the Roman Church as in ours I must lay aside many other excellent Writers upon this point I have before me or at hand and take up one so learned and Orthodox as the best and him the rather because he useth not to be so nice in uttering his mind freely and learnedly and yet making it consistent with the Article of our Church though in appearance point blanck contradictory to what he resolutely concludes it is Bishop Mountagu I mean who in his Appeal where he justifies what he had said in his answer to the Gagger his Position is this The Church Representative true and lawfull never yet erred in Fundamentals and therefore I see no cause but to vouch The Church Representative can not erre The Church Representative is a Generall Councel not titularly so as the Conventicle of Trent but plenarily true generall and lawfull Points Fundamentall be such as are immediate unto faith Let any man living shew me sayes he any historicall mistakings misreportings where when in what any Generall Councell according to true acception or Church Representative hath so erred in the resolution and decission of that Councell for in the debating of doubts questions propositions the case is otherwise and not the same I conceive and acknowledge but four Councells of this kind that of Nice of Constantinople of Ephesus of Chalcedon The Church of England may seem to have been of a contrary mind in her determinations For Artic. 21. we read thus Generall Councels when they be gathered together forasmuch as they be an assembly of men whereof all be not governed with the spirit and word of God they may erre and sometime have erred even in things pertaining unto God Which decision of the Article is not home to this purpose as he particularly proves and hath the approbation of the Reverend Dr. Francis White afterward Bishop of Ely that he found nothing therein in that and his whole Book but what is agreeable to the Publick Faith Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England of whose Doctrine the said 21 Article is a noted part But because the Bishop leaves this Infallibility at above a thousand yeares distance viz the last Generall Councel of Chalcedon attributing no such thing to any the pretended Generall Councels since it is necessary I go seek a supplement somewhere else for the guidance of doubting persons who may be at loss what to think the state of the Church hath been in so long an intervall and if they take Posterity into their care what it may be in a much longer yet to come before such another Generall Councel meet now the Latine Church seemes to be finally settled upon the Lees of the Decisions in the Councel of Trent Among those many I have turned over I find not where to furnish my self better then from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that most glorious Martyr now a resplendent starr of magnitude among the Saints above in his famed Book commended by that Royall Martyr not long before he drank of the same Cup that bloudy Brook in the way to his celestiall Crown Archbishop Laud's Conference with Mr. Fisher the Iesuite where his Grace sayes Whether a Generall Councel may erre or not is a Question of great consequence in the Church of Christ To say It can not erre leaves the Church not onely without remedy against an errour once determined but also without sense that it may need a remedy and so without care to seek it To say It can erre seemes to expose the members of the Church to an uncertainty and wavering in the Faith to make unquiet spirits not onely to disrespect former Councels of the Church but also to slight and contemn whatsoever it may now determine I said the Determination of a Generall Councel erring was to stand in force and to have External Obedience at least yielded to it till Evidence of Scripture or a Demonstration to the Contrary made the Errour appear and until thereupon another Councel of equal Authority did reverse it Pag. 146. 147. In the following Considerations is added with submission to our Mother the Church of England and to the Mother of us all the Universall Catholick Church of Christ That the Assistance of the H. Ghost is
without errour that 's no quaestion and as little there is That a Councel hath it This in the abstract is as home as need to be in the point but this afterward is somewhat moderated by distinguishing the infallibility of the after-Councels from that of the Apostles themselves Acts 15. where they say of themselves and the Councel held by them It seemes good to the Holy Ghost and to us who might indeed well say it but he does not find that any General Councel since though they did implore as they ought the assistance of that Blessed Spirit did ever take upon them to say in-terminis in express terms of their Definitions Visum est Spiritui Sancto Nobis It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us Acknowledging thereby as I conceive a great deal of difference in the Certainty of those things which a Generall Councel had after determined in the Church and those which were settled by the Apostles when they sate in Councel But then again though he did not find That they used this speech punctually in terms yet the Fathers when they met in Councel were Confident and spake it out That They had assistance from the Holy Ghost yet so as that They neither took Themselves nor the Councels They sate in as Infallibly Guided by the Holy Ghost as the Apostles were And he saies Valentia is very right in concluding That though the Councel say they are gathered together in the Holy Ghost yet the Fathers are neither arrogant in using the speech nor yet Infallible for all that If other their Writers had used the like moderation perhaps her R. H. had not been so much concerned about it I expect nothing more will be obtained from other our Controvertists towards the satisfaction of any in like condition yet because Mr. Chillingworth had a more peircing eye of reason then most of the rest I will summe up his method so short as I can and see what we can make good out of it This he layes as the groundwork of his Discourse with F. Knott That the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental is in this Controversie good and pertinent And that the Catholique Church may erre in the latter kind of the said Points 2. That it is not so prodigiously strange as his adversary thinkes That we will never be induced to give in a particular Catalogue what points be Fundamental Pag. 119. 