touch of their contrary opinions in your Cardinal De Lugo tract De fide Disp 5 Sect. 1.2.3 But at this time also I have purposly waved the absurdities which our Divines have deduced from your Romish Doctrine concerning these Motives of credibility Because I would keepe you closse to the point And therefore I shall demand no more of you but that you demonstrate the Infallibility of your Propounders from these Motives of credibility which till you doe you remaine shut up within the lines of that objected Contradiction I Now proceed to the other difficulty objected to you in expeding your self from which you are as unhappie For evidenceing whereof there needs no more be said but to propose the Aenigma which you pretended to enervat for you craftily wrap it up in silence The Argument did runne thus If our faith must be built upon the Precognition of the Infallible assistance of your Propounders the either this their pretended Infallibility can be proven or not If not then the whole Romish Faith is built upon a Fancy which cannot be proven If it can then First you were required to produce your Arguments for proving it And Secondly you were persued by this Dilemma If the Infallibility of your Propounders can be proven then either by a Writen or Unwriten Word Not by a Writen Word seeing the sense of it cannot be known according to you untill first the Infallibility of the Propounder and Interpreter be known but now that is supposed to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very point in controversie Not can it be proven by an Unwriten Word Both because you had asserted before That a point of Religion to be True and to be conforme to the writen word are Synomma's And because there is as much need of an Infallible Propounder that we may be assured of the truth and true meaning of an Unwriten word as of that which is writen If therefore we cannot know the sense of the Writen word till first we be assured of the Propounders infallibility neither can the truth or the true sense of the Vnwriten word be known till first we be assured of the Propounders infallibility and consequently when the thing to be proven is his Infallibility it cannot be proven at all either by a writen or an unwriten word This Argument you dared not to propound and make a formal answere thereunto But all you say to this Suppressed Argument is that when you affirmed That a point of Religion to be true and to be conforme to the writen word of GOD were Synonima's you spake it onely Ad Hominem This is all your Reply and suppose it were true let any who hath sense judge whether you have evacuated the Argument For you touch but one part of the confirmation of one branch of the Dilemma which is abundantly proveÌ„ by another reason which might suffice suppose that which you touch were wholly laid aside You are far from the gallant resolution of Alexander who said Nola furari Victoriam Nay you are so base that when you cannot solve an Argument you wrape it up from the knowledge of the Reader and having given a touch of that without which the Argument abydes in its entire force you have the confidence to give out that you have confuted the whole Argument This is not the first experience I have of your Iesuitical ingenuitie But I must adde that even that which you have said cannot be admitted as if the Equipollencie of the two forementioned Propositions had onely been asserted by you Ad Hominem And the rather because what you say in this is agreeable to the grounds which you lay downe in your First Paper which there Interminis you affirme should be agreeed unto by all Now the chief scope of the First Paper and Syllogisme is to hold out that the True Religion hath grounds to prove it self to be conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. And therfore both in my answere to your First Paper and in my Answere to your Third wherein you had asserted the Equipollencie of these Propositions â— drew an Argument against your Romish unwriten Traditions to which then you durst make no Reply albeit now as if what you had then writen had been forgoten you would flinsh from what you had formerly said upon this pretext as if it had been spoken Ad Hominem If you had said that you had spoken that onely Pro tempore from your Iesuitical principle of equivecation when you meaned nothing so I could indeed have beleeved you Though you have bewrayed as much basenes as I beleeve ever man did in so much writing yet you have the boldnesse to traduce some of our Divines not telling whome as citeing the Objections of your Authors for their Assertions But Turpe est Doctori cum Culpa redarguit ipsum Hath not the strength of your Romish Writers lyen in misrepresenting both the lives and writings of Reformed Divines Yea. your baseness in this hath stretched it self beyond them How grosly have you corrupted and falsifyed the writings both of Ancient and Moderne Authors as hath been demonstrated by Doctor Iames In his Treatise of the corruptions of Scriptures Councils and Fathers by the Pastors Prelats and Pillars of the Church of Româ— and by Cocus in his Censura veterum Scriptorum Beside many others You close all with a Tale of an Old wife And I confesse all you have said may well be reckoned Inter Aniles fabulas Yet you have the boldnesse againe to accuse me of Ignorance because I cannot homologat your absurd assertion That before we beleeve a Divine truth there must preceed a knowledge that God speakes by the Propounders Had you so often charged another with Ignorance you might perhaps have heard from him or now Sus Minervam I doubt truely if ever your dsperat Romish cause met with a more Blocksh Advecat then your self If I know that GOD speakes by such â— man must I not Simul semel beleeve it to be truth which he speakes How then were you so stupide as to affirme that the knowledge that GOD speakes by a man must preceed the beâ—â—â—f of the truth spoken Were you not more cautions before â—hen you onely required the previous knowledge of the Propounders assistance In actu primo But now your words would seeme to require the previous knowledge of GODS assistance In actu secundo For in propriety of speach GOD speakes not by a man but when he assists him In actu secundo Is this the nature of mans intellect to assent to a proposition which hath no evidence in it self without any reason Why then demand you an assent from me to your proposition concerning this Infallible assistance which I am sure is not Per se nota when neither can a reason be extorted from you to prove it not can you solve the objections brought against it Is there no ground upon which a Hearer may be convinced that this
cannot have certainty of Faith that their Hosty is transubstantiated even according to their own Principles of that they have either Pope or Council on whose Authority to build their Faith To this Argument the Iesuit refused absolutly to answere desiring that he might have liberty to impugne But it was replyed to him that my Argument was already tabled to which if he would answere I should answere him other two according to my first proposal And this was so much the more reasonable because my first Argument as I ever declared was only to extort a declaration from him concerning a matter of fact Sundry also of our PROTESTANT Friends without whose advice I resolved not to move in a matter of such publick concernment advised that I should admit of no Arguments from him unlesse he would answer this Argument which I had last proposed But still he persisted in his Refusal to answere my Argument Whereupon it was told him neither would I admit of any from him untill that which I had propounded were answered Yet had he been very zealous to impugne might he not at lest have vocally propounded his Argument Did I not propound a second Argument against him and hint also at the confirmation of the Proposition which might have been questioned though he refused to answere thereto Could I stop his mouth more then he could mine All he did was to hold a Paper in his hand wherein it seemes he had his poor naked Syllogisme and to call upon the Scrivener to writ But he never told what should be writen It is generally supposed and I believe truely that the Paper which the Iesuit had in his hand was the First Paper which he transmitted to me the next night and is in my Reply thereunto I hope sufficiently examined It resembled every way his first Paper which I have by me and it is more then probable that his first assault would be with that long studyed Achilles especially seeing in all his following Papers he could never frame one Syllogism more Matters being at this point the Iesuit said he would send a writen Paper to me which I told him by the help of GOD should be answered Hereupon these ensuing Papers betwixt him and me were exchanged which I shall submit to the candid censure of the unprejudiced Reader Only the tenth and last Paper was not transmitted to him the occasion whereof was this Shortly after the Iesuit sent to me his tenth Paper dated May 14 1667. He got out of the Nation A Reply to it was lying drawn by me in Iune 1667. And when I was intending to transmit it to him severall Persons did advertise me that he was gone over Sea yet as afterwards I perceived they made the rumour to goe that he was gone sometime before he was really gone to make me as seemes lay aside thoughts of returning an answere to his Tenth Paper I thereupon desired to be advysed by judicious Friends what was fit to be done in such an exigent whose judgements did all harmoniously concurre in this that all the Papers should be Printed together with a Reply to his tenth Paper that the World might have a full account of this whole Encounter which had been so much noysed abroad Though I had a great aversation from appearing in Print especially with such trifling Papers yet in end the Importunity and Authority of Friends prevailed And the rather because the Papists made afterwards rumours sometime to goe that Mr. Dempster was dead somtime that he was alive so that I could not certainly know what was become of him But whether he were liveing or dead the Misrepresentations of this matter were still animated by the calumniating Genius of living Papists for confutation whereof their clamours laid a necessity upon me to publish faithfully the Papers exchanged betwixt us There be some two or three things in these Papers which perhaps may seem to require an Apology As first It may be offensive to some that there should be so much writing on so little purpose This can be no more irksome to a Reader then it was tedious to me in writing But the nauseating repetitions of the Adversary constrained me either to resume the same things or to disdaine to give him any Answere Yet whether I have not given to him a large enough field had he had courage to adventure out of his trenches others may cognosce This I confesse was one of my tentations to chastise him some-what sharply least peradventure I might afterwards be judged Socius Criminis It may Secondly be enquired why I was not as speedy at all times in my Answeres to him as he was to me I believe the frequent incumbency's of duty which your HONOURS know dee weekly return on me in School and Pulpit might sufficiently apologiz for me in this matter But I have this further to adde At the first upon expectation of some significancy from the Adversary I concerned my self to use some diligence in returning my Papers I believe not inferiour to him though I had more to doe But afterwards when I found nothing but frothy emptinesse in his scriblings it became a Probleme with me whether to answere him at all Hereupon I would purposly throw by his Papers for a time But lest my utter silence should make him overvalue what he had said I would at a spare houre mould him an answere When I thought of the dispatch he sometimes used though yet sundry of his Papers be antedated a considerable time before they were delivered to me it brought to my minde the story of the conceited Painter who bringing a Picture to Apelles to raise the esteeme of his Artifice told that he had done it in so short a time I guessed said Apellès at your great haste by your foule work Festinans Canis caecos parit catulos Is it not an easie matter to dispatch quick Replyes when what is most material is answered with silent Preteritions Others may consider whether the Iesuit have not demeaned himself as it 's reported of the Dogs of Egypt that for feate of being bitten with a Crocodyle they dare not take a full draught of the Rryer Nilus but satisfie themselves with transient lappings Indeed his Papers and Quaker discourses as some vvhere I have told him required no great study He would doe well the next time to minde that advyce of Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is a Third exception which may be taken at the acrimony vvhich I have used in some of these Papers I sincerely professe I take no pleasure therein I love rather hard Arguments then hard Words I acknowledge the Truth of that saying of the Comick Poet Bacchae Bacchanti c. But there be two things vvhich I hope vvill in great measure plead my Apology in this also The First is that these smart expressions had their first ryse from the Iesuit and not from me In evidence whereof let a Momus peruse my First Reply if any uncivil expression be
it or that the sense that is given to such a text of scripture were the true sense or the sense intended by the holy Ghost when he dyted such words Since then that all must agree in this conditionall proposition all the controversie must be reduced to this what partie purifies this conditionall that is to say what part hath more solide and stronger reasons that they have the assistance of the holy Ghost to give the true sense of the letter of the word of God 4. As it is impossible for one to prove himself an honest man except he can shew some distinction betwixt him and a knave and that there can be verified of him something which is not applicable nor can agree to a knave so it is as impossible for a religion to prove it self to be a true religion except it can assigne some distinction betwixt it and a false religion and that there can be verified something of it which cannot be verified nor applyed to a false religion Out of these premisses is deduced this one Syllogisme That Religion cannot be a true religion which hath no peculiar principle or ground to prove that it is a true religion and conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of God But the Protestant religion hath no peculiar ground or principle to prove that it is a true religion and conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of God Ergo it cannot be a true religion May it please the answerer of this syllogisme to remember that the ground or principle which he shall produce to prove the truth of his religion or that it is conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of God must have this proprietie that it cannot serve nor cannot be assumed to prove a false religion to be a true religion or to be conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of God as the ground and principle that one produces to prove that he is an honest man must have this proprietie that it cannot serve nor be assumed to prove a knave to be an honest man or if he alleadge that the ground or principle whereof he serves himself is only misapplyed by a false religion then he is obliedged to assigne some good reason whereby he showes that it is well applyed by him and misapplyed by the other Likewise he is intreated to answere shortly to the point and lay aside all long homilies and excursions least by multiplying many words he incurre suspition that he seeks onely to obscure the matter that the weaker sort may not penetrat nor see through his weakness 20 Apryll 1666. Mr. IOHN MENZEIS his Reply to the Jesuits first paper An answere to a paper from an anonymous person of the Popish profession commonly supposed to be Master Francis Dempster alias Logan IT had been sufficient for me upon the first reading of your paper instantlie to have returned this or ely answere NIGO MINORIM I deny your minor For I found but a poor naked Syllogisme the assumption whereof is splendidlie false and ye have not so much as added the shaddow of a proofe to confirme it Neither can ye be exempted from being tyed to prove it because it is a Negative as shall afterwards appear Yet for the clearing of truth and also if it may please GOD for your conviction I have added these following animadversions 1. And first Ye lay down foure previous Propositions as so many oracles which might extort an assent from any Reader But you must give me leave to tell you how specious soever they seeme to you they want not their own flawes Take one instance from your third proposition wherein there is an egregious fallacie committed in your explication of that conditionall wherein ye suppose all parties to agree For it is one thing to know that the sense given to such a text of Scripture is the true sense intended by the holy Ghost when he dyted such words which is the condition at first mentioned by you and it is a quite other thing to know that he who gives the sense hath the assistance of the holy Ghost to give that true sense which ye hold out as the explication of the former This latter savors rankly of that erroneous Popish tenet concerning the necessitie of an infallible visible judge of controversies Now is it handsome under pretence of explayning a proposition wherein all agree to foyst in one of the maine points of difference as if that also were agreed upon could there be a greater cheat put upon a simple Reader 2. But secondly It had been of more use then all these your propositions to have laid down the Thesis which ye were to oppugne and to have explained the terms thereof Since therefore ye have omitted it it will be necessary for me to doe something to it least we seeme to fight Andabatarum more as Persons blindfolded The Thesis then which we defend and you oppugne is this The Protestants Religion is the True Religion Take these few hints of explication of the terms By True Religion We understand the true doctrine of salvation concerning God and the right way of serving and worshipping him By the Religion of Protestants we mean the Christian Religion contained in the holy Scripturs By Protestants these Christians who protest against and doe reject Popish-Errors and additions to Scripture truths So that Christianitie is our Religion and our Protestancie is not our Religion but our rejection of your Popish corruptions If then ye consider the importance of the Thesis which ye impugne ye will find that ye undertake a hard work nay an Infidells cause Namely that the Christian-Religion revealed in the holy Scriptures and held by these who are called PROTESTANTS because of their rejection of Popish-Errors is not the true Religion 3. Thirdly Because ye so oft make mention of some peculiar Grounds and Principles which the true Religion must have to prove it self to be the true Religion and which cannot be verified of a false Religion which ye illustrat by the similitude of an Honest-man and a Knave I desire that these two things may be noted in reference to this which may perhaps give some light to the whole matter And first these Grounds and Principles must be understood ex parte objecti on the part of the object not of the subject That is to say that the true Religion hath sufficient Grounds in it self to manifest it self to be the true Religion if it meet with a well disposed intellect For to use your own similitude an Honest-man may have Ground enough to shew a distinction betwixt him and a Knave albeit a fool cannot discerne it So the true Religion may have Ground enough to prove it self true which the false religion hath not though an Infidell or Heritick whose foolish minde is darkened Rom. 1.21 cannot take it up Secondly The prime peculiar difference of the true Religion from a false stands in its
Religion hath ex parte objecti intrinseck grounds and principles whereby it is constitute a True Religion though it hath not ex parte subjecti But this onely is to bring new obscure termes which put in good SCOTS signify onely the same which hath been said hitherto to wit that Protestant Religion hath intrinsecall and objective truths and conformitie with the true sense of the letter of the word of GO'D but is destitute of all speciall grounds or principles whereby it can prove it self to have such intrinsecall and objective truth and conformity But I pray you what false Religion is there that may not with as good reason apply the same termes to themselves and say that their Religion is true ex parte objecti and hath intrinsecall and objective evidence truth and conformity with Scripture though they cannot shew this ex parte subjecti Likewise they have as great Reason as you to say that their Religion and the truth of it may be made evident if it encounter with an understanding well disposed though it cannot be made evident to fools So you are pleased civilly to call all those who have their understanding of such temper that they cannot see the truth of your Religion The other shife and evasion is that Religion is not one individual truth but a complex of many truths which cannot be proven at once or in one breath But what makes this to your purpose since that before you can prove any one of those particular truths to be conforme to the true sense of the text of such a Scripture you must first produce some speciall ground or principle to prove that your Clergie-men in Actu primo hath such assistance or hability as is prerequired in men that should give out to People the true sense of particular texts of Scriptures or else how can men be induced to beleeve that the sense which you give is the true sense since every false Religion might pretend with as great reason as you doe that they give the true sense though plaine contrane to the sense that you give In the end of your paper you desire me to subscrive and to put my name to the answere that I make as you have put to your name to yours but this your demand doth not seem rationall since your condition and mine are not alike for you are at home and as a Cock on your own midden and there must lurke some other thing under this demand since it can make nothing to your cause who proponeth the reasons against if they be pertinent and to the purpose Mr. IOHN MENZEIS his Reply to the Iesuits second paper May 2. 1666. An Answere to a second paper from the traffiquing Romanist who commonly passeth under the name of Mr. Francis Dempster alias Logan YOur consident undertaking to impugne the Religion of PROTESTANTS made me once to expect great things But for what I can yet discerne Parturiunt montes c. I did truely nauseat to read this your raw and indigested paper in which you wholly passe by the most materiall points in my Answere and are pleased to reflect on them as unnecessarie excursions that so your Omissions might seeme lesse criminall A very easie subterfuge by which any faint disputant may decline to meddle with these difficulties which he sees would nettle him But that I may keep you closse to your work I must crave leave to reminde you of some of these omissions and yet to desire that first ye would cleare your self of that fallacie wherewith I charged the third proposition of your first paper Whether it were an impertinent excursion to discover an egregious fallacie in one of these propositions which ye laid down as a foundation of all your ensuing superflâ—â—cture the indifferent Reader may judge Secondly I desire you to answere directly to the retorsions whereby I inverted your Syllogisme against your self and your Romanists Is there any thing more ordinary in School debates then retorsion of Arguments or when the grand debate betwixt you and me is whether the PROTESTANT RELIGION or Popery be the True Religion was it untimely or impropper for me to shew that the weapons which ye bring against the Religion of PROTESTANTS doe strick at the very foundations of Popery And thirdly I desire you to prove the assumption of your Syllogisme denyed by me or else to refell the Arguments whereby I shew that though it be a Negative yet this is no sufficient ground to turne over the opponents office upon me If you doe not performe these things to all which ye are tyed by the rules of disputing I beleeve ye shall hardly escape from being censured by judicious Readers as an Ignoramus I shall not insist upon the evasion which ye have devised to cloak the informalitie of your Syllogisme ex omnibus negativis pretending that in one of the propositions you take the Negative Infinitanter not neganter Although you have not been pleased to tell in which of the propositions it is so taken and though there be no indifferent Reader but would look upon all the Propositions as simple Negatives neither could you in our Language expresse them more Negatively if you intended to affect the Copula with the Negation Yet I shall passe this seeing I have onely used this transient insinuation to admonish you to look better to the forme of your Syllogismes and withall did shew you a clear way how to have corrected your error without â—unning to these Termini infinitantes Onely you must remember that if your Nâ—gatio infinitans fall in the Minor then it becomes an Affirmative and so your pretence of liberating your self from being tyed to prove it doth wholly evanish There be diverse other things in your paper deserving severe castigation but they are truely so Iudibrious that it is irksome to me once to mention them Nay hardly shall any thing materiall be found in the whole paper beside the repetitions of what ye had said in your first Yet lest the wrapping up of all these in generall should give you occasion to say that my complaint were groundles I shall therefore branch forth two or three of the particulars And first Ye seeme to strengthen your Syllogisme with a Dilemma which yet upon the matter is nothing but Recocta crambe the same thing in a new dresse And thereupon you insult not without petulancie as if you hade nothing to doe but to triumph saying Hath the Religion of PROTESTANTS no principles whereby to prove it self Are they invisible or are you ashamed to produce them Soft I beseech you Is the Sun invisible because the blind Mole doth not see it Did I not tell you that the Religion of PROTESTANTS hade peculiar grounds and principles to prove it self to be a True Religion Did I not likewise declare wherein this chief Ground and Principle consisted Namely in its conformity to the Will of God revealed in the holy Scriptures Which neither Popery nor any false Religion hath or can