3. That may be Fundamental and necessary to one which to another is not so Which variety of Circumstances makes it imposible to set down an exact Catalogue of Fundamentals and therefore we must content our selves by a general description to tell what is Fundamental 4. It is sufficient for any mans salvation to believe that the Scripture is true and containes all things necessary for salvation and to do his best endeavour to find and believe the true sense of it without delivering any particular Catalogue of Fundamentals Pag. 120. 5. Though the Church may erre in some points not Fundamental yet may she have certainty enough in proposing others 6. He that grants the Church infallible in Fundamentals and ascribes to the Apostles the infallible guidance of the Spirit in a more high and absolute manner than to any since them limits not the Apostles infallibility to Fundamentals 7. The Apostles were led into all Truths by the Spirit efficaciter The Church is led into all Truths by the Apostle writings sufficienter Pag. 131. led so as that she may follow but not so that she must These assertions of his influence the most part of his long Discourse with the learned Iesuite If ought more there be to strengthen e'm it may fall in with what I have yet to add relating to the invaledity of her R. Highnesses motive for deserting our Church upon account of any assurance she could have of being more firmely and finally settled in this point upon the grounds and principles thereof in the Church of Rome For yeilding pro dato not concesso what the greatest Doctors there would have more particularly those of ours that went over to them before this good Lady I demand what found they there beyond what they had here at home I will fix upon one or two of them in whose conversion they so good as tell us they are most triumphant Let the first be Dr. Vane Chaplain to his late Majesty who in the very entrance to his sixth Chapter of The Infallibility of the Church begins thus Now that the Catholique Church which Society of Christians soever it be is the onely faithful and true witness of the matter of God's word to tell us what it is and what is not it the only true interpreter of the meaning of God's word and the last and finall judge of all controversies that may arise in matters of Religion and that she is not onely true but that she can not be otherwise seeing she is infallible Our Church which is Catholique too in concurrence with that he went to is he knew extended to the first four Generall Councels to the Fathers of the first five or six hundred yeares from whom we receive the Canon we have of the H. Bible and to whose writings we go for the interpretation of any Texts that any way seem doubtfull if necessary to be resolved In others not so considerable for ought I know we leave every man to his own diligence in comparing Text with Text for mutuall illustration and to his own reason for inference of the best truth from the premises he makes himself or if so ignorant he can make none we send him to the lips of his Parochiall Priest or some other at his choyce which certainly should preserve at least so much knowledge as to determine the little difficulties brought to him according to the sense of our Nationall Church if such as whereof she hath taken any notice For Catholique Tradition we go to the Catholique Writers so truely called For what is unwritten we have no infallible living Oracle to consult no more have they for ought I see whereof any use can be made to present satisfaction and therein we may cry quitts as afterward I shall briefly shew The Conclusion herein lay'd down by D. Cressy is as followeth That it belongs alone to the Catholique Church which is the onely Depositary of Divine Revelations authoritatively and with obligation to propose those Revelations to all Christians c. to interpret the Holy Scriptures and to determine all emergent Controversies and this to the end of the world in as much as the Church by vertue of Christ's promises and assistance is not onely indefectible but continually preserved in all truth Of what Divine Revelations the Catholique Church is Depositary I have already owned viz. of the H. Scriptures and the Primitive Fathers in their Writings as being the best and surest Interpreters The difficulty yet sticks at the determining emergent Controversies which may be multiplied in infinitum by too dubious and
spirit no less disconsolate and diffident upon one account then her own upon another But in this unsteady state of doubts and fears and an unsettled faith being Christmas day her H. goes to the King's Chappell to participate of the Holy Sacrament which contrary to her hopes brought new troubles upon her soul and I wonder not a whitt at it want of the Reall presence or Corporeall in the Roman sense being that which did most afflict her whereof she might be well assured little supply or comfort was to be had from the King's Chappell and so her labour she thought was lost Her next essay was by address to a Catholique for counsell and if possible for cure which now at last was as her H. fancied in some sort effected by a good Priest he sent for me fit venir un bon Prestre with whom conferring about her interiour condition and souls salvation the more she parlied the more she felt her self intrinsecally carried off and fortified by grace of the holy Spirit toward the change of Religion A Gentleman of quick dispatch was this good Priest but I hear nothing yet of his infallibility her H. lately lookt for unless the other Catholick who e're he was that call'd him to her passed his word for it in private which security taken all could not but be