have Were you so dull as not to take up this or if you did why did you not either acknowledge it or at least goe about to disprove it I find you indeed a little after objecting thus What false Religion is there that may not say with as good reasone that they have the like conformity with the Scriptures But did I not pre-occupie this cavil in my first paper and by your own example of Honesty and Knavery illustrate the whole matter know therefore againe that it is not pretended but reall conformitie with the Scriptures which demonstrats a True Religion A Knave may pretend but not with good reason conformity with the Law which he hath not And the only way to discover him is to compare his actions with the Law whereby the dissonancie thereof will appear A man may be so absurd though contrary to reason as to affirme a crooked lyne to be straight But when his lyne comes to be applyed to the rule the obliquity thereof is clearly discovered Just so Popery and other false Religions may prerend albeit with as little good reason a conformitie to the word of GOD. But learned Divines by applying the rules of Scriptures to them have demonstrated their obliquity and dissonancy as with a Sun beam Hath not this been the way how our Lord Christ his Apostles the aneient Fathers and the faithfull witnesses of Truth confuted Heresies and false Religions in all ages But secondly In your next section you prevaticat yet more grosly For whereas I had said that the True Religion hath sufficient grounds ex parte objecti to prove it self to be a True Religion Ye offer thus to make Scors of my words That the PROTESTANT Religion hath intrinsecall and objective truths and conformity to the sense of the letter of the word of GOD but that it is destitute of all speciall grounds to prove it self to have such objective truths and conformity to the Scriptures I beleeve rarely hath such contradictory Nonsense been heard You might aswell if I had asserted Snow to be white have concluded that I mantained it to be black Did I not make plaine Scots of my assertion in my own paper explaining it thus That is to say That the True Religion hath sufficient grounds in it self to manifest it self to be the True Religion if it meet with a well disposed intellect Or if ye would have it yet clearer take it thus The True Religion hath such grounds to manifest its truth That if it be not taken up and assented to it is not through any defect in the Religion but through the defect and indisposition of the subject which it meets with You doe acknowledge that I affirme the PROTESTANT Religion to have Objective evidence If it have objective evidence how can it want grounds to manifest it self to be the True Religion what else I pray you can be meant by Objective evidence but grounds Exparte objecti to manifest it self Let this be a Caution to you that you doe not henceforth substitute your Non-sense as an explication of my assertions Thirdly In your penult section ye involve your self in a palpable contradiction saying That before any particular truth of Religion be proven to be conforme to the true sinse of Scripture it must first be proved that the Clergie hath such habilities and assistance in actu primo as is requisit for giving out the truesense of Scripture If you mean infallible assistance ye not only take for granted what ye know all PROTESTANTS doe deny but also ye declare that no sense of Scripture can be taken off your hand or such Traffiquers as you Seeing according to your Romish principles none below the Pope or generall Councill are the subjects of this pretended infallibilitie Yes not only are your own men divided in this whether this infallible assistance be entailed to the Pope or Councill but also some of your greatest Rabbies have concluded that both Pope and Councill may erre And if so who then according to your Arguing should give the true sense of Scripture But leaving this to let you see how your own words entangle you I shall desire you to consider this Enthymeme Before any particular truth of Religion be proven to be conforme to the true sense of the Scriptures this must first be proven that the Clergie hath such requisite habilities and assistance In Actuprimo for giving the true sense Ergo this truth concerning the Clergies habilities and assistance must be proven before it be proven which implyes a manifest contradiction The Antecedent is your assertion The Sequel is clear Because that the Clergie should have such assistance according to you is one truth of Religion If therefore it must be proven before every truth it must be proven before it self Is not this not only to contradict the truth but your own self Who would not pitie a Person smitten with such a Vertigo Conveniet nulli qui secum dissidet ipse Go not henceforth to cavill that it is either through diffidence or tergiversation that I decline to prove the contradictorie of your Assumption The Grounds on which I have done it are these First because that I resolve to keep with you exactly the rules of disputing And therefore seeing you have taken upon you the office of an Opponent you must eitâ—â—er doe his worke or else acknowledge that the PROTESTANTS Religion is such aâ— you cannot impugne Secondly because to prove the PROTESTANTS Religion to be a True Religion is to prove the severall Articles of our Religion to be conforme to the Scriptures which as I said cannot be done with one breath But if you desiderat to see it done I shall remit you to Chamieri Panstratia Catholica not to mention the workes of other Champions for the Truth In the mean while remember I have appealed you and yet againe doe to instance any One Ground necessarly requisit to prove the True Religion which is wanting in the Religion of PROTESTANTS In the close of all you offend that I should have desired you to signe your papers And your language concerning this savours of a Dunghill But I shall ingenuously tell you why I did desire it That I might know with whome I deal For this hath been observed as one of your Romanists practises when ye have been worsted in debates then to alleadge it was no Scholler that sustained such a debate but some obscure Person Againe therefore it is required of you that you would signe your papers as you would have them regarded I once intended with this paper by way of retaliation to have sent you some demonstrations that Popery cannot be the True Religion But as yet I have spared because I confesse it is lâ—kesome to me to grapple further with you untill ye discover some more stuffe Iohn Menzeis POSTSCRIPT Augustinus de doctrine Christiana lib. 2. cap. 9. In iis Qua aperte posita in Scriptura sunt inveniuntur illa omnia qua continent fidem moresqueue vivends After
the writing of this a new Edition of this your second paper was transmitted to me correcting somewhat the dresse of it but nothing the matter which therefore I judged not worthy of any further recognition Reader know That the Corrections in the second Edition of the Iesuits second paper were only of some trespasses of Orthography which are now much better corrected by the PRINTER The Jesuits third paper An Answere to a Reply of Mr. IOHN MENZEIS wherein he labours to justifie that the grounds which he produced to prove the truth of the PROTESTANT Religion were not meere shifts and evasions May 5. 1666. YOUR reply is stuffed with words wherewith ye undervalue all things that are brought against you calling them none-sense raw and indigested that you have a faint disputant that the matter is Recocta crambe c. But doe you not know that such tenor of words are called Sagittae parvulorum Since every one who hath a tongue and penne may say or writ what he pleases or why may not all thir things be reponed with as good reason to your self calling you a faint disputant and that your discourses are raw and indigested and so a matter of so great importance as to discerne a True Religion from a false shall be resolved in a flyting whereof you have this advantage to have the first word Laying then purposely aside all things that are out of the way I propone to you againe this point that the Protestant Religion cannot be a True Religion nor the Religion to the which God hath annexed the promise of eternall life and consequently whosoever aimes at eternall happines after this life or intends to save his soule is obliged in conscience to quite it and to search for the True Religion prescinding or abstracting for now where this True Religion is to be found and insisting for the present in this only point that the PROTESTANT Religion cannot be it and assure your self that this point will be a Crambe cocta et recocta and alwise set before you till by sufficient heat you disgest and make good substance of it This point we proved by this one Syllogisme which againe is repeated to you That Religion cannot be a True Religion which hath no peculiar ground nor principle to prove that it is a True Religion or conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. But the Protestant Religion hath no peculiar ground or principle to prove it self to be a True Religion or a Religion conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Therefore the Protestant Religion cannot be a True Religion Here you deny the Subsumption that is you deny that the Protestant Religion hath no peculiar ground or principle to prove it self conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD and consequently you affirmed that it hath peculiar grounds or principles whereby it can prove it self to be a Religion grounded upon the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD and being pressed to produce your grounds to prove the truth of your Religion in stead of solide grounds you produce these two sleeing shifts and evasions The first is That the Protestant Religion hath intrinsecall grounds Ex parte objecti though it have not alwise Ex parte subjecti that is if they doe not alwise prove the defect is not in the Religion or in the grounds considered in themselves but in the indisposition of the subject to the which they are applyed But it was told you that it was a meer shift and that your obscure termes being resolved in good Scots signifies onely that your Religion hath objective and intrinsecall truth or conformity with the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD but so that it is destuute of all speciall ground or principle whereby it can prove it self to be grounded upon the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. And that your answere can have no other sense but this is proven because all thir foure propositions are Synonima to wit A Religion to be a True Religion A Religion to be conforme to the will of GOD revealed in Scripture A Religion to have objective and intrinsecall truth and evidence A Religion that is able to convince if it meet with a well disposed intellect or capacity These foure propositions being all Synonims and signifying the same thing and so all equally in controversie you cannot prove one by another but you must prove them be some extrinsecall and distinct Medium otherwise you must grant that your answere is a meer shift and which in good Scots signifyes only this That your Religion is true in it self but hath no peculiar ground whereby it can be proven to be true and so we must beleeve it to be true only because you say that it is And with this I set againe before you this Recocted Dilemma Either the Protestant Religion hath speciall grounds to prove that it is a True Religion that it is a Religion conforme to the will of GOD revealed in Scripture that it is a Religion that hath objective or intrinsecall truth and evidence that it is a Religion able to convince any intellect that is well disposed or else it hath no speciall ground or principles whereby all thir can be verified of it If it have speciall grounds let them be produced and examined if it have none let an ingenuous confession have place that it is groundless and destitute of all principles whereby it can prove these foure Synonime propositions to agree to it Which is confirmed because any Religion even that which is acknowledged be themselves to be false may affirme with as good reason and pretend that all these foure fore-named Synonime propositions may be verified of their Religion To wit that their Religion is a True Religion that their Religion is conforme to the will of GOD revealed in Scripture that their Religion is true Ex parte objecti and hath objective and intrinsecall grounds that their Religion is evident and true if it meet with an intellect well disposed All the answere and disparity you give is that they are fools and ye wise men that they are blind and so no wonder that they cannot see the clear beams of the truth of your Religion But may not they apply all this to you with as good reasons as you doe to them The other shift that in stead of a solide ground you brought was this that you were not obliged to give a particular ground or principle to prove in generall your Religion to be true because Religion say you is not an individuall truth but a complex of many truths whereof one must be proven after another But this answere is a meer shift whereby you would decline the onely and maine difficultie by bringing in a whole body of controversies which likewise can no wayes help you Because before you can prove any one of these particular truths to