oracular that came from his mouth Of the H. EUCHARIST in one or both kindes As I find in the very first place was his decision of receiving the H. Sacrament in one kind in which one element if were not administred both the flesh and bloud of our Saviour Christ would never have suffered the other to be substracted and his Church deprived of half himself who promised to abide with her whole and entire no doubt to the end of the world Nor could her H. think her self free to believe otherwise or that Christ's own words could be frustrate Before I can well apply my self to reflect on this Article of half-communion as our Writers often call it I think it not alltogether impertinent to declare my dissatisfaction at the sodain change I observe of a disconsolate dejected Spirit to an argumentative and active Soul in search so superficiall and so definitive before full discovery as if intent upon contradiction of her own practice so many yeares and not startled at so quick a transition from the unquestionable security of both elements in the H. Eucharist to the hazard of enjoying the intire end and effect of neither when reduced to one I am very prone to suspect something like a chasme or hiatus here a defect in transcript of the Declaration published in her Highnesses name which Mounsieur Maimburg best knowes wherewith it should be and in fidelity to the trust reposed in him ought if so to be made compleat Howsoever to let it pass from hand to hand as delivered to us and to wait upon her R. H. so immediately as she leads the way from her Closet to the publike Schooles I can not but much commend the early exercise of her skill and prudence in selecting that part of the question which best will bear discussion and arresting her upon assurance of his word who never did nor being Truth it self can ever break his promise For no notice at all is taken how many yeares the Church persisted in submission to the express words of our Saviours institution without substracting or altering ought in the celebration of this H. Sacrament Whence Bishop Iewell sayes the Question that standeth between us is moved thus Whether the Holy Communion at any time within the space of six hundred years after Christ were ever Ministred openly in the Church unto the People under one kind Repl. to Mr. Hard. Ans. pag. 96. Which extent of time he might have drawn out much further by the concession among others of Cassander a man professing himself a Roman Catholique though of wonderfull modesty moderation and learning sayes Bishop Mountagu whose words are these as by his Lordship cited It is manifest that in administration of the sacred Sacrament of the Eucharist the Universall Church of Christ untill this day and the Western or Roman Church for more then 1000 yeares after Christ especially in their solemn and ordinary dispensation of this Sacrament did exhibit and give unto all faithfull Christians not one only but both the kinds of Bread and Wine as it is most clear and evident out of innumerable testimonies of the old Writers both Greek and Latine which I can make good c. This he did in part and the rest we may safely take upon his honest word and credit and 300 yeares more then he voucheth upon Bishop Mountagu's who saith after him too This is every where the custome in all the World unto this day but in the Roman exhorbitant Church and was not quite abolished in that Church till about 1300 yeares after Christ and by much art colluding and fine forgery was retained from being cast out of that Church in the late Conventicle of Trent onely kept in for a faction but mightily oppos'd by learned honest and conscionable Catholiques Whereupon this resolute and worthy Prelate joynes issue with all Papists living That it never was otherwise used in all the Church of God for above 1000 yeares after Christ And that if all the Papists living prove the contrary he will subscribe to all Popery Ans. to the Gagger ch 36. which is fair enough So that I shall need call in no more help upon this account except I may that observation of Bishop Taylor and others That the Primitive Church did excommunicate them that did not receive the holy Sacrament in both kinds Pref. to Diss. Pag. 5. I return therefore to her Highnessess argument drawn from the promise and veracity or fidelity of Christ to make it good Which promise being not particular not restrained to his Sacramental presence upon which we differ much less limitted to the Patriarchate of Rome and that under the name or notion of his Universal Church exclusive of all other Christians not taken into her communion he left her free at her own hazard to commit sacriledge in this kind as in divers other and to withdraw her self from him before ever he withdrew from her and to afford his fuller presence by both representatives elsewhere among a greater number of Christians by computation then those within her pale or Communion in both kinds of this H. Sacrament united altho' in some other doctrines ceremonies and customes or national or Provincial civical or rural or in other dissonancy whatsoever more or less divided But her H. had already changed her measures with her Religion and was already principled a new by her good Priest and not permitted to look back upon us unto whom for ever she had bid adieu By this time no doubt she was taught to say That Christ assured us The Holy Sacrament though but a Wafer containeth his flesh and blood because the Church hath at length declared