be conforme to the true sense of such a text of Scripture you must first by some speciall ground or principle prove that your Clergie Men hath In Actu Primo such assistance and habilitie as is prerequired in men who should give the true sense of particular texts of Scripture since everie false Religion may pretend that they give the true sense though contrarie to the sense that you give To this you reply that it is a contradiction to say that before other particular proofs be proved to be conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of God it must first be proven that their Clergie hath such abilitie and assistance in actu primo as is requisite to give the true sense of Scripture Because say you this same that the Clergie should have in actu primo such assistance is one particular truth and so if it should be proved before every particular truth it should be proved before it self And it seems you have great compleasance and are fallen in love with this answere as with a prime and unswearable subtilitie backing it both with prose and meeter and likewise advertiseing me to consider it But I likewise advertise you to consider how that in this you fight only with your own shadow For first may not a proposition be in it self one and particular and yet have an object universall in the which though it be contained yet the thing affirmed of that object doe not agree to it otherwise ye would by this prove that David contradicted himself when he pronounced this proposition All men are liars for if all men be liars and David be a man then he was a liar in saying all men are liars Next what makes it to the purpose whether the necessitie of particular assistance in actu primo in Clergy men to give the true sense in other particular truths what imports I say that this is so of an generall object that it is in it self one particular truth distinct from the rest it being sufficient that it be such a particular truh of whom other truths depends and of the which the people must first be convinced before they can be perswaded that other particular points proponed to them are revealed in such texts of Scripture Wherefore take this Recocted dilemma againe either the Protestant Religion hath speciall grounds or principles whereby mens understanding can be convinced that their Clergie is qualified In actu primo with such assistance and habilitie as is requisite to perswade the people that they give the true serse of the letter of Scripture or they have no such grounds or principles If they have then let them be produced and examined If they have no such grounds and principles they cannot exact of people to beleeve their glosse as the word of GOD since without this particular and interior assistance they can onely guesse at the true sense of the text of Scripture As to that you desire againe that I signe my answere with my name and that you require this because you would know with whome you deal and because it hath been observed to be one of the Romanists practises when they have the worst in debates to alleadge it was no Scholer that sustained such debate but some obscure person But good Sir in what Register did you find such a practique or whether they may not with greater reason be turned over upon your selves and who will not smile to hear you compare your self and your Divines with Catholick Authors Since it is known that the most part of the doctrine that you vent either in Pulpits or Schools is copied out of them The thing then desired of you is that you answere to the reasons proponed not careing by whom they be proponed Mr. IOHN MENZEIS his Answere to the Iesuits third Paper An Answere to a third Paper from a traffiquing Papist commonly supposed to be Mr. Francis Dempster alias Rinne or Logan IS it not Ominous that this your third Paper beginneth with a notorious falshood in its very Inscription as if I in my second Paper had undertaken to prove the truth of the Religion of PROTESTANTS Whereas it is manifest that in both my former papers I only sustained the part of a Defendant And this I did of purpose that it might be seen how you would discharge the Office of an Opponent under which you now appear clearly succumbing by your nauseating repetitions If the acrimonie of my Style in my last offend you ye may blame partly your own tedious repetitions and trifling in a matter of such importance and partly some scurrilous expressions which yoused and opprobrious accusations of tergiversation and diffidence where with ye loaded me in your second paper Because forsooth I would not gratifie you so farr as to take the Opponents worke off your hand So that what of this kind hath been owes its rise to you I admire nothing in you but your confidence That ye are not ashamed to offer to me a Paper bearing the inscription of a Reply when ye seeme as affrayed to touch the chief points in my Paper as you would be to handle a Serpent Did I not charge you with grievous Omissions in my last Why doe you not clear your self of that Fallacie in the third proposition of your first Paper Why doe you not answere to the Retorsions of your argument against your self Why doe you not either prove your Assumption or else refell the arguments by which I shew that ye were tyed to prove it Did I not demonstrate the pertinencie of all these particulars and withall conjured you to speake to them as you would not incurre the heaviest characters of Ignominie What construction after all this can your deep silence bear but that you are not able to acquit your self in these points Hath there been one article of controversie in any of your Papers which I have not examined whether therefore you or I be guilty of tergiversation or diffidence the unbyassed Reader may judge I am so wearied with your Tautologies that I should not have deignied this paper with an answere but that I know the clamorous impudence of many of your Party to be such that if no answere had been returned how insignificant soever your paper be they would have insulted and sung Victoria But let me ask you seriously doth the frequent repetition of this poor naked Syllogisme either help the forme or strengthen the matter thereof of both of which have been justly questioned Are battologies so savourie and delicious to your Popish palat will the ingemination of your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extort an assent from these who have the use of their reason How oft will ye constraine me to tell you that I deny your Assumption and consequently the second branch of your ragged Dilemma which is wholy coincident therewith and that I have long desiderated the probation of both But seeing ye have some fancie for Dilemma's I will repone this one to you Either you
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
flesh to compound a soveraigne Triacle I am sorrie that as your Paper began with a falshood in matter of fact you must excuse my plainnesse so it should be shut up with another Sic respondent Ultima Primis You may not expect that I will trifle away more time in answering your frivolous unsubscrived Tautologies Either therefore leave your repetitions and doe the worke of an Opponent seriously or else you will constraine me to give a publick account to the World of your trifling and tergiversation Turpe est difficiles habere nugas Aberdene May 9. 1666. John Menzeis The Iesuits fourth Paper Answere to a third Paper of Mr. JOHN MENZEIS whereby he labours of new to perswade that the Grounds which he produces for the truth of the Protestant Religion were not meere shifts and evasions 28. of May 1666. This Paper was not delivered to Mr. IOHN MENZEIS till Iune 2. YOVR third Paper bearing the date of the ninth of May Did not come to my hands before the twenty seventh of May. Neither know I wherefore it hath been so long keept up Since as I am informed you did first dyt it to your Scholers who out of zeal to the reputation of their Master did use all diligence to disperse many copies of it and although it be not authentick and subscrived with your hand with the solemuities used in your former paper yet for the ordinarie straine of digressions not making to the purpose I doe acknowledge it for yours And it is pleasant that you say that you marvell that I passe over in silence and does not answere But how can you marvell at this since I have alwayes protested to you and protest to you againe that I would closse misken and take no notice of any thing that is out of the way and which does not concern the decision of the present controversie to wit Whether the Protestant Religion can be shown to be a True Religion by any ground or principle which may not serve with as great Reason to prove any false Religion to be a True Religion And so soone as you who hath bragingly undertaken to prove the truth of your Religion shall produce any such ground whereby it may appear that you put your self at least in the way either to give some satisfactory answere or at least to confesse ingenuously that you have no such ground for your Religion I oblige my self and shall finde you Surtie that I shall answere at length to all your Digressions to all your Retorsions and likewise shall disput with you at great leasure about the rules of Logick and shew how groslie you are mistaken in confounding Objective negations with formall negations as if a formall affirmation might not fall upon objective negations united be an objective affirming Copula As for your injurious and undervaluing words both in Greek and Latine wherewith your paper is stuffed calling all things brought against you Tantologies Battologies Insipid and Childish things and Non-sense c. I told you before that any man that hath a tongue may heap up and utter injurious words even against GOD himself And this way of proceeding would be thought by the judicious to be a clear testimony of a deserted cause and that since by sufficient reason you cannot propt the tottering truth of your Religion at least by Digressions Injurious words and other practises you will shoulder and hold up your reputation before simple people who adjudges the Victorie to him who rails most As if the means to try a True Religion from a false were not of such high concernment it self alone as did deserve to confine both your thoughts and penne within the gyre of it So that without wrouging the weightines of the matter ye cannot decline to squable about other things before it be fully ended Laying then aside as before all other things as out of the rod this is laid againe before you that the Protestant Religion cannot be the true Religion nor the Religion to which GOD hath tyed the promise of eternall life and consequently whosoever armes at eternall happinesse after this life or intends to save his Soul is obliged in conscience to quit it and betake himself to a diligent search for the True Religion prescinding for now where it is to be found and insisting for the present is this that the Protestant Religion cannot be it This point is proven at before by this Syllogisme That Religion cannot be a true Religion which hath no speciall Ground or Principle whereby it can prove it self to be a true Religion or conforme to the true sense of the Letter of the Word of God But the Protestant Religion hath no speciall Ground or Principle whereby it can prove it self to be a true Religion or to be a Religion conforme to the true sense of the Letter of the Word of God Ergo the Protestant Religion cannot be a true Religion Though you leave off to call this Syllogisme a Crambe recocta being conscious to your self not to be able to produce sufficient heat to dissolve and digest it yet you call it a poor and naked Syllogisme which if it be as you say it beggs this favour of you that you will cloath and cover the nakednesse of it with some fitting answere Only be pleased to remember that since you deny the subsumption and so puts your self in obligation to produce grounds for the proofe of your Religion that the grounds you produce must have this propertie that they cannot serve with as great reason to prove a false Religion to be a True Religion As the grounds which serves to prove one to be an honest man must have this propertie that they cannot serve to prove a knave to be an honest man Neither doe you satisfie in saying that Honestie consists in a conformity of actions with the Law as Knaverie in a deformity of actions to the Law this I say does not help you because this is onely to explicat the terms and to draw the lineaments not filling up the fields and vacuities For the present controversie is not wherein consists objective Honestie or objective Knaverie nor wherein consists objective truth of Religion or objective falshood of Religion but suppoining the one to consist in a conformity or difformity of actions to the Law and the other to consist in a conformity or difformity with the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD it remains to shew by some speciall ground wherefore of one man is verified this objective Honestie and not of the other and wherefore of one Religion is affirmed this obiective truth and not of the other To this you answere that this is easily known be applying and comparing onely the actions of both with the Law and the tenets of both with the word of GOD as the obliquity and crookednesse of a rule is presently known by applying it to a straight and even rule and with this popular discourse you think to have cleared and exhausted
all the difficulty But good Sir give me leave to discover the shallownesse and superficialnesse of this answere You say objective Honestie is proven to agree to such a man because his actions are conforme to the Law But I ask you what if the letter of the Law with the which you compare the actions be capable of divers yea contrarie senses and the knave pretend that the actions of his Knaverie are conforme to the Law taking the letter of the Law in the sense that he give it In this case can one be proven to be an Honest man unlesse there be produced some speciall ground to show that his actions are conforme to the true sense of the letter of the Law and which cannot favour the Knave nor his actions Likewise since the letter of Scripture is capable of divers yea contrarie senses and there is no Religion so false but pretends that the tenets of it are conforme to the letter of Scripture taken up in the sense that they give it there rests no remedie to prove a Religion to be true or to be distinct from a false but by producing some speciall ground which is not applicable to a false Religion And hereby the way appears how easily simple people are gulled and at how easie a rate their favour and suffrages are obtained be a discourse smoothly and plausibly proponed and attempered to their capacity though in the mean time it be dest-tute-of all truth and soliditie Out of this you may see that since you have undertaken to prove the truth of your Religion and grants that the truth of a Religion cannot subsist without some speciall ground denying the subsumption that affirms the want of all grounds there results out of all these a necessity and obligation upon your part to produce some speciall grounds for the truth of your Religion whereby you may make appear that the objective truth or the objective grounds of a true Religion doth agree to your Religion and which cannot serve to prove that the objective truth or objective grounds of a true Religion agreeth to a false Religion Neither doth it exempt you from satisfying this obligation the pretext that you are the Defender and I the Impugner because to me as the Impugner belongs onely to presse you either to grant that you have no grounds or to produce them to be impugned Now let us come to the shifts and evasions which ye have produced in place of solid grounds The first was that your Religion hath objective truths or objective grounds of evidence though they be not alwise convincent by reason of the indisposition of the subject to whome they are proponed But it hath been told you that all thir are Synonims A Religion to be a true Religion A Religion to have objective grounds of truth and evidence A Religion to be conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD A Religion that is convincent if it encounter with an intellect well disposed And so thir being all Synonims and all equally in controversie one cannot be ground to prove one another but they must all be proven by some other thing And this was told you and is now repeated againe Neither doth it help you the answere that you insinuat in this paper that although they be all Synonims yet one of them may serve to prove another as it is lawfull to argue A Definitione ad Definitum though there be an objective identitie betwixt them as likewise betwixt objective premisses and the conclusion But in this as before you discover your shallownesse in touching onely the screofe not going deeper Because this way of arguing doth not hold when both the Definition and Definitum are in controversie whether they doe agree in such a thing for then they must be proven by some other ground Moreover may not all this with as great reason be assumed of a false Religion and which you your self acknowledge for a false Religion and why may they not say that their Religion hath objective grounds of truth and evidence and prove this be this other Synonime that their Religion is conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD Now all the answere that you alwayes give is that those that sees not the truth of your Religion have an intellect ill disposed and tempered are Fools Blinded and now you adde that they are to be esteemed for Hypochondriack persons But all this is as easily turned over upon your self since men that denyes and professes that they can see no truth in your Religion are in all other things as discursive and as sharp sighted as your self The other shift that you bring when you are pressed to produce some speciall ground whereby may be made manifest the truth of your Religion is That Relgion is not an individuall truth but a complex of many truths which cannot be proven altogether but successively one after another But who sees not this to be a meer shift in place of a difficulty to substitute a whole body of particular controversies which though they may now be begun yet requires years to bring them to an end And doth not Aristotle teah us that we should alwise begin Ab universalioribus before we descend to particulars least doing otherwise we be forced to repeat often the same things Likewise remember that the same shift with as great reason may be alleaged by any false Religion to decline the necessity that they have to give grounds to prove the truth of their Religion As for that in which you enlarge your self to shew an Contradiction in my discourse whereby I told you that before you can induce the people to beleeve that you propone the true sense of particular texts of Scripture you must first produce solid grounds that you are qualified with such assistance and such directions In actu primo to give out this true sense In this I told you before that you are fighting with your own shadow and putting up a faigned adversary to your self that afterward you may have a faigned pleasure in puting of him down For what contradiction can it be to say that the actuall operation or Actus secundus doth necessarly suppone Actum primum and if In actu secundo you give the true sense of the letter of Scripture then necessarly you must be furnished In actu primo with sufficient ability to give this true sense Or how can any exerce operations of Seeing Hearing Speakeing In actu secundo except he be supported to have In actu primo sufficient ability to doe thir operations And you must have great dominion over your intellect if you can perswade your self that this discourse involves a contradiction Now I request you to cloath this ragged Dilemma as you call it Either you can produce some speciall grounds whereby can be made manifest that your Clergie men are qualified In actu primo with sufficient ability and assistance to give the true sense of particular
Paterns of Honesty and withall added that it was an intolerable reproach thrown both upon the Law and the Lawgivers that a Law was given to people to walk by which no man except Titius with his pretended infallibilitie could understand Is it not strange said Sempronius that my Accuser Titius can speake his accusation so intelligibly that a Child can understand the sense thereof and yet that our Lawgivers had not so much wit as to expresse the Laws which they would have to be the Rule of our lives in intelligible language What prudent Senators would suffer themselves and Lawgivers thou to be reflected upon by Titius and would not for his pleading after this manner condemne him as a petulant Rogue The application af this Embleme is left to you and to the judicious Reader I have made so many experiments upon you that if there had been any Mercurie in you in all probabilitie before this time it had been extracted but the longer I deal with you the greater Dounce doe you appear I am both wearied and ashamed to graple further with one who multiplies such Childish impertinencies and notorious falshoods Least therefore I should seeme Cum Cretensi Cretizare I discharge any further exchange of Papers with you except you change your straine Yet because I know the Genius of many of your Party to be such that if you transmitted to me a Rapsody of perfect Non-sense to which no answere were returned you would glory as if you had approven your self as a Doctor Irrefragabilis Therefore to put a check to this insolencie and withall to satisfie the judicious I adde two things And first you are required though an Adversarie to doe me so much Iustice as when you communicate to others any of your Papers that you doe likewise communicate my Answere and then I shall decline no rationall Person either of your or of our profession who is not either Ignorant or Blinded with prejudice tosiâ— as Umpyre or Arbiter betwixt you and me If you doe otherwise after so solemne admonition it will be an evidence that you are conscious that your Papers are naught and not able to abide the Test But next if you find an abler Person then your self that can manage this debate to better purpose then you have done he shall not GOD-willing lake an answere so far as the interest of truth doeth require it In the mean time I say to you as Cyprian did to Demetrian Oblatrantem te are Sacrilego verbis impiis obstrepentâ—â— frequenter Demetriane contempseram melius existimans errantis imperitiam silentio spernere quam loquende dementis insaniam provecare Nec hoc sine â—agisterii divini Numinis authoritate faciebam quum scriptum sit noli respondere imprudenti ad imprudentiam ejus ne similis flas illi Cyp. lib. ad Demet. Aberdene 28. of June 1666. Iohn Menzeis POSTSCRIPT This Paper was written on Iune 18. but I being called to the Countrey on Iune 19. and not returning untill June 26 it could not be transcribed untill this 28. of June 1666. The Iesuits sixth Paper Answere to a fifth Paper of Mr. JOHN MENZEIS wherein he brings a new Shift and Evasion for a Ground of the truth of the PROTESTANT Religion disowneing all thinges for to be grounds which he hath brought hitherto July 6. 1666. YOV was disired to give a proofe of your abilitie to put onely ten lines in Paper which could be judged to make to the purpose in the present controversie observing three things first to â—â—it all exâ—â—sions out of the way that is to say to omit all things without naming of the which the present controversie may be fully decyded Secondly to omit all hase undervalucing words as more besetting an flyting Wife then an Scholler Thirdly to omit all things which cannot serve to prove the truth of your Religion but with this inconvenient that it equally serves to prove an false Religion to be true But in this Paper deboarding mor then ever you give cleir testimony that all your strength consists in thir things So that the confyning of you within thir limits wer to disarme you altogether and to bind up all the fecundity which you have to blot Paper and multiply words for hyding your weakenesse Laying asid then all things of whatsoewer sort that ar out of the line I lay befor you againe the maine point to wit the Protestant Religion cannot be the true religion nor the Religion to the which GOD hath tyed the promise of eternall life and consequently whoseever aims at eternal happinesse after this life or intends to save his soul is oblidged in conscience to quit it and to betake himself to a diligent search for the truth prescinding for now whair it is to be found insisting for the present in this only that the Protestant Religion cannot be it This cannot be called a nonsense since its both an most substantial point and likewise proponed to you in such cleir terms It is proven by this one Sylogisme That Religion cannot be a true Religion which hath no speciall grounds whereby it can prove it self to be a true Religion or to be a Religion conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. But the Protestant Religion hath no speciall grounds whereby it can prove it self to be the true Religion or to be a Religion conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Ergo the Protestant Religion cannot be the true Religion To this Syllogisme yow answered first carping the forme of it as if it wer of tuo premisses negatives and though it was showen yow yowr gross ignorance in this calling affirmative propositions negations becaus they ar of objective negations yet now yow add with alse gryt ignorance that the conclusion is negative Is it possible that an Rabbi in Israel is so ignorant that there most be made to him a lesson of Summules to make him capable to discerne betwixt affirmative and negative propositions Here indeed would come in season a way for sham and such hissing and histrionicall expressions as yow use now and then in yowr Papers Next yow say that though hithertoo yow have onlie denyed the subsumption yet yow have acquired by the benefit of so long a time a new light which discovers a defect also in the Major But this argues that the Sylogisme is not of so obvious a nakednes as yow stylled it since a man of yowr capacity hath need of so long tyme to acquire light for the discoverte of the defects of it But giving and not granting that there wer defects in the Major yet since yow have ingaged yowr self in denying the subsumption long agoe and so incurred an obligation to produce grounds for the truth of yowr Religion yow must first end this before yow begin the other either confessing that yow have no grounds or else producing them that they may be examined whether they subsist or not And here I cannot
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.