select particles of his Writings where he expostulates about Christs Institution which being in generall for the whole Church he demands why one of the species or kindes is taken from part of the Church whereof the Romanists gave many reasons such as they were in likelihood the same then as since which how well they will hold is still the question whereof anon This he confesseth Melanchthon added afterward se Ecclesiam excusare quae hanc injuriam pertulit that he excus'd the Church which suffer'd the injurie and that 's well enough for we are on the suffering side Rivet brings up the reer and passeth his word That yet Melanchthon did not excuse those that forbad not onely but excommunicated such as us'd the Cup who said he did not Grotius any where as I remember Who liked well enough where it could be had and no order of the Church wherein he was matriculated interposed to the contrary that the H. Sacrament should be administred in both kindes whereof as himself participated when among them whose use it was so it may be supposed he advised his Family to do the like by choice in a Countrey where both were practised and a third profession preferr'd to both as in France For when at Paris I officiated at the honorable Residents Sir Richard Brownes his widow daughter with a third Lady of quality who understood little of our language after admission asked communicated in both with us according to the forme and ceremonie of the knee prescribed by our Church Concerning M. Bucer Rivet answers directly nothing to what by Grotius was alledged but diverts his Reader another way to the 74 th Chapter of his Defense of the Colonian Reformation which is a usuall shift of his though imputed by him in this very question to his more plain-dealing Antagonist But what find we there whither he sends us why much after the rate as in Melanchthon we find that Bucer sayes Quod alteram speciem Sacramenti in genere auferre grave Sacrilegium est That to take away from all Christians in generall either species of the Sacrament is grievous Sacriledge whereas Grotius denies frequently that they do it but in severall cases both of persons Nations and Countries grant it for the asking and they that will not ask it may go without it whose fault is it if they do And what have we to do with the conditions any foreign Church puts upon the Members of it which I believe was my Lord of Derry's meaning who perhapps on very good reserved reason had as little mind to answer positively were the quaestion thus put as Dr. Rivet Do you beleive or not that whole Christ is present where by order of any Church which beleives not our Saviours Institution or Precept to be so peremptory as we do either element or species is separated from the other My opinion is Mr. Bucer so well as others would have been silent in the case who in all his Writings I have met with that relate to the H. Eucharist useth and adviseth speciall caution against humane thoughts sensible imaginations logicall or philosophicall arguments and deductions flying up above all such on the wings of Fayth after an humble resignation of his Reason which he confesseth alltogether uncapable to comprehend in the least this inscrutable inaccessible mystery in the veil To some part of this purpose peradventure may be reducible those two Axioms in his Exomolog N. 10. and 14. which I shall transcribe for the consideration of the learned without interpreting to the meer English Reader Num. 10. Omnes igitur sensibiles mundi imaginationes omnis cogitatio loci aut continui aut contigui aut commixtionis ab hac communione unitate removendae sunt admirandaque est in verbo Dei apprehensa ex effectis ejus operibus novi hominis suspicienda pensitanda fruenda Num. 14. Cavendum est ne praeceptum Domini dilucidum ubique illuminator habentibus oculos fide ullis superstitionis grandiloquentijs obscuremus Rursus autem cavendum est ne pondus majestatem mysteriorum Christi quae spiritus sanctus credenda magis quam scrutanda nostra quidem ratione proposuit iminuamus interpretationibus quae magis ex nostris proficisuntur cogitationibus quam ex ipsis Dei verbis natura mysteriorum ejus Which in sense seems to accord with that of St. Augustine cited by Bishop Iewel Def. Apol. p. 220. Rerum Absentium Praesens est Fides rerum quae foris sunt intus est Fides rerum quae non videntur videtur Fides And now I have mentioned Bishop Iewel both Grotius and Rivet being foreigners I judge it very pertinent and seasonable here to transcribe what the said learned and Orthodox Bishop hath left us of his judgement impartial concerning those three great Patrons and Promoters of the Reformation in this point It being alleged by Mr. Harding That Luther writeth to them of Bohemia these very words Quoniam pulchrum quidem esset utraque specie Eucharistiae uti Christus hac in re nihil tanquam necessarium praecepit praestaret pacem unitatem quam Christi ubique praecepit sectari quam despecietus sacramenti contendere Where as it were a fair thing to use both kinds of the Sacrament yet for that Christ herein hath commanded nothing as necessary it were better to keep peace and unity which Christ hath every where charged us withal then to strive for the outward kindes of the Sacrament To this our Bishop maketh answer The words that Luther wrote to them of Bohemia were written by him before God had appointed him to publish the Gospel And when Mr. Harding according to the Bishops supposition urgeth his saying opposite to the former thus Si quo casu Consilium statueret c. If in any case the Councel would so ordain we would in no wise have both the kinds but even then in despite of the Councel we would have one kind or neither of them and in no wise both and hold them for accursed whosoever by authority of such a Councel would have both The Bishop makes this fair apology for him There was nothing further off from Luther's mind then upon any determination of any Councel to minister the Sacrament under one kind and so to break Christ's Institution into halfes But he thought it not meet that God's truth immortal should hang of th'autority of a mortal man and stand for true no further then it should please a man to allow of it This was the thing that D. Luther misliked and thought intollerable And therefore he said he would have God's word received only because it is God's word and spoken by him not because it is authorized by a Councel and if the Councel would allow the Ministration in one kind then he said he would use Both because Christ in his Institution appointed Both. But if the Bishops in the Councel would agree upon Both kinds as a matter standing wholly