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
to save his Soul is obliged in conscience to quit it and to betake himself to a diligent search where the True Religion is to be found prescinding for now where it is to be found and insisting meerlie in this that the Protestant Religion cannot be it This is proven by this one Syllogisme That Religion cannot be the True Religion which hath no special ground or principle whereby it can be proven to be a True Religion or to be a Religion conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. But the Protestant Religion hath no special ground or principle whereby it can be proven to be a True Religion or a Religion conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Ergo the Protestant Religion cannot be a True Religion You denying here the Subsumption were advertised of this one thing that a true principle or ground is not an indifferent nature but is essentially determined to prove and infer onely truth and so not to produce any thing for a principle or ground to prove the truth of the Protestant Religion which may serve with as great reason to prove a false Religion to be true After much fluctuation and many shifting toes and froes at lentgh you have pitched on two things which you say you will mantaine as solid grounds to prove the Protestant Religion to be true and to be distinguished from all false Religions The first is The perspcuity of Scripture in all points necessary to Salvation But it was showne you the great jugling that lyes under this answere For first by Scriptur of which is affirmed that it contains perspicuously all things necessary to Salvation must be understood the true letter and the true sense of the true letter of Scripture Ergo it cannot serve for a ground to prove the Protestant Religion to be a true Religion except it be first proven that the Protestants hath both the true letter and Translation and likewise the true sense of the letter To this in which the maine point consists you give no answere nor brings no proofe but onely remits me to read your Protestant Authors whome you call Champions and who as you say have made all thir things clear as the Sun But wherefore doe you not produce the reasons of these your Champions that they may be examined and impugued Secondly It was asked how you could so boldly affirme that all things necessar to Salvation or rather that all the tenets which the Protestant Religion holds as necessary to Salvation were contained clearly in Scripture except first Drawing op a catalogue of all things that the Protestant Religion holds as points necessary to Salvation and as contradistinguished from all other things not necessary To this you answere now that a Proposition in generall may be beleeved though the beleever cannot make an induction of all particulars contained in it So we beleeve that all the dead shall rise though we cannot give a particular account of their persons But it seems this answere hath escaped your penne when you were thinking on other things For though I beleeve a proposition in generall when that proposition is revealed in generall But where is it revealed that all the tenets that the Protestant Religion holds for points nocessar to Salvation are clearly in Scripture For giving and not granting that this generall proposition All things necessar to Salvation are clearly set down in Scripture were revealed by Scripture it self attesting it yet it doeth not follow that this other generall proposition is revealled All the tenets that the Protestant Religion holds as necessar to Salvation are clearly contained in Scripture or that they may be clearly deduced out of things clearly set down in Scripture Ergo it cannot be an object of divine faith but by deduceing it by Induction of particulars And to this serves your own example of a purse full of an hundred pieces of Gold for though I may beleeve in general that all the gold contained in that purse is upright gold if this were revealed in general by a sufficient authority yet prescinding from all authority affirmeing this I cannot assent that they are all and none excepted upright gold except taking them all one by one and putting them to the tryall because if only one of them were not upright the whole assent would be false Thirdly Though you say all things necessar to Salvation to be clearly set down in Scripture yet you require the due use of certaine middes to attaine to the true knowledge of thir things and being demanded to specifie thir middes and what you meane by the due use of them And for answere to this you bring now onely a long Digression about rules to interpret Scripture slightin the maine print which is to show in this a difference betwixt you and these of a false Religion and whether these of a false Religion may not use as duely these middes as you can doe for attaining to the true sense of Scripture To this you onely answere that De facto they doe not use duely these middes and That the God of this world hath blinded their minds c. But what if they apply this to your self The second ground that you have pitched upon to prove the Protestant Religion to be a true Religion and to be distinguished from all false Religion Is the conformity it hath with the doctrine of the first three Centuries But this cannot be a ground distinct from the conformity which you say your Religion hath with the true sense of the letter of Scripture Because giving and not granting that your doctrine had this conformity you cannot by this prove that it is a true doctrine since by you All these were fallible and might have erred And conformity with doctrine that may be error cannot serve to prove a doctrine to be true And if you reply that though they were fallible and might erre yet they did not erre because the doctrine they gave is conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture Ergo the conformity with them is not a ground distinct from the conformity with the true sense of the letter of Scripture Or else you might prove the conformity with the Acts of Parliament in matters of Religion to be a ground to prove the truth of your Religion and a distinct ground from the conformity which these Acts hath with the true sense of the letter of Scripture Ergo to make good that the conformity of your Religion with the doctrine of the Church in the first three centuries is a distinct ground from the conformity with the true sense of the letter of Scripture you must give some Authoritie to the Fathers who were then whereby they were preserved from error though of themselves they were fallible And this must consist either in some intrinsecal quality inherent in them or in some special extrinsecal assistance founded on Christs promite And here you have likewise to prove that this
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
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
justifie your proceeding in that Conserence which we had be mouth since you should remit all that thing to the judgement of these illustrious persons that were then present and let them judge whether you did feebly and cowaraly act your part and seeme to compeare there onely to game time Likewise in what school did you learne this civil title wherewith you honor me calling me a Neat-herd rather nor a Disputant that I am a man of â— brâ—sen face and a leaden heart that I am both shamelesse and as â—lesse that I am a Lazie drone c But this proceeds because my Popers which you verballie vilisie calling them Pasquills and not w.r. â—ie to be answered yet you sind they gall you and seeing your self not sâ—â—ffâ—â—ent with reputation to answere to supply this desiciency you seek help from the desusion of Bile that it may subministrat to you such uâ—comely and ume sonable words But let us come to the matter it self In my first Paper and in all others since there was nothing urged upâ—r you but onely that since you 〈◊〉 gerinrailing against Catholick Religion you would produce sâ—â—â—e ground to show the truth of your PROTESTANT Religion and whereby it may be distinguished from a false Religion that be this means you might bath confirme PROTESTANTS in their Religion and â—ime others to embrace the same But hitherto in so many Papers all that can be extorted out of you is that your PROTESTANT Religion is proven to be a true Religion be this Medium because it is grounded upon the word of GOD and conforme to the true serse of the letter of Scripture a reason indeed most solid and convincent if it were true But this pretended conformity of PROTESTANT Religion with Scripture was showen this way to you to be a meer imaginar and groundlesse conformity because as it is impossible a thing to be conforme to a true sense except it be supponed to be a true sense so it is impossible that a thing can be proven to be conforme to a true sense except it be first showen and proven that there is a true sense Ergo you cannot prove your Religion to be true because it is conforme to the true serse of the letter of Scripture except first you bring some pregnant reason whereby the understandings of men may be convinced that you have upon your side the true sense of the letter of Scripture Now since all dependes upon this one point you were desired to apply your self wholly to satisfie this onely and to doe in a substantious and school way laying aside for a whyle your diffuse railing Pulpit way But let us now examine the noble answeres that you give in this your last Paper The first answere is not direct but rather a declining of the difficulty under pretext that it makes a Non-sese to say That before a Religion can be showen or proven to be true it must first be proven that there is the true seate of the letter of Scripture upon their part who professes such a Religion because the true sense of the letter of Scripture and the truth of Religion are one and the self same thing and so â—â— would follow that a thing were proven before it were proven which is a grosse Non-sense But this subtility in the which you seeme to take some complesance and put great force serves onely to discover grosse Ignorance For First he this you show your self altogether ignorant of the nature of Formal Praecisions who have uâ—rtue where they interveen to make asâ—â—fficient distinction betwixt the Medium and the Probleâ—me None you show your self Ignorant of the 〈…〉 be no Objective difference betwixt true Religion and the truths contained under the letter of Scripture But thir two are seperabâ—â— Since all the truths contained under the letter of Scripture may be and yet not componit any Religion at all to wit if there be no obligation imposed upon us to beleeve them or if GOD had not decreed it nor made the faith and beleef of these things necessar to obtaine our Salvation Lastly giving not granting that this your speculation had some soliditie yet it cannot serve to better your cause since all this just as it lyes may be wuh as great reason assumed be a falfe Religion for a scouge and refuge of their ignorance when they are pressed to assigne some ground wherely it may appeare that they have the true sense of the letter of Scripture upon their side or bring some disparity betwixt you and them Your second answere to prove that the true sense of the letter of Scripture is upon your side is Because your sense is conforme to the sense of the Fathers that lived in the first three Centuries But first in this you resile from your foundator Calvin who as you know disclaimes the Fathers in many things taxing them of errors and hitherto your other reformers harped alwayes upon this string that all doctrines even of the Fathers should be examined be the sell Scripture as the onely rule admitting no wise the doctrine of the Fathers themselves but in so far as they did agree with Scripture But now since you invert altogether this order you give occasion to suspect that you are hatching Some new Religion of your own leaving their principles Againe this conformtiy cannot serve your purpose except first you show that the Fathers of the first three Centuries did in the bookes that are now extant teach all points that are necessar to Salvation And this must be proven either be some tectin ony drawne either out of Scripture or out of themselves or else we will have nothing for this but onely your bare saying In the closing of your Paper beside your ordinary braging whereby you doe over value all your own things and undervalue all things brought against you you play the Prophet in Ryme Roma diu titubans variis erroribus acts Corruet mandi desinet esse caput Bo sie yat yis your prophesie be not lyk your Patriarche Lutheris prophesie who when he lept out of the churche did brage that with tuo yeiris Preaching he would abolische and eliminat all Poperie out of the world sa yat efteryir tua yeiris yair wold be no moir in the world nather Pop nor Cardinalis nor Monkis nor Nunnes nor Mase nor Belis c. This Paper was not delivered to Master IOHN MENZEIS many dayes after it was dated but to excuse this the following Postscript was subjoined to the Paper with an other hand POSTSCRIPT Tho this Paper came from the author the day efter it was dated it could not be sent sooner to Master IOHN MENZEIS in regard the Person to whom it was adressed was not in Towne Master IOHN MENZEIS his Answere to the Jesuits ninth Paper Some Reflections upon Master Dempster the Iesuit his ninth Paper wherein he scarce touches what hath been Replyed to him and yet foolishly imagines that he hath confuted the conformity of the Religion
true Ergo c. The Sequel of the Major you dare not but admit unlesse you mine Insidell and deny that the true Christian Religion hath solid grounds to prove its conformity with the Scripture And for the probation of the Assumption you cannot but allow me that measure against you which you allow your self against me and therefore I appeale you to produce any solid ground which the True Christian Religion hath which the Religion of PROTESTANTS wanteth Yea or any solid ground which you Râ—â—anists can pretend to for confirmation of your Religion which we want You have never adventured to name any but the pretended Infallibility of your Propounders But this we have so battered to you that now you have stolen fom it not daring to mention it againe in any of these your Two last Papers Nay Fourthly I must remember you of a Dilemma ad Hominem against you Romanists which you might have gathered from my last If we deviat from the sense of holy Scripture then it must be either in our Affirmatives or in our Negatives Not in our Affirmatives you and we agreeing in most of these Therefore either in these we have the true sense else you have it not Nor in our Negatives else your contradictorie Affirmatives should be true But I proved in my Last that in many of these you doe manifestly erre as contradicting the Ancient Romish Church particularly in your Adoration of Twages Transubstansiation Communion under one kind The Poper suprexmatie the Canonicall authority of Apocry ha bookes The jurisdiction of the Pope over secular Printes your papall Indulginces at extended to Purgarotse And I am readie to prove the falshood of the rest of your Super-induced articles when ever you have the confidence to come to a particular tryall But I am utterly discouraged from multiplying more instances against a tergiversing fellow who is neither moved by credit nor conscience to examine what is replyed to him Fifthly seeing you shun to tell a ground by which the truth of Religion is to be tryed lest the Balfardie of your Religion should be proven I will give you a solid ground from a person of great fame in your Romish Gourcâ—â— though a Grecian by extract This is Goorgius Scholarius who pleaded for the interest of the Latine Church in the matter of the ProcessioÌ„ of the holy Ghost from the Father and the Son at the Councell of Florence Now this Scholarius tom 4. Conciliorum in Orat. 3. ad Concil Florent proposes these rules for determining controversies in Religion Et primo quidem sayeth he non decet velle omnia disertis verbis è scriptura desumere cum multos haereticos scimus pratextu hoc usos Sed si quid verbis it a prolatis sit consequens adaeque erit honorandum similiter quod veris confessis fuerit repugnans contrarium nullo modo est admittendum deinde eorum quae obscurius dicta sunt sumendae sunt è scriptura ipsa veluti magistra explicationes per ea quae uspians clarius illa disserit Where this learned Author holds these foure choise Positions for discerning betwixt truth and error in Religion to all which we PROTESTANTS doe cordially agree The First is That all divine truth are not revealed in so many words in Scripture Secondly that some divine truths are plainly set downe Diserris verbis and what by firme consequence is deduced from these ought to be beleeved and received with the same respect as these which are delivered In terminis Thirdly whatsoever is repugnant to these truths which are plainly Diserris verbis set downe or confessed upon all hands ought to be rejected as erroneous Fourthly that these things which are more obscurely treated of in Scripture are to receive their explications from other cleare Scripture as the Mistres of our faith These grounds so laid downe he afterwards accon modaâ—s to his present Hypothesis for decyding the controversie betwixt the Latine and Greek Church concerning the procession of the holy Ghost and may by the same measure be applyed to the controversies betwixt us PROTESTANTS and You Romanists If therefore you will dire to adventure upon the tryal of particular controversies betwixt you and us according to this standard I trust you shall see if prejudice doe not blind you that all the points of the Religion of PROTESTANTS are either revealed in Scripture plainly and In terminis or the by solid consequence are deduceable from these which are revealed In terminis And on the contrary that your Supe irauce Romish article wherein we differ from you are neither In terminis in Scripture nor yet by solid consequence deduceable from these things which are clearly revealed in Scripture but on the contrarie are repugnant thereunto I hope therefore the intelligen Reader wil observe that if you descend not to a particular tryal it is not because a ground was not assigned to you from discerning truth in Religion from error but from diffidence of your desperat cause Onely that you doe not returne to your usual trifling Cavill that Hereticks and those of a false Religion may pretend the same grounds for justifying their Heresies let me tell you that Hereticks may indeed pretend a patrocinie from these grounds which upon examination will overturne their cause And therefore what I say to you I say the same of all other Hereticks Socinians Pelagians Nestorians Aâ—â—baptists Antinomians c. That if they will come to a particular discusse according to these premised rules what ever their pretences be it shall appeare that their Heresies are neither In terminis contained in Scripture nor yet are deduceable by solid reason from these things which are clearly revealed but are repugnant thereunto Sixthly I answere Directly to this your Cavill by this Distinction If you meane that PROTESTANTS or whatsoever society acclaiming the True Religion before they prove the truth of their Religion or the conformity thereof to the true sense of Scripture must first produce one ground proving all the senses which they give in Scripture In cumulo to be true without a particular examination of the several senses and points of Religion mantained by them that I say is a grosse falshood and mistake For a Society may professe the true Religion and mantaine all the essentialls the cof and yet as I told n my last have some errors mingled in with these 〈◊〉 as our Dâ—vines have demonstrated in the Question Nom Ecclesiâ— possit errare Therefore if this be your mâ—â—ning it concernes you to have proven it for I doe and in my Last I imply did deny it But if you onely meane that PROTESTANTS or others acclaiming the truth of Religion must either have the essentials and all truths in their Religion plainly and In terminis revealed in Scripture or else solidly deduceable upon a particular discusse from these things that are so plainly revealed I grant it freely that it ought and must be so And therefore it you will
come to the examination of particular Articles I engage to disclaime the Religion of PROTESTANTS if it be not found to be so and shall onely demand but the like ingenuity readynesse and engagement from you that you will renounce your Romish superstition if is neither be In terminis in Scripture nor solidly deduceable from these things which are there plainlie revealed If there be not enough said to put an end to your general whifling Cavils let these who are not fascinated by prejudice judge Is it not time after the exchange of nine Papers to come once to the matter for you are not as yet come to it The rest of your Paper you pretend to spend in examining the Answeres given by me to this your forementioned Cavil Concerning the sense of holy Scripture But it would seeme you had been either dreaming or drunke when you wrote this for you bring me in only making Two answeres whereas indeed I have made Seven of the two which you mention only one of them is to be found in my Last Paper But however I will try how you behave your self in examining these That which you say is my First Answere is indeed my Fifth as you will find when you awake from your sleep and looke on my Paper But before I take in your Reply I will first propose my former Answere not in your words for I seldome find them faithfull but in my own as I proposed them in my Last My words then were these This Assertion of yours that before we can prove the truth of our Religion from the Scripture we must first prove this we have the true sense of the Scripture bad need of a verse favourable and benigns interpretation else it is perfect Nonsense and a very contradiction For if you meane by our having the true sense of Scripture that our Religion is contained in Scripture as the true sense thereof intended by the holy Ghost then if we must prove that we have the true sense of Scripture before we prove that we have the True Religion we must prove that we have the True Religion before we prove that we have the True Religion These were my words and if the inference be not solid upon the Supposition laid downe therein these who have common sense may judge Yet to this you have made Three Replyes but each of them more ludibrious then another Your First Reply is a pedantick whifle about formall Praecisions you say That I shew my self to be altogether ignorant of the nature of formall praecisions which have vertue where they interverne to make a sufficent distinction betwixt the Medium and the Probleme For all your pretended skil of these Pracisions there are schoole Boyes with us who could adventure to the lists with you concerning them Yet I confesse in some sense you may commence Doctor in the matter of Praecisions For you have a notable faculty of praescinding from the purpose But if you had said any thing to the point you should have shewed that there interveens a Formall Praecisions sufficient to make a distinction betwixt the Medium and Probleme betwixt these two V.Z. That our Religion is contained in Scripture as the true sense thereof intended by the holy Ghost And this That our Religion is the true Religion Can you either conceive or conclude that our Religion is contained in the Scripture as the true sense thereof intended by the holy Ghost and not conceive Ipso Facto and Formaliter that it is the True Religion Especially seeing from the beginning of your Papers you have acknowledged That a Religion to be a True Religion and to be conforms to the true sense of Scripture are Synonima's You may try in the next how you can prove this for you still leave the greatest part of your worke behind you But in the Second place from this pedantick notion you proceed to a more absurd position as if heere There were an objective distinction betwixt the Medium and the Probleme still out of your Modestie Vphraiding me with Ignorance For say you The True Religion and truths contained under the letter of Scripture are separable one from another because all the truths of Scripture may be yet not compâ—uÌ„â— any ReligioÌ„ at all to wit if there had been no obligation imposed upon us to beleeve them And hereupon You conclude me ignorant of the nature of True Religion A greater cry me I confes then the ignorance of the nature of formal Praecisions Onely you had need to guard well that this your insolent accusation doe not recoyl upon your own head For First were you not sophisticâ—ting Ab Ignoratiore Elenchi you should have concluded that our Religion may be contained in the Scripture as the true sense hereof and yet make up no Religion at all But who sees not this to be a manifest contradiction And yet these were the two which you ought to prove to be separable for that was the Supposition whereon my Inference was builded But Secondly what ignorance and absurdity doe you bewray when you say That all the truths contained under the letter of Scripture may be and yet make up no Religion at all I will instance to you a few Scripture truths which it is impossible they should be and not make up a Religion Matth. 4.10 It is written thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve John 20.31 These thinges are written that ye might beleeve that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and beleeving ye might have life through his name 1. John 3.23 This is his commandement that ye should beleeve on the name of his Son Jesus Christ These Scripture truths cannot be unlesse they concurre to make up a Religion and the reason is evident which also destroyes your fond Supposition and pretended reason to the contratie because they include in them a Form all obligation of worshiping GOD and beleeving in order to the obtaining or Salvation Do not you the refore bewray brutish ignorance of Scripture and of Religion when you say That all truths contained in the Scripture may be without an obligation to beleeve them and so compound no Religion at all For it is one Scripture Truth that we are commanded and obliged in Scripture to beleeve these truths in order to the obtaining of Salvation Your Third Reply is nothing lesse ludibrious then the former Two in which you say That what was said in that answere of mire to you may be said by persons of another Religion alswell as by us And who doubts but Hereticks may justly repell your Noneseâ—se May not Hereticks be otherwise solidly confuted albeit they laugh at your ridiculous Cavils I hope these transient to ches may suffice to discover with how little successe you have dealt with that Fifth Answere of mine which you call the first For I judge it unbeseeming for me in handling so weighty a controversie as this Whether the Religion of PROTESTANTS or Papists be the true
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
is to keep up a stated Schisine in Christendom and to ruin by Fraud or Force all who cannot comply with their mischievous Projects seriously to consider whether there be not many things in the present Popish Religion greatly obstructive to the Peace and Vnity of the Catholick Church I shall but hint at a few things As first the pretended Infallibility of the Romish Church whether Pope or Council or both Will the Church of Rome admit of Reformation so long as she affirmes her self to be beyond possibilitie of erring Secondly The Vniversal Supremacy acclaimed by the Pope over the Catholick Church Doth not this oblige Romanists to keep up a Schisme from all these Churches which cannot enslave themselves to this Vsurped power Thirdly The manifold Idolatry of the Romish Religion Masse-Worship Image-Worship Sainct-Worship Angel-Worship Crosse-Worship Relict-Worship Know not judicious Romanists that their Idolatry is not only offensive to many Christian Churches but also impeditive of the conversion of Iewes and Infidels Fourthly The Injuriousnesse of the Romish Religion to Our LORD JESUS CHRIST the only MEDIATOR betwixt GOD and Man by setting up a daylie propitiatory facrifice for the sins of the Living and Dead in the Masse by asserting that men must satisfie for a lesser kinde of sinnes which they call venial either in this Lyfe or in Purgatorie yea and for the temporal punishment due to mortal sinnes by affirming that men doe merit Heaven ex condigno and that we must be justified by inherent Righteousnesse Doe not Romanists in persuance of these and such like tenets Anathematiz many christian Churches who cannot concurre with them in such like Blasphemyes against our Blessed SAVIOUR Fifthly The going about publick worship in the Latine tongue which is not now the Vulgar language of any Nation of the World Doth not the Apostle condemne the performing of publick worship in an unknown tongue without an interpreter 1. Cor. 14. so clearly that your great Cardinal Cajetan commenting on the place sayeth Ex hac Pauli doctrina habetur quod melius ad aedificationem Ecclesiae est orationes publicas quae audiente populo dicuntur dici lingua communi clericis populo quam dici latine Sixthly Are not the reproaches horrid which Romanists throw upon the Holy Scriptures of GOD in their debates concerning the Authority Perspicuity Perfection Necessity and Interpretation of the Scriptures Nay is not this one of the first Query's wherewith Missionary Iesuits doe assault our people how doe you know the Scriptures to be the Word of GOD As if they would rather have people turne Scepticks or Atheists then remaine PROTESTANTS Have not many Romanists had many convictions in their consciences that there are corruptions in the Church of Rome calling aloud for Reformation in so-much that there have been many meetings at Rome of their Cardinals and Bishops in order to this But well did Luther as Sleidan reports lib. 12. ad Annum 1537. compare these Assemblyes to a company of Foxes comeing to sweep a room full of dust with their tailes And in stead of sweeping out the dust they sweept it all about the house and made a great smoke for a while but when they were gone the dust fell down againe How long shall Romanists through Pride prejudice faction and interest stifle these convictions Yet if any Romanist will needs prosecute this debate I cannot be so base being honoured to stand for so GLORIOUS a CAUSE as to fear what any Mortal can say I know there are Learned Romanists who can say much more for their ill cause then Mr. Dempster hath done They want neither Learning nor Policy to support their Mystery of iniquity So that as Sir Edwin Sands hath judiciously observed in his Speculum Europae page 24. were it not for the Natural weakenes of untruth and Dishonesty which being rotten at the heart doeth abate the force of what ever is founded thereon there outward means were sufficient to subdue a whole World But it concerns Romanists to notice the smart admonition which Austine gave to a Learned Heathen Ornari a te quaerit Diabolus How will these men render an account of their Talents one day who emprove them to promot the Devils interest I should be a very great stranger to my self if I were not conscious to my own weakenesse Yet Truth hath such advantage over Errour that it doth not need Advocats of the greatest Learning or profoundest Judgement Let me only therefore leave these Advertisements to him who will be at the paines to make a Reply whether Mr. Dempster who as I heare is alive againe or any other First that he hath not only the tenth and last paper to answere but also to supply the paralipomena or emissions of all his former papers so in truth he hath the whole Ten to examine 2. It will not be very handsome to catch at broken shreds here or there But if he would doe his worke throughly he must discusse all and chiefly that which is most material Is there any thing of moment in Mr. Dempsters papers which I have not revised 3. I desire that he would not object to me the ordinarie cavils of Romanists unlesse he will be at the paines to examine what is Replyed thereto by our Divines Else he will constraine me either to neglect what he sayes or to remit him to the Authours who have canvased these Objections before or at most to transcribe old Answeres given to these old objections which cannot but be allowable in me who am the Defendant This I the rather have mentioned because it is observed that late Romish Pamphleters doe often resume old Objections without mentioning the Answeres made thereto by our Divines as if they were New Arguments and hitherto unheard of Thus they abuse many of the Vulgar who are not versed in great volumes especially in the Latine tongue where all these Sophisms are solidly confuted 4. He may be pleased to owne what he writes by putting his Name thereto I cannot be obliged to fight any longer cum Larvis with Specters who have not the confidence to owne what they write 5. And lastly I hope it would not be amisse that Personal criminations were laid aside Mr. Dempster extorted more Recriminations from me then I had pleasure in but if I meet with a Civil Adversary I hope he shall have no cause to complaine of Vncivility from me But if he will needs thrust more at me then at the CAVSE I can rejoyce with Hierom to be railed upon by Hereticks and with Job chap. 31. verse 36. Take these invectives on my shoulder and bind them to me as a Crown It was an Heroick word of Luther Indies magis mihi placeo superbus fio quod video nomen pessimū mihi crescere He gloryed in it that he was evil spoken of for a good cause If these rational proposals be neglected I will not contend in that Case for the last word Patience and Silence wil I hope sufficiently